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 CHAPTER VII

Lieutenant-Governor, North-West Provinces, 1853-1857

On September 27, 1853, Mr. Thomason, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, died; and within a few days of the news reaching Calcutta. Mr. Colvin was again picked out by Lord Dalhousie, and selected as Mr. Thomason's successor. The appointment was received with general approval. The feeling found expression in the columns of one of the leading newspapers, when it said that 'Mr. Colvin will meet those whose actions he goes to direct, bearing with him the seal of the admiration of his former associates in Calcutta.' His brother civilians entertained him on October 25, at a cordial dinner at the Town Hall; and a day or two later he left Calcutta for the last time, twenty-seven years after he had first entered it. On November 3, 1853, he took charge at Benares of his new duties.

The North-West Provinces were not unfamiliar to him. During 1838 and 1839, when Lord Auckland personally administered them, it has been seen that Mr. Colvin was in close and constant communication with Mr. Thomason, then the Secretary to the