conquer Antwerp in northern, and Lisbon in southern Europe, for the advantage of revolutionary France, we had not a guinea nor a gun to spare to preserve the interests, or uphold the honour of England in the Dardanelles, and we threw Turkey, as the price of existence, into the arms of Russia. The rest is well known. The Muscovite battalions gave the requisite aid; the domes of Constantinople reflected the lights of their bivouacs on the mountain of the giant; the arms of Ibrahim recoiled before this new and unexpected antagonist, and the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi delivered Turkey, bound hand and foot, into the hands of Russia, rendered the Euxine a Muscovite lake, and for ever shut out the British flag from the navigation of its waters, or the defence of the Turkish metropolis.

The natural results of this timorous and vacillating policy, coupled with the well-known and fearful reduction of our naval and military force in India, were not slow in developing themselves. It soon appeared that the British name had ceased to be regarded with any respect in the East; and that all the influence derived from our victories and diplomacy in Central Asia had been lost. It is needless to go into details, the results of which are well known to the public, though the diplomatic secrets connected with them have not yet been revealed. Suffice it to say, that Persia, which for a quarter of a century had been the firm ally, and in fact the advanced post of the British power in India, deserted by us, and subdued by Russia, was constrained to throw herself into the arms of the latter. The Persian army was speedily organized on a better and more effective footing, under direction of Russian officers; and several thousand Russian troops, disguised under the name of deserters, were incorporated with, and gave consistency to, the Persian army. The British officers, who had hitherto had the direction of that force, were obliged to retire; insult, the invariable precursor in the East of injury, was heaped upon the British subjects; redress was demanded in vain by the British ambassador; and Sir John M'Neill himself was at length obliged to leave the court of Tehran, from the numerous crosses and vexations to which he was exposed. Having

thus got quit of the shadow even of British influence throughout the whole of Persia, the Russians were not long in following out the now smoothed highway towards Hindostan: the siege of Herat, the head of the defile which leads to the Indus, was undertaken by the Persian troops, under Russian guidance; and Russian emissaries and diplomacy, ever preceding their arms, had already crossed the Himalaya snows, and were stirring up the seeds of subdued but unextinguished hostility in the Birman empire, among the Nepaulese mountaineers, and the discontented rajahs of Hindostan.

There is but one road by which any hostile army ever has, or ever can, approach India from the northward. Alexander the Great, Timour, Gengis Khan, Nadir-Shah, have all penetrated Hindostan by the same route. That road has, for three thousand years, been the beaten and wellknown tract by which the mercantile communication has been kept up between the plains of the Ganges and the steppes of Upper Asia. Herat stands at the head of this defile. Its population, which amounts to one hundred thousand souls, and wealth which renders it by far the most important city in the heart of Asia, have been entirely formed by the caravan trade, which, from time immemorial, has passed through its walls, going and returning from Persia to Hindostan. When Napoleon, in conjunction with the Emperor Paul, projected the invasion of our Indian possessions by a joint army of French infantry and Russian Cossacks, the route marked out was Astrakan, Astrabad, Herat, Candahar, the Bolan pass, and the Indus, to Delhi. There never can be any other road overland to India; for to the eastward of it inaccessible snowy ranges of mountains preclude the possibility of an army getting through; while to the west parched and impassable deserts afford obstacles still more formidable, which the returning soldiers of Alexander overcame only with the loss of half their numbers. It is quite clear, therefore, that Herat is the vital point of communication between Russia and Hindostan; and that whoever is in possession of it, either actually or by the intervention of a subsidiary or allied force, need never disquiet himself about apprehensions that an enemy will penetrate through the long and difficult defile which leads in its rear to Hindostan.

Since our empire in India had waxed so powerful as to attract the envy of the Asiatic tramontane nations, it became, therefore, a matter of necessity to maintain our influence among the nations who held the keys of this pass. Affghanistan was to India what Piedmont has long been to Italy; even a second Hannibal or Napoleon might be stopped in its long mountain passes and interminable barren hills. If, indeed, the politics of India could be confined only to its native powers, it might be wise to consider the Indus and the Himalaya as our frontier, and to disregard entirely the distant hostility or complicated diplomacy of the northern Asiatic states. But as long as India, like Italy, possesses the fatal gift of beauty; as long as its harvests are coveted by northern sterility, and its riches by barbarian poverty; so long must the ruler of the land preserve with jealous care the entrance into its bosom, and sit with frowning majesty at the entrance of the pass by which "the blue-eyed myriads of the Baltic coast" may find a way into its fabled plains.

