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Lucknow, 23rd September, 1849.

My Dear Elliot,

I conclude that no further Tables will be required from me on Oude statistics for the present.  Should they be so, pray let me know, and they shall be sent.  I thought at first that it would be thought bad taste in me to refer to the domestic troubles of the King, but it is necessary to show the state to which his Majesty is reduced in his palace.  The facts mentioned are known and talked of all over Lucknow and Oude generally, and tend more than greater things to bring his conduct and character into contempt.

The time was certainly never so favourable to propose an arrangement that shall secure a lasting and substantial reform, and render Oude what it ought to be—­a garden.  The King is in constant dread of poison, and would do anything to get relieved from that dread, and all further importunity on the state of the country.  His chief wife would poison him to bring on the throne her son, and restore to her her paramour, who is now at Cawnpoor, waiting for such a change.  Her uncle, the minister, would, the King thinks, be glad to see him poisoned, in the hope of having to conduct affairs during the minority.  He is afraid to admonish his other wife for her infidelities with the chief favourite and singer, lest she should poison him to go off with her paramour to Rampoor, whither he has sent the immense wealth that the King has lavished upon him.

The whole family are most anxious that the King should resign the reins into abler hands, and would, I feel assured, hail the arrangement I have proposed as a blessing to them and the country.  All seems ripe for the change, and I hope the Governor-General will consent to its being proposed soon.  Any change in the ministry would now be an obstacle to the arrangement, and such a change might happen any morning.  At the head of the Board, or Regency, I should put Mohsin-od Dowla, grandson of Ghazee-od Deen, the first King, and son-in-law of Moohummed Alee Shah, the third King.  His only son has been lately united in marriage to the King’s daughter.  He is looked up to as the first man in Oude for character, and the most able member of the royal family.  He is forty-five years of age.  I should probably put two of the King’s uncles in as the other members, Azeemoshan and Mirza Khorum Buksh, whose names you will find in the short appended list of those who have received no stipends since the present King ascended the throne.  These princes cannot visit, the Resident except when they accompany the King himself, so that I have never seen the two last that I recollect, and only once conversed with the first.  But their characters stand very high.  They are never admitted to the King, nor have they seen him for more than a year, I believe.

The King will probably object to members of his family forming the Board, but I dare say I shall be able to persuade him of the advantage of it.  Such a Board, so constituted, would be a pledge to all India of the honesty of our intentions, and secure to us the cordial good-will of all who are interested in the welfare of the family and the good government of the country.