which ultimately cost Soojah his life, and restored the Barukzye dynasty. "The faggots," they wrote, "are ready; it only requires the lighted torch to be applied." Soojah therefore was urgent with Macnaghten that he should be allowed to accomplish his restoration with his own troops, as he expressed himself confident of doing; a feat which would greatly tend to raise his character among his countrymen, while the fact of his being "upheld by foreign force alone could not fail to detract in a great measure from his dignity and consequence." Soojah's wishes, in fact, tallied precisely with Lord Auckland's original design, but every day brought fresh complications, with fresh confirmation of the impracticability of that design. First Soojah and Runjeet Singh alone were to be the agents; then a British force was to "demonstrate" in reserve at Shikarpoor; next a few British regiments were to be added to Soojah's levies. Finally, all these plans were dismissed, and one wholly different to any Lord Auckland had hitherto dreamed of was substituted in their stead. Sir Henry Fane, Commander-in-chief of the British army in India, was then at Simlah, with Lord Auckland. That he had from the first disapproved of English interference with Afghan politics the following passage from his correspondence with Sir Charles Metcalfe, written in 1837, sufficiently proves. "Every advance you might make beyond the Sutlej to the westward, in my opinion, adds to your military weakness ... if you want your empire to expand, expand it over Oude or over Gwalior and the remains of the Mahratta Empire. Make yourselves complete sovereigns of all within your bounds, _but let alone the far West_." But as it had been decided that the work was to be done, he was vehement in his opinion that it should be done as thoroughly as possible. With a "fine old Tory" contempt of anything approaching to economy, he advised the employment of a regular British force, horse, foot, and artillery, with which there could be no possibility of a reverse, a contingency in the peculiar circumstances of the case to be guarded against with more than common care. There were, still nearer to the Viceroy's person, other and even warmer advocates of the same policy; so after some weeks of suspense and oscillation Lord Auckland yielded, and the fiat for the "Army of the Indus" went forth.