Note 34 — JOHN BRIGHT. ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND; DELIVERED AT A BANQUET GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. BRIGHT, AT BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 29, 1858.

Note 34, p. 177.—In 1856 Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India, annexed the kingdom of Oude under the following circumstances: The East India Company had bound themselves by treaty “to defend the sovereigns of Oude against foreign and domestic enemies, on condition that the State should be governed in such a manner as to render the lives and property of its population safe.” Lord Dalhousie found on investigation that “while the Company performed their part of the contract, the King of Oude so governed his dominions as to make his rule a curse to his own people, and to all neighboring territories.” McCarthy (“Hist. of Our Own Time,” Eng. ed., iii., 61), though an extreme Liberal in his sympathies, speaks of Lord Dalhousie’s act as “not only justifiable, but actually inevitable.” The act was only one of many causes of the Sepoy rebellion. The language of the orator seems altogether extravagant and unwarranted.