ROBERTS, Frederick Sleigh, 1st Earl (1832-1914). Field Marshal.
Important Autograph Letter Signed as commander-in-chief in India to Lord Reay, Governor of Bombay, discussing the options for Afghanistan, 3½ pages 4to, 19 March 1886. Written from Simla and, not surprisingly headed 'Private', the letter accompanied two papers on the Afghan situation and Bombay defences (no longer present), and discusses their content.

'... The first I wrote more than 2 years ago in the hope of drawing the attention of Lord Ripon's government to the necessity of pushing on the railway to Quetta, and of being prepared for the reoccupation of Kandahar, an event which I believe must come to pass ere very long.
The second Paper I was induced to write last spring, when it seemed to me likely that a Force would be sent to Herat without Lord Dufferin's government thoroughly recognizing the difficulties it might have to encounter.
I have enclosed in the same cover a short memorandum on the Bombay defences. I was glad to find that Sir Charles Arbuthnot and the two officers of R[oyal] A[rtillery] and R[oyal] E[ngineers], sent specially from England to report on Harbour defences, took much the same view as I had formed on this important question. If we are to trust mainly to an active defence for the protection of the harbour, it is very necessary that we should have men at hand for placing on board the several vessels, gunboats, steam launches etc. It might, I daresay, be arranged to have a Battery of Marine Artillery at Colaba in lieu of one of the garrison Batteries ordinarily stationed there. ...'

Roberts concludes the letter with detailed suggustions as to how a naval volunteer force might be formed.
[No: 21080]