thoroughly practical. The military and naval forces of the Company were to be deemed the forces of her Majesty. A clause was introduced declaring that, except for the purpose of preventing or repelling actual invasion of India, the Indian revenues should not, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, be applicable to defray the expenses. of any military operation carried on beyond the external frontiers of her Majesty's Indian possessions. Another clause enacted that whenever an order was sent to India directing the commencement of hostilities by her Majesty's forces there, the fact should be communicated to Parliament within three months, if Parliament were then sitting, or, if not, within one month after its next meeting. These clauses were heard of more than once in later days. The Viceroy and Governor-General was to be supreme in India, but was to be assisted by a Council. India now has nine provinces, each under its own civil government, and independent of the others, but all subordinate to the authority of the Viceroy. In accordance with this Act the government of the Company, the famed "John Company," formally ceased on September 1st, 1858; and the Queen was proclaimed throughout India in the following November, with Lord Canning for her first Viceroy. It was but fitting that the man who had borne the strain of that terrible crisis, who had brought our Indian Empire safely through it all, and who had had to endure so much obloquy and to live down so much calumny, should have his name consigned to history as that of the first of the line of British Viceroys in India.

It seems almost superfluous to say that so great a measure as the extinction of the East India Company did not pass without some protest and some opposition. The authorship of some of the protests makes them too remarkable to be passed over without a word. Among the ablest civil servants the East India Company ever had were James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill. Both had risen in succession to the same high post in the Company's service. The younger Mill was still an official of the Company when, as he has put it in his own words, "it pleased Parliament-in other words, Lord Palmerston-to put an end to the East India Company as a branch of the Government of India under the Crown, and convert the administration of that country into

66

a thing to be scrambled for by the second and third class of English parliamentary politicians." "I," says Mr. Mill, was the chief manager of the resistance which the Company made to their own political extinction, and to the letters and petitions I wrote for them, and the concluding chapter of my treatise on representative government I must refer for my opinions on the folly and mischief of this illconsidered change." One of the remonstrances drawn up by Mr. Mill, and presented to Parliament on behalf of the East India Company, is as able a State paper, probably, as any in the archives of modern England. This is not the place, however, in which to enter on the argument it so powerfully sustained. "It has been the destiny of the government of the East India Company," says Mr. Mill, in the closing passage of his essay on "Representative Government," "to suggest the true theory of the government of a semi-barbarous dependency by a civilized country, and after having done this, to perish. It would be a singular fortune if, at the end of two or three more generations, this speculative result should be the only remaining fruit of our ascendency in India; if posterity should say of us that, having stumbled accidentally upon better arrangements than our wisdom would ever have devised, the first use we made of our awakened reason was to destroy them, and allow the good which had been in course of being realized to fall through and be lost, from ignorance of the principles on which it depended." "Di meliora," Mr. Mill adds; and we are glad to think that, after the lapse of more than twenty years, there is as yet no sign of the realization of the fears which he expressed with so much eloquence and earnestness. Mr. Mill was naturally swayed by the force of association with, and confidence in, the great organization with which he and his father had been connected so long; and, moreover, no one can deny that he has, in his protests, fairly presented some of the dangers that may now and then arise out of a system which throws the responsibility for the good government of India wholly on a body so likely to be alien, apathetic, unsympathetic, as the English Parliament. But the whole question was one of comparative danger and convenience; the balance of advantage certainly seemed, even as a matter of speculation, to be with the

