The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-10 00:00:00

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SUN ObTICE, Three

DEPARTURE

TROOPS FOR INDIA.

We have great pleasure in announcing that the Go-
vernment is about to send from eight to ten thousand
troops to India immediately. A more numerous force
may ba expected soon to follow ; so that the Governor-
General will lave troops enough at his disposal to re-
venge the injuries sustained by our arms in Affgh.,n-
istan, and particularly the murder of the British Envoy,
Sir IV3I. MACNACHTEN. The Government is deserv-
ing of the highest praise, for the promptitude which it
manifests on this great national occasion. We delight to
see Ministers remembering only that they are English-
men, and have the honour or their country to sustain.

The regular mails from India have now arrived, but we
regret to announce that a careful examination of them,
and a comparison of four several private accounts from
Bombay, all dated the Ist of February, has but served
to confirm the terrible news from Affghanistan, published
in The Sun of yesterday. The murders of Sir ALEXAN-
DER BURNES and Sir WILLIAM MACNAGHTEN the
compulsory return of Major M'LAREN to Candahar, after
a vain attempt to relieve the camp of Cabool—the inabi-
lity of Major-General Sir ROBERT SALE to form a junc-
tion before March or April with the late General EL-
PiUNSTONE'S army, reported to be in a periAing condi-
tion in the month of December, are official facts which
justify an apprehension of the dreadful results currently
reported and believed in Bombay at the departure
of the Indian mail. Some exaggeration there un-

deal: tedly is in. the report of the total massacre of
from live to six thousand British troops. No doubt
that if compelled to fight their way from the camp at
Cabool to Jellalabad, a distance of ninety miles, through
an almost impassable country, and surrounded by ene-
mies, the loss of our troops would be very great ;
but it is rational to suppose that two-thirds would es-
cape. Not that we should not regard such a result as a
very awful calamity, and one calculated to give a sad
blow to our dominion in India. The desperate condition
of the Camp at Cabool was -known to Sir R. SALE, and
Were the troops to evacuate it he mi:lht be expected to
push on a light force ft. distance of from thir:y to forty
raij.es to meet them, and cover their retreat. Their
great difficulty would be in getting through the Khoord
Cabool Pass, where 500 men could prevent the passage
of an army of 50,000. A re-inforcement of 8,000 men
were on their march to Jellalabad to reinforce SALE'S
brigade ; 10,000 men, under General Norr, were at
Caudahar, so that with the first melting of the snows a

British force would be at hand to revenge the murder
of our Ambassador by laying the city of Cabool in ashes,
and passing the plough over its very foundations. •
But we doubt whether we should gain anything
by this. The Affghans are a wild, fierce, warlike race,
strangers to fear, and indifferent to danger. With them
revenge is a virtue, and to die fighting against an enemy
' the most glorious death. We may devastate the coun-
try with fire and sword, but the inhabitants, who subsist
by their flocks, will betake themselves to their mountain
fastnesses to descend upon our armies with the eagle swoop
o destruction when lost in unknown defiles, and perish-
ing for want. of food. The experience of the last cam-
paign in Affghanistan ought to teach us that we have
not here the effeminate races of HindoAan to cope with.
The Affghan mode of warfare was then nearly as fatal
to the army of Lord KEANE as was that of Russia to the
grand army of NAPOLEON in 1812. So late as Octoberlast
the Belochees burned and destroyed Gundava, Dadur,
and the plains of Cutchee. To revenge these outrages
General Now, with 4,000 troops and a heavy 'train of
artillery, marched a distance of 300 miles upon Khelat,
their capital, And what did he find when he arrived ?
A town without a single inhabitant ! In the Oc-
tober following this Gallant Officer, at the head
of 230 men resolved to attack the Affghan insurgents in

