PART II.—THE BRITISH CROWN.
CHAPTER THE LAST.—CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.—1858-1886.
§1. Awakening of the British Nation. §2. Government Education in India: Toleration. §3. British Rule after the Mutiny: Legislative Council of 1854 and Executive Council: Wrongs of Non-Official Europeans. §4. Mr. James Wilson and his Income-Tax. §5. New Legislative Council of 1861-62. §6. New High Court: proposed District Courts. §7. Lord Canning leaves India. §8. Lord Elgin, 1862-63. §9. Sir John Lawrence, 1864-69: Governments of Madras and Bombay: Migrations to Simla: Foreign Affairs. §10. Lord Lawrence leaves India. §11. Lord Mayo, 1869-72. §12. Lord Northbrook, 1872-76: Royal visits to India. §13. Lord Lytton, 1876-80: Empress Proclaimed. §14. Second Afghan War. §15. Political and Judicial Schools. §16. Constitution of British India: proposed Reforms.
Extinction of the East India Company.
The great and grand East India Company was brought to a close after a busy life of two centuries and a half, extending from the age of Elizabeth to that of Victoria. It was still in a green old age, but could not escape extinction. The story of mutiny and revolt raised a storm in the British Isles which demanded the sacrifice of a victim, and the Company was thrown overboard like another Jonah. In July, 1858, India was transferred to the Crown by Act of Parliament. In the following November proclamation was made throughout India that Her Majesty Queen Victoria had assumed the direct government of her Eastern empire. The Governor-General ceased to rule in the name of the East India Company, and became Viceroy of India. The old Court of Directors, which dated back to the Tudors, and the Board of Control, which dated back to William Pitt the younger, were alike consigned to oblivion. Henceforth India was managed by a Secretary of State in Council, and Great Britain was an Asiatic power.
Alarm and panic in Great Britain.
§1. The sepoy mutinies awakened the British nation from the lethargy of forty years. At one time it was aroused by the discovery that the East India Company had acquired an empire larger than that of Napoleon; but was soon immersed once more in its own insular concerns. The sepoy revolt of 1857 stirred it up to its innermost depths. The alarms swelled to a panic. Exeter Hall clamoured for the conversion of Hindus and Mohammedans to Christianity. Some called aloud for vengeance on Delhi. The inhabitants were to be slaughtered as David slaughtered the Ammonites; the city was to be razed to the ground and its site sown with salt. Others, more ignorant than either, denounced the East India Company and Lord Dalhousie; demanded the restoration of British territory to Asiatic rulers, and the abandonment of India to its ancient superstition and stagnation.
British ignorance.