On the 13th of March, the failure of the expedition was announced in the public journals of St. Petersburgh, and Lord Clanricarde, on the same day, sent the intelligence to Lord Palmerston. The journals announced that the intense cold, the deep snow, and the inaccessibility of the country, had destroyed the camels, and compelled the army to retrace its steps. But the actual truth was worse than the newspaper history; for Peroffski’s ill-fated army had been attacked by pestilence and famine. As the year wore on, Macnaghten’s difficulties seemed to thicken around him. The failure of the Russian expedition removed one source of inquietude; but it was a remote one. And nearer home, many great dangers were bristling up in his path. Still immersed, however, in foreign politics, the Envoy gave little heed to the domestic troubles which were environing him. His thoughts were continually ranging beyond the limits of Shah Soojah’s dominions; and whilst the edifice he had reared was falling to pieces by the force of its own innate corruptness, he was devising measures of external defence. During the spring and the early summer months two subjects pressed urgently on his attention, and became the burdens of his discourse. The one was the conduct of the Sikhs; the other, the state of affairs at Herat. Ever since the death of Runjeet Singh, the temper of the Lahore Durbar had been such as to impress the Envoy strongly with the conviction that nothing but decisive measures would ever bring our allies to regard the terms of the Tripartite Treaty. The real ruler of the Punjab was the young and impetuous Prince, Nao Nehal Singh, who had almost set aside the authority of his imbecile father, and was longing for the day when he might take more openly and undisguisedly the sceptre into his hands. In every possible way our allies had evaded the stipulations of the treaty. They had rendered no effectual aid to Prince Timour in the operations which, conjointly with Wade, he had undertaken for the recovery of his father’s throne. They were making light of the obligation to support a contingent force of Sikh troops on the frontier, in return for the subsidy granted by the treaty; and proof had been afforded that they were engaged in treasonable correspondence with our enemies in Afghanistan. It is certain, at least, that they were harbouring at their frontier stations the rebel Ghilzye chiefs, who had been driven out of Shah Soojah’s territory, and suffering, if not aiding, them to return again to foment new disturbances. Sultan Mahomed Khan and his brothers at Peshawur were servants of the Maharajah, but they were Barukzyes still; and it was not strange that they regarded with undisguised satisfaction the clouds which were gathering over the restored Suddozye monarchy.