Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/35

Rh In 1841, when Peel came back to power with a substantial majority, Sir Henry Hardinge returned to his former office of Secretary at War, which he continued to hold until he was selected to succeed Lord Ellenborough as Governor-General of India.

His political career commenced in troublous times. He witnessed the great struggles which ended in Roman Catholic Emancipation and the passing of the Reform Bill. As Chief Secretary for Ireland, he had to combat the determined attacks of Mr. O'Connell in the House of Commons, and his agitation for the Repeal of the Union. His speeches in Parliament were clear and businesslike; and many were the congratulations from both sides of the House, when he returned from India to take his seat in the House of Lords. He frequently mentioned that, during his tenure of the office of Secretary for Ireland, he had some misgivings as to whether he could successfully encounter the phalanx of Irish orators and able lawyers opposed to him, who, then as now, made the Chief Secretary the object of their incessant hostility. However, he firmly stood the fire of their guns; and when some one, on his Irish appointment being announced, expressed a doubt to the Duke of Wellington as to whether he was a strong enough man for the post, the Duke replied, 'Hardinge will do; he always understands what he undertakes, and undertakes nothing but what he understands.'

In 1834 it fell to his lot to introduce in the House of Commons the Ministerial plan for the settlement