talents than that imbedded in the nature of the Governor-General. He was a man of excellent disposition, but weak and vacillating to a degree scarcely to be imagined. It was his great misfortune to be the son of an illustrious man. Qualities were therefore expected from him which he certainly did not inherit from his sire. His abilities were essentially mediocre, and, like many weak men, he almost invariably submitted his intellect to the influence of the last counsellor who had his ear.
He possessed, however, many agreeable qualities, calculated to adorn a private station. His personal courage was undeniable, but he lacked firmness and self-reliance to a degree which quite incapacitated him for his high position. Had he been surrounded by men possessing honesty and ability, he would doubtless have taken his tone from them, and under their advice and tuition would have shown himself equal to the occasion. But the slave of intriguing and incompetent advisers, the shuttlecock of Messrs. Grant, Beadon, and Birch, he gave, as I shall now proceed to show, an impetus to a mutiny which might have been crushed in the bud.
CHAPTER II.
FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE DISAFFECTION TO THE DISBANDING OF THE 19TH NATIVE INFANTRY.
The King of Oudh having been, as before stated, summarily deprived of his kingdom, determined to appeal to the Parliament and people of England for redress. Accordingly, in the month of April 1856, he came down to Calcutta, and took up his abode at Garden Peach, in the outskirts of Calcutta, attended by his prime minister, Ally Nucky Khan, and several followers. The Queen-mother, his brother, and one of his sons, proceeded to England, in the month of May following, in order effectually to prosecute the schemes on which he had resolved for the recovery of his kingdom. They set out, in fact, not with any hope on their part, or on the part of the King and his advisers, that their mission would be successful, but in order to convey to the people of England the impression that he had no hope but in their justice and mercy, in order to remove attention from the vast design he had formed—to upset at one blow the British rule in India.
In fact, this plan was decided upon before the King[1] left Luck-
- ↑ It should be borne in mind that the expression, "King of Oudh," refers here to those who carried on intrigues in his name. It is probable that the king himself, an imbecile, was not trusted with the full extent of the conspiracy; but his prime minister, Ally Nucky Khan, without doubt a man of transcendant ability, was the soul of the plot. Since his confinement in Fort William he has, in private conversation, attempted to justify himself, by declaring it was a counter-stroke for the treachery by which the seizure of Oudh was consummated.
