Lord Ellenborough

“ The real designs of the Whig Government are a different thing; and with these, as avowed by Lord Palmerston in Parliament, the intentions of Lord Ellenborough were wholly irreconcilable.
Let us listen here to one who knows the subject. The Duke of Wellington tells us the errors that Lord Ellenborough alludes to as occasioning our military disasters, and he shows us where those errors lay:—
"There is not a word in this proclamation that is not strictly true. But I do not blame the noble lord opposite, the late Governor-General of India ”

“ Why, Sir, undoubtedly, if it is to be taken for granted that Lord Ellenborough is a perfect man, if all our reasonings are to proceed on the supposition that he cannot do wrong, then I admit the force of the honourable gentleman's argument. But it seems to me a strange and dangerous thing to infer a man's innocence merely from the flagrancy of his guilt. It is certain that the Home authorities ordered the Governor General not to employ the troops in the service of a temple. ”

“ But I will venture to say that his power over the people of England is nothing when compared with the power which the Governor General possesses over the people of India.
Such is Lord Ellenborough's power when he is with his council, and is to some extent held in check. But where is he now? He has given his council the slip. He is alone. He has near him no person who is entitled and bound to offer advice, asked or unasked: he asks no advice: and you cannot expect men to outstep the strict line of their official duty by obtruding advice on a superior by whom it would be ungraciously received. ”

“ I had so much to say to you, too, about that breakfast at Boyle Farm [249] and your brother—rather old news now; but as your old butter seems very fresh by the time you have sent it over to us, it may be the same with our news sent to you.
In the first place, your brother has made himself extremely popular with all Lord Ellenborough’s [250] enemies, which comprise the whole of what is usually called London society. Lord Ellenborough went to Astley’s about ten days ago, and his own box was overstocked ”

“ But the charge against Lord Ellenborough is that he has insulted the religion of his own country and the religion of millions of the Queen's Asiatic subjects in order to pay honour to an idol. And this the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of the Board of Control calls a trivial charge. Sir, I think it a very grave charge. Her Majesty is the ruler of a larger heathen population than the world ever saw collected under the sceptre of a Christian sovereign since the days of the Emperor Theodosius. ”

“ The Members of the Government have behaved extremely well and with much disinterestedness. The Government has secured the services of Mr Gladstone and Lord Ellenborough,44 who will be of great use. Lord E. is become very quiet, and is a very good speaker.
We had a very happy Christmas. This weather is extremely unwholesome. Now, ever your devoted Niece,
Victoria R.
Footnote 44: Lord Ellenborough was one of the few Conservative statesmen of the day who, after remaining faithful to Sir Robert Peel till the middle of 1846, subsequently threw in his fortunes with Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli. ”

“ On 24 April 1823 he even proposed an address of censure upon the ministry for its policy in regard to the congress of Verona and the negotiations at Paris and Madrid. When Lord Liverpool resigned early in 1827, Ellenborough openly avowed his hostility to Canning's administration, and, inclining to a junction with Grey, endeavoured to induce him to join the Duke of Wellington. In the Wellington administration of 1828 he accepted the office of lord privy seal, which, as he was anxious for work and responsibility, soon became irksome to him. ”

“ Sir Robert proposes to see Lord Ellenborough in order to offer him the Admiralty, received the Queen's sanction likewise to Lord St Germans (the Postmaster-General) being put into the Cabinet. I said: "With your Government that has no inconvenience, and even if you had a hundred members in the Cabinet, as you don't tell them but what is absolutely necessary, and follow your own course." He said in reply, that he should be very sorry if he had to have told his Cabinet that he meant to send for Lord Ellenborough. ”

“ Therefore I say, send Lord Ellenborough back to Calcutta. There at least he will find persons who have a right to advise him and to expostulate with him, and who will, I doubt not, have also the spirit to do so. It is something that he will be forced to record his reasons for what he does. It is something that he will be forced to hear reasons against his propositions. ”

