Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/81

Rh held his ground so masterfully against all assailants for so many years. Sir Henry Fane himself, writing to Metcalfe in 1837, had contended that any advance made northward beyond the Sutlej could only add to our military weakness. 'If you want your empire to expand' — he wrote — 'expand it over Oudh or over Gwalior, and the remains of the Maráthá empire. Make yourselves complete sovereigns of all within your bounds. But let alone the far West.' Many an officer wished with Vincent Eyre that he was about to draw his sword in a better cause, and Sir John Kaye had fair grounds for believing that Lord Auckland's policy had 'very few genuine supporters' among the Anglo-Indian journals of that day.

Viewed, indeed, in whatever aspect, that policy was at once a blunder and a crime. Sháh Shujá had repeatedly declared his unwillingness to re-enter Kabul as a king who owed his crown to British bayonets and British guns. Our concord with the Sikhs depended on the will of a 'drunken old profligate,' as Miss Eden called him, whose death might be expected at any moment. The march of our troops through Sind involved the need of forcing the rulers of that country, in the teeth of existing treaties, to expedite the passage of those troops with a due provision of carriage and supplies. The Army of the Indus would have to depend during its march partly on its own supplies, partly on such help as the rulers of the countries traversed might be induced to afford. For the latter purpose it