To Mr. Colvin.
Lucknow, 5th March, 1854.
My Dear Low,
I have to-day written to Government a letter, which you will of course see, on the subject of a proposal made to me by Mr. B. Government will, I have no doubt, consider the reason assigned by me for refusing to permit him to send an European agent to Lucknow, ostensibly to collect debts, sufficient; but whether it will consent to adopt my suggestion, and empower the Resident to assure the King that it will not again consent to permit Mr. B. to return and reside at Lucknow, after he has been twice expelled for his misdeeds, I know not. One thing is certain, that his residence at Cawnpore, under the assurance from the minister that he shall come back and be made wealthy if he can aid in getting rid of the Resident, is very mischievous.
B., Wasee Allee, and the Minister, succeeded in persuading the King that Shurfod Dowla, and all the most respectable members of the Lucknow aristocracy, had signed a memorial to the Government of India, praying that it would set aside the present King as an incompetent fool, and put Mostafa Alee on the throne in his place. All this was reported by me to Government on the 2nd of March, 1853.
The seals were all forged or filched here at Lucknow, but the papers were written in Calcutta, under the agency, I believe, of Synd Jan, Sir H. E.'s moonshee, from Bilgram, where his family have long enjoyed an estate rent-free, for the aid he has given to the minister in his intrigues. I have never been able to remove this delusion from the mind of the imbecile King; and it is the "raw" on which these knaves have been ever since acting; for it enables the minister to persuade him that his vigilance-alone preserves his life and crown.
The minister is aware that I know all this, and may some day be able to show the King how he has been deluded and befooled by him; and he would give all he is worth to get rid of me in any way. He would give any sums to B. and his other agents to bribe editors to write against me; but the only editors who have yielded have been those of the "Mofussilite," before Mr. C. took the management. Mr. B. complains at Cawnpore, that he gave Mr. L. a large sum to do his dirty work at home; but that he did nothing for it. This is not unlikely. That the minister and Wasee Alee got up the attempt at the Residency, either to make away with me, or to alarm me into going away, I am persuaded; but to get judicial proof of it I shall not attempt. It would be vain here, where the minister has all the revenues of the State to work with.
All the native gentlemen whose seals were forged to this document, look to me for protection; and they have been ever since in a state of great alarm. It was to keep up this alarm that they tried to turn Shurfod Dowla out of Oude. I had rarely seen him before that time; and I have only seen him once since he went to the cantonments; and then only for five minutes during my walk in the garden, to talk about Mulki Jahan's affairs. They punish any one who ventures to approach the King; and they would ruin any one who ventured to approach the Resident if they could, lest he might open the eyes of the King to the iniquities they commit. The troops are starved, and almost all the old members of the royal family, who had no Government paper or guarantees, have been already starved or driven out. Oude has never before been afflicted by a Sovereign so utterly imbecile and regardless of his duties and the sufferings of his people; nor has there ever been a minister so utterly regardless of his own reputation and that of his master. He bribes with money, power, and patronage, every one who has access to the King, to sound his praise in prose or verse; and the King is persuaded that his life and throne depend upon his abstaining altogether, from interfering in the conduct of affairs.
When I was in the Governor-Generals camp at Futtehgur, M. H., the son of S. A. K., came there armed, I knew, with four lacs of rupees. He was an old acquaintance of E.'s, and he (E.) told me that he had asked for an interview, and asked me whether he ought to consent to see him. I told him that, if he did see him, he must make up his mind to the man's persuading the King that he had given him the greater part of the money, though the man himself kept all that he did not give to his moonshee. He refused to see the man; but he has ever since been with Mr. L. at Allahabad, intriguing with his people to chouse men out of their ancient possessions; or with the Oude people, to keep up the raw they have established on the King's mind. The King, by over-indulgence, has reduced his intellect below the standard of that of a boy of five years of age. It is painful to talk to a man with a mind so utterly emasculated.