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180 during the Session of 1852-53. They examined Sir George Clerk, Sir Edward Ryan, Sir Erskine Perry, Sir Charles Trevelyan, Frederick Halliday, Hay Cameron, Merttins Bird, Dr. Royle, John Sullivan, John Marshman, and other witnesses; and submitted six Reports between May and August 1853.

We do not propose to give within the limits of the present chapter anything like a summary of this evidence, submitted with eleven Reports, and covering four thousand folio printed pages. All that it is possible for us to do is to place before the reader the views and opinions of some of the most eminent men of the day on some of the most important questions of their time. There is a distinct advantage in reviewing the Indian administration of the early Victorian Age by help of the opinions of those who took a share in that administration. We not only clearly understand the system which was followed, but we also see how the system worked. We not only learn the rules which guided the administrators, but we also get a living picture of the administration itself, from the very men who spent twenty or thirty or forty years of their lives in carrying on the work, amidst the vast population of the Indian Empire.

The India Act of 1834, following Pitt's India Act of 1784, organised a double government for India. The powers of administration were left with the twenty-four Directors of the East India Company; the powers of control were placed in the hands of a Board of Control consisting of men appointed by the Crown. The Company ceased to be traders, and stood forth simply as administrators in India from 1834. And it was declared that all the powers of the Directors of the Company should be subject to the control of the Board, except in respect of the appointment of servants and officers