Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/11

 PREFACE

The story of Lord Auckland's Indian career, as told in this volume, seemed historically incomplete without the chapters which record the measures taken or sanctioned by Lord Ellenborough for the subsequent advance of our troops to Kábul, and for their final retirement from Afghánistán. To the materials used by Kaye and Durand in their respective histories, time has added little that is either new or of much importance. The documents, old and new, consulted in the making of this little volume, are indicated, as occasion arises, in the footnotes. Kaye's great work, in its later editions, and Durand's unfinished narrative still hold the field between them as trustworthy guides to a just appreciation of the policy which led to the Afghán War of 1838-42. To the revised Blue-Book of 1859, and the debate raised by Mr. Dunlop's motion of the 19th of March, 1861, we owe the full and final confirmation of Kaye's charges against the compilers of the 'garbled Blue-Book' of 1839. In telling the dismal story of events which happened fifty years ago,