We should like to know what the Indian Secretary has
done with Sir R. Napier's despatch of the 14th April ? It was directed to him, but he has never published it, though Sir S. Fitzgerald has given it to the press. It is a better one than the later one, and contains Sir Robert's real reason for attacking Magdala. He .could not help himself. Kassai, and the other Chiefs, the Galls Queens included, had assisted him in the full belief that he would -carry Theodore away, and if he had broken his promise, express or implied, the whole country would have been on him, and he would have had to fight his way back to Zoulla. Peace with Theodore would have been war with Theodore's rebels. That is unanswerable, and we can only wonder at the omission of the paragraph from the second despatch. Did Sir Stafford perchance use the scissors ?
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