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156 CHAPTER V.

ANNEXATION. The annexation of Oudh has perhaps incurred more unspar- ing condemnation than any other act of the East India Company's Grovernment since the days of Warren Hastings. It has been denounced, under the name of " Dacoity in Excelsis," as the last and most glaring, if not the worst, illustration of the Dalhousie policy, and as one of the proximate causes of the Mutiny. Some brief account, often though the tale has been told already, should perhaps be given here of the circumstances under which the step was adopted, the motives and reasons by which the persons chiefly responsible for it were actuated, and the mode in which it was carried out. Of the condition of the province during the closing years of the reign of Wajid Ali Shah a description has been attempted in the previous chaj^ter ; and it is in that condition that the measure of annexation finds its best and, indeed, its only possible justification.

On the 21st of November 1854, General Outram being about to proceed to Lucknow to take over charge from Colonel Sleeman, Lord Dalhousie indited a minute, proposing that the new Resident should be instructed to make " an enquiry into the present state of that country ; with a view to deter- mine whether its affairs still continue in that state in which