Chapter XXIV: Letter VII: Concluding Letter (3)

By the aid of this varied combination of powers, Mr. Wilson was able to grapple with the miscellaneous financial business of the country with very unusual efficiency. Most men would have found the office work of the Secretary of the Treasury quite enough, but he was always ready rather to take away labour and responsibilities from other departments than to throw off any upon them. Nor was his efficiency confined to the labours of his office. The Financial Secretary of the Treasury has a large part of the financial business of the House of Commons under his control, and is responsible for its accurate arrangement. The passing a measure through the House of Commons is a matter of detail; and in the case of the financial measures of the Government, a large part of this—the dullest part, and the most unenvied—falls to the Secretary of the Treasury. He is expected to be the right hand of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in all the most wearisome part of the financial business of the House of Commons; and we have the best authority for stating that, under two Chancellors of the Exchequer very different from one another in many respects, Mr. Wilson performed this part of his duties with singular efficiency, zeal, and judgment.

The Financial Secretary of the Treasury is likewise expected to answer all questions asked in the House as to the civil estimates—a most miscellaneous collection of figures, as any one may satisfy himself by glancing at them. Mr. Wilson’s astonishing memory and great power of lucid exposition enabled him to fulfil this part of his duty with very remarkable efficiency. He gave the dates and the figures without any note, and his exposition was uniformly simple, emphatic, and intelligible, even on the most complicated subjects. The great rule, he used to say, was to answer exactly the exact question; if you attempted an elaborate exposition, collateral issues were necessarily raised, a debate ensued, and the time of the House was lost.

Mr. Wilson’s mercantile knowledge and mercantile sympathies were found to be of much use in the consolidation of the Customs in 1853, and he took great interest in settling a scheme for the payment of the duties in cheques instead of bank-notes, by which the circulation has been largely economised and traders greatly benefited. During the autumn of 1857, his long study of the currency question, and his first-hand conversancy with the business of the City, were valuable aids to the Administration of the day in the anxious responsibilities and rapidly shifting scenes of an extreme commercial crisis. It would be impossible to notice the number of measures in which he took part as Secretary of the Treasury, and equally impossible to trace his precise share in them. That office ensures to its holder substantial power, but can rarely give him legislative fame.

On two occasions during his tenure of office at the Treasury, Mr. Wilson was offered a different post. In the autumn of 1856 he was offered the Chairmanship of Inland Revenue, a permanent office of considerable value then vacant, which he declined because he did not consider the income necessary, and because (what some people would think odd) it did not afford sufficient occupation. It was a ‘good pillow,’ he said, ‘but he did not wish to lie down.’ The second office offered him was the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade in 1855, which would have been a step to him in official rank, but which would have entailed a new election, and he did not feel quite secure that the electors of Westbury would again return him. He did not, however, by any means wish for the change, as the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade, though nominally superior, is in real power far inferior to the Secretaryship of the Treasury.

In the general election of 1857, Mr. Wilson was returned for Devonport, for which place he continued to sit till his departure for India. He went out of office on the dissolution of Lord Palmerston’s Administration in the spring of 1858, and took an active part in the Liberal opposition to Lord Derby’s Government, though it may be remarked that he carefully abstained from using the opportunities afforded him by his long experience at the Treasury, of harassing his less experienced successors in financial office by needless and petty difficulties.

On the return of the Liberal party to power, Mr. Wilson was asked to resume his post at the Treasury, but he declined, as, after five years of laborious service, he wished to have an office of which the details were less absorbing. He accepted, however, the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade—an office which is not in itself attractive, but which gives its possessor a sort of claim to be President of the Board at the next vacancy. The office of President is frequently accompanied by a seat in the Cabinet, and Mr. Wilson’s reputation on all subjects connected with trade was so firmly established that in his case it would have been practically impossible to pass him over, even if it had been wished. He had, however, secured so firm a position in official circles by his real efficiency, that the dispensers of patronage were, as he believed, likely to give him whatever he desired as soon as the exigencies of party enabled them to do so.

