Oudh. The treaty of 1801 was made on the engagement of the Nawáb Vizier (article 6) that His Excellency would establish ' such a system of administration, to be carried into effect by his own officers, as shall be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects, and be calculated to secure the lives and property of the inhabitants, and His Excellency will always advise with, and act in conformity to the counsel of, the officers of the said Honourable Company[1].'
The Nawáb Vizier, a miserable sensualist and debauchee, failed to carry out these stipulations. Instead of establishing a system of government conducive to the welfare of his subjects, he entered on a course of oppression and heartless misrule, and trusted to the British troops to protect him from the vengeance of his people. Lord Wellesley himself perceived what the end must be. 'I am satisfied,' he wrote in 1801, 'that no effectual security can be provided against the ruin of the Province of Oudh, until the exclusive management of the civil and military government of that country shall be transferred to the Company, under suitable provisions for the maintenance of His Excellency and family.'
Before thirty years passed, it became clear that no other alternative was indeed possible. In 1831,
- ↑ Aitchison's Treaties, Engagements, and Sunnuds, vol. ii, p. 102, ed. 1876.
