PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE

RELATING TO THE ANNEXATION OF THE KINGDOM OF OUDE TO BRITISH INDIA.

Camp, Nawabgunge, 5th December, 1849.

My Dear Bird,

I had heard from Mahomed Khan what you mention regarding the imposition practised on the King by the singers; but from his having conferred a khilaut on the knaves, they supposed that he had, as usual, pardoned all. If you have grounds to believe that the King is prepared to punish them, or to acquiesce in their punishment, pray ask an audience and ascertain his Majesty's wishes. When we last went, I was in hopes that he would tell me that he wished to be relieved of their presence, and did all I could to encourage him to do so. If the King wishes to have them removed, encourage him to give immediate orders to the minister to confine them; and offer any assistance that may be required to take them across the Ganges, or put them into safe custody. When it is done, it must be done promptly.

As to the Taj Mahal, I went on an order by Richmond, "that the King should put a Mahaldarnee upon her if he wished." I was told that such was Richmond's order, and I give mine in consequence. I will refer to the Dufter for his order. But you must at once insist upon all sipahees being withdrawn from her house. This order was given by me and should be enforced by you. I said that the Mahaldarnee might remain, but it must be alone, without sipahees, &c.

On emergency, act of course on your own discretion I only wish that the King may be induced to consent to the removal of all the singers, and meddling eunuchs also.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Captain Bird, First Assistant.

Sadik Allee should be secured, and punished with the rest.

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

Camp, Bahraetch, 10th December, 1849.

My Dear Bird,

The conduct of the singers which exasperated the King had no reference to public matters with which he was pledged not to permit them to interfere; and my only request was, that you should offer your aid in removing them should his Majesty indicate any wish for it. The King said he would himself punish them for their conduct by banishment across the Ganges, and he must be left to do so: it was not from any demand made by us, but from resentment for a personal affront, or an affront to his understanding. We cannot call upon the King to do what he said he would do under such circumstances, but must leave it to himself. The removal of two out of a dozen fellows of this description will be of no use—their places will soon be filled by others. Any attempt on your part to supply their places by better men will only tend to indispose the King towards them; and it is no part of our duty to dictate to his Majesty with whom he shall associate in his private hours.

I have had abundant proof that, to reduce the influence of the present favourites, has no tendency to throw the power into better hands—no authority of any kind taken from them has, by the minister, been confided to better men; the creatures of one are not a whit better than the creatures of the other. If his Majesty were to rouse himself, and apply his own mind to business, we might hope for some good, and I see little chance of this.

You are not to order that the King fulfil his promise, because, as I have said, it was no pledge made on the requisition of our Government on the Resident. If he does not fulfil it, it is only one proof more added to a hundred of his exceeding weakness. There are at least a dozen worse men now influencing all that the King and minister do than Kotab Alee and Gholam Ruza. The last order given regarding Taj Mahal by me was, that she should admit a Mahaldarnee from the King, but that no sipahees should be forced upon her. I wrote to the King to this effect, and my order must be enforced. I am told by the moonshee, that when the King expressed a wish to have such guardians upon many, Richmond replied that he might have one upon Taj Mahal, who had given such proof of profligacy. It was not a judicial decision, to be referred to as a guide under all circumstances, but a mere arrangement which might any day require to be altered. Taj Mahal is so profligate and insolent a woman, that if she refuses to obey my order, and receive the King's Mahaldarnee, I shall withdraw the Residents.

After what the Governor-General had told the King in November, 1847, regarding what our Government would feel itself bound to do, unless his Majesty conducted the duties of a sovereign better than he had hitherto done; and after the experience we have since had of his entire neglect of those duties, you should not, I think, have said what you mention having said to him, that our Government had no wish to deprive him of one iota of the power he had. It was a declaration not called for by the circumstances, or necessary on the occasion, and should have been avoided, as it is calculated to impair the impression of his responsibility for the exercise of his power. No sovereign ever showed a greater disregard for the duties and responsibilities of his high office than he has done hitherto, and as our Government holds itself answerable to the people of Oude for a better administration, he should not be encouraged in the notion that he may always show the same disregard with impunity—that is, continue to retain every iota of his power whether he exercised it properly or not. No man, I believe, ever felt more anxious for the welfare of the King, his family, and country, than I do; but unless he exercises his fearful power better, I should be glad, for the sake of all, to see the whole, or part of it, in better hands.

The minister has his Motroussil with me, and I have daily communications of what is done or proposed to be done, and you may be sure that I lose no occasion of admonition. I did not mention anything you said regarding your interview with the King in your letter to Mahomed Khan; but in a few hours after your letter came he got the whole from the minister, and reported it to me. He wants us to undertake the work of turning out the King's favourites, that he may get all the power they lose, without offending his master by any appearance of moving in the matter.

We go hence to-morrow; hope to be at Gonda on the 14th, and Fyzabad on the 18th. I have requested the post-master to send all our letters to Fyzabad by the regular dawk from Thursday next, the 13th. From Fyzabad I will arrange for their coming to my camp.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Captain Bird, &c. &c.

Camp, Ghunghole, 12th December, 1849.

My Dear Bird,

I got your letter of the 9th instant last night, at our last ground. In what you have done, you have not, I think, acted discreetly. You asked me whether, in any case of emergency, you should act on your discretion, and I told you in reply that you might do so; but surely, whether the King should have a dozen singers or only ten could not be considered one of such pressing emergency as not to admit of your waiting for instructions from me, or, at least, for a reply to your letter. The King has told you truly, that the matter in which the offenders had transgressed had reference to his house, and not to his Government or ours. This is a distinction which you appear to have lost sight of from the first. If I demand reparation from another for wrong or insults suffered from his servants, and he promises to punish them by dismissal from his service but afterwards relents and detains them, I consider it due to myself and my character to insist upon the fulfilment of his promise; but if I voluntarily visit any friend who has at last become sensible of the impositions of his servants which had long been manifest to all his neighbours, with a view to encourage him in his laudable resolution to dismiss them from his service, and to offer my aid in effecting the object should he require it, and he promises me not to swerve from it, but afterwards relents and retains the impostors, I pity his weakness, but I do not consider it due to myself, or to my character, to insist upon his fulfilling his promise. By considering two cases so very distinct, the same, you have placed yourself in a disagreeable situation, for I cannot support you; that is, I can neither demand that the requisitions made by you be complied with, nor can I tell the King that I approve of them. Had you waited for my reply, which was sent off from Bahraetch on the 10th, you would have saved yourself all this annoyance and mortification. It has arisen from an overweening confidence in your personal influence over his Majesty; the fact is, I believe that no European gentleman ever has had or ever will have any personal influence over him, and I very much doubt whether any real native gentleman will ever have any. He never has felt any pleasure in their society, and I fear never will. He has hitherto felt easy only in the society of such persons as those with whom he now exclusively associates, and to hope that he will ever feel easy with persons of a better class is vain. I am perfectly satisfied, in spite of the oath he has taken in the name of his God, and on the head of his minister, that he made to you the promise you mention; and I am no less satisfied that the minister wished for the removal of the singers, provided it should be effected through us without his appearing to his master to move in the matter, and that he wished their removal solely with a view to acquire for himself the authority they had possessed. You should not have any more audiences with the King without previous reference to me; nothing is likely to occur to require it.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Captain Bird, &c. &c.

Camp, Fyzabad, 18th December, 1819.

My Dear Bird,

I send you the letter which you wish to refer to. As you quote my first letter, pray let me see it. I kept no copy, but have a distinct recollection of what I intended to say in it regarding this affair of the singers. It shall be sent back to you. The term "indiscreet" had reference only to your second visit, and demand from the King of the fulfilment of his promise. I had no fault whatever to find with your first visit. The term "private" must have had reference, not to the promise or to the person to whom it was made, but to the offence with which the singers stood charged. It was an affront offered to the King's understanding that he took affront at, and whether he had made a promise to resent it as such to me, or to you could make no difference. If he did not fulfil it, we should pity this further instance of his weakness, but could have no right to insist upon his doing so. Even had the offence been an interference in public affairs, and breach of the King's engagements, I should not have demanded their banishment without a reference to the Governor-General, because the delay of waiting for instructions involved no danger or serious inconvenience; that is, I should not have demanded it when the King was so strongly opposed to it. I must distinctly deny that you demanded the King's fulfilment of his promise in conformity to any instructions received from me, or in accordance with my views of what was right or expedient in this matter. Your second visit and demand were neither in conformity to the one nor in accordance with the other. You must have put a construction upon what I wrote which it cannot fairly bear. By "requisitions" I mean your requirements that the two men should be banished by the King, according to his promise. No notice has been made to me of your visit by the Court, and I have therefore had no occasion to say anything whatever about it in my communications to the Court, nor shall I have any I suppose. In your letter of the 4th instant, you say, with regard to the Taj Mahal's case, "Not knowing whether you do or do not wish me to act in any sudden emergency during your absence, I suppose, therefore, that had you had any such wish you would have instructed me on the subject." In reply, I requested that you would so act on your own discretion in any such sudden case of emergency.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Captain Bird, &c. &c.

