me notorious, you must be dismissed if you attend, or
excite others to attend, such meetings. I am as much concerned that this
state of affairs should exist as the noble lord can be; but of this I am
quite certain, that the way to be prepared is not to have in the service
of the government--not to have government dependant upon the exertions
of--a number of magistrates who have excited and encouraged these
proceedings, assisting at and presiding over these very meetings. That
could not have been desirable, and I say that the lord chancellor and
situation as that of governor-general of India, an officer who was so
for little more than two years--an officer who has given satisfaction in
so high a situation to those by whom he was intrusted and
employed--whose acts have been concurred in and sanctioned in every
instance; to recall that officer suddenly, making no provision for the
performance of the great duties which are to be performed, and which
must he performed in that country--to recall an officer in whom the
government fully confided, without the concurrence of that
government--is, my lords, an act, to say the least of it, that cannot be
called a discreet exercise of the power which is conferred on those who
have so used it. My lords, I will say nothing--- I will advert to
nothing that is not notorious--that is not strictly in reference to the
act of parliament. I beg your lordships to observe, that the body which
did this act--which I must call an act of indiscretion, at least--that
body, as a body, has no knowledge whatever of the instructions sent out
to the governor-general, and under which he acted. They stated reasons
for withdrawing the governor-general from India; but, as a body (except
the secret committee appointed under the act of parliament), they had no
knowledge whatever of the instructions under which the governor-general
acted, or of the events which had taken place in that country, except
that which is within the general knowledge of this and the other house
of parliament, and the whole public of this country. And yet, my lords,
they take this responsibility upon themselves--having no knowledge of
the instructions which it was deemed at Waterloo. Very possibly not, my
lords. Bear in mind what he said in respect to the augmentation of his
numbers, and the means of assembling those persons. He said on one
occasion, that by the post of one night, he could collect the whole of
this force in different part