Lord Dalhousie had not been four months in India before the question of the succession to the raj of Satara, a small principality under the Bombay Presidency, with a revenue of about fifteen lacs of rupees a-year, was brought before him. The eventual absorption of this unit in the great Indian empire was not, in itself, a matter of any political significance, but it has acquired a degree of importance from the use which has been made of it to denounce Lord Dalhousie’s administration, for what has been designated “his policy of annexation,”
of which this was the first instance. It derives still higher importance from the fact that it was on this occasion that the Court of Directors and the Board of Control enunciated, for the guidance of the Government of India, their decision regarding the rights connected with adoption in the families of native princes.
On the deposition of the Bajee Rao in 1817, Lord Hastings resolved to make a suitable provision for the family of Sevajee, the founder of the Mahratta greatness, which had been deprived by the Peshwa of all power, and held in durance upon a small pittance. His chief object was “to conciliate the Mahratta tribes to the new order of things, and to establish among them a counterpoise to the remaining influence of the former brahminical government.” In the following year a treaty was concluded with the raja, which recited that, in consideration of the antiquity of his house, the British Government had determined to invest him with a sovereignty sufficient for the maintenance of his family in comfort and dignity. The territory of Satara was therefore ceded to him, his heirs and successors, in perpetual sovereignty, to be held in subordinate co-operation with the British Government. The restrictions imposed on him were of the most stringent character. He was not only denied all political power, but forbidden to hold any intercourse with foreign potentates, even for the purpose of forming matrimonial alliances, otherwise than through the Resident. The historian of the Mahratta and Pindaree war, who was also the political secretary to Government during this transaction, records that the authority of the raja could never be looked on as independent, and that his court differed little from the pageant courts of Delhi, Moorshedabad, or Arcot. The raja himself considered that he was little better than “the manager and farmer of a district,” and, soon after his accession, made efforts to throw off these restrictions, and gradually proceeded from one intrigue and one act of contumacy to another till, in 1839, the Government of India deemed it necessary to depose
him. His brother was raised to the throne and administered the country with great vigour and beneficence for ten years; he died on the 5th of April, 1848. He had repeatedly applied for permission to adopt a son, but the Resident was constrained to reply that it was beyond his province to grant it. Two days before his death he again expressed his fervent hope that the lad he might adopt would be recognized as his heir and successor to the throne. Two hours before he breathed his last, a boy whom he had not previously thought of, was brought to him at hap-hazard; the ceremonies of adoption were performed, and a royal salute was fired. The adoption was complete according to the rules of the Hindoo shasters, and secured to the soul of the deceased prince in the next world all those benefits which it would not otherwise have enjoyed. The adopted son succeeded to all the personal property of the raja, but it rested with the British Government to determine whether he should succeed also to the sovereignty of Satara.
Within a week of the decease of the raja, Sir George Clerk, the Governor of Bombay, recorded a Minute, recommending that he should be acknowledged as the raja. Sir George had long been distinguished in India as the foremost champion of the native chiefs, and was regarded as the most influential member of that school of Indian politics which holds their interests to be of paramount importance; his opinion in the present case, therefore, renders it redundant to notice the Minutes of any inferior pen, either in India or in England. He stated that the treaty was one of perpetual friendship and alliance between the English Government and his Highness, his heirs and successors. Such expressions ordinarily meant a sovereignty which should not lapse for want of heirs so long as there was any one who could succeed, according to the usages of the people to whom the treaty referred. The lad now adopted was such a successor. Sir George admitted that the sanction of the paramount state was by custom required to render an adoption to a principality valid, and that in the
time of our predecessors, this was made a source of profit to the treasury. “Can we here,” he enquired, “without injustice, exercise that right of sanction, to the extent of prohibiting adoption? The raja engaged, it is true, to hold his territory, in, subordinate co-operation with the British Government, but there are many instances of states held subordinate to another in all external relations, the duration of whose sovereignty it was never supposed could be justly terminated by the superior state in default of direct heirs If it be inconsistent with justice to refuse confirmation to the act of adoption, it was useless to enquire whether it was better for the interests of the people or the empire.”
Sir George Clerk was succeeded in a few weeks by Lord Falkland, who concurred with the other members of Council in taking a directly opposite view of the. ease. The most important Minute recorded on this occasion was that of Mr. Willoughby, in which all the stores of knowledge he had accumulated during a long period of service in high political appointments were brought to the discussion, and the question of adoption by native princes was examined with great skill and impartiality. Of such importance did Lord Dalhousie consider this dissertation as to pronounce it the text book on adoption. Mr. Willoughby’s opinion in this case carries greater weight from the circumstance that, on a subsequent occasion, his views regarding the rights of one of the native princes were diametrically opposed to the decision of the Governor-General. The establishment of the raj of Satara, he observed, was an act of spontaneous liberality on the part of the British Government, which, in 1818, had as much right to retain the Satara territory as any of the other districts which belonged to the Peshwa. Whatever right the raja possessed must be looked for in the treaty of 1819, under which the state was created. That treaty conferred the sovereignty on the raja and on his heirs and successors; but, in his judgment, it did not confer the right to create an heir by adoption, on failure of natural heirs. Admitting, however,
the reverse, for the sake of argument, to render the adoption valid for succession to the state in such cases as Satara, the confirmation of the paramount authority in India was essential, according to immemorial and almost universally admitted custom. The custom was, in fact, so ancient and so universal, as to have all the effect of law. Of this the late raja was fully conscious, and he invariably acknowledged that the adoption could have no political value unless the sanction of the British Government could be obtained. Mr. Willoughby then proceeded to state that he was no advocate for the extinction of the native states by violent or unjust means; but when they fairly lapsed to us, as they would have done to the Government which preceded us, he would not allow them to be perpetuated by adoption, except under special circumstances. The question now before the Council was whether, after the lapse of thirty years, we were likely to obtain the same advantages which were anticipated by Mr. Elphinstone, and whether they were of sufficient moment to render it expedient that the Satara state should be reconstituted for the benefit of a boy hitherto brought up in poverty and obscurity. Those who regarded the native states as safety-valves for the discontented, and for particular classes, for whom it was difficult to find employment under our rule, would probably decide on recreating the state. Those, on the other hand, who coincided with him in opinion, that British rule should on every fair occasion be extended, under the opinion expressed by Mr. Macaulay, that “no Government exists of which the intentions are purer, or which on the whole has done more to extend civilization and promote the happiness of the human race than the Company,” would take an opposite view of the case, and determine, in virtue of our prerogative as lords paramount, not to confirm the adoption.
The Minutes of Sir George Clerk, in favour of adoption, and of Lord Falkland and the two members of the Bombay Council in opposition to it, were submitted to Lord Dalhousie. The question was altogether
new to him, and to assist his judgment, he called for all the information which could be obtained from the public records of the opinions of official functionaries, the instructions received from the Court of Directors, and the precedents which had been established, on the subject of adoption. He found that four years before, on nominating a successor to the vacant throne of Holkar, Lord Hardinge had distinctly informed him that the chief ship should descend to the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, in due succession, from generation to generation, to the entire exclusion of heirs by adoption. He found that Sir James Carnac, the Governor of Bombay, who described himself as “a strong and earnest advocate for upholding the native states of India,” when employed in placing the late raja on the Satara throne, had recorded that he was childless and, at his advanced period of life, was not likely to have any children, and that as there was no other party who could claim the succession by hereditary right, the Satara state would lapse to the British Government, unless, indeed, it should be judged expedient to allow this line of princes to be continued by the Hindoo custom of adoption. He found that Sir John Malcolm had stood alone in advocating the expediency of giving the sanction of Government to adoptions, and that, on the ground of making them a source of profit to the state. His successor in the chair at Bombay had, however, taken a different view of the question, and it was referred to the Court of Directors. They had previously reminded the Government of India that their sanction was requisite, not indeed to the validity of an adoption, or to the enjoyment of the private rights it conferred, but to enable the adopted son to succeed to the chiefship. In reply to the reference they stated: “We are unable to frame any more precise directions for your guidance in such cases than that whenever it is optional with you to give or withhold your consent to adoptions, that indulgence should be the exception, and not the rule; and should never be granted but as a special mark of favour and approbation.” The principle thus laid down by the public authorities
in England was subsequently exemplified by refusing to allow the chiefs of Mandave and Colaba the privilege of adoption on the failure of natural heirs, and annexing their territories, while they rewarded the chief of Sanglee for his loyalty and attachment to the British Government, by permitting him to perpetuate his sovereignty by this process.
