THE GATES OF SOMNAUTH. (MARCH 9, 1843) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 9TH OF MARCH 1843. On the ninth of March 1843, Mr Vernon Smith, Member for Northampton, made the following motion: "That this House, having regard to the high and important functions of the Governor General of India, the mixed character of the native population, and the recent measures of the Court of Directors for discontinuing any seeming sanction to idolatry in India, is of opinion that the conduct of Lord Ellenborough in issuing the General Orders of the sixteenth of November 1842, and in addressing the letter of the same date to all the chiefs, princes, and people of India, respecting the restoration of the gates of a temple to Somnauth, is unwise, indecorous, and reprehensible." Mr Emerson Tennent, Secretary of the Board of Control, opposed the motion. In reply to him the following Speech was made. The motion was rejected by 242 votes to 157. Mr Speaker,--If the practice of the honourable gentleman, the Secretary of the Board of Control, had been in accordance with his precepts, if he had not, after exhorting us to confine ourselves strictly to the subject before us, rambled far from that subject, I should have refrained from all digression. For and truth there is abundance to be said touching both the substance and the style of this Proclamation. I cannot, however, leave the honourable gentleman's peroration entirely unnoticed. But I assure him that I do not mean to wander from the question before us to any great distance or for any long time.