Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/174

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166
LORD AMHERST

class of 1823 we find there were twenty students, among whom were John Russell Colvin and George Mertins Bird. To any one indeed who has had the good fortune to have worked in India these old Registers read like a family chronicle. Charles Trevelyan, then a freshman, got a prize in Sanskrit and Classics. The Military Seminary was even better stocked with Cadets.

The list of East India Company's ships of the season 1824-5 suggests many a vision of marine stateliness and grace. There were twenty-five of them sailing from Gravesend for St. Helena, Bencoolen, Bengal, Madras, Bombay and China ; and very strictly noted is the time when they were to sail to Gravesend and be in the Downs.

We must imagine that the voyage has been made and that some young writer—whose name will by-and-by be famous—finds himself in Chowringhee, on his way to pay his respects at Government House.

Lord Amherst, we know, is Governor-General. Sir Edward Paget is Commander-in-Chief and second in Council. John Adam, after his brief experience of the storms of supreme power, is one of the civilian members. John Fendall is another. This year, however, Adam is to sail for home, and rest. But he will never see the white cliffs of Dover again; and like many others of those who have made our Empire, the sea is to be his tomb. William Butterworth Bayley was Chief Secretary. George Swinton was secretary in the secret and political department. But we must