t declaring
war!

It is beyond our limits to enter into the disputes with the directors,
which preceded the return of the governor-general to Europe. He was
charged with lavishness of living, with the affectation of being the
director of the directors, with extravagance in the erection of the
palace at Calcutta, and with equal extravagance in the establishment of
the Indian college. But these charges have long since been forgotten;
they speedily vanished; investigation did justice to the character of
the Marquess; and the only foundation for those vague and wandering
charges actually was, that he was a man of high conceptions, fond of the
sumptuousness belonging to his rank, adopting a large expenditure for
its effect on the native mind, and justly thinking that the noblest
ornament of an empire is accomplished by literature.

He returned to England in January 1806, and found the great minister
dying. On his arrival he wrote to Pitt, who replied by the following
letter, dated from Putney:--

"MY DEAR WELLESLEY,

"On my arrival here last night I received, with inexpressible
pleasure your most friendly and affectionate letter. If I was not
strongly advised to keep out of London till I have acquired a
little further strength, I would have come up immediately, for the
purpose of seeing you at the first possible moment. As it is, I am
afraid I must trust to your goodness to give me the satisfaction of
seeing you here, the first hour you can spare for the purpose. If
you can, without inconvenience, make it about the middle of the
day, (in English style between two and four,) it would suit me
rather better than any other time, but none can be inconvenient.

"I am recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints,
followed by severe attacks of gout; but I believe I am in the way
of real amendment. Ever most truly and affectionately yours,

"W. PITT."

The great minister was unfortunately lost to his country and mankind
within a week!

Lord Brougham, in his _Memoirs of British Statesmen_, records the
testimony of the Marquess against the common report, that Pitt died of a
broken heart in consequence of the calamities of Austria and the
breaking up of the continental coalition. The Marquess declares, that
Pitt, though emaciated, retained his "gaiety and constitutionally
sanguine dispo