’1.  Sir H. Lawrence joined at Lucknow about the end of March, 1857, succeeding Mr. Coverley Jackson in the Chief Commissionership.

’2.  On his arrival he found himself in the midst of troubles, of which the most important were these: 

    I. A general agitation of the empire, from the discontent of the
    soldiery.

    II.  A weak European force at Oudh, with all the military
    arrangements defective.

III.  Grievous discontent among several classes of the population of Oudh, viz., the nobility of Lucknow and the members and retainers of the Royal Family, the official classes, the old soldiery, and the entire country population, noble and peasant alike.

’3.  This third was due to disobedience of, or departure from, the instructions laid down by Government at the annexation, as very clearly shown in Lord Stanley’s letter of October 13, 1858.  The promised pensions had either been entirely withheld or very sparingly doled out; the old officials were entirely without employment; three-quarters of the army the same; while the country Barons had, by forced interpretation of rules, been deprived of the mass of their estates, which had been parcelled out among their followers, who, for clannish reasons, were more indignant at the spoliation and loss of power and place of their Chiefs than they were glad for their own individual acquisitions.

’4.  The weakness of the European force could not be helped; it was deemed politic to show the country that the annexation did not require force.

’5.  But the inefficiency of the military arrangements arose from mere want of skill, and was serious, under the threatening aspect of the political horizon.

’6.  The discontent of the province, and the coming general storm, had already found vent in the brigandage of Fuzl Ali, and the seditions of the Fyzabad Moulvie.

’7.  And with all these Sir H. Lawrence had to grapple immediately on his arrival.

’8.  But I may safely say that ten days saw the mass of them disappear.  The Fyzabad Moulvie had been seized and imprisoned.  Fuzl Ali had been surrounded and slain.  The promised pensions had been paid, by Sir H. Lawrence’s peremptory orders, to the members and retainers of the Royal Family.  A recognition had been published of the fair rights of the old Oudh officials to employment in preference to immigrants from our old provinces, and instructions had been issued for giving it effect.  The disbanded soldiers of the Royal Army of Oudh were promised preference in enlistment in the local corps and the police, and a reorganization and increase to the latter, which were almost immediately sanctioned, gave instant opportunities for the fulfilment of the first instalment of these promises.  While last, but not least, durbars were held, in which Sir Henry Lawrence was able to proclaim his views and policy, by which the landholders should be reinstated in the possessions which they held at the annexation, the basis on which the instructions had been originally issued, which had been hitherto practically ignored, but to which he pledged himself to give effect.