The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

974 right in the circumstances that have leen briefly described and which would have hampered the Administration at every turn, the surest, the safest, the most politic, and a thoroughly just course seemed to be to declare the proprietary right in the boil (to whomsoever appertaining, for all classes, as such, had sinned equally) confiscated, and to reserve to the Government the right of hereafter disposing of it as might seem fitting, at the same time notifying the in tention of the Government to show indulgence to those who should tender immediate submission and throw them selves upon its mercy. 81. I apprehended little difficulty, and, so far as expe rience has gone, little has, I believe, been found, in ex plaining to the talookdars and landholders with whom our officers have come in contact, that the " confiscation " does not necessarily operate as a permanent deprivation of their rights, but that it places in the bands of the Government the power of punishing those who shall still persist in rebellion after life and honour have been guaranteed to them, of rewarding those who shall promptly come forward and give their support to the Government and to the cause of order, or substituting in every case of restoration the undeniable title derived from the will of the Government for the doubtful title which alone could be advanced by the majority of those whom the order affected, and of attaching to the fiat of restoration such conditions of service (political and military ), fealty, and good conduct as the altered cir cumstances of the province have made essential to the firm establishment of our authority. 32. I have now stated the considerations which led me to frame the proclamation in the form in which it was ransmitted to you. 3:1 It was sent to Lucknow on the 3rd of March, and on the 10th I received from the Chief Commissioner, Major- General Sir James Outram, a letter urging a reconsidera tion of the terms of the proclamation, mainly on the ground that it would render hopeless the attempt to enlist the talookdars on the side of order, and would drive them to a desperate resistance; and recommending that such land holders and chiefs as had not been accomplices in the cold blooded murder of Europeans should be enlisted on our side by the restoration of their ancient possessions, subject to such restrictions as would protect their dependants from oppression. 34. This letter and the replies to it, including the additional paragraph which Sir James Outram's opinion of the light in which the talookdars and chiefs would view the proclamation induced me to add thereto, are before your hon. committee. 35. I will not trouble your hon. committee with a reca pitulation of the reasons which appeared to me to forbid the adoption of Sir James Outram's suggestion; but lest your hon. committee should suppose. that I was without any previous expression of Sir James Outram's opinion on the subject. I wish to state that the unfavourable view taken by that distinguished officer of the substance of the proclamation was a cause of much disappointment to me. 31i. A very few weeks previously the Chief Commissioner had sent to the Government of India an able and elaborate memorandum upon the system of civil administration to be adopted for Glide after Lucknow should be subjugated. In this memorandum, dated the 15th of January, 1858, are the following passages : - . The system of settlement with so-called village proprietors Will not answer at present, if ever, in Oude. These men have not influence and weight enough to aid us in restoring order. The lands of men who hr.ve taken an active part against us should bo largely comiscated, in order, among other reasons, to enable us to reward others in the manner most acceptable to a native. But. I see no prospect of returning tranquillity, except by having recourse for the next few years to the old talookdaree system. . . . Talookas should only be given to men who have actively aided us, or who, having been inactive, now evince a true willingness to serve us, and are possessed of influence suftleieut to make their sivport of real value. 37. Subject to the understanding that even to those who had been most active against us indulgence should be extended upon their making prompt and complete submission, these opinions accorded exactly with my own ; and although 1 was aware that there might easily be difference of opinion as to the mode of announcing and of carrying out punishment by confiscation, it did not occur to me that any finch divergence of views as was subsequently intimated in the Chief Commissioner's letter of the Bth of March could occur between us. The belief therein expressed, that there are not a dozen landholders in the province who have not borne arms against us, seemed to go far towards justifying the general and sweeping terms of the proclamation, to which alone I expected any objection on Sir James Outram's part. 38. I afterwards had occasion to send my military secre tary, Colonel Stuart, to head-quarters, and I took the op portunity to explain to the Chief Commissioner that I wished him to give the most liberal interpretation to the proclamation ; that, for instance, the proclamation left it free to notify to any talookdar who was deserving of consideration, that if he made submission and supported the Government, the contiacation of his lands would not take effect, and that his chains to property of which he might have been deprived upon the annexation of the province would be reheard; and that in the case of these having been resumed by him he might retain them till the rehearing. - - 39. On the :3rd of April Mijor•General Sir James Ontram being about to take his seat in Council at Calcutta, Mr. Montgomery succeeded to the Chief Commissionership of Oude. - - 40. Mr. Montgomery had, at my request, done me the favour of visiting Allahabad before going to Lucknow, in order that I might have an opportunity of communicating unreservedly with him upon the discharge of his new duties. I impressed upon the new Chief Commissioner my wish that his dealings with the chief rebels should be as con ciliatory as might he consistent with the dignity of the Government ; and that he should treat liberally and gene rously all those who tendered their allegiance and gave support to his authority. Mr. Montgomery expressed his THE PRE S S, OCTOBER 9, 1858. intention to take this matter into his own personal ma nagement. 