text:  It was very well to say that it was unwise and impolitic and calculated to destroy the unanimity which was so essential to the Government of India to issue public information as to the reasons for the withdrawal of an army although its advance was heralded by a declaration on all these points because the withdrawal of an army was supposed to terminate the operations; but in the eyes of India and Asia if the declaration of the noble earl dated from Simla on the same day of the same month of a preceding year had remained as a record of British policy after that declaration had been followed by a campaign brilliant at its commencement but as delusive as brilliant and terminated by a most awful tragedy and by the greatest disaster that ever befell the British forces--was it unbecoming in a Governor-General to state that the views and policy of the Government of India had changed and that the Government no longer wished to interfere in the policy of Affghanistan its motives for so doing having passed away on finding that the king represented to be so popular was unpopular? But there was another circumstance which called for Lord Ellenborough's declaration namely the necessity of allaying the apprehensions and fears of other states; and it was Lord Ellenborough's duty to do this