awful tragedy, and by the
greatest disaster that ever befell the British forces--was it
unbecoming in a Governor-General to state, that the views and policy
of the Government of India had changed, and that the Government no
longer wished to interfere in the policy of Affghanistan, its motives
for so doing having passed away on finding that the king,
represented to be so popular, was unpopular? But there was another
circumstance which called for Lord Ellenborough's declaration, namely,
the necessity of allaying the apprehensions and fears of other states;
and it was Lord Ellenborough's duty to do this. Had the Sikhs no
apprehensions with respect to our intentions on Lahore? The most
serious apprehensions had been stated by the Durbar of Lahore to our
political agent there, Mr. Clark, and had been represented by him to
the Government of India.--Other states also had entertained
apprehensions of the intentions and motives of the Indian Government,
and he had yet to learn that it was a fault in a Governor-General to
allay these apprehensions of native states, even if no precedent
could be found for such a proceeding. After the policy of the Indian
Government which had been proclaimed, it became Lord Ellenborough's
duty to take the step he had done."

This, however, is the true _gravamen_ of the quarrel of the Whigs
with Lord Ellenborough. He has thrown overboard their aggressive
policy--that policy which Lord Auckland, indeed, had not in words
avowed in India, but which his friends at home had openly declared
and gloried in. It was necessary for Lord Ellenborough, by a frank
declaration of his intentions, to exclude the prevalent
suspicion--nay, the universal belief--of those projects of
encroachment which the Whig Government had countenanced. This was
the unkindest cut of all.

"Ill-weaved ambition! how much art
thou shrunk!"

It was hard that their Affghan laurels--the only wreaths of victory
that the Whigs had ever won--should have already withered on their
brow. It was hard that their disasters should have been retrieved
under the sway of a political opponent. But it was intolerable that
the plans of conquest which they had fondly cherished, and tried to
press upon the country, should be virtually denounced amid the
universal approbation of all good men at home and abroad; that the
solitary achievement of their administration in military affairs,
should be recorded in the page of history, only to be condemned a