I should persuade the members to draw from the elite of their own creed in our service to aid in forming and carrying out the new system in their several departments.  We can give them excellent men in the revenue and judicial branches, who will be glad to come when assured that they will not be removed so long as they do their duty ably and honestly, and will get pensions if their services are dispensed with after a time.  This is all I shall say at present.

Yours sincerely,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Sir H. M. Elliot, K.C.B.,
        &c. &c.

___________________________________

Lucknow.

My Lord,

My Official Report went off on the 25th instant, and will have been submitted, for your Lordship’s consideration.  It contains, I believe, a faithful description of the abuses that exist and require remedy, and of the obstacles which will be opposed to their removal.  But it does not tell all that might be told of the King himself, who has become an object of odium and contempt to all but those few despicable persons with whom he associates exclusively.  He eats, drinks, sleeps, and converses with the singers and eunuchs and females alone, and the only female who has any influence over him is the sister of the chief singer, Rusee-od Dowlah, whom he calls his own sister.  No member of the royal family or aristocracy of Oude is ever admitted to speak to or see his Majesty, and these contemptible singers are admitted to more equality and familiarity than his own brothers or sons ever were; they go out, too, with greater pomp than they or any of the royal family can; and are ordered to be received with more honours as they pass through the different palaces.  The profligacy that exists within the palace passes all belief, and these things excite more disgust among the aristocracy of the capital than all the misrule and malversation that arise from the King’s apathy and incapacity.

Should your Lordship resolve upon interposing effectually to remedy these disorders, I think it will be necessary to have at Lucknow, for at least the first few months, a corps of irregular cavalry.  We have no cavalry in Oude, and none of the King’s can be depended upon.  The first thing necessary will be the disbanding of the African, or Hubshee corps, of three hundred men.  They are commanded by one of the eunuchs, and a fellow fit for any dark purpose.  They were formed into a corps, I believe, because no man’s life was safe in Lucknow while they were loose upon society.

I think the King will consent without much difficulty or reluctance to delegate his powers to a Regency, but I am somewhat afraid that he will object to its being composed of members of his own family.  The Sovereign has always been opposed to employing any of his own relatives in office.  I shall, I dare say, be able to get over this difficulty, and it will be desirable to employ the best members of the family in order to show the people of Oude, and of India generally, that the object of our Government is an honest and benevolent one.