discovered, as we so soon did, that there were apprehensions in the minds of many of these gentlemen of the existence of something unsafe, and even dangerous, around them; but as others of them treated the matter very lightly, and even ridiculed the idea of any necessity for anxiety, we, on our part, concluded that it was no particular business of ours, so we went on with our duty, leaving the future to be guided and controlled by the great Protector whom we were serving.
On reaching Lucknow, November 29, 1856, we found, rather to our surprise, that our note of introduction was to billet us in the “Residency,” (so famous for its siege and relief by General Havelock ten months later.) Lucknow was the splendid capital of the kingdom of Oude, whose sovereign, Wajid Ali Shah, had just been removed to Calcutta, and his dominions annexed by the British Government, on account of the long-continued misrule and oppression that had made Oude a neighborhood of misery and rapine to all the country around it. What the condition of its King and Court were is stated, without exaggeration, in a work issued from the American press about 1854, entitled “The Private Life of an Eastern King,” and also in Sleeman's “Recollections,” and other publications. Few sovereigns have ever been so utterly forgetful of the duties of a governor of men, or more thoroughly steeped in selfishness and sensuality, than was Wajid Ali Shah. His territories at length, from his misrule and neglect, became an unequaled scene of outrage and bloodshed, and a refuge for the dacoits (robbers) of Northern India, who would cross the Ganges at night and plunder in the British Territories all around, making good their retreat into Oude before daylight. Complaints were presented for years, and threats of annexation were served upon him, till they ceased to be heeded by the besotted and reckless man, whose cruelties and neglect of his people (in which, however, he only imitated each of his predecessors) led at last to his being removed from the throne he disgraced. He was transferred to Calcutta in the spring of 1856, and there, on a pension about equal to his royal revenues, he prosecutes his debaucheries without ruining a kingdom
