ter still. In these pages we have nothing to do with the merits of religious controversies; and it is no part of our concern to consider even the social and political effects produced upon Scotland by this great secession. But we need not withhold our admiration from the men who risked and suffered so much in the cause of what they believed to be their Church's true rights; and we are bound to give this admiration as cordially to the poor and nameless ministers, the men of the rank and file, about whose doings history so little concerns herself, as to the leaders like Chalmers, who, whether they sought it or not, found fame shining on their path of self-sacrifice. The history of Scotland is illustrated by many great national deeds. No deed it tells of surpasses in dignity and in moral grandeur that secession-to cite the words of the protest-"from an Establishment which we loved and prized, through interference with conscience, the dishonor done to Christ's crown, and the rejection of his sole and supreme authority as King in his Church."

CHAPTER XI.

THE DISASTERS OF CABUL.

THE earliest days of the Peel Ministry fell upon trouble, not indeed at home, but abroad. At home the prospect still seemed bright. The birth of the Queen's eldest son was an event welcomed by national congratulation. There was still great distress in the agricultural districts; but there was a general confidence that the financial genius of Peel would quickly find some way to make burdens light, and that the condition of things all over the country would begin to mend. It was a region far removed from the knowledge and the thoughts of most Englishmen that supplied the news now beginning to come into England day after day, and to thrill the country with the tale of one of the greatest disasters to English policy and English arms to be found in all the record of our dealings with the East. There are many still living who can recall with an impression as keen as though it belonged to yesterday the first accounts that reached this country of the surrender at Cabul,

and the gradual extinction of the army that tried to make its retreat through the terrible Pass.

This grim chapter of history had been for some time in preparation. It may be said to open with the reign itself. News travelled slowly then; and it was quite in the ordinary course of things that some part of the empire might be torn with convulsion for months before London knew that the even and ordinary condition of things had been disturbed. In this instance the rejoicings at the accession of the young Queen were still going on, when a series of events had begun in Central Asia destined to excite the profoundest emotion in England, and to exercise the most powerful influence upon our foreign policy down to the present hour. On September 20th, 1837, Captain Alexander Burnes arrived at Cabul, the capital of the State of Cabul, in the north of Afghanistan, and the ancient capital of the Emperor Baber, whose tomb is on a hill outside the city. Burnes was a famous Orientalist and traveller, the Burton or Burnaby of his day; he had conducted an expedition into Central Asia; had published his travels in Bokhara, and had been sent on a mission by the Indian Government, in whose service he was, to study the navigation of the Indus. He was, it may be remarked, a member of the family of Robert Burns, the poet himself having changed the original spelling of the name which all the other members of the family retained. The object of the journey of Captain Burnes to Cabul in 1837 was, in the first instance, to enter into commercial relations with Dost Mahomed, then ruler of Cabul, and with other chiefs of the western regions. But events soon changed his business from a commercial into a political and diplomatic mission; and his tragic fate would make his journey memorable to Englishmen forever, even if other events had not grown out of it which give it a place of more than personal importance in history.

The great region of Afghanistan, with its historical boundaries as varying and difficult to fix at certain times as those of the old Dukedom of Burgundy, has been called the land of transition between Eastern and Western Asia. All the great ways that lead from Persia to India pass through that region. There is a proverb which declares that no one can be king of Hindostan without first becoming lord of Cabul.

The Afghans are the ruling nation, but among them had long been settled Hindoos, Arabs, Armenians, Abyssinians, and men of other races and religions. The Afghans are Mohammedans of the Shunite sect, but they allowed Hindoos, Christians, and even the Persians, who are of the hated dissenting sect of the Shiites, to live among them, and even to rise to high position and influence. The founder of the Afghan Empire, Ahmed Shah, died in 1773. He had made an empire which stretched from Herat on the west to Sirhind on the east, and from the Oxus and Cashmere on the north to the Arabian Sea and the months of the Indus on the south. The death of his son, Timur Shah, delivered the kingdom up to the hostile factions, intrigues, and quarrels of his sons: the leaders of a powerful tribe, the Barukzyes, took advantage of the events that arose out of this condi tion of things to dethrone the descendants of Ahmed Shah. When Captain Burnes visited Afghanistan in 1832, the only part of all their great inheritance which yet remained with the descendants of Ahmed Shah was the principality of Herat. The remainder of Afghanistan was parcelled out between Dost Mahomed and his brothers. Dost Mahomed was a man of extraordinary ability and energy. He would probably have made a name as a soldier and a statesman anywhere. He had led a stormy youth, but had put away with maturity and responsibility the vices and follies of his earlier years. There seems no reason to doubt that, although he was a usurper, he was a sincere lover of his country, and on the whole a wise and just ruler. When Captain Burnes visited Dost Mahomed, he was received with every mark of friendship and favor. Dost Mahomed professed to be, and no doubt at one time was, a sincere friend of the English Government and people. There was, however, at that time a quarrel going on between the Shah of Persia and the Prince of Herat, the last enthroned representative, as has been already said, of the great family on whose fall Dost Mahomed and his brothers had mounted into power. So far as can now be judged, there does seem to have been serious and genuine ground of complaint on the part of Persia against the ruler of Herat. But it is probable, too, that the Persian Shah had been seeking for, and in any case would have found, a pretext for making war; and the strong impression

