"Gentlemen, it is my fervent prayer, that a Power higher than that of any earthly Government may inspire and bless the progress of our counsels; granting me, with your valued assistance, to direct them to such issues as may prove conducive to the honour of our country, to the authority and prestige of its august Sovereign, to the progressive well-being of the millions committed to our fostering care, and to the security of the chiefs and princes of India, as well as of our allies beyond the frontier, in the undisturbed enjoyment of their just rights and hereditary possessions." The sequel renders it probable that by a "power higher than any earthly Government," Lord Lytton understood nothing more remote from human ken than the will of Lord Beaconsfield. At any rate, the prayer was rejected; and under the influence of a perverse destiny, the Viceroy has been singled out to accomplish precisely those acts from which he entreated to be delivered. The "valued assistance" of his colleagues in council he has systematically set at nought and rejected; the "millions committed to his fostering care" he has (as I shall show) permitted to perish of hunger under circumstances of peculiar cruelty; and I need not say that he has entirely failed in his endeavours to preserve "our allies beyond the frontier in the undisturbed enjoyment of their just rights and hereditary possessions." It is the story of these inconsistencies which I propose to tell in the following pages. In the reading they can hardly fail to awaken a smile; but in the acting they have brought suffering, poverty, and death upon thousands of innocent people. Throughout India they have shaken the confidence of the people in the humanity, justice, and truthfulness of the British character; and have, as I believe, brought our Indian Empire to the verge of a catastrophe, from which nothing but a complete and immediate reversal of policy will avail to save it.