CAVENDISH BENTINCK, Lord William Henry, of Orange Farm, nr. Terrington St. Clement, England

Lord William Bentinck, as he was commonly styled, was an aristocrat of unvarnished plainness of manner, a soldier of progressively Evangelical habits of thought and a colonial official of energetic liberal instincts, though he was no intellectual. As governor of Madras (to which he had been appointed in 1802, being in post from the following year), he was made the scapegoat for the Vellore massacre, and was ignominiously recalled in 1807, his father’s appointment as prime minister coming too late to save him. In the early 1810s, effectively acting as governor of Sicily, his promotion of liberal constitutions in southern Europe made him a figure of suspicion to the Holy Alliance and to leading members of Lord Liverpool’s administration. He resumed his seat for Nottinghamshire on the family interest in 1816 and, despite occasionally siding with government, he was considered to be in opposition. Ibid. 422-3; Rosselli, 23-71, 103. Disappointed in his expectations of establishing financial independence through foreign service, he embarked on a new life as an agriculturist and improver in the marshlands adjacent to King’s Lynn, though, increasingly indebted and hard hit by the agricultural depression, he remained largely dependent on his brother, the 4th duke of Portland. Rosselli, 86-95; J. Rosselli, ‘An Indian Governor in the Norf. Marshland’, Agricultural Hist. Rev. xix (1971), 42-49, 53-54, 57. Bentinck, who usually wintered abroad, was on the continent in January 1820, as a consequence of money troubles and his wife’s health, though he feared that it might ‘not be considered quite decent’ to miss the whole of that session. Rosselli, Bentinck, 74. Following the death of George III, George Canning, the president of the India board, wrote to his wife, Portland’s sister-in-law, 6, 20 Feb., that his continued absence might lose the county not only for himself but also for its intended future recipient, their nephew Lord Titchfield, who had recently come in for Bletchingley. Harewood mss WYL 250/8/26. Bentinck had consulted Portland on the propriety of withdrawing, but was again returned unopposed at the general election, when his brother Frederick, representing him, confirmed that he supported Catholic relief, and his seconder, probably without authorization, acclaimed him as a Foxite Whig. J.H. Moses, ‘Elections and Electioneering in Constituencies of Notts. 1702-1832’ (Nottingham Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1965), i. 106; Nottingham Univ. Lib. Portland mss PwH 175, 1083; Nottingham Univ. Lib. Ossington mss, J. to J. E. Denison, 17 Mar.; Nottingham Rev. 21 Mar. 1820. In March 1820 he was refused permission to travel from Rome to Naples because of ‘some personal offence which he gave by his conduct when in Sicily’. Colchester Diary, iii. 120.

Bentinck, who was generally inactive in the Commons, voted with opposition on the civil list, 5, 8 May, and presented Nottinghamshire petitions complaining of agricultural distress, 7 June 1820. Session of Parl. 1825, p. 451; The Times, 8 June 1820. He was granted ten days’ leave on urgent private business, 21 June. He commented of the speeches made in vindication of Queen Caroline by Sir Francis Burdett, 22 June, and Henry Brougham, 3-4 Oct. 1820, that they were the finest he had ever heard. According to Mrs. Arbuthnot, his wife, reputedly a natural daughter of George IV, was ‘quite ill by annoyance’ at being subpoenaed to appear in Caroline’s defence, but she recovered on being reprieved from this duty. Greville Mems. i. 98; Hunts. RO, Manchester mss ddM 1OA/3/10; Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 37-38; Rosselli, Bentinck, 58. He privately observed to his niece Millicent Sparrow, who later married Lord Mandeville*, that the king and his ‘profligate and impudent’ consort were well matched. Scornful of the ‘miserable ministers’, especially following Canning’s departure from office at the turn of the year, he opined that the ‘independent public’ wanted a government ‘marked by manliness, nobleness and high principle’. Although he believed that change was inevitable, he fought shy of radicalism and demagoguery, and, favouring a free press as a safeguard against revolution, held that ‘unless the reasonable interfere’ to effect change, ‘we shall gallop rapidly towards changes that may involve all in disorder’. Rosselli, Bentinck, 71-72. He approved of the Whig amendment in support of Caroline at the Nottinghamshire county meeting early in 1821, when he divided steadily in the opposition campaign on her behalf. Portland mss PwH 259. Vehemently opposed to Metternich’s successful endeavours to suppress the constitutions of Piedmont and Naples, he denounced the restoration of their sovereigns by force as an ‘atrocious proceeding’, writing to Millicent that this

