text: " Is it in the power of words to convey a clearer admission that the pledge embodied in Lord Auckland's manifesto--"to withdraw the British army as soon as the independence and integrity of Affghanistan should be secured by the establishment of the Shah"--was in fact mere moonshine: and the real object of the expedition was the conquest of a country advantageously situated for the defence of our Indian frontier against (as it now appears) an imaginary invader? Thus Napoleon in December 1810 alleged "the necessity in consequence of the new order of things which has arisen of new guarantees for the security of my empire " as a pretext for that wholesale measure of territorial spoliation in Northern Germany which from the umbrage it gave Russia proved ultimately the cause of his downfall: but it was reserved for us of the present day to hear a _British_ minister avow and justify a violent and perfidious usurpation on the plea of political expediency