THERE are those persons now living who would give their own weight in sovereigns, though drawing against thirteen to sixteen stone, that all of this dreadful subject might be swallowed up by Lethe; that darkness might settle for ever upon the insanities of Cabool; and the grave close finally over the carnage of Tezeen. But it will not be. Blood will have blood, they say. The madness which could sport in levity with a trust of seventeen thousand lives, walks upon the wind towards heaven, coming round by gusts innumerable of angry wailings in the air; voices from nobody knows where are heard clamouring for vengeance; and the caves of Jugdulloc, gorged with the uncoffined slain," will not rest from the litanies which day and night they pour forth for retribution until this generation shall have passed away.

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Are we to have justice or not?-not that justice which executes the sentence, but which points the historical verdict, and distributes the proportions of guilt. The government must now be convinced, by the unceasing succession of books on this subject, which sleeps at intervals, but continually wakens up again to new life, that it has not died out, nor is likely to do so. And for that there is good

reason a sorrow which is past decays gradually, and hushes itself to sleep; not so a sorrow which points too ominously to the future. The last book on this horrible tragedy is that of Mr Lushington; * and in point of ability the best; the best in composition; the best for nobility of principle, for warning, for reproach. But, for all that, we do not agree with him: we concede all his major propositions; we deny most of his minors. As for the other and earlier discussions upon this theme, whether by books, by pamphlets, by journals, English and Indian, or by Parliamentary speeches, they now form a library; and, considering the vast remoteness of the local interest, they express sublimely the paramount power of what is moral over the earthy and the physical. A battle of Paniput is fought, which adds the carnage of Leipsic to that of Borodino, and, numerically speaking, heaps Pelion upon Ossa; but who cares? No principle is concerned: it is viewed as a battle of wolves with tiger-cats; and Europe heeds it not. But let a column of less than 5000, from a nation moving by moral forces, and ploughing up for ever new soils of moral promise, betray itself, by folly or by guilt, into the meshes of a fright

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VOL, LVI. NO. CCCXLVI,

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ful calamity, and the earth listens for the details from the tropics to the arctic circle. Not Moscow and Smolensko, through all the wilderness of their afflictions, ever challenged the gaze of Christendom so earnestly as the Coord Cabool. And why? The pomp, the procession of the misery, lasted through six weeks in the Napoleon case, through six days in the English case. Of the French host there had been originally 450,000 fighting men; of the English, exactly that same amount read as the numerator of a fraction whose denominator was 100. Forty-five myriads had been the French; forty-five hundreds the English. And yet so mighty is the power of any thing moral, because shadowy and illimitable, so potent to magnify and unvulgarize any interest, that more books have been written upon Cabool, and through a more enduring tract of time, than upon Moscow. Great was the convulsion in either case; but that caused by Cabool has proved the less transitory. The vast anabasis to Moscow had emanated from a people not conspicuously careful of public morality. But that later anabasis, which ascended to the shining pinnacles of Candahar, and which stained with blood of men the untrodden snows of the Hindoo Koosh, was the work of a nation-no matter whether more moral in a practical sense, upon that we do not here dispute-but undeniably fermenting with the anxieties and jealousies of moral aspirations beyond any other people whatever.

Some

persons have ascribed to Blumenbach (heretofore the great Goettingen naturalist) an opinion as to the English which we have good reason to think that he never uttered-viz. that the people of this island are the most voluptuous of nations, and that we bear it written in our national countenance. But suppose him to have said this, and secondly, (which is a trifle more important,) suppose it to be true, not the less we assert the impassioned predominance of a moral interest in this nation. The intensity of this principle is such, that it works with the fury and agitation of an appetite. It urges us to the very brink of civil war. Two centuries back-yes, exactly to a month, two centuries-we were all

All

at Marston Moor, cutting throats upon the largest scale. And why? under the coercion of principles equally sublime on both sides. Then it did urge us into war. Now it does not-because the resistance is stronger, and by no means because the impulse is less. On a May morning in 1844, a question arises in the senate as to factory labour. On one side it shows an aspect critical for the interests of human nature in its widest stratum - viz. amongst the children of toil. Immediately, as at the sound of a signalgun, five hundred of our fervent journals open their batteries this way and that upon an inquest of truth. the people quake like dew." The demoniacs of Palestine were not more shaken of old by internal possessions, than the heart of England is swayed to and fro under the action of this or similar problems. Epilepsy is not more overmastering than is the tempest of moral strife in England. And a new dawn is arising upon us in the prospect, that henceforth the agitations of peace will be more impassioned for the coming generation than the agitations of war for the last. But that sympathy, almost morbid, which England feels with the condition of social man, other nations echo by a reflex sympathy with England; not always by a friendly sympathy. Like the αεροβατώντες and funambuli of ancient days, equally when keeping the difficult line of advance, or when losing it, England is regarded with a searching gaze that might seem governed by the fabulous fascination of the rattlesnake. Does she ascend on her proper line of advance? There is heard the murmur of reluctant applause. Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of unprovoked aggression? All faces in Europe are illuminated with smiles of prosperous malice. It is a painful preeminence which England occupieshard to keep, dangerous to forfeit. Hit, and a million of hearts are tainted with jealousy; fail, and a million revel in malignity. Therefore it was that Cabool and its disasters drew an attention so disproportioned to their

military importance. Cabool was one chapter in a transaction which, truly or not, had come to be reputed incompatible with those august principles of public justice professed and worn amongst the phylacteries of Great Britain. Therefore also it was that on this subject, as we have already said, a library of works has been accumulated.