of course revolts my Whig feelings prodigiously, but I suppose kings and emperors can do no wrong ... There will be a sad recoil upon monarchy in general. I fear the world may think that when once royalty com[bine] for the general oppression, the sooner the world gets rid of the [word missing] the better. Perhaps all this is radical. Rosselli, Bentinck, 69-70.

He accordingly divided to condemn the Allies’ revocation of the new constitution in Naples, 21 Feb., and, supporting Captain Romeo’s petition, spoke in defence of Sicilian liberty, 20 Mar. He announced his intention to press for information on Sicily, 19 Apr., a motion which, after several postponements, came before the House, 21 June. The Times, 20 Apr., 22 May, 9 June 1821. In his first and only major speech in the Commons, he made what Henry Grey Bennet* called a ‘clear, convincing statement’, showing how the Neapolitan government had reneged on its promise to grant liberties to the Sicilian people. HLRO, Hist. Coll. 379, Grey Bennet diary, p. 103. He acted as a teller in the division, which was lost by 69-35. He divided for repeal of the additional malt duty, 21 Mar., and the forgery punishment mitigation bill, 23 May, 4 June. A typographical error in the Black Bk. (1823), 139, led Rosselli, Bentinck, 72, erroneously to credit him with several opposition votes in this and the following session. He acknowledged the grounds of Romeo’s claim for compensation for military service, 3 July 1821. The Times, 4 July 1821.

Bentinck, who had secured the Bedford Level drainage and enclosure bill, 7 May 1821, was an advocate of fenland improvement in the House, notably the Eau Brink Cut, which was opened that year and was subsequently the subject of much parliamentary attention. Ibid. 8 May 1821; Portland mss Pl F8/4/3/1-5; Rosselli, Bentinck, 73, 91, 95-99. See KING’S LYNN. Having assumed the role of a grandee and patron in local affairs, he was invited by the corporators to offer for King’s Lynn following the death of one of its Members in December 1821. As Portland did not wish to risk a contest in the county, Bentinck, who felt that the borough ‘seat would suit me in many respects better than the one I now hold’, forewent the offer, and instead brought forward Titchfield, who he had hoped would replace him in Nottinghamshire. Having canvassed on his behalf, and spent £500, including perhaps on the election dinner, his nephew was returned unopposed on his interest in January 1822. Portland mss PwH 270, 346; PwJe 1074; Letters at Welbeck Abbey, 116-17; Rosselli, Bentinck, 74-77. He voted for Hume’s amendment to the address, 5 Feb., and more extensive tax reductions to relieve distress, 11, 21 Feb. He was possibly one of those sent by ministers to vote against inquiry into Sir Robert Wilson’s* court martial, who, persuaded by the debate, in fact sided with opposition, 13 Feb. Russell Letters, ii. 4. He expressed an interest in joining George Agar Ellis’s* putative ‘small independent party’ that month. Northants. RO, Agar Ellis diary, 19, 21 Feb. 1822. He divided to reduce the salt duties, 28 Feb., abolish one of the joint-postmasterships, 13 Mar., and cut diplomatic expenditure, 16 May 1822. He had voted for parliamentary reform, 9 May 1821, and did so again, 25 Apr., as well as to condemn the increased influence of the crown, 24 June 1822. He divided for inquiries into the currency, 12 June, the lord advocate’s conduct towards the Scottish press, 25 June, and chancery administration, 26 June 1822.

