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curtailed of their rights in the soil. When Oude was annexed by us, says Lord Canning, the land settle ment was carried into execution in some districts with undue haste, harshly, and upon insufficient evidence; and when this took place injustice was done to the talookdars, some of whom were deprived of villages which had long been attached to their talookas, and their titles to which were not satisfactorily disproved. The injustice might, and probably would, have been corrected in making the revised settlement; but this does not excuse or palliate the wrong.' Here, then, quite independently of the outbreak of the revolt, or of the annexation of their country, Lord Canning admits that the landowners of Oude had a cause of feud against our rule. Again he says, in farther excuse of the talookdars and other landholders," The allegiance of these men, when they broke into rebellion, was little more than a year old, and they had become British subjects by no act of their own our rule had brought loss of property to them, and upon some an unjust loss; and it had diminished the importance and arbitrary power of all." Very naturally, then, does he add,-" I considered these facts to be a palliation of rebellion, even when hostility to us had been most inveterate." No statement could be more conclusive as to the correctness of Lord Ellenborough's view of the case, and of the soundness of the premises upon which the noble Earl based his policy. But, proceeding upon the same premises, to what opposite conclusions did these two statesmen come! In the whole circumstances of the people of Oude, Lord Ellenborough saw imperative reasons for dealing gently with them, or at least for dealing out to them no sterner usage than is adopted in ordinary warfare. Taking the very same view of their circumstances, Lord Canning overwhelmed them by a confiscation of such magnitude as to make it quite unparalleled in history! He could not have known what he was doing. He must have been utterly ignorant of what is usual in war, or he never

would have issued an edict surpassing in severity any ever issued even in the barbaric times of the Norman Conquest. And how are we to reconcile this act with his own statements? How are we to reconcile this most harsh conclusion with his mild premises? In the face of such facts and admissions as we have quoted above, it appears inconceivable that his Lordship should have proceeded to confiscate the whole property of the talookdars-nay, the entire rights in the soil of Oude-to the British Government. Mercy and moderation, he says, were called for, but surely his was strange mercy!

During the debates in Parliament last May, Lord Canning's "friends"

or at least the Ministry's opponents -contended over and over again that the proclamation did not decree confiscation, but only threatened it. The clear head of Sir G. C. Lewis, among others, took this view of the case; and Colonel Sykes, amidst the laughter of the House, displayed his Oriental philology by informing the honourable members that he was quite sure he knew what must be the word used in rendering the proclamation in the Indian vernacular, and that it did not by any means signify "confiscation," but something very different! It must be mortifying to such ingenious speculators and debaters to find that Lord Canning entirely ignores their view of the matter, while he confirms to the letter the opinions of the Ministry. “I came to the conclusion," he says deliberately, "that the proclamation should be one not threatening confiscation as a possible contingency, but DECLARING IT." So that there is no longer any doubt as to the actual severity of the proclamation, and of his intention to make it severe.

But now comes the extraordinary part of the affair. Having so fully acknowledged the great allowance which ought to be made for the rebels of Oude, we naturally ask, how came it then that his Lordship should have perpetrated so cruel an edict against them? Because, replies his Lordship, though I expressly declared all their estates and landrights to be confiscated, I had no

intention of actually confiscating them! This explanation of his purposes only adds to the incomprehensibility of his acts. If he did not mean confiscation, why did he expressly proclaim it? What could be more illogical and self-destructive than this portion of his defence? He first acknowledges the specialties which required that the Oude people should be leniently dealt with; then he states that he deliberately issued a proclamation the very reverse of lenient; and next, defends himself for so doing by affirming that he had no intention of acting upon that proclamation. While publishing this edict of wholesale confiscation as a deliberate resolve of the supreme Government, he says that he at the same time purposed to neutralise its effect, "by explaining to the talookdars and landowners with whom our officers came in contact, that the confiscation did not necessarily operate as a permanent deprivation of their rights." In other words, while the Governor-General proclaimed the confiscation of the whole soil of Oude, his subordinates were to go about giving his proclamation the lie! How Lord Canning could reconcile such a procedure with his own personal respect or official dignity, we do not comprehend. It is certainly a matter much less easily understood than his Lordship's non-resignation; and the public at home would have been more obliged to him if he had given an explanation on the former point instead of on the latter.

