Then, after much striving, Lord William Bentinck, who had been deprived of the Government of Madras in 1807 in consequence of the mutiny at Vellore, was appointed in Lord Amherst's place. It was a great triumph for him, being, as it were, an admission that he had been unjustly dismissed in the first instance. His administration, however, did much to justify his early treatment, for there can be no question that he showed an almost phenomenal want of tact. Indeed, but for the fact that the final extinction of the monopoly of trade did not take place until 1835, this chapter would end on the assumption of office by Lord William Bentinck in 1828, since there can be no doubt that many of his well-meaning efforts should be included amongst the causes which led up to the mutiny of 1857. The best plan, therefore, will be to catalogue them briefly here, and discuss them in connection with others of a like nature after 1835. The first, which brought him great disfavour with the military, was not, strictly speaking, his action, but that of England. His only responsibility for what is called the half-_batta_ (extra allowance) order is that he did not, as Lord Hastings and Lord Amherst had done, refuse to obey his superiors. It was a silly retrenchment, since for the sake of a paltry £20,000 a year it gave umbrage to a very deserving body of men, who could ill afford to lose the money. The scheme was condemned by all competent judges in India as "unwise and inexpedient, fraught with mischief, and unproductive of good." But Lord William Bentinck had come out bound hand and foot to economy, social reform, and missionary effort, so he spent his years in adding up and subtracting, in framing laws, such as that against _suttee_, and the forfeiture which, under Hindu law, followed on conversion to a different faith. For political work he had but one catchword; the catchword of his employers--non-interference. The puppet-emperor at Delhi complained bitterly; his complaint being unheard, he actually sent an agent--no less a person than Râm-Mohun-Rao, the founder of the Brahma-Somâjh, the modern Theistical sect of India--to plead his cause in England. But he also was unheard. His mission had been kept secret, and so his credentials were "out of order."