Note 90 — Chapter I

It does not appear that the conduct of Lieutenant Crawford was, in any way, open to censure. He was the bearer, as has been shown, of written instructions, authorising him to destroy the prisoners if they attempted to escape, but there seems to have been no connivance between them and the party who attacked the escort. Crawford himself says, in a narrative which he drew up, and which was subsequently published in a Bombay paper: “One prisoner was cut down by a horseman of the enemy (plainly showing there was no collusion between them), two others rolled over in a ditch, where, with their horse a top of them, and their legs chained under his belly, I left them; indeed, I now found it was impossible I could ever get my charge into Ghuznee alive, and I had only to decide on putting them to death or setting them at liberty. My instructions would have justified my pursuing the former course, but the poor wretches had clearly made no attempt to escape; they were in no way answerable for the attack made on my party, as was evident from one of their number falling by the sword of our adversaries; and I conceived then, and do now conceive, that in letting these men go with their lives, I was not only acting according to the strict letter of my instructions, but that justice and humanity required I should not slay them in cold blood. Had I put them to death, then Shumshoodeen or Mahomed Akbar would have been equally justified in taking our lives (the lives of all their prisoners) on the advance of Pollock and Nott on Caubul. I may add that the Court of Inquiry, which I called for, after investigating all the circumstances, decided that I had acted perfectly right.” These escaped prisoners, however, subsequently became the most active of our enemies.