As

an act of State, too, such procedure was most impolitic and pernicious; for what reliance can the natives repose in the supreme Government, when it is thus acknowledged that imperial proclamations may say one thing and be meant to mean another? As if to complete the incomprehensible amount of error into which Lord Canning fell, it must be evident that not only was the severity of the proclamation entirely at issue with his premises of mercy and moderation, but the manner in which he proposed to deal with this proclamation was preposterously impracticable. He admits that wholesale confisca tion was indefensible; yet instead

of acting in accordance with that conviction, he unaccountably does the very reverse--a proceeding which in any circumstances ought to have called down upon him a severe censure. But such a censure was all the more called for when we consider how impracticable were the means upon which he relied for neutralising the injurious effect of his tyrannical edict. While proclaiming confiscation, he relied upon our officers assuring the population of Oude that no such confiscation was intended. But how was this possible? For, while copies of the proclamation, printed as they were in the vernacufar, might and did circulate through the revolted districts-and all Oude was then in open revolt-how could our officers follow into those districts to tell the people that there was no intention to carry the proclaimed punishment into effect? Altogether it was a most clumsy and inoperative, as well as an unjust and unstatesmanlike conception.

Rather than adopt a course at once so erroneous, so undignified, and so impracticable, it would certainly have been far better if Lord Canning had issued no proclamation at all. Indeed, as we have said, so far from his reply sufficing to justify the tenor of his proclamation, it seems conclusively to establish that, by his own showing, no proclamation at all should have been issued. For what do we find recorded in his own explanations? "I believe," he says, "that the issue of proclamations is not the surest or safest mode of influencing the natives of India. The experience of the past year has furnished examples of the ingenuity with which the meaning of such documents can be perverted, or their language misrepresented, by the enemies of the State; and it is a fact, several instances of which have come to my knowledge of late, that the word of an English officer of the Government, even though a stranger, is more trusted than a printed paper. I should therefore have preferred to take in Oude the course which was afterwards taken in Rohilcund, and to place instructions in the hands of the

How

officers attached to the columns which marched through the country, leaving it to them to carry out those instructions, and to explain in each district the spirit in which the Government desired to deal with the people." If this proves anything, it certainly proves that his Lordship should not have issued any proclamation in Oude. "But," he adds and here comes another extraordinary part of his explanations-"I knew it to be very probable that NO columns would be available for this purpose in Oude, and that much time might elapse before English officers would be able to penetrate the province. I therefore had recourse to a proclamation which might be disseminated by native agency." What a jumble of self-contradictions his Lordship indulges in! quickly he forgets what he has just told us as to the peculiar character of the edict, and as to how he proposed to take the sting out of it, by explaining to the talookdars and landowners with whom our officers came in contact that the 'confiscation' did not necessarily operate as a permanent deprivation of their rights!" Had the proclamation (as unquestionably it ought) been intended to be understood literally and without qualification, then there might be reason for issuing it; but he himself tells us that it was not meant to be so understood, but to be explained away by perambulating agents of the Government. Accordingly, his only explanation for issuing any proclamation amounts to this: Oude, he says, was in such a state, that a proclamation might be disseminated in it by native agency; but no British columns or officers could permeate it to explain the intentions. "Therefore" (1) he threw into the province a proclamation which, he says, he never meant to be understood literally, but to be explained away by our officers-such explanation, by his own showing, being at the same time impossible, as our officers could not enter the country!

