Within the limitations of a farewell address, we hardly feel justified in personal allusions trenching on your private life, but we cannot refrain from noticing with responsive sympathy the feeling of personal attachment to yourself which is widespread throughout India, and assuring you that we share in it to the fullest extent that private feeling can be affected by public services. We endorse our assurance with an expression of the wish that, in whatever part of the British Empire your future life may be spent, it may be attended, as in the past, with honour, and, by the blessing of God, with health and happiness for yourself and all those you hold dear.
It is the prerogative of the Crown alone to bestow honours on those who have served their country well, and none have been better merited than those which you enjoy, and to which, we trust, additions may be made. It is the privilege of a community to make public profession of merit in a fellow-citizen where they consider it is due, and in availing ourselves of the privilege to make this public recognition of the great services which, in our opinion, you have rendered to India, we beg with all sincerity to add a hearty God-speed and a regretful Farewell.
We have the honour to be,
Your Excellency,
Your obedient servants.
CALCUTTA,
11th March, 1893.
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