And the evening star was shining on Schehallion's distant head,
When we wiped our bloody broadswords and return'd to count the dead.
There we found him, gash'd and gory, stretch'd upon the cumber'd plain,
As he told us where to seek him, in the thickest of the slain.
And a smile was on his visage, for within his dying ear
Peal'd the joyful note of triumph and the clansmen's clamorous cheer;
So, amidst the battle's thunder, shot, and steel, and scorching flame,
In the glory of his manhood pass'd the spirit of the Graeme!
Open wide the vaults of Athol, where the bones of heroes rest—
Open wide the hallow'd portals to receive another guest!
Last of Scots, and last of freemen—last of all that dauntless race,
Who would rather die unsullied than outlive the land's disgrace!
O thou lion-hearted warrior! reck not of the after-time,
Honour may be deem'd dishonour, loyalty be called a crime.
Sleep in peace with kindred ashes of the noble and the true,
Hands that never fail'd their country, hearts that never baseness knew.
Sleep, and till the latest trumpet wakes the dead from earth and sea,
Scotland shall not boast a braver chieftain than our own Dundee!
W.E.A.
* * * * *
LORD ELLENBOROUGH AND THE WHIGS.
The period of a single year but just elapsed has exhibited in the neighbourhood of the Indus events of the most memorable and momentous kind. Disasters the most disgraceful have been endured—victories the most brilliant have been achieved. The policy and the fortunes of a mighty empire under one governor, have been wholly reversed under another. Safety and security have been substituted for danger and dismay—a strong and dignified peace for a weak and aggressive war. These changes have been coincident with a great revolution in domestic politics. Under Whig auspices those evils had arisen which their successors have now redressed. Under the administration of Whigs, that flood of calamity was opened up which has been arrested without their aid; but which could not have continued its threatened course without the most perilous consequences to the country, and the heaviest burden of responsibility on the authors of the mischief.
In such circumstances it might have been expected—if manly courage or common decency were to be looked for in such a quarter—that on these Eastern questions the Whig party should this session have followed one or other of two courses: either that they should have taken a bold line of opposition, and vindicated their own Indian policy, while they attacked that of their successors: or that they should have preserved a prudent silence on subjects where they could say nothing in their own praise, and have only lifted up their voice to join the general acclamations of the country for successes in which, though not achieved by themselves, they had the best reason to rejoice, as shielding them from the ignominy and punishment which, in an opposite event, would have been poured out by public indignation on the heads of the original wrongdoers.
A strong or an honest party would have chosen one or other of these lines. But the Whigs are neither strong nor honest; and they have accordingly, in the late Indian discussions in Parlament, pursued a course of policy in which it is difficult to say whether feebleness or fraud be the more conspicuous. They have not ventured to vindicate their own conduct in invading the Affghan country: they have not dared to dispute the wisdom of their successors in retiring from it, when the object of a just retribution was accomplished. But while driven from these points—while forced to acknowledge the ability and judgment with which the present Governor-General has applied the forces of the empire to retrieve our honour and reputation in the East—while unable to point to a single practical measure as either improperly taken, or improperly omitted by him, the Whigs could not refrain, on some pretext or other, from marring the general joy by the discordant hissings of an impotent envy. Experiencing in an unparalleled degree both the indulgence of a generous nation, who are willing to forget the past in the enjoyment of the present, and the forbearance of high-minded opponents, who could easily have triumphed in the exposure of their disastrous blunders, the Whigs have made a characteristic return, by rancorously assailing the man whom the public views as its benefactor, with captious criticisms on the terms of a proclamation, or hypocritical objections to the transmission of a trophy. With that cunning which the faction have often shown in the use of apparent opportunities, they gained the reluctant concurrence of a few upright men, of whose peculiar scruples they contrived to avail themselves, but with an ignorance of the true English character, for which they are equally distinguished, they overshot the mark, and stand convicted of a design to make a verbal misconstruction the pretence for persecuting an absent man, and to convert honest prejudices into an unconscious instrument of oppression. They have thus earned a large allowance of general contempt, and they have nowhere, perhaps, excited a stronger feeling of disgust than in the minds of those who thought themselves compelled, by a rigid conscience, to give a seeming concurrence to their proceedings.
In judging of the conduct and position of Lord Ellenborough, it were gross ingratitude and injustice to forget the nature of the calamities with which India was assailed and threatened at the commencement of his goverment. In the second week of March 1842, the overland mail from the East conveyed intelligence to our shores which struck the nation to the very heart, and spread one universal feeling of grief and dismay, approaching for a time as near to a feeling of despondency as English breasts can be taught to know. Let us describe the effect in the words of an impartial observer writing at the time:—
"No such disastrous news has for many years reached this country as that which has arrived from India. 'The progress of our arms' was carried merrily on, till our flag was set beside that of our puppet, Shah Soojah, in Cabul; but there the progress has abruptly terminated in the total engulfing of 'our arms.' Yes, Sir William Macnaghten had just written home to declare our supremacy established, when all Cabul rose beneath his feet. Sir Alex. Burnes was the first swallowed in the earthquake of arms; next Sir William himself, governor of Bombay, and representative of the power of England in North-Western India, was destroyed, and his mutilated remains were made the object of ignominious ribaldry; and at length, if very general rumour is to be believed, the English army of occupation has been literally expunged. Corunna, Walcheren, all the reverses that have chequered our military career, baffle the memory to find a parallel to the utter defeat which, in the eyes of the barbarians of the Indian frontier, has crushed our power."—Spectator, p. 242.