I cannot, indeed, suppress the utterance of my abhorrence of this system of garbling the official correspondence of public men—sending the letters of a statesman or diplomatist into the world mutilated, emasculated—the very pith and substance of them cut out by the unsparing hand of the state-anatomist. The dishonesty by which lie upon lie is palmed upon the world has not one redeeming feature. If public men are, without reprehension, to be permitted to lie in the face of nations—wilfully, elaborately, and maliciously to bear false-witness against their neighbours, what hope is there for private veracity? In the case before us, _the suppressio veri_ is virtually the _assertio falsi_. The character of Dost Mahomed has been lied away; the character of Burnes has been lied away. Both, by the mutilation of the correspondence of the latter, have been fearfully misrepresented—both have been set forth as doing what they did not, and omitting to do what they did. I care not whose knife—whose hand did the work of mutilation. And, indeed, I do not know. I deal with principles, not with persons; and have no party ends to serve. The cause of truth must be upheld. Official documents are the sheet-anchors of historians—the last courts of appeal to which the public resort. If these documents are tampered with; if they are made to misrepresent the words and actions of public men, the grave of truth is dug, and there is seldom a resurrection. It is not always that an afflicted parent is ready to step forward on behalf of an injured child, and to lay a memorial at the feet of his sovereign, exposing the cruelty by which an honourable man has been represented in state documents, as doing that which was abhorrent to his nature. In most cases the lie goes down, unassailed and often unsuspected, to posterity; and in place of sober history, we have a florid romance. I ask pardon for this digression—In spite of the declarations of Burnes that Dost Mahomed had little to hope from the co-operation of the British Government, the Russian Mission made scant progress at the Afghan capital. Alluding to the negotiations of our agent, Vickovich wrote some time afterwards: “All this has occasioned Dost Mahomed Khan to conduct himself very coldly towards me; and then, as he daily converses with Burnes, from my arrival here to the 20th of February I have hardly been two or three times in his presence.” The fact is, that up to this time, as we are assured on the concurrent testimony of the British and the Russian agent, the latter was received in a scurvy and discouraging manner. But on the 21st of February letters were opened from the Governor-General, stating, in the most decisive language, that there was no intention to accede to the proposals of the Ameer, and that Peshawur must be left to the Sikhs. Then, but not till then, a change came over the conduct of Dost Mahomed, and the Russian Mission began to rise in importance.