that it would be welcomed with most cordial approval by Lord Canning; or if a few did doubt, they at least kept their reasons for doing so to themselves. When such was the case, Lord Ellenborough's surprise and regret may be imagined when not three weeks after writing those instructions, the Indian mail brought him (April 12) the copy of a proclamation about to be issued by the Governor-General to the people of Oude, announcing a general confiscation of all the land-property in that kingdom! With the exception of six Zemindars who had remained faithful to us, the GovernorGeneral proclaimed that "the proprietary right in the soil of the province is CONFISCATED to the British Government." "To those talookdars, chiefs, and landlords, with their followers," it was added, "who shall [upon these terms] make immediate submission, their lives and honour shall be safe, provided that their hands are unstained with English blood murderously shed." In other words, with the exception of six men who had remained friendly to us, and of such others as could prove the same, and to whom it was certainly no generosity to leave what was their own, the whole rights of the people of Oude, both high and low, in the soil of their country were declared confiscated; and all that was promised to them was "their lives and honour"-that is to say, they would not be transported or put in jail. The terms of the proclamation were perfectly explicit; but, as if to put beyond even a shadow of doubt the sweeping nature of the contemplated confiscation, the instructions for its issue stated that it "is addressed to the chiefs and inhabitants of Oude." It was an awful proclamation. There are no less than 40,000 actual landholders amongst the 5,000,000 inhabitants in Oude: so that this edict of confiscation was equal in severity to one which should confiscate the land property of 240,000 persons amongst the population of our own Isles ! Never before, in the whole world, has Conquest attempted such wholesale spoliation. Not even the Dark Ages of Europe furnish a precedent for so sweeping a measure of

confiscation. The annals of India have nothing similar to show. Flood after flood of war and conquest has passed over the Indian peninsula

revolution after revolution has changed its dynasties- race after race, despot after despot, have risen in turn, and extended their sway over the surrounding states; but the proprietary rights in the soil have remained in the mass untouched. Hitherto the viceroys of England have followed a similar course. Wellesley, Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, under whose rule our Indian Empire was most largely augmented, never issued a proclamation in which private rights and property were not respected. In Scinde, while striking down the treacherous rulers, who had attacked the British Resident immediately after the conclusion of a treaty of peace, Ellenborough and Napier confirmed to every man his property; and that has been the secret of our strength in Scinde, and of the permanent tranquillity of that province. When Gwalior rebelled, and was reconquered, Ellenborough left every private right intact. In the settlement of the Punjaub similar principles were acted upon by Dalhousie and Lawrence. Some of the Sikh chiefs, indeed, drew the revenues of certain villages in return for maintaining a quota of troops for the Crown; and when we took the entire maintenance of the military establishment upon our own shoulders, these revenues of course lapsed to the State. Even in these cases great forbearance was shown, and most of the holders of jagheers were allowed to retain their revenues in life-tenure; and in all other respects the proprietary rights of the people were preserved with scrupulous care. Unfortunately, at the very moment Oude was passing into our hands, Lord Dalhousie was compelled by ill health to return home; and under the less able and experienced rule of his successor, errors and injustice were committed in the landsettlement of Oude, which left in that province seeds of bitter enmity, very unlike the contentment and satisfaction which have never ceased to prevail among the people of Scinde and the Punjaub. Sound policy, as

well as justice, dictated that we should avail ourselves of the present opportunity to rectify these errors, if we wished Oude to become tranquil and contented like our other provinces. At all events, we owed forbearance to the people. But Lord Canning thought otherwise, and, far from seeking to redress former errors or wrongs, his proclamation annihilated at once the whole rights of the people in the soil of their country. In Oude, as in most parts of India, every school and mosque and other religious or charitable establishment, is endowed and supported by revenues derived from the land; yet the terms of this confiscation were so sweeping that they included not only the property of the talookdars and also of the small landholders, of whom there are many in Oude, but the possessions of the village communities and the entire religious property of the country. And this at the very time we were seeking to convince the natives that we did not desire to destroy their religion, or make them proselytes by force!

