" Says Justin McCarthy: "It was absurd language for a
man like Lord Ellenborough to address to a statesman like Lord Canning,
who had just succeeded in keeping the fabric of English government in
India together during the most terrible trial ever imposed on it by
fate." The matter was taken up by Parliament. Lord Shaftesbury moved
that the Lords disprove the sending of the dispatch. In the Commons the
ministry were arraigned. But Lord Ellenborough took upon himself the
sole responsibility of the dispatch, and resigned. Mr. Gladstone was
invited to the vacant place, but declined.
The most important among the bills passed by Parliament was the India
Bill, by which the government of India was transferred from the East
India Company to the Crown and the Home government. Mr. Gladstone, who
opposed the bill, proposed a clause providing that the Indian troops
should not be employed in military operations beyond the frontiers
of India.
In November, 1858, Mr. Gladstone accepted from the Premier the post of
Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian Islands. The people
of the Ionian Islands, which in 1800 was formed into the Republic of the
Seven Islands, and was under the protection of Great Britain from 1815,
were desirous of adding themselves to Greece.
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