“ They have protested against its exercise, they have argued and remonstrated, but all in vain; and that being the case, they might with perfect consistency have taken some measures in concurrence with the Court as to the manner and time of his recall, while protesting against the measure itself, and repudiating all responsibility.
RECALL OF LORD ELLENBOROUGH.
The town is full of speculation as to Ellenborough's successor, and nothing can exceed the difficulty of finding one who is competent. All sorts of men are mentioned, 240 most of them the most unfit and incapable that can be imagined. ”

“ The reasons which your Majesty gives are sound and just, and it is of great importance that a man not only of great ability but of high station, and perfectly in the confidence of the Government at home, should be named to this important post. Lord Ellenborough is a man of great abilities, of much knowledge of India, of great industry and of very accurate habits of business, and Lord Melbourne knows of no objection to his appointment, except the loss of him here, where, whether in or out of office, he has always been of great [page 347] service. ”

“ He had begun his political career as a Whig, but, like many others, he saw in the French Revolution a reason for changing sides, and became a supporter of Pitt. On the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801, he was appointed attorney-general and shortly afterwards was returned to the House of Commons as member for Newtown in the Isle of Wight. In 1802 he succeeded Lord Kenyon as chief justice of the king’s bench. On being raised to the bench he was created a peer, taking his title from the village of Ellenborough in Cumberland, where his maternal ancestors had long held a small patrimony. ”

“ Lord Ellenborough. I think they could not be correctly called otherwise; they are funds of the kingdom in a large sense.
Mr. Serjeant Best. A very large part of the Irish funds were not raised by the United Parliament; and they have been kept distinct ever since the Union.
Lord Ellenborough. They may be distinctly arranged, and the application of them may have been in different ways; but still they are a part of one whole, they are a part of the stock and revenues of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Park,
My Lords, I am counsel for Mr. De Berenger alone. ”

“ It was to be his first "political duty" to hear what Major Outram and the other political agents had to allege against the Ameers of Hyderabad and Khyrpore, tending to prove hostile designs against the British Government, or to act hostilely against the British army. Lord Ellenborough added, "that they may have had such hostile feelings there can be no doubt. It would be impossible to suppose that they could entertain friendly feelings; but we should not be justified in inflicting punishment upon these thoughts. ”

“ One member of the House of Commons, a Colonel French, opposed the Bill with the argument that the honest English country gentleman formed ‘the very subject and essence of the English character,’ while Lord Ellenborough opposed it in the other House on the ground that it was contrary to the principles of the English law, which gave a man protection for his property in proportion to the difficulty with which it could be defended by ordinary means. ”

“ We shall leave the Whigs to settle the question with their subordinates, as to the precise degree of blame which each of the parties shall bear. But there is seldom blame with the servants without blame in the master; and it is one of Lord Ellenborough's just titles to our praise, that he has been ably served by the officers whom he so ably supported.
If our Affghan disasters were imputable to gross errors in detail, was it not right to denounce the cause? It would have been a melancholy thing if we had been thus betrayed and circumvented without errors in our own servants. ”

“ Whitehall, 5th May 1844 Sir Robert Peel, with his humble duty to your Majesty, and believing that he is acting in accordance with your Majesty’s own opinion, begs leave to submit to your Majesty that it may be advisable that he should by the present mail inform Lord Ellenborough that it is your Majesty’s intention to confer on him, at a very early period, as a mark of your Majesty’s approval of Lord Ellenborough’s conduct and services in India, the rank of an Earl and the Grand Cross of the Bath. ”

“ He is not a bad man; but nature has rather liberally endowed him with that sort of broken eloquence which supplies the want both of language and thought, by the profusion and vehemence of gesture. He is always too much pleased to display his cambric handkerchief in public. In my opinion, the whigs would have gained as much as the tories, by suffering him to have departed on his embassy to St. Petersburg.
We must pass by Lord Aberdeen, Lord Wharncliffe and Lord Ellenborough, whom you see seated around the Duke of Wellington ”

