(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.
To Major Ouseley,
&c. &c.
Lucknow, 14th September, 1853.
Dear Sir,
The King of Oude will certainly not assist you to get up a newspaper at Lucknow; and you will certainly be disappointed if you come in expectation of such assistance from him. If you can get into his service in any other capacity, I am not aware of any objections to it, but as I have already told you and many others, I cannot recommend any one for employment under him. The humiliations to which honest and respectable Christians have to submit in his service, from the jealousies of influential persons about the Durbar, are such as few can or ought to submit to; and I certainly would not advise any one to enter such a service. Under whatever pledge or whatever influence they might enter it, their tenure of office and their pay would be altogether precarious, and the Resident would be unable to assist them in retaining the one or recovering the other.
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.
To G. Norton, Esq.
P.S.—The King of Oude and his family are in no danger from the British Government, on whose good faith they repose. I only wish that his honest and industrious subjects were as safe from the officers whom he employs in all branches of the administration, and from whom they are nowhere safe I fear.