In the wake of Lord Londonderry’s* suicide in August 1822, John Wilson Croker* listed Bentinck among the independent friends of Canning who would be likely to act with him in opposition if Canning was excluded from high office. Add. 40319, f. 59; A. Aspinall, ‘Canningite Party’, TRHS (ser. 4), xvii (1934), 204. His relative’s appointment as foreign secretary, which Brougham reckoned likely to injure opposition by ‘at least neutralizing the Bentincks’, potentially improved the chances of Bentinck, who was anxious to redeem his financial situation and political reputation, succeeding to the resulting vacancy as governor-general of Bengal. Bessborough mss F53, Brougham to Duncannon [13 Sept.]; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey, 24 Sept. 1822. He had the backing of most of the directors and the president of the India board, Charles Williams Wynn*, but leading ministers were lukewarm and, as Charles Ellis* reported to Lord Granville, Bentinck’s ‘politics put him out of the question’, despite his popularity. Add. 40351, f. 179; Buckingham, Mems. Geo. IV, i. 381; TNA 30/29/9/5/18; Letters at Welbeck Abbey, 168. The decision was held over to October, but Bentinck, who never consulted Portland on public matters and inexcusably schemed against government in the court of directors, was considered a political liability and, on Titchfield making an unguardedly hostile speech in King’s Lynn, Canning agreed with Liverpool that the compromise candidate Lord Amherst would be a safer choice. Portland mss PwH 441, 448; Add. 38411, ff. 105-7; 51654, Mackintosh to Lady Holland, 3 Oct.; Bessborough mss F150, Holland to Duncannon, 5 Oct.; The Times, 3 Oct. 1822; Greville Mems. ii. 134-6; C.D. Yonge, Life and Administration of Lord Liverpool, iii. 203-5; Rosselli, Bentinck, 101; C.H. Philips, E.I. Co. 239. Canning wrote to William Huskisson* that month:

I am confident the government would have been disgraced by allowing a man to go, who intrigued for the station against them and in defiance of their known wishes and authority. His connection with me might perhaps have corrected this impression, if he had been contented to work through that connection, but, after T[itchfield]’s speech at Lynn, I should have been as much disgraced as the government by his success. Aspinall, 209.

Although he conceded that the ‘introduction of Canning into the cabinet might effect a beneficial influence on the measures of government’, Bentinck remained in opposition to what he ‘could not [but] think to be a new administration’. Greville Mems. ii. 136.

