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164 estates which had been restored to them. With few exceptions, the Tálukdárs had, he said, responded to the summons to Lucknow. Many had come, however, in the fear that occasion would be taken to punish their delinquencies. 'They are now,' he said, 'preparing to return to their homes, to all appearance reassured and gratified.'

In the spring of 1861 still more striking evidence was afforded of the promptness and thoroughness of the pacification of the Province. On the 6th April, 1861, a deputation of nineteen of the principal Oudh Tálukdárs were received in Darbár by the Viceroy at Calcutta. Their address attested in no faltering terms the degree in which the administration of Oudh had conciliated the confidence and goodwill of its landed classes. Making all due allowance for the Oriental hyperbole in which parts of it are conceived, their address conveys a strong sense of the gratitude with which the superior landowners recognised the generous leniency with which they had been treated at the close of the Mutiny and the restoration of privileges so seriously curtailed at annexation. They referred especially to Lord Canning's Darbár of October, 1859. The Viceroy was able to say in reply that there was 'no part of Hindustan more flourishing or more full of promise for the future. The ancient system of land tenure has been restored, but has been placed on a new and clear foundation. The preservation of the great families of the soil has been encouraged and facilitated. The rights of the humbler