From the beginning of January to the middle of April he worked, with his Executive Council, at Government House in Calcutta. The Councillors were five in number for the several departments, Foreign, Home, Legislative, Public Works, Financial, Revenue, Military; and in addition the Commander-in-Chief of the army. In ordinary matters the decision of the Government was formed by a majority of votes; but in matters of public safety he had power to act on his own authority alone. He was able to maintain excellent relations with his colleagues in Council. The Foreign Department was ordinarily kept in his own hands. He worked from six o’clock in the morning till five in the evening daily, despatching current business in all departments with amazing promptitude and completeness withal. He issued the necessary orders on the speedy and successful termination of the military operations on the Trans-Indus Frontier, which have been already mentioned. He reviewed Volunteers, founded a Sailors’ Home, inspected sanitation in the Native city, and made the acquaintance of all important persons of every nationality in the capital. His health stood the new test fairly well, but he suffered at times from headache. In the middle of April he started for Simla, taking his Council with him. On his way thither he revisited the Asylum for the orphan children of European soldiers at the Himalayan station of Kassowli, founded with much private munificence by his brother Henry. He had not seen this beautiful Simla since he met Lord Dalhousie there in 1851. Though he said little, he pondered much on all that had happened to him and his since then, the perils escaped, the victories won.
After his arrival at Simla having reviewed his own position and prospects, he wrote to Sir Charles Wood, the Secretary of State in London, on this subject. He said explicitly that he found himself unable to work all the year round at Calcutta, and especially in the hot and unhealthy season there; that if he were allowed to spend the summer months in the Himalayas, he could retain his post; otherwise he wished to resign in the spring of the following year and return to England. By Sir Charles Wood’s reply he was requested to stay in office, with the understanding that he might reside wherever he chose within the Himalayas or other hill-regions of India. Regarding his Council the reply was not quite so clear, but in the end it was virtually conceded that he might exercise his own discretion in taking his colleagues with him. At all events he determined to stay for four out of his five allotted years in India, and arranged that his wife should join him at Calcutta by the end of the year 1864.
He soon decided that during his tenure of office the Government of India shall, barring unforeseen events, spend the summer months at Simla, that is the Governor-General, the Executive Council, a part of the Legislative Council, and the principal Secretaries. He would not separate himself from them: he did not wish to have them acting at headquarters in many cases without him; nor did he desire to act in some cases alone without them. He thought it better that, with the growing increase of business, they should be all together.
At that time it was the fashion to propose various situations in the empire, one in the south another in the west and so on, for the permanent capital and headquarters of the Government of India, involving the abandonment of Calcutta for this purpose; but he objected to all such schemes, considering them to be crude. In the first place, such a move would be inordinately expensive; in the second, Calcutta was, he thought, the best of all available positions. Though it is actually a sea-port, yet its position is by nature rendered unassailable by an attack from the sea; its trade places it in the first rank of mercantile cities; the districts around it are wealthy, fertile, populous and peaceful; these advantages he duly appreciated. During the disturbances of 1857 he remembered that Lower Bengal around Calcutta was undisturbed, and paid its tens of millions of rupees into the State Treasury, and that while half the empire was convulsed, order was preserved at the imperial centre. Thus he would hold fast to Calcutta and settle his Government there, at least during the cool season of each year when trade and industry are in their fullest activity.
But he would have his Government sojourn during the hot weather of each year in the refreshing climate of the Himalayas. He had no hesitation in choosing Simla for this purpose, as being the only mountain station that could furnish house-accommodation for the influx of sojourners; as being easily accessible by rail and road at all seasons; as having politically a good position sufficiently near the North-western Frontier, yet not so near as to be within reach of danger; and as being immediately surrounded by a peaceful population. He was sensible of the natural beauty, the varied charms, the salubrious climate of the place, and his choice has been fully ratified by the Governors-General who have succeeded him.
His Government, while sojourning at Simla, would transact all its administrative business for the time, and proceed with some parts of its legislation. But he would reserve for its residence at Calcutta all those bills or projects of law which might be of general importance, and wherein contact with public opinion might be specially desirable.
He was now by the autumn of 1864, fairly launched on his career as Viceroy and Governor-General. His health had been slightly shaken by the change from England to Calcutta, of which the climate agreed with him less than that of any other place in India. But it soon revived in the Himalayan air. He kept up his early riding in the morning while at Calcutta, but was induced by the pressure of business to intermit it at Simla. However he took exercise in the afternoon fully, and so during this year and 1865 he remained fairly well; indeed during the summer of 1865 he was better than he had been for many years, that is since his Trans-Sutlej days. But he was not so well in 1866, and in the summer of 1867 he intimated to the Secretary of State, who was then Sir Stafford Northcote, that he might have to retire early in 1868 having completed his four years. The Secretary of State, however, on public grounds requested him to remain till the end of his five years if possible, that is till the beginning of 1869. So he braced his determination to remain his allotted term. He said in private that it would be a great satisfaction to him to serve out his time, and to hand over the work to his successor without any arrears. From 1867, however, he became weaker physically by slow, perhaps by imperceptible degrees, and that general condition naturally set up lesser ailments from time to time; while the clear brain and the unconquerable will remained.
