professionally the ministers of justice. "Are there no laws and no
prisons amongst you?" was the poor man's meaning; and he expressed this
symbolically under the name of him who was officially responsible for
both.

But, as one throws a bone to a dog, we do not care to dispute the point
further, if any man is resolute to settle this virtue upon the Dost as a
life-annuity. The case will then stand thus: We have all heard of
"Single-speech Hamilton;" and we must then say--"Single-virtue Dost;"
for no man mentions a second. "Justice for pedlars" will then be the
legend on his coin, as meaning that there is none for any body else. Yet
even then the voters for the Dost totally overlooked one thing. Shah
Soojah had some shadow of a pretence, which we shall presently examine,
to the throne of all Affghanistan; and a king of that compass was
indispensable to Lord Auckland's object. But Dost Mahommed never had
even the shadow of an attorney's fiction upon which he could stand as
pretender to any throne but that of Cabool, where, by accident, he had
just nine points of the law in his favour. How then could we have
supported him? "Because thou art virtuous," we must have said, are we to
support future usurpation? Because the Dost is just to pedlars, "shall
there be no more ale and cakes" for other Affghan princes? All Asia
could not have held him upright on any throne comprehensively Affghan.
Whether _that_ could have been accomplished for any other man, is
another question. Yet unless Lord Auckland could obtain guarantees from
the unity of an _Affghan_ government, nothing at all was done towards a
barrier for the Indus.

Let us resume, however, the personal discussion. The Dost's banking
account is closed; and we have carried _one_ to his credit; but, as the
reader knows, "under protest." Now let us go into the items of the