A paltry attempt was made in Parliament by Lord John Russell to represent this despatch as intended to defraud General Nott of his military trophies in the event of success, and to relieve the Governor-General of responsibility in the event of failure. No such base construction can be put upon it. Lord Ellenborough was doing his own duty as a civil minister, and leaving General Nott to do his as a military commander. A military responsibility lay on General Nott, from which no ruler could relieve him; but the military glory was his also, if he felt himself justified in choosing the path of honour that was opened to him. Who grudges the triumphs that General Nott and his companions-in-arms have achieved? Not certainly Lord Ellenborough or his friends. Let the distinctions which have been heaped on the Indian army and its leaders answer that question. But is their military merit a reason for denying to the man, under whose administration these victories were won, the high honour of having done all which a civil governor could do, to direct and assist the armies of his country? Let each receive the praise of his own merits, and we doubt not that military men, wherever, at least, they have experienced the reverse, will be the first to appreciate and commend, in Lord Ellenborough's administration, that active sympathy and assistance which are so essential to military efficiency and success.
It is said that the despatch of the 4th of July is qualified by heavy cautions. And should it not have been so? In addressing a British officer with a field of exertion before him, so glorious in a military, so hazardous in a political view, it is surely not the spur, but the curb, that a civilian was called on to apply. The courage of such a commander required nothing to fan the flame: The danger, if any, was rather that he would rashly seize the opportunity afforded him, than that he would timidly resign it; and if he was not prepared to adopt the bolder course, in the face of all the hazards which attended it, it was best that the enterprize should not be undertaken at all.
But Lord Ellenborough knew his man. In appointing General Nott, in March, to the command of all the troops, and entrusting him with the control of all the agents in Lower Affghanistan, the Governor and Council had desired him "to rely upon our constant support, and upon our placing the most favourable interpretation upon all the measures he may deem it necessary to adopt in the execution of our orders." And in now giving him the option of retiring by Cabul, Lord Ellenborough was assured that the General needed no other encouragement to avail himself of it, than the feeling that all counter-considerations had been stated and duly weighed. Every preparation was immediately made to support General Nott in his adventurous enterprize; and Lord Ellenborough writes to General Pollock:—
"I am in hopes that Major-General Nott will to-day be in possession of my letter of the 4th instant, and that you will, very soon after you receive this letter, be made acquainted with the Major-General's intentions. My expectation is, that Major-General Nott will feel himself sufficiently strong, and be sufficiently provided with carriage, to march upon Ghuznee and Cabul."
The result was such as had been looked for. The combined operation of the two armies placed the Affghans at our mercy, and terminated, by the ample vindication of our honour, and the restoration of our imprisoned friends, our inauspicious connexion with these barbarians, who had retaliated so cruelly the aggression we had made upon them.
It may be safely conjectured, that if these final triumphs had been achieved under the direction of Lord Auckland, even though merely retrieving the errors of his former policy, we should never have heard an end of the eulogiums pronounced upon him. Lord John Russell would have crowed and clapped his wings in the "moment of victory." Lord Palmerston would have blustered more brazenly than ever. Mr. Macaulay would have aired the whole stores of his panegyrical vocabulary; and Sir John Hobhouse would not have gone abroad.
But, under whatever Government achieved, these results would have filled the minds of patriotic men with unmingled gratitude to all who had contributed to their accomplishment. India had been in danger, and was safe. The British arms had been stained by defeat, and were again glancing brightly in the light of victory. Our countrymen and countrywomen had been almost hopeless captives, and were now restored to freedom and their friends. In such a scene and season of rejoicing, we might have thought that none but a Whig of the very oldest school of all, could have entertained any feelings but those of generous sympathy and unrepining satisfaction. But limits cannot easily be put to human perverseness. The party whose policy had caused the evils from which we and they have been delivered, felt nothing but intense hatred to him who had been most prominent in that deliverance; and, heedless of the good that he had done, they fastened on what seemed to their malignant and microscopic vision some specks that chequered his otherwise unblemished administration of affairs.
The idea of discussing in Parliament, as we have lately witnessed, the literary style of a Government state paper at a crisis so momentous, implies a levity that would be hateful if it were not ludicrous. But there is something peculiarly laughable in the pedantry of such criticism. When other men are thinking of what has been done, the reviewers and poetasters of the Whig Opposition can think only of what has been said. The facts that are before them have no value in their eyes; they see nothing but the phraseology. From men who had themselves done nothing but what was mischievous, this is perhaps natural. They are content, possibly, if they have never said a foolish thing, to have never done a wise one; though we are doubtful if a taunt about simplicity of composition, either comes well from the noble leader of the Whigs, or his friends, when we remember some of their old achievements in addressing their supporters. But in the peculiar position of the Whigs, with ignominy and impeachment suspended over their heads for their Affghan errors, we think that such a course is as becoming as if a condemned criminal were to carp at the literary composition of his own reprieve.
The tactics of the Whigs in their move against Lord Ellenborough, had all the craft of conscious weakness. First, they postponed their motion from time to time, till they were rescued by their opponents from Mr. Roebuck's assault upon them. Then they arranged their attack for the same night in both Houses of Parliament, lest explanations in any high quarter in the one might damage a future discussion in the other; and lastly, though thus acting by simultaneous and concerted movements in both, they framed their motions differently in each place; and in the Commons, where they had some dream of better success, confined themselves to the religious question under the letter on the Somnauth gates, omitting the Simla proclamation of the 1st October, which they knew neither Conservative nor Radical would join them to condemn.
With regard to the Somnauth gates, a pettier piece of hypercriticism, and a more palpable exhibition of hypocrisy, were never witnessed on a public question. Two things on this point are as plain as day.