I further instituted two Courts--one political, consisting of Colonel Macgregor, Surgeon-Major Bellew,[3] and Mahomed Hyat Khan, a Mahomedan member of the Punjab Commission, and an excellent Persian and Pushtu scholar, to inquire into the complicated circumstances which led to the attack on the Residency, and to ascertain, if possible, how far the Amir and his Ministers were implicated.

The other, a military Court, with Brigadier-General Massy as president, for the trial of those Chiefs and soldiers accused of having taken part in the actual massacre.[4] Up to this time (the middle of October) communication with India had been kept up by way of the Shutargardan, and I had heard nothing of the approach of the Khyber column.

It was so very necessary to open up the Khyber route, in view of early snow on the Shutargardan, that I arranged to send a small force towards Jalalabad, and to move the Shutargardan garrison to Kabul, thus breaking off communication with Kuram.
Colonel Money had beaten off another attack made by the tribesmen on his position, but as they still threatened him in considerable numbers, I despatched Brigadier-General Hugh Gough with some troops to enable him to withdraw.

This reinforcement arrived at a most opportune moment, when the augmented tribal combination, imagining that the garrison was completely at its mercy, had sent a message to Money offering to spare their lives if they laid down their arms! So sure were the Afghans of their triumph that they had brought 200 of their women to witness it.

On Gough's arrival, Money dispersed the gathering, and his force left the Shutargardan, together with the Head-Quarters and two squadrons of the 9th Lancers, which had been ordered to join me from Sialkot, and afterwards proved a most valuable addition to the Kabul Field Force.
I was sitting in my tent on the morning of the 16th October, when I was startled by a most terrific explosion in the upper part of the Bala Hissar, which was occupied by the 5th Gurkhas, while the 67th Foot were pitched in the garden below.