The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WED:WESDA7YEVENI NG, APRIIA 29, 1846.

auxiliaries, and the unexpected occupation of Lahore,
completely silenced the murmurs of the disappointed,
and, taking all circumstances into account, the
conduct of Sir HENRY HARDINGE met at last with
very general approbation. The themes, however, are
again brought before the public in the reviews
and magazines, and the main topic for discussion is—
was the Governor-General justified in maintaining only
a small force on the banks of the Sutlej, unequal to
repel a large army of Seikhs, who might or might not
invade the British territory on the left bank ? With
one exception, as far as has fallen under our observa-
tion, the question is decided in the affirmative, on the
ground that we had no right to invade the Punjaub.
and that the assemblage of a large force between Feroae-
pore and Loodianah would have been an immediate
challenge to battle, which the Seikhs could not refuse.
This appears so evident, that the parties hostile to the
peaceful policy of the Indian Government, but whose
ire is entirely directed against their distinguished re-
presentative in Hindostan, cannot deny the conclusion,
and therefore have recourse to another ground of ac-
cusation, and blame the Governor-General, because
he is not a prophet, and could not foresee, what to
these wiseacres appears, after the event, a fact
about which a sound statesman and a prudent general
could not possibly have had any doubt. Sir HENRY
HARDINGE is, therefore, denounced by this party as the
most dangerous Governor ever sent out to the East, as
totally unfit for his situation, and the India Boad as well
as the Home Government are, with all due solemnity,
warned that to them will be owing the loss of our Indian
possessions, if they do not forthwith supplant this Quix-
otic ruler. These attacks, made in a periodical that occa-
sionally obtains correct foreign intelligence, would hardly
require any refutation ; but as they, possibly, may lead
those who will not, or cannot, form an opinion themselves,
to adopt those of the accuser, we are happy to give a
brief quotation from another periodical of high cha-
racter—the North British Review—which disposes of the
question in a very concise and conclusive manner.
" The whole case," says the writer, " as between the
Governor-General and his assailants, may be thus
briefly stated. It was desirable above all things to pre-
serve peace. There was nothing to warrant the supposi-
tion that peace could not be preserved. To have posted
a large army, sufficient to prevent the Seikhs from
crossing the river at any point on the immediate banks
of the Sutlej, would have provoked the collision which
it was so desirable to avoid. Therefore, Sir HENRY
HARDINGE did not move up the main body of his dis-
posable troops to the immediate banks of the Sutlej. Itr
other words, he did not, to avert an evil which there was
no just cause to anticipate, bring down upon himself
another of far greater magnitude, as certain and
as present as the other was conjectural and remote."
But if this does not satisfy the assailants, and if they
are capable of attaching any importance to the opinion
of a military man, when running counter to their own
preconceived opinions, they may, perhaps, doubt the
soundness of their own arguments, when they learn that
Major BnoADFooT, less than a month before the first
battle, stated distinctly that the "frontier was too long to
be defensible on all points by any force we can move,
and that our two posts on the frontier are strong
enough to maintain themselves till relieved." The
latter point is the main one at issue, and experience
has proved that they could maintain themselves. liad
Sir HENRY HARDINGE adopted the policy recommended
by such warlike writers, he would, by the middle of
October, have posted fifty thousand tree on the Sutlej.
There, they could not remain idle ; they could do no•
thing else than invade the Purjaub. In other words,
the Governor-General would have disobeyed the specific
instructions of the India Board and the Governroi nt, and
must, like his predecessor, have been recalled before his
time. There was no alternative. We cannot close
these remarks without giving another extract from the
review already quoted, because it contains so much
truth, conveyed in a Christian spirit, and because this
periodical, established by the leaders of the Free Chun: h in
Scotland, may be supposed to express the sentient nts
of a very large portion of the religious community,
nut only in the north, but i❑ England. It adopts not the
absurd principle that all wars are unjustifiable, but ad-
mits that they are consistent with Divine authority, when
under taken i❑ self-defence, and thus pays a high corn•
pliment to one who, though accustomed to battles from
his youth upwards, and still desirous of military plory,
could sink his own personal prepossessions in the accom-
plishment of a great Christian principle:—
"The British possessions in the East are already suffi-
ciently extensive. We shall do well to avoid further exten-
sions. Whether it lies in our power to say this or that line
shall be our bounday, and saying it, to go no further, God
alone can declare. We have nothing to do with 'inevitable
tendencies'—nothing to do with those doctrines of inherent
expansiveness which some writers are so owl of preaching.
