text:  After the last intelligence from India it is idle it is needless to attempt reasoning on the subject; to ask how we should have strengthened ourselves by the destruction of a powerful and (according to authentic intelligence) a really friendly chief in Dost Mahommed; how we could even have _occupied_ Affghanistan without a ruinous expenditure continual alarm and danger from a perpetual series of treachery and insurrection; and to what purpose after all of solid advantage! The whole policy of Lord Auckland was incontestably one of mad encroachment conquest and aggrandizement in utter ignorance of the character and exigencies of the times; the Duke of Wellington's memorable prediction is now far more than fulfilled! "_It will not be till Lord Auckland's policy has reached the zenith of apparent success that its difficulties will begin to develope themselves