He had not been long in office before he had good reason for thinking that he would be offered by the Government the office of Financial Member of the Council of India under very peculiar circumstances. There had never before been such an officer. One member of Council had since 1833 been always sent out from England, but he had always been a lawyer, and his functions were those of a jurist and a regulative administrator, not those of a financier. The mutiny of the Sepoys in 1857 had, however, left behind it a deficit with which the financiers of India did not _seem_ to be able to cope, and which a cumbrous financial system did not give them the best means of vanquishing. There was a general impression that some one with an English training and English habits of business would have a better chance of overcoming the most pressing difficulty of India than any one on the spot. And there was an equally general impression that if any one were to be sent from England to India with such an object, Mr. Wilson was the right person. He united high financial reputation, considerable knowledge of India acquired at the Board of Control, tried habits of business, long experience at the English Treasury, to the sagacious readiness in dealing with new situations which self-made men commonly have, but which is commonly wanting in others.

On personal grounds Mr. Wilson was disinclined to accept the office. He was on the threshold of the Cabinet here; he was entitled by his long tenure of office at the Treasury to a pension which would merge in the salary of Indian Councillor; the emoluments of the latter office were not necessary to him; his life was very heavily insured for the benefit of his family; though he had never during his tenure of office at the Treasury been connected directly or indirectly with any kind of commercial undertaking (the _Economist_ alone excepted), some investments which he made in land and securities, entirely beyond the range of politics, had been very fortunate; since the year 1844 everything of a pecuniary kind in which he had been concerned had not only prospered, but remarkably prospered; he felt himself sufficiently rich to pursue the career of prosperous usefulness and satisfied ambition that seemed to be before him here. There was no consideration of private interest which could induce him to undertake anxious and dangerous duties in India; he even ran some pecuniary risk in leaving this country, as it was possible that in the vicissitudes of newspaper property the _Economist_ might again need the attention of its proprietor and founder. On public grounds, however, he believed that it was his duty to accept the office; he took a keen interest in Indian finance; believed that the difficulties of it might be conquered, and thought that in even _attempting_ to conquer them he would be doing the greatest and most lasting public service that it was in _his_ power to accomplish.

He accordingly accepted the office of Financial Member of the Council of India, and proceeded to make somewhat melancholy arrangements for leaving this country. He broke up his establishment here, bade farewell to his constituents at Devonport and to the inhabitants of his native place, attended some influential public meetings in towns deeply interested in the commerce of India, and on October 20, 1859, left England, as it proved, for ever.

Of Mr. Wilson’s policy in India it would not be proper to give more than a very brief sketch here. That policy is still fresh in the memory of the public; it has been very frequently explained and discussed in the _Economist_; it is still being tried; and, though he was fully persuaded of the expediency of his measures, he would not have wished for too warm a eulogy of them while they are as yet untested by the event. In almost the last letter which the present writer received from him, there was a sort of reprimand for permitting this journal to draw too great an attention to his plans, and to ascribe the merit of them too exclusively to him, and too little to the Government of which he was a member.

On his arrival in India he found that the Governor-General was on a tour in the Upper Provinces of India, and before doing any business of importance at Calcutta he travelled thither. This journey he thought very advantageous, because it gave him a great insight into the nature of the country, and enabled him to consult the most experienced revenue officers of many large districts on their respective resources, and on the safest mode of making those resources available to the public. He was much struck with the capabilities of the country, and wrote to England in almost so many words ‘that it was a fine country to _tax_.’ On the other hand, however, he was well aware of the difficulty of his task. The only two possible modes of taxation are direct and indirect, and in the case of India there is a difficulty in adopting either. If we select indirect taxation and impose duties on consumable commodities, the natives of India meet us by declining to consume. Their wants are few, and they will forego most of them if a tax can be evaded thereby. On the other hand, if we adopt in India a direct tax on property or income, there is great difficulty in finding out what each man’s property or income is. In England we trust each person to tell us the amount of his income, but even here the results are not wholly satisfactory; and it would be absurd to fancy that we can place as much reliance upon the veracity of Orientals as upon that of Englishmen.