Camp, Mahomdee, 2nd February, 1850.

My Dear Sir Erskine,

Had it not been too late for you to join my camp conveniently, I should have asked you to run out and see a little of the country and people of Oude, after you had seen so much of those of the Honourable Company's dominions. A few years of tolerable government would make it the finest country in India, for there is no part of India with so many advantages from nature. I have seen no soil finer; the whole plain of which it is composed is capable of tillage; it is everywhere intersected by rivers, flowing from the snowy chain of the Himmalaya, which keep the moisture near the surface at all times, without cutting up any of the land on their borders into deep ravines; it is studded with the finest groves and single trees, as much as the lover of the picturesque could wish; it has the boldest and most industrious peasantry in India, and a landed aristocracy too strong for the weak and wretched Government; it is, for the most part, well cultivated; yet with all this, one feels, in travelling over it, as if he was moving among a people suffering under incurable physical diseases, from the atrocious crimes every day perpetrated with impunity, and the numbers of suffering and innocent people who approach him, in the hope of redress, and are sent away in despair.

I think your conclusion regarding the source of the signs you saw of beneficial interference in the north-west provinces a fair one. A Lieutenant-Governor is able to see all parts of the country under his charge every year, or nearly all; and while he is sufficiently "monarch of all he surveys" to feel an interest in, and to provide for the general good, he has a sufficient knowledge of the internal management of particular districts to control the proceedings of the local officers. He is also well seconded in a very efficient Board of Revenue. But I must not indulge in these matters any further, till I have the pleasure of meeting you where we can talk freely about them.

I trust that all at Lucknow will be conducted to your satisfaction and that of Mrs. Erskine. I have this morning received a note from Mr. Erskine, who left you, it appears, before the little heir-apparent returned your visit. I expect to complete my tour and return to Lucknow on the 20th, when I shall have seen all that I required to see, to understand the working of the existing system, and the probable effects of any suggested changes.

With kind regards to Mrs. Erskine,

Believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir Erskine Perry.

P.S.—I must not omit to thank you for the expression of your favourable opinion of the "Rambles." There is one thing of which I can assure you, that the conversations mentioned in it are genuine, and give the real thoughts and opinions of the people on the subjects they embrace.

W. H. S.

Lucknow, 26th April, 1850.

My Dear Elliot,

I did not send Weston's letters with the other papers, because they were not written in an official form. He was the senior officer with the force, and had authority from the Durbar to call upon all local, civil, and military authorities to co-operate in the work; but he did not take upon himself the command, or write in official form. He inspired all with harmony and energy, and brought the whole strength of the little force to bear upon the right points at the right time.

The head of Prethee Put of Paska was cut off by Captain Magness's sipahees after his death, to be sent to the King as a trophy, but Captain Weston would not let it come in. The body was offered to his family and friends for interment, but none of the family or tribe (Kolhun's Rajpoots) would have anything to do with the funeral ceremonies of a man who had murdered his eldest brother and the head of his tribe. The body was, with the head, put into a sheet, taken to the river Ghagra, and committed to the stream, to flow to the Ganges, as the best interment for a Hindoo. These sipahees knew nothing of the man's history; but the people who saw the affair from the Dhundee Fort mentioned that the body was thrown into the river at the precise place where he had thrown in that of his eldest brother, after murdering him in the boat with his own hands, as stated in the extract from my Diary; and all believe that this retribution arises from an interposition from above. The eldest son of the murdered brother will, I hope, be put into possession of the estate.

The Governor-General may like to peruse these letters, and I send them. They give, perhaps, a fuller and better account of what was done, and the manner in which it was done, than more studied compositions, in an official form, would have given.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir H. M. Elliot, K.C.B.

Lucknow, 8th July, 1850.

My Dear Sir James,

I feel that my Indian career, which has now lasted forty years, must be drawing to a close, and I am anxious for the settlement in life of my only son, now between seventeen and eighteen years of age. Having no personal claims upon any member of the Home Government of India, I solicit the insertion of his name on his Grace the Duke of Wellington's list of candidates for a commission in the Dragoons; and he is now preparing for his examination under the care of Mr. Yeatman, at Westow Hill, Norwood, Surrey, near London. But he is ambitious to obtain an appointment to Bengal, where his father has served so long, and may, possibly, have friends and recollections that might be useful to him in the early part of his career. It falls to the lot of few to have the opportunities that I have had to carry out the benevolent views of Government in measures of great and general benefit to the people, and to secure their gratitude and affection to their rulers. All the measures which I have been employed to carry out have tended to display the benevolent solicitude of the Government of India for the welfare of the people committed to its charge; the object of all has been the greater security of life and property throughout the country, the greater confidence of the people in the wisdom and efficiency of our rule, and their greater feeling of interest in this stability. These measures, as far as they have been confided to my care, have all succeeded; but, as I have stated (p. 79) in a printed report, a copy of which will be sent to you, they have neither flattered the vainglory of any particular nation, nor enlisted on their side the self-love of any influential class or powerful individual, and they have, in consequence, been attended with little éclat. They have, however, tended to secure to the Government the gratitude and affection of the people of India, and are measures of which that Government may justly feel proud. The stability of our Government in India must depend less upon our military victories than upon the confidence and affection with which our civil and political administration may inspire the great mass of the people. The general belief is, that our object is their substantial good, and that we are instruments in the hands of Divine Providence to effect that object. In our military glory they can feel no sympathy, and in our territorial acquisitions little interest; but they can and do appreciate every measure which tends to improve the security of life, property, and industry through the land—to restore the bond of good feeling between the Government and governed, where it has for a time been severed or impaired by accident—to provide the people with works tending to improve their comfort and convenience—to mitigate sufferings from calamities of season, and to encourage all to exert themselves honestly in their proper sphere. In carrying out the views of Government in such measures, and such only, has my life in India been spent; and for doing so to the best of my humble ability I have, I believe, done much to make its rule revered throughout India. It is by such measures that the respect and confidence of the great mass of the people have been secured, so as to enable Europeans, male and female, to pass from one end of the country to the other with the assurance, not only that they will suffer no personal injury, but no mark of disrespect. Should anything occur to deprive us of this confidence and respect among the great mass of the people, the recollection of our victories, and assurance of our superior military organization will avail us but little; and it is as one who has zealously and successfully aided Government in securing them, that I now venture to address you, in the hope that you will—if you can do so consistently with your public duties and pledges to others—open to my son the same career of usefulness by conferring upon him a nomination to the civil service of India. He is now five months above seventeen years of age; and by the time he is eighteen, he will, I hope, under Mr. Yeatman's judicious care, be able to pass his examination for Haileybury, should he, through your means, obtain this the utmost object of his ambition. Over and above the desire to follow his father's footsteps in India, he is anxious to avoid the necessity of encroaching so much upon the small means I have to provide for his four sisters, by entering so expensive a branch of the public service as the Dragoons. I know the great nature of the favour I ask from you. It is the first favour that I have ever asked from any member of the Home Government of India; and I solicit it from you solely on the ground of service rendered to the Government and people of India. I am told that I must address my application to an individual; and I address it to you, under the impression that you are the member with whom such ground is likely to meet with most consideration;— not that I think any member of the Honourable Court would disregard it; for I believe, after long and varied experience in public affairs, and much thought and reading, that no body intrusted with the Government of a distant possession ever performed their duties with more earnest solicitude for its welfare than the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company; but because your public career has inspired me with more confidence than that of any other member of the Court as now constituted. If you cannot grant me the favour I ask, you will, I know, pardon the liberty I have taken in asking it.

And believe me, with great respect,

Yours faithfully,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.

Lucknow, 20th September, 1850.

My Dear Sir Charles,

The papers give us reason to hope that it is your intention to visit Lucknow on your way down from the hills, and if you can make it convenient to come, I shall be rejoiced to have the opportunity of showing you all that is worth seeing, and be able to afford all who come with you, ladies and gentlemen, accommodation.

