§ SIR ERSKINE PERRYsaid, he would beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether instructions have been sent to India that terms of amnesty, including protection to life and property and full toleration in matters of religion, should be held out to the inhabitants of Oude, excepting in gross cases of heinous crimes; and if no such instructions have been sent, whether in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government it is not expedient to do so? In framing this question he disclaimed the intention of offering any suggestions as to the course of policy which Viscount Canning ought to adopt. He had no personal acquaintance with that nobleman, but on looking back at his public conduct, there seemed every reason to believe that he was animated by the soundest and most statesmanlike views on this particular question; and the very greatest praise was due to him for the mode in which he had resisted pressure from all quarters as to the line of conduct he had pursued. He had lately seen the letter of a distinguished writer from India, in which he described the angry British civilians prompting the execution of vengeance in every direction, and a few weeks ago he had noticed a passage from a newspaper (the organ, too, of a religious party), in which the writer said—"We are not sanguinary—we are 1588 not men of blood; but we gravely state that justice can never be satisfied without the expenditure of 200,000 lives at least in Bengal" — Bengal being only one-fourth of India. Now, he had formed a strong opinion from the unhappy events of the last twelve months that our tenure of British India was not threatened by insurrection so much as by two other causes; one of them being the spirit of vengeance breathed so generally by our fellow-countrymen in the East, and the other, the attempts made by an honest but mistaken party in this country to propagate their religion in India by the most intolerant methods. His firm belief was, that if these two principles of action were given way to and sanctioned by the authorities of this country, our tenure of India was not worth six months' purchase. A remarkable document had, within the last few days, appeared in The Times— the proclamation of the Hindoos rebels. These Hindoos declared that the four great things which a man valued—his religion, his honour, his life, and his property— were safer under native States than under British rule. If that doctrine were generally entertained throughout India, we need not look upon that dependency any longer as our own, and it was incumbent on the Government to take steps to put an end to such a belief, and to assure the Natives that in all these important respects they might rest perfectly safe under our sway. It was time, therefore, now that our arms had been successful, that the Government should act on what he was sure all the statesmen of the country believed the sound doctrine, and try to rule by beneficence and mercy, as well as by strength. If this was true as to the rest of India, much more forcibly did it apply to the kingdom of Oude. He did not wish to revive the controversy on the annexation of that country in 1856, but he contended that Oude must now be looked on as a conquered province. Even its original acquisition was based not on the ground of right, but on the broad ground of expediency, and was so put by the Marquess of Dalhousie himself in his able paper. If that were true, then, the people were enemies and not rebels, and the inhabitants who had risen in arms against us were entitled to all the protection which international law and the rights of war afforded to persons in such a position. He hoped, therefore, the Government would now open the widest door to these 1589 men, who had fought for what they believed to be their rights, and that they would be assured of the utmost protection to life, property, the enjoyment of their | religion, and what they called their honour, He believed that Viscount Canning was pursuing such a policy, and an expression of opinion by this House on the subject would tend very much to strengthen his hands and increase his power for the establishment of good government in that country.