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THE 
 
 MYSORE REVERSION, 
 
 "AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE". 
 
" Machiavel's errors arose not in consulting the principle of utility, but in making 
 false applications of it. Bad faith is alwa3 r s bad policy." 
 
 JEREMY BENTHAM. 
 
 " I consider that, in fact, our Government is at the head of a system composed of 
 native States, and 1 would avoid what are called rightful occasions of appropriating those 
 territories. On the contrary, I should be disposed, as far as I could, to maintain the 
 native States, and I am satisfied that their maintenance, and the giving to the subjects 
 of those States the conviction that they are considered permanent parts of the general 
 Government of India, would naturally strengthen our authority." 
 
 LORD ELLENBOROUGH, 1853. 
 
 " The House may dismiss at once all question of the annexation of territory. There 
 are many reasons why I think we should not annex Native States. It is for our ad- 
 vantages that such States should be left in India." 
 
 SIR CHARLES WOOD, now LORD HALIFAX, in the House of Commons, 26th Feb., 1863. 
 
 " Thirty years ago the predominant idea with many English statesmen was that our 
 interest in India consisted in extending our territory to the largest possible extent. 
 To that annexation policy the terrible disaster of the mutiny of 1857 must to a large 
 extent be ascribed. But as time has gone on, that desire of increased dominion which is 
 the natural temptation of all powerful States has been overcome, and Statesmen of all 
 parties have arrived at the conclusion that we now hold in India pretty well as much as 
 we can govern, and that we should be pursuing an unwise and dangerous policy if we 
 tried to extend our borders or to lessen the power or the permanence of those native 
 rulers upon whose assistance we have so long relied. I believe the native Princes were 
 formerly the objects of jealousy and distrust to English rulers, but within the last ten 
 3'ears a great change has come over the spirit of our statesmanship in that respect ; and 
 there is now, I think, a general desire to, uphold them in the rights and honours which 
 they justly earned by their loyal support at the time of the mutiny, and to look upon 
 them not as impediments to our rule, but as its most useful auxiliaries." 
 
 LORD CRANBORNE, at Stamford, July 12, 1866. 
 
THE 
 
 MYSORE REVERSION, 
 
 . . 
 
 AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE": 
 
 r.y 
 
 MAJOR EVANS BELL, 
 
 l_ NX ' 
 
 LATE OF THE MADRAS STAFF CORPS; 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE EMPIRE IN INDIA", "THE ENGLISH IN INDIA", JETC. 
 
 (Ebitioit. 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 
 AND A FEW WORDS TO MR. R. D. MANGLES. 
 
 Government is rx practical tiling, made for the happiness of mankind, and not to furnish out 
 a spectacle of uniformity." BURKE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 TRUBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1866. 
 
 The Rights of Translation reserved. 
 
DS.485 
 
 LONDON: T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 SINCE the first edition of the Mysore Reversion was 
 published in January 1865, two events, calculated to affect 
 materially the ultimate settlement in this matter, have 
 occurred, the Rajah's formal and public adoption of a son 
 on the 18th June, 1865 ; and the appearance of the Papers 
 Relating to Mysore, moved for by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 
 the House of Commons, on the 27th February, 1866. 
 
 It may be gathered, as well from the contents of the 
 Blue-Book as from general conversation, that there are four 
 'current objections to the restoration of a Native Government 
 in Mysore. (1) The reversionary right of the Paramount 
 Power to take that country by " lapse" ; (2) the duty of the 
 Paramount Power to secure a good administration for the 
 People ; (3) the great weight and authority of those who 
 recommend the annexation ; and (4) the necessity of our 
 Government maintaining at all hazards the consistency and 
 inflexibility of its own well-considered decisions. In the 
 following pages I have attempted to dispose of the two first 
 objections. A few words must be said here as to the two 
 last. 
 
 The argument of authority amounts to little more than 
 this, that five successive occupants of the Viceregal Chair, 
 Lords Dalhousie, Canning and Elgin, Sir William Denison 
 and Sir John Lawrence, have all returned adverse replies 
 
 & 
 
 513190 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 to the Eaj all's repeated applications ; and that a majority 
 of the Council of India, the constitutional advisers of Her 
 Majesty's Secretary of State, have also decided against his 
 Highness's claims. This formidable array is, however, much 
 weaker than it appears at the first glance. 
 
 No one can have any doubt that Lord Dalhousie would 
 have annexed Mysore on the demise of the reigning Kajah. 
 But he would have done so by the same process that was 
 used to dispose of the Sattara, Nagpore, and Jhansi States, 
 and the mediatised Principality of the Carnatic ; and as his 
 constant supporter, Mr. Mangles, has done in this instance, 
 he would have adduced the worst of these cases as satis- 
 factory precedents. So that if we accept Lord Dalhousie 
 as an authority, we must approve in general the principles, 
 the procedure and the results of his territorial acquisitions. 
 And I trust that no British statesman, except perhaps the 
 Duke of Argyll, is at the present day prepared to go quite 
 as far as that. 
 
 Lord Canning was not really hostile to the Kaj all's right 
 of adopting a successor. He admitted it in principle, and 
 withdrew from those false positions under which for some 
 years the unjust prerogative of nullifying adoptions had 
 been practised. He unquestionably looked upon Mysore 
 as a very desirable acquisition ; but he had been misled 
 into the belief that the Rajah did not wish to adopt a son, 
 and would bequeath his dominions to the British Govern- 
 ment. Lord Canning cannot be quoted as an authority ad- 
 verse to the Rajah's rights. 
 
 Lord Elgin's lamented death after so brief a tenure of 
 office has left in doubt the course he would have taken. 
 It is understood that he was desirous of negotiating a set- 
 tlement of the Rajah's claim of restoration by a sort of 
 compromise. Lord Elgin's authority, therefore, is by no 
 means injurious to the Rajah's cause. 
 
 Sir William Denison was called unexpectedly to take 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 provisional charge of the Viceregal office, and the letter of 
 the 31st December, 1863, communicating the refusal of the 
 Home Government to replace the Rajah at the head of his 
 own administration, was obviously signed by him as a 
 simple matter of routine. He could not have avoided 
 explaining the Secretary of State's decision. The more 
 important question of maintaining or destroying the State 
 of Mysore arose at a later date, and did not demand 
 the consideration either of Lord Elgin or of Sir William 
 Denison. 
 
 Whatever may have been the views expressed by Sir 
 John Lawrence since he returned to the latitude of Calcutta, 
 he is understood to have been favourably disposed towards 
 the Rajah, when he was a member of the Council in the 
 more pure and free atmosphere of London. I think I have 
 succeeded in proving in the succeeding pages that his 
 altered opinions are not the result of a more careful scrutiny 
 of the facts, or of a deeper consideration of causes and 
 consequences. 
 
 The mass of Viceregal authority is thus reduced after 
 our analysis to that of Lord Dalhousie and his most dis- 
 tinguished Lieutenant ; and the annexation of Mysore is 
 seen to be a mere return to that policy which has shaken 
 throughout Asia the belief in British honour, and which has 
 been denounced, more or less plainly, by every leading 
 statesman of Great Britain. 
 
 But let us turn to the other side, and read the list of 
 those who are known to have supported, and who now 
 recommend, the policy of good faith, restitution and solid 
 reform. Lord William Bentinck, who, under the influence 
 of exaggerated reports, assumed the management of Mysore, 
 regretted the hasty step he had taken, and proposed the 
 Rajah's restoration to the head of a more limited Govern- 
 ment. His two immediate successors, Lord Metcalfe and 
 Lord Auckland, concurred in the advisability of restoring 
 
 b 2 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 the Rajah to power, and the former characterised the sus- 
 pension of his Highness as " a harsh and unprovoked mea- 
 sure." Sir William Hay Macnaghten, who was Foreign 
 Secretary at Calcutta, when that Report of 1833 was sub- 
 mitted which first revealed to Lord William Bentinck the 
 truth about Mysore, has left in writing his opinion that the 
 Rajah had been " visited with undue severity", and his wish 
 that " a portion of his country should be restored to him." 
 Lord Hardinge recorded his doubts of the legality of the 
 Rajah's supersession. 
 
 Lord Glenelg, who had been President of the Board of 
 Control when the Government of Mysore was taken out of 
 the Rajah's hands, was always of opinion that our action 
 ought to have been curative, not destructive of the de- 
 pendent State ; and to the last day of his long life the 
 venerable statesman was anxious to hear of the Rajah's 
 full restoration. 
 
 The late Mr. Casamajor, who was Resident at Mysore 
 when the Rajah was superseded, and General Briggs, who 
 was the first Commissioner for the government of Mysore 
 after the supersession, have both declared that the total 
 exclusion of the Rajah from public life was unnecessarily 
 severe, and has been unwarrantably prolonged. General 
 Briggs, who after a long and distinguished career in India, 
 has won a reputation in Europe by his labours in Oriental 
 literature, history and statistics, has signed a petition to 
 the House of Commons, (presented on the 10th August, 
 1866,) praying that Mysore may not be annexed, but that 
 a native government may be reestablished, "with every 
 possible security for British interests, and for the prosperity 
 and happiness of the people of the country." 
 
 That petition was also signed by General Sir John Low, 
 late Member of the Supreme Council of India ; by General 
 J. S. Fraser, for fifteen years Resident at Hyderabad, and 
 previously Resident at Travancore and at Mysore ; by 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 Colonel Haines, late Judicial Commissioner of Mysore ; by 
 Major-General White of the Madras Army, who was As- 
 sistant to the Eesident of Mysore, when the Eajah's per- 
 sonal government was suspended ; by Sir Eobert Hamil- 
 ton, late Governor-General's Agent in Central India ; by 
 General Le Grand Jacob, whose influence and popularity 
 with the Chiefs and leading men, and his abilities both as 
 a soldier and a civil ruler, alone prevented the flame of 
 rebellion from spreading in 1857-8 over Kolapore and the 
 Southern Mahratta Country; by Mr. W. H. Bay ley, late 
 Secretary to the Madras Government ; by Colonel French, 
 late Eesident at Jodhpore and at Baroda ; by Mr. T. L. 
 Blane, late a Member of the Madras Board of Eevenue ; 
 by Colonel G. Williams, formerly Commissioner of Military 
 Police, and who was by Lord Canning's side throughout 
 those critical months of the insurrection, when the govern- 
 ment of the North West Provinces was conducted at Alla- 
 habad by the Viceroy himself ; by Captain Felix Jones, late 
 Eesident in the Persian Gulf; by Captain Frushard, late of 
 the Indian Navy, and by about fifty other gentlemen, many 
 of them having served in the Civil and Military Services of 
 India, and many being well known as authors and men of 
 science. 
 
 Only two of the majority in the Council of India, Mr. 
 Mangles and Mr. Prinsep, have attempted to put into 
 writing some answer to the powerful arguments of their 
 five colleagues, Sir George Clerk, Sir Henry Montgomery, 
 Sir John Willoughby, Captain Eastwick, and Sir Frederick 
 Currie. My readers must judge how I have dealt with the 
 Minutes of these two Councillors, who, as I have shown, 
 are so deeply committed by their antecedent acts and 
 pledges, that a strong bias about the Eajah's claims could 
 hardly fail to be entertained by both of them. 
 
 It can scarcely be said, after due consideration of these 
 facts, that the balance of authority inclines against the 
 opinion held by the minority of the Council of India. 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 There remains to be considered what may be called the 
 argument of prestige. It has been urged that the reversal 
 of a decision, deliberately and repeatedly promulgated by 
 the Viceroy of India in Council, and approved by the 
 Secretary of State, would ruin the prestige of Government, 
 and to make use of words attributed to an official of rank 
 at Calcutta would shake the very foundations of British 
 power. 
 
 This argument appears to me not only to be devoid of 
 all moral principle, but to be directly opposed to sound 
 political science. The prestige of an Imperial Government 
 that awe and respect by which order and obedience are 
 preserved among its subjects and its dependent Allies, is 
 based partly on a belief in its material resources, partly on 
 faith in its moral superiority. The obstinate maintenance 
 of an unjust decree, after its injustice has been publicly 
 exposed, cannot augment material strength, and must de- 
 stroy moral influence. Such persistent wrong does not 
 even tend to strike terror ; it rather inspires disdain. 
 
 No doubt when the professional rulers of Calcutta have 
 written "able" and "elaborate" Minutes, despatches, demi- 
 official and private letters innumerable, in defence of a 
 decision embodying all their traditional and characteristic 
 prejudices, until they have set their hearts on the issue, 
 the reversal of that decision must be extremely mortifying 
 to them, and must diminish their personal prestige very 
 much with the outer world. And I can fully understand 
 and admit that anything which lowers the credit and 
 dignity of the higher officials, especially of the Viceregal 
 Government, in the eyes of the people of India, is so far 
 disadvantageous and regrettable. But the counterbalancing 
 disadvantages of refusing redress, would be very much 
 greater in many cases, and eminently in this particular 
 case. Such a refusal would not only lower the credit of 
 the Government of India more than could possibly be done 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 by the reversal of their decision, but would carry discredit 
 into more remote and vital regions of the State : it would 
 dishonour Her Majesty's Government ; it would sully the 
 Crown. Loss of respect for the Crown would be much 
 more hurtful to the Empire than loss of respect for any 
 individual Minister or Lieutenant, however exalted in rank 
 or station. The officials of the day, their exploits and their 
 failures, their glories and their mortifications, come and go, 
 and pass away ; but the Imperial Government remains ; 
 and if it accepts and confirms a wrong, can never shift the 
 responsibility, or shake off the stigma. The loss of credit 
 to a Judge, when his decree is reversed on appeal, is very 
 trifling ; but the general administration of justice would 
 fall into complete disrepute if appeals were never heard, 
 and every decree were irreversible. In political affairs, 
 where there is no code of substantive law, an unlimited 
 right of appeal is absolutely essential ; and if the appellate 
 jurisdiction is seen in important matters to be no idle 
 form, no real discredit need fall on the " Court below." 
 And even if the Provincial Government be so deeply com- 
 mitted by its previous pertinacity that it cannot accept a 
 defeat without some little show of discomfiture, the love 
 and honour gained for the general system of Imperial Go- 
 vernment, would far . outweigh the temporary disparage- 
 ment, if any there be, that is thrown on local authority. 
 
 When, for instance, the little Principality of Dhar was 
 at last restored to the administration of its native Ruler, 
 in consequence of the public-spirited efforts of the most 
 vigilant and energetic of Indian Reformers, Mr. John 
 Dickinson, no doubt the effect was by no means pleasant 
 to the feelings of Sir John Lawrence and Colonel Durand, 
 more especially of the latter, who, in his successive 
 capacities, as Political Agent in Central India, as Member 
 of the Council in London, and as Foreign Secretary at 
 Calcutta, had endeavoured first to secure the annexation of 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 Dhar, then its management for an indefinite period by a 
 British officer, and lastly the imposition upon the Eajah of 
 a Minister who was personally disagreeable to him.* When 
 the Government of India was driven from these positions 
 one after the other, and directed to carry out a real restora- 
 tion, in consequence of Mr. Dickinson's persevering ex- 
 posure, and the firmness of Lord Stanley, then in opposition, 
 who as Secretary of State had originally saved the Eajah 
 from the dethronement recommended by Colonel Durarid, 
 that officer in particular, and several members of the Go- 
 vernment of India, may naturally have felt as if a slight 
 had been cast upon their judgment and discretion, and 
 may have feared that their personal weight and credit 
 would be lowered in the eyes of the public, And to a cer- 
 tain extent this fear may have been well : founded. But 
 most certainly the prestige and popularity of the Imperial 
 Government were not lowered but raised, nor was the 
 cheerful allegiance of the Princes and Chieftains of Central 
 India weakened, but, on the contrary, strengthened, by the 
 restoration of Dhar, after a period of beneficial and frugal 
 management, the credit of which is almost entirely due, as 
 I willingly admit, to the judicious instructions of the Cal- 
 cutta Foreign Office. The successful examples of Dhar, 
 Kolapore, and Travancore, restored to their native Princes 
 after effectual reformation, will form better precedents for 
 the settlement of Mysore than the disastrous cases of Sattara 
 and Jhansi. 
 
 The generous concessions of the Sovereign, in a time of 
 peace and prosperity, do not produce an impression of weak- 
 ness, but of strength and confidence. And a great work of 
 restitution may easily be conducted as a royal act of grace 
 and favour, so as to convey no ostensible censure or reproof 
 to those who have hitherto opposed it. 
 
 * Dhar not Restored, and A Sequel to Dhar not Restored, by John Dickinson, 
 F.H.A.S., (King, Parliament Street,) 1864 and 1865 ; and the Parliamentary 
 Papers, Further Correspondence Relating to Dhar, 1865. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 The real political danger in India is not what it has been 
 recently represented. The danger is not that the Viceroy's 
 authority will be despised, but the Queen's. There is no 
 danger that the tributary and protected Princes and their 
 Ministers and adherents will learn to look for orders to 
 London instead of Calcutta in ordinary matters. The 
 danger is that if in their extraordinary emergencies an 
 appeal to Great Britain is found to be nugatory, they may 
 say in their despair, " There is no Imperial Power ; there is 
 no Parliament ; there is no Sovereign over us ; there is 
 only a Collector." 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 I THINK that any one who candidly and carefully peruses 
 the following pages, will find that they are not open to 
 certain plausible and obvious objections that they are not 
 written to represent a mere isolated grievance that no 
 claim is set forth here of despotic power for an Indian 
 Rajah, on "divine right" principles, and at the expense of 
 an industrious population, contented and prosperous under 
 British management. It will be seen that I do not ask for 
 the toleration of old abuses in the face of accomplished 
 facts and altered circumstances, or insist upon an over- 
 scrupulous devotion to letter and precedent in favour of a 
 Prince, without regard to the spirit of engagements, without 
 protecting the interests of the people. 
 
 This book is not written merely to propose the reconsi- 
 deration of this case of Mysore, but to suggest a reconsider- 
 ation of all the relations of the Imperial Power to the 
 minor States of India ; to show how, in Mysore, we neglected 
 our earliest duties of instruction and guidance how, grasp- 
 ing at patronage, we have hitherto thrown away the oppor- 
 tunity of establishing a limited monarchy as a model and 
 exemplar and how, by abolishing that Principality, we 
 should, in all probability, throw away the opportunity for 
 
XIV PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 ever, and retard, or finally obstruct, the progress of Indian 
 reform, and the relief of our scattered military strength. 
 
 I shall endeavour to prove, that although the expected 
 Mysore Eeversion is not by any means "an Exceptional 
 Case", in the sense of the official document which I quote, 
 it is so far exceptional that the appropriation of this State 
 would be exceptionally unjust, injurious, imprudent, and 
 unprofitable. 
 
 And while I argue that statements disparaging a Prince's 
 personal conduct or mental qualifications unless asserting 
 crime or idiocy are as irrelevant to a question of his sove- 
 reignty and his regal position in India, as they would be in 
 Europe, I shall show that this Prince's derelictions have 
 been much exaggerated, and that their origin in British 
 neglect has been completely overlooked ; that his conduct 
 was never so blameable, and that his abilities are not so 
 deficient, as to warrant his permanent exclusion from power, 
 or to offer the slightest excuse or pretext for extinguishing 
 the tributary State. 
 
 But I have not written the following pages as an apologist 
 or an advocate for the Kajah of Mysore. I do not plead 
 for the Kajah's personal advantage and dignity, I plead for 
 the advantage and elevation of his people, and of the people 
 of India, and for the general good of the British Empire. 
 
 I will yield to no one in the admiration I feel for those 
 eminent men in the Indian Services, whose achievements in 
 days of war and convulsion, and whose earnest labours in 
 the time of peaceful organisation, have conferred so many 
 blessings upon India. Let the fullest meed of honour and 
 gratitude be awarded to our great Indian administrators 
 but let them be confined to their own sphere. The field of 
 Indian administration is the very worst training-ground for 
 Indian government. I do not say that it is absolutely im- 
 possible for a Collector or a Eesident to rise above the small 
 successes of his official career to broad views of Imperial 
 
PKEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. XV 
 
 policy ; but I certainly think it is highly improbable. The 
 exceptions, though brilliant, have been very few. I think, 
 moreover, that in the present day, the work and associations 
 of an Indian administrator are even less likely to inspire him 
 with enlarged and tolerant principles, and more likely to fill 
 his mind with narrow technicalities and contemptuous pre- 
 judices, than they were forty or fifty years ago. Native 
 States were then substantive Powers in India ; native Princes 
 and Ministers were looked upon as worthy opponents or 
 coadjutors. 
 
 I must confess to considerable distrust and dread of a 
 purely professional Government, composed of members of 
 a close official guild, un tempered by a well-defined Im- 
 perial policy, unmitigated by the presence of a British 
 statesman as Viceroy, un watched by Parliament, unmindful 
 of popular feelings. The professional ruler must magnify 
 his office ; to him it always appears an incontrovertible 
 position, that " whatever is best administered is best," an 
 opinion which is probably entertained by a great many 
 people in Great Britain, with reference to India, but which 
 seems to me to be opposed to the first principles of modern 
 politics, and to be fraught with infinite mischief. 
 
 But, it may be said, there are certain facts that cannot be 
 denied they speak for themselves ; the results of British 
 administration are beneficial, the revenue and trade of India 
 are increasing, the people are contented and prosperous. No 
 one can assert more strongly than I do that British rule has 
 conferred and is conferring the greatest benefits upon India. 
 I object to the progress of annexation and uniformity, be- 
 cause it neutralises and debases those benefits, and endan- 
 gers the stability of our reforming operations. I admit that 
 in most provinces of India the people are in a thriving and 
 improving condition. But that the population in general, 
 or the reflecting and influential classes in particular, are 
 politically contented, indifferent or apathetic, I must dis- 
 tinctly deny. 
 
XVI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 It does not follow as a matter of course, that a period of 
 material prosperity is always a period of political tranquillity. 
 Jeshururi waxed fat and kicked. 
 
 Nor does it follow as a matter of course, that a period of 
 material prosperity is to last for ever. Because we dare not 
 predict disaster, do not you presumptuously prophesy 
 smooth things. Twenty years, thirty years, fill up a small 
 space in history, form but a brief term in the life of a nation. 
 Can we not look forward so far ? We may have goods laid 
 up in store for many years ; we may eat, drink, and be 
 merry, but the day may come a day of reckoning for our 
 stewardship when a soul shall be required of us ; and it 
 may then be found that there is no soul in our Indian 
 E mpire, but that it is possessed of a devil. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. TAOK 
 
 I. The Revival of Annexation 1 
 
 ir. Mysore from 1799 to 1856 7 
 
 in. 1856 to 1862 - - 47 
 
 iv. 1862 and 1863 - 64 
 
 v. The Adoption and Succession - 81 
 
 vr. . Treaty Rights of the Nizam - 87 
 
 vn. Rights of the Rajah and his Heirs - - 107 
 
 viii. Imperial Rights and Duties - 117 
 
 ix. British Administration - 158 
 
 x. Parliamentary Papers of 1866 - - 189 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A. The Adoption Despatch - 253 
 
 B. The Partition and Subsidiary Treaties - - 265 
 c. Lord William Bentinck's Letter - 278 
 r>. Government Education - 282 
 
 E. Native Promotions - 284 
 
 F. Public Works and Police - - 285 
 
 G. " Christmas in Bombay" - - 288 
 H. Letter from a Friend .... 290 
 
THE MYSORE REVERSION, 
 
 AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE REVIVAL OF ANNEXATION. 
 
 " We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India that all Treaties and 
 Engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable 
 East India Company, are by Us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained; 
 and We look for the like observance on their part. 
 
 "We desire no extension of Our present territorial possessions; and, while 
 we will permit no aggression upon Our dominions or Our rights to be attempted 
 with impunity, We shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We 
 shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of Native Princes as Our own ; 
 and we desire that they, as well as Our subjects, should enjoy that prosperity 
 and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and 
 good government." PROCLAMATION BY THE QUEEN IN COUNCIL TO THE 
 PRINCES, CHIEFS, AND PEOPLE OP INDIA, 1st November, 1858. 
 
 FOUR years ago, about the time when Lord Canning's 
 important despatch of the 30th April, 1860, on the right 
 of Adoption by native Princes, was published, it did really 
 seem as if the era of annexation in India was closed. The 
 unequivocal and weighty assurances of Her Majesty's Pro- 
 clamation were hailed as the Magna Charta of the minor 
 States. And even those unconverted and unrepentant 
 officials some of them men of great merit and ability, 
 such as the late General Sir Mark Cubbon who deplored 
 that solemn and public statement of principles, declared 
 that its pledges must be scrupulously respected, that its 
 Royal origin forbade all tampering with its terms, and that 
 it constituted an absolute bar to any further territorial 
 acquisitions, except by open war. 
 
2 /;. :;/:'.: ;';'' : /\ .CJIAPTER 1. 
 
 During the perilous crisis of 1857, the most serviceable 
 and timely aid in men and money was furnished by every 
 class of native rulers, by independent allies, by .protected 
 tributaries, and by feudatory Chieftains ; but the value of 
 this material aid was far exceeded by the moral effect of 
 their firm and loyal adherence. Lord Canning then learned 
 to admit to make use of his own words that " the safety 
 of our rule is increased, not diminished, by the maintenance 
 of Native Chiefs well affected to us. Setting aside," he 
 continues, " the well-known services rendered by Scindia, 
 and subsequently by the Maharajahs of Rewa, Chirkaree, 
 and others, over the wide tract of Central India, where our 
 authority is most broken in upon by Native States, I ven- 
 ture to say that there is no man who remembers the con- 
 dition of Upper India in 1857 and 1858, and who is not 
 thankful that in the centre of the large and compact Bri- 
 tish province of Eohilcund there remained the solitary little 
 State of Rampoor, still administered by its own Mahomedan 
 Prince, and that on the borders of the Punjaub and of the 
 districts above Delhi, the Chief of Puttiala and his kins- 
 men still retained their hereditary authority unimpaired. 
 In the time of which I speak, these patches of Native Go- 
 vernment served as breakwaters to the storm which would 
 otherwise have swept over us in one great wave/ 7 * 
 
 The grand and terrible events of 1857 did rouse the 
 nation, the statesmen of Great Britain, the rulers of India, 
 to something like enthusiasm, and under its influence and 
 in spite of the irresistible exasperation of the hour many 
 noble principles were avowed, some of which were embodied 
 in the Eoyal Proclamation, and in other official documents. 
 But the excitement soon died away, upon the restoration of 
 order. When none but financial difficulties remained, and 
 when even these were surmounted, the season of self-com- 
 placent apathy set in once more. And now, in this time 
 of our wealth, security and pride, there is a manifest ten- 
 dency to depreciate our obligations to the native Princes, 
 and to renew pretensions which, it may be said, have never 
 been abandoned, except by way of grace and favour. 
 
 Almost every statesman of eminence, of all parties and 
 
 * Adoption Despatch, paragraph 34; Appendix A. 
 
THE REVIVAL OF ANNEXATION. 3 
 
 in both Houses of Parliament, sought for occasions during 
 the Sessions of 1857 and 1858, to condemn emphatically 
 the policy of annexation ; one and all concurred in attri- 
 buting the rebellion in a great measure to the bad spirit 
 which that policy had created. Even so late as the 4th of 
 August, 1864, Lord Stanley made use of the following 
 words in a speech before the Liverpool Chamber of Com- 
 merce : " This he might say, they had never had an abler 
 Governor-General, or an administration at Calcutta more 
 thoroughly peaceable in its intentions, or with a more fixed 
 determination not to carry on that policy of annexation of 
 which so much was heard fifteen years ago." In short, 
 every one would have supposed that the tide of greedy 
 acquisition of territory had ebbed at last, and for ever. 
 
 But it is a painful fact that the present Governor-General 
 and the present administration at Calcutta are actually 
 engaged in carrying on that same policy of annexation, that 
 they are carrying it on by the discarded and discredited 
 process of ignoring an adoption, and that this process now 
 menaces the most friendly, the most tractable, the most 
 orderly, and to us the most profitable native State that still 
 exists in India. The tide of greedy acquisition ebbed for a 
 time, but it has turned again, and, if not checked, will 
 soon commence to sweep away in its course many of our 
 neighbours' landmarks, and the bulwarks of our own 
 Empire. 
 
 Lord Canning recommended his measures in 1860, for 
 securing to every Chief above the rank of a Jaghiredar the 
 right of adopting a successor, according to the Hindoo law, 
 because, said he, it will " show at once, and for ever, that we 
 are not lying in wait for opportunities of absorbing terri- 
 tory, and that we do deliberately desire to keep alive a 
 feudal aristocracy where one still exists."* " And," he added, 
 in that same despatch, " should the day come when India 
 shall be threatened by an external enemy, or when the in- 
 terests of England elsewhere may require that her Eastern 
 Empire shall incur more than ordinary risk, one of our best 
 mainstays will be found in these native States. But to 
 make them so, we must treat their Chiefs and influential 
 
 Paragraph 20 ; Appendix A. 
 
 B2 
 
4 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 families with consideration and generosity, teaching them 
 that, in spite of all suspicions to the contrary, their inde- 
 pendence is safe, that we are not waiting for .plausible 
 opportunities to convert their country into British territory, 
 and convincing them that they have nothing to gain by 
 helping to displace us in favour of any new rulers from 
 within or from without." 
 
 But I shall prove that we are now " lying in wait" for 
 " a plausible opportunity" to absorb territory to which we 
 have no manner of claim or title whatever ; that when 
 Lord Canning penned those lines he was, with strange in- 
 consistency and instability of purpose, himself" lying in wait" 
 for that same territory ; that the British Government is now 
 visibly "lying in wait" until the death of the Eajah of 
 Mysore, who has passed the age of threescore years and 
 ten, to pounce upon that Principality without a shadow of 
 right or justice. 
 
 Among the distinguished officers who, under the Governor- 
 General's instructions, negotiated the Treaties of 1799 with 
 the representatives of the Rajah of Mysore and the Nizam, 
 there was one great man, then known as Colonel Arthur 
 Wellesley, who foresaw that a measure of resumption might 
 be planned at some future period, and warned his brother, 
 Lord Momington, in the following emphatic terms, to pro- 
 vide against the possibility of such a breach of faith : 
 
 " Colonel Kirkpatrick will have written to you yesterday re- 
 specting the 6th Article of the Subsidiary Treaty. We all agreed 
 that that ought to be modified in some manner. As it now 
 stands, it will give ground for the belief that we give the Rajah 
 the country at the present moment with the intention of taking it 
 away again when it will suit our convenience. Supposing that the 
 candid and generous policy of the present Government should 
 weaken that belief as far as it regards them, it must be allowed 
 that the conduct of the British Government in India has not at 
 all times been such as to induce the natives to believe that at 
 some time or other improper advantage will not be taken of that 
 Article. They know as well as we do that there may be a change 
 of government immediately, and that there certainly will be one 
 in the course of a few years, and the person then appointed 
 Governor General may not have such enlarged systems of policy 
 as those by which we are regulated at the present moment. This 
 induces me to believe, that they will object strongly to that 
 
THE EEVIVAL OF ANNEXATION. 5 
 
 Article, and I don't think that it will be very creditable to us to 
 insist upon it."* 
 
 The Governor-General did insist upon that Article ; an 
 improper advantage was taken of that Article ; in the 
 course of years the candid and generous policy of Govern- 
 ment did become weakened ; and in the present day the 
 intention is too clearly manifested of taking away the 
 country of Mysore, because it is supposed to suit our 
 convenience. 
 
 The policy of annexation flagged after the shock of 1857, 
 and went out of fashion for several years, but symptoms of 
 its revival have lately presented themselves. A decided re- 
 action has set in ; peace and prosperity have lasted long 
 enough to restore the national complacency, and to reinstate 
 in the public confidence those who are officially responsible 
 for the local management of India. The reins of govern- 
 ment are committed to the hands of an eminent Bengal 
 Civilian, the most active and able participator in that 
 process of annexing provinces and resuming large estates 
 which for a brief time had seemed to be for ever discredited 
 and abandoned. 
 
 The ultimate disposal of the Mysore territories at the 
 demise of the reigning Eajah, will probably, and may very 
 reasonably be made to depend upon the answers that are 
 finally given to the following three questions : 
 
 1. HAS THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT ANY RIGHT TO ANNEX 
 
 THOSE TERRITORIES ? 
 
 2. WOULD THE ANNEXATION BE BENEFICIAL TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF MYSORE 1 - 
 
 3. WOULD THE ANNEXATION BE ADVANTAGEOUS TO THE 
 
 BRITISH EMPIRE ? 
 
 I presume that our Government would at present answer 
 these questions in the affirmative. I shall endeavour to 
 show that all three questions ought to be met with an ab- 
 solute negative. I hope to produce a conviction so decided 
 
 * Wellington's Supplementary Despatches, vol. i, p. 244. This letter was 
 written before the Treaty was concluded ; and the Article which is here called 
 " the 6th" can only be Article iv. The discrepancy may be due to a subse- 
 quent alteration of the draft, or perhaps to some clerical or typographical 
 confusion between " iv" and " vi." 
 
b CHAPTER I. 
 
 of the injustice, impolicy, and imprudence of the meditated 
 annexation, as may lead to some decided action in the 
 Cabinet or in Parliament, and may once more place the 
 Home authorities in distinct antagonism to that policy of 
 bad faith and disguised rapacity by which, during the last 
 twenty years, the officials of Calcutta have destroyed the 
 fair fame of Great Britain in the East, and undermined the 
 foundations of our Indian Empire. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 
 
 ABOUT four centuries ago two brothers of that tribe of 
 Yedava Rajpoots, to which Krishna, the deified hero of 
 Dwarka in Guzerat, is said to have belonged, left the great 
 Hindoo capital of Beejanuggur, and travelled South in 
 search of adventures. One of them is said to have married, 
 under very romantic circumstances, the daughter of a 
 wealthy landholder in the neighbourhood of Seringapatam, 
 whose Canarese title of Wadiyar, or Lord, adopted by his 
 son-in-law, when he succeeded to the estate, became the 
 hereditary distinction of their descendants. Such is the 
 origin of the Rajahs of Mysore, according to the annals of 
 their court poets and genealogists. 
 
 For many years the Wadiyars extended their possessions 
 by subduing the neighbouring chieftains ; they assumed the 
 title of Rajah, but paid tribute and homage to Beejanuggur. 
 But from the subversion of that last great Hindoo State, in 
 1564, by the four Mahomedan Kings of Dowlutabad, Beeja- 
 poor, Golconda, and Beder, the Mysore Rajahs may be con- 
 sidered as independent Princes. One of them commenced 
 to coin money in his own name in the year 1654 ; and an- 
 other, during the reign of the Mogul Emperor Aurungzeb, 
 claimed and established the right of sitting on an ivory 
 throne. The Mysore State, though sometimes reduced to 
 ceremonial homage, and to the payment of ransom or tri- 
 bute, always maintained its autonomy against the successive 
 pretensions of the Mahomedan Kings of Beejapoor, the 
 Mahrattas, and the Nizam ; and enlarged its boundaries 
 during the political convulsions attending the fall of the 
 Mogul Empire, which altered the whole political aspect of 
 the Deccan. 
 
 On the death of the Rajah Chick Deo Raj in 1731, his 
 successor, a minor, became a mere puppet in the hands of 
 the Dalway, or hereditary Minister, a veritable Maire du 
 
8 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Palais. A succession of military and financial exigencies, 
 with which no one else was capable of dealing, at length 
 threw all the power of the State into the hands of the cele- 
 brated Hyder Ali, who had commenced his career as a 
 simple trooper. Hyder Ali always kept up the form of 
 annually presenting the captive Kajah, as their Sovereign, 
 to the assembled people at the Dusserah festival, while he 
 took the place himself of Commander-in-chief and Minister ; 
 but this custom was discontinued by Tippoo, who himself 
 assumed all the style and emblems of royalty, to which his 
 father had never pretended. 
 
 Counting from the final ruin of Hyder's patron and rival, 
 the Hindoo minister, Nunjeraj, in 1761, to the death of 
 Tippoo Sultan in the storm of his great stronghold, in 1799, 
 the Mussulman ascendancy in Mysore only lasted for thirty- 
 eight years. 
 
