I deeply regret to have to announce to you that General Brooke fell in a sortie from Kandahar on the Sixteenth of August. Pray accept my most sincere condolences on the terrible loss to yourself and to the country.
From Her Majesty the Queen.
Balmoral Castle,
August 27th, 1880.
Lt.-General Sir Henry Ponsonby presents his compliments to Mrs. Brooke.
He has been commanded to convey the Queen's sincere and earnest sympathy with her in her grief, and Her Majesty's sorrow at the loss sustained by Mrs. Brooke in the recent action near Kandahar, where the Queen has had to lament the death of so many brave officers and men.
The accounts which Her Majesty has received of Brigadier-General Brooke only increase her deep regret that she should have been deprived of the services of so gallant and worthy a soldier.