Thus the statements and explanations in Lord Canning's reply, instead of justifying his proclamation, show conclusively, first, that accord

ing to his views, no proclamation should have been issued at all; and, secondly, that the proclamation which he did issue, was in direct opposition to justice and the requirements of the case. Confiscation was not justice— it was not policy: it was the reverse of both. What, then, could have tempted his Lordship to commit such an error? A sentence in his reply, very explicit in itself, and amply corroborated by the speeches of those with whom he was in full correspondence last May, explains the mystery. In that sentence his Lordship says: "The confiscation to the State of the proprietary rights in the soil, would tend to the final settlement of many of those disputes respecting landed rights, which have been the source of so much strife and animosity in Oude." Grievous injustice had been committed against the proprietors of Oude by our landsettlement, at which the proprietors naturally showed much resentment and to proclaim the confiscation of the entire rights in the soil, his Lordship thought would be an adroit way of settling the matter, without having to make any admission of past injustice on the part of the Government, or of past injuries on the part of the landowners! It was not justice, therefore it was not the merits of the case that his Lordship had in view-but an unscrupulous stroke of policy, to rid the Government from the effects of its own previous acts of injustice. The utter indefensibility of the proclamation on such a ground as this, we need not stay to argue. No defence is possible,-unless his Lordship have no higher moral standard for our Indian Government than that of an organised band of buccaneers. It would indeed have been grateful to the red-tapists at Calcutta, to have got rid of a difficulty of their own making-to have covered an injustice of their own perpetrating. But such a plea will not be tolerated by the British public. But since the plea is advanced, let us descend from moral grounds-let us become for a moment no better than Lord Canning thinks the public should be, and consider the plea by the mere

light of worldly expediency. Let us see if the object to be attained was worth the cost. Lord Canning's object, he tells us, in issuing the decree of confiscation, was, that it "would tend to the final settlement of many disputes respecting landed rights in Oude." Amidst a war and revolt that covered all Hindostan, and which shook our Indian Empire to its base, his Lordship's prime object was to obtain this comparatively petty end -the settlement of some disputed land-rights! disputes, too, which had been occasioned by the highhanded injustice of probably the very red-tapists who incited him to this gross error-say rather, crime! Such an error shows, as do not a few other incidents of his Lordship's rule, that he was very incapable of appreciating the nature of the crisis produced by the revolt. While Lord Clyde, with veteran experience and circumspect eye, was scanning the prospects of the war, and the perils certain to arise from the approaching hot season and guerilla tactics on the part of the enemy, and had forecast a plan of the campaign which would meet both of these perils,-Lord Canning, presumptuous in ignorance, and probably urged thereto by his red-tape friends in council, peremptorily insisted upon the abandonment of those plans, and the adoption of a hasty and premature attack upon Lucknowfoolishly fancying that the very sound of our cannon at Lucknow would awe all Oude into submission, and make its whole population, talookdars, zemindars, and all, ready obsequiously to place their necks under his heel! That which is firmness in the wise becomes obstinacy in the ignorant. He who is wise in ordinary circumstances, may become unwise in extraordinary ones. Lord Canning was in extraordinary circumstances. Suddenly and unexpectedly, either by himself or by those who had made him Governor-General, he found himself enveloped in war and perils of a most unusual kind; and he had not the genius to appreciate the crisis. Hence his quality of firmness degenerated at times into obstinacy. Once he got an idea, he stuck to it. We are

not surprised, therefore, that he should have persisted in issuing his proclamation despite the vigorous remonstrances of Lord Clyde, Sir James Outram, and all the best judges on the spot. It was a very obstinate proceeding, but it was in keeping with his general conductof which his passion for re-arming the Sepoys, in spite of advice and the strongest warnings of facts to the contrary, is another glaring instance. But Sir James Outram, says Lord Canning, if he objected to the proclamation when sent to him, had previously taken a different view. He had written to me, says his Lordship, to the effect that "the lands of men who have taken an active part against us should be largely confiscated, in order, among other reasons, to enable us to reward others in the manner most acceptable to a native." Well, what does this advice amount to? As will be observed, it refers solely to the men who had taken an active or leading part against us; and it is suggested that the lands of the men should be "largely" confiscated. In what sense "largely" to be here understood? An elephant is "large,"-a hen's egg, three inches long, is "very large! All epithets are comparative, and must be understood from the context. There is no difficulty in thus understanding Sir James's language. The confiscation, he suggests, is to be