 Lord Wellesley's first plan after Seringapatam was taken, 
 was that of recognising one of Tippoo's sons ; but he was 
 deterred from this settlement chiefly, by a dread of French 
 influence, and partly, also, by a regard for the " antiquity" 
 of the Hindoo royal family's " legitimate title." He writes 
 to Dundas, the 7th of June, 1799: "It would certainly 
 have been desirable that the power should have been placed 
 in the hands of one of Tippoo's sons ; but the hereditary 
 and intimate connexion established between Tippoo and the 
 French, the probability that the French may be enabled to 
 maintain themselves in Egypt, and the perpetual interest 
 which Tippoo's family must feel to undermine and subvert 
 a system which had so much reduced their patrimony and 
 power, precluded the possibility of restoring any branch of 
 the family of the late Sultan to the throne, without exposing 
 us to the constant hazard of internal comntotion, and even 
 of foreign war."* 
 
 Sound policy thus forbidding the maintenance of the 
 House of Tippoo, the Governor General naturally turned to 
 the representative of the royal family of Mysore, whose 
 rights had been usurped by Hyder Ali. " Between the 
 British Government and this family," writes Lord Wellesley 
 to the Court of Directors on the 3rd of August, 1799, "an 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 36. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 18 5 6. 9 
 
 intercourse of friendship and kindness had subsisted in the 
 most desperate crisis of their adverse fortunes." Lord Wel- 
 lesley here alludes to the negotiations carried on in 1782 
 with the agents of Cham Eaj, father of the present Eajah, 
 which resulted in a Treaty of alliance, ratified by the 
 Government of Madras on the 27th of November in that 
 year ; in consequence of which the Hindoo Prince's flag 
 was hoisted on the walls of Caroor, when that fort was 
 taken, on the 2nd of April, 1783, by Colonel Lang. The 
 conspiracy of the Eajah's adherents in Mysore, which led to 
 these negotiations, was, however, discovered and crushed 
 by Tippoo : and in 1783 the Honourable Company made 
 peace with the Sultan, and in the next year concluded a 
 Treaty with him.* "They had formed," continues Lord 
 Wellesley, " no connection with your enemies. Their eleva- 
 tion would be the spontaneous act of your generosity, and 
 from your support alone could they ever hope to be main- 
 tained upon the throne, either against the family of Tippoo 
 Sultan, or against any other claimant. They must naturally 
 view with an eye of jealousy all the friends of the usurping 
 family, and consequently be adverse to the French, or to 
 any other State connected with that family in its hereditary 
 hatred of the British Government." 
 
 " In addition to these motives of policy, moral considera- 
 tions and sentiments of generosity and humanity, favoured 
 the restoration of the ancient family of Mysore. Their 
 high birth, the antiquity of their legitimate title, and their 
 long and unmerited sufferings, rendered them peculiar 
 objects of compassion and respect ; nor could it be doubted 
 that their government would be both more acceptable and 
 more indulgent than that of the Mahomeclan usurpers, to 
 the mass of the inhabitants of the country, composed almost 
 entirely of Hindoos."f 
 
 And his instructions to the Commissioners appointed by 
 him for the settlement of Mysore affairs were to the same 
 effect : 
 
 * Historical Sketches of Southern India and Mysore, by Colonel Mark 
 Wilks, 1817, vol. ii, p. 488-500. A copy of the Treaty of 1782, for the resto- 
 ration of the Hindoo dynasty of Mysore, will be found in vol. v of the Cal- 
 cutta Collection of 1864, p. 183. (Longman and Co.) 
 
 t Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 81-82. 
 
10 CHAPTER II. 
 
 "The restoration of the representative of the ancient 
 family of the Eajahs of Mysore, accompanied by a partition 
 of territory between the Allies, in which the interests of 
 the Mahrattas should be conciliated, appearing to me, under 
 all the circumstances of the case, to be the most advisable 
 basis on which any new settlement of the country can be 
 vested, I have resolved to frame without delay a plan 
 founded on these principles."* 
 
 I have already quoted a passage in which Lord Wellesley 
 describes the recognition of the Hindoo Prince as " an act 
 of spontaneous generosity." This was the fundamental 
 principle upon which that great statesman based the whole 
 transaction as between the Allies and the Mysore family : 
 
 "From the justice and success of the late war with 
 Tippoo Sultan," he writes to the Court of Directors, "the 
 Company and the Nizam derived an undoubted right to the 
 disposal of the dominions conquered by their united arms. 
 The right of conquest entitled the Company and the Nizam 
 to retain the whole territory in their own hands ; the ces- 
 sion of it to any other party might be a consideration of 
 policy or humanity, but could not be claimed on any ground 
 of justice or right." 
 
 "A lineal descendant of the ancient House of the Eajahs 
 of Mysore still remained at Seringapatam ; but whatever 
 might be the hopes of his family from the moderation and 
 humanity of the conquerors, this young Prince could assert 
 no right to any share of the conquered territory." f 
 
 The investiture of the Eajah with the character of a 
 Sovereign was deliberately treated by Lord Wellesley, not 
 as the restoration of an old Government and dynasty, but 
 as the creation of a new one. It appears from his letter of 
 the 7th of June, 1799, that according to the original draft 
 of the Treaty the whole of the conquered territories were 
 to be considered as the Eajah's dominions, and the pro- 
 vinces to be retained by the Allies were to be accepted by 
 them as if ceded by the Hindoo Sovereign. To this process 
 the Governor General objected. "I think," said he, "the 
 whole transaction would be more conveniently thrown into 
 a different form from that which you have given to it. I 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 19. t Ibid., vol. ii, p. 72. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 11 
 
 do not see any necessity for ceding the whole country, in 
 the first instance, to the Rajah of Mysore, and accepting 
 again as a cession under his authority such districts as must 
 be retained by the Allies. I think it will be more con- 
 venient, and less liable to future embarrassment, to rest 
 the whole settlement upon the basis of our right of con- 
 quest, and thus to render our cession the source of the 
 Rajah's dominion. For this purpose the proceeding should 
 commence with a Treaty between the Nizam and the Com- 
 pany/'* 
 
 But while Lord Wellesley thus upheld, on behalf of the 
 Allies, their right of disposing of all the conquered terri- 
 tories in such a manner, and in such recorded terms, as 
 should be a perpetual acknowledgment of the Rajah's obli- 
 gations, and a perpetual bar to the revival of any preten- 
 sions to the sovereignty of the districts allotted to the Com- 
 pany and the Nizam, he intimated no design of depressing 
 the restored Prince into an insignificant and insecure posi- 
 tion. On the contrary, he was avowedly desirous to wel- 
 come the Sovereign of Mysore as a distinct and additional 
 Power in India, pledged to the reciprocal recognition and 
 defence of our titles and possessions, for he instructs the 
 Commissioners that "the Rajah, after his accession, may be 
 made a party to the general guarantee." t 
 
 The infant Rajah's elevation was opposed at the time by 
 several of Lord Wellesley's advisers, and by none more 
 than by Sir Thomas Munro, who held that we should 
 divide between ourselves and our sole Ally, the Nizam, the 
 whole of the conquered districts. But all objections were 
 overruled ; a separate government for Mysore was consti- 
 tuted ; Poorniah, the able Brahmin, who had been Tippoo's 
 chief officer of finance, was appointed Prime Minister, and 
 for eleven years managed the country with great skill and 
 success, so far as relates to the augmentation and collection 
 of the revenue. 
 
 Poorniah was a clever financial officer, and would have 
 been invaluable as a manager to one of the by-gone type of 
 " crack" Collectors who, in the first twenty years of this 
 century, gained an ephemeral reputation by putting on the 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 26. t Ibid. 
 
12 CHAPTER II. 
 
 screw in certain districts of the Madras Presidency and the 
 North West Provinces. He had practised his art in a 
 severe school. During the last seven years of Tippoo's 
 reign, when the Sultan obstinately insisted on keeping up 
 enormous military establishments on a revenue reduced by 
 Lord Cornwallis's Partition to one half of its former amount, 
 Poorniah was driven to exercise his greatest dexterity in 
 squeezing the unfortunate population. And until the end 
 of the year 1804 the demands of the Honourable Company 
 on the Government of Mysore, under Article III of the 
 Treaty, for its contribution " towards the increased expenses" 
 of the war with the Mahrattas, seem to have precluded any 
 mitigation of the public burdens. During Poorniah's ad- 
 ministration the pressure was never relaxed. No imputa- 
 tion seems ever to have been cast upon his personal in- 
 tegrity, and when, in the year 1811, he was compelled to 
 resign his office, he left a sum of hard cash in the Treasury 
 exceeding two millions sterling. This fund was not, how- 
 ever, entirely due to savings from the public income, but 
 was swelled by the gradual sale of vast stores of sandal- 
 wood the special produce of Mysore and monopolised by 
 the Government and of other superfluous stock which had 
 been heaped up in every department during the reign of 
 Tippoo. The people did not prosper-junder Poorniah's rule, 
 and little or nothing was done by him in the way of public 
 improvement. Sir Mark Cubbon, in his Eeport to Govern- 
 ment, as Commissioner of Mysore in 1854, alludes to the 
 accumulated treasure " which the dubious policy of Poor- 
 niah had wrung from the people." 
 
 After the departure of Sir John Malcolm, the first Resi- 
 dent at Mysore, in 1804, Poorniah was left to pursue his 
 own plans, undisturbed and uninstructed by the Govern- 
 ment of Madras, or their representative the Resident. The 
 young Rajah was left to the enlightened tuition of his 
 mother, his grandmother, and the other ladies of the harem. 
 Systematic negligence, in its most culpable form, charac- 
 terised the dealings of the Madras Government with the pupil 
 State committed to their charge by Lord Wellesley's ar- 
 rangements. 
 
 From 1799 till 1832, with a very brief interval, the 
 British Resident at the Court of Mysore was in direct com- 
 
MYSORE FEOM 1799 TO 1856. 13 
 
 munieation only with the Madras authorities, from whom 
 he received his instructions ; while the Madras Government 
 reported its proceedings to the Supreme Government in 
 Bengal. The plan never seems to have worked well. The 
 authority and the responsibility were too much divided. 
 The Duke of Wellington then General Wellesley in a 
 letter to Major Shawe, dated the 14th of January, 1804, 
 gives us the strong opinion on this subject of a very shrewd 
 observer of men and manners who had had the best oppor- 
 tunities of forming a judgment, and affords us another in- 
 stance of his remarkable foresight as to the course of My- 
 sore affairs. 
 
 " In respect to Mysore," says he, " I recommend that a 
 gentleman from the Bengal Civil Service shall be Malcolm's 
 successor there. The Government of that country should 
 be placed under the immediate protection and superintend- 
 ence of the Governor General in Council. The Governors 
 of Fort St. George ought to have no more to do with the 
 Eajah than they have with the Souba of the Deccan" (the 
 Nizam) " or the Peishwa. The consequence of the continu- 
 ance of the present system will be that the Eajah's Govern- 
 ment will be destroyed by corruption, or, if they should not 
 be corrupt, by calumny.* I know no person, either civil 
 or military, at Fort St. George, who would set his face 
 against the first evil, or who has strength of character or 
 talents to defend the Government" (meaning clearly the 
 Mysore Government) " against the second. In my opinion 
 the only remedy is to take the Rajah under the wing of the 
 Governor General ; and this can be done effectually only 
 by appointing as Resident a gentleman of the Bengal Civil 
 Service, and by directing him to correspond only with the 
 Governor General." 
 
 This advice was acted on for a short period ; but soon 
 after the departure of Sir John Malcolm's successor, Colonel 
 Mark Wilks, the Resident was replaced in direct subordina- 
 tion to the Government of Madras, and, under their in- 
 structions, continued, down to the year 1832, to carry out 
 that policy of masterly indifference to Mysore affairs so 
 long as the Subsidy was paid that was best calculated, 
 
 * Only those who know some of the secrets of the " political" system in 
 India, will appreciate the full force and significance of this prediction. 
 
14 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 whether it was so intended or not, to lead to the Rajah's 
 ruin, and to augment the power and patronage of the Go- 
 vernor of Madras. And at Calcutta the salutary principles 
 of control relied upon by Lord Wellesley seem to have been 
 completely forgotten. 
 
 The most striking and critical instance of this cruel neg- 
 lect that to which all the subsequent disorders must be 
 attributed occurred in December 1811, when, after an 
 unavailing struggle against the Palace party, Poorniah was 
 finally deprived of power, and the Rajah, now sixteen years 
 old, proclaimed his own majority and took the government 
 into his own hands. The young Prince and his personal 
 followers were not entirely without excuse in effecting this 
 dismissal ; for the Brahmin Minister had very clearly 
 evinced the intention of perpetually keeping his Master in 
 luxurious seclusion, and of gaining for himself and his 
 family, after the manner of the Peishwas at Sattara and 
 after the recent precedents in the Mysore State, the po- 
 sition of hereditary Premier and actual ruler of the 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, in a Minute dated the 1 6th of January, 
 1856, says that the Rajah's "rule was scandalously and 
 hopelessly bad, though he commenced it under every advan- 
 tage." But what is the fact \ Where ought the responsibility 
 for the misrule of Mysore really to~-fall 1 The British Go- 
 vernment, entitled by Article XIV of the Subsidiary Treaty 
 to impose its authoritative advice in any matters connected 
 with " his Highness's interests, the economy of his finances, 
 and the happiness of his people,"* looked on with apparent 
 unconcern while the Regency of its own institution was 
 pulled to the ground ; demanded no securities, imposed no 
 authoritative advice, introduced no ordinances, but allowed 
 a boy of sixteen to declare himself of age, and to seize upon 
 absolute power. Yet Lord Dalhousie says that the Rajah 
 commenced his rule " under every advantage " ! 
 
 The officials of Calcutta do not hesitate, by what we can 
 only consider a cruel abuse of rhetoric, to call the mis- 
 government of Mysore " a flagrant and habitual violation of 
 the Treaty." It was never intended by the Treaty to bind 
 
 * Appendix B. 
 

 MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 15 
 
 clown the Rajah to a course of immaculate administration, 
 under the penalty of immediate and perpetual suspension, 
 and the ultimate extinction of the State in the event of 
 failure. He was bound to accept any " regulations and 
 ordinances" imposed by the Company ; but none were im- 
 posed. He was bound by the very vague obligation of " pay- 
 ing the utmost attention to the advice of the Company's 
 Government;" but he never refused to carry out any specific 
 plan of reform ; no such plan was ever laid before him. 
 The controlling action of the British Resident and of the 
 Madras Government was confined to desultory rebukes, and 
 remonstrances in cases of individual grievance. 
 
 If the Rajah could really have been said to have failed to 
 fulfil the obligations of Article XIV of the Treaty, by disre- 
 garding the advice of the Company's Government, the 
 legitimate consequence would have been, not the total and 
 permanent suspension of his sovereign functions, but that 
 the Governor General would then have been justified in 
 enforcing the obligations of that Article ; in which case, as 
 can be seen by the immediate submission of the Rajah to 
 the still more severe measures of 1831, not the slightest 
 obstacle or opposition would or could have been offered by 
 the Mysore Government. 
 
 But, far from the obligations of this Article having been 
 enforced by the East India Company, it stands on record 
 that, in the year 1814, the Resident having tendered his 
 advice rather more strongly than usual, the Rajah, then 
 nineteen years of age, sent a confidential agent to Madras 
 expressly to complain of the Resident's interference ; the 
 efforts of the young Prince's emissary were successful, and 
 the Resident was instructed by the Madras Government, in 
 a despatch dated the 3rd July, 1814, to receive no more 
 complaints from the subjects of Mysore, to abstain from the 
 avowed support of those whose grievances might become 
 known to him, and " to endeavour to guide the Rajah by 
 advice and admonition delivered in a private and concilia- 
 tory manner." Thus, instead of the strict observance of 
 Article XIV being enforced, its relaxation was promoted by 
 the direct orders of the Company's Government. A signal 
 triumph was given to the young Rajah and his corrupt ad- 
 visers by the moderated instructions which they succeeded 
 
16 CHAPTER II. 
 
 in procuring from Madras. It was naturally assumed by 
 the evil-doers that the British Government was not very 
 much in earnest in its remonstrances, when it did not adopt 
 the obvious and most easy mode for giving them full effect. 
 
 Sir Henry Montgomery, Member of the Indian Council, 
 writes as follows in his Dissent of the 13th July, 1863 : 
 " The Maharajah is declared to have failed to have ful- 
 filled the conditions of the Subsidiary Treaty by neglect- 
 ing the advice of the British Government, though it is 
 well known and officially on record, that not only was no 
 advice rendered, but that it was systematically and pur- 
 posely withheld."* And Sir Frederic Currie says : - 
 "The conditions of the 14th Article of the Treaty the 
 British Government had themselves, it must be admitted, 
 " failed to fulfil," when they systematically withheld from 
 the Eajah the advice which, by that Article, they are bound 
 to give to him in the conduct of every detailed department 
 of the administration. The withholding of that advice, and 
 the withdrawal of the support of the British representative, 
 with their results, are forcibly remarked on by the Commis- 
 sioners in their Keport as to the causes of the rebellion 
 which led to the proceedings adopted by Lord W. Bentinck 
 in 1831."t 
 
 In the year 1805 General Sir Arthur Wellesley had 
 written to his brother the Marquis Wellesley in the follow- 
 ing terms : " I still fear the new Government of Madras, 
 one of whose objects I believe is to overturn the existing 
 system in Mysore, of which I have hitherto been the prin- 
 cipal support."* 
 
 The reputation of the Madras Government for purity, and 
 that of Indian officials in general, improved very rapidly 
 after the Duke of Wellington's departure from India, chiefly 
 in consequence of more stringent regulations, and of a large 
 increase in civil salaries ; but this latter reform of itself 
 tended to enhance the value of patronage, and to stimulate 
 the creation of new offices. The hostility to the local self- 
 government of Mysore became even stronger than before 
 in Madras about the year 1820, and seems to have been 
 
 * Papers relating to Mysore, 1866, p. 21. t Ditto, p. 22. 
 
 t Wellington's Despatches, vol. i, p. 432. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 17 
 
 strangely compounded of jealousy against native pretensions 
 and partial independence, the greed of good appointments 
 and a strong desire to obtain the salubrious and pleasant 
 station of Bangalore either as the permanent seat of the 
 Madras Government, or as an occasional residence for the 
 Governor and his Councillors. This last consideration was 
 even urged by Lord William Bentinck upon the Court 
 of Directors in 1834, as an argument in favour of that plan 
 for dividing the Mysore Territories between the Eajah and 
 the East India Company, to which our attention will shortly 
 be called. 
 
 A few years after the Eajah assumed the direct govern- 
 ment, and while Poorniah's accumulations still supplied 
 ample funds for the expenditure of the Court, the public 
 revenue began to fall off, and serious financial difficulties 
 began to make themselves felt ; but these difficulties had 
 their origin in other causes than the mismanagement of the 
 native functionaries. Before the Eajah's accession, as well 
 under his ancestors as under Hyder and Tippoo, Mysore 
 was an independent and predatory State, continually en- 
 riched by contributions from the surrounding countries, 
 while its entire resources were spent within itself. After 
 the conquest and restoration all external tribute ceased, and 
 the greater part of the seven lakhs of pagodas (245,000) 
 paid as Subsidy to the East India Company, was absolutely 
 subtracted in hard cash each year from the capital of the 
 country. During the administration of Poorniah this evil 
 was in some degree averted by the large expenditure of the 
 British troops stationed in Mysore. But as that force was 
 reduced, the full extent of the change was felt. Very shortly 
 after the Eajah's installation General Wellcsley said of the 
 Mysore administration : " At this moment it goes on prin- 
 cipally by the regular monthly expenditure within it."'* 
 
 Another cause of distress, which about that time was felt 
 throughout British India, arose from a fall in the price of 
 agricultural produce, which at once caused a corresponding 
 decline in the revenue of Mysore, where the land-tax was 
 payable in kind ; while the annual necessity of finding specie 
 to the full extent of the Subsidy was, as General Wellesley 
 
 
 * Supplementary Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, vol. iii, p. 165. 
 
 C 
 
18 CHAPTER II. 
 
 had foreseen, a heavy drain upon the internal wealth of a 
 State which had no external commerce. 
 
 The great financial success of Sir Mark Cubbon's adminis- 
 tration of Mysore after 1832, was almost entirely owing to 
 his wise attention to improving the means of communication, 
 whereby a constant example and increasing stimulus were 
 given to corresponding improvements in the adjacent dis- 
 tricts of Madras and Bombay; and the table-land of Mysore 
 was gradually connected with the plains and the coast. But 
 this development of public works was an idea far in ad- 
 vance of the period during which the Kajah was in power, 
 for years elapsed after the assumption of his country before 
 a single decent road was constructed in the Madras Pre- 
 sidency. 
 
 In the year 1825, Sir Thomas Munro, then Governor of 
 Madras, able and upright, but hostile from the first and 
 prejudiced against the native State, visited Mysore, and 
 warned the Eajah, that if the disorder in his affairs were 
 not checked, the direct interference of the British Govern- 
 ment would soon become unavoidable. In a Minute which 
 the Governor wrote immediately after the interview, he 
 says : " I concluded by saying that the disorder of the 
 Kaj all's affairs had reached such a height as would justify 
 the Government in acting upon the fourth Article of the 
 Treaty; but that as a direct interference in the administra- 
 tion, or the assumption for a time of part of the Mysore 
 territory, could not be undertaken without lessening the 
 dignity of his Highness, and shaking his authority in such 
 a manner that it would be impracticable ever to reestablish 
 it, I was unwilling to adopt such a course until the last 
 extremity, and wished to give him an opportunity of re- 
 storing order himself. But if reform were not immediately 
 begun, direct interference would be unavoidable." 
 
 The plan of persistently abstaining from active remedies, 
 until the disease became inflammatory and dangerous, 
 although maintained by so eminent an authority as Sir 
 Thomas Munro, will, I think, be pronounced erroneous, 
 even on his own showing, without appealing to its actual 
 effects. Surely it would not have " lessened the dignity of 
 his Highness," or " shaken his authority," if certain " ordi- 
 nances," dictated by the Governor of Madras under the 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 185G. 19 
 
 powers conferred on him by Articles IV and XIV of the 
 Treaty, had been issued by the Eajah in his own name and 
 as his own act, and if the due execution of those ordinances 
 had been secured by the Eesident's close supervision, and by 
 the appointment of a trustworthy Minister. 
 
 But no decisive step was taken ; no ordinances or regu- 
 lations were imposed upon the Eajah ; the Governor of 
 Madras took his leave, and the Eajah was once more left to 
 his own devices. The result was what might have been 
 confidently predicted. After the Eajah's triumphant suc- 
 cess in staving off interference in 1814, it may be easily 
 understood that he was even less amenable to advice in 
 1825, and that the faults of his administration had by that 
 time become of such a nature as could not be cured by the 
 mere repetition of remonstrances, unaccompanied by a de- 
 cisive arid authoritative plan of reform. Those who flat- 
 tered and fleeced the young Prince considered the Governor's 
 inaction to have conferred upon them a fresh lease and a 
 new license. Matters went on from bad to worse. 
 
 But even in the midst of administrative negligence, the 
 Eajah's fidelity to the British Government was still conspi- 
 cuous. The Marquis of Hastings, in an autograph Despatch 
 to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, dated 
 llth July, 1825, finds great fault with the treatment which 
 the Eajah had experienced from the Madras Government, 
 and in prescribing a more generous policy, states that his 
 Highness had performed good and loyal service : " This 
 policy," he says, "I have wished to see extended to the 
 Court of Mysore ; and I have now augmented motives for 
 the solicitude, in my sense of what is due to the Eajah for 
 very zealous and efficient assistance contributed by him 
 during the late military operations/'* 
 
 The crisis rapidly advanced after Sir Thomas Munro's 
 abortive visit. The vast hoards of Poorniah's administra- 
 tion had entirely disappeared. Funds were wanted to sus- 
 tain the extravagant scale of expenditure that had become 
 habitual ; while the revenue was actually declining, and 
 remissions rather than exactions were urgently required. 
 
 The condition of the country gradually and steadily dete- 
 
 * Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 34. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CHAPTER II. 
 
 riorated ; distress and dissatisfaction began to prevail. The 
 Resident's counsel and support were withdrawn. Vague 
 rumours of the expectant and passive hostility of the 
 Madras Government spread over the Principality, and mainly 
 contributed to promote the subsequent insurrection. The 
 North- Western province of Nuggur was in open rebellion 
 in the year 1830, and the disturbances spread to other parts 
 of the country. British troops promptly quelled the revolt ; 
 but Sir Thomas Munro, who had died at his post as Gover- 
 nor of Madras three years before, had left on record his 
 firm convictions that no good could come of the adminis- 
 tration of a Prince, against whose original elevation he had 
 protested. The strongly expressed opinion of such a man, 
 whose memory had been recently honoured with an official 
 canonisation, and whose views now appeared as fulfilled pre- 
 dictions, was irresistible, when used by his successor to 
 support his own proposal of superseding the Rajah's au- 
 thority. Accordingly, Lord William Bentinck, who had 
 become Governor-General of India in 1828, acting on the 
 exaggerated representations of the Madras Government, 
 despatched to the Rajah an intimation, couched in terms of 
 great severity, that, under the provisions of the Treaty of 
 1799, the British Government had determined to take into 
 its own hands the management of Mysore.* The letter, 
 dated the 7th of September, 1831, was delivered by the 
 British Resident. His Highness surrendered his authority 
 without any altercation or resistance, and two Commissioners 
 appointed by the Madras Government were at once put in 
 charge of all the departments of the State ; a Resident con- 
 tinuing, as before, to maintain at the Rajah's Court the 
 semblance of diplomatic relations between the two Sovereign 
 Powers. 
 
 That the eventful restoration of the country was intended 
 from the first by Lord William Bentinck, appears clearly, 
 both from his letter to the Rajah, in which he terms the 
 assumption of the government, " the course which the wis- 
 dom of the Marquis Wellesley established for a crisis like 
 the present ;" and also from the instructions given by him 
 to the Governor of Madras, that under the two Commis- 
 
 * Appendix C. 
 
MYSORE FROM 179.9 TO 1856. 21 
 
 sioners whom he originally appointed, "the agency should 
 be exclusively native : indeed that the existing native in- 
 stitutions should be carefully maintained/' And the Governor 
 General seems very soon to have perceived how little had 
 hitherto been done on our side to instruct and guide the 
 young ruler, and to avert the disorder in his affairs, for 
 early in 1832 he took the step that had been so strongly 
 urged by Sir Arthur Wellesley in 1804, relieved the Madras 
 Government from further interference in the administration 
 of Mysore, and placed it under the direct superintendence 
 of the Governor- General in Council. Lord William Bentinck 
 also appointed a Special Committee of four eminent officials,* 
 to inquire generally into the state of Mysore. 
 
 The summary substitution of direct British management 
 was a somewhat harsh remedy for any administrative abuses, 
 when the Treaty gave us the power of dictating and en- 
 forcing the acceptance of such " ordinances" as might have 
 removed all cause of offence. 
 
 But it must also be remarked that, according to the strict 
 letter of the Treaty (Article IV), neither objections on our 
 part to the Bajah's domestic policy, nor the occurrence of a 
 revolt in his dominions, afforded sufficient grounds for even 
 his temporary supersession, unless the payment of our Sub- 
 sidy were endangered. Eeasonable anxiety for the instal- 
 ments of annual tribute, was the only cause laid down that 
 could sanction our interference, whether by imposing ordi- 
 nances, or by the open attachment of districts. 
 
 And it must be further remarked that, according to the 
 strict letter of the Treaty (Article IV), when it should be 
 thought necessary to have recourse to this extreme measure, 
 we had no right to attach the whole of Mysore, but only 
 " such part or parts" as should be required to render the 
 funds of the State " efficient and available either in time of 
 peace or war."j" 
 
 * Generals Hawker and Morrison, Mr. John Macleod, and Lieut.- Colonel 
 Cubbon, afterwards for twenty-five years Commissioner of Mysore. 
 
 t The whole Article stands as follows : " And whereas it is indispensably 
 necessary that effectual and lasting security should be provided against any 
 failure in the fund destined to defray either the expenses of the permanent 
 military force in time of peace, or the extraordinary expenses described in the 
 third Article of the present Treaty, it is hereby stipulated and agreed between 
 the contracting parties, that whenever the Governor- General in Council shall 
 
22 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Nor did these difficulties long escape the observation of 
 Lord William Bentinck. In a despatch to the Secret Com- 
 mittee of the Court of Directors, dated the 14th of April, 
 1834, he writes as follows : 
 
 " By the adoption of the arrangement which I advocate, certain 
 doubts will be removed which I cannot help entertaining, both 
 as to the legality and the justice, according to a strict interpre- 
 tation, of the course that has been pursued. The Treaty warrants 
 an assumption of the country with a view to secure the payment 
 of our Subsidy. The assumption was actually made on account 
 of the Rajah's misgovernment. The Subsidy does not appear to 
 have been in any immediate jeopardy. Again the Treaty au- 
 thorises us to assume such part or parts of the country as may 
 be necessary to render the funds which we claim efficient and 
 available. The whole has been assumed, although a part would 
 unquestionably have sufficed for the purpose specified in the 
 Treaty j and with regard to the justice of the case, I cannot but 
 think that it would have been more fair towards the Rajah had a 
 more distinct and positive warning been given him that the de- 
 cided measure since adopted, would be put in force, if misgovern- 
 ment should be found to prevail." 
 
 The arrangements which Lord William Bentinck advo- 
 cated in this despatch were, that the three districts of 
 Nuggur, Chitteldroog, and Bangalore yielding an annual 
 revenue equal to the permanent claims of our Government 
 for the Subsidy, pensions, and the body of Horse which the 
 Mysore State was bound by Treaty to maintain should be 
 ceded to the Company, and that the remaining three dis- 
 tricts of Mysore, Ashtagram, and Munjeerabad, should be 
 restored to the Rajah's direct rule. 
 
 By this time Lord William Bentinck had begun to per- 
 ceive, that the unqualified denunciations which had induced 
 him to shelve the Rajah, were by no means corroborated by 
 the detailed information laid before him by the Special 
 
 have reason to apprehend such failure in the funds so destined, the said Gover- 
 nor-General in Council shall be at liberty, and shall have full power and right, 
 either to introduce such regulations and ordinances as he shall deem expedient 
 for the internal management and collection of the revenues, or for the better 
 ordering of any other branch and department of the Government of Mysore, 
 or to assume and bring under the direct management of the servants of the 
 said Company Bahadoor, such part or parts of the territorial possessions of his 
 Highness Maharajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Bahadoor, as shall appear 
 to him, the said Governor-General in Council, necessary to render the said 
 funds efficient and available, either in time of peace or war." Appendix B. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 23 
 
 Committee of Inquiry. He felt that he had been de- 
 ceived and misled. He acknowledged his error, and he 
 regretted it to the last hour of his life. It is well known 
 that after his return to England, he repeatedly declared that 
 the supersession of the Eajah of Mysore was the only inci- 
 dent in his Indian administration that he looked back upon 
 with sorrow. In the early part of 1834 Lord William 
 visited Mysore, received the Report, which is dated 12th 
 December, 1833, from the hands of the Special Committee, 
 and had more than one interview with the Rajah. His 
 Highness implored the Governor-General to have pity on 
 his fallen condition, and especially challenged the closest 
 research into his own private conduct, and into the personal 
 share he had taken in the executive duties of the Princi- 
 pality. 
 
 That the effect produced upon the Governor-General's 
 mind by his own local investigation, as well as by the Re- 
 port of the Special Committee, was not altogether unfavour- 
 able to the Rajah, is manifest, not only from his having im- 
 mediately addressed, from Mysore, that despatch to the 
 Secret Committee, already quoted, in which he recommends 
 the Rajah's restoration to a more limited sphere of power, 
 but more clearly and explicitly from the following expres- 
 sions occurring in that same despatch : 
 
 " It is admitted by every one who has had an opportunity of 
 observing the character of the Rajah, that he is in the highest 
 degree intelligent and sensible. His disposition is described to 
 be the reverse of tyrannical or cruel, and I can have little doubt, 
 from the manner in which he has conducted himself in his present 
 adverse circumstances, that he would not neglect to bring his 
 good qualities into active operation, and to show that he had not 
 failed to benefit by the lessons of experience. But lest this hope 
 should be disappointed, the means ought undoubtedly to be re- 
 tained in our own hands of guarding against the evil conse- 
 quences of his misgovernment. The personal character of the 
 Rajah has, I confess, materially weighed with me in recommending 
 the measure above alluded to. I believe he will make a good 
 ruler in future, and I am certain that, whatever may have been 
 his past errors, he has never forgotten his obligations and his 
 duties to the Company's Government." 
 
 The first attachment of the country by Lord William 
 Bentmck was not justified either absolutely by the terms of 
 
24 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 the Treaty, or morally by any special urgency of outraged 
 humanity, or of danger to the tranquillity of our own adja- 
 cent provinces. The first point, that of the mere abstract 
 illegality, according to the letter of the Treaty, of suspend- 
 ing the Rajah's authority, appears to be proved by Lord 
 William's own subsequent admissions that while the Treaty 
 only warranted an assumption with a view to secure our 
 Subsidy, " the Subsidy does not appear to have been in any 
 immediate jeopardy ;" that whereas the Treaty only war- 
 ranted the assumption of such " part or parts" as should be 
 sufficient to secure the payment of our demands, we actually 
 assumed charge of the whole country. 
 
 The truth is that the case in favour of the Rajah, and 
 against the hasty assumption of his country, is much stronger 
 than would appear from Lord William Bentinck's frank ac- 
 knowledgment. He says that the Subsidy was not " in im- 
 mediate jeopardy"; but he was not aware of the fact that 
 it had never been in arrears for a day. His Lordship, 
 writing to the Rajah on the 7th of September, 1831, to give 
 formal notice of the step about to be taken, and under the 
 influence of the highly coloured reports of the Madras 
 Government, asserted that " the Subsidy due to the British 
 Government had not been paid monthly according to the 
 Treaty of 8th July, 1799." The fact is that the Subsidy 
 had been always paid with the utmost punctuality, and that 
 not a single instalment was due at the date of the Governor- 
 General's letter. The monthly receipts of the British au- 
 thorities, carefully preserved at Mysore, testify to the unin- 
 tentional inaccuracy of Lord William Bentinck's accusation, 
 and prove, moreover, that payments in advance to the 
 amount of 210,648 Canteroy Pagodas (about seven lakhs 
 of rupees, or 70,000) had actually been made, when 
 the management of the Mysore Territories was assumed 
 by the British Commissioners on the 18th of October, 
 1831. 
 
 Thus the grounds alleged for the original attachment of 
 the country are not only unsustainable by the terms of the 
 Treaty, but are found to be even more opposed to truth than 
 Lord William Bentinck was ever made aware. 
 
 But we must now inquire whether any special urgency of 
 outraged humanity, or of danger to the tranquillity of ad- 
 
MYSORE FKOM 1799 TO 1856. 25 
 
 jacent British provinces, can have morally justified the 
 supersession of the Eajah. Lord William Bentinck, though 
 quoting only the 4th and 5th Articles of the Treaty, and 
 basing his intervention on their provisions, and on that 
 apprehension for the Subsidy which he afterwards allowed 
 to have been unfounded, proceeds in the second portion of 
 his letter to the Eajah of the 7th September, 1831, to 
 denounce the general mismanagement of Mysore as the 
 exciting cause of the rebellion ; declares that in the suppres- 
 sion of the outbreak " the greatest excesses were committed 
 and unparalleled cruelties were inflicted by" his " Highnesses 
 officers ;" and asserts that " from a regard to the obligations 
 of the protective character which the British Government 
 holds towards the State of Mysore," it was "imperiously 
 called upon to supply an immediate and complete remedy, 
 to vindicate its own character for justice," and " to interfere 
 for the preservation of the State, and to save the various 
 interests at stake from ruin." 
 
 And we may well concede the broadest scope to the 
 action of the Protective Power : we may allow of its co- 
 ercive intervention to check flagrant abuses and savage 
 atrocities, even though the insecurity of the Subsidy, the 
 only pretext explicitly supplied by the Treaty, should be a 
 very distant and doubtful contingency. But the grounds 
 of any such extraordinary intervention ought to be very 
 solid and very sure ; and it ought not to be enforced 
 to a greater degree, nor for a greater time than neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Lord William Bentinck's sweeping administrative seques- 
 tration was justified by no such conditions. The grounds 
 of his action were not solid or sure, but fell to pieces on 
 close inspection. The Special Committee, in their Report 
 of the 12th December, 1833, undoubtedly condemn the 
 Eajah's misrule, but they include in their censure the period 
 of Poorniah's administration, and with the exception of a 
 profuse expenditure neither an unpopular nor an unpro- 
 fitable fault for Mysore, no new charge is brought against 
 the Prince. 
 
