The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-10 00:00:00

THE SUN,

LONMON,

tached to the soil occupied by their ancestors, and
are as sensitive with respect to the rightsin the soil
they deem themselves to possess, as the occupiers
of land in any country of which we have a know-
ledge.
8. Whatever may be your ultimate and undis-
closed intentions, your Proclamation will appear
to deprive the great body of the people of all hope
upon the subject most dear to them as individuals,
while the substitution of our rule fur that of their
native Sovereign has naturally excited against us
whatever they may have of national feeling.
9. [We cannot but in justice consider that those
who resist our authority in Oude are under very
different circumstances from those who have acted
against us in provinces which have been long under
our government.

a We dethroned the King of Oude, and took
possession of his kingdom by virtue of a treaty
winch bad been subsequently modified by another
treaty, under which, had it been held to be in force,
the course we adopted could not have been lawfully
pursued ; but we held that it was not in force, al-
though the fact of its not having been ratified in
England, as regarded the provision on which we
rely for our justification, bad not been previously
made known to the King of Oude.
11. That sovereign and his ancestors bad been
uniformly faithful to their treaty engagements with
us, however ill they may have governed their
subjects.
12. They had more than once assisted us in our
difficulties, and not a suspicion had ever been en-
tertained of any hostile disposition on their part
towards our Government.

13. Suddenly the people saw their King taken
from amongst them, and our Administration sub-
stituted for his, which, however bad, was at least
native, and this sudden change of Government was
immediately followed by a summary settlement of
the revenue, which, in a very considerable portion
of the province, deprived the meet influential land-
holders of what they deemed to be their property
of what certainly had long given wealth, and dis-
tinction, and power to their families.]
14. We must admit that, under these circum-
stances, the hostilities which have been carried on
in Oude have rather the character of.legitimate war
than that of rebellion, and that the people of Oude
should rather be regarded with indulgent conside-
ration than be made the objects of a penalty ex-
ceeding in extent and in severity almost any which
has been recorded in history as inflicted upon a
subdued nation.
15. Other conquerors, when they have suc-
ceeded in overcoming resistance, have excepted a
few persons as still deserving of punishment, but
have, with a generous policy, extended their cle-
mency to the great body of the people.
16. You have acted upon a different principle.
You have reserved a few as deserving of special
favour, and you have struck with what they will
feel as the severest of punishment the mass of the
inhabitants of the country.
17. We cannot but think that the precedents
from which you have departed will appear to have
been conceived in a spirit of wisdom superior to
that which appears in the precedent you have made.
18. We desire that you will mitigate in prac-
tice the stringent severity of the decree of confisca-
tion you have issued against the landholders of
Onde.
19.1 We desire to see British authority in India
upon the willing obedience of a contented people.
There cannot be contentment where there is general
confiscation.
20. Government cannot long be maintained
by any force in a country where the people are
rendered hostile by a sense of wrong ; and if it
were possible to maintain it, it would not be a
consummation to be desired.

LORD CANNING'S PROCLAMATION.

(Prom the Morning herald,)