the valley of Tereen. To move his artillery over the
heights, and through the deep ravines that inclosed the
valley cost him a month's incessant toil, and when he
had reached there was not an A ffghan to be seen
They had all fled with their flocks to the mountains,
only appearing when there was a gun to be seized,
or a few stragglers from the camp to be picked
off by their marksmen from behind rocks. Their mode
of warfare is to fly before the enemy, and destroy every
thing behind them. In this way they can destroy any
army without fighting, which is not • provided with the
means of supplying • itself with provisions, provender,
and sometimes even water—for every well is filled.
Notwithstanding the general indignation in India on
account of the murder of Sir WILLIAM MACNAGHTEN,
who bore the sacred character of an Envoy, a respectable
and influential portion of the Anglo-Indian Press, is
strongly opposed to a war with the Affghans. The
Bombay Times, for example, contends that all our mis-
fortunes arose from the unfortunat?, and criminal
blunder of setling up a cruel and detested fool, the SHAH
SooJAH in the room of the popular King DUST MOHAM-
MED, who offered us his friendship, if we would only prevail
on RITNJEET SIGH to restore him Peshawur, the key
of his domininions on the side of the Indus. " The
Affghan's," says that Journal, are defending themselves
a:;•ainst the invaders of their country and enemies of
their faith, who desire to impose a :iovereign on them
whom they despise and detest ; and to subject them
to burdens which they never brooked to boar at the hands
of their most populous Princes. The cause of Afighan
vengeance is the same in which the Spaniards fought
for eight centuries against the Moors ; which called
forth the heroism of Saragossa against the French ;
which foiled the First and Third Edward in their at-•
tempts on Scotland ; which made the defence of
Antwerp against the Spaniards the admiration of
Europe ; and which for centuries made the nervous arm
and mountain hold of the Swiss peasant too strong for
the serried legions of France and Aus:ria !" Much
of this is beside the real question -at issue, which
is, can we retain India, and not take signal
vengeance on the Afighans ? If th© murderer of
UKIITAR KHAN escape, shall we not have parodies of his
crime at half the native Courts of India, and first of all
at that of Burnish, should we again think •of sending
one there ?

It is not a little singular that in the nineteenth cen-
tary-, so remarkable for discoveries and improvements in
art end science, one class, and a class too that claims the
right of dictating . to all others, should be described
by one of their own body as little .better, in one
respect, than barbarians. Lord Ilowicx, last night,
denounced the system of agriculture in the greater
part of England a; " barbarous and neglected;" prac-
tical men cheered his Lordship, and the accused
tried to keep one another in countenance by shouts of
laughter. But facts are not to be disproved
in this manner. All who have attended care-
fully to the different systems adopted in the
northern and southern parts of this island, can
come to no other conclusion than that they are as differ-
ent as light is from darkness, - and that till a material
change takes place, the land in the south must remain
but half cultivated, the farmers be little better
than serfs, and the landlords continue to cry out for pro-
tection from the Legislature. What has made the com-
paratively barren land of Scotland valuable but the ad-
mirable systemof improvement, which has been entirely
created and fostered, by granting the tenant a large in-
terest in the profits, without the fear of being disturbed,
by the caprice or cupidity of the proprietor ? So .con
vinced were intelligent landowners in the north of the
vast benefit they derived from the system that it was no
uncommon practice to grant leases for thirty-eight, some-
tinrs fifty-seven years, and not unfrequently for three lives,
n a heavy outlay was required to bring the land
into cultivation. And what was the result ? The land
in some ten or fifteen years was brought into a state of'
high cultivation, roads were made, plantations sprung up
on :he i and whole districts that were little better
than wastes or common:, were converted into arable farms
)ielclin3 a rental ten times greater than at the coin-
inenccinent of the lease. With such examples before
them, and with such certain advantages, the English
landlord who adheres to the old exploded system
is justly denounced as little better than a barbarian.
He cries out for protection solely because he
is idle or sluggish, and allows others to outstrip him.
The late election was a noble exemplification of the fact.
While in England the ignorant tenants joined in the
selfish shout of their masters for monopoly, and•
returned monopolists for nearly the whole of the
counties, in Scotland the cry was " Leave us alone,
leave us to our own exertions, untrammelled by Acts
of Parliament," and suited the deed to the word by re-