back overland to Maskat by Captain Thompson in person, eight days after the fight.
There can be little doubt that the cause of Captain Thompson's defeat was the misbehaviour before the enemy of the officers and men under his command—though in the opinion of the court-martial—while he was "honourably acquitted" of the other charges—he was deserving of a reprimand for "having addressed an Official Report to Government, in which he unjustly, and without foundation, ascribed his defeat to the misbehaviour before the enemy of the officers and men under his command."
I will not presume to offer any opinion of my own on the question, but I will give from the letter of 28th March, 1884, already quoted, the words of a veteran soldier, respecting this case of an English officer having to lead troops who, instead of, like the English troops, as Wellington said, getting a man out of a mistake if he made one, would get a man who had made no mistake into a disaster which nearly broke his heart at the time, and left traces for life on his mind and spirits. There is this difference between the Government of India of 1820, and the English Government of 1883-4, that the Government of India of 1820 left Captain
