of her majesty's principal secretaries of state; and in case of difference of opinion on any question decided at any board, the president may require that his opinions, and the reasons for the same, be entered in the minutes of the proceedings; and any ordinary member of council who may have been present at the board may require that his opinion, and any reasons for the same that he may have stated at the board, be entered in like manner.

XII. Provided always, that no grant whatever by way of increase of the actual charge for the time being upon the revenues of India, no appointment by the president and council to any office or employment on the establishment of the president and council, and no appointment or admission to service to be made by the president and council, under the powers transferred to them by this act, shall be made without the concurrence of the president and four at least of the ordinary members of council; but this enactment shall not extend to appointments of persons becoming entitled thereto, as mentioned in section 41 of the said act of the 16th and 17th years of her majesty; but such appointments may be made at any board.

XIII. During vacancy of office, &c., of president, his powers to be exercised by secretary of state. XIV. Arrangement of the business of the council. XV. Establishment of president and council to be fixed by order of her majesty in council.

XVI. One secretary may sit in the House of Com

mons.

XXIX. Cash balance of the Company at the Bank transferred.

XXX. Stock account to be opened at the Bank. XXXI. Stock standing in the name of the Company transferred.

XXXII. Power to grant letter of attorney for sale, &c., of stock and receipt of dividends, given to president and council.

XXXIII. Exchequer bills and like securities transferred to president and council. Accounts.-XXXIV. Audit of accounts in Great

Britain.

XXXV. President and council to make regulations for audit of accounts in India.

XXXVI. Accounts to be annually laid before parliament.

Existing Establishments and Regulations.XXXVII. The military and naval forces of the East India Company shall be deemed to be the Indian military and naval forces of her majesty, and shall be under the same obligations to serve her majesty as they would have been under to serve the said Company, and shall be liable to serve within the same territorial limits only, for the same terms only, and be entitled to the like pay, pensions, allowances, privileges, and advantages as if they had continued in the service of the said Company; such forces, and all persons hereafter enlisting in or entering the same shall continue and be subject to all acts of parliament, laws of the governor-general of India in council, and articles of war, and all other laws, regu

XVII. Appointment of officers and their sala-lations, and provisions relating to the East India ries, &c.

Powers of President and Council.-XVIII. President and council to exercise powers now exercised by the Company or Board of Control.

XIX. A specified number or proportion of the cadetships to be given to sons of civil and military

servants.

XX. All appointments to offices, commands, and employments in India, which by law or under any regulations, usage, or custom are now made by any authority in India, shall continue to be made in India by the like authority.

XXI. Existing provisions to be applicable to president and council, &c.

XXII. Orders and despatches which may now be sent through secret committee may be sent by or to the president alone.

Company's military and naval forces respectively, as if her majesty's Indian military and naval forces respectively had throughout such acts, laws, articles, regulations, and provisions been mentioned or referred to, instead of such forces of the said Company, and the pay and expenses of and incident to her majesty's Indian military and naval forces shall be defrayed out of the revenues of India.

XXXVIII. Forces paid out of revenues of India not to be employed out of Asia.

XXXIX. Form of attestation, &c., on future enlistments, to be as directed by her majesty.

XL. Servants of the Company to be deemed servants of her majesty.

XLI. All orders and regulations of the Court of Directors or Board of Control to remain in force. XLII. All functions and powers of courts of pro

XXIII. When any order is sent to India, direct-prietors and courts of directors of the said Company ing the actual commencement of hostilities by her majesty's forces in India, the fact of such order having been sent shall be communicated to both houses of parliament within one month after the sending of such order, if parliament be sitting, and if parliament be not sitting, then within one month after the next meeting of parliament.

XXIV. All orders and communications of the president and council which shall be sent to India shall be signed by the president or one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state.

