On receiving intelligence of Todd’s departure from Herat, Macnaghten’s first impulse had been to muster all his available resources, and relying greatly on the “big guns,” to make an immediate demonstration in the direction of Herat, beating up the rebels on the Helmund, and “crushing Aktur Khan” on our way to the western frontier. He wrote to Rawlinson to prepare for the siege; he wrote to Ross Bell in Scinde to send up all the heavy guns in his part of the country, applying to the commissary at Forezpore for draft bullocks, if they were not to be obtained more readily; and he wrote to the Supreme Government to send “as large a force as might be available, and as speedily as possible, to Candahar, even if an attack on Herat should not be meditated.” He was eager for the opinions of every competent authority regarding the facilities of an immediate movement on Herat. “Is there any chance,” he wrote to Rawlinson, “of our mustering heavy guns and force sufficient to attack the place this year?” “What does Todd say of the best season for operations, and what aid does he hope we might obtain from people in and around Herat?” “What does Sanders think of the means at our command for subduing Herat?” “You may imagine,” he wrote, in another letter to the same correspondent, “how anxious I am to hear of Todd’s safety, and to learn the particulars of his departure from Herat, and the proximate cause of that important event, as well as his and your, and Sanders’ opinion, as to the practicability of operations against Herat this season. I suppose if the force were to move from Candahar by the middle of May, it would be time enough. But will the requisite battering train be then forthcoming? And shall we then have a _quantum suff_ of grain and camels?” “The Governor-General,” added the Envoy, “will, I fear, if possible, do nothing.”