Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843Various
Science
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Such being the desponding views of the authorities stationed on the
spot, what must have been the anxiety of the new Governor-General on
his arrival in India, when this scene of disaster suddenly opened
upon him with a succession of still further calamities in its train?
We cannot better describe his position than in the words of Sir
Robert Peel, in his speech on the Whig motion for censure--
"The moment he set foot in Madras, what intelligence met him!--the
day he arrived at Benares, what a succession of events took place,
calculated to disturb the firmest mind, and to infuse apprehensions
into the breast of the boldest man! It has been said the cry in
England was, 'What next?' That was a question which Lord
Ellenborough had to put to himself for four or five days after his
arrival. He lands at Madras on the 15th of February, presuming at
the time that his predecessor had secured the admirable position so
frequently spoken of in Affghanistan. He lands at Madras, after a
four months' voyage, in necessary ignorance of all that had occurred
in that interval of time, and to his astonishment he hears of the
insurrection at Cabul. He receives tidings that Sir William
Macnaghten and Sir Alexander Burnes, the envoy and representative of
the British Government, had been murdered; that the city was in a
state of insurrection, and that doubts were entertained as to the
security of the British army. What next? He arrives at Calcutta, and
there hears of the orders of his predecessor to hasten the
evacuation of Affghanistan, for the noble reason of inflicting as
little discredit as possible upon the British powers. He repairs to
Benares, and there he hears the tremendous news that not only you
had lost power in Affghanistan, but that you had so depressed the
spirits and shaken the confidence of the native army, that General
Pollock gives this melancholy account in a letter to Captain M'Gregor:
--'It must no doubt appear to you and Sale most extraordinary, that,
with the force I have here, I do not at once move on; God knows it
has been my anxious wish to do so, but I have been helpless. I came
on ahead to Peshawar to arrange for an advance, but was saluted with
a report of 1900 sick, and a bad feeling among the Sepoys. I visited
the hospitals, and endeavoured to encourage by talking to them, but
they had no heart. On the 1st instant the feeling on the part of the
Sepoys broke out, and I had the mortification of knowing that the
Hindoos of four out of five native corps refused to advance. I
immediately took measures to sift the evil, and gradually reaction
has taken place, in the belief that I will wait for the
reinforcements. This has caused me the utmost anxiety on your account;
your situation is never out of my thoughts; but having told you what
I have, you and Sale will at once see that necessity has kept me here.
I verily believe, if I were to attempt to move on now without the
reinforcement, that the four regiments implicated would, as far as
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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