Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
such Governors as Warren Hastings, Mr Elphinstone, Sir Thomas Munro,
and Sir Charles Metcalfe, men who were as familiar with the language and
manners of the native population of India as any man here can be
with the language and manners of the French, would not have left the
discovery to be made by a new comer who did not know any Eastern tongue.
Surely, too, it might have occurred to the noble lord that, before he
put forth such a proclamation, he would do well to ask some person who
knew India intimately what the effect both on the Mahometans and Hindoos
was likely to be. I firmly believe that the Governor General either did
not ask advice or acted in direct opposition to advice. Mr Maddock was
with his lordship as acting Secretary. Now I know enough of Mr Maddock
to be quite certain that he never counselled the Governor General to
publish such a paper. I will pawn my life that he either was never
called upon to give an opinion, or that he gave an opinion adverse to
the course which has been taken. No Governor General who was on good
terms with the civil service would have been, I may say, permitted to
expose himself thus. Lord William Bentinck and Lord Auckland were, to be
sure, the last men in the world to think of doing such a thing as this.
But if either of those noble lords, at some unlucky moment when he was
not quite himself, when his mind was thrown off the balance by the pride
and delight of an extraordinary success, had proposed to put forth such
a proclamation, he would have been saved from committing so great a
mistake by the respectful but earnest remonstrances of those in whom
he placed confidence, and who were solicitous for his honour. From the
appearance of this proclamation, therefore, I infer that the terms on
which Lord Ellenborough is with the civil servants of the Company are
such that those servants could not venture to offer him counsel when he
most needed it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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