After a careful examination of these documents and precedents, Lord Dalhousie came to the conclusion that as a general rule, established beyond cavil and doubt, and sanctioned by the supreme authority in the empire, it rested with the sovereign power, on the death of the holder of a fief without issue, to permit its continuance by adoption, or to annex it to the state; that adoption by such a prince of any individual was valid as regarded his private property or possessions, but insufficient to constitute him heir to the principality, until it had been confirmed by the sovereign authority. In the case of Satara, the British Government possessed this absolute power to grant or to refuse adoption as the creator of the raj in 1819. If the late raja had left an heir of his own body, no question could have been entertained of the perfect right of such an heir to succeed to the throne; but the death of his Highness without heirs natural, having rendered the throne vacant, the territory should be held, according to law and practice, to have lapsed to the paramount state. He agreed with Mr. Willoughby regarding the policy of taking advantage of every just opportunity which presented itself of consolidating the territories that already belonged to us, and of getting rid of those petty intervening principalities, which might be a means of annoyance, but could never be a source of strength. He remarked, that by incorporating Satara with our own possessions, we should acquire continuity of military communications, increase of the resources of the state, and uniformity of administration in matters of justice and revenue over a large additional tract. He added, “In my conscience, I believe we should ensure to the population of the state a perpetuity
of that just and mild Government they have lately enjoyed, but which they will hold by a poor and uncertain tenure, if we resolve to continue the raj and to deliver it over to the Government of a boy, brought up in obscurity, selected for adoption almost by chance, and of whose character and qualities nothing whatever was known to the raja who adopted him.”
Seven years before the question of Satara was presented to the Government of India, the Governor-General and his Council in Calcutta recorded their unanimous opinion that “our policy should be to persevere in the one clear and direct course of abandoning no just or honourable accession of territory or revenue, while all existing claims of right are scrupulously respected.” Lord Dalhousie embraced the opportunity of the Setters Minute to record his entire concurrence in the views of his predecessor. “It was his strong and deliberate opinion that in the exercise of a sound and wise policy, the British Government is bound not to put aside or to neglect such rightful opportunities of acquiring territory or revenue as may from time to time present themselves, whether they arise from the lapse of subordinate states by the failure of all heirs of every description whatever, or from the failure of heirs natural, when the succession can be sustained only by the sanction of the Government being given to the ceremony of adoption according to Hindoo law. The Government is bound on such occasions to act with the purest integrity and the most scrupulous good faith. Wherever a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim should be at once abandoned. But when the right to territory by lapse is clear, the Government is bound to take that which is justly and legally its due, and to extend to that territory the benefit of our sovereignty, present and prospective.” The most liberal provision was made for the Satara family. The ranees and the adopted son were allowed to retain property to the extent of sixteen lacs of rupees, and valuable landed estates, and likewise received an annual pension of a lac of rupees.
The whole question was referred to the Court of Directors, together with the Minutes which had been recorded in Calcutta and Bombay. Sir George Clerk had stated in his Minute that it would be convenient to the Governments in India, and acceptable to the people, if the “determination of the present question should lead to the declaration of fixed principles for the regulation, under the authority of the British Government, of successions in default of heirs.” The Court, with the concurrence of the Board of Control, accordingly communicated for the guidance of the Government of India, the fixed principle upon which all such questions were to be decided, in the following clear and explicit terms: “By the general law and custom of India, a dependent principality like that of Satara, cannot pass to an adopted heir without the consent of the paramount power; we are under no pledge, direct or constructive, to give such consent; and the general interests committed to our charge are best consulted by withholding it.” This memorable despatch was dated the 24th January, 1849.
Nearly five years elapsed without any occasion for the application of the law of succession thus laid down by the supreme authority of the empire, when the raja of Jhansi died on the 21st November, 1853, and the raja of Nagpore three weeks after. It has been stated in a former chapter that the treachery of the raja Appa Sahib, in 1817, and in the succeeding year, placed the state of Nagpore at the mercy of the British Government. Lord Hastings generously restored it to the royal family and seated a youth on the throne, placing him during his minority under the guardianship of his mother, Baka bye, a woman of great spirit and intelligence, and entrusting the administration to Mr. Jenkins, the Resident. The raja died twenty-seven years after, without any heir or successor, lineal, collateral, or adopted. Mr. Mansell, the Resident at Nagpore, at the time of his decease, had repeatedly pressed the subject of adopting a son on his attention for two years, but he always manifested
the greatest aversion to the subject. Neither had his widow; who, according to the usage peculiar to this state, enjoyed the privilege of adoption without the injunction of her dying husband, expressed any desire to take advantage of it. Mr. Mansell, who was one of the advocates of perpetuating native dynasties, recommended that the British Government should appropriate half the public revenue to its own use, and place the management of the state in the hands of Bala bye, then in her seventy-fifth year. In case the selection of this lady should not be approved by the Governor-General, he mentioned the names of “two other pretenders to the throne,” one of whom “had a delicate constitution, but had not suffered from any serious illness for the last three years;” the other was “a violent and dissipated youth.” Lord Dalhousie recorded an elaborate Minute on the subject, in which he discussed it on the ground of right, and of expediency. He observed that there existed no person whatever, who, either by virtue of treaty, or by the custom of the Bhonslay family, or according to Hindoo law, or the Mahratta interpretation of that law, could claim to be the heir and successor of the deceased raja. “We have not now to decide any question which turns upon the right of a paramount power to refuse confirmation to an adoption by an inferior. We have before us no question of an inchoate, or incomplete, or irregular adoption, for the raja has died, and has deliberately abstained from adopting an heir. The state of Nagpore, conferred on the raja and his heirs in 1818 by the British Government has reverted to it on the death of the raja without any heir. The case of Nagpore stands wholly without example. Justice and custom and precedent leave the Government wholly unfettered to decide as it thinks best. Policy alone must determine the question whether the sovereignty of the state which was conferred on a Goojur in 1818 shall be conferred on somebody else as a gift a second time.” The conclusion to which he came was that the gratuitous alienation of the state of Nagpore in favour of a Mahratta youth, was called for by no obligation of justice or
equity, and was forbidden by every consideration of sound policy.
On the question of expediency he contrasted the condition of the country for eight years under the administration of Mr. Jenkins with its subsequent condition under the raja. Colonel Sutherland, whose long experience and connection with native states, made his testimony of peculiar value, had left on record that the name of Mr. Jenkins – Dunkin sahib – was never mentioned by the people without affection, and would be handed down to posterity as that of a great benefactor, and that under his administration the country had become a garden. On the other hand, Mr. Mansell described the late raja as “absorbed in the society of low followers, in the sports of wrestling and kite-flying, in cards, singing, and dancing, and in the vulgar conversation and mean pursuits of his dancing girls.” Eight years before his death, one of his concubines had brought him to a confirmed habit of drinking, and this vice alone, against which the Resident had repeatedly remonstrated, was sufficient to disqualify him for the government. He manifested an invincible distaste for business, and never left the zenana without reluctance. His chief object was to fill the privy purse from bribes, fines, confiscations, and compositions. He was completely in the hands of the most unprincipled favourites, who put up justice to sale, and plundered the country. He contented himself with signing and sealing documents which awarded decisions to those who payed best; and “all his thoughts and actions resembled those of a village chandler.”
