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
incredible folly. Marquis Wellesley regarded 'this wild expedition into a
distant region of rocks and deserts, of sands and ice and snow,' as an
act of infatuation. The Duke of Wellington pronounced with prophetic
sagacity, that the consequence of once crossing the Indus to settle a
government in Afghanistan would be a perennial march into that country.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27