Bengal Army-and reorganise it you must, for you can never hold India without it you may declare positively and specifically what you intend to exact from every soldier entering your ranks. If high-caste men (and you must not be led away by the outery against them to believe that they are not excellent soldiers)-if high-caste men, I say, then choose to enter your service, to rub shoulders with men of low caste, and do whatsoever they are called upon to do within the sphere of their military duty, take them, in fair proportion with others, mix them all up judiciously together, and do not fear the result. Let every soldier know, before he enlists, what he may have to do, and where he may have to go; tell him that such and such are the conditions of his service, and that you will only enlist men on such conditions. If, then, he subsequently alleges the existence of caste as a reason for not fulfilling these conditions, he breaks his engagement with you; and, in fact, resistance to your orders is mutiny. You will be perfectly justified then in saying that you will hear nothing about caste; that he entered your service with his eyes open to the consequences; and that if he has brought himself into trouble, he has only himself to thank for the dilemma. Now, so far as you may call this abolishing caste, do it; but you can do no more. Do not, therefore, attempt to do more. Above all, do not look upon caste as something which henceforth you are to consider it either a virtue or a pleasure to outrage. It may be foolish-it may be mischievous it may be the source of much difficulty and much danger; but you must remember, John, that you have something very much like caste in

your

own country; and what would some of your high-caste children say if they were to be told that they could never again wear the uniform of her Majesty without first of all serving so many years in the ranks, or so many years before the mast. It sometimes seems to me, John, as though caste were made more of in your army than in mine. You must remember that the whole tendency of our rule

in India has been to lower the position and the influence of the upper classes; and that men who enter the ranks of our army in India are, many of them, far higher relatively in the social scale than the people who recruit our regiments in England. If we are to adopt measures for the exclusion of high-caste men from the army, what are we to do with the men thus excluded? Every year as our empire has extended, it has become more and more difficult for the upper classes to obtain honourable and profitable employment; and now you are talking of making even high caste a bar to military service. Now, my notion is, John, that henceforth, instead of being more a leveller than you have been, you ought to endeavour to be less. I know that my servants, with the best possible intentions, have for many years endeavoured to raise the many by degrading the few. Their sympathies have been with the millions, not with the oligarchy; and the upper classes have been generally depressed. I am not sure, John, that this system has answered even in the manner intended; that it has increased the happiness and the prosperity of the great mass of the people more than if due regard had been paid to the interests of all classes. This suggests a large question, John, upon which I cannot now enter; I only caution you not to feel sure that the ruin of the few will advance the prosperity of the many. This is in some sort a digression; for I am speaking now more immediately of caste. But the same spirit, John, which makes you a leveller in one case makes you a leveller in the other. You have a general grudge against the upper classes. Take heed how you indulge it. It is out of the bitterness which this feeling excites that sanguinary mutinies arise, John. Caste is an evil which you must prepare yourself to tolerate. Obviate its inconveniences as best you can, by inoffensive measures; but long years must elapse, John, before it will cease to be a motive power too strong for you to resist, and too strong for you to attempt to resist without precipitating a sanguinary failure.

And now, John, hear my last words. I commit to your hands a mighty trust, a gigantic responsibility. The task which lies before you is self-imposed; and therefore the greater the disgrace of failure. You have forcibly wrested from me the empire which I won in spite of my self. No one, with any knowledge of my antecedents, believes that I ever desired to be the master of two hundred millions of Asiatics. In the old times, my instructions ever were, "Do not fortify, do not fight." Circumstances over which I had no control compelled my servants to fortify and to fight, and so, little by little, my empire has sprung up, and my Government has been the growth of circumstances. If I did not rule my empire successfully, there was little shame in my want of success. I did my best as a ruler, though it was my ambition to be simply a trader. You took from me my trade, and told me only to govern. For a quarter of a century I have given myself up undividedly to the work of government; and now, because that has happened to me which has happened to every Indian Government, you have been pleased to say that I have failed. If I had failed, we should not now be masters of India. You have been pleased also to say, that when my troubles came upon me I was found wanting, that I was incompetent to grapple with the difficulties which stared me in the face. Well, John, that charge has been investigated. One of your own Parliamentary tribunals has sifted it to the bottom; and the result is, that I have not only been honourably acquitted, but that I have left the court carrying with me the commendations of my judges. I believe that a vast army has never been shipped to, and landed on a foreign shore, and never pushed up to the scene of action, with such a wonderful display at all points of the highest administrative efficiency. Be candid, John; think of the past, and tell me whether your servants would have done it better.

But now that I commit to your hands the empire which Providence committed to me, I do so, hoping, praying for your success. I have

done my best-do now your best. May the Almighty bless your efforts, and may your best be better than mine. I have given you my most solemn advice. I have pointed out to you the rocks on which you are most likely to go to pieces. I have indicated the peculiar difficulties which will beset the new system of Indian government which you have been pleased to inaugurate difficulties partly the growth of that system, and partly the growth of the circumstances out of which the great change has arisen. Ponder diligently and earnestly what I have said. They are the last words of one who has done great things in his day, and to whom history will do ample justice. I do not ask you, John, to think kindly of me when I am gone. I know the place which I shall hold in the great chronicle of nations. My fame, proudly and confidently, I bequeath

"To Memory, and Time's old daughter, Truth."

