Part 45 (1/2)

Dear Sir,

Your letter of the 20th instant perplexes me a good deal. I have no place in my own office to offer you, and I never recommended any one for employment to the King. You cannot, according to rules laid down for our guidance, act as an advocate in any case before the Resident or his a.s.sistants. All landholders in Oude, except the few whose estates are included in what is called the Hozoor Tuhseel, transact their business through the Amils, Chuckladars, and n.a.z.ims of districts, and have nothing to do directly with the Durbar at Lucknow. Having nothing to do with their affairs, I cannot have anything to say with the employment by them of wakeels, or advocates.

They, the landholders, generally employ native wakeels, who are willing to bear a good deal of ill-treatment on the part of Durbar officials for the sake of very small salaries. Your situation as a wakeel on their part would be ill remunerated and exceedingly humiliating.

If the son of Ghalib Jung has offered to introduce you to the minister, and to a.s.sist in getting employment for you at Lucknow, he must, I think, do so in the hope of being able to make use of you in some intrigue; for those only who can aid in such intrigues are fostered and paid at Lucknow. Honest men can get nothing, and find no employment about the Court. If you secure employment about the Court, I cannot hold any communication with you. I should compromise myself by doing so. In your situation, I would rather be a section writer in Calcutta, or at Agra, than hold any employment in the Oude Durbar that you can get by honest means. One of the tasks imposed on you would be, I conclude, to praise bad persons and things, and abuse good, in the newspapers. This, of course, you would not do, and you would be punished accordingly. I strongly advise you to have nothing to do with Oude at present.

Yours very truly, (Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To G. Norton, Esq., Azimgurh.

Lucknow, 11th August, 1853.

My Dear Sir,

Your brother, the late Lieut.-Colonel Ouseley, was a valued friend of mine. Before his appointment as Governor-General's Agent of the south-eastern frontier districts, he had for many years held the civil charge of different districts in the Sangor and Nerbudda territories. I had for many years the civil charge of districts bordering on those under his charge, and abundant opportunity of seeing how much he had made himself beloved, and the character of his Government respected, by the manner in which he conducted the duties confided to him.

When I became Commissioner over those territories in 1844, I pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses connected with the land, while he secured the rights of the humblest.

I visited at the same time the districts of those territories which bordered upon his then charge of the south-east frontier, and communed with many people from that quarter. They all spoke of him as beloved and respected by all cla.s.ses as much in his then charge as he had been in his old one. 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 cla.s.ses 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.

Your brother's temper was warm, and he was not always happy in putting his thoughts and feelings to paper. Hence arose occasional misunderstandings with his official superiors. But while those superiors were men who could understand and appreciate his n.o.ble nature, such occasional misunderstandings never led to serious consequences. In the bitterness of his anguish, after his removal from the south-east frontier, he wrote to me; and it was most painful to me to feel that I was not in a position, or in circ.u.mstances, to advocate his cause, and describe the value of such a man as the representative of the Government and the national character among a wild and half-civilized people like those over whom he had been placed. I think it was on the representation of the late Mr.

Launcelot Wilkinson, one of the most able and estimable members of the India Civil Service, that he was sent to the south-east frontier.

He had seen his value in the Saugor and Nerbudda districts while he was political agent at Bhopaul, which bordered on the districts under your brother's charge.

It has been to me a source of much regret that I have not had it in my power to aid his son in getting employment in India.

Believe me, Yours very truly, (Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Major Ouseley, &c. &c.

Lucknow, 14th September, 1853.

Dear Sir,

The King of Oude will certainly not a.s.sist you to get up a newspaper at Lucknow; and you will certainly be disappointed if you come in expectation of such a.s.sistance from him. If you can get into his service in any other capacity, I am not aware of any objections to it, but as I have already told you and many others, I cannot recommend any one for employment under him. The humiliations to which honest and respectable Christians have to submit in his service, from the jealousies of influential persons about the Durbar, are such as few can or ought to submit to; and I certainly would not advise any one to enter such a service. Under whatever pledge or whatever influence they might enter it, their tenure of office and their pay would be altogether precarious, and the Resident would be unable to a.s.sist them in retaining the one or recovering the other.

Yours faithfully, (Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To G. Norton, Esq.

P.S.--The King of Oude and his family are in no danger from the British Government, on whose good faith they repose. I only wish that his honest and industrious subjects were as safe from the officers whom he employs in all branches of the administration, and from whom they are nowhere safe I fear.

(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.