that Shah Soojah, with a force officered from an Indian army, and paid by
British money, possessing also the goodwill and support of the Maharaja
of the Punjaub, should attempt the recovery of his throne without any
stiffening of British bayonets at his back. Then it was urged, and the
representation was indeed accepted, that the Shah would need the buttress
afforded by English troops, and that a couple of regiments only would
suffice to afford this prestige. But Sir Harry Fane, the
Commander-in-Chief, judiciously interposed his veto on the despatch of a
handful of British soldiers on so distant and hazardous an expedition.
Finally, the Governor-General, committed already to a mistaken line of
policy, and urged forward by those about him, took the unfortunate
resolution to gather together an Anglo-Indian army, and to send it, with
the ill-omened Shah Soojah on its shoulders, into the unknown and distant
wilds of Afghanistan. This action determined on, it was in accordance
with the Anglo-Indian fitness of things that the Governor-General should
promulgate a justificatory manifesto. Of this composition it is
unnecessary to say more than to quote Durand's observation that in it
'the words "justice and necessity" were applied in a manner for which
there is fortunately no precedent in the English language,' and Sir Henry
Edwardes' not less trenchant comment that 'the views and conduct of Dost
Mahomed were misrepresented with a hardihood which a Russian statesman
might have envied.'

All men whose experience gave weight to their words opposed this
'preposterous enterprise.' Mr Elphinstone, who had been the head of a
mission to Cabul thirty years earlier, held that 'if an army was sent up
the passes, and if we could feed it, no doubt we might take Cabul and set
up Shah Soojah; but it was hopeless to maintain him in a poor, cold,
strong and remote country, among so turbulent a people.' Lord William
Bentinck, Lord Auckland's predecessor, denounced the project as an act of