Note return — EYRE'S CABUL. (continued 2)

Since the day when Lord Auckland, by his famous proclamation in October 1838, "directed the assemblage of a British force for service across the Indus," we have never ceased to denounce the invasion and continued occupation of Affghanistan as equally unjust and impolitic25—unjust, as directed against a people whose conduct had afforded us no legitimate grounds of hostility, and against a ruler whose only offence was, that he had accepted26 the proffer from another quarter of that support and alliance which we had denied to his earnest entreaty—and impolitic, as tending not only to plunge us into an endless succession of ruinous and unprofitable warfare, but to rouse against us an implacable spirit of enmity, in a nation which had hitherto shown every disposition to cultivate amicable relations with our Anglo-Indian Government. In all points, our anticipations have been fatally verified. After more than two years consumed in unavailing efforts to complete the reduction of the country, our army of occupation was at last overwhelmed by the universal and irresistible outbreak of an indignant and fanatic population; and the restored monarch, Shah-Shoojah, ("whose popularity throughout Affghanistan had been proved to the Governor-general by the strong and unanimous testimony of the best authorities") perished, as soon as he lost the protection of foreign bayonets, by the hands of his outraged countrymen.27