Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s8.6

v4.c56.s8.6

The moral effect of this transfer was even greater than its military gain. In this Ceded Province—the germ of the N.W.P. and U.P. of later times—the Indian world was given an unmistakable object-lesson of the superiority of British administration and the immense increase of the people’s prosperity by the change from indigenous rule to English government. A most efficient system of administration was set up in this Ceded Province, and it worked wonders in the year and a half that intervened before the outbreak of the war. The first Lieutenant Governor, Henry Wellesley, was a political genius like his two brothers, Marquess Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington, and he worked with unfettered powers and liberal financial support. Under him was placed a band of 23 British covenanted civil servants, picked up for their ability and knowledge of oriental languages, and they worked with the greatest zeal and success under their chief's active leadership and sympathetic support.*