“ By letters patent, dated 19 April 1802, Law was also created Baron Ellenborough of Ellenborough in the county of Cumberland, and having been sworn a member of the privy council on 21 April, took his seat in the House of Lords on the 26th of the same month (Journals of the House of Lords, xliii. 554) . In his maiden speech on 13 May 1802 he opposed Lord Grenville's motion for an address, and spoke warmly in favour of the definitive treaty of peace with France (Parl. Hist. xxxvi. 718–22) . ”

“ Notwithstanding his views on Roman catholic emancipation, he agreed to the introduction of the Roman Catholics' Army and Navy Service Bill. When, however, the rupture occurred between the king and Grenville, Ellenborough sided with the king, and asserted that there was nothing unconstitutional in requiring the ministers to pledge themselves never to propose any further concessions to the Roman catholics. After the resignation of the cabinet Ellenborough became entirely estranged from the whigs, and acted in close alliance with Lord Sidmouth. ”

“ In fact, he believed that the Governor-General, by this means, conciliated the feelings of the Hindoo soldiery in their return from those scenes of death and disaster in which they had behaved so well, and where thousands of their fellow-countrymen had fallen. I hope that this intention of Lord Ellenborough to conciliate the princes of India will extend to my unfortunate master.' This letter was from (we believe) Rumgoo Baffagee, Vakeel of the Rajah of Sattara, and he thought it was so important, that he had sent for the Vakeel, whom he found a most intelligent man ”

“ Hardinge, whom I met in the Park, told me Sir J. Graham informed him there was to be an opposition à l'outrance. That Lord Anglesey was to be Minister Lord Grey would serve with him. Palmerston was to be made a great man of. Huskisson to have nothing but revenge. The Duke of Richmond was to be had at all events. All this is childish.
House. I expected nothing but the Chancellor's Bill, and went at half-past five, expecting to find Eldon in the midst of his speech; but I found Lord Durham talking about Greece, and soon engaged in the talk myself. Lord Grey was decidedly in opposition. ”

“ At Lady Brownlow's ball I talked with Lord Farnborough, Longford, and Beresford. All thought the reading of the letters should have been stopped, and that the Duke did wrong to read anything. We could not stop the reading of the letters when the King's permission to read them was stated distinctly by Lord Anglesey. The misery is that we have a lying master. ”

“ He hates the Duke of Cumberland. He wishes his death. He is relieved when he is away; but he is afraid of him, and crouches to him.
In reality the King never was better satisfied than with his present
Ministers. He knows they will not flinch—that he is safe in their hands.
May 22.
In the House Lord Melville presented the petition of the City of London praying, if the House persisted in ordering the production of their accounts of property other than of a public nature, to be heard at the bar by counsel. He moved that this petition should be considered on Tuesday. ”

“ It would never do to go picking up individuals. We must do our best for the country, and we shall have it with us. The worst of it is, the King is the most faithless of men, and Cumberland is at work.
The Duke asked Hardinge the other day what he thought of the Government. He said he thought that by losing Canningites and Brunswickers it was fifty weaker than Lord Liverpool's, and these fifty go the other way, making a difference of one hundred on a division. Lord Camden thought if the Brunswickers would not come in we must get a few Whigs—Abercromby, Sir James Graham, the Althorpe people. ”

“ They held consultations on the subject, and the man they principally relied on was the Duke of Richmond; they meant he should be either First Lord of the Treasury or Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Winchelsea said to Ellenborough, ‘Why, he speaks better than the Duke of Wellington any day.’ He happens to have his wits, such as they are, about him, and has been quick and neat in one or two little speeches, [200] though he spoke too often, and particularly in his attack on the Bishop of Oxford the other night. ”

“ It seems to be clear that no dependence whatever can be placed in the House of Commons. Every man will vote for his constituents.
No answer has been received from Prince Leopold.
My apprehension is that the King cannot live ten days.
Lord Londonderry went to Windsor yesterday and saw the physician. He had a dinner afterwards at his villa, and told every one, the Lièvens being there, that the King was much worse than he had ever been. This was untrue, for the Duke left Windsor after Lord L., and when he left the Castle the King certainly was not worse, but rather better. ”