Of these works we assert, fearlessly but not arrogantly, that all are partially in error. They are in fact, one and all, controversial works; often without the design of the writers, and not always perhaps with their consciousness-but the fact is such. Not one of them but has a purpose to serve for or against Lord Auckland, or Dost Mahommed, or the East India Company, or the government at home and at Calcutta, which replaced that of the Whigs. Some even go into such specialties of partisanship as to manage the cause chiefly as a case depending against the political agents -Mr Ross Bell, Mr Loveday, Captain Outram, or Sir Alexander Burnes. Whilst others, which might seem a service of desperation, hold their briefs as the apologists of that injured young gentleman, Akbar Khan. All, in short, are controversial for a personal interest; and, in that sense, to be controversial is to be partial. Now we, who take our station in the centre, and deliver our shot all round the horizon, by intervals damaging every order of men concerned as parties to the Affghan affair, whether by action, by sanction, by counsel, or by subsequent opinion, may claim to be indifferent censors. We have political attachments: we do not deny it; but our own party is hardly touched by the sting of the case.

We therefore can be neutral, and we shall pursue our enquiry thus :—First, What was the original motive for the Affghan expedition? We insist upon it, that the motive generally assumed and reasoned upon was absurd, in a double sense puerile, as arguing a danger not possible, and (if it had been possible) not existing, and yet, after all, not open to much condemnation from most of those who did condemn it. They might object to the particular mode of execution, but they were

pledged to the principle of a war in that direction.

Secondly, When the amended form was put forward, a rational form and the true form of the motive for this expedition, in what respect was that open to criticism? Far enough are we from going along with the views of the Auckland cabinet at this juncture; but these two things we are sure of that those views were unsound, not by any vice which has yet been exposed, and that the vice alleged argues gross ignorance of every thing oriental. Lord Auckland might err, as heavily we believe him to have done, in his estimate of Affghanistan and the Affghan condition: he had untrue notions of what the Affghans needed, and what it was that they could bear but his critics, Indian and domestic, were not in error by default merely of philosophic views as to the state of society in Affghanistan ; they erred by want of familiarity with the most prominent usages of eastern economy. Lord Auckland was wrong, only as whole masses of politicians are wrong in Europe; viz. by applying European principles to communities under feelings and prejudices systematically different. But his antagonists were wrong as to palpable facts.

Thirdly, If we pass from the motive to the execution of the motive, from the purpose to the means of effecting it, we are compelled to say that Lord Auckland's government adopted for its primary means the most extravagant that could have been devised; viz. the making itself a party to the financial torture of the land.

Fourthly, When local insurrection had arisen, whether directed (as every body assumes) against the abuses of a system introduced by ourselves, or (as we assert) proper to the land, and hereditary to the morbid condition of Affghan society-we shall expose the feeble and inadequate solution yet offered by any military guide for the tragical issue of these calamities. Kohistan, or particular cases, need not detain us; but, coming at once in medias res as to Cabool itself, we shall undertake to show, that as yet we have no true or rational account of the causes which led to the fatal result.

What! four thousand five hundred regular troops, officered by Englishmen-a number which, in the last eighty years, had shown itself repeatedly able to beat armies of sixty thousand men, armies having all the appurtenances and equipments of regular warfarewas this strong column actually unable to fight its way, with bayonet and field artillery, to a fortress distant only eighty miles, through a tumultuary rabble never mustering twenty thousand heads? * Times are altered with us if this was inevitable. But the Affghans, you will say, are brave men, stout and stout-hearted, not timid Phrygian Bengalees.

True

but at Plassy, and again, forty years after, at Assye, it was not merely Bengalees, or chiefly such, whom we fought they were Rohillas, Patans, Goorkhas, and Arabs; the three first being of Affghan blood, quite as good as any Barukzye or Ghilzye, and the last better. No, no-there is more to tell. The calamity ascends to some elder source than the imbecility of General Elphinstone, or the obstinacy of Brigadier Shelton. Others than the direct accomplices in that disaster are included in its guilt; some of those hitherto known only as the slain who have suffered by the insurrection, and as the survivors who have denounced it. Amongst them lie some of those impeached by the circumstances. So far we might add little to the satisfaction of the public; to see the rolls of the guilty widening would but aggravate the sorrow of a calamity which now it could do nothing to diminish. But oftentimes to know the persons concerned in a great disaster, is a step to knowing something of its causes. And this we will venture to say that, in defiance of all professional pedantry incident to military men and engineers, the reader is likely to be of opinion that we, at a distance of 7000 miles, have pointed out capital blunders, ensuring ruin and

forming temptations to conspiracy, which Lieutenant Eyre, a principal artillery officer on the spot, has failed to notice; and if he failed to notice them in his book à fortiori, he must have failed to notice them officially, whilst yet it would have been in time. There were those things done in Cabool by the "fantastic tricks" of men dressed in authority, which, placed in their proper light, go far to explain all the horrors that ensued. We know not whether they made "the angels weep," or rather made the devils laugh, when hovering over Coord Cabool: but this we know, that they are likely to make the hair stand on end of all considerate men in this land of energetic foresight.