It was impossible for Lord Ellenborough to acquiesce in the issuing of such a proclamation. It was directly opposed both to the terms and to the spirit of the despatch which he had forwarded to India on the 24th March. It moreover appeared to him, as it must to all, that such a proclamation, issued whilst the entire population of Oude was in arms against us, could not fail to drive them to desperation. In his own words, "he saw it would make Oude a sea of fire." Lord Canning's conduct was inexplicable, it was so opposed to all his previous clemency. At the outbreak of the revolt, when a stern vigour was most excusable, we saw him issuing proclamations of studied moderation; yet now he had become bitterly uncompromising at the very time when compromise was most plainly called for. He had been clement at first, when he had to deal with the bloodthirsty mutineers; he had become persecuting now, when dealing with ordinary foes like the people of Oude. To add to the singularity of Lord Canning's course, no explanation or communication from his Lordship of any kind appeared

accompanying the copy of the document sent home,-nor for ten weeks afterwards did any letter from the Governor - General reach Ministers. In these circumstances-and seeing that an error fraught with fearful consequences was about to be committed-Lord Ellenborough, after considering the matter with his colleagues, wrote a reply, expressing his apprehension that this decree, pronouncing the disinherison of a people, will throw difficulties almost insurmountable in the way of the re-establishment of peace." He reminded Lord Canning that the circumstances attending our annexation of Oude, the recentness of that annexation, and the hardships felt by the landholders, "from our summary settlement of the revenue," which had deprived them of " what they deemed to be their property," gave to the hostilities in Oude "rather the character of legitimate war than of rebellion;' " but that, notwithstanding, his Lordship's proposed proclamation made the people of Oude" the objects of a penalty exceeding in extent and in severity almost any which has been recorded in history as inflicted upon a subdued nation.' Therefore, concluded the despatch, in words that will be esteemed memorable, "We desire that you will mitigate in practice the stringent severity of the decree of confiscation you have issued against the landholders of Oude. We desire to see the British authority in India rest upon the willing obedience of a contented people. There cannot be contentment where there is general confiscation. Government cannot long be maintained by any force in a country where the whole people is rendered hostile by a sense of wrong; and if it were possible so to maintain it, it would not be a consummation to be desired." The despatch was written and signed on the 19th April. On the 23d, Sir Erskine Perry rose in the House of Commons, and asked if instructions had been sent out enjoining the issuing of an amnesty to Oude,-adding, amidst the cheers of the Opposition, that unless such an amnesty were promulgated, our possession of India would not be worth six months' purchase. The answer

of course was in the affirmative, and the despatch of 24th March was tabled. By the mail on the 26th, the despatch censuring the proclamation was finally sent off,-having been forwarded through the Secret Committee, as its predecessor of 24th March had been, by which means also much time was saved in its transmission to India.

So April ended and May began. The next event was one which has an important bearing upon what followed, for it shows how entirely Lord Ellenborough's views in regard to Oude are supported by those formally announced by the Court of Directors. On the 5th May, that body drew up instructions to Lord Canning how to act towards the people of Oude,-and what did they say? Lord Ellenborough's despatch of 24th March had been made public by an order of Parliament, and the Court of Directors inform Lord Canning "that in the sentiments expressed by that despatch we entirely concur. You are exhorted to temper justice with mercy, and, except in cases of extreme criminality, to grant an amnesty to the vanquished." To enforce these instructions, they reminded the Governor-General (very much as Lord Ellenborough had done) of "the special considerations of justice and of policy" by which he ought to be moved in dealing with the people of Oude,-adding: "You would be justified, therefore, in dealing with them as you would with a foreign enemy, and in ceasing to consider them objects of punishment after they have once laid down their arms." Even with respect to the " great talookdars -the "feudal barons" of the Palmerstonian vocabularythe Court of Directors enjoin as follows:

The despatch thus concludes :

"Having thus endeavoured to reassure the great landholders, you will proceed to consider, in the same spirit of tolerathe great body of the people. tion and forbearance, the condition of

You will be especially careful, in the readjustment of the fiscal system of the province, to avoid the imposition of unaccustomed taxes, whether of a general or of a local character, pressing heavily upon the industrial resources, and affecting the daily comforts of the people. endeavour to conciliate the people by wise concessions, and to do nothing to encourage the belief that the British Government is more covetous of revenue than the native ruler whom it has supplanted."

