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magazine or treasury; give up everything for lost; suffer unresistingly the communication between the town and cantonment (almost precisely the same distance in both cases) to be closed; let all this happen in Hindustán on June 2, instead of among the Afghán mountains on November 2, and does any sane man doubt that twenty-four hours would swell the hundreds of rebels into thousands; and that, if such conduct on our part lasted for a week, every ploughshare in the Delhi States would be turned into a sword? And when a sufficient force had been mustered, by bringing European regiments from the hills and native troops from every quarter (which could not be effected within a month at the very least, or in three at the rate we moved to the succour of Kandahár and Jalálábád), should we not then have a more difficult game to play than Clive had at Plassey, or Wellington at Assaye? We should then be literally striking for our existence, at the most inclement season of the year, with the prestige of our name vanished, and the fact before the eyes of imperial Delhi that the British forces, placed not only to protect but to overawe the city, were afraid to enter it.

'But the parallel does not end here. Suppose the officer commanding at Meerut, when called on for help, were to reply, "My force is chiefly cavalry and horse artillery; not the sort to be effective within a walled town, where every house is a castle. Besides, Meerut itself, at all times unquiet, is even now in rebellion, and I cannot spare my troops." Suppose that from Agra and Ambála an answer came that they required all the force they had to defend their own posts; and that the reply from Subáthu and Kasauli was, "We have not carriage; nor, if we had, could we sacrifice our men by moving them to the plains at this season." All this is less than actually did happen in Afghánistán, when General Sale was recalled, and General