Fifthly, It may be asked, What is the moral of this dreadful affair? What inferences in the way of warning are to be drawn from it? This is a topic untouched by all the writers on the Affghan war. But undoubtedly the Cabool reverse was not more fitted to fix attention as a judgment for the past than as a warning for the future; not more as being (or being thought) the reaction from a public wrong, authorized by English councils, than as a premonitory case, showing us what may be expected under the recurrence of similar circumstances. Circumstances altogether similar are not likely to recur in two centuries; but circumstances only in part similar, a commander-in-chief incapacitated by illness, or a second-in-command blind with infatuation, might easily recur in critical or dreadful emergencies. Such circumstances did happen in the Nepaul campaigns; imbecility in more leaders than one, as abject as that at Cabool. And though it could not lead to the same awful results where there had not been the same elaborate preparation of folly, and upon ground so much nearer to the means of rectification, still it was then sufficient to tarnish

the lustre of our arms for the time, and, under worse circumstances, would menace worse misfortunes. Neither is this all; there are other infirmities in our eastern system than the vicious selection of generals.

But all the topics proper to this fifth head will fall more naturally under a paper expressly applying itself to India; and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the previous four.

I. And first, then, as regards the original motive assigned for the Affghan expedition. What profit in prospect, or what danger in reversion, moved us to so costly an enterprise? We insist singly on its cost, which usually proves a sufficient sufflamen in these days to the belligerent propensities of nations. Cicero mentions the advocate by name who first suggested the question of Cui bono, as a means of feeling backwards in a case of murder for the perpetrator. Who was it that had been interested in the murder? But the same question must be equally good as a means of feeling forwards to the probable wisdom of a war. What was the nature of the benefit apprehended, and who was to reap it? The answer to this very startling question, in the case of the Affghan expedition, stood thus for a long time on the part of our own unofficial press-that the object had been to forestall Russia, driving with headlong malice en route for the Indus, by surprising her advanced guard in Kohistan. Certainly, if the surprise were all, there might be something plausible in the idea. If the Russians should ever reach Kohistan, we will answer for their being exceedingly surprised at finding an English camp in that region for the purpose of entertaining themselves. In reality no lunatic projector, not Cleombrotus leaping into the sea for the sake of Plato's Elysium, not Erostratus committing arson at Ephesus for posthumous fame, not a sick Mr Elwes ascending the Himalaya, in order to use the rarity of the atmosphere as a ransom from the expense of cupping in Calcutta, ever conceived so awful a folly. Oh, playful Sir John Mandeville, sagacious Don Quixote, modest and ingenious Baron Munchausen !— ye were sober men, almost dull men,

by comparison with the tête exaltée from some upper element of fire, or limbo of the moon, who conceived this sublime idea of leaping forward by a thousand miles, to lay salt on the tail of a possible or a conceivable enemy. The enemy-the tail-the salt-these were all in nubibus; the only thing certain was the leap, and the thousand miles. And then, having achieved this first stage on the road, why not go on to St Petersburg, and take the Czar by the beard? The enormity of this extravagance showed from what mint it came. Ever since we have harboured the Czar's rebels in England, there has been a craze possess ing our newspaper press, that Russia was, or might be, brewing evil against India. We can all see the absurdity of such reveries when exemplified by our quicksilver neighbour France, bouncing for ever in her dreams about insults meditated from the perfidious England; but we are blind to the image which this French mirror reflects of our own attitude towards Russia. One hundred and fifty years ago, the incubus which lay heavy on the slumbers of England was the Pope; of whom Swift remarked, that constantly his holiness was seen incog. under one disguise or other, drinking at gin-shops in Wapping, and clearly proved to be spying out the nakedness of the land. In our days the Pope has vanished to the rear of the English phantasmagoria, and now lies amongst the νεκύων αμενηνα καρήνα. But not, therefore, is England without her pet nightmare; and that nightmare is now the Czar, who doubtless had his own reasons lately for examining the ground about Windsor and Ascot Heath - fine ground for the Preobasinsky dragoons. How often in this journal have we been obliged to draw upon these blockheads, and disperse them sword in hand! How, gentlemen, (we have said to them in substance,) if you must play the fool as alarmists, can you find no likelier towers for menacing Calcutta with thunder storms than those of arctic St Petersburg; between which cities lies an interspace equal to both tropics? We remember, as applicable to this case, a striking taunt reported by Dampier, that when one bucanier, on the west