Such tendencies, such doctrines, are beyond our control—be-
yond our comprehension. But human duty is clear and in •
telligible. In resolutely abstaining from measures calculated
to plunge the country into war, at a time when the pros-
perity of• the empire imperatively demanded the continuance
cf peace, Sir Henry Hardinge did his duty as a Christian
statesman ; and when the unprincipled presumption of our
enemies had precipitated the collision which he was anxious to
avoid, and a series of triumphant victories had placed the
Punjaub at his mercy, he declared that he never had been
actuated by lust of conquest—that he had never sought to
extend the limits of our British posseseions in the East, and
that now, in the hour of victory, he was determined to prove,
by his actions, the sincerity of his professions, he placed him-
self in the proudest position ever occupied by a Governor-
General, and nobly vindicated the character of Great Britain
from the charge of over-weening cupidity, as evidenced in
the aggressive spirit which has too often characterised its
dealings witk neighbouring states. To such forbearance—
just, generous, and politic, equally Christian and stateman-
like--history will do ample justice. Of such forbearance,
Englishmen have reason to be proud."

Again has the Prime Minister of England given evi-
dence of the noble liberality of reason and of heart with
which he is actuated ;n the exercise of his political in-
fluence. Again has he displayed the excellence of his
title to popularity ; and so full and generous are the
principles of his policy that that popularity will be
genuine and enthusiastic—it will be for the present
age and for posterity. It should be so, and
it will be so. Sir ROBERT PEEL has no little
felicity in disproving the calumnies and repuls-
ing the aspersions of his antagonists : and he
possesses this felicitous capacity for refutation, because
he also possesses a vast moral valour. His escutcheon is
integrity—his motto is " Open to conviction." We are
not uttering an eulogium upon the Premier ; adulation
would be as inapplicable to him as the exercise of it is
abhorrent to ourselves : we are simply recording a Par-
liamentary fact, and endeavouring—as an organ of that
people whose interest have been so daringly and ad-
mirably consulted by the Ministry—to render a tribute
of applause to one to whom such a tribute, in its most
earnest, and comprehensive, and heart-born sense, is
due. Affected panegyrics are for the party man ; but
words indicative of honest estimation and plain-spoken
regard are some amongst the almost innumerable re-
compenses of legislative probity. Sir ROBERT is now
no party man—he has flung personal considerations to the
winds—he has regarded selfish interests, when compared
with public interests, as only something to be trodden
into the dust and wholly contemned. What may be
considered as the noblest prerogative of a statesman's
power is the prerogative of acting boldly, with an eye
only to the welfare of the multitude submitted to its
s
government. That prerogative has been gloriously
over
rrcistehde by the gorfeat
ousrtategsairaacniousnowSovpEreidin
aiicNg.
Through " good report " and " evil report,"
through the jeers of a disappointed and
avaracious faction, and the confusion of vituperative
cries incident to great political revolutions, he has had
the courage to proclaim the exigencies, not of the mo-
ment, but of all time, not of this, but of every nation.
Nor is this the only signal of his moral intrepidity: he
has proceeded further in the denouncement of a vil-
lanoua abuse, and the substitution of a bold remedy—he
has spoken the whole truth—he has grasped the old
wooden-headed idol before which =any generations
had bent with reverence and submission—lte has uu-
cloaked its juggles, divulged its impotency, and de-
nounced its malign influence. The Juggernaut of Mo-
nopoly has been rolled into the mire, and by his
mediation a more wholesome and rational commercial
creed has been substituted. But it is not alone upon its
commercial effects that the merits of such a proceeding are based : its excellence eonsists more in the fact that
by its instrumentality a humanising spirit will pervade
nmen
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will be regarded in its true light, not as the
be-
cause his own individual interests were bound up in its
adoption ; it was beectuAe he saw in that measure a assurance of the general welfare, and not because he
recognised in it the promise of any personal emolument,
1 faction and to brave the convulsive opposition of a
l
that Sir RoBEnT PEEL dared to defy the animosity of a
party. He sacrificed
1 despairing " . the most fosiered
because h
associations of his career simply 9 perceived
such was an imperative debt to society, because the age
required such a movement. He had climbed the Chirn-
his survey was consequently
borazo of Experience, and
unclouded and enlarged. That was the motive of his
behaviour ; those were the principles to wbc.so united
was the innate bra-
impulse he became obedient i that