When Lord Mayo received charge of the country the financial position stood thus. The conquests and accretions of a century had left behind a British Indian Empire nearly equal in size to all Europe less Russia, with a population of close on 200 millions in our own Provinces, and 50 millions in the Feudatory States. The cost of creating that Empire was represented in 1869-70 by a Public Debt of 102 millions sterling; together with another debt of 91 millions sterling expended on the guaranteed railways and other productive public works. Of the Public Debt, aggregating 102 millions, about 52 millions may {137} be taken as the charges of establishing the British Power in India, and 50 millions as the price of reconquering and reorganising the Empire after the Mutiny of 1857. The 102 millions represented, however, not alone the cost of wars and conquests. For the English in India had to construct for themselves the whole fabric of a civilised government. That material fabric included roads, public offices, barracks, courts, jails, schools, hospitals; and this vast outlay explains in part the frequent financial deficits to which I shall presently refer. The other debt of 91 millions represented the cost of constructing 4265 miles of opened railway, and of defending great tracts from famine by canals.[1] The two debts aggregated a capital of 193 millions sterling laid out in conquering, establishing, and organising the British India of 1869-70, the first year of Lord Mayo's rule. The revenue amounted to 509 millions of rupees, then equivalent to over 46 millions sterling: namely 33-1/2 millions of taxation from the people, or about 3_s_. 4_d_. per head, and 12-1/2 millions from opium, public works, &c., not of the nature of actual Indian taxation.[2] [Footnote 1: To facilitate reference by the reader I take the above figures as given in the Parliamentary Abstract, Twenty-third Number, 1889, p. 300. But in the subsequent and more detailed statements (except in direct quotations from State Papers), I convert the rupee for the sake of accuracy at 1_s_. 10_d_., its value at the time. Where my figures seem to differ from those in certain of the Blue Books, the explanation usually is that the Blue Books take the rupee at its nominal value of 2_s_.] [Footnote 2: For details of this calculation, see my larger _Life of Lord Mayo_, vol. ii, p. 6: 2nd Ed., 1876.]