INDIA : THE FRONTIER OF THE SUTLEDGE.

AN ingenious correspondent has been at the pains to run a parallel between the reverses of the Romans under Caesars in Parthia and the recent reverses of the British in the country of the Afghans. The parallel is sufficiently close to interest as curious, even though it did not convey the lesson that a great nation, which has suffered in an unwise and unjust attempt to extend its dominion by con- quest, may with perfect safety retire within its old frontier. Before the Indian Government interfered in the affairs of Cabul,

the British outposts on the North-west occupied the line of the Sutledge. In front was the Pnnjaub ; a not unfertile country, but intersected by deep and rapid rivers, and in possession of the war- like and independent Sikhs. To the right was the high table-land of Central Asia, with its numerous colossal mountain-ranges, barely practicable for a moderate army, and too barren to feed a large one. On the left was an extensive desert, reaching to the sea. A more easily-defensible frontier cannot be imagined. An invasion from the Sikhs or from the Chinese territories could occasion no alarm ; the Afghans and Beloochees were broken up into a thou- sand hostile clans ; Persia was scarcely able to maintain its own existence as a state ; and had Russia been the invading power, its attack must have been concentrated at a distance from its own frontiers, amid feeble allies or avowed enemies, upon the strong po- sition we have described ; the defenders of which could have been regularly, plentifully, and cheaply supplied with provisions and other necessaries, from the British dominions.

When the British troops advanced to place Smut SOOJAH on the throne, this advantageous position was wantonly thrown away. It was known that a strong detachment of the British army must for years be maintained in the country in order to keep him upon the throne. This detachment was isolated from British India by deserts and by the country of the Sikhs. It was certain that it would be an expensive matter to forward regular supplies to it ; and the line of communication might at any time be interrupted by local and comparatively paltry insurrections. And nothing was gained by incurring this additional expense and hazard. The Afghans and Persians were powerless as invaders ; had the Sikhs inclined to make predatory incursions into the British territory, the removal of a part of the British army to Cabul enabled them to do it with comparative ease and impunity ; and against an invading Russian force, the hills and vallies of Cabul were far less defensible than the line of the Sutledge. As a defensible arrangement the movement was madness ; and in no other way could the occupa- tion of the Afghan country benefit our Indian government. The commercial intercourse with the Western countries was too trifling to render it advisable to purchase its continuance, even if it had been endangered by Russian intrigue, at the expense of their per- manent occupation.

The advance beyond the line of the Sutledge was a false step ; and the sooner it is retracted the better. It may be alleged, that to retreat would evince weakness and encourage insubordination within the British territory, and predatory attacks from the neigh- bouring nations. Doubtless it would : but if the weakness be real, the danger will not be diminished by vain efforts to extend our do- minions, when we have not strength to retain what we have got ; and if it exist only in the imagination of our enemies, a few sharp lessons will soon undeceive them. The folly of Lord AUCKLAND and his advisers, aided in England by PALMERSTON and Honnousa has forced this equivocal appearance upon us ; but the British power in India is sufficiently strong to endure its consequences for the short time the doubt can last. Our only danger is in allowing false pride to induce us to persist in an unwise policy.

ENGLAND AND AFGHANISTAN, OR ROME BEYOND ITS BOUNDARIES.

