Rulers of Native States was thought to be even too great, and
who was the last person to exaggerate the misrule existing in Oudh,
reported to Lord Dalhousie that the state of things had become
intolerable, and that, if our troops were withdrawn from Oudh, the
landholders would in one month's time overrun the province and pillage
Lucknow. It is true Sleeman, with his Native proclivities, did not
contemplate annexation; his advice was to 'assume the administration,'
but not to 'grasp the revenues of the country.' The same mode of
procedure had been advocated by Henry Lawrence six years before in an
article which appeared in the _Calcutta Review_. His words were: 'Let
Oudh be at last governed, not for one man, the King, but for the King
and his people. Let the administration of the country be Native; let
not one rupee come into the Company's coffers.'

Sleeman was followed in 1854 by Colonel Outram, than whom he could
not have had a more admirable successor, or one less likely to be
unnecessarily hard upon a State which, with all its shortcomings, had
been loyal to us for nearly a century. Colonel Outram, nevertheless,
fully endorsed the views of his predecessor. General Low, the then
Military Member of Council, who twenty years before, when Resident
at Lucknow, had deprecated our assuming even temporarily the
administration of Oudh, thinking our action would be misunderstood by
the people, now also stated his conviction that 'it was the paramount
duty of the British Government to interfere at once for the protection
of the people of Oudh.'

In summing up the case, Lord Dalhousie laid three possible courses of
action before the authorities in England. The King of Oudh might be
forced to abdicate, his province being incorporated in the British
dominions; or he might be maintained in his royal state as a
subsidized Prince, the actual government being permanently transferred
to the East India Company; or the transfer of the government to
the East India Company might be for a limited period only. The
Governor-General recommended the second course, but the Court of
Directors and Her Majesty's Ministers decided to adopt the first,
and requested Lord Dalhousie to carry out the annexation before he
resigned his office.

This measure, so long deferred and so carefully considered, could
hardly, in my opinion, have been avoided by a civilized and civilizing
Government. It was at last adopted with the utmost reluctance, and
only