The King’s chief consort; was the niece of the minister, and her son is the heir-apparent; so that it was her interest, and that of her uncle, the minister, to get rid of the King as soon as possible.  She is a profligate woman, and the King’s mother is supposed to have given him a hint of his danger.  He took a liking to one of the daughters, and married her, in order to make it the minister’s interest to keep him alive as long as possible.  He now contrives to make the King believe that neither his life nor reign can be in any danger as long as he is in his present position.

The night after this affair took place, a sipahee of the 35th Native Infantry, standing sentry at one end of the house, fell asleep while he was leaning with his right wrist on the muzzle of his musket.  The musket went off; the ball passed through his wrist, grazed a large beam above him, struck against a stone in the roof of the portico, and fell down flattened by the side of the sentry, as he lay insensible and bleeding on the ground below.  The wrist was sahttered,[sic] and several of the arteries cut through.  He bled profusely, and when taken up he talked incoherently, declaring that some man had fired at him from behind the railing, twenty paces off.  I have seen similar cases of incoherency, arising from a similar cause.  As soon as day appeared the ball was found, and its marks on the beam and stone above showed the real state of the case.  His right knee was probably leaning on the lock of the musket when he fell asleep.  I have made no public or official report of this circumstance to Government.

I have now before me a curious instance of the difficulty of getting at the truth when it is the interest of the minister and others about this Court to prevent it.  A wanton attack was made in April last by about one hundred armed men, led by one of the King’s collectors, on a native British subject coming from Cawnpore to visit a brother in Oude.  The man himself received a wound, from which he some days afterwards died at Cawnpore; two of his attendants were killed, and twenty thousand rupees were taken from him.  I have investigated the case myself, with the aid of my assistant, Captain Hayes, and with the attendance of an assessor on the part of the King.  The case is a very clear one, but they have produced about thirty witnesses to swear that no man of the poor merchant’s party was hurt; and that, instead of being attacked, he invaded the Oude territory with more than one hundred armed followers, and wantonly attacked the King’s party of only fifteen unoffending men, while engaged in the discharge of their duty in collecting the revenue.  I have translated the depositions with the prospect of having ultimately to submit the case to Government, unless the King consents to punish the offenders and afford redress.  The assessor, an old man, bewildered by the conflicting testimony, and anxious to escape from all responsibility, slept soundly through the greater part of the inquiry, which has been a very tedious one.