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Updated: October 4, 2025
Then, and little wonder, he objected to expressions in the draft letter as too abject, and he was successful in procuring the alteration of them. The letter was written out, signed by Macgregor, and despatched to Cabul. It was agreed that those members of the council who chose to do should record in writing the reasons for their votes, and this was done by Dennie, Monteath, Abbott, and Broadfoot.
Next day Sale and Macgregor urged that it was impossible to hold out much longer, that later retreat would be impracticable, and that the scheme they proposed was safe and honourable. Broadfoot denounced it as disgraceful, contended that they could hold Jellalabad indefinitely 'could colonise if they liked' and retreat at discretion.
While she and Pen were whirling round as light and brisk as a couple of opera-dancers, honest Captain Broadfoot and the lady round whose large waist he was clinging, were twisting round very leisurely according to their natures, and indeed were in everybody's way.
Broadfoot continued to press modifications of the conditions set out in the proposed reply, pleading, but in vain, that the restoration of the prisoners in Afghan hands before departure of the garrison should be insisted on; and that since evacuation was resolved on, it should at least be conducted as a military operation, and not degradingly under escort.
Broadfoot went for information, in the first instance, to Colonel Monteath, who could give him no orders, having received none himself. Broadfoot then went to the General. Cotton's successor in the chief military command in Afghanistan was poor General Elphinstone, a most gallant soldier, but with no experience of Indian warfare, and utterly ignorant of the Afghans and of Afghanistan.
Reappearing in great numbers, they fell furiously upon the British rearguard, and for a time the men thus suddenly assailed were in a state of terrible disorder. The energetic efforts of the officers, however, brought them back to a sense of their duty. Broadfoot, Backhouse, and Fenwick rallied and reanimated them.
"I considered it probable that some act of aggression would be committed by parties of plunderers, for the purpose of compelling the British government to interfere, to which course the Sikh chiefs knew I was most averse; but I concurred with the Commander-in-Chief, and the chief Secretary to the Government, as well as with my political agent, Major Broadfoot, that offensive operations, on a large scale, would not be resorted to.
'I for one, he exclaimed in great agitation, 'will fight here to the last drop of my blood, but I plainly declare that I will never be a hostage, and I am surprised that anyone should propose such a thing, or regard an Afghan's word as worth anything. The resolution to treat for the abandonment of Jellalabad was carried, Oldfield only voting with Broadfoot against it, but the stipulations: regarding hostages were omitted.
The Governor-General in Council, in a despatch to Major Broadfoot of the 25th January 1845, entered into very full explanations, which were conveyed to the Lahore Vakeel. "As regards the past, it is clear that no cause of complaint has been given by the government of India.
Captain Broadfoot and his sappers turned fiercely round more than once, and inflicted vengeance for this treachery; and Colonel Dennie, in the end, dexterously decoyed the enemy away from their walls into the open plain, and then the cavalry, under Captain Oldfield and Lieutenant Mayne, charging among them with headlong valour, strewed the ground with 150 slain.
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