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36 only the relations of the British power with the independent dominions which Lord Dalhousie conquered, but also with the numerous Native States which Lord Dalhousie mediatised or annexed. Every arrangement, from the plan of a campaign to the hutting and water-filters of the troops, or from the exact wording of a treaty to the ceremonial niceties of a Darbar, was carefully scanned by his own eye, and formed the subject of decisive orders from his own pen.

The mere amount of handwriting which Lord Dalhousie did would now seem an impossibility for a Viceroy of India. On mail days sheet after sheet in his swift delicate characters would pour into the private secretary's room, with a rapidity which taxed to the utmost the powers of that practised copyist. As regards his routine work, the Chief Clerk of the Foreign Department once remarked that 'if Lord Dalhousie had been a writer paid by the sheet, he would have earned a considerable income.' Sir Henry Elliot, his talented Foreign Secretary, the dulce decus of the Bengal Civil Service of that period, found so much of his daily labour done for him by the Governor-General, that he had leisure to amass the materials for the eight volumes which now form his memorial for all time. He 'used to say with a pleasant smile that he spent most of his time as Foreign Secretary in pursuing his own historical studies.'