The Sun. — 1842-09-07 (London, England)

POST.—We still find the shameless organs of the shameless Whigs bellowing about Indian affairs, and endeavouring to drown, by an exhibition of drunken fury, those calm reflections which occur to every man of common sense in England. The absurd and unjust policy of the Whigs has done all the mischief in India which it is now so difficult to repair. The invasion of Affghanistan was, from the beginning, an absurd and unjust measure, which could not come to good. The evil it has brought about has been, indeed, more sudden and more tremendous than even the least hopeful could have calculated upon, but an ultimate result of evil was foreseen by every prudent man—every man who was not intoxicated by the same dreams which carried away such politicians as Lord. Palmerston, Sir John Hobhouse, and that dull, well-meaning agent of theirs, Lord Auckland. The world rings with the disasters and ',disgraces of this Affghan war, while the political promoters of it, instead of bowing their heads in humiliation and sorrow before a justlyoffended public—instead of humbly seeking pardon for the rash ignorance, and the paltry, grasping, unworthy, spirit which have led to results so calamitous crown their grievous fault by an audacity at once boisterous and contemptible. Working themselves up into an artificial fury, which seems to own the parentage both of extreme spitefulness and *strong drink, they express the most extravagant rage that their policy should not have been still pursued. Because the monstrous folly of which they were guilty is not repeated, they will have it that the fault is entirely with those who will not go on in the wretched course which already is strewn with the bones of our countrymen —of our countrymen who perished not in the victorious fight, nor even in the honourable defeat of a wellcontested field, but who were butchered in the trap whither the rash policy of the Whigs had led them. We find a great deal of rent in the Chronicle, the object of which is to defend exasperation and violence on the part of troops with arms in their hands, but we find no common sense. We do not see it explained how the march of British troops upon Caubul is to have the effect of rescuing the prisoners, or of doing them in any way any good. We do not find any statement to justify the supposition that the prisoners would be found at Caubul, supposing the British troops to reach that place. We do not find it shown that the advance of British troops upon Caubul would cause the prisoners to be taken to a more agreeable place, or to be more considerately treated. We do not see any attempt to prove that the consequence of putting another army in the power of Akbar Khan would be an extraordinary paroxysm of generosity in the breast of that chief, leading him not only to spare the second army after having murdered the first, but to give back the prisoners whom he selected out of the first army as hostages. But we are weary of dwelling upon the drunken rant of the writer of the Chronicle, the rather as lie no longer amuses us with revealing what he knows of the intentions of the British Cabinet, nor further acquaints us with the things which Sir Robert Peel dare not do in respect to Indian policy. We repeat that a preliminary step to the measures which British indignation (not blind headlong fury) should take against Akbar Khan .is the obtaining of the British prisoners now held by him. It is mere prudery and nonsense to pretend that there is anything unworthy in obtaining the release of those persons by other means than those of intimidation and force. We say it is quite palpable that intimidation or force cannot obtain theprisoners, even though it might destroy Akbar Khan. He may fall, but in his fall he will crush the prisoners if they still be in his hands. There is no humanity in the suggestion that the British army should press forward for the sake of the prisoners. It is not humanity which leads to the suggestion, but the eager desire of the Whigs to be avenged upon the savage chief who took advantage of their rash and imbecile policy, and proved the folly of British Government in the slaughter of British troops.