roughout India. It is
by such measures that the respect and confidence of the great mass of
the people have been secured, so as to enable Europeans, male and
female, to pass from one end of the country to the other with the
assurance, not only that they will suffer no personal injury, but no
mark of disrespect. Should anything occur to deprive us of this
confidence and respect among the great mass of the people, the
recollection of our victories, and assurance of our superior military
organization will avail us but little; and it is as one who has
zealously and successfully aided Government in securing them, that I
now venture to address you, in the hope that you will--if you can do
so consistently with your public duties and pledges to others--open
to my son the same career of usefulness by conferring upon him a
nomination to the civil service of India. He is now five months above
seventeen years of age; and by the time he is eighteen, he will, I
hope, under Mr. Yeatman's judicious care, be able to pass his
examination for Haileybury, should he, through your means, obtain
this the utmost object of his ambition. Over and above the desire to
follow his father's footsteps in India, he is anxious to avoid the
necessity of encroaching so much upon the small means I have to
provide for his four sisters, by entering so expensive a branch of
the public service as the Dragoons. I know the great nature of the
favour I ask from you. It is the first favour that I have ever asked
from any member of the Home Government of India; and I solicit it
from you solely on the ground of service rendered to the Government
and people of India. I am told that I must address my application to
an individual; and I address it to you, under the impression that you
are the member with whom such ground is likely to meet with most
consideration;--not that I think any member of the Honourable Court
would disregard it; for I believe, after long and varied experience
in public affairs, and much thought and reading, that no body
intrusted with the Government of a distant possession ever performed
their duties with more earnest solicitude for its welfare than the
Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company; but because
your public career has inspired me with more confidence than that of
any other member of the Court as now constituted. If you cannot grant
me the favour I ask, you will, I know, pardon the liberty I have
taken in asking it.