[36] Kane's Memoirs, p. 89. Coxe, vi. 53, 55; Disp. v. 421, 428.
[37] Kane's Memoirs, p. 92. Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 6th August, 1711. Disp. v. 428.
[38] Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 6th August 1711. Disp. v. 428. Coxe, vi. 60-65. Kane's Mil. Mem. 96-99.
[39] "No person takes a greater interest in your concerns than myself; your highness has penetrated into the ne plus ultra. I hope the siege of Bouchain will not last long." Eugene to Marlborough, 17th August 1711. Coxe, vi. 66.
[40] "My Lord Stair opened to us the general steps which your grace intended to take, in order to pass the lines in one part or another. It was, however, hard to imagine, and too much to hope, that a plan, which consisted of so many parts, wherein so many different corps were to co-operate personally together, should entirely succeed, and no one article fail of what your grace had projected. I most heartily congratulate your grace on this great event, of which I think no more needs be said, than that you have obtained, without losing a man, such an advantage, as we should have been glad to have purchased with the loss of several thousand lives." Mr Secretary St John to Marlborough, 31st July 1711. Disp. v. 429.
[41] Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 10th August 1711. Disp. v. 437.
[42] Coxe, vi. 71-80; Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 14th, 17th, and 20th August 1711; Disp. v. 445, 450, 453.
[43] Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 14th Sept. 1711. Disp. v. 490. Coxe, vi. 78-88.
[44] Victoires de Marlborough, iii. 22. Coxe, vi. 87.
[45] There were special reasons for the mutual hatred of these two brothers. One of the Amir's wives was a lady of the royal family of Sadozai, who, when the decline of that dynasty commenced, had attracted the attention of Sultan Mohammed Khan, and a correspondence took place between them. She prepared to leave Kabul to be married to him, when the Amir, who was also smitten with her charms, forcibly seized her and compelled her to become his wife. This at once created, and has ever since maintained, a fatal animosity between the brothers; and Sultan Mohammed Khan has often been heard to say, that nothing would afford him greater pleasure, even at breathing his last, than to drink the blood of the Amir. Such is the nature of the brotherly feeling now existing between them.—See Life of Dost Mohammed Khan, vol. i. p. 222, 223.