The conscience of British humanitarians of the early nineteenth century was troubled by many practices which they regarded as inhumane — none more so than the practice in India of suttee or the self-immolation of widows. The prevailing humanitarian drive for the abolition of suttee drew its strength from an alliance between evangelical and utilitarian propagandists who urged upon the British public a sense of responsibility for the welfare of their brethren across the sea. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, the efforts of these reformists were offset by what amounted to a determined indifference on the part of the East India Company to all aspects of Indian society. At the turn of the century the practice of suttee was well protected by the Company's policy of noninterference with native “religious usages and institutions” established in 1772. Governor-General Cornwallis refused to allow a Collector at Shahabad to dissuade a suttee victim. Yet his successors, Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings, pondered at considerable length the possibility of abolishing suttee. With the Regulations of 1813 the Supreme Government in Bengal began a consistent policy of prescribing strict limitations upon the practice of suttee. Although interpreted by some as official government approval of suttee, these regulations were continued sine die by the superior court in Calcutta. Encouraged in part by the example set by the Supreme Government, Governors Elphinstone and Malcolm in Bombay were less inclined than the Supreme Government itself to seem to interfere with native socio-religious custom, and therefore in western India toleration of suttee was more apparent than its restriction.