frequently be insulted and alarmed-perhaps even attacked. It has always been so from the beginning of the world, and the system is not now likely to cease, or the lamb and the wolf, in more than metaphor, to lie down together. No, if we would have peace, we must be known to be strong and ready for war, though not too eager for a pretext to embark in it.

To be strong, but placid in our strength, is the condition which we should endeavor to preserve. Restlessness often indicates or seems to indicate weakness; and nothing is more contagious than excitement. To be prepared is one thing; to be always making preparations another. The former neither rouses the fears nor stimulates the presumption of our neighbours the latter often operates in both directions, for whilst it betrays uneasiness, it suggests an apprehension that such uneasiness is dangerous. The alarm, which is felt on our side of the Sutlej, is felt, in a still greater degree, on the other; and the preparations, of which we read so much, are nothing more than the growth of that terror, which has naturally been excited in the breasts of the Seikhs, by the frequent reports of an intended British invasion, reports, which gathering strength as they go, find their way rapidly to Lahor. That at a time, when on our side of the river, the question of war or no war is mooted every day, and the annexation of the Punjaub is a favorite subject with our public writers, it can be no matter of astonishment, nor can we impute it to the Seikh ruler as an offence, that seeing the very obvious direction of our thoughts, he should at such a time concentrate his efforts on defensive measures, and prepare to resist the rumored aggression. If such measures furnish a pretext for war, the British have long ago afforded the pretext.

Interference is easy to talk of, but no one knowing the miseries it engenders will advocate its application. The first step taken, and the Rubicon is passed; we cannot halt; we must go on; we must take the country for ourselves; or, a far worse measure, we must perpetuate in the Punjab the tales of the Deccan (Hyderabad), of Mysore, Arcot and Oude.*

We had purposed to give in this article some account of the Seikh people and their country, including the protected states; but the length to which the present division of our subject has extended, compels us to keep the consideration of these interesting matters for a future article.

ERRATUM.-At page 478 the murder of Cheyt Singh is said to have occurred in November 1839. It occurred in the October of that year.

ART. VI.-1. Papers relating to Military Operations in Aff ghanistan. London, 1843.

2. Papers respecting Gwalior. London, 1844.

3. Further papers respecting Gwalior, 1844.

4. The Calcutta (Government) Gazette, 1842-43-44.

THE winter of 1841-42 will long, in India, be a memorable winter. Vivid, after the lapse of many years, will be the memory of that most disastrous season-of the throng c feelings and passions, which stirred the great heart of society. Never in the recollection of the oldest had such a series of appalling events filled the breasts of men with horror and dismay. Never had tremulous expectancy stood on tip-toe with such intense eagerness to catch the first sound of each coming rumour, as the sad tidings of disaster after disaster welled in from the north-west. Affghanistan-serene and prosperous Affghanistan-with its popular government and its gratefu people, was in arms against its deliverers. Suddenly the tran quillity of that doomed country, boasted of in Čaubul and credited in Calcutta, was found to be a great delusion—a delusion, most fondly cherished, like the phantasm which Menippus Lycius met, "in the habit of a fair gentlewoman," and "found to be a Lamia, a serpent." The truth so long smouldering had blazed forth at last; and from east to west the history of that great delusion was written in characters of blood. It was alas! but too deplorably manifest, that although a British Army had crossed the Indus, the Affghans were Affghans still still a nation of fierce Mahomedans, of hardy warriors, of independ ent mountaineers; still a people, not to be awed into passive submission to intolerable wrong, by the pageantry of a puppet king and a scattering of foreign bayonets.

A dreary season indeed was that winter of 1841-42. There was a weight in the social atmosphere, which could not but depress the spirits of men and induce a season of general mourn ing. It rarely happens, in such conjunctures as these, tha the worst fears of the most desponding are realised; but here the ghastly horrors of the actual picture surpassed all our wors forebodings, all our most vivid imaginings. The dreams with which we were haunted, were dim beside the dread realties to which we were awakened. There is nothing more fearful in history than that massacre in the Caubul passes-nothing, we may add, more instructive.*

* The reader, who is fond of tracing historical parallels, may advantageously

Lord

The Governor-General, Lord Auckland, was at the presidency; and even the most strenuous opponents of the policy, which had resulted in so much misery and so much disgrace, could not but feel for the statesman, whose error had been so severely visited. The blow was, indeed, a heavy one. Auckland was about to return to England. The usual period of a Governor-General's tenure of office had expired; and his Lordship was awaiting the arrival of his successor. He had hoped to embark for England, a happy man and a successful ruler. He had, as he thought, conquered and tranquillised Affghanistan. For the former exploit he had been created an earl; and the latter achievement would have entitled him to the honor. It is true he had drained the treasury; but he believed that he was about to hand over no embryo war to his successor, and, therefore, that the treasury would soon replenish itself. The prospect was sufficiently cheering, and he was eager to depart; but the old year wore to its close and still found Lord Auckland amongst us-found him the most luckless of rulers and the most miserable of men.

