severity almost any which has been recorded in history as inflicted upon a subdued nation.
'Other conquerors, when they have succeeded in overcoming resistance, have excepted a few persons as still deserving of punishment, but have, with a generous policy, extended their clemency to the great body of the people.
'You have acted upon a different principle; you have reserved a few as deserving of special favour, and you have struck, with what they will feel as the severest of punishment, the mass of the inhabitants of the country.
'We cannot but think that the precedents from which you have departed will appear to have been conceived in a spirit of wisdom superior to that which appears in the precedent you have made.
'We desire that you will mitigate in practice the stringent severity of the decree of confiscation you have issued against the landholders of Oudh.
'We desire to see British authority in India rest upon the willing obedience of a contented people. There cannot be contentment when there is general confiscation.
'Government cannot long be maintained by any force in a country where the whole people is rendered hostile by a sense of wrong; and if it were possible so to maintain it, it would not be a consummation to be desired.'
Lord Canning bore the attack with characteristic coolness. He had already, in his correspondence with Outram, indicated the grounds on which the
