civilian may presume to judge, deserving of all praise. But the highest admiration is due to the marvellous tact which enabled him to induce the natives of the territories which he occupied to place themselves under his rule, and to assist him in restoring order. Other men went on zealously and well by the ordinary means; but in Munro we have a general who, insulated in an enemy's territory with no military means worth naming, subdues the country, drives out the enemy's army, and collects the revenue due to the enemy through the inhabitants themselves, aided by a few irregular infantry, whom he invites from the neighbouring provinces. Well might Sir John Malcolm exclaim—'We shall all recede as this extraordinary man comes forward!'

From the day when Munro thus turned the subjects of the Peshwah against their own master, down to the time when Herbert Edwardes and Lake bearded the powerful Chief of Mooltan with a rough levy of irregular soldiers, the influence of European energy and honesty over the Asiatic mind was never more signally displayed. Nor is this marvellous power, which the Englishman in India by force of character possesses, to be viewed merely as a subject of pride and self-gratulation. It is rather to be observed with humility, as an indication of the attitude which the Supreme Ruler of hearts is pleased to assign to the Christian governors of a heathen population. The Englishman in India is not taught by history either to caress or to coerce the Indian mind, but to rule by force of character, by firmness, by gentleness, and, above all, by justice.

In reviewing this period of Munro's career, there is one other observation to be made.

When hostilities with the Mahratta chief broke out, many officers, junior to him, were placed in command of

brigades before him; and when at last he was made a brigadier, a miserable force of a few Sepoys was placed under him. Instead of sulking or repining, Munro went hard to work at a seemingly hopeless task. So it happened that the apparent inferiority of his position became vantage-ground to the man who could do great things with humble means and appliances.

The wear and tear of this campaign told heavily on Munro. As before, when he could escape the turmoil of the camp, he sought a solace amidst the simple charms of nature.

'I wished much,' he writes to his wife, 'to have had you with me this morning in my walk. The weather is so cool, that I went out after breakfast, between ten and eleven, and strolled along the bank of a rocky nullah (stream) for an hour, often standing still for some minutes, looking at the water tumbling over the stones, and the green sod and bushes looking greener from a bright sun. There is nothing I enjoy so much as the sight and the sound of water gushing and murmuring among rocks and stones. I fancy I could look on the stream for ever: it never tires me. I never see a brawling rivulet in any part of the world, without thinking of the one I first saw in my earliest years, 'and wishing myself beside it again. There seems to be a kind of sympathy among them all. They have all the same sound; and in India and Scotland they resemble each other more than any other part of the landscape.'

To his sister Erskine he writes:-Though I have not written to you, I have, I believe, thought of you oftener than at any former period. The changes in my constitution make me naturally think oftener of home, where it would suffer less; and I certainly never think of home without remembering you, and wishing to

ramble with you among the banks at Ammondel, or any other banks you like. When I am once again fairly upon your favourite bridge, nothing shall ever tempt me to return to India.'

It was, then, to home and Scotland that Munro turned his thoughts as soon as the war was over; and on January 24, 1819, he sailed from India with his wife and child, with a firm determination to spend the remainder of his days amongst his own people and in his native country. His general health had not suffered so much as his eyesight.

As he wrote a few months before his departure to his friend Malcolm:- At the rate I am now going (i.e. going blind), in a few months more I shall not be able to tell a Dockan from a Breckan. Before this happens, I must go home and paddle in the burn. This is a much nicer way of passing the evening of life than going about the country here in my military boots and brigadier's enormous hat and feathers, frightening every cow and buffalo, shaking horribly its fearful nature, and making its tail stand on end!'

'Paddling in the burn' is no doubt a very pleasant and suitable employ for retired old Scotch-Indians in general; but Munro was wanted for something else.

Honours at last were showered upon him. In the course of a few months after his arrival in Scotland he was made a Major-General, received the insignia of Knight Commander of the Bath, and was appointed Governor of Madras. One sentiment of Sir Thomas Munro is enough to prove his fitness for the office, and might be written in letters of gold over every cutcherry* in: India

'We can never be qualified to govern men against whom we are prejudiced.'

* Court of civil or criminal justice, or revenue office.

Early in May 1820, Sir Thomas and Lady Munro arrived at Bombay, on a short visit to the Governor, Mr. Elphinstone, en route to their own presidency. They reached Madras on June 8; and Thomas Munro, the ragged and scantily-fed cadet of 1780, and the occupant of the hack-chaise' at a much later date, was conducted amidst the thunder of cannon and the shouts of the people to his palace in Government House.

Once again Munro commenced a series of peaceful conquests once again he threw himself, without ceremony and without reserve, amongst the people. To receive their petitions in the open air-to listen to their complaints, and, if possible, to settle their disputesthis was his daily work. At breakfast, according to a fashion prevailing at Madras, the table was spread for thirty persons; and any English officers who desired an interview with the Governor were expected to attend at the breakfast hour, and to partake of the meal. From about ten to four o'clock, none save the secretaries employed in transacting public business were admitted. At four, a quiet dinner, except on the days fixed for public banquets. The evening was spent in his family party; but time still economised, and the aides-de-camp desired to read aloud.

As often as he could escape from Madras, Munro, true to his former tastes, wandered through the country, leading on a grander scale the camp-life which he had always dearly loved as a subaltern. Wild scenes of mingled rocks and jungle, ancient trees, and flowing water, held their usual sway over him; and he described to Lady Munro, or his sister Erskine the one at Madras, and the other in Scotland-the woods and. waters through which his journeys passed. Sometimes

he found himself amidst ruins of the cantonments, which thirty-five years ago he had inhabited as a subaltern; sometimes he found populous stations, where, as a boy, he remembered only forests or bushy jungles. There was a tinge of melancholy, such as often besets over-worked minds, in his journals and letters at this period; and in 1823 the Governor became so weary of Indian life, that he earnestly requested the Court of Directors to appoint his successor. A twelvemonth passed over without any response to this application; and in the meantime the Burmese war broke out, and Sir Thomas was zealously engaged in carrying out operations, in close consultation with the Governor-General, Lord Amherst.

In 1826, Lady Munro was obliged to carry their youngest son from the climate of Madras, and her husband felt acutely the loss of both wife and child. The eldest had been left at home when Lady Munro came out the second time to Madras. Sir Thomas now applied more urgently than before to be relieved.

At last, when the Directors gave a tardy response, it was too late. In a journey to bid farewell to his native friends in the Ceded Districts, in the summer of 1827, Sir Thomas Munro was seized by cholera. His frame, enfeebled by forty-seven years of Indian service, could not withstand the malady; and amidst the sincere lamentations of Englishmen and natives, the Father of the People' went down to his grave.

One anecdote, related by Mr. Gleig, will suffice as well as a volume to tell of the veneration in which his name was held.

Captain Macleod, who commanded the escort, was seized by the fatal disease which had carried off his chief. As the hand of death was close upon him, he