that they were to maintain a force in the other half at their own cost, had the effrontery, through Auckland, to suggest that they should be relieved of this obligation, and that the cost of maintaining an auxiliary force should be thrown on the province. Low, as Resident at Lucknow, at once strongly protested against so grave an injustice;1 the Governor-General's own Council supported Low's protest;2 and Auckland found it necessary to modify his proposal. The expense of the force was limited to £160,000 a year; and, in consideration of the poverty of Oudh, no demand for its payment was to be made for eighteen months, or until March 1839.3 The treaty With these modifications, which reduced and postponed, though they did not remove, the objection to the treaty, the Nawab was induced to assent to it. But its injustice was so obvious that the Court of Directors at once issued orders that Auckland should conclude no new treaty with any disallowed. Native Power, stipulating for the employment of British officers in its service, without the previous sanction of the Court; and the Secret Committee, in a still more emphatic despatch, directed that the treaty should be abrogated, and that any auxiliary force which it was determined to form should be paid by the Company.* Its abrogation not communi These orders were not strictly obeyed. Auckland, indeed, told the Nawab that he had been directed to relieve him of the burden of paying the auxiliary force, but he did not add a single word about the abrogation of the cated to the treaty;5 and, so far as the Nawab knew, nothing transpired to show that the treaty which he had been reluctantly compelled to sign, and which the Secret Committee had directed should be abrogated, was not in full force. Nawab. Thus ended Auckland's indefensible dealings with Oudh. Before they closed he was involved in other and worse affairs, the management of which was equally unfortunate for his reputation, and even more fatal to the interests of his country. 1 Papers relating to King of Oudh, pp. 13, 18. 2 Ibid., pp. 27-30. 5 Ibid., p. 60. Engaged in Afghanistan, in Scinde, and in the Punjab, the rulers of India had other things to occupy their thoughts than the misgovernment of Oudh. Nawab succeeded Nawab, Governor-General followed Governor General, and the position of Oudh remained unchanged. Hardinge, however, returning from the Punjab after the first Sikh war through the Nawab's territory, used the opportunity to address some friendly advice, but emphatic warning, to the Nawab.1 The time Hardinge's the Nawab. was come, he wrote, when misrule must cease. The warning to first and most important object to be secured was a fair and reasonable assessment of the land. The Nawab was to be allowed two years, and, if he required them, the services of British officers for making this assessment. If it were made within the specified time, he would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had eradicated the worst abuses and maintained his own sovereignty. If it were not made within that time, the Nawab was "aware of the other alternative, and of the consequences." It would then "be manifest to the whole world, whatever may happen, that he had received a friendly and timely warning." 2 To the tone and temper of this remonstrance no one can take exception. It was the most creditable document which had ever been addressed to any Nawab of Oudh by any Governor-General. Yet even this dignified memorandum was disfigured by the trail of Auckland's policy. The GovernorGeneral was evidently at a loss to know whether to base his arguments on the treaty of 1801 or on the treaty of 1837, which his own archives showed him that Auckland had been directed and had omitted to abrogate. Was the treaty of 1801 or the treaty of 1837 in force? Jurists might dispute on the technicalities which such a question involved. Hardinge evaded the difficulty by basing his remonstrance on the treaty of 1801, but alluding incidentally to the treaty of 1837 as confirmatory of the original treaty of 1801. His demand, however, was based on the 6th article of the treaty of 1801, 1 See paragraph 15 of Memorandum in Papers relating to the King of Oudh, p. 63. 2 Ibid., p. 64. and not on the 7th article of the treaty of 1837, by which the 6th article of the treaty of 1801 had been professedly modified.1 Sleeman Resident The two years of grace which Hardinge allowed expired at the end of 1849, and in the interval little or nothing was done to effect the settlement which Hardinge had declared to be indispensable.2 But at the end of the two years another Governor-General was at Calcutta, and another Resident guarded his country's interests at Lucknow. Colonel SleeColonel man, who filled the latter office in 1849, was an officer whose name stands high on the roll of Indian at Lucknow. officials. He had done more than any Englishman to suppress the horrid murders of the Thugs and the lawless robberies of the dacoits. He was selected by Dalhousie as Resident with especial reference to the changes which it was probable would be made when the two years of grace which Hardinge had allowed expired; and in words of not unjust appreciation he was told that the Government wished to entrust "the reconstruction of the internal administration of a great, rich, and oppressed country . . . to one of the best of its servants." 