To the end of time historians will probably differ as to what it was that caused the Indian Mutiny. Some have laid stress on considerations of general policy. Others have attributed the catastrophe to special acts of administration. The acts of administration were, however, but the sparks that exploded the forces of revolution, which had been slowly accumulating in the country. To understand the origin of the Indian Mutiny one must understand the administration of Lord Dalhousie, and fairly estimate the last acts of his viceregal career. Of these none had a more serious effect on the minds of the Native Courts than the annexation of Oudh. Inasmuch as Dalhousie was personally a strong opponent of annexation, the presumption is that the step, objectionable as it seems, was inevitable. Oudh was misgoverned by a vicious but feeble-minded Prince, and the people were tortured not only by his besotted tyranny, but by the exactions of a corrupt aristocracy. At the same time, the Kings of Oudh had long been trusty allies of the East India Company, who had borrowed money from them, protected them against their mutinous subjects, and used their territory as a recruiting ground for the Sepoy army. One-half of Oudh had been given to the Company, by the Treaty of 1801, on condition that a British army should be maintained in the country for the support of the reigning dynasty. Attempts had been made--notably by Lord [Illustration: THE BARRACKS AT MEERUT.] Auckland--to evade this obligation, but they were made in vain. After the first Sikh war, Lord Hardinge had warned the King of Oudh that the Company could no longer tolerate misrule in his territory, and Dalhousie, in 1848, had sent Colonel Sleeman to reconstruct, if possible, its internal administration. The task was a hopeless one, and in 1851 Sleeman reported[328] that there was no choice but to assume the whole government of the kingdom. Dalhousie shrank from taking this step, and in 1854, when Sleeman resigned, Sir James Outram was appointed as his successor, and asked to report on the whole case. Outram, though a firm anti-annexationist, confirmed Sleeman’s statements. He admitted that the duty imposed on the Indian Government by the Treaty of 1801 rendered it necessary to have recourse to extreme measures. As a warm advocate for maintaining Native States so long as they had any vitality, it was, said Outram, painful and distressing to him to confess that in continuing to uphold the sovereign power of an effete and incapable dynasty we were inflicting infinite misery on 5,000,000 of people.[329] Unfortunately, the Treaty of 1801 had stipulated that all improvements in the administration of Oudh must be carried out by Native officers under British advice. It was impossible, therefore, to transfer the administration of Oudh to the servants of the Company, and equally impossible to expect reforms from the servants of the King. Lord Dalhousie’s notion was that the Treaty of 1801 should be