OUDE, a province of Hindustan, situated between the twenty-sixth and twenty-eighth degrees of north latitude. On the north it is bounded by various petty districts tributary to Nepaul, from which it is separated by intervening hills and forests; on the south by Allahabad; on the east by Bahar; and on the west by Delhi and Agra. It is about 250 miles in length by 100 in breadth.

This province is part of the extensive plains of Hindustan, and is level in its surface, and extremely well watered, the Goggrah and Goompty Rivers running through it, both navigable by boats at all seasons of the year, and having the Ganges for its western boundary, besides numerous streams and lakes which intersect it in different directions. The soil is fertile, and, when properly cultivated, is exceedingly productive, yielding abundant crops of wheat, barley, rice, and a variety of other grains, cotton, sugar-cane, indigo, and poppies, and all the staple articles raised in India. It also produces grapes, mangoes, and other fruits. To the north-east the ground rises, and the country abounds in extensive woods and plains covered with grass, which afford cover for game and wild animals of all kinds. The air and the climate are suited to the spontaneous generation of nitre, from the brine of which an inferior kind of salt is produced. Lapis lazuli is also produced in this province; and a variety of cotton cloths and a coarse kind of flannel are made; also bows, arrows, shields, matchlocks, and swords. The climate is more temperate than that of Bengal. The hot winds commence about the middle of March, and blow with violence till about the beginning of June; but the inhabitants, nevertheless, contrive to keep their apartments very cool; and to the natives the hot winds are not unhealthy, however injurious to European constitutions. The rains are neither so violent nor of such long duration as in Bengal; and the temperature during the four cold months of the year is delightful. The principal towns of the province are Lucknow, Fyzabad, Oude, Khyrabad, Ghoorackpore, and Bahreich. The inhabitants are about one third Mahommedans; the remainder are Hindus of all castes. “All the villages,” says Heber (vol. ii. p. 49), “have pagodas, while many are without mosques.” They are a superior race both in body and in mind to the feeble natives of Bengal and of the districts round Calcutta. The Rajpoots, more especially, are distinguished by robust frames and by their military air, as well as by the more solid qualities of soldiers. The military habits of the population were long fostered by the disorderly state of the province, which, though it has no doubt improved, still affords too many opportunities to the freebooter.

Oude is celebrated in the ancient historical poems of Hindustan as an opulent and splendid empire, which extended all over the south of India, and even as far as the island of Ceylon. But these fabulous exaggerations are not deserving of credit. It was in the thirteenth century that Oude was conquered by the Mahommedan kings of Delhi, to whose empire it remained attached until its separation after the death of Aurungzebe, when it shared the fate of all the other parts of his kingdom, and from a dependent province grew up into an independent state. The first ancestor of the present ruler of Oude was Saadut Khan, a native of Rishapoor, in the province of Khorassan, who was appointed subahdar of Oude during the reign of Mahommed Shah. He was by birth a Persian, and came to India as a soldier of fortune; but by his courage and address[7:16:673] he rose by degrees to the rank of general in the imperial service, and was sent to the government of Oude. Having no sons, he sent for his nephew Mirza Mokiem to Persia, and gave him in marriage his only daughter, born of a concubine. He also introduced him into the imperial service, with the title of Suffder Jung, the defeater of armies. Saadut Khan died by taking poison, in consequence of the humiliating treatment he experienced from Nadir Shah, who invaded and overran India in the year 1739; and his son-in-law having secured possession of his treasure, succeeded to the throne, and was confirmed in the government of Oude by the emperor Mahommed Shah. Suffder Jung’s reign was prosperous and successful. In the year· 1747 lie repulsed Ahmed Abdally, king of the Afghans; and, as the reward of his valour, he was honoured with the title of Abul Munsur, the victorious, and appointed prime minister, which was the origin of the title of vizier in his family. In addition to Oude, he also obtained a grant of the province of Allahabad; and at length, finding his influence upon the decline, and tired of the intrigues of the court, he died in 1753, or, according to some, in 1756. He was succeeded without opposition by Shuja ud Dowlah, who was successful in all his measures, until he took part with Cossim Ally Khan against the British, and was defeated by them in the battle of Buxar in the year 1764 (see Hindustan, vol. xi. p. 419). He died in 1775, and was quietly succeeded by his eldest son Asoph ud Dowlah, a weak prince, who died in 1797. Having no legitimate children, he nominated one of his adopted sons, Vizier Aly, as his successor, who was dethroned by the British on account of his illegitimacy, and Saadut Ali, the eldest brother of the deceased nabob, was raised to the supreme power. It was in bis reign that his dominions were dismembered, during the administration of the Marquis Wellesley; for an account of which the reader is referred to the article Hindustan. The nabob of Oude had long agreed to pay an annual contribution to the East India Company, but was constantly in arrear, from the mismanagement of his affairs. On this account it was that, in lieu of this contribution, a portion of his territories was ceded to the Company, he being left sole ruler of the remaining portion. Great complaints have always been made against him by the British for the mal-administration of his dominions, which, there is no doubt, have often been a scene of serious disorders. He died in the year 1814, leaving a treasure, it is said, of many millions. Having been long on bad terms with his eldest son, he nominated his second as his successor. But the British, whose influence was now undisputed, refused to confirm his bequest, and elevated to the supreme power the eldest son, Ghazi ud Deen. The first act of the new ruler, in a conference which he had at Cawnpoor with the governor-general, was to solicit the acceptance of a crore (10,000,000) of rupees as a free gift. This was however declined, excepting as a subscription to the loan of'six per cent, which was then open; and he afterwardsagreed to the permanent assignment of 651,000 rupees annually, in payment of pensions due from the Oude treasury, under the guarantee of the British government. The Nepaulese war being protracted to a second campaign, and great preparations being made, and expense incurred, in the Pindarrie war, a hint was conveyed to the nabob that a second loan of a crore of rupees would be acceptable; and the nabob, knowing, no doubt, the power of those by whom the hint was given, cheerfully complied, and the amount was paid in bullion at Lucknow, from the treasures of bis father. For the first time, the strip of low country, or Terriani, which bounds the hills, and which was taken from the Nepaulese, was given him, at his own suggestion. It is asserted, on the same authority of course, that he voluntarily tendered to the British the free gift of a crore of rupees. This territory which he consented to receive is either, as Bishop Heber mentions, a 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.” In short, the whole transaction, both the voluntary offer and the free gift, bears the aspect of fraud and extortion.

