During 1863 he was running the even and quiet course of his life in England, attending to the work in the Council of India in Whitehall, which for him was not onerous, enjoying rural amusements with his family, playing games with his children, imbibing the country breezes, recovering as much of vigour and nerve as might be possible for a constitution like his which had been sorely tried and severely battered. He became much improved in health, and still more in spirits. He was in easy circumstances, having a salary as member of the Council of India at Whitehall, his annuity for which he had virtually paid by deductions from salary since the date of entering the Civil Service of India, the special pension granted to him by the East India Company, and the moderate competency from his savings during a long service of nearly thirty years. He was himself a man of the simplest tastes and the fewest wants, but he had a large family for whom he was affectionately solicitous. But while liberal and open-handed in every case which called for generosity, he was a thrifty and frugal manager, a good steward in small things of everyday life, even as he had been in national affairs. He nowadays acted on the principle that-- “The trivial round, the common task, Will furnish all we ought to ask; Room to deny ourselves; a road To bring us daily nearer God.” Thus he did few of the things which men of his repute and position might ordinarily do, and which doubtless he must have often been urged to undertake. He wrote neither books nor brochures, he hardly ever addressed public meetings, he did not preside over learned or philanthropic societies, he took no active part in politics, municipal or national. He sought repose, dignified by the reminiscence of a mighty past. Believing that his life’s work was in the main accomplished and his mission ended, he pondered much on the life to come. If there be such things on earth as unclouded happiness and unalloyed contentment, these blessings were his at that time.