The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-05 00:00:00

and through which means I might have gained inforinl-
tion that might, possib;y, h-tve hem of 3)ob6:;
ssnce in the duties with which I had bean introArd by
her Majesty's Gave:nu:cot ; yet, for the li.c,ts,of com-
mon courtesy, I was, by implication, not only accustd
by the Bombay Government, in a letter to my address
under the signature of the Dr.'s brother-in-law ;
but in secret despatches from the same Government, to
the authorities in England, of having conspired with
Dr. Milne and the Raja's agents, against the British
Government. Notwithstanding, this very gentleman,
Dr. Milne, had been expressly authorised by the Su-
preme Government of India to explain the lt,ija's
case : yet, monstrous as it is, it does appear by the
papers now printed, that these expressly authorised com-
munications between the Raja and his adviser were
secretly and systematically intercepted by the subor-
dinate Government of Bombay, and now appear at
the India House, not as proofs of the Rija's guilt,
but of the unbounded confidence his Highness had
in the ultimate justice of that Government, which has,
however, unheard, consigned him from a throne to a
prison ; and it was through these machinations, and ru-
mours founded on them, that I was dragged into that
conspicuous position which Dr. Kennedy so errone-
ously attributes to my officiousness, instead of, pro-
bably, the officious malevolence of some of the Doctor's
friends.

Dr. Kennedy's assumption that, as a naval °nicer,

I must be ignorant of all that does not appertain to my
profession, is too contemptible to require remark ; I
notice it merely with the view of placing such a sps'ci-
men of arrogance in juxta-position with the humble
daties which this medical practitioner so modestly
assigns to himself, doubtless, in virtue of his medical

cameo, when he stands forth as the gratuitous promp-
ter of a Minister of the Crown, the discoverer of all
the real merit of those officers under whose command
la was but a very humble subordinate ; and who not
only dictates to, but finds fault with the confidential
advisers of his Sovereign, in the distribution of those
honours which were so nobly earned, and generally ad-
mitted to be as justly awarded.
I have never wished, Sir, to obtrude upon public at-
tention the proceedings of my official life ; but I now
feel called upon to establish that which 1 before had
occasion to assert, and which Doctor Kennedy has had
the audacity to deny, by stating in his book, " That I
never held a public situation that would draw a native
chief to apply for my assistance ;" whilst in the same
volume be tells us that he has not been asleep during
his twenty-nine years sojourn in India. But in truth, Sir,
it appears that the Doctor is only awake to those subjects
that suit the peculiar ends he has in view, and not only
slumbers but sleeps over facts that would have aided him
in the furtherance of truth.flad it not been so, Dr. Ken-
nedy must have known, by the public prints, that, for
the last six years, I have been frequently and, if, I be
permitted to say, distinguishedly employed in con-
rroLion with an Oriental Court ; I was especially ac-
credited by rne of these Courts, and conveyek as a
present from it a 74 gun-ship, one of the most Onspi-
cuous, if not valuable, gifts, I believe, that was ever
sent to a Sovereign of England. I had also been en-
trusted by my late Soveregn with a complimentary mis-
sion ; and at the very time when the Doctor presumes
to assail my conduct, I was empowered by her Ma-
jesty's Government to conclude, on behalf of Great Bri-
tain, a commercial treaty with an Oriental State. These,
Sir, are facts, at once as condemnatory of the Doctor's as-
sertion as they are incapable of distortion or mystification.
by the utmost aid of his ingenuity ; but lest the Doctor
should again be disposed to give his gratuitous advice
to one of the Queen's Ministers, let me inform hire and

his friends, that the President of the Board of Control
expressed to me sentiments directly opposite to those
with which the Doctor has so modestly assigned to him.
Dr. Kennedy's malevolence, however, is not only
directed at mP, but, under the same pitiful shield of
protection, attacks by vague and mysterious insinuations
the conduct of the Noble Lord who commanded the
campaign, as well as that highly talented officer Sir
Henry Pottinger, who conducted its civil and political
duties. The difference in our position seems this, that
the modest historian pointedly digresses from his subject
to assail my conduct, but apparently with a better grace
avails himself of the latitude of his office, to pour forth
on parties conspicuous in the campaign, those feelings
of well-known and long-engendered animosity against
his Commander-in-Chief, and to insinuate opinions to the
prejudice of Sir Henry Pottinger's arrangements, that
might be acceptable to a clique of his own friends,
whose policy and interests were alike opposed to those
of the worthy Baronet.
The spirit, Sir, in which this book is written, the
reckless flippancy with which its author disposes of
every subject upon which he treats, must be too appa-
rent to the reader to require observation, but gives a
fair estimate of its real value as an authentic record. I
appear, Sir, not as a reviewer, but in my own defence,
and shall, with one exception, leave its numerous ab-
surdities to the correction of others ; but, lest
British lives and property should fall a sacrifice to the
criminally incorrect assertions of Dr. Kennedy, regard-
ing the capabilities of the Horham Kurachy ; let me
caution the confiding mariner not to expect more than
.flfteenfeet, instead of the Doctor's eleven fathoms, at
the entrance of this port ; let him expect only an in-
tricate entrance to a small harbour for small vessels,
and no shelter whatever for ships of any magnitude ;
and let him regard its coast, during the south-west mon-
soon, as particularly dangerous.
In conclusion, Sir, I beg to assure you that I do not
envy the narrator of the " Sinde and Kaubool Cam-
paign," the laurels he may reap in the production of
this book, nor the influences under which he has
written it ; nor do I covet the feelings of the man who,
like Dr. Kennedy and his ancestors, owes a debt of
gratitude to India for the respectable position he fills
in society, and who can deliberately stigmatize in the
pages of history the sons of that soil, even when in
the capacity of his own servants, with the appellation
of " brutes ;" but I can pity the unhappy feelings of
him who would prostitute the energies of his pen in the
ostensible narration of an interesting campaign, and avail
himself by that means of the excitement of public in-
terest, to widely calumniate a party unknown, unoffend-
jog, far distant, and unconnected with his subject ; and
who employs the same covert means to gratify, at the
expense of his military superiors, those petty feelings
of revenge, the cause or existence of which he had
neither the generous candour to declare, or the prudent
sagacity to conceal.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
ROBERT COGAN.
Oriental Club, December 9, 1840.