These difficulties, however, Mr. Wilson was prepared to meet. On February 18, 1860, he proposed his Budget to the Legislative Council at Calcutta, and the reception given to it by all classes was remarkably favourable. He announced, indeed, a scheme of heavy taxation, but the Indian public had been living for a considerable time under a sentence of indefinite taxation, and they were glad to know the worst. Anything distinct was better than vague suspense, and, as usual, Mr. Wilson contrived to make his meaning _very_ distinct. His bearing also exercised a great influence over the Anglo-Indian public. In England he had been remarkable among official men for his constant animation and thorough naturalness of manner: in his office he was as much himself as at a dinner-table or in the House of Commons: he had no tinge of supercilious politeness or artificial blandness. In any new scene of action—especially in such a scene as British India—these qualities were sure to tell beneficially. Plain directness and emphatic simplicity were the external qualities most likely to be useful at Calcutta, and these were Mr. Wilson’s most remarkable qualities.

The principal feature of Mr. Wilson’s Budget was the Income Tax, which he avowedly framed after the English fashion. It is true that but little reliance can, perhaps, be placed on the statements of Orientals as to their wealth. It is very possible that the complicated machinery of forms and notices which is in use here may not be applicable in India. All this Mr. Wilson well knew. But he thought that our Indian subjects should have an opportunity of stating their income before they were taxed upon it. If they should state it untruly, or should decline to state it, it might be necessary to tax them arbitrarily. But he did not think, it would be decent—that it would be civilised—to begin with an arbitrary assessment. By the Income Tax Act which he framed, it is enacted that other modes may be substituted if in any instance the English mode of assessment should prove inapplicable. In other words, if our Oriental fellow-subjects will not tell us the truth when they are asked, we must tax them as best we can, and they cannot justly complain of unfairness and inequality. _We_ would have been mathematically just, if _they_ had given us the means.

The reception of Mr. Wilson’s Budget was universally favourable until the publication of the minute of Sir C. Trevelyan, which, as was inevitable, produced a serious reaction. Heavy taxation can never be very pleasant, and in the Presidency of Madras Sir Charles gave the sanction of the Government—of the highest authority the people saw—to the hope that they would not be taxed. The prompt recall of Sir Charles, however, did much to convince the natives of the firm determination of the English Government, and Mr. Wilson hoped that the ordeal of criticism through which his measures had to pass would ultimately be favourable to them. It certainly secured them from the accusation of being prepared in haste, but it purchased this benefit at the loss to the public of much precious time, and to Mr. Wilson of precious health. Of the substance of this minute it is sufficient to say that its fundamental theory that additional taxation of any sort was unnecessary in India, has scarcely been believed by any one except its author. Almost every one has deemed it too satisfactory to be true.

On another point Mr. Wilson’s Budget has been criticised in England, though not in India. It has been considered to be a protective Budget. The mistake has arisen from not attending to what that Budget is. The changes made by Mr. Wilson in the import duties were two. ‘The first was a reduction from twenty to ten per cent. upon a long list of articles, including haberdashery, millinery, and hosiery, all part of the cotton trade; the second was an increase in the duty upon cotton yarn from five to ten per cent., thus creating a uniform tariff of ten per cent.’[38] Of these two, it is plain the reduction from twenty per cent. to ten was not a change that would operate as a protection to Indian industry; and the increase of the duty on yarn has a contrary tendency. Yarn is an earlier, cloth a later, stage of manufacture, and in Mr. Wilson’s own words, ‘it is a low duty on yarn and a high duty on cloth that encourages native weaving.’ For the effect of the general system of high Customs duties in India Mr. Wilson is not responsible, but his predecessors. What _he_ did has no protective tendency.