41. On the 20th of April the Chief Commissioner wrote to me, in an unofficial letter, as follows :- 1 inclose a memorandum just given me by Captain Barrow, which will show your lordship the names of talookdars who have attended in person or by vakeel. Generally speaking, indeed invariably, the feeling shown by the men who come in is excellent. They express groat sorrow at the past, and seem grateful for the consideration shown to them. A copy of the memorandum is inclosed. It contains the names of twenty-six chiefs of note and influence, in various quarters, some of them at a great distance from Lucknow, who had either openly tendered their allegiance to the Government, or had taken the first steps towards doing so. So far as lam aware, only one of these has swerved from his first intention. At the date of this memorandum, little more than a month had elapsed since the first appearance of the pro clamation in Lucknow. 42. On the 22nd of May, the Chief Commissioner sent me a further memorandum from Captain Barrow, which is also under this cover. It describes the progress made and the state of feeling prevalent. It is right, however, that I should observe that, of the three powerful talookdara named in this memorandum. one only (Mann Singh) has aided with us actively. Of the other two, one (Malhoo Singh) is inactive, and the other ( Benee Macßae) is in arms against us. 43. From this last date the Chief Commissioner has furnished weekly reports, which have been forwarded to your bon. committee in regular course. 44. Latterly, these have become less favourable. The rebels, under the leadership in some cases of talookdars, have approached nearer to Lucknow, have threatened, and in some places destroyed, the civil stations which we had established, and have killed some of the native guards. But I am not, neither is the Chief Commissioner of Oude, disheartened by a temporary check iu the progress which had been rapidly achieved. In a letter received from Mr. Montgomery as I am writing that gentleman says : I had settled some 6.010 villages, and everything was pro• grassing moat favourably, when a combination of circumstances prevented the progress of the settlement. But he adds : I still say that the mass of the people are well inclined to us. I get secret letters and messages, but they dare not come forward in the face of the armed bodies which are hostile to us. 45. In an earlier part of this despatch I had occasion to speak of these bodies, which, although without cohe sion and combination, are none the leas capable of intimidating and persecuting those whom they believe to be well disposed towards the Government. They have latterly been greatly aided in this by the influx of fugitives from Rohilcund and Calpee, who have either joined them or set up as independent marauders. 46. I never expected it to be otherwise, I never ex pected that, with the capture and occupation of Lneknow, the province would become submissive ; and my anticipa tion of the contrary is recorded in the letter which, on the 16th of January, the Governor• General in Council addressed to the commander•in-chief, recommending that his Excellency's operations should, notwithstanding, be directed against Lucknow. Those operations were carried out with a skill, bravery, and success which have won the admiration of the world. But it is no disparagement of the work of the great soldier who achieved that success to say that the chastisern-nt thereby inflicted upon the loose bands of mutineers, rebels, and plunderers, who were collected in and about the city, was not such as to expel them from the limits of the province, or to deter them from persevering in their work of murder and pillage in other districts of it. 47. It is not in reason that, what with the pressure of the mutinous sepoys, now congregated in various parts of the province on the one hand, and the arts and threats of desperate adventurers acting ss leaders on the other, violence and rebellion should not be kept alive, and that those who are well inclined to make their peace with the Government should not thereby be deterred from doing so. 48. No man is better aquainted with the eastern districts of Oude and their inhabitants than Mr. Wingfield, who is at present acting on that frontier of the province as Special Commissioner of Goruckpore. Writing on the fith of June Mr. Wingfield says : Unsupported by the presence of British troops there are many talookdars who, to my certain knowledge, are deterred from ten dering their allegiance, which is their sincere wish. Had the garrison of Lucknow only been distributed about the province three•fourths of the talookdars would, under the promises held out by the proclamation, have been entirely on our side by this time. Unfortunately, the garrison of Liicknow could not be spared, nor any body of troops at all approaching it in strength. 49. But when the season shall arrive at which the troops can again move rapidly over the country, when tie large police force now being raised by the Chief Commissioner at Lueknow shall have reached its complement and received further organization, and when it shall be manifest that we have the means of protecting or supporting those who return to their allegiance, I cannot doubt that the spirit in which the proclamation has been accepted in many quarters will declare itself generally throughout the province. W). I have now described to your hon. committee the whole course of my proceedings with regard to the proclu• motion of the 15th of March. 1 have at the same time ex plained the policy which has guided me, and I have informed yon generally of its results. I respectfully await your judgment. I have the honour to be, with the greatest reapect, Hon. Sirs, your most faithful, humble servant, Allahabad, June 17. CANNING. Foreign Department, Allahahad, July 4, [Kis, TILE HON. THE COURT OF DIRECTORS O THE EAST I INDIA COMPANY. Hon. Sirs,-1. Your despatch, No. 20, of the 18th of May reached me two days ego. I beg your hon. court to accept my warmest thanks for the assurance of your continued confidence which that despatch, and the resolution of your hon. court embodied in it, convey. 