CHAPTER XV THE STATIONAEY PEEIOD 1806-1814 BUT Lord Wellesley's career of military triumphs and magnificent annexations had alarmed the Court of Directors, who protested against the increase of debt and demurred to the increase of dominion. The Governor-General professed utter contempt for their opinion, and wrote to Lord Castlereagh that no addi- tional outrage or insult " from the most loathsome den of the India House " should accelerate his departure so long as the public safety required his aid. Never- theless, he discovered, after Monson's disaster, that even the Ministers found reason to apprehend that he was going too fast and too far, that Lord Castlereagh was remonstrating, and that the nation at large was startled by his grandiose reports of Indian wars, con- quests, and prodigious accessions of territory. Toward the close of his term of office his measures became much more moderate. In 1805 the return of Lord Cornwallis 843