If the Income Tax should, as may be fairly hoped, become a permanent part of the financial system of India, it will serve for a considerable period to keep Mr. Wilson’s name alive there. So efficient an expedient must always attract the notice of the public, and must in some degree preserve the remembrance of the Minister by whom it was proposed. Mr. Wilson, however, undertook two other measures of very great importance. One of these has been frequently described as the introduction into India of the English system of public accounts. But it would be more truly described as the introduction of a rational system of public accounts. There are three natural steps in national finance, which are certainly clearly marked in our English system, but which have a necessary existence independent of that recognition. These three are—first, the estimate of future expenditure; secondly, what we call the Budget, that is the official calculation of the income by which the coming expenditure is to be defrayed; thirdly, the audit which shows what the expenditure has been and how it has been met. The system of finance which Mr. Wilson found in India neglected these fundamental distinctions. There were no satisfactory estimates of future expenditure, and no satisfactory calculation of future income. In consequence, the calculations of the official departments have been wrong by millions sterling, and English statesmen have felt great difficulty not only in saying how the deficit was to be removed, but likewise in ascertaining what the amount of the deficit was. At the time of his death, Mr. Wilson was eagerly occupied in endeavouring to introduce a better system.

Mr. Wilson will likewise be remembered as the first Minister who endeavoured to introduce into India a Government paper currency. On March 3, 1860, he introduced into the Legislative Council an elaborate plan for this purpose, which, with a slight modification by Sir C. Wood—curious in the theory of the currency, but practically not very important—will speedily, it is probable, be the fundamental currency law—the ‘Peel’s Act’ of British India.

The exact mode in which Mr. Wilson regarded these great objects, will perhaps be better explained by two extracts from his latest letters than by any other means. On July 4, he wrote to a friend:—

‘Firmness and justice are the only policy for India: no
vacillation, or you are gone. They like to be governed; and
respect an iron hand, if it be but equal and just. I have,
I think, more confidence than ever that the taxes will be
established and collected, and without disturbance. But the
task is still an enormous one. I must retrench yet at least
three and a half millions, and get the same sum from my new
taxes to make both ends meet. I am putting the screw on very
strongly, but rather by an improved policy in army and police
than in reductions of salaries and establishments, which cannot
be made. I have set myself _five_ great points of policy to
introduce and carry out.

‘1. To extend a system of sound taxation to the great trading
classes, who hitherto have been exempted, though chiefly
benefited by our enormously increased civil expenditure.

‘2. To establish a paper currency.

‘3. To reform and remodel our financial system, by a plan of
annual budgets and estimates, with a Pay Department to check
issues, and keep them within the authorised limits,—and an
effective audit.

‘4. A great police system of semi-military organisation, but
usually of purely civil application, which, dear though it be,
will be cheaper by half a million than our present wretched and
expensive system,—and by which we shall be able to reduce our
native army to at least one-third;—and by which alone we can
utilise the natives as an arm of defence without the danger of
congregating idle organised masses.

‘5. Public works and roads, with a view to increased production
of cotton, flax, wool, and European raw materials.

‘The four first I have made great progress in: the latter must
follow. But you will call it “a large order.” However, you have
no idea of the increased capacity of the mind for undertaking
a special service of this kind when removed to a new scene of
action, and when one throws off all the cares of engagements
less or more trivial by which one is surrounded in ordinary
life, and throws one’s whole soul into such a special service,
and particularly when one feels assured of having the power to
carry it out. I cannot tell you with what ease one determines
the largest and gravest question here compared with in England;
and I am certain that the more one can exercise real power,
there is by far the greater tendency to moderation, care, and
prudence.’

In a second letter, dated July 19, he wrote to the same friend from Barrackpore:—

