perhaps, still under the lash of his recall, official idleness had become intolerable to him; the place was offered and accepted; and one of the greatest Secretaries our Treasury has seen, one whose familiarity with India dated from his childhood's first ambitions, was duly named Financial Member of the Viceroy's Council. His experience of Madras, no doubt, enabled him to avoid more readily the rocks on which his predecessor split; and the spirit in which his duties were undertaken left nothing to be desired so far as Westminster was concerned. With the Government of India, properly so called, the case was different; and all the tact and wisdom of his local master were needed to restrain his accumulated zeal. Tall and worn, but of iron frame, he landed in Calcutta to replace Mr Laing's shadow of his former self. Such was his energy, that barely had Fort-William's guns announced his advent, ere he sought and found an opportunity to lay before his colleagues schemes for all kinds of radical improvements. With each branch of home and foreign administration he was all familiar: some hobbies were indeed his own, and those he rode to the death. Such was the immediate removal of the seat of Government to some unknown region situate in Central India, watered by some as yet unnavigable river, on whose banks, according to Lord Canning, all grew that white men want, and beneath whose soil both coal and marble should abound to an extent unknown. His arguments and eloquence were such that the Council, fully acquainted with the evils of Calcutta, remained dumbfounded, all save its President, Lord Elgin, who, at all times eager to arrive

at knowledge, naturally solicited more accurate details before consenting to transplant to a mythical land the whole machinery of Government. Such an exodus for a site but vaguely dreamt of could only have embarrassed all, and most of all Sir Charles Trevelyan, the very existence of whose department was dependent on Bengal. Neither were schemes for education wanting; and here, again, Madras experience came into play. In short, his energy and reputation, always great, and certainly the former greater since his fall, rendered him singularly calculated to embarrass a superior. The scope of his labours could not be confined even within the pliant limits of Finance: no passing mention of his measures can form an outline of his aims, and we can only deal with the most prominent as they may occur.

While touching on finance, it may not be amiss to contemplate a moment the class of local men intrusted with it. In the Company's days its special character had not been ignored, but rather the reverse; and the conservative nature of directors' patronage had almost gone so far as to constitute the conduct of accounts an office for which hereditary claims were deemed the fittest qualification. Thus it was that when a vacancy occurred, a member of the house of Lushington was sought; and if one could be found of decent antecedents he was generally pitchforked into power. At the demise of the Company many Lushingtons were thus bequeathed to us, and with them their supposed facility for figures; and though it is true that upon the departure, superannuated, of one member of this happy

family, justice was done by Lord Elgin to a singularly able, zealous public servant, who for long years had played an up-hill game in this exclusive walk; yet shortly after, strange to say, the old tradition re-asserted its prerogative, and upon Mr Drummond's appointment to the Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-West Provinces, a Lushington was his successor as Financial Secretary to the Government of India.

Sir Charles Trevelyan, among his Treasury predilections, appears to have harboured a pet project for a system of exchanges between India and Whitehall; and no doubt the plan possesses many merits. Yet the rules of the Civil Service proper retain so much of their exclusive character, that a so-called "uncovenanted officer" of junior grade still occupies a place well-educated Englishmen object to. An instance of this recently occurred, when a well-bred scholar, after trial, finding all doors to advancement shut against. him, and he himself condemned to the work, and much of the society, of a class of writers known as "native Christians," neither remarkable for talent nor morality, reluctantly exchanged his Indian prospects for such work as he could get at home, with smaller pay, but the position of a gentleman.

The third class of Sir Charles Wood's measures demands more careful scrutiny. His military policy has failed to an extent the more apparent when compared with his successes in other branches of the public service. The misfortunes of our Indian army, during the years it has been helpless in the hands of home authorities and Horse Guards prejudice, have

attained to a pitch only rendered possible by a fatal war resulting in the utter bankruptcy of India's proper share of independence. Thenceforth all not personally interested welcomed any change, however fraught with wrong, that promised to relieve the land we live in from enhanced financial burdens, without neglecting the integrity, or, we might more truly say, recovery, of our Eastern rule.

The night of mutiny was long and pitifully dark. During its continuance it had been barely possible to watch the fortunes of the few on whom we all depended ; and when morning dimly broke the storm yet raging with increasing fury, the waves of war still lashing our frail bark, and the rollers of rebellion surging past to melt in foam upon the rugged Punjab strand, that, acting as a breakwater, was at once our greatest danger and sole chance of safety, and beyond which the waters, thick and turbid still, were calm enough to allow of rest to the exhausted and diminished crew who had fought with death and conquered,—then, indeed, all who could appreciate the past did dread the future. Cadres of British officers were all remaining of our native army. So long as actual fighting lasted their value had been priceless; with the energy of despair they had formed themselves in bands of heroes, against whose prowess all attacks proved vain; outnumbered many times, they had cut their bloody way through countless hosts of enemies; and now that all was over, England felt they had done well their country's work, and honours and rewards were freely showered on them. It was not long, however, before

all became aware of their anomalous position. The army-list showed rolls of names to whom death had dealt promotion, and who for a time found occupation in stamping out in far-off districts the last embers of revolt. Then suddenly arose the cry of bankruptcy, and each rupee was watched in circulation and grudged to our defenders: yet a little, and was born that word "amalgamation:" offspring of economy and wrongs, it proved the parent of embarrassments untold, a fruitful source of misery to many, of jealousy to all.

In those days India was in everybody's mouth, and two men's names were paramount. Both were abused, each in the country of his residence, and both, abroad, were prophets. Lord Canning, who at the earliest moment had stayed the hand of butchery, had reaped the reward of those who interpose between soldiers and success; the very merchants, recovering their colour, now clamoured for revenge; and the natives, crushed in their turn by our heavy heel, not unnaturally regarded the head of Government as the source of their misfortunes. With Sir Charles Wood the case was different not strictly popular at home, enough had happened to heap odium upon one so singularly well placed to prove the scapegoat of a nation's crimes; whilst in India, his consistent care of native interests had placed him on the pinnacle of their hopes for future favours. The demand for amalgamation had been very general. Having fought and died together, there arose between the Queen's and Company's armies a feeling that each was not unworthy of the other: neither was this feeling purely sentimental; each saw, or thought