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to the detriment of the country, and greatly increase the sufferings of an overburdened people, is not to be doubted. That Metcalfe, in endeavoring to extricate the Nizam's Government from a connexion which he knew to be destructive of its best interests, was compelled painfully to wrestle down. his personal feelings and to do his duty as a public servant at the sacrifice of long-standing private friendships, and of the ease and comfort of his life, gaining nothing in exchange but the ennobling consciousness of rectitude, I think has been amply demonstrated. Whether the Hyderabad Bankers did or did not transgress commercial morality as it is understood in India-whether they were worse or better than other money-lenders it is not my business more particularly to inquire. The transaction was an immense one, and it became notorious. Neither its immensity nor its notoriety affect its real character; but they bring it within the legitimate domain of History and render it amenable to public inquiry. With the ordinary gains, however unhallowed, of a house of business, Metcalfe had nothing to do; the commercial morality of its partners was nothing to him. But when he found that their transactions with the Nizam's Government were not only embarrassing the state and impoverishing the people, but gradually erecting the partnership into a great political institution more influential than the British representative at the Court of Hyderabad-when he found, indeed, that William Palmer and Co. were gradually absorbing the revenues and usurping the Government of the

country-it became a duty, greater than any other, to sever the connexion between them, and to rescue the Nizam from the gripe of a creditor so exacting and so oppressive. He did it. And it cost him much to do it. But "the evil tongues and rash judgments" which assailed him, he lived down; and it was not one of the least of his consolations in after days to know, that the example of fearlessness and disinterestedness set by the Hyderabad Resident was not lost upon the younger members of the profession he adorned. It did much, indeed, to stimulate the progressive reform which has brought the Indian Civil Service to its present high state of moral discipline and efficiency.

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CHAPTER III.

[1823-1825.]

LEAVING HYDERABAD.

Illness of Charles Metcalfe-Death of his Brother-Correspondence with Dr. Goodall-Visit to Calcutta-Dr. Nicolson-Return_to HyderabadImprovements in the Deccan-Invitation to Return to Delhi-Letters of Lord Amherst and Mr. Swinton.

IN the autumn of 1823 the friends and correspondents of Charles Metcalfe-both those who wrote to him publicly and privately on grave affairs of State, and those who addressed him only in the language of personal affection-were disquieted and alarmed by a suspension of those communications from Hyderabad which had before been received with such unbroken regularity. They could not account for his long silence. Some there were who thought that they had offended him, and wrote warm-hearted letters to ask what they had done to incur his displeasure. But after a while there came tidings to Calcutta that sickness had fallen upon the Hyderabad Resident. His wontedly strong health had yielded at last to a distressing malady; and in the midst of the physical sufferings he had endured, he had been unable to write to his friends.

Early in this year he had received the melancholy tidings of the death of his brother Theophilus. The Baronet had gone to England in failing health, but with the intent of returning again to China. His constitution, however, was irremediably broken down, and neither the climate of his native country nor the medical science of the western world could stay the inroads of fatal disease. For some time he resided in Wimpole-street, but the excitement of London life was considered prejudicial to him, and he retired to the pleasant quietude of his paternal estate at Fern Hill. But the mortal malady which was destroying him had made such progress as no human means could resist; and on the 14th of August, surrounded by all the female members of his family, he resigned himself into the hands of his God.

By Charles Metcalfe this blow was severely felt. It came upon him, too, at a time when the painful contentions of which I have spoken in the last chapter were at their height-when he was harassed and depressed, and little in a condition to bear the imposition of new burdens. To his brother he was, indeed, tenderly attached. The severance of other links which had bound him to his home had strengthened these fraternal ties. After the death of their parents, Theophilus had often written to his brother about those pleasant days to come, when, both settled in England after years of wellrequited toil, they might share the old family mansion in Portland-place, and visit each other at their country seats. And now these bright day-dreams, like

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others which had gone before them, were displaced by a sombre, cheerless reality. And people, when they addressed Charles Metcalfe, wrote Sir before his name.*

And many letters with this superscription poured in to remind him of his sorrow-to remind him, but not ungratefully, of the change that had taken place; for they were letters of kindest condolence. Few men had so many friends as Charles Metcalfe; and as he sympathised from his inmost heart in all their sorrows, so their sympathy with him was genuine, now that he in turn was afflicted. If anything could have lightened the burden which oppressed him, some relief would have been found in all these demonstrations of ardent friendship.

Among other letters of condolence which he received at this time was one from his old friend and tutor, Dr. Goodall, now Provost of Eton. They had corresponded at intervals for nearly a quarter of a century, and had lost none of their pristine interest in each other. Both Metcalfe major and Metcalfe minor had been among Goodall's most favorite pupils. Their portraits graced the walls of that wonderful room in Goodall's cloistered home where many a privileged young Etonian has marvelled over the contents of the good doctor's curious museum. He had sate beside the sick-bed of the

The second baronet left one daughter, subsequently married to Sir Hesketh Fleetwood.

† 1 find a pleasant allusion to this circumstance in one of Dr. Goodall's letters, written a few months before Theophilus Metcalfe's death. Speak

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ing of an "Oriental matchlock” which Charles had sent him, the worthy doctor says: "It at present acts as a kind of hyphen, connecting the lower extremities of two portraitsone of his Excellency residing at Hyderabad, the other of the Prince of