268 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
sympathies. The silence was broken only by an occasional article 
in the “ Edinburgh Review/ 5 or by replies to criticisms on one or 
other of his two great books. 
Changes now occurred. In 1856 he was made Examiner of 
Indian Correspondence, and thus placed at the head of the office 
in the India House, in which he had served for thirty-three years. 
In the following year the Government of India was transferred 
from the Company to the Crown ; after an unavailing remonstrance, 
drafted by Mr Mill, in the name of the Court of Directors, which 
was pronounced by Lord Grey the ablest State paper he had ever 
read. He afterwards declined an invitation by the present Lord 
Derby, then Indian Secretary, to form one of the newly-constituted 
Board of Indian Council. 
Mr Mill had arranged to spend the winter of 1858-59 — the first 
after his retirement from office — in the south of Europe. The death 
of his wife at Avignon, on their journey, frustrated his plans and 
hopes. The profound effect of this event upon his feelings is ex- 
pressed in the most touching sentences he ever wrote, and to which 
there are few parallels in literature. It induced him to settle as 
near as possible to the place where she was buried. It thus 
became his habit to spend a great part of each year in his cottage 
at Avignon. 
He soon reappeared as an author. His essay on “ Liberty 55 was 
published in 1859. It had been planned and written as a short 
paper in 1854. It was in mounting the steps of the Capitol in the 
following year that the thought suggested itself of converting it 
into a volume. The essay is a vindication of the importance to 
society, and for the discovery of truth, of giving men full freedom 
to expand themselves in opposite and even conflicting directions, 
limited only by the prevention of injury to others. This little 
volume may be supposed to have had no inconsiderable effect in 
promoting that toleration for the free expression of opinion, 
even regarding beliefs longest reverenced, which, compared with 
the past, is a remarkable characteristic of this generation in Great 
Britain. 
In the same year Mr Mill republished, in a collected form, in 
two volumes, under the title of “ Dissertations and Discussions,” 
articles formerly contributed to the “ London/ 5 “ London and West- 