 The Committee declare that the assessment all over the 
 country had been screwed up by Poorniah to a height at 
 which it could not have been maintained for many years 
 
26 CHAPTER II. 
 
 longer ; and that the decline of the revenue since the 
 Minister's dismissal had not " been caused entirely by mis- 
 government," but was " partly attributable to causes which 
 were beyond the control of the Rajah's administration." 
 They also observe that at the same time, and for the same 
 assigned cause, viz., oppressive taxation, there was an insur- 
 rection in the adjacent British district of Canara, where the 
 assessment of the land revenue was much higher than that 
 prevailing in Mysore. 
 
 The Committee also explain that the rebellion in Nuggur 
 was not a popular rising caused by intolerable tyranny, but 
 was chiefly the work of an ambitious pretender to a large 
 feudal estate, aided by some of the disaffected landholders 
 of the Provinces whose predatory habits and separate ju- 
 risdiction had been recently checked and limited, by British 
 insurgents who flocked to the rebel standard from the pro- 
 vince of Canara and the Southern Mahratta country, and by 
 the intrigues of an influential Brahmin family at Mysore, 
 whose oppressive and corrupt practices were then under 
 investigation, and who hoped to evade inquiry amid the 
 turmoil of an insurrection. 
 
 And the Commissioners draw attention to the very 
 remarkable delusion, universally prevalent at the time 
 throughout Mysore, a firm belief that the British Govern- 
 ment was in favour of the insurgents, and would not support 
 the Rajah's authority. It would be impossible to account 
 for these vague rumours, which unquestionably promoted 
 the uprising and fostered its growth, if we did not know 
 with what jealous and greedy eyes the Mysore administra- 
 tion had, from the first, been watched from Madras ; how 
 the Rajah had been in turn neglected, encouraged to resist 
 interference, and calumniated by the very officials who 
 ought to have guided and protected him. 
 
 Indeed without this knowledge it would be difficult to 
 imagine any sufficient exciting cause for the severe measures 
 against the Rajah adopted by the Supreme Government. 
 The mere fact of a local insurrection having broken out, 
 does not seem to justify the immediate degradation of the 
 Sovereign, nor does the mere fact of British troops having 
 been employed to quell that insurrection. We were bound 
 to employ that military force, which was amply subsidised 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 27 
 
 by the Eajah, for the maintenance of his rule, and for the 
 suppression of public disorder.* 
 
 And so far from " the greatest excesses and unparalleled 
 cruelties" having been perpetrated by his Highness's officers, 
 it is the fact a fact that can be proved by unimpeachable 
 living testimony as well as by official documents, that the 
 greatest severities by which the suppression of the revolt 
 was signalised, were inflicted by British officers, without the 
 sanction or knowledge of the Kajah, and to his great horror 
 and indignation when they were subsequently brought to 
 his notice. 
 
 It is therefore quite clear that both the legal and the 
 moral justification advanced by Lord William Bentinck 
 breaks down on careful examination. It is certain, and is 
 indeed admitted by his Lordship, that if he had known the 
 true history and position of the case, as detailed in the 
 Eeport of the Special Committee, he would never have 
 suspended the Eajah's authority, but would have resorted to 
 milder measures of reform. 
 
 In March, 1835, Lord William Bentinck left India, and 
 Sir Charles (afterwards Lord) Metcalfe succeeded provi- 
 sionally to the office of Governor General, which he held 
 for a year. Shortly after his accession to the Government, 
 he addressed a letter to the Rajah of Mysore, dated the 6th 
 of April, 1835, in reply to one received from his Highness, 
 in which the following passage occurs : 
 
 " My Friend, you appear to be disappointed because the ex- 
 pectation held out to you by his Lordship, that the resolution 
 relative to the affairs of Mysore would reach this country from 
 England by the close of the past year, has not been fulfilled ; but 
 you will readily admit that the realisation of this expectation 
 depended upon circumstances wholly beyond his Lordship's con- 
 trol. I sincerely hope, however, that your mind will not be kept 
 much longer in a state of suspense, and that the decision of the 
 Home Authorities may be conformable with your inclination." 
 
 * Article X of the Subsidiary Treaty provides that " in case it shall become 
 necessary, for enforcing and maintaining the authority of his Highness in the 
 territories now subjected to his power, that the regular troops of the English 
 East Jndia Company Bahadoor should be employed, it is stipulated and agreed, 
 that upon formal application being made for the service of the said troops, 
 they shall be employed in such manner as to the said Company shall seem fit." 
 Appendix B. 
 
28 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Lord Metcalfe decidedly favoured the reestablishment of 
 the Hindoo Sovereign's authority ; and his deliberately re- 
 corded opinion is extant that the supersession of the Eajah 
 of Mysore was a "harsh and unprovoked" measure. 
 
 Sir William Macnaghten also, when Foreign Secretary 
 at Calcutta at this period, wrote as follows : " My opinion 
 has always been that his Highness" (the Eajah of Mysore) 
 " has been visited with undue severity, and I shall be very 
 glad to see a portion of his country restored to him."* 
 
 At last the reply to Lord William Bentinck's despatch of 
 the 14th of April, 1834, arrived from England. The Court 
 of Directors, in their letter, No. 45 of the 25th of Sep- 
 tember, 1835, distinctly declare their intention of retaining 
 the charge of Mysore only for the specific and temporary 
 purpose of establishing " a fair assessment upon the ryots, 
 with security against further exaction, and a satisfactory 
 system for the administration of justice." They object 
 entirely to tarnish the prospective reinstatement of a 
 Prince who " had ever been," as they observe, " the attached 
 friend of the British Government/' by even that limited 
 project of partition recommended by Lord William Ben- 
 tin ck. They object to the division of a State, the separate 
 integrity of which was guaranteed by the Treaty with the 
 Nizam. The doctrines of annexation were not yet in vogue. 
 
 After alluding to the extravagance which had been one 
 main cause of the Rajah's difficulties, the Directors go on 
 to say : 
 
 " We would not willingly, after having assumed the powers of 
 government, place the inhabitants of any portion of the territory, 
 however small, under the absolute dominion of such a ruler, until 
 we had established a system which would afford security against 
 the vices of his character, till we had secured protection to the 
 people against extortion, and afforded them the means for a legal 
 redress lor their injuries; and if this desirable end can be at- 
 tained, the same reasons which served to recommend the restora- 
 tion to the Rajah of a portion of the country, will, in our opinion 
 recommend the restoration of the whole. " 
 
 They advert to " the deferred and future possession of 
 the whole Kingdom" by his Highness, t and in giving their 
 
 * The original of this letter is in India. 
 t Mysore Tapers, 1866, p. 23. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 29 
 
 general suggestions as to the form and principles of the 
 government to be constructed, they say : 
 
 "We are desirous of adhering, as far as can be done, to the 
 native usages, and not to introduce a system which cannot be 
 worked hereafter by native agency when the country shall be 
 restored to the Rajah." 
 
 It now became necessary to inform the Eajah that he 
 was not to expect the immediate restoration of any part of 
 his country; and, accordingly, in a letter dated the 28th 
 March, 1836, the new Governor General, Lord Auckland, 
 thus alludes to the instructions that had been issued by the 
 Court of Directors : 
 
 ff l hasten to announce to you that the propositions of Lord 
 William Bentinck, of which you were informed by his Lordship's 
 letter of the 14th May, 1834, have received the most attentive 
 consideration from the authorities in England, who have now 
 directed me to communicate to you their decision in regard to 
 them. 
 
 " The Honourable the Court of Directors have signified their 
 commands that the administration of your Highnesses territories 
 shall remain on its present footing until the arrangements for 
 their good government shall have been so firmly established as 
 to be secure from future disturbance." 
 
 In reporting the delivery of the Governor General's 
 letter, the Kesident at Mysore, in a despatch dated the 5th 
 May, 1836, observed : 
 
 <t With reference to that portion of his Lordship's letter which 
 states that the administration in Mysore is to remain on its pre- 
 sent footing until the arrangements for its good government shall 
 have been so firmly established as to be secure from future dis- 
 turbance, his Highness asked who was to be the judge of when 
 this period had arrived ? Were the reports of the officers em- 
 ployed in the Commission to be the guide to the Government, 
 of those whose employment would be lost by the re-transfer of 
 the country ? And he concluded this subject by asking how 
 many years I thought it likely would be deemed by Government 
 as sufficient to afford just ground for confidence that salutary 
 rules and safeguards had been matured and confirmed by practice, 
 and when I thought it likely he might look to receiving back the 
 management of his country." 
 
 These proceedings were duly reported to the Court of 
 Directors on the 31st of October, 1836, but in their reply, 
 
30 CHAPTER II. 
 
 No. 20, dated the 20th of September, 1837, the Court gave 
 no instructions as to the restoration of the territory. But 
 that it still continued to be their intention to retain the 
 direct management only as a temporary measure, is appa- 
 rent from a despatch of the Court of Directors, No. 20, 
 dated the 30th of October, 1839, in which they review 
 the course taken for organising the administration of 
 Mysore : 
 
 " We think it unfortunate that a country like Mysore, which 
 has so recently come under our management, which we had it in 
 view ultimately to restore to a native Government, and for that 
 reason avoided any innovations inconsistent with the maxims and 
 practices of the best native Governments, should have been made 
 the subject of an experiment so embarrassing/' 
 
 When the Commission for the Government of Mysore 
 was established in 1832, Lord William Bentinck deter- 
 mined that the machinery of the administration should be 
 that of a native agency, and that " the existing native in- 
 stitutions should be carefully maintained." Two joint Com- 
 missioners were originally appointed, but they did not 
 w T ork together harmoniously; and on the 5th of June, 1834, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Cubbon (afterwards General Sir Mark 
 Cubbon, K.C.B.), was appointed sole Commissioner, with 
 very large discretionary powers. And while the entire 
 fabric of native institutions was for many years preserved 
 in outline, the original plan of governing by " an exclu- 
 sively native agency," was very soon abandoned as im- 
 practicable, and English officers were introduced into all 
 the higher appointments. And though General Cubbon, 
 with all his great abilities, was not in any respect a man of 
 broad and liberal mind, was of the stiffest school with 
 regard to distinctions of race and social rank, and was no 
 friend to educated natives, it must not be overlooked that 
 in the earlier stage of his operations there was an influence 
 at work, which rendered the exclusive employment of 
 native agency, especially of the old incumbents, almost 
 impossible, the opposing influence of the Eajah and his 
 adherents throughout the country. Every innovation ap- 
 peared to them to be a new turn of the screw, securing the 
 English occupation, and making the restoration of the 
 Rajah's authority more difficult and more unlikely. And, 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 31 
 
 as we have just seen, the Court of Directors in London had 
 themselves started the same class of objections. But the 
 Rajah had an auxiliary more near at hand in the person of 
 the Resident, Major (afterwards Major-General) Stokes, 
 who, in his despatches to Government, gave a general sup- 
 port to all his Highnesses demands. Between the Commis- 
 sioner, one of Sir Thomas Munro's disciples, and the Resi- 
 dent, a friend and pupil of Lord Metcalfe, there was a 
 complete antagonism of opinions and feelings. Their long 
 continued official disputes were terminated in favour of 
 General Cubbon in 1843, when Lord Ellenborough was 
 Governor General, by the post of Resident being abolished. 
 This was at first felt by the Rajah as a great blow, but he 
 learned to acquiesce in its expediency. On the removal of 
 the concurrent authority from his Court, the Rajah was 
 brought into closer relations and more frequent communi- 
 cation with the Commissioner, and they soon came to un- 
 derstand each other better. The great advantages arising 
 from General Cubbon's excellent administration, began to 
 manifest themselves about this time, in the increased revenue 
 and trade of the country. In December, 1847, the General 
 finally reported to Government that the differences between 
 himself and the Rajah were at an end ; and henceforth they 
 continued to be on the most friendly terms. 
 
 Sir Frederick Currie, Member of the Council of India, in 
 his Minute dated the 17th July, 1863, says: "I dissent 
 from the introduction of Sir M. Cubbon's statements about 
 the Rajah's conduct and character, made upwards of sixteen 
 years ago, as a pretext for the measure which this despatch 
 adopts, when it is known, and is on record, that for very 
 many years past the estimate of Sir M. Cubbon of the 
 Rajah's character has undergone a complete change, and 
 that he has on many occasions taken the opportunity of 
 writing in high terms of praise of the Maharajah/'* 
 
 The Rajah again brought forward his claim to the resto- 
 ration of the country in a khureeta, or royal letter, to the 
 Governor General, Lord Hardinge, dated the 15th day of 
 February, 1844, in which, referring to certain measures 
 that were in preparation for the payment of his debts, he 
 said : 
 
 * Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 24. 
 
32 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " When, in consequence of the mismanagement of treacherous 
 hirelings, and the influence of their evil counsels, the resources 
 of my country were found inadequate to defray its expenses; 
 when those financial embarrassments gave rise to many internal 
 disquiets, the British Government, to whom I was previously in- 
 debted for the restoration of my throne and Kingdom, could not 
 remain indifferent spectators of this state of things : they inter- 
 posed, not to wrest the country from my hands, but to heal it of 
 its disorders, and return it to me in a healthy state. But as its 
 principal disease, from which, as a common source, all its other 
 evils engendered, was its involved condition, I saw the accom- 
 plishment of two distinct objects, namely, its restoration to a 
 prosperous state, and when thus restored, the approximation of 
 the prospect to myself of once more ruling my own country, that 
 hereditary patrimony bequeathed to me by my Sires, the Sove- 
 reigns of the soil, and the perpetuation of which has been gua- 
 ranteed for me by the Honourable Company, but of which I have 
 been deprived for the long space of twelve years, in consequence 
 of my misplaced confidence in unworthy hirelings. Hence, my 
 Lord, this desire on my part for the speedy liquidation of the 
 public debts of my country." 
 
 In another letter, dated the 10th of April 1844, his High- 
 ness thus pleads his cause : 
 
 " I am now in the fifty-first year of my age ; I have been re- 
 lieved from the government of my own country for the last 
 twelve years for my misplaced confidence in unworthy servants ; 
 these twelve years have been to me a season of the severest trials 
 and afflictions ; in this school of adversity I have acquired lessons 
 of true wisdom, which remain legibly inscribed upon my heart 
 by the fearful finger of experience; and thus initiated and in- 
 structed, I am anxious to approach your Lordship as the Governor- 
 General of India, and by consequence my Patron and Protector, 
 seeking, through your Lordship, the restoration to me of the 
 government of my own country, of which I have been tem- 
 porarily relieved." 
 
 About this time the Eajah's importunate applications, and 
 the rumours of their probable success, excited so restless a 
 spirit throughout Mysore, that it was officially suggested to 
 the Supreme Government to remove his Highness from his 
 own country, and place him in the Fort of Vellore, in a 
 position little removed from that of a state-prisoner. This 
 cruel proposition was totally disapproved by Lord Har- 
 dinge ; but before it had been negatived at Calcutta it had 
 reached the Eajah's ears, and in an indignant letter to the 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 33 
 
 Governor-General, dated the 9th of May 1844, referring to 
 the Treaty of 1799, and protesting against his removal 
 from Mysore, he writes as follows : 
 
 ' ' From these provisions your Lordship will perceive that the 
 British. Government reserved to itself the right, under certain 
 circumstances, to bring under the direct management of the ser- 
 vants of the Company Bahadoor, ' part or parts' of my country., 
 &c. ; but nothing is said about the power to remove me from the 
 country. At the time of the assumption, my Lord, I did not 
 solicit the trial of any mitigated measures of reform, but I readily 
 consented to the extreme one of the assumption of my country ; 
 nor did I, my Lord, claim the privilege of ceding only ' part or 
 parts' of it, but I as readily yielded the whole. Thus, my Lord, 
 have I conducted myself with grateful submission to the British 
 Government, impressed by a lively sense of the obligations 
 conferred by them in the original restoration to me of my country, 
 in the full belief that, in the words of my Treaty, the British 
 Government will act towards me and my heirs, even ' as long as 
 the sun and moon shall endure/ as my Guardian and Patron ; and 
 in the most anxious hope that they will, after making the neces- 
 sary arrangements for my future prosperity, return my country 
 to me, whole and entire, as I had committed it to their care." 
 
 A formal application for the restoration of his territory 
 was addressed by the Eajah to the Governor-General, Lord 
 Hardinge, on the 7th of September 1844. On the 7th of 
 June 1845, the Maharajah wrote to complain that no reply 
 had been made to his last letter, and after defending his 
 character from misrepresentations, he observed : 
 
 " I can call on those who now best know me to say whether at 
 this moment I am not, as to mental and physical vigour, as 
 capable of governing my country as any man of fifty years of 
 age in India. I am not aware that it has been attempted to show 
 that any other reason exists sufficient to render null the Honour- 
 able Company's Treaty with me, or to justify the withholding 
 from me now the government of my country." 
 
 " I believe I could it make it plain that the assumption of the 
 government of my country by Lord William Bentinck, was a 
 measure both unnecessary and uncalled for by the exigencies of 
 the time, not to speak of its being unjustified by the Treaty ex- 
 isting between the Honourable Company and myself. Disturb- 
 ances there were in some districts of the country, but do not dis- 
 turbances occur in portions of the Company's country without 
 any blame being imputed to the governing authority ? I had 
 contracted debts, it is true ; but what were they in proportion to 
 
 D 
 
34 CHAPTER II. 
 
 the revenue of my country? And have not the best and most 
 upright Governments in the world debts ?" 
 
 In another part of this letter the Eajah admits his early 
 extravagance and the mismanagement of public affairs, but 
 asks if this is any reason that he should be " disinherited 
 for ever." 
 
 " I appeal/' he says, " to the Treaty existing between the Go- 
 vernment and myself, that Treaty which I have never violated in 
 the slightest particular or degree, and which I am sure your Ex- 
 cellency will consider the Government bound in honour to abide 
 by. I have received repeated assurances from Governors-General 
 that the British Government will do me justice. I ask no more, 
 but, as human life is limited, I earnestly entreat that justice 
 may be deferred no longer. It is more than nine years since 
 Lord Auckland gave me a hope that, a short time longer being 
 then necessary to perfect the measures in progress for the better 
 ordering of my country, it would be returned to me ; but more than 
 nine years have passed away, and, so far as I am acquainted, no 
 steps have been taken to fulfil this promise/ 4 
 
 1 f It may, and I daresay will be said that neither the debt of 
 the country nor what are considered my own private debts, are 
 yet paid, and therefore I should not yet think of asking for the 
 government of the country to be restored to me. Your Excel- 
 lency will not consider that man a bankrupt, or that country in a 
 bad state, whose debt is not much more than one-third of his or 
 its income for a year, not to mention that there are funds accu- 
 mulated in the Treasury nearly enough to clear it ; and as to the 
 latter, my private funds are much more than sufficient to pay 
 them off. And I could easily prove what your Excellency will, 
 I doubt not, readily believe, that were the government in my 
 hands during the last thirteen years, under any salutary regula- 
 tions the Governor General might have thought fit to impose, 
 and which I was bound by the Treaty to regard, all debts of 
 every description would have long ere this been paid, considering 
 only the difference, perhaps necessary, between the expenses of 
 European and native administration." 
 
 No reply was sent to the Eajah's letter ; but Lord Har- 
 dinge, who, it is understood, had begun, after a careful ex- 
 amination of the case, to entertain grave misgivings as to 
 our right of retaining the administrative charge of the 
 country, called upon the Commissioner of Mysore for a 
 return of the exact amount of the Mysore public debt ; 
 and, on the required information being furnished, all these 
 proceedings were reported to the Court of Directors in a 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 35 
 
 despatch, No. 22, dated the 6th of August 1846, the pur- 
 port of which was to express a doubt whether we ought to 
 keep possession of the Eajah's dominions after our pecu- 
 niary claims were satisfied, and when there was no longer 
 any cause for anxiety as to the regular payment of the 
 Subsidy.* 
 
 We have seen, then, that from 1834 to 1847 the Eajah 
 never ceased to claim his restoration ; that three Governors 
 General Lord William Bentinck, Sir Charles Metcalfe, and 
 Lord Hardinge admitted that his abrupt supersession was 
 inconsiderate, unduly severe, and of doubtful legality ; that 
 neither the Supreme Government nor the Home Authori- 
 ties ever rejected or contested his claim, but only postponed 
 their assent to a more convenient season, placing before 
 him the prospect of reinstatement as soon as an orderly 
 administration for the country had been effectually estab- 
 lished. And I may add, that in no despatch of the Home 
 Government, or of the Government of India, during that 
 period, was any intention of permanently retaining the 
 management of Mysore ever expressed or implied. But 
 new views of policy were now beginning to prevail ; the 
 Mysore Commission, under the able direction of General 
 Cubbon, had effected great improvements in the twelve 
 years between 1834 and 1846 ; the authorities, both at 
 Calcutta and in London, began to be enamoured of their 
 own achievements ; and the lust of patronage also lured 
 them on to tighten their grasp on Mysore. The appoint- 
 ments in the Mysore Commission were among those most 
 coveted by young officers in the Army, and the idea of not 
 merely being unable to provide for the candidates already 
 on the Governor-General's list, but of having to turn adrift, 
 or remand to regimental duty, all those gentlemen actually 
 in the enjoyment of those lucrative offices, must have been 
 most unpleasant when pressed upon the consideration of 
 the Council and the Secretariat by the Eajah's repeated 
 claims for his restoration. Nor could the Commissioner 
 and his Assistants be expected to under-estimate the value 
 of their own labours, or to advocate their own abolition. 
 The Eajah himself very naturally foresaw this obstacle 
 
 * I have not seen this despatch, but I am assured that its effect is as above 
 stated. 
 
 D2 
 
36 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 when, as we have seen, he asked the Eesident, in 1836, 
 "who was to be the judge" of the period when the "good 
 government" of Mysore "should have been so firmly esta- 
 blished as to be secure from future disturbance ? Were 
 the reports of the officers employed in the Commission to 
 be the guide to the Government the reports of those 
 whose employment would be lost by the re-transfer of the 
 country T'* 
 
 The views, therefore, of Lord Hardinge, expressed in the 
 despatch No. 22 of the 6th August 1846, not being in ac- 
 cordance with those that were generally accepted both in 
 Calcutta and in London, were by no means well received 
 at the India House. In their reply to it, No. 15, dated the 
 14th of July, 1847, after ten months' consideration, the 
 Directors observe : 
 
 ' ' The Rajah addressed a letter to the Governor-General in June, 
 1845, claiming to be reinstated in the government. In November 
 following the Rajah was informed that the reply to his letter was 
 delayed in consequence of the necessity of ascertaining the exact 
 amount of the debt due to the British Government. We think 
 this a most insufficient cause of delay; first, because the most 
 exact information on this point ought to have been at once access- 
 ible ; and, secondly, because such an intimation would naturally 
 tend to make the Rajah believe that the only or the chief obstacle 
 to this reinstatement was the non-liquidation of the debt. The 
 real hindrance, however, is the hazard which would be incurred 
 to the prosperity and good government which the country now 
 enjoys, by replacing it under a ruler known by experience to be 
 thoroughly incompetent." 
 
 Unfavourable as is the tenor of this despatch, it is re- 
 markable as containing no positive denial of the Rajah's 
 rights, no absolute refusal to consider some plan for his 
 restoration to power under adequate securities. His alleged 
 incompetence is only spoken of as an " obstacle " and " a 
 hindrance," not as a final and insurmountable objection to 
 his reinstatement. And the whole question is left open by 
 the concluding sentence : " We have not been apprised 
 whether any definite answer has yet been made to the 
 Rajah's application." No instructions for a definite answer 
 are given. No definite answer, no answer at all, was in 
 fact made to the Rajah's appeal. 
 
 * Ante, p. 24. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 37 
 
 This despatch of the 14th July 1847 may be considered 
 as marking the turning-point in the Rajah's fortunes, after 
 which the tide set in against him : it contains the first de- 
 cided indication of a simple reluctance to part with the 
 management of so rich and thriving a province, and to 
 break up the administrative system of our own construction, 
 under which the country had so signally prospered. The 
 reluctance was natural, defensible, justifiable ; but the real 
 difficulty, however disguised, was the patronage. There 
 was not sufficient sympathy with the Rajah's claims and 
 with native interests, to induce the British authorities, at 
 home and in India, to seek for some intermediate plan, by 
 which the Prince's power might for the future be limited by 
 law, and by which an efficient native hierarchy might be 
 gradually trained to replace their English instructors. It 
 has been, throughout, the official theory that the Rajah's 
 restoration must necessarily involve the total and immedi- 
 ate withdrawal of European agency a theory manifestly 
 erroneous, for ample power is conferred upon the British 
 Government by the Treaty, to introduce " regulations and 
 ordinances," and to offer authoritative advice on all subjects 
 " connected with his Highness's interests, the happiness of 
 his people, and the mutual welfare of both States." But 
 this theory was at first, I have no doubt, sincerely held ; an 
 incongruity was conceived to exist in any plan for asso- 
 ciating, even as a temporary expedient, a native Sovereign 
 and English administrators in the government of a Princi- 
 pality; and the idea of a native ruler's power being limited 
 in any direction by a Code or a Constitution, never seems 
 to have presented itself not even up to this day. The 
 complete exclusion of the Sovereign and of all natives from 
 power, the monopoly of all official honours and emoluments 
 in the hands of Englishmen, are the only conditions on 
 which our assistance has been afforded. 
 
 Somewhat perplexed by the problem of reconciling the 
 separate and native Government of Mysore under the Rajah's 
 sovereignty as designed by the Treaties of 1799 with an 
 effectual guaranty for the continuance of good order and 
 economy, somewhat averse to relinquish a valuable field of 
 patronage, and yet more than" half persuaded of there being 
 no longer any valid pretext for maintaining the sequestra- 
 
38 CHAPTER II. 
 
 tion, the Government subsided into the passive policy of 
 letting well alone, and of gaining time by harping on the 
 Kajah's incapacity. This excuse, when advanced by the 
 British Government in India, amounts to a confession of its 
 own incompetence as a protective and reforming authority. 
 That system for the government of a Principality or of a 
 Province, which depends for its success upon the personal 
 abilities and moral character of one man, is not one that 
 British statesmen in the nineteenth century could be ex- 
 pected to approve or to uphold, in. a case where they were 
 authorised to express disapproval or to suggest modifications. 
 And why such a system was allowed by us to exist for one 
 day in Mysore, why a boy of sixteen, supported by his 
 minions and flatterers, was permitted by us to displace an 
 experienced and faithful Eegent, to possess himself of abso- 
 lute power, and then to retain it uncontrolled for twenty 
 years, is a political mystery that has never been explained. 
 
 What Prince in the world is endowed with sufficient 
 talents, or with sufficient self-denial, to be safely trusted with 
 uncontrolled and absolute power 1 It seems a waste of time to 
 dwell, even for a moment, on so elementary a principle of 
 modern politics. Yet,because the Rajah of Mysore, an absolute 
 ruler at the age of sixteen, by permission of his British Guar- 
 dian,failed to make a good use of the power which never ought 
 to have been thrown into his hands, that negligent and incom- 
 petent Guardian turns round upon him, stigmatises his rule 
 as " scandalously and hopelessly bad," denounces him as 
 " thoroughly incompetent," and permanently suspends his 
 authority. 
 
 And after fifteen years of government by an able and 
 zealous Commissioner, who, in common with his Assistants, 
 is remunerated by a liberal but fixed salary, who is controlled 
 by regulations, and is responsible for every official act, and 
 for every item of expenditure, to the Governor-General in 
 Council when Mysore has prospered, as might have been 
 expected under this well-regulated scheme of administration 
 a most unfair and unreasonable comparison between the 
 two periods of native and British rule, is accepted as a full 
 and complete apology for the proscription of the Sove- 
 reign, and, as we shall shortly see, for the abolition of the 
 sovereignty. 
 

 MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 39 
 
 We may surely assume that the Eajah never was really 
 incompetent for the legitimate duties of a constitutional 
 Sovereign, when we find that Lord William Bentinck, after 
 a careful inquiry, pronounced him to be " in the highest de- 
 gree intelligent and sensible," described his disposition as 
 " the reverse of tyrannical or cruel," and expressed his belief 
 that he would " make a good ruler in future." Several suc- 
 cessive Governors-General had held out the hope to the 
 Rajah, with more or less of sympathy and encouragement, 
 that as soon as securities for good government had been 
 firmly established, he should be reinstated at the head of 
 his own administration. But in the twelve years from 1835 
 to 1847 the replies from Calcutta became less frequent, and 
 latterly their tone became less pleasant and more evasive. 
 The facts had not altered ; the merits of the case had not 
 been affected ; but the times had changed. Fifteen millions 
 sterling had been sunk in the Affghan war ; the conquest 
 of Scinde was said to have entailed a heavy burden on the 
 nances ; the Sutlej campaign had certainly cost money ; 
 annual deficit had for many years appeared in the ac- 
 counts. Distant expeditions and the advance of our ex- 
 ternal frontiers were deprecated ; but the short-sighted 
 policy of internal acquisitions began to be entertained both 
 at Calcutta and at home. The favourite plan for restoring 
 the financial equilibrium was that of gradually extinguish- 
 ing all those native States that were in the midst of or 
 contiguous to our territories. The Eajah had no sou, and 
 in 1847 he was in his fifty-fifth year. Mysore, the valuable 
 field of patronage, now began to be regarded, though in a 
 vague and furtive fashion, as Mysore the rich reversion. In 
 February 1848 Lord Dalhousie arrived in India to turn 
 these vague predilections into a predetermined policy. In 
 a letter dated the 8th of August 1848 the Eajah once more 
 addressed the Governor-General on the subject of the re- 
 storation of his territory : 
 
 "General Cubbon," he said, "in his letter to me of the 5th 
 December ] 845, informed me that the delay on the part of your 
 Excellency in replying to my khureeta of the 7th June 1845, was 
 occasioned by the absence of some information relative to the state 
 of the debts, which your Excellency had deemed it necessary to call 
 for. I trust your Lordship has received this information, and that 
 
40 CHAPTER II. 
 
 it has been satisfactory. Your Lordship will have heard from Mr. 
 Grant that all my private or the Soucar debts have been settled ; 
 and in regard to the sum due by the State to the Honourable 
 Company, should there be any deficiency in the funds accumu- 
 lated in the Commissioner's Treasury to liquidate it, I will make 
 it up, as I mentioned to your Excellency in my Jchureeta of the 
 7th September 1844, from my private funds. I trust also that 
 your Lordship will have had from the Commissioner such a 
 favourable report of the country, after fifteen years, as will satisfy 
 your Lordship of the efficacy of the arrangements made ; and 
 that there can be, in your Lordship's mind, no reason to appre- 
 hend failure of the military funds provided for by the 3rd Article 
 of the Treaty ; and that, consequently, the time has come when I 
 have a right to expect the fulfilment of the intimation given me 
 in the 5th paragraph of Lord Auckland's letter of the 28th March 
 1836, communicating the sentiments of the high authorities in 
 England as to the period at which I might expect the govern- 
 ment of my territories would be restored to myself." 
 
 No orders were passed by Lord Dalhousie on this letter, 
 and no reply was made to it. A copy of it was sent to 
 the Court of Directors with, the despatch, No. 27 of the 1st 
 of July, 1848, but their answer, No. 6, dated the 14th of 
 February, 1849, contained no allusion whatever to the 
 Eaj all's requisitions. Less than a month before the date of 
 the last mentioned communication, their despatch (No. 4, 
 dated the 24th January, 1849), approving and confirming 
 the annexation of Sattara, had been transmitted to Cal- 
 cutta.* The reign of terror for Hindoo Princes had com- 
 menced. Nagpore and Jhansi were annexed in 1854. The 
 smaller Principalities of Jaloun, Ungool, Jeitpore in Bun- 
 delcund, Bughat, Sumbhulpore, Boodawul and Chota Oodey- 
 poor were also absorbed during Lord Dalhousie's tenure of 
 office.f In 1853 the Nizam was coerced into assigning to 
 our " exclusive management" some of his finest provinces, 
 producing about a fourth of his revenue. In January 1856 
 the appropriation of Oude had been finally sanctioned, and 
 the orders for deposing the King had been issued, and were 
 in process of execution. J On the 19th of December 1855 
 
 * Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 8. 
 
 t His Lordship also proposed, on various occasions, the annexation of the 
 Rajpoot State of Kerowlee, of Kolapore (whose Bajah now represents the family 
 of Sivajee, the founder of the Mahratta power), and of Adyghur ; but these 
 were all disapproved by the Home Government. 
 
 % Oude Papers, 1856, p. 241. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 41 
 
 Lord Dalhousie recorded a Minute denying to Prince Azeem 
 Jah, the heir and representative of our faithful Allies in war 
 and peace, the Nawabs of the Carnatic, that hereditary dig- 
 nity and revenue which had been expressly secured to the 
 Wallajah family by the Treaty concluded in 1801 with the 
 Prince's own father, the Nawab Azeem-ood-Dowlah. During 
 Lord Dalhousie's administration, all the evil influences of 
 Calcutta were fully indulged, and strengthened threefold. 
 The extension or restoration of native rule was the last 
 thing thought of, and such a proposal would have been 
 treated with derision. What were Lord Dalhousie's reflec- 
 tions on Mysore, in the full tide of his territorial acquisi- 
 tions, may be easily conceived. 
 
 In one of his Minutes, dated the 16th January, 1856, re- 
 viewing General Cubbon's Administration Eeport for the 
 preceding official year, occurs the following passage : 
 
 " The Rajah of Mysore is now sixty-two years of age. He is 
 the only Rajah who, for twenty generations past, as he himself 
 informed me, has lived to the age of sixty years. It is probable, 
 therefore, that his life will not be much further prolonged. He 
 has no legitimate son or grandson, nor any lawful male heir 
 whatever. He has adopted no child, and has never designed to 
 adopt an heir. On the contrary, General Cubbon informed me 
 that, when sometimes pressed by those about him to adopt, the 
 Rajah has been used to reply, ' No, I have no male child of my 
 own. I will not adopt. I will be the last Rajah of Mysore/ 
 
 " The Treaty under which Lord Wellesley raised the Rajah, 
 while yet a child, to the musnud, and the Treaty which was sub- 
 sequently concluded with himself, were both silent as to heirs 
 and successors. No mention is made of them ; the Treaty is ex- 
 clusively a personal one. 
 
 " The inexpediency of continuing this territory, by an act of 
 gratuitous liberality, to any other native Prince, when the present 
 Rajah shall have died, has been already conclusively shown by 
 the conduct of his Highness himself, whose rule, though he com- 
 menced it under every advantage, was so scandalously and hope- 
 lessly bad, that power has long since been taken from him by the 
 British Government. 
 
 "I trust, therefore, that when the decease of the present 
 Rajah shall come to pass, without son or grandson, or legitimate 
 male heir of any description, the Territory of Mysore, which will 
 then have lapsed to the British Government, will be resumed, 
 and that the good work, which has been so well begun, will be 
 completed." 
 
42 CHAPTER II. 
 
 This Minute was one of the legacies that Lord Dalhousie 
 left behind him for the instruction and guidance of his suc- 
 cessor, Lord Canning. 
 
 We have now arrived at a new stage in' our downward 
 progress. For the first time a Governor-General has now 
 placed on official record, although in a secret department, a 
 statement of his desire and design to incorporate Mysore 
 with the British dominions, on the death of the reigning 
 Eajah. Henceforth the question of reinstating the Eajah, 
 treated with silent contempt in the Minute just quoted, 
 sinks into a secondary place. Henceforth a suspicion can- 
 not be avoided, that the true obstacle to restoration is not 
 the Eajah's incompetence, nor the impossibility of securing 
 good government, but an aversion to relax our grasp, to 
 relinquish the visible advantage afforded by long continued 
 administrative possession. 
 
