‘From the time that the brigade threw itself into Jellalabad, the native troops have been on half, and the followers on quarter rations, and for many weeks they have been able to obtain little or nothing in the bazaars to eke out this scanty provision. I will not mention, as a privation, the European troops from the same period having been without their allowance of spirits, because I verily believe this circumstance and their constant employment have contributed to keep them in the highest health and the most remarkable state of discipline. Crime has been almost unknown amongst them, but they have felt severely, although they have never murmured, the diminution of their quantity of animal food, and the total want of ghee, flour, tea, coffee, and sugar: these may seem small matters to those who read of them at a distance, but they are serious reductions in the scale of comfort of the hard-working and fighting soldier in Asia. The troops have also been greatly in arrears of pay, besides their severe duties in heat and cold, wind and rain, on the guards of the gates and bastions. The troops, officers and men, British and Hindoostanee, of every arm, remained fully accoutred on their alarm posts every night from the 1st of March to the 7th April. The losses of officers and men, in carriage and cattle, camp equipage and baggage, between Cabool and Jellalabad were heavy; and their expenditure, during the siege and blockade, in obtaining articles of mere subsistence and necessity, has been exorbitant. ‘It is gratifying to me to forward the opinion of my second in command, Lieut.-Colonel Monteath, _C.B._, placed on record without solicitation, of the merits of the THIRTEENTH LIGHT INFANTRY, of which corps I am proud of being a member. * * * I must express my gratitude to Providence for having placed so gallant and devoted a force under my command; in every way it has exceeded my most sanguine expectations, and I beg leave, in the strongest manner, to solicit the interposition of Major-General Pollock, _C.B._, who has nobly labored and fought to relieve it from its critical position in the midst of a hostile empire, in now committing it to the protection and favour of the Right Honorable the Governor General in Council, and through him to the Court of Directors, and of our Sovereign.’ Lieut.-Colonel Monteath stated in his report,--‘As doing but due justice on this occasion to Her Majesty’s THIRTEENTH Light Infantry might be looked upon as a highly-coloured record of the merits of your own regiment, and seeing that no such partial bias can possibly be supposed to guide my feelings in the estimate I have formed of their deserts, I have pleasure in sincerely declaring, that _their conduct, throughout the painful and perilous position in which we have so long been placed, has been such as fully to deserve the applause and admiration of their country, and the confidence and best consideration of our well-beloved Sovereign_.