The intelligence brought in by Pottinger from the Kohistan was not of a nature to rouse the drooping spirits of the Envoy. Charekur had been lost; the Goorkha regiment annihilated; and there were now large bodies of Kohistanees and Nijrowees, having done their bloody work at home, ready to join the insurgents at the capital. With eager anxiety had Macnaghten been looking for the return of Sale’s brigade from Gundamuck, and now he learnt, to his bitter disappointment, that it had marched for Jellalabad. Still he did not despair of being able to recall it. “We learn, to our dismay,” he wrote to Macgregor on the 17th of November, “that you have proceeded to Jellalabad. Our situation is a desperate one if you do not immediately return to our relief, and I beg that you will do so without a moment’s delay. We have now been besieged for fourteen days, and without your assistance are utterly unable to carry on any offensive operations. You may easily make Caubul in eight marches, and, as the Ghilzyes are here, you would not have many enemies to contend with.”[159] In the course of the night he received a letter from Macgregor, which satisfied him that there was no longer any hope of receiving aid from Sale’s brigade. He had begun to think by this time of the provisions of the tripartite treaty, and to look for aid from the Sikhs. “We are _in statu quo_,” he wrote to the same correspondent on the following morning. “Our chief want is supplies. I perceive now that you could not well have joined us. I hope you have written to Mackeson, asking him for aid from the Sikhs under the treaty. If there is any difficulty about the Sikhs getting through the pass, Mackeson should offer a bribe to the Khyburees of a lakh of rupees, or more, to send them safe passage. These are not times to stick at trifles.... It is raining here, and the weather is very cold; but I am not sure that this is not as bad for the enemy as for ourselves. I do not hear anything from Ghuzni or Candahar, but I should not wonder if they were in the same mess as ourselves. We must look for support chiefly from Peshawur. Write to Mackeson continually, and tell him to urge government to send as many troops into the country as speedily as possible. John Conolly is in the Balla Hissar with his Majesty, who, as you may imagine, is in a sad taking about all the Fussad. I am making no progress in my negotiations with the rebels.”[160]