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Rh humours on the Knight; and that's the even of it.' Such a state paper was of course much criticized. It bears traces evident enough of reserve. High authorities, however, the Military Member of Council (Colonel Morison), and Mr. Farish, the acting Governor of Bombay, are shown by Mr. Colvin's Diary to have approved it. The same pages, quoting Mr. Robertson, a member of the Governor- General's Council, prove that he had been already converted by the despatch of August 13. 'The chairman of the Court of Directors,' wrote Sir John Hobhouse later to Lord Auckland, 'thought it an admirable document.' In his History of India, published twenty years later, Mr. Marshman writes: —

'Beyond the Ministerial circle in Downing Street, and the Secretaries at Simla, this preposterous enterprise was universally condemned as soon as it was announced.'

But when the Proclamation issued he wrote to Mr. Colvin saying that Lord Auckland's measures must commend themselves to every one who knew anything of the present position. The more circumstances were developed, he added, the more does the necessity of his course appear.

The entries in Mr. Colvin's Diary are apparently at variance with Sir John Kaye's statement, that when the Proclamation was sent to Calcutta, there issued from the Council Chamber a respectful remonstrance against the consummation of a measure of such importance; without an opportunity being afforded to the