Page:Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors Vol 1.djvu/89

SIR FREDERICK HALLIDAY. 51 And We, reposing especial trust and confidence in the loyalty, ability and judgment of Our right trusty and well-beloved Cousin and Councillor, Charles John Viscount Canning, do hereby constitute and appoint him, the said Viscount Canning, to be Our first Viceroy and Governor-General in and over Our said Territories, and to administer the Government thereof in Our name, and generally to act in Our name and on Our behalf, subject to such Orders and Regulations as he shall, from time to time, receive from Us through one of Our Principal Secretaries of State:

And we do hereby confirm in their several Offices, Civil and Military, all Persons now employed in the Service of the Honourable East India Company, subject to Our future pleasure, and to such Laws and Regulations as may hereafter be enacted.

We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India that all Treaties and Engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company are by Us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained; and We look for the like observance on their part.

We desire no extension of Our present territorial Possessions, and while We will permit no aggression upon Our Dominions or Our Rights to be attempted with impunity. We shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the Rights, Dignity, and Honor of Native Princes as Our own; and We desire that they, as well as Our own Subjects, should enjoy that Prosperity and that social Advancement which can only be secured by internal Peace and good Government.

We hold Ourselves bound to the Natives of Our Indian Territories by the same Obligations of Duty which bind Us to all our other subjects; and those Obligations, by the Blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil.

Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of Religion, we disclaim alike the Right and the desire to impose our convictions on any of our Subjects. We declare it to be our Royal will and pleasure that none be in anywise favored, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their Religious Faith or Observances; but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the Law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the Religious Belief or Worship of any of Our Subjects, on pain of Our highest Displeasure

And it is Our further will that, so far as may be, Our Subjects, of whatever Race or Creed, be freely and impartially admitted to Offices in