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176 had distinctly forewarned the Court that the measure would be violently assailed by the opponents of the Indian Government, and would bring odium on the man who carried it out. But he had promised that, however the Court of Directors decided, he would bear the odium himself, instead of leaving it to be borne by the new Governor-General in the first days of his arrival in India.

It only remained for him to discharge his duty in the most considerate manner. After some fruitless negotiation with the king, the Province of Oudh was annexed to the British territories by Proclamation on the 13th February, 1856, on the ground, to use Lord Dalhousie's words, that 'the British Government would be guilty in the sight of God and man, if it were any longer to aid in sustaining by its countenance an administration fraught with suffering to millions.' 'With this feeling on my mind,' he wrote devoutly in his private diary, 'and in humble reliance on the blessing of the Almighty (for millions of His creatures will draw freedom and happiness from the change), I approach the execution of this duty, gravely and not without solicitude, but calmly and altogether without doubt.'

Thus was consummated, on the very eve of Lord Dalhousie's departure from India, the last of his great annexations.