The only road to Lucknow for carriages is from Cawnpore, and if you come that way, I will have carriages sent for you. If you come by any other road, I will have elephants sent to whatever place you may mention, and tents if required. It has been usual, when the Commander-in-chief visits Lucknow, for Government to intimate the intention to the King through the Resident in Oude, that preparation may be made for his reception in due form.

I mention this that you may make known your wish or intention to the Governor-General, in time for me to prepare the King and his Court.

From Cawnpore to this is only a drive of six hours, the distance being fifty miles, and the road good. All officers, &c., will be glad to have an opportunity of paying their respects to their distinguished Chief.

Believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To his Excellency Sir Charles Napier, G.C.B., &c. &c. &c.

Lucknow, 7th November, 1850.

My Dear Allan,

In the "Englishman" of the 28th, and the "Hurkara" of the 29th, there are some strictures on Oude affairs. The editors of both papers are, I believe, sturdy, honest men; but their correspondents are not acquainted with the merits of the particular case referred to, or with Oude affairs generally. I vouch for the truth of everything stated in the enclosed paper, and shall feel obliged if you will give it to the one most likely, in your opinion, to make a fair use of it. There can be no harm in putting an editor in possession of the real truth in a question involving not only individual but national honour; for he must be anxious to make his paper the vehicle of truth on all such questions.

I do not like to address either of the editors, because Government expect all their servants will abstain from doing so in their own vindication, and will leave their honour in their keeping. I have done so since 1843, and should now do so were I alone concerned in this affair. You may mention my name as authority for what is stated, but pray let it be mentioned confidentially. Government has been informed of the truth, and it is well that the public should be so.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN

To J. Allan, Esq.

Lucknow, 17th November, 1850.

My Dear Sir James,

I thank you for your very kind letter of the 7th ultimo: my son is preparing for his examination, and expects his commission in some regiment of cavalry very soon. He has not only become reconciled to it, but would, I believe, now prefer remaining at home as a cavalry officer to coming to India in any capacity. As I have only one son, and he has four sisters to look after, I should be unwilling to have him sent out to India as a cadet, were he anxious to be so. A good regiment is an excellent school for a young man, but no school could be worse than a bad regiment; and among so many, there must always be some bad. I have seen some of the sons of my old friends utterly ruined in character and constitution by being posted to such regiments when too young to think for themselves. I feel, however, as grateful to you for your very kind offer as I should be, were I to avail myself of it.

If I return to England, I shall take advantage of the earliest opportunity to pay my respects and become personally acquainted with you; but I have no intention to leave India as long as I feel that I can perform efficiently the duties intrusted to me.

I had a few days ago, in referring to Government an important question that must some day come before you, occasion to mention an important and interesting fact. During the last collision with the Seiks, I found that the Government securities kept up their value here, while in Calcutta they fell a good deal; and the merchants here employed agents in Calcutta to purchase largely for sale here. Paper to the value of more than three millions sterling, or three crores of rupees, is held by people residing in the city of Lucknow, and the people had never the slightest doubt that we should be ultimately triumphant. The question was whether heirs and executors of persons domiciled here and leaving property in Government securities, should apply to Her Majesty's Supreme Court in Calcutta, for probates to wills and letters of administration, or whether an act should be passed to render the decision of the highest Court at Lucknow, countersigned, by the Resident, as valid as the certificate of a judge in our own provinces, as far as such property in Government securities might be concerned. A provision of this sort had been omitted in Act 20 of 1841, which was considered applicable to all British India, of which the kingdom of Oude was held to form a part.

We have now a fair prospect of long peace, during which I hope our finances will improve. The lavish life-pensions granted after wars in Central and Southern India will be lapsing with the death of the present incumbents, many of whom are becoming old and infirm, and our means of transit and irrigation will increase with the new works which are being formed, and we shall always have it in our power to augment our revenue from indirect taxation, as wealth and industry increase.

Believe me, My Dear Sir James,

Very faithfully and obligedly yours,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.

Lucknow, 2nd March, 1851.

My Lord,

The mail of the 24th January has just come in, and I find my only son Henry Arthur gazetted for the 16th Dragoons. He told me by the last mail that he was to be so if he passed his examination on the 10th of that month, which he hoped to do; but I deferred writing to thank you for your kind exertions in his behalf till his name should appear in the "Gazette." I pray your Lordship to accept my most grateful acknowledgments for this act of kindness, added as it has been to the many others which I have received at your hands. It is not the less valuable that it is the only favour I have received from England since I left it more than forty years ago, though, I believe, few have done more to benefit the people of its eastern dominions, and to secure for it their esteem and affection.

I trust that my son will never do anything to make your Lordship regret the favour conferred upon me and him on this occasion. He is, I believe, in disposition, manners, and education a little gentleman; and in time he will, I hope, become a good officer.

If I might take the liberty, I would pray your Lordship to offer, in such terms as may appear to you suitable, my grateful acknowledgments for the consideration I have received, to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, and to Lord Fitzroy Somerset. My London Agents, Messrs. Denay, Clark, and Co., of Austin Friars, have been instructed to pay for my son's commission and outfit, and to provide him with the funds indispensably necessary in addition to his pay.

We shall now look with much interest to the Parliamentary discussions on Indian affairs, for we must expect some important changes on the renewal of the Charter. Whatever these changes may be for the home or local Government, I trust the benefit of the people of India will be considered the main point, and not the triumph of a party. The statesman who shall link India more closely with New Zealand will be a benefactor to both England and India, and that colony also. It might, with advantage to itself, take those children of Indian officers who cannot find employment of any kind in India, and ought not to be thrown back upon the mother-country. With this view, it might be useful to transfer our orphan institutions to that island, to direct that way our invalid and pensioned officers, who, while subsisting upon their pensions or stipends, would be able to establish their children in a climate suitable to the preservation of their race, which that of India certainly is not.

India is at present tranquil, and likely to remain so. We have no native chiefs, or combination of native chiefs, to create uneasiness; and if we continue to satisfy the great body of the people that we are anxious, to the best of our ability, to promote their happiness and welfare, and are the most impartial arbitrators that they could have, we shall have nothing to fear. The moment that this mass is impressed with the belief that we wish to govern India only for ourselves, or as the French govern Algiers, from that moment we must lose our vantage ground and decline. We may war against the native chiefs of India, but we cannot war against the people—we need not fear what may be called political dangers, but we must guard carefully against those of a social character which would unite against us the members of all classes and all creeds.

But I must no longer indulge in speculations of this sort, in which you can now feel little interest amidst the important changes which are now taking place in the institutions and relations of European nations. With grateful recollections of kindness received, and great respect,

I remain,

Your Lordship's obedient servant,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Right Hon. the Earl of Ellenborough.

P.S.—Since writing the above, I have received your Lordship's letter of the 18th of January, and have been much gratified with the favourable opinion you entertain of the commandant and officers. It is the best assurance I could have of my boy being safe. Nothing could be more auspicious than the opening of the lad's career, and I trust he will profit by the advantage.

Lucknow, 18th March, 1851.

My Dear Sir Erskine,

I have read over with much interest the two small works you have done me the favour to send me, the one on Buddhism, and the other on Law Reform; but I have not ventured upon the Seventh Report of the Board of Education yet, because I have had a good deal to do and think about; and a good deal of it is in small print, very trying for my eyes, which are none of the strongest. I shall, however, soon read it.

I concur in all your views about the necessity of throwing overboard the whole system of special pleading, and have been amused with Sir J. P. Grant's horror of your proposed innovations. It is not less than that which he expressed at the little Macaulay Code, intended to blow up the whole pyramid raised by "the wisdom of our ancestors," in which so many illustrious characters he entombed. He was, indeed, as you say, "a great laudator temporis acti;" but the number of those like him at all times in England and its distant possessions is fearful. One likes to look to America in this as in all things tending to advancement; but there the "damned spot" stares us in the face, blights our hopes, and crushes our sympathies—hideous slavery—hideous alike in the recollection of the past, the contemplation of the present, and the anticipation of the future. I wish two things—1. That you would write a work on the subject less "sketchy and perfunctory," as you call it, so that any one not versed in English law and procedure might be able to understand it and appreciate it thoroughly. 2nd. That you would, when relieved from your present office, come out as our law member of council, to press your views on our Government with effect. With these law reforms, as with railroads, there were less impediments in India than in England; but there is one thing that I would observe. In our own Indian Courts our judges would—for a time at least—want the aid of honest masters to condense and report upon cases under trial. Such men would be made in time; and in considering such things, we must recollect that almost the only persons in India who can send agents into all parts of it, with a perfect assurance of honest dealing, are the native merchants and bankers. But I won't dwell on this subject. I can't find amongst the numerous Buddhists here, one who knows anything about "Kapila vasta," which you place near to Lucknow. I should like to visit the birth-place of a man who did so much for mankind as Sakeen Gantama.

