LORD ELLENBOROUGH.* THESE two volumes comprise the private diary kept

by Lord Ellenborough during the stirring period of the Catholic Eman- cipation Act, when he successively held in the Wellington Cabinet the offices of Lord Privy Seal and President of the Board of Control. There can be no doubt that the memoranda herein recorded, and the running narrative of public affairs contained in these volumes, were intended for private reference and use, and not for publication. Were this not sufficiently clear, the memory of Lord Ellenborough would be preserved, by means of this Diary, as that of the very vainest man who ever figured in our political history. But, as Roche-- foucauld said, "It is allowable for a man to be vain to him- self," and the reader must be prepared to tolerate and excuse in these pages a vast amount of that egoism which flashes through the brains of the most ordinary men, but which, fortunately, is unrecorded. Apart from this blemish, there can be no question of the interesting character of these volumes.. In some instances, they take us behind the scenes, where general curiosity, or a more excusable search for historical materials, had not yet been allowed to penetrate ; and through- out these pages the reader is permitted to see the course of events at a trying crisis, both in our own annals and also in

those of Europe, from the point of view of one who was excep- tionally well able to form an intelligent opinion concerning the signs of the time. Lord Ellenborough, although always dis- posed to indulge his instinct for an "Imperial" policy, and generally inclined to regard every other matter as of trifling im-

portance in comparison with in haute politique, qualified his• somewhat eccentric genius with a large share of commonsense, and with that Parliamentary instinct which he possessed in so- high a degree, but the possession of which, in these later days, has apparently grown more rare.

For many years before he entered upon office, Lord Ellen- borough, who had succeeded to the Peerage on his father's death, in 1818, had been in favour of the great measure of Catholic Emancipation ; and on this question he took the broad

view of removing the disabilities, without exacting any of the so-called " securities " demanded by those who saw the change- to be inevitable, but who could not refrain from clamouring for some concession to the feelings of apprehension with which they regarded it. The opposition of the King, George 1V., was considered to be so' pronounced and immovable, that little likelihood was held out of his giving his consent to the Emend- pation Act. A great portion of the first of these volumes is occupied with showing how, by the progress of events, the King was in the end induced to abandon the position hostile to the- measure which he had long held; and the following graphic incident may be quoted, as one of the numerous interesting passages in this Diary :- " The King agrees to the words proposed for his speech, but he seemed very reluctant, when the Duke mentioned that the Catholics were to be excluded from judicial offices connected with the Church. The King said, ' What ! do you mean a Catholic to hold any judicial' office ?—to be a Judge of the King's Bench ?' When seats in Parlieo meat were mentioned, ho said, 'Damn it!' &c., 'you mean to lot them into Parliament ?' If he should be able, he will take an opportunity of turning us out ; but I do not think he will have the opportunity."

Interesting as these 'volumes are for the light they throw on the domestic affairs of that period, they are still more valuable for

that portion of their contents treating of the development of the Eastern Question, and particularly of the Asiatic portion of the subject. Navariuo had been fought, and from that " un- toward" encounter there arose fresh jealousies between the- Great Powers, and a new attitude towards the Porte. Lord Ellenborough followed with close and critical attention the

Russian campaigns in Europe, and also in Asia, during the years 1828-9. At first, the Turks more than held their own, and the Russian army, miserably supplied and decimated by disease, suffered enormous losses. In Asia alone the ability oil • A PoUtiost Diary. 1S28-1890. by Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough. Edited by Lord Colchester. 2 vols. London Hibbard BOntley and Ron. 1881.

Paskievitch, who had already overthrown the Persians, secured tangible results, by the capture of the fortress of Kars, and, at a later stage of the war, of the city of Erzeroum. The fall of Varna marked also a turning-point in the campaign in Europe. After that success, although an interval of many months spent in making preparations ensued, the Russians passed the Balkans and occupied Adrianople. Although Lord Elleuborough regarded the Russian advance on Constantinople with unfeigned alarm, and anticipated by many years Russia's conquest of the Khanates of Central Asia,lhe was not always unjust to, because he strongly suspected the motives actuating the policy of, that Power. Ho distinctly admits and records in his diary the opinion that " the government of a Russian General is better than that of a Turkish Pasha ;" and it will be conceded that this was no slight admission, from a man who believed that he was destined to "win a great battle over the Russians on the banks of the Indus." This was not the only dream he indulged with reference to the Eastern policy of this country, and the hold which Oriental legends had obtained over his imagination was demonstrated by the order he issued, twelve years after this period of his life, to our troops to bring back out of Afghanistan the apocryphal gates of Somnath. But if