is

large," in order to allow of others being rewarded by the confiscated estates; in other words, he recommends that enough of land should be confiscated to enable us suitably to reward those who had proved our friends. Well, then, what was the number of our friends? By Lord Canning's own showing (vide his proclamation) only SIX! This, then, is the standard by which Sir James's

largely" is to be understood. Instead of so acting, Lord Canning confiscated the entire soil of Oude to the British Government-he disinherited the whole five millions of the population of Oude, with the exception of six persons!-and nevertheless asserts that Sir James Outram at one time advised him to do so! We give his Lordship full credit for believing

what he says he does, but it is at the sad discredit of his common sense. Nevertheless even supposing (for there is no end to the hypotheses we must make for his Lordship's sake) that Sir James Outram had actually at one time recommended confiscation as largely as the magnifying mind of the Governor-General understood, in fact not "largely" at all, but entirely,"-should it not have occurred to his Lordship that Sir James's subsequent retractation of that opinion was a very important matter? If a man, when brought face to face with the actual circumstances, earnestly counsels the opposite of what he had counselled before, is it not the greatest possible proof of the strength and earnestness of his latter convictions? Every man is averse to retract a formerlyexpressed opinion, and never does so without strong reasons therefor: yet Lord Canning acted on the opposite principle, and held that Sir James's first opinion, given on abstract grounds, was better worth minding than his later one, formed on the spot after personal observation of the circumstances. As we have shown above, Sir James Outram never did concur in Lord Canning's policy of wholesale confiscation, and it says little for his Lordship's sense to fancy so; but even if it had been so, the revised opinion of Sir James was certainly the one to which alone weight should have been given.

The only amusing feature in this serious and uncomfortable document, occurs towards the close, where his Lordship, after all the confusion and confutation he has heaped upon himself, shows a perfectly unique power of consoling himself. The facts are so strong against him, that he virtually acknowledges that hitherto the proclamation has proved a failure. But," he says, in a desperate attempt at self-consolation-"when the season shall arrive at which the troops can again move more rapidly over the country, when the large police force now being raised by the chief Commissioner at Lucknow shall have reached its complement, and received further organisation,-and when it

shall be manifest that we have the means of protecting or supporting those who return to their allegiance, I cannot doubt that the spirit in which the proclamation has been accepted will declare itself generally throughout the provinces." Most marvellous consolation! When Oude is conquered, it will be conquered! That is all that his comfort comes to : for by the time our troops, now largely augmented, are " again moving more rapidly over Oude, &c. &c." that province will be conquered, quite independently of whether his Lordship had ever issued a proclamation or no. If "the spirit in which the proclamation has been accepted" does not show itself till then (and it has not), we may certainly conclude that a spirit of submission was never produced at all. Indeed, how could it? As the massacre of five millions of people was plainly out of the question-and as their deportation abroad would be not less a dead loss to ourselves-what temptation had the people of Oude to submit? Lord Canning had confiscated their whole country

what worse could they be if they gave vent to their natural wrath, and took the chance of recovering all, by fighting it out? So the people of Oude doubtless reasoned, and so unquestionably have they acted. But we must knock even the last crutch of comfort from the Governor-General. In the self-consolatory sentence which we have quoted above, he speaks as if his proclamation were still in force, and hopes that when the conquest of Oude comes, the proclamation will get credit for the triumph! Lack-aday! as his Lordship in his heart knows, the proclamation has long since been treated as a dead letter. From the first it was modified by the Commissioners, but of late it has been wholly discarded, having been found as impracticable in working as it is unrighteous and tyrannical in spirit. So far from confiscating the whole rights in the soil of Oude, the agents of the Government are now giving the very fullest effect to Lord Ellenborough's principles of moderation. Indeed, yielding to the force of circumstances, they now find they must carry out those principles per