of declaring the treaty of 1801 annulled, but he shrankas indeed the three others shrank-from inflicting on a wretched population the disorders and bloodsheddings which he foresaw would inevitably result from the withdrawal of the British garrison. Instead of doing so, he wished to tell the king that he must either conclude a new treaty, surrendering the administration but retaining his rank and an adequate revenue, or submit to see still harder terms meted out to him by the Company.1 Peacock, approaching the question from a lawyer's standpoint, advocated, like Dalhousie, the assumption of the administration of the kingdom by the British, but, unlike Dalhousie, thought that this might be done under the treaty of 1801. If one party to a treaty did not observe its conditions, the other party to it was entitled to compel its observance by force; and without, therefore, going beyond the letter of the treaty, the British had, in his opinion, ample means of terminating abuse and misrule.2 The decision of the India House. These important state papers were forwarded to London in the summer of 1855. Towards the close of that year the Court of Directors pronounced a decision upon them. The Court agreed with all its Indian advisers in deciding to terminate maladministration in Oudh. It shared the fears, which Dalhousie's Council had expressed, of the consequences of the Governor General's proposal. The "sole motive," the "sole justification," of interference was the misgovernment of the people; and the Court could not bring itself to encounter the risk of promoting fresh disorder by withdrawing, in the British Resident and in the British troops, the only guarantees of order. It could not, therefore, sanction the threat which Dalhousie proposed, unless the Governor-General had reason to know that its utterance would be followed by the iminediate submission of the king. In any other event it preferred the advice of Grant and Dorin to the milder alternative of Dalhousie. It proposed to take over the administration of the province, to deprive the king of all power except in his palace and in 1 Oudh Blue Book, p. 220. 2 Ibid., p. 229. his parks, and, after making a liberal provision for him, and a provision somewhat less liberal for his successors, to appropriate the revenues of the province for the purposes of the Indian Government. It concluded by expressing a hope that this great measure would be executed by a GovernorGeneral who had ruled with such signal ability and success, and who had bestowed so much consideration on this particular subject.1 ultimatum. This despatch left Dalhousie and his Council little room for further reflection. The policy of the Directors was plain; the Government of India had only to carry it out. Troops were at once concentrated on Oudh. Outram was directed, as soon as their concentration was complete, to sum- Dalhousie's mon the minister to the Residency, and announce to him the decision of the Government. He was subsequently to seek an audience with the king, to deliver to him a letter from the Governor-General, and to ask him to sign a treaty consenting to hand over the government of the kingdom to the East India Company. If the king consented to sign the treaty, Outram was authorised to guarantee him a revenue of £150,000, which he was instructed he might even raise to £180,000, and to make adequate provision for his family. If he declined to sign the treaty, the government of the country was to be assumed by proclamation, and the king was to be left without security for the continuance of his title or for the payment of his pension.2 Nothing better illustrates the course of British policy in India than the circumstance that Outram should have been the agent to give effect to this policy. Outram, in fact, was forced to do what men in still higher positions had been doing for eighty years before him. No leading Indian statesman was so prominent an opponent of the policy of annexation. which Parliament and the East India Company had resisted, and which successive Governors-General had come out to 1 Oudh Blue Book, pp. 233-236. 2 Dalhousie's Minute settling these arrangements is in ibid., p. 237; the instructions to Outram, ibid., p. 241; the draft treaty and the alternative proclamation, ibid., pp. 251-257. India to withstand. The drift which had been too strong for the Legislature and the Company was proving too strong for Outram. Aiming at one object, he was borne against his will in the other direction; and the man who had raised his voice against the annexation of Scinde, who had refused to touch his share of the prize-money of the Scinde campaign,1 was compassing and effecting the annexation of Oudh. Yet one The annexation of Oudh. advantage resulted from Outram's presence at Lucknow. The work to be done was carried out with a courtesy and a firmness which gave the Court of Oudh no pretext for complaining of the agent who did it. The king, indeed, declined to sign the treaty which was presented to him,2 and Outram, in obedience to his orders, had to assume the government against the will of the sovereign. But, in executing that task, in the subsequent organisation of the raw machinery of administration, he displayed tact and ability of a high order. Whatever predilections he entertained for Native rule, he strove that the great revolution which he was ordered to make should be accomplished without bloodshed and remembered without bitterness. And thus the Court of Directors was able to declare that "an expanse of territory embracing an area of nearly 25,000 square miles, and containing 5,000,000 inhabitants, has passed from its native prince to the Queen of England without the expenditure of a drop of blood, and almost without a murmur.” 