dia, save the valley of the Nurbuddah,
where the feeling towards us is better. All, from the highest to the
lowest, would, at this time, hail the advent of our administration
with joy; and the rest of India, to whom Oude misrule is well known,
would acquiesce in the conviction, that it had become imperative for
the protection of the people. With steamers to Fyzabad, and a
railroad from that place to Cawnpore, through Lucknow, the Nepaul
people would be for ever quieted, with half of the force we now keep
up to look after them; and the N. W. Provinces become more closely
united to Bengal, to the vast advantage of both. I mentioned that we
should require a considerable loan to begin with; but I think that an
issue of paper money, receivable in Oude in revenue, and payable to
public establishments in Oude, might safely be made to cover all the
outlay required to pay off odd establishments and commence the new
work. Little money goes out of Oude, and the increased circulating
medium, required for the new public works and new establishments,
would soon absorb all the paper issued. It might be issued at little
or no cost by the financial department of the new administration.
Though everybody knows that the King has become crazy and imbecile,
it would be difficult to get judicial proof that he is so, where the
life and property of every one are at his mercy and that of the
knaves who now govern him. His every-day doings sufficiently manifest
it. There is not the slightest ground for hope that he will ever be
any other than what he now is, or that his children will be better.
There are too many interested in depriving them of all capacity for a
part in public affairs that they may retain the reins in their own
hands when the children come of age to admit of their ever becoming
better than their father is. I have not lately made the reports which
Lord Hardinge directed the Resident to make periodically, but shall
be prepared to resume them whenever your Lordship may direct. I
suspended them on account of hostilities with Burmah. I have printed
eighteen copies of the establishments, as they are and were last
year, and as I proposed for the new system. I shall not let any one
have a copy till your Lordship permits it, and they are all at your
disposal if required. This, and the "Substantive Code," are the only
papers connected with Oude, except the Diary that I have had printed,
or shall have printed, unless ordered by you.