ABSTRACT
The dominant figure at the India House was Charles Grant. Viscount Castlereagh abolished the Bengal, Madras and Bombay divisions and replaced them by five departments, Secret and Political, Eevenue and Judicial, Military, Public and Commercial, Financial, roughly corresponding to the branches of the governments in India, and to the departments at the India House. Meanwhile it was becoming increasingly evident to Dundas that the India House, whether through insufficient staff or through the delay caused by the Directors' quarrels, was becoming choked with work. Despite Dundas's anxiety to reduce the arrears, Grant—one of whose major faults as he grew older was that of procrastination—long hesitated to reorganise the office establishment at the India House. In the meantime, the squabbles in the India House over the question of the responsibility of the Christian missionaries for the mutiny at Vellore, had died down, and in July 1809, Grant thought he might safely venture to demand a reconsideration of the question.
