It has been said that the British army was not beaten out of Caubul, but that it was _starved_ out of Caubul. This is a belief that I would willingly encourage, if I could only bring my judgment to embrace it. But the fact is, that the army was driven out of Caubul for want of supplies, only because the troops would not fight, or were not suffered to fight, to obtain them. The Commissariat officers would have fed the troops, if the military authorities had not shamefully sacrificed their supplies,—if they had not ignominiously lost what was already in store; and ignominiously refused to make an effort to obtain fresh supplies from the surrounding country. The troops, indeed, fought neither to keep their food when they had it, nor to procure food when they had none. There was an alacrity only in losing. The imbecility which sacrificed the Bengal Commissariat Fort, on the 5th of November, and the miserable abandonment of the expedition to Khoja Rewash, on the 9th of December, are equally apt illustrations of the truth, that, if the army was starved out of Caubul, it was only because it courted starvation. This is a very humiliating confession, but it is impossible, without a sacrifice of truth for the sake of administering to our national vanity, to avoid the mortifying conclusion that the Caubul army wanted food, only because it wanted vigour and energy to obtain it. If General Elphinstone had thrown half as much heart into his work as Captain Johnson threw into his, the army would not have been starved out of Caubul. There is nothing sadder than the spectacle of a fine army sacrificed by the imbecility of an incapable general, and nothing more painful than to write of it. But such humiliating revelations are not without their uses. They operate in the way of warning. Never again, after this frightful illustration of the evils of a vicious system of routine, will the lives of sixteen thousand men, and the honour of a great nation, be placed in the hands of a senile commander, crippled by disease and enfeebled by suffering. It was General Elphinstone’s misfortune that he was sent to Caubul. It was Lord Auckland’s fault that he sent him there. General Elphinstone knew that he was incapable of performing worthily the duties of such a command, and he took the earliest opportunity of applying for relief from a burden of responsibility which he was not able to bear. Lord Auckland knew that he was incapable, for the attention of the Governor-General was strongly called to the fact; but he sent the infirm old General to Caubul, in spite of the representations that were made to him by men less jealous of the integrity of the roster than of the honour of their country. The British army was beaten at Caubul, because it was commanded by General Elphinstone; and it was commanded by General Elphinstone, because Lord Auckland decreed that it should be so.