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128 the hand of fate. He carried out changes in the government of India which had become inevitable, and which must have been carried out, probably at about the same time, even if he had never set foot in India. He carried them out, however, in by no means a passive spirit, but as a ruler deeply convinced of their justice and necessity, and resolved to take every legitimate opportunity that arose for giving them effect. Lord Dalhousie deliberately applied to India the principle which during his early manhood he had seen triumph in England — the principle which Englishmen of every political party now adopt, and which an enlightened conservative like Lord Dalhousie would cordially enforce — the principle that Government is not designed for the profit of princes but for the welfare of the people.

In this noble sense Lord Dalhousie was a doctrinaire. Let there henceforth be no doubt as to his exact views. 'No man,' he declared in an official paper at an early date in his rule, 'no man can deprecate more than I do any extension of the frontiers of our territory which can be avoided, or which may not become indispensably necessary for considerations of our own safety, and of the maintenance of the tranquillity of our own Provinces. But I cannot conceive it possible for any one to