This noble manifestation of kind feeling towards the sufferers in India, which originated in a public meeting held in London on the 25th of August 1857, assumed munificent proportions during the next following year, when the colonists and Englishmen residing abroad had had time to respond to the appeal made to them. In a report prepared by the Committee, on the 1st of November 1858, it was announced that the sum placed in their charge amounted, up to that time, to £434,729. They had remitted £127,287 to India, there to be distributed by auxiliary local committees; they had assisted sufferers after their return to, or during their residence in, the home country, to the extent of £35,757; and their management expenses had amounted to £6224. There remained, invested at interest, the sum of £265,461, applicable to further cases of need. It is interesting to notice the kind of persons to whom relief was afforded, on account of the varied privations to which the mutiny had subjected them. The sum of £35,757 expended in England, was mostly in donations to the following numbers and classes of persons:
| 32 | Military officers. |
| 86 | Widows and children of officers. |
| 25 | Wives of officers. |
| 25 | Orphans of officers. |
| 51 | Other relatives of officers. |
| 13 | Disabled soldiers. |
| 298 | Widows of soldiers. |
| 423 | Children of soldiers. |
| 82 | Other relatives of soldiers. |
| 10 | Clergymen and missionaries. |
| 6 | Widows of Clergymen. |
| 1 | Wife of missionary. |
| 23 | Widows and orphans of civilians. |
| 75 | Planters, railway officials, &c. |
Queen Victoria’s Proclamation to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India.—Read in the principal Cities of India, November 1, 1858. (See p. [612].)
Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Colonies and Dependencies thereof in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia, Queen, Defender of the Faith.
Whereas, for divers weighty reasons, we have resolved, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, to take upon ourselves the government of the territories in India, heretofore administered in trust for us by the Honourable East India Company:
Now, therefore, we do by these presents notify and declare that, by the advice and consent aforesaid, we have taken upon ourselves the said government; and we hereby call upon all our subjects within the said territories to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to us, our heirs and successors, and to submit themselves to the authority of those whom we may hereafter from time to time see fit to appoint to administer the government of our said territories, in our name and on our behalf.
And we, reposing especial trust and confidence in the loyalty, ability, and judgment of our right trusty and well-beloved cousin and councillor, Charles John Viscount Canning, do hereby constitute and appoint him, the said Viscount Canning, to be our first Viceroy and Governor-general in and over our said territories, and to administer the government thereof in our name, and generally to act in our name and on our behalf: subject to such orders and regulations as he shall, from time to time, receive from us through one of our principal Secretaries of State.
And we do hereby confirm in their several offices, civil and military, all persons now employed in the service of the Honourable East India Company, subject to our future pleasure, and to such laws and regulations as may hereafter be enacted.
We hereby announce to the native Princes of India that all treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company, are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained; and we look for the like observance on their part.
We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions; and while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions or our rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of native princes as our own; and we desire that they, as well as our own subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government.