There was a time when British influence might with ease, and at little cost, have been established in the Affghanistan passes. Dost Mahommed was a usurper, and his legal claims to the throne would not bear a comparison with those of Shah Shoojah. But he was a usurper who had conciliated and won the affections of the people, and his vigour and success had given a degree of prosperity to Affghanistan which it had not for centuries experienced. Kamram, the sultan of Herat, was connected with him by blood and allied by inclination, and both were animated by hereditary and inveterate hatred of the Persian power. They would willingly, therefore, have united themselves with Great Britain to secure a barrier against northern invasion; and such an alliance would have been founded on the only durable bond of connexion among nations -mutual advantage, and the sense of a formidable impending common danThe states of Candahar and Cabool were in the front of the danger; the Russian and Persian arms could never have approached the Indus un

til they were subdued; and consequently their adhesion to our cause, if we would only give them effectual support, might be relied upon as certain. It is well known that Dost Mahommed might have been firmly attached to the British alliance within these few years by the expenditure of a hundred thousand pounds, and the aid of a few British officers to organize his forces. And when it is recollected that the Sultan of Herat, alone and unaided by us, held out against the whole power of Persia, directed by Russian officers, for one year and nine months, it is evident both with what a strong spirit of resistance to northern aggression the Affghanistan states are animated, and what elements of resistance they possess among themselves, even when unaided, against northern ambition.

The immense advantage of gaining the support of the tribes inhabiting the valley of Affghan, thus holding in their hands the keys of Hindostan, was forgone by the British power in India, partly from the dilapidated state to which the army had been reduced by the miserable retrenchment forced upon the Government by the democratic cry for economy at home, and partly from the dread of involving ourselves in hostility with Runjeet Sing, the formidable chief of Lahore, whose hostility to the Affghanistans was hereditary and inveterate; and there can be little doubt that the conclusion of a treaty, offensive and defensive, with the powers of Cabool, would have excited great discontent, if not provoked open hostility, at the court of Lahore. In relinquishing their hold of the Affghanistan states, from the dread of compromising their relations with the wily potentate of the Indus, the British Government in India were only acting upon that system of temporizing, conceding, and shunning present danger, which has characterised all their public acts ever since the influence of the urban masses became predominant in the British councils. But it is now apparent, that in breaking with the Affghans to conciliate the rajah, the British incurred the greater ultimate, to avoid the present lesser danger. Runjeet Sing, indeed, was a formidable power, with seventy thousand men, and one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon under his command. But his situation, between the

British territory on the one side, and the Affghans on the other, rendered him incapable of making any effectual resistance. His military force was by no means equal to what had been wielded by Tippoo or the Mahrattas, and his rear was exposed to the incursions of his hereditary and inveterate enemies in the Affghanistan mountains. Still, more than all, his territories were pierced by the great and navigable river of the Indus-the best possible base for British operations, capable of conveying both the muniments of war and the provisions for an army into the heart of his dominions. In these circumstances, it is evident that the submission of Runjeet Sing must soon have become a matter of necessity; or, at all events, even if we had been driven into hostilities with him, it would have been a far less formidable contest than that into which we have been driven, by abandoning the Affghans in the late expedition to Cabool. The one would have been what the subjugation and conquest of Prussia was to Napoleon, the other was an expedition fraught with all the cost and perils of the advance to Moscow.

Notwithstanding these perils and this cost, however, we have no doubt that, at the time it was undertaken, the expedition to Affghanistan had become a matter of necessity. We had been reduced to such a pass by the economy, concession, and pusil lanimity of former Governments, that we had no alternative but either to see the whole of Central Asia and Northern Hindostan arrayed in one formidable league, under Russian guidance, against us, or to make a desperate and hazardous attempt to regain our lost character. We have preferred the latter alternative; and the expedition of Lord Auckland, boldly conceived and vigorously executed, has hitherto, at least, been crowned with the most signal success. That it was also attended with great and imminent hazard is equally certain; but the existence of that peril, imposed upon us by the shortsighted parsimonious spirit of the mercantile democratic communities which for fifteen years past have swayed the British empire, is no impeachment whatever, either of the wisdom or necessity of the adventurous step which was at last resolved on. It only shows the straits to which a great nation must speedily be reduced

when its Government, in an evil hour, yields to the insidious cry for democratic retrenchment.

