Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official | Page 7

work devoted to the purpose. The awful
revelations of the Journey through the Kingdom of Oude largely
influenced the Court of Directors and the Imperial Government in
forming their decision to annex the kingdom, although that decision
was directly opposed to the advice of Sleeman, who consistently
advocated reform of the administration, while deprecating annexation.
His views are stated with absolute precision in a letter written in 1854
or 1855, and published in The Times in November, 1857:
We have no right to annex or confiscate Oude; but we have a right,
under the treaty of 1837, to take the management of it, but not to
appropriate its revenues to ourselves. We can do this with honour to
our Government and benefit to the people. To confiscate would be
dishonest and dishonourable. To annex would be to give the people a
government almost as bad as their own, if we put our screw upon them
(Journey, ed. 1858, vol. i, Intro., p. xxi).

The earnest efforts of the Resident to suppress crime and improve the
administration of Oudh aroused the bitter resentment of a corrupt court
and exposed his life to constant danger. Three deliberate attempts to
assassinate him at Lucknow are recorded.
The first, in December, 1851, is described in detail in a letter of
Sleeman's dated the 16th of that month, and less fully by General
Hervey, in Some Records of Crime, vol. ii, p. 479. The Resident's life
was saved by a gallant orderly named Tîkarâm, who was badly
wounded. Inquiry proved that the crime was instigated by the King's
moonshee.
The second attempt, on October 9, 1853, is fully narrated in an official
letter to the Government of India (Bibliography, No. 15). Its failure
may be reasonably ascribed to a special interposition of Providence.
The Resident during all the years he had lived at Lucknow had been in
the habit of sleeping in an upper chamber approached by a separate
private staircase guarded by two sentries. On the night mentioned the
sentries were drugged and two men stole up the stairs. They slashed at
the bed with their swords, but found it empty, because on that one
occasion General Sleeman had slept in another room.
The third attempt was not carried as far, and the exact date is not
ascertainable, but the incident is well remembered by the family and
occurred between 1853 and 1856. One day the Resident was crossing
his study when, for some reason or another, he looked behind a curtain
screening a recess. He then saw a man standing there with a large knife
in his hand. General Sleeman, who was unarmed, challenged the man
as being a Thug. He at once admitted that he was such, and under the
spell of a master-spirit allowed himself to be disarmed without
resistance. He had been employed at the Residency for some time,
unsuspected.
Such personal risks produced no effect on the stout heart of Sleeman,
who continued, unshaken and undismayed, his unselfish labours.
In 1854 the long strain of forty-five years' service broke down
Sleeman's strong constitution. He tried to regain health by a visit to the

hills, but this expedient proved ineffectual, and he was ordered home.
On the 10th of February, 1856, while on his way home on board the
Monarch, he died off Ceylon, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried
at sea, just six days after he had been granted the dignity of K.C.B.
Lord Dalhousie's desire to meet his trusted officer was never gratified.
The following correspondence between the Governor-General and
Sleeman, now published for the first time, is equally creditable to both
parties:
BARRACKPORE PARK, January 9th, 1856. MY DEAR GENERAL
SLEEMAN, I have heard to-day of your arrival in Calcutta, and have
heard at the same time with sincere concern that you are still suffering
in health. A desire to disturb you as little as possible induces me to
have recourse to my pen, in order to convey to you a communication
which I had hoped to be able to make in person. Some time since, when
adjusting the details connected with my retirement from the
Government of India, I solicited permission to recommend to Her
Majesty's gracious consideration the names of some who seemed to me
to be worthy of Her Majesty's favour. My request was moderate. I
asked only to be allowed to submit the name of one officer from each
Presidency. The name which is selected from the Bengal army was
your own, and I ventured to express my hope that Her Majesty would
be pleased to mark her sense of the long course of able, and honourable,
and distinguished service through which you had passed, by conferring
upon you the civil cross of a Knight Commander of the Bath. As yet no
reply