It was no matter of surprise that the people should long for the halcyon days of British rule. Mr. Cavendish, the Resident in 1837, had affirmed that while any questioning of the right of adoption at Gwalior, Hyderabad, and Lucknow, would be improper, because those territories were not bestowed on the present or former rulers by the British Government, Nagpore, Satara,
and Mysore were created by the Hon. Company, and none but a descendant of the grantee could advance any claim to the succession according to the law of the land. He asserted that all the agriculturists, bankers, and shopkeepers would prefer the British rule to that of any native government, and hail with joy the return of their former masters; he therefore recommended the annexation of the country. His successor, Major Wilkinson, who had always upheld the cause of native princes, asserted, on the contrary, that Nagpore stood precisely in the same position as Gwalior, and advised that permission should be given to the raja to adopt a son; but, with an amiable candour, acknowledged that the course proposed by Mr. Cavendish would be most beneficial and gratifying to the mass of the population, who desired nothing so much as to be placed under the British Government; and this, he remarked, “was not a mere idle wish for change, inasmuch as they had experienced the blessings of the rule of British officers. The only people who would regret a change, were a few favourites about the Court and their followers.” Mr. Mansell, who advocated the continuance of a native government, because, among other benefits, it would conciliate the prejudices of the native aristocracy, stated that “if the public voice were polled, it would be greatly in favour of escaping from the chance of a rule like that of the late chief in his latter years.”
On a review of this body of evidence supplied through a period of twenty-five years, by a succession of officers, who differed from each other in political opinions, Lord Dalhousie came to the conclusion that the interest and happiness of the people forbade the British Government to bestow the sovereignty of Nagpore afresh on a native ruler. He then passed in review the repeated failures which had attended the experiment of setting up native sovereigns to govern territories we had acquired by the issue of war. “We set up a raja at Mysore; and we have long since been obliged to assume the direct management of the country, and to take out of the raja’s hands the power which he was found
unfit to wield. We set up a raja at Satara, and twenty years afterwards we were obliged to dethrone and exile him. We set up a raja at Nagpore; we afforded him every advantage a native prince could command; an able and experienced princess was his guardian and the regent of the state. So favoured, so aided, he has, nevertheless, lived and died a seller of justice, a miser, a drunkard, and a debauchee.” He said he was well aware that the continuance of the raj of Nagpore under some Mahratta rule, as an act of grace and favour on the part of the British Government, would be highly acceptable to native sovereigns and nobles in India; but “I place the interests of the people of Nagpore foremost among the considerations which induce me to advise that the state should now pass under British Government, for I conscientiously declare, that unless I believed that the prosperity and happiness of its inhabitants would be promoted by their being placed permanently under British rule, no other advantages which could arise out of the measure, would move me to propose it.” He then touched on the benefits which might accrue from the annexation. The essential interests of England would be promoted if the great cotton fields in the valley of Berai were placed under British management, and a railroad constructed to convey its produce to the port of Bombay; the dominions of the Nizam would be surrounded by British territory; a direct line of communication would be established between Bombay and Calcutta, and the British empire materially consolidated.
Of the three members of Council the proposal of Lord Dalhousie was controverted by only one, Colonel – now Sir John – Low. He had been employed for thirty years in political posts of the highest importance in various parts of India, and acquired a large fund of experience, which gave no ordinary weight to his political opinions. He was distinguished by the amiability of his disposition; and his long intercourse with the native princes and chiefs had created a benevolent sympathy with their feelings
and wishes, which it was impossible not to respect, even when it appeared occasionally to be carried to excess. It was his opinion that as there was no limitation in the treaty, the late raja was placed in the same position as Appa Sahib before he made war on the Government, and when he occupied the throne by hereditary right; that the raja possessed the same power and authority as any other independent prince; and that the annexation of the territory would contravene the spirit as well as the letter of the treaty. He admitted that the great mass of the people ought to be grateful for the system of government projected for them by the Governor-General, and would certainly be better governed than under the late raja, but the men of high rank and influence would be less contented. He considered that we had no right to hinder the widows and relatives from settling the succession to the vacant throne according to their customs and wishes, and that they and the principal men ought to be invited to state their claims openly. He believed that the confidence of our native allies in our good faith had been shaken by the conquest and occupation of Sinde, by our attack on Gwalior, and by the annexation of Satara; and that the incorporation of Nagpore would fill them with a dread of what might happen on their own death. Mr. Halliday, also a member of Council, affirmed that on the question of right there could be no difference of opinion, and he proceeded to say–
“Here is a territory actually without a claimant, a territory full of available resources of a kind important to the Government of India, and still more so to the people of England; a territory whose teeming population is avowedly hoping, praying, expecting to be taken under our Government, as no imaginary blessing, but as a boon of which, having full experience, they know and appreciate the value; and at such a juncture, we, forsooth, are to be deaf to their call, and deaf also to the claims of our own countrymen, and leave the widows and relatives and principal men to settle this affair; or, still more, to invite and solicit them to take some spoilt boy from a nursery, or some
obscure and uneducated youth from a village, and place again in such hands the rod of iron with which the late raja had so scourged the nationality out of his unfortunate subjects, that they are now impatient for the rule of the stranger rather than suffer such another tyranny. We are to give this right of succession as a thing of little worth to some ‘son of a daughter of a sister of the adoptive father of the late raja’, or to some ‘son of a son of a sister of the adoptive grandfather of the late raja’, for such is the designation of the relationship to the raja of the two youths suggested by the Resident, of whom he says one is a dissipated and violent youth, while the best he can say of the other is that he has not suffered from any serious illness for the last three years.”
The Court of Directors, on receiving information that the Government of India, acting on the instructions conveyed in their despatch of the 24th January, 1849, had annexed the territory, expressed their entire concurrence in its views and proceedings. They remarked that Nagpore was a principality granted, after conquest, by the favour of the British Government to the late raja, on hereditary tenure. He had left no heir of his body; there was no male heir who, by family or hereditary right could claim to succeed him; he adopted no son; there was not in existence any person descended in the male line from the founder of the dynasty; and they had no doubt of their right to resume the grant. As to the policy of resumption, they agreed with the Governor-General that regard for the interest of the people themselves who had suffered under Mahratta rule, and prospered under British administration, forbade the maintenance of the sovereignty of Nagpore, now that it was at the free disposal of the British Government.
With regard to the property of the late raja, Lord Dalhousie stated that although he considered it to be fairly at the disposal of Government, he desired that it should neither be alienated from the family, nor given up to be squandered by the ranees. He directed
that jewels, furniture, and other personal property suitable to their rank having been allotted to them, the value of the remainder should be realized, and constitute a fund for “the benefit of the Bhonslay family.” The ranees resolutely resisted the surrender of the gold mohurs which were deposited in their private apartments, and the Governor-General considered it desirable rather to fail in obtaining them than to force an entrance for that purpose. The live stock was at once sold off at Nagpore, and the jewels and other articles of value were sent round to Calcutta to be put up to auction. There can be little doubt that this mode of disposing of the jewels and gems which had been accumulated by that royal house for more than a century, by the hammer of the auctioneer, was revolting to the feelings of the native community, and open to all the censure which has been passed on it; but the proceeds, amounting to twenty lacs of rupees, were considered a sacred deposit for the use of the family. According to the most recent reports from the province, one-fourth of the entire revenue of the country still continues to be devoted to the support of the royal family and its retainers and dependents, notwithstanding the death of some of the annuitants.
