In our notice of the former volumes, we have given our own sentiments upon the difficult question of the liberation of the Indian press, and we have no disposition to combat the many strong arguments now advanced by Mr. Thornton against the policy of this memorable measure of the late Lord Metcalfe. We have already remarked that the press has most happily disappointed many of the predictions of those opposed to its liberation. It has not lent itself to the dissemination of private scandal, and it has not evinced that hostility to public bodies or to individual functionaries which was apprehended as probable consequences of the entire removal of all pre-existing restraints. Its offences have been chiefly want of caution in its disclosures, and want of consideration in its speculations. By the former, it has sometimes done its best to put our enemies on their guard against projected operations; by the latter, it has gone far to shake our alliance with independent states, by an open avowal of a desire for their speedy annihilation or absorption. But though, even in these respects, we acknowledge our censures to have been too sweeping, still it must, we think, be admitted, that in the present state of India a perfectly free press is undesirable, and so we are persuaded thought Lord Metcalfe, in common with Mr. Thornton; but he also saw that, be it for good or for ill, its liberation was inevitable, and that no Government, however powerful, could long resist the current that way setting, having its source not in India but in the growing potency of the popular voice in England. Taking this view of the question, we cannot agree with Mr. Thornton in thinking that the circumstance of Lord Metcalfe's having been only in temporary possession of the high office of Governor-General, constitutes any valid objection to the step taken by him on his own responsibility; nor do we think that to have referred the matter to the home authorities would have been either wise or generous. The reference could not but have transpired, and in that case the odium incurred by withholding the solicited sanction, would have been but a shade lighter than what they might have braved, if they had thought proper, by a rescission of the obnoxious law. That they did not exercise this last-mentioned power proves, to our mind, that they had real cause to be grateful to their intrepid servant, who took upon himself all the reproach of a concession which neither they nor he had the power long to withhold.

Having no intention to follow our author very closely across the trodden ground of the Afghan war, we cannot resist the inclination to linger over our reminiscences of the distinguished individual to whom we have just alluded, and whose eventful and eminently useful career has so recently been brought to a melancholy close.

The late Lord Metcalfe.

423

It was justly remarked in an almost obituary article of a morning paper, shortly before Lord Metcalfe's death, that in his instance was to be found the only existing exception to the general fact, of the decay of those feelings of personal regard for public characters whereby mankind used not very long ago to be swayed and led. To look no further back than to the time of our fathers, how strong were the more than mere political attachments that then bound the members of the two great parties to their several chiefs! The influence of this kind of personal devotion was felt in the remotest parts of our empire, and we ourselves remember to have heard in our youth a retired Irish major of the Indian army recount with great animation the story of a quarrel ending in a duel he once had with a companion who offended him by abusing his friend Fox. Now, without disrespect towards our present party leaders, we may be permitted to doubt whether even an Irish major could be found who, out of pure love, at the distance of many thousand miles from the scene of their power, would wage war in defence of their reputations.

The friends of the late Lord Metcalfe never had occasion to give any such proofs of their affection, for there was that in him to disarm malevolence in all but those whose spite was too contemptible to provoke resentment. But whenever an occasion rose to call forth an expression of the general feeling towards him, whether in India, where the better part of his life was spent-in Jamaica, where its decline commenced-or in Canada, where it was visibly hastening to a close, the sentiment that found vent was not that of mere loyalty or attachment to a system of government, as embodied in the person by whom it was administered, but a warm and even tender regard and reverence for the man himself, abstracted from the accidents of power and influence annexed to his position.

The last manifestation of these feelings at the meeting assembled in the Oriental Club-room, in London, to consider of an address of sad congratulation on the return of Lord Metcalfe from Canada, may still be fresh in the minds of many of our readers. Never was there more of real and less of formal feeling displayed at any similar meeting. Men of all classes and ages, grey-headed statesmen, generals and judges, merchants, civilians and soldiers, all under the influence of one common sympathy, their hearts wrung by one common sorrow, and their minds oppressed by a deep and awful sense of the inscrutability of the ways of Providence in subjecting such virtue to so fierce a trial, sought to give utterance to thoughts and sentiments which happily found adequate expression in an address, pronounced by the leading journal of the day to be as superior to the common run

of addresses, as the object of it was superior to the common run of men.

The first steps in the career of public life of one who could thus go on to the very end, awakening affection wherever he went, and accumulating it as he advanced on his course, must be an object of no idle curiosity to all who like to watch the development of a powerful mind in its dealings with the world. The young Charles Metcalfe went to India about the year 1802, and after passing with credit through the college, then just founded in Calcutta, was appointed to be an assistant in the Governor-General's office. Getting excited by the stirring events then passing in upper India, he asked for and obtained Lord Wellesley's permission to proceed and join the grand army assembling at Agra, under Lord Lake, towards the end of the year 1804. This was at the time when the disaster, known by the name of Monson's retreat, had checked but not shaken our power. The emergency was met with commensurate energy, and the Commander-in-Chief equally beloved by the Native as by the European soldier, was in the field to repair whatever mischief had been done.

