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 CHAPTER III

predecessor had on his homeward journey recorded, with almost dying hand, the achievements of his long and prosperous reign. To few, indeed, of the rulers of mankind has such a retrospect been accorded. Success in the ventures of War and the labours of Peace—improvement in every department of administration—progress in every phase of civil life—the triumph of enlightened beneficence—such is the note which rings through the whole exultant strain. Nor was the boast an empty one. But if Dalhousie left India prosperous, orderly, progressive and replete with the outward and visible signs of efficient government, there were quarters in which the cold breezes of adversity might easily arise; and he himself had preluded his narrative with the warning that no prudent man, with any knowledge of the case, would ever venture to predict unbroken tranquillity within our Eastern possessions. Everything, however, in the external relations of India seemed to promise it. Burma had been cowed into the terror which was the best assurance of friendship with a Court too barbarous to know its