ed by Abdoollah Khan to several chiefs
of influence at Cabul, stating that it was the design of the
Envoy to seize and send them all to London! The principal
rebels met on the previous night, and, relying on the
inflammable feelings of the people of Cabul, they pretended
that the King had issued an order to put all infidels to death;
having previously forged an order from him for our destruction,
by the common process of washing out the contents of a genuine
paper, with the exception of the seal, and substituting their
own wicked inventions."

But this invention, though it was probably one of the means employed by
the conspirators to increase the number of their associates, can hardly
be admitted to account for the insurrection. The arrival of Akber Khan
at Bameean, the revolt of the Giljyes, the previous flight of their
chiefs from Cabul, and the almost simultaneous attack of our posts in
the Koohdaman, (called by Lieutenant Eyre, Kohistan,) on the 3d
November--the attack of a party conducting prisoners from Candahar to
Ghuznee--the immediate interruption of every line of communication with
Cabul--and the selection of the season of the year the most favourable
to the success of the insurrection, with many other less important
circumstances, combine to force upon us the opinion, that the intention
to attack the Cabul force, so soon as it should have become isolated by
the approach of winter, had been entertained, and the plan of operations
concerted, for some considerable time before the insurrection broke out.
That many who wished for its success may have been slow to commit
themselves, is to be presumed, and that vigorous measures might, if
resorted to on the first day, have suppressed the revolt, is probable;
but it can hardly be doubted that we must look far deeper, and further
back, for the causes which united the Affghan nation against us.

The will of their chiefs and spiritual leaders--fanatical zeal, and
hatred of the domination of a race whom they regarded as infidels--may
have been sufficient to incite the lower orders to any acts of violence,
or even to the persevering efforts they made to extirpate the English.
In their eyes the contest would assume the character of a religious
war--of a crusade; and every man who took up arms in that cause, would
go to battle with the conviction that, if he should be slain, his soul
would go at once to paradise, and that, if he