We should not, I think, on any account, lose the season for advancing upon Candahar. With our European regiment, some more artillery, a couple of Native regiments, and a small battering train, we might not only occupy Candahar, but relieve Herat; and by money, if we have no disposable troops, make Caubul too hot for Dost Mahomed. The Shah is very solicitous about future operations, and, I am sorry to say, talks foolishly every time I see him on the subject of his confined territories that are to be—and frequently says it would be much better for him to have remained at Loodhianah. The next time he touches on the subject, I intend to remind him of the verse of Sadi, “If a king conquers seven regions he would still be hankering after another territory.” I have little doubt of being able to bring him into a more reasonable temper of mind. He is much delighted with the four six-pounders presented to him by your Lordship.... I hardly think it probable that 50,000 rupees per mensem will suffice for the Shah’s expenses, but on this point I will write to your Lordship more fully on another occasion.[293] And again he wrote, soon afterwards, to Mr. Colvin: I grieve to say that I have no consolation to afford you. Our accounts from every quarter as to what is really passing are most unsatisfactory, and Sir Willoughby Cotton is clearly going on a wild-goose chase. He cannot possibly, I think, be at Hyderabad under twenty-five days from this date, and he seems to be travelling by a route which has no road. He will soon, I fear, find himself in the jungle. If this goes on as it is now doing, what is to become of our Afghan expedition. Burnes’s letters are most unsatisfactory.[294] He had hardly despatched the letter from which this last passage is taken, when a communication from the Governor-General was put into his hands, and it became more than ever obvious from its contents, that Lord Auckland’s first wish was, that the Bengal column should accompany Shah Soojah and his contingent as expeditiously as possible to Candahar. Fortified by these advices, Macnaghten, on the following day, wrote, in emphatic language to Sir Willoughby Cotton, in virtue of the power vested in him by the Governor-General, requiring that military chief to furnish him with a force sufficient to enable him to give effect to his Lordship’s plans in Afghanistan: