The abandonment of all hope of assistance from Sale’s brigade had now given a new complexion to the aspect of affairs. The military authorities, who had been long ripe for capitulation, now pressed the Envoy sorely with their “distressful accounts of the state of the troops and cattle from want of provisions,” and of the “hopelessness of further resistance.”[161] But Macnaghten, though he saw the necessity of weighing well the dangers that beset the force, and the means of extricating it from its perilous position, was not a man to grasp at the degradation of surrender whilst yet there was a hope of rescuing it by any more honourable course. The time had come, however, for him to declare fully his sentiments to the military commander; so, on the 18th of November, he addressed to him a letter, in which the whole question is thus reviewed, and which is too important in its bearings upon our subsequent operations to warrant the omission of a line:[162] Caubul, _18th Nov., 1841_. MY DEAR GENERAL, The intelligence received last night from Captain Macgregor makes it necessary that we should now take our future proceedings into consideration. We have scarcely a hope of reinforcement from Sale’s brigade. I would recommend we hold on here as long as possible, and throughout the whole winter, if we can subsist the troops by any means, by making the Mahomedans and Christians live chiefly on flesh, and other contrivances. Here we have the essentials of wood and water in abundance, and I believe our position is impregnable.