Pig-Sticking 9 



Company of Merchants in London " was formed, 

 with one hundred and twenty-five shareholders and 

 a capital of 70,000. 



Picture those early voyages, our fights with the 

 Dutch, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the French. 

 Recollect Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, Lord Wellesley, 

 and see at last the French completely defeated, the 

 Mogul Empire broken up, and the Hindu Confederacy 

 dissolved. We won India from the Hindus. Helping 

 the several princes against one another, they were 

 allowed to retain their titles only by acknowledging 

 our supremacy. Puppet emperors reigned at Delhi 

 until the Mutiny, when the last of the great Moguls 

 was, after his rebellion and defeat, removed as a State 

 prisoner to Rangoon, where he died. And thus, 

 through hundreds of years of struggle, a long chain 

 of events had led up to Englishmen wandering about 

 Akbar's Mosque, the Taj Mahal, and other memorials 

 of past glory, until three people from Warwickshire 

 were to be found sitting on the black marble slab 

 which had formed Akbar's seat in the Hall of Audience. 

 This far-famed throne is cracked across, and the 

 Musalman theory is that the Mogul stone, frozen with 

 horror, cracked at the thought of a Hindu sitting on 

 Akbar's throne. 



From Agra we journeyed to Buxar on purpose to see 

 a total eclipse of the sun, for which object astronomers 

 had come out from England with us ; indeed, half 

 India was there or thereabouts ; the Viceroy and 

 thousands of Europeans went ; Buxar station was 



