the home government, so often foiled in the attempt to
enforce a pacific and economical policy. His successor was Lord William
Bentinck, who had been compelled to retire from the governorship of
Madras after the mutiny of Vellore.

Like Hastings, Bentinck showed a firmness and wisdom in his Indian
administration strongly contrasting with the restless self-assertion of
his earlier career. His lot was cast in an interval of tranquillity
after a long period of warfare, and his name is associated with internal
reforms and social progress in India, not unconnected with a like
movement in England. The measure upon which his fame chiefly rests was
the abolition of "sati," that is, the practice of Hindoo widows
sacrificing themselves by being burned alive on the funeral pile of
their husbands. This practice, which specially prevailed in Bengal, has
been explained by a false interpretation of certain texts in sacred
books of the Hindus, by the selfish eagerness of the husband's family to
monopolise all his property, and by the utterly desolate condition of a
childless widow in native communities. At all events, it was deeply
rooted in Hindu traditions, and no previous governor had dared to go
beyond issuing regulations to secure that the widow should be a willing
victim. Bentinck had the courage to act on the conviction that
inhumanity, however consecrated by superstition and priestcraft, has no
permanent basis in popular sentiment. With the consent of his council,
he prohibited "sati" absolutely, declaring that all who took any part in
it should be held guilty of culpable homicide; and the native population
acquiesced in its suppression.

But this was only one of Bentinck's reforms. Armed with peremptory
instructions from the home government, he effected large retrenchments
in the growing expenditure of the Indian services, both civil and
military, and a considerable increase in the Indian revenue. It may be
doubted whether one of these retrenchments, involving a strict revision
of officers' allowances known as "batta," was considerable enough to be
worth the almost mutinous discontent which it provoked. Another,
affecting the salaries of civilians, was aggravated, in their eyes, by
the admission of natives to "primary jurisdiction," in other words, by
enabling native judges to sit in courts of first instance. This
important change had been gradually introduced before the arrival of
Bentinck, but it was he who most boldly ado