argued that the strong impression made by Lord Dalhousie on the country and its diverse races remained active even after his departure. Lord Canning simply administered the country on the principles and by means of the men bequeathed to him by his predecessor. He had experienced, indeed, some difficulty with Oudh. Not, indeed, that the question, which was recurring with increasing intensity every day to the minds of the sipáhís,[1] as to the injurious effects which the annexation had produced on their prospects, ever presented itself to Lord Canning or his councillors. The difficulty was caused by the squabbles, amounting to a public scandal, between the two senior members of the Commission whose administration had supplanted that of the deposed king, Mr Coverley Jackson and Mr Martin Gubbins. The scandal lasted throughout the year, and was only terminated by the removal of Mr Jackson, in January of the year following, and the appointment in his place of one of the most illustrious of the men who have contributed to the securing on a firm foundation of the British rule in India — the wise and virtuous Sir Henry Lawrence. The task bequeathed to Sir Henry was no light one; for the principle which had sown discontent throughout the North-west Provinces, the principle of grafting western ideas on an eastern people — a principle which he had combated all his life — had made every landowner in Oudh a rebel at heart.
There was another event, outside India indeed, but connected with India, which occupied the attention of Lord Canning during the first year of his incumbency of office, and which temporarily somewhat diminished his power of grappling with any military difficulty which might arise. I refer to the war with Persia.
Up to the year 1856, certainly, it had been a cardinal
- ↑ Vide page 15.
