pean standard of taste. Much of the hostility
directed against Lord Ellenborough, is, moreover, owing to his resolute
emancipation of himself from the bureaucracy of secretaries and members
of council, who had been accustomed to exercise control as "viceroys
over" his predecessors, and who were dismayed at encountering a man
whose previously acquired knowledge of the country which he came to
govern, enabled him to dispense with the assistance and dictation of
this red-tape camarilla. Loud were the complaints of these gentry at
what they called the despotism of the new governor-general, on finding
themselves excluded from that participation in state secrets in which
they had long reveled, in a country where so much advantage may be
derived from knowing beforehand what is coming at headquarters. But much
of the success of Lord Ellenborough's government may be attributed to
the secrecy with which his measures were thus conceived, and the
promptitude with which his personal activity and decision enabled him to
carry them into effect--success of which the merit is thus due to
himself alone, and to the liberty of action which he obtained by shaking
off at once the etiquettes which had hitherto trammeled the Indian
government. In July 1842 we ventured to pronounce, that "on the course
of Lord Ellenborough's government will mainly depend the question of the
future stability, or gradual decline, of our Anglo-Indian empire; and
if, at the conclusion of his viceroyalty, he has only so far succeeded
as to restore our foreign and domestic relations to the same state in
which they stood ten years since, he will merit to be handed down to
posterity by the side of Clive and Hastings." The task has been nobly
undertaken and gallantly carried through; and though time alone can show
how far the present improved aspect of Indian affairs may be destined to
permanency, Lord Ellenborough is at least justly entitled to the merit
of having wrought the change, as far as it rests with one man to do so,
by the firm and fearless energy with which he addressed himself to the
enterprise.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] It is to be regretted that the British government has never
requested the Porte to dispatch a mission to ascertain the fate of these
unfortunate officers. The Turkish Sultan is reversed at Bokhara as the
legitimate Commander of the Faithful, and his rescript would be treated
as a sacred mandate.

[16] Portraits of most of the actors in this blo