He voted for information on Inverness elections, 26 Mar., and repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 16 Apr. 1823. He divided for inquiry into the legal proceedings against the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr., and against the Irish insurrection bill, 12 May. He was mentioned in debate as a reformer, 21 Apr., and duly voted for parliamentary reform, 24 Apr., and reform of the Scottish representative system, 2 June. He chaired the London Tavern dinner for the Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors, 7 Mar., and, ‘obstinate against Canning, his bosom friend’, as Brougham remarked, he divided in the small minority to condemn the French invasion of Spain, 30 Apr., when most of the opposition sided with Canning. Continuing to believe that Britain should go to war in defence of Spain, he participated in the Whigs’ extra-parliamentary campaign, winning plaudits from Brougham and incurring the spitefulness of ministers. Add. 40687, f. 1; 51564, Brougham to Lady Holland [31 July]; Agar Ellis diary, 1, 2 Mar.; Bessborough mss F53, Brougham to Duncannon [10 Mar. 1823]; M.D. George, Cat. of Pol. and Personal Satires, x. 14513; Reid, Lord Durham, i. 159; Von Neumann Diary, i. 124-5. He voted to equalize the duties on East and West Indian sugar, 22 May, to condemn the lord advocate’s conduct in the Borthwick case, 3 June, and to reduce the grant for Irish churches and glebe houses, 1 July. He again expressed to Agar Ellis his interest in joining a ‘neutral or third party’ in the following session, 23 June 1823, but was elected to Brooks’s, 19 Feb. 1824. Agar Ellis diary. That month, noting the consternation caused by his rumoured appointment to the Ionian Islands, Mrs. Arbuthnot commented that Metternich and his allies ‘have a greater horror of Lord William than of any other radical in Europe’. Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 288-9. He brought up anti-slavery petitions, 15, 29 Mar., 6 Apr., and divided to refer the reports of the commissioners of inquiry into the Scottish courts to a committee of the whole House, 30 Mar. 1824. The Times, 16, 30 Mar., 7 Apr. 1824. Following Titchfield’s death that month, Bentinck, who continued to concern himself with constituency affairs, put up the late Member’s next younger brother William John (also now styled Lord Titchfield), and secured his return for King’s Lynn after a contest. He was reportedly ‘frightened out of his senses’ on being chaired in lieu of his absent nephew, and had to justify his electoral influence in the borough at the subsequent celebration dinner. Portland mss PwJe 77, 1077; King’s Lynn Pollbook (1824), 17, 22-24, 36-38; Spencer-Stanhope Letter-Bag, ii. 75. Ever short of disposable capital to finance his agricultural improvements and entrepreneurial ventures, he successfully pressed Portland to rescue him from another financial crisis that year, reminding him that the Norfolk estate ‘establishes in its proprietor a great identity with the town of Lynn’ and that it would ‘give me great pleasure to transmit it as my legacy to the family’, and adding that further investment would ‘be very useful, politically, and very satisfactory, feelingly, to me’. Rosselli, ‘Indian Governor’, 49, 57.

Bentinck voted against the Irish unlawful societies bill, 15, 21 Feb., and (as he had on 28 Feb. 1821) for Catholic relief, 21 Apr., 10 May, although he presented the Nottinghamshire clergy’s hostile petition, 18 Apr. 1825. The Times, 19 Apr. 1825. He divided for inquiries into the corn laws, 28 Apr., chancery administration, 7 June, and the Irish church establishment, 14 June, but sided with ministers for the duke of Cumberland’s grant, 30 May, 10 June. He spoke in favour of reinstating Wilson in the army, 17 June, and voted to restrict the use of spring guns, 21 June. That month he announced that he would relinquish Nottinghamshire at the next election, telling the duke of Newcastle that ‘he was not a resident in the county and that he felt from his frequent absence that he did not conscientiously discharge his duty as a county Member’. Unhappy Reactionary ed. R.A. Gaunt (Thoroton Soc. rec. ser. xliii), 47. With demands for Amherst’s recall being made that autumn, the question of the governor-generalship was again in the balance. Canning had evidently changed his opinion about Bentinck, who now held the rank of general, but the duke of Wellington, who had long considered him a mediocrity, insisted to Liverpool, 10 Oct., that if he ‘should be chosen by the court of directors, he must be rejected by the government at all events’. Aspinall, 212; Wellington Despatches, ii. 518. Liverpool, who explained to Williams Wynn that government would gain nothing by trying to impose Bentinck, backed by the directors, against the ambitions of the duke of Buckingham (Williams Wynn’s kinsman), succeeded in his determination to retain Amherst. However, as late as November 1825 Lord Bathurst commented wryly to Wellington that if Bentinck, who apparently had no ambition to be considered, was appointed, ‘I hope that there will be some explanation with him on the rights of a free press and other Whiggish questions’. Add. 38412, ff. 77-78; Bucks. RO, Fremantle mss, Buckingham to Fremantle, 20 Oct. 1825; Wellington Despatches, ii. 541-2, 566. It was the abolitionist movement which that month took Bentinck on a visit to the Quaker Joseph John Gurney of Earlham, Norfolk, who described him as a ‘man of excellent sense and great integrity of purpose’. Rosselli, Bentinck, 62.