4 There can, therefore, be very little doubt that at the end of 1848, when the selection was made, Dalhousie contemplated executing his predecessor's threat. A respite was allowed to Oudh at Sleeman's own suggestion. Before carrying out so momentous a change, as was involved in the assumption of the administration, he desired to travel through Oudh, and to ascertain for himself the condition of its people. The necessary permission was given him; the inquiry was commenced at the close of 1849; and Sleeman's report, or rather the elaborate diary of his tour, was forwarded to the Government.5 As an official 1 Bird, who cites an elaborate opinion of Twiss to show that the treaty of 1837 was in force, ignores, as Twiss also ignores, the peculiarly timid manner in which Hardinge referred to this treaty. Dacoitee in Excelsis, pp. 101, 192. 2 Bird, Dacoitee in Excelsis, pp. 101-108, shows that the Nawab was ready to introduce the settlement tentatively into two provinces adjoining British territory. But the Government rejected this small reform as not worth considering. 3 Ante, p. 140. Tour in Oudh, introduction, p. xviii. 5 The editor of the Tour has misstated these facts, assuming that Sleeman His tour in Oudh. report, the diary, which was published after Sleeman's death, is open to much criticism. It details gossip collected by a traveller which ought not to have been included in a grave document. But it is an elaborate account of the condition of Oudh in 1849; and, if the chaff be winnowed from the grain, contains material of the highest significance. Sleeman's judgment was not favourable to the Oudh Government. The king he thought "utterly unfit to have anything to do with the administration." His singers and his eunuchs were almost his only companions; and, "to secure any reform in the administration," it would be necessary "to require him to delegate all the powers of sovereignty" to a board of three capable men, one of whom would settle the land revenue, a second of whom would reform the judicial courts, and a third of whom would control the army. The board, in Sleeman's judgment, might be composed "of the first members of the Lucknow aristocracy;" and its formation, Sleeman hoped, might obviate the necessity of carrying out the extreme threat which Hardinge had given.1 Such a recommendation must have placed Dalhousie in some difficulty. A good deal could no doubt be urged for the interference of the Company in the affairs of Oudh ; but it required a great deal of faith to believe that the substitution of three of the chief men of Oudh for the chief man would accomplish any reform worth achieving. The peasants of the province were suffering from the rapacity of the aristocracy; and an oligarchy of three aristocrats was not likely to lesson their burdens. It is probable, therefore, that Sleeman's recommendation had the effect of postponing first recomthe Governor-General's action. But delay did not improve matters. Weak already, the king's understanding became weaker, The treasure in the treasury was exhausted. Sleeman's mendation in 1849. was instructed to make the inquiry at the time of his original appointment (p. xvii.). If he had read Dalhousie's letter or the opening sentences of the Diary with ordinary care, he would at once have seen his mistake. The error is unfortunate, as it gave Bird a pretext for saying (Dacoitee in Excelsis, p. 109) that Colonel Sleeman was the emissary of a foregone conclusion. 1 Introduction to Tour in Oudh, pp. lxi., lxii., lxxii. Even the members of the royal family, finding their pensions withheld, desired British interference; while the people, or "all the well-disposed" people, conscious that there was "not a man of integrity or humanity left in any office,” equally wished for it. Writing, therefore, at the close of 1851, Sleeman declared the affairs of Oudh to be in such a state as "to require the assumption of the entire management of the country;" the principal question for the consideration of the Governor-General was not whether this policy should be carried out, but whether it should be effected by proclamation or treaty.1 The rup Yet again a short respite was afforded to Oudh. ture with Burma lest Dalhousie little leisure for other matters; and "the untoward war," 2 as Sleeman called the Burmese campaign, prevented interference. Yet the Burmese war had no sooner come to a successful close than Sleeman renewed his recommendations. "The longer the present king reigns," so he wrote in September 1852, "the more the administration and the country deteriorate. . . . The king is a crazy imbecile, surrounded exclusively by eunuchs, fiddlers, and poetasters worse than either, and by the minister and his creatures, who are worse than all. The fiddlers have control over the administration of civil justice, the eunuchs over that of criminal justice, the minister has the land revenue, and all are making enormous fortunes." People of all classes he described as utterly weary of the Government, and all of them, from the highest to the lowest, were ready to welcome the introduction of British administration with joy.3 Still Dalhousie did nothing. "An unfeigned reluctance" to resort to extreme measures induced him again and again to postpone any definite action; and, during the whole time that Sleeman remained at Oudh, no further step was taken. In the summer of 1854 Sleeman's health failed, and he resigned the post which he had held for so many years. His resignation afforded Dalhousie a fresh opportunity. Some 1 Tour in Oudh, vol. ii. pp. 353, 354. 2 Ibid., p. 358. 8 Abbreviated from Sleeman's Tour in Oudh, vol. ii. pp. 369, 370. |