Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/184

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178
LORD AUCKLAND

tried their hardest to carry Craigie's stronghold by escalade. Again and again they swarmed up to the parapets, only to be swept down by grapeshot and bullets, or to be thrust back by unerring bayonets; until at last they withdrew despairing from a struggle which had cost them several hundred lives. Not one of Craigie's men had been killed.

While Pollock was waiting near Jamrúd for his English dragoons and horse artillery, and Clerk at Lahore was urging the Sikh Government to heartier efforts in aid of their allies, Major Outram, as our agent with the Sind Amírs, was active in furnishing Brigadier England with all needful means for the march of a strong brigade to Quetta, in charge of ample treasure and supplies for the Kandahár garrison. By the end of February England was encamped at Dádar ready for a forward move. On the 28th of the same month the new Governor-General landed at Calcutta and took the oaths of office in Government House. A fortnight later Lord Auckland began his homeward voyage, broken in health and spirits by the disastrous issues of his Afghán policy, but cheered by many parting demonstrations of sympathy and goodwill for a ruler who left behind him no personal enemies and numerous friends.

An exhausted treasury and an increasing debt were his chief legacies to the country he had gone out to govern with very different prospects six years before. The engrossing pursuit of a foreign policy, in which he had never heartily concurred, left him little leisure