The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-28 00:00:00

LORD ELLENBORO UGH.
(From the Morning Herald.)
Tr. fmr re,. A:1;z ni, p^tr!,lo.
brought out to prejudice the defence of the late Go-
vernor-General of India, and upon the equally dis-
graceful use made of that pamphlet by the Times, we
said that it was neither our duty nor our wish to in-
culpate the Court of Directors. We have to-day the
gratifying opportunity to acquit these gentlemen of
all suspicion of any connexion with the author of that
pamphlet, or with his usher and auxiliary in the Times.
One and all the Directors disclaim a knowledge of the
author of the pamphlet or of the Times' writer. The
suspicion on the subject that in the minds of some
thoughtless persons for a moment attached to the
Honourable Court, has upon their indignant dis-
I claimer, devolved upon Lord Auckland, we believe
I unjustly. Lord Auckland, whatever his other quali-
fications for the high office that he lately held, is a
man of honour ; and no man of honour could involve
himself in this dirty affair, were there not other insur-
mountable barriers between Lord Auckland and the
Times. There is no reason, indeed, to suppose that
the pamphleteer and his usher (if they are not the
same person) rank in station, as he or they certainly
do not rank in ability or honesty, above the common
class of mean and spiteful persons who constitute the
order of writers of " letters to the Times," and " own
correspondents" of the Times. It is as easy to mag-
nify a dismissed and discontented footman into an
Indian Director or an ex-Governor-General, as to
multiply a raw chaplain into " three naval officers" of
experience. As in the case of the Indian Directors,
so in the case of Lord Auckland, we are unwilling to
identify the vindication of Lord Ellenborough with
the condemnation of another. The conduct of the
Noble Earl has substantive merits of its own quite
sufficient to support his claim to the honours which
his Sovereign has conferred upon him, and to the
gratitude which his country will render in full mea-
sure when the whole truth shall be known, without
borrowing aid from the errors of his predecessor in
office. Of those errors we should not say one word
on the present occasion were not a reference to their
effect rendered necessary by the impudent falsehood
asserted by the Times, that the Earl of Ellenborough
found a triumphant campaign prepared for him upon
his arrival in India. A few words, indeed, will
suffice to confirm the expectation of victory ! and
triumph 11 which we have already given in the glow-
ing language of General Napier. A few words will
prove that if Lord Auckland was preparing for his
successor a triumphant campaign, he was preparing it
by an arrangement for an ignominious and a final re-
treat. On the 3d of December, 1841, Lord Auck-
land, anticipating the fall of Cabul, addressed a dis-
patch to Sir Jasper Nioolls, stating that, as after
Cabul had fallen, there would be no inducement "to
retain the remainder of the country, it would become
the duty of the military and political officers so to
shape their measures as would best promote the end
of retiring with the least possible discredit." What
a preparation for a triumphant campaign ! The fall
of Cabul followed; and on the 10th of February,
1842, Lord Auckland directed General Pollock to
confine himself to measures for withdrawing with
safety from Jellalabad (the walls of which, accord-
ing to the Times, were "impregnable") the garrison
in that place, to Peishwar, not very obscurely tender-,
ing Jellalabad to the Sikh's Durbar as the price of
their co-operation, or, at least, neutrality. Again, on
the 15th of the same month, Lord Auckland ordered
General Pollock to direct all his efforts and measures
to the withdrawal of Sir Robert Sale's force from
Jellalabad with the least possible delay ; and, on the
24th, Lord Auckland distinctly suggested the neces-
sity of ransoming, by the payment of money, the
prisoners in the hands of Akbar Khan—a degrading
proposition, which it is now audaciously asserted was
first conceived by Lord Auckland's successor. Lord
Auckland, indeed, recommended economy in the bar-
gain, but still he proposed to ransom them with gold,
not, as the old Roman said, " with steel :" that was
left for Lord Ellenborough.
The fate of the armies insulated in western Aff-
ghanistan was manifestly regarded as desperate by
Lord Auckland, for not a single dispatch was in the
awful crisis addressed to Ghuznee, to Kelat-i-Ghilzie,
or Candahar—not one measure adopted for the relief
of the thousands of gallant men dispersed in these in-
sulated and remote positions—they were abandoned.
Compared with this the oblivion of the treaty of
Lahore, of which Lord Auckland then gave proof,
was a slight testimony to his Lordship's utter despair.
