November 30th.—Ellenborough's Proclamation, which has just appeared, is fiercely attacked by the Whig Palmerstonian press, but the purport of it seems to be pretty generally approved. Ellenborough is certainly not happy in his measures, his manners, or his phrases. He began by his much-abused orders for retreat, he lost no time in quarrelling with his Council and making himself personally obnoxious, and his present Proclamation is very objectionable in many respects, though it appears to me perfectly clear half the world thinks he meant to censure the policy of his predecessor, and though he certainly meant no such thing, he ought not to have left room for any doubt on that point. He enters into reasons for his measures, which is never advisable in such a document as this, and especially in India. In the midst of all our successes, however, the simple truth is that Akbar Khan and the Afghans have gained their object completely. We had placed a puppet king on the throne, and we kept him there and held military possession of the country by a body of our troops. They resolved to get rid of our king and our troops and to resume their barbarous independence; they massacred all our people civil and military, and they afterwards put to death the king. We lost all hold over the country except the fortresses we continued to occupy. Our recent expedition was, in fact, undertaken merely to get back the prisoners who had escaped with their lives from the general slaughter, and having got them we have once for all abandoned the country, leaving to the Afghans the unmolested possession of the liberty they had acquired, and not attempting to replace upon their necks the yoke they so roughly shook off. There is, after all, no great cause for rejoicing and triumph in all this.
MADAME D'ARBLAY'S JOURNAL.
On Sunday morning I called on Lord John Russell, and we had an argument about Lord Ashburton and his Treaty, which he abused very roundly, saying all that I had before heard of his writing to his brother against it, but still owning that it was not very injurious. I have a great respect for Lord John, who is very honest and clever, but in this matter he talks great nonsense. Palmerston is much more consistent and takes a clear and broad view of it. He says, 'We are all in the right, and the Americans all in the wrong. Never give up anything, insist on having the thing settled in your own way, and if they won't consent, let it remain unsettled.' But Lord John merely says you might have got better terms if you had held out for them, that he thinks Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Everett would have arranged it here more favourably for us than Lord Ashburton did there; that if Lord Aberdeen had proposed such and such terms to Everett they would have been agreed to in America, and that Lord Ashburton gave up certain things for which he did not obtain a just equivalent—all of which is mere gratuitous assumption, and may be true or maybe false. However, he owned that the public was disposed to be satisfied with the Treaty, and he did not deny any assertion that Palmerston had committed a blunder in attacking it with such violence.
The fifth volume of Madame d'Arblay's journal or memoirs is just come out. I have read the first three volumes, and then could read no more, it was so tiresome; but I returned to the fifth because I found everybody was amused by it. It is certainly readable, for there are scattered through it notices of people and things sufficiently interesting, but they are overlaid by an enormous quantity of trash and twaddle, and there is a continuous stream of mawkish sentimentality, loyalty, devotion, sensibility, and a display of feelings and virtues which are very provoking. The cleverest part of it is the remarkable memory with which she narrates long conversations and minute details of facts and circumstances. It is true she generally makes her people converse in a very ordinary commonplace style, and she hardly ever tells any anecdote or any event of importance or of remarkable interest. Nevertheless her rambling records are read with pleasure, for there is and ever will be an insatiable thirst for familiar details of the great world and the people who have figured in it. Anecdotes of kings, princes, ministers, or any celebrities are always acceptable. I have often thought that my journal would have been much more entertaining if I had scribbled down all I heard and saw in society, all I could remember of passing conversations, jokes, stories, and such like, instead of recording and commenting on public events, as I have often, though irregularly, done. To have done this, however, and done it well, required a better memory and more diligence than I possess, to be more Boswellian than I am. I believe, however, there is and can be no general rule for journalising. Everybody who addicts him- or her-self to this practice must follow the dictates of his taste and fancy or caprice. It is a matter in which character operates and shows itself, for people are open and confidential or reserved with their blank page, in the same way as with their living friends. Some, indeed, will pour forth upon paper, and for the edification or amusement of posterity, what they never would have revealed to living ear; but the majority of those who indulge in this occupation probably only tell what they desire to have known. Few write for themselves only as a sort of moral exercise, or for the refreshment of their own memories, or because they feel a longing to give utterance to, and record the feelings and thoughts that are rising and working and fighting in their minds. It is curious that so many great men, as well as so many small ones, have written journals, and an essay on the subject would be interesting enough if well done. Johnson, Walter Scott, Wilberforce, Windham, Byron, Heber, Gibbon, all kept journals, and many others, no doubt, whom I don't recollect at this moment. I omit Pepys and Evelyn, as men of a different sort.
