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THE OUDE PROCLAMATION.
[From the Times.]
There is one thing clear that either by severity or
gentleness, by threats or persuasion, the population of
Onde must be brought back to its allegiance. We,
for our own part, are in favour of the milder course.
The landholders of Oude cannot be compared for a
moment with the mutinous sepoys, the butchers of'
Delhi, Jhansi, and Cawnpore. Every consideration
of justice and policy demands that pardon should be
given to as many of these men as will lay down their
arms and return to the peaceable cultivation of the
soil. Oude is a conquered country, and nothing more :
because its inhabitants took advantage of the sepoy
mutiny to assert again their lately lost independence,
there is no reason that we should look upon them as
monsters without a claim to pity, or pursue them
with the vengeance which may justly follow the
of treacherous sepoy. This being, as we think, a fair
view of the case, it would well become the Government
to recommend in its next dispatches a greater
discrimination in the infliction of punishment at the
seat of war. From all accounts it would appear that
the authorities, military and civil especially the civil
do not err on the side of lenity. Now, if the real
mutineers were the victims of this retributive vengeance,
it would be all very well. But if one thing is
clear, it is that we seldom catch a a sepoy. They
light us, and ave killed in action, though not in any
large numbers, for by their activity and lightness of equipment
they outstrip any attempts of our troops
to take them prisoners. From Delhi they marched
into Oude, and now from Lucknow they are off in a
swarm to Rohilcund. The people they leave behind
them are the inhabitants of the country, more or less
innocent of premeditated rebellion, and on these falls
the fury of our troops. On the good-will of the
population, and especially of the chief landholders,
depends the speedy destruction of our
really dangerous enemies, the fugitive sepoys.
With the country on our side, we may expert
that whenever they are beaten and dispersed they will
be hunted down by the population, and given over to
the "British authorities ; but, should the people see
no hope of mercy for themselves, fear make them as
hostile as the mutinous army itself. The most timid
animal will turn when it sees mechanic of escape, and
the people who are anxious to make their submission
and obtain pardon may be driven into a frenzy of resistance
by the terror of the rifle and the gallows. It
is said that the number and continuance of the executions
have created a very bad effect. Men are
summarily shot and hanged on the evidence of others
who know that their own lives depend on their incul-
pation of the prisoners. Some exces may perhaps,
be excusable in men who have the remembrance of the
Cawnpore and Delhi horrors strong upon them, but it
is the duty of the authorities to put a check on this
1 wild vengeance, if it gratifies itself with the destruction
of men who are innocent of English blood.
! There is a general opinion among those best quali-
i tied to form a judgment that if We are to hold India
without an enormous European force we must now
I give pardon and protection to every native not actually
a mutineer. Taking India as a whole, it surely cannot
i be said that England has any cause to cherish feelings
of revenge against her I8(),000,000 of subjects. A
great army has revolted and every race, from the
Himalayas to Ceylon, has had a chance of insurrection.
I And yet how few have availed themselves of it ! In
I Bengal, as well as in the North-west Provinces, the
population have been favourable or inert; in Oude
j only has there been any active sympathy between the
inhabitants and the soldiery. And even in Oude the
| rebellious spirit seems to have been conti tied to those
i landholders who have what we should call " a stake in
the country,"' and who have thought that the
annexation of the province was but a prelude to
the dispossession of themselves. Why, then,
should any of our countrymen feel as if they thought
every inhabitant of India a rebel and an assassin ?
I Such practices, if not checked, will lead to s> open
j a feud between the Englishman and the Asiatic as
I will vastly increase the labour of governing the empire
' after it has been reconquered.
It is chiefly as a military measure, dictated by sheer
j necessity, that, we are disposed to regard Lord Canning's
proclamation. The letter which Lord Ellen-
borough has sent out, and which even before it was
moved for in the Lords or the Commons was already
in the hands of his political allies in this city, is calculated
to counteract the force of this mea- re and so
far to paralyze the operations of our army. It is
calculated to aggravate the sense of wrong, to provoke
the foe to more desperate and fanatical resistance, to
expose our friends in Oude to shame and confusion
as the objects of our own political contempt, to pro-
tract the war, to entail future losses on ourselves, and,
above all, to acted tenfold to the calamities certain
to overtake the unfortunate people of Oude. Nobody
can doubt for an instant that the end will be the same,
whatever the political party of the statesman govern-
ing India. Oude will have as little mercy and consideration
in the long run from Lord Ellenborough as
from Lord Canning or any other lord. We shall and
must eventually do that which is best for the Indian
common weal and our own security. But Lord Canning's
course is the best the surest, the shortest, and,
as we also think, the most honest way to that result.
Perhaps it may have spoken too plainly. Perhaps its
language is political, when the stern warnings of the
warrior were rather required. But, substantially, it is
the best and only course, and we don't envy her Majesty's
present advisers the use they have made of it to
"snub" the distinguished nobleman who has had to
preserve our Indian Empire in a season of unexampled
difficulty, hitherto with no want of' humanity, and also
with very great success
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