Already the beneficial effects of this bold policy have become apparent. The crossing of the Indus by a powerful British army; the surmounting of the hills of Cashmere; the passage of the Bolan defile; the storming of Ghuznee; the fall of Candahar and Cabool, and the restoration of Shah Shoojah to the throne of his ancestors; have resounded through the whole of Asia, and restored, after its eclipse of fifteen years, the honour of the British name. The doubtful fidelity of the Rajah of Lahore has been overawed into submission; the undisguised hostility of the court of Persia has terminated, and friendly relations are on the eve of being re-established; and the indecision of the Sultan of Herat and his brave followers has been decided by the terror of the British arms, and the arrival of a train of artillery within its ruined bastions. As Britons, we rejoice from the bottom of our hearts at these glorious successes; and we care not who were the Ministry at the head of affairs when they were achieved. They were undertaken in a truly British spirit-executed by whom they may, they emanated from Conservative principles. As much as the ruinous reductions and parsimonious spirit of Lord William Bentinck's administration bespoke the poisonous influence of democratic retrenchment in the great council of the empire, so much does the expedition to Affghanistan bespeak the felicitous revival of the true English spirit in the same assembly. At both periods it is easy to see, that, though not nominally possessed of the reins of power, her Majesty's Opposition really ruled the state. In the Affghanistan expedition there was very little of the economy which cut in twain the Indian army, but very much of the spirit which animated the British troops at Assaye and Laswarree; there was very little of the truckling which brought the Russians to Constantinople, but a great deal of the energy which carried the English to Paris.

In a military point of view, the expedition to Affghanistan is one of the most memorable events of modern times. For the first time since the days of Alexander the Great, a civilized army has penetrated the mighty barrier of deserts and mountains which

separates Persia from Hindostan; and the prodigy has been exhibited to an astonished world, of a remote island in the European seas pushing forward its mighty arms into the heart of Asia, and carrying its victorious standards into the strongholds of Mahometan faith and the cradle of the Mogul empire. Neither the intricate streams of the Punjab, nor the rapid flow of the Indus, nor the waterless mountains of Affghanistan, nor the far-famed bastions of Ghuznee, have been able to arrest our course. For the first time in the his tory of the world, the tide of conquest has flowed up from Hindostan into Central Asia; the European race has asserted its wonted superiority over the Asiatic; reversing the march of Timour and Alexander, the sable battalions of the Ganges have appeared as conquerors on the frontiers of Per. sia, and on the confines of the steppes of Samarcand. So marvellous and unprecedented an event is indeed fitted

to awaken the contemplation of every thoughtful mind. It speaks volumes as to the mighty step made by the human race in the last five hundred years, and indicates the vast agency and unbounded effects of that free spirit, of which Britain is the centre, which has thus, for a season at least, inverted the heretofore order of nature, made the natives of Hindostan appear as victors in the country of Gengis Khan, and brought the standards of civilized Europe, though in the inverse order, into the footsteps of the phalanx of Alexander.

Though such, however, have been the marvels of the British expedition to Central Asia, yet it is not to be disguised that it was attended by at least equal perils; and never, perhaps, since the British standard appeared on the plains of Hindostan, was their empire in such danger as during the dependence of this glorious but hazardous expedition. It was, literally speaking, to our Indian empire what the expedition to Moscow was to the European dominion of Napoleon. Hitherto, indeed, the result has been different, and we devoutly hope that, in that respect, the dissimilarity will continue. But in both cases the danger was the same. It was the moving forward a large force so far from its resources and the base of its operations, which in both cases constituted the danger. If any serious check had been sustained by our troops in that distant enterprise; if Run

jeet Sing had proved openly treacherous, and assailed our rear and cut off our supplies when the bulk of our force was far advanced in the Affghanistan defiles; if the Bolan pass had been defended with a courage equal to its physical strength; if the powderbags which blew open the gates of Ghuznee had missed fire, or the courage of those who bore them had quailed under the extraordinary perils of their mission; the fate of the expedition would in all probability have been changed, and a disaster as great as the cutting off of Crassus and his legions in Mesopotamia, would have resounded like a clap of thunder through the whole of Asia. Few if any of the brave men who had penetrated into Affghanistan would ever have returned; the Burmese, the Nepaulese would immediately have appeared in arms; the Mahratta and Pindaree horse would have re-assembled round their predatory standards; and, while the British empire in Hindostan rocked to its foundation, an Affghanistan army, directed by Russian officers, and swelled by the predatory tribes of Central Asia, would have poured down, thirsting for plunder and panting for blood, on the devoted plains of Hindostan.