He would hardly have done as I have, placed my only son in the 16th Lancers. However, I may console myself, for he may be in it a long time without doing much mischief, for I do hope that the people of the nations of modern Europe are too strong and too wise to let their sovereigns and ministers play such fantastic tricks as they were "wont to play," when George the 3rd, and Edward the 3rd, and Henry the 5th were kings. Property, good sense, and good business have greatly increased and spread, and are every day producing good fruits.

Believe me,

Yours very trusting,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir Erskine Perry, &c. &c.

Lucknow, 31st March, 1851.

My Dear Sir,

I grieve to say that I can do nothing whatever for the son of my late friend Colonel Ouseley, and have been obliged to write to him to that effect, as to many other sons of old and valued friends whom I should be glad to aid if I could.

Tens of thousands of the most happy families I have seen in India owe all they have to the able and judicious management of the late Colonel Ouseley when in the civil charge of the districts of Houshengabad and Baitool, in the Saugor territories; and no man's memory is more dear to the people of those districts than his now is. The family of a man who had done so much to make his government beloved and respected over so large a field should never want if I could prevent it; but I have no situations whatever in my gift, nor have I any influence over any persons who have such situations to bestow.

Believe me,

Yours truly,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Captain Harrington.

Lucknow, 24th November 1851.

My Lord,

Lucknow affairs are now in a state to require the assumption of the entire management of the country; and the principal question for your Lordship's consideration is, whether this shall be done by a new treaty or by simple proclamation. Treaties not only justify but enjoin the measure; our pledges to the people demand it; and all India are, I believe, satisfied of its justice, provided we leave the revenues for the maintenance of the royal family in suitable dignity, and for the benefit of the people.

We may disencumber our Government of the pay of two regiments of Oude Local Infantry, and incorporate them with the Oude force to be raised, and of that of the officers of the residency, altogether about two lacs and a-half of rupees; and when things are settled down a little, the brigade now here—of three infantry regiments and a company of artillery, costing some four lacs more—may be dispensed with, perhaps.

If I may be permitted to give an opinion as to the best mode of the two, I should say proclamation, as the more dignified.

I have prepared all the information I believe your Lordship will require, and am ready to wait upon you with it when and where it may seem most convenient.

The treasury is exhausted, and fifty lacs are required to pay the stipendiaries of the royal family and establishments; and assuredly all the members of that family, save the King's own household, are wishing for some great measure to place them under the guarantee of the British Government. The people all now wish for it, at least all the well-disposed, for there is not a man of integrity or humanity left in any office. The King's understanding has become altogether emasculated; and though he would not willingly do harm to any one, he is unable to protect any one. He would now, I believe, willingly get rid of his minister; and, having exhausted the treasury, the minister would not much dislike to get rid of him. I shall do my best to prevent his being released from the responsibility of his misdoings till I meet your Lordship. I should like, if possible, to meet your Lordship where there is likely to be the least crowd of expectants and parade to take up your time and distract your attention. If at Cawnpore, I hope you will permit me to have my camp on the Oude side of the river, with a tent in your camp for business during the day. With your Lordship's commands to attend, it will be desirable to have an order to make over my treasury to the First Assistant, to prevent delay. Should you desire any memoranda to be sent, they shall be forwarded as soon as ordered. If any further public report upon the state of Oude affairs appears to be required, I must pray your Lordship to let me know as soon as convenient. I shall not propose any native gentlemen for the higher offices; but it will be necessary to have a great many in the subordinate ones, to show that your Lordship wishes to open employment in all branches of the new administration to educated native gentlemen.

I remain,

Your Lordship's obedient servant,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Most Noble The Marquis of Dalhousie, Governor-General, &c. &c. &c.

Lucknow, 18th March, 1852.

My Lord,

I was favoured with your Lordship's letter of the 24th ultimo in due course, and did not reply immediately as I had stated, or was about to state, in a public form, all that seemed to be required about Captain Bird and Dr. Bell. Dr. Bell had apologised for indiscretions in conversation, but denied ever having authorised Mr. Brandon to make use of his name; and pretended utter ignorance of the intrigues which he was carrying on at the time that he was doing his utmost to convey wrong impressions to the Durbar. I feel grateful for the support your Lordship has given me. I cared nothing about the intrigues of these very silly men while under the impression that it was your intention to interpose effectually for the benefit of the people of Oude, because the new arrangements would have rendered them harmless; but when I found that you could not do so at present, it became necessary, for my own dignity and that of the Government, to do my best to put a stop to them. Most assuredly Captain Bird had been trying hard to persuade the King and his minister that our Government could not interfere, and that all the threats of the Governor-General would continue to be what they had hitherto been, and might be disregarded.

I find that your Lordship has departed slightly from your original plan in regard to Burmah, by sending a detachment to make a demonstration upon Rangoon and Martaban. There is no calculating upon the result of such a demonstration in dealing with a Government so imbecile, and so ignorant of our resources. The places are too far from the capital, and the war party may succeed in persuading the King that in this demonstration we put forth all our strength. I can appreciate your motive—the wish to avoid, if possible, a war of annexation, which a war upon any scale must be. We should have to make use of a vast number of suffering people, whom we could not abandon to the mercy of the old Government.

In the last war our great difficulties were the want of quick transit for troops and stores by sea, the want of carriage cattle, and sickness. These three impediments will not now beset us. Our own districts on the coast will supply land-carriage, steam-vessels will carry our troops and stores, and subsequent experience will enable us to avoid sources of endemial diseases. I have no map of the country; but some letters in the papers about the Busseya river interested me much. Our strong point is steam; and the discovery of a river which would enable us to use it in getting in strength to the rear or flank would be of immense advantage. There must be healthy districts; indeed Burmah generally must be a healthy country, or the population would not be so strong and intelligent as they are known to be. In religious feeling they are less opposed to us than any other people not Buddhists. Indeed, from the people we should have nothing to fear; and the army must be insignificant in numbers as well as equipments. I am very glad to find that so able and well-trained a statesman as Fox Maule has been put at the head of the Board of Control; and trust that your Lordship will remain at our head till the Burmah affair is thoroughly settled.

The little affair of the Moplars, on the Malabar coast, may grow into a very big one unless skilfully managed. A brother of the Conollys is the magistrate, I believe. We can learn nothing of the cause of the strong feeling of discontent that prevails among this fanatical people. No such strong feeling can exist in India without some "canker-worm" to embitter the lives and unite the sympathies of large classes against their rulers or local governors, and make them think that they cannot shake it off without rebelling and becoming martyrs. I must pray your Lordship to excuse this long rambling letter, and

Believe me, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Most Noble The Marquis of Dalhousie, Calcutta.

Lucknow, 4th April, 1852.