The raja of Jhansi died on the 11th November, and the question of the succession to this principality was brought before the Government of India. To revert to its former history: On the first connection of the Government with Bundelkund, in 1804, a treaty was concluded with Sheo Rao Bhao, a tributary of the Peshwa, who is described in some documents as an aumil, or governor of this small territory; in others, as simply the collector. All the rights of the Peshwa in the province were ceded to the Company in 1817, and the Governor-General, adverting to the fidelity and the attachment of the family to British interests “resolved to declare the territory to be hereditary in the family of the late Sheo Rao Bhao.” A treaty was concluded with his grandson, Rao Ramchunder, and his heirs and successors; and the title of raja was conferred on him in 1832. He died in 1835,
having adopted a son the day before his death; but Sir Charles Metcalfe, then Governor of Agra, refused to acknowledge his right to bequeath the sovereignty by adoption, and placed the lawful heir descended from Sheo Rao Bhao on the throne, though a leper. He died in 1838, and was succeeded by Gungadhur Rao, the only surviving son of Sheo Rao Bhao, under whose mismanagement the revenues, which had once amounted to eighteen lacs of rupees, dwindled down to three. Gungadhur died in 1853, and in like manner adopted a son on his death-bed, and thus secured all the spiritual benefits which depended on that rite; but his widow, a woman of no ordinary talent and of high spirit, undeterred by the previous refusal of the British Government to admit of succession to the kingdom by adoption, demanded the sovereignty also for the lad. Lord Dalhousie, before he formed any opinion on the subject, referred to the Minute recorded by Sir Charles Metcalfe, as Governor of Agra, which was universally considered a conclusive authority on the law of succession in Bundelkund. Sir Charles was known to be favourable to the maintenance of native thrones and to the principle of adoption, but in reference to that particular province stated, “With regard to chiefs who merely hold lands, or enjoy public revenues under grants, such as are issued by a sovereign to a subject, the power which made the grant, or which by conquest or otherwise had succeeded to its rights, is certainly entitled to limit succession according to the limitation of the grant, which in general confines it to heirs male of the body, and consequently precludes adoption. In such cases, therefore, the power which granted or the power standing in its place, would have a right to resume on failure of heirs male of the body.” Jhansi was one of these principalities. Gungadhur Rao had left no heir of his body. There was no male heir of Rao Ramchunder, or of Sheo Rao Bhao, or indeed of any raja or soobadar who had ruled it since the first relations of the Company with the state. Lord Dalhousie, therefore, came to the inevitable conclusion that the right of the British Government to refuse to acknowledge
the present adoption, was placed beyond all doubt, by the existence of precedents, by the general law of succession established by the home Government in their despatch of the 24th January, 1849, and by the lex loci of the province, as expounded by Sir Charles Metcalfe. He added, that the British Government would not derive any practical advantage from the possession of this territory, as it was of no great extent, and the revenue was inconsiderable; but the possession of it as our own would tend to the improvement of the general internal administration of Bundelkund. Colonel Low, who had a fortnight before vigorously opposed the annexation of Nagpore, recorded his entire concurrence in the opinion of Lord Dalhousie, and added: “The native rulers of Jhansi were never sovereigns; they were only subjects of a sovereign, first of the Peshwa, and latterly of the Company. . . . I consider that the Government of India has now a full right, if it chooses to exercise that right, to annex the lands of Jhansi to the British dominions.” The Court of Directors decided that, as the state of Jhansi was a tributary and dependent province, created by the British Government, the adoption should not be recognized as conferring any right to succeed to the rule of the principality; and as the chief had left no descendants and no descendants of any preceding chief were in existence, the state had lapsed to the British Government. Three years afterwards, on the outbreak of the mutiny and the extinction of British authority in the north-west, the ranee took a fearful revenge for her disappointment, and put to death every European man, woman, and child she could seize.
These are the three cases of absorption by lapse which constitute the “annexation policy” of Lord Dalhousie. In annexing the remainder of the Punjab, he followed the example of Lord Hardinge, who had previously annexed two of its provinces; in both cases it was the necessary result of a war brought on by unprovoked aggression. The retention of Pegu was only a continuation of the policy of Lord Amherst, who had deprived the “Golden-foot”
of three provinces, thirty-six years before. In each case, the act was admitted to be a just and legitimate retribution for the arrogant encroachments of the court of Ava. The sovereignty of Oude was extinguished under special orders from home, contrary to the advice of Lord Dalhousie. He has been censured for having coveted the annexation of Kerowlee, which is said to have been rescued from his grasp by the firmness of the Resident, Colonel Low, and of the Court of Directors. A passing notice of the transaction may be useful in the interests of truth. Kerowlee was a small Rajpoot principality, the raja of which adopted a son just before his death. Colonel Low, the Resident, recommended that the adoption should be recognized. Sir Frederick Currie, one of the members of Council, recorded the same opinion in a Minute in which he pointed out the essential distinction between the ancient principalities of Rajpootana and a state like that of Satara, “the offspring of our gratuitous benevolence,” where we resumed only what we had bestowed. Lord Dalhousie drew up a fair and impartial statement of the arguments on both sides the question, and concluded with the remark that, taking into consideration that British supremacy was established in Kerowlee in 1817, the arguments in favour of causing it to lapse, appeared to him to preponderate; but he referred the question to the Court of Directors. They decided that their despatch of the 24th January, 1849, had reference only to a “dependent principality” like Satara, and not to the case of a “protected ally” like the raja of Kerowlee. Sumbulpore has also been inserted in the schedule of annexations, but the raja was simply a zemindar, with whom there never was any treaty at all, and who in February, 1827, signed a document in which he acknowledged that “he had been vested with authority from the Government to administer justice, and to conduct the police duties within the limits of his estate.” On his death, the office was conferred on a second raja, probably a member of his family, and eventually reverted to Government. Sumbulpore was an
extensive region in the centre of India, thinly inhabited by wild tribes, scarcely less barbarous than they were when the hero of the Ramayun marched through it on his expedition to Ceylon, and recruited his army, according to the epic, with monkeys. Brahmins and Rajpoots had contrived to establish their authority in it, but it was a land of forests and swamps, and withal so pestiferous that an appointment to it was dreaded by the European officers of Government like a sentence of death. The revenue amounted to 6,000 rupees a month, and there was little temptation to annex it. Minor estates were also from time to time escheating to the state; but the three acts on which the administration of Lord Dalhousie has been assailed by his censors, are, the annexation of Satara, Nagpore, and Jhansi, by the “dread and appalling doctrine of lapse.” His conduct has been described as resembling “the acts of brigands counting out their spoil in a wood, rather than the acts of British statesmanship,” and he has been pronounced to be the “worst and basest of rulers.”
To form a correct judgment on this subject, it must be recalled to mind that this “annexation policy,” as it has been somewhat insidiously termed, was neither created nor enlarged by Lord Dalhousie. On the first occasion on which the question of lapse came before him, he found the principle of annexation supported by all the members of Council in Calcutta and Bombay, with the exception of Sir George Clerk, and, on the ground that it was in accordance with the immemorial law and usage of India. He found also that it harmonized with the practice which had received the sanction of the Court of Directors and the Board of Control. That it was in unison also with his own views of public policy he fully admitted; but he refrained from acting upon it till a reference had been made to England, and until a declaration of the “fixed principle” which was in future to guide the proceedings of the Government of I Ida on this important question, was received from the highest authority in the empire. If any censure is to be attached to the adoption
of this policy, a much larger share of it would, upon every principle of justice, fall on the masters than on the servant. It has been asserted that these annexations created alarm among all the princes of India, and shook their feeling of loyalty to the Company; but it appears to be forgotten that the application of this law of succession was confined to extremely narrow limits. It did not affect any of the Mohamedan princes of India; and the Court of Directors and Lord Dalhousie explicitly declared that it was applicable exclusively to those subordinate and dependent principalities which had been created by the “spontaneous generosity “of the British Government, and not to any of the independent sovereigns. It was, in fact, restricted to the states of Mysore, Satara, Nagpore, and Jhansi, and possibly to one or two others of minor account. If any alarm had arisen in the minds of the independent princes, a few words of explanation from the Resident would have been sufficient to dispel it.
