Chapter XIX: Part XIII: The Fugitive (5)

A Hindoo of high caste, now in this country, the Vakeel of the Rajah of Sattara, had written to him a letter, in which he stated-- "It appears to me that the restoration of the gates of Somnauth could have no reference either to the support or degradation of any religious faith. To restore the gates to their original purpose is impracticable by the tenets of the Hindoo religion. Their doctrine is, that any thing, when in contact with a dead body, or any thing belonging to it, whether tomb or garment, is utterly contaminated and unfit for religious purposes. In my opinion, therefore, the proclamation must have been intended to gratify the feelings of the Hindoo portion of our army, by removing a stain which the western portion of India had long felt oppressive. In fact, he believed that the Governor-General, by this means, conciliated the feelings of the Hindoo soldiery in their return from those scenes of death and disaster in which they had behaved so well, and where thousands of their fellow-countrymen had fallen. I hope that this intention of Lord Ellenborough to conciliate the princes of India will extend to my unfortunate master.' This letter was from (we believe) Rumgoo Baffagee, Vakeel of the Rajah of Sattara, and he thought it was so important, that he had sent for the Vakeel, whom he found a most intelligent man; and from his conversation he (Mr. Hume) was satisfied that, so far from being applied to the Hindoo population exclusively, it was utterly impossible that the gates could be used for the religious purposes to which the Governor-General seemed to have destined them. He had satisfied him (Mr. Hume) that the object of the proclamation was merely to bring back to Western India those gates, the absence of which in Afghanistan had long been felt as an opprobrium. He hoped therefore, that those religious sects who had most unnecessarily take the alarm on this score, would be appeased. So far from the proclamation being an exclusive one, no single sentence was there in it which could be read after the address to '_all_ the princes and chiefs, and people of India,' as applicable to any one."

But it is said that such a trophy may give offence to Mahommedans; and Mr. Mangles tells us, that the Mohommedan population sympathize strongly with the Affghans, and revere the memory of Mahmoud. If that be the case, it would have been difficult to bring any trophy home, or to imprint any mark of the superiority of our arms, without displeasing this sect. But, in that view, who are the parties responsible for thus placing our essential interests, and the safety of India generally, in contrast with the feelings of Mohommedan subjects? Those certainly who, regardless of all justice, made a wanton aggression on a Mahommedan power. Those certainly who, regardless of all prudence, gave occasion to the Affghan massacre and captivity of British and Indian soldiers; and, by a great Mahommedan success, kindled a spark which was ready to set the freemasonry of Islamism on fire "from Morocco to Coromandel." If we have been placed in a false position, as regards our Mahommedan subjects, we have to blame the Whigs, whose wanton and unwise measures created this collision of interests, and not Lord Ellenborough, who has adopted measures the most natural and the most humane, to reestablish the ascendancy and the reputation of English and Indian power.

The proclamation of Simla needs no vindication. It has satisfied every one but the Whigs, who can never forget and never forgive it. It is poor pretence to say, that it denounces in an indecorous manner the errors of the previous governor. It does no such thing. It speaks, indeed, of errors, but only conscious culpability would have taken the allusion to itself. There were errors, and grievous ones. The Whigs themselves must say that; and they have not been slow to shift to the shoulders of military officers the results that most people think they should bear themselves. The proclamation of Lord Ellenborough seems to us to have been framed with a punctilious desire to reconcile in the eyes of India his own policy with that which had been avowed by his predecessor, and to ascribe the change of plans to a change of circumstances, and not of principles. We speak here of the avowed policy of his predecessor; for Lord Auckland, at least, pretended that he had no aggressive or hostile views against the Affghans, and no desire for a permanent occupation of their country. The real designs of the Whig Government are a different thing; and with these, as avowed by Lord Palmerston in Parliament, the intentions of Lord Ellenborough were wholly irreconcilable.

