The great interest excited by the Budget has in some degree absorbed that which the melancholy Indian news would otherwise produce, and we are still so imperfectly informed of the history of these transactions that we know not what to think of them. The Duke of Wellington told me at Court on Friday that there must have been either the grossest treachery, or the most inconceivable imbecility, and very likely a mixture of both, as they often go together. Auckland, who writes, as is natural, in great despondency, says that the whole thing is unintelligible to him, for, as far as they know, the 5,000 British troops at Cabul were never assailed by above 10,000 or 12,000 Afghans, irregularly armed with matchlocks and spears, while our force was provided with artillery, and all the appurtenances of war. According to all our notions and all former experience, a British force could always put to flight or destroy native tribes ten times more numerous. The Duke said that the captivity of the women would produce an effect from one end of Asia to the other, such as Europeans would form no idea of. But what reflexions this event gives rise to as to the uninterrupted current of our past successes, which has been so great that we had got to fancy no reverse of any sort, or in any quarter, could possibly befall us! It is a grievous thing to lose 5,000 men, cut off by a sudden insurrection and perishing, because circumstances beyond the control of man prevented their obtaining succour; but when we hear that such a disaster as this has not befallen us for above fifty years, and we think of all the tremendous defeats, wholesale destructions of men, and miseries inflicted on other lands and other nations, we may well, instead of repining, feel grateful for the impunity we have enjoyed from the evils and afflictions which have been so abundantly poured upon almost every other nation in the world. [Sidenote: DEATH OF LORD HERTFORD.]