My Dear Sir James,

Your present of the cadetship for her son made the poor widow's heart glad, and I doubt not that she has written to express her grateful feelings. The young man will, I hope, prove himself deserving of the favour you have conferred upon him so gracefully. The Court has called for a copy of my Diary of the tour I made through Oude soon after I took charge of my office; and I have sent off two copies, one for Government and the other for the Court. I purchased a small press and type for the purpose of printing it in my own house, that no one but myself and the compositor might see it. I will send home two copies for yourself and the chairman as soon as they can be bound in Calcutta. The Diary contains a faithful picture of Oude, its Government, and people, I believe. I have printed only a few copies, and they will not be distributed till I learn that the Court consider them unobjectionable. In spirit they will be found so. I intend, if I can find time, to give the history of the reigning family in a third volume. My general views on Oude affairs have been given in my letters to Government, which will, I conclude, be before the Court. A ruler so utterly regardless of his high duties and responsibilities, and of the sufferings of the people under his rule, as the present King, I have never seen; nor have I ever seen ministers so incompetent and so unworthy as those whom he employs in the conduct of his affairs. We have threatened so often to interpose for the benefit of the poor people, without doing anything, that they have lost all hope, and the profligate and unprincipled Government have lost all fear. The untoward war with Burmah prevents our present Governor-General from doing what he and I believe the Honourable Court both wish. We certainly ought not any longer to incur the odium of supporting such a Government in its iniquities, pledged as we are by treaties to protect the people from them. I do not apprehend any serious change in the constitution of the Court of Directors in the new charter. No ministers would hazard such a change in the present state of Europe. The Court is India's only safeguard. No foreign possession was ever so governed for itself as India has been, and this all foreigners with whom I have conversed, admit. The Governor-General of the Netherlands India was with me lately on his way home. He is a first-rate statesman, and he declared to me that he was impressed and delighted to see a country so governed, and apparently so sensible of the benefits conferred upon it by our paternal rule. He will tell you the same thing if you ever meet him. His name is Rochasson. The people appreciate the value of the Court of Directors, and no act, as far as it is known to them, has tended more to strengthen their confidence in it than that which has brought retribution on the great sinner in Scinde, Allee Murad. No punishment was ever more just or merited. Scinde, however, is too remote for the people in general to feel much interest in its affairs or families. Our weak points in the last Burmese war were:—1. The want of transport for troops and stores; 2. The want of carriage by land, for arms and stores; 3. Sickness. All these things have been remedied, and the war, when begun in earnest, can last but a short time. We know more of the country and shall avoid the sources of endemial disease; our steam provides for the rapid transport of troops and stores; and draft-cattle will be supplied from our own districts on the coast. Where our Government has no representative as Resident or Consul, all Europeans should be told that they remain entirely on their own responsibility. Unless this is done, the Governments must be eternally in collision. If war be carried on in earnest, it must be one of annexation: we must make use of persons whom we cannot abandon to the mercy of the Burmese Government. We have nothing to fear from the people: they have no religious feeling against us, being all Buddhists; and they have seen too much of the benefits conferred by us on the territories taken during the last war to have any dead of our dominion. Lord Dalhousie has, I believe, been most anxious to avoid a war—it has been forced upon him.

Believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir James W. Hogg, Deputy Chairman, India House.

Lucknow, 6th April, 1842.

My Dear Mr. Halliday,

We are all wrong here in the Martinière institution, and you have now an admirable opportunity of setting all right and doing an infinite deal of good with little trouble. I know how little you have of time and attention to devote to such things, and conclude that Mr. Devereux cannot have much more, and you may feel assured that I shall do all in my power to assist you. We are here attempting to give the education of gentlemen to beggar-boys, who must always depend upon their daily work for their daily bread. The senior boys are in despair, for they find that they have learnt hardly anything to fit them for the only employments open to them, and this tends to discourage the younger ones. The Roorkee Civil Engineering School seems to have been eminently successful, and a fine field is open to all who are taught in it. We shall no doubt have a similar field open in Oude when Government interposes in behalf of the suffering people, and we might prepare for it by converting the Martinière into a similar school or college. The committee has just expressed to you a hope that Mr. Crank, the officiating principal, may be able to pass an examination in the native languages. This hope can never be realised; and if he does I shall have to record my opinion that he is otherwise unfitted. The power of nominating a principal rests entirely with the trustees; and if you concur in my views you might at once prepare for the change by getting a man from England or elsewhere, such as Mr. Maclagan, the late superintendent of the Roorkee school, fitted to teach civil engineering in all its branches. You have the command of funds to provide him with assistants of all kinds; and we have accommodations and funds to raise more, and provide machinery, books, &c. The thing might be set going at once, after you send a competent man to superintend it; and the work will be honourable to our Government and ourselves, and of vast benefit to the boys brought up at this Martinière, and to their parents and families. If you think favourably of the proposed change, and will direct the committee to take it into consideration, I will do my best to make it respond cordially to your call; or if you direct the measure to be adopted at once, I will see that it is worked out as it should be. Mr. Crank has a good knowledge of mathematics and mechanics, and will make a good second under a good first; but he would be quite unfit for a first. Mr. Maclagan intended going home, via Bombay, as soon as relieved by Captain Oldfield, and has embarked by this time. He might be written to, to send out a competent person and the required machinery. Constantia is admirably adapted for such an establishment; the river Goomtee flows close under it; the grounds are ample, open, and level, and the climate fine. It would interest the whole of the Oude aristocracy, and induce them to send their sons there for instruction. It would be gratifying to the Judges of the Supreme Court to know that the funds available were devoted to a purpose so highly useful; and you would carry home with you the agreeable recollection of having engrafted so useful a branch upon the almost useless old trunk of the Martinière.

Yours very truly,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To F. J. Halliday, Esq. Secretary to Government, Calcutta.

Mr. Maclagan is a Lieutenant of Engineers, and lives in Edinburgh.

Lucknow. 10th April, 1852.

My Lord,

In September 1848, I took the liberty to mention to your Lordship my fears that the system of annexing and absorbing native States—so popular with our Indian service, and so much advocated by a certain class of writers in public journals—might some day render us too visibly dependent upon our native army; that they might see it, and that accidents might occur to unite them, or too great a portion of them, in some desperate act. My only anxiety about Burmah arises from the same fears. Our native army has been too much petted of late; and they are liable to get into their heads the notion that we want them more than they want us. Had the 38th been at first ordered to march to Aracan, they would, in all probability, have begged their European officers to pray Government to permit them to go by water.

We committed a great mistake in not long ago making all new levies general service corps; and we have committed one not less grave in restricting the admissions into our corps to high-caste men: and encouraging the promotion of high-caste men to the prejudice of men equally deserving but of lower caste. The Brahmins in regiments have too much influence, and they are at the bottom of all the mischief that occurs. The Rajpoots are too numerous, because they are under the influence of the Brahmins, and feel too strong from their numbers.

We require stronger and braver men than the Madras Presidency can afford, with all their readiness for general service. The time may not be distant when England will have to call upon India for troops to serve in Egypt; and the troops from Madras, or even from Bombay, will not do against Europeans. Men from Northern or Western India will be required, and, in order to be prepared, it would be well to have all new corps—should new corps be required—composed of men from the Punjaub or the Himmalayah chain, and ready for any service. Into such corps none but Seiks, Juts, Goojurs, Gwalas, Mussulmans, and Hillmen should be enlisted. Too much importance is attached to height, merely that corps may look well on parade. Much more work can be got out of moderate sized than tall men in India. The tall men in regiments always fail first in actual service—they are fit only for display at reviews and on parades: always supposing that the moderate-sized men are taken from Western and Northern India, where alone they have the strength and courage required.

No recruit should henceforward be taken except on condition of general service; and by-and-by the option may be given to all sipahees, of a certain standing or period of service, to put their names down for general service, or retire. This could not, of course, be done at present. No commanding officer can say, at present, what his regiment will do if called upon to aid the Government in any way not specified in their bond. They have too commonly favourites, who persuade them, for their own selfish purposes, that their regiments will do anything to meet their wishes, at the very time that these regiments are watching for an occasion to disgrace these favourites by refusal. I have known many occasions of this. None but general service corps or volunteers should be sent to Burmah from Bengal during this campaign, or we shall hazard a disaster. There are, I believe, several that your Lordship has not yet called upon. They should be at hand as soon as possible, and their present places supplied by others. In the mean time, corps of Punjaubies and Hillmen should be raised for general service. Not only can no commanding officer say what his corps will do under circumstances in which their religion or prejudices may afford a pretext for disobedience, but no officers can say how far their regiments sympathise with the recusant: or discontented, corps, and are prepared to join them.

In case it should ever be proposed to make all corps general service corps, in the way I mention, a donation would, of course, be offered to all who declined of a month's pay for every year of past service, or of something of that kind. A maximum might be fixed of four, five, or six months. It would not cost much, for but few would go. I must pray your Lordship to excuse the liberty I take in obtruding my notions on this subject, but it really is one of vital importance in the present state of affairs in India, as well as in Europe.

With great respect, I remain, &c.,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Moat Noble The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T. Governor-General of India, Calcutta.

Memorandum.

In the year 1832 or 1833 the want of bamboos of large size, for yokes for artillery bullocks, was much felt at Saugor and the stations of that division; and the commissariat officer was authorised to form a bamboo grove, to be watered by the commissariat cattle, in order to supply the deficiency for the future. Forty beegas, or about twenty acres of land, were assigned for the purpose, and Government went to the expense of forming twelve pucka-wells, as the bamboos were planted upon the black cotton-soil of Central India, in which kutcha-wells do not stand. The first outlay was, therefore, greater than usual, being three thousand rupees. The establishment kept up consisted of one gardener, at five rupees a month, and two assistants at three rupees each. The bamboos were watered by the artillery bullocks and commissariat servants.

In a few years the bamboos became independent of irrigation, and no outlay has since been incurred upon them. The bamboos are now between forty and fifty feet high, and between four and five inches in diameter. They are used by the commissariat and ordnance departments at Saugor, but are not, I believe, required for yokes for the artillery bullocks.

