in
persons around the late envoy--a total want of forethought and
foresight on his part--unaccountable indecision at first,
followed by cessions which, day by day, rendered our force more
helpless--inactivity, perhaps, on some occasions--have led to these
reverses; but we must not overlook the effects of climate, the
difficulty of communication, the distance from our frontier, and the
fanatical zeal of our opponents. No doubt your lordship can cause an
army to force its way to Cabul, if you think our name and
predominance in India cannot otherwise be supported; but our means
are utterly insufficient to insure our dominion over that country.
If this be granted, the questions for your lordship's decision
are--whether we shall retake Cabul, to assert our paramount power;
and whether, if we subsequently retire, our subjects and neighbours
will not attribute our withdrawal even then, to conscious inability
to hold the country."

In the same spirit the Commander-in-chief, in the beginning of
February transmitted to General Pollock, with the acquiescence of
lord Auckland, to whom he communicated his letter, the following
explanation of the views of Government:--

"You may deem it perfectly certain that Government will not do more
than detach this brigade, and this in view to support Major-General
Sale, either at Jellalabad for a few weeks, or to aid his retreat;
very probably also to strengthen the Sikhs at Peshawar for some time.
It is not intended to collect a force for the reconquest of Cabul.
You will convey the preceding paragraph, if you safely can, to the
Major-General."

Such being the desponding views of the authorities stationed on the
spot, what must have been the anxiety of the new Governor-General on
his arrival in India, when this scene of disaster suddenly opened
upon him with a succession of still further calamities in its train?
We cannot better describe his position than in the words of Sir
Robert Peel, in his speech on the Whig motion for censure--

"The moment he set foot in Madras, what intelligence met him!--the
day he arrived at Benares, what a succession of events took place,
calculated to disturb the firmest mind, and to infuse apprehensions
into the breast of the boldest man! It has been said the cry in
England was, 'What next?' That was a question which Lord
Ellenborough had to put to himself for four or five days after his
arrival. He lands at Madras on the 15th of February, presuming at
the