.

"Her Majesty having been pleased to form a new Administration, we
think it expedient that no step should be taken with respect to
Herat which would have the effect of compelling the prosecution of a
specific line of Policy in the countries beyond the Indus, until
the new Ministers shall have had time to take the subject into their
deliberate consideration, and to communicate to us their opinions
thereupon.

"We therefore direct that, unless you should have already taken
measures in pursuance of our Instructions of the 4th of June
1841--which commit the honour of your Government to the prosecution
of the line of Policy which we thereby ordered you to adopt, or which
could not be arrested without prejudice to the Public interests, or
danger to the troops employed--you will consider those Instructions to
be suspended.

"We shall not fail to communicate to you at an early period our fixed
decision upon this subject."

It was not possible to bring this subject before your Majesty's
confidential servants before the afternoon of Saturday the 4th. The
mail for India, which should have been despatched on the 1st, had been
detained till Monday the 6th by the direction of your Majesty's late
Ministers, in order to enable your Majesty's present servants to
transmit to India and China any orders which it might seem to them
to be expedient to issue forthwith. Further delay would have been
productive of much mercantile inconvenience, and in India probably of
much alarm. In this emergency your Majesty's Ministers thought
that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to approve of their
exercising at once the power of directing the immediate transmission
to India of these Instructions.

Your Majesty must have had frequently before you strong proofs of
the deep interest taken by Russia in the affairs of Herat, and your
Majesty cannot but be sensible of the difficulty of maintaining in
Europe that good understanding with Russia which has such an important
bearing upon the general peace, if serious differences should exist
between your Majesty and that Power with respect to the States of
Central Asia.

But even if the annexation of Herat to the kingdom of Cabul were
not to have the effect of endangering the continuance of the good
understanding between your Majesty and Russia, still your Majesty will
not have failed to observe that the further advance of your Majesty's
forces 360 miles into the interior of Central Asia for th