The principle of refusing to allow these dependent states which had lapsed by the failure of natural heirs to be continued by adoption, was vigorously combated by a considerable body of the European functionaries of Government. Ever since the days of Edmund Burke, who has been justly described as a worshipper of ancient dynasties, there has always been a succession of men in the Direction at home, and in the public service abroad, prepared to advocate the cause of native princes as princes, without any particular reference to the merits or demerits of their government. Among them may be enumerated some of the most eminent men connected with the administration, – Tucker, Malcolm, Henry Lawrence, Clerk, Outram, Sleeman, Low, – all animated with an honourable and chivalrous feeling of respect for the royal families of India. Considering the inevitable tendency of our progress to level them, it is an honour to our national character that there should be men in authority eager to defend their interests; and it is impossible not to admire the feeling even when it may appear to interfere with interests
of a higher character. On the other hand, there has always existed a body of public men at home and in India, equally eminent and high-minded, who consider British rule an inestimable blessing to the people, and are anxious to substitute it for native administrations, wherever this can be effected with a scrupulous regard to the claims of justice and equity. The feelings of one party incline to the wishes and susceptibilities of the princes of India; those of the other to the interests of the people. The opinions of both are equally entitled to respect, and nothing can be more preposterous than to introduce into the controversy a charge of indifference to national faith. These antagonistic principles have been alternately in the ascendant, and they will probably continue, in turns, to sway our counsels, till the British empire in India reaches the same point of consolidation as that of Rome under the Caesars, and these independent principalities expire from the extinction of every element of vitality, and the princes themselves subside into the position of grandees.
Two arguments have been adduced for permitting these subordinate and dependent states to be perpetuated by adoption. A native administration is said to be more beneficial to the people than any we can construct, and more congenial with their wishes. Them are doubtless many provinces within the wide circuit of our empire where it would be more adapted to the wishes of certain classes than a government of foreigners. If, as has been asserted, our Government is the purgatory of the upper ten thousand, it is still the paradise of the million. But the allegation that native rule is more advantageous to the general interests of the country, or of the people, is contrary to all the lessons of the past. Even when a minor prince has enjoyed all the benefit of careful training under our own auspices, for one instance in which he has proved a beneficent ruler, there are half-a-dozen in which he has sunk into the sensualities of the zenana, and abandoned all care of his people. Well has it been observed that “the education which tells on
kings, like the education that tells on all public men, is the education of the world,” and not of the school room. If, moreover, a government with the purest intentions, and acting under a sense of severe responsibility, cannot promote the prosperity of a province more effectually than such rulers as the rajas of Mysore or of Nagpore, or the king of Oude, we can have no business in India. The other argument advanced for the perpetuation of lapsed kingdoms, is the opportunity it affords of employment for native talent, which does not exist under our rule. It carries much weight; it will be readily admitted that this has been the opprobrium of our administration ever since the days of Lord Cornwallis. Under the government of his predecessor, Mr. Hastings, the native fouzdar or commissioner of Hooghly received an allowance of 7,000 rupees a-month. Lord Cornwallis declared the natives unfit for any situations of trust, and reduced the salary of the best paid among them to 50 rupees. The empire of Akbar rose as rapidly as our own, but as he subjugated province after province, he enlisted the nobles and the aristocracy in his own service, and they became the firmest supporters of his throne. But with the progress of our empire a blight comes over the prospects of the higher and more influential classes of native society; there is no room for their aspirations in our system of Government, and they sink down to one dead level of depression in their own land. The remedy for this error is to be found, not in perpetuating the power, so constantly abused, of native princes, simply on the ground of finding employment for native intelligence and ambition, but in incorporating these qualities in our own administration, with all necessary safeguards against the defects of the oriental character, and thus to combine the gratification of the upper classes with the welfare of the lower.
It was during the administration of Lord Dalhousie, and with his concurrence, that the dignity and privileges of the Nabobs of the Carnatic be-came extinct. The proceedings of Lord Wellesley
regarding the Carnatic have been circumstantially detailed in a former chapter, and it is only necessary to recall to the memory of the reader that in consequence of the treasonable correspondence of the Nabob Mohamed Ali, and his son, with Tippoo Sultan, which was discovered in 1801, the Governor-General declared all the treaties made with the Nabob by the British Government null and void, and all the right and claim of the family to the musnud of the Carnatic annihilated. Lord Wellesley was disposed at first to abolish the nabobship altogether, but he eventually resolved to place one of the family on the throne with a liberal allowance. This arrangement was reduced to the form of a treaty which, as originally drawn up at Madras, contained expressions which implied that the British Government was simply recognizing a right already in existence, and not conferring a new right, but these words were, at once, struck out by Lord Wellesley, who explicitly declared that the Nabob owed his elevation, not to any existing right, for it had been entirely forfeited, but to the generosity and liberality of the British Government. The treaty stated that the allowance made to the Nabob of 213,421 pagodas a-year should be considered a permanent deduction in all times to come from the revenues of the Carnatic. But Lord Wellesley, expressly and intentionally excluded from this document, as he had done from that which related to Mysore, the words heirs and successors, which were invariably inserted by him in the treaties made with the independent princes of India. It was always understood at Madras and Calcutta that Lord Wellesley did not, in this case, contemplate a treaty such as is usually executed between parties who are in a position of equality but simply a personal settlement with one who was in a subordinate position. The Nabob enjoyed a titular dignity, but was obliged to reside in Chepauk Palace, under the guns of Fort St. George, and he was not allowed to travel to any distance without permission. He received royal salutes, and he was placed above law, but being without duties or responsibilities, he passed his life in
debauchery, and the palace became the pest of the Presidency. The Nabob died in 1819, and the Government of Madras placed his son on the throne. On his death in 1825, Sir Thomas Munro continued his infant son in the nabobship, but he died childless in 1853, when his uncle, Azim Jah, laid claim to the prerogatives and the allowances of the post, as his collateral heir.
Lord Harris, the Governor of Madras, recorded an elaborate Minute on the subject, which became the basis of subsequent arrangements. He did not consider that the Company was bound by any act or deed to maintain the hereditary succession of the Nabobs of the Carnatic, as long as the family continued to exist. On the death of the Nabob in 1819, the Government of Madras had pointed out to the Governor-General that they were not authorized by the terms of the treaty to acknowledge any successor. Though the musnud had been allowed to descend in two instances in regular succession from father to son, this circumstance did not bind the Government to continue it when that succession had failed, as in the present instance. He objected, likewise, to the perpetuation of the nabobship, on the ground of expediency. The semblance of royalty without any of its power was a mockery of authority which must necessarily be pernicious. It was not merely anomalous, but prejudicial to the community that a separate authority, not amenable to the laws, should be permitted to exist. This pageant, though hitherto harmless, might at any time become a nucleus of sedition and agitation. Moreover, the habits of life, and the course of proceeding of the Nabobs had been morally most injurious, and tended to bring high station into disrepute, and favoured the accumulation of an idle and dissipated population in the chief city of the Presidency. He recommended that the royal privileges and immunities hitherto conceded to the Arcot family should cease, that a handsome allowance should be given to Azim Jah, that Government should undertake to settle his debts, and that the salaries of
the principal officers, should be continued for their lives. Sir Henry Montgomery, the member of Council at Madras, seconded these views, and stated in his Minute that the affairs of the Nabob were irretrievably embarrassed; that his palace was mortgaged, and that his debts were computed at fifty lacs of rupees, for the payment of which the creditors were importunate. Those who were responsible for the peace and the welfare of Madras were unquestionably the best judges of what was necessary to secure it, and the opinions thus expressed by them of the importance of extinguishing the noxious influence of Chepauk Palace, could not fail to carry weight with the Government in Calcutta and in England.
