Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/53

Rh disasters (1842), Sir Henry Hardinge had been pressed to accept the command of the Indian army, which for urgent private reasons he was compelled to decline. Now, on being offered the higher office of Governor-General, he felt it an imperative duty to waive all personal considerations. This is so well expressed in a speech of Sir R. Peel's, on moving a vote of thanks in Parliament, on April 2nd, 1846, to the Army of the Sutlej, that I feel the following extract should be reproduced: 'He made a great sacrifice, from a sense of public duty. My gallant friend held a prominent place in the councils of Her Majesty; he was, without reference to party divisions, held in great esteem in this House, as well by his political opponents as by his political friends. He was regarded by the army of this country as its friend, because he was the friend of justice to all ranks. It was proposed to him — at a time of life when perhaps ambition is a less powerful stimulus than it might have been at an earlier period — it was proposed to him to relinquish his place in the councils of the Sovereign, and to forego the satisfaction he must have felt at what he could not fail to see, that he was an object of general respect and esteem.' Such words are no ordinary tribute to his memory, especially when uttered by so great a statesman.

Read, too, the parting words of the Chairman (Captain Shepherd) of the Court of Directors, addressed to Sir H. Hardinge at a farewell banquet of the Court, June, 1844; 'By our latest intelligence we are induced to