13 MAY 1843, Page 1

The detailed accounts by the Indian mail afford no explanation

of the inconsistency by which Lord ELLENBOROUGH seizes on Scinde, after repudiating territorial aggrandizement. At first view, it seems as if the author of the proclamations of October 1st and March 5th must be different and opposite people—political antagonists. Yet it cannot be said that Lord Emainnortonaff has altogether falsified the expectations formed of him. He was expected to reverse Lord AUCKLAND'S policy in Afghanistan ; he did so : he was supposed to be thoroughly informed on Indian subjects ; there is nothing to disprove it—ignorance and unfamiliarity do not ap- pear in the charges against him : he was expected to be zealous in promoting the material interests of India ; several practical mea- sures in contemplation or in progress are highly praised, as most useful to the country. Thus far, then, he is not unlike what be first promised to be. But a fresh element in the character of.a Governor-General has developed itself—an intensity of personal ambition, amounting to monomania. The ornate redundancy, which was laughed at in the Lord's more youthful costume and demeanour, shines forth with a fiercer glow in his state papers and official bearing—in his proclamations, cocked bats, and royal pageantries. He is a judicious statesman in his Afghan policy ; a wise minister in his views of local improvements ; but he is also a monomaniac, who appears to imagine himself a WELLESLEY, a NAPOLEON, and an ELLENrsononon, all in one. Monomaniacs are famous for their acuteness in perceiving others' aberrations ; just as the 80i-disant Cham of Tartary lectured most sensibly on the follies of his fellow-lodgers in Bedlam. Thus the evacuation of Afghanistan is dne to Lord ELLENBOROUGH'S keen perception of his predecessor's malady ; his local and administrative improve- ments, to his lucid studies of India and her wants ; the annexation of Scinde, to that malady which before only imparted a piquant wildness to his dandyism, and which shows itself physically in an eruption of gold-lace all over his person. To add a province to the empire, was too tempting a bait of immortality to be resisted : it appealed to the monomania ; and consistency was forgotten.