I remain, your Lordship’s
Most obedient and humble servant,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Most Noble
the Governor-General of India.

__________________________

Lucknow, 28th December, 1853.

My Dear Mr. Colvin,

I was glad to see your handwriting again, and to find that time had made so little alteration in it.  Oude affairs are, as you suppose, much as they used to be, save that the King is now persuaded by his minister and favourite that, had his predecessors had men and women about them so wise as they are, they never would have acted as if they believed that the Government of India ever really intended to carry into effect the penalty of misgovernment, so often threatened.  Our Government has cried “wolf” so often that no one now listens to it.  The King is an utter imbecile, from over-indulgences of all kinds; and the knaves whom he employs in his administration contrive to persuade him that the preservation of his life and throne depends entirely upon their vigilance and his doing nothing.  Had I come here when the treasury was full, and Naseer-od Doon Hyder was anxious to spend his money in the manner best calculated to do good and please our Government, I might have covered Oude with useful public works, and much do I regret that I came here to throw away some of the best years of my life among such a set of knaves and fools as I have to deal with.

I think you will do much good in your present charge in the subject to which you refer.  In the matter of discourtesy to the native gentry, I can only say that Robert Martin Bird insulted them whenever he had the opportunity of doing so; and that Mr. Thomason was too apt to imitate him in this as in other things.  Of course their example was followed by too many of their followers and admirers; but, like you, I have been delighted to see a great many of the elder members of the civil service, in spite of these bad examples, treat the native gentry with all possible courtesy, and show them that they had their sympathy as long as they deserved it by their conduct.

It has always struck me that Mr. Thomason, in his system, did all he could to discourage the growth of a middle and upper class upon the land—­the only kind of property on which a good upper and middle class could be sustained in the present state of society in India.  His village republics and the Ryutwar system of Sir Thomas Munro had precisely the same tendency to subdivide minutely property in land, and reduce all landholders to the common level of impoverishment.  The only difference was that the impoverished tenants in the North-Western Provinces were supposed to manage their own affairs, while those at Madras had them managed by a very mischievous class of native public officers.  He (Mr. Thomason) would have forced his village republics upon any new country or jungle that came under his charge, and thereby rendered improvement