Lord Minto was appointed Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William on this day.

Born in Edinburgh, he was first educated in Paris under the philosopher David Hume, after which he returned to England and studied law.

He entered Parliament in 1776 when he was 25, and in 1794 was appointed Governor of Corsica.

As Governor-General in India, he used the policy of non-intervention and avoided major wars.

He restrained the Pindari bandit leader Amir Khan.

In 1809, he signed the Treaty of Amritsar with Sikh leader Ranjit Singh of Punjab, which recognised the Sutlej river as the boundary between the Sikh state and the British territory in India.

He put an end to the Franco-Russian threat to India in 1810. He conquered the French islands in the Indian Ocean, Bourbon (now Réunion) and Mauritius, and Napoleon’s Dutch East Indies territories Amboina (Ambon) and the Spice Islands (Moluccas) in the same year. In 1811, he conquered the island of Java. He remained Governor-General till 1813, the year he was created Viscount Melgund and Earl of Minto.

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