were distinguished as "political" subjects,--subjects, that is, for
the most part growing out of the relations of the said governments
with "native" states or foreign potentates. This continued to be his
business almost to the last. In 1828 he was promoted to be assistant
examiner, and in 1856 he succeeded to the post of chief examiner;
after which his duty consisted rather in supervising what his
assistants had written than in writing himself: but for the three and
twenty years preceding he had had immediate charge of the political
department, and had written almost every "political" despatch of any
importance that conveyed the instructions of the merchant princes of
Leadenhall Street to their pro-consuls in Asia. Of the quality of
these documents, it is sufficient to say, that they were John Mill's;
but, in respect to their quantity, it may be worth mentioning that a
descriptive catalogue of them completely fills a small quarto volume
of between three hundred and four hundred pages, in their author's
handwriting, which now lies before me; also that the share of the
Court of Directors in the correspondence between themselves and the
Indian governments used to average annually about ten huge
vellum-bound volumes, foolscap size, and five or six inches thick, and
that of these volumes two a year, for more than twenty years running,
were exclusively of Mill's composition; this, too, at times, when he
was engaged upon such voluntary work in addition as his "Logic" and
"Political Economy."

In 1857 broke out the Sepoy war, and in the following year the
East-India Company was extinguished in all but the name, its
governmental functions being transferred to the Crown. That most
illustrious of corporations died hard; and with what affectionate
loyalty Mill struggled to avert its fate is evidenced by the famous
Petition to Parliament which he drew up for his old masters, and which