SECTION I

LORD AUCKLAND—COMMENCEMENT OF THE AFGHAN WAR

Lord Auckland was sworn in as Governor-General on the 20th March. At the valedictory entertainment given him by the Court of Directors he assured them that “he looked with exultation at the opportunity “now afforded him of doing good to his “fellow-creatures, of promoting education, and “extending the blessings of good government to the “millions in India.” Seldom have expectations been so signally disappointed; his melancholy administration is comprised in one disastrous transaction, the Afghan war, the origin of which may be dated in July, 1837, and the catastrophe in which it closed occurred in January, 1841. To form a correct idea of this momentous transaction, it is necessary to trace the convergence of events in Afghanistan and the Punjab, in Persia and Russia, to the period when this ill-starred expedition was undertaken.

Shah Soojah, the exiled monarch of Cabul and the British pensioner at Loodiana, made a second effort to recover his throne in 1833. He crossed the Indus without the least opposition, and in January defeated the Ameers of Sinde at Shikarpore, and constrained them to make him an immediate payment of five lacs of rupees. On his advance to Candahar he was met by Dost Mahomed and completely routed, when he retraced his steps to his old retreat and pension at Loodiana.