December 6th.—The general and impartial opinion of Lord Ellenborough's Proclamation is, that he is quite right to have withdrawn the army from Afghanistan, and to have announced a pacific policy for the future, but that he is much to blame in having adopted such a tone as the paper is couched in, to have cast an indirect slur on the policy of Auckland, and condemned in such unqualified terms the errors of men who are not alive to defend themselves, or of the survivors who are going to be tried by a court of enquiry. On the whole Ellenborough has not given satisfaction to any party or set of men. Conservatives complain of him as well as Whigs. He has given personal offence in India, and political offence here, and the appointment, from which such great things were expected, has turned out ill. The Duke of Wellington, however, is perfectly satisfied with what he has done, and as the Government meant to support him before all these successes, much more will they do so now.
December 8th.—I saw Emily Eden[51] yesterday, and found they were full of bitterness against Ellenborough, and no wonder. In the first place, he and Auckland had always been friends. When Ellenborough came into office, he wrote to Auckland a friendly letter, in which he said what was tantamount to an invitation to him to stay in India. On his arrival at Calcutta, he was Auckland's guest for the first three days, till he was sworn in, and then Auckland was his, and when Auckland's sisters wanted to leave Government House and go and pay a visit to a friend of theirs, Ellenborough would not hear of it, and made such a point of their remaining there till their departure that they did so. He lived with them morning, noon, and night, on terms of the greatest cordiality, and repeatedly expressed his regret that they were going away. This renders his Proclamation particularly odious, and the more so because she told me that during the last months of his Government, Auckland had done everything he could not to compromise or embarrass his successor, and had taken great pains to provide for any future military operations on which he might determine, which was a matter of considerable financial difficulty. All this makes them feel very sore, and they are besides of opinion that it is a grievous fault for a Governor to proclaim to the world that errors have been committed, and that the policy of the Indian Government is going to be altered. I am not so surprised at Ellenborough's animus, knowing that when he was at the Board of Control he never lost an opportunity of letting the Queen know his opinion as to the errors and blunders of his predecessor and his colleagues.
A MANUSCRIPT OF ANTONIO PEREZ.
December 9th.—Francis Baring told me yesterday a curious anecdote relating to a Spanish MS. which would be interesting to bibliomaniacs. Sampayo, a half Portuguese, half Englishman, at Paris, was a great book-collector, particularly of Spanish and Portuguese, both books and MSS. He was aware of a MS. of Antonio Perez, relating to the wars of Granada, in the public library at Seville, and he desired Cuthbert, who has been living at Seville for some time, to ask leave to have it copied, and if he could get leave to find somebody to copy it. He got leave, and it was copied in a fair round hand for some sixteen dollars. After the copy was made, the librarian said to Cuthbert, 'You may take away which you please, the copy or the original.' He jumped at the offer, and sent the original MS. to Sampayo. His library was sold the other day, and Francis Baring said he believed this MS. was bought by the Royal Library of France, and it probably fetched a great deal of money.[52]
December 14th.—At Windsor for a Council on Saturday. Sir Robert Peel is staying there, but nobody else was invited. Ellenborough's Proclamation is still occupying general attention. My brother writes me word from Paris that it is generally blamed there, for the same reasons that it is here; and the Duke of Bedford tells me that Lord Spencer's political apathy has been excited very highly, and that he is so full of indignation that he talks of coming down to the House of Lords to attack it. They speak of it as a document deserving impeachment, which is going to very absurd lengths. The Palmerstonians are still screaming themselves hoarse in their endeavours to get the credit of the success. Lady Palmerston wrote to Madame de Lieven (dear friends who hate one another cordially) in a rage, because the latter said to her that she was sure, setting all party feelings aside, as a good Englishwoman, she must rejoice at the successes in the East. The other lady replied, that she did not know what she meant, and that all the merit of the success was due to Palmerston and the late Government. To this Madame de Lieven responded as follows: ' Je vous demande bien pardon de ma légèreté, mais je vous assure que moi et toutes les personnes que je vois, ont été assez niaises pour croire que les grands succès de l'Orient étaient dus à Sir Robert Peel et à son gouvernement. Apparemment nous nous sommes trompés, et je vous demande mille excuses de notre légèreté.'
LORD PALMERSTON AND THE PRESS.