He voted for reform of Edinburgh’s representation, 26 Feb. 1824, 13 Apr., parliamentary reform, 27 Apr., and curbing electoral bribery, 26 May 1826. He divided for taking the corn laws into consideration, 18 Apr., and the following month co-operated with his colleague on the malt duties, a concern of his constituents, from whom he took his leave at the dissolution that summer. Notts. Archives, Tallents mss, Cavendish Bentinck to Tallents, 15 May 1826. The previous year he had brokered a deal between the parties involved in the Eau Brink Cut, and in the run-up to the general election of 1826 he busied himself with local business and electoral preparations in King’s Lynn, where he shortly became a freeman. Rosselli, Bentinck, 97; Portland mss PwJe 110-13, 116, 118-21, 976; Cal. of Freemen of Lynn, 293. Replacing his nephew Titchfield in the expected contest there, he explained that he had previously found himself ‘so circumstanced as to contemplate the necessity of retiring from Parliament altogether’, but now, in view of the upturn in his fortunes, was able to come forward as a reformer. Facing his first contest after almost 30 years in politics, he declined to detail his political opinions, but warmly defended his vote against the abolition of naval impressment (on 7 June 1825). After a two-day poll, he was returned with John Walpole, and he vaunted his family’s social leadership and fenland improvements at their joint dinner. Portland mss PwJe 974-5, 1079; King’s Lynn Pollbook (1826), 4-5, 15-17, 35-36. He appeared on the hustings in Huntingdonshire to give support to his Tory relation, Mandeville, in his successful bid to oust Lord John Russell. Full of optimism about the future, in late October 1826 he observed that ‘everything is steadily improving ... the corn question ... will I think be easily and satisfactorily arranged’. The prospect for Catholic relief was good, and, as for free trade, ‘the great majority of the country are against [it], but that party is opposed by the press and by the liberals of all parties and hence it has no man of consequence for their leader’. Rosselli, Bentinck, 71, 72.

Bentinck, who may have missed the early part of the new session, presented the King’s Lynn navigation improvement petition, 14 Mar. 1827. The Times, 15 Mar. 1827. He voted for information on the attempted suppression of the Lisburn Orangemen’s procession, 29 Mar., and to postpone supplies pending the appointment of the stricken Liverpool’s successor, 30 Mar. According to Mrs. Canning’s letter to Portland, 18 Apr., he had ‘already given his approbation and promised support’ to the new administration, and he returned from Paris to see her husband take his place as prime minister after the Easter recess. It was rumoured that he would be named master-general of the ordnance, while Williams Wynn considered that his appointment as governor-general, ahead of other Whig candidates, ‘would perhaps be equally popular; but I am not sure it would be beneficial’. Add. 51584, Tierney to Holland [14 Apr. 1827]; L. Thorpe, ‘Letters of Louis Philippe’, Nottingham French Studies, vol. i., no. 2 (1962), 15, 19; Canning’s Ministry, 215, 272, 331; Colchester Diary, iii. 483. His friend, the duc d’Orléans, wrote to him on 11 May to thank him for his account of the formation of Canning’s ministry:

It required a skilful hand to draw so complete and so clever a statement of a matter so intricate and even so confused. I am sorry to find it confirms my apprehensions, perhaps even my fears ... and I must add that the scheme of governing on Whig principles with a Tory set of men struck me as preposterous and impracticable ... and now the citadel must surrender or receive a Whig garrison. As you justly observe, the fate of the citadel will depend on the real intentions of the governor, a point which is by no means clearly ascertained. Thorpe, 17.

