If you can give me any assistance in obtaining his services, I shall
feel very much indebted to you, for I have that confidence in his
abilities and high-mindedness which I cannot feel in those of his
_locum tenens_; and I am very anxious to keep things in good train
here till the end of the cold weather, when I must go on leave to
recruit. I am really in a very difficult position here, not with
regard to the King, for he has, I believe, entire confidence in me;
but he has become so entangled with his minister, that he is afraid
of him; and the minister would give all he has (and he has all the
revenues of the country) to get me out of the way.
I carried the Government orders regarding Shurfod Dowla into effect,
and he is now, with his family, quiet and safe. The King behaved very
well, and resisted all the attempts of the minister to persuade him
to remonstrate. I am to-day to submit Shurfod Dowla's letter of
grateful thanks to Government. I hope Government will not write to
him in reply, as this might mortify and vex the King, since he is not
written to by the Governor-General.
I think I told you of the _raw_ the minister, Wasee Alee and Co., had
established on the King's mind--the belief that a party of the
members of the royal family and native gentlemen at Lucknow had been
trying to persuade Government to set him aside, and put his reputed
brother, Mostafa Alee, on the throne.
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