impossible.  I would have introduced into all such new countries a system of paternal government in imitation of our Government of India itself, which would have rendered improvement certain, and the growth of a middle and higher class no less so.  He would have put the whole under our judicial courts, and thereby have created a middle class of pettifogging attorneys to swallow up all the surplus produce of the land.  I would have kept the whole of the land in the hands of our fiscal courts, by making it all leasehold property, and maintaining the law of primogeniture in all estates of villages.  Mr. Thomason, I am told, systematically set aside all the landed aristocracy of the country as a set of middlemen, superfluous and mischievous.

The only part of our India in which I have seen a middle and higher class maintained upon the land is the moderately-settled districts of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories; and there is no part of India where our Government and character are so much beloved and respected.  You have sent Mr. Read to that part; and if he be bigoted to Mr. Thomason’s system, he will upset all this, and, in my opinion, lay the foundation of much evil.  We found a system of paternal government in every village, and maintained and improved it.  They were all little principalities; and by the printed rules of the Sudder Board of Revenue, which are very good, all the sub-tenants were effectually secured in their rights.

In making a tour through Oude in the end of 1849 and beginning of 1850 I had a good deal of talk with the people.  Many of them had sojourned in our territories in seasons of disturbance.  The general impression was that they would be glad to see the country taken under British management, provided we could dispense with our tedious procedure in civil cases.  They all had a very unfavourable impression of our civil courts, and of the cost and delay of the procedure.  Mills and Harrington, to whom the duty, which was to have devolved on you, has been confided, may do much good, and I hope will, for there really is nothing in our system which calls so much for remedy.  I am persuaded that, if it were to be put to the vote among the people of Oude, ninety-nine in a hundred would rather remain as they are, without any feeling of security in life or property, than have our system introduced in its present complicated state; but that ninety-nine in a hundred would rather have our Government than live as they do, if a more simple system, which they could understand, were promised at the same time.

In 1801, when the Oude territory was divided, and half taken by us and half left to Oude, the landed aristocracy of each were about equal.  Now hardly a family of this class remains in our half, while in Oude it remains unimpaired.  Everybody in Oude believes those families to have been systematically crushed.  If by-and-by we can get the people to take an interest in our railroads, and outlays upon other great public works, it will tend to create the middle class upon which I set so much value, and to give that feeling of interest in the stability of our rule which we so much require.  We shall then have objects of common interest to talk and think about, and become more united with them in feeling.