‘The Indian Exchequer is a huge machine. The English Treasury
is nothing to it for complexity, diversity, and remoteness
of the points of action. Our great enemies are time and
distance; and with all our frontier territories there is
scarcely a day passes that we have not an account of some row
or inroad. It is a most unwieldy Empire to be governed on
the principle of forcing civilisation at every point of it.
One day it is the frontier of Scinde and a quarrel with our
native chiefs, which our Resident must check; another, it is
an intrigue between Heraut and Cabul, with a report of Russian
forces in the background; the next, there is a raid upon our
Punjab frontiers to be chastised; then come some accounts of
coolness, or misunderstanding, or unreasonable demands from
our ally in Nepaul; then follow some inroads from the savage
tribes which inhabit the mountains to the rear of Assam and
up the Burrampootra; then we have reported brawls in Burmah
and Pegu, and disputes among the hill tribes whose relations
to the British and the Burmah Governments are ill defined;
then we have Central India, with our loyal chiefs Scindiah and
Holkar, independent princes with most turbulent populations,
which could not be kept in order a day without the presence of
British troops and of the Governor-General’s Agent. Besides
all these, we have among ourselves a thousand questions of
internal administration, rendered more difficult by the
ill-defined relations between the Supreme and the Subordinate
Governments—the latter always striving to encroach, the former
to hold its own. Hence, questions do not come before us simply
on their merits, but often as involving these doubtful rights.
Then we have Courts of Justice to reform, as well as all
other institutions of a domestic kind not to reform alone,
but to extend to new territories. Then we have a deficit of
7,000,000_l._, and had a Government teaching the people that
all could be done without new taxes. But unfortunately all,
except the taxes, are a present certainty—_they_ are a future
contingency. What will they yield? I have no precise knowledge.
I think from three to four millions a year when in full bloom:
this financial year not more than a million.

‘I have now got a Military Finance Commission in full swing;
a Civil Finance Commission also going: I am reorganising the
Finance, Pay, and Accountant-General’s Department, in order
to get all the advantage of the English system of estimates,
Pay Office, and Audit:—and this with as little disturbance
of existing plans as possible. The latter is a point I have
especially aimed at. On the whole, and almost without an
exception, I have willing allies in all the existing Offices.
No attempt that I see is anywhere made to thwart or impede.

‘You can well understand, then, how full my hands are, if to
all these you add the new currency arrangements; you will not
then wonder that my health has rendered it necessary to come
down here for a day or two to get some fresh air.’

It will be observed that in the last extract Mr. Wilson alludes to his impaired health. For some time after his arrival in India he seemed scarcely to feel the climate. He certainly did not feel it as much as might have been anticipated. He worked extremely hard; scarcely wrote a private letter, but devoted the whole of his great energies to the business around him. His letters for a considerable time abound with such expressions as ‘Notwithstanding all my hard work, my health is excellent.’ From the commencement of the rainy season at Calcutta, however, he ceased to be equally well, his state began to arouse the apprehensions of experienced observers, and he was warned that he should retire for a short time to a better climate. He would not, however, do so until his financial measures had advanced sufficiently far for him to leave them. His position was a very peculiar one. In general, if one administrator leaves his post, another is found to fill it up. But Mr. Wilson was a unique man at Calcutta. He was sent there because he had certain special qualifications, which no one there possessed; and, accordingly, he had no one to rely on in his peculiar functions save himself. His presence on the spot was likewise very important. The administration of a department can be frequently transacted by letter, but the organisation of new departments and new schemes requires the unremitting attention of the organiser—the impulse of his energy. The interest, too, which Mr. Wilson took in public business was exceptionally great, and no one who knew him well would suppose that _he_ would leave Calcutta while necessary work, or what he deemed so, was to be done there.

Nor was labour the sole trial to which his constitution was exposed. The success of measures so extensive as his, must ever be a matter of anxious doubt until the event decides; and in his case there were some momentary considerations to aggravate that anxiety. There was no experience of such taxation as he had proposed, and the effect of it must therefore be difficult to foresee. Moreover, for a brief period, a famine seemed to be imminent in Upper India, which must have disturbed the whole operation of his financial schemes. In his debilitated state of health this last source of anxiety seemed much to weigh upon him.

About the middle of July he went for a week to Barrackpore, near Calcutta. The change was, however, too slight, and, as might be expected, he returned to Calcutta without any material benefit. From that time the disease gradually augmented, and on the evening of August 2, he went to bed never to rise from it again. For many days he continued to be very ill, and his family experienced the usual alternations of hope and fear. He was quite aware of his critical state, and made all necessary arrangements with his habitual deliberation and calmness.

Lord Canning saw him on the 9th for the last time, and was much struck with the change which illness had made in him. He believed that he saw death in his face, and was deeply impressed with the vivid interest which, even in the last stage of weakness, he took in public affairs, with his keen desire for the success of his plans, and with the little merit which he was disposed to claim for his own share in them.

