met who take really great views for this noble empire, and who has a head to execute great conceptions.'
The following August Sir Charles writes thus: —
'About the military police the Lieutenant-Governor told me that he was against their formation, because he saw that they would be done away with again: for the same reason, namely the mischief of change, he opposed Lord Hardinge in abolishing them. He is an able and good man, but wants to polish and clean without change.'
As the apex of a pyramid and the pinnacle to a political structure, Thomason regarded loyalty to the Sovereign. In 1851 he seems to have cast a poetic glance towards 1858, when the Empire passed from the East India Company to the Crown direct. In the former year he wrote thus to a young daughter: —
'The Queen. Loyalty in any form is delightful. I am sure it is the safeguard of our country. It is natural that you should wish to see her august person. We expect the people of India to be attached to the Government, that is, the East India Company. But the thing is impossible. No Oriental people ever yet loved an abstract idea. One must have a personal embodiment of the ruling power. That it is which called forth the enthusiasm of you and your brother, and which acts with extraordinary power on the minds of your fellow-subjects.'
