Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/173

Rh tance and difficulty of communication is a factor in the Indian life of those days for which the modern reader sometimes fails to make due allowance.

In 1824 Mr. Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, M.P., was the President of the 'Right Honourable the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India.' Lord Bathurst, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Robert Peel were the Secretaries of State who had seats on it. Among the other members of the Board was Lord Teignmouth (Sir John Shore).

The Honourable the Court of Directors included many names which, borne by descendants of those great owners of patronage still—even under the system of Open Competition abound in the Indian Service.

The Furlough Regulations throw an interesting light on the conditions of an Indian appointment. Seventy years ago no one was entitled to leave till he had served ten years in India; but to make amends there is a warning that any one who does not return within five years—five years at home!—will forfeit his post. Three years is the ordinary furlough.

There were nearly 500 retired officers on the rolls: so that we can see what abundant material there was for volunteer councils of expert critics at Bath and Cheltenham.

The East India College at Haileybury—it was called Hertford College at the time—was already a flourishing institution. All nominees for writerships had to study there for four terms, no one being eligible whose age exceeded twenty-two. In the