The measure created a good
deal of distress, particularly among the educated classes; but not so
much as a similar measure would have created within our territories,
because all his revenues are expended in the maintenance of
establishments formed exclusively out of the members of Oudh
families, and retained within the country, while ours are sent to pay
establishments formed and maintained at a distance; and those whose
lands are resumed always find it exceedingly difficult to get
employment suitable to their condition.
The face of the country between Delhi and Meerut is sadly denuded of
its groves; not a grove or an avenue is to be seen anywhere, and but
few fine solitary trees.[9] I asked the people of the cause, and was
told by the old men of the village that they remembered well when the
Sikh chiefs who now bask under the sunshine of our protection used to
come over at the head of 'dalas' (bodies) of ten or twelve horse
each, and plunder and lay waste with fire and sword, at every
returning harvest, the fine country which I now saw covered with rich
sheets of cultivation, and which they had rendered a desolate waste,
'without a man to make, or a man to grant, a petition', when Lord
Lake came among them.
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