You may regret me when I am gone, John-perhaps not; but whatsoever may be in the great womb of the Future, nothing can take from me the glory of my Past. The empire of the East India Company is a great fact, which generation after generation, in every quarter of the globe, will contemplate with reverential wonder. You may keep it, or you may lose it, John; but you cannot take from me the glory of having been, under Providence, the founder of that empire. The Past is everything to me; the Future is everything to you. Think solemnly upon that Future. Be resolute; be calm. Above all, resist popular clamours or rather, the clamours of selfish classes. Do not suffer India to be governed by a series of concessions to interested cries. You have a hard part to play, John. Play it bravely. Your work, for some time to come, must be a work of continued resistance. Think, in quiet hours, of what I have said to you; and if you regard my counsel as honestly as it is given to you, be sure that some day you will bless the memory of

JOHN COMPANY.

How it fared, my dear Lord True Blue, with your Lordships, in your Chamber, during the last few weeks of the Session which closed on the 2d instant, I cannot tell; but can I ever forget how it fared with us faithful Commons, who sate so much more, and may I be forgiven for saying it worked so much harder, than did your Lordships? We were all under the same roof, all tenants of the same gorgeous structure, it is true and all in equal dire proximity to the greatest open sewer the world ever saw; but consider how we workedas, indeed, did your Lordships also, during the last few days of your sessional existence-double tides: from twelve o'clock at noon till four in the afternoon, and again from six o'clock in the evening till one, two, and halfpast two o'clock the next morning! Then I, for instance, would crawl home some two miles, and, catching a few hours' sleep, plunge in the morning into neglected correspondence, on the surface of which, somehow or other, always lay one particular missive which disclosed the words, once, twice, or even thrice underscored-" MOST IMPORTANT!" "CERTAIN DIVISION!"—"When your attendance is most earnestly and PARTICULARLY requested!" "Other important business also is on the paper," &c. &c. &c. Thus urged, down to the House you went, walking, if a little less fatigued than usual; and on your arrival, were instantly encountered by the deadly stench which you had tried to forget on quitting it that morning. Isn't it horrid -How good you are to come!" would faintly whisper an anxious but pallid Whip; then hurrying off to say the same to another of those obedient to his skilfullyapplied thong. As you approached the door, behold the two jaded janitors, growling while you passed them, "Worse than ever!"-to which

LONDON, August 1858. you nodded acquiescently, with your handkerchief to your nose. In their boxes these two grim functionaries sate, cadaverous, tired, and apparently too much exhausted to hinder any one from entering; or how was it that that strange gentleman contrived to slip in the other morning between two members?-You entered the House: all was languor and nausea. The windows were opened, but, thank Heaven! you saw calico screens outside them, incessantly moistened with a solution of chloride of lime, serving to intercept a little of the putrid odours which would otherwise have entered. There sate the once puissant Serjeant-at-Arms in his awful chair; but if you looked at him, you saw that he evidently had no longer strength to take into custody either disorderly member or stranger, even with the golden prospect of fees for the very briefest occupation of his hospitable dungeons. There, too, sate Mr Speaker himself, august personage, manifestly sinking under the pestilential exha lations, vinaigrette in hand, and in incessant use, his heart sinking within him as he every now and then reflected on the residence which was being prepared for him at the edge of the reeking sewer outside, prepared, too, as he grieved to think, with such aggravating splendour, to be so soon dimmed and sullied by the noisome vapours ever steaming into its magnificent chambers. Hence you could understand the sudden interest he would manifest in any discussion on The Great Nuisance, started by an indignant member, and the stern "Order, order!" with which he was guarded from the slightest interruption in the course of his just denunciations! As for ourselves, we were all, oblivious of party, interchanging bits of camphor (of which a huge fragrant lump lay before the clerks at the table), and the use of smelling-salts, aromatic vine

cial watch-dogs on the right and the left hand respectively of the Speaker's chair; but nobody seemed to hear, or at least to care for them. In a word, the reeking river was doing his work bravely; and when he had got nearly far enough through it to admit of the manoeuvre being safely adventured upon, the astute Earl who leads your Lordship's House instructed his equally astute lieutenant in ours, to occupy and amuse us all with a project for cleansing the river! This set us all in an instant to work, every one eagerly following his nose into drains and culverts, losing himself in pleasant intercepting sewers, and tumbling about in refreshing streams of deodorised sewage; the Minister contriving quietly, the while, to give a finishing touch or two to his neat little Indian, and one or two other small Bills of the same kind; the House all the while thinning visibly and rapidly. Some left, saying that they had done their duty; others, that come what come might, they neither could nor would stand it any longer. So you heard on all sides incense - breathing mention of my yacht "-"the Mediterranean Switzerland"-"the moors among those noble, right honourable, and honourable members, whom Heaven had blessed with the means and opportunities for so enjoying themselves. "And whither go you?" I inquired of a distinguished yachtsman sitting next to me."Why, I'm thinking of a cruise eastward, after Cherbourg." you're going to Cherbourg?", course I am; wouldn't miss it for the world! Good night—or rather, good morning. I wish I could prevail on you to go with me. I shook my head, and was roused a moment from my reverie by the faint languid voice of the stately tenant of the chair, just finishing the little significant formula "that this Bill do pass ! Those who are of that opinion say Aye! Those who are of the contrary opinion say No! The Ayes have it;" I having been one of the Noes, who had thus lost his little opportunity during the colloquy aforesaid! So the Bill has become an Act now, adorning the Statute-Book of the realm me invito! It was at that

