Major Swayne, were sent off towards the Lahore Gate of the city, to try and effect a junction with a part of Shelton's force; but the attempt, begun with vigour, miscarried half-way, in the face of a numerous and well-armed foe, and of Shelton's failure to co-operate from the Bálá Hissár. 'The day,' says Lawrence, 'was frittered away in endless discussions and abortive proposals.' No attempt was even made to secure the two forts which lay between cantonments and the fort which held the whole of our commissariat stores. Nor was a foot moved in aid of Mackenzie, who had been left in charge of a commissariat depôt for the Sháh[1].
It is easy of course to be wise after the event, and large allowance may be made for Elphinstone in the first hours of a crisis which his political colleague had led him to regard as of little consequence. 'As brave a gentleman' — says Durand — 'as ever fought under his country's colours,' Elphinstone was now enfeebled in mind as well as body by a painful chronic disease; and the outbreak had found him preparing, at his own request, to resign a command for which he felt himself entirely unfitted. Instead of acting upon his own judgement, which was generally good, the kindly, courteous old gentleman turned to others for advice, floundered in a maze of jarring opinions, and let himself, in the words of Lady Sale, be 'swayed by the last speaker.' Major Thain, one of the best officers on his staff, soon desisted from offering advice which
- ↑ Kaye; Durand; Lawrence; Eyre.
