for the
benefit of the people and royal family of Oude. If we do this, all
India will think us right, for the sufferings of the people of Oude,
under the present system, have been long notorious throughout India;
and so have our repeated pledges to relieve the people from these
sufferings, unless the system should be altered. Fifty years of sad
experience have shown to us and to all India, that this system is
incapable of improvement under the present dynasty; and that the only
alternative is for the paramount power to take the administration
upon itself.

Under the treaty of 1801, we took one-half of the territory of Oude,
and that half yields to us above two crores of rupees; though, when
taken, it was estimated at one hundred and thirty-three lacs. The
half retained by the Oude Sovereign was estimated at the same; but it
now yields to the Sovereign only one crore. The rest is absorbed by
the knaves employed in the administration and their patrons at Court.
All that is now so absorbed would come to the Treasury under us, and
be employed in the maintenance of efficient establishments, and the
construction of useful public works; and we should have ample means
for providing for all the members of the royal family of Oude.

We should derive substantial benefit from the measure, without in any
degree violating our declaration of disinterestedness. We now
maintain five regiments of Infantry, and a company of Artillery, at a
cost of from five to six lacs a-year. We maintain the Residency and
all its establishments at a cost of more than one lac of rupees a-
year. All these would become fairly chargeable to the Oude revenues
under the new administration; and we might dispense with half the
military forces now kept up at Cawnpore and Dinapore on the Ganges,
as the military force in Oude would relieve us from all apprehension
as to Nepaul.

Oude would be covered with a network of fine macadamised roads, over
which the produce of Oude and our own districts would pass freely to
the benefit of the people of both; and we should soon have the river
Ghagra, from near Patna on the Ganges, to Fyzabad in Oude, navigable
for steamers: with a railroad from Fyzabad, through Lucknow to
Cawnpore, to the great benefit of the North-West Provinces and those
of Bengal.

Were we to take advantage of the occasion to _annex_ or _confiscate_
Oude, or any part of it, our good name in India would inevitably
suffer; and that good name is more va