Parliament were discussing and condemning Ellenborough's policy in Afghanistan, news arrived of his treatment of the Ameers of Scinde. Nothing could have been more unfortunate for the Governor-General. The man who was hurriedly retiring from Cabul, who was hardly concealing his disapproval of his predecessor's conduct, who had chosen "Pax Asiæ restituta" as the motto for an Afghan medal, was adopting in Scinde the same aggressive policy which Auckland had pursued in Afghanistan. The Cabinet unanimously disapproved his policy; it hardly ventured to lay before the public all that it knew. The India House formally condemned. the conduct of the Governor-General. Unfortunately, more over, for Ellenborough, a change in the composition of the ministry increased his difficulties. Fitzgerald, who had succeeded him at the Board of Control, died in May 1843, and was replaced at the India Board by Ripon, the statesman who had been known as Prosperity Robinson under Liverpool, and Goody Goderich under Canning. Fitzgerald had steadily supported Ellenborough. Ripon showed no disposition to excuse his eccentricities.2 The Directors of the India House were encouraged by the change at the Board of Control and the language of the press to find fault with the GovernorGeneral, and Ripon forwarded their censure of him without expressing his own dissent from it. Formally condemned by his employers, Ellenborough foresaw his recall. But he was allowed to remain in office until a new act of vigour excited fresh controversy. In the beginning of 1843 the Maharaja of Gwalior died. His heir was a boy only eight years old; his widow a child of twelve.3 On the advice of the British Resident and with the approval of Ellenborough, Mama Sahib, a relative of the late Maharaja, 1 Ellenborough's Indian Administration, p. 388; cf. ibid., pp. 351, 369. Mr. Gladstone, in Contemporary Review, November 1876, p. 875, says: “The conquest was disapproved, I believe unanimously, by the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel; of which I can speak, as I had just entered it at the time." Wharncliffe, who was also a member of the Cabinet, told Greville that "Ellenborough's conduct had been to the last degree arbitrary and unjustifiable, and such as nothing can justify." Greville, second series, vol. ii. p. 165. 2 Ellenborough's Indian Administration, p. 440. 3 Ibid., p. 66. was appointed Regent of the principality. For a few weeks Gwalior remained undisturbed. In May, intrigues which the Ranee or her friends encouraged forced Mama Sahib to fly, and placed the power in the hands of a new Regent. Gwalior contained some 40,000 troops, and this force ranged itself in support of the revolution. Disorder seemed probable, and, in Ellenborough's judgment, the Company, as the paramount power in India, had the right to enforce peace and prevent disturbance. The Governor-General accordingly determined to move a force on Gwalior. In the concluding days of 1843 the Gwalior troops were decisively defeated in a couple of battles, in one of which Ellenborough was present in person, and a new treaty, practically placing the power in the hands of the British Resident, restored order to Gwalior. The operations in Gwalior. Ellenborough is recalled. This new act of vigour on the part of the Governor-General excited fresh indignation in Britain. The Court of Directors at once decided on recalling the man whose conduct towards Scinde they had already censured, and whose conduct towards Gwalior no one seemed inclined to justify. A motion in the Lords for papers was only averted by the news of his recall. A similar motion in the Commons was postponed for the same reason.1 All parties felt that the peace of India was more sure from the termination of the rule of the brilliant but erratic statesman who had boasted that he had restored peace to Asia; and, except that Wellington generously defended the ruler whom he had himself introduced to high office, and that the ministry softened his recall by conferring upon him an earldom, every one acquiesced in an act which was almost without precedent, but which was justified by necessity. The Indian career of Ellenborough lasted only a little more than two years. During that period he retreated from The characteristics of his rule. Afghanistan, he conquered Scinde, and he pacified Gwalior. Engaged almost continuously in military operations, he had little leisure to attend to internal policy; 1 Hansard, vol. lxxiv. pp. 275, 285. and, during much of his rule, he lived far away from his capital, within reach of the busy scenes which were taking place at Peshawur, at Hyderabad, and at Gwalior. Like Auckland, he had arrived in India the messenger of peace; like Auckland, he had drifted into war. Under Auckland, however, an unrighteous war, feebly waged, led to disaster. Under Ellenborough, unrighteous war, conducted with vigour, produced victory after victory. The critic who believes in success will have no apology for the Whig Governor and no blame for his Tory successor. And, in truth, there can be little doubt that, if Auckland were the better man, Ellenborough was the abler ruler. Some persons may, indeed, reply that, if Napier had been in Cabul in 1841, the story of disaster might not have occurred; and that, if Elphinstone, or even Keane, had been in Scinde in 1843, the battle of Meeanee would