This was the state of preparation for a triumphant
campaign, in which Lord Auckland left the British
arms in India. Our readers will not be displeased
with another extract from General Napier's work,
depicting the state in which Lord Ellenborough found
his new Government, military as well as civil :
" Lord Ellenborough arrived too late to prevent,
but in time to remedy, the most dangerous evils
menacing India from his predecessor's impolicy, which
he denounced in a vigorous proclamation, designed as
a warning to future Governors. The beacon burned
bright, but the flame spread too wide, and scorched
many, whose cries have never ceased, though few
men, not personally interested, regard them. Previous
to his coming the ship was rocking in the shallows ;
but when his strong hand was felt she ceased to strike
the sands, and, answering to the helm, was steered
into deep water. Nevertheless, the very men whose
political iniquity had then brought India to the verge
of ruin, are now, with incredible effrontery, imputing
all their own crimes and absurdities to him, and most
especially in what relates to Sinde ; wherefore it is
fitting to state exactly his share of the subsequent
transactions in that country, and leave judgment to
the common sense of mankind.
" He found the public mind confused with terror
by the Cabul catastrophe, the surrender of Ghuznee,
the blockade of Kandahar, and the seeming inability
of General Pollock to relieve Jellalabad. Colonel
England was soon afterwards defeated by an inferior
force at Hykultzie, and fell back to Quettah, leaving
General Nott, as it was supposed, to certain destruction.
He found the finances embarrassed, the civil and poli-
tical services infested with men greedy of gain, gorged
with insolence, disdaining work, and intimately con-
nected with the infamous press of India, which they
supplied with official secrets, receiving in return
shameful and shameless support; for, thus combining,
they thought to control the Governor-General, and
turn the resources of the State to their sordid profit."
We will now give from the pamphlet of his Lord-
ship's accuser an account of Lord Ellenborough's
proceedings upon his arrival :
The earliest impressions and earliest declarations of
Lord Ellenborough were such as became a British
Governor-General. Soon after his arrival at Calcutta
he addressed the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Jasper
Nicolls, in language well suited to the circumstances
which surrounded him. Whatever course,' it is
observed, we may hereafter take, must rest solely
upon military considerations, and have in the first
instance regard to the safety of the detached bodies of
our troops in Jellalabad, at Ghuznee, at Khelat-i-
Ghilzie, and Candahar ; and, finally, to the re-esta-
blishment of our military reputation, by the infliction
of some signal and decisive blow upon the Affghans,
which may make it appear to them, to our subjects,
and to our allies, that we have the power of inflicting
punishment upon those who commit atrocities and
violate their faith, and that we withdraw ultimately
from Affghanistan, not from any deficiency of means
to maintain our position, but because we are satisfied
that the king we have set up has riot, as we were er-
roneously led to imagine, the support of the nation
over which he has been placed.' In a subsequent part
of the same letter his Lordship adds, We should con-
sider that the object of striking a decisive blow at the
Affghans—a blow which might establish our military
character beyond the Indus, and leave a deep impres-
sion of our power, and of the vigour with which it
would be applied to punish an atrocious enemy, would
be one for which risk might be justifiably incurred, all
due and possible precaution being taken to insure de-
cisive success.' "
" We believe," adds the Times, " there is no Eng-
lishman who would not fully approve these sentiments
of the new Governor-General; although we must
confess that we should have liked them better .had
they been accompanied with less general theory and
more of sound practical direction."
A State manifesto is, however,'not "an order of the
day," and " practical directions" would be as much
out of place in the one as mere theory would be in the
other ; and if we are to regard the address to the com-
mander-in-chief as au instruction, it is just such an
instruction as a wise man always issues to a subordi-
nate in whom he has the proper confidence : I tell
you what you are to do as your end ; it is for you to
arrange and direct the means. But waiving any pro-
test against the military criticism of the Times, the
question is, did the Earl of Ellenborough accomplish
all that he proposed to accomplish, and what it be-
came a British Governor to propose ? Did he accom-
plish this real miracle of recovery and restoration
honourably, effectually, and without any unnecessary
expenditure of blood, of money, or of time ? We
know that he effected it all in one—no, it were in-
justice to call it one—in several simultaneous cam-
paigns ; all closed within the compass of a few months,
and all closed with uniformly brilliant success. This,
we repeat, is the only question—was the Governor's
success complete and prompt, and obtained with.
out any treachery to ally or enemy—without an
unnecessary exposure of his soldiers—or a pro-
digal outlay of money ? If this question he an-
swered, as it must be answered, in the affirma-
tive, we are not concerned to inquire how his Lord-
ship achieved such glorious results. " The infamous
press of India," as General Napier most truly calls it,
followed by an almost equally infamous part of
the press of London, dogged all the Governor-
General's measures, found a fault, of course, in
every measure which their imagined fulness of
knowledge and self-supposed profoundness of saga-
city could not comprehend, in all its motives and its
purposes, and where they could not, with all the
help of ignorance and self-conceit, find a fault, they
invented one; but their blundering misappothensions