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 guilty either of mutiny or of complicity in the terrible outrages against women and children, but strongly supporting him in his brave and determined opposition to vindictive fury against the natives at large, in which too many of the English in India were tempted to indulge.

When the worst of the Mutiny was over, August, 1858, and an Act had been passed transferring the Government of India from the East India Company to the Crown, the time had arrived for the issue of a Royal Proclamation to the inhabitants of India. The draft of this Proclamation reached the Queen when she was paying her first visit to her newly married daughter in Prussia. It will throw a little light on those who think that the function of a Sovereign in a Constitutional monarchy is simply to indorse everything submitted by the Ministers, to learn that the Queen on reading this draft felt that neither in spirit nor in language was it appropriate to the occasion. Her objections were set forth in detail to Lord Malmesbury, who was the Minister-in-Attendance, and the following letter was written by the Queen to the Prime Minister, Lord Derby:—

Lord Malmesbury's memorandum which accompanied this letter goes more into detail. Referring to

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