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 CHAPTER VIII

The Annexation of Oudh

The last and greatest of the annexations of territory made by Lord Dalhousie was the Province of Oudh. We have seen that in regard to the other Native States, annexed on failure of heirs, Lord Dalhousie did not invent the doctrine of lapse, that he did not widen it, but that he steadily applied it as a part of the deliberate policy of the Government of India, laid down before his arrival by preceding Governors-General, and sanctioned by the Court of Directors in England. In the case of Oudh we shall see that the annexation was ordered by the Home Government in opposition to the advice of Lord Dalhousie, and was carried out by him in obedience to the command of the Court of Directors who rejected his own proposals for a milder measure.

The great Province of Oudh, in the upper central basin of the Ganges, was guaranteed to the Nawáb Vizier by Lord Wellesley's treaty of 1801; and the Nawáb Vizier afterwards, with the consent of our Government, assumed the title of King of