Lord Granville and his friends allow their antagonism
to the Government to stand forth with too great promi-
nence. They not only object to everything which is done,
but by their conduct show that they are determined to
cavil and oppose. Not many months ago they applauded
Lord Canning for his leniency ; but circumstances have
changed, and they become the advocates of undue seve-
rity. Yet, in this case, the natural order of things has
been entirely reversed. Lord Canning hesitated and con-
nived at the moment that he ought to have been stern
and unbending, and when he might with advantage dis-
play moderation he actually strikes a blow that will
alienate many loyal hearts from our cause. The whole-
sale confiscation of Oude cannot, under any pretence
whatever, be justified. The rebel sepoys, driven from
Delhi and other strongholls, concentrated around Luck-
now, compelling the population, the unwilling as well as
the willing, to embark in the struggle against our rule.
As far as the inhabitants of Oude were concerned it was
not, as Lord Darby stated on Friday night, " a mutiny
of those who had eaten our salt, and sworn allegiance to
us, but the revolt of a people who thought—l am not
saying whether rightly or wrongly—that their costive
sovereign had been unjustly dethroned, and who rose as
an armed nation against those whom they c meeived to
be usurpers and oppressors." Lord Canning might have
made confiscation the exception ; he certainly was not
justified in making it the rule. Had the Governor-Gene-
ral threatened to deprive of their lands and possessions
all tho • who did not at onci3 tender their allegiance,
i ad thro v themselves on the clemency of their Sovereign,
none would hive ()Nee' e I to hie policy.
It is rather remarkable that those authorities who from
the first contended that the rebellion in India was purely
a military revolt, confined solely to the sepoys, now urge
the adoption of severe measures against the population.
Mraabers of the late Government in both houses of Perlin-
inent gave expression to this view, which was advocated in
the c )lumns of their org,ane. According to their notions the
people, from ono extremity of India to the other, are
innocent of anything like part'cipation in the revolt.
Yet upon their heads they would now pour out the vials
of wrath ! Ex-ministers and our contemporary the
Times obtained a strange notoriety by the pertinacity
with which, in the teeth of incontrovertible evidence,
they clung to this erroneous view, and, to the general
surprise of all, they rush to the defence of Lord Can-
ning, abanCen the cause of the persecuted people of
Oude, and advocate severe measures against those whom
they have over and over again proclaimed as being inno-
cent of any actual offence. The sepoys mutinied, but
the peaceful cultivators of the soil aro to be visited with
condign ohastieement, is the doctrine set forth with such
earnestness, and in order to throw a shield over Lord
Canning even the ex-President of the Council seems to
forget all that he has previously stated upon this ques-
tion. We would ask, with due humility and respect,
how these politicians explain this startling contradict:on
in their conduct I If, as they have over and over again
stated, this outbreak is nothing more nor less than a
mutiny of the army, if none but the sepoys have plotted
and rebelled against ue, why is the great axe of justice
to fall upon other heads In the name of humanity let
these politicians stand forth and tell the nation what
they really mean ! In spits of evidence the most con-
clusive they bare persevered in denying the complicity
of any sec'ion of the non-military classes of India in this
foul revolt, yet they now declare that those persons
whose innocence they have over and over again asserted
deserve no better doom than that contained in ,he fol-
lowing paragraph from Lord Canning 's proclamation :
"The Governor-General further proclaims to the
people of Oude that, with the above-mentioned excep
Lions, the proprietary right in the soil of the province is
confiscated to the British Government, which will die
pose of that right in such a manner as to it may seed
fitting."
The effect produced in Oude by this proclimatioe
cannot be disguised. On this point the evidence of
the corre,pondent of the Times is o mclusive, and it en-
tirely demolishes the arguments put forth by our con-
temporary. In the last letter from the seat of war Mr.
Russell states :—" The terms of the proclamation are to
be interpreted by Sir James Outram. The ghss will to
I.rge and lii,eritl. and in his rendering the severity of tote
text will be mollilled so far that the Owle taloolcdars elegy
read and run to and not front us. So it is understood,
and steps will be taken to diffuse the knowledge f this
great change among the native.." The italics in tie
above extract are our own. There a ould have i e n
little need for rneilifications, and "tide (el wet change" if
the original terms of the proclamation Lad been suited
to the emergency. In another portion cf the same
communication the writer speaks of the "present tem-
per of the people," and adds—" If this temper becomes
permanent and ex ensively prevalent we may be called
upon to solve the tremendous problem whether Eng-
land is strong enough, provided she accepts the ta• k, to
govern by force of military despotism the 150,000,000
or 160,000,000 of human beings committed to her
charge," Such eueaeures as these to which we have re-
ferred will only inerease our difficulties and heighten our
perplexities, nor can we wonder that the correspondent
at the seat of the war is in favour of a lenient policy.
We find him stating, "No mawkish sentiments of cle-
mency should guide our conduct ; let us be jest and 1)(1-
' tic, and if clemency be compatible with justice and p licy
too,let us not be ashamed of being animated by a quality
which is one of the grandest characteristics of heroes,
cf conquerors, and of mighty empires, and which pos-
terity admires more than the valour by which oppor-
tunity for its exercise was won." In such a spirit has
the noble remonstrance sent by Ministers to the Go-
vernor-General been framed, and every true Englishman
.111 admit with pride and honest emotion that thin
Patriotic document contains sentiments that do honour
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commencement of the mutiny, nor have we failed to
Gfoernesrot sa:it
legislatorrrh e Gveroe
cri-is: In fact, Lord Canningqurinreodr-
has, as we sai I before,
reversed the natural order of things. He temperieed
when he ought to have acted energetically,and now
hat he might be lenient he is needlessly severe, At the
first signs of revolt the Governor-General
ehoull have
struck terror into the hearts of
the mutineer,. By h*:
unwillingness to make an example he actually foaoured
the designs of the conspirators, and a movemett which
might have been crushed in the bud assumed the elia
ratter of a widely-spread rebellion. At that time severity
would have deterred the bold, now it wi alienate the
loyal. The people of Oude have been oppressed and
yrannised over by the sepoys, and a lenient policy on
he part of the Britieh authorities would have won their