te purposes, by our
making the great landholders pay a due portion of their assets to the
state, and by our securing the safe transit of raw produce and
manufactured goods to their proper markets.

By adopting a simple system of administration, to meet the wishes of
a simple people, we should secure the goodwill of all classes of
society in Oude; and no class would be more pleased with the change
than the members of the royal family themselves, who depend upon
their stipends for their subsistence, and despair of ever again
receiving them under the present Sovereign and system.

I hope a happy termination of the present war with Burmah will soon
leave Lord Dalhousie free to devote his attention to Oude affairs. As
far as I am consulted, I shall advocate, as strongly as may be
compatible with my position, the measures above described, because I
think they will be found best calculated to benefit the people of
Oude, to meet the wishes of the home Government, and to sustain his
Lordship's own reputation, and that of the nation which he represents
throughout our Eastern empire.

You are aware of some of the difficulties that I have had to contend
with, in carrying out important measures beneficial to the people,
and honourable to the Government of India; but in no situation in
life have I ever had to struggle with so many as here, in pursuing an
honest and steady course of policy, calculated to secure the respect
of all classes for the Government which I represent. Such a scene of
intrigue, corruption, depravity, neglect of duty, and abuse of
authority, I have never before been placed in, and hope never again
to undergo; and I have had to contend with bitter hostility where I
had the best right to expect support. I have never yet failed in the
performance of any duty that Government has intrusted to me, and,
under Providence, I hope that I shall ultimately succeed in the
performance of that which I have committed to me here.

Lucknow is an overgrown city, surrounding an overgrown Court, which
has, for the last half century, exhausted all the resources of this
fine country; and so alienated the feelings of the great body of the
people that they, and the Sovereign, and his officers, look upon each
other as irreconcileable enemies. Between the city, the pampered
Court and its functionaries, and the people of the country beyond,
there is not the slightest feeling of sympathy; and if our troops
were withdrawn from the vicini