When I became Commissioner over those territories in 1844, I passed through the districts which had so long been under his charge, and I can honestly say that I have never known a man who had made himself more beloved and revered by the people.  Thousands of happy families were proud to acknowledge that they owed all their happiness to the careful and liberal revision of the settlement of the land-revenue made by him, in which he had provided for the interests of the higher and middle classes connected with the land, while he secured the rights of the humblest.

I visited at the same time the districts of those territories which bordered upon his then charge of the south-east frontier, and communed with many people from that quarter.  They all spoke of him as beloved and respected by all classes as much in his then charge as he had been in his old one.  In a country where it is the duty of every Englishman to make the character of his Government and his nation respected and beloved, one cannot but feel proud to hear a countryman and fellow-labourer spoken of by tens of thousands of respectable, contented, and happy people as your brother was and still is.  I know no part of India where the people of all classes and all grades are so attached to our character and our Government as that of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, and I believe that no man did more to establish that fine feeling than your brother.

Your brother’s temper was warm, and he was not always happy in putting his thoughts and feelings to paper.  Hence arose occasional misunderstandings with his official superiors.  But while those superiors were men who could understand and appreciate his noble nature, such occasional misunderstandings never led to serious consequences.  In the bitterness of his anguish, after his removal from the south-east frontier, he wrote to me; and it was most painful to me to feel that I was not in a position, or in circumstances, to advocate his cause, and describe the value of such a man as the representative of the Government and the national character among a wild and half-civilized people like those over whom he had been placed.  I think it was on the representation of the late Mr. Launcelot Wilkinson, one of the most able and estimable members of the India Civil Service, that he was sent to the south-east frontier.  He had seen his value in the Saugor and Nerbudda districts while he was political agent at Bhopaul, which bordered on the districts under your brother’s charge.

It has been to me a source of much regret that I have not had it in my power to aid his son in getting employment in India.

Believe me,
Yours very truly,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Major Ouseley,
    &c. &c.

__________________________

Lucknow, 14th September, 1853.

Dear Sir,