not have been fought. But the true answer to this contention is, that it was Auckland who sent Elphinstone to Afghanistan, and that it was Ellenborough who sent Napier to Scinde. The one ruler rarely or never made a happy appointment; the other ruler hardly ever chose a weak agent. Nor should it be forgotten that Ellenborough himself had much to do with the victories of those who carried out his orders. Under Auckland the Indian army had accustomed itself to defeat. Ellenborough had the merit of persuading it that it was invincible. Ever ready to recognise a brave action, with no mercy for the men who failed, he taught general and soldier to believe that his own eyes were upon them, and he managed to infuse his own spirit into the hearts of his battalions. With a contempt for tradition, he startled military martinets by his wholesale distribution of medals, and taught the private to expect the rewards which had been hitherto reserved for generals and field officers. Napier, imitating or exceeding his example, even named private soldiers in despatches, and thus introduced a new and salutary influence into an exclusive service. The private soldier, who knew that he would secure the same medal as his general, who learned that his own name might be preserved for ever in despatches, had a new incentive to good conduct. He was no longer a mere atom in a multitude, which it was the fashion to praise in the aggregate and to flog in the individual. He was a man, with a man's ambition and a man's career before him. Exclusion even in the army was being destroyed by Napier and Ellenborough. It is true that, in endeavouring to infuse his own spirit into the army, the Governor-General said, wrote, and did many foolish things. He reproduced on the plains of the Punjab the triumphs of ancient Rome. He imitated in his proclamations the language of Napoleon. But his stage machinery too often resembled the frippery of an amphitheatre; and his turgid sentences, intended to create enthusiasm, too frequently excited laughter. He was, in other words, too fond of display, too apt to attempt the task of governing by phrases. Eloquence, either in written or spoken speech, is a great gift. But it is a weapon which sometimes wounds the man who uses it. There is but a slight boundary between the sublime and the ridiculous, and they are rare men who do not cross the frontier in attempting to attain the sublime. Ellenborough was succeeded by Hardinge, the distinguished officer who has been occasionally mentioned in this history. Sir H. becomes Governor No other selection that could have been made would have been so pleasing to Ellenborough. Hardinge and he had married two sisters, the halfGeneral. sisters of Castlereagh; and, though Ellenborough had shortly after his own marriage been left a widower, he had ever regarded Hardinge with brotherly affection. Of his capacity he had the highest opinion. Fifteen years before, he had suggested to him that, in the event of Bentinck's recall, he should go out to India as Governor-General, and in recording his offer in his diary he had added the remarkable opinion, "I wish we had him as Secretary in Ireland, but he is wanted everywhere. He is so useful."1 And, in truth, among the soldier-statesmen whom England has produced, 1 Ellenborough's Diary, vol. ii. p. 143. few men have attained so exceptional a position as this gallant officer. Born in 1785, he had, in accordance with the bad practice of those times, received his first commission in 1791. It might therefore be said of him, as was said in a different sense of Coriolanus, "how youngly he began to serve his country." It was, however, as no mere carpet knight that Hardinge rose to the highest honours of his profession. He was present at almost every battle in the Peninsula, from Vimiera to Vittoria. Wounded at Busaco, at Vittoria, and at Ligny, he had done soldier's service and received a soldier's reward. Returned for Durham in 1820, he commenced a parliamentary career which in its way was unique. excellent Secretary at War and Chief Secretary for Ireland, he enjoyed, though never raised to the Cabinet, more influence than many Cabinet Ministers. In the House of Commons he was regarded as the type of honour; and the strange circumstance has already been recorded in this history that a member of Parliament withdrew a challenge, not in deference to the remonstrance of the Speaker or the expressed wish of the House, but on the assurance of Hardinge that he could not himself think it necessary to fight in similar circumstances. An Like Auckland, like Ellenborough, like most of his predecessors, Hardinge bore with him a message of peace. The indignation which Auckland's policy towards Afghanistan had excited in London, and the sympathy which had been expressed in England for the Ameers of Scinde, seemed to afford a guarantee against fresh acts of aggression. Yet, like Auckland and most of his predecessors, Hardinge, before many months were over, was forced into a fresh war, and the enemy with which he came into collision proved the most formidable that the English had ever encountered in India. The Sikhs. In the preceding chapter some allusion has been made. to the rise and progress of the religious sect which had established temporal as well as spiritual sway in the Punjab. In the present chapter it has been seen. |