Simla, 12th Sep. 1844.
My dearest Alice,
What do you think I have been at work at for the last month? Some memoirs of my life and Juana’s and my adventures—all from memory. I have got into Jamaica, and have written nearly 400 pages of closely-put-together foolscap. Will you like to decipher and correct it? It will be done in a fortnight—that is, the rough; for as yet I have never read over one sheet I have written, but rushed ahead as water finds its level. There are a variety of stories and events in it.
The new Governor-General is winning golden opinions by his deportment and the regularity with which he transacts business. He says in his letter to me the labour is incessant, much of it trifles which ought to be settled in the departments they belong to. He has hit off one of the great evils of this government pretty quick evidently. The rumour here is very general that, Sir Hugh Gough not having taken the hint to make way for Sir Henry Hardinge, it will be renewed in a less evasive communication. If he be made a peer and they give him the pension as in the case of Lord Keane (my dear old friend who is fast decaying), I am of opinion Sir Hugh Gough would willingly return to his native land, covered with honours, wallowing in wealth, possessing a good heart, a gallant hand, and no ——.
It is wonderful how fortune adheres to some men, and supplies all the deficiencies of nature.
You addressed a letter to me the other day “Sir Henry.” My name is and shall be Harry.
Simla, 15th October, 1844.
Well, I have finished the anecdotes of a very long military career from my entrance into the army in 1805 to the end of the campaign of Gwalior. It is a voluminous tale, containing upwards of six hundred pages of foolscap, written all over without margin in my beautiful autograph as closely as this paper, but I fear ten times as illegible. I have never read a page of it since my scrawling it over at full gallop, and wish you well through it. If I am to send it, great circumspection must be used as to names and descriptions of men and events, or they might do others an injury (which Heaven forfend) and myself too. Whether it may not be advisable not to print it all until I am on the shelf in our retreat or in my grave for the benefit of my widow remains for you and Sir James Kempt to decide on inspection.
I very much regret to say the new Moghul has begun his career as Governor-General in a very little, calculating way, as a banker’s clerk might be expected to do; and all accounts from Calcutta agree in saying that he funks responsibility beyond conception, throwing himself into the hands of understrappers. This won’t do for India. It must be governed by energy and decision. “Sic volo” like my lord Ellenborough. It would appear that if these two men’s minds could be manufactured into one, the corn being preserved and the chaff scattered to the winds, then a Governor-General would be manufactured appropriate for the rôle. The Company servants, civil and military, are an exclusive race of beings and of all things must be controlled. There is now a sort of reaction from great control to concession and a seeking the opinion of others. I hope he is only studying his lesson.