There is a great similarity between our situation and that of the Romans, at the present time. We may observe with some profit how they acted under the same circumstances. The boundaries of the Roman empire were the Euphrates, the Rhone, and the Rhine. The Romans often passed the first of these rivers, and almost invariably got beaten. In the relations of the expeditions of CRASSUS and ANTONY into Parthia, there are passages which find themselves completely pa- ralleled in our Afghan expedition. Both European nations, the first of their time, the Romans and Britons, have had to face Eastern people of comparatively insignificant power. Both alike have had to pass good natural boundaries, the one the Euphrates and the desert, the other the Indus and the mountains. Both alike invaded the country of their antagonist, gave the cause of provocation, and had some reason to charge their enemies with the employment of treachery in their de- fence. The same merit in warfare belonged to the Romans and Eng- lish as compared with the Parthians and Afghans : the former were sure of victory in the open field and fair combat, where a few would overcome many, but could not be always superior under adverse cir- cumstances of their situation ; and if the one might be overwhelmed by sand, the other might be buried in snow. In the article on Parthia in the Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. xvi. page 2, we find, before the Romans, that the army of ANTIOCHUS Simms, consisting of 400,000 men, after the conquest of Parthia were entirely cut off, king and sol- diers, like the English in Afghanistan. The inhabitants, provoked by exactions, conspired together and arose simultaneously against the in- vaders ; who, having separated too far apart, were unable to join toge- ther in opposing the enemy, and were consequently destroyed in detail. The Parthians presented themselves in threatening collision with the Roman power ; but, overawed, had made an alliance with it ; which the Romans under CRASSUS first broke, by invading their country. Afterwards, both nations, whenever their interest, their policy, their love of glory tempted them, acted on the offensive. The Romans repulsed, the Parthians were sure to follow their retreat over the Euphrates, and return the compliment of invasion to Syria and even Asia Minor ; but, matched against Roman troops on their own territory, they were sure to get eventually beaten. However, the Romans did not think it always necessary to avenge their losses. They waited the chapter of accidents to turn the tables on the Parthians. It was not thought necessary to the honour of a Roman to turn Parthia into a desert or exterminate the natives ; nor to their moral influence over neighbouring countries that they should immediately avenge a triumph over their arms. CRASSUS was vanquished, put to death, and his body subjected to insult. The Parthians ironically remarked to the Romans on the probable consequence of eternal war between the two nations, by

putting to death their greatest General ; or else they seriously did intend to respect the person of Caessus, bat through mistake a fray ensued, and Citessus and his followers fell.

Change MACNAGWFEN into CRASSITS and OCTAVIUS the Roman Lieutenant into TREVOR, and circumstances reported near two thou- sand years ago of the former will suit the newspaper reports of the latter. The Romans charged the Parthians with treachery ; who in fact frequently used it to get their enemy into their hands : and it seems a law of nature that the abuse of force can only be opposed by fraud ;—the strength of the lion by the canning of the fox. The Parthians answered the charge of treachery by recriminating on the Romans their forgetfulness of conventions. The English were not attacked by the Afghans, and they invaded their country : there were independent countries between them ; and it may be doubted whether, if the Afghans came to any terms with the retreating forces of Eng- land, there would be any difference in the result : the British Go- vernment would be still actuated by the same political motives to make good their losses. This expedition of Citessus cost the Romans 30,000 men killed and taken prisoners : yet the Romans and JULIUS CESAR did not resent the death of CRASSUS or try to recover the cap- tives, but left the Parthians to take the initiation. The people of Syria, disgusted with the Romans, invited the Parthia' ns to their assistance; who not only overran Syria, but Asia Minor. Compelled to return into their own country by the Roman Generals, they defeated Aziroxv, who followed them, with a second loss to the Romans of 30,000 men. The retreat of ANToxv was similar to our recent situation in Afghanistan : though the Parthian monarch had agreed to allow the Romans to retire unmolested, he attacked them no less than eighteen times on their march. The Roman army began to desert ; and ANTONY would, it is said, have been left to himself, had not the Parthians, in a cruel as well as im- politic manner, murdered all those who fled to them, in the sight of the rest. The parallel to this is related in one of the back Asiatic journals, as having occurred to us in Afghanistan. The Parthians were sure to quarrel among themselves when they had defeated the common enemy of mankind, the Romans ; a practice among the Afghan tribes, and which we might be sure would occupy them if left to themselves. .ANTONY did not revenge his wrongs, nor the Romans wish to teach the Parthians what the last Asiatic journal proposes we should give in- struction in to the Afghans, "that war has its moral duties and obliga- tions." The Afghans might tell us they have already given us a lesson in right and wrong as between nations, which the Times newspaper says we never know till taught by our reverses. The Parthians some time after the check ANTONY had received, when they had settled their pri- vate quarrels, made war upon the Romans with their usual want of suc- cess. But, bearded as they were, the Romans found it politic not to resent injuries ; though, far from declining in strength, the empire was more vigorous than before, if we may judge from succeeding events ; for not long after, TRAJAN, on a slight pretext, invaded Parthia, and the Romans for the first time conquered that country. However, ADRIAN his successor withdrew his forces from those provinces beyond the Euphrates, and made that river his boundary. Under the Emperors VARUS and SEVERUS war was carried on between the Romans and Par- thians with alternate success. The Parthians commenced by invading the Roman territory, but had their own overrun by the Romans, who were forced eventually to retire. CARACALLA, by treachery and cruelty, provoked a war with the Parthians : but the Romans on his death sued for peace, and obtained it by giving up the prisoners and paying a large sum of money to defray the expenses of the war ; terms to which they now made the Parthians submit. Finally, this nation, that had suc- cessfully withstood the Romans when masters of the world, were con- quered by Russia : and though the Afghans might carry on a like career with the English, they would not upset or shake our empire there, as the French imagine. As in the case of the Parthians, the Afghans are more likely to fall victims to some neighbouring nation, and, to make the parallel complete, very probably Persia. Parthia pos- sessed many rich cities, and there was more temptation to the Romans to do her wrong than we have to persecute the Afghans ; who are poor though industrious people ; parts of their country, that we