Lord Elleuborough showed himself ignorant of many facts in the geography of Asia, it must in fairness be remembered that there were in his day none of those " large-scale maps " which Lord Salisbury—who resembles Lord Ellenborough in some respects, while differing frotn him toto cailo in others—has so

strenuously recommended. Just at this moment there happened to be a revival of interest in Persia and Afghanistan, on account of the missions of Sir John Malcolm and Mountstuart Elphin. stone, and Lord Ellenborough was more infected, by this passing wave of curiosity than anybody else. He read Mouravieff and Meyendorff, Fraser and Forster, with avidity, and he recom- mended the perusal of their works to the Indian officials. His correspondence with Colonel 3/C.Donald at Teheran is highly instructive, and forms one of the principal episodes in the work. But certainly the most important, and consequently the most interesting, portion of his labours at the Board of Control was taken up with the question of whether the China monopoly should be conferred on the East India Com- pany for a further period, or not. It will appear strange to those who imagined that our financial difficulties in India were of recent growth, to learn that fifty years ago the highest authorities considered the administration of India could only be conducted on the profit of the China trade, of which the East India Company possessed the monopoly.

It was, therefore, with unconcealed apprehension that the Board of Directors awaited the advent of the year 1834, when the Charter would expire ; and, although Lord Ellenborough had not to settle that question, he was much exercised in his mind on the subject, and took a prominent part in the pre- liminary negotiations. His predecessor, Lord Melville, told him that the Company had not " a sufficient case ;" and it may be advisable to state here, that, when the point was brought on for decision before the subsequent Government, the Charter was renewed without the China monopoly. The rights of the question are clearly put in the following passage, dated July 31st, 1828 :—

" The Duke [Wellington] wishes to have the East India Charter come on next year, to avoid all the meetings, and pamphlets, and speeches we should have, if people had a long time to prepare. He is against opening tho China trade, of which the profits enable the Company to carry on the government of India ; but if it be necessary, which I doubt, to give the Company this pecuniary aid to enable them to carry on the government of fifty millions of people, I think the money can hardly be raised in a worse manner than by a tax on tea, which the Company's monopoly really is."

This was one of numerous instances in which Ellenborough showed himself more open to reason and loss disposed to tolerate abuses than his chief. The China monopoly was simply, as ho tersely puts it, " a mode of enabling the Com- pany to govern India by a tax levied on a necessary of life in England."

Among the most enlightened Anglo-Indians of the earlier years of this centtry must be placed Sir Thomas Munro, and his opinion of the use that might be made of natives in our Services may be appropriately quoted at a time when something has been done towards carrying his views into execution :-

",Sir T. Munro says we know very little indeed of the laws and customs of the Ilindoos. He thinks our judicial arrangements bettor than those we have established for the collection of the revenue, because we have established native Judges for causes to the amount of 500 rupees. He advocates the employment of the natives in all situations in which they can be employed consistently with the pre- servation of our supremacy. It is an able, eloquent, and statesman- like paper. No man knew so much of the real state of India."

Perhaps enough has been quoted to show that Lord Ellen-

borough earnestly endeavoured from an early stage in his political career to master the great questions connected with. India, which was then almost an unknown country to the mass.

of Englishmen. Whether he did not suffer his imagination to bias and direct his acts as an Indian administrator must remain a matter of opinion, outside the immediate subject of our present consideration.

Lord Ellenborough's views on quite a different subject—our• penal code, which, as he knew it, represented a state of things that has long passed away—were such as reflected credit on his natural sense of justice. In several places he recurs with ex- pressions of marked disapproval and disgust to the practice of awarding punishment for various crimes, then all equally punishable with death. The following entry represents the tenour of his reflections :-

" Recorder's report :—Four people ordered for exeoution. One for forgery, one for burglary, two for beating and robbing a man is a house of ill-fame. There was a woman engaged, who was spared', on account of her sex, but she was the moat guilty of all. I do not like Recorders' reports. I am shocked by the inequality of punish- ment. At one time, a man is hanged for a crime which may be as two, (sic) because thorn are few to be hanged, and it is some time since an example has been made of capital punishment for his particular. offence. At another time a man escapes for the same crime, having the proportion of five to two to the other, because it is a heavy calendar, and there are many to be executed. The aotual delinquency of the individual is comparatively little taken into consideration.. Extraneous circumstances determine his fate."

With two more quotations we may bring our notice of the. varied contents of these interesting volumes to a conclusion. Lord Ellenborough's Parliamentary instinct has already been mentioned. Of the possession of this gift, he was himself well aware, and the following maxim of his may be recommended at the present time to aspiring youthful Members of the House of Commons :—" I believed, if I had anything, I had Parliamentary tact, and I thought a good speech made when nothing ought to be said, crushed a man, instead of making him." The italics are ours. When Ibrahim Pasha, the soldier-son of the great Mehemet Ali, who founded the reigning House in Egypt, was on the point of evacuating the Morea, he visited the French camp„ and, after the usual review and breakfast, he became " very entertaining " :—

" Ho asked whether some of the French regiments had not come. from Spain, and on being told that the greater part of the army had been in that country, he said the French were a curious people, to send the same army to establish slavery in Spain and liberty in the Morea."