To the public, however, it seemed doubtful whether the Conservatives would be in power when the Indian Viceroyalty actually demitted; and, as a matter of fact, they had resigned before that event took place. Nor had Lord Mayo's Parliamentary appearances been sufficiently commanding in the eyes of the English Press to secure him from personal criticism. With the exception of a very few speeches on India, China, and Australia, he had confined himself entirely to Irish business. He had displayed no great amount either of interest or of knowledge in the current subjects of English politics. His one speciality was Ireland, and it was a specialty which at that time neither attracted the sympathy nor won the applause of the English public. Indeed, except on rare occasions, an Irish debate was then an affair of empty benches—pretty much as an Indian debate, except at moments of special excitement, is at present. The statesman who had filled the chief Parliamentary office for Ireland on each occasion that his party came into power during twenty years, was less known to the English public than many a young speaker sitting for his first time on the Treasury benches.
A tempest of clamour accordingly arose in the Press, and spent its fury with equal force on Lord Mayo's colleagues and on himself. Some of the criticisms of those days read, by the light of later experience, as truly astonishing products of English party spirit. It is only fair to add, that the very papers which were most bitter against his appointment afterwards came forward most heartily in his praise. In that outburst of the English sense of justice which followed his death, our national journal of humour stood first in its generous acknowledgment of his real desert, as it had led the dropping fire of raillery three years before:—
11 Punch, February 24, 1872.
Lord Mayo felt the hostility of the Liberal journals the more keenly, as in Irish matters (his real business in life) he had been half a Liberal himself. But as usual his vexation was less for himself than for the Ministry which stood publicly responsible for the appointment. 'I am sorely hurt,' he wrote to Sir Stafford Northcote, 'at the way in which the Press are abusing my appointment. I care little for myself, but I am not without apprehension that these attacks may damage the Government, and injure my influence if ever I arrive in India. I am made uneasy, but not daunted.' Again: 'I did not accept this great office without long and anxious consideration. I leave with a good confidence, and hope that I may realise the expectations of my friends. I was prepared for hostile criticism, but I thought that my long public service might have saved me from the personal abuse which has been showered upon me. I bear no resentment, and only pray that I may be enabled ere long to show my abusers that they were wrong.'
Rancour or revenge never for a moment found lodgment in that well-poised mind. In October, 1868, while quivering under partisan attacks, he dictated the following words in his Will:—'I desire that nothing may be published at my death which is calculated to wound or to annoy any living being—even those who have endeavoured by slander and malignity to injure and insult me.' 'Splendid as is the post,' he said to his constituents at Cockermouth, 'and difficult as will be my duties, I go forth in full confidence and hope that God will give me such strength and wisdom as will enable me to direct the Government of India in the interests, and for the well-being, of the millions committed to our care. In the performance of the great task I ask for no favour. Let me be judged according to my acts. And I know that efforts honestly made for the maintenance of our national honour, for the spread of civilisation, and the preservation of peace, will always command the sympathy and support of my countrymen.'
During this trying time Lord Mayo derived much comfort from the stedfast friendliness of Mr. Disraeli. Afterwards, when looking back from the calm level of accomplished success which he reached in India, his memory retained no sense of bitterness towards his opponents, but simply a feeling of gratitude for the unwavering courage and constancy of his leader. Mr. Disraeli had chosen his man, and he supported him in the face of an unfounded but a very inconvenient out-cry.
Lord Mayo, whether as Irish Secretary or as Indian Viceroy, was himself the very type and embodiment of this loyalty to subordinates. He conscientiously judged his men by their actual work, silently putting aside the praise or dispraise of persons not competent to speak, and penetrating his officers with a belief that, so long as they merited his support, no outside influences or complications would ever lead to its being withdrawn. On a somewhat crucial occasion he quietly said: 'I once asked Mr. Disraeli whether newspaper abuse was injurious to a public man. He answered: "It may retard the advancement of a young man, starting in life and untried. But it is harmless after a man has become known; and if unjust, it is in the long-run beneficial."'
In October he ran over to Ireland, and wandered in pathetic silence among the scenes of his boyhood. The day before he left these scenes for ever, he chose a shady spot in a quiet little churchyard on his Kildare estates, and begged that, if he never returned, he might be brought home and laid there. '13th October,' says the brief entry in his Journal—'Left Palmerstown amid tears and wailing, much leave-taking and great sorrow.'
On Wednesday, the 11th November, 1868, Lord Mayo looked for his last time on the Dover cliffs, and reached Paris the same night. The delicious repose of the voyage to India lay before him; his time was still his own, and he resolved to see everything on the way that could shed light on his new duties. Among other matters, the neglected state of the Indian Records had been pressed upon him at the India Office, and in a then recently published work. With the richest and most lifelike materials for making known the facts of their rule, the English in India still lie at the mercy of every European defamer. Their history—that great story of tenderness to pre-existing rights, and of an ever-growing sense of responsibility to the people—is told as a mere romance of military prowess and government by the sword. When Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Mayo had introduced and passed the Act on which the whole Irish Record Department subsists. To that end he had personally studied the method adopted in England, and deputed his friend, Sir Bernard Burke, to report on the French system.