Apprehensions of ill health, however, were not the only reason why he thought in 1867 of resigning office. He was indeed as good, efficient and successful a Viceroy and Governor-General as India ever had; still the course of affairs did not exactly suit his masterful genius. Grand events would have afforded scope for the mighty capacity he was conscious of possessing. The country was for the most part at peace, nevertheless he was troubled even harassed by divers incidents which affected the public interests. The empire was making steady progress under his care and recovering its stability after a severe convulsion; yet mishaps, reverses, plagues of all sorts, would occur through no fault of his. But he would not relieve himself of responsibility for what might be amiss or go wrong in any part of his vast charge, and often he was tempted to exclaim,
“The time is out of joint, oh! cursed spite
That I was ever born to set it right!”
Hitherto the popularis aura had been with him; he had not yet felt that chilling blast of unpopularity which sooner or later never fails to overtake public men of mark and vigour such as his. No man had known less than he the carping, the cavilling, the captiousness of critics, or the misrepresentation of opponents. He had never swam with the stream, but rather had cut out a channel for the stream and made it flow with him. Thus the wear and tear of his former life had arisen from notable causes, but not from the friction of an adverse current. Now, however, he was to taste of all these small adversities. He was indeed to rule an empire thoroughly well in ordinary times, and to suffer the vexations which ordinarily beset rulers and make their heads “lie uneasy.” He strove manfully to hide his sensitiveness when attacked or impugned; for all that, he was more sensitive to these attacks than he need have been, in regard to their intrinsic deserts. The deference, the cordiality, even the affection (as he himself gratefully described it) of the reception which greeted him in England, and which was repeated on his first landing in India, had scarcely prepared him for the provocations, petty indeed but yet sharp, which awaited him in the subsequent years. As a man of action he had been used to arguments of an acute even fierce character, yet they were short and decisive either for or against him. But now he had to work his government through an Executive Council of some six members, in which the discussions were partly on paper daily, and partly by word of mouth at weekly meetings. The paper-controversies he could bear; if he had a majority on his side the decision would be couched in a few of his pithy sentences and no more was heard of it. But at times the weekly debates tried him sorely; he listened like patience on a monument, but he sighed inwardly. India being unavoidably a land of personal changes, the composition of his Council varied from year to year with outgoing and incoming men. In the nature of things it was inevitable that some of his colleagues should support him more and others less, while some opposed. He rejoiced in the hearty aid afforded by some, and grieved over the opposition, or as it appeared to him the thwarting, counteracting conduct of others, which was different from anything that he had previously endured. Again, he thankfully acknowledged in the end the support he received from successive Secretaries of State in England, and certainly the Government in England sincerely desired to sustain his authority; but meanwhile cases occurred wherein he considered himself insufficiently supported from home, and one case where even his old friends in the Council of India in Whitehall counteracted his wishes. Respecting the action of Secretaries of State he hardly made sufficient allowance for Parliamentary difficulties, which prevent the men who are nominally in power from being their own masters. It has been acutely remarked of him that he was not versatile; in truth versatility in the face of opposition was not among his qualities. He hardly possessed that peculiar resourcefulness (for which, for instance, the great Warren Hastings was distinguished) whereby one expedient having failed or one way being stopped, another is found, perhaps circuitously, the goal being all the while kept in view. Being human he must needs have faults, though the proportion which these bore to his virtues was small indeed; he certainly had a tendency to chafe over-much, yet if this be a fault, then owing to his self-command, it affected himself only but not others. He loved power, indeed, which he habitually described in a favourite Persian phrase as khûd-raftâri, which is an elegant synonym for having one’s own way. Such power was, in his estimation, to be wielded not capriciously but under the constraint of a well-informed conscience. He had scarcely thought out the fact, however, that in few modern nations, and least of all in the British, can there be such a thing strictly speaking as power, though there may be powerful influence. For the jealously-watched and tightly-bound “thing which is mocked by the name of power,” he had scant appreciation. In short, his position presented much that was novel rather than pleasant, though he encountered less of novelty than any Governor-General who had preceded him. But it is well in passing to sketch these lesser traits, for the portraiture of the real man in all his greatness and goodness.