At the same time, he repeatedly affirms the total unfitness of the King to govern.

These opinions are still further corroborated by the following letter from his private correspondence, 1854-5, written when Resident at Lucknow, and published in the _Times_ in November last:-- "The system of annexation, pursued by a party in this country, and favoured by Lord Dalhousie and his Council, has, in my opinion, and in that of a large number of the ablest men in India, a downward tendency--a tendency to crush all the higher and middle classes connected with the land.

These classes it should be our object to create and foster, that we might in the end inspire them with a feeling of interest in the stability of our rule.

_We shall find a few years hence the tables turned against us_.

In fact, the aggressive and absorbing policy, which has done so much mischief of late in India, is beginning to create feelings of alarm in the native mind; and it is when the popular mind becomes agitated by such alarms that fanatics will always be found ready to step into Paradise over the bodies of the most prominent of those from whom injury is apprehended.