He voted for the disfranchisement of Penryn, which was carried despite Canning’s disapproval, 28 May, and brought up petitions for repeal of the Test Acts, 12 June. The Times, 13 June 1827. Although he was still a favourite with the directors, Canning evidently did not share their enthusiasm, since he offered the post to five others, all of whom declined, before falling back on Bentinck in July. Rosselli, Bentinck, 104; Philips, 261. Newcastle, who had ‘always thought him superficial, quaint, inconstant and injudicious’, huffed that ‘a more unfit man’ could not have been picked, but Orléans congratulated him on the 16th, rejoicing to see

that immense office filled by a man de votre trempe ... It is undoubtedly a very great and, I am persuaded, will be, in your hands, a very glorious mission. I am sure you will render important services both to India and to the mother country ... You know better perhaps than any other person, that it is chiefly by advancing the welfare and prosperity of the governed that the security and interests of the governing may be promoted. Unhappy Reactionary, 53, 59; Thorpe, 18.

From November 1827 he apparently received a pension in compensation for the abolition of his sinecure clerkship of the pipe, while his new salary of £25,000 (of which he actually received only about £10,000 a year) at last partially shored up his finances. Extraordinary Red Bk. (1821), 72; Black Bk. (1832), 512; PP (1834), xli. 454; Rosselli, Bentinck, 87, 99-100.

Bentinck, who showed some enthusiasm for the fledgling university of London and was an acquaintance of George Grote, had a superficial interest in Utilitarianism. James Mill, who tried to arrange for him to meet Jeremy Bentham before sailing that winter, was gratified to be told by him that ‘I am going to British India, but I shall not be governor-general. It is you that will be governor-general’. Bentham certainly had high hopes of Bentinck, but Mill judged that he was a ‘well intentioned but not a very well instructed man’, while the governor-general himself later confessed ‘that what I have ever read amounts to very little, and that it is not without pain that I can read anything’. UCL, coll. corresp. Cavendish Bentinck to Coates, 4 Sept. 1827; Bentham Corresp. xii. 418, 449-51, 456-8; Corresp. of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck ed. C.H. Philips, i. p. xv; Rosselli, Bentinck, 82-86. He assured Huskisson, 14 Nov. 1827, that his accession to the cabinet, had been ‘one of the greatest consolations I have received since the death of poor Canning’. Add. 38752, f. 57. However, he shared Lady Canning’s damning assessment of his adhesion to Wellington’s administration, writing to her, 21 Jan. 1828, that

Huskisson had the game in his own hands. He not only might have made his own terms, but he might have secured them. By giving up the lead and his consequent ascendancy, he has in fact handed himself and the great principles of which he had become the powerful champion, to the mercy of the greatest enemies of those very principles and of their great founder. I very much regret his part of the arrangements ... I am glad I am going away. Harewood mss.

He vacated his seat that month, installing his nephew Lord George Bentinck, who occupied it for the following 20 years. Portland mss PwH 139. Bentinck, who applied for an alternative appointment and was thought likely to resign early that year, finally departed in February. Wellington mss WP1/913/5, 6; Unhappy Reactionary, 54. Praised by his fellow Indian governor Sir John Malcolm* as ‘an able and honest man, high-minded always, and strong in his opinions when once formed’, he made a rather surprising impression, on his arrival in July 1828, with his ‘gentlemanly’ character and austere administrative style. Life and Corresp. of Sir John Malcolm ed. J.W. Kaye, ii. 501; Taylor Pprs. 225, 227; Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. i. pp. xiv-xvii. It was later noted that, ‘on the throne of the Great Mogul, [he] thinks and acts like a Pennsylvania Quaker’. V. Jacquemont, Letters from India, i. 87.

