Lord William Bentinck accordingly warned the King of Oudh that 'unless his territories were governed upon other principles than those hitherto followed, and the prosperity of the people made the principal object of his administration, the precedents afforded by the principalities of the Karnatic and Tanjore would be applied to the kingdom of Oudh, and to the entire management of the country, and the king would be transmuted into a State prisoner.'
The wicked old king died in 1837, and Lord Auckland, then Governor-General, determined to provide for the inevitable transfer of Oudh to the British administration. Article 7 of the new treaty in that year declared that if 'gross and systematic oppressions, anarchy and misrule should hereafter at any time prevail within the Oudh dominions, such as seriously to endanger the public tranquillity,' the British Government reserved to itself the express right of assuming the management of the country by its own officers[1]. This treaty was signed by the King of Oudh, but was disallowed by the Court of Directors, The latter fact was, however, withheld from His Majesty — one of the shifty acts of Lord Auckland which brought discredit on the British name. The Court of Directors by their Despatch of April 15, 1839,
- ↑ Aitchison's Treaties, Engagements, and Sunnuds, vol. ii, p. 14,. ed. 1876.
