Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎465r] (54/238)

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Lord Canning and Lord Milner.
upon a subdued nation. Other conquerors, when they
have succeeded in overcoming resistance, have excepted a
few persons as still deserving of punishment, but have
with a generous policy extended their clemency to the
great body of the people. 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 punishment, the mass of the inhabi
tants of the country. We desire to see British authority in
India rest upon the willing obedience of a contented people.
There cannot be contentment where there is general
confiscation.” The dispute ended in the victory of Can
ning. The fact seems to be that both Outram and
Ellenborough were more impressed by the wording of
the proclamation than by the unpublished instructions which
explained the use to be made of it. The Governor-
General had always been against hanging, shooting,
burning, transportation and imprisonment, and he meant
to let everybody keep his lands with honour if he would
help to maintain order. That mitigated penalty was, as
Malleson remarks, capable of still further and general
mitigation. British mercy was mentioned along with
British justice. But yet the proclamation, the only thing
published to the people of Oudh, confiscated the whole land
of that province, except the estates of six persons, named
as exceptions.
The matter w r as fully debated by Lords and Commons.
Ellenborough, put on his defence, explained that in an
earlier despatch he had urged Canning to proclaim an
amnesty. There was no hope, he said, of ultimate success
if we refused an amnesty. He had found that means suc
cessful long ago after he had annexed Sind, when
Wellington advised him to declare amnesty. Of the rebels
in Oudh he exclaimed : “ It was my duty to send out a
message of peace and mercy. They were men who had
been fighting with a rope round their neck. My object
was to remove that rope. They were men who had been
fighting without hope. I wish to give them hope.