There is a grove of sesum trees near the Lucknow cantonments formed in the same way, but with little or no outlay in irrigation. The trees were planted, and all the cost incurred has been in the people employed to protect them from trespass. In a dryer climate they might require irrigation for a few years. Groves of saul, alias sukhoo trees, might be formed in the same manner in the vicinity of all stations where there are artillery bullocks; and the bullocks themselves would benefit by being employed in the irrigation. The establishments kept up for the bullocks would be able to do all the work required.

The complement of bullocks for a battery of 6 guns, 6 waggons, and 2 store carts, is 106. The number yoked to each gun and waggon is 61, [transcriber's note, should be 6], and to each cart 4, leaving a surplus of 26 for accidents. There would, therefore, be always a sufficient number of bullocks available for the irrigation of such groves where such a battery is kept up. These bullocks are taken care of by 4 sirdars and 59 drivers; and an European sergeant of artillery is appointed as bullock-sergeant to each battery, to superintend the feeding, cleaning, &c. &c. The officer on duty sees the bullocks occasionally, and the commanding officer sometimes. Such groves might be left to the care of the commandant of artillery at small stations, and to the commissariat officer at large ones.

At every large station there might be a grove of sesum, one of sakhoo, and one of bamboos, each covering a hundred acres; and at all stations with a battery, three groves of the same kind, covering each twenty acres or more. For the convenience of carriage by water, such groves might be formed chiefly in the vicinity of rivers, or in that of the places where the timber is most likely to be required; but no battery should be without such groves. The men and bullocks would both benefit by the employment such groves would give them. The men, to interest them, might each have a small garden within the grove which he assists in watering.

Such groves would tend to improve the salubrity of the stations where they are formed, and become agreeable and healthful promenades for officers and soldiers. In most stations, kutcha-wells, formed at a cost of from 20 to 50 rupees, would suffice for watering such groves. They might be lined, like those of the peasantry, by twisted cables of straw and twigs; and the men who attend the bullocks might be usefully employed in weaving them, as all should learn to make fascines and gabions. Willows should be planted near all the wells, to supply twigs for making the cables for lining the wells, and the manure of the artillery draft-bullocks should be appropriated to the groves.

[Submitted to the Governor-General through the Private Secretary, in March, 1852, with reference to a conversation which I had with his Lordship in his camp.]

Lucknow, 23rd August, 1852.

My Lord,

Permit me to offer my congratulations, not only on the success which has hitherto attended your Lordship's arrangements in Burmah, but on the very favourable impression which that success has made upon the Sovereign and people of England. It has enabled you to show that the war is not with the people of Burmah, but with a haughty, insolent, and incompetent Government, with whom that people has no longer any sympathy; and that, should circumstances render the annexation of any portion of its territory necessary, the people of that portion would consider the measure a blessing, and be well pleased to live in harmony under the efficient protection of the new rule.

They are not in any way opposed to us from either religions or political feelings, for they seem to consider Christianity as a branch only of their own great system of Buddhism, which includes almost half of the human race; and they are evidently weary of the political institutions under which they now live, and which have ceased to afford them protection of any kind. In the annexation of Pegu—should it be forced upon your Lordship—there would be nothing revolting to the feelings of its people or to those of the people of England; on the contrary, both would be satisfied, after the disposition the people of Pegu have manifested towards us, that the measure was alike necessary to their security and to the honour and interest of our Government.

Nor do I think that there would be any ground to apprehend that the resources of the territory taken would not, after a time, be sufficient to defray the costs of the establishments required to retain and govern it. Among the people of Pegu we should find men able and willing to serve us faithfully and efficiently in both our civil and military establishments, and the drain for the maintenance of foreigners would not be large. I have heard the mental and physical powers of the men of Pegu spoken of in the highest terms by persons who have spent the greater part of their lives among them; and a country which produces such men cannot be generally insalubrious. This early demonstration has enabled your Lordship to ascertain and expose the determination of the Government of Ava not to grant the redress justly demanded for wrongs suffered, so as to enlist on our side the sympathy of all civilized nations, and at the same time to discover the real weakness of the enemy and the facilities offered to us, in their fine rivers, for the use of our strong arm—the steam navy. Not a single "untoward event" has yet occurred to dispirit our troops, or give confidence to the enemy, or to prejudice the people of Burmah against us: and there certainly is nothing in this war to make us apprehend "that our political difficulties will begin when our military successes are complete." It is not displeasing to perceive the strong tendency to an early onward move, while your Lordship has so prudent a leader in General Godwin to restrain it within due bounds.

I remain, &c.,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Most Noble The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T. Governor-General of India. Calcutta.

Lucknow, September, 1852.

My Lord,

The longer the present King reigns, the more unfit he becomes to reign, and the more the administration and the country deteriorate. The State must have become bankrupt long ere this, but the King, and the knaves by whom he is governed, have discontinued paying the stipends of all the members of the royal family, save those of his own father's family, for the last three years; and many of them are reduced to extreme distress, and without the hope of ever getting their stipends again unless our Government interferes. The females of the palaces of former sovereigns ventured to clamour for their subsistence, and they were, without shame or mercy, driven into the streets to starve, beg, or earn their bread by their labour. This deters all from complaining, and they are in a state of utter dismay. No part of the people of Oude are more anxious for the interposition of our Government than the members of the royal family; for there is really no portion more helpless and oppressed: none of them can ever approach the King, who is surrounded exclusively by eunuchs, fiddlers, and poetasters worse than either; and the minister and his creatures, who are worse than all. They appropriate at least one-half of the revenues of the country to themselves, and employ nothing but knaves of the very worst kind in all the branches of the administration. The King is a crazy imbecile, who is led about by these people like a child, and made to do whatever they wish him to do, and to give whatever orders may best suit their private interests. At present, the most powerful of the favourites are Decanut od Doula and Husseen od Doula, two eunuchs; Anees od Doula and Mosahib od Doula, two fiddlers; two poetasters, and the minister and his creatures. The minister could not stand a moment without the eunuchs, fiddlers, and poets, and he is obliged to acquiesce in all the orders given by the King for their benefit. The fiddlers have control over the administration of civil justice; the eunuchs over that of criminal justice, public buildings, &c. The minister has the land revenue; and all are making enormous fortunes. The present King ought not certainly to reign: he has wilfully forfeited all right to do so; but to set him aside in favour of his eldest, or indeed any other son, would give no security whatever for any permanent good government A well-selected regency would, no doubt, be a vast improvement upon the present system; but no people would invest their capital in useful works, manufactures, and trades, with the prospect of being handed over a few years hence to a prince brought up precisely in the same manner the present King was, and as all his sons will be. What the people want, and most earnestly pray for is, that our Government should take upon itself the responsibility of governing them well and permanently. All classes, save the knaves, who now surround and govern the King, earnestly pray for this—the educated classes, because they would then have a chance of respectable employment, which none of them now have; the middle classes, because they find no protection or encouragement, and no hope that their children will be permitted to inherit the property they may leave, not invested in our Government securities; and the humbler classes, because they are now abandoned to the merciless rapacity of the starving troops, and other public establishments, and of the landholders, driven or invited into rebellion by the present state of misrule. There is not, I believe, another Government in India so entirely opposed to the best interest's and most earnest wishes of the people as that of Oude now is; at least I have never seen or read of one. People of all classes have become utterly weary of it. The people have the finest feelings towards our Government and character. I know no part of India, save the valley of the Nurbuddah, where the feeling towards us is better. All, from the highest to the lowest, would, at this time, hail the advent of our administration with joy; and the rest of India, to whom Oude misrule is well known, would acquiesce in the conviction, that it had become imperative for the protection of the people. With steamers to Fyzabad, and a railroad from that place to Cawnpore, through Lucknow, the Nepaul people would be for ever quieted, with half of the force we now keep up to look after them; and the N. W. Provinces become more closely united to Bengal, to the vast advantage of both. I mentioned that we should require a considerable loan to begin with; but I think that an issue of paper money, receivable in Oude in revenue, and payable to public establishments in Oude, might safely be made to cover all the outlay required to pay off odd establishments and commence the new work. Little money goes out of Oude, and the increased circulating medium, required for the new public works and new establishments, would soon absorb all the paper issued. It might be issued at little or no cost by the financial department of the new administration. Though everybody knows that the King has become crazy and imbecile, it would be difficult to get judicial proof that he is so, where the life and property of every one are at his mercy and that of the knaves who now govern him. His every-day doings sufficiently manifest it. There is not the slightest ground for hope that he will ever be any other than what he now is, or that his children will be better. There are too many interested in depriving them of all capacity for a part in public affairs that they may retain the reins in their own hands when the children come of age to admit of their ever becoming better than their father is. I have not lately made the reports which Lord Hardinge directed the Resident to make periodically, but shall be prepared to resume them whenever your Lordship may direct. I suspended them on account of hostilities with Burmah. I have printed eighteen copies of the establishments, as they are and were last year, and as I proposed for the new system. I shall not let any one have a copy till your Lordship permits it, and they are all at your disposal if required. This, and the "Substantive Code," are the only papers connected with Oude, except the Diary that I have had printed, or shall have printed, unless ordered by you.

