SELECTIONS

FROM THE

PAPERS OF LORD METCALFE:

LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA, GOVERNOR OF JAMAICA,

AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA.

EDITED BY

JOHN WILLIAM KAYE,

LIFE OF LORD METCALFE," " THE HISTORY OF THE WAR IN
AFGHANISTAN," &c.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.

BOMBAY: SMITH, TAYLOR, AND CO.

MDCCCLY.

726, d. 50.

PREFACE.

I BELIEVE that, in offering the present volume to the public, I am rendering an acceptable service, not only to those who have been, who are, or who prospectively may be, connected with the affairs of our Indian and Colonial dependencies, but to all who have a common interest in good government and the administrative efficiency of the empire. But I am especially anxious that it should be regarded as nothing more than a fasciculus of Selections, for which the Editor alone is responsible, from the numerous public and private papers, left behind him by the late Lord Metcalfe. Bearing in mind that these papers are the growth of forty years of incessant official activity, the reader will not expect to find within the compass of a single volume more than certain specimens or illustrations, conveying, it is hoped, a just idea of the character of the writer's public life and the tenor of his opinions, but only a faint one of the extent of his activity and the magnitude of his labors.

I have divided the papers into three parts, illustrative of the three great epochs of Lord Metcalfe's career: firstly, his earlier official life in India before he became a member of the Supreme Government; secondly, the period during which he sate as a member of that Government; and thirdly, the space of time embraced by his Jamaica and Canada administrations. Under each of these heads will be found a considerable number and variety of papers, indicating the writer's opinions on all, or

nearly all, the principal questions submitted to his consideration during the forty-five years of his public service. In this respect there is a completeness about the present collection which I believe would not have been much enhanced if the dimensions of the work had been greatly extended.

Except in one or two especial cases, when I have desired to place beside each other, two or more papers bearing on the same subject, perhaps illustrating some particular chapter of Metcalfe's career, the arrangement of the first and the third parts of the collection is strictly chronological, according to the date of composition. In the second part I have thought it more expedient to classify the Council Minutes-placing in separate sections the Military and Political, the Revenue and Judicial Papers; and so on. The first and third parts have more of autobiographical interest than the second, for they relate mainly to circumstances with which the writer was personally and actively concerned; but perhaps the second part, devoted to minutes written at a time when Sir Charles Metcalfe's duties, as a member of the Supreme Government, involved the consideration of the whole range of Indian Government, political and administrative, will be considered of the greatest abstract importance. It is, however, that which necessarily most imperfectly represents the extent of Sir Charles Metcalfe's literary activity. The work of a member of Council is emphatically pen-work, and the writer of these papers addressed himself earnestly to the consideration of almost every question that came before him.

With regard to the papers themselves a few words may be said. The selection of them has been influenced by various considerations. I can hardly hope that it is altogether such as Lord Metcalfe himself would have made, but I have endeavoured, to the utmost of my ability, to approximate to such a consummation. It has been my object to impart as much variety as possible to the collection. Some of the papers are historical; some disquisitional; some are given for the sake of the facts, others for the sake of the arguments they contain; some as illustrations of the character or career of the writer;

PREFACE.

others for their abstract interest or importance. And it may be added, that whilst I have striven to make the intent and purport of the insertion of each letter, minute, or despatch especially appreciable by the reader of Lord Metcalfe's "Life and Correspondence," it has been my endeavour, at the same time, so to select and so to arrange the papers as to give to the present volume something of a biographical character, and thereby to render it in itself sufficiently intelligible to those who now for the first time make the acquaintance of the great and good man who wrote them.

To the accomplishment of this object I believed that the intrusion of many explanatory notes was not necessary. The papers, for the most part, tell their own story. To have inserted much biographical matter would have been to repeat what I have written elsewhere; and to comment, either approvingly or disapprovingly, on Lord Metcalfe's opinions, would have been clearly an impertinence. These opinions are published because they are his; and whether they are mine or not the majority of readers will not care to inquire. It is hardly in the nature of things that any two men should concur wholly in opinion on so large a variety of subjects; but, where difference arises, there are few who will not mistrust their own judgment on finding that Metcalfe is their opponent. The reader, at all events, may in every case feel assured that the opinion expressed is the growth of much thought and much experience; that it comes honestly and earnestly, from the full heart; and that it has been maintained throughout a life distinguished by many great qualities, but by none so much as by its consistency.

In such a collection as this, altogether to have avoided the insertion of papers relating to circumstances almost forgotten, or to systems of government long since exploded, would have been impossible, if it would have been desirable. The vast changes which have taken place during the last half century, in the administrative principles and practices of the English in India, must necessarily impart something of an antiquarian character to such a volume as this. But whilst, in a biogra