vi while in the daily intercourse of life it has become the general practice to confess an ignorance concerning India of which men would rightly blush on less important subjects, leading members of both Houses of our Legislature have frequently preferred to borrow doctrines of the hour advanced by public journals, rather than work out the sum of their own individual impressions. To endeavour to dispel the cloud of error which dulls the public eye on all regarding India has hence become a fair legitimate ambition; and in this aim the present author ventures to submit a few remarks upon that country as it is, or rather was, when his position there enabled him to know the truth. It may be thought by many, and the writer once thought himself, that information bearing on the individuality of public life, obtained while holding any kind of office, should remain unwritten history; and no doubt some reticence is needed in discussing living men, while much responsibility attaches to each word so uttered. In the solution of such doubts the author was assisted by encouragement received from native friends in India; and the following extract from a private letter, not meant originally for publication, addressed to him by one of the earliest natives chosen to take part in mixed Imperial legislation, was not without its influence on his decision: 'Above all I have been touched by the proof, which the main subject of your letter evinces, of the high confidence reposed in my humble self by an alien in creed, in country, in manners, in race, and indeed in everything which distinguishes man from man, and my personal intercourse with whom was so suddenly cut short by the decree of Providence, and with the space of ten thousand miles between us at this moment. I only hope you may never have the slightest cause to regret this feeling. I very well approve of the idea of publishing your impressions of this country, and your observations on its politics and public characters; I always thought to myself you should do such a thing, specially remembering to what literary use another Private Secretary of Lord Elgin put his experiences with that nobleman in another part of the world. I can well appreciate your embarrassment at the manner of publication; that is a well-known puzzle with authors, and the puzzle increases to a tremendous extent when an author has to attend to the peculiarities of three different audiences, two in one country, and the third in another at the antipodes. Besides, a great deal of the success of a work depends on the manner of publication-indeed, the title of a book often leads to its popularity. I can understand your desire to bring your work well out before the Indian public, who alone can take the greatest interest in it, and who alone will heartily recognise the right which belongs to you from your antecedents to address them." The title chosen tells its story for itself, and needs but little comment. The transition of the Government viii of India from all but boundless wealth, and a far larger measure of independence than is enjoyed by most members of the European family of nations, to utter bankruptcy and a struggle for existence all dependent on the mother country-this transition had come of dire necessity and not of man's selection. The life of the East India Company had died out as a tale that is told, and nought remained but debt and disaster, in which England had a deep and national share. Succeeding to the darkness of rebellion, the transition dawned upon Lord Canning with the light of breaking day, and his last years of power were spent in healing wounds of awful magnitude. This task, still incomplete, he left a legacy to Lord Elgin, whose previous life, spent as it had been in the reconciliation of conflicting creeds and races, appeared to the public of that time to offer the most solid pledges for the future. Counting Lord Dalhousie, three college friends were called to govern India in succession. The first, who entered youngest on his duties, ruled eight-the second, six eventful years; while the reign permitted to the third but embraced the space of two. Yet, although differing in duration, these three periods resemble one another, in that each received and bore the impress of a ruling mind. The first period was characterised by almost ceaseless warfare and the wide spread of our dominion; the second, by alternate light and shade, the light occupying both foreground and far distance, the middle plane alone being bathed in shadow; the third was the calm that follows on a storm, affording time to the Indian people and their ruler to weigh the future in the balance of the past, to sink their differences in the appreciation of order and good government, and finally to meet together, the Hindoo and the Mussulman, the Christian and the Jew, to manufacture laws adapted to their general use. This last period it is, to which, in these pages, most frequent reference will be found. 1 |