It was hoped that he would be strong enough to bear removal, and it was intended to delay the mail steamer for a few hours to take him to sea—the usual remedy at Calcutta for diseases of the climate. But when the time came there was no chance that his strength would be adequate to the effort. During the whole of the 11th he sank rapidly, and at half past six in the evening he breathed his last.

The mourning in Calcutta was more universal than had ever been remembered. He had not been long in India, but while he had been there he filled a conspicuous and great part; he had done so much, that there were necessarily doubts in the minds of some as to the expediency of part of it. No such doubts, however, were thought of now. ‘That he should have come out to die here!’—‘That he should have left a great English career _for this_!’—were the phrases in every one’s mouth. The funeral was the largest ever known at Calcutta. It was attended by almost the entire population, from the Governor-General downwards, and not a single voice, on any ground whatever, dissented from the general grief.

Very little now remains to be said. A few scattered details, some of them perhaps trivial, must complete this sketch.

Mr. Wilson’s face was striking, though not handsome. His features were irregular, but had a peculiar look of mind and energy, while a strongly marked brow and very large eyebrows gave to all who saw him an unfailing impression of massive power and firm determination.

Mr. Wilson’s moral character in its general features resembled his intellectual. He was not a man of elaborate scruples and difficult doubts, and he did not much like those who were. His conscientiousness was of a plain, but very practical kind; he had a single-minded rectitude which went straight to the pith of a moral difficulty—which showed him what he ought to do. On such subjects he was somewhat intolerant of speculative reasoning. ‘The common sense is so and so,’ he used to say, and he did not wish to be plagued with anything else.

In one respect his manner did not uniformly give a true impression of him. He always succeeded in conveying his meaning, in stating what he wished to have done and why he wished it; he never failed to convince any one of his inexhaustible vigour and his substantial ability; but he sometimes did fail in giving a true expression to his latent generosity and real kindliness. He shrank almost nervously from the display of feeling, and sometimes was thought by casual observers to feel nothing, when in reality he was much more sensitive than they were. Another peculiarity which few persons would have attributed to him aided this mistake. It may seem strange in a practised Secretary of the Treasury, but he used to say that through life he had suffered far more from shyness than from anything else. Only very close observers could have discovered this, for his manner was habitually impressive and unfaltering. But common acquaintances, sometimes even persons who saw him on business, erroneously imputed to unthinking curtness, that which was due in truth to nervous hesitation.

With his subordinates in office he was, however, very cordial. He discussed matters of business with them, listened carefully to their suggestions or objections, and very frequently was guided by their recommendations. He had no paltry desire to monopolise the whole credit of what might be done. He probably worked harder than any Secretary of the Treasury before or since; but so far from depressing those below him, he encouraged their exertions, co-operated with them, and was ever ready to bear hearty testimony to the tried merit of efficient public servants. He was also quite willing to forget the temporary misunderstandings which are so apt to occur among earnest men who take different views of public affairs. He was eminently tolerant. Though he had almost always a strong conviction of his own, he never felt the least wish to silence discussion. Believing that his own opinions were true, he was only the more confident that the more the subject was discussed, the more true they would be found to be. Few men ever transacted so much important business with so little of the pettiness of personal feeling.

In the foregoing sketch Mr. Wilson has of necessity been regarded almost exclusively as a public man, but his private life has many remarkable features, if it were proper to enlarge on them. His enjoyment of simple pleasures, of society, of scenery, of his home, was very vivid. No one who saw him in his unemployed moments would have believed that he was one of the busiest public men of his time. He never looked worn or jaded, and always contributed more than his share of geniality and vivacity to the scene around him. Like Sir Walter Scott, he loved a bright light; and the pleasantest society to him was that of the cheerful and the young.