3 The annexation of Oudh was the last and the greatest acquisition of the East India Company, and it was also the concluding act of Dalhousie's administration. In this narrative of the circumstances which produced it, more pains have been taken to set out the facts than to express an opinion considered. upon them. In no fair statement is it possible, indeed, to omit the conclusion that the princes of Oudh were treated with scant justice and were requited with hard measure. Even if maladministration were as great as Sleeman declared, Its policy 1 Life of Outram, vol. ii. p. 5. 2 Oudh Blue Book, p. 303. 3 See the despatch of 10th December 1856, in Parl. Papers, 1857, No. 12, P. I. the King of Oudh was a good neighbour, and the services which he had rendered to us should have saved him from the shameful fraud which was practised on him by concealing from him the disallowance of the treaty of 1837. Maladministration, moreover, could undoubtedly have been terminated by a milder reform than that which the East India Company forced Dalhousie to adopt. If it were competent for the Company to annex the province, it must have been within its powers to appoint its own officers to conduct its administration. If nothing but better government were required, other means than the dethronement of a dynasty were available. If, then, in considering the annexation of Oudh, the reader confines his attention to the relations between the Nawab and the Company, he will probably conclude that annexation was a sheer act of robbery. If, however, he approaches the subject from another standpoint, he may possibly form a different conclusion. Events had made the British the paramount Indian Power. Millions of the human race, victims of wrongdoing, had no remedy against their oppressors except through British interference. Was it worth while setting the feelings or the interests of the king and his family against the feelings and interests of his unfortunate subjects? Were the wrongs of peoples always to be sacrificed to the rights of kings? Was a garden for ever to remain a desert because a worthless potentate was amusing himself with his fiddlers ? "'Tis worth a wise man's best of life, The countless ills beneath the sun." So wrote John Sterling. Were not the lines to hold good of Oudh ? He, then, who examines the annexation of Oudh from this standpoint will perhaps as hastily conclude that the policy was right as he who studies exclusively the relations between king and Company will think it wrong. The only doubt which he will perhaps feel will arise not from principle, but from expediency. He may tremble at the prospect before his race if it embark upon a universal crusade against misgovernment. This fear, perhaps, partly accounts for the remarkable circumstance that the men who have the smallest scruples in striking down dynasties among coloured races are usually those who regard with most consideration the rights of kings in the continent of Europe. The political party which has walked in Wellesley's footsteps in India has not displayed much eagerness to terminate misrule nearer home. The year in which Britain used its might to terminate misrule in Oudh was the same year in which she employed her whole power to maintain a Government far worse than that of Oudh in Turkey. The fact may be palatable or bitter, but there can be no doubt that the code of morality which we apply to Asia we do not apply to Europe. The real motives of But the true reason for the annexation of Oudh is not to be found in any state paper, and was not based on any moral code. Oudh was annexed because British interests seemed to require its annexation, and annexation. Turkey was maintained because British interests seemed to require its preservation. The acquisition of Scinde and the conquest of the Punjab had made the appropriation of Oudh inevitable. It was not merely required to round off an estate. It cut the British territory into two parts. The Company wanted it, and it took it. Its maladministration might have been tolerated for another century if its independence had not interfered with the consolidation of the British Empire. The retirement of Dalhousie. Its annexation was Dalhousie's last act. In the month in which it was accomplished he handed over the reins of power to his successor. His retirement closed a rule which is strongly marked with his own personality. Among all the statesmen who governed India, from Wellesley to our own time, no other man stands out so clearly on the Indian horizon. In some of the chief attributes of kingship— in the caution of his judgments, in the vigour of his actions, in the perspicacity with which he chose his agents, in the confidence with which he inspired them-he displayed the |