.

_September 23rd._--... It seems strange to think that this is one of
the last letters which you will receive from me in England, but yet it
is still a long time before I can hope to see you here. The poor boys!
You will be preparing to part from them, and all will be sad. Give
them my love and blessing.

[Sidenote: Business revived.]

In the month of November the sittings of the Legislative Council, which had
been suspended during the hot weather, were resumed, and the monotonous
routine of the autumn was exchanged for more active, though hardly more
laborious, work in maturing legislative measures. As President of this
Council Lord Elgin threw himself with his usual zeal and assiduity into the
discussion of the various administrative questions which demanded solution.

As the cold weather came on, he suffered much from the transition. Writing
on the 4th of November to Sir C. Wood, he says: 'At the commencement of the
cool season, on which we are now entering, we suffer from all manner of
minor ailments; so I hope you will excuse a short letter.' And again on the
9th: 'I am half blind and rather shaky from fever still, so that again I
shall be brief in my epistle to you.' Soon, however, these ailments
disappeared, and in the cooler temperature he regained to a great extent
his usual health.

[Sidenote: Arrival of Lady Elgin.]

A few weeks later the long dreary months of separation from all that he
most loved were happily ended by the arrival of Lady Elgin, who with his
youngest daughter, Lady Louisa Bruce, reached Calcutta on the 8th of
January 1863.

[Sidenote: State of India.]

In passing from the personal narrative of these months, to their public
history, it is necessary to bear in mind what was the state of the Indian
Empire at the moment when Lord Elgin undertook its government.

[Sidenote: Peace.]

'India,' to use his own words, 'was at peace; at peace in a sense of
the term more emphatic and comprehensive than it had ever before borne
in India. The occurrences which had taken place during the period of
Lord Dalhousie's government had established the prestige of the
British arms as against external foes. Lord Canning's Vice-royalty had
taught the same lesson to domestic enemies. No military operations of
magnitude were in progress, to call for prompt and vigorous action on
the part of the ruling authority, or to furnish matter for narrations