Directly I became Amir, and consulted their own good by making peace with you, they turned on me.

Now I detest them all, and long to be out of Afghanistan for ever.

It is not that I am unable to hold the country; I have held it before and could hold it again, but I have no further wish to rule such a people, and I beg of you to let me go.

If the British Government wish me to stay, I will stay, as their servant or as the Amir, if you like to call me so, until my son is of an age to succeed me, or even without that condition; but it will be wholly against my own inclination, and I earnestly beg to be set free.'] [Footnote 3: Dr.Bellew was with the brothers Lumsden at Kandahar in 1857.] [Footnote 4: My action in endorsing the proceedings of this court, and my treatment of Afghans generally, were so adversely and severely criticized by party newspapers and periodicals, and by members of the Opposition in the House of Commons, that I was called upon for an explanation of my conduct, which was submitted and read in both Houses of Parliament by the Secretary of State for India, Viscount Cranbrook, and the Under-Secretary of State for India, the Hon.

E.Stanhope.