The post of the Governor-General's Political Agent with the army--a post, as we shall show in the sequel, often necessary, but always invidious-was filled by Mr. Græme Mercer, to whom young Metcalfe was appointed to be an assistant. He went by Dawke, (that is in a palankeen with relays of bearers,) from Calcutta, and was attacked on the road between Lucknow and Cawnpore by banditti, in his encounter with whom he lost the top joint of the fore-finger of his right hand. This compelled him to stop for a short time at Cawnpore, but he joined the army on the day when it took up its ground at Muttra on the Jumna, about 30 miles above Agra, where our enemy Holkar had been previously encamped.

Mr. Mercer, the Political Agent, had a seat at the general table of Lord Lake, with all the rest of the staff, and his assistant Metcalfe was necessarily admitted to the same privilege. There is reason to believe that Lord Lake did not like this young assistant's coming up in the way he did, without any previous reference to him, and the more so, probably, because he came from the Governor-General's office, where all the young men were more or less in Lord Wellesley's confidence. In his secret soul the old warrior probably regarded the civilian as a spy, and being a very abrupt plain-speaking man and not over discreet, he is said to have given vent to this feeling in terms by no means complimentary to his new guest, sneering at the same time at those whose business it was, without risk to, themselves, to comment upon the actions of others who were daily encountering danger.

The late Lord Metcalfe-" The Politicals."

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The position of the young civilian, enduring such a slight from the Commander-in-Chief at his own table, must have been very embarrassing. To resent it would have been absurd; yet something to counteract its effect was absolutely necessary for the maintenance of his own character. With a judgment and nerve rarely to be found united at so early an age, he seized the first occasion of a service of danger to take the point from one part of the reproach addressed to him, while, by the tact and discrimination of his general conduct, he removed every impression of his mission being that of a spy. When the fortress of Deeg was attacked, he got the Commander-inChief's permission to accompany the storming-party, and by his gallant bearing completely won the old warrior's heart. He soon became a special favourite, and was ever after called by Lord Lake, "his little stormer." We can vouch for the accuracy of this anecdote, and we think it well worthy of record, were it only for the light it throws on the position of a class of officers in some degree peculiar to British India, whose duties are ill understood at home, where their actions have consequently been of late not a little misrepresented.

We allude to the Political Agents, or "the Politicals," as it is now the fashion to call them.

In running down this section of the service, men in and out of Parliament, men with and without Indian experience, have joined together with a harmony of virulence, indicative one might almost think, of some common motive of greater force than a mere concurrence of opinion on a matter of official expediency. The very constitution of the department is misrepresented, even by some who affect a familiarity with the details of Indian administration; and in a recent Number of a contemporary Journal it is spoken of as if composed principally if not exclusively of members of the Civil Service. Now the fact is, that though many members of that service have risen to the highest places in the political department, still the department itself is open to the aspiring of every branch of the Indian service. In proof of what we say, it is only necessary to mention, that although Lord Metcalfe, the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, Sir R. Jenkins, and Sir W. Macnaghten, were civilians, their contemporary political agents, Sir J. Malcolm, Sir D. Ochterlony, Sir T. Munro, and Sir H. Pottinger, were military men, while Mr. Græme Mercer, under whom Lord Metcalfe began his career, belonged to the medical branch of the service.

The functions of the department are as little understood as its composition; and we find it spoken of in the article above noticed

* Quarterly Review for October, 1846. Article VII.

as if it served no purpose but that of embarrassing "military commanders in the proper discharge of their duties." Now, considering that the employment of special political agents, in concert with commanders of armies, has been persisted in by a series of wise and eminently successful governments, it ought, we think, to occur to every candid mind that there must be some cogent reason for this practice, notwithstanding the opinion of the late Sir William Nott, that it is one of the primary evils of our system of administration. The reason is to be found in the peculiar circumstances of our Empire, and the absolute necessity, in the discharge of political duties in India, for such a knowledge of the language and character of the people of the country, or of such supereminent general talent, as can but very rarely be met with in the narrow circle whence the military commander of every expedition must be taken. It constantly happens that the officer to whom a command must, in compliance with the rules and regulations of the army, be confided, has but recently arrived from England, full perhaps of Peninsular experience and professional knowledge, but totally ignorant of the language and the modes of thought and feeling of the people of the East.

In this case, some one possessing the knowledge wherein the Commander is wanting, must go with the army, or else the communications with friendly and hostile powers must be carried on by dumb show.

This all will admit; but it may be argued that the person so employed ought to be placed in subordination to the Military Chief, or, in other words, attached to his Staff. This would do well enough, if his part were to be that of a mere interpreter ; but more is necessary. In addition to ignorance of language, the officer whom chance and his standing on the list, as often as selection, places at the head of an army, must often be wanting in that acquaintance with the peculiar interests of our singular empire, and that consideration for the perplexities of Asiatics in their dealings with Europeans, without which there can be no real intercourse with Native Chiefs, no allaying of unfounded fears as to our designs, no negotiation, in short, excepting that word-and-blow diplomacy ever sure to be popular in camps and praised in senates. It may, perhaps, be thought that the duly qualified subordinate can always supply by his suggestions the deficiencies of his superior; but they know little of the military variety of the genus Homo, who would rely upon such suggestions being frankly made or kindly received. The spirit is mollified, but not extinct, which prompted the reply of a General in the war of 1757, to some wise hint of the youthful Washington. Silence, sir; things have come to a pretty pass, indeed, when a British General is to be instructed by a Virginia Buckskin."