To keep friends with the Afghan ruler and to preserve the independence of his Empire was the obvious policy of the British Government. But the authorities at Simlah, Lord Auckland, Mr. Macnaghten, Mr. Henry Torrens and Mr. John Colvin, had determined that that ruler should be, not the Barukzye Dost Mahomed, a man of proved energy and ability, who had shown himself anxious to cultivate the friendship of England, and who possessed the confidence and the favour of his subjects, but the Suddozye Shah Soojah, who, though born of the legitimate line, was no less a usurper than Dost Mahomed himself, who was regarded by the majority of his countrymen with indifference and contempt, and who more than once had proved alike his inability to administer and to maintain dominion. By what process of reasoning the Viceroy arrived at this remarkable conclusion has never been made perfectly clear, but though he alone, notwithstanding Sir John Hobhouse's generous declaration from the Board of Control, will be, rightly or wrongly, held by posterity responsible for the disastrous events which followed, it is at least to his credit that he left no stone unturned to arrive at the opinions of all competent advisers before deciding on his own. Prominent among these was Mr. McNeill, then our envoy at the Court of Teheran, a man of keen powers of observation and undoubted ability, who may be said to share with Pottinger the glory of the Persian repulse from Herat. His plan, as he impressed more than once on Burnes, was to consolidate the Afghan Empire under Dost Mahomed. Placing no reliance on the sincerity of the Candahar chiefs, he yet entertained a high opinion of the Ameer himself, whom he would have been well pleased to see established in Herat and Candahar as well as in Cabul. McNeill's correspondence, however, had to pass through the hands of Captain, afterwards Sir Claudius, Wade, himself also well versed in the politics of Central Asia, and at that time holding the responsible post of Governor-General's Agent on the North-Western Frontier. Wade forwarded a copy of McNeill's letter to the Governor, and forwarded with it one from himself in which he strongly deprecated the policy of consolidation. To him it seemed better that the Afghan Empire should remain, as it then was, sub-divided into practically independent states, each of whom, as he conceived, would be more likely in their own interests to court our friendship and to meet our views, than if brought under the yoke of one ruler, to whom they could never be expected to yield a passive obedience. "Supposing," he continued, "we were to aid Dost Mahomed to overthrow in the first place his brother at Candahar, and then his Suddozye rival at Herat, what would be the consequence? As the system of which it is intended to be a part would go to gratify the longing wish of Mahomed Shah for the annexation of Herat to his dominions, the first results would be that the Shah-Zadah