had the means of making their objections known in high quarters in England. The moment was unfortunate. Lord Palmerston's defeat on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill had just caused a change of Ministry, and a private letter addressed by Lord Canning to Mr. Vernon Smith, President of the Board of Control, explaining the Proclamation and attenuating its apparent severity, had not been transferred by the outgoing official to his successor. Lord Ellenborough, reading the Proclamation as it stood, considered the confiscating clause as excessive and impolitic in its severity. His colleagues fully shared his views. The opportunity for virtuous indignation and denunciatory rhetoric proved too strong for a Minister whose foible was indiscretion. The machinery of the Board enabled its President, by addressing the Indian Government in the 'Secret Committee,' to emancipate himself from the ordinary trammels of extraneous interference. To Lord Ellenborough's stormy genius such a chance was irresistible. Preparing the way by a summary, not too accurate, of the relations of the English Government to Oudh, and of the course of events which had led up to annexation, he thus delivered his assault: —
'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
