The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-24 00:00:00

LORD ELLENBOROUGH.

(From the herald.)
The motives which led to the removal of the Eari
of Ellenborough from the Government of India,
which he had so gloriously administered during his
short possession of office, are still a problem. All
that the public knows is, that Lord Ellenborough
assumed his Government when the progress of our
affairs in India was constantly and steadily disas-
trous, when men not usually desponding began
almost to despair of the possibility of preserving our
Indian empire ; that his arrival in India was almost
instantly followed by a sudden reflux of the fortunes
of Great Britain, until in a single campaign all our
disgraces were obliterated, and honours won, and
conquests achieved, not only in India but in China,
that admit no comparison in history, but with
the brilliant history of the British arms from
1812 to 1815 ; lastly, that at the close of this
career of triumph, and just when he had given
proof of his disposition to rival the military
success of his Government by a system of civil
reforms, the Governor-General was suddenly recalled
—recalled in opposition to the strong remonstrance of
her Majesty's Ministers, and more especially in dis-
regard of the judgment of one who as not merely the
most accomplished military commander who ever
lived—as a man who had a long civil and military
experience in Indian service, and as having shared the
confidence of the confessedly most able Governor who
ever ruled India (his brother, the late Marquis
Wellesley), must be considered a competent judge of
the merits of the civil and military policy which it
was Lord Ellenborough's lot to conduct. This is all
that is really known to the public of Lord Ellen-
borough's recal—the deplorable state- in which his
Lordship found the Indian Government; the crowd of
splendid triumphs by which he rescued the country
from apparently inevitable ruin—his commencement
of many important civil reforms—his sudden recal,
and the disapprobation of that recal by the Govern-
ment, especially by the Duke of 'Wellington—this
amount of knowledge is of course sufficient founda-
tion for conjecture, but it affords, perhaps, no suffi-
cient foundation for a final decision, and, therefore,
prudent and just men withhold their judgment for the
time that cannot be now distant, when the whole
question must be canvassed by the Legislature, with
the advantage of full information.
The public generally has maintained the most pru-
dent and just reserve, and even the dismissed Gover-
nor-General, his Ministerial patrons and colleagues,
and his friends, in whom, if in any one, a premature
appeal to public opinion might be regarded as venial,
they have guarded a strict silence—proof, according
to experience, of confidence in the strength of their
case. In this silence we should be gratified to concur,
if it was permitted to us ; but, unfortunately, the
liberty is not allowed. An appeal—as we cheerfully
acknowledge ourselves to believe, an unauthorised
one, has been put forward—professedly on behalf of
the India Directors, though we repeat our conviction
that it is without their approbation—an appeal against
the probable defence of the only party under accusa-
tion. This disgusting inversion of the proper order
of justice is in the shape of a pamphlet, which has
been puffed and followed up by the Times newspaper.
The pamphleteer and the Times treat the question
as if the Directors, not the Earl of Ellenborough,
were the parties entitled to complain ; but surely the
Directors have suffered no injury, are subject to no
suspicions of a secret nature, and the obtrusion of
any one on their part to anticipate the vindication of
the party really stricken, if not injured—certainly the
only party accused—is a gross outrage upon justice
and decency, even were not the fair trial as near at
hand as it is. As to the pamphlet, it might, perhaps,
be safely left to fulfil the destiny of its class, which
we learn from the evidence of the principal book-
sellers of London, is to impose a fine of some few
pounds upon its author, for not one pamphlet of thirty,
it is said by the booksellers, pays its own expenses—
that is, sells 250 copies. The pamphlet, therefore,
might be with safety I(ft to its fate, but when the
" Monster Mouther gives to the attack upon a
stricken and accused, and still silent man, the aid of
its considerable circulation, continued abstinence on

the part of those who are in some measure pledged to
bear testimony for the public, and for justice, would
be connivance at a wrong.
The Times of Saturday, counting, no doubt, upon
the indisposition of the public to undergo the labour
of reading " Papers relating to the Military Opera-
tions in Affghanistan, presented to the Houses of
Parliament by command of her Majesty," and "The
Correspondence relating to Sinde, printed in confor-
mity with a resolution of the General Court of Pro-
prietors of East India Stock," comes at once to the
conclusion that the Earl of Ellenborough, though a
" clever man," was an incompetent Governor-Ge-
neral, ex gr.:—
" Some persons might feel astonishment at the al-
most unanimous elevation of Lord Ellenborough to
so high an office by the cautious Company which is
here described. If we ever felt such astonishment,
we cease to feel it altogether as we peruse the papers
now before us. It would be impossible to read the
letters and documents there furnished without
acknowledging that his Lordship possesses in an
eminent degree those qualities which in an untried
man pass for talent and capacity. In the quality
which is well expressed by the word cleverness,' we
think his Lordship to be unrivalled ; in many of
those qualities which are valuable or dangerous ac-
cording as they are joined with honesty of purpose
and soundness of principle, or with a reckless disre-
gard of both, his Lordship is by no means deficient ;
ner do we underrate or think lightly of that tact and
readiness which enabled him to persuade others that
he was equal to the task of governing India, while in
fact he possessed scarcely one essential qualification.
Indeed, we are more than ever convinced that no one
could reasonably have predicted that Lord Ellenbo-
rough was so unfitted for a Governor until he had
been placed in such a station and tried. As we have
said before, therefore, we cease to wonder at the al-
most unanimous choice of the Directors, or that it
was confirmed at that time by the general voice of
the nation. We only pity his Lordship, whose fame
was thus ruined irretrievably."
Now the conclusions of the Times from its recent
statements might weigh with those (if any such there
are) who place a reliance upon our Contemporary's
sense and honesty, but for one unlucky circumstance
—the circumstance, namely, that before the " Papers
relating to the Military Operations," &c., &c., were
accessible—before the documents upon which that
very honest journal now professes to ground its opi-
nion were printed, or even written—the Times had
pronounced its decision, condemning Lord Ellen-
borough ; yes, our Contemporary only repeats now,
upon the pretence of recently-acquired knowledge,
the same insulting condemnation of the late Govereor-
General which it pronounced, without information,
seven or eight months ago.
It is idle, therefore, to pretend, as the Times pre-
tends, that either the pamphlet to which it refers, and
which it patronises, or the "Papers relating to the
Military Operations," &c., has had any influence in
determining an opinion so long since formed upon
party and personal grounds, as is plain from the fact
that there is no other grounds upon which it could be
formed. Let us, however, pass from general to more
particular allegations. The Times asserts that Lord
Ellenborough had no difficulties to encounter upon his
arrival in India ; that all before him was down-hill
work—nice galloping ground; arid that his successes,