XXV. Powers of sale and purchase and contracting given to president and council.

XXVI. Warrants, &c., under royal sign-manual, relating to India, to be countersigned by the president. Application of Revenues.-XXVII. Dividend of the Company, and existing and future debts and liabilities and expenses, charged on revenues of India. XXVIII. Revenues remitted to Great Britain, and monies arising in Great Britain, to be paid to president in council.

in relation to the government of India, and all appointments of such of the directors of the said Company as have been appointed by her majesty, shall cease, and the yearly sums payable to the chairman, deputy-chairman, and other directors of the said Company, shall cease to be payable; and after the passing of this act, all powers vested in her majesty of appointing directors of the said Company shall cease and determine.

XLIII. Board of Control abolished.

XLIV. Existing officers on home establishment of the East India Company and of commissioners for the affairs of India transferred to the president and council.

XLV. Records of the Company to be delivered to the president and council.

Actions and Contracts.-XLVI. The president and council shall and may sue and be sued by the name of the "president and council for the affairs of India," as if they were a body corporate.

XLVII. President and council to come in the 465

place of the Company with regard to pending suits, &c.

XLVIII. Contracts, &c., of the Company to be enforced by and against president and council. XLIX. No member of the said council shall be personally liable in respect of any such contract, covenant, or engagement of the said Company as aforesaid, or in respect of any contract entered into under the authority of this act, or other liability of the said president and council in their official capacity; but all such liabilities, and all costs and damages of the said president and council in respect thereof, shall be satisfied and paid out of the revenues of India.

urgency from the existing rebellion, that further procrastination by the government was impossible. The necessity for immediate action was established by the strongest arguments; one of which, based upon the cumbrous machinery of the double gov ernment, exhibited it as a positive clog upon business-a plain, tangible impedi ment in the way of dispatch; and such it had ever been found when a necessity for prompt and vigorous action arose. It is Saving of certain Rights of the Company.-L. It true Mr. Baring challenged the government shall be lawful for the president and council to pay to state "whether they had been impeded to the said Company, out of the revenues of India, in any of their measures by the Company;" such annual sum as her majesty, by warrant under but that was not the species of impediment her royal sign-manual countersigned by the chancellor of the exchequer, may direct, for defraying complained of. It was not asserted that the the expenses of and incident to the payment to the directors wilfully opposed the action of proprietors of the capital stock of the said Company the ministry, but that the ministry found of their respective shares of the dividend on such stock, and of keeping the books of the said Company for transfers, and otherwise in relation to such stock. LI. Nothing herein contained shall affect the right of the said Company to demand the redemption of the dividend on their capital stock secured by the said act of the 3rd and 4th years of King William the Fourth; and all the provisions of the said act concerning the security fund thereby created shall remain in force, save that when the approbation of the commissioners for the affairs of India is required in relation to the disposal of the said security fund, the approbation of the president and council for the affairs of India shall be required.

Commencement of the Act.-LII. Save as herein otherwise provided, this act shall commence and take effect on the expiration of thirty days after the passing thereof.

the co-ordinate functions of the Court of Directors a serious drawback on the efficiency of their own acts; and the struggle then shaking India to its centre, so completely exposed the defects of the co-administrative organisation, that sufferance was no longer endurable.

Besides this, the arguments to be drawn from the then actual position of India, and the probable sentiments of its population, told decidedly, as far as they had been ascertained, in favour of immediate legislation, and not against it. It was urged by the opponents of the measure, that the Hindoo mind would be seriously disturbed By the proposed bill the question of by the announcement, ill-understood, of a Indian reform became wonderfully simpli- proposed change in the government under fied. The changes actually proposed were which it had existed for a century; that the so few, so obviously called for, and so evi-natives would associate this change of gov dently calculated to expedite the transac-ernment with some projected and mysterition of affairs, and improve the administra-ous change of policy, and would anticipate tion of India, that it became a matter of therein some diminution of the toleration difficulty to meet them with any valid ob- and indulgence with which their institujection. The only question, indeed, raised tions had been theretofore regarded. But by the leader of the opposition in this this was merely conjectural; and it was matter (Mr. Baring), being simply, and equally fair to anticipate impressions diasolely, "whether the present was the proper metrically opposite, as being equally likely time for entertaining such a measure;" and to be produced. But admitting that any there was no ground whatever for depre- political or administrative revolution might cating the interference of parliament by operate with uncertain effect on the Asiatic any appeal on the score of the rights, privi- mind, it was still hardly possible that a leges, or deserts of the East India Company, better season for such changes could be which stood acquitted, by the ministerial selected than one at which the commotion admissions, of any such special misrule or was already so deep and universal as misconduct as might have directly provoked scarcely to admit of aggravation. As rethe intervention of the imperial legislature.garded the grand objection to the assumpThe reforms proposed had long been con- tion of the direct government of India by templated as among inevitable events: they the crown on the score of patronage, the had been deferred from various considera- bill altogether disposed of it. By its protions; but the necessity had acquired such visions the civil service was assigned to the

