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174 now be no longer justified, and is already converting our responsibility into guilt .'

Lord Dalhousie set forth in careful detail the three possible methods of dealing with the situation. The King of Oudh might either be compelled to abdicate, and his territories be annexed to British India: or he might be maintained in his royal state and dignity, and the actual administration might be vested for ever in the East India Company: or he might be made to give over Oudh for a limited period to the British Government. Lord Dalhousie decided against the extreme course of enforced abdication on the ground that, although the Kings of Oudh had been execrable as rulers to their subjects, they had been faithful as allies to ourselves. 'I for my part, therefore,' he wrote, 'do not advise that the Province of Oudh should be declared to be British territory... It is my earnest counsel ... that while the king should be permitted to retain his royal title and rank, he should be required to vest the whole civil and military administration of Oudh in the hands of the Company, and that its power should be "perpetual in duration, as well as ample in extent."'

Lord Dalhousie was unable to obtain the assent of his own Council to this milder policy. Two of