Let us listen here to one who knows the subject. The Duke of Wellington tells us the errors that Lord Ellenborough alludes to as occasioning our military disasters, and he shows us where those errors lay:--

"There is not a word in this proclamation that is not strictly true. But I do not blame the noble lord opposite, the late Governor-General of India; yet I cannot help looking _at the enormous errors_ which have been committed from the commencement of these transactions in which these disasters originated, down to the last retreat from Cabul--I say, looking at all this, I still must blame, not the late Governor-General, but the gentlemen who acted under him. In the first place, I attribute the error to the gentleman who fell a victim to his own want of judgment. The army unfortunately was partly English and partly Hindoo--not Affghans, but Hindoos. What was the consequence? To maintain the whole system of the government, including the collection of the revenue, devolved upon that army. All the details of the government were carried on through the agency of that English and Hindoo army, and eventually it became necessary to support that army with some troops in the service of the Company. Now, the gentleman who was responsible for this ought to have known that there was one rule, the violation of which any one acquainted with the government of India knew nothing could justify, and that was, the employment of the Company's European troops in the collection of the revenue. That rule is invariably laid down, and is invariably observed. That, as your lordships must plainly see, is one of the errors that has been committed. There is another point to which I wish to call your attention; it is this, that the country never had been occupied by an army as it ought to have been occupied. With the north no practicable communication was maintained--no practicable communications were kept up between Shikarpore, Candahar, and Ghuznee. The passes were held only through the agency of banditti. I do not blame the noble lord, but I blame the gentleman to whom the army was entrusted. He seemed never to have looked at what had been done by former commanders in similar circumstances. Any officer who has the command of an army ought to feel it to be his first duty to keep up a communication with his own country. If such communication had been maintained, those disasters never would have befallen us--they could not have happened. This was one of the errors committed; but I do not say that the noble lord opposite is answerable for that error. Not only was no communication kept up with the north, but none was kept up with the south. Neither the Kojuck nor the Bolan pass was kept open. Can that, my lords, be called a military communication? Could such a state of things exist? Why, was not this another error--a gross error? The noble lord opposite (Lord Auckland) had no more to do with this than I have. Sir W. Macnaghten, the gentleman who perished, could not have been ignorant of what was done in other places. He must have read the history of the Spanish war, and he must have recollected how the French conducted themselves in a similar situation; how they fortified the passes, and secured their communications. But he was not an officer; the gentleman at the head of the army in Affghanistan was not an officer--that was another error."

That such errors existed is undeniable. Lord Auckland says there were errors:--

"With regard to the errors of the campaign, he conceived they rested with the military commanders, not with Sir W. Macnaghten; and if errors had been committed by Sir William, they must be shared between him and the more direct military commanders."

Lord John Russell said,--

"I have heard causes given, and upon very high authority, for these disasters; I have heard it stated that very great errors were committed--that those errors consisted partly in not keeping up a communication by the straightest road between Cabul and Peshawar. This may be just; these may be errors, but they are errors not necessary or in any way connected with the policy of entering into Affghanistan. I may mention another circumstance--that the expedition into Affghanistan was undertaken under Lord Keane, who was shortly after succeeded by Sir W. Cotton; he came home, and was succeeded by General Elphinstone, who, from the time of assuming the command, never appears to have been in the state of vigorous health necessary for such a position. Are not these circumstances to be taken into account? If my Lord Auckland had had at his disposal any of those illustrious men who had honoured the British army in later days--if such a man as Lord Keane had remained in Cabul--my persuasion is, you would never have heard of such a disaster as that which took place at Cabul."

We shall leave the Whigs to settle the question with their subordinates, as to the precise degree of blame which each of the parties shall bear. But there is seldom blame with the servants without blame in the master; and it is one of Lord Ellenborough's just titles to our praise, that he has been ably served by the officers whom he so ably supported.

If our Affghan disasters were imputable to gross errors in detail, was it not right to denounce the cause? It would have been a melancholy thing if we had been thus betrayed and circumvented without errors in our own servants. If British troops had been thus cut off, notwithstanding the use of every prudent precaution, the disasters would then have gone far to put in question the invincibility of our military power. It was necessary to declare, that by individual and special mal-arrangement, this unparalleled disaster had arisen; so that none of our enemies should thence derive a hope to crush us again, until at least the incompetent officials of a confiding Whig Government should give them another such opportunity.

