razy imbecile, who is led about by
these people like a child, and made to do whatever they wish him to
do, and to give whatever orders may best suit their private
interests. At present, the most powerful of the favourites are
Decanut od Doula and Husseen od Doula, two eunuchs; Anees od Doula
and Mosahib od Doula, two fiddlers; two poetasters, and the minister
and his creatures. The minister could not stand a moment without the
eunuchs, fiddlers, and poets, and he is obliged to acquiesce in all
the orders given by the King for their benefit. The fiddlers have
control over the administration of civil justice; the eunuchs over
that of criminal justice, public buildings, &c. The minister has the
land revenue; and all are making enormous fortunes. The present King
ought not certainly to reign: he has wilfully forfeited all right to
do so; but to set him aside in favour of his eldest, or indeed any
other son, would give no security whatever for any permanent good
government A well-selected regency would, no doubt, be a vast
improvement upon the present system; but no people would invest their
capital in useful works, manufactures, and trades, with the prospect
of being handed over a few years hence to a prince brought up
precisely in the same manner the present King was, and as all his
sons will be. What the people want, and most earnestly pray for is,
that our Government should take upon itself the responsibility of
governing them well and permanently. All classes, save the knaves,
who now surround and govern the King, earnestly pray for this--the
educated classes, because they would then have a chance of
respectable employment, which none of them now have; the middle
classes, because they find no protection or encouragement, and no
hope that their children will be permitted to inherit the property
they may leave, not invested in our Government securities; and the
humbler classes, because they are now abandoned to the merciless
rapacity of the starving troops, and other public establishments, and
of the landholders, driven or invited into rebellion by the present
state of misrule. There is not, I believe, another Government in
India so entirely opposed to the best interest's and most earnest
wishes of the people as that of Oude now is; at least I have never
seen or read of one. People of all classes have become utterly weary
of it. The people have the finest feelings towards our Government and
character. I know no part of In