 But though Lord Dalhousie avows himself to be prepared 
 to rely, if necessary, upon the newly invented weapon, which 
 he had just used with cruel effect in the Carnatic spoliation 
 to deny that the sovereignty of Mysore was hereditary, 
 to declare the Treaty of 1799 "a personal treaty," made 
 only for one life, and renewable merely at the good pleasure 
 of the British Government, as a matter of grace and favour 
 he very plainly indicates a hope that this engine of de- 
 struction may after all not be required, that the conveyance 
 may be quietly effected, without notice, dispute or scandal; 
 that the Eajah, who had now outlived by three years the 
 supposed family limit of sixty, may soon disappear from the 
 scene, leaving no heir by birth or adoption, no possible 
 claimant of the throne, to draw from us a premature or 
 public disclosure of our expansive pretensions. And it is 
 very remarkable how, in his eagerness to lay this flattering 
 unction to his soul, Lord Dalhousie snatches at the veriest 
 trifle, some petulant expressions attributed to the Eajah, 
 and parades them as a proof of that Prince's acquiescence 
 in the prospective extinction of his dynasty. The Eajah, 
 we are assured, has "never designed to adopt an heir." 
 There can be no question of this, because, when pressed by 
 those about him, he has been used to reply, "I will not 
 adopt. I will be the last Eajah of Mysore." General 
 Cubbon himself, when he repeated this interesting piece of 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 43 
 
 Court gossip probably after dinner to the Governor- 
 General, cannot have anticipated that it would be trea- 
 sured up so carefully, and turned to such a purpose. 
 There can scarcely be a better specimen of the enormous 
 assumptions, the transparent fallacies, which, in the privacy 
 of a compliant Council, Lord Dalhousie was permitted to 
 pass off as arguments, than is shown in this short extract 
 from his Minute on Mysore. A Treaty of "perpetual 
 friendship and alliance," the obligations of which are to last 
 " as long as the sun and moon shall endure,"* is pronounced 
 to be " exclusively a personal one/' good only for the Eajah's 
 life, and providing for no heir or successor. The solemn 
 formalities of a Treaty become mere idle words when they 
 uphold the native sovereignty ; the recorded intentions, the 
 written proposals of his predecessors are silently over- 
 looked I suppose because they are not legally binding 
 but the tittle-tattle of a Eesidency Moonshee, when it im- 
 plies that the Eajah is resigned and even reconciled to the 
 extinction of his family, is hailed as holy writ. 
 
 There can be, to my mind, no more evident mark of con- 
 scious moral weakness, than that exhibited by our authori- 
 ties at home and in India, with strange uniformity, at every 
 stage of the numerous acquisitive transactions between 
 1848 and 1856, in always grasping with manifest exulta- 
 tion at anything said or done, or omitted to be said or 
 done, by the injured parties, that could be twisted into even 
 the remotest resemblance of an admission or acquiescence 
 on their part. 
 
 And even if we accept as accurate the reported version 
 of the Eajah's exclamations, to what do they amount \ He 
 had watched with dismay the recent destruction of so many 
 friendly Principalities ; he had ascertained during his own 
 interviews with Lord Dalhousie, that there was no hope of 
 redress for himself, and he said in the bitterness of his 
 heart, "I shall be the last Eajah of Mysore," not "I will," 
 for the nice distinction between "shall" and "will", peculiar 
 to the Teutonic languages, was unknown in his own verna- 
 cular ; and most certainly, as I shall show, the Eajah could 
 could not and did not willingly abandon the hope of per- 
 
 * Appendix B. 
 
44 CHAPTER II. 
 
 petuating his dynasty, but "I now see clearly," was his 
 obvious meaning, " that I am doomed by the present policy 
 of the Calcutta Government to be the last Eajah of Mysore. 
 I will not, like the Kajahs of Sattara and Jhansi, adopt a 
 son to be an outcast, a beggar, a pretender threatened with 
 the gibbet or the jail, or at the best a pensioner for life. I 
 shall be the last Rajah of Mysore/' 
 
 But although it may be true that expressions such as 
 these, indicating an aversion to adopt a son whose succes- 
 sion would be assuredly forbidden, may, during the darkest 
 hours of the Dalhousie reign, have sometimes escaped the 
 Rajah, the assertion that he had "never designed to adopt 
 an heir", is positively contradicted by facts. In his letter 
 to Lord Hardinge of the 15th of February, 1844, already 
 quoted,* he speaks of his Principality as " that hereditary 
 patrimony bequeathed to me by my Sires, the Sovereigns of 
 the soil, and the perpetuation of which has been guaranteed 
 to me by the Honourable Company." In another letter, 
 dated the 9th of May, 1844, from which some extracts have 
 also been given,*]* he declares his belief " that, in the words 
 of my Treaty, the British Government will act towards me 
 and my heirs, even ' as long as the sun and moon shall en- 
 dure', as my Guardian and Patron". At this time the Rajah 
 was upwards of fifty years of age, and had no son. And 
 in his letter of the 8th of August, 1848, to Lord Dalhousie 
 himself, he had confirmed these letters and renewed their 
 claims. And at a later period, when appealing to Lord Can- 
 ning against the proposed retransfer of Mysore to the super- 
 vision of the Madras Government, he says : "Moreover, my 
 Lord, I have grave fears that such a measure as this, if in- 
 troduced, would possibly interfere with the claims that I and 
 my heirs have for the restoration of the Government of my 
 country." This letter, of which I shall have to say more 
 hereafter, is dated the 15th of March, 1860, when the Rajah 
 was sixty-five years old. On these two occasions he can 
 hardly be supposed to have written in these terms, with- 
 out relying on his right of adopting an heir. This at least 
 is certain, that from 1832 to 1844, when he claimed the 
 perpetuation of his sovereignty, and declared the rights of 
 
 * Ante, p. 26. t Ante, p. 27. 
 
MYSORE FROM 1799 TO 1856. 45 
 
 his heirs ; and from 1844 to 1860, when he again protested 
 against any infringement of their rights, the Rajah never, 
 in any official document, or at any official interview, allowed 
 any opportunity to pass away of asserting the hereditary 
 nature of his dignity, he never expressed any doubt on the 
 subject, and none was ever expressed to him. 
 
 And it is worthy of remark that Lord Dalhousie's aspira- 
 tions for the completion of the good work of assimilating 
 Mysore, do not seem to have called forth any response or 
 approval from any other member of the Government. Not 
 one of his predecessors had ever suggested such a breach of 
 faith. Lord Auckland, when Governor-General, referring to 
 an attempt made by the Supreme Court of Calcutta to en- 
 force its process in Mysore, and quoting his legal adviser, 
 the Advocate-General, wrote as follows in a Minute in 
 Council, of July 1840: "The sovereignty of Mysore is 
 exercised by the East India Company as trustees for the 
 Eajah ; and it is contrary to their duty to commit, or to 
 allow others to commit, any violation of the sovereignty, 
 which might disable them from restoring it, without dero- 
 gation, to the person whose sovereignty they admit/' 
 
 And, at a much later period, in the consultations on the 
 disposal of Oude, during Lord Dalhousie's administration, 
 Sir John Peter Grant, then a member of Council, in a paper 
 dated August the 7th, 1855, made use of the following dis- 
 tinction : " The case of Mysore differs from the supposed 
 case of Oude, inasmuch as our management of that province 
 is professedly temporary, and on account of the Sovereign 
 of Mysore."* 
 
 And again, in a despatch dated 20th December, 1858, 
 Sir John Peter Grant, when President in Council at Calcutta, 
 instructed the Madras Government that Mysore was "a 
 foreign State," and that land and houses in the military can- 
 tonment of Bangalore, must be held under tenure from the 
 Rajah's Government, and not from any British authority. 
 And in a letter of the 18th November, 1859, Sir Mark 
 Cubbon observed that " the sovereignty of Mysore is still 
 vested in the Rajah, and that the powers of administration 
 are exercised in trust on his account."f 
 
 * Oude Papers, 1856, p. 213. t Mysore Papers, p. 33. 
 
46 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 General Cubbon was certainly not prepared for the ab- 
 sorption of this native State, for he wrote in the following 
 terms in a private letter to a friend on the 23rd of June, 
 1859 : 
 
 ' ' I have received a tremendous wig lately from Bengal on the 
 subject of duties, and shall have to point out more than one mis- 
 take on their part, besides insinuating that they have no right 
 under the Treaty to reduce the revenues of a foreign State, and 
 that they will have to make a corresponding reduction in the 
 Subsidy. In truth they, or I should rather say, Mr. Beadon, 
 have forgotten that the orders from England are imperative that 
 the administration of Mysore should be so conducted that the 
 country may be restored to a native Government at the shortest 
 notice; and in consequence we are at this moment obliged to 
 oppose many parts of procedure which a native Government could 
 not administer." 
 
 Lord Canning himself, so late as the year 1860, in re- 
 ferring to the affairs of Mysore in the General Keport on 
 the Administration of India for the preceding official year,* 
 treats the maintenance of the separate jurisdiction and dis- 
 tinct establishments of Mysore, as a matter of conscientious 
 obligation. 
 
 " It has also been necessary," he says, " so to conduct the ad- 
 ministration as to fulfil conscientiously the instructions laid down 
 for guidance in a letter from the Home authorities, under date 
 the 25th September 1835, and which states as follows : f We are 
 desirous of adhering, as far as can be done, to the native usages, 
 and not to introduce a system which cannot be worked hereafter 
 by native agency, when the country shall be restored to the 
 Rajah.'" 
 
 * Published at Calcutta. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 1856 TO 1862. 
 
 WHEN Lord Canning succeeded to the Viceregal chair in 
 1856, the answers to the Rajah's numerous applications had 
 all been either favourable or evasive. His claim to be re- 
 stored to power had never been denied or rejected, but only 
 postponed. 
 
 Throughout the terrible events of 1857 and 1858 the 
 people of Mysore remained tranquil. Elements of mischief 
 existed in abundance in various quarters ; emissaries of re- 
 bellion traversed the country in every direction ; but peace 
 was never disturbed, and the Rajah's troops were actually 
 detached into the adjoining British provinces to assist in 
 preventing insurrection. Sir Mark Cubbon's own official 
 statements to Government may be adduced to prove how 
 efficacious were the example and exertions of the Eajah in 
 securing to us the fidelity of his people. In a despatch, 
 dated the 2nd of June, 1860, the Commissioner of Mysore 
 wrote in the following terms to the Governor- General, Lord 
 Canning : 
 
 " To no one was the Government more indebted for the preser- 
 vation of tranquillity than to his Highness the Rajah, who dis- 
 played the most steadfast loyalty throughout the crisis, discoun- 
 tenancing everything in the shape of disaffection, and taking 
 every opportunity to proclaim his perfect confidence in the sta- 
 bility of the English rule. When the small party of Europeans 
 arrived at Mysore, he made manifest his satisfaction by giving 
 them a feast. He offered one of his Palaces for their accommo- 
 dation, and as a stronghold for the security of the treasure ; and 
 even gave up his own personal establishment of elephants, etc., 
 to assist the 74th Highlanders in its forced march from the Neil- 
 gherries to Bellary, for the protection of the Ceded Districts, a 
 proceeding which, although of no great magnitude in itself, pro- 
 duced great moral effects throughout the country. In fact, there 
 was nothing in his power which he did not do to manifest his 
 fidelity to the British Government, and to discourage the un- 
 friendly." 
 
48 CHAPTER 1IT. 
 
 The Viceroy acknowledged the Eajah's valuable and 
 faithful services in the following letter of thanks. 
 
 " To his Highness the Maharajah of Mysore. 
 
 " Fort William, the 28th June, 1860. 
 
 ' ' MAHARAJAH, 
 
 " I have lately received from the Commissioner of Mysore a 
 despatch, in which the assistance received by that officer from 
 your Highness, in preserving peace and encouraging loyalty in the 
 districts under his charge during the recent troubles in India, is 
 prominently brought to notice. 
 
 "I was well aware that, from the very beginning of those 
 troubles, the fidelity and attachment to the British Government, 
 which have long marked your Highnesses acts, had been conspi- 
 cuous upon every opportunity. 
 
 "Your Highnesses wise confidence in the power of England, 
 and your open manifestation of it, the consideration and kindness 
 which you showed to British subjects, and the ready and useful 
 assistance which you rendered to the Queen's troops, Jiave been 
 mentioned by the Commissioner in terms of the highest praise. 
 
 " I beg your Highness to accept the expression of my warm 
 thanks for these fresh proofs of the spirit by which your Highness 
 is animated in your relations with the Government of India. 
 
 "I shall have much pleasure in making them known to her 
 Majesty's Secretary of State for India. 
 
 " It is satisfactory to me to know that, throughout the time of 
 which I have spoken, your Highness has had the advantage of the 
 support and counsel of so tried and distinguished an Officer of 
 the Crown, and one so devoted to the welfare of your Highnesses 
 State, as Sir Mark Cubbon. ' ' I have, &c., 
 
 " CANNING." 
 
 But even while these amenities were passing between 
 Mysore and Calcutta, the Eajah was in the agonies of a 
 fresh wound, one that touched him to the quick, that seemed 
 to destroy all hope of recovery from his long political syn- 
 cope, and to threaten him with the infliction of political 
 death in the face of all India, before his natural term of 
 life had closed. 
 
 Ever since 1832 the management of Mysore had been 
 under the direct superintendence of the Governor-General 
 of India, and was not liable to be interfered with by the 
 subordinate and nearer Presidency of Madras. The Eajah 
 had some pride in this arrangement, not, perhaps, uumingled 
 with the feeling that the transfer had originally been made 
 
1856 TO 1862. 49 
 
 with some intention of rebuking the Madras Government 
 for its neglect, and of thus casting upon it to a certain ex- 
 tent the blame of the misgovernment of his country. He 
 also knew that his supersession had been instigated by the 
 Madras officials, that gentlemen belonging to that Presi- 
 dency enjoyed most of the lucrative offices dependent on 
 his continued supersession ; and he believed that his pro- 
 spects of restoration would be much more favourable, while 
 he was in direct communication with the higher and more 
 distant authority, than if he were left in the grasp of the 
 more contiguous and more interested minor Government. 
 
 In a despatch to the Governor-General in Council, dated 
 the 26th of January, 1860, the Secretary of State, Sir Charles 
 Wood, quite unexpectedly desired that the Mysore Com- 
 mission should be placed under the immediate superin- 
 tendence of the Government of Madras, to which Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan had been recently appointed. The grounds for 
 this sudden change are thus stated in the despatch : 
 
 " The arguments which in 1832 were advanced by the Governor- 
 General of India, in favour of the transfer of the controlling au- 
 thority over the Mysore Commission to the hands of the Governor- 
 General of India in Council, were of a temporary and accidental, 
 rather than of a general character, and do not appear to be 
 applicable to the present circumstances of the Mysore administra- 
 tion. On the other hand the territory over which political and 
 administrative control is exercised by the Government of India, 
 has been so extended, and the current business of your office has 
 so increased since 1832, as to afford full and ample employment 
 for the Foreign Department of your Government. It appears to 
 me, therefore, that it is advisable, partly with the view of relieving 
 your Government, and partly with the object of placing the su- 
 perintendence of Mysore and Coorg under the Government which, 
 from its position, can most conveniently exercise it, to revert to 
 the arrangement which was orignally made, on our first assump- 
 tion of the administration of Mysore, viz., that the superintend- 
 ence should be exercised by the Government of Madras." 
 
 But the geographical position of the Mysore Principality, 
 which naturally suggests the Madras Government as the 
 centre of direction in the event of Mysore becoming a 
 British Province, was the very circumstance that made the 
 proposed transfer most alarming and offensive to the Rajah 
 and all well-wishers of his sovereignty. It seemed to them 
 
50 CHAPTER III. 
 
 to denote the beginning of the end, to be the preliminary 
 measure of annexation. The Eajah prepared a firm but re- 
 spectful remonstrance to be forwarded to the Governor- 
 General, wrote to Sir Mark Cubbon declaring that " nothing- 
 would ever exact from him acquiescence in this measure", 
 and implored the Commissioner not to leave him in the 
 midst of these new difficulties. " I could ill afford," wrote 
 the Kajah, "to lose your much valued friendship and coun- 
 sel at any time, but just at present it is a positive calamity 
 both to myself and to my country." For immediately on 
 receiving information of the intended change, Sir Mark 
 Cubbon had sent in the resignation of his office in the fol- 
 lowing letter to Government. 
 
 From the Commissioner for the Government of the Territories of His 
 Highness the Rajah of Mysore, to the Secretary to the Govern- 
 ment of India in the Foreign Department. 
 
 "Nundydroog, 5th March, 1860. 
 
 " STR, 
 
 " Having received private but authentic information that or- 
 ders have issued from the Office of the Secretary of State for India, 
 that the control of Mysore shall be withdrawn from the Govern- 
 ment of India, notwithstanding the declaration contained in the 
 despatch from the Honourable the Court of Directors, dated the 
 31st May, 1838, No. 34,* I have the honour to request you will 
 be so good as to tender to the Honourable the President in 
 Council the resignation of my appointment as Commissioner, and 
 to add to it my respectful solicitation to be relieved as soon as 
 his Honour may find it convenient. 
 
 1 ' I shall have the satisfaction of making over charge to my 
 successor of the territories of Mysore and Coorg, in a state to all 
 appearance (I say to all appearance, for I do not presume to be 
 able to see beyond the surface,) of perfect tranquillity, and not 
 dissatisfied with the present form of administration, and with a 
 current revenue exceeding that of any former year in Mysore, 
 that is to say, not less than 93 lakhs of rupees. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, etc., 
 
 "M. CUBBON, Commissioner." 
 
 The motives and feelings by which General Cubbon was 
 actuated in taking this step, may be gathered from the fol- 
 lowing extracts from two of his private letters, both dated 
 the 8th of March, 1860. 
 
 * I do not know what this declaration is, but I believe it would throw some 
 light on the early history of this question. 
 
1856 TO 1862. 51 
 
 I have just had a little talk with (a native) ' and find 
 
 that the late order is regarded as a great breach of public faith, 
 as the first step towards the final extinction of the State of My- 
 sore and its incorporation with Madras, and consequently tending 
 to produce the most fatal of all results, the destruction of all con- 
 fidence in the sincerity of the Queen's Proclamation. Viewed in 
 this light it is a most serious affair, and in the present suspicious 
 temper of the native mind, it is certain to give rise to the most 
 unfavourable interpretation, and be made a party question of by 
 our enemies, who will represent it as another proof of our inten- 
 tion to degrade the natives.' 
 
 " The R/ajah's hhureeta is most forcibly put ; and whatever im- 
 pression it may make on the Government of India or the India 
 Board, it is almost certain to cause a sensation if read in the 
 House of Commons. As for the adoption, they dare not refuse 
 it. I had no idea it would have been so generally believed that 
 this step was preparatory to the extinction of the Raj, but such 
 appears to have been the impression that has got abroad, and 
 which is openly avowed in the petitions that are coming to me." 
 
 The following is the Jchureeta or letter from the Kajah to 
 Lord Canning, to which General Cubbon alludes. 
 
 "Mysore Palace, 15th March, 1860. 
 " MY LOED, 
 
 " Having been informed that the Mysore country has 
 been or is about to be transferred from Bengal to the Madras 
 Presidency, I beg leave most respectfully to address your Lord- 
 ship upon this subject, and to entreat that the reasons which in- 
 duce me to protest against this measure will meet with your 
 Lordship's consideration. 
 
 " 2. The transfer of the management of my country from the 
 Supreme to a subordinate Government, without any reference to 
 me, as if I had no longer any interest in the matter, or any rights 
 to uphold, fills my mind with apprehension and alarm. 
 
 " 3. Consider, my Lord, I beseech of you, the degradation to 
 which I should be subjected, by such a measure, in the eyes of 
 all natives, and especially those of my own subjects. Pardon the 
 boldness of my language, my Lord, but my conscience tells me 
 that I am entitled to protection from your Lordship, in considera- 
 tion of the loyalty exhibited by myself and my subjects during 
 the recent sad disturbances, which permitted of two thousand of 
 my Silladar Horse being sent to aid in the suppression of the 
 Rebellion. I claim it, moreover, my Lord, in virtue of her Ma- 
 jesty's Proclamation. 
 
 " 4. I cannot, my Lord, see how my interests, or those of my 
 country, are to be bettered by this transfer. Perfect tranquillity 
 
 E 2 
 
52 CHAPTER III. 
 
 reigned in my country at a time when a word of mine, or disaffec- 
 tion on the part of my people, would have thrown Southern India 
 into a blaze ; but my conduct, and that of my people during that 
 dreadful period, exhibits the complete success of the administra- 
 tion as at present carried out. 
 
 " 5. Moreover, my Lord, I have grave fears that such a mea- 
 sure as this, if introduced, would possibly interfere with the 
 claims that I and my heirs have for the restoration of the Govern- 
 ment of my country, as it is evident that the contemplated change 
 is with the view of introducing alterations in the form of Govern- 
 ment, which would render it difficult for me or my successor to 
 conduct the administration hereafter with a native agency ; and 
 the recent conduct of the present Governor of Madras adds co- 
 gency to my fears on this point. 
 
 " 6. I do not, moreover, my Lord, hesitate to state (and, from 
 my position, I claim a right to be a judge in such matters, seeing 
 how much I am interested in this question) that the condition of 
 Mysore at this moment would contrast favourably with any other 
 Province on this side of India. The revenue has increased, and 
 is increasing j and that, too, without pressing on any class, or 
 giving rise to murmur or complaint. There is comparatively 
 little crime ; and, what there is, is effectually met by a system, 
 which, for efficiency and cheapness, is not surpassed by any 
 in the country. The judicial system founded upon that most 
 cherished by natives of all their institutions, the Punchayet,* 
 operates with the utmost success, and I specially deprecate any 
 innovation in the native system of judicial administration at pre- 
 sent in force ; the most sacred rights and privileges of the people 
 are respected, and the utmost confidence exists in the minds of 
 all that such will continue so long as the present system lasts. 
 
 " 7. I now beg to bring to your Lordship's recollection, that 
 Mysore was under the control of the Supreme Government for 
 many years and prospered. It was afterwards transferred to 
 Madras, and the result does not afford proof of the advantage of 
 the transfer, for the insurrection arose, and the country was as- 
 sumed while under the control of that Presidency. 
 
 "8. In conclusion, my Lord, I beg to remark, that it would 
 require very strong reasons to justify the risk of making the 
 change now proposed ; and I most respectfully, at the same time 
 most emphatically, deny that any such reasons exist. 
 
 " 9. And now, my Lord, I have stated my case, and, fully re- 
 lying on your Lordship's well-known sense of justice, I confidently 
 leave the issue in your Lordship's hands. I am an old man, and 
 have suffered much ; and you, my Lord, will, I feel assured, save 
 me from this crowning indignity. 
 
 * Trial by a jury of five members. 
 
1856 TO 1862. 53 
 
 ' ' With the assurance of my unaltered respect and esteem for 
 your Lordship, I beg leave to subscribe myself, 
 
 " Your Lordship's most faithful Friend and humble Servant, 
 
 "MYSOEE KEISTNAEAJ WADIYAE." 
 
 It will be observed that the Kajah here lays claim to the 
 restoration of his country, on behalf of himself and his heirs, 
 and deprecates rash innovations, not only on his own ac- 
 count, but on account of his successor. No trace is to be 
 found of that indifference to the interests of the family, of 
 that determination to be the last Rajah of Mysore, upon 
 which Lord Dalhousie relied in 1856. He alludes to the 
 rights of his heirs in 1860 just as he did in 1844.* 
 
 Lord Canning supported the Rajah's application in the 
 following letter to the Secretary of State, informed the 
 Rajah and Sir Mark Cubbon that for the present the pro- 
 posed change would not be carried out, a reference having 
 been made to London ; and requested the Commissioner in 
 the meantime to suspend the tender of his resignation. 
 
 " Foreign Department (Camp Hoshiarpore), 
 "No. 35, 30th March, 1860. 
 
 " SlE, 
 
 " I had the honour to receive, on the 8th instant, your des- 
 patch of the 26th January, directing me, at my earliest conve- 
 nience, to place the Mysore Commission under the immediate 
 superintendence of the Governor of Madras in Council. I there- 
 upon called, by telegraph, for the papers showing the circum- 
 stances in which, in 1832, the Mysore Commission was placed on 
 its present footing. Before the papers reached me, I received a 
 telegraphic message from the Rajah of Mysore. The letter to 
 myself, which his Highness announces, as well as a letter from 
 his Highness to the Commissioner, Sir Mark Cubbon, reached me 
 yesterday. Copies of these letters I enclose. 
 
 " I have received, too, a letter from Sir Mark Cubbon, tender- 
 ing his resignation, on account of the change prescribed in the 
 superintendence of his charge. 
 
 " Whether, if the opportunity had been allowed to me of being 
 the channel of the communication to his Highness, I could in any 
 degree have anticipated his remonstrances, and lessened the feel- 
 ings of mortification and indignity which he has expressed, ] 
 cannot say. Perhaps it might have been so, although certainly I 
 do not pretend that I could have made the change palatable to 
 him. 
 
 * Ante, p. 33. 
 
54 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " But the question now to be considered is, how the appeal of 
 the Rajah is to be dealt with/ and I feel it to be impossible, in 
 the face of such an appeal coming from so venerable and loyal a 
 Prince, and couched in terms so dignified, but so respectful, to 
 persist in the immediate execution of your orders without sub- 
 mitting the case for your reconsideration. 
 
 11 Although no allusion is made in your despatch to the Sove- 
 reign of Mycore, it appears to me that that Prince possesses a 
 very strong claim to have his wishes and feelings considered by 
 us, and that we shall do that which is both ungenerous and im- 
 politic, if we set these aside. 
 
 "I am, therefore, not surprised that the Rajah of Mysore 
 should speak of the declared measure as being a degradation of 
 himself in the eyes of all natives, especially in those of his own 
 subjects, and an indignity. 
 
 " It is unnecessary for me to say, that the Rajah's allusions to 
 the loyalty of himself and his people, and to the example and aid 
 thereby given to the native subjects of the Crown in Southern 
 " India, are quite just. Mysore was traversed in all directions 
 during 1857 and 1858 by Mahratta and Brahmin emissaries, but 
 the people of that country remained tranquil. 
 
 " Also, the Rajah is well entitled to point (as he does point 
 with pride) to the actual condition of his dominions. The system 
 of administration which has prevailed there is in many ways 
 capable of amelioration, but it has been repeatedly acknowledged 
 to deserve the character given to it by the Court of Directors in 
 1838 of a ' beneficial and improving system'; and I cannot think 
 that the nearness of supervision, or any other convenience which 
 would result from a transfer of the superintendence of that sys- 
 tem to Madras, is worth purchasing at the cost of offending and 
 alienating the Sovereign of the country; especially when, by a 
 little patience, the desired end will, in all human probability, be 
 attained without any such consequences. 
 
 " As bearing on the price which we shall pay for forcing this 
 measure upon Mysore, I invite your attention to the following facts. 
 
 " The Rajah of Mysore is an old man, past sixty, and of a 
 family notoriously shortlived. He has no son, and has adopted 
 no heir. It has been supposed that he will bequeath his Kingdom 
 to the British Government. I say ' supposed,' because there is 
 no formal or official evidence of his purpose ; but I know for cer- 
 tain that such was his intention, because early in 1858, and whilst 
 Upper India was still in full rebellion, the Rajah seized an oppor- 
 tunity of conveying to myself, through an entirely private channel, 
 not only the strongest protestations of his loyalty, gratitude and 
 and devotion to the Government, but a distinct and earnest decla- 
 ration, more than once repeated, of his wish that everything that 
 he possessed should at his death pass into its hands. 
 
1856 TO 1862. 55 
 
 " I beg you to compare this declaration with the passage in his 
 letter now enclosed, in which the Rajah expresses grave fears 
 that the measure announced from England will interfere with the 
 claims which he and his heirs have for the restoration of the 
 Government of his country. 
 
 " It may be very little desirable that more Provinces should be 
 added to those which are already under the absolute rule of the 
 Queen in India ; but the case of Mysore, lying in the midst of 
 the Madras Presidency, and already bound to us in a way which 
 is not convenient or satisfactory, is quite exceptional ; and the 
 bequest of that country in full sovereignty to the Crown, by the 
 free will of the ruler, and in a spirit of loyal attachment to the 
 British power, is a consummation which, in the interests of all 
 concerned, no one would wish to see defeated. 
 
 " It will be the first measure towards Mysore by the direct Go- 
 vernment of the Queen, and it may probably be the last to be 
 taken during the present Rajah's lifetime. Surely it is to be de- 
 sired that it should not be such as to draw from the Rajah an 
 emphatic protest and refusal of consent, in which he will carry 
 with him, reasonably or unreasonably, the sympathy of his fellow 
 Princes. " I have, &c., 
 
 " CANNING." 
 
 The first point that demands notice in this very remark- 
 able despatch, and which must be carefully held in remem- 
 brance, is that Lord Canning very properly describes the 
 Rajah as "the Sovereign of Mysore/' The people of Mysore 
 are also said in this despatch to be "his own subjects." A 
 subsequent letter of great importance, addressed, under his 
 Lordship's signature, to the Rajah, carefully avoids the use 
 of these terms, and claims the sovereignty for the British 
 Government. 
 
 The next noticeable point is the admission that " the 
 Rajah is entitled to point (as he does point with pride) to 
 the actual condition of his dominions." In that subsequent 
 letter to the Rajah himself, which I shall shortly have to 
 produce, he is expressly debarred from the merit of having 
 given any support to Sir Mark Cubbon, whose enlightened 
 services he had eulogised, and is taunted with the counter- 
 action offered by himself and his partisans to the improve- 
 ments introduced by that officer. That counteraction, 
 chiefly due, as explained in the last Chapter, to the rivalry 
 of the Resident and the Commissioner, had been reduced 
 to nothing on the Resident's departure, and had ceased 
 
56 CHAPTER III. 
 
 entirely since 1847. For thirteen years the most perfect 
 harmony had subsisted between the Eajah and General 
 Cubbon. The General himself, in the same despatch, dated 
 the 2nd of June, 1860, from which I have already quoted 
 his testimony to the Kajah's loyal services during the rebel- 
 lion, acknowledges " the cordiality observed by him for a 
 good many years towards the existing administration."* 
 
 In the despatch to the Secretary of State, which we have 
 just read, no complimentary words are omitted, no con- 
 sideration is to be withheld, no offence is to be offered to 
 the dignity of " the Sovereign of Mysore," that " venerable 
 and loyal Prince" apparently because he is supposed to be 
 going like a lamb to the slaughter. In the subsequent 
 letter to the Eajah himself, which we have yet to see, he is 
 a " hereditary prisoner," his ancestors were " vassal chiefs," 
 his rank and possessions are not hereditary, the sovereignty 
 of Mysore is claimed for the British Government, and every 
 form of studied disparagement and reproach is aimed at 
 this unfortunate Prince apparently because he will not go 
 like a lamb to the slaughter, because the hope of his quietly 
 submitting to be extinguished has been dispelled. 
 
 The main interest and pith of the despatch now under 
 consideration are concentrated in two paragraphs, which I 
 shall here quote separately : 
 
 " The Rajah of Mysore is an old man, past sixty, and of a family 
 notoriously shortlived. He has no son, and has adopted no heir. 
 It has been supposed that he will bequeath his Kingdom to the 
 British Government. I say ' supposed/ because there is no 
 
 * With what flagrant unfairness the opinion of Sir Mark Cubbon is quoted 
 against the Rajah, may be seen from the following extract of Sir John Wil- 
 loughby's Minute : " I do not think that the Despatch can be said to give an 
 impartial account of our past relations with the Mysore State, or is altogether 
 fair towards the present Rajah. It brings prominently before the reader 
 various extracts from the records of olden times which tell against his High- 
 ness, by referring to the errors and vices of his youth, sufficiently atoned for, 
 most people will admit, by the penalty inflicted in 1831, and continued up to 
 the present time. On the other hand, it either omits or passes by with brief 
 notice, other public records, and for the most part of more recent date, which 
 tell greatly in his Highness's favour. The state of Mysore in 1863, is far dif- 
 ferent from what it was when Sir Thomas Munro in 1825, and Sir Mark Cubbon 
 in 1847, recorded the opinions against the Rajah quoted in the Despatch (paras. 
 10 and 30). But, as regards the latter officer, it is matter of notoriety that 
 his opinion had changed, and that had he lived, he would have advocated re- 
 storation to the Rajah of the management of his country." Mysore Papers, 
 p. 32. 
 
1856 TO 1862. 57 
 
 formal or official evidence of his purpose ; but I know for certain 
 that such was his intention, because early in 1858, and whilst 
 Upper India was still in full rebellion, the Rajah seized an oppor- 
 tunity of conveying to myself through an entirely private channel, 
 not only the strongest protestations of his loyalty, gratitude and 
 devotion to the Government, but a distinct and earnest declara- 
 tion, more than once repeated, of his wish that everything he 
 possessed should, at his death, pass into its hands." 
 
 And then : 
 
 " I beg you to compare this declaration with the passage in his 
 letter now enclosed, in which the Kajah expresses grave fears 
 that the measure announced from England will interfere with the 
 claims which he and his heirs have for the restoration of the Go- 
 vernment of his country." 
 
 And certainly if the supposed declaration and the actual 
 claim, be compared, they will be found to be directly con- 
 tradictory. The only wonder is that this utter incompati- 
 bility of the colloquial concession with the written claim 
 before his eyes, a claim consistent with all the Rajah's 
 authentic declarations before or since, did not suggest to 
 Lord Canning that there must have been some strange mis- 
 understanding in 1858, some mistake in reporting the 
 Rajah's private conversation, some wrong interpretation of 
 his words, some mis-translation of his Oriental compliments 
 to that entirely private channel through which his supposed 
 " wish" was conveyed to the Governor-General. It appears 
 as if Lord Canning was so eager to believe, and so anxious 
 to persuade himself, that the Rajah had expressed this un- 
 accountable " wish," at variance with the whole tenour of 
 his life that, although he knew this private report must 
 require some formal document to corroborate it, he never 
 took the least notice of it in his communications with the 
 Rajah, never acknowledged it, or returned thanks for it, or 
 requested any explanation on the subject, as if he feared 
 that a touch would burst the bubble. If the Rajah's alleged 
 message appeared to the Governor-General to be of any 
 public importance, it was surely his duty to make some 
 further inquiry about it. Instead of that, the very inci- 
 dent which we noticed in Lord Dalhousie's Minute of the 
 16th January, 1856, so typical of the moral weakness and 
 legal nullity of these acquisitive apologetics,* is exactly re- 
 
 B* Ante, p. 41-43. 
 
58 CHAPTER III. 
 
 produced. No question is asked, no confirmation is re- 
 quired of the vague expressions informally translated and 
 informally reported. After having been treasured up for 
 two years, the Bajah's deferential protestations are brought 
 forward by Lord Canning, as a rumour of his desponding 
 soliloquy was by Lord Dalhousie, to prove his Highness's 
 indifference to the rights of his family and the future exist- 
 ence of his State, at the very time that he was contending 
 for them. 
 
 The despatch then proceeds thus : 
 
 "It may be very little desirable that more Provinces should be 
 added to those which are already under the absolute rule of the 
 Queen in India ; but the case of Mysore, lying in the midst of the 
 Madras Presidency, and already bound to us in a way which is 
 not convenient or satisfactory, is quite exceptional ; and the be- 
 quest of that country in full sovereignty to the Crown, by the free 
 will of the ruler, and in a spirit of loyal attachment to the British 
 power, is a consummation which, in the interest of all concerned, 
 no one would wish to see defeated." 
 
 For my part I do most positively declare, that if the 
 Kajah ever had any such intention, which I do not believe, I 
 should have wished to see it defeated. I believe that we can- 
 not afford to lose Mysore as a dependent native State, and that 
 we cannot afford to take it as an additional British Province. 
 Mysore is indeed " an exceptional case." It stands as the 
 last barrier against a policy of despair and defiance. It 
 ought to be made our model Principality. But if Mysore 
 be annexed, if, in defiance of her Majesty's Proclamation, 
 the rapacious system is to be reopened, our promises and 
 counsels will never be believed or trusted, and any sugges- 
 tion of reform, or offer of administrative assistance, will 
 spread consternation and rouse opposition throughout every 
 native State. 
 
 Lord Canning, as it seems to me, betrays an uneasy con- 
 sciousness that the deliberate appropriation of Mysore would 
 be quite indefensible, by his extreme anxiety that the 
 Eajah should not be startled or provoked into an assertion 
 of his rights ; by that unpleasant allusion to the short lives 
 of the Mysore family; and by his strongly expressed desire 
 for a free will bequest " in full sovereignty." He plainly 
 enough declares a hope that the Eajah may be allowed to 
 
1856 TO 1862. 59 
 
 die quietly without having adopted a son, but states no 
 doubt whatever as to his right to adopt a son if he 
 chooses. 
 
 The free will bequest of the country in full sovereignty 
 was never offered, and will never be effected; the Rajah, as 
 he always intended, has now adopted a son. The loyal 
 attachment which Lord Canning acknowledged, will be 
 confirmed throughout Mysore by the restoration of the 
 Rajah or his successor, but will not long survive the de- 
 struction of the dynasty. 
 
 Whatever objections may be made to this despatch on 
 other grounds, it was effectual in removing the immediate 
 grievance of which the Rajah complained ; and in the fol- 
 lowing letter the Governor-General informed his Highness of 
 the favourable result of his remonstrance : 
 
 To his Highness the Maharajah of Mysore. 
 
 "Fort William, the 28th June, 1860. 
 
