The opening days of 1876 were marked by the announcement of Lord Northbrook’s resignation as Viceroy of India. The Indian Viceroy had for some time thwarted the policy of the Secretary of State, and the final rupture was made when they differed in opinion as to the kind of Envoy the Government should have at Cabul. It was a quaint controversy. Lord Salisbury said the face of the British Envoy should be white. Lord Northbrook contended that it should be black, whereupon Lord Salisbury wrote Lord Northbrook a despatch, couched in terms that left him no alternative save resignation. According to Lord Salisbury, unless a white Envoy kept watch over the Ameer, Shere Ali, our information from Cabul would be defective. According to Lord Northbrook, if we sent an European Envoy to Cabul, he would be promptly assassinated, in which case we should get no information at all, and India would be dragged into a ruinous war of vengeance. Lord Northbrook had nothing on his side but facts. No Afghan Ameer had ever been able to guarantee a Christian Envoy at Cabul against assassination. When Lord Salisbury did send an European Envoy to Cabul he was not only murdered, but, pending his inevitable murder, the only information worth having that came from Cabul, came from native sources. It was, moreover, a slight on the Indian Government to say that they had not been able to train a Mahommedan official of rank up to the duties of effective diplomatic espionage at Cabul. However, the dispute ended in Lord Northbrook coming back to England, and in Lord Lytton going out to India as his successor. There was no doubt a time when the appointment of a diplomatist who was a Peer and a passionate poet, to the Viceregal Throne might have been useful. Unhappily, in 1876, a different type of ruler was needed in India. The war cloud in Eastern Europe was about to break, and it was well known that in any diplomatic contest between Russia and England, it would be the aim of Russia to weaken England by making trouble for her on her Indian frontier. For the stress of the times, a man like Lord Mayo was necessary, and Lord Lytton was everything that Lord Mayo was not.