Though personally unknown to you, I venture the liberty of addressing- you on a subject which, from a conversation I had some time since with my friend Sir Alexander Burnes at Cabool, I hope may not be uninteresting to you. I have been employed during the operations now completed against the forces of the Baruckzye family in Affghanistan, as aide-de-camp to M.-General Sir W. T. Cotton, who commanded a division during the war, and in my leisure hours have kept a rude journal of our proceedings during our long marches of upwards of 1700 miles. These have at last grown into a little volume, which is illustrated with some landscapes and military places, of which I may venture to speak in high terms, since they are not from my pencil, but that of my brother officer, Captain Kershaw of the 13th Light Infantry. Burnes is of opinion that the public in England will yet feel some curiosity about Sinde and Affghanistan, even after the appearance of Conolly’s* works and his own, and that the story of our deeds, though we managed to have but one fair fight, will likewise be interesting. This notion has induced me to trouble you with a letter, and to say, in short, that I propose to send my production to England overland to the care of a friend (as I cannot myself visit my native land before 1840), and that it is my wish, if you do not oppose it, that he should offer it for your perusal and acceptance. Should you honour it by deeming it worthy of publication, my correspondent will be authorized to treat precisely as if I were present. Whatever you may consider the book worth, my friend will receive, and hand over to you the manuscript and plates as your absolute property. I may mention, by the way, that I made my first appearance as an author twelve years ago, when I wrote a memoir of the three campaigns of Sir Archibald Campbell’s army in Ava. The work was published in India, and may never perhaps have
* ‘A Journey to the North of India, Overland from England,’ by Lieut. A. Conolly, who was murdered, in company with Lieut. Stoddart, at Bokhara during the Afghan war. |
| CAPT. HAVELOCK—MRS. JAMESON. | 445 |