duced, until the house should be enabled to see the bill of the new government, and therefore proposed that the second reading of his bill should be postponed until Thursday, the 22nd of April. The motion was agreed to without any discussion. On the 16th, Mr. Disraeli, in explaining the general policy of the new government, said, with respect to Indian affairs-"We were op

public at large; and the military service, own upon the subject. He, however, was besides being greatly circumscribed in unwilling to drop the measure he had introamount, instead of affording patronage to the crown, gave it to the new council, after reserving a portion of the appointments for the sons of public servants in India, whether military or civil. In India itself, it was proposed that the local appointments should continue to be made as they had been, with the exception that certain officers formerly nominated by the Court of Directors, were thenceforth to be nominated by the gov-posed to the introduction of the bill of the ernor-general. In fine, the effect of the proposed measure tended to establish the fact, that the government would gain no such addition of patronage as ought to excite jealousy; that the actual administration of Indian affairs would be scarcely interfered with; but that the authority of the crown, long since theoretically recognised as paramount, would in future be practically exercised without the impediments of a circuitous machinery, and with such a direct responsibility to parliament and the public, as was necessary for the permanent welfare of British India and its teeming millions.

noble lord (Palmerston), upon the ground that it was inopportune in the present state of India, and that it was unwise to weaken the influence of the government in a country where revolt was raging; but, after the vote of this house in favour of that interference, we consider it a duty to deal with the question; and, at present, it is the intention of the government to lay upon the table a bill for the government of India."-On the 11th of March, Mr. Rich, member for Richmond (Yorkshire), called the attention of the house to the treatment of the mutinous sepoys, and other insurgents in India, and adverted to reports of cruelties and mutilations attributed to them, which he believed to be exaggerations or altogether without foundation; observing, that "we had only heard one side;" and in referring to the probable causes of the mutiny, he censured strongly the conduct of the Indian government in the matter of the cartridges, asking why no inquiry had taken place in relation to the proceedings at Meerut, which had so much to do with the outbreak; and insisting that it was not a preconcerted revolt, but arose from a combination of circumstances, which, with due prudence, might have been averted. He commended the instructions of Lord Canning with reference to the treatment of the insurgents and deserters, and referred to published statements which On the following Friday, the new ministry, showed, he thought, that some of our officers under the leadership of the Earl of Derby had not acted in accordance with the spirit and Mr. Disraeli, took their places in par- of those instructions. He concluded with liament; and after some merely formal moving for copies of any report or despatch business had been alluded to, the houses relative to the protection afforded by Maun adjourned until the 12th of March, for the Sing and others to fugitive Europeans at necessary re-election of those members who the outbreak of the sepoy mutiny; of any had accepted office under Lord Derby's ad- instructions given to officers in command ministration. On that day, therefore, par- of troops as to the treatment of mutinous liament again assembled; and, on the order sepoys or deserters; and, as to natives of of the day for the second reading of the Oude, not being sepoys, found in arms Government of India Bill, Viscount Pal- within the territory of Oude.-The momerston said he understood that the govern- tion was seconded by General Thompson. ment intended to bring in a bill of their-Mr. Baillie expressed his surprise that,

