the inglorious and costly operations, which lie before us, with more disgust than I can express.'
The quarrel went briskly forward. In the summer Lord Canning received instructions to prepare for the despatch of an army from Bombay, and in November war was officially declared. The choice of a commander for the expedition and the details of its equipment necessarily involved much thought, talk, and correspondence, and made a formidable addition to the numerous and varied administrative topics which, in the ordinary course, called for the Governor-General's attention.
A war with Persia involved a thorny question as to the aid that should be given to the Amír of Kábul — whether he should be helped at all, and if helped, to what extent and upon what conditions. The English authorities were of opinion that a blister to Persia might, with excellent effect, be applied from the side of Kandahár. Herbert Edwardes, stationed on the frontier, warmly advocated the project of an alliance with the Amír. At the beginning of 1857 a treaty, negotiated by Sir John Lawrence and Edwardes, bound the old Dost by a tie which, happily, he observed conscientiously through times when the hostility of Kábul, in the rear of the English, would have added disastrously to the difficulties of the situation. 'I have made an alliance with the British Government,' he exclaimed, when the treaty was signed, 'and, come what may, I will keep it till death.'
