So, to the extreme indignation of the latter's sham Court and the scandal of all true Mahomedans, he proclaimed himself "Ghâzi-uddin-Hyder, King of Oude, the Victorious, the Upholder of Faith, the Monarch of the Age."

Not such a very poor specimen at that, whether taken at native or English estimate; for he was at least amiable--a kind, not overclever princeling, who cultivated the Arts in a dilettante fashion.

For the rest, though the long service--over nine years--of the Marquis of Hastings was eminently successful, it was not likely that one who rode rough-shod over the faddists' cry for noninterference at home could escape without censure. But regular impeachment was impossible towards one who had actually augmented the public revenues by £6,000,000 a year! So he escaped the fate of Clive and Warren Hastings.

He was succeeded by William Pitt (Lord Amherst) after an interregnum during which a Mr John Adams, armed with supreme, if brief authority, carried on a crusade against the press which, in view of recent occurrences, is singularly informing. The censorship had been abolished by Lord Hastings in rather bombastical language, which scarcely matched the severe inhibitions that followed against anything like criticism; the actual result being, that while the name of an invidious office was abolished, the press was left to face prosecution. In the case of the Calcutta Journal, against which Mr Adams tilted, the end was deportation of the editor to England!

The Burmese war, however, occupied Lord Amherst until 1826, when various minor campaigns became necessary; one against a Sikh mendicant, who announced himself as the last of the Avatârs of Krishna, incarnated for the express purpose of ousting all foreigners from India. Bhurtpore, also, had to be finally taken, a usurper expelled, and a six-year-old râjah established on the throne, under the guidance, naturally, of a British resident. Such things had to be if the standard of Western ethics was to be enforced in Government.

There remained also Oude, that perennial thorn in the side of those who had created it. Ghâzi-ud-din-Hyder had lent a million and a half more money to the Company--had lent it at 5 per cent.!--but yet, he complained, there was no pleasing the English master! There is something pitiful about the good-natured king's plea that misgovernment could not exist, because Oude from one end to the other was cultivated like a garden; there was not even a waste place in it whereon an army might encamp! And as for the disturbances on the British borders, was he responsible for the landholders being Râjputs by tribe, soldiers by profession, and so refusing to pay except by force? And for what did he pay English soldiers, except to use force?

There was force, anyhow, in his arguments, but his grievances remained unredressed at his death in 1827, when he was succeeded by his son, Nâsir-ud-din-Hyder.

So, without any great excitement save the Burmese war, Lord Amherst's Governor-Generalship came abruptly to an end, owing to sudden illness in his family, which prevented his awaiting any arrangement for his successor. This is somewhat typical of one who never seems to have taken any personal interest in Indian questions, who, in fact, seems to have wearied of the East. He was the first Governor-General who found a Capua at Simla.

Then, after much striving, Lord William Bentinck, who had been deprived of the Government of Madras in 1807 in consequence of the mutiny at Vellore, was appointed in Lord Amherst's place. It was a great triumph for him, being, as it were, an admission that he had been unjustly dismissed in the first instance. His administration, however, did much to justify his early treatment, for there can be no question that he showed an almost phenomenal want of tact. Indeed, but for the fact that the final extinction of the monopoly of trade did not take place until 1835, this chapter would end on the assumption of office by Lord William Bentinck in 1828, since there can be no doubt that many of his well-meaning efforts should be included amongst the causes which led up to the mutiny of 1857. The best plan, therefore, will be to catalogue them briefly here, and discuss them in connection with others of a like nature after 1835. The first, which brought him great disfavour with the military, was not, strictly speaking, his action, but that of England. His only responsibility for what is called the half-batta (extra allowance) order is that he did not, as Lord Hastings and Lord Amherst had done, refuse to obey his superiors. It was a silly retrenchment, since for the sake of a paltry £20,000 a year it gave umbrage to a very deserving body of men, who could ill afford to lose the money. The scheme was condemned by all competent judges in India as "unwise and inexpedient, fraught with mischief, and unproductive of good."

But Lord William Bentinck had come out bound hand and foot to economy, social reform, and missionary effort, so he spent his years in adding up and subtracting, in framing laws, such as that against suttee, and the forfeiture which, under Hindu law, followed on conversion to a different faith.