Little more remains to be said. The proclamations which were issued by the Supreme Government of India in the autumn of 1842, are in themselves the best commentaries on the war in Afghanistan. The Governor-General of 1842 passed sentence of condemnation upon the measures of the Governor-General of 1838. No failure so total and overwhelming as this is recorded in the page of history. No lesson so grand and impressive is to be found in all the annals of the world. Of the secondary causes which contributed to the utter prostration of an unholy policy, much, at different times, has been written in the course of this narrative; much more might now be written, in conclusion, of the mighty political and military errors which were baptised in the blood and tears of our unhappy countrymen. These errors are so patent—are so intelligible—they have been so often laid bare by the hand of the anatomist—and they have been so copiously illustrated in these volumes, that I do not now purpose to enlarge upon them before I lay down my pen. But if none of these causes had been in operation to defeat and frustrate our policy, it must still have broken down under the ruinous expenditure of public money which the armed occupation of Afghanistan entailed upon the Government of India. It is upon record, that this calamitous war cost the natives of India, whose stewards we are, some fifteen millions of money. All this enormous burden fell upon the revenues of India, and the country for long years afterwards groaned under the weight. The bitter injustice of this need hardly be insisted upon. The Afghan war was neither initiated by the East India Company, nor at any stage approved of by that great body. The ministers of the crown were responsible for the invasion of Afghanistan, but the revenues of the East India Company, in spite of a feeble effort to shift a part of the burden on to the British Exchequer, were condemned to bear the expense. It was adroitly designed, indeed, from the beginning, that the Company should bear the charges of the expedition.