The bill of Lord Palmerston had, as we have seen, reached its first stage, when, on Friday, the 19th of February, an unfavourable division of the Commons, on the "Conspiracy to Murder Bill," led to a change in the cabinet, and, for a time, put a stop to further legislation on Indian affairs. The announcement of the resignation of her majesty's ministers was made by Viscount Palmerston, in his place in parliament, on Monday, the 22nd of February; and, the same evening, the Earl of Malmesbury, in the House of Peers, informed their lordships that the Earl of Derby, in obedience to the command of her majesty, was then occupied in forming an administration.

that too much of a maudlin sensibility was manifested on their behalf.-Sir H. Rawlinson remarked, that the operations against the mutineers had now lasted ten months, and there was not a single prisoner in our hands; the inference was that no quarter was given. He looked, he said, from this discussion for such an expression of the opinion of that house as would react upon India, and teach the people that, in England, it was considered that the moment for the exercise of mercy had arrived.

The motion having afforded opportunity for some expression of opinion, was then withdrawn.

upon such a motion, Mr. Rich should have papers, had been assumed to have committed entered upon a general discussion of the acts utterly inconsistent with their chaorigin and causes of the Indian mutiny.racter. He reminded the house of what With respect to the manner in which martial the insurgents really were, and thought law had been carried out, the proper authority to execute that law, he observed, was the commander-in-chief in India. Sir C. Campbell was fully aware of the views of the governor-general; and he (Mr. Baillie) thought that few of the excesses to which Mr. Rich had referred had taken place. He had no objection to the production of the papers asked for.-Mr. W. Vansittart differed from Mr. Rich. All India, he said, was looking with anxiety to see whether the outrages committed by the sepoys would be avenged. Lord Canning, he thought, had carried his conciliatory policy too far.Mr. Buxton, on the contrary, thought that Lord Canning ought to be supported, not in sparing the guilty, but in keeping down the exasperation naturally felt by those on the spot. The dreadful stories of mutilations by the sepoys, had turned out, upon investigation, almost, if not entirely, without foundation. He read reports of excesses stated to have been committed by subordinate officers in India, showing, he said, a spirit not to be trusted; and he asked whether the house was prepared to lay down the principle that it was right to hang, in cold blood, men who fought to free their fatherland from the stranger, or for disaffection to our rule.-Mr. Mangles thought that Mr. Rich had made more excuses for the sepoys than they were fairly entitled to. As to the cartridges, the fact was, he said, that the greased cartridges were not issued to any native regiment, as a regiment, in our provinces. The cartridges at Meerut were the same as had been used by the troops without remonstrance for years. He declared that the statements of excesses which had appeared in the newspapers were exaggerations, and some of them inventions; and that so long as Lord Canning remained at the head of the Indian government, the country might be assured that no system of indiscriminate punishment would be adopted. Distinction would be made between offences, and justice would be tempered with mercy.-Captain Scott mentioned acts of atrocity perpetrated by the sepoys upon an English officer and his sister in Oude.-Mr. Adams observed, that a scant measure of justice had been dealt In defence of the arrangement as it stood, out to British officers in India, who, upon it was observed, that if Delhi had been an the authority of odd scraps cut out of news-enemy's capital, and the besieging force

The same evening, in reply to a question by Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. H. Baillie said, that the six months' batta, awarded by the gov ernor-general in council to the army which captured Delhi, was the largest sum that he was by law entitled to grant; but that the case of the army, and also of the garrison of Lucknow, were both under the consideration of government. With regard to this question of recompense to the captors of Delhi, it might be observed that, as the matter then stood, one of the most astonishing and important achievements on record-an achievement which saved the empire of India, and exalted the renown of England in all the countries of the world -characterised by patience, resolution, and intrepidity almost without parallel-had been acknowledged by a concession so paltry, that nothing but the usage of Indian campaigning could have rendered such an offer other than an insult to the army. Stripped of technical terms, the arrangement amounted to this-that every man who fought and conquered at Delhi, was to have a sum equal to thirty-six shillings English money accorded to him, in testimony and requital of his services! This was felt to be totally inadequate and unsatisfactory; and the question to be solved was-what course could be adopted for the satisfaction of the troops, under the peculiar circumstances of that remarkable victory. No possible doubt existed in any quarter as to the inadequacy of the reward awarded for the services rendered.

