“The aspect of affairs in Upper Afghanistan,” wrote the Chief Secretary, on the 28th of April, “appears to be such, according to the last advices received by the Governor-General, that his Lordship cannot but contemplate the possibility of your having been led, by the absence of serious opposition on the part of any army in the field, by the divisions amongst the Afghan chiefs, and by the natural desire you must, in common with every true soldier, have of displaying again the British flag in triumph upon the scene of our late disasters, to advance upon and occupy the city of Caubul. If that event should have occurred, you will understand that it will in no respect vary the view which the Governor-General previously took of the policy now to be pursued. The Governor-General will adhere to the opinion that the only safe course is that of withdrawing the army under your command, at the earliest practicable period, into positions within the Khybur Pass, where it may possess easy and certain communications with India.” Why Lord Ellenborough should have entertained a belief even of the possibility of Pollock advancing upon Caubul, in the face of positive instructions to the contrary and a known deficiency of carriage, it is not easy to conjecture. Probably Lord Ellenborough himself could not have explained the source of this extraordinary buoyancy of expectation, for six days afterwards he declared that he had been led to expect “that you (Pollock) will have already decided upon withdrawing your troops within the Khybur Pass, into a position wherein you may have easy and certain communication with India, if considerations, having regard to the health of the army, should not have induced you to defer that movement.” The idea of the advance upon Caubul seems only to have been a temporary apprehension arising out of a not erroneous estimate of the military aspirations of General Pollock; and it very soon passed away. But it had one important result. It called forth from the General the following soldierly letter: TO T. H. MADDOCK, ESQ., SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT, ETC.