The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-27 00:00:00

RECAL of LORD ELLENBOROUGH.

FROM TII MORNING PAPERS OF TIMIS DAT.
POST.—It will be seen from our Parliamentary report
that, in answer to questions put to Government last night in
both Houses, Lord Ripon in the Lords, and Sir Robert Peel
in the Commons, stated officially the recal of Lord Ellen-
borough by the Court of Directors of the East India Com-
pany. This act of the Directors, it seems, is strictly justified
by the legal power vested in them ; but Lord Ripon not
merely announced the recal, as Sir Robert Peel did—he
added, that it had not received the sanction or approbation
of her Majesty's Government. It would be ill-timed, at the
present moment, to discuss the propriety or otherwise of such
a law; we cannot but think, however, that there is some-
thing ungracious in making the recal of the Governor-
General the immediate sequel of his brilliant successes. About
a month ago it was generally understood in political society
that, whenever Lord Ellenborough should cease to exercise
his high office, he was to be succeeded by Sir James Graham,
who, in that case, would be raised to the Peerage by the
title of Lord Netherby. Of course, we are not in a position
to say whether the rumoured arrangement will now take
effect.
TlMES.—Amidst the animated personal discussions in
which the House of Commons is at present absorbed, we
might be pardoned for omitting to be startled at any political
event of merely ordinary strangeness. Like the combatants
at the battle of Thrasymene, we are too well occupied to ob-
serve a mere earthquake. But if every man had his hand at
his neighbour's throat and his fist at his neighbour's face, he
would yet find time to stop and be astounded at the following
announcement, unexpected and unexplained, of Sir Robert
Peel. " I beg to state," said the Right Hon. Baronet, " that
on Wednesday last her Majesty's Government had received a
communication from the Court of Directors that they had
exercised the power which the law gives them, to recal at
their will and pleasure the Governor-General of India."
There it is, gentlemen of the House of Coinmons, beginning,
middle, and end—mukum in parro—make what you can of
it. For ourselves, we cannot make much. Nor, indeed, did
either House. They don't seem to have got beyond "ob-
stupue're omnes." Lord Normanby and 111 r. Macaulay said
that, in that case, they would wait for Lord Ellenborough's
arrival before they began talking about Gwalior, and there
was little further meddling with the portentous statement.
The first question is, what is this for? Lord Ellenborough
has done many things—wise and foolish—good, bad, and in-
different ; which of them has brought his term of government
to this violent death? Has he conquered too much or too
little—has he jobbed, or has he refused to job? Has he in-
sulted the Chairman, or has the (once) great Mogul com-
plained of him? Or is it simply that the staid elderly gen-
tlemen cannot stand the pace he goes ? Is the crime some-
thing that we do, or that we don't yet know? Do his col-
leagues back him up, or deliver him over to the will of the
enraged Lady Koompani? Have the Directors flown in the
face of Sir Robert, or is Sir Robert not so ill pleased to get
his wild elephant well out of the harness? All is as-yet mys-
tery—mere black and impenetrable cloud, with this one flash
of lightning ;—not a hint, not an indication of any body's
meaning or intention.' But the truth must soon be out, and
then we shall see what we shall see. For ourselves, we own
to some considerable disappointment—not quite so great as
• that of Lord Ellenborough, but still'very considerable. That
Nobleman's course has been as puzzling and almost as amus-
ing as a romance. "What next ?" is an anxious question to
be always asking, but is a very interesting one ; and since
Lord Ellenborough has been in India, it has met us at every
turn. The Noble Lord's deeds, words, and circumstances
conspired to suggest it. The Affghan retreat—the procla-
mation of Somnauth—the occupation of Sinde—the rebel-
lion of the Punjaub—the reduction of Gwalior—all forced
upon us the same alarming question—" What next?" And
in most of these cases we have still to receive the answer.
For ourselves, we frankly confess our speculations have run
into twenty different channels. At first the English ruler
seemed a little bitten by Islamism. His talk was of the great
works of peace left behind them by the great Mahometan
rulers of India, and we began to consider how he would look
in a turban, and what the Company would think of a Maho-
metan Governor-General. Then came a Hindoo fit. The
gates of Somnauth seemed to have operated as a conversion.
