Page:James Thomason (Temple).djvu/130

123 He knew that many good people at home thought, felt and prayed for India, and he gave the British public credit for having this sentiment diffused more widely perhaps than it really was. He held that when our arms and policy had done their best, the longer and more exacting task remained of governing the countries that had been conquered or annexed. A passage may be cited from a private letter of his, addressed to a lady in England, in 1849 just after the second Punjab War: —

'India will now be less a subject of interest in England than it has lately been. The mischances or the exploits of war dazzle or charm the multitude, but it is in the quiet operations of peace, which ensue from such a turmoil, that constancy, perseverance, circumspection and diligence are called forth. That is the quiet and unostentatious labour, but also the high and responsible duty, to which we are now called to address ourselves, with regard to this great country, which God has placed in our hands. For its right performance we no less require the best wishes and prayers of our fellow-countrymen, than for protection in the day of battle or for deliverance from a threatening enemy. Do not therefore think that because we less prominently figure in the public eye, the Christian duty of supplication and intercession may be safely laid aside.'

At Agra he was provided with a Government House, not palatial and perhaps hardly in accordance with Oriental notions of proconsular state, nevertheless, commodious and sufficient, with large halls for the reception of European officers and Native chiefs. He was punctilious only in regulating his own con-