For more than fifty years the British have been interfering in the affairs of Oude, and under this superintendence the country has been gradually falling into decay and disorder. Their professed object has been to improve the interior administration, and the collection of the revenue. But in this case it is deeply to be regretted that their efforts should have been attended with so little success; for, according to the latest accounts, the country is a scene, in many parts, of anarchy, disorder, and extortion. The minister of the nabob, Hukeem Mendee, a man of considerable opulence, and, according to Heber, as respectable in his private conduct as most of the ministers in the East are expected to be, was dismissed at the instigation of the British; and a series of violent measures followed, in which many of the zemindars were proscribed and banished. Heber asserts,^[1. Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, vol. ii. p. 81. ] that the worst consequence of the two loans to the British was, that it laid them under an obligation to the nabob, and prevented them from urging such measures as would have been necessary for the reform of the interior administration of the country. Hukeem Mendee, the displaced minister, had been continually introducing improvements in the collection of the revenue, after the examples afforded in the British provinces. The system adopted by the nabob was that of employing collectors or assessors, or officers who united both these duties, and whose sole object was to extort as much as possible from the impoverished peasantry and landholders, and to whose oppression there was no check. “In consequence,” says Bishop Heber (vol. ii. p. 82), “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 outbid his predecessors), 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 re-payment 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 ryots 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 one third 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 [7:16:674]than he could help. And his own guards, consisting of two thousand regular infantry, one thousand horse, three hundred artillery, and the irregulars whom I have noticed, were enough for all usual 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’s 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 (collectors), the more were called for, while every peasant who lost lands or property in the progress of the system became a decoit (gang-robber), and made inroads into the company’s provinces, that a different course was imperiously forced on government”

The British resident was instructed to urge anew on the king a system of efficient reform. But he was extremely averse to the interference of the British, and accordingly the resident was instructed to decline granting military aid, unless some previous reforms should be carried into effect, and unless an English commissioner versed in such matters were allowed to accompany the detachment, and to determine, before resorting to extreme measures, on the justice of the collector’s claims. The nabob evaded these peremptory demands, and begged that, as a preliminary step, the British force should be employed in putting down the rebellious zemindars, in destroying their mud-forts, and in disarming the people. Bishop Heber, however, observes, that the territories are in a far better state of cultivation than he expected to find them. From Lucknow to Sandee he says that the country is as populous and well cultivated as most of the Company’s provinces. Since the aid of the British troops has been withheld, he adds that affairs have been in all respects growing better. The zemindars have in a few instances carried their point, and the collectors have been either driven away, or forced to accept a moderate compromise; and the chief sufferers are the king, who gets little or nothing of his undoubted dues, and the traveller, who, unless he has a guard, had better, as Bishop Heber recommends, sleep in a safe skin on the other side of the Ganges. “It should be observed, however,” the same acute observer continues, “that I have as yet seen no sign of those mud-forts, stockades, and fortresses, on which the zemindars and peasantry are said to rely for safety; that the common people north of Lucknow are, I think, not so universally loaded with arms as those to the southward; and that though I have heard a good deal all the way of the distressed state of the country, as well as its anarchy and lawlessness, except in the single instance I have mentioned, where the treasure was attacked, I have seen no signs of either, or had any reason to suppose that the king’s writ does not pass current, or that our aumeen would have the least difficulty in enforcing it in our favour, even without the small payment which I give, and which is evidently accepted as a gratuity. I cannot but suspect, therefore, that the misfortunes and anarchy of Oude are somewhat overrated, though it is certain that so fine a land will take a long time in ruining, and that very many years of oppression will be required to depopulate a country which produces on the same soil, and with no aid but irrigation, crops of wheat and pulse every year.”

The territories of Oude reserved for the nabob occupy about 21,000 British square miles, and contain a population of at least 3,000,000 of inhabitants.

Oude, a town in the province of Oude, and the ancient capital of the above-mentioned province. It was long the residence of a Hindu dynasty, and subsequently the seat of the provincial government. It is situated on the south side of the Dewah or Goggrah River. It is described as having formerly been a city of vast extent; but nothing now remains to attest its former magnificence but a heap of ruins. It is still considered, however, as a place of great sanctity, and a resort of Hindu pilgrimage. In its vicinity are two remarkably large tombs of great antiquity, and venerated by the Mahommedans as the tombs of Seth and Job. There are no documents to tell at what period the seat of government was removed to Lucknow. But after the battle of Buxar in 1764, the nabob Shujah ud Dowlah founded the city of Fyzabad on the ruins of the ancient city of Oude, and the old city was in consequence demolished. It is eighty-five miles travelling distance east from Lucknow. Long. 82. 10. E. Lat. 26. 45. N.