control, should be the ostensible depository of power; and that the Council of India, whatever powers of advice or interpellation it might enjoy, should be shown to be clearly subordinate to him. This was, to so large an extent, the state of the existing relations of the Directors to the President of the Board of Control that the change, though imposing in appearance, was less important than it seemed.
In October Lord Canning received the Proclamation, which announced to the people of India the transfer of the government from the Company to the Queen. By the same mail he learnt that Her Majesty had appointed him her first Viceroy. His letter to the Queen, acknowledging his new dignity, breathed a tone well befitting a great occasion and the serious responsibilities which it entailed. 'It is,' he wrote, 'Lord Canning's earnest hope and prayer that, so long as this high function shall be in his trust, it may be administered in a spirit not unworthy of your Majesty, and that, when he shall deliver it again into your Majesty's hands, it may be found to be without spot or stain from any act or word of his.'
The Royal Proclamation, translated into the many languages and dialects in use throughout the wide territorial confines of the Empire, was read with the proper ceremonial splendour in all the great centres of population and at every civil and military station in India on the 1st November, 1858. The Proclamation possesses an especial interest for Englishmen from the circumstance that its present form is, in some measure,