At such a time we should

It will be observed that, in this important exposition of their views, the Court of Directors not only entirely approve, but go considerably beyond, the principles of moderation enjoined in Lord Ellenborough's despatch of 24th March, and in accordance with which his reply to the confiscatory proclamation was framed. They even enjoin that the opportunity of the readjustment of the fiscal system should be taken advantage of to redress any errors committed in our first summary settlement of the province-of which Lord Canning himself, as well as Sir James Outram, confesses there were too many. Little, indeed, did the Court of Direc tors imagine that, instead of this wise and moderate policy, there had already been published at Lucknow a proclamation confiscating to the British Government the entire soil of Oude! On the 28th February (as we now find from one of the letters suppressed by Mr V. Smith) the

Governor-General acknowledged that the "talookdars and landowners" are "men who owe us nothing, and who think themselves, not unreasonably, wronged by us.' Could it be conceived by any one that in little more than a fortnight afterwards he should treat them as outlaws to whom nothing was to be spared but their lives?

Yet such proved to be the fact. At the very hour the East India Directors were returning home after framing this clement despatch, an Indian mail was arriving in Lon

don; and next day there appeared in the Times, embodied in its correspondent's letter from the seat of war, the actual text of a proclamation which had been issued at

Lucknow, disinheriting, by confiscation, all the 5,000,000 inhabitants of Oude! The proclamation, said Mr Russell, whose letter was dated 24th March, was issued, I think, on the evening after the Kaiserbagh fell into our hands"-i. e., on 15th March (it was dated the 14th)-and the orders were that it should be "posted in the streets, and, as far as possible, distributed in the provinces.' After giving the proclamation, Mr Russell went on to describe the present temper of the people as such that, if it continue, "years must elapse before this vast city can be left without a strong British garrison." Still more strongly he adds :

"If this temper become permanent and extensively prevalent, we may be called upon to solve the tremendous problem whether England is strong enough to govern by force of a military despotism the 150,000,000 or 160,000,000 human beings committed to her charge. My own impression is that there is no foreign Power whatever could maintain an army in India without the aid of a considerable portion of the population. We could not march a mile without their assistance. Unless we quadrupled the numbers of our soldiers we could not do the mere non-combatant portion of the work of an army, without striking a blow in the field, and the day will be fraught with danger to us which brings the native the knowledge of his strength in that species of warfare for which he alone is suited-predatory, harassing guerilla. Any measures which have a tendency to drive the people to adopt such a mode of warfare are much to be deprecated, and are, in fact, conducive to the

enemy's success. The Moulvie Shahjee

and Khan Bahadoor Khan have shown

that they comprehend their strength and our weakness, and we should be fools indeed if we played their game. If clemency be compatible with justice and policy too, let us not be ashamed of being animated by a quality which is one of the grandest characteristics of heroes, of conquerors, and of mighty empires, and which posterity admires more than the valour by which opportunity for its exercise was won."

The same letter contained the following warning :—

"Keen observers detect a gathering cloud in the North-west. The Sikhs talk loudly, I am told. They say, 'We have done all the hard fighting-we took the Kaiserbagh.' . . . As at Delhi,

they say, We fought against you for merly; now we fight for you. Perhaps some day we shall fight against you once more.' There must always be a sufficient force to prevent the danger of a sudden outbreak on the part of this fierce and fickle soldiery, and 1000 men per month, which is the amount of reinforcements promised us, will scarcely keep this army even at its present inadequate strength."

In an editorial article on the same day, the Times supported the views expressed by its correspondent in the following terms :

"We have done quite enough for reputation and conquest; it is time we did a little more for pacification.

All the authorities concur in affirming that we might come to terms with the inhabitants without any trouble at all. Neither landholders nor people, even in Oude, have any objection to our rule or supremacy; but the former class desire a satisfactory tenure of their estates, and the latter look for assurance and protection. It would well become the Government to recommend in its next despatches a greater discrimination in the infliction of punishment at the seat From all accounts it would appear that the authorities, military and civil especially the civil-do not err on the side of lenity."

of war.