Lord Dalhousie, who happened at the time to be at Madras on his way to Rangoon, recorded his entire concurrence in the arguments and conclusions of the Governor and Council. On his return to Calcutta he embodied his views in a Minute, in which he stated that he agreed with Lord Harris and the members of the Government of Madras in holding that the treaty of 1801 was a purely personal settlement concluded between the Company on the one part, and the Nabob Azim-ood-dowlah on the other, without any mention of heirs or successors. The strongest point in the claim of Azim Jah, he said, was that the Court of Directors had, in more than one despatch, alluded to him as the heir of his nephew, but no attempt need be made to evade these allusions, or to weaken the full force of their meaning. They may be readily admitted to indicate an expectation on the part of the British Government that if Mohamed Ghouse should die without children, his uncle Azim Jah would be allowed to succeed him; but to indicate an expectation, or even an intention, was not to recognize or confer a right. These words contained no pledge or promise of the succession; and there had subsequently been too much reason to forego any such intention regarding the claimant or his family.
The Court of Directors with whom the settlement of
the question rested, deemed it expedient to notice the expressions upon which Azim Jah had laid so much stress, of his having been alluded to in a letter addressed to Madras, thirty-six years before, as the “next heir.” They observed that the question then before them was not the succession to the musnud, but the appointment of a physician to the young Nabob. As nearest of kin they had spoken of him as heir to whatever could be legally derived by inheritance. After “that earnest deliberation which was due to all questions which could be supposed to involve considerations of public faith,” the Court came to the conclusion that the rights of the family were derived from the treaty of 1801, and necessarily limited by its terms, which were exclusively personal to Azim-ood-dowlah; that there was no obligation on the British Government to continue the provisions of the treaty in favour of any collateral heirs, and that it would be highly inexpedient to do so. “The title and dignity of Nabob and all the advantages annexed to it by the treaty of 1801 are therefore at an end.” A liberal allowance was made to Azim Jah, besides a suitable provision for the dependents of the family, and he was recognized as the first nobleman in the Presidency of Madras, and allowed to maintain a military guard.
The vexatious question of the Hyderabad Contingent was brought to a satisfactory conclusion under Lord Dalhousie’s administration, by the transfer of Berar to the management of British officers. To trace this transaction to its origin, it is necessary to observe that by the treaty of 1801 the Nizam was bound to join the British army, in time of war, with 6,000 infantry and 9,000 horse. These troops, however, were found to be worse than useless in the field, and the Resident, Mr. Russell, was urged by the Court of Directors to obtain the consent of the Nizam and his minister, Chundoo-lall, to substitute for them a British Contingent of 5,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and four field batteries. In a former chapter, special reference has been made to this efficient but expensive force, which was over-officered and overpaid,
and severely taxed the resources of the Hyderabad state. Its allowances had repeatedly fallen into arrears, and the Government of India, considering itself bound to ensure the payment of a force enlisted under its guarantee, directed the necessary funds to be advanced from the Resident’s chest, and they were acknowledged by the Nizam as a debt due with interest to the Company. In 1843, the Resident was again required to make advances, when he was instructed by the Government of India to inform the Nizam that, unless he observed greater punctuality in future, he would be called on to transfer to the Government territory of sufficient value to meet these periodical demands. Small sums were, from time to time, doled out in driblets, from the Nizam’s treasury, but not sufficient to cover the pay of the Contingent, or to keep down the interest of the debt. The Resident had repeatedly remonstrated with him on the deplorable state of his affairs. The territory of Hyderabad was sufficiently productive to provide for all the demands of the administration, and to maintain the court in affluence and splendour; but it was impossible to prevail on the Nizam to attend to public business, and he had for a long time left the Government without a responsible minister. The hordes of foreign mercenaries he persisted in maintaining, to the number of more than 40,000, devoured his revenues, oppressed his people, and even held his own sovereign power in check. Lord Dalhousie was determined that this unsatisfactory state of things should not be allowed to continue, and he brought his clear head, practical judgment, and resolute will to the solution of the difficulty.
In August, 1849, he directed the Resident to intimate that arrangements must be made to liquidate the debt by the 31st December, 1850. This communication produced no result. At the appointed period, not only had no attempt been made to cope with the debt, but it was augmented to seventy lacs by fresh advances on account of the Contingent. Accordingly, in May, 1851, Lord Dalhousie addressed a letter to the Nizam desiring him
to make over certain districts, specified in a schedule, to cover the past and the growing obligations. The Nizam, who had been apprised of the transmission of the communication, anticipated its official delivery by appointing Seraj-ool-moolk, the grandson of the great Meer Alum, and the ablest man at the court, to the office of minister, and likewise pledged his royal word to discharge half the debt immediately, and the remainder by the 31st October, as well as to appropriate the revenue of certain districts to the payment of the Contingent. The first instalment was paid by money raised at an exorbitant premium; the second was neglected; the pay of the Contingent again fell into arrears, and the officers and men were driven to the bankers, who accommodated them at the rate of twenty-four per cent. Again were advances made by the Resident, and the debt, notwithstanding the recent payments, swelled to fifty lacs of rupees.
Four years of evasion on the part of the Nizam had worn out the patience of Lord Dalhousie. In one of those lucid and exhaustive Minutes in which he was accustomed to record the ground, and to furnish the justification, of his decisions on public questions, he examined the subject of the Contingent in a moral and practical point of view. The sole cause, he observed, of all the discord which vexes the two states is the Contingent, for which the Resident maintains a constant wrestle with the Dewan, and which transforms the representative of the British Government, by turns, into an importunate creditor, and a bailiff in execution. If the Nizam had at any time refused, or should now refuse to maintain the Contingent any longer, the Government of India could not make good any right by treaty to enforce the continuance of it. Our simple right was to require 15,000 infantry and cavalry of the Nizam’s army in time of war, and this provision has been made to justify our requiring the Nizam to uphold a force of 7,000 men and twenty-four guns, officered by British officers, and controlled by the British Resident, in time of peace. Neither the words nor the intention of the treaty can
be held to warrant such a construction of its obligations. But, the rulers of Hyderabad, having for forty years consented to maintain this field force on certain terms, are bound faithfully to fulfil those terms as long as the original consent to its maintenance is not withdrawn. The present Nizam, though he has enquired in moments of irritation why the Contingent was kept up when there was no war, has steadily resisted every attempt to reduce it by a single bayonet or sabre. It has been upheld of his own free will. However anomalous in its origin, it has become a practical necessity, and the Nizam has repeatedly declared that his government cannot be carried on without its assistance. It is required as a counterpoise to the large and disorderly body of foreign mercenaries who continually threaten the peace of the country. Lord Dalhousie proceeded to remark that the Government owed much consideration to the Nizam, for having allowed the Contingent to be maintained at a larger cost than was necessary to secure him all the advantages of it, and that it would be worth the while of Government and worthy of its dignity, to obtain an adjustment of a question which disturbed the amity of the two states, even at a considerable sacrifice. He therefore proposed the draft of a treaty to be submitted to the Nizam, which should place the Contingent on a definite and permanent footing, determine its strength and its duties, provide for its punctual payment, and effect an equitable settlement of the interest and principal of the debt. Including the pay of these troops, the interest of the debt, and certain annuities to native chiefs guaranteed by the Government of India, the annual payments of the Nizam amounted to between forty-two and forty-three lacs of rupees, and Lord Dalhousie proposed to require the transfer of territory yielding between thirty-six and thirty-seven lacs. By this arrangement the Nizam would benefit to the extent of six lacs of rupees a-year, besides being exempted from the repayment of a debt of nearly half a crore of rupees. If, remarked Lord Dalhousie, the Nizam should determine not to continue the Contingent, and refuse to make
assignments for its support, the whole force must be broken up; but the Government of India cannot consent at once to let loose on the country a large body of trained troops, and thus endanger its peace and security. The reduction must necessarily be gradual, and the assignment of districts must still be made to meet the expenses of the force while the disbandment is in progress, and to secure the liquidation of the debt, both principal and interest. When these objects are accomplished, the districts will be restored to the Nizam. Sir Frederick Currie and Mr. Lowis, the two members of Council, fully acquiesced in the sentiments and the propositions of the Governor-General’s Minute.
