vernors; the avoidance of ambitious views of
conquest, the preservation of peace, and the limitation of the aims of
the government to the encouragement and extension of commerce, were not
equally adhered to. Undoubtedly, in some instances, the wars in which,
even during Pitt's too short lifetime, the Indian government was
engaged, came under his description of wars which were justifiable on
the ground of self-defence--wars undertaken for the preservation of what
had been previously won or purchased, rather than for the acquisition of
new territories at the expense of chiefs who had given us no
provocation. But for others, though professedly undertaken with a view
only of anticipating hostile intentions, the development of which might
possibly be reserved for a distant future, it is not easy to find a
similar justification; and it may be feared that in more than one case
governors-general, conscious of great abilities, have been too much
inclined to adopt the pernicious maxim of Louis XIV., that the
aggrandizement and extension of his dominions is the noblest object
which a ruler of nations can have in view. Yet, though unable on
strictly moral grounds to justify all the warlike enterprises which make
up so large a part of our subsequent Indian history, it is impossible,
probably, for even the most rigid moralist to avoid some feelings of
national pride in the genius of our countrymen, who in the short space
of a single century have built up an empire of a magnitude unequalled
even by the Caesars, and have governed and still are governing it in so
wise and beneficent a spirit, and with such a display of administrative
capacity, that our rule is recognized as a blessing by the great
majority of the nations themselves, as a protection from ceaseless
intestine war, from rapine, and that worst of tyrannies, anarchy, which
was their normal condition before Clive established our supremacy at
Plassy, and into which they would surely and speedily fall back, if our
controlling authority were to be withdrawn.

India was not the only British settlement for which the growth of our
empire compelled Pitt to devise a constitution. The year which saw his
birth had also seen the conquest of Canada from the French; and in 1774
a system of government for the new province had been established which
it is sufficient here to describe as one, which differed but little from
a pure despotism, the administration being vested in a governor and
Leg