gar, eau-de-Cologne, and lavender and other waters, the sweets of which were soon lost and overpowered. Look up above to the glittering brazen trellis-work, partially concealing our fair lady-visitors, whose curiosity, however, soon sank under the odours of the place; and by-and-by you might see and hear them rustling quicker than they had entered through the quadrangle - delicately chiselled nose, and lips hid beneath gossamer handkerchief- to their car riages. Look next at the Fourth Estate, ranged in grim array immediately below the ladies' cage; see them, with desperate air, attempting to fix their attention on the lively orator below, so as to be able best to condense his half-hour's eloquence into a single sentence, into which a "hear!" could not by possibility be inserted, nor hear" nor "cheers" appended to it! Some folding their arms in defiance, and all turning up their noses, in conspicuous disgust, not at us, either silent or loquacious statesmen, but at the air we breathed! In short, matters were getting to a pretty pass with Three out of the Four Estates of the Realm, who were sinking into a sort of lethargy or collapse, which was not, however, the case with all their number. These were fine times for somebody, I warrant you! What was the members' extremity, was the Ministers' opportunity. Everybody was plainly indifferent to everything, or nobody was pleased with anything, which the Government naturally understood as signifying that anybody might do anything, and that everything was pleasing everybody; and they were consequently pleased with everybody and everything, gathering golden votes on every side. Was ever Ministry in such luck? The demure Chancellor of the Exchequer and his trusty myrmidons of the Treasury wisely resolved to make hay while the stench lasted; and it was wonderful how Bill after Bill was whisked along through all its stages, and how item after item in the Estimates thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millionsslipped down into the Treasury bag, unchallenged except by a growl or a snap from our two exhausted finan

"Oh,

"Of

How it fared, my dear Lord True Blue, with your Lordships, in your Chamber, during the last few weeks of the Session which closed on the 2d instant, I cannot tell; but can I ever forget how it fared with us faithful Commons, who sate so much more, and may I be forgiven for saying it worked so much harder, than did your Lordships? We were all under the same roof, all tenants of the same gorgeous structure, it is true and all in equal dire proximity to the greatest open sewer the world ever saw; but consider how we workedas, indeed, did your Lordships also, during the last few days of your sessional existence-double tides: from twelve o'clock at noon till four in the afternoon, and again from six o'clock in the evening till one, two, and halfpast two o'clock the next morning! Then I, for instance, would crawl home some two miles, and, catching a few hours' sleep, plunge in the morning into neglected correspondence, on the surface of which, some how or other, always lay one particular missive which disclosed the words, once, twice, or even thrice underscored" MOST IMPORTANT!" "CERTAIN DIVISION!"—"When your attendance is most earnestly and PARTICULARLY requested!""Other important business also is on the paper," &c. &c. &c. Thus urged, down to the House you went, walking, if a little less fatigued than usual; and on your arrival, were instantly encountered by the deadly stench which you had tried to forget on quitting it that morning. Isn Tid-How mare

LONDON, August 1858. you nodded acquiescently, with your handkerchief to your nose. In their boxes these two grim functionaries sate, cadaverous, tired, and apparently too much exhausted to hinder any one from entering; or how was it that that strange gentleman contrived to slip in the other morning between two members?-You entered the House: all was languor and nausea. The windows were opened, but, thank Heaven! you saw calico screens outside them, incessantly moistened with a solution of chloride of lime, serving to intercept a little of the putrid odours which would otherwise have entered. There sate the once puissant Serjeant-at-Arms in his awful chair; but if you looked at him, you saw that he evidently had no longer strength to take into custody either disorderly member or stranger, even with the golden prospect of fees for the very briefest occupation of his hospitable dungeons. There, too, sate Mr Speaker himself, august personage, manifestly sinking under the pestilential exha lations, vinaigrette in hand, and in incessant use, his heart sinking within him as he every now and then reflected on the residence which was being prepared for him at the edge of the reeking sewer outside, prepared, too, as he grieved to think, with such aggravating splendour, to be so soon dimmed and sullied by the noisome vapours ever steaming into its magnificent chambers. Hence you could understand the sudden interest he would manifest in any discussion on The Great Nuisance, started by an indignant member, and the stern "Order,

orde

with which he was guarded htest interruption in the just denunciations! As , we were all, oblivious rchanging bits of camch a huge fragrant lump e clerks at the table), and elling-salts, aromatic vine