The universal regret which has been expressed at Mr. Wilson’s death is the best tribute to his memory. It has been universally felt that on his special subjects and for his peculiar usefulness he was ‘a finished man,’ and in these respects he has left few such behind him. The qualities which he had the opportunity of displaying were those of an administrator and a financier. But some of those who knew him best, believed that he only wanted an adequate opportunity to show that he had also many of the higher qualities of a statesman; and it was the feeling that he would perhaps have such an opportunity which reconciled them to his departure for India. As will have been evident from this narrative, he was placed in many changing circumstances, and in the gradual ascent of life was tried by many increasing difficulties. But at every step his mind grew with the occasion. We at least believe that he had a great sagacity and a great equanimity, which might have been fitly exercised on the very greatest affairs. But it was not so to be.

The intelligence of Mr. Wilson’s death was formally communicated by the Indian to the Home Government in the following despatch:—

‘To the Right Honourable Sir Charles Wood, Bart., G.C.B.,
Secretary of State for India.

‘SIR,—The painful task is imposed upon us of announcing to Her
Majesty’s Government the death of our colleague, the Right
Honourable James Wilson.

‘2. This lamentable event took place on the evening of
Saturday, the 11th, after an illness of a few days.

‘3. We enclose a copy of the notification by which we yesterday
communicated the mournful intelligence to the public. The
funeral took place at the time mentioned in the notification;
and the great respect in which our lamented colleague was
held was evinced by a very large attendance of the general
community, in addition to the public officers, civil and
military.

‘4. We are unable adequately to express our sense of the great
loss which the public interests have sustained in Mr. Wilson’s
death. We do not doubt, however, that this will be as fully
appreciated by Her Majesty’s Government, as it is by ourselves,
and as we have every reason to believe it will be by the
community generally throughout India.

‘5. But we should not satisfy our feelings in communicating
this sad occurrence to Her Majesty’s Government, if we did not
state our belief that the fatal disease which has removed Mr.
Wilson from amongst us was in a great degree the consequence of
his laborious application to the duties of his high position,
and of his conscientious determination not to cease from the
prosecution of the important measures of which he had charge,
until their success was ensured. Actuated by a self-denying
devotion to the objects for which he came out to this country,
Mr. Wilson continued to labour indefatigably long after the
general state of his health had become such as to cause anxiety
to the physician who attended him, and it was within a few
days only after the Income Tax had become law, and when, at
the earnest request of his medical adviser, he was preparing
to remove from Calcutta for the remainder of the rainy season,
that he was seized with the illness that has carried him off.

‘6. It is our sincere conviction that this eminent public
servant sacrificed his life in the discharge of his duty.—We
have, &c.,

‘CANNING.
‘H. B. E. FRERE.
‘C. BEADON.

‘FORT WILLIAM, _August 13._’

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] This essay appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for October 1877, and is now republished, with slight alterations, by the kind permission of the editor and proprietors of that Review. In most of the alterations now made, as well as in a great part of the original essay, I have been greatly assisted by the help of Mrs. Walter Bagehot.

[2] _Prospective Review_, No. 31, for August 1852, a paper too strictly temporary and practical in its aim for republication now.

[3] See volume ii., page 232, of this work.

[4] See Appendix to this volume, page 335.

[5] See vol. i. p. 43.

[6] See vol. ii. p. 66.

[7] See vol. ii. p. 67.

[8] _Physics and Politics_, p. 10.

[9] Volume ii. p. 71.

[10] _Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough_, vol. i. p. 175.

[11] See Appendix to this volume, page 329.

[12] Since the first edition of this work was published, the Oxford Board of Studies have made a text-book of Mr. Bagehot’s _English Constitution_ for that University.

[13] See vol. i. p. 28.

[14] This essay I hope to republish with others on English Statesmen in a future volume of Studies in Political Biography.

[15] _Physics and Politics_, p. 57.

[16] _The Postulates of Political Economy._

[17] _A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith._ By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters. Edited by Mrs. Austin. 2 vols. Longmans.

_Lord Jeffrey’s Contributions to the Edinburgh Review._ A new Edition in one volume. Longmans.

_Lord Brougham’s Collected Works._ Vols. I. II. III. _Lives of Philosophers of the Reign of George III._ _Lives of Men of Letters of the Reign of George III._ _Historical Sketches of the Statesmen who flourished in the Reign of George III._ Griffin.