Wellington told Lord Ellenborough, the president of the India board, 23 June 1829, that Bentinck was a ‘wrong-headed man, and if he went wrong he would continue in the wrong line. Other men might go wrong and find it out, but if he went wrong he would either not find it out, or, if he did, he would not go back’. His initially heavy-handed implementation of the ministry’s programme of enforced economies, notably the suppression of the army’s half-batta payments, made him unpopular there, while his attempt to move his capital led Mrs. Arbuthnot to comment that he was ‘playing the fool in India and embarrassing the government very much’. Ellenborough Diary, ii. 51, 52, 56-57; Arbuthnot Jnl. ii. 292; Rosselli, Bentinck, 304; Philips, 262, 288; Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. i. pp. xv-xvi, xix-xxii. Charles Greville recorded that summer that his cousin would probably be recalled, as ‘his measures are of too liberal a cast to suit the taste of the present government’, but Wellington recognized the value of Bentinck, who retained support among the directors, telling Ellenborough in December that ‘Lord William was a great card, and we must not do anything to offend unnecessarily him and his connection’. Greville Mems. i. 315, 354; Ellenborough Diary, ii. 59, 141, 143, 149, 151, 178-9. The promoter of many practical reforms in commercial, educational, judicial and social fields, he was especially celebrated for his prohibition of suttee; this policy, which had previously been the subject of an appeal to him from Thomas Fowell Buxton*, was adopted following his minute of 8 Nov. 1829. Buxton Mems. 199-200; Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. i. 335-45. His record in the application of liberal, Utilitarian or Evangelical principles was undoubtedly more mixed than some subsequent commentators have maintained, but his period in office witnessed the first beginnings of the significant concept of imperial trusteeship in relation to nineteenth century India. Rosselli, Bentinck, 19-23, 104-6, 180-9, 316-25; Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. i. pp. xi-xii, xviii-xlvi; G.D. Bearce, ‘Lord William Bentinck’, JMH, xxviii (1956), 234-46; S. Mukherjee, Indian Administration of Lord William Bentinck (1994); I. Azariah, Bentinck and Indian Social Reforms (1997); Oxford DNB. His colleague Thomas Babington Macaulay* later wrote that

I have seen many men better fitted to govern a free state, but I never saw and cannot even imagine a man better fitted, by his intellectual and moral character, to exercise despotic power with advantage to his subjects. He cannot speak at all and would make a bad canvasser or party leader in England. But he is really a personification of justice, wisdom and industry. Macaulay Letters, iii. 119.

It was Macaulay who, on the memorial erected in Calcutta, penned the verdict that he ‘infused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British freedom’. Rosselli, Bentinck, 19.

Although he was fulsome in his praise of the Wellington ministry for passing Catholic emancipation, Bentinck remained antagonistic to Ultra Tories who, whether Company servants or ‘the old governments of Europe, like things as they are and fear any poaching upon their monopoly of places and government’. Ibid. 187; Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. i. 266, 442. He welcomed the appointment as president of the India board of Charles Grant*, the son and namesake of his old friend on the court of directors, on the accession of the Grey ministry in November 1830, confiding to him that, without ‘being able to adduce any positive or tangible sign of hostility, I have always felt that a friendly spirit did not exist towards me’ on the part of the former administration, but that now

our wishes to promote to the utmost the happiness of this great Indian population are I know the same, as I hope also are our opinions that in proportion as the resources of India are fostered, encouraged and brought forward, so will Great Britain profit by the connection. Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. i. 623-4.

Believing that the new ministry had advanced ‘the men and the principles which I most approve and admire’, he called the ministerial reform bill ‘an excellent measure’, opined that the Lords would be fools to try to resist ‘the sense of the country’ in its favour, and felt ‘sanguine as to the results’ of the ‘great revolution’ which was ‘obviously in progress’. Rosselli, Bentinck, 80-81. In August 1832, when he was beginning to contemplate a return to England, he ruled out accepting a peerage, upon which he had once said that he did ‘not set the value of a rush’, partly because, as he explained to his father-in-law, ‘it would take me out of the House of Commons, in which I expect always to be able to command a seat, and in which I expect to find the amusement and easy business of my remaining days’. Ibid. 90; Cavendish Bentinck Corresp. ii. 862-4. Acclaimed by ministers and directors alike, he finally left his post, which following legislation in 1833 was altered to encompass the whole of British India the following year, in 1835. Parker, Graham, i. 197. He was returned as a Radical for Glasgow in February 1836 and died in Paris, two days after formally quitting the Commons, in June 1839. Gent. Mag. (1839), ii. 198-200; DNB; Oxford DNB.