propose to make a desert, being better cultivated than our own. The Romans never made a war of religion ; they were so tolerant that the prejudices of superstition never came into collision : but we carry them always with us, and the religions feeling of the Afghans is said to be against us ; whilst we propose to convert the war into a crusade, and from the animosity of the Hindoos to the Mahommedans, we flatter ourselves with the prospect of second- ing our object by stirring up the former, who are our Sepoys, with a crusade against the latter, who are the Afghans. The Romans thought of entirely conquering mountain-tribes, even in subjected provinces, and imposing on them regular taxation : many years have not passed since we brought the Highlands of Scotland to such a state ; and to establish these unprecedented exactions among the mountains of Afghanistan, was to act with a wilful blindness, and making custom, law, and regular government only extend oppression. However we may qualify invasion and conquest, tyranny and exaction, yet we can-

not excuse the slaughter of our allies the Ghilzies, by Major LYNCH ;

which at once makes up any difference between us and the Romans in their conduct towards the Parthians ; puts our proceedings on a par

with CARACALLA'S, who in a time of peace surprised the Parthians; and justifies the Afghans in their slaughter of MACNAGHTEN and troops. If we say the blood of our troops mast be avenged, we must consider

that, according to our own showing, we must have at least shotted, shelled, sniped, and slaughtered of the enemy many more than the 5,000 we calculate our loss at ; and therefore the scale of vengeance has still to be weighed in favour of the Afghans. We may say our national honour requires vengeance : but national honour near home, and at a distance, as the Romans thought, are very different things ; the latter can bide its time. We laughed at the French talking of national honour when we disregarded their feelings and interests by our beha- viour to them in our Syrian policy : they retired to their fortifications,

and increased taxation ; and Sir ROBERT PEEL points to increased es-

timates and a full treasury as the best means of insuring, as it will, if ne- cessary, enforce respect. The French always think that nations are to

pass out like their own conquests under NAPOLEON ; but GUIZOT, speak- ing on the subject of Turkey, remarked, that long-consolidated empires

did not decline so quickly as his countrymen calculated, who in the brief present of their lives crowd the events of ages. The Roman and the Greek empires took a long time to decline ; and though we may be at our highest, and people are apt in reading history to date a nation's decline from what they conceive to be the highest level of their great- ness, yet they do not calculate how long they remain fixed in that po- sition,—like the life of man, where you do not see the decay of nature till near the termination of his existence.

The Germans, on the other side of the Danube, invaded the Roman territories in their very earliest history : it was not till TasJAN, soon after whom the Romans showed symptoms of decline, that the Emperor passed the Danube ; and they were those very Germans who were the first conquerors of the Roman empire, when it fell under the Northern barbarians. The Romans never made permanent conquests in Germany on the other side of the Rhine.. The loss of the legion of Vaults may be likened to our reverses in Afghanistan ; but AUGUSTUS did not avenge it, and GERMANICUS did not march into their country till three years after the misfortunes of Vaitus. The Romans under GERMA- rums were not successful ; and all that be and succeeding Generals could do, was to pursue the policy which we propose to reenact in Afghanistan—set fire to their villages, towns, &c., and make a desert of the country. But as we are in fear of a power beyond, which the Romans were not, we had much better have a brave people and their pos- sessions between us and it, binding them by gratitude to us, than make a power always hostile to us and ready to join in any attempt against us, or leave an unpeopled desert, or broken power, making the paths clear and the way open to a Russian invasion of our Indian possessions.