A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & IISleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
History
A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II
Sleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
Oudh (India) -- Description and travel
thirteen trays of shawls and other articles were presented to him.
Captain Lockett selected one pair, which he accepted, and placed, as
usual, in the Resident's Toshuk-khana.
When he signed the paper he remarked the omission of all mention of
Eesa Meean's associates in that document, but did not consider it to
be his duty to point out the oversight, lest it might increase the
excitement, and prolong the angry discussions. In his report of the
circumstances to the Resident, however, he mentioned it to him, and
told him that the omission clearly arose from an oversight, and
unless his associates received the same indulgence as the principal,
Eesa Meean himself, their exclusion from the benefits of the
engagement might be attributed to decoit or artifice on his part. The
Resident concurred in this opinion, and in his report of the
following day to Government, he recommended that they should all be
considered as included in the engagement.
Government, in its reply of the 25th of June 1824, consents to this
construction of the written engagement, but notices a no less
important oversight on the part of the Resident and his Assistant, in
the free pardon given to Eesa Meean, for the share he had taken in
the Bareilly insurrection, which had caused the loss of so many lives
in April 1816. Government infers, that they could, neither of them
have been aware, that this ruffian was the original instigator and
most active leader in that formidable insurrection; that it was
chiefly, if not entirely, owing to his endeavours to inflame the
popular phrenzy, and to collect partizans from the neighbouring
towns, that the efforts of the local authorities, to quell or avert
the rising storm, failed wholly of success; that he stood charged as
a principal in the murder of Mr. Leycester's son, and that, on these
grounds, he was expressly excluded from the general amnesty, declared
after the successful suppression of the rebellion, and a reward of
two thousand rupees offered for his arrest; that this written pledge
had involved Government in the dilemma of either cancelling a public
act of the British Resident, or pardoning and setting at large,
within its territory, a proclaimed outlaw, and notorious rebel and
most dangerous incendiary; and that it felt bound in duty to guard
the public peace from the hazard of further interruption, through the
violence or intrigue of so desperate and atrocious an offender; and
to annul that part of the engagement which absolves Eesa Meean from
his guilt in the Bareilly insurrection, since the Resident and his
Assistant went beyond their powers in pledging their Government to
such a condition. Government directed, that he and his associates
should be safely escorted over the border into the British territory,
and that he should not be brought to trial before a Judicial Court,
with a view to his being capitally punished for his crimes at
Bareilly, but be confined, as a state prisoner, in the fortress of
Allahabad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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