The proclamation of Simla had another purpose--that of announcing the future policy of the Government, and repudiating those designs of aggression and aggrandizement which there was too good ground for imputing to us, and which could not fail to inspire distrust and suspicion in the minds even of friendly neighbours. On this point nothing can be added to the admirable exposition of Lord Fitzgerald in the late debate:--

"But there were other circumstances which compelled the Governor-General of India; he meant, which made it his duty to proclaim the motives of the policy of the Government; and why? --because a different policy had been proclaimed by his predecessor; and when it became necessary to withdraw from Affghanistan, it was necessary to show that this was not a retreat. We were compelled to show that we were not shrinking from setting up a king, because we could not sustain him there. He said it was the duty of the Governor-General to make that known to the Indian public. He would not attempt to shelter Lord Ellenborough in this respect, by saying--'it was prudent,' or, 'it did no harm:'--he maintained it was his duty. What had been the language of the late Ministers of the Crown, in the last session of Parliament? And these debates, as the noble Earl had well said, 'went forth to India;' the discussions in that House went forth to the Indian public. He found one Minister of the Crown saying--'He should like to see the Minister, or the Governor of India, who would dare to withdraw from the position we occupied in Affghanistan.' (Hear, hear.) He found another noble lord, in another place, stating, 'they took credit for the whole of that measure, and he trusted that at no time would that position in Affghanistan be abandoned.' These were views of public policy which went forth to India, and it was not inconvenient nor unjust that those who administered the government of India on different principles should proclaim their views. The noble earl opposite, knew that at that period it was not intended altogether to confine the operations of the army to the westward of the Indus. It was very well to say, that it was unwise and impolitic, and calculated to destroy the unanimity which was so essential to the Government of India, to issue public information as to the reasons for the withdrawal of an army, although its advance was heralded by a declaration on all these points, because the withdrawal of an army was supposed to terminate the operations; but in the eyes of India and Asia, if the declaration of the noble earl, dated from Simla on the same day of the same month of a preceding year, had remained as a record of British policy after that declaration had been followed by a campaign, brilliant at its commencement, but as delusive as brilliant, and terminated by a most 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 as an act of injustice, inexcusably undertaken, and incompetently executed: and relinquished by their successors in the very hour of triumph, with a wise self-denial which no one will suspect that a Whig could have ever practised.

The cloven foot has here too plainly been revealed. It is not this phrase or that procession in particular that has displeased the Whigs. It is the abandonment of a policy which they dared not proclaim in India, and which they could not justify in England. They are always hankering after it still. Mr. Vernon Smith: "Considered it most absurd for any Governor General to declare publicly that our Indian empire had reached the limits which nature had assigned to it. Why, what were the limits which nature had assigned to our Indian empire? In early days, the Mahratta ditch was said to be its natural limit; and why was the Sutlej or the Indus to be more the boundary of our empire than the Himalayas?"

Even Lord John Russell, who _now_ acknowledges the wisdom of surrendering Affghanistan, declares, in almost so many words, that his party have shrunk from a general vote of censure because they could not properly put it, and have chosen this Act as "not the worst," but the most convenient to attack. What the other errors of Lord Ellenborough are, or whether there are any, except the exploded story of the incivility to Mr. Amos, is nowhere definitely, discoverable in their discussions, and is not likely for some time to assume a greater degree of consistency than vague Whig calumnies and general Whig dissatisfaction. Let them come to something definite, and see how they will fare. If, as their old friend Lord Brougham said, "revelling in defeat, and intoxicated with failure," they know not when they have had enough--if they desire a contest on some other issue--let them name their day and abide the result.

In conclusion, we would only observe, what a contrast the conduct of the Whig party towards Lord Ellenborough exhibits to that of their opponents towards Lord Auckland! The ex Governor-General is not absent, but here to defend himself; and every one sees how much room there is for assailing his measures. Their calamitous result would of itself go far to support the charge of imprudence, or something worse. But not a word has been said against him that could be avoided; and even those statements that necessarily reflect upon his discretion, have been extorted from the Conservative party, in reply to the attacks which Lord Auckland's friends have made upon his successor. The English people admire fair play as much as they appreciate the value of practical benefits. They see the false pretences on which an absent man has now been assailed by disappointed opponents; they feel the generosity that has saved his rival from retaliation. They know the state of Indian affairs when Lord Ellenborough assumed his office, and they can estimate the position into which they have now been brought under his vigorous management. They agree with him in the pacific principles which he has avowed, and look forward to a continued career of useful services, in which the resources of that great empire will be more than ever developed under his control, and the power of the British name perpetuated by a wise, an upright, and a fearless Administration.