Believe me,
My Dear Sir James,
Yours very faithfully
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN

To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.,
       &c. &c. &c.

__________________________

Lucknow, 12th January, 1853.

My Dear Sir,

I shall send you by this mail a copy of my Diary under cover, addressed, as you suggest, to Mr. Secretary Melvill.  It is coarsely bound, as I could find no good binder here.  I printed eighteen copies, and have sent one to Government, in Calcutta, for itself, and one for the Court of Directors; one to the Governor-General, and one each to the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman.  I have also sent one to a brother, and one to each of my five children.  All to whom I have sent it of my family have been enjoined to consider it as private and confidential, and they will do so.  Government may publish any portion of it they please.  A memorandum of errata has been added to the copy to be sent to you.

Over and above what you justly observe as to the cultivation and population not being much diminished, and the State not having incurred any public debt, I may mention the fact noticed, I believe, somewhere in the Diary, that the landed aristocracy of the half of Oude, reserved in 1801, has been better preserved than that of the half made over to us.  Had they not combined generally against the Government, they would all have been crushed ere this, as ours have been.  This makes me mention a school of too much influence in India, of whose doctrines I have a great abhorrence.  They are best expounded by the so-called “Friend of India,” in the last number of which (6th January, 1851) there is a rabid article on the subject worthy of your perusal, and that of all men interested in the welfare of India and the stability of our rule over it.  It is in the true Machiavellian spirit, which justifies, or would persuade the world to justify, every means, however base, dishonest, and cruel, required to attain any object which they have persuaded themselves to be desirable for ourselves.  This school is impatient at the existence of any native principality in India, however related to or dependent upon us.  Mr. George Campbell is a disciple of this school, almost as rabid as the “Friend of India,” as you will see in the fourth chapter of his book on “Modern India.”  If Mr. Marshman is to write the Indian articles for the “Times,” as reports give out, you will see these doctrines advocated in that influential journal.  The Court of Directors is the only safeguard of India, and of our stability in it, against those doctrine which, in my opinion, tend strongly to the injury of both; and its power may be rendered too powerless to shun them.

Believe me,
My Dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Colonel Sykes,
Director Hon. East India Company,
London.

P.S.—­I have felt much interested in the geology of Central and Southern India; and if you have seen any satisfactory account of the origin of the stratum which caps the basaltic plateau, shall feel obliged if you will point it out to me.