 " MAHAKAJAH, 
 
 " I have the satisfaction to inform your Highness that the 
 expression of the feelings with which your Highness regarded the 
 proposed transfer of the superintendence of the Mysore Commis- 
 sion to the Government of Madras, received, so soon as it was 
 known to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India, the imme- 
 diate and respectful consideration of the Queen's Government. 
 
 " I am informed by the Secretary of State, that, in making this 
 transfer, it was intended that the policy which has guided the ad- 
 ministration of the Mysore territory should remain the same, and 
 that its superintendence should continue to be subject to the 
 general authority and control of the Governor-General in Council, 
 but that now, as being more agreeable to your Highnesses feel- 
 ings, it has been determined by Her Majesty's Government that 
 the orders directing the transfer should be cancelled. 
 
 " It gratifies me to think that this intimation will be agreeable 
 to your Highness. I have, etc., 
 
 " CANNING." 
 
 Matters were thus restored to their former footing, and 
 Sir Mark Cubbon consented to remain at his post. But in 
 the following February he was attacked with very serious 
 illness, and was compelled to resign. He died at Suez, 
 on his way to England, in April 1861, at an advanced 
 age, having passed the whole of the present century in 
 India. 
 
60 CHAPTER III. 
 
 So far, let me remind my readers, the amenities prevail. 
 Not a disagreeable word has passed between Calcutta and 
 Mysore. The Kajah's letter to Lord Dalhousie of the 8th of 
 August 1848, still remained unanswered at the end of 1860. 
 The Kajah's repeated application to be reinstated in the 
 government of his country, had never yet been directly re- 
 fused. The last communication on the subject which his 
 Highness had received, was the letter from General Cubbon 
 of the 5th of December 1845, informing him, by the 
 Governor-General's orders, that the delay on Lord Hardinge's 
 part in replying to the Kajah's letter of the preceding 7th 
 of June, was caused by a pending inquiry into the state of 
 the Mysore debt. 
 
 But the crisis was now at hand. Besides one copy sent 
 by his Lordship for General Cubbon's information, several 
 copies of Lord Canning's despatch had reached Mysore and 
 Madras, and the Eajah was not long kept in ignorance of its 
 contents. While it appeared to promise him relief from 
 his immediate cause of alarm, it did so on grounds that 
 were still more alarming. He was represented as a life 
 tenant, and as a life tenant by choice as the last in entail, 
 quite willing to make a bequest of his Kingdom, from his 
 own "free will" and "loyal attachment," to the British 
 Government. And notwithstanding his frequent previous 
 assertions of his " hereditary patrimony/' of the rights of 
 his heirs and successors, his latest allusion to the claims of 
 himself and his heirs to the restoration of the country, was 
 spoken of in Lord Canning's despatch as if it were some- 
 thing quite new and unexpected. Somewhat encouraged 
 therefore by the favourable answer given to his request, and 
 the courteous terms in which it was conveyed, the Eajah 
 saw that he must take the first opportunity of once more 
 distinctly setting forth his unrevoked pretensions, and of 
 urging their consideration on the Government of India. 
 An opportunity seemed to present itself when General 
 Cubbon's illness compelled him to resign the office of Com- 
 missioner. It was while Sir Mark Cubbon was preparing 
 for his departure, that the Kajah addressed the following 
 
 letter to Lord Canning : 
 
(1856 TO 1862. 61 
 
 "Mysore Palace, 23rd February, 1861. 
 " MY LORD, 
 " I have to crave your indulgent attention to, and serious 
 consideration of, a subject of the highest importance, which I 
 shall, as briefly as is compatible with the magnitude of the in- 
 terests involved, now proceed to lay before your Lordship. In 
 the year 1799, the all-powerful English nation conquered the 
 armies of Tippoo, stormed the fortress of Seringapatam, and slew 
 the usurper, and then that great statesman, Lord Wellesley, 
 founded a noble and disinterested policy, which added immensely 
 to the fame of the British Government, and did more to establish 
 its influence and consolidate its power than many great victories. 
 The Governor- General waived all right of conquest, rescued me, 
 then an infant, the rightful heir to the throne of Mysore, and the 
 descendant of a long line of Kings, from captivity, and restored 
 me to the musnud of my ancestors. By an Article in the Treaty 
 between the British and myself, it was provided, that, if at any 
 time the affairs of my country fell into confusion, the British 
 Government should have the power of assuming the management 
 of the country until order was restored; and in 1831, Lord Wil- 
 liam Bentinck, then Governor- General, intimated to me that this 
 provision of the Treaty was to be enforced, and it was enforced 
 without being resisted in any way by me. I will not pause to 
 argue whether the step taken was an absolutely necessary one. 
 The character of Lord William Bentinck was a guaranty that he 
 considered it so; but his views must have been subsequently 
 greatly modified, for he proposed in the year 1834, two and a half 
 years after the assumption of my country, that three-fourths of it 
 should be restored to my control, on the condition that I assented 
 to the temporary alienation of the remaining portion, as a gua- 
 ranty for the payment of my Subsidy to the British Govern- 
 ment.* I had previously been gratified by his Lordship's assur- 
 ance that the assumption of the administration of my country by 
 the Government had not been caused by the personal omissions 
 of the Sovereign. In the year 1836, Lord Auckland received a 
 despatch from the Court of Directors, in which their opinion was 
 declared, to the effect that, instead of adopting the views of 
 Lord William Bentinck, they considered it a better course to let 
 the sole management of the country remain as it was, until such 
 salutary rules and safeguards should be matured, as would place 
 the affairs of Mysore on a safe and secure basis. In a despatch 
 from the Court of Directors, republished by your Lordship in your 
 last Administration Report of India, it is ordered, with reference 
 to Mysore, ( that they are desirous of adhering, as far as can be 
 
 * This is a singular mistake of the Rajah's. Lord William Bentinck pro- 
 posed a permanent cession, not a temporary alienation. Could the Rajah have 
 misunderstood it at the time ? 
 
62 CHAPTER III. 
 
 done, to the native usages, and not to introduce a system which 
 cannot be worked hereafter by native agency wlien the country 
 shall be restored to the Rajah.' After a personal inspection, 
 Lord Dalhousie, on his return to Calcutta, pronounced his deci- 
 sion, that the affairs of Mysore were all that could be desired. 
 My Lord, I never hesitate to assert that the enviable state of 
 Mysore is to be attributed to the enlightened services of Sir 
 Mark Cubbon, whose acknowledgments of my support have re- 
 ceived your Lordship's recognition. During twenty-six years 
 he has carried on the administration of the affairs of my King- 
 dom, and has indisputably shown that whatever requirements 
 there may be in other countries for introducing changes, Sir 
 Mark Cubbon has established that Mysore needs none of them, 
 for its native system of government has produced results that 
 bear comparison with any that can be exhibited in any part of 
 India, whether its material prosperity, the happiness of its people, 
 or any other test be applied. But, my Lord, as you know, Sir 
 Mark Cubbon leaves his office, and there is no successor who 
 can occupy his place. He departs with the fervent prayers of 
 the Sovereign and his subjects, that blessings may be showered 
 on him. 
 
 "The universal desire of my people, and justice to my own 
 character, require that I should now solicit the restoration of my 
 sovereign rights, of which I was deprived, as has already been 
 stated, as a temporary measure ; in proof of which, should proof 
 be required in a matter so notorious, I beg to refer your Lord- 
 ship to Lord William Bentinck's despatch to the Court of Direc- 
 tors, the Court's answer to Lord Auckland, also the Court's 
 despatch, an extract from which I have quoted above. What I 
 ask, my Lord, is not much ; the country is acknowledged to be 
 mine ; all I ask, then, before I die, is that I may be restored to 
 the position I formerly held, that the stigma which now attaches 
 to my name may be removed, and that I may appear once more 
 before my own subjects and the Princes and people of India as 
 the Sovereign of Mysore in fact as well as in word. 
 
 " I ask for my country, not with the intention of making any 
 great changes in the nature of its administration, for Sir Mark 
 Cubbon has shown where the safe road to further improvement 
 alone lies ; and I purpose, by the selection of experienced persons 
 to conduct the Government, to prove that this State will con- 
 tinue to prosper under a superintended native administration, 
 and be as heretofore loyal to Her Majesty and to her successors, 
 be the consequences what they may to myself and my heirs. I 
 have now only to request your Lordship to submit this letter to 
 Her Majesty's Government, and to solicit your support of my 
 claim ; and this, from the proofs I have already received of your 
 Lordship's generous nature, and from the noble sentiments ex- 
 
1856 TO 1862. 63 
 
 pressed in your Lordship's letter to the Secretary of State for 
 India, on the question of the rights of native Princes, I feel 
 assured I shall receive. And here I hope I may be pardoned if 
 I express my individual opinion, as one of the Sovereigns of India, 
 on your Lordship's just and wise treatment of the native Princes 
 of this great country, in strengthening their hands, elevating 
 their position, and consolidating their possessions. A day will 
 come, my Lord, possibly not in my time, for I am now an old 
 man, but probably at no remote period, when these Princes and 
 Chiefs, bound to your Government by the double tie of gratitude 
 and self-interest, will present a bulwark which neither the wave 
 of foreign invasion nor the tide of internal disaffection can throw 
 down; and then the wisdom and justice of your Lordship's 
 policy, a policy which no Governor- General before your Lordship 
 had the courage to avow, will become manifest to the world. In 
 conclusion, I beg you to remember, my Lord, that I have never 
 committed the smallest offence towards the British Government. 
 I have ever been true and loyal ; the avowed object for which the 
 Government of my country was temporarily assumed has long 
 since been accomplished, and there is no justifiable pretext for 
 its further retention. Support, then, my prayer, my Lord ; 
 render me justice, and make the few remaining days of a Sove- 
 reign who has drunk so deeply of the bitter cup of affliction as I 
 have done, happy, and you will add another jewel to that immortal 
 crown which your Lordship has earned by your generous advo- 
 cacy and support of the rights of the Princes of India." 
 
 The solemn appeal here recorded remained unanswered 
 and unnoticed for thirteen months. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1862 TO 1863. 
 
 THE letter dated the llth of March, 1862, which I am now 
 about to lay before my readers, with a few brief comments 
 of my own annexed to some of the paragraphs,* did not, of 
 course, come into the hands of the Eajah of Mysore until 
 several days after Lord Canning's departure ; for his Lord- 
 ship left Calcutta for England on the 12th of March, the 
 very day after that on which this letter must have been 
 signed, and, I suppose, despatched. In all probability, 
 therefore, this was Lord Canning's last public act of any im- 
 portance. 
 
 " To his Highness the Maharajah Kishen Raj Wadiyar Bahadoor, 
 
 " Mysore. 
 
 " MY HONOUKED AND VALUED FRIEND, 
 
 1. "I have received your Highnesses Khureetas of the 
 14th August and 21st October, urging, with reference to your 
 own advanced age and my approaching return to England, that 
 a speedy answer should be given to your Highnesses Khureeta of 
 the 23rd February, 1861. 
 
 2. "It is your Highnesses request that the last mentioned 
 Khureeta may be submitted to Her Majesty's Grovernment, and 
 that it may be accompanied by my support of the claim therein 
 advanced that claim being, that the management of the country 
 of Mysore should be now restored to your Highness. 
 
 3. " This demand, based upon arguments which will hereafter 
 be noticed, is one which it is as little my inclination as my duty, 
 to treat lightly, or to set aside without the most patient and im- 
 partial consideration; and I regret the disappointment which may 
 be caused to your Highness, when I now inform you of my inabi- 
 lity to support your claim, or to admit the grounds on which it is 
 founded, and which I regard as mistaken and untenable. 
 
 4. " My regret is the greater because it was my pleasing duty, 
 in a letter of the 28th June, 1860, to express to your Highness 
 
 * I have affixed numbers to the paragraphs, which was not done in the 
 original. I have also italicised certain passages. 
 
1862 AND 1863. 
 
 my cordial thanks for your steadfast loyalty, prominently noticed 
 by the late Sir Mark Cubbon in his letter of the 2nd June, 1860, 
 and subsequently to make known to Her Majesty's Government 
 the spirit by which your Highness had been animated, and of 
 which you had given substantial proofs during the troubles of 
 1857. Your Highness, in your Khureeta of the 23rd February, 
 1861, after a candid avowal that the present enviable state of 
 Mysore is attributable to the enlightened services of Sir Mark 
 Cubbon, has referred to a supposed recognition by me, not only 
 of the loyalty displayed by your Highness at the time of which 
 Sir Mark Cubbon wrote, but also of support given by your High- 
 ness to that officer during his long and able administration. Had 
 Sir Mark Cubbon ever acknowledged such support, your High- 
 ness must feel sure that nothing would have been more agreeable 
 to me than to have had it in my power, on such good grounds, 
 to attribute to your Highness a share in the credit due for the 
 successful administration of Mysore. Under such circumstances 
 there would most certainly have been no hesitation on my part 
 in freely according to your Highness the merit which you appear 
 to claim in your Khureeta of the 
 23rd February, 1861. But I 
 cannot conceal from your High- 
 ness that throughout the corre- 
 spondence between Sir Mark 
 Cubbon and this Government, 
 extending as it does over many 
 years, I have failed to find any 
 such acknowledgment. Sir Mark 
 Cubbon has left on record opi- 
 nions of an entirely contrary 
 character. He has stated that 
 any improvements which had 
 taken place had been effected 
 
 in spite of the counteraction he 
 had met with on the part of your 
 Highness and your partisans, 
 and that the conduct of your 
 Highness, during your suspen- 
 sion from power, would afford 
 no security that the crisis which 
 had induced your suspension 
 would not recur in the event of 
 your restoration ." 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 4. 
 
 It is strange that the Calcutta 
 officials should "have failed to 
 find such an acknowledgment". 
 They might have found one, if 
 they had looked for it, in Sir 
 Mark Cubbon's despatch of the 
 2nd of June, 1860, in which he 
 acknowledges " the cordiality 
 observed by the Kajah for a 
 good many years towards the 
 existing administration." 
 
 As to the counteraction of 
 the Rajah and his " partisans", 
 suffice it once more to observe, 
 that all such counteraction had 
 ceased for nearly fifteen years. 
 (Ante, pp. 30, 31.) 
 
 General Cubbon undoubtedly 
 was opposed to the R/ajah being 
 restored to absolute power. 
 And so am I. 
 
 5. "Your Highness observes that the Marquis of Wellesley 
 rescued you when an infant from captivity, this is true ; but the 
 Marquis Wellesley, when he released you from o Jirrcclifari/ 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 prison, and placed you on the 
 'waiving any right of conquest, 
 asserted and maintained that 
 right in all its integrity and in a 
 threefold manner. In the first 
 place, after the fall of Seringa- 
 patam, and the death of Tippoo 
 Sultan, the Territory thus con- 
 quered was made the subject of 
 a Partition Treaty, in which 
 your Highness was not other- 
 wise a party concerned than as 
 the notified future recipient of 
 the liberality of the British Go- 
 vernment. The contracting par- 
 ties were the Governor General 
 and the Nizam. The details of 
 the Partition of the Territory 
 were prescribed by Lord Wel- 
 lesley, the conquest having been 
 effected by British arms. This 
 was Lord Wellesley's first and 
 chief assertion of the right of 
 conquest, and in it your High- 
 ness had no share whatever as a 
 principal." 
 
 Throne of Mysore, far from 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 5. 
 
 The Mussulman domination, 
 which during the twenty- two 
 years of Hyder Air's rule never 
 impugned the sovereignty of the 
 old House, endured for no more 
 than thirty-eight years, hardly 
 long enough for the Rajah's le- 
 gitimate rights to have been 
 forgotten or annihilated. We 
 had not lost sight of them, for 
 sixteen years before his release 
 we had made a Treaty with his 
 father, and had hoisted the My- 
 sore Rajah's colours on a fort 
 taken from Tippoo. (Ante,~p.$.) 
 Lord Wellesley, while unques- 
 tionably maintaining the rights 
 of conquest, not of British 
 arms alone, but of the Company 
 and the Nizam, still respectec 
 and relied upon the antiquity 
 and legitimate title of the Hin- 
 doo family. And this is recordec 
 in the Partition Treaty and in al 
 the contemporary documents, as 
 one principal reason for the 
 Rajah's elevation. 
 
 6. "In the next place, ancillary to the Partition Treaty of 
 Mysore, was the grant, on certain conditions, of that portion o1 
 the territories conquered from Tippoo Sultan, which the Governoi 
 General thought proper to as- 
 your Highness. The 
 
 sign to 
 
 instrument was styled the Sub- 
 sidiary Treaty; its subordinate 
 relation to the Partition Treaty 
 being thereby indicated. The 
 cession of territory in favour of 
 your Highness, which comprised 
 districts annexed by Hyder Ali, 
 over which your ancestors had 
 never ruled, was based distinctly 
 upon the British Government's 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 6. 
 
 The Subsidiary Treaty, by 
 which the Rajah was placed in 
 possession of his Principality 
 was undoubtedly ' ( ancillary 
 and ' ' subordinate " to the Par- 
 tition Treaty. That is the 
 strongest part of the Rajah's 
 case. The cession or grant .in 
 favour of his Highness was nb1 
 made by the Subsidiary, but by 
 
1862 AND 1863. 
 
 right of conquest. In one of 
 the communications from your 
 Highness, mention is made of 
 that hereditary patrimony ' be- 
 queathed to me by my sires, the 
 Sovereigns of the Soil/ But 
 when the grant was made by 
 Lord Wellesley in favour of your 
 Highness, you did not inherit 
 any patrimony in the soil, and 
 you could not claim a single 
 village, for the independence of 
 your Highnesses ancestors, after 
 the destruction of the Kingdom 
 of Bijeynuggur, to which they 
 had long been vassal chiefs, was 
 short-lived, and they had en- 
 tirely lost by the sword what 
 they had gained by the sword. 
 Therefore, your Highness's title 
 to authority in Mysore rests solely 
 upon the cession made to you by 
 the British Government ; and 
 both in the Subsidiary Treaty, 
 and in the despatches explana- 
 tory of the principles on which 
 it was framed, Lord Wellesley 
 was careful to assert that the 
 only basis of your dominion was 
 the British right of conquest, and 
 the power of his Government to 
 make the cession on conditions. 
 This was Lord Wellesley's se- 
 cond assertion, and mainten- 
 ance of the right of conquest." 
 
 the Partition Treaty, and, there- 
 fore, is not "based distinctly 
 upon the British Government's 
 right of conquest." The Eajah 
 was placed on the throne by 
 the chief officers of the Allied 
 Powers after the Partition 
 Treaty was signed, but eight 
 days before the Subsidiary 
 Treaty was concluded. 
 
 Some districts over which the 
 Rajah's "ancestors had never 
 ruled/' were ceded to him ; and 
 some districts which had formed 
 part of his hereditary posses- 
 sions were included in the Com- 
 pany's share. 
 
 If we add the name of the 
 other contracting party, the 
 Nizam, never omitted by Lord 
 Wellesley, but always over- 
 looked in this despatch, it is 
 perfectly true that "the only 
 basis of the Eajah's dominion," 
 after 1 799, was the right of con- 
 quest of the Allies, and their 
 power to make the cession. And 
 what better basis, what better 
 title could he have? But the 
 cession was made by the two 
 Allies in their Partition Treaty, 
 and not in the subordinate 
 Treaty between the Company 
 and the Rajah, in which no 
 word of cession or specification 
 of territory occurs, but in which 
 the Rajah is treated as already 
 Sovereign of Mysore under the 
 Partition Treaty. 
 
 7. " Lastly, the fourth and fifth Articles of the Subsidiary 
 Treaty show that far from waiving the rights derived from con- 
 quest, Lord Wellesley, in a very signal manner, kept those rights 
 alive in the conditions which he attached to the cession. By 
 the fifth Article, a wide discretionary power is retained to 
 the Governor- General to assume, whether your Highness con- 
 sent or not, the management of the Territories, and to pro- 
 vide for the effectual protection of the country and the welfare 
 
 P 2 
 
68 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 of the people. Nor was the latitude of this discretion unin- 
 tentional. In a despatch which accompanied the draft Treaty of 
 Seringapatam, Lord Wellesley informed the Commissioners that 
 the provisions of Article 5 were absolutely necessary for the purpose 
 of precluding the embarrass- 
 ments which had arisen in Oude, 
 the Carnatic, and Tanjore, and 
 that, in his opinion, it was a 
 more candid and liberal, as well 
 as a more wise policy, to apprise 
 your Highness, from the first 
 hour of your accession, of the 
 
 nature of your dependence, than could only secure to itself the 
 to leave any channel open for power of interference in the 
 future ambiguity and discussion. 
 His Lordship proceeded to state 
 that this was a point which he 
 held to be so essential to the 
 very existence of the new ar- 
 rangement, that if it should ap- 
 pear objectionable ( on grounds 
 of which he was not then aware', 
 he saw no alternative but that 
 of dividing the whole territory 
 between the Allies : in other 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 7. 
 
 The fourth and fifth Articles 
 of the Subsidiary Treaty show 
 that the Allies having, by their 
 right of conquest, ceded Mysore 
 to a descendant of the ancient 
 Rajahs, the British Government 
 
 government by a special agree- 
 ment to that effect in the Treaty. 
 The Rajah's right of sovereignty 
 depends upon the Partition 
 Treaty, and the British right 
 of guidance depends upon the 
 Subsidiary Treaty, and not upon 
 "keeping the rights of conquest 
 alive", a very inaccurate rhe- 
 torical nourish, as I shall show. 
 
 words, of totally excluding your 
 
 Highness from the proposed liberality of the British Government, 
 if there were any demur on the part of those acting for your 
 Highness to accept the grant on the conditions attached to it. 
 Nor was he less precise, when reporting his arrangements to the 
 Court of Directors and to the Ministers of the Crown." 
 
 8. " Throughout these despatches there is no waiving of the 
 rights of conquest, and of the Supreme Sovereignty which it con- 
 ferred upon the British Go 
 
 overn- 
 
 ment. On the contrary, there 
 is repeated assertion in the 
 strongest and clearest language, 
 that in the arrangements made, 
 it was had in view that the title 
 of your Highness to the terri- 
 tory entrusted to you, should 
 have no other basis than the 
 right and power of the British 
 Government to assign it, and 
 that the grant of dominion over 
 that territory was to be in en- 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 8. 
 
 Here we have a perfectly new 
 term introduced, a term quite 
 unheard of from 1799 to 1862 
 " the Supreme Sovereignty" of 
 the British Government over 
 Mysore. This is a term to which 
 the Rajah would certainly not 
 object, though I believe Im- 
 perial Supremacy would be more 
 accurate, if it were used with- 
 out prejudice to his rights as 
 
1862 AND 1863. 
 
 69 
 
 tire subordination to the Sove- 
 reignty of the British Govern- 
 ment, and was conditional on 
 the country being governed in 
 accordance with the wishes of 
 the British Government, for the 
 good of the people, and in a 
 manner that should leave no 
 reason to apprehend failure in 
 bearing such share of the bur- 
 then of military expenditure in 
 peace or in war, as the Governor- 
 General defined for the one, 
 and left open to discretion in 
 the other state of affairs. There 
 is then no doubt whatever as 
 to the intentions of the Marquis 
 Wellesley, when making the 
 grant in favour of your High- 
 ness. He has recorded them in 
 the different stages of the ar- 
 rangement; first, prior to its 
 completion ; next, in the terms 
 and conditions themselves of 
 the Treaty ; and, lastly, when 
 announcing to the British Go- 
 vernment that the spontaneous 
 act, by which conditional do- 
 minion was conferred on your 
 Highness, was secured from 
 being hereafter made a ground 
 for assumptions such as those 
 which I regret to see in your 
 Highnesses Khureeta." 
 
 Sovereign of Mysore. Since 
 1799 the Rajah has stood to- 
 wards the British Government 
 in the position of a subordinate, 
 dependent Prince, a position by 
 no means incompatible with 
 that of Sovereign over his own 
 dominions. But the term is 
 clearly introduced here, in order 
 to insinuate that he is not, and 
 never was a Sovereign at all, 
 but a sort of probationary Sat- 
 rap or Hospodar, tolerated dur- 
 ing good behaviour, but remov- 
 able at will. 
 
 And this Supreme Sove- 
 reignty is said to be conferred 
 upon the British Government 
 by "the right of conquest"; 
 and it is again asserted that the 
 Rajah's title had " no other 
 basis than the right and power 
 of the British Government to 
 assign it"; to which I must 
 again reply that the right of 
 conquest, as proclaimed by Lord 
 "Wellesley, belonged to the Com- 
 pany and the Nizam, and that 
 the Rajah's territories were not 
 assigned to him as a grant by 
 Lord Wellesley, or by the British 
 Government, but by the Allies, 
 under their Treaty of Partition. 
 
 9. " But the Khureeta, passing from assumptions without 
 foundation, proceeds on the strength of them to make an appeal 
 for justice, complains of the further retention, without justifiable 
 pretext, of your country, after the avowed object for which its 
 government had been temporarily assumed, had long since 
 been accomplished ; and claims the restoration of sovereign 
 rights, the suspension of which, it is asserted, was always stated 
 to be a temporary measure. Your Highness thus challenges 
 the justice and the good faith of the British Government. 
 Thereby your Highness compels me to point out to you, 
 that the British Government did not interpose to enforce the 
 remedy provided in the Subsidiary Treaty, until the obliga- 
 
70 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 tions which attached to the ces- 
 sion had been for twenty years 
 flagrantly and habitually vio- 
 lated, in spite of repeated warn- 
 ings and remonstrances by the 
 British Government and its 
 agents; nor until the country 
 had been driven into rebellion 
 by misgovernment of the very 
 worst description, and when, 
 but for that interference, most 
 of the provinces of Mysore would 
 have effectually shaken off your 
 Highnesses authority." 
 
 10. "It was under these cir- 
 cumstances that the British Go- 
 vernment, sensible of the re- 
 sponsibility which the rights of 
 conquest and of sovereignty im- 
 posed upon it, acted upon the 
 provisions of the Treaty; and 
 having made ample provision 
 for your Highnesses comfort and 
 dignity, cancelled the authority 
 it had conferred, and re-entered 
 on the possession and the ad- 
 ministration of the Mysore ter- 
 ritory, in order to retrieve its 
 public resources, and to rescue 
 the country from anarchy and 
 ruin. When thus reluctantly 
 forced to supersede your High- 
 ness's authority, no expectation, 
 direct or indirect, was held out 
 that that authority would be re- 
 stored in your Highnesses life- 
 time, under its former conditions. 
 The Government of India care- 
 fully held itself free to act as fu- 
 ture circumstances might show 
 to be the best; and it abstained 
 from all pledge to Prince or 
 people, that an administration 
 which had so signally failed, 
 would ever be re-established." 
 
 PARAGRAPH 9. 
 
 The misgovernment of My- 
 sore was due, as I have shown, 
 to the fault of the British Go- 
 vernment, which allowed a boy 
 of sixteen to assume absolute 
 power, and neglected to employ 
 the efficient means provided by 
 the Treaty for the regulation 
 and control of the native ad- 
 ministration. It is therefore 
 the worst abuse of language to 
 call the misgovernment of My- 
 sore " a flagrant and habitual 
 violation of the Treaty". (Ante, 
 p. 15-16.) 
 
 PARAGRAPH 10. 
 
 The British Government is 
 said to have " cancelled the 
 authority it had conferred". 
 Nothing was cancelled; no per- 
 manent change was declared or 
 intended at that time. And thus 
 Lord William Bentinck writes 
 in a Minute dated 14th April, 
 1834: "Is the Subsidiary Treaty 
 of Mysore virtually cancelled, 
 or is it still in full force 1" 
 
 " The answer must decidedly 
 be that the management has 
 been assumed for and on be- 
 half of the Rajah, and that the 
 Treaty is in full force. " (My- 
 sore Papers, 1866, page 26.) 
 
 It is said that the Rajah was 
 never led to expect that his au- 
 thority would be restored, "un- 
 der its former conditions. " The 
 Rajah has never asked to be 
 replaced at the head of affairs 
 under the former conditions of 
 lawless power. On the con- 
 trary, he has proposed the im- 
 position of regulations and or- 
 dinances. 
 
1862 AND 1863. 
 
 71 
 
 11." Your Highness has adverted to certain proposals made 
 by Lord William Bentinck, subject to the approval of the British 
 Government. As the latter withheld its concurrence, the pro- 
 posals of the Governor- General 
 
 fell to the ground. In the course 
 of the correspondence, the Court 
 of Directors used language which 
 was consistent with a purpose, 
 at some future period, and under 
 conditions left undefined, to re- 
 store a native Government, but 
 not specifically that of your High- 
 ness. The expressions of the 
 Court of Directors were simply 
 in the way of caution, to pre- 
 vent anything being done which 
 could interfere with the future 
 free action of the British Go- 
 vernment, as to the form of 
 administration to be organised 
 for Mysore. There was nothing 
 in them which approached to a 
 pledge to restore your High- 
 ness' share in the administra- 
 tion, even if administration by 
 a British Commission should 
 fail. That which the Treaty 
 promised, the British Govern- 
 ment scrupulously performed ; 
 and your Highness is now en- 
 joying the personal provision 
 which was secured to you in the 
 event of that Government re- 
 suming the administration of 
 Mysore. This provision is a 
 personal right, not an heritable 
 one. It is not claimable as a 
 right, even by a natural-born 
 heir, however liberally the Go- 
 vernment might, of its own 
 grace, be disposed to deal with 
 a claim from such a quarter; 
 and as your Highness failed to 
 fulfil the obligations of the au- 
 thority which had been ceded 
 to you, it is the only right which 
 remains to you ; and your title 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 11. 
 
 The writer of the despatch 
 says that the Court of Directors 
 spoke of restoring a native Go- 
 vernment, "under conditions 
 left undefined," and "not spe- 
 cifically that of his Highness." 
 Yet the Court of Directors 
 objected to " a system which 
 cannot be worked hereafter by 
 native agency when the country 
 shall be restored to the Rajah." 
 (Ante, p. 46.) This mention of 
 the Rajah is surely quite as 
 specific as his Highness himself 
 could desire. 
 
 The sting of the whole letter 
 lies in the latter part of this 
 paragraph, which proves too 
 clearly that it is not merely the 
 retention of the management 
 that is sought to be justified, but 
 the eventual extinction of the 
 native State. The Rajah's share 
 of the revenue is declared to be 
 ' ' the only right which remains" 
 to him, and this is " a personal 
 right, not a heritable one." 
 The only reason that is given 
 for declaring the sovereignty 
 not to be hereditary, is that he 
 has "forfeited" his "title" 
 " through misrule," and that he 
 has " failed to fulfil the obliga- 
 tions of the authority which was 
 ceded to him" penalties which 
 are unexplained and unjustified 
 either by the facts of the Ra- 
 jah's rule, or by the particular 
 provisions of the Treaty, or by 
 the general principles of inter- 
 national law. 
 
72 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 to that right is exactly the same as was your title to the authority 
 which you forfeited through misrule. That is, it rests upon 
 favour shown to your Highness by the British Government, in 
 its mode of dealing with other rights which it had acquired by 
 conquest." 
 
 12. "The good faith x>f that Government towards your High- 
 ness is inviolate. Its justice can as little be called in question. 
 After patiently permitting for twenty years an administration which 
 culminated in insurrection, and 
 rendered necessary the interven- 
 tion of British troops to sup- 
 press anarchy, the British Go- 
 vernment was imperatively called 
 upon to vindicate its own cha- 
 racter for justice, and not to per- 
 mit its name or its power to be 
 identified with misrule. It had 
 a duty to fulfil towards the people 
 of Mysore, and for thirty years, 
 under the able and honest ad- 
 ministration of British Officers, 
 that duty has been efficiently 
 performed. Solvency has been 
 restored, and order is now main- 
 tained in Mysore. So far the 
 immediate purpose of the re- 
 sumption has been obtained. 
 But when your Highness pro- 
 ceeds to state that the native 
 system of government has pro- 
 duced these results, and that 
 you will provide an administra- 
 tion for the future as good as that 
 which you would supersede, 
 your Highness seems to forget 
 the material fact that the para- 
 mount authority of British Officers is the safeguard, and the 
 very essence of the good which is manifest in the present ad- 
 ministration. Your Highness fails to offer any security upon a 
 point not inferior in importance to the restoration of order and 
 solvency, namely, the future maintenance of good government in 
 Mysore. This was one of the avowed purposes of the resumption 
 of authority by the British Government; and I say frankly to 
 your Highness that it is my conviction, founded on experience of 
 the past, that if the authority of the British Officers was removed, 
 or even hampered, the peace and prosperity of Mysore would be 
 
 PAEAGEAPH 12. 
 
 That the Government of India 
 ' ' patiently permitted" the mal- 
 administration of Mysore for 
 twenty years, which the writer 
 of this despatch strangely enough 
 seems to consider a proof of 
 graceful forbearance, is, as I 
 have already shown, an example 
 of inexcusable neglect of duty, 
 which might be much more de- 
 servedly, and much more appro- 
 priately stigmatised as a breach 
 of solemn obligations, than the 
 untutored extravagance of the 
 young Prince's career. (Ante, 
 p. 16.) 
 
 There is, and always was, an 
 ample security for the good go- 
 vernment of Mysore, includ- 
 ing, if thought necessary, the 
 employment of English officers, 
 in the proper application of 
 Article XIV of the Treaty, de- 
 claring the authoritative nature 
 of British counsels. 
 
1862 AND 1863. 
 
 at an end. The justice of the British Government might indeed 
 be open to question, if, without the fullest security that the mea- 
 sure would not be synonymous with a return to oppression and 
 misrule, the province of Mysore was replaced under its former 
 Head." 
 
 13. " The obligations of the British Government to the people 
 of Mysore, are as sacred as its self-imposed obligations to your 
 Highness, which alone form your Highnesses title to any rights 
 under the Subsidiary Treaty. 
 
 PARAGEAPH 13. 
 The British Government did 
 not " reserve to itself the 
 
 When in that Treaty the British 
 Government reserved to itself the 
 reassumption at its own discre- 
 tion of the dominions entrusted 
 under conditions to your High- 
 ness, it thereby acknowledged 
 the obligation by which conquest 
 had been accompanied, and ad- 
 mitted its responsibility for the 
 enduring welfare of the people 
 over whom it had become Sove- 
 reign. And whilst the British 
 Government has been careful to 
 satisfy the right which it ori- 
 ginally conceded -to your High- 
 ness, and certainly not the less 
 careful because theconcessionwas 
 made spontaneously, and without 
 its being in your Highness' s power 
 to offer any consideration of the 
 smallest political value as an 
 equivalent, it is equally alive to 
 its obligations to the people of 
 My sore, and to the responsibility 
 for their prosperity and welfare, 
 of which it cannot divest itself. 
 It has been and will continue to 
 be scrupulously just to both 
 parties." 
 
 re- 
 assumption at its own discretion 
 of the dominions entrusted under 
 conditions" to his Highness. 
 The Treaty simply empowered 
 the Honourable Company to as- 
 sume management of such a por- 
 tion of the Rajah's territories as 
 might be sufficient to supply 
 funds for the Subsidy, " when- 
 ever " and ' ' so long " as there 
 should be f ' reason to appre- 
 hend " a failure in the funds so 
 destined. This is very far from 
 amounting to the " re-assump- 
 tion " of dominions held merely 
 as a trust by the Rajah. 
 
 When the writer of the de- 
 spatch states that the Rajah's 
 sovereignty in Mysore was a 
 " concession made spontane- 
 ously" by the British Govern- 
 ment, and that it was not in the 
 Rajah's power " to offer any con- 
 sideration of the smallest poli- 
 tical value," the statement is in 
 direct contradiction of the opi- 
 
 nions of Lord Wellesley as to the 
 political theory and expectations of 1 799, and to the opinions of 
 such men as the Duke of Wellington, Sir John Malcolm, the 
 Marquis of Hastings and Sir Mark Cubbon, as to the practical 
 results from 1799 down to 1860. 
 
 14. " Your Highness has pressed upon my consideration your 
 advanced age, and your desire that the stigma which attaches to 
 
74 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 your name might be removed by a restoration to the position you 
 formerly held. These are pleas to which in themselves I desire 
 to show respect, and all practicable indulgence, but accompanied 
 as they have been by pretensions based upon erroneous assump- 
 tions, and leading as they have led to an imputation upon the 
 fair dealing of the British Government, it has been incumbent on 
 me to correct the errors into which your Highness has fallen; 
 and to put upon record, that in my opinion your Highness was 
 very ill-advised, when upon the grounds of assumed ancestral and 
 hereditary rights which have no existence, and of admissions and 
 promises which never were made, you permitted yourself to for- 
 get the generosity of the British Government, in order to call in 
 question its good faith and justice. 
 