had represented a British army encamped on hostile territory, and waging regular war, the capture of the city would have entitled the victors to prize-money from the spoils it might contain. But then Delhi was not, in the strictly legal sense of the term, an enemy's capital, nor were its contents an enemy's property. The riches and public stores of the place were, it was contended, all our own. Our own munitions of war filled the arsenal; our own rupees were accumulated in the treasury; and even the private property in the streets and houses was that of our own subjects. In the phraseology, therefore, of international jurists, there was no enemy in the case-no belligerent, at whose expense either plunder or prize-money could be acquired. Certain battalions, in British pay, had revolted, and seized a town upon British territory: they were subdued, after a tremendous struggle, by other British troops; but both armies were composed of subjects of the same sovereign. The war might be called a civil war, or a servile war; but it was not a war of the kind to which the ordinary usages of warfare, as regards prize-money, could be held to apply. Further, it was urged that the city being nominally our own, a right could not possibly be acquired by our own troops over the treasures it contained, any more than if, at any other Indian town or station, a dozen lacs of rupees which had been seized by a mutinous garrison, were recovered by a company of European troops opportunely arriving; in which case it would not be argued that the soldiers were entitled to divide the silver on the spot! And so, in the present instance, it was held that no title to prize-money existed, or could be created. Such was the substance of the case, as urged against the claims of the But admitting that the government treasoldiers: but how disgraceful did it look sure found in the coffers at Delhi did not when estimated by the known practical become the lawful spoil of that government's deserts of the conquerors! If the struggle troops, yet how much ought to have been was really so divested of all those attributes considered fairly due to those troops from which confer glory and gain upon military their government, for the recapture of the success; if it was nothing more than a mere city? Surely more than thirty-six shillings suppression of domestic disturbances, by per man! Besides, the very allowance, which nothing could be won, it might have miserable as it was, destroyed the whole been asked on what principle was it held to argument against a greater one. Either require any acknowledgment at all? Why the troops were engaged upon an unrecogwere the thanks of parliament voted to the nisable service (in which case the donation troops engaged? Why was the general in of eighteen rupees was improper), or their command raised, with the approval of all, to exploits admitted of recognition and estia baronetcy; and not only to a baronetcy, mate (in which case the offer was conbut to one with a title taken from this very temptible). The true question, after all, was city? What could be the meaning of Sir not merely what were the technical rights

Archdale Wilson of Delhi, if that same Delhi was not a city conquered from the enemy? Again, upon looking at the whole course of public proceedings in the matter, it was unquestionable that the struggle symbolised and expressed by the one critical operation of the siege of Delhi, occupied in the minds of Englishmen such a place as had scarcely ever been taken by any incident even of European war. The anxieties of the nation were profoundly absorbed in the tremendous struggle between a handful of our countrymen and an army of mutineers, on which an empire depended. We put up prayers in our churches; we held a solemn fast; and we raised subscriptions without stint. As long as the issue was in suspense, public anxiety was unbounded; and when at length the victory fell, against the most terrific odds, to British valour, it seemed there would be no bounds to the gratitude of the nation. The instincts of the country, in this matter, outstripped the deliberations of the authorities, and deemed the rewards of the government parsimoniously bestowed; but if all this was reasonable, what became of the argument about war and no war? How could a war, manifestly regarded in such a light while raging, be described as no war when we came to consider the recompense of the conquering troops? What consistency was there in beginning to award honours and rewards, and then, in stopping half-way down? Either there should have been no acknowledgments at all, or they ought to have included the private soldiers' share in the form of prize-money and medals. No one would have hesitated over this alternative. All should have shared, or all should have been withheld.