made no effort to obstruct her enterprise.  The military and civil establishments were all in favour of the boy, who would probably be as regardless of their number and discipline as his father had been, while the old man would assuredly reduce the one, and endeavour, by rigorous measures, to improve the other.  Hardly any one at Lucknow at present doubts that the minister and his associates caused the King to be poisoned, and employed Duljeet and the two sisters; Dhunneea and Dulwee, for the purpose, in expectation that the British Government would take upon itself the Oude administration, as the only possible means of improving it.

The respectable and peaceable portion of the city, though their sympathies were with the boy, had too much in property, and the honour of their families, at stake to aid in any movement in his favour, since it would involve a tumult, and for a time, at least, insure the supremacy of the mob.  Their security and that of their families depended upon the success of the British troops; and they were all prepared to acquiesce in any cause which the British Government might adopt for the sake of order.  They would rather that it should adopt that of the Begum and the boy than that of Nuseer-od Dowlah; but in either case were resolved to remain neuter, and let the representative of the British Government take his own course.

It is a fact not unworthy of remark, that more than three millions sterling, or three crores of rupees, in our Government securities, are held by persons who reside and spend the interest arising from them in the city of Lucknow; and that the fall in their value in exchange during the times that we have been engaged in our most serious wars has been less in Lucknow than in Calcutta, the capital of British India; so much greater assurance do the people feel of our resources being always equal to our exigencies.  At such times the merchants of Lucknow commission their agents in Calcutta to purchase up Government securities at the rate to which they fall in Calcutta, for sale at Lucknow, where they seldom fall at all.  About three crores and half of rupees, or three millions and half sterling, have been at different times contributed to our loans by the sovereigns of Oude as a provision for the different members of their respective families and dependents; and the interest is now paid to them and their descendants, at the rates which prevailed at the time of the several loans (four, five, and six per cent.) to the amount of fourteen lacs thirty-five thousand and four hundred and ten rupees a-year.

The Begum’s haughty and violent temper, and inveterate disposition to meddle in public affairs, were the real cause of her continual disquietude and ultimate disgrace and ruin.  The minister of the day dreaded the ascendancy of so imperious and furious a character, should she ever become reconciled to the King.  During the whole reign of Ghazee-od Deen, her husband, from the 12th of July 1814, to the