Note 120 — Chapter I

“As I approached Caubul,” he wrote to a private friend, on the 5th of July, “war broke out with the Afghans and Sikhs, and my position became embarrassing. I was even ordered by express to pause, and while hanging on my oars another express still cries pause, but places a vast latitude in my hands, and ‘forward’ is my motto—forward to the scene of carnage, where, instead of embarrassing my government, I feel myself in a situation to do good. It is this latitude throughout life that has made me what I am, if I am anything, and I can hardly say how grateful I feel to Lord Auckland.... I have not as yet got the replies to my recommendation on our line of policy in Caubul, consequent on a discovered intrigue of Russia, and on the Caubul chief throwing himself in despair on Perso-Russian arms. I have at last something to do, and I hope to do it well.”—[Private Correspondence of Sir A. Burnes.]