but even if that were so, he would not buy immunity at such a price. "It would be treason," he wrote, "to imagine that it could ever be the principle of this Government to perpetuate ignorance in order to secure paltry and dishonest advantages over the blindness of the multitude." He was not only the founder of the Indian Empire but the founder of national Indian education. With regard to the freedom of journalism he laid down an axiom no less pregnant when he said: "It is salutary for public authority--even when its intentions are most pure-to look to the control of public opinion." The power of banishing an obnoxious publicist, still, indeed, existed by virtue of an edict of the Company which he could not abrogate; but that power was never used under his administration.

Before concluding the story of these honourable labours it is unfortunately needful to say a few words about the sad events in which it closed. Events, let us haste to add, by which the honour of the Governor-General was unstained; but in which, nevertheless a certain facility of nature and a generous unwillingness to suspect others, of which we saw an example in the case of Audh, led to a deplorable blot on this page of British Indian history.

The territories of the Nizám-or what we may call "the Mughal Deccan"-had (as we saw) been pillaged and wasted, first by Haidar and his son, then by the Mahrattas. The present prince was not the man to restore their prosperity; with no strong quality but avarice he resided in his palace, "counting out his money" like the King in the nursery rhyme, while the business of the State was carried on by an astute Hindu named Rája Chandu Lal. The Court expenses, however great, would not of themselves have been ruinous. But there were other more serious burdens, the most grievous being a showy military force, under very highly-paid European officers. In that army had at one time been a half

caste named William Palmer, who had left the service and established himself as head of a Bank at Haidarábád; before long he was joined by an Englishman, Sir W. Rumbold, whose wife had been a ward of the Marquess of Hastings. The Bank prospered and made advances out of the funds intrusted to it on behalf of the administration of Chandu. These loans were to bear interest at 25 per cent., besides being secured on assignments of revenue-paying estates. They reached the large amount of Rx. 300,000 in one year; and, being specially licensed by the Governor-General, they assumed an appearance of a transaction sanctioned if not shared by the Government-an appearance strengthened by the connection between the Marquess and one of the partners. In 1820 the Bank notified the Resident that it was prepared to consolidate the debts at a reduced rate of interest; for which purpose a new loan of sixty lakhs (Rx. 600,000) was to be substituted. The Resident procured sanction from Calcutta for this transaction also; but it was not brought to the notice of the Government there that of the sum offered no more than fifty-two lakhs were to be credited to the State, the balance being absorbed by the Bank as a bonus.

In the last month of the year 1820 the Resident's post was assumed by Metcalfe, a man of equal acuteness and integrity. No sooner had he mastered the situation, than he laid before the Governor-General a sketch of the abuses that were going on, and a special denunciation of the sixty lakh loan. To his equal mortification and surprise he found that Rumbold had also written, stating matters from the point of view of the Bank; and all that Metcalfe got for his pains and zeal was rejection of his advice, and a semi-official reprimand. Stung personally and alarmed on public grounds for the future of his charge, he resumed the correspondence in a dignified style of remonstrance. He neither wished ill to the Bank nor to Chandu; but he had a duty to perform, to Government and to the people. The loss

of his lordship's confidence was hard to bear, he could only seek comfort in the consciousness that the confidence might someday be restored. Whilst thus addressing Lord Hastings in person, Metcalfe gave a qualified permission to Mr. John Adam, the senior Member of Council, to make use of a confidential letter in which he had already informed that gentleman that there was evidence of the collusion of officials lately employed in the Residency, and that sanctions to the loans might not have been so readily accorded, had not these officials been either sleeping-partners, or the recipients of abnormal rates of interest on their deposits. The letter was shown by Adam to the Governor-General; and Lord Hastings bowed his stately head; sent Metcalfe a letter of friendly apology; and, what was of more importance, gave his assent to Metcalfe's proposals. Money was advanced on the security of the territorial revenues of the Nizám's dominions at 6 per cent, the debt to the Bank was paid off; and in a twelvemonth W. Palmer and Co. suspended payment, and presently ceased to exist as a firm.

The censures pronounced in England led the Marquess to tender his resignation; and he laid down his office on the first day of the year 1823, being succeeded, ad interim, by Mr. Adam as senior Councillor.

Also

[Kaye's "Metcalfe."; Prinsep ubi sup; "Land tenures of various countries," ("Cobden Club Papers," N.D.) "The Marquess of Hastings"; by Major Ross, of Bladensburg a volume of the "Rulers of India" series, published in 1893.]

78

CHAPTER XV.

BURMA AND BHURTPORE.

Section : The war with Ava-Section 2: Disturbances in IndiaSection 3: Domestic Administration, 1823-28.

SECTION 1.—Mr. Adam, during the few months of his administration, had but to carry out the policy in which he had been so long associated. He applied a portion of the over-flowing resources of the Government to the cause of national education which Lord Hastings had so generously espoused. And he banished a recalcitrant journalist who had already received warnings, but who, presuming on the good nature of the rulers, persisted in pouring ridicule upon their proceedings in his paper. This paltry affair made a stir at the time, being represented as a measure of reaction, while it was in fact only the necessary working of machinery previously set in motion. Writers who chose to obey a few simple restrictions based on policy and good manners continued to pursue their calling as unmolested as before in the metropolis of British India; indeed it was Munro rather than Adam who was the opponent of Indian journalism; and the arguments employed by the Governor of Madras are cited by his biographer, and evince all the vigour of his powerful, if rather one-sided intelligence. The problem of reconciling a perfectly free commentary with a perfectly arbitrary Government, was not finally settled, as we shall see hereafter, till near the end of the nineteenth century. For the present we need only note that the undeserved obloquy that

has been bestowed upon Mr. Adam formed the subject of a generous protest from Metcalfe a few years later. In the middle of the year 1835, a meeting was held in Calcutta to acknowledge the legislative removal of all special restraints on journalism, at which Metcalfe, the author of that policy, even in the elation of the moment, did not forget what was due to the misunderstood dead. "Had he (Adam) been now alive and at the head of this Government," so Metcalfe said, "he would probably have been among the foremost to propose the abolition of those laws." And he declared in the same address, that Adam was "one of the best, purest, and most benevolent men that ever lived."

Further details will be more appropriate when we come to the brave speaker's own brief tenure of supreme power; the above quotations are all that seem requisite to place Mr. Adam's memory in its proper light. His tenure of office was professedly temporary, and the delay in the arrival of a permanent head of the Government was due to political events at home. In 1820, Mr. Canning had voluntarily exiled himself from political life owing to disagreements with the King and Cabinet. On receiving the resignation of Lord Hastings he had been offered the reversion of the Government of India, and had accepted the offer. But the continuance of exile had no charms for him; and he used so little expedition in making preparations for departure, that when the Marquess of Londonderry's unhappy decease occurred, Canning was still in England. He was ere long appointed to the vacant post of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the nomination of a Governor-General for India was still to make. The Court of Directors was at first desirous of appointing Lord William Bentinck, whose recall after the Vellore Mutiny was a natural source of remorseful regret. But the claims of Lord Amherst ultimately prevailed. He had been sent out to China as Ambassador-Extraordinary in 1816; when, although his mission had