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Law thousand men, commanded by British officers and controlled by the British resident, though paid by the native government, became in truth an English garrison.

By this time the patience of the directors was exhausted. Ellenborough's despatches to them had been haughty and disrespectful. They had no control over his policy. With the civil servants, from whom their information was derived, he was in the worst odour, and he had undoubtedly violated the regulation approved by himself in 1830, and had expended large sums on barracks and other military objects without obtaining the sanction of the court of directors. They at length, in spite of ministerial protests, resolved to exercise their undoubted but most extreme powers. Since November 1842 Ellenborough had been prepared to receive his recall by every mail. In June 1844 it came. He left Calcutta by the Tenasserim on 1 Aug., having restored the English military prestige in Afghanistan, enlarged the bounds of the empire, improved the condition of the army, and systematised the methods of the various civil departments of state. For these services he was, on his return in October, created Earl of Ellenborough and Viscount Southam. He had previously received the thanks of parliament. The whigs, who had acceded to this honour, inconsistently attacked his administration in two debates in February and March 1843. His policy was successfully vindicated in the two houses by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, and the attack of the opposition failed (see the papers on Afghanistan, 1843, and supplementary papers, Afghanistan, 1843; Correspondence relating to Scinde, 1843; Calcutta Review, i. 508, vi. 570;, Parl. Debates, lxxiv. 275; Lord Ellenborough's Administration of India, 1874; W. , Life of Major George Broadfoot; H. , Life of Sir H. Durand; C. R. , Life of Sir George Pollock; J. H. , Life of Sir W. Nott; , History of the War in Afghanistan; , Conquest of Scinde).

When Sir Robert Peel's cabinet was reconstituted in 1846, Ellenborough entered it as first lord of the admiralty, and he resigned with Peel in the summer of that year. During the Crimean war he fiercely attacked the administration of the army in the House of Lords on 12 May 1855, but he was defeated by a majority of 120. He was anxious that Lord Derby should attempt the formation of a government in that year, and offered him his support. In 1858 he took office with him as president of the board of control, for the fourth time. The opposition which the tories had offered to Lord Palmerston's Government, of India Bill obliged the new administration to introduce a substantive scheme of their own. This bill was the work of Ellenborough in its original form. His complicated plan for electing an Indian council by the votes of a variety of interests and classes, commercial, official, and popular, excited so much opposition that the bill was postponed. Meantime the proclamation which Lord Canning had issued after the fall of Lucknow, declaring the confiscation of the soil of Oudh, arrived at the India office. While it was in course of post the change of ministry had occurred. Lord Canning accompanied it by no official statement of his motives and policy, but in a private letter to Vernon Smith, Ellenborough's predecessor, he promised his reasons by the next mail, when he would be more at leisure. This private letter Vernon Smith kept to himself. Ellenborough, having before him no explanation of Canning's reasons, immediately addressed to him a caustic despatch, in which he strongly censured the proclamation, and at once allowed the terms of his despatch to be known. Both proclamation and despatch were published in the 'Times' of 8 May. He had not consulted his colleagues, who heard of his act from the newspapers; he had not submitted a draft of the despatch to the queen. The queen complained of the discourtesy; questions were asked in the House of Commons about the despatch, and Disraeli, in laying a copy on the table, disavowed it on behalf of the government. Cardwell gave notice of a motion for a vote of censure in the commons, Lord Shaftesbury in the lords. The passage of the vote would have been fatal to the government. Ellenborough wisely took the whole responsibility upon himself, and on 10 May resigned. The motion in the House of Lords was defeated by a narrow majority of nine, that in the commons was withdrawn after four nights' debate, and the Indian Government Bill was entirely recast. From this time Ellenborough, though almost the foremost orator in the House of Lords and a frequent speaker, remained out of office. He spoke repeatedly on national defences and on the Danish question in 1864. In 1868 he was in favour of concurrent endowment of the Roman catholic church in Ireland, and in 1869, as the last survivor of the cabinet which passed the Catholic Relief Act, he was prepared to speak against the Disestablishment Bill; but he did not rise, as his argument was forestalled by the Bishop of Peterborough. His health then failed, and on 22 Dec. 1871 he died, and was buried at Oxenton Church, near Cheltenham. He held till his death a sinecure place given him by