Though he fully hoped that the then Secretary of State, Sir Charles Wood, and the Cabinet would support him, yet he was prepared, indeed almost determined, to give up his high office if his policy in Oude should fail to be sustained. He used to say to his intimate friends at the time that he would stand or resign upon his policy in Oude. This is borne out by a letter of his to Sir Charles Wood which has since been published by his biographer, and from which a characteristic passage may be quoted. “What could make me take the course I have done in favour of the Ryots of Oude, but a strong sense of duty? I understand the question right well, as indeed must every man who has had anything to do with settlement-work. I have no wish to harm the Talukdars. On the contrary, I desire to see fair-play to their interests.... It would be a suicidal act for me to come forward and modify the instructions given recently. The Home Government may do this. Parliament may say what it thinks proper. But, of my own free will, I will not move, knowing as I do, that I am right in the course which has been adopted. Did ever any one hear of the Government of India learning that a class of men were not having fair-play at the time of settlement, and then failing to interfere or to issue such orders as the case appeared to demand?” In the sequel he was generously sustained by the Government in England, and the retrospect of this episode was pleasant to him as he believed it to be a victory for justice. In respect to the public service in its several branches, it fell to his lot to recommend, and obtain sanction from the Government in England for, some beneficent measures. A revision of the rules regarding leave in India and furlough to Europe, for the three great classes of Government, namely, the Indian Army, the Covenanted Civil Service, and the Uncovenanted Service, had been pending for some time before his arrival. Knowing well the bearings of this many-sided question, he resolved to settle it in a manner befitting the merits of the public servants whose labours and efforts he had witnessed in so many fields of action. He accordingly appointed the most competent persons in India to frame suitable sets of rules, which he induced the Government in England to sanction with but slight modifications. The simple record of this great fact affords no idea of the attention he personally gave to the multiform and often complex details which involved many conflicting considerations. The rules were demanded by the requirements of the age, and would sooner or later have been passed, at least in their essentials, whoever had been Governor-General; but it is to his sympathy, his trained intelligence, his knowledge and experience, that these great branches of the public service owe the speedy concession, in so acceptable a manner, of the boons which those rules bestow.