_The Rev. Sydney Smith’s Miscellaneous Works. Including his Contributions to the Edinburgh Review._ Longmans.

[18] Sydney Smith, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 489.

[19] This was published in October, 1855.

[20] ‘Horner is ill. He was desired to read amusing books: upon searching his library, it appeared he had no amusing books; the nearest approach to a work of that description being the _Indian Trader’s Complete Guide_.’—_Sydney Smith’s Letter to Lady Holland._

[21] Letter from Lord Murray.

[22] The first words of Jeffrey’s review of The Excursion are, ‘This will never do.’

[23] _Hartley Coleridge’s Lives of the Northern Worthies._ A new Edition. 3 vols. Moxon.

[24] This essay was published immediately after the death of the Duke of Wellington.

[25] Keats in the Preface to Endymion.

[26] _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1853.

_Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations, and Fragments._ By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1854.

_The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ By Captain Thomas Medwin. 1847.

[27] _Shakespeare et son Temps: Étude Littéraire_. Par M. Guizot. Paris. 1852.

_Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare’s Plays from early Manuscript Corrections in a Copy of the Folio, 1632, in the possession of R. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A._ London. 1853.

[28] The only antiquarian thing which can be fairly called an anecdote of Shakespeare is, that Mrs. Alleyne, a shrewd woman in those times, and married to Mr. Alleyne, the founder of Dulwich Hospital, was one day, in the absence of her husband, applied to on some matter by a player who gave a reference to Mr. Hemmings (the ‘notorious’ Mr. Hemmings, the commentators say) and to Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe, and that the latter, when referred to, said, ‘Yes, certainly, he knew him, and he was a rascal and good-for-nothing.’ The proper speech of a substantial man, such as it is worth while to give a reference to.

[29] _The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time._ By David Masson, M.A., Professor of English Literature in University College, London. Cambridge: Macmillan.

_An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton._ By Thomas Keightley; with an Introduction to Paradise Lost. London: Chapman and Hall.

_The Poems of Milton_, with Notes by Thomas Keightley. London: Chapman and Hall.

[30] _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu._ Edited by her Great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe. Third edition, with Additions and Corrections derived from the original Manuscripts, illustrative Notes, and a New Memoir. By W. Moy Thomas. In two volumes. London: Henry Bohn.

[31] _Poetical Works of William Cowper._ Edited by Robert Bell. J. W. Parker and Son.

_The Life of William Cowper, with Selections from his Correspondence._ Being Volume I. of the Library of Christian Biography, superintended by the Rev. Robert Bickersteth. Seeley, Jackson, and Co.

[32] This was the second article in the first number of the _National Review_.

[33] The general reader may not before have read, that the Rue du Coq l’Honoré is an old and well-known street in Paris, and that notwithstanding the substitution of the eagle for cock as a military emblem, there is no thought of changing its name.

[34] [As a curious illustration of Mr. Bagehot’s estimate of the character of the third Empire, I may mention that all the earlier part of this paper, all that which dwelt on the good side of the imperial _régime_ in relation to matters of material prosperity, was reproduced in the French official journals, while all the equally true and even more useful criticism on its moral deficiencies, was carefully omitted.—EDITOR.]

[35] This was published as a supplement to the _Economist_, soon after Mr. Wilson’s death in 1860.

[36] He was married on January 5, 1832, to Miss Elizabeth Preston, of Newcastle, and this has given rise to a statement that he was once in business at Newcastle. This is, however, an entire mistake. He was never in business anywhere except at Hawick and London. It may be added, that on the occasion of his marriage he voluntarily ceased to be a member of the Society of Friends, for whom he always, however, retained a high respect. During the rest of his life he was a member of the Church of England.

[37] Among his friends of this period should be especially mentioned Mr. G. R. Porter, of the Board of Trade, the author of _The Progress of the Nation_, whose mind he described twenty years later as the most accurate he had ever known.

[38] _Economist_ of Sept. 8, 1860, p. 977.

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