I remain, with great respect,

Your Lordship's obedient servant,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

P.S.—I believe that it is your Lordship's wish that the whole of the revenues of Oude should be expended for the benefit of the royal family and people of Oude, and that the British Government should disclaim any wish to derive any pecuniary advantages from assuming to itself the administration.

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Most Noble The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T. Governor-General, &c. &c. &c.

Lucknow, 21st September, 1852.

My Dear Sir,

I will reply to the queries contained in your letter of the 16th instant to the best of my recollection. I was in Calcutta in January, 1838, when the late Dyce Sombre was there, and about to embark for England. I had seen a good deal of him at Sirdhanah, in March 1836, soon after the Begum Sumroo's death, and he afterwards spent a short time with me at Mussoorie, and consulted me a good deal on the subject of a dispute with his father.

Colonel James Skinner and Dr. Drener were, I believe, executors to his will. Colonel Skinner was at Delhi, and Dr. Drener had either gone home or was going, I forget which, and Dyce Sombre asked me to consent to become one of his trustees, for the conduct of his affairs in this country. I consented, and I think the circumstance was inserted in a codicil or memorandum added to his will or deed; but my recollection on this point is not distinct.

I had, however, nothing to do with the conduct of his affairs in this country until the death of Colonel James Skinner, which took place in December, 1841, when Mr. Reghilini, the overseer or agent at Sirdhanah, got my sanction to the outlay for establishments, &c. At this time I corresponded with Dyce Sombre, and continued to do so until his affairs were thrown into Chancery. I then sought a lawyer's opinion as to my proper course, and refused to give Mr. Reghilini any further orders. The opinion was, "that my only safe course was to do nothing whatever in the conduct of his affairs;" and I never afterwards did anything. I never heard of any Colonel Sheerman, and his name may have been inserted by mistake for mine; but I was then (1838) only a major, and was not promoted until 1843. I never heard of any desire on the part of Dyce Sombre, or the Begum Sumroo, to found a college other than as an appendage to the Sirdhanah church, nor of his having given the residue of his property for the purpose; at least, I have no recollection of having heard of such desire. I always hoped, and expected, until I heard of his marriage, that he would return and reside at Sirdhanah.

Dyce Sombre always spoke to me of Mrs. Troup and Mrs. Soloroli as his sisters: he regarded them alike as such, and so did the Begum Sumroo. I always understood them to be the children of the same mother; but the question was never mooted before me, and I have always heard that Mrs. Troup was very like Dyce Sombre in appearance, and that Mrs. Soloroli was not so.

Mr. Reghilini, who is, I believe, still at Sirdhanah, may know whether a Colonel Sheerman was appointed executor or not. Dr. Drener must know. The notes which passed between me and Dyce Sombre, after he left India, were on the ordinary topics of the day, and were destroyed as soon as read. I have none of them to refer to, nor would they furnish any confirmation on the matter in question if I had.

Believe me, yours, very truly,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

Charles Prinsep, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Calcutta.

To Messrs. Molloy, Mackintosh, and Poe, Calcutta.

Dear Sirs,

In reply to your letter of the 16th instant, I enclose the copy of a letter addressed by me on the 21st ultimo to Mr. Charles Prinsep, in reply to similar queries. To what I stated in that letter I can add but little.

Dyce Sombre always spoke to me of Mrs. Soloroli and Mrs. Troup as his sisters, and of the former as the eldest of the two; and Mrs. Troup spoke of Mrs. Soloroli as her eldest sister. They were always treated by the Begum Sumroo as his sisters; and when Dyce Sombre went to England I think he left the same provision for both in addition to what they had received from the Begum.

I was introduced to Mrs. Troup by her husband as an old friend on my way back from Mussoorie in November, 1837, but I did not see Mrs. Soloroli, though she and her husband were at the same place, Sirdhanah, at that time. They both lived under the curtain, secluded from the sight of men, after the Hindoostanee fashion, as long as they remained in India, I think; and I was introduced to Mrs. Troup as a friend of the family, whom all might require to consult. Her husband only was present during the interview. Dyce Sombre had left the place for Calcutta. I never heard a doubt expressed of their being sisters by the same mother and father till the new will came under discussion at the end of last year.

I may refer you to pages 378 and 396 of the second volume of a work by me, entitled "Rambles and Recollections," in which you will find it mentioned that the grandmother of Dyce Sombre died insane at Sirdhanah in 1838. She must have been insane for more than forty years up to her death. Her son Zuffer Yab Khan was a man of weak intellect, and he was the father of Dyce Sombre's mother, of whom I know nothing whatever.

Dyce Sombre, showed no symptoms of derangement of mind while I knew him; but he inherited from his grandmother a predisposition to insanity, which I apprehended might become developed by any very strong feelings of excitement; and I urged him to return and settle at Sirdhanah, when he had seen all he wished to see in Europe.

He saw a good deal of English society in India, and understood well the freedom which English wives enjoy in general society; but I doubted whether he could ever thoroughly shake off his early predilections for keeping them secluded. It would, I thought, be always to him a source of deep humiliation to see his wife mix with other men in the manner in which English married ladies are accustomed to do. Since his affairs were put into Chancery I have always felt persuaded that this must have been the principal "exciting cause" acting upon the predisposition derived from his grandmother, which led to it. I have never had the slightest doubt that he suffered under an aberration of mind upon this point, though he never mentioned the subject in any of his short letters to me from England, nor did he in any of them show signs of such aberration.

Believe me, yours, faithfully,

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

26th October, 1852.

Lucknow, 28th October, 1852.

My Dear Sir James,

Your letter of the 6th ultimo reached me by the last mail, and I trust we shall see your hopes of an early renewal of the Charter with few alterations realised. I entirely concur with you in opinion that the power of recall is indispensable to the due authority of the Court; and was much surprised to find Maddock opposed to it. Many thinking men at home have been of opinion that the Ministers would secure for the Queen the nomination of a certain number to the Direction, on the ground that many of the best men from India are deterred from becoming candidates by the time and pledges required in the canvass. The late elections, however, seem to have come in time to increase the Jealousy of ministerial influence, and prevent such a measure.

Hostilities with Burmah have prevented my making public periodical reports to Government about Oude affairs since I submitted my Diary. I took the liberty to send, through my London agents copy to yourself and the Deputy Chairman. Things have not improved since it was written. The King is as regardless of his high duties and responsibilities as ever: he is, indeed, an imbecile in the hands of a few fiddlers, eunuchs, and poetasters, and the minister, who is no better than they are, and obliged to provide for all these men out of the revenues and patronage of the country, and sundry women about the Court, also, to secure their influence in his favour.

The King contrives to get the stipends of those immediately about him, and of his mother, brothers, and sisters, paid out of the revenues; but is indifferent about those of his more distant relatives, and hardly any of them have had any stipends for the last two and even three years. Those who happen not to have a little Company's paper given to them by former Sovereigns, or pensions guaranteed by our Government and paid out of our Treasury, are starving, and pray for the day when our Government may interpose in the administration. The expenditure is much above the income, and the reserved treasury is exhausted; but the King has his jewels and some personal property in Government notes, derived from his father and grandmothers. He thinks himself the best of kings and the best of poets, and nothing will induce him willingly to alter his course or make room for a better ruler or better system.

If our Government interpose, it must not be by negotiation and treaty, but authoritatively on the ground of existing treaties and obligations to the people of Oude. The treaty of 1837 gives our Government ample authority to take the whole administration on ourselves, in order to secure what we have often pledged ourselves to secure to the people; but if we do this we must, in order to stand well with the rest of India, honestly and distinctly disclaim all interested motives, and appropriate the whole of the revenues for the benefit of the people and royal family of Oude. If we do this, all India will think us right, for the sufferings of the people of Oude, under the present system, have been long notorious throughout India; and so have our repeated pledges to relieve the people from these sufferings, unless the system should be altered. Fifty years of sad experience have shown to us and to all India, that this system is incapable of improvement under the present dynasty; and that the only alternative is for the paramount power to take the administration upon itself.

