The Amir a prisoner, the chief apparent obstacle to the tranquillity of Afghanistan was removed, and it was not unreasonable to suppose that Shah Shuja would thenceforward sit undisturbed upon the throne of his ancestors. Unfortunately such anticipations were erroneous. Had Dost Mohammed remained at large, any harm he could have done would have been inferior to that occasioned by the injudicious measures of the British agents. These measures, as Mohan Lal asserts, with, we fear, too much truth, were the very worst that could be devised for the attainment of the ends proposed. The Afghan character was misunderstood, Afghan customs and institutions were interfered with, and Afghan prejudices shocked. Certain things there were, which it would have been good policy to wink at, or appear ignorant of. The contrary course was adopted. On the field of Parvan, where the combat of the 2d November took place, a bag of letters was found, compromising a large number of chiefs and influential Kabulis. The Amir having surrendered, and as it was not intended to punish these persons, the wisest plan would have been to suppress the letters entirely; but this was not done, and the disclosure caused a vast deal of mistrust on the part of the suspected chiefs towards the English. It also gave a stimulus to a practice then very prevalent in Kabul, that of forging letters from persons of note, with a view to compromise the supposed writers, and to procure for the forgers money and English friendship. Much mischief was done by these letters, some of which were fabricated by Afghans enjoying the favour and confidency of Sir A. Burnes and Sir W. MacNaghten. On the repeated solicitations of the English, the Vazir Mulla Shakur was dismissed. His successor, Nizam-ul-Daulah, was almost forced upon the Shah, whose power was thus rendered contemptible in the eyes of the Afghans. The new minister took his orders rather from the British agents than from his nominal master--going every day to the former to report what he had done, caring nothing for the good or bad opinion of the nation, or for the will of the Shah, whose mandates he openly disobeyed. Having committed an oppressive act, by depriving a Sayad of his land, Shuja repeatedly enjoined him to restore the property to its rightful owner. He paid no attention to these injunctions; and at last the Shah told the suppliant, when he again came to him for redress, "that he had no power over the Vazir, and therefore that the Sayad should curse him, and not trouble the Shah any more, because he was no more a king but a slave." By bribes to the newswriters of the envoy and Sir A. Burnes, Nizam-ul-Daulah endeavoured to keep his misdeeds from the ears of those officers. Nevertheless, they became known to them through Mohan Lal and others; but Sir A. Burnes "felt himself in an awkward position, and considered it impossible to cause the dismissal of one whose nomination he had with great pains so recently recommended."