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JOHN RUSSELL COLVIN

On March 12, 1842, at half-past six in the morning, the great hall at Government House is again thrown open, as on that 21st day of October in 1837, when the Misses Eden came down to take their coffee. The Bishop, the Chief Justice, the Councillors are all there. The same scene, with needful variations, is enacted; and, at about seven, the procession again moves on foot to Chandpál Ghát, 'followed by the Body-Guard.' It passes through a double row of soldiers, 'composed of H. M. 62nd and the 6th Madras Native Infantry,' from the north-west gate of Government House to the Strand. On the Strand there is a great concourse. The soldiery, for the last time, present arms; his lordship, 'under strong emotion,' returns the salute. He steps into a state barge; applies to his eyes, as a local reporter puts it, 'the handkerchief,' (as though there were a state handkerchief, like a state barge or state elephants), and is rowed out into the river to the Lord Hungerford. 'The moisture in his eyes was visible,' writes an observer; they are lacrymae rerum, wrung from him by mortal suffering. No Governor-General ever left India with a greater burden on his shoulders; but it was lightened for him by the sympathy which surrounded him. It is plain from all contemporary accounts that he was singularly beloved in India. 'He embarked at Chandpál Ghát,' said a Calcutta paper, 'with the universal acknowledgement that he had not left an enemy behind.' The patience and dignity with which he had borne his misfortunes, his