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the same conclusion, I remained obdurate. I had no ears to hear, no eyes to see, what all others thought was the plainest truth. I saw with the eye of faith what seemed impossible to men of little faith.

I will now pass on from this self-introspection to the events of the year 1887, in which I had my part and share. The year was the year of the Queen's Jubilee and it was celebrated in Calcutta, which was then the Imperial capital, with befitting splendour and éclat. To these ceremonies I have referred in a preceding part of these reminiscences. We, who were working by slow and steady stages towards the evolution of self-government, took the fullest advantage of these celebrations to give an impetus to the move- ment, and we claim that we did not work in vain. For we obtained from the Viceroy (Lord Dufferin) a declaration (the full text of which I have given elsewhere) in favour of the reform and expansion of the Legislative Councils.

The Congress this year was held in Madras. We chartered a steamer from the British India Steam Navigation Company, and a large number of delegates from Calcutta proceeded to Madras. Among them were Sir Rash Behari Ghose and Raja Kissori Lal Gossain, who afterwards became the first member of the Executive Council of Bengal. The sea-trip was thoroughly enjoyed by us. Pleasure and business were combined; and the meeting of so many of us for several days talking of nothing else but the Congress, and the future of the Congress, and of the country, served to impart an added impetus to the infant movement. The representatives of the generation assembled on board that steamer, the pilgrim fathers bent upon an errand fraught with great potentialities, have nearly all passed away, but their spirit endures. Though the first flush of enthusiasm has died out (and to many it may seem that the Congress is now sailing over uncharted seas) the public conviction remains unabated, that the Congress must continue its work until India has achieved her destiny as a self-governing community.

Arrived at Madras, we were treated with a cordiality the memory of which still lingers and which has become the accepted tradition of all Reception Committees of the Congress. Day and night, the Congress Volunteers, young men of respectable families, following respectable callings, were in attendance, rejoicing in their self- imposed task. We formed friendships that have endured through life. Viraraghava Chariar, G. Subramanya Iyer, Ranga Naidu, Ananda Charlu, and others, almost too numerous to be named, became as dear to us as friends in Bengal. The social side of the