 " I beg to express the high consideration I entertain for your 
 Highness, and I beg to subscribe myself, 
 
 1 ' Your Highnesses sincere Friend, 
 
 " CANNING. 
 "Fort William, llth March, 1862." 
 
 This letter is well known not to have been of Lord Can- 
 ning's composition, though he sanctioned and signed it at 
 the last moment, when enfeebled by illness, and glad to dis- 
 pose in any way of an irritating and perplexing subject that 
 had long pressed for settlement, and which he felt ought 
 not to be handed over to Lord Elgin, after a year's delay, . 
 in an undetermined state. The Calcutta Secretariat could 
 not forgive the Rajah for having so signally discomfited 
 their confident anticipations of the forthcoming bequest of 
 the Principality, "in free will and full sovereignty", and "in 
 a spirit of loyal attachment", by its " venerable Sovereign", 
 "more than sixty years of age, and of a family notoriously, 
 short-lived". From this source seems to have been infused 
 that otherwise unaccountable acrimony which pervades the 
 whole letter. 
 
 Captain W. J. Eastwick makes the following observations 
 in his Minute of Dissent, with reference to this stage of the 
 case : " It thus appears, that while we believed that the 
 Maharajah intended to give his country to the British G< 
 vernment he had entire liberty to bequeath it 'in fu] 
 sovereignty ;' but when this illusion is dispelled, we find ou1 
 that he has not the right to bequeath it to any one, even t( 
 a natural or adopted heir. In the same spirit we appe; 
 to the conditions of the Treaty when we wish to divest th< 
 
1862 AND 1863. 75 
 
 Rajah of his dominions ; and we ignore the Treaty when 
 called upon under its conditions to restore the country to 
 the Rajah."* 
 
 Within a month from its receipt the Rajah sent a rejoinder 
 to the newly arrived Governor-General, Lord Elgin, as an 
 appeal to the Home Government against Lord Canning's 
 decision.t 
 
 For nearly a year and a half the Rajah heard nothing 
 officially on the subject of this appeal ; though rumours, 
 supposed to be authentic,^ more than once reached India, 
 of great differences of opinion and animated discussions in 
 the India Council as to the Hindoo Sovereign's rights, as 
 to the duty of the British Government towards him and to- 
 wards the people of Mysore, and as to the general policy of 
 restoration. And at one period the Rajah was positively 
 assured and the assurance was not, I believe, founded on 
 error that the Secretary of State had consented to reinstate 
 his Highness at the head of the Mysore Government on cer- 
 tain conditions, and that a draft despatch to that effect had 
 been actually prepared, and was under consideration at the 
 India Office. All his hopes, however, were damped for the 
 present at the conversation with the Commissioner of 
 JMysore described in the following Memorandum. 
 
 1 ' At an interview which Mr. Bowring had with the Rajah of 
 Mysore on the 14th September 1863, the following conversation 
 took place : 
 
 " Mr. Bowring. 
 
 " A private letter has been received by me from Lord Elgin, 
 the Viceroy, stating that a despatch from the Home Government 
 contains an unfavourable decision with regard to your Highnesses 
 appeal for the restoration of the government of your country. 
 His Lordship has desired me to inform him of the whole of your 
 Highnesses desires, and to report to him my own sentiments re- 
 garding the promotion and advancement of your Highnesses 
 dignity and comfort. 
 
 ' ' The Maharajah. 
 
 "The British Government considering me as the sole and 
 rightful owner of this Kingdom a Kingdom which from antiquity 
 belonged to my ancestors established me on the throne. 
 
 * Mysore Papers, 18G6, p. 77. 
 
 Ibid., 1866, p. 8. 
 
 t Known to be authentic since the appearance of the Parliamentary Papers 
 Relating to Mysore of 1866. 
 
76 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "You must be aware that I myself ruled this country for a 
 space of twenty-two years with absolute power. I now firmly 
 assert that I now am what I have been through life, a humble 
 Ally, a staunch friend and well-wisher to the British Government. 
 Moreover you must consider that I am the very person who was 
 proclaimed by the Treaty of 1 799 to be the rightful heir. I am 
 no one else, but the same man, who is by the blessing of God 
 still alive, and whose privileges and titles have from time to time 
 been fully acknowledged and upheld by the British Government. 
 It would undoubtedly be as well consistent with the principles of 
 justice, as it would be gratifying to myself and to all my subjects, 
 should the British Government, honouring the solemn provisions 
 of the Treaty of 1799, restore me in my old age to the govern- 
 ment of my country, which was declared to be assumed only for 
 a certain time. But I have noted down on this paper all my sen- 
 timents, and I particularly desire you to hear me read it ; or I 
 shall be glad to have it translated, if you will give me the services 
 of one of your Assistants for a few minutes. 
 
 "Mr. Bowring. 
 
 " As your Highnesses case has been finally settled by the Secre- 
 tary of State, there could be no advantage in my hearing anything 
 more regarding the restoration of the government ; but if there 
 be any suggestion for the improvement of your Highnesses dignity 
 and comfort, your Highness can express yourself verbally with 
 perfect freedom. 
 
 " The Maharajah. 
 
 " It is my wish that the British Government should make it 
 known by proclamation throughout my Kingdom that the country 
 has been restored to me. Hereafter I wish that the Commissioner 
 of Mysore may be designated the Resident and Minister at my 
 Court, the government being still administered by him, but in 
 my name, and with my voice in all matters of importance. The 
 balance now in the Treasury should be made over to me, and the 
 yearly revenue also, after deducting the necessary expenses of the 
 public establishments.* The power of Adoption must be admitted 
 
 * This, I must confess, is rather an alarming demand ; but all alarm and 
 anxiety on the subject ought to have been dispelled long ago, and could be dis- 
 pelled before the Rajah's restoration, by " a regulation or ordinance" to be 
 issued as a law by the Sovereign establishing a public Treasury and a Civil 
 List or Privy Purse, with distinct accounts, forms and vouchers for disburse- 
 ment, and under responsible officers. The organisation and control of such 
 institutions are of course difficult at first, but not impossible ; and after a 
 time after a succession and a minority, for instance they would work by 
 themselves. 
 
 During General Cubbon's administration a surplus, amounting to upwards of 
 a million sterling, had accumulated, in specie, in the Mysore Treasury ; part of 
 which has been recently invested in the Indian Funds. 
 
1862 AND 1863. 77 
 
 to rest with me. It is my earnest desire that the native State of 
 Mysore should continue from generation to generation. If these 
 requests are complied with it will raise me in the estimation of 
 my brethren, the Princes of India, it would be a source of grati- 
 fication to me, and fill my people with contentment. 
 
 " Mr. Bowring. 
 
 " Is it your Highness' s wish to adopt a son to succeed to all 
 your Highness's possessions ? 
 
 " The Maharajah. 
 
 " It is not only my wish to make such an adoption, but I repeat 
 it, it is my determination to adopt a son, in conformity with the 
 Hindoo law and the long established usages of my ancestors, to 
 be the representative of the ancient Rajahs of Mysore. 
 
 " Mr. Boivring. 
 
 " What is the name of the youth whom your Highness intends 
 to adopt, to what line of descent does he belong; to the Moogoor 
 or to the Oalola line ? 
 
 " The Maharajah. 
 
 "The youth does not belong to either of the branches you 
 mention. His name cannot be announced at present, nor until 
 the proper time arrives; but it is my express desire that you 
 should communicate what I have said on this point to the Governor- 
 General." 
 
 And shortly after this, the lamented and sudden death of 
 Lord Elgin having occurred, it fell to Sir William Denison, 
 who as senior Governor had taken provisional charge of 
 the Viceregal office, to communicate officially to his High- 
 ness the views taken by the Home Government on the 
 question of his reinstatement. This was done in the follow- 
 ing letter. 
 
 " To his Highness Maharajah Kishen Raj Wadiyar Bahadoor, 
 of Mysore, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 "MY HONOUEED AND VALUED FfilEND, 
 
 "It is my duty to inform your Highness that your appeal 
 against the decision of the Government of India which was con- 
 veyed to you in Lord Canning's Khareeta dated the llth March 
 1802, was duly forwarded to the Secretary of State in Council, 
 and that the commands of Her Majesty's Government on the 
 subject of the administration of the Mysore Territories, have now 
 been received. 
 
 " Her Majesty's Government, in arriving at their decision, have 
 
78 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 been influenced by an anxious desire to do justice to all those 
 who would be affected by it, and have felt that every consideration 
 is due to your Highness on account of your age and your loyalty 
 to the British Government. At the same time Her Majesty's 
 Government, after weighing fully and carefully all the arguments 
 adduced by your Highness have decided that your title to the 
 territories of Mysore rests solely upon the exercise by the British 
 Government, in your favour, of an undoubted right of conquest ; 
 that the Subsidiary Treaty of the 8th July 1799 contains no con- 
 ditions under which the administration of your Highnesses pos- 
 sessions, if once assumed by the British Government, was to be 
 restored to you ; that while the orders from time to time issued 
 by the Government of India and the Home Government, indicate 
 a wish that no steps should be taken or expressions used which 
 would interfere with the free exercise of their discretion in any 
 future circumstances which might arise, the expression of these 
 sentiments constitutes no obligation on the part of the British 
 Government to reinstate your Highness and gives your Highness 
 no right to such restoration. 
 
 " Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that the assumption 
 of the administration of your Highnesses Territories in 1831, was 
 in accordance with the provisions of the Subsidiary Treaty ; that 
 your Highness cannot, as of right, now claim its restoration ; and 
 that the reinstatement of your Highness in the administration of 
 the country is incompatible with the true interests of the people 
 of Mysore. 
 
 "I am therefore commanded by Her Majesty's Government to 
 inform your Highness, that Her Majesty's Government have de- 
 termined not to interfere with the decision which was communi- 
 cated to your Highness by Earl Canning and confirmed by Lord 
 Elgin, and that the administration of Mysore shall continue to 
 be conducted as at present by the British officers. 
 
 " I beg to express the high consideration I entertain for your 
 Highness, and to subscribe myself, 
 
 " Your Highness' s sincere friend, 
 
 "W. DENISON." 
 "Fort William, the 31st December 1863." 
 
 There is nothing contained in this letter that will be new 
 to my readers, nothing that demands any lengthened com- 
 ment. In terms more guarded and courteous than those 
 used in Lord Canning's letter, the Kajah's title to the terri- 
 tories of Mysore is said to " rest solely upon the exercise by 
 the British Government, in his favour, of an undoubted 
 right of conquest". To this, after again observing that the 
 conquest and the cession were made not by the British 
 

 1862 AND 1863. 79 
 
 Government solely, but by the British Government and 
 its Ally the Nizam, I can only once more append the 
 question, What better title could the Bajah possibly 
 have 1 The Eajah certainly desires no better title than 
 the cession of 1799, and has never repudiated his obliga- 
 tions to the British Government, although he alludes with 
 very natural pride to the antiquity of that legitimate title 
 which Lord Wellesley himself professed to respect, and 
 which is recorded in the Partition Treaty. 
 
 The Rajah's claim to reinstatement is explicitly and de- 
 cidedly rejected in this despatch for the first time be it 
 observed since 1832 on the ground that the Subsidiary 
 Treaty " contains no conditions under which the adminis- 
 tration of his Highness's possessions, if once assumed by 
 the British Government, was to be restored to him." There 
 are indeed no particular conditions mentioned, no peculiar 
 formality or process is laid down in the Treaty by which 
 the restoration is to be accompanied ; but at the same time 
 it certainly does not appear to contemplate the perpetual 
 retention of the government in our hands, since all the pro- 
 visions of the Articles authorising British management, are 
 expressly stated to be applicable only " so long as any part 
 or parts of his Highness's territories shall remain under" 
 our " exclusive authority and control/' 
 
 In Article V of the Subsidiary Treaty it is expressly pro- 
 vided, that " whenever and so long " as any part of Mysore 
 remains in our hands, we are to " render to his Highness a 
 true and faithful account of the revenues and produce of 
 the territories so assumed." This stipulation is now, and 
 has been always, fulfilled by the British Commissioner. 
 The accounts are regularly furnished to the Eajah up to this 
 day. 
 
 The Treaty undoubtedly leaves the execution of the two 
 corrective Articles, IV and V, both as to commencement 
 and as to duration, to the discretion of the British Govern- 
 ment. But this discretion, being of necessity so placed in 
 the hands of that one of the two contracting parties which 
 alone possesses the power of enforcing the provisions of 
 the Treaty, the heaviest moral obligation is imposed upon it 
 to be cautious as to the commencement of such an execu- 
 tion, and to make its duration as brief as possible to treat 
 
SO CHAPTEB IV. 
 
 the weaker party with good faith and generous considera- 
 tion, so long as he conducts himself with loyalty and defer- 
 ence towards his powerful Ally and Patron. This the Rajah 
 of Mysore has always done, and he has never been accused 
 of doing otherwise. But we were not cautious in com- 
 mencing the execution ; having previously neglected to 
 train the Rajah and to organise his administration, we over- 
 looked, when it fell into disorder, the milder plan of intro- 
 ducing regulations and ordinances, and at once rushed to 
 the extreme process that "harsh and unprovoked measure," 
 as Lord Metcalfe called it, of setting the Prince entirely 
 aside, and putting the management exclusively in the hands 
 of English officers. And we have certainly not, in any way 
 or at any time, tried to shorten the duration of our inter- 
 ference. I cannot but come to the conclusion that the Sub- 
 sidiary Treaty has been infringed by the stronger party, 
 both in letter and spirit, and that the weaker party is en- 
 titled to a signal and complete reparation The Subsidy, 
 which Lord William Bentinck admitted had "never been in 
 jeopardy," having been punctually paid for sixty-five years 
 in monthly instalments according to the terms of the Treaty : 
 there is no reason to doubt that the funds of the State are 
 efficient and available in time of peace or war ;" and, con- 
 sequently, no cause remains, under the strict terms of the 
 Treaty, for any longer retaining the Rajah's dominions 
 under the " exclusive control and direct management " of 
 British Commissioners. 
 
 But the question of partially restoring a native govern- 
 ment during the reigning Prince's life-time, sinks into in- 
 significance before the imminent prospect of the whole frame- 
 work of the protected State being swept away at the reign- 
 ing Prince's demise, and of Mysore being incorporated in 
 the Madras Presidency. The future maintenance of this 
 allied and tributary State, of that " separate Government " 
 in Mysore for which the Partition Treaty stipulates, and of 
 the rights of the Rajah's heir, now depend entirely upon the 
 wisdom of the Home Government. If the professional 
 rulers at Calcutta are allowed to have their own way in 
 these matters, they will soon make short work of them. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 THE ADOPTION AND SUCCESSION. 
 
 'HE hopes entertained and expressed by two successive 
 Governors-General that the Kajah would never adopt a 
 son, were undoubtedly based upon nothing but Residency 
 gossip, and never ought to have been officially recorded in 
 any more serious light. The importance attached to them 
 is an evident proof of the absence of any fair and reason- 
 able impediment to the ordinary course of the Hindoo law 
 of inheritance. But there is seldom smoke without fire ; 
 rumours of this description are seldom quite unfounded. 
 There really was for several years a very prevalent report, 
 which spread a panic throughout Mysore, and for the first 
 time in his life brought the Rajah into such personal un- 
 popularity that he was more than once very badly received 
 by the inhabitants of his capital, that the Rajah had re- 
 fused to adopt a son, and that at his death the Kingdom 
 would lapse to the Honourable Company. The truth is, 
 that in addition to that natural aversion to adopt an heir 
 during Lord Dalhousie's career of annexation, to which I 
 have referred, other influences were occasionally brought to 
 bear upon his Highness which led to doubt and procrastina- 
 tion. An adoption being usually the selection of a suc- 
 cessor from among the junior ranks of the family, and 
 tending to enhance the rank and importance of a more 
 distant branch at the expense of nearer relatives, a good 
 deal of jealousy and opposition is frequently excited, and 
 various devices and intrigues are sometimes employed, 
 before the irrevocable step has been taken, to induce a 
 postponement, in the hope that the choice may be altered. 
 At one time the same notion was assiduously inculcated in 
 the Rajah's mind as had been used, with a similar object, 
 to deter the Rajah of Nagpore from concluding an adoption* 
 
 * Papers relating to the Rajah of Berar, 1854, p. 17. 
 
 G 
 
82 CHAPTER V. 
 
 it was suggested that an heir might be used to effect his 
 deposition, if he were to persist in demanding his reinstate- 
 ment, or in any other way to be importunate and trouble- 
 some to the Commissioner. 
 
 At another period a rumour was spread abroad, and con- 
 veyed to the Rajah's ears, that some Brahmin soothsayers 
 had positively ascertained that his own death would follow, 
 very closely, his adoption of an heir to the throne. It is 
 highly probable that these alarming prognostications may 
 have caused the Eajah to dislike the idea of concluding an 
 adoption, and to defer it as long as possible, just as an 
 Englishman may sometimes evade and defer the execution 
 of his last will. But he never faltered in his determination ; 
 and it is creditable to his good sense and steadiness of 
 purpose, that his Highness overcame all his misgivings, and 
 on the 18th June, 1865, publicly adopted a son at the 
 Palace of Mysore, in the presence of a large and enthusiastic 
 assemblage of all classes of his subjects. Major Charles 
 Elliot, C.B., the Superintendent of the Mysore Division, 
 specially summoned by the Rajah, was present on the 
 occasion and witnessed the whole ceremony, and to this 
 officer his Highness handed a letter to the Viceroy and 
 Governor-General, announcing the completion of the mea- 
 sure that had been so long meditated. In this letter the 
 Rajah writes to Sir John Lawrence: "I have this day, the 
 18th June, 1865, according to Hindoo law, the usage of my 
 ancestors, and in virtue of Her Majesty's Proclamation, 
 adopted a son as successor to all my rights under the Parti- 
 tion Treaty of 1799 between the East India Company and 
 the Nizam, and under my Subsidiary Treaty of the same 
 year with the East India Company, both of which are in full 
 force." 
 
 The boy whom the Rajah has adopted, and who has re- 
 ceived the name of Cham Rajyendra Wadiyar, was two and 
 a half years of age at the time of the ceremony, and is of 
 the Raj-bindee or Royal blood, descended from the same 
 stock with the Rajah, although their common ancestor can 
 only be found in a very distant generation : he is the 
 grandson of Gopaul Rajah Urs,* the brother of Her High- 
 
 * Urs is the Canarese for Prince, and the title is given to all the members 
 of the Rajah's family. 
 
THE ADOPTION AND SUCCESSION. 83 
 
 ness the Ranee Luchmee, who, as Eegent and guardian 
 during the Rajah's minority, signed the Subsidiary Treaty 
 of 1799. The young Prince was a child of the Bettada 
 Kotay House, one of the thirteen branches of the family 
 most nearly related to the reigning Rajah. He is now by 
 Hindoo law the Rajah's son. 
 
 The Rajah of Mysore has outlived by more than eleven 
 years the family limit of sixty prescribed by the seers 
 of Calcutta. He has also outlived the short interval which 
 certain Brahmin astrologers predicted would separate the 
 day of an adoption from the day of his own death. He 
 is said to be in excellent health and spirits, determined to 
 maintain the rights of his son and of his throne to the last 
 moment of his existence, and expressing the most perfect 
 confidence in the justice of Her Majesty the Queen. 
 
 The question of the Rajah's reinstatement has thus be- 
 come complicated with one of much higher and more 
 lasting importance, that of the future destiny of the ancient 
 Hindoo State of Mysore, of which His Highness is the 
 reigning representative, and his adopted son the lawful 
 heir. The object of His Highness's temporary suspension 
 from power, as declared to him by Lord William Bentinck, 
 in his letter of 7th September, 1831, viz. : "the preserva- 
 tion of the State of Mysore," and "the permanent prosperity 
 of the Raj," or dynasty, is now completely dropped by the 
 authorities at Calcutta ; and arguments are now employed 
 to justify a persistence in the suspension, and the non- 
 recognition of the recent adoption, which point to the sub- 
 version of the State of Mysore, and the extinction of the 
 Raj at the decease of the present Sovereign. All those 
 public men, therefore, who look to the maintenance of a 
 system of protected, reformed and tributary native States 
 as the best constitution for the British Empire in India, 
 both as a pacificating and as an educating Power, ought to 
 demand the restoration of the Rajah of Mysore to the 
 functions of royalty, not merely in submission to the faith 
 of Treaties and the abstract justice of the claim, not merely 
 to remove an unjust personal stigma from a friendly and 
 faithful Prince, but as the best proof that can be given that 
 the preservation of the Raj is still intended, and not its 
 speedy destruction. 
 
 G2 
 
84 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Rajah having previously communicated to the Com- 
 missioner of Mysore, for the information of the Viceroy, his 
 intention of adopting a son, a reply was sent from the 
 Foreign Office of Calcutta, (No. 333, 29th March, 1864,) in 
 which the following sentence occurs: "The Rajah has a 
 full right to adopt so far as his private property is concerned ; 
 but his Highness must be distinctly informed that no autho- 
 rity to adopt a successor to the Raj of Mysore has ever been 
 given him, and that no such power can now be conceded 
 to him/' 
 
 But no such concession is necessary to give legal effect to 
 the adoption. It is true that no copy of the circular of 
 1860, permitting the Hindoo Princes to adopt successors, 
 was sent to the Rajah of Mysore ; but this arbitrary or 
 accidental exclusion is of no disinheriting effect, by any law 
 or custom, Asiatic or European, municipal or Imperial. 
 
 The general plan and object of Lord Canning's circular 
 may well be applauded, as a graceful retreat from an offen- 
 sive and untenable position, but there are absolutely no 
 grounds for maintaining that the Rajah of Mysore, or any 
 other Hindoo Sovereign, ever had, or has now, any need of 
 the Viceroy's permission, in any form, as the preliminary or 
 as the ratification of a fully effective adoption. 
 
 Adoption is no peculiar or exceptional privilege : it is the 
 specific principle of the Hindoo law of inheritance. The 
 right of adoption is that of nominating an heir in cases 
 where actual issue has failed not necessarily, or even 
 usually, a remedy for lack of heirs, but the selection of one 
 from a number of possible heirs, often from a long list of 
 agnates and cognates, to be not merely an heir but a son. 
 
 The British Government has never possessed the right of 
 disallowing adoptions for its own purposes : even where it 
 has retained or acquired from its predecessors the preroga- 
 tive of investiture over minor Principalities, it has no more 
 right to forbid the succession of an adopted son than of a 
 lineal male descendant. The prerogative of investiture 
 gives jurisdiction in disputed successions, asserts supremacy, 
 and enforces subordination, but does not justify the refusal 
 of investiture to a lawful heir. But in the case of a Hindoo 
 Prince, with whom a treaty of perpetual friendship and 
 alliance has been contracted, not even the prerogative of 
 
THE ADOPTION AND SUCCESSION. 85 
 
 investiture exists. Nothing but the moral duty of protec- 
 tion and pacification authorises any intervention to control 
 and regulate the course of inheritance. 
 
 Lord Canning himself, in that same Adoption Despatch 
 of 1860, fully acknowledged that, notwithstanding all the 
 previous assertions to the contrary, no precedent could be 
 found for declining to recognise a succession by adoption to 
 territorial and princely rights : " We have not shown," he 
 says, " so far as I can find, a single instance in which adop- 
 tion by a Sovereign Prince has been invalidated by a refusal 
 of assent from the Paramount Power." And he adds : " I 
 believe that there is no example of any Hindoo State, whe- 
 ther in Eajpootana or elsewhere, lapsing to the Paramount 
 Power, by reason of that Power withholding its assent to an 
 adoption."* 
 
 Yet, by a singular series of gradations, the Mysore ques- 
 tion has come to this unhealthy complexion at last, and if 
 the declared intentions of the Calcutta authorities are ap- 
 proved and confirmed at home, the British Government will 
 be openly committed to the violation of two Treaties, to the 
 destruction of another friendly State, and to a direct con- 
 tradiction of both the Queen's Proclamation and Lord Can- 
 ning's Adoption Despatch. It is a sufficiently dangerous 
 state of things, when the name or the memory of some par- 
 ticular Viceroy or Governor, living or dead, is the object of 
 popular execration. But much more solemn sanctions are 
 now assailed. It would be an incurable wound to British 
 honour and influence, if the Princes and people of India 
 should be practically taught that the word of the Queen of 
 Great Britain, never pledged before 1858, is not to be 
 trusted, that Treaties are waste paper, and a Eoyal Pro- 
 clamation merely idle words, when they stand in the way 
 of the acquisition of more territory. 
 
 Sir Charles Wood, in his reply of the 26th of July, 1860, 
 
 * Sir John Willoughby writes as follows in one of his Dissents : " In my 
 opinion, prohibiting an adoption would be a grievous violation of Lord Can- 
 ning's pledges and proclamation on the subject." " On the general question 
 of adoptions in India, my opinion varies in some respects from that of Sir F. 
 Currie, and more especially as regards the case of Sattara ; but my views, 
 shared by many others, were authoritatively set aside by the late Lord Can- 
 ning's manifesto on the subject" (Mysore Papers, p. 47). Sir John Willoughby's 
 former views were founded on imaginary precedents, and Lord Canning, in the 
 sentence just quoted, admits their imaginary nature. 
 
86 CHAPTER V. 
 
 cordially agrees with Lord Canning's Adoption Despatch, 
 and says : " In the sentiments expressed in your Excel- 
 lency's letter of the 30th of April I entirely concur. It is 
 not by the extension of our Empire that its permanence is 
 to be secured, but by the character of British rule in the 
 territories already committed to our care, and by practically 
 demonstrating that we are as willing to respect the rights 
 of others as we are capable of maintaining our own." 
 
 But if the declared intentions of the present Calcutta 
 authorities with regard to Mysore are allowed to be realised, 
 it will be a practical demonstration that we are not willing 
 to respect the rights of others, that we are resolved to treat 
 with contempt the rights of the Eajah of Mysore, the rights 
 of our Ally the Nizam, the feelings and interests of the 
 people of Mysore, and of the Princes and people of all 
 India. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 TKEATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 
 
 THE threatened absorption of Mysore, on the demise of the 
 present aged Rajah, is calculated to disgust and alarm all 
 the Princes of India, as the first infraction of the general 
 pledge in favour of native sovereignties, the promise to 
 respect existing Treaties, and to abstain from territorial 
 extension, contained in Her Majesty's Proclamation of 
 1858, and confirmed by Lord Canning's latest public mea- 
 sures ; but it is more particularly calculated to disgust and 
 alarm the Nizam, because it would constitute a direct and 
 most contemptuous violation of our engagements with him, 
 and would involve a direct menace against some of his 
 most valued possessions, which, like the Mysore country, 
 are at present confided, under Treaty, to our exclusive 
 management. 
 
 Sir Frederick Currie observes in his Minute dissenting 
 from one of the despatches adverse to the Rajah's claims: 
 
 " I think the decision impolitic, also, as likely to lead, when 
 the permanent exclusion of the Maharaja from the possession of 
 Mysore is promulgated, to inconvenient questions with the 
 Nizam, whose treaty rights in Mysore, though kept out of sight 
 in this Despatch, and the proceedings of Lords Dalhousie and 
 Canning referred to in it, cannot be ignored."* 
 
 In the conquest of Tippoo Sultan's dominions, and in the 
 establishment or revival of the Hindoo State of Mysore, 
 the Honourable Company did not act alone, but in concert 
 with the Nizam. The Nizam, besides providing and for- 
 warding immense supplies, had sent an army of his own 
 into the field including a large body of Cavalry, the arm in 
 which we were most deficient who received their full 
 share of the prize-money after the storm of Seringapatam. 
 Two Treaties were then concluded, one called the Parti- 
 tion Treaty, and dated 22nd June, 1799, between the East 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 25. 
 
88 CHAPTER VT. 
 
 India Company and the Nizam the other, called the Sub- 
 sidiary Treaty, and dated the 8th July, 1799, between the 
 East India Company and the Eajah of Mysore. 
 
 The two victorious Allies agreed to a certain division and 
 settlement of the conquered territories ; and under the Par- 
 tition Treaty, portions equal in revenue, and conveniently 
 situated with reference to their respective frontiers, were 
 " retained in sovereignty" by the Company and the Nizam, 
 while the central districts, forming a compact Principality, 
 were allotted to the Eajah of Mysore. Three Schedules 
 attached to this Treaty specify minutely the limits and 
 subdivisions of this triple distribution. Lord Wellesley, 
 however, reserved to the Company, "as a just indemnifica- 
 tion for their superior share in the expenses and exertions 
 of the war, the principal benefit of whatever advantages 
 might flow from any engagements to be contracted with 
 the new Government of Mysore."* The Eajah was to be 
 placed in a tributary and dependent position to the British 
 Government, in return for its military protection, and as 
 security for the regular payment of a fixed military Sub- 
 sidy, and of additional contributions in time of war.f 
 
 In the last words of the Preamble to the Partition Treaty 
 of Mysore, it is declared that all its Articles, "by the bless- 
 ing of God, shall be binding upon the heirs and successors 
 of the contracting parties as long as the sun and moon shall 
 endure, and its conditions shall be reciprocally observed by 
 the said contracting parties. "J 
 
 One of those conditions is thus stated in Article IV of 
 the Treaty : 
 
 " A separate Government shall be established in Mysore ; and 
 for this purpose it is stipulated and agreed that the Maharajah 
 Mysoor Kishna Rajah Oodiaver Bahadoor, a descendant of the 
 ancient Rajahs of Mysore shall possess the territory hereinafter 
 described." 
 
 And in Article V, " the contracting partices mutually and seve- 
 rally agree that the districts specified in Schedule C, hereunto 
 annexed, shall be ceded to the said Maharajah Mysoor Kishna 
 Rajah, and shall form the separate Government of Mysore, upon 
 the conditions hereinafter mentioned." 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 77. t Ibid., p. 85. 
 
 4. Appendix B. Ibid. 
 
TREATY EIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 89 
 
 The only subsequent condition of this Treaty, referring 
 to the Eajah of Mysore, is contained in Article IX : 
 
 " It being expedient, for the effectual establishment of Maha- 
 rajah Mysoor Kishna Rajah in the Government of Mysore, that 
 his Highness should be assisted with a suitable Subsidiary Force, 
 it is stipulated and agreed that the whole of the said Force shall 
 be furnished by the English East India Company Bahadoor, 
 according to the terms of a separate Treaty, to be immediately 
 concluded between the said East India Company and his High- 
 ness the Maharajah."* 
 
 And as if to mark by a conspicuous ceremony the con- 
 certed action and equal participation of the two Allies in 
 restoring the ancient Hindoo sovereignty, the infant Prince 
 was carried to the ivory throne of his ancestors, and pub- 
 licly installed, by the officers of the highest rank belonging 
 to both Governments, eight days after the Partition Treaty 
 was signed. The circumstance is thus described by the 
 Mysore Commissioners in their Eeport to the Governor- 
 General, dated the 30th of June 1799: 
 
 " The ceremony of placing the Rajah on the Musnud was per- 
 formed by Lieut. -General Harris, as senior member of the Com- 
 mission, and by Meer Allum, each of them taking a hand of his 
 Highness on the occasion."f 
 
 And Lord Wellesley himself records the same incident 
 in his despatch to the Court of Directors of the 3rd of 
 
 August : 
 
 " On the 30th June" (1 799) " the Rajah of Mysore was formally 
 placed on the Musnud by the Commissioners, assisted by Meer 
 Allum."t 
 
 And in the same letter we learn that the Subsidiary 
 Treaty with the Eajah was not concluded until the 8th July, 
 and was not ratified by Lord Wellesley until the 23rd July, 
 more than three weeks after the Eajah had been publicly 
 enthroned. 
 
 Meer Abool Cassim, better known by his abbreviated title 
 f Meer Allum, was the Dewan or Prime Minister of Hyder- 
 abad, who had been present with the Nizam's army through- 
 out the campaign and siege of Seringapatam, and who, as 
 his master's Plenipotentiary, concluded and signed the Par- 
 
 * Appendix B. f Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 736. 
 
90 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 tition Treaty of 1799.* "I found in Meer Allum, the 
 Commander," wrote Sir John Malcolm, who acted as Military 
 Commissioner with the Nizam's troops, " a man whose heart 
 and soul were in the cause ; and the advance of this force 
 was so rapid, that it was obliged to halt some days for the 
 advance of the Grand Army."')' 
 
 No step in the negotiations and settlement had been 
 taken without the knowledge and consent of Meer Allum. 
 Lord Wellesley, in the despatch appointing the Commis- 
 sioners for the affairs of Mysore, and giving the outline of 
 the arrangements he wished to be adopted, concludes with 
 this injunction : "The contents of this despatch must not 
 be communicated to any person who may not have taken 
 the oath of secrecy prescribed in the Commission, excepting 
 Meer Allum/'J 
 
 And in a letter to the Court of Directors, dated the 3rd 
 of August 1799, he observes : 
 
 " On the 5th of June I had furnished the Commissioners with 
 the first draft of a Treaty between the Company and his Highness 
 the Nizarn, for the partition of Mysore,, and having received the 
 fullest communication of their sentiments, and of those of Meer 
 Allum, on the subject, I made such alterations as appeared to be 
 advisable. " 
 
 One very distinguished and highly trusted officer who 
 was employed in the settlement of Mysore, Major Munro 
 afterwards General Sir Thomas Munro and Governor of 
 Madras gave a very decided opinion, as in the following 
 extract, that the conquered territories ought to be equally 
 divided, and that the installation of the infant Eajah would 
 be both impolitic, and unfair to our Ally : 
 
 ee In making this partition-, we have only to consult our own 
 advantage and that of the Nizam. 
 
 ' ' As I am convinced that the Mahrattas will not dare to give 
 any interruption to the partition of the Mysore dominions between 
 the Company and the Nizam, I do not know a single argument 
 against it, unless it may be thought that it would make the 
 
 * The Present Prime Minister of Hyderabad, the Nawab Salar Jung, is 
 great grandson to Meer Allum ; his paternal grandfather, Mooneer-ool-Mooll 
 having married Meer Allum's only daughter. This iady's son, Meer Mahornc 
 Ali, was the Nawab Salar Jung's father. 
 
 t Kaye's Life of Malcolm, vol. i, p. 84. 
 J Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 23. Ibid., p. 84. 
 
TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 91 
 
 Nizam too powerful; but this is an objection without much 
 foundation. 
 
 " We may assert that the Nizam's army has not contributed so 
 much as the Company's to the conquest of Mysore ; but he has 
 done all that he could ; his troops have done more than was ex- 
 pected ; and had they done less, still every principle of good faith 
 demands that both parties should share alike ; but if we only 
 divide with him a part of the territories of the late Sultan, and 
 set up a pageant over the rest to pay a British garrison in Serin- 
 gapatam, and subsidise a large body of our troops, he must see 
 and feel that we have infringed upon our engagements with 
 him/'* 
 
 And he writes as follows in a familiar letter to his father : 
 
 ' ' You will see in the papers how the Partition Treaty has been 
 made. I believe that it has not met with general approbation 
 here. Had I anything to do in it, I would certainly have had no 
 Eajah of Mysore, in the person of a child, dragged forth from 
 oblivion, to be placed on a throne on which his ancestors for three 
 generations had not sat more than half a century. I would have 
 divided the country equally with the Nizam, and endeavoured to 
 prevail on him to increase his Subsidy, and take a greater body 
 of our troops; but whether he consented or not, I would still 
 have thought myself bound by treaty to give him his fair half 
 of the country ."t 
 
 The principle of the original offensive and defensive alli- 
 ance between the Company and the Nizam, was that of 
 "an equal division of conquered territory," as stated in 
 Article VI of the Treaty of 1790;J and although Lord 
 Wellesley ruled that this engagement was not permanently 
 obligatory, and that, according to the letter of the new 
 Treaty of 1798, the Nizam could not demand a share in the 
 territorial acquisitions beyond his relative proportion in the 
 expenses and exertions of the campaign, yet the principle 
 of equal division was in fact adopted as the basis of the 
 new arrangements. Indeed, so clearly was the spirit of the 
 long standing engagements between the Allies in favour 
 of the Nizam's claim, that the same plan of equal par- 
 tition was laid down in a Treaty concluded the very 
 rear after these transactions. In the third " separate and 
 
 * Gleig's Life of Sir T. Munro, vol. ii, p. 231, 234. 
 
 t Ibid., vol. i, p. 222. 
 
 I Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 133. 
 
 Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 77. 
 
