According to the original terms of the proclamation, the British troops, their mission accomplished, were at once to withdraw from the country. Soojah himself was anxious to be rid of allies in whose hands he was conscious he was and could be no more than a puppet, and whose presence in the kingdom was a standing testimony to the absence of that loyalty which he had so loudly vaunted. Nothing would have better pleased the English themselves than to have acquiesced in the king's wishes; nothing would have pleased Lord Auckland better than that they should do so. But it could not be. Unprotected by British bayonets the throne of the new king would not have stood for a day, and with it would have fallen the feeble fabric on which the "justice" of the expedition rested. The Simlah manifesto had declared that Soojah's "popularity throughout Afghanistan had been proved to his lordship by the strong and unanimous testimony of the best authorities;" how then could his lordship leave Soojah alone to give the lie to his own manifesto? But though it was expedient that an English force should still, at least for a time, continue at the king's right hand, it was neither expedient, nor, as it was thought, necessary that the entire army should remain. A garrison at Cabul and Candahar, and others at the principal posts on the main roads to Hindostan, Ghuznee and Quettah on the west, and Jellalabad and Ali-Musjid on the east, would be amply sufficient. These could be furnished by a portion of the Bengal army, and the remainder could be withdrawn by way of Jellalabad and the Khyber Pass, while the Bombay column could return _en masse_ through the Bolan Pass. Such was the advice of the Commander-in-chief, and such, as it soon appeared, was the opinion of the Viceroy himself. Before, however, the homeward march began, Wade had brought Prince Timour to his father's court. Wade's share in the expedition, though dwarfed by the more brilliant exploits of Keane, had, notwithstanding the disaffection of the Sikhs (who, after Runjeet Singh's death, had not cared to conceal their dislike of their English allies), been performed with complete success, and had moreover materially assisted the march of the larger force. For a long time Dost Mahomed had regarded the advance through the Khyber with far greater anxiety than that along the Western route, and though his troops had never actually encountered Wade in the field, a considerable detachment had been withdrawn for that purpose from the main army at a very critical moment.