This letter to the Commander-in-Chief was written in Calcutta; and it bears the signatures of the different members of the Supreme Council of India—of Mr. Wilberforce Bird, of General Casement, and of Mr. H. T. Prinsep. Nothing like it was ever written afterwards. On the 6th of April Lord Ellenborough left Calcutta. It seemed desirable that he should be nearer to the frontier—nearer to the Commander-in-Chief. The movement, at all events, indicated an intention to act with promptitude and energy. Already had the new Governor-General startled the sober, slow-going functionaries of Calcutta by his restless, and, as they thought, obtrusive activity. He seemed resolved to see everything for himself—to do everything for himself. Almost everything had been done wrongly by others; and now he was going to do it rightly himself. All this created a great convulsion in the government offices; but out of doors, and especially in military circles, men said that the new Governor-General was a statesman of the right stamp—bold, vigorous, decided, thoroughly in earnest, no fearer of responsibility—quick to conceive, prompt to execute—just the man to meet with bold comprehensive measures such a crisis as had now arisen. A few sober-minded men of the old school shook their heads, and faltered out expressions of alarm lest the vigour of the new Governor-General should swell into extravagance, and energy get the better of discretion. But no one ever doubted that the leading ideas in the Governor-General’s mind were the chastisement of the offending Afghans and the lustration of our national honour.