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42 Lord Canning, who at the other end of the telegraph wire at Calcutta had superintended the negotiation, complimented Edwardes on its satisfactory issue with a generous and hearty recognition of good service, which was habitual to him. 'I feel the more bound to do this,' he wrote, 'because the first suggestion of a meeting came from you. ... It would be a good thing if all diplomatic conferences were conducted as satisfactorily and set forth as lucidly as these have been.'

Persia was not the only anxiety. Within the confines of India itself the course of events did not flow with unbroken smoothness during Lord Canning's first year of office. Outram had welcomed his arrival with a telegram — 'All is well in Oudh;' but the announcement had been premature. Outram had now gone away to England, in ill health, and all had certainly not been going well with his successor — a hot-headed official, of the order of those whose destiny it is to be the marplots of diplomacy and thorns in the flesh of their employers. Lord Canning had to taste the bitterness which a refractory subordinate infuses into the cup of high official life. His remonstrances fell on unheeding ears. The progress of dethroning an ancient royalty — necessarily an ungracious one — was made doubly distressful. Complaints became numerous and loud. The Governor-General wrote that his subordinates were placing him in the humiliating position of promising redress which they failed to give; nor was the mischief ended till,