great land-owners in the province of Oudh hastened to swear allegiance to the English government. They were responsible for the conduct of the villages, the supreme authority of England moderating their tyranny. The abuses of an earlier time had been abolished, and the native farmers felt themselves under a protection as equitable as it was strong. Lord Canning's plan, condemned in principle, had succeeded in practice, and soon had the suffrages of all, serving as the base on which was founded the great reform now proposed in the government of India by the English.

The Indian mutiny was the death-blow to the famous East India Company. Mr. Pitt had made the Company's administration completely subject to the English ministry; he, however, preserved the independence of the Company in matters of patronage and commerce, while Fox desired to place them under the control of a council nominated by the crown. The Company had held the patronage of the Civil Service until 1853, at which time the system of competitive examinations was put in force. It was in support of this principle that Lord Macaulay spoke for the last time in the House of Commons. A Board of Directors nominated partly by the crown and partly by the Company governed Indian affairs, but its decisions were reviewed and at times revised by the parliamentary Board of Control. The crown nominated the governor-general, but the Company had the power of recalling him. This mixed power necessarily brought about many delays and embarrassments, which made themselves strongly felt at a moment when prompt resolve and decided action were manifestly requisite to save English dominion in India. Public opinion ardently favored the crown's taking possession of the government of India.

The first measure to this effect was proposed by Lord Palmerston in 1858, but his power was already weakened, and he was very soon to resign office. The bill presented by Lord

Derby, which had been Lord Ellenborough's work, introduced into the formation of the council destined to rule the affairs of India so many complications that Parliament would not even listen to a second reading of it. The parliamentary resolutions called out by Lord John Russell served as the base for a new law, which came under hot discussion. The East India Company did not accept its sentence of death with passive resignation. Among the best servants of the Company were Mr. James Mill, and his son, John Stuart Mill; the latter skilfully and eloquently pleaded the Company's cause. In his essay on Representative Government the younger Mill referred to this subject: "It has been the destiny of the government of the East India Company," he says, "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."

Mr. Mill's presages of evil have not been realized; the bill of 1858 put an end to the authority of the East India Company, but it did not sound the knell of the English rule in India. The governor-general is now a viceroy. The army of the East India Company has now become the queen's army. The bill declares that except for the purpose of preventing or repelling actual invasion of India, Indian revenues should not, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, be applied to defray the expenses of any war outside of India. Also, that if a commencement of hostilities should be ordered in India, the fact

shall be promptly communicated to Parliament. In the matter of civil government, it was determined that the power previously exercised by the Company and the Board of Control should be vested in a Secretary of State for India, assisted by a Council of fifteen members, seven of these to be elected from their own number, by the Board of Directors of the East India Company, and the remaining eight to be named by the crown. Vacancies ensuing among the latter class were to be filled by the crown, and those among the former, after a certain time, by the secretary. The principle of competitive examinations was extended very widely and made permanent.

In accordance with this bill, on the 1st of September, 1858, the government of the East India Company over India ceased forever, and in November of the same year the queen was proclaimed throughout India. The treaties, dignities, rights, and usages then existing were confirmed. The Hindoo people received the assurance that the English government did not claim the right or entertain the desire to interfere in questions of caste or religion. Unconditional amnesty was proclaimed to all in arms against the government who should now return peaceably to their homes, with the exception of those who had been or should be convicted of having taken part in the murder of British subjects, and of those who had harbored such murderers or acted as leaders of the revolt. To the latter class only their lives were guaranteed. In respect to the former, the proclamation asserts, "the demands of justice forbid the exercise of mercy."

India was by no means as yet pacified and submissive. More than once she was destined again to cause England the most serious anxieties, and be to her the occasion of many and grave faults; but she had felt the strong hand of her masters, and she now received from them for the first time, an established constitution and the acknowledgment of her rights. One viceroy after another, called to apply this grand charter of the British

Empire in India, was to be chosen from among the most honored and honorable servants of the crown. The first of all was, with good reason, the man who had held up the name and honor of England in India, at a moment when her subjects were in revolt against her all through the vast territory, and when the unreasoning anger of her own children threatened to tarnish her glory. The measures of reform and of economy which marked the last years of Lord Canning's government were the first steps in the new path so wisely and boldly marked out. In March, 1862, Lord Canning left India, and but a few months later, he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, that last home of England's great servants.

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CHAPTER X.

THE TORY ADMINISTRATION.

ORD PALMERSTON and his ministry had passed through momentous crises, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. They had met and supported the domestic shocks caused by the financial panic of 1857, which had brought ruin to some of the most famous and well-established houses. The Bank Charter Act of 1844 had been suspended, and the Bank of England had been authorized to augment its circulation of notes to two millions sterling; but already confidence was returning, the bank had remained well inside of the limits allowed it, and even a certain reserve had been established. Parliament adjourned at Christmas, and the nation was rejoicing with its sovereign over the projected union of the Princess Victoria, eldest child of the queen, and Prince Frederick of Prussia, eldest son of Prince William, heir presumptive to the Prussian throne. Power seemed secure in the hands of the Whigs, and their sway established on solid bases. The new enterprise of a foreign conspirator, in a foreign country, and against a foreign sovereign, was about to disturb this tranquillity by disturbing the judgment of the English ministry.

Count Orsini was well known in England. Imprisoned by the Austrians in Mantua, he had made his escape and taken shelter across the channel. The incidents of his escape, his noble and handsome face, his expressive eyes and jet-black hair, and that natural eloquence which animates almost all the men of his race, had rendered him popular in all the English cities