who required, not councillors with whom to consult, but servants to carry out his orders. In one sense it was a misfortune for Lord Canning that immediately after his arrival he had to depend upon those servants for advice.
Amongst them, doubtless, were some very able men. The ablest of all, Mr John Peter Grant, was a member of his Council. Mr Grant was, in every sense of the term, a statesman. His views were large and liberal. He saw at a glance the point of a question. He decided quickly; unravelled, with remarkable clearness, the most knotty questions, and spoke out with the fearlessness which becomes a real man. If Mr Grant had had a larger personal experience of the people, he would have been one of the greatest of the civil servants of India. But his service had been mainly spent in close connection with Calcutta, and he had no personal knowledge of the country to the north-west of Patná, or of its people.
The military member of Council, General Low, was likewise a man of ability; but he had passed the greater part of his service as Political Agent or as Resident of native Courts. His experience of the native army was, therefore, somewhat rusty.
The legal member of Council, Mr Barnes Peacock, was remarkable for his sound legal acquirements, but he had no experience outside Calcutta.
Of the others, and of all the principal secretaries, it must suffice to state that they were excellent clerks; but not having been accustomed to act on their own initiative, having been accustomed to take their orders from the imperious lips of Lord Dalhousie, they were little fitted to act as councillors to a newly arrived master at a moment when the country was about to pass through
