Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/156

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146
ELI–ELL

capital of New Jersey from February 1755 to September 1790, and obtained its city charter in 1865. Population

in 1850, 5583; in 1870, 20,832.

ELIZABETHGRAD, or Yelizavetgrad, a fortified town and military depôt of South Russia, in the govern- ment of Kherson, is situated on the left bank of the Ingul, 153 miles N. by W. of Kherson, in 48° 31' N. lat. and 31° 17’ E. long. It is built with great regularity, and its streets are Spacious and in some cases lined with trees. It has a citadel with six bastions, a hospital, and several churches. Its trade is considerable, and its annual autumnal fair is the one most frequented in the government. It was founded in 1754, andwas named after the empress Elizabeth. The citadel was garrisoned with Cossacks, and the outskirts were settled with schismatics, or raskolniks, who had returned from Turkey. Including its four suburbs, the population of Elizabethgrad in 1873 was 31,962.

ELIZABETHPOL, Yelizavetpol, or Gansha, the chief town of a government in the province of Tiflis, in Russian Transcaucasia, is situated 1449 feet above the sea-level, on an affluent of the Kur, 90 miles south-east of Tiflis, in 40° 40′ 42″ N. lat. and 46° 21′ 19″ E. long. It was at one time a place of considerable importance, but on account of having been frequently stormed and pillaged is now in a somewhat dilapidated condition. The streets are narrow, and most of the houses low-roofed and without windows, but it has several elegant mosques and other public buildings. It is divided into four quarters, two of which are inhabited by Armenians and two by Tatars. The inhabitants are engaged chiefly in horticulture, agriculture, and the rearing of silkworms and cattle. Gandzak, Kanga, or Kendzhe, as the town was formerly called, first appears in history in 1088, when it was under the rule of the Turkish emir Vuzan, and was included in the Armenian province of Artza’kh. Its extent at that time is attested by the twenty-two ancient cemeteries which still exist. The present town was founded by Shah Abbas, four miles from the site of the older city, which is now marked by the Green Mosque. It continued in Mahometan possession till 1804, when it was stormed by the Russians under Prince Tsitsianoff, and received its present name in honour of Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander I. In 1826 it was the scene of a great victory over the Persians. The population in 1873 was 15,439.

ELK. See Deer, vol. vii. p. 24.

ELLENBOROUGH, Edward Law, Baron (1750–1818), chief—justice of the Court of King’s Bench, was born on the 16th November 1750, at Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, of which place his father, afterwards bishop of Carlisle, was at the time rector. Educated at the Charterhouse school and at St Peter’s College, Cambridge, he passed as third wrangler, and was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Trinity. In spite of his father’s strong wish that he should take orders, he chose the legal profession, and on quitting the university was entered at Lincoln’s Inn. After spending five years as a “ Special pleader under the bar,” he was called to the bar in 1780. He chose the Northern Circuit, and in a very short time obtained a lucrative practice and a high reputation. In 1787 he was appointed principal counsel for \Varren Hastings in the celebrated impeachment tr-ial befom thP House of Lords, and the ability with which he conducted the defence was universally recognized. He had commenced his political career as a Whig, but, like many others, he saw in the French Revolution a reason for changing sides, and be- came a supporter of Pitt. On the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801, he was appointed attorney- general, and in the following year he succeeded Lord Kenyon as chief—justice of the King’s Bench. On being raised to the bench he was created a peer, taking his title from the village of Ellenborough in Cumberland, Where his maternal ancestors had long held a small patrimony. In 1806, on the formation of Lord Grenville’s ministry “ of all the talents,” Lord Ellenborough declined the offer of the Great Seal, but accepted a seat in the Cabinet. His doing so while he retained the chief-justiceship was much criticised at the time, and, though not without precedent, is open to obvious objections on constitutional grounds. As a judge he had grave faults, though his decisions displayed profound legal knowledge, and in mercantile law especially Were reckoned of high authority. He was harsh and over- bearing to counsel, and in the political trials which were so frequent in his time showed an unmistakable bias against the accused. In the trial of Hone for blasphemy in 1817, Ellenborough directed the jury to find a verdict of guilty, and their acquittal of the priSUner is generally said to have hastened his death. He resigned his judicial office in N ovem— ber 1818, and died on the 13th December following.

ELLENBOROUGH, Edward Law, Earl of (1790–1871), the eldest son of Baron Ellenborough, noticed above, was born in 1790, was educated at Eton and St John’s College, Cambridge, and represented the subsequently disfranchised borough of St Michael’s in the House of Commons, until the death of his father in 1818 gave him a seat in the House of Lords. He was twice married; his only child died young; his second wife was divorced by Act of Parliament in 1830. By the friendship of the duke of “’cllington, which he retained all through his Indian career, Lord Ellenborough was appointed lord privy seal, and then president of the Board of Control, in the year 1828. In 1834 and in 1841 for a few weeks he again held the latter office, the duties of which at once made him familiar with the affairs of India, and gave him control over the court of directors. Sir Robert Peel appointed him governor-general with the Queen’s approval. He discharged the duties of the high position from the 28th February 1842 to the 15th June 1844, when the directors exercised their power of recalling him. He finally left Calcutta on the 1st August 1844. His Indian administration of two and a half years, or half the usual term of service, was from first to last a subject of hostile criticism. His own letters sent monthly to the Queen, and his correspondence with the duke of Wellington, published in 1874 after his death, enable us to form an intelligent and impartial judgment of his meteor- like career. The events in dispute are his policy towards Afghanistan and the army and captives there, his conquest of Sind, and his campaign in Gwalior. He was fortunate in having as his private secretary Captain (afterwards Sir Henry) Durand, the accomplished engineer officer and statesman, who died in 1871 when lieutenant-governor of the Punjab. Although he was absorbed in military and foreign politics, his administration was fertile in peaceful reforms, due to his colleague, Mr Wilberforce Bird, who purged the police, put down state lotteries, and prohibited slavery, with Ellenborough’s hearty support.

The impartial study of Lord Ellenborough’s correspondence in the light of the records and criticisms of the times must confirm the contemporary verdict against him on the questions of Afghanistan and Sind, and may lead us to

approve of his action in Gwalior. All through his brief Indian career, moreover, his severest critics must admire the splendour of his intellect (which put him in the first rank of orators in the House of Lords down almost to the year of his death), the purity of his public patronage, and the energy of his devotion to the service of his country. The same judgment which marked his later criticism of others was wanting when he held the almost irresponsible power of governor-general, to make his rule as useful as it was remarkable. If men like Durand and Wilberforce Bird

helped him by the Dossession of the official and ethical