2. Such an expression of the sentiments of your hon. l court would be to me a source of gratification and jest pride in any circumstances ; but the generous and t i me l y promptitude with which you have been pleased to issu e it, ; and the fact that it cu..veys approval of the past as wel as trust for the future, has greatly enhanced its value. Your hon. court have rightly judged that, in the midst of difficult times, no support is so cheering to a public ser vant, or so strengthening, as that which is derived from a declared approval of the spit it by which his past acts have been guided. 3. 1 believe that the expectations expressed by your hon. court as to the spirit in which the proclaimed confiscation of proprietary rights in Oude would he used will nut be . disappointed, when you shall have had cognizance of the • despatch which I had the honour to address to the secret committee on the 17th ult., and which, as being the sequel of correspondence already in the hands of your hon. court, will no doubt have been laid before you. 4. Your hon. court observe that 1 must have been well aware that the words of the proclamation, without the comment on it which you trust was speedily afforded by the actions of the Government, must have produced the expectation of much more general and indiscriminate dis possession than could have been consistent with justice or with policy. Undoubtedly this is so. But it was not without delibe ration that, in framing the proclamation, I useJ the posi tive, peremptory, and, so to speak, enacting words which declare that the proprietary right in the soil of the pro vince is confiscated to the Government, which will dispose of that right in such a manner as it may deem fitting. A. As this point was scarcely touched upon in my above-mentioned despatch to the secret committee, I will take leave to add a further brief explanation upon it. I have said that it is in the nature of those to whom the proclamation was addressed to care very little for the threats, but to have a great respect for the distinct orders of superior authority. A rebel landholder, to whom no• more should be said than that, if he did not make submis sion soon, his rights would be liable to confiscation, would be likely to trust fur his escape to the chapter of accidents,. and to the chance of avoiding or defeating criminatoty evidence, and so to delay submission and cling to the cause of those whose immediate influence might be nearest End, strongest ; whereas, if he should be made to feel that the withdrawal of his rights is already decreed, that it only' remains for the executive officers to give effect to it by placing another proprietor in possession, and that the best hope left to him is to work out as large a claim to prof fered indulgence as possible while there is yet time, his. manifestation of allegiance would assuredly be quickened. 6. It was my business to consider what would most stimulate and hasten a return to peace and loyalty on the part of those addressed, and I was of opinion that this• would best be done by making it clear and plain that the• rewards actually conferred for fidelity were very large, thee the punishment actually decreed for rebellion was very' heavy, but that from this punishment a door of escape was. still open. 7. To attempt to define more precisely the conditions , and degrees according to winch indulgence should be awarded and punishment tempered appeared tio ins most inexpedient. It would, I submit, have been, nupoesilale to put into the proclamation any mitigating or eoncilite tory words to this effect without incurring the pretest risk of raising false hopes and giving ground for mistaken claims, the disappointment of which hereafter would have gone far to confirm in the minds of many the reproach which the rebel leaders have sedulously thrown out against the English Government of a want of good faith, a reproach to which no colour or shadow of truth shall ever be given by any act of mine. 8. 1 therefore left the way of escape and the amount of obtainable indulgence to be learned from the treatment which those who should first come in would receive. No explanation in words would have been so certain to spread through the country with little chance of perversion as this. No other course would have left the Government so free to• use wise discrimination in the remission of punishment. 9. Your hon. court will of course bear in mind that the• proclamation was addressed to a province in arms, through-. out which we had not at that time a surviving friend or' interest to defend, and that therefore any fear of danger from an outburst of resistance by which ma t ter s should be) made worse was imaginary. 10. Upon a careful and, I hope, dispassionate review eff the s hole subject, I cannot but think that the words iru which the proclamation was couched were those ascot befitting the Government of India in its relations with its rebellious province, and best calculated to effect eventually a real and sure pacification. But the question was one of very great difficulty, and I entreat your hon. court not to suppose that I am so presumptuous as to deprecate criti cism of the mode in which the difficulty was met. 11. The reports lately received from Lncknow and de spatehed to your hon. court by this a nd b y the preceding mail show that one of the Chief Commissioner's greatest embarrassments is the want of sufficient means to pro tect the landholders, who are eager to tend sr their alle giance, but whom we cannot in some place effectually defend until the bands of the more desperate rebels and mutineers which still harass the province shall have been subdued and destroyed—an object which can be attained only by moving the troops through the country et &suitable season. Accordingly, in the cases of many who have declared their desire to make submission, Mr. Montgomery