Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎464v] (53/238)

266 Lord Canning and Lord Milner.
strongly in a letter of March 8. The lairds of Oudh, he
said, would not be content with the mere offer of life and
freedom from prison. He had been Governor before the
rebellion : he thought they had great grievances caused by
our land laws; only at the last moment did they side against
us. “ They ought hardly to be considered as rebels, but
rather as honourable enemies.” If not, they would make
a desperate and prolonged resistance, forcing us into “ a
new guerilla war, for the extirpation, root and branch, of
this class of men, which will involve the loss of thousands
of Europeans by battle, disease, and exposure.” Lord
Canning readily agreed in a couple of days to add a saving
clause, practically promising immunity to those who would
submit and help us. Outram had let him know that there
were not a dozen landlords who had not fought against us
or helped the rebels. Many later despatches and the
judgment of the historians combine to show that there was
no real difference of principle between the clement Canning
and the generous Outram. The tone of the secret despatch,
dated April 18, 1858, written and rather recklessly published
by Lord Ellenborough, a former Governor-General, and at
that time the member of the Cabinet who controlled India,
may therefore be censured for the serious reasons stated by
Canning. Impolitic it may have been to question the justice
of the annexation of Oudh against the people’s wishes and
to censure the land settlement which had set the lairds
against us. Nevertheless, Ellenborough s stately periods
express much the same views as Outram’s ; and there is
nothing like them in the speeches of Lord Milner or the
despatches of Mr. Chamberlain. They breathe magnan
imity as well as magniloquence. “We must admit that,
under the circumstances, the hostilities which have been
carried on in Oudh have rather the character of legitimate war
than that of rebellion, and that the people of Oudh should
rather be regarded with indulgent consideration than made
the objects of a penalty, exceeding in extent and in severity
almost any which has been recorded in history as inflicted