ring energy and skilful
measures were prime factors in the successful defence. After the war
he did great things for the development of Madras; and when he
resigned office at the age of forty-five and went to England, the
strenuous upholder of British honour in the East was rewarded with an
Irish peerage. Well would it have been for Lord Pigot if he had
settled down for good on his Irish estate! But twelve years later he
accepted the offer of a second term of office as Governor of Madras.
It is not infrequently the case that a man who has been eminently
successful in office at one time of his career fails badly if after a
long interval he accepts the same office again. Times have altered and
methods that were successful before are now out of date. In Lord
Pigot's case the conditions at the time of his second appointment were
very different from those at the time of the first. On the first
occasion he had risen to office with colleagues who had been his
companions in the service. On the second occasion he was sent out to
Madras as an elderly nobleman selected for the job, and as a stranger
to his colleagues, who moreover were particularly given to factious
disputes. It is not unlikely too that Lord Pigot himself had become
touchy and overbearing in his declining years. Any way, he quarrelled
with his Councillors almost immediately, and within six or seven
months there had been some very angry scenes. He had been accustomed
to being obeyed, and in his wrath at being obstinately resisted he
went to the length of ordering the arrest not only of some of the
leading members of Council but also of the Commander-in-Chief. The
Councillors check-mated the Governor's order by arresting the
Governor! It was a daring proceeding. He was arrested one night after
dark, while driving along a suburban road on his imagined way to a
friendly supper, and he was sent as a prisoner to a house at St.
Thomas's Mount. He was in captivity for some nine months, while the
triumphant Councillors were representing their case to the Directors
in England; and then he died, in Government House, Madras, to which
when he fell ill he had been transferred. It is on record that his
remains were specially honoured with burial within St. Mary's
Church--the first burial within the building--but no permanent
memorial was raised to the unhappy Governor's memory; and the
particular spot where he was buried is only a matter of conjecture.

St. Mary's Church is les