The history of the days which followed between the first rising and the opening of negotiations is as difficult to write as it is painful to read. So many and so conflicting are the accounts that have been received, that it is impossible within a limited space to present a distinct and coherent narrative of events, or, without the risk of a hasty conclusion, to apportion, even were it desirable to do so, the precise share of responsibility to each actor in that dismal tragedy of errors. It is certain, at least, that from the 2nd to the 25th November the utmost confusion and dismay prevailed within the British cantonments. No two of the authorities seem ever to have counselled alike; there was disunion between Elphinstone and Macnaghten, and disunion even between Elphinstone and Shelton. Orders were issued one hour to be countermanded the next, and then re-issued. There was no lack of individual boldness in council, and, among the officers, no lack of individual bravery in action, but want of co-operation rendered both alike useless. Our strength was frittered away in a series of petty sorties, conducted by insufficient numbers, and generally ordered when the time for immediate action was past. Our soldiers, even our own English soldiers, disheartened and demoralized by repeated defeats, for which they felt that they themselves were not to blame, lost confidence alike in their commanders and in themselves. It is said that it was actually found necessary to employ a Sepoy guard to prevent the soldiers of an English regiment leaving their post, and it is certain that on one, if not on more than one occasion, our men fairly turned their backs and ran before the Afghan hordes. At an early day, as might well have been foreseen, the forts containing the Commissariat supplies and stores fell into the enemy's hands, and though this disaster was for a time remedied by the energies of our Commissariat officers, who had fortunately not been lost with the stores, and who managed to collect supplies from some of the neighbouring villages, there soon arose a new danger in the doubt whether the the siege would not outlast the ammunition. Urgent and frequent messages had been sent to bring up Sale's brigade, which was supposed to be still among the Khoord-Cabul hills, and to Eldred Pottinger to join the garrison with his detachment from Charekur, a place about 60 miles north of Cabul. But Sale's brigade was already on its march to Jellalabad, and of Pottinger's detachment only he and another officer reached Cabul alive. To crown all, it was known that Akbar Khan was moving down from Bamean. On the 23rd a strong force of cavalry and infantry, but accompanied, through what strange process of reasoning it is impossible to say, by only one gun, moved out under Shelton to occupy a hill commanding the sources of our supplies, which had been recently threatened by the enemy. The expedition was a total failure. Shelton himself behaved with