at the time in England, and among the authorities in India, was that Persia herself was but a puppet in the hands of Russia. A glance at the map will show the meaning of this suspicion and the reasons which at once gave it plausibility, and would have rendered it of grave importance. If Persia were merely the instrument of Russia, and if the troops of the Shah were only the advance guard of the Czar, then, undoubtedly, the attack on Herat might have been regarded as the first step of a great movement of Russia toward our Indian dominion.

There were other reasons, too, to give this suspicion some plausibility. Mysterious agents of Russia, officers in her service and others, began to show themselves in Central Asia at the time of Captain Burnes's visit to Dost Mahomed. Undoubtedly Russia did set herself for some reason to win the friendship and alliance of Dost Mahomed; and Captain Burnes was for his part engaged in the same endeavor. All considerations of a merely commercial nature had long since been put away, and Burnes was freely and earnestly negotiating with Dost Mahomed for his alliance. Burnes always insisted that Dost Mahomed himself was sincerely anxious to become an ally of England, and that he offered more than once, on his own free part, to dismiss the Russian agents even without seeing them, if Burnes desired him to do so. But for some reason Burnes's superiors did not share his confidence. In Downing Street and in Simla the profoundest distrust of Dost Mahomed prevailed. It was again and again impressed on Burnes that he must regard Dost Mahomed as a treacherous enemy, and as a man playing the part of Persia and of Russia. It is impossible now to estimate fairly all the reasons which may have justified the English and the Indian Governments in this conviction. But we know that nothing in the policy afterward followed out by the Indian authorities exhibited any of the judgment and wisdom that would warrant us in taking anything for granted on the mere faith of their dictum. The story of four years —almost to a day the extent of this sad chapter of English history-will be a tale of such misfortune, blunder, and humiliation as the annals of England do not anywhere else present. Blunders which were, indeed, worse than crimes, and a principle of action which it is a crime in any rulers to sanc

tion, brought things to such a pass with us that in a few years from the accession of the Queen we had in Afghanistan soldiers who were positively afraid to fight the enemy, and some English officials who were not ashamed to treat for the removal of our most formidable foes by purchased assassination. It is a good thing for us all to read in cold blood this chapter of our history. It will teach us how vain is a policy founded on evil and ignoble principles; how vain is the strength and courage of men when they have not leaders fit to command. It may teach us, also, not to be too severe in our criticism of other nations. The failure of the French invasion of Mexico under the Second Empire seems like glory when compared with the failure of our attempt to impose a hated sovereign on the Afghan people.

Captain Burnes then was placed in the painful difficulty of having to carry out a policy of which he, entirely disapproved. He believed in Dost Mahomed as a friend, and he was ordered to regard him as an enemy. It would have been better for the career and for the reputation of Burnes if he had simply declined to have anything to do with a course of action which seemed to him at once unjust and unwise. But Burnes was a young man, full of youth's energy and ambition. He thought he saw a career of distinction opening before him, and he was unwilling to close it abruptly by setting himself in obstinate opposition to his superiors. He was, besides, of a quick mercurial temperament, over which mood followed mood in rapid succession of change. A slight contradiction sometimes threw him into momentary despondency; a gleam of hope elated him into the assurance that all was won. It is probable that after awhile he may have persuaded himself to acquiesce in the judgment of his chiefs. On the other hand, Dost Mahomed was placed in a position of great difficulty and danger. He had to choose. He could not remain absolutely independent of all the disputants. If England would not support him, he must for his own safety find alliances elsewhere-in Russian statecraft, for example. He told Burnes of this again and again, and Burnes endeavored, without the slightest success, to impress his superiors with his own views as to the reasonableness of Dost Mahomed's arguments. Runjeet Singh, the daring and successful adventurer who had annexed the whole