Sir W. H. Sleeman

“ India is at present tranquil, and likely to remain so. We have no native chiefs, or combination of native chiefs, to create uneasiness; and if we continue to satisfy the great body of the people that we are anxious, to the best of our ability, to promote their happiness and welfare, and are the most impartial arbitrators that they could have, we shall have nothing to fear. The moment that this mass is impressed with the belief that we wish to govern India only for ourselves, or as the French govern Algiers, from that moment we must lose our vantage ground and decline. ”

“ The minister is a weak man and a great knave; but he has an influence over his master, obtained by being entirely subservient to his vices and follies, to the sacrifice of his own honour; and by praising all that he does, however degrading to him as a man and a sovereign.
Though the King pays no attention whatever to public affairs or to business of any kind, and aims at nothing but the reputation of being the best dancer, best versifier, and best drummer in his dominions, it would be impossible to persuade him that any man was ever more fit to reign than he is. ”

“ In a country where it is the duty of every Englishman to make the character of his Government and his nation respected and beloved, one cannot but feel proud to hear a countryman and fellow-labourer spoken of by tens of thousands of respectable, contented, and happy people as your brother was and still is. I know no part of India where the people of all classes and all grades are so attached to our character and our Government as that of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, and I believe that no man did more to establish that fine feeling than your brother. ”

“ I never do under the roof of any family in which such a cruel practice prevails. These Rajpoots are all a bad set, sir. When men murder their own children, how can they scruple to murder other people? The curse of God is upon them, sir.
"In the district of Byswara," he continued, "through which we have just passed, you will find at least fifty thousand men armed to fight against each other, or their government and its officers: in such a space, under the Honourable Company's dominion, you would not find one thousand armed men of the same class. ”

“ All the measures which I have been employed to carry out have tended to display the benevolent solicitude of the Government of India for the welfare of the people committed to its charge; the object of all has been the greater security of life and property throughout the country, the greater confidence of the people in the wisdom and efficiency of our rule, and their greater feeling of interest in this stability. ”

“ The country, on both sides of the road, well studded with trees, hamlets, and villages, and well cultivated and peopled. The landholders and peasantry seem all happy and secure under their present masters, the brother and son of the late Dursun Sing. They are protected by them from thieves and robbers, the attacks of refractory barons, and, above all, from the ravages of the King's troops; and the whole face of the country, at this season, is like that of a rich garden. The whole is under cultivation, and covered with the greatest possible variety of crops. ”

“ Indifferent to the feelings and opinions of the landed aristocracy and people of the country, with whom they have no sympathy, they spend all that they can spare for the public in gratifying the vitiated tastes of the overgrown metropolis. Hardly any work calculated to benefit or gratify the people of the country is formed or thought of by the members of the royal family or aristocracy of Lucknow; and the only one formed by the Sovereign for many years is, I believe, the metalled road leading from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, on the Ganges. ”

“ Whenever they quarrel with each other, or with the local authorities of the Government, from whatever cause, they take to indiscriminate plunder and murder over all lands not held by men of the same class; no road, town, village, or hamlet is secure from their merciless attacks; robbery and murder become their diversion—their sport; and they think no more of taking the lives of men, women, and children who never offended them, than those of deer or wild hogs. ”

“ Should anything occur to deprive us of this confidence and respect among the great mass of the people, the recollection of our victories, and assurance of our superior military organization will avail us but little; and it is as one who has zealously and successfully aided Government in securing them, that I now venture to address you, in the hope that you will—if you can do so consistently with your public duties and pledges to others—open to my son the same career of usefulness by conferring upon him a nomination to the civil service of India. ”

“ Where he can get or afford to plant only a small space, he must confine himself to the more sacred and generally useful of these trees; and they are the handsomest in appearance. Nothing can be more beautiful than one of those groves surrounded by fields teeming with rich spring crops, as they are at present; and studded here and there with fine single banyan, peepul, tamarind, mhowa, and cotton trees, which, in such positions, attain their highest perfection, as if anxious to display their greatest beauties, where they can be seen to the most advantage. ”

“ There is, indeed, hardly a respectable family in Lucknow that is not more or less dependent upon our Government for protection, and proud to have it considered that they are so. The works and institutions which would soon be created out of revenues, now absorbed by worthless Court favourites, would soon embellish the face of the country, improve the character, condition, and habits of the people, stimulate their industry in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; and render our connection with the Oude Government honourable to our name in the estimation of all India. ”

“ In our military glory they can feel no sympathy, and in our territorial acquisitions little interest; but they can and do appreciate every measure which tends to improve the security of life, property, and industry through the land—to restore the bond of good feeling between the Government and governed, where it has for a time been severed or impaired by accident—to provide the people with works tending to improve their comfort and convenience—to mitigate sufferings from calamities of season, and to encourage all to exert themselves honestly in their proper sphere. ”

“ Pointing to his stomach, he said—"We poor people are obliged to risk our lives for this, in all manner of ways; to attend elephants has been always my profession, and there is no other open to me; and we make up our minds to do whatever our duties require from us, and trust to Providence." He told me that when the elephant shoved him off, he thought that in his anger he might have forgotten him, and called out as loud as he could,—"What, have you forgotten a service of six years, and do you intend to kill the man who has fed you so long?" ”

“ Indeed old Bukhtawar Sing himself is the only member of the family that was ever troubled with scruples of any kind whatever; for he is the only one whose boyhood was not passed in the society of men in the every-day habit of committing with impunity all kinds of cruelties, atrocities, and outrages. There is, perhaps, no school in the world better adapted for training thoroughbred ruffians (men without any scruple of conscience, sense of honour, or feeling of humanity) than the camp of a revenue-contractor in Oude. ”

