Broadfoot, pending an answer from Cabul, set the garrison to work in digging a ditch round the fortifications. The reply from the Shah, to the effect 'If you are sincere in offers, let all the chief gentlemen affix their seals,' was laid before the reassembled council on February 12th. The implied imputation on the good faith of British officers might well have stung to indignation the meekest; but the council's opinion was taken as to the expediency of complying with the derogatory request made by the Shah, as well as of a stipulation--a modification of what Broadfoot had originally urged in vain--for the surrender of all prisoners, hostages, sick, and wounded under detention in Afghanistan, on the arrival at Peshawur of the Jellalabad brigade. The members of council, who in the long interval since the previous meeting had been gradually regaining their self-respect and mental equipoise, unanimously declined to accept the proposals tendered them by their commanding officer and his political ally; and a letter written by Monteath was accepted, which 'was not a continuation of the negotiation.' Thus ended the deliberations of the memorable council of war, whose eleventh hour resolve to 'hold the fort' mainly averted the ruin of British prestige in India and throughout the regions bordering on our Eastern Empire; and the credit of its final decision to repudiate the humiliating proposals of Sale and Macgregor belongs to George Broadfoot, who was firmly though silently backed by Havelock. The day after that decision was formulated a letter came from Peshawur informing the garrison that every effort would be made for its relief; and thenceforth there was no more talk of surrender, nor was the courage of the little brigade impaired even when the earthquake of February 19th shook the newly repaired fortifications into wreck. Broadfoot's vehement energy infected the troops, and by the end of the month the parapets were entirely restored, the bastions repaired, and every battery re-established.