others. He had been told that unless he did so, he must succumb. But he believed it his duty to retain his trust, and he sank gradually under the burden. Exhaustion, sleeplessness, an overtaxed mind, combined with the strain of his position, the grief which he suffered from the loss of his charge, and the death of so many about him, prepared him for the assaults of disease. There was the sense of desertion by the Supreme Government; the burden of controversy with his countrymen. He seems to have foreseen his fate so far back as the close of July, though his frequent letters throughout August and up to September 4, show no sign of mental weakness. What that long effort cost him none will ever know. He bore for two months what he had to go through, in silence, making no complaint, carrying himself as became his high position. But on July 27, after a careful review of the state of affairs throughout Upper India, so far as it was known to him, he had written to Mr. Mangles, Chairman of the Court of Directors: 'I send my affectionate regards to all my old friends. I cannot shut my eyes to what is probably before me. If I have erred in any step, hard has been my position ; and you will bear lightly on my memory.' He perished, wrote one who was at Agra with him, because, in spite of the entreaties of his friends, he would persist in continuous mental labour, when his physical state demanded complete repose[1]. He gave up his life for his country,
- ↑ Raikes, Revolt in the North-West Provinces of India, p. 68.
