The Letters of Queen Victoria/Volume 2/Chapter 13/From Robert Peel 5 May 1844
Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria.
Sir Robert Peel, with his humble duty to your Majesty, and believing that he is acting in accordance with your Majesty’s own opinion, begs leave to submit to your Majesty that it may be advisable that he should by the present mail inform Lord Ellenborough that it is your Majesty’s intention to confer on him, at a very early period, as a mark of your Majesty’s approval of Lord Ellenborough’s conduct and services in India, the rank of an Earl and the Grand Cross of the Bath.
Lord Ellenborough may be at liberty (should your Majesty approve) to notify this publicly in India—and thus make it known that the general line of policy recently pursued has had the full sanction of your Majesty, and will not be departed from.
These were the honours conferred upon Lord Auckland.
If they were conferred on the instant, it might rather seem a rebuke to the East India Company than a deliberate approval of the conduct of Lord Ellenborough, but these honours might shortly follow the conclusion of the affair respecting the selection of Lord Ellenborough’s successor, and any discussion that may arise in Parliament.