The command of the troops at Candahar was in the hands of Major-General Nott. He was an old Sepoy officer of good repute; a man of some talents, but blunt address—an honest, plain-spoken soldier, not always right, but always believing himself to be right—hearty, genuine, and sincere. His faults were chiefly those of temper. He had not been well used. Sir Henry Fane had recognised his merits; but Sir John Keane, who was accused of fostering a narrow-minded prejudice against the Company’s service, had superseded him in a manner which had greatly incensed the General himself, and the army to which he belonged.[64] Labouring under a strong sense of the injustice that had been done him; feeling that his worth had not been duly appreciated, or his services duly rewarded; seeing much in the general management of the affairs of the distracted country in which his lot had been cast to excite his unqualified disapprobation; and being, moreover, constitutionally of an irritable temperament, he sometimes said and wrote what was calculated to offend others; and as the political officers were the especial objects of his dislike, he was in no favour at the Residency. Macnaghten declared that the general’s conduct frequently embarrassed him, and recommended, therefore, his recall. But it was felt that Nott was a fine soldier; and, though the Government eventually listened to the Envoy’s counsel in this matter, they were slow to remove him from a sphere in which his energy and decision were likely to be so serviceable to the state. And, perhaps, it was felt that, in his political colleague at Candahar, Nott had a man of excellent temper, of great tact and forbearance, and that the difficulty was much lessened by so fortunate an association.