92 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 secret" Article of the Treaty of 1800, it is agreed as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " If, contrary to the spirit and object of this defensive Treaty, 
 war should hereafter appear unavoidable (which God avert !) the 
 contracting parties will proceed to adjust the rule of partition of 
 all such advantages and acquisitions as may eventually result from 
 the success of their united arms. It is declared that in the event 
 of war, and of a consequent partition of conquests between the 
 contracting parties, his Highness the Nawab Asoph Jah shall be 
 entitled to participate equally with the other contracting parties, 
 in the division of every territory which may be acquired by the 
 successful exertion of their united arms/-'* 
 
 And the same course was pursued in the Treaties of 1804 
 and 1822, after the first and second Mahratta wars.f By 
 the Treaty of 1822 the Nizam not only gained an exemption 
 from debts which he owed the dethroned Peishwa, amount- 
 ing to about sixty millions of rupees (six millions sterling), 
 but cessions of territory which gave him at least eighteen 
 lakhs (180,000) of additional revenue. On both occasions 
 the Nizam received rather more than his fair share of the 
 territories conquered by the allied forces. 
 
 The provinces at present forming the Principality of My- 
 sore were thus ceded to the Rajah, not by the East India 
 Company alone, but, as stated in Article V of the Partition 
 Treaty, and in Article V of the Subsidiary Treaty, by the 
 two allied and conquering Powers, the East India Company 
 and the Nizam. If therefore, by " right of conquest," the 
 British Government has any reversionary claim upon those 
 provinces, the reversionary claim of the Nizam must be 
 equally strong. 
 
 The following extracts from the contemporary despatches 
 will prove that Lord Wellesley fully admitted the equal 
 right and interest of the Nizam, in the disposal and settle- 
 ment of the provinces conquered from Tippoo : 
 
 ' ' It is almost superfluous to state to you that the whole King- 
 dom of Mysore, having fallen to the arms of the Company and the 
 Nizam, is at present to be considered as a part of their dominions 
 by right of conquest." J 
 
 "From the justice and success of the late war with Tippoo 
 Sultan, the Company and the Nizam derived an undoubted right 
 
 * Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 151. t Ibid., pp. 157-159. 
 
 Welles] ey's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 13. 
 
TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 93 
 
 to the disposal of the dominions conquered by their united arms. 
 The right of conquest entitled the Company and the Nizam to re- 
 tain the whole territory in their own hands ; the cession of it to 
 any other party,, might be a consideration of policy or humanity, 
 but could not be claimed on any ground of justice or right ."* 
 
 " To have divided the whole territory equally between the Com- 
 pany and the Nizam, while it would have afforded strong grounds 
 for jealousy to the Mahrattas, would have aggrandised the Nizam's 
 power beyond the bounds of discretion. "f 
 
 " The Eajah of Mysore will therefore be restored to the throne, 
 and maintained on it, under the protection of the Company, the 
 Nizam, and I trust also of the Mahrattas, who certainly all have a 
 concurrent and common interest in the exclusion of Tippoo's 
 family ."% 
 
 And writing to the Commissioners who were engaged in 
 negotiating the Subsidiary Treaty with the relatives of the 
 infant Rajah, on the absolute necessity of one particular 
 Article being maintained without any alteration from the 
 original draft, he says : 
 
 " This is a point I hold to be so essential to the very existence 
 of the new arrangement, that if it should appear objectionable, 
 (on grounds of which I am not aware), I see no alternative but 
 that of dividing the whole territory between the Allies." 
 
 It surely might be supposed, when a Principality had 
 thus been constructed or reconstituted out of territories 
 conquered by two Allies, and in consequence of the stipula- 
 tions of a Treaty between them, that this settlement ought 
 not to be disturbed, that this Principality ought not to be 
 summarily appropriated by one of those two Allies, without 
 the other's consent having been asked, without any previous 
 consultation having taken place, without any explanation 
 or notice having been given. The impropriety and irre- 
 gularity of such a proceeding do not seem to be lessened in 
 the present instance, when we recall to mind that for ten 
 years before and for twenty-three years after that settle- 
 ment, those two Powers had continued to act upon that 
 principle of equal partition which was the basis of their 
 original alliance ; that Lord Wellesley himself declares that 
 the only alternative to the Hindoo restoration, would have 
 been to divide the conquered country with our Ally ; and 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, p. 72. t Ibid., p. 36. 
 
 J Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., vol. ii, p. 49. 
 
94 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 that he anticipates the maintenance of the Mysore State 
 under the protection of the Company and the Nizam. And 
 this reliance on the Nizam's concurrent protection, which I 
 have quoted, is not stated in a document intended to per- 
 suade or flatter that Court, but in a private despatch ad- 
 dressed to Dundas (Lord Melville), then President of the 
 Board of Control, where no empty compliment to the Nizam 
 could possibly find a place, and where, on such a point, 
 Lord Wellesley would be sure to express himself frankly. 
 
 Three great objects were settled by the Partition Treaty 
 between the East India Company and the Nizam : (1) the 
 allotment of certain portions of the conquered country in 
 full sovereignty to the Allies ; (2) the establishment of a 
 separate Government in Mysore under a descendant of the 
 ancient Hindoo dynasty; (3) a suitable provision for Tippoo 
 Sultan's family. 
 
 Besides those outlying provinces of Tippoo's Empire 
 which were acquired by the British Government as its share 
 of the conquest, one small piece of territory within the 
 frontiers of Mysore Proper was specially transferred to its 
 keeping by the contracting parties, " for the preservation of 
 peace and tranquillity, and for the general security." By 
 Article III of the Partition Treaty, "it is stipulated and 
 agreed that the Fortress of Seringapatam, and the island on 
 which it*is situated, shall become part of the dominions of 
 the said Company, in full right and sovereignty for ever/'* 
 
 This Article constitutes the sole and sufficient title of 
 Great Britain to the possession of this celebrated stronghold. 
 Without the express consent, thus given, of the Nizarn, our 
 Ally and partner in the conquest and its advantages, Serin- 
 gapatam would have become part of the separate State 
 under the Eajah of Mysore. Without the Nizam's consent, 
 no other place or district within the limits of that separate 
 State could have then become British territory, or can ever 
 become British territory, by any legal title, " as long as the 
 sun and moon endure." 
 
 The emphatic and special grant of the " sovereignty" in 
 the little river island of Seringapatam to the Company by 
 this Article, proves that the claim to sovereignty over the 
 
 * Appendix B. 
 
TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 95 
 
 whole of Mysore by right of conquest, advanced in the 
 Calcutta letter of the llth of March 1862* is quite un- 
 founded. 
 
 And it is worthy of remark that by a Supplemental 
 Article to the Partition Treaty, it is agreed, " with a view 
 to the prevention of future altercations," that so far as the 
 third great object of that Treaty a suitable provision for 
 Tippoo's family extended, "the contracting parties shall 
 not be accountable to each other on this head."f The least 
 important of the three objects, an object merely of personal 
 interest, being thus by a separate Article specially exempted 
 from future inquiry and expostulation, and left to the dis- 
 cretion and good pleasure of the contracting parties, it is 
 quite clear that the more important and fundamental objects 
 of the Treaty were not by any means to be exempted from 
 future inquiry and expostulation, and were not left to the 
 discretion and good pleasure of either party, but that on 
 these heads both parties would " be accountable to each 
 other," " as long as the sun and moon should endure." 
 
 Thus not only would the Nizam have a good cause of 
 protest against the appropriation of Mysore by the British 
 Government for its own aggrandisement, as an unauthorised 
 reversal of the settlement of 1799, as a measure opposed 
 to the traditional policy of his House, but even in the case 
 of a genuine and unavoidable "lapse," by the extinction of 
 the reigning family, his claim to a partition would be irre- 
 sistible. If, on the contrary, the " lapse," pronounced or pre- 
 determined, were not genuine, but, as I contend, factitious 
 and unfounded, the protest and remonstrance of the Court 
 of Hyderabad would be still more formidable and em- 
 barrassing. 
 
 If, in reply to the Nizam's objections, the Government of 
 India were to appeal, as they could hardly avoid doing, to 
 the only plausible extenuation, to the thirty years of 
 British management, to the prosperity and contentment of 
 the people during that period, and the duty of securing the 
 permanence of the reformed institutions of Mysore, the 
 Nizam might well inquire, with very reasonable solicitude, 
 how many years of British management would suffice to 
 
 * Ante, p. 68. t Appendix B. 
 
.96 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 extinguish the sovereignty of his family in the two Provinces 
 of Berar. 
 
 Just as the Nizam concurred with the Honourable Com- 
 pany in 1799 in recognising the young Eajah as the Sove- 
 reign of Mysore, so had the Nizam concurred with the 
 Honourable Company in 1768 in recognising the Nawab 
 Mahomed Ali Wallajah, previously his own feudatory, as 
 the Sovereign of the Carnatic. And just as the Nawab 
 Azeem-ood-Dowlah, the acknowledged Sovereign of the 
 Carnatic, by the Treaty of 1801, entrusted to the Company 
 "the civil and military administration''* of his territorial 
 possessions, so did the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1853 assign 
 Berar and other provinces to " the exclusive management" 
 of the British Government.* In neither case was there any 
 cession, or any relinquishment of sovereignty. After two 
 hard diplomatic struggles, one in 1853, the other throughout 
 1859 and 1860, the Nizam still retains the sovereignty of 
 those provinces, and has avoided assigning their manage- 
 ment in "perpetuity" to the British Government. 
 
 We received the Carnatic from the Nawab, as we received 
 Berar from the Nizam, as a trust on certain conditions, and 
 not as an absolute possession. And at the present day we 
 ought to hold the Carnatic, as we still profess to hold Berar 
 as a trust, f and on no other terms. But instead of doing 
 so, since the demise of the Nawab of the Carnatic in 1855, 
 we have refused on the preposterous plea that the Treaty 
 of 1801 was only "personal", or for one life, and that the 
 two subsequent successions were merely by "grace and 
 favour" to recognise the lawful heir and successor, Prince 
 Azeem Jah, a son of the Nawab with whom the Treaty of 
 1801 was concluded.!"! 
 
 The Nizam, having been already sufficiently alarmed 
 and affronted by the Carnatic spoliation, now sees the 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, Nizam's Debts, 1854, p. 144. 
 
 t This very term is used by Lord Clive, the Governor of Madras, in the 
 Proclamation of 3lst July 1801 : "His Lordship, in accepting the sacred 
 trust transferred to the Cowpany by the present engagements, invites the people 
 of the Canatic to a ready and cheerful obedience to the authority of the Com- 
 pany." Carnatic Papers, 1861, p. 105. The same term is used in the Nizam's 
 Treaty of 1860. Collection of Treaties, Calcutta, 1864 (Longman & Co., Lon- 
 don), vol. v, p. 114. 
 
 For a full account, see The Empire in India, Letter in, p. 47. 
 
 
TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 97 
 
 annexation of Mysore impending ; a transaction so hostile 
 to his rights and dignity, so manifestly injurious to his 
 interests, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to 
 evade or resent his demand for explanations. If, after 
 managing Mysore in the Rajah's name, and rendering 
 annual accounts, for thirty-five years, we claim the sove- 
 reignty of his dominions, and decline to recognise his heir ; 
 if after fifty years of uninterrupted " civil and military ad- 
 ministration"* and after two successions, we were entitled 
 without form, apology, or public notice to confiscate 
 the Carnatic, and to refuse the stipulated share of the 
 revenues to the Nawab after how many years of " exclu- 
 sive management""^ and after how many successions, shall 
 we be entitled to appropriate the Nizam's two provinces of 
 Berar, and to refuse any longer to " make over the surplus 
 re venues "t to the Sovereign of Hyderabad \ How these 
 questions can ever be answered, how any distinction can 
 ever be drawn between the cases, so as to reassure the 
 Nizam's Government, appears to me to be quite an insoluble 
 problem. To meet expostulations from that quarter with a 
 contemptuous reprimand, to refuse explanations, to decline 
 discussion, and to threaten coercion, would be a much easier 
 task, and one much more congenial and familiar to the 
 powers that be at Calcutta. 
 
 Sir Frederick Currie in his first Minute, dated 1 7th July 
 1863, dissenting from the despatch refusing to replace the 
 Rajah at the head of his Government, makes the following 
 remark : " I think the decision impolitic, also, as likely to 
 lead, when the permanent exclusion of the Maharajah from 
 the possession of Mysore is promulgated, to inconvenient 
 questions with the Nizam, whose treaty-rights in Mysore, 
 though kept out of sight in this despatch, and the proceed- 
 ings of Lords Dalhousie and Canning referred to in it, can- 
 not be ignored."* 
 
 * The words used in the Treaty of 1801 with the Nawab Azeem-ood-Dowla, 
 Collection of Treaties, 1812, p. 487. 
 
 t Terms used in the Treaty of 1853 with the Nizam Nasir-ood-Dowla, 
 Volume of Treaties, 1856, p. 70, and in the Treaty of 1860 with the Nizam 
 Afzool-ood-Dowla, Collection of Treaties, Calcutta, 1864 (Longman and Co., 
 London), vol. v, p. 114. 
 
 K Mysore Papers, p. 25. 
 " 
 
98 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Nor was this inconvenient question long kept out of the 
 discussion. The Rajah himself raised this very obvious 
 objection in his letter to the Governor-General, Sir John 
 Lawrence, of the 25th January 1865, printed among the 
 Mysore Papers (p. 61). His Highness argues that the con- 
 quest of Tippoo's dominions was the joint conquest of the 
 Company and the Nizam, that the cession to himself of his 
 territories was the joint cession of the same parties, and 
 that if those territories should ever " lapse," they would not 
 lapse to the British Government, but to the Allies who 
 shared in the conquests and arranged the partition of 1799. 
 In paragraph 33 of his letter, the Rajah thus briefly sums 
 up his position : " I claim for my heirs the same rights as 
 I shall have died possessed of ; and should I have no heirs, 
 then, for the first time, those who gave me my dominions 
 will become absolutely entitled to them/'* 
 
 If peremptory language and sweeping denials could 
 overturn the embarrassing obstacle thus raised by the 
 Rajah's remonstrances, it would have been effectually over- 
 turned by Sir John Lawrence's reply of the 5th May 1865. 
 In this he says : 
 
 " I must point out to your Highness that, in treating the con- 
 quest of Mysore as the joint conquest of the British Government 
 and the Nizam, and the cession thereof as the joint cession of 
 both parties, your Highness has allowed yourself to fall into an 
 error which it is my duty to correct. The Nizam, at the time 
 alluded to, was in the condition of a purely dependent ruler, and 
 in a state of subordinate alliance with the British Government ."f 
 
 Abundant quotations have already been given to prove 
 that the Rajah, in speaking of the joint conquest and joint 
 cession of Mysore, has simply repeated the words of Lord 
 Wellesley and of all the contemporary documents, f 
 
 As to the Nizam having been "a dependent ruler" in 
 1799, it may be sufficient to reply that in 1853 Lord Dal- 
 housie declared him to be "an independent Prince." 
 There is no foundation or pretext whatever in Indian history 
 or diplomacy for asserting that the Nizam was either de- 
 pendent or subordinate ; unless, indeed, mere inferiority of 
 material strength could degrade an ally into a position of 
 dependence and subordination. 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 67. t Ibid., p. 69. J Ante, p. 88-93. 
 
 Papers relating to the Nizam, 1854, p. 39. 
 
TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 99 
 
 The Governor-General, pursuing and expanding the same 
 argument in his despatch to the Secretary of State, also 
 dated the 5th May, 1865, in which he forwards his cor- 
 respondence with the Rajah, endeavours to make out the 
 Nizam's subordination and dependence from the larger 
 numbers of the British army engaged in the campaign, and 
 from Lord Wellesley having exercised "plenary powers" 
 throughout the expedition and in the settlement of the con- 
 quered territories. Sir John Lawrence omits to mention 
 that the Nizam had specially conferred those plenary powers 
 upon Lord Wellesley ; he very much underrates the num- 
 bers of the Hyderabad troops that cooperated in the cam- 
 paign, and seems to have overlooked entirely the large 
 force of Irregular Cavalry, without whose aid our com- 
 munications could not have been kept up, nor our supplies 
 secured. It is not denied that the Nizam's own army co- 
 operated in the conquest, but the Governor- General objects 
 that it was not so large or so efficient as that of the Company, 
 and that its movements were directed by British Officers. The 
 relative numbers and efficiency of the two armies is really a 
 matter of indifference. There is nothing unusual in the 
 forces of one Ally being placed by mutual consent under the 
 command of a General nominated by the other. When there 
 is a great inequality of power between two Allies, such an 
 arrangement becomes most natural ; when military science 
 and the munitions of war are almost in the exclusive pos- 
 session of one Ally, such an arrangement becomes inevit- 
 able. At various periods the troops of foreign States have 
 been incorporated in a British Army; while at other times 
 British forces have served under a foreign Commander-in- 
 Chief. The army of Portugal during the Peninsular War, 
 and a considerable Turkish force during the Crimean Cam- 
 paign, were placed entirely under British officers. But I 
 have never yet heard that such a military Convention 
 impairs the independence or entails the subordination of 
 any State, beyond the terms and purposes of the Conven- 
 tion, however small in extent that State may be, however 
 weak in material resources. 
 
 The Governor-General thus continues his argument : 
 Lord Mornington with plenary power controlled the proceed- 
 of the expedition. The conquest was therefore really a 
 
 H 2 
 
100 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 British one ; and although from courtesy and views of expediency, 
 the Nizam's Government was spoken of as conjoint in the opera- 
 tions against Tippoo, and was allowed to share with the British 
 Government in the advantages accruing from the successful ter- 
 mination of the contest, yet such phraseology was conventional, 
 and misled no one, and least of all the Nizam. For the Governor- 
 General, whilst prepared to treat his subordinate Ally with the 
 utmost liberality, resented any pretension at interference in or 
 with his arrangements, and, dictating to the Nizam the terms of 
 the Treaty of Mysore, intimated, with stringent plainness, that 
 if the Nizam should object to the basis and fundamental principles 
 of the Treaty, Lord Mornington was perfectly prepared to carry 
 the new settlement into effect by the aid of British arms alone."* 
 
 Sir John Lawrence misrepresents Lord Wellesley's views 
 when he says that " the conquest was really a British one." 
 No such language was used at the time. The Nizam's 
 share in the operations, and right to participate in the con- 
 sequent advantages, though not rated equally with those of 
 the Company, were never denied or despised. 
 
 It is true that Lord Wellesley expressed a firm intention, 
 as we and the Nizam may have learned from certain con- 
 fidential papers which were published thirty-five years after 
 the fall of Seririgapatam,t of carrying the new settlement 
 into force by the aid of British arms alone, should the 
 Nizam object to the terms of the proposed Treaty. I do 
 not see, however, that Lord Wellesley's firm determination 
 to re-establish the Hindoo State of Mysore, and to make it 
 tributary to the British Government, even at the risk of 
 hostilities with his Ally, can tend to weaken the rights of 
 sovereignty conferred upon the Kajah, or to threaten the 
 separate existence of the re-established State. The very 
 improbable contingency of hostilities with the Nizam did 
 not occur ; no objections were made to the triple partition 
 designed by Lord Wellesley ; and the Treaty was concluded 
 after consultation with the Nizam's Plenipotentiary, Meer 
 Alluni, at Mysore, and duly ratified by His Highness at 
 Hyderabad. It surely cannot be said that this cordial and 
 prompt concurrence in the establishment of a separate 
 Government in Mysore, under a descendant of the ancient 
 Eajahs, can lessen the Nizam's right and interest in the 
 permanent maintenance of that separate Government. 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 55. 
 t The Marquis Wellesley's Despatches were published in 1836. 
 
TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 101 
 
 Sir John Lawrence's argument is worth nothing, unless 
 he means to say that because Lord Wellesley "dictated" 
 the terms of the Partition Treaty, and was prepared, if 
 necessary, " to carry the new settlement into effect by the 
 aid of British arms/' therefore Lord Wellesley 's successor 
 has a right to disregard the terms of Partition, and to 
 break up the settlement for his own exclusive advantage. 
 
 Sir John Lawrence then urges that besides the 
 
 " absolute negation of any claim on the part of the Nizam to an 
 equal partition of territory. Lord Mornington was studiously 
 careful to be perfectly explicit in placing the cession of Mysore 
 to the Rajah on a footing which should exclude any territorial 
 claim of the Nizam,, whether actual or reversional, present or 
 future. Accordingly, with reference to the 4th Article of the 
 Treaty of Mysore, which laid down that a separate government 
 was to be established for Mysore, under Kistna Raj Oodiaver, Lord 
 Mornington issued these further commands to the Resident at 
 Hyderabad : 
 
 " The 4th Article contains the basis of an arrangement founded 
 on the strongest principle of justice, humanity, and policy. It 
 does not appear to me necessary to state anything further on this 
 or the 5th .Article ; you will naturally observe that if the Nizam's 
 claim to an equal partition of territory had been founded on 
 right, and consequently admitted by me, this adjustment, so 
 honourable to the moderation, generosity, and wisdom of the 
 British character, would not have taken place."* 
 
 But while Lord Wellesley, in order to secure his point at 
 Hyderabad, instructed his representative at that Court to 
 adopt this high tone, he acknowledged in the directions 
 given to the Commissioners at Mysore, that if 'this adjust- 
 ment could not be effected, the Nizam's claim to an equal 
 partition would become irresistible, that there would be 
 "no alternative but that of dividing the whole territory 
 between the Allies."f 
 
 Although Lord Wellesley at the critical moments of 
 negotiation, assumed an imperious and determined style 
 in dealing with the Nizam, he well knew the immense 
 value of his past and continued cooperation, and the im- 
 possibility of slighting his just pretensions. He writes as 
 follows in one of those demi-official letters to Dundas 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 56. 
 t Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 49 ; ante, p. 93. 
 
102 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 President of the Board of Control, which are certain to 
 reveal his real sentiments : 
 
 "I trust in God that before this time my brother Henry's 
 arrival in England has satisfied your expectations respecting the 
 settlement of Mysore. To have retained the whole territory for 
 ourselves would have raised such a flame both at Hyderabad and 
 Poonah, as could hardly have been extinguished without another 
 war. Henry will have informed you of the difficulties which 
 delayed even the settlement as ultimately effected at Hyderabad. 
 The Nizam's pride would not have been satisfied without a con- 
 siderable cession of territory/'* 
 
 This is very different from the supercilious and over- 
 bearing tone which Sir John Lawrence assumes, and attri- 
 butes to Lord Wellesley. 
 
 The Governor-General then flies to another fallacious 
 argument, utterly inconclusive and irrelevant, even if it 
 were not based, as it is, on the misquotation of a Treaty. 
 He says : 
 
 " So far from preferring any claims, such as his Highness the 
 Maharajah seeks to suggest and to evoke in support of his own 
 pretensions, the Nizam afterwards ceded in perpetuity to the 
 British Government, not only all the territories acquired under 
 the Treaty of Seringapatam of 1792, and the Treaty of Mysore of 
 1799, but also whatever other territory he possessed, or was 
 dependent on his Government South of the Toombuddra and the 
 Kistna."t 
 
 It is not, perhaps, very important to remark except as 
 an illustration of the careless statements of fact which 
 abound in the Calcutta despatches that the Nizam, under 
 Article VI of the Treaty of 1800, retained a portion of 
 these acquisitions from Mysore, the districts of Copal, Guj- 
 jinderghur, and others, and still retains them.J But the 
 Governor-General has not explained how these cessions and 
 exchanges can touch either the sovereign rights of the 
 Kajah of Mysore or the reversionary claims of the Nizam. 
 
 Not that the question to be decided is merely that of the 
 Nizam's "reversionary claims," as the Calcutta despatches 
 assume. The Nizam as yet has advanced no such claim. He 
 does not wish to disturb the settlement made by the Parti- 
 tion Treaty of 1799, but he is not likely to admit the right 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 202-3. t Mysore Papers, p. 56. 
 
 J Collection of Treaties, Calcutta, 1864 (Longman & Co.), vol. v, p. 71. 
 
TEEATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 103 
 
 of the other contracting party to disturb it ; and the ques- 
 tion is whether this ought to be done without his concur- 
 rence. The question of his reversionary claims would only 
 be raised if such claims were advanced or enforced by the 
 other contracting party. 
 
 In paragraph 1 4 of this same despatch from the Governor- 
 General to the Secretary of State, we read : " It has been 
 shown that the acceptance of the Treaty of Mysore was a 
 distinct admission on the part of the Nizam, that the sove- 
 reignty of Mysore rested with the British Government."* 
 Nothing of the sort has been shown ; on the contrary, the 
 terms of the Partition Treaty of Mysore expressly negative 
 any such view. There is not one single phrase or word in 
 the Treaty that claims any superiority for the Honourable 
 Company, or any exclusive share in the conquest or its 
 fruits. 
 
 Far from " the sovereignty of Mysore" being admitted to 
 rest with the British Government, the " sovereignty" of one 
 very small portion of Mysore, the river island of Seringa- 
 patam, is, as I have before pointed out,f expressly granted 
 to the British Government by a distinct Article (III) of 
 the Partition Treaty. 
 
 At the end of the twenty-third paragraph of the same 
 Despatch of the 5th May, 1865, the Maharajah is said to 
 have been designated in the Partition Treaty with the 
 Nizam as " the contemplated recipient at the hands of the 
 British Commissioner of the Kaj of Mysore." J And in the 
 same way the Kaj ah himself was told in the letter from Cal- 
 cutta, dated the llth March, 1862, that in the Partition 
 Treaty " your Highness was not otherwise a party concerned 
 than as the notified future recipient of the liberality of the 
 British Government." These are complete misrepresenta- 
 tions : the Eajah is not once designated or notified in the 
 Partition Treaty as the recipient of liberality or of anything 
 "at the hands" of any "British Commissioner," or of the 
 British Government. I am compelled to meet these un- 
 warrantable assertions with somewhat wearisome iteration. 
 The Preamble of the Partition Treaty declares that 
 
 " It has pleased Almighty God to prosper the just cause of the 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 57. t Ante, p. 95. J Mysore Papers, p. 60. Ibid., p. 5. 
 
104 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Allies, the Honourable Company, and his Highness the Nizam, 
 with a continual course of victory and success, ancl finally to 
 crown their arms by the reduction of the capital of Mysore, the 
 fall of Tippoo Sultaun, the utter extinction of his power, and the 
 unconditional submission of his people ; and the said Allies, being 
 disposed to exercise the rights of conquest with the same modera- 
 tion and forbearance which they have observed from the com- 
 mencement to the conclusion of the late successful war, have 
 resolved to use the power which it has pleased Almighty God to 
 place in their hands, for the purpose of obtaining reasonable 
 compensation for the expenses of the war, and of establishing 
 permanent security and genuine tranquillity for themselves and 
 their subjects, as well as for all the Powers contiguous to their 
 respective dominions ; wherefore a Treaty, for the adjustment of 
 the territories of the late Tippoo Sultaun between the East India 
 Company and the Nizam is now concluded, according to the 
 under-mentioned Articles, which, by the blessing of God, shall 
 be binding upon the heirs and successors of the contracting 
 parties, as long as the sun and moon shall endure, and of which 
 the conditions shall be reciprocally observed by the said contract- 
 ing parties."* 
 
 Articles IV and V of the Partition Treaty are as follows : 
 
 " iv. A separate Government shall be established in Mysore ; 
 and for this purpose, it is stipulated and agreed, that the Maha 
 Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, a descendant 
 of the ancient Rajahs of Mysore, shall possess the territory here- 
 inafter described, upon the conditions hereinafter mentioned. 
 
 1 ' v. The contracting Powers mutually and severally agree, that 
 the districts specified in Schedule C, hereunto annexed, shall be 
 ceded to the said Maha Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah, and shall 
 form the separate Government of Mysore, upon the conditions 
 hereinafter mentioned. "-f 
 
 Nothing in this Treaty is done by the British Govern- 
 ment alone ; the " rights of conquest" are exercised by 
 " the Allies ;" the cession is made " mutually and severally" 
 by " the contracting Powers." 
 
 If we now turn to the Subsidiary Treaty with the Rajah, 
 to which the Nizam was not a party, but which was con- 
 cluded eight days, and ratified twenty-three days, after the 
 Rajah had been placed on the throne by the Plenipotentiaries 
 of the Company and the Nizam, we shall find that in 
 Article V the Rajah's dominions are defined as "the terri- 
 tories ceded to him by the Fifth Article of the Treaty of 
 
 Appendix B. t Ibid. 
 
 

 TREATY RIGHTS OF THE NIZAM. 105 
 
 Mysore," the Partition Treaty ; and that in Article XV that 
 Treaty is again mentioned as the authority, declaring the 
 districts which " belong respectively to the English Company 
 and to his Highness." 
 
 The cession was thus effected by the Partition Treaty. 
 The Subsidiary Treaty, to which the Nizam was not a party, 
 solely relates, as its name implies, and as its contents prove, 
 to the conditions and securities of the British Subsidy, and 
 to the relations between the two States. No cession is 
 made by the Subsidiary Treaty, on the contrary, it de- 
 clares the cession to have been effected by the Partition 
 Treaty, no grant is made in it, except that of the Subsidy 
 to the British Government. The Subsidiary Treaty, as 
 was most inconsistently admitted in the Calcutta letter of 
 the llth March, 1862, is " ancillary and subordinate"* to 
 the Partition Treaty, and is, in fact, inseparable from it. 
 
 It is erroneous, therefore, to represent, as the Governor- 
 General does in his letters both to the Secretary of State 
 and to the Eajah, that the cession of Mysore to the Eajah 
 was effected by the Subsidiary Treaty, or that his Highness 
 was the recipient of anything under that Treaty. 
 
 The Governor-General in his letter of the 5th May, 1865, 
 impresses on the Eajah that "it was clearly understood by 
 the Nizam that his accession of territorial rights was limited 
 to the districts specifically assigned him in Schedule B of 
 the Partition Treaty."f And in his despatch of the same 
 date to the Secretary of State, Sir John Lawrence, referring 
 to the transactions of 1799, observes : 
 
 <( The Governor- General caused to be distinctly signified to the 
 Nizam that if he elected to accept the Treaty, it was on the clear 
 understanding, and the precise condition that his accession of 
 territorial rights was limited to the districts specifically assigned 
 to the Nizam in Schedule (B.) of the Treaty, and that the Nizam 
 abjured all claim to the territory which the British Government 
 was about to confer on the youthful Maharajah. "J 
 
 The frequently repeated mistake as to the British Go- 
 vernment conferring territory on the Eajah, has already 
 been sufficiently exposed. The British Government, acting 
 alone, took nothing and conferred nothing. Whatever was 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 5. t Ibid., p. 69. $ Ibid., p. 5(1 
 
106 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 conferred upon the Bajah was conferred by the Allies. And 
 of course when the Allies conferred territory upon the 
 Eajah, to form " a separate Government," they ipso facto 
 abjured all claim to it themselves. But there was no more 
 abjuring, expressed or implied, on the part of the Nizam, 
 than on the part of the Company. 
 
 It was, no doubt, clearly understood by the Nizam, that 
 his accession of territorial rights was limited to the districts 
 specifically assigned him in Schedule B of the Partition 
 Treaty. But the territorial acquisitions of the East India 
 Company were also limited to the districts specified in 
 Schedule A, and to the fortress of Seringapatam and the 
 small tract of land assigned by Article III ; while the pro- 
 vinces intended to form the separate Government of Mysore, 
 and ceded to the Eajah, under Articles IY and V, are in 
 like manner defined in Schedule C of the same Treaty. 
 
 The right of conquest empowered the Company and the 
 Nizam to make a partition and settlement of the territories 
 held by Tippoo. Whatever was acquired by the British 
 Government, whatever was acquired by the Nizam, what- 
 ever was conferred upon the Kajah, are all clearly defined in 
 the Partition Treaty. By that Treaty his sovereignty and 
 his territories were conferred upon the Eajah ; by virtue of 
 that Treaty he was enthroned by the Allies. Under the 
 subsequent Subsidiary Treaty the British Government holds 
 its annual Subsidy, its neglected prerogative of authoritative 
 supervision, and its abused prerogative 'of temporary man- 
 agement. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RIGHTS OF THE RAJAH AND HIS HEIRS. 
 
 I HAVE heard that in a certain voluminous work age and 
 author unknown descriptive of Northern Europe, there is 
 one Chapter with this remarkable heading, 
 
 "ON THE SNAKES IN NORWAY." 
 The whole Chapter however only consists of these words : 
 
 " There are no snakes in Norway." 
 
 A singular parallel to this negative specification is to be 
 found in the Administrative Report of the Government of 
 India for 1860 on Mysore. In the general Table of Con- 
 tents, in company with JUDICIAL, REVENUE, and PUBLIC 
 WORKS, there is a special department for 
 
 " MARINE," 
 
 And a Section with the same heading is duly placed in its 
 proper order ; but contains only the following informa- 
 tion : 
 
 " MARINE. 
 
 " Mysore is without any sea-board or navigable river." 
 
 If the present Chapter were to be written, in this pecu- 
 liarly exhaustive style, by any one imbued with the doc- 
 trine and spirit of the Calcutta letter of the llth March, 
 1862, it would be very brief, and might stand thus : 
 
 RIGHTS OF THE RAJAH AND HIS HEIRS. 
 The Rajah has no rights, and his heirs cannot be recog- 
 nised. Or, if we expand our summary a little, and adopt 
 the very words of that extraordinary communication, it 
 might run as follows : 
 
 The Rajah of Mysore enjoys the personal provision an 
 ample provision for his comfort and dignity made for him 
 'hen the British Government, as Conqueror and Sovereign, 
 
108 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 cancelled the authority it had conferred, and reentered 
 upon the possession of the Mysore territories. This pro- 
 vision is a personal right, not heritable even by a natural- 
 born heir ; and his title to that right rests upon favour 
 shown to his Highness by the British Government.*" 
 
 A personal right, resting upon grace and favour, seems 
 to me to be little better than no right at all. But I trust 
 I have given sufficient reason in the last two Chapters for 
 not accepting the conclusions of the Calcutta letter, and for 
 disapproving entirely of its spirit. I believe that the 
 Eajah and his heirs for ever, have the right of sovereignty 
 in Mysore, and that this right is secured and guaranteed 
 to them by the Partition Treaty of Mysore, between the 
 Nizam and the British Government. 
 
 In their determination not to allow the coveted reversion 
 of Mysore to escape, the Calcutta officials were driven at 
 last to threaten the annihilation of the Eajah's dynasty 
 with a very cruel weapon the weapon used by Lord Dal- 
 housie in the Carnatic spoliation, and displayed in his 
 Minute on Mysore*)* to deny that the sovereignty 'of 
 Mysore was hereditary even to direct lineal descendants, 
 to declare the Subsidiary Treaty of 1799 "a personal 
 Treaty," made only for one life, and renewable merely at 
 the good pleasure of the British Government, as a matter 
 of grace and favour. The intention of using this plea is 
 evident in that passage of the letter to the Rajah, in which 
 the Eajah is told that his personal provision "is not a 
 heritable right, and would not be claimable even by a natural 
 born heir. I This reserved plea of a personal or life Treaty 
 is utterly untenable and groundless. 
 
 The Subsidiary Treaty of 1799 with the Eajah of Mysore 
 is declared in the Preamble to be " a Treaty of perpetual 
 friendship and alliance," concluded in consequence of what 
 was "stipulated in the Treaty of the 22nd of June 1799" 
 (the Partition Treaty) " between the Honourable East India 
 Company and the Nawab Nizam-ood-Dowla ;" " for effect- 
 ing a settlement of the territories of the late Tippoo Sultan," 
 
 * Ante, p. 71. 
 
 t Ante, p. 41. The iniquitous Carnatic case is quoted by Mr. Mangles as 
 an available precedent ! Mysore Papers, p. 84 (note). 
 J Ante, p. 71. 
 

 RIGHTS OF THE EAJAH AND HIS HEIRS. 109 
 
 and " in order to carry the said stipulations into effect ;"* 
 and the Preamble closes with the asseveration that it "shall 
 be binding upon the contracting parties as long as the sun 
 and moon shall endure/'t 
 
 Two preliminary points of great importance come out 
 very clearly in the terms of this Preamble, Firstly, although 
 the Nizam is not a party to the Subsidiary Treaty with the 
 Bajah, his equal action and interest in establishing the 
 separate State of Mysore, are therein fully admitted ; 
 the Subsidiary Treaty is concluded in order to carry out 
 the stipulations of the Partition Treaty with the Nizam. 
 Secondly, as the Treaty is stated to be perpetual," and to 
 be of binding force on both parties " as long as the sun and 
 moon shall endure," it is not a personal but a real Treaty ; 
 and therefore, although the usual words, "his heirs and 
 successors," are not appended to the Rajah's name, hereditary 
 succession is effectually maintained. 
 
