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Rh becoming anything but calm. The Calcutta public was impatient. Lord Canning had no leisure, perhaps no inclination to allay its impatience. The English press was embittered. Public opinion became increasingly estranged. Towards the close of 1857 the European public of Calcutta and Bengal addressed a petition to the Queen, setting forth in vivid colours the various calamities of which India had of late been the theatre, alleging that these calamities were 'directly attributable to the blindness, weakness and incapacity of the Government,' and praying Her Majesty to mark her disapproval of the policy pursued by the Governor-General by directing his recall.

The Indian Government forwarded this document to the Court of Directors, offering no general reply, but pointing out, in marginal notes, various errors of fact in the allegations of the petition. The petition, thus annotated, forms, accordingly, an authentic summary of the grounds of Lord Canning's unpopularity with the European community. Bootless as it generally is to resuscitate an extinct controversy, it is interesting to consider some of the grounds of complaint, and to realise the sort of difficulties with which — in addition to anxieties necessarily inherent in such a struggle, carried on a thousand miles away, — Lord Canning had to contend in the society around him. The grievance as to the tardiness of the Government in utilising the proffered services of the Volunteers proved not to be of a very substantial