endship.[620]

Wellesley showed his good sense by acquiescing, and their letters though
rare, became thoroughly cordial. Writing at Patna on 6th October 1801,
he gently reproached Pitt for his long silence, especially for not
explaining the reason of his resignation; he also expressed the hope
that he approved his remaining at Calcutta until a successor was
appointed. He added that his state progress up the Ganges to Patna had
been favoured by an easterly gale of unusual strength which the natives
ascribed either to his happy star or to an Order in Council. As for his
health, it was better than in "the reeking House of Commons." Again at
the beginning of 1804 he expressed regret that Pitt had neither written
nor vouchsafed any sign of approbation at recent events, including the
victory of Assaye, which assured British ascendancy in the East.

At last, on 30th August 1804, three months after resuming office, Pitt
apologized for his neglect on the ground of excess of work in preparing
to meet a French invasion, in which he had so far succeeded as to hope
that the attempt might be made. At that time he expected Wellesley to
come home in order to escape the petty cabals of the Company's
Directors; but he left the decision entirely to him. Pitt's next letter,
at Christmastide, breathes a profound hope for Wellesley's speedy
arrival as a means of lightening the then heavy burden of political
life. Wellesley, however, on 25th March 1805, announced his chivalrous
resolve to remain in India another season owing to financial troubles
and disputes with the Company. To Dundas, in May 1805, he wrote: "I
imagined myself to be one of the best friends of the Company, but I hear
that I am a traitor, and a conspirator, and an interloper. Time
discovers truth, and I must leave the Honourable Courts' opinions to
that test."[621] In August, after transferring his duties to Cornwallis,
he set sail for England, and landed in time to have a few last words
with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its
conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes
deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last
saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with
the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not
even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed
splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up the
public lif