 The Treaty declares itself to be perpetual, and to be 
 made for important public objects ; it is therefore a real 
 and not a personal Treaty. J The Rajah of Mysore was 
 certainly recognised by the terms of this Treaty, as the 
 reigning Sovereign of Mysore, and an Ally of the British 
 Government. The dignity of a reigning Sovereign is essen- 
 tially hereditary in India, as in Europe. If the Rajah had 
 been a person arbitrarily selected for this dignity by the 
 East India Company alone, of its own good pleasure, as a 
 reward for his services, or in consideration of his eminent 
 personal qualifications, this Treaty collated with the Parti- 
 tion Treaty, would still have transmitted the sovereignty 
 to his heirs. But it was not so : the Rajah's position is 
 much stronger ; he was selected by the two Allies, the East 
 
 * Appendix B. t Ibid. 
 
 J " Treaties, properly so called, are either personal or real. They are per- 
 sonal, when their continuation in force depends on the person of the Sovereign 
 (or his family), with whom they have been contracted. They are real, when 
 their duration depends on the State, independently of the person who contracts. 
 Ali Treaties made for a time specified, or for ever, are also real." Law of 
 Nations, translated from G. F. von Martens, London, 1803, p. 54. " Treaties," 
 says Vattel (book n, chap, xii, 187), " that are perpetual, and those made for 
 a determinate time, are real ; since their duration does not depend on the lives 
 of the contracting parties." And Grotius points out that it is not necessary 
 that the words " heirs and successors" " should be introduced in order to make 
 the Treaty real''' De Jure Belli et Pads, lib. n, c. xv. 
 
110 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 India Company and the Nizam, disposing of territories 
 conquered by their united arms, to be the Sovereign of " a 
 separate Government ;" and he was expressly so selected as 
 the " descendant of the ancient Eajahs of Mysore," as the 
 representative of a royal family whose hereditary succession 
 had been preserved for upwards of three centuries, which 
 had only been excluded from power, during the military 
 usurpation of Hyder and Tippoo, for the comparatively 
 short space of thirty-eight years, and which had only been 
 excluded from the representative sovereignty for the still 
 shorter space of sixteen years. Lord Wellesley himself, 
 while declaring that the ancient family could assert no 
 absolute right ; that the whole settlement must be based on 
 the conquest by the Allies, and that " their cession must be 
 the source of the Hindoo Prince's dominion,"* still always 
 spoke of the Eajah's enthronement as a restoration, and 
 alludes to "the antiquity of his legitimate title." And 
 Lord William Bentinck, in his severe letter of the 7th Sep- 
 tember 1831, informing the Eajah that he was about to 
 assume the management of Mysore, thus describes what 
 took place after the fall of Seringapatam : "Your High- 
 ness is well aware of the generosity displayed by the con- 
 querors upon that occasion. Instead of availing themselves 
 of the right of conquest, and of annexing the territories of 
 Mysore to those of the Honourable Company and of the 
 Nizam, the sovereignty was restored to the family of the 
 ancient Eajahs of the country, who had taken no part in 
 the contest, and your Highness was placed on the musnud."t 
 And all the conditions of the Partition Treaty, providing 
 for this restoration, and making the detailed allotment and 
 cession of the provinces " to form the separate Government 
 of Mysore," are also said to be binding upon "the heirs and 
 successors of the contracting parties as long as the sun and 
 moon shall endure/' 
 
 The Partition Treaty, as I have stated in the last Chapter, 
 divided the dominions ruled by Tippoo Sultan into three 
 parts, and the Schedules attached to that Treaty define the 
 respective acquisitions of the Honourable Company and 
 the Nizam, and the limits of the Eajah's dominions. No 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 26. t Appendix C. 
 

 RIGHTS OF THE RAJAH AND HIS HEIRS. Ill 
 
 Schedule is attached to the Subsidiary Treaty ; the frontiers 
 and extent of the Mysore State are not in any way indicated 
 therein, except in the Preamble as " the territories specified 
 in Schedule C, annexed to the said" (Partition) "Treaty," 
 and in Article V, as "the territories ceded to him" (the 
 Eajah,) "by the 5th Article of the Treaty of Mysore" (the 
 Partition Treaty).* Thus, without a reference to the Parti- 
 tion Treaty with the Nizam, the representatives of the 
 Eajah would never have known what districts were com- 
 prised in the Mysore country. Again, in Article XV of the 
 Subsidiary Treaty, providing for subsequent exchanges of 
 territory (which for convenient reference will be found 
 entire in a note to this pagef), allusion is made to "the 
 districts declared by the Treaty of Mysore" (the Partition 
 Treaty), "to belong respectively to the English Company 
 Behauder and to his Highness ;" so that the titles of the 
 Company and the Eajah to their respective possessions are 
 referred to the same document, the Partition Treaty. And, 
 therefore, although the Eajah was not a party to the Parti- 
 tion Treaty, nor the Nizam to the Subsidiary Treaty, it is 
 manifest that the one cannot be read without the other ; 
 that the two are inseparably bound up together ; that the 
 Eajah of Mysore is entitled to point equally to both Treaties 
 in support of his sovereign rights. 
 
 All the conditions which were imposed upon the Eajah of 
 Mysore by the Subsidiary Treaty of 1799, slightly modified 
 by the additional Articles of 1807, may be concisely stated 
 as follows : He was to receive a military force furnished 
 by the East India Company, for the defence and security 
 of his dominions, and to pay the annual sum of seven lakhs 
 of star pagodas (245,000) as a Subsidy^ (Article II) ; he 
 was to maintain at all times fit for service, and ready 
 
 * Appendix B. 
 
 f " xv. Whereas it may hereafter appear, that some of the districts declared 
 by the Treaty of Mysore to belong respectively to the English Company Behauder 
 and to his Highness are inconveniently situated, with a view to the proper con- 
 nection of their respective lines of frontier, it is hereby stipulated between 
 the contracting parties, that in all such cases they will proceed to such an ad- 
 justment, by means of exchanges or otherwise, as shall be best suited to the 
 occasion." 
 
 t In addition to this, the Rajah, by a subsequent arrangement, pays 5,000 
 per annum, as rent for the river island of Seringapatam, held in sovereignty 
 by the British Government, making 250,000 per annum in all. 
 
112 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 to serve with the Company's army, a body of 4,000 effective 
 Horse (Additional Article I) ; to hold no communication or 
 correspondence with any foreign State (Article VI) ; to 
 admit no European into his service, or into his territories, 
 without the consent of the Company (Article VII) ; to 
 make a suitable provision' for certain officers of rank in the 
 service of Tippoo Sultan (Article XI) : and lastly, Article 
 XIV contains a declaration on behalf of the Rajah that he 
 will " pay at all times the utmost attention to such advice 
 as the Company's Government shall occasionally judge it 
 necessary to offer to him, with a view to the economy of 
 his finances, the better collection of his revenues, the 
 administration of justice, the extension of commerce, the 
 encouragement of trade, agriculture, and industry, or any 
 other objects connected with the advancement of his High- 
 ness's interests, the happiness of his people, and the mutual 
 welfare of both States." (Appendix B.) 
 
 It is with reference to this last Article only that the Eajah 
 has been most unfairly charged with an infraction of the 
 Treaty, or in the words of the Calcutta epistle, with its 
 "flagrant and habitual violation." Every stipulation of 
 that Treaty providing an equivalent in money and military 
 aid for general protection, has always been fulfilled to the 
 letter, and the British Government has thereby profited 
 largely. The Rajah has never been accused of hostile or 
 sinister intrigues against the dominant Power, either within 
 or without his own territories. His Highness's hearty 
 allegiance to British supremacy, his loyal demeanour, his 
 beneficial influence and useful services during the crisis of 
 rebellion, have been the recent subject of grateful acknow- 
 ledgments by the Viceroy, the Secretary of State, and it 
 is understood by the Queen herself. The slightest derelic- 
 tion within this sphere of duty, might well be charged as 
 an infraction of the Treaty. But the obligations of Article 
 XIV must be placed in quite another category. In the first 
 place, they do not relate to any promised advantages 
 or service that could be improperly withheld from the 
 British Government, and which the Eajah might be called 
 upon, under penalty, to make good. They relate to " the 
 mutual welfare of both States" in a general way, but more 
 particularly to " the advancement of his Highness's interests, 
 
RIGHTS OF THE RAJAH AND HIS HEIRS. 113 
 
 and the happiness of his people," in short, to the welfare 
 of the State of Mysore. This Article was meant to promote 
 the good order and stability of the separate Government of 
 Mysore, and was never intended to prove a trap, or to fur- 
 nish a pretext for its destruction. The obligations are 
 mutual, the dominant Power undertaking to offer good 
 advice, the dependent Prince promising to pay the utmost 
 attention to it. But the British Government could not 
 possibly have the right of complaining that its advice was 
 not followed, unless the Eajah displayed the most open and 
 defiant contumacy, because it held the corrective remedy 
 for the inattention or disobedience of the Mysore State in 
 its own hands. The British Government having confined 
 its controlling action to vague and loose reproof, and to the 
 remonstrances of the Eesident in particular cases ; having 
 neglected to make its advice efficacious by establishing 
 general principles and substantive law ; having neglected 
 to make its advice authoritative by the imposition of ordi- 
 nances, or even by the firm presentation of specific measures 
 of reform, is completely debarred from accusing the Eajah 
 of an infraction of the Treaty. With much more reason 
 the Eajah of Mysore might accuse the British Government 
 of infringing the Treaty, in not having pressed its good 
 advice upon him at the proper time, and in the most 
 effectual form.* 
 
 The Subsidiary Treaty of 1799 is what is called by writers 
 on public law "a Treaty of unequal alliance." Grotius says 
 that in a Treaty of unequal alliance, " where the terms of 
 the compact give a permanent precedence to one of the 
 parties," "where the greater share of power goes to the 
 stronger," "the King" (or State) "preserves his sove- 
 reignty." An cf " in unequal alliances the words command 
 and obedience are sometimes used with reference to trans- 
 actions between the superior and the inferior ; but this does 
 not refute what I have said." " The payment of money to 
 the superior, as a consideration for protection, does not 
 destroy sovereignty."t And Wheaton says : " Treaties of 
 unequal alliance, guarantee, mediation, and protection, may 
 
 * As Sir Frederick Currie and Sir Henry Montgomery point out, ante, p. 16, 
 t De Jure Belli et Pads, Dr. WhewelFs edition, 1853, lib. i, chap, ii, 
 pp. 152, 153, 157, 160. 
 
 I 
 
114 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 have the effect of limiting and qualifying the sovereignty 
 according to the stipulations of the Treaties."* 
 
 The sovereignty of the Eajah of Mysore is, therefore, un- 
 doubtedly limited and qualified by the stipulations of the 
 Subsidiary Treaty, under which the power of making war, 
 and of communicating with other States is resigned, and 
 an authoritative right of counsel is conceded to the British 
 Government ; but it is limited by nothing beyond those 
 stipulations, and no provision is made in that Treaty for 
 the suppression, under any circumstances, of the Rajah's 
 sovereignty, or of that " separate Government " of Mysore 
 constituted by the Partition Treaty with the Nizam. 
 
 The suppression of the Mysore State was first distinctly 
 threatened by the fact that the Rajah was tacitly excepted 
 from the benefit of the amende honorable to Hindoo Sove- 
 reigns, which were based on that Adoption despatch of the 
 30th April 1860, approved in Sir Charles Wood's reply of 
 the 26th July of the same year, to which I have so often 
 referred.")" In this despatch Lord Canning strongly repro- 
 bated the caprice and mutability of our former practice 
 with regard to regulating successions in the minor Princi- 
 palities, and absolutely abandoned that pretended preroga- 
 tive of rejecting adopted heirs, by which so many annexa- 
 tions had been effected, and to which the acquisitive school 
 of Calcutta mainly trusted for pursuing future appropria- 
 tions. But even while recommending the policy of main- 
 taining a system of Native States, while repudiating the 
 imaginary precedents which had been evoked for their 
 destruction, Lord Canning misled by the superficial temp- 
 tations and supposed facilities of acquiring another rich 
 province sent no copy of the circular letter declaring Her 
 Majesty's intention to recognise all future adoptions, to the 
 Rajah of Mysore, who thus, at first sight, seems to have 
 been purposely excluded from the operation of this con- 
 servative and restorative measure. 
 
 But it must be noticed here that Lord Canning, having 
 on the 30th of March, 1860 (Ante, p. 54), told the Secretary 
 of State that the Rajah was willing to bequeath his King- 
 dom to the British Government, and having referred to the 
 
 * Elements of International Law, Boston, 1855, p. 45. t Appendix A. 
 
RIGHTS OF THE RAJAH AND HIS HEIRS. 115 
 
 fact that his Highness had not adopted an heir, as a satis- 
 factory point in the situation, could hardly be expected on 
 the 30th of April just one month later to write to the 
 Secretary of State, proposing to encourage the Eajah to 
 adopt, and to follow that up by inviting that Prince himself 
 to take the very step which, in Lord Canning's opinion, was 
 so strongly to be deprecated, and which step relying upon 
 the Eesidency gossip of Lord Dalhousie's time, and upon 
 the further instalment of the same in 1858, Lord Canning 
 seriously believed the Eajah did not wish to take. It must 
 have seemed quite evident to Lord Canning that if he 
 pressed the Eajah, he would either induce an adoption, and 
 thus preclude the desired bequest, or he would cause the 
 aged Sovereign's last days, in the event of his refusal to 
 adopt, to be embittered by family dissensions, and by the 
 general execration of his courtiers and subjects, and of all 
 good Hindoos. The invitation to adopt was therefore not 
 extended to the Eajah of Mysore. But there is great reason 
 to doubt whether, in omitting to send a copy of the circular 
 letter to the Eajah, Lord Canning, however desirous of se- 
 curing the reversion of Mysore, had any hostile intention 
 towards his Highness. He clearly believed at that time 
 that the Eajah and himself were both of one mind on the 
 subject. Sir John Willoughby states as follows in one of 
 his Minutes : " By a comparison of dates, it seems to me 
 clear that Lord Canning had no idea of excluding the Eajah 
 from the benefits of his adoption policy by resorting to such 
 a quibble as that the Eajah is not ' now governing his own 
 territory 7 ."* 
 
 It is very remarkable that neither Lord Canning, in his 
 despatch to the Secretary of State of the 30th March, 1860, 
 nor even Lord Dalhousie, in his Minute of the 14th of 
 January, 1856,f directly impugns the Eajah's right of 
 adoption. Indeed, from their both noticing as a gratifying 
 circumstance that he had not adopted a son, one would 
 rather be justified in assuming that they could not deny his 
 right to adopt in Sir Mark Cubbon's words : "As for the 
 adoption, they dare not refuse it."f 
 
 I regret that a copy of the circular letter to the Princes 
 
 * Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 31. t Ante, p. 41. | Ante, p. 51. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 RIGHTS OF THE RAJAH AND HIS HETRS. 
 
 of India, promising to recognise adopted successors, was not 
 sent to the Eajah of Mysore ; but I cannot allow that his 
 rights, or the rights of his family, are in the least diminished 
 by that omission. The Rajah's act of adoption conveys to 
 any person legally eligible an indefeasible title to the sove- 
 rignty of Mysore. In the event of his Highness's demise 
 without having adopted a son, the right and duty of adop- 
 tion would have devolved upon his senior widow. To the 
 many authorities on this point, quoted by me in a recent 
 publication,* I may add the testimony of Sir John Mal- 
 colm : 
 
 ' ' The first in rank among the Princesses of a Hindu Ruler or 
 Chief who has no issue, becomes on his death a personage of 
 great consequence in the State, from her acknowledged right of 
 adoption, and the claims upon the power and property of her 
 husband, which this choice confers. It is generally conceived a 
 duty to choose from the least objectionable among the near rela- 
 tions of the deceased ; but the obligation is not imperative, and 
 the consequences of the exercise of this right too often produce 
 family feuds and disputed successions." f 
 
 The " ruling sanction" of the Paramount Power, however 
 amplified and abused during Lord Dalhousie's sway, pro- 
 perly extends only to the prevention of these family feuds, 
 to the ultimate decision in disputed successions, and no 
 farther. If annexation is decreed, it may as well be done 
 boldly, on the plea that the Raj is not heritable even to a 
 natural-born heir ; for it is impossible to show that any 
 Paramount Power in India has ever possessed any more 
 right to refuse succession to an adopted son than to a lineal 
 male descendant. 
 
 * I have recently argued the general question of Adoption so fully, that I 
 do not consider it necessary to go over the same ground here, but must refer 
 to The Empire in India, Letters on " The Right of Adoption," and " Sattara." 
 
 t Central India, vol. i, p. 484. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 
 
 WHETHER we consider this Mysore case as a legal question, 
 as a matter to be decided by a strict interpretation of cove- 
 nants ; or from a moral point of view with special reference 
 to the good of the people ; or in relation to what may be 
 called sentimental ideas of progress ; or with sole regard to 
 our own political and material interests, it will equally 
 appear, in every aspect, that the projects of the Calcutta 
 Government are alike unjust and inexpedient. 
 
 The legal situation of the case, considered as one of ab- 
 stract justice and fidelity to contracts, may be very briefly 
 summed up. The Partition and Subsidiary Treaties of 
 1799, except where they are expressly modified by subse- 
 quent engagements, are still in full force.* 
 
 The Mysore Subsidy, which Lord William Bentinck ad- 
 mitted had "never been in jeopardy", having been uninter- 
 ruptedly paid for sixty-five years in monthly instalments 
 according to the terms of the Treaty, no cause remains, 
 under the strict terms of the Subsidiary Treaty, for any 
 longer retaining the Rajah's dominions under the "exclusive 
 authority and control" of the British Government. 
 
 For refusing to recognise the Rajah's adopted son and 
 lawful successor, no honest excuse or pretext can possibly 
 be brought forward. Such a refusal is simply a perverse 
 reassertion of that imaginary and pretended prerogative 
 which Lord Canning, in the Adoption Despatch of 1860, 
 expressly and publicly rejected and abandoned. 
 
 Regarding the question again as a matter of moral obli- 
 gation to the people of the country, looking merely to the 
 
 * A new Treaty was made with the Nizam in 1800, by which the greater 
 part of the territories acquired from Tippoo under the partitions of 1792 and 
 1799, were ceded to the East India Company, to provide for the Subsidiary 
 Force ; but in this, as well as in the later Treaties of f822 and 1853, all pre- 
 vious engagements were expressly renewed and confirmed. 
 
118 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 broad general case of the former misgovernment of Mysore 
 during the Eajah's personal rule, it has been proved that 
 the Honourable Company was primarily and mainly blame- 
 able for it. If Mysore was badly governed in the past, it 
 was our own fault ; and if Mysore were in the future to be 
 badly governed under the restored rule of its Sovereign, the 
 faithful Ally and attached feudatory of the British Crown, 
 it would be equally our own fault. Ample securities can 
 be obtained, under the provisions of the existing Treaty, for 
 the due administration of justice, and for the economical 
 management of the finances. No valid objection can be 
 made, therefore, under that head to the Eajah's immediate 
 restoration. No valid excuse can be found, under that 
 head, for the rejection of the Eajah's heir. 
 
 Extending the power of our Government under the Treaty 
 to the utmost limit, granting that having once assumed the 
 management, and having retained it for thirty-four years, 
 we are morally bound not to relinquish it until we have 
 obtained the best security for "the welfare of the people" 
 (one of the objects mentioned in Article V), there is no 
 such difficulty in obtaining a full security, as can justify us 
 in having turned the temporary interference contemplated 
 by the Treaty into such a persistent sequestration. Still 
 less could the British Government be justified in turning 
 this administrative sequestration, existing professedly under 
 the Subsidiary Treaty, into a territorial appropriation in 
 defiance both of this Treaty and of our engagements with 
 the Nizam. 
 
 The political stability of our Empire and the progressive 
 instruction of India, would equally be impaired and retarded 
 by an unjust settlement of this Mysore question. And it is 
 a most extraordinary fact that Lord Canning, though mis- 
 informed and misled in this solitary instance, was fully 
 convinced, and expressed the soundest views on the general 
 aspect of the question. Arguing for the proposed policy 
 of no longer interfering with the succession of adopted heirs, 
 he says in his Despatch of the 30th April, 1860 : 
 
 "The proposed measure will not debar the Government of 
 India from stepping in to set right such serious abuses in a Native 
 Government as may threaten any part of the country with anarchy 
 or disturbance, nor from assuming temporary charge of a Native 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 119 
 
 State when there shall be sufficient reason to do so. This has 
 long been our practice. We have repeatedly exercised the power 
 with the assent and sometimes at the desire of the chief authority 
 in the State, and it is one which, used with good judgment and 
 moderation,, it is very desirable that we should retain. It will, 
 indeed, when once the proposed assurance shall have been given, 
 be more easy than heretofore to exercise it without provoking 
 jealousy of any designs upon the independence of the State." 
 
 Now most certainly the power of " assuming temporary 
 charge of a Native State," with the object of establishing a 
 system of law and order, is a power which the Government 
 of India might most beneficially hold in reserve, and employ 
 to a much greater extent than has been hitherto attempted. 
 But if the reformed State of Mysore were to be appropriated 
 by the protecting Government, the power of assuming tem- 
 porary charge of any other State could never be exercised 
 without provoking jealousy and alarm to the highest pos- 
 sible degree. 
 
 In this most conspicuous instance of Mysore we have 
 effectually reformed the administration of the country, but 
 have signalised our management by the complete exclusion 
 of the Rajah from all share in the government ; and an in- 
 tention is now very plainly shown of making our adminis- 
 trative possession at once the opportunity and the pretext 
 of absorbing the State and abolishing the sovereignty. If 
 this contemplated breach of trust and violation of Treaties 
 be allowed to proceed to the final extremity, what reliance 
 can hereafter be placed in our moderation and good faith ? 
 
 As Captain W. J. Eastwick remarks in his Minute against 
 the annexation of Mysore : 
 
 "An eminent and lamented statesman" (Sir Gr. C. Lewis) 
 "justly writes : ' The only stable foundation for a Government is 
 its moral authority : so long as it is looked up to with respect, 
 confidence, and esteem by the body of the people, it stands 
 on a rock/ These essentials wanting, it is an edifice built on 
 sand."* 
 
 In another part of the Adoption Despatch of 1860, Lord 
 Canning wrote as follows : 
 
 " It is certain that objection to the proposed measure will be 
 taken on the ground that it will cut off future opportunities of 
 accession of territory, and that it is our duty not to forego these. 
 
 * Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 79. 
 
120 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ' ' I regard this not as an objection, but as a recommendation ; 
 and I cannot take that view of our duty. 
 
 " Our supremacy will never be heartily accepted and respected 
 so long as we leave ourselves open to the doubts which are now 
 felt, and which our uncertain policy has justified, as to our ulti- 
 mate intention towards Native States. 
 
 "We shall not become stronger so long as we continue adding 
 to our territory without adding to our European force j and the 
 additions to that force which we already require are probably as 
 large as England can conveniently furnish, and they will certainly 
 cost as much as India can conveniently pay. 
 
 " As to Civil Government, our English officers are too few for 
 the work which they have on their hands, and our financial means 
 are not yet equal to the demands upon us. Accession of territory 
 will not make it easier to discharge our already existing duties 
 in the administration of justice, the prosecution of public works, 
 and in many other ways."* 
 
 The last paragraph in this extract shows that Lord Can- 
 ning had become well acquainted with the immense fallacy 
 of those hopes of augmented financial resources which had 
 animated the advocates of annexation. He knew that the 
 acquisition of territory had always brought with it the 
 necessity of increased establishments, civil and military, on a 
 more expensive scale than that which sufficed for the native 
 government, that contented submission was turned into 
 dangerous disaffection, and that instead of receiving tribute 
 the Imperial Treasury was called upon to supply deficien- 
 cies. He knew that every Province absorbed by Lord Dal- 
 housie had proved a burden on the revenues of our older 
 possessions, and he therefore adduces the inadequacy of our 
 "financial means" as one of the reasons for avoiding acces- 
 sions of territory. 
 
 And this leads us to consider the question as it affects 
 the material interests of Great Britain. Even by those who 
 in a general way acknowledge the iniquity and impolicy 
 of persistent and systematic annexation, the question of 
 absorbing Mysore has been represented as quite special and 
 peculiar. It has been urged, in addition to arguments 
 drawn from the growing value and capabilities of this 
 country, that it is so completely encircled by British pro- 
 vinces, that it would be highly impolitic and unadvisable to 
 
 * Appendix A. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 121 
 
 perpetuate a separate jurisdiction. It is chiefly to these 
 considerations that Lord Canning may be supposed to have 
 been adverting, when he wrote in the following terms to 
 the Secretary of State for India, in that letter of 30th March, 
 1860, from which we have already quoted (p. 55, 58) : 
 
 "It may be very little desirable that more provinces should be 
 added to those which are already under the absolute rule of the 
 Queen in India ; but the case of Mysore, lying in the midst of 
 the Madras Presidency, and already bound to us in a way which 
 is not convenient or satisfactory, is quite exceptional; and the 
 bequest of that country in full sovereignty to the Crown, by the 
 free will of the ruler, and in a spirit of loyal attachment to the 
 British power, is a consummation which, in the interest of all 
 concerned, no one would wish to see defeated." 
 
 If there were any weight in the considerations founded 
 on the geographical position of Mysore in relation to our 
 immediate possessions, it would not be difficult to show that 
 there is nothing exceptional in that position. If the course 
 of annexation were to be resumed in the tempting instance 
 of Mysore, a long series of similar temptations would be re- 
 opened, and every little sovereignty, embedded in the Bri- 
 tish dominions, would feel itself to be doomed to assimilation 
 in its turn, at the first plausible opportunity. For although 
 the large revenue of Mysore makes it appear a more than 
 usually desirable acquisition, there is really no special cause 
 that can render its appropriation more defensible than that 
 of any other State in India. 
 
 There is nothing inconvenient or unsatisfactory in the 
 way in which Mysore is legally connected with the British 
 Government. On the contrary, it would be much better 
 for the Imperial Power, for the Princes and for the people, 
 if all the Native States of India were connected with the 
 British Crown by such well-defined ties and obligations as 
 those of the Subsidiary Treaty of 1799. There is nothing 
 inconvenient or unsatisfactory in the way Mysore is at pre- 
 sent bound to us, except that obstacle to its full develop- 
 ment as a reformed Native State, offered by the needless 
 and unjust suspension of its legitimate Sovereign. But 
 when Lord Canning penned the lines which we have just 
 quoted, in his Despatch of 30th March, 1860, he was, as we 
 know, still under the mistaken impression that the Rajah 
 
122 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 would never adopt a son, and would actually prefer the 
 absorption of Mysore in the British dominions to the main- 
 tenance of his hereditary throne. Without our knowledge 
 of this erroneous belief, we should find it very difficult to 
 account for the strange inconsistency that on the 30th 
 March, 1860, the Governor-General should deem the case 
 of Mysore, " lying in the midst of the Madras Presidency", 
 to be "quite exceptional", and such that its "bequest in full 
 sovereignty to the Crown," is " a consummation which no 
 one would wish to see defeated", while on the 30th April, 
 1860, just one month later, in his admirable Adoption 
 Despatch, he declares that all who "remember the condition 
 of Upper India in 1857 and 1858" must be "thankful that 
 in the centre of the large and compact British province of 
 Rohilcund there remained the solitary little State of Barn- 
 poor, still administered by its own Mahomedan Prince, and 
 that on the borders of the Punjab and of the districts above 
 Delhi, the Chief of Puttiala and his kinsmen still retained 
 their hereditary authority unimpaired."* 
 
 In this Despatch Lord Canning most emphatically pro- 
 nounced this maxim of Imperial policy : 
 
 " The safety of our rule is increased, not diminished, by the 
 maintenance of the Native Chiefs well affected to us."* 
 
 What Native Prince is more well-affected to us, what 
 Native Prince has proved himself to be more faithfully at- 
 tached to the British Crown, than the Rajah of Mysore "that 
 venerable and loyal Prince", as Lord Canning termed him, 
 "the oldest and staunchest Ally of Her Majesty in India", 
 as the Secretary of State observed, and who, again in the 
 words of Lord Canning, " possesses a very strong claim to 
 have his wishes and feelings consulted by us'"? He does 
 indeed possess a strong claim, although he asks for nothing 
 but bare justice ; for those who can appreciate the terrible 
 results that must have followed, if the contagion of the re- 
 volt in Northern and Central India had spread to the 
 Southern Presidency and the Madras Army, may well main- 
 tain, as many experienced officials have done, that not even 
 the Nawab of Rampoor or the Rajah of Puttiala deserved so 
 much the gratitude of the British Government for their con- 
 
 * Appendix A. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 123 
 
 duct during the rebellion, as did the Rajah of Mysore for 
 " the ready and useful assistance which he rendered to the 
 Queen's troops," and for his personal efforts " in preserving 
 peace and encouraging loyalty."* 
 
 There is nothing but disgrace and loss of moral influence 
 to be got by denying the Rajah's just claim ; and every evil 
 effect would be enormously and irretrievably increased by 
 refusing to recognise his lawful heir. Beyond the miserable 
 patronage, nothing whatever is really to be gained from this 
 unjust confiscation. The Mysore State now pays a much 
 larger sum as tribute applicable to Imperial purposes than 
 could ever be shown as a surplus under our immediate rule, 
 besides being bound to furnish a body of four thousand 
 Irregular Horse, most useful troops, whenever required for 
 our service. Altogether the direct contributions payable 
 by Mysore, out of its revenue of one million sterling, can- 
 not be computed at less than 300,000 per annum. No 
 Presidency, no Collectorate in India pays so well. And 
 the British Government is subject to no burden, is placed 
 under no obligations in return, beyond those of general 
 guaranty and protection. The Viceroy is not bound to sta- 
 tion a single soldier, European or native, within the fron- 
 tiers of Mysore, if he does not choose. All our troops may 
 be withdrawn on an emergency. 
 
 The continued acquisition of territory even by fair 
 means and with a just title can no longer be advantageous 
 to Great Britain, or beneficial to India. But every district 
 that is acquired by foul means and with a bad title, is a 
 burden and an injury to the Empire. However strong, 
 however well administered, the Government of India may 
 be, it is not, and never will be so strong, and so well ad- 
 ministered, as to be able to trust to physical force and 
 organised establishments, and to dispense with moral supe- 
 riority. There is still immense scope for the exercise of 
 our authoritative counsels. I would rather see one re- 
 formed native State than a dozen model Presidencies. We 
 may want some of our seventy thousand soldiers nearer 
 home one of these days. I should prefer the power of 
 calling them in, on an emergency, to the privilege of being 
 
 * Lord Canning to the Rajah, 28th June, 1860, ante, p. 48. 
 
124 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 incessantly called upon to send out more Cadets, or more 
 Competition Wallahs. 
 
 If the great aim and object of British supremacy in India 
 be the reform of native institutions, and the mental and 
 moral improvement of the native races, I cannot doubt that 
 the permanent civilisation of a people will be more ad- 
 vanced by the development of their capacity for self- 
 government, than by a stereotyped system be it ever so 
 benevolent of exotic and exclusive management. In the 
 cause of progress not less than in the cause of peace, I 
 should plead for the maintenance of Native States, and for 
 the elevation of Native Princes and ministers. If our Go- 
 vernment declares that it can devise no substantial reforms 
 for Mysore as a dependent Principality ; that it knows not 
 how to impose such " ordinances and regulations" as would 
 form a constitutional protection to the people ; that it can 
 prescribe no remedy for the defects of this, or any other 
 native State, except extinction ; then I say that it is not 
 proclaiming the incapacity of the minor Princes, but its own 
 incapacity as an Imperial and Paramount Power. 
 
 For many years past very confused and erroneous notions 
 have extensively prevailed, as to the absolute rights or strong 
 claims of Great Britain to the possession of Imperial or 
 Paramount supremacy over all the native Sovereigns of 
 India. I do not think that any such claim was ever ad- 
 vanced, in any official document or in any historical work, 
 before the complete subjugation of the Mahratta Princes, and 
 the general pacification of India, by the Marquis of Hastings 
 in the year 1819; and no such general claim can be found, 
 expressed or implied, in the Treaties of that critical period. 
 It would be immaterial, even if it were possible, to trace the 
 exact date, or the particular authority, from which this claim 
 originated ; but we find it asserted and enforced, in its 
 fullest development, with ruinous results to several native 
 dynasties, and with the effect of a general menace to all, 
 during Lord Dalhousie's eight years' tenure of the Vice- 
 royalty, from 1848 to 1856. 
 
 As the British dominions were extended and consolidated, 
 and British domination became more and more an indis- 
 putable fact, a gradual approach seems to have been made 
 to the demand of Imperial prerogatives, while the limits of 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 125 
 
 those prerogatives were at every step progressively ex- 
 panded. 
 
 These assumed prerogatives have been strained in two 
 directions, and with two purposes : in the direction of 
 Feudal Suzerainty, with the alleged purpose of consolidating 
 our Empire ; in the direction of Administrative Dictator- 
 ship, with the alleged purpose of protecting the people. 
 Both these purposes are good ; both these pretensions are 
 based on truth and reason ; but they have unfortunately 
 been pushed far beyond their legitimate scope, until their 
 ordinary statement, official and literary, has become false in 
 letter and spirit ; until their origin has become obscure, and 
 their future inscrutable ; until the native Princes and their 
 subjects have learned to dread every allusion to these prero- 
 gatives as the prelude of insidious aggression. 
 
 To regulate the successions in minor Principalities is a 
 natural attribute of Imperial authority ; and although the 
 East India Company, which, like the Nawabs and Eajahs, 
 had been a vassal of Delhi, never could or did pretend to 
 occupy the throne of Timour, the duty of deciding in cases 
 of doubtful or disputed succession has devolved upon Great 
 Britain, as a moral result of her immense material strength, 
 and of her pre-eminent interest in the preservation of the 
 general peace and good order of India. This duty was not 
 assumed by our Government without many misgivings and 
 much hesitation. It was declined on two remarkable occa- 
 sions by Lord William Bentinck,* and the manifest disorder 
 and discredit arising from the over-scrupulous non-inter- 
 ference of that nobleman's administration had probably the 
 greatest effect in determining his successors to adopt a 
 bolder policy. But we did not know where to stop. The 
 moral duty of pacification, imposed upon Great Britain by 
 her overwhelming power in India, naturally extended to all 
 cases of disputed inheritance ; while over a large class of 
 petty Princes she had acquired, by conquest, treaty or 
 patronage, an unquestioned supremacy and the privilege of 
 investiture. But the duty of investing feudatories, of super- 
 intending and controlling successions in Hindoo royal 
 families, was by degrees exaggerated into the right to divest 
 
 * The Empire in India, Letter on " Jhansi." 
 
126 CHAPTER VII L 
 
 feudatories, and to abolish royal families, by refusing to re- 
 cognise adoptions. The adoption of an heir, which among 
 the Hindoos is not only a religious and social obligation, but 
 is an ordinary, essential and incessantly recurring incident 
 of their law of inheritance, without which, on the failure 
 of lineal descendants in the male line, even the nearest col- 
 lateral cannot claim by virtue of his consanguinity, was 
 declared to be an extraordinary and special boon, to be 
 granted or withheld at the choice of the dominant Power. 
 This new doctrine, resting on no historical or legal founda- 
 tion, was first applied in 1841, in Lord Auckland's time, to 
 bar a succession to the petty State of Colaba, over which 
 " the entire supremacy", and "right of investiture", were ex- 
 pressly reserved by Treaty to the British Government ; and 
 in 1848 it was employed for the extinction of the Sattara 
 family, although its head had always been treated by us 
 with great form and ceremonial as a royal personage, with 
 whom, "his heirs and successors", "in perpetual sovereignty", 
 we were connected by a Treaty of "friendship and alliance". 
 On this critical occasion the new destructive heresies, forti- 
 fied by an audacious assertion of utterly imaginary prece- 
 dents,* were exalted into political maxims, formally ratified 
 and confirmed by the conclusion of the Court of Directors, 
 that " a dependent Principality cannot pass to an adopted 
 heir without the consent of the Paramount Power ; that we 
 are under no pledge, direct or constructive, to give such 
 consent ; and that the general interests committed to our 
 charge are best consulted by withholding it".f I n accord- 
 ance with this judgment, and as natural consequences of 
 the approved annexation of Sattara, the extinction of the 
 important State of Nagpore, and the small Principality of 
 Jhansi, followed in the year 1854. 
 
 And thus, with the purpose in view of consolidating the 
 Empire, one of the chief prerogatives of Imperial Suzerainty, 
 which might have been exercised with the cheerful and 
 unanimous acquiescence of the Princes and people of India, 
 was perverted and prostituted to the lust of territory. 
 
 Our first encroachment