After expressing his pleasure at meeting them in their own country, he gave them an assurance that, so long as they remained faithful to the Government, they should receive every consideration; he told them that a new era had commenced in Oudh, and that henceforth they would be allowed to revert to the conditions under which they had held their estates prior to the annexation of the province.  When Lord Canning had finished speaking, a translation of his address in Urdu was read to the Talukdars by Mr. Beadon, the Foreign Secretary; atar and pan[4] were then handed round, and the Viceroy took his departure with the same formalities as those with which the durbar had been opened.

There is some excuse to be made for the attitude of the Talukdars, who, from their point of view, had little reason to be grateful to the British Government.  These powerful Chiefs, whose individual revenues varied from L10,000 to L15,000 a year, and who, in their jungle fastnesses, often defied their sovereign’s troops, had suddenly been deprived of all the authority which in the confusion attending a long period of misgovernment they had gradually usurped, as well as of a considerable proportion of the landed property which, from time to time, they had forcibly appropriated.  The conversion of feudal Chiefs into ordinary law-abiding subjects is a process which, however beneficial to the many, is certain to be strenuously resisted by the few.

In March, 1858, when Lucknow was captured, a Proclamation was issued by the Government of India confiscating the proprietary rights in the soil.  The object in view was not merely to punish contumacious Chiefs, but also to enable the Government to establish the revenue system on a sounder and firmer footing.  Talukdars who submitted were to receive their possessions as a free gift direct from the Government; while those who had done good service, whether men of Oudh or strangers, might be rewarded by grants of confiscated property.

The Proclamation was considered in many influential quarters too arbitrary and sweeping a measure; Outram protested against it, and Lord Ellenborough (the President of the Board of Control) condemned it; but Lord Canning was backed up by the British public, and Lord Ellenborough resigned to save his Cabinet from being wrecked.  That Outram and Ellenborough took the right view of the case is, I think, shown by the fact that Lord Canning cancelled the Proclamation on his first visit to Lucknow.  By that time he had come to recognize that the Talukdars had reasonable grounds for their discontent, and he wisely determined to take a step which not only afforded them the greatest relief and satisfaction, but enlisted their interest on the side of Government.  From that day to this, although, from time to time, subsequent legislation has been found necessary to save the peasantry from oppression, the Chiefs of Oudh have been amongst the most loyal of Her Majesty’s Indian subjects.