degree both the indulgence of a
generous nation, who are willing to forget the past in the enjoyment
of the present, and the forbearance of high-minded opponents, who
could easily have triumphed in the exposure of their disastrous
blunders, the Whigs have made a characteristic return, by
rancorously assailing the man whom the public views as its benefactor,
with captious criticisms on the terms of a proclamation, or
hypocritical objections to the transmission of a trophy. With that
cunning which the faction have often shown in the use of apparent
opportunities, they gained the reluctant concurrence of a few upright
men, of whose peculiar scruples they contrived to avail themselves,
but with an ignorance of the true English character, for which they
are equally distinguished, they overshot the mark, and stand
convicted of a design to make a verbal misconstruction the pretence
for persecuting an absent man, and to convert honest prejudices into
an unconscious instrument of oppression. They have thus earned a
large allowance of general contempt, and they have nowhere, perhaps,
excited a stronger feeling of disgust than in the minds of those who
thought themselves compelled, by a rigid conscience, to give a
seeming concurrence to their proceedings.

In judging of the conduct and position of Lord Ellenborough, it were
gross ingratitude and injustice to forget the nature of the
calamities with which India was assailed and threatened at the
commencement of his goverment. In the second week of March 1842, the
overland mail from the East conveyed intelligence to our shores which
struck the nation to the very heart, and spread one universal
feeling of grief and dismay, approaching for a time as near to a
feeling of despondency as English breasts can be taught to know. Let
us describe the effect in the words of an impartial observer writing
at the time:--

"No such disastrous news has for many years reached this country as
that which has arrived from India. 'The progress of our arms' was
carried merrily on, till our flag was set beside that of our puppet,
Shah Soojah, in Cabul; but there the progress has abruptly
terminated in the total engulfing of 'our arms.' Yes, Sir William
Macnaghten had just written home to declare our supremacy established,
when all Cabul rose beneath his feet. Sir Alex. Burnes was the first
swallowed in the earthquake of arms; next Sir William himself,
governor of Bombay, and representative of the powe