[A despatch of Lord Ellenborough, the President of the Board of Control,
to Lord Canning, the Governor-General of India, had been laid before the
two Houses. This document severely censured the Governor-General's
policy in dealing with the talookdars of Oude. Immediate advantage was
taken of this document by the Opposition, and on the 10th of May Mr.
Cardwell gave notice in the Commons of a motion condemnatory of Lord
Ellenborough's despatch. Lord Ellenborough retired from the Government.
On May 14, however, Mr. Cardwell brought forward his motion in the House
of Commons, but, after a lengthened debate, consented to withdraw it, at
the earnest entreaty of many from his own side of the House.]

I am afraid I shall hardly be able to take part in this discussion in a
manner becoming the magnitude of the question before us, and in any
degree in accordance with the long anxiety which I have felt in regard
to Indian affairs, but I happen to have been unfortunately and
accidentally a good deal mixed up with these matters, and my name has
frequently been mentioned in the course of debate, not only in this but
in the other House of Parliament, and I am unwilling, therefore, to vote
without expressing my opinion upon the matter under discussion. First, I
may be allowed to explain that I think almost everything that has been
said and imagined with regard to the part that I have had in bringing on
this discussion has been altogether erroneous, and has no foundation
whatever. There was no arrangement between the hon. Gentleman the
Secretary of the Board of Control and myself with regard to the question
that I thought it my duty to put to him on the subject of Lord Canning's
Proclamation. I had spoken two or three weeks before the date of that
question to the hon. Gentleman, because I had been informed by a
respected friend of mine, Mr. Dickinson, the hon. secretary of the India
Reform Society, who has very great information on Indian affairs, that
he had received communications to the effect that some Proclamation of