Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

A fresh-water spring rushing into the sea called Chewton Bunny.

13

See Forster's Life of Cromwell.

14

Sir Oliver, who died in 1655, aged ninety-three, might, by possibility, have seen all the men of great genius, excepting Chaucer and Roger Bacon, whom England has produced from its first discovery down to our own times. Francis Bacon, Shakspeare, Milton, Newton, and the prodigious shoal that attended these leviathans through the intellectual deep. Newton was but in his thirteenth year at Sir Oliver's death. Raleigh, Spenser, Hooker, Elliot, Selden, Taylor, Hobbes, Sidney, Shaftesbury, and Locke, were existing in his lifetime; and several more, who may be compared with the smaller of these.

15

Chapman's Homer, first book.

16

35th Reg. N.I.; 100 sappers; 1 squadron 5th Cav.; 2 guns.

17

The system, unpalatable as it was to the nation, might, no doubt, have been carried through by an overwhelming military force, if the country had been worth the cost; but if it was not intended to retain permanent possession of Affghanistan, it appears to us that the native government was far too much interfered with—that the British envoy, the British officers employed in the districts and provinces, and the British army, stood too much between the Shah and his subjects—that we were forming a government which it would be impossible to work in our absence, and creating a state of things which, the longer it might endure, would have made more remote the time at which our interference could be dispensed with.

18

Affghan horse.

19

The detachment under Captain Mackenzie consisted of about seventy juzailchees or Affghan riflemen, and thirty sappers, who had been left in the town in charge of the wives and children of the corps, all of whom were brought safe into the cantonments by that gallant party, who fought their way from the heart of the town.

20

"I am sorry to say that this document has not reached me with the rest of the manuscript. I have not struck out the reference, because there is hope that it still exists, and may yet be appended to this narrative. The loss of any thing else from Captain Mackenzie's pen will be regretted by all who read his other communication, the account of the Envoy's murder.—EDITOR."

21

Affghan riflemen.

22

Five companies 44th; six companies 5th native infantry; six companies 37th native infantry; 100 sappers; 2½ squadrons cavalry; one gun.

23

In Mr Eyre's observations on this disastrous affair, he enumerates six errors, which he says must present themselves to the most unpractised military eye. "The first, and perhaps the most fatal mistake of all, was the taking only one gun;" but he admits that there was only one gun ready, and that, if the Brigadier had waited for the second, he must have postponed the enterprise for a day. This would probably have been the more prudent course.

The second error was, that advantage was not taken of the panic in the village, to storm it at once in the dark; but it appears from his own account, that there were not more than forty men remaining in the village when it was attacked, after daylight, and that the chief cause of the failure of that attack, was Major Swayne's having missed the gate, a misfortune which was, certainly, at least as likely to have occurred in the dark.

The third was, that the sappers were not employed to raise a breastwork for the protection of the troops. This objection appears to be well founded.

The fourth was, that the infantry were formed into squares, to resist the distant fire of infantry, on ground over which no cavalry could have charged with effect. It appears to be so utterly unintelligible that any officer should have been guilty of so manifest an absurdity, that the circumstances seem to require further elucidation; but that the formation was unfortunate, is sufficiently obvious.

Fifthly, that the position chosen for the cavalry was erroneous; and sixthly, that the retreat was too long deferred. Both these objections appear to be just.

24

Strait of Darkness.

25

See the articles "Persia, Affghanistan, and India," in Jan. 1839—"Khiva, Central Asia, and Cabul," in April 1840—"Results of our Affghan Conquests," in Aug. 1841—"Affghanistan and India," in July 1842.

26

It now seems even doubtful whether the famous letter of Dost Mohammed to the Emperor of Russia, which constituted the gravamen of the charge against him, was ever really written, or at least with his concurrence.—Vide "Report of the Colonial Society on the Affghan War," p. 35.

27

The particulars of Shah-Shoojah's fate, which were unknown when we last referred to the subject, have been since ascertained. After the retreat of the English from Cabul, he remained for some time secluded in the Bala-Hissar, observing great caution in his intercourse with the insurgent leaders; but he was at length prevailed upon, by assurances of loyalty and fidelity, (about the middle of April,) to quit the fortress, in order to head an army against Jellalabad. He had only proceeded, however, a short distance from the city, when his litter was fired upon by a party of musketeers placed in ambush by a Doorauni chief named Soojah-ed-Dowlah; and the king was shot dead on the spot. Such was the ultimate fate of a prince, the vicissitudes of whose life almost exceed the fictions of romance, and who possessed talents sufficient, in more tranquil times, to have given éclat to his reign. During his exile at Loodiana, he composed in Persian a curious narrative of his past adventures, a version of part of which appears in the 30th volume of the Asiatic Journal.

28

It is singular that this proclamation was issued on the fourth anniversary of Lord Auckland's "Declaration" of Oct. 1, 1838; and from the same place, Simla.

29

"The fieldworks believed to be described in the despatch as 'consisting of a succession of breastworks, improved by a ditch and abattis—the latter being filled with thorns,' turned out to be a paltry stone wall, with a cut two feet deep, and of corresponding width, to which the designation of ditch was most grossly misapplied.... A score or two of active men might have completed the work in a few days."—(Letter quoted in the Asiatic Journal, Sept., p. 107.) On whom the blame of these misrepresentations should be laid—whether on the officer who reconnoitred the ground, or on the general who wrote the despatch—does not very clearly appear: yet the political agent at Quettah was removed from his charge, for not having given notice of the construction in his vicinity of works which are now proved to have had no existence!

30

It was this chief whose betrayal or destruction Sir William McNaghten is accused, on the authority of General Elphinstone's correspondence, of having meditated, on the occasion when he met with his own fate. We hope, for the honour of the English name, that the memory of the late Resident at Cabul may be cleared from this heavy imputation; but he certainly cannot be acquitted of having, by his wilful blindness and self-sufficiency, contributed to precipitate the catastrophe to which he himself fell a victim. In proof of this assertion, it is sufficient to refer to the tenor of his remarks on the letter addressed to him by Sir A. Burnes on the affairs of Cabul, August 7, 1840, which appeared some time since in the Bombay Times, and afterwards in the Asiatic Journal for October and November last.

31

The kindness and humanity which these unfortunate detenus experienced from first to last at the hands of Akhbar, reflect the highest honour on the character of this chief, whom it has been the fashion to hold up to execration as a monster of perfidy and cruelty. As a contrast to this conduct of the Affghan barbarians, it is worth while to refer to Colonel Lindsay's narrative of his captivity in the dungeons of Hyder and Tippoo, which has recently appeared in the Asiatic Journal, September, December, 1842.

32

The value still attached by the Hindoos to these relics was shown on the conclusion of the treaty, in 1832, between Shah-Shoojah and Runjeet Singh, previous to the Shah's last unaided attempt to recover his throne; in which their restoration, in case of his success, was an express stipulation.

33

The elder of these princes, Timour, who was governor of Candahar during the reign of his father, has accompanied General England to Hindostan, preferring, as he says, the life of a private gentleman under British protection to the perils of civil discord in Affghanistan. Of the second, Mohammed-Akhbar, (whose mother is said to be sister of Dost Mohammed,) we know nothing;—Futteh-Jung is the third, and was intended by Shah-Shoojah for his successor;—Seifdar-Jung, now at Candahar, is the youngest.

34

The war in Tibet, to which we alluded in July last, between the followers of the Sikh chief Zorawur Singh and the Chinese, is still in progress—and the latter are said to be on the point of following up their successes by an invasion of Cashmeer. As we are now at peace with the Celestial Empire, our mediation may be made available to terminate the contest.

35