fidence in favourites, and, as will be seen, an unfortunate, though not very unnatural, attachment to different points of etiquette and prerogative.

His father's minister, at the time of his death, was Hukeem Mendee, a man of very considerable talents, great hereditary opulence and influence, and to the full as honest and respectable in his public and private conduct as an Eastern Vizier can usually be expected to be. The new sovereign was said not to be very fond of him, but there seemed not the least intention of removing him till his power was undermined, most unfortunately for all parties, by the British themselves.

The then Resident at Lucknow was said to interfere too much in the private affairs of the King, and in the internal and regular administration of the country. The minister would not allow it, and the King was so much irritated by this real, or supposed interference, that he sent, by some of his European servants, the private intelligence to Lord Hastings, of which mention is made in the justificatory memoir of the latter. Lord Hastings readily took up the affair; but in the meantime some of the King's servants, among whom was his khansaman, worked upon their master's timidity, by representing the danger of coming to an open quarrel with the Resident, the probability that the English would not credit the complaints brought against their own countryman, and urged him to a compromise before it was too late. In consequence, the King retracted the complaint, and ascribed it to the incorrect information and bad advice of the Hukeem Mendee, who was in consequence deprived of many of his principal employments, which were transferred to the present minister, with the general consent of all parties, and with the concurrence of the Hukeem himself, as a man personally acceptable to the sovereign, of pliant and pleasing manners, and not likely to aim at, or obtain more power than it was thought fit to intrust to him. Soon after, however, the new influence succeeded in getting the Hukeem Mendee deprived of one profitable post after another, in stripping him of many of the Zemindarries in his hands, and at length in having him thrown into prison, whence he was only released by the interposition of the British Government. He now lives in great splendour at Futtehgur.

Expecting me to go to Futtehgur, he sent me, through Mr. Williams of Cawnpoor, a very civil invitation to his house, with the assurance that he had an English housekeeper, who knew perfectly well how to do the honours of his establishment to gentlemen of her own nation. (She is, in fact, a singular

female, who became the wife of one of the Hindoostanee professors at Hertford, now the Hukeem's Dewan, and bears, I believe, a very respectable character.) Hukeem Mendee was too powerful a man to be summarily got rid of, but more violent means were taken with others. One man of high rank was murdered in open day in the city; others were driven out of the country, and every death and every banishment was a fresh occasion of adding a new place, or a new Zemindarrie to the minister's hoard.

While he grew rich, the king grew more and more in debt. No check whatever was given either to the receipt or issue of public money. The favourite had succeeded in getting both the secretaryship and treasurership in his own hands; and all that was known was, that the minister built a magnificent house, and the king lavished great sums in all manner of trinkets, while the troops and public functionaries were without pay, and the peasantry driven to despair by continual fresh exactions. Of the two millions which his father had left, the king had lent one to Lord Hastings to carry on the Nepal war. For this he was to receive interest, but unfortunately for him, he accepted, instead of all payment, a grant of fresh territory under the Himalaya mountains, which is entirely unproductive, being either savage wilderness, or occupied by a race of mountaineers, who pay no taxes without being compelled, and whom he has not the means of compelling. After a second loan, Lord Hastings encouraged the Vizier to assume the title of King. But the worst consequence of both these loans was, that by laying the British Government under a great obligation to the King, they compelled Lord Hastings to suspend all further urging of the different measures of reform in the administration of justice and the collection of the revenue, which had been begun in Saadut Ali's time, for the benefit of the people of Oude, and which the Hukeem Mendee, while he remained in power, had been gradually introducing, by the suggestion of the British Resident, and after the models afforded in our provinces. The chief of these was the substitution of a regular system of Zemindarrie collectors for the taxes, instead of a number of "fermiers publics," who take them from year to year by a sort of auction, collecting them afterwards in kind or in any way which suits them best, and who, by a strange injustice, are themselves the assessors, and, in many instances, the only accessible court of appeal, as well as the principal persons who derive a profit from the amount collected. This wretched system, it must be owned, is very common throughout the native governments; but, when a sovereign is himself a man of talents and energy, or

