luable to us than a dozen of
Oudes. We are now looked up to throughout India as the only impartial
arbitrators that the people generally have ever had, or can ever hope
to have without us; and from the time we cease to be so looked up to,
we must begin to sink. We suffered from our conduct in Scinde; but
that was a country distant and little known, and linked to the rest
of India by few ties of sympathy. Our Conduct towards it was preceded
by wars and convulsions around, and in its annexation there was
nothing manifestly deliberate. It will be otherwise with Oude. Here
the giant's strength is manifest, and we cannot "use it like a giant"
without suffering in the estimation of all India. Annexation or
confiscation are not compatible with our relations with this little
dependent state. We must show ourselves to be high-minded, and above
taking advantage of its prostrate weakness, by appropriating its
revenues exclusively to the benefit of the people and royal family of
Oude. We should soon make it the finest garden in India, with the
people happy, prosperous, and attached to our rule and character.

We have at least forty thousand men from Oude in the armies of the
three Residencies, all now, rightly or wrongly, cursing the
oppressive Government under which their families live at their homes.
These families would come under our rule and spread our good name as
widely as they now spread the bad one of their present ruler.
Soldiers with a higher sense of military honour, and duty to _their
salt_, do not exist, I believe, in any country. To have them bound to
us by closer ties than they are at present, would of itself be an
important benefit.

I can add little to what I have said in the latter end of the fourth
chapter of my Diary (from p. 187*, vol. ii.), on the subject of our
relations with the Government of Oude; and of our rights and duties
arising out of those relations. The diaries political, which I send
every week or fortnight to the Government of India, are formed out of
the reports made every day to the Durbar, by their local or
departmental authorities. The Residency News-writer has the privilege
of hearing these reports read as they come in; and though the reports
of many important events are concealed from him, they may generally
be relied upon as far as they go. The picture they give of affairs is
bad enough, though not so bad as they deserve.

[* Transcriber's note. From the text "By the treaty of 1801 we b