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not think I need occupy the time of your lordships by going back to the time of Dost Mahomed, but I may make one remark in reference to occurrences in Afghanistan which at the time of those occurrences painfully affected the imagination of this country, and of which unpleasant memories still remain. I say imagination, my lords, because the sufferings sustained by our troops in the war to which I am referring did not happen because the country was too weak to maintain her rights and put down all opposition by the sword, but because we were unfortunate. We were unfortunate in our political negotiators; we were unfortunate in our generals. (Hear, hear.) The commonest precautions were neglected, and from these causes, and not from any want of valour in the field, resulted those disasters which we all regret. (Hear, hear.) But, my lords, those occurrences did not permanently affect our relations with Dost Mahomed. Having been our prisoner and knowing our resources he was well affected towards us, and when he returned he was not influenced by any hostile feelings towards England; but circumstances obliged him to maintain silence and reserve. He had to consider not only himself but his country, and he felt obliged to maintain that attitude until he saw that his people forgot what they had suffered in the war. He then became a firm ally of the British Government. He felt our power, our position, and our resources, and in 1855 he entered into that treaty which is so well known to your lordships. As showing how implicit was his trust in the British Government, it is remarkable that while he by that treaty bound himself to regard our friends as his friends and his enemies as our enemies, there is no reciprocal declaration from us. And here, with respect to the papers in which this treaty has been printed, I wish, in answer to charges which have been made as to these papers, to say that no such papers were promised or asked for last Session. In reply to a question put in the other House to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the papers relating to Central Asia were promised, but those Indian papers never were promised. Neither were they ever asked for, but as soon as we saw that the complications between this country and Afghanistan were likely to become serious we saw that those papers would be important, and I gave