The course which the "leading journal" thus, on the 6th May, so strenuously recommended the Government to adopt "in its next despatches," had, as we have seen, already been acted upon six weeks before, in Lord Ellenborough's despatch of 24th March; and if the Conservatives had obtained the seals of office a

month sooner, it is plain that Lord Canning's disastrous proclamation would never have been issued to discredit our rule and obstruct our arms in the East.

The appearance of the proclamation in the Times, accompanied by the statements of its Lucknow correspondent, and its own editorial remarks, naturally produced a great sensation among the political circles of London; and that same Thursday afternoon, as soon as the House met, Mr Bright put a series of searching ques

tions to the Secretary to the Board of Control, desiring to be informed whether the Government had suggested that proclamation, whether they had sent out any decision with respect to it, what they thought of it, and what they meant to do in the matter, adding, that "the Government must agree with him that a question of this importance should be very distinctly and clearly answered." Thus appealed to, Mr Baillie (who, on seeing the proclamation in the papers, had asked his chief what answer he should give if questioned on the point) replied, that a despatch had been sent out in answer, and that it would be laid on the table of the House. Not content even with this answer, Mr Bright again rose, and appealed to the Government to state at once the purport of the reply which they had sent, and which was to be tabled next day: upon which Mr Disraeli stated, that the Government entirely disapproved of the proclamation. In the Upper House, half an hour later, Lord Ellenborough was questioned on the subject by Lord Granville, and made a similar reply; and next day (Friday) the despatch condemnatory of Lord Canning's proclamation (of which we have already given the substance and leading passages), was produced in both Houses. At a Cabinet meeting held that day at four o'clock, immediately before the Houses met, it was agreed not to publish the argumentative passages of the despatch, in which the peculiar circumstances connected with the annexation of Oude were adduced to show that the people of that country ought not to be treated like the other rebels, and that wholesale confisca tion in their case was peculiarly unjustifiable. The despatch accordingly appeared with these passages excised in the copy tabled in the Lords; but in the Commons, which met somewhat earlier, the despatch had been laid on the table in extenso, before the instructions to the contrary were received.

The announcement that the Government disapproved of the proclamation, had been received in the House with loud cheering; and when Lord Ellenborough's despatch was

produced, the Palmerstonians appeared taken aback, and, without contesting its merits, complained loudly that the Government had produced it in order to gain popularity. They felt that the policy of the late Ministry and its Governor-General had received a most damaging blow; and in the first blush of their mortification, they maintained that the Government had prompted Mr Bright to put his questions, in order that they might have an excuse for producing the despatch-a statement wholly contrary to truth, and which Mr Bright (in his speech, on 20th May) scornfully contradicted. Quickly recovering themselves, however-it will be seen afterwards how "private" information had placed them on the alert-they took up the cry that, before censuring Lord Canning's proclamation, the Government ought to have waited for his "explanations" of it (as if it did not tell its meaning only too plainly!) and ought not to have consented to let Parliament see their reply, because it was "cruel" to the Governor-General, would weaken his hands, and (to such lengths did their factious imaginations carry them) obstruct the success of Sir Colin and our brave troops! On Saturday (the 8th) the Times, in defiance of what it had said only two days before, commenced a series of virulent attacks upon the conduct and policy of the Government, which, like a cannonade, was designed to cover the mustering and aid the assault of the Palmerstonian legions. Lord John Russell, falling into the trap, became willing to co-operate with his rival the ex-Premier; some of the Peelites were likewise favourable to the attack; and the Whigs went about in great glee at the notion of a "reunion of the shattered Liberal party, which promised to reopen to them the gates of their paradise, Downing Street. Six days in the week were not enough for all their scheming and cabals; and so"the better day the better deed!"the Factions assembled at Lord Palmerston's residence, Cambridge House, to have a grand field-day on Sunday the 9th! At that meeting it was arranged that a vote of censure