But in the midst of all these perplexities he thought still of the “great game”—of the annexation of Herat and the subjugation of the Punjab—and chafed under the restraints which Lord Auckland had imposed upon him. “I had a letter,” he wrote, “from Lord Auckland yesterday, and from that I gather that his Lordship’s intentions are essentially pacific, both as regards Herat and the Punjab. Oh! for a Wellesley or a Hastings at this juncture. By a most ingenious process, he has substituted the cause for the effect, or rather the effect for the cause. He says, so long as we are continually agitating the question of taking possession of Peshawur and Herat, we cannot expect honest co-operation from the powers owning those places; thus overlooking, or affecting to overlook, the fact, that but for the dishonesty of those powers the question would never have been contemplated by us. This drivelling is beneath contempt. I shall now send up the proofs I have obtained (and they are tolerably strong) of the perfidy of the Sikhs without note or comment, and leave the rest to Providence. I shall adopt the same course with regard to the intrigues of Yar Mahomed.” Day after day, the clouds gathering over Caubul grew denser and darker. An open enemy was in the field, and a false friend—our ally of the famous Tripartite treaty—was insidiously pushing his intrigues up to the very gates of the Balla Hissar. On the 12th of September, Macnaghten, weary and dispirited, wrote to the Governor-General, saying:—“I am much fatigued, having been severely worked the whole day; but I write these few lines just to apprise your Lordship that affairs in this quarter have the worst possible appearance. The whole Kohistan is reported to be ripe for revolt, though possibly in this there may be some exaggeration; and we hear of resolutions to rise in other parts of the country. But the worst news of all is that received from Dr. Lord this morning, to the effect that an entire company of Captain Hopkins’s corps has gone off with its arms and accoutrements to join Dost Mahomed Khan, and it is fully expected that their example will be followed by the whole regiment. Dost Mahomed Khan is said to be advancing with his entire force; but Dr. Lord’s intelligence seems very defective. I have just had a note from Sir W. Cotton, in which he observes: ‘I really think the time has now arrived for you and I to tell Lord Auckland, _totidem verbis_, that circumstances have proved incontestably that there is no Afghan army, and that unless the Bengal troops are instantly strengthened, we cannot hold the country.’ I have long since, and strongly and repeatedly, urged my opinion that another brigade should be sent to us. I have also pointed out that there is no such thing as an Afghan army, and I have incessantly urged my earnest opinion to the effect that our position here would be most perilous unless a stop were put to Sikh intrigues. They have now been allowed