The

The first sad tidings of that perilous Caubul insurrection reached Calcutta at the close of November. The following month was one of painful anxiety-of boding fear-of embarrassing uncertainty. Official information there was none; and the private accounts of events at Caubul, necessarily brief and hurried as they were, excited the worst apprehensions without dispelling much of the public ignorance. Government was helpless, in this conjuncture-compelled to look idly on. Caubul force, cut off from all support, could by no possibility be rescued. The utmost vigour and determination-the highest wisdom and sagacity-could avail nothing at such a time. The scales had fallen from the eyes of the Governor-General only to show him the utter hopelessness of the case. In this terrible emergency, he seems to have perceived, for the first time, the madness of posting a detached force, in an enemy's country, hundreds of miles from our own frontier. The truth was a humiliating truth-but he looked it boldly in the face. He attempted no disguise-no evasion. He endeavored not to conceal the magnitude of one error by preparing to commit another; but at once acknowledged the inherent vice of the original policy and the propriety of abandoning it.

sult Chapters xxxviii. and xxxix. of the Bellum Jugurthinum. The following passage is highly descriptive of the emotion produced in Calcutta by the disaster alluded to in the text-"Sed ubi ea Romae comperta sunt, motus atque moror civitatem invasere; pars dolere pro gloriâ imperii; pars insolita rerum bellicarum timere libertati; Aulo omnes infesti, et maxime qui bello sæpe preclari fuerant, quod armatus dedecore potius, quam manu salutem quæsiverit.'

In that month of December, 1841, arrived the intelligence of the appointment of Lord Auckland's successor. The question of succession to the Government of India is ever, in this country, a most interesting one-ever a question, which leads to much speculation and debate. On this occasion, it had been canvassed with more than common eagerness, and its solution looked forward to with something more than common interest. When the looked-for news came at last, it took the majority by surprise. The probability of the appointment of Lord Ellenborough, who held the office of President of the Board of Controul, had scarcely been entertained. Sir James Graham, Lord Heytesbury, Lord Lichfield-nay, even Lord Lyndhurst had been named; but speculation had not busied itself with the name of Lord Ellenborough.

But the intelligence, though unexpected, was not unwelcome. It was, indeed, received with universal satisfaction. The Press, with one accord, spoke of the appointment with approbation; and the public confirmed the verdict of the Press. All parties were alike sanguine-all prepared to look for good in the new Governor-General. There is not a community on the face of the earth less influenced by the spirit of Faction, than the community of British India. To support, or to oppose the measures of a Governor, simply because he is a Whig or a Tory, is an excess of active prejudice wholly unknown in India. There are no political parties, and there is no party Press, to play out such a game as this. Public men are judged, not by what they belong to, but by what belongs to them and thus was Lord Ellenborough judged. Whig and Tory alike hailed the appointment; for the new Governor-General was held in some degree of estimation as one who had made India his study, and cherished a laudable interest in its welfare. He was believed to be possessed of more than average talent; assiduous in his attention to business; and rather an able man of detail than a statesman of very brilliant promise. They, who thought most about the matter, anticipated that he would make a good, steady, peace-governor; that he would apply himself devotedly to the task of improving the internal administration of the country; and by a steady and consistent course of policy soon disengage the country from the pressure of financial embarrassments. They knew little and cared less about the personal eccentricities imputed to his lordship at home; whether he was a fop in! his dress; a petit maitre in his manners; or a woman in the tender culture of his hair. He might have been all this and much more; nay, it was impossible that something of this not very flattering picture should not have been stamped on the minds of the Indian

public; but the impression was a faint one, and there was no inclination to strengthen it. Neither the Press nor the Public concerned itself about these manifestations of the outer man. They thought of the newly appointed Governor-General as an able and laborious man of business, with a more than common knowledge of the history of India and the details of its administration; they knew that not only had his occupancy, for many years, of the chief seat at the India Board, rendered him familiar with the workings of the Indian Government; but that on every occasion, when Indian affairs had been discussed in the House of Lords, in power or out of power, he had taken a prominent part in the debates. In 1833, when the provisions of the existing Charter were under the consideration of Parliament, he had distinguished himself as one of the ablest, but most moderate opponents of certain of its clauses, contending in favor of the diminution of the powers of Indian Governors by the imposition of the wholesome controul of Council; and earnestly protesting against the perilous evil of leaving too much to the unbridled passions or the erratic caprice of a single man. In later days, he had denounced the war in Affghanistan, in fitting terms of severe censure; and all things combined to render us hopeful of a good, steady, peaceful administration. Conservative exchanged congratulations with Liberal on the cheering prospects, now opening out before them, of many years of peaceful government and financial prosperity. Lord Ellenborough was believed to be a moderate statesman-somewhat too liberal for the Tories of the ministerial camp, but not for the modified conservatism of India, where every man is more or less a Reformer-and as a moderate statesman all men were prepared to welcome him.

In October 1841, he was elected to fill the office of GovernorGeneral; and on the 4th of the following month, he attended the usual complimentary dinner, given on such occasions, by the Court of Directors. The report of that dinner, which reached India, simultaneously with the intelligence of Lord Ellenborough's appointment, had a natural tendency to increase the confidence, engendered by his lordship's previous history, in the judgment and moderation of the new Governor-General. On returning thanks, after his health had been drunk, Lord Ellenborough, at that farewell dinner, on the 4th of November 1841, made a most emphatic declaration of his intentions to govern India upon peace principles; he abjured all thoughts of warlike, aggressive policy; and declared his settled determination, on assuming the reins of government to direct all the energies of his mind, towards the due cultivation of the arts of peace; to emu→ late the magnificent benevolence of the Mahomedan conquerors;