One thing is clear, that we cannot restore to the Oude Government the territory we acquired from it by the treaty of 1801, and the people who occupy it; and that we cannot withdraw our support from that Government altogether without doing so.  It is no less clear that all our efforts to make the Government of Oude, under the support which we are bound by that treaty to give it, fulfil the duties to its people to which it was pledged by that treaty, have failed during the fifty years that have elapsed since it was made.

The only alternative left, appears to be for the paramount power to take upon itself the administration, and give to the sovereign, the royal family, and its stipendiary dependents, all the surplus revenues in pensions, opening as much as possible all employments in the civil administration to the educated classes of Oude.  The military and police establishments would consist almost exclusively of Oude men.  Under such a system more of these classes would be employed than at present, for few of the officers employed in the administration are of these classes—­the greater part of them are adventurers from all parts of India, without character or education.  The number of such officers would be multiplied fourfold, and the means of paying them would be taken from the favourites and parasites of the Court who now do nothing but mischief.

Such a change would be popular among the members of the royal family itself, who now get their pensions after long intervals—­often after two and even three years, and with shameful reductions in behalf of those favourites and parasites whom they detest and despise, but whom the minister, for his own personal purposes, is obliged to conciliate by such perquisites.  It would be popular among the educated classes, as opening to them offices now filled by knaves and vagabonds from all parts of India, It would be no less so to the well-disposed portion of the agricultural classes, who would be sure of protection to life, property, and character, without the expensive trains of armed followers which they now keep up.  But to secure this, we should require to provide them with a more simple system of civil judicature than that which we have at work in our old territories.

The change would be popular, with few exceptions, among all the mercantile and manufacturing classes.  It would give vast employment to all the labouring classes throughout the country, in the construction of good roads, bridges, wells, tanks, temples, suraes, military and civil buildings, and other public works; but above all, in that of private dwellings, and other edifices for use and ornament, in which all men would be proud to lay out their wealth to perpetuate their names, when secured in the possession by an honest and efficient Government; but more especially those who would be no longer able to employ their means in maintaining armed bands, to resist the local authorities and disturb the peace of the country.  On the whole, I think that at least nine-tenths of the people of Oude would hail the change as a great blessing; always providing, that our system of administration should be rendered as simple as possible to meet the wants and wishes of a simple people.