“ I feel like one moving among a people afflicted with incurable diseases, who crowd around him in hope, and are sent away in despair. I try to make the local authorities exert themselves in behalf of the sufferers; but am told that they have already done their utmost in vain; that if they seize robbers and murderers and send them to Lucknow, they are sure to purchase their enlargement and return to wreak their vengeance on them and on all who have aided them in their arrest and conviction ”

“ For some miles the road lay through Rajah Hurdut Sing's estate of Bumnootee, which was, with the rest of the district of Bahraetch and Gonda, plundered by Rughbur Sing, during the two years that he held the contract. We passed through no village or hamlet, but saw some at a distance from the road, with their dwellings of naked mud walls, the abodes of fear and wretchedness; but the plain is well studded with groves and fine single trees, and the crops are good where there are any on the ground. ”

“ The instant they heard this decision, they dreaded the scrutiny of the sagacious and parsimonious old man, and the enmity of the favourites by whom he had been surrounded in private life. These men, whom they had, in their pride and power, despised and insulted, would now have their revenge; and they wished for the success of the old woman and the boy, from whom they might have a better chance of escape, till they could get their wealth and their families out of the country. ”

“ I do all I can to save the people, and the people are sensible of what I do, and grateful for it; for the Resident is the only person they can look up to with any hope. If Government can comply with my wish to have the King assured that it will not permit Mr. B. to return and reside at Lucknow again, it will be of great use to me and to the people, for the hopes held out to him are like a premium offered for my head, or for my ruin; and one never feels very comfortable under such offers, at any time or in any country. ”

“ It has been the same for the last thirty years that I have known it, and must continue to be the same as long as we maintain, in absolute sway over the people, a sovereign who never bestows a thought upon them, has no feeling in common with them, and can never be persuaded that his high office imposes upon him the obligation to labour to promote their good, or even to protect them against the outrage and oppression of his own soldiers and civil officers. All Rajah Bukhtawar Sing's brothers and nephews were bred up in such camps, and are thorough-bred ruffians. ”

“ The stability of our Government in India must depend less upon our military victories than upon the confidence and affection with which our civil and political administration may inspire the great mass of the people. ”

“ When I became Commissioner over those territories in 1844, I passed through the districts which had so long been under his charge, and I can honestly say that I have never known a man who had made himself more beloved and revered by the people. Thousands of happy families were proud to acknowledge that they owed all their happiness to the careful and liberal revision of the settlement of the land-revenue made by him, in which he had provided for the interests of the higher and middle classes connected with the land, while he secured the rights of the humblest. ”

“ This is what I have heard all native travellers say, however humble or however great—all sympathise with the landed interests in a country where industry is limited almost exclusively to the culture of the soil, and the revenue of the sovereign derived almost exclusively from the land. After such rains the cold increases—the spirits rise—the breezes freshen—the crops look strong—the harvest is retarded—the grain gets more sap and becomes perfect—the cold season is prolonged, as the crops remain longer green, and continue to condense the moisture of the surrounding atmosphere. ”

“ Such a feeling as that which pervaded Bundelcund and Gwalior in 1842 and 1843, must, sooner or later, pervade all India, if these doctrines are carried out to their full extent; and our rule could not, probably, exist under it. With regard to Oude, I can only say that the King pursues the same course, and every day shows that he is unfit to reign. He has not the slightest regard for the duties or responsibilities of his high position; and the people, and even the members of his own family, feel humiliated at his misconduct, and grow weary of his reign. ”

“ As soon as we left the poor old man, Bukhtawur Sing said, "This, sir, is the way in which Government officers manage to control and subdue these sturdy Rajpoot landholders. While they remain united, as in the Bangur district, they can do nothing with them, and let them keep their estates on their own terms; but the moment a quarrel takes place between them they take advantage of it: they adopt the cause of the strongest, and support him in his aggressions upon the other members of his family or clan till all become weak by division and disorder, and submit. ”

“ When a man suffers wrong, the wrong-doer is summoned before the elders, or most respectable men of his village or clan; and if he denies the charge and refuses redress, he is told to bathe, put his hand upon the peepul-tree, and declare aloud his innocence. If he refuses, he is commanded to restore what he has taken, or make suitable reparation for the injury he has done; and if he refuses to do this, he is punished by the odium of all, and his life becomes miserable. A man dares not, sir, put his hand upon that sacred tree and deny the truth—the gods sit in it and know all things ”

“ Unless they are so, they can preserve nothing from the grasp of the contractors of the present day, who have no respect for property or person—for their own character, or for that of their sovereign. The moment that a man runs to save himself, family, and property, they rob and pull down his house, and those of all connected with him. When a man has nothing but mud walls, with invisible mud covers, they give him no anxiety ”

“ You must not ask men like this about the kinds and qualities of soils for they really know nothing whatever about them: they are city gentlemen's sons, who get into high places, and pass their lives in them without learning anything but how to screw money out of such as we are, who are born upon the soil, and depend upon its produce all our lives for subsistence. Ask him, sir, whether either he or any of his ancestors ever knew anything of the difference between one soil and another. ”

“ The evil has the acquiescence and encouragement of the Government and its functionaries of all kinds and grades throughout the country. It is distressing to witness every day such melancholy proofs of how much is done that ought not to be done, and how much that ought to be done is left undone, in so fine a country.
A want of sympathy or fellow-feeling between the governing and governed is common in all parts of India, but in no part that I have seen is it so marked as in 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. ”