Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/57

Rh made an earnest representation that his physical condition demanded he should lay down the Governor-Generalship.

Lord Dalhousie might have done so with honour to himself. The splendid conquests of his rule were completed; his beneficent schemes of reform and consolidation had been successfully introduced. Had Lord Dalhousie then sailed from India, he would have left behind him a name second to none in the splendid series of British conquerors and rulers of the East. But the worn-out Proconsul had reason to know that the next twelve months would bring a new and great labour which he did not deem it right for him to decline. The dangerous question of what must be done with Oudh was pressing for decision. The Government in England trusted to Lord Dalhousie, not only to find the true answer to that question, but also to carry out the policy which they might determine to adopt. Lord Dalhousie had promised not to flinch from the task, and well knowing the peril which he ran, refused to quit his post. 'Believing it to be my duty to remain in India during this year,' he deliberately replied in writing to his physicians' protest, 'in fulfilment of my pledge, and trusting in the Providence of God to avert from me those indirect risks against which you have so clearly and faithfully warned me, I have resolved to remain.'