re to carp at the literary composition of his own reprieve.

The tactics of the Whigs in their move against Lord Ellenborough, had
all the craft of conscious weakness. First, they postponed their
motion from time to time, till they were rescued by their opponents
from Mr. Roebuck's assault upon them. Then they arranged their
attack for the same night in both Houses of Parliament, lest
explanations in any high quarter in the one might damage a future
discussion in the other; and lastly, though thus acting by
simultaneous and concerted movements in both, they framed their
motions differently in each place; and in the Commons, where they had
some dream of better success, confined themselves to the religious
question under the letter on the Somnauth gates, omitting the Simla
proclamation of the 1st October, which they knew neither
Conservative nor Radical would join them to condemn.

With regard to the Somnauth gates, a pettier piece of hypercriticism,
and a more palpable exhibition of hypocrisy, were never witnessed on
a public question. Two things on this point are as plain as day.

1. That in retiring from the Affghan country, we were called upon to
do so as much as possible in the light of triumphant victors,
bearing every mark of military prowess and superiority that could
readily be assumed, and inflicting as heavy a blow, and as severe a
discouragement on our perfidious enemies, as humanity would permit.

2. That, the Affghan trophies of Mahmoud's success were treasured up
by his nation as an assurance of continued ascendancy over their
Hindoo neighbours; and that, in particular, the redelivery to India
of these very gates of Somnauth, were, in negotiations of recent date,
demanded by Runjeet Singh as an inestimable boon, and deprecated by
Shah Soojah as a degrading humiliation.

Keeping in view these undeniable circumstances, it is clear that the
seizure of these Somnauth gates was appropriately ordered as a
palpable and permanent demonstration of conquest, and one eminently
calculated to encourage the Indian army, and to depress their enemies.

That these gates were connected with the religion of the country, is
of no relevancy in this matter. Every thing relating to Hindoo
grandeur is more or less interwoven with religion; but we must take
things as they are. We are the rulers of Hindostan; where the vast
preponderance of our subjects and soldiers are Hindoos. We wish them
to be Christians, but they are not