The Nizam manifested the deepest reluctance to the proposal. He said there were two royal maxims which he held sacred, – never to part with territory, and never to dismiss soldiers who had been useful to the state. When the Resident presented the draft of the treaty, a long and acrimonious discussion ensued, in the course of which he said that his Highness had only to declare that he did not require the Contingent, and the Governor-General would gradually reduce it, and then restore the districts. The Nizam exclaimed, “I beg you to assure him that I do not want the present strength of the Contingent reduced; I am able and willing to pay it month by month, and I undertake to do so, independent of the minister;” but he had neither the power nor the intention to fulfil these grand promises. The debt of the state amounted to three crores of rupees, borrowed at usurious interest, and its finances had not been in so hopeless a condition for half a century. The minister and the principal officers of the durbar considered the proposed arrangement highly advantageous to the interests of the kingdom, but for a fortnight the Nizam turned a deaf ear to all their representations. Seraj-ool-moolk at length succeeded in purchasing the goodwill of a favourite and confidential valet, who exercised a paramount influence over the mind of his master. The treaty was speedily accepted, but with modifications to suit the
wishes of the Nizam. The sovereignty of the assigned districts was still to remain with him, and they were to be made over to the management, not of the Government of Madras or Bombay, but of the Resident at his court, who was to render a faithful account of receipts and disbursements, and to remit the surplus revenue to his treasury. The question which was thus solved by the talent of Lord Dalhousie, and by the skill, firmness, and judgment of Colonel Low, the Resident, to whom the entire management of the negotiations was committed, was one of the most perplexing which had ever been brought before the Indian authorities, and the arrangement was one of the masterstrokes of the Governor-General’s policy. It encountered the opposition of that section of the Court of Directors which was given to fondling the sensibilities of native princes, and who, on this occasion, seemed to forget that the question was one for practical statesmanship and not for the fancies of philanthropy. In passing their judgment upon it, the Court of Directors said that they regarded with the greatest satisfaction this mode of settling our pecuniary relations with the Nizam’s government; they sanctioned the treaty, and conveyed their cordial thanks to the Governor-General and the officers employed by him. They were fully justified in their approval of it. Seldom has there been a settlement in India from which all parties have derived such equal advantages. It delivered both Governments from those derogatory disputes about money which disturbed the harmony of their intercourse. It relieved the British treasury from incessant but uncertain demands; it absolved the Nizam from the obligations of a debt of nearly half a crore of rupees, and reduced his annual responsibilities in a very material degree, while it bestowed on the people thus transferred to our charge the inestimable benefit of those institutions which had been brought to maturity in the Punjab. The territory thus placed under British control, and brought within the circle of British enterprise, included the great cotton field of Berar, and Lord Dalhousie immediately laid the foundation of a railway for the conveyance
of its produce to the port of Bombay. To the inhabitants of that district the assignment brought the age of gold during the civil war in America, while it furnished a grateful supply of the raw material to the manufacturers of England. Two years after the settlement, Lord Dalhousie, finding that the revenues of the districts he had taken over exceeded the requirements, restored territory yielding three lacs of rupees a-year. The treaty was revised by his successor in 1860, when the British Government gave back all the districts which had been surrendered, with the exception of Berar, the revenues of which were found to be sufficient to cover the sum to which the expenses of the Contingent had been reduced, and the whole amount of the debt, principal and interest, was wiped out. The family of the Nizam of Hyderabad, which has not produced a single ruler of even ordinary capacity, since the death of its great founder, has been the most fortunate of all the royal houses of India. At the close of the last century, it was rescued by Lord Wellesley from the ambition and rapacity of the Mahrattas, through the guarantee of British protection. Since that period there has been no diminution of its territory. If Lord Wellesley took over large districts for the payment of the subsidiary force in 1801, and incorporated them with the Company’s dominions, they consisted of those which he and Lord Cornwallis had bestowed on the Nizam from the spoils of Tippoo Sultan. If Lord Dalhousie took over another province for the support of the Contingent in 1853, it consisted of the territory with which Lord Hastings had enriched the Nizam from the spoils of Nagpore in 1819. While every other throne in the Deccan has become extinct, the Tartar dynasty founded by Nizam-ool-moolk retains in all its integrity the territory which the Mahrattas had left it seventy years before.
Bajee Rao, the ex-Peshwa, died at Bithoor, in January, 1853, at the age of seventy-seven. The circumstances connected with his surrender in 1818 have been detailed in a former chapter, and it is only necessary to
remark that he did not open a negotiation with Sir John Malcolm until the divisions of the British army were closing upon him in every direction. He was allowed an interview with Sir John, who advised him either to throw himself on the consideration of the British Government, or manfully to resolve on further resistance. “Resistance,” exclaimed Bajee Rao, “how can I resist; am I not surrounded; am I not enclosed ?” It was in these desperate circumstances that Sir John offered him a pension for himself and his family of eight lacs of rupees a-year. Lord Hastings, who had destined him an annuity of only two lacs, was mortified to find it quadrupled by the pliability of his representative. “I well knew,” he wrote to him, “that the vagabond would try every appeal to your kindness, and I thought you might have a little too much sympathy with fallen greatness. It is a condition which ordinarily challenges respect, but when it is the condition of so thorough and incorrigible a scoundrel as Bajee Rao, one sees in it only deserved punishment.” Sir John stated in reply, that he was convinced it would not have been possible to obtain his submission on other terms, that the provision made for him was indeed most princely, and far beyond what he had, from his treacherous conduct, any right to expect; but then it was only a life pension. Mr. Prinsep, the Secretary to Government in attendance on the Governor-General, and the author of the History of the Mahratta and Pindaree campaigns, which is the highest authority on these transactions, says: “The principal objection to this arrangement was the extent of the personal allowance provided to his Highness, amounting to no less than £100,000 a-year for life.” Mr. Kaye, in his excellent life of Sir John Malcolm, also describes Bajee Rao as a simple annuitant, who drew his pension for a quarter of a century. If any further evidence be required to determine the character of this grant, it is furnished by Bajee Rao himself, who, after having adopted Dhoondoo Punt – Nana Sahib – as his son, repeatedly appealed to the generosity of Government to provide for his family after his death, which he would not have done if he
had considered the pension hereditary. Bajee Rao died, at length, after having received the sum of two crores and a-half of rupees, with the reputation of being immensely rich – hoarding was the passion of his life – but his adopted son did not acknowledge an accumulation of more than twenty-eight Lacs of rupees. The Nana then petitioned the Lieutenant-Governor of Agra to continue the pension, or some portion of it, for the support of the family, but Mr. Thomason discouraged every hope of further assistance, and advised that the retainers should return to the Deccan, but he granted him the town and jageer of Bithoor rent free for life. Lord Dalhousie, to whom the matter was referred, considered that the grant was for life only, and that the family had no further claim on the Government; that Bajee Rao had received the enormous sum of two millions and a-half sterling, out of which he ought to have made adequate provision for them. The Nana then despatched an envoy to London to appeal to the Court of Directors, claiming the continuance of the pension, as a matter of right, grounded on the expression in the original settlement that it was intended for “the Peshwa and his family,” which he said was designed to include heirs, both natural and adopted. But this term was used by Sir John simply to distinguish the allowance to Bajee Rao and his family from the separate provision which he made for “his principal Jageerdars, for his old adherents, for brahmins of respectable character, and for religious establishments founded or supported by his family.” The Nana had the effrontery to assert that this annuity was granted in consideration of the territory, valued at thirty-four lacs a-year, which Bajee Rao had ceded to the Company, and that the enjoyment of the one was contingent on the payment of the other. This demand, more especially on the part of an adopted son, for the continuation of a pension which the grantor declared to be for life only, after a sum of two crores and a-half of rupees had been paid on the strength of it, was universally regarded at the time by all who heard of it in India, natives and Europeans, as the most preposterous and
impudent request which had ever been made to Government. It was unceremoniously rejected by the Court of Directors and the Board of Control. The enraged Nana took advantage of the mutiny to obtain his revenge by inflicting barbarities on all the English who fell into his hands, which are not paralleled in the history of crime. It has been whispered that some palliation may be discovered for the atrocities he committed in what is called Lord Dalhousie’s breach of national faith in the matter of his pension. But neither in this case nor in that of the ranee of Jhansi is it equitable to infer that the refusal of their claims was unjustifiable simply because an opportunity was subsequently presented to them of wreaking their vengeance on innocent Europeans, men, women, and children. The real character of the annexation of Jhansi and the discontinuance of the pension to Nana Sahib are to be determined upon their own intrinsic merits, and not by a refer ice to the diabolical crimes of those whose expectations were disappointed.
