The Press.
London, England, 1858-04-10 00:00:00

rr H t PRESS, APRIL 10, 1858.

advancing reliefs from England. Moreover, a
great proportion of the people have been
soldiers, and very naturally remain on their
own soil to defend themselves, while a vast
amount of our late sepoy army was recruited
from Oude ; and in rebelling, these men have
centred there because Oude was their home.
As to the deposed princes, there was
infinitely more sympathy shown for that
Royal Family by those vulgar starers who
love a fresh "Lion" in society, or a new
" Horror" at Madame Tussaud's, and who
crowded last year " to have a good look " at
the Queen of DUDE, than by all the natives
who are supposed to be exasperated by the
sufferings and indignities of their discarded
rulers.

As we have said, Eitgland is at this moment
anxiously expecting the particulars of the
closing scene in this war of rebellion. No one
doubts that by the issue Oude will become prac-
tically, as well as nominally, a portion of the
British empire in India The deed of annexa-
tion will be ratified. At this moment, there-
fore, it is worth while to recal some of the
facts connected with that State, and to observe
how the policy of Lord WELLESLEY in 1801
animated his successor in 1856.

It bas often struck us as singular that no
one has asked so very natural a question as
this, " What is the history of the kingdom of
Oude?" It would be found that, like the
great Earl of WARWICK, we have employed
ourselves there not only in king-unmaking,
but in king-making. Oudo has been one of
those nine-pins of native Courts which the
East India Company set up, and which, in
the inevitable course of the game, it has been
compelled to bowl down.

The King of OUDE (in the supposition of
many) is descended from a long line of royal
ancestors, who reigned in Lucknow for centu-
ries before the English, with their writers and
factories, intruded upon the soil. No doubt
he deduces his birth, in the vulgar imagina-
tion, from progenitors who were illustrious
when the Kings of Englat d only " made their
marks." No idea could be more absurd
WARREN HASTTNOS found Oude a pert of the
empire of Delhi; and it was to weaken the
influence of the Imperial Court that it was
subsequently made independent, and the
Nabob raised to the kingly dignity. The
royalty of Oude, therefore, is a thing of yes-
terday. We have no need to trace the history
of that period ; for, as Mr. BURKE said, the
facts are open to every one, even as far as
John o' Groat's seat.

What has followed is nothing but what
might have been expected, and is too well
established by the evidence before Govern-
ment. The transformation into royalty in Oude
was as surpt to some of the performers in
the piece as it was to Christopher Sly to find
himself, by " profession a tinker," elevated into
a lord :

Am T a lord?
Or do I dream, or have I dreamed till now ?
. . . 1 see, I hear, I speak ;
T smell sweet savours. ar:d I feel soft things.
Upon my life I am a lord, indeed,
And not a tinker.
Christopher Sly's ideas, even when he was in
lordly attire, turned to "a pot of small ale,"
and to " the flesh and the blood." So it was
with the Royal Family of Oude. They re-
signed themselves to debauchery and every
possible indulgence, coupled with oppression.
In 1801, such was the condition of Onde
that the Marquis WELLESLEY contemplated
compelling the Royal Family to resign and at
once annexing the country. His policy, after
half a century, has been carried into effect.
Lord DALHOUSIE preserved the traditions of
the Wellesley Administration ; and in the
same council-chamber where one Marquis, in
1801, designed the annexation, another Mar-
quis, in 1856, executed it. The causes which
operated in 1801 operated in 1856 ; and at
various periois during the present century
many persons have been astonished they did
not bring matters to a crisis.

We have now traced the erection of the king-
dom and its con•li'ion. With such facts before
it, the Government of India during half a cen
tury has from time to time contemplated the

341

undoing of an evil, which had been created
by itself. It had carved the kingdom of Oude
out of the empire of Delhi ; and having made
kings, it protected them and their acts, to the
ruin of the country. From the birth this
strange creation proved itself a Frankenstein ;
and so those who brought it to the birth at last
have put it out of the way. Our policy with
reference to Oude has been a blunder from the
beginning. HASTINGS layed the nest-egg of
difficulties, Lord WELLESLEY incubated, and
the Marquis of DALIIOUSIE has hatched it.