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when his minister has any regard for his own reputation, it has many checks which, in the present case, did not operate. In consequence, three or four times more than the sums really due were often extorted by these locusts, who went down and encamped in different parts of the country, and, under various pretences, so devoured and worried the people that they were glad to get rid of them on any terms. Nay, sometimes, when one Aumeen had made his bargain with the land-owners and tenants, and received the greater part of the payment in advance, a second would make his appearance with more recent powers, (having out-bid his decessors,) and begin assessing and collecting anew, telling the plundered villagers that they had done wrong to pay before it was due, and that they must look to the first man for repayment of what they had been defrauded of. "All this has been done," was said to me, "and the King will neither see it nor hear it." It was not likely, however, to be done long without resistance. The stronger Zemindars built mud forts, the poor Ryuts planted bamboos and thorny jungle round their villages; every man that had not a sword sold his garment to procure one, and they bade the king's officers keep their distance. The next step, however, of Government, was to call in the aid of British troops to quell these insurgents. This the King of Oude had, by the letter and spirit of existing treaties, a right to do. His father and uncle had purchased this right by the cession of nearly onethird of their whole territories,-by the admission of two or three garrisons of subsidiary troops into their remaining provinces, and by the disbanding of by far the greater part of their own army, on the express condition that the English should undertake to defend them against all external and internal enemies. Still Saadut Ali had used this right very sparingly. He was not fond of admitting, far less requesting, any more foreign interference than he could help. And his own guards, consisting of 2000 regular infantry, 1000 horse, 300 artillery, and the irregulars whom I have noticed, were enough for all unusual occasions, and were in excellent order and discipline. Now, however, all was changed. The soldiers themselves were so ill paid that it was difficult to keep them together; the artillery, a beautiful little corps, first mutinied and then disbanded themselves to the last man, and the King had really no option between either altering his system, or governing without taxes, or calling in British aid. That aid was demanded and given; and during the greater part of Lord Hastings' time this wretched country was pillaged under sanction of the British name, and under the terror of sepoy bayonets, till at length the remonstrances

of the British officers employed on this service became so urgent, and the scandal so notorious and so great, not to omit that the number of the disaffected increased daily, and that the more parties were sent out in support of the Aumeens, the more were called for, while every peasant who lost lands er property in the progress of the system, became a Decoit and made inroads into the Company's provinces, that a different course was imperiously forced on government. Accordingly the Resident was instructed to urge anew on the king the adoption of a regular system of leasing the crown dues for a certain number of years, like that adopted in the Company's territories, and leasing them to the Zemindars themselves, not to these greedy Aumeens. He was directed also to require proof, before granting the aid of troops, that the sums said to be withheld were really due. To the first of these proposals the king answered, that he would introduce the system gradually and with such modifications as suited his country. He even named a district in which he would begin it; but, though two years have now elapsed, nothing has yet been done. The second was met by sending a number of documents to the Resident, of whose history and authenticity he could know nothing, but which the officers sent with the detachment declared they believed to be often perfect forgeries. Mr. Ricketts, therefore, about a year ago, declined granting any more military aid, unless the King would, first, immediately carry into effect his promised reform; secondly, unless he would allow an English commissioner, versed in such matters, to accompany each detachment, and determine on the spot the justice of the Aumeen's claim; thirdly, unless he would himself, after the example of his royal ancestors, hold frequent and public Durbar, to receive petitions from his subjects, and attend to these specific complaints; and fourthly, unless, to prevent the constant incursion of robbers from his majesty's into the Company's territories, he would allow the judge and magistrates of the adjoining districts to pursue and seize Decoits within his frontier.

To these proposals his answers have been very ingenious. and plausible. To the first he says that such great changes cannot be the work of a day; that when half his subjects are in arms against him, is not precisely the time to obtain a fair assessment or a permanent settlement of the land; but if the British will first, as he calls on them in the terms of their treaty to do, put down his rebellious Zemindars, destroy their mud-forts, and disarm their people, he will pledge himself to adopt, in course of time, and with due deliberation, such a system as will give satisfaction. To the

second he answers with some reason, that the introduction of English judges and revenue officers, for such the proposed commissioners would be, into his country, would make his own officers ciphers, and his own power contemptible, and that he would sooner bid adieu to his crown at once, and turn Faqueer. To the third, that he has not understood it to be the custom of either the King of England or the Governor-general, to hold such an open Durbar as they recommend, nor will those who have seen a Lucknow mob anticipate any beneficial effects from such excessive accessibility. But to prove his regard for his people, he has instructed his prime minister to hold a Durbar for these precise purposes twice a week, who is charged to report all cases of importance to his own ear. The fourth he answers by saying, that it was very hard to accuse him of harbouring robbers, while we refuse him all aid in putting down the very Zemindars, whose fortresses and fastnesses are the common nests of robbery and rebellion; that if we help him to subdue his rebels, he will keep his robbers in order himself: but that it would be a cruel mockery to continue to call him a king, if any neighbouring magistrate might enter his dominions at pleasure. He urges that all his difficulties have arisen from his entire confidence in the friendship of the Company. That this induced him and his ancestors to disband an excellent army, till they scarce left sentries enough for the palace; and thus they have become unable, without help, to enforce payment of their ancient revenues. That this induced him to lend to the British Government all the money which would else have enabled him to ease the people of their burdens, and to meet without inconvenience whatever loss of income a new assessment may, for some time, render inevitable. That he never has refused, and never will refuse, to give the best consideration in his power to any measures of reform which may be, in a friendly manner, proposed to him: but he refers to those who represent him as a tyrant, or who speak of his country as depopulated, to every traveller who has marched along its principal roads, and has observed the extent of cultivation through which they are carried." He concludes by saying, that "he is aware, that notwithstanding the tone of equality and independence which in their treaties and official correspondence the Company have allowed him to maintain, he is in fact in their power; but if he is to reign at all, for which he knows that he has no guarantee but British good faith, he entreats that his requests for the performance of a positive treaty may not be met by stipulations which would render that treaty vain, that he may be defended from the only enemies he has,