Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/218

212 In the course of January, 1843, the Army of Reserve was broken up, and the Governor-General pursued his way through Delhi to Agra, with the Gates of Somnáth in his train. At holy places like Mathra and Bindrában they found some Bráhman worshippers; but at Agra their triumphal progress came to a full stop. They were left to moulder in the Diwán-i-Am, or audience-hall of the Fort.

It was at Agra that the new-made Earl of Ellenborouofh invested George Pollock and William Nott with the Grand Cross of the Bath, the least possible reward that a grateful nation could have bestowed upon the two men to whose bold leadership the Governor-General owed his earldom and England the re-gilding of her tarnished fame. Sir Robert Sale had received the same honour a few months earlier. Medals and batta were awarded with liberal promptitude to all who had served in the campaign of 1842. Nott was at once preferred by Ellenborough himself to the post of Resident at Lucknow. When illness drove Nott a few months later to England, Pollock filled his place. Both of them received from the Court of Directors a pension of £1,000 a year. But not until 1872, twenty-seven years after Nott's death, was Pollock rewarded, at Mr. Gladstone's request, with a baronetcy.

Writing, on the 4th of February 1843, to Lord Ellenborough, the Duke of Wellington warned him to expect a stormy debate on the motion for a vote of thanks to all concerned in the recent campaign.