INDIA.
During the whole of the year 1855, General Outram, as the British political agent at Lucknow, was engaged in disputes with the King of Oude. According to instructions from Lord Dalhousie, the governor-general, demands were made which the king and his people resisted. General Outram acted with all the humanity and courtesy which his stern instructions allowed. Lord Dalhousie was determined to annex the rich and fertile kingdom. The British cabinet, acting through the board of control, encouraged him. The author of these pages knows that the directors of the East India Company generally disapproved of the annexation, and some of them foresaw the consequences. The act of parliament of 1853, which came into operation in 1854, left the company so little power, that there was no use in its intelligent members opposing the caprice and aggrandizement of the board of control. At all events, the directors offered no open opposition, and Lord Dalhousie was left to his own unfettered judgment to carry out his scheme. At the close of 1855, General Outram was ordered to assemble a large military force at Cawnpore, and to enter into negotiations with the Oude government, “for the purposes mentioned in the despatch of the honourable court.” On the 30th of January, 1856, General Outram summoned the prime-minister of Oude to the residency at Lucknow, to inform him of the decision of the governor-general. On the 1st of February the king addressed “the Resident,” protesting in mild but dignified language against the subversion of his rightful authority. The resident declined all discussion, informing his majesty that the determination of his government was inflexible. He gave the king three days to decide. The army and people of Oude were as one man in the desire to raise the standard of resistance; and the sepoys of the Bengal army, being soon made acquainted with the danger to the independence of Oude, their native territory, heartily, but secretly, sympathized with its king and people. His majesty did not dare, however, to encounter the superior power of the British; he disarmed his troops, and dismounted his guns. On the 4th of February, General Outram demanded that the king should sign a declaration that his “infraction of the essential engagements of the previous treaties had been continued and notorious.” His majesty, giving way to vehement grief and indignation, refused to sign this condemnation of himself, and expressed his determination to lay a memorial of his wrongs at the feet of the Queen of Great Britain. In 1858, he, by his agents, endeavoured to obtain from her majesty redress of the grievances of which he complained. The king also refused to sign a new treaty, abrogating that of 1801, submitted to him by General Outram. On the 7th of February, the general issued a proclamation, declaring that “the British government had assumed to itself the exclusive and permanent administration of the territories of Oude.” From that moment the soldiery and people of the kingdom were resolved to take the first opportunity of reasserting the independence of their country, and taking vengeance upon those whom they considered its oppressors. General Outram compelled many nobles to give bail for their good behaviour, and many were placed under surveillance. General Outram has been much blamed for the part he took, but he merely performed his duty as the governor-general’s agent. He was taken into his excellency’s counsels no farther than to evoke his opinion on the modus operandi by which the orders of Government-house might best be carried out. General Outram had no responsibility as to the policy of the transaction.
In the above relation of the transactions in India, events are anticipated for unity of subject, as in 1855 the orders went forth which annexed Oude, and nearly lost India in 1857.