It has been stated in a former chapter that the insufferable misrule of the raja of Mysore for twenty years, which culminated in rebellion, constrained Lord William Bentinck in 1831 to assume the entire management of the country. The administration was placed in the hands of General Cubbon, one of the great statesmen of the Company’s service, who conducted it for twenty-five years with such efficiency and success, as to surprise even the Government of India. The record of his administration was pronounced by Lord Dalhousie to be honourable to the British name, and to reflect the highest credit upon the exertions of the valuable body of officers by whom these great results had been accomplished. Every department had felt the hand of reform. In that of civil and criminal justice, regularity, order, and purity had been introduced, where, under native rule, caprice, uncertainty, and corruption prevailed. Works of public improvement had been prosecuted with a liberal hand. Taxes had been reduced to the extent of eleven lacs of rupees a-year, and the revenue had nevertheless increased from forty-four
to eighty-two lacs. It was, as Lord Dalhousie remarked, to the ability and judgment of General Cubbon, and to his long continued and vigilant superintendence, that the British Government owed, in a great measure, the successful issue of its interposition in the affairs of Mysore. In 1847, the raja requested Lord Hardinge to restore the government to him. A reference was made to General Cubbon, who replied that any improvement that had taken place in the condition and resources of the country, had been effected in spite of the opposition he had met with on the part of the Maharaja and his partisans, and that the conduct of his Highness during his suspension from power, afforded no security that the crisis which induced his supersession, would not recur in the event of his restoration. The request of the raja was, therefore, negatived. In 1856 he made a similar application to Lord Dalhousie, who investigated the question with great assiduity, and arrived at the conclusion that it was impossible to reinstate the raja, pointing out at the same time, that the treaty was personal and not dynastic.
The accuracy of this assertion had been impugned, but it has been placed beyond controversy by a reference to the original papers of Lord Wellesley, which show, moreover, by the multiplicity of alterations, the care he bestowed on the wording of the treaty. In the draft drawn up by Colonel Kirkpatrick, the fifth article ran thus: – “The contracting parties mutually and severally agree, that the districts in Schedule C shall be ceded to the Maharaja, and his heirs and successors, forever, and shall form the separate Government of Mysore.” Lord Wellesley struck out the words “heirs and successors,” with both pencil and pen, noting in the margin, “this is unnecessary and dangerous.” In the fair copy of the treaty he wrote in the margin, “this clause is approved with the omission of the words struck out with the pen,” and he attested the note with his signature “Mornington.” Colonel Kirkpatrick pointed out to him, that if the guarantee clause of the treaty were allowed to remain, the raja would be placed
in the same position as regarded heirs and successors as the Nizam; to which Lord Wellesley replied, “strike it out.” In the original draft of the subsidiary treaty it was stated that “it should be binding on the contracting parties, and their heirs and successors, as long as the sun and moon should endure.” Lord Wellesley again struck out the words “heirs and successors,” but left in the oriental flourish about the sun and the moon. These extracts prove to a demonstration that the settlement made with the raja was intended by Lord Wellesley to be strictly personal, and that he carefully excluded every expression which might be supposed to imply a right of hereditary succession.
To bring the history of the Mysore raj to a close. The raja solicited Lord Canning to reinstate him in the Government, but it was refused on the ground that “it was his conviction, founded on an experience of the past, that if the authority of the British officers were removed, or even hampered, the peace and prosperity of the country would be at an end.” In 1862, the raja renewed his request to Lord Elgin, but with no better success. He then appealed to the present Governor-General, Sir John Lawrence, who upheld the decision of his four predecessors, which was likewise sanctioned by Sir Charles Wood. The raja then proceeded to adopt a son, and required that he should be recognized as his successor in the sovereignty, but, under the rule laid down by the Court of Directors sixteen years before, it was refused both in India and in England. Thus stood the question when the Whigs retired from office in 1866. Even if the treaty with the raja had included heirs and successors, it would still have come within the category of those principalities, like Satara, the offspring of our “gratuitous benevolence “which the Government had a right to resume on the failure of natural heirs. But in this case, the words heirs and successors had been expressly excluded. This was fully admitted by Lord Cranbourne, the Conservative Secretary of State for India, who stated in the House, “I must express most emphatically
the opinion of Her Majesty’s Government that the rights conferred on the Maharaja terminated with his life.” The treaty in fact became extinct on his death, and if he left natural heirs, they had no right of succession; the territory reverted to those who had bestowed it. But the present Secretary of State for India has overruled all the decisions of the Government which preceded him, as well as of five successive Governors-General, and has ordered the re-establishment of a native sovereignty in Mysore, and the surrender of the country to the child whom the raja has adopted, on his coming of age. With all the lessons of experience before us, it is difficult to conceive any adequate reason for this new policy, by which the government of four millions of people, after they have enjoyed for nearly fifty years the inestimable benefit of a wise, liberal, and beneficent administration, is relegated to the caprices and oppressions of a native prince. “To supplant,” says Sir John Grant, in his Oude Minute, “the British Government of any province by the best native government that ever yet existed, is in one moment to abolish law, and establish arbitrary power in its place.” If it was deemed necessary to make some concession to the spirit of agitation which the raja has raised in this country, it might have been sufficient, as an act of grace, to continue the titular sovereignty, and the sixth of the revenues which the raja now enjoys, to the boy when he comes of age, to furnish him with the means of personal gratification. But to sacrifice to a new theory the welfare of a whole people, whose interests we are bound to hold sacred, and to demolish the fabric of prosperity we have been building up for half a century, is so repugnant to every feeling of humanity, that before the period for consummating this policy arrives, it is to be hoped that some future Secretary of State will be found to annul it, as the present Secretary has annulled the decision of his predecessor.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage