after dark he halted at a deserted village at the | of the Talpur ameers was then growing
foot of the Ghat, . on the banks of a stream more and more critical; and though Out-
which flows into the Oxus. Briefly, after six ram was by no means well calculated to
days' hard riding and roughing he reached practice the diplomacy which the govern-
Bamian, to miss again the object of his search, ment of India was disposed to exercise in
and to certify that with such a guide and in their case, he was yet alive to the pros-
such a country, it would be madness to con-
tinue the chase.
pects of distinction which the situation in
Sind presented. He was never a "politi-
Fruitless as this expedition was, it was cal" in the successful sense of the term.
one of the most gallant achievements in He drew a somewhat fanciful distinction
the whole of the first Afghan war; and between his obligations in civil and mili-
the fact that an officer of Ŏutram's stand- tary employ, which was a prolific source
ing should have been chosen to lead it, of embarrassment to him in the former
showed that his native aptitude for such capacity. He entertained the idea that
enterprises had already been recognized while the soldier ought to yield unques-
by the military authorities and by the tioning obedience to the orders of his
envoy, the latter of whom, in spite of dif- superiors, the political officer might be
ferences of opinion as to the policy which permitted the greater latitude of accom-
they were engaged in carrying out, was modating the policy of government to the
anxious to procure Outram's transfer to dictates of his own conscience. Such
the political department. He was, how- feelings were to Outram's credit as a
ever, next sent to reduce the Ghilzai man, but they naturally detracted from
country- a duty which he performed his utility as an agent of government, and
with characteristic energy and success, laid the foundation of the painful contro-
capturing their leaders and dismantling
or blowing up their forts. He took part
in General Willshire's capture of Kelat,
where he so specially distinguished him-
self as to be selected to carry the despatch
to the Bombay government a hazardous
duty, as the general desired him to return
to India by the direct route to Sonmiani
Bundar, and report upon its practicability
for the passage of troops. Disguised as
an Afghan, accompanied by one servant
and guided by two Syuds, Outram made
his way by Nal to Sonmiani, a distance of
three hundred and fifty-five miles, in eight
days, supporting the character of a pir or
holy man on the road with much skill;
and he astonished his brother-in-law, Gen-
eral Farquharson, by bursting into his
quarters at Kurrachee in Afghan cos-
tume, armed with sword and shield. He
learned afterwards that the chief of Wadd
had been made acquainted with his jour-ram, in the exercise of his political agency,
ney, and had followed him hot-foot down
through the passes to Sonmiani, with a
view to intercept and slay him.

versy regarding the annexation of Sind in which he subsequently became involved, and which for many years cast a heavy cloud over his life. We cannot now go into the details of this unprofitable discussion. Of the necessity for annexing Sind we do not entertain a doubt, and the prosperity which British rule has brought to that province must more than condone the irregularity of the steps which Lord Ellenborough and Sir Charles Napier took against the ameers. Outram seems to have exaggerated in his own mind the obligations which he conceived himself to be under to the Talpur dynasty. He was present at the death of Nur Muhammad Khan, and had solemnly accepted the guardianship of his children; and he seems to have considered that this pledge affected his personal honor as well as his political capacity. At the same time Out

displayed an independence of the supreme government which naturally drew down upon him Lord Ellenborough's disThe immediate reward of Outram's pleasure. That nobleman was unpopular Afghan services was the political agency with all branches of the service; he was of Lower Sind, in succession to Colonel constantly finding his orders thwarted by Pottinger, although the appointment was the personal views of the officers who shorn of the title of resident, by which ought to have carried them out; and we the latter officer had been distinguished. cannot wonder at his feeling that so Outram had scruples about this change, prominent a case as that of Outram rebut Sind presented a field for a man of quired to be made an example, in spite of action which he could not fail to appre- the hard work and brilliant services which ciate. Afghanistan was far from settled, the governor-general readily acknowland Sind must be the basis of all opera- edged. The political agent took the extions in the southern part of the country treme step of maintaining Lieutenant as well as in Beluchistan. The condition Hammersley in his post at Quetta,

66

on

less liable to bring him into collision with the dominant policy. In the estimation of many competent Anglo-Indian politicians, it might have been well for Lord Ellenborough had he followed Outram's counsels. On this we offer no opinion. We simply maintain that the governorgeneral, holding the views which he did, was perfectly justified in removing Outram for following the course which he had chosen.

the plea of urgent requirements," after | officers, he had no alternative except to that officer had been remanded to his remove so wilful a diplomatist to a field of regiment, in consequence of the displeas- action where his temperament would be ure of the supreme government; and though the motives which actuated Outram were generous to Quixotry, he himself was conscious of the risk which he was incurring. "See this correspondence about Hammersley," he writes to the secretary of the Bombay government, "which, I take, will end in his lordship sending me to my regiment." With an officer who thus takes his own way with his eyes open, we cannot sympathize very much when his worst anticipations are By this time Outram's character was realized. The first punishment that be- thoroughly established in the eyes of all fell him was the appointment of General India. His bravery, his zeal, and his caNott to the chief political as well as pacity as a leader, had been demonstrated military power in lower Afghanistan, beyond question in the Cabul campaign; Sind, and Beluchistan, which interposed and his chivalrous loyalty to his friends, that officer between himself and the su- his modesty of his own exploits, and his preme government. Outram felt the slight, hatred of untruth, had come forcibly bebut it was characteristic of his generous fore the public in the course of his connature that he was resolutely resolved tests with the supreme government. It that his sore feelings on this point should is probable that the independence which not be allowed to affect his zeal in co-he displayed did much to enhance his operating with his new superior. But popularity; for Lord Ellenborough's govOutram threw too much personal feeling ernment was generally disliked, and into the affairs amid which he was moving opposition to it was accounted a cardinal to be a desirable assistant in a course of virtue both in the services and among policy so tortuous as that which Lord non-officials. When, therefore, at the Ellenborough was forced by circum- farewell dinner given to Outram on his stances to follow. He was friendly to departure from Sind, Sir Charles Napier the Sind ameers, and he obstinately shut proposed his health as the "Bayard of his eyes to their hostile disposition, which India, sans peur et sans reproche," the was obvious to Lord Ellenborough's gov- epithet was adopted by acclamation ernment. He had a great liking for the throughout the country; and the compliyoung khan of Kelat, whom he had per- ment had no small influence on Outram's sonally been the means of bringing into after career. The government too, althe British alliance; and he restored to though it could not help regarding him as him the territory of Shawl almost on his an impracticable political, was yet fully own responsibility, and certainly with a convinced of his capacity for doing it exprecipitation that could not but be dis- cellent service, and had no intention of pleasing, and might well have been em- shelving him for good in his native infanbarrassing, to the supreme government. try regiment: nor was he long destined On the whole, we cannot say that Lord to be absent from the scene of his former Ellenborough was altogether to blame be- labors. Just as he was preparing to sail cause, on the arrival of Sir Charles Napier for England on leave at the end of 1842, to assume the chief military and political Sir Charles Napier desired his services power in Sind, he took the opportunity of as commissioner for arranging the details sending Major Outram back for a season of the revised treaty with the Talpur to his regiment. The comparison be- ameers; and the supreme government tween the reputations of Outram and acceded to the request. Outram was disLord Ellenborough has naturally made posed to quarrel with the curt way in their dissensions reflect to the disadvan- which his appointment was communitage of the latter; but a dispassionate re-cated, but his desire to be back in Sind view of Outram's proceedings in the Sind was stronger than his feeling of resentagency will convince any impartial judge that he took more upon him than his subordinate position warranted; and that unless the governor-general was prepared to have his policy dictated by his political

ment. In the events which followed, the position of Outram freed him from all ulterior responsibility for the measures which were ultimately taken. The treach ery of the ameers put an end to his

1

functions as a negotiator, and would have | into controversy upon the subject. His
sacrificed his life but for his gallant own share in the troubles of Sind had
defence of the Haiderabad residency. never been seriously reflected upon, and
This, however, does not seem to have
alienated Outram's sympathies from the
Talpur family, or to have relieved his
conscience of what he considered due to
his pledge to Nur Muhammad. The
course of events is very succinctly and
justly summed up in a letter from Lord
Ellenborough to the queen, which we pre-
fer to quote, as giving the reader a more
correct account of the principles upon
which Sind was annexed than either Out-
ram's letters or his biographer's com-

ments.

The new treaty proposed to the Ameers, justified by their violation of the existing treaty and by various acts of intended hostility, would have given to the British government in India practical command over the Lower Indus. Between acquiring that command and retiring at once from the Indus there was no safe course. The retirement, following upon the withdrawal of the armies from Cabul, would have given credit to the misrepresentations studiously circulated with respect to the circumstances under which that withdrawal took place; and it would have had the necessary consequence of leading to the violation in all its details of the commercial treaty which secured the free navigation of the Indus.

his reiterated vindications of his own conduct were even more uncalled-for than his criminations of the officers more immediately connected with the annexation. Of his quarrel with Sir Charles Napier, Outram's biographer wisely says very little. Both were hot-tempered, outspoken men, alike too ready to seize the pen when their feelings were warm; and the only conclusion that we could come to from an investigation of their quarrel would be, that there were right and wrong on both sides, and that, if Outram's course was the more generous, Sir Charles Napier's was the more statesmanlike.

We must hurry over the succeeding years of Outram's life, nor linger over the testimonials to his merits which poured from all quarters a sword worth three hundred guineas from the people of the Bombay presidency, a gold medal from the pope, and a Bible and Prayer-book from the Bishop of Bombay, who felt himself debarred from contributing to the more warlike present. He visited England a lieutenant-colonel and a C.B. in 1843, and plunged into the thick of the Sind controversy which was then raging fiercely in Parliament and at Leadenhall Street. But the time had passed for altering the Sind policy, and all that Out

The position in which the government of India would have stood had the new treaty been acceded to, and at first faithfully carried out, would not have been without its embar-ram could do was to widen the breach rassments. It could not be expected that the Ameers would have at all times quietly submitted to provisions they had accepted with

reluctance, and war would have been forced
upon us hereafter at an inconvenient moment.
It cannot be regretted, therefore, that the
treachery of the Ameers should have obliged
the British government to take at once a more
decided course, and to establish its own au-
thority in such parts of Scinde as it may be
desirable to hold in our hands.

To attempt to enter into terms with the de-
feated Ameers would have been an act of

weakness and self-destruction. No faith could
be expected from them; and even if they were
disposed to adhere to their engagements, the
barbarous violence of their followers would
not permit them to do so. There appeared to
be no advisable course of policy but that of at
once taking possession of the country which
had been thus thrown into our hand, and so
using our power as to make our conquest
beneficial to the people.*

Whatever view may be taken of the
conquest of Sind, it is much to be re-
gretted that Outram should have plunged

The Indian Administration of Lord Ellenborough.
Edited by Lord Colchester. Pp. 70-72.

between himself and Lord Ellenborough's party. Naturally, on his return to India, the government showed no disposition to provide him with an appointment adequate to his services and merit. The only post offered him was the Nimar agency in central India, the salary of which was inferior to what he had drawn in the Mahi Kanta; and the duties were merely of a routine character. The disturbances in the southern Mahratta country, breaking out soon after, found him active employment again; and he served in a half-military, half-political capacity in the Kolapore and Sawant Wari states, doing brilliant service in the attacks upon the insurgents' forts, and, it must be owned, incurring frequent expostulations from the government for the very free interpretation which he frequently put upon its instructions.

In 1845 we find Outram filling the post of resident of Satara, an easy but not lieutenant-colonel and a Companion of the over-lucrative appointment. Although a Bath, Outram's substantive rank in the army was still only that of captain, and

his pay suffered in consequence. But | Directors knew as well as Outram the though not free from the pinchings of corrupt condition of the Gaikwar's court poverty, he scornfully refused to touch an and administration; but they knew also anna of the Rs. 29,941 (nearly £3,000) that to strike at the root of the evil they which came to him as his share of the would have to strike at the Gaikwar himSind prize-money. Bayard would not self, and the time had not yet arrived participate in what he looked upon as when so extreme a measure could be venplunder, and would have restored his por- tured upon. The resident had plenty of tion to the son of his old friend, the hints to be moderate in the measures ameer Nur Muhammad, who had been which he was taking to unearth and hunt committed to his charge. But there were down corruption; but he was too highobstacles in the way of such benevolence, minded to allow prudential advice to stand and Outram got rid of the money by between him and what he saw to be the dividing it among the military and mis- clear line of his duty, or to lend his offisionary institutions for the education of cial assistance to gloss over evils which European children. He would fain have were discreditable to the honor of British taken part in the exciting events that rule. Revelation after revelation of the soon took place in the Punjab, but the grossest corruption in the palace, in the Bombay government refused to spare residency, in every department of the him. The residency of Baroda, then the Gaikwar's administration, aroused the great prize in the Bombay political de- public mind, both in India and in England, partment, was soon to fall vacant, and the to the Baroda abuses; and the Court of reversion of this post was Outram's by Directors could no longer stifle the subright of natural selection; and accord-ject. Investigations were ordered, and ingly, in May 1847, he was gazetted to his new appointment.

It might have been thought that by this time Outram's Quixotic feelings would have been well tamed down by the varied experiences through which he had passed, and the troubles which he had brought upon himself by breaking through the bonds of routine. He was now in middle life, with matured experience, and with a reputation which gave him a firm hold of the ladder leading to the highest prizes in the Company's service. It was his interest to avoid further sources of unpleasantness with his government and with the Board of Directors. But while Outram was as yet beholding Baroda only from a distance, he had already planned out a work for which he had every reason to know his government would give him scanty thanks. In Baroda, as in almost every other native state, there reigned the demon of khatpat, which presides over bribery, corruption, the malversation of justice, and official oppression generally; but there was this difference, that khatpat had a stronger hold on Baroda than on any other native State of the day. Outram had long eyed the evil from afar, as if he fain would grapple with it; and even when in the Mahi Kanta, he had made use of his limited opportunities to denounce the system. On his arrival at Baroda he threw himself into the work of beating down corruption wherever he could detect it, and the consequence was that he soon had the whole State in a ferment. The government and the Board of

the results did not always bear out the statements of the resident. He had, of course, perjury and falsehood to contend with at every step; and there is little doubt that his warm temperament had led him to entertain extreme views of the corruption with which he was warring, and of the cases which he had championed. In December 1851, the Bombay government, at the head of which Viscount Falkland then was, found it impossible to maintain Outram longer at Baroda without committing itself to the extreme measures which would have been the natural action to have taken upon his reports; and a letter was sent to him announcing its resolution to remove him, but leaving it to him "to withdraw in the manner least offensive to his own feelings, and least calculated to embarrass government or affect their amicable relations with H.H. the Gaikwar." The Court of Directors wrote even more harshly of his proceedings; and although a large number of its members sympathized with Outram's aims, a despatch was sent out strongly condemnatory of the tone of Outram's reports and of the character of his proceedings. The subject was ventilated in Parliament with very little result, and two huge blue-books were laid before the Houses, which had but little influence on public opinion. People generally felt that the course taken by Outram had been a noble and disinterested one, and that if he had sinned at all, he had sinned from excess of zeal on behalf of the honor of his government. His time, thus

in revisiting England; but it was fated that his holidays at home were always to be marred by his Indian quarrels. He persisted in fighting the battle of Baroda corruption in England with but little expectation of obtaining so unanimous a verdict in his favor as might compel the Court of Directors to reverse its harsh sentence. But when the time came for him to return to India, the Court addressed a despatch to Lord Dalhousie, the governor-general, expressing a hope that, as there was no position under the Bombay government equal in importance to the one from which Outram had been removed, his claims to employment under the supreme government might be favorably considered. Meanwhile the troubles in the East which ended in the Crimean war had broken out, and the Foreign Office was disposed to take advantage of Outram's services; but Lord Stratford de Redcliffe could hold out no immediate prospect of employment, and so he went on his way to Calcutta. He was now fortunate enough to meet with a chief who could appreciate his peculiar disposition and utilize his powers; and as soon as the transfer of the Baroda residency from the Bombay to the supreme government was completed, Outram was replaced in his old appointment. At Baroda he had the satisfaction of removing from office some of the worst of his old antagonists, and his conduct called forth the warm approbation of the governor-general. Had he been backed by a ruler like Lord Dalhousie during the eventful years of his first residence at Baroda, there can be no question but that he would have been able to purge the Gaikwar's court, and have earned commendation instead of rebuke for his exertions. "The mingled sternness and consideration with which you have treated the Gaikwar," wrote the governor-general, "will, I hope, have a lasting effect upon the Gaikwar himself, and will teach both him and those about him that, while the supreme government is desirous of upholding him, it must be obeyed in all things. . You must accept my personal congratulations and thanks in regard to the complete success of your return to Baroda."

placed at his own disposal, was employed | be shown that the supreme government was not disposed to put up with the corruption which had unhappily characterized his administration, than that he had any intention of continuing Outram in the post. To have maintained him longer than this end was accomplished, would not have been in accordance with the principles upon which the feudatory policy of the Indian government is conducted; and accordingly, when the residency and command at Aden fell vacant, Outram was selected to fill it. The short period which he occupied this office, coupled with his shattered health, did not admit of his leaving his impress upon this ungenial station, but it gave him an insight into Arabian affairs which was subsequently useful in his Persian command. He gladly received Lord Dalhousie's summons to take up the residency at Lucknow from Colonel Sleeman, who was retiring at the close of a long, useful, and honorable career. Here Outram was destined to take part in the crowning acts of Lord Dalhousie's Indian administration, upon which history never has been, and never will be, able to adopt a unanimous opinion. Had any possibility remained of preserving Oudh as an independent State, by a vigorous exercise of the influence which the Company's government were entitled to exert by treaty, by a vigorous application of the knife to the corruptions of the Lucknow court, and by the entire remodelling of the administration of the kingdom, Ŏutram was of all others the man to carry such a work to a successful termination. But the government had come to the conclusion upon very sufficient grounds that the court of Oudh was past the aid of political surgery, and Outram was called in to kill and not to cure. By the time that he was sent to Lucknow annexation may be looked upon as having become a foregone conclusion, and it cannot be said to have been a part of his mission to deal with reform. But no fitter man could have been found to hold the helm while so important a revo lution was being effected, and of this Lord Dalhousie was well aware. Had his duty lain in a different direction, we can scarcely suppose that Outram would have succeeded any better than Low and Sleeman had done. But his presence in Oudh unquestionably maintained peace while the arrangements of the annexation were being effected, and postponed for eighteen months the outbreak which was destined to put an end to the Company's government in its turn. From a Calcutta news

Lord Dalhousie's aim in sending Outram back to Baroda had, however, rather been a generous desire that he might have an opportunity of removing the effects which the harsh judgment of the Bombay government and the Court of Directors had produced, and that the Gaikwar might