Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/61

Rh glorious as his Indian career. But no one in that vast assemblage dreamed that in a few years the great reputation of their departing Governor would be doubted, sneered at, and assailed.'

Lord Dalhousie allowed himself no false hopes. 'You have made kindly allusion,' he replied to the farewell address from the citizens of Calcutta, 'to the future that may await me. I do not seek to fathom that future. My only ambition long has been to accomplish the task which lay before me here, and to bring it to a close with honour and success. It has been permitted to me to do so. I have played out my part; and while I feel that in any case the principal act in the drama of my life is ended, I shall be well content if the curtain should drop now upon my public course... I am wearied and worn, and have no other thought or wish than to seek the retirement of which I stand in need, and which is all I am now fit for.'

On his voyage home. Lord Dalhousie penned the great Minute, in which he set forth with noble simplicity the principal measures of his administration. Compelled to lie on his back, and unable to use ink, he wrote that masterly review, which makes forty-five printed pages of close folio, for the most part in pencil. It left his strength reduced to a perilously low ebb. The ship's crew had to carry him on shore at Suez. The passage in the jolting van across the desert drained almost