ed
with the government of India knew nothing could justify, and that was,
the employment of the Company's European troops in the collection of
the revenue. That rule is invariably laid down, and is invariably
observed. That, as your lordships must plainly see, is one of the
errors that has been committed. There is another point to which I
wish to call your attention; it is this, that the country never had
been occupied by an army as it ought to have been occupied. With the
north no practicable communication was maintained--no practicable
communications were kept up between Shikarpore, Candahar, and Ghuznee.
The passes were held only through the agency of banditti. I do not
blame the noble lord, but I blame the gentleman to whom the army was
entrusted. He seemed never to have looked at what had been done by
former commanders in similar circumstances. Any officer who has the
command of an army ought to feel it to be his first duty to keep up
a communication with his own country. If such communication had been
maintained, those disasters never would have befallen us--they could
not have happened. This was one of the errors committed; but I do
not say that the noble lord opposite is answerable for that error.
Not only was no communication kept up with the north, but none was
kept up with the south. Neither the Kojuck nor the Bolan pass was
kept open. Can that, my lords, be called a military communication?
Could such a state of things exist? Why, was not this another
error--a gross error? The noble lord opposite (Lord Auckland) had no
more to do with this than I have. Sir W. Macnaghten, the gentleman
who perished, could not have been ignorant of what was done in other
places. He must have read the history of the Spanish war, and he
must have recollected how the French conducted themselves in a
similar situation; how they fortified the passes, and secured their
communications. But he was not an officer; the gentleman at the head
of the army in Affghanistan was not an officer--that was another
error."

That such errors existed is undeniable. Lord Auckland says there
were errors:--

"With regard to the errors of the campaign, he conceived they rested
with the military commanders, not with Sir W. Macnaghten; and if
errors had been committed by Sir William, they must be shared
between him and the more direct military commanders."

Lord John Russell said,--

"I have heard causes given, and upon very high authority, for these