The Mahratta language in accounts should at once be done away with; but out of the revenues of the estate, Government should found a good school for English and Hindoo, and Persian; and, above all, for a very good hospital and dispensary, under well educated and tried surgeons, native and European, capable of throwing out branches.

All the public officers of the Rajah should have stipends or employment, or both, in proportion to their period of service and respectability.  If they take employment the stipends should be deducted from their salaries while in office, as in our own service.

In the case of the Baee Regent at Saugor, we continued a small part of her pension to her adopted son,—­one thousand rupees a-month,—­to enable him to provide for her non-pensioned dependents.  We took the management long before her death, and left her only a private lady, with a large pension of, I think, eight thousand rupees a-month; besides pensions—­too large—­to the family of her manager, Benaek Rao:  this will be unnecessary at Jhansi.  All the large hereditary landholders of the Jhansi estate should have liberal settlements at fixed rates.  They are all from the landed aristocracy of Bundelcund, and should be treated with consideration.  The first settlement of the land revenue should be very moderate.  The lands will lose the most valuable market for their produce in the breaking up of the Court and establishment of the Rajah at the capital, and yield less money, &c., than before.  This must be borne in mind.

You may freely use these my views as you think best on the Jhansi question.

As to the management, I should make as little changes possible, till the final orders arrive from the Court of Directors, that you may have nothing to undo of what you have done.  I would leave the management to Ellis, under your supervision, and interfere only on references in special cases, except, of course, on emergency.  I know not what the system is to be, or what system the Governor-General has recommended, except that there is to be one head, as in Rajpootana; and that all correspondence with Government is to go through that head, In this state of the matter I know not what to suggest or say.

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

To Major Malcolm,
    &c. &c.

__________________________

Lucknow, 11th November, 1853. 
My Lord,

I feel grateful for your Lordship’s letter of the 27th ult., but cannot say that I have any hope of discovering the instruments employed, or the employer, in the late affair.  The whole power of the Government is in the hands of men who are deeply interested in concealing the truth, and making it appear that no attempt was really made.  The minister has, by his intrigues, put himself so much in the power of the knave whom I suspect, that he dares not do anything to offend him.  The man could at once ruin him by his exposures if he chose, and he would do so if he found it necessary for his own security.  The man is biding his time, as he has often done with former ministers; and the time would have come ere this had not the King, to save himself, married one of the minister’s pretty daughters.