more than a provincial ruler in the land; consequently he could not have
undertaken that responsibility for the whole which formed the precise
postulate of our Indian government.

Yet because the Dost could _not_ meet our purposes, is it true that the
Shah _could_? That is the point we are going to consider; and to have
postponed this question to a question of personalities, even if those
personalities had been truly stated, is specifically the error which
vitiated all the speculations of our domestic press. We say then, that
Shah Soojah had a _primâ facie_ fitness for our purposes which the Dost
had not; Soojah was the brother, son, and grandson of men who had ruled
all Affghanistan; nay, in a tumultuary way, he had ruled all
Affghanistan himself. So far he had something to show, and the Dost had
nothing; and so far Lord Auckland was right. But he was wrong, and, we
are convinced, ruinously wrong, by most extravagantly overrating that
one advantage. The instincts of loyalty, and the _prestige_ of the royal
title, were in no land that ever was heard of so feeble as in coarse,
unimaginative Affghanistan. Money was understood: meat and drink were
understood: a jezail was understood but nothing spiritual or ancestral
had any meaning for an Affghan. Deaf and blind he was to such
impressions and perhaps of all the falsehoods which have exploded in
Europe for the last six years, the very greatest is that of the
_Edinburgh Review_, in saying that the Suddozye families were "sacred"
and inviolable to Affghans. How could such a privilege clothe the
_species_ or subdivision, when even the Dooaraunee or entire _genus_ was
submitted to with murmurs under the tyranny of accident. In what way had
they won their ascendency? By thumps, by hard knocks, by a vast
assortment of kicks, and by no means through any sanctity of blood.
Sanctity indeed!--we should be glad to see the Affghan who would not,
upon what he held a sufficient motive, have cut the throat of any shah