_Secondly_, When the amended form was put forward, a rational form and the true form of the motive for this expedition, in what respect was that open to criticism? Far enough are we from going along with the views of the Auckland cabinet at this juncture; but these two things we are sure of--that those views were unsound, not by any vice which has yet been exposed, and that the vice alleged argues gross ignorance of every thing oriental. Lord Auckland might err, as heavily we believe him to have done, in his estimate of Affghanistan and the Affghan condition: he had untrue notions of what the Affghans needed, and what it was that they could bear: but his critics, Indian and domestic, were not in error by default merely of philosophic views as to the state of society in Affghanistan; they erred by want of familiarity with the most prominent usages of eastern economy. Lord Auckland was wrong, only as whole masses of politicians are wrong in Europe; viz. by applying European principles to communities under feelings and prejudices systematically different. But his antagonists were wrong as to palpable facts. _Thirdly_, If we pass from the motive to the execution of the motive, from the purpose to the means of effecting it, we are compelled to say that Lord Auckland's government adopted for its primary means the most extravagant that could have been devised; viz. the making itself a party to the financial torture of the land. _Fourthly_, When local insurrection had arisen, whether directed (as every body assumes) against the abuses of a system introduced by ourselves, or (as _we_ assert) proper to the land, and hereditary to the morbid condition of Affghan society--we shall expose the feeble and inadequate solution yet offered by any military guide for the tragical issue of these calamities. Kohistan, or particular cases, need not detain us; but, coming at once _in medias res_ as to Cabool itself, we shall undertake to show, that as yet we have no true or rational account of the causes which led to the fatal result. What! four thousand five hundred regular troops, officered by Englishmen--a number which, in the last eighty years, had shown itself repeatedly able to beat armies of sixty thousand men, armies having all the appurtenances and equipments of regular warfare--was this strong column actually unable to fight its way, with bayonet and field artillery, to a fortress distant only eighty miles, through a tumultuary rabble never mustering twenty thousand heads?[1] Times are altered with us if this was inevitable. But the Affghans, you will say, are brave men, stout and stout-hearted, not timid Phrygian Bengalees. True--but at Plassy, and again, forty years after, at Assye, it was not merely Bengalees, or chiefly such, whom we fought--they were Rohillas, Patans, Goorkhas, and Arabs; the three first being of Affghan blood, quite as good as any Barukzye or Ghilzye, and the last better. No, no--there is more to tell. The calamity