"There is not a word in this proclamation that is not strictly true. But I do not blame the noble lord opposite, the late Governor-General of India; yet I cannot help looking _at the enormous errors_ which have been committed from the commencement of these transactions in which these disasters originated, down to the last retreat from Cabul--I say, looking at all this, I still must blame, not the late Governor-General, but the gentlemen who acted under him. In the first place, I attribute the error to the gentleman who fell a victim to his own want of judgment. The army unfortunately was partly English and partly Hindoo--not Affghans, but Hindoos. What was the consequence? To maintain the whole system of the government, including the collection of the revenue, devolved upon that army. All the details of the government were carried on through the agency of that English and Hindoo army, and eventually it became necessary to support that army with some troops in the service of the Company. Now, the gentleman who was responsible for this ought to have known that there was one rule, the violation of which any one acquainted with the government of India knew nothing could justify, and that was, the employment of the Company's European troops in the collection of the revenue. That rule is invariably laid down, and is invariably observed. That, as your lordships must plainly see, is one of the errors that has been committed. There is another point to which I wish to call your attention; it is this, that the country never had been occupied by an army as it ought to have been occupied. With the north no practicable communication was maintained--no practicable communications were kept up between Shikarpore, Candahar, and Ghuznee. The passes were held only through the agency of banditti. I do not blame the noble lord, but I blame the gentleman to whom the army was entrusted. He seemed never to have looked at what had been done by former commanders in similar circumstances. Any officer who has the command of an army ought to feel it to be his first duty to keep up a communication with his own country. If such communication had been maintained, those disasters never would have befallen us--they could not have happened. This was one of the errors committed; but I do not say that the noble lord opposite is answerable for that error. Not only was no communication kept up with the north, but none was kept up with the south. Neither the Kojuck nor the Bolan pass was kept open. Can that, my lords, be called a military communication? Could such a state of things exist? Why, was not this another error--a gross error? The noble lord opposite (Lord Auckland) had no more to do with this than I have. Sir W. Macnaghten, the gentleman who perished, could not have been ignorant of what was done in other places. He must have read the history of the Spanish war, and he must have recollected how the French conducted themselves in a