Lord Auckland had communicated his projects to his Council, and had secured its approval.
'Had you received our Despatch of October 24 before your Proclamation issued,' wrote Sir John Hobhouse a little later to Lord Auckland, 'you would have had nothing to say except that you had taken the course in pursuance of orders from home.' When the news of Captain Burnes' departure from Kábul reached London, the hesitation which Lord Auckland had felt does not seem to have embarrassed the Cabinet. They resolved at once to wage war. As the war which they resolved upon was to be waged vicariously, their alacrity raises less surprise. They had waited since June, 1836. They had seen matters going from worse to worse. At last they learned that the British Agent had left Kábul, and that the Russian emissary remained, an honoured guest. Then, on October 24, they sent out orders which fully explained what had been at the back of their thoughts when two years previously they had addressed Lord Auckland. The President of the Board of Control requested Lord Auckland 'to consider that Despatch as containing the deliberate opinion of the Queen's Government, assented to after much discussion and previous correspondence between the different departments, and most cordially concurred in by the present authorities at the India Office.' The first half of the Despatch deals with a project of invading Persia which Mr. McNeill had advocated, but which the Foreign Secretary promptly set aside. Such a project was; in truth, the
