The King of Oude is becoming more and more imbecile and crazy, and his servants continue more and more to abuse their power and neglect their duty.  The King, every day manifests his utter unfitness to reign, in some new shape.  He, on several occasions during the Mohurrum ceremonies which took place lately, went along the streets beating a drum tied round his neck, to the great scandal of his family and the amusement of his people.  The members of his family have not been paid their stipends for from two to three years, and many of them have been reduced to the necessity of selling their clothes to purchase food.  All classes, save the knaves who surround him, and profit by his folly, are become disgusted with and tired of him.

I do not interfere, except to protect our pledges and guarantees; and to conduct the current duties of the Residency in such a manner as to secure the respect of all classes for the Government which I represent.  While the present King reigns, or has anything whatever to do with the Government, no interference could produce any substantial and permanent reform.  The minister is a weak man and a great knave; but he has an influence over his master, obtained by being entirely subservient to his vices and follies, to the sacrifice of his own honour; and by praising all that he does, however degrading to him as a man and a sovereign.

Though the King pays no attention whatever to public affairs or to business of any kind, and aims at nothing but the reputation of being the best dancer, best versifier, and best drummer in his dominions, it would be impossible to persuade him that any man was ever more fit to reign than he is.  Nothing would ever induce him willingly to abdicate even in favour of his own son, much less to make him willingly abdicate in perpetuity in favour of our Government, or make over the conduct of the administration to our Government.  If, therefore, our Government does interfere, it must be in the exercise of a right arising out of the existing relations between the two States, or out of our position as the paramount power in India.  These relations, under the Treaty of 1837, give our Government the right to take upon itself the administration, under present circumstances; and, indeed, imposes, upon our Government the duty of taking it:  but, as I have already stated, neither these relations nor our position, as the paramount power, gives us any right to annex or to confiscate the territory of Oude.  We may have a right to take territory from the Nizam of Hyderabad in payment for the money he owes us; but Oude owes us no money, and we have no right to take territory from her.  We have only the right to interpose to secure for the suffering people that better Government which their Sovereign pledged himself to secure for them, but has failed to secure.