The Marquis of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria

LORD DALHOUSIE RESIGNS

Ootacamund, 14th March 1855.

The Governor-General presents his most humble duty to your Majesty; and in obedience to the command, which your Majesty was pleased to lay upon him, that he should keep your Majesty acquainted with the course of public events in India, he has the honour to inform your Majesty that he has now felt it to be his duty to request the President of the Board of Control to solicit for him your Majesty's permission to retire from the office of Governor-General of India about the close of the present year.

The Governor-General begs permission respectfully to represent, that in January next, he will have held his present office for eight years; that his health during the last few months has seriously failed him; and that although he believes that the invigorating air of these hills will enable him to discharge all his duties efficiently during this season, yet he is conscious that the effects of an Indian climate have laid such a hold upon him that by the close of the present year he will be wholly unfit any longer to serve your Majesty.

Lord Dalhousie, therefore, humbly trusts that your Majesty will graciously permit him to resign the great office which he holds before he ceases to command the strength which is needed to sustain it. He has the honour to subscribe himself, your Majesty's most obedient, most humble and devoted Subject and Servant,

Dalhousie.