It is a mistake, too,

system of more direct government.
to suppose that it was the will, or the caprice, of Lord
Palmerston that made the change. Rightly or wrongly,
it is certain that almost the whole voice of English public
opinion cried out for the abolition of the East India Com-
pany. It was the one thing which everybody could sug-
gest to be done, at a time of excitement when everybody
thought he was bound to suggest something. It would have
required a minister less fond of popularity than Lord Palm-
erston to resist such an outcry, or pretend that he did not
hear it. In this, as in so many other cases, Lord Palmerston
only seemed to lead public opinion, while he was really fol-
lowing it. One other remark it is also fair to make. We
have had no indications, as yet, of any likelihood that the
administration of India is to become a thing to be scrambled
for by second and third class parliamentary politicians. The
administration of India means, of course, the viceroyalty.
Now there have been, since Lord Canning, five viceroys, and
of these three at least were not parliamentary politicians at
all. Sir John Lawrence never was in Parliament until he
was raised to the peerage, after his return home from India.
Lord Elgin may be fairly described as never having been in
Parliament, unless in the technical sense which makes every
man on whom a peer's title is conferred a parliamentary per-
sonage; and the same holds true of Lord Lytton, who had
no more to do with Parliament than was involved in the
fact of his having succeeded to his father's title. Lord Mayo
and Lord Northbrook, to whom, perhaps, an invidious critic
might apply the term second or third class parliamentary
politicians, on the ground that neither had obtained very
high parliamentary distinction, proved, nevertheless, very ca-
pable, and, indeed, excellent administrators of Indian affairs,
and fully justified the choice of the ministers who appointed
them. Indeed, the truth is that the change made in the mode
of governing India by the act which we have just been de-
scribing, was more of name than of reality. India was ruled
by a Governor-General and a board before; it has been ruled
by a Governor-General, called a Viceroy, and a board since.
The idea which Mr. Mill had evidently formed in his mind,
of a restless and fussy Parliament forever interfering in the
affairs of India, proved to have been a false impression alto-

gether. Parliament soon ceased to take the slightest interest, collectively, in the affairs of India. Once more it came to be observed that an Indian budget, or other question connected with the government of our great empire in the East, could thin the House as in the days before the Mutiny. Again, as before, some few men profoundly in earnest took care and thought on the subject of India, and were condemned to pour out the results of their study and experience to a listening Under - Secretary and a chill array of green leather benches. At intervals, when some piquant question arose, of little importance save to the Court official or the partisan-like the project for conferring an imperial crown, brand-new and showy as a stage diadem, on the wearer of the great historic emblem of English monarchy-then, indeed, public opinion condescended to think about India, and there were keen parliamentary debates and much excitement in fashionable circles. Sometimes, when there was talk of Russian ambition seeking, somehow, a pathway into India, a sort of public spirit was aroused, not, perhaps, wholly unlike the manly emotion of Squire Sullen, in the "Beaux Stratagem," when he discovers that a foreigner is paying court to the woman he has so long neglected. But, as a rule, the English Parliament has wholly falsified Mr. Mill's prediction, and has not intruded itself in any way upon the political administration of India.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE ORSINI BOMBS EXPLODE IN PARIS AND LONDON.

THE last chapter has told us that Lord Palmerston introduced a measure to transfer to the Crown the government of India, but that unexpected events, in the mean while, compelled him to resign office, and called Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli to power. These events had nothing to do directly with the general policy of Lord Palmerston or Lord Derby. At mid-day of January 14th, 1858, no one could have had the slightest foreboding of anything about to happen which could affect the place of Lord Palmerston in English politics.

He seemed to be as popular and as strong as a minister well could be. There had been a winter session called together on December 3d, to pass a bill of indemnity for the Government, who had suspended the Bank Charter Act during the terrible money-panic of the autumn, and the failures of banks and commercial firms. The Bank was authorized, by the suspension of the Charter Act, to extend its circulation. two millions beyond the limit of that Act. The effect of this step in restoring confidence was so great that the Bank had only to put in circulation some £900,000 beyond the limit of 1844, and even that sum was replaced, and a certain reserve established by the close of the year. Most people thought the Government had met the difficulty promptly and well, and were ready to offer their congratulations. Parliament adjourned at Christmas, and was to meet early in February. The Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of the Queen, was to be married to the Prince Frederick William, eldest son of the then Prince of Prussia, now German Emperor, and it was to be Lord Palmerston's pleasant task, when Parliament resumed in February, to move a vote of congratulation to her Majesty on her child's marriage. Meantime, however, on the evening of January 14th, Felice Orsini, an Italian exile, made his memorable attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the French. Orsini lost himself, and he drew the English Government down at the same time.

Felice Orsini was well known in England. After his romantic escape from a prison at Mantua, he came to this country and delivered lectures in several towns. He described the incidents of his escape and denounced Austrian rule in Italy, and was made a lion of in many places. He was a handsome, soldierly-looking man, with intensely dark eyes and dark beard, in appearance almost the model Italian conspirator of romance. He was not an orator, but he was able to tell his story clearly and well. One great object which he had in view was to endeavor to rouse up the English people to some policy of intervention on behalf of Italy against Austria. It is almost impossible for a man like Orsini to take the proper measure of the enthusiasm with which he is likely to be received in England. He goes to several public meetings; he is welcomed by immense crowds; he is cheered to the echo; and he gets to be under the impression that the