Subsequent events have already revealed, in the clearest manner, the imminent danger in which the English empire in the East was placed at the period of the Affghanistan expedition. So low had the reputation of the British name sunk in the East, that even the Chinese, the most unwarlike and least precipitate of the Asiatic empires, had ventured to offer a signal injury to the British interests, and insult to the British name; and so miserably deficient were Government in any previous preparation for the danger, thatit was only twelve months after the insult was offered, that ships of war could be fitted out in the British harbours to attempt to seek for redress. It is now ascertained that a vast conspiracy had been long on foot in the Indian peninsula to overturn our power; in the strongholds of some of the lesser rajahs in the southern part of the peninsula, enormous military stores have been found accumulated; and not a doubt can remain, that, if any serious disaster had happened to our army in Central Asia, not only would the Burmese and Nepaulese have instantly commenced hostilities, but a formidable insurrection would have broken out among the semi-independent rajahs, in the very vitals of our power. And yet it was while resting on the smouldering fires of such a volcano, that Lord William Bentinck and the Liberal Administration of India thought fit to reduce our military force to one-half, and shake the fidelity of the native troops by the reduction of their pay and allowances.

But this proved hostility of so large a portion of the native powers, suggests matter for further and most serious consideration. It is clear, that although the British Government has, to an immense degree, benefited India, yet it has done so chiefly by the preservation of peace, and the suppression of robbery, throughout its vast dominions, and it is painfully evident, that hardly any steps have yet been taken to reconcile the natives to our dominion, by the extended market which we have opened to their industry. The startling fact which Mr Montgomery Martin* has clearly established, that notwithstanding all that was prophesied of, the trade to India has been, including exports and imports, less for the last twenty years than for the twenty years preceding, clearly demonstrates some vital defect in our colonial policy. Nor is it difficult to see where that error is to be found. We have loaded the produce of Indiasugar, indigo, &c. - with duties of nearly a hundred percent, while wehavedeluged them with our own manufactures at an import duty of two or three per cent. In our anxiety to find a vent for our own manufactures on the continent of Hindostan, we seem to have entirely forgotten that there was another requisite indispensably necessary towards the success of our projects even for our own interests, -to give them the means of paying for them. Our conduct towards our colonies, equally with that to foreign states, has exhibited reciprocity all on one side with this material difference, that we have, in our blind anxiety to conciliate foreign states, allowed the whole benefits of the reciprocity treaties to rest with them; while, in our selfish legislation towards our colonial subjects, we have taken the whole to ourselves.

So vast is the importance of our Indian possessions to the British empire, and so boundless the market for her manufactures which might be opened if a truly wise and liberal policy were pursued towards our Indian possessions, that there is nothing more to be regretted than that there has not hitherto issued from the press a popular and readable history of our Indian possessions. Auber has, indeed, with great industry, narrated the leading facts, and supported them by a variety of interesting official documents. But it is in vain to conceal, that his book possesses no attractions to the general reader; and accordingly, although it will always be a standard book of reference to persons studying Indian affairs, it has not and will not produce any impression upon public thought. It was, therefore, with peculiar pleasure that we recently opened the Chapters on Indian History, just published by Mr Thornton, already so favourably known to the eastern world by his work on India, and its State and Prospects. From the cursory examination we have been able to give to this very interesting work, we have only reason to regret that the author has not been more comprehensive in his plan, and that, instead of chapters on British India since the administration of Marquis Wellesley, in one volume, he has not given to the world a full history of the period in three. The work is distinguished by judgment, candour, and research, and is, beyond all doubt, the most valuable that has yet appeared on the recent history of India. We would beg leave only to suggest to the able author, that his next edition should extend to two volumes, and should embrace the whole events of the period of which he treats; in particular, that Lord Hastings' war in 1817 should be more fully enlarged upon; and that greater exertions should be made, by the introduction of picturesque incidents and vivid descriptions, to interest the mass of the nation in a subject daily rising in importance, and on which they must soon be called upon to exercise the functions of direct legislation.

To have engaged in and successfully