development of affairs in [837 and 1838. This is the object of the pages immediately ensuing. Much has had to be condensed; not a little, to be omitted. But nothing essential has been lost sight of; while an endeavour has been made to place in their true light transactions hitherto very imperfectly apprehended.
It needs much mental effort to take our stand in the India of 1837. Nearly forty years of peace have accustomed us to think of our rule as paramount beyond dispute in India. But in 1837 twenty years had not passed since our position had been challenged by the Maráthás. The siege of Bhartpur, only in 1826, had been looked on as a test of British supremacy. Within our frontiers our rule was in unstable equilibrium. Outside them, we were still engaged in the struggle for mastery with other powers. Nepál threatened invasion. The Sikh kingdom loomed large and formidable on our North-West frontier. Means of concentrating troops were small. Not a generation had passed since we had obtained Northern India. The people had changed masters like sheep. Yet it had ever been an unruly race, and might prove little content to be so transferred. Within, without, was insecurity. Anxiety and apprehension are magnified in such conditions. Most men in those days admitted that India might without difficulty be invaded. The threat of Napoleon was still fresh in the public mind. So cold and unimaginative a statesman as Lord William Bentinck regarded the
