Part 15

June 25.

At the office found a letter with enclosures from Colonel Macdonald, dated Tabriz April 20. What he has been doing in Persia I do not know.

I have written to him to call upon me on Saturday.

Called on the Duke to tell him the substance--which is, that the Turks have already 30,000 men and sixty pieces of cannon at Erzeroum. That a dispossessed Pacha is in arms at Akiska. That the Russians have reinforced the garrisons of Natshiran and Abbasabad, and have withdrawn all their troops to the left bank of the Araxes, with the exception of those who garrison Bayazid. The plague seems rife at Erivan. The Russians about Count Paskewitz abuse the English very much.

June 27.

The Chairs told me Lord W. Bentinck had extended to all persons the benefit of the regulation as to coffee planters, omitting, however, all the restrictive clauses. They think very seriously of this, and very justly. The Calcutta newspapers consider the principle of colonisation to be conceded.

We must abrogate this 'Regulation' without loss of time. I went to the Duke to tell him of it. He said Lord W. Bentinck was not to be trusted, and we should be obliged to recall him. He is gone down in a steamboat to Penang.

No news of much importance at the Cabinet room, except that Lord Heytesbury's despatches confirm the account of the sickness of the Russian army.

The Turks seem to have given the Russians a great smash at Eski Arnaut.

June 30.

A battle near Schumla between the Russians and Turks. The Turks were besieging Pravadi. Diebitsch marched from Silistria and moved upon their communications with Schumla. The Turks seem to have been surprised. They fought gallantly, however, and seem to have caused the Russians great loss.

Saw Arbuthnot. He came to the India Board to speak about his friend, Russell Ellice, whom he wishes to make a Director. We afterwards talked of the House and the Government. I think all will turn out well. We have six months before us, but certainly at present we are weak in the House of Commons, though I believe gathering strength in the country, and already very strong there. If we play the great game, striking at the mass, we must succeed. It would never do to go picking up individuals. We must do our best for the country, and we shall have it with us. The worst of it is, the King is the most faithless of men, and Cumberland is at work.

The Duke asked Hardinge the other day what he thought of the Government. He said he thought that by losing Canningites and Brunswickers it was fifty weaker than Lord Liverpool's, and these fifty go the other way, making a difference of one hundred on a division. Lord Camden thought if the Brunswickers would not come in we must get a few Whigs--Abercromby, Sir James Graham, the Althorpe people. Stanley would come for anything good, and Brougham too.

Arbuthnot asked me if I thought Lord Rosslyn would be cordial with us. I said Yes. His letter of acceptance was most cordial, and with the Lords he was on excellent terms. The only danger would be if Peel and the Commoners were shy.

Lord Grey, I said, I did not think in very good humour, but he would differ on foreign politics rather than on questions of a domestic nature. The Duke will not be coquetting with him, because he says very honestly he should be exciting expectations in Lord Grey which, while the King lives, he does not think he can gratify.

Saw Mr. Elphinstone by appointment. I wished to have his opinion with regard to the new settlement of Indian Government, which may take place on the expiration of the present Charter. He seemed to think that the Administration of the Government in the King's name would be agreeable to the Civil and Military Services, and to people in England. He doubted whether, as regarded the princes of India, it would signify much, as they now pretty well understood us. He doubted whether the orders of Government here would be better obeyed. He thought there might be an advantage in keeping the King's authority in reserve, to be used only on grand occasions. He confessed, however, that 'having been educated, and having lived under the existing system, he was not best qualified to propose to another. He had his prejudices.' He thought the best mode of arriving at the truth would be by taking the opinions of practical Indians as to reforms and alterations suggested by theoretical men.

I asked him to consider the expediency of dividing the territory as now into three unequal Presidencies, of giving to the Governor-General the labour of superintending the Administration in detail of the Bengal Presidency--of having Members of Council. I told him there were many minor points of detail discoverable only by those employed at home, which required and must receive amendment. Such, for instance, is the interpretation given to the Act of Parliament, by which a regulation must be sanctioned or rejected in extenso, there being no power to alter a word, or to reject part and take the rest.

Mr. Elphinstone seems to dread a long peace in India. We hold everything together by the Native Army, and we cannot retain that unless we retain the affections of the European officers. In the present state of our finances this is difficult.

July 1.

At half-past five received a letter from the Chairman, and the draft relative to the removal of the Governor from Calcutta. The Court wished to have it back to-day. That was impossible; but they have omitted words I inserted in the précis, and must restore, declaring that had the removal been legal, still the Members of Council would have been ordered back. I have now been obliged to give reasons for this addition, and the reasons will be so much worse, as matters of record, that I have suggested to the Chairman he had better substitute a draft containing the words.

I think we must detain the Pallas that it may take out both letters--this and the one relating to the leases which is not yet prepared, or we must have an overland dispatch.

Delay is one of the inconveniences attending the present system of Indian Government. I told the Chairman in my private note that if we allowed Lord W. Bentinck to emancipate himself in this manner we should really be abandoning all real control over the Government of India. I see clearly there is a Bentinck party in the Court.

July 2.

Saw Hardinge. We had some conversation upon the subject of the Government. He seems more alarmed than I am. I trust to the King's fears and the Duke's fortune; besides, we have the country.

Hardinge told me the King was very much out of humour. The admission of Lord Rosslyn had not answered. None followed. Lord Durham, Calthorpe, and others left Lord Lansdowne to coalesce with Lord Grey. Hardinge wished me to try Herries again, with the view of opening the Mint by making him Chancellor of the Exchequer in India; but I told him Herries said his domestic circumstances made it impossible, and the Duke did not seem to like it at all.

Herries thinks Lord Durham would be glad to be Minister at Naples; for my part I am sure nothing will win Lord Grey but a place for Lord Grey himself, and that, in the present state of the King's mind, the Duke is not in a condition to offer.

July 4.

Cabinet at half-past three.