Under the treaty of 1801, we took one-half of the territory of Oude, and that half yields to us above two crores of rupees; though, when taken, it was estimated at one hundred and thirty-three lacs. The half retained by the Oude Sovereign was estimated at the same; but it now yields to the Sovereign only one crore. The rest is absorbed by the knaves employed in the administration and their patrons at Court. All that is now so absorbed would come to the Treasury under us, and be employed in the maintenance of efficient establishments, and the construction of useful public works; and we should have ample means for providing for all the members of the royal family of Oude.

We should derive substantial benefit from the measure, without in any degree violating our declaration of disinterestedness. We now maintain five regiments of Infantry, and a company of Artillery, at a cost of from five to six lacs a-year. We maintain the Residency and all its establishments at a cost of more than one lac of rupees a-year. All these would become fairly chargeable to the Oude revenues under the new administration; and we might dispense with half the military forces now kept up at Cawnpore and Dinapore on the Ganges, as the military force in Oude would relieve us from all apprehension as to Nepaul.

Oude would be covered with a network of fine macadamised roads, over which the produce of Oude and our own districts would pass freely to the benefit of the people of both; and we should soon have the river Ghagra, from near Patna on the Ganges, to Fyzabad in Oude, navigable for steamers: with a railroad from Fyzabad, through Lucknow to Cawnpore, to the great benefit of the North-West Provinces and those of Bengal.

Were we to take advantage of the occasion to annex or confiscate Oude, or any part of it, our good name in India would inevitably suffer; and that good name is more valuable to us than a dozen of Oudes. We are now looked up to throughout India as the only impartial arbitrators that the people generally have ever had, or can ever hope to have without us; and from the time we cease to be so looked up to, we must begin to sink. We suffered from our conduct in Scinde; but that was a country distant and little known, and linked to the rest of India by few ties of sympathy. Our Conduct towards it was preceded by wars and convulsions around, and in its annexation there was nothing manifestly deliberate. It will be otherwise with Oude. Here the giant's strength is manifest, and we cannot "use it like a giant" without suffering in the estimation of all India. Annexation or confiscation are not compatible with our relations with this little dependent state. We must show ourselves to be high-minded, and above taking advantage of its prostrate weakness, by appropriating its revenues exclusively to the benefit of the people and royal family of Oude. We should soon make it the finest garden in India, with the people happy, prosperous, and attached to our rule and character.

We have at least forty thousand men from Oude in the armies of the three Residencies, all now, rightly or wrongly, cursing the oppressive Government under which their families live at their homes. These families would come under our rule and spread our good name as widely as they now spread the bad one of their present ruler. Soldiers with a higher sense of military honour, and duty to their salt, do not exist, I believe, in any country. To have them bound to us by closer ties than they are at present, would of itself be an important benefit.

I can add little to what I have said in the latter end of the fourth chapter of my Diary (from p. 187*, vol. ii.), on the subject of our relations with the Government of Oude; and of our rights and duties arising out of those relations. The diaries political, which I send every week or fortnight to the Government of India, are formed out of the reports made every day to the Durbar, by their local or departmental authorities. The Residency News-writer has the privilege of hearing these reports read as they come in; and though the reports of many important events are concealed from him, they may generally be relied upon as far as they go. The picture they give of affairs is bad enough, though not so bad as they deserve.

[* Transcriber's note. From the text "By the treaty of 1801 we bound ourselves......."—to the end of the chapter IV in vol. ii]

There are so many worthless and profligate people about the Court, interested in smothering any signs of common sense and good feeling on the part of the heir apparent to the throne, in order to maintain their ascendancy over him as he grows up, that he has not the slightest chance of becoming fit to take any part in the conduct of public affairs when he comes of age. The present King has three or four sons, all very young, but it is utterly impossible for any one of them to become a man of business; and it would be folly to expect any one of them to make a better Sovereign than their father. He is now only twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age; but his understanding has become quite emasculated by over-indulgencies of all kinds. He may live long, but his habits have become too inveterate to admit of his ever becoming better than he now is or fit to be intrusted with the government of a country.

I shall recommend that all establishments, military, civil, and fiscal, be kept entirely separate from those of our own Government, that there may be no mistake as to the disinterestedness of our intentions towards Oude. The military establishments being like Scindiah's contingent, in the Gwalior state, or the Hydrabad contingent in the Nizam's. I estimate the present expenditure at, civil and fiscal establishments, and stipendiaries, 38 lacs. Military and police, 55. King's household, 30. Total, 123 lacs. Establishments required for an efficient administration—civil and fiscal—at 22 lacs. Military, 26 lacs. Families and dependents of former Sovereigns, 12 lacs. Household of the Sovereign, his sons, brothers, and sisters, 15 lacs. Total, 75 lacs.

This would leave an abundant store for public works, military stores, contingent charges, pension establishments for the civil and military officers employed under us, &c. To pay off all the present heavy arrears of stipends, salaries, to provide arms, ammunition, and stores, and to commence upon all the public works, our Government would have either to give or guarantee a loan; or to sanction the issue of a certain amount of paper money, to circulate exclusively in Oude, by making it receivable in the Oude Treasuries in taxes.

The revenues would be at once greatly increased, by our taking for the treasury all that is now intercepted and appropriated by public officers and Court favourites for their own private purposes, by our making the great landholders pay a due portion of their assets to the state, and by our securing the safe transit of raw produce and manufactured goods to their proper markets.

By adopting a simple system of administration, to meet the wishes of a simple people, we should secure the goodwill of all classes of society in Oude; and no class would be more pleased with the change than the members of the royal family themselves, who depend upon their stipends for their subsistence, and despair of ever again receiving them under the present Sovereign and system.

I hope a happy termination of the present war with Burmah will soon leave Lord Dalhousie free to devote his attention to Oude affairs. As far as I am consulted, I shall advocate, as strongly as may be compatible with my position, the measures above described, because I think they will be found best calculated to benefit the people of Oude, to meet the wishes of the home Government, and to sustain his Lordship's own reputation, and that of the nation which he represents throughout our Eastern empire.

You are aware of some of the difficulties that I have had to contend with, in carrying out important measures beneficial to the people, and honourable to the Government of India; but in no situation in life have I ever had to struggle with so many as here, in pursuing an honest and steady course of policy, calculated to secure the respect of all classes for the Government which I represent. Such a scene of intrigue, corruption, depravity, neglect of duty, and abuse of authority, I have never before been placed in, and hope never again to undergo; and I have had to contend with bitter hostility where I had the best right to expect support. I have never yet failed in the performance of any duty that Government has intrusted to me, and, under Providence, I hope that I shall ultimately succeed in the performance of that which I have committed to me here.

Lucknow is an overgrown city, surrounding an overgrown Court, which has, for the last half century, exhausted all the resources of this fine country; and so alienated the feelings of the great body of the people that they, and the Sovereign, and his officers, look upon each other as irreconcileable enemies. Between the city, the pampered Court and its functionaries, and the people of the country beyond, there is not the slightest feeling of sympathy; and if our troops were withdrawn from the vicinity of Lucknow, the landholders and sturdy peasantry of the country would, in a few days, rush in and plunder and destroy it as a source of nothing but intolerable evil to them.

Though I have written a long letter, I may have omitted many things which you wished me to notice. In that case I must rely upon your letting me know; and in the mean time, I shall continue to write whenever I have anything to communicate that is likely to interest you.

Believe me, dear Sir James,

Yours very faithfully,

W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart. &c. &c. &c.

P.S. By treaty, we are bound to keep up a certain force near the capital for the protection of the Sovereign; and we should be obliged, till things were quite settled under the new system, to retain the brigade we now have of our regular troops in the cantonments, which are three miles from the city.

W. H. SLEEMAN.

Lucknow, 20th November, 1852.

My Dear Sir James,

To be prepared for accidents, I deem it right to send a duplicate of the letter which I sent to you by the last mail, addressed to the care of my London agents, Messrs. Denny and Clark, Austin Friars. I have nothing new or interesting to communicate from Oude. The Burmese war seems likely to divert the Governor-General's attention from Oude and Hydrabad affairs for some time to come; and the death of the Duke of Wellington, and probable changes in the ministry at home, may prevent him from venturing upon any important change in the Oude administration when that war closes.