The Governor-General began to coquet with hundred-armed
idols, and to call the Princes of Malwa his brethren. He
seemed on the edge of Polytheism. Whether he was more
likely to enter into Hindoo mythology as deity or devotee—
whether he was to gladden the Peninsula as a thirty. third
incarnation of Vishnu, or edify it by a display of gorgeous
Brahminical ascetism, it lay in the womb of time to show ;
but the most unimaginative mind could scarcely look with-
out an undefined mixture of wonder and apprehension at the
Oriental glow which was collecting, after a somewhat curi-
ous fashien, around Lord Ellenborough's vigorous and succes-
ful career. Lately his course has been of a definite, but
more commonplace kind. It has been his pleasure to be the
idol of the army. He has been prodigal of battles, honours,
sugar-plums, and crosses of gun-metal. He has been present
with the army of Gwalior in their great fight. He has heard
the cannon-balls whiz about his own ears—has smelt powder
and expressed his satisfaction thereat. Unsatisfied with the
mere statesman-like office of directing operations from
Calcutta or Allahabad, he came forward in person
to win the hearts of the soldiery on the field of battle, and
appears to have had considerable success. Considering his
Lordship's aspiring temper, and the apparently unsettled
state of his mind, we really could hardly be surprised at hear-
ing that Leadenhall-street actually apprehended the corrup-
tion Of its Sepoys, and had interposed in this unaccountable
hurry lest Lord Ellenborough should open a novel and
dazzling career to himself, by an announcement of hiS in-
dependence. More incredible things have happened in this
wonderful world, than that an English Governor-General
should have turned the army against its paymasters, and
under a new Persian name have startedforth as the founder
of a new military empire. Meantime it argues very consi-
siderable confidence in their subordinate officers, that the East
India Direction should have dared at the present moment to
remove from the head of affairs a man of singular know-
ledge, energy, and industry ; who is in process of carrying
out with success, if not always with principle, a large and
bold course of policy. At the present moment, it is true,
we are triumphant everywhere. But Affghanistan and
Persia are lowering. Sinde is muttering. Our Sepoys who
are sent there are being broke down by disease. Those
whom we wish to send are showing uncomfortable
symptoms of mutiny. The Punjaub is distracted, lawless,
and hostile ; Gwalior is beaten, but unsettled; and
Lord Ellenborough, who has not yet added to his delin•
quencies that of failure, keeps his plans to himself, and lets
nobody know what he is moving for. In such a crisis it is a
bold, we hope it will not prove an imprudent procedure, to
recal the Governor-General, and leave his game to be played
out by the civil servants at Calcutta or by an inexperienced
successor, fresh from the Home-office or any other position
in the Administration, in which a vacancy may be
nient to the Premier. When Lord Ellenborough's actual
administration of the affairs of India is .to cease we doanti-
know. Lord Normanby and Mr. Macaulay app
to
cipate a very , summary termination. Their postponement
of motions respecting Gwalior appears to indicate an expehcia-
tation of a hostile meeting before the end of the s
ession.e Ti
s
we can scarcely suppose possible. Lord lug
movements are rapid, but a Governor-General on
from India has something more to do than to p
t
clean shirts into his portmanteau and to order out an ex
ra
sttaa rt
fewia
Government steamer; and his habits of personal interference
make it certain that he will have an unusual amount of ex-
planations, directions, and recommendations to bequeath to.'
his successor—an unusual number of loose threads to fasten
pendingoff, inildisosifon. tu
about it. For the present we must end where we began—e in
enterprises to
ma put into
en a
w he tku shape apme for
e
amazement.
HERALD.—It was last night announced, in each of the
Houses of Parliament, that the Court of Directors of the
East India Company have determined upon the-recal of the
present Governor-General of India. This step takes us, as no
doubt it will the country, by surprise. What are the rea-
sons for Lord Ellenborough's recal we know it ; • but this shall
not prevent our acknowledging his inestimable services.
" You cannot stop here ; you must go forward," were the
words with which Lord Clive expressed his prophetic view
of the irresistible force of circumstances which subsequently
carried us on to the empire of Hindostan. It was in vain
that the Legislature, by the resolutions of 1784, that to pur-
sue schemes of conquest and extension of dominion are mea-
sures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and the policy of
the nation, attempted to avert Lord Clive's prediction ; for
our largest and most frequent acquisitions of territory have
been made since that declaration was embodied in an Act of
Parliament. Lord Cornwallis first went out to India in 1786,
with this declaration ringing in his ears, and resolved to
avoid all the errors of Warren Hastings ; he had scarcely
surveyed his Government ere he himself proposed a war,
which ended in largely adding to its territories. So with
Lord Amherst, distinguished for moderation and pacific views ;
he was compelled to add vast unpeopled provinces and track-
less unhealthy forests, beyond our natural boundaries, to our
empire. Who so devoted in profession to the "victories of
peace" as Lord Auckland ? And yet he involved us in an'
attempt to subdue Central Asia, and to become a trans-Indian
power. Lord Ellenborough embarked with the words
" peace ! peace 1" on his lips, and he has annexed Sinde to
our dominions, and coerced Mahratta insubordination and
rebellion into quiescence and obedience. "The most eminent
statesmen," remarks Sir John Malcolm, in his "Political
History of India," "whether they learned their lessons in
England, or gained their experience in India, have uniformly
concurred in the opinion that extension of territory was not
only undesirable but hurtful. Those to whom the local go-
vernment of our Eastern empire was entrusted have had
every motive to preserve peace, and to avoid war. Never-
theless, they have almost all engaged in war, and those who
have avoided doing so have confessedly left it as an inheri-
tance to their successors." Still more decisive is the language
of James Mill :—" Both the British Legislature and the East
India Company have," said he to the Commons' Committee,
on the last renewal of the Company's charter in 1832, " de-
clared very strougly against extending our conquests ; bat
every now and then it has happened that- those conquests
were pressed on the India rulers as a species of necessity.
All our wars cannot, perhaps, with propriety be con-
sidered wars of necessity; but most of those by which the
territories we possess have been obtained, and out of
which our subsidiary alliances have grown, have been wars,
I think, of necessity, and not of choice. For example, the
wars with Tippoo and the Mahrattas." And this matured
opinion of the historian is the more authoritative, because
there is scarcely a war which Mr, Mill does not, in his great,
but wrong-headed work, condemn, and of all his rash con-
deniations therein, there are none, perhaps, stronger, than
those relating to the very examples of wars of necessity which
he thus gave to the Committee in question. But whether
Lord Ellenborough's have been wars of necessity or not—and
.that they were, we are profoundly convinced and perfectly
ready to demonstrate—this much is certain, that in the whole
range of our Indian history hone. have been more quickly
consummated or more gloriously conducted. And the vic-
tories of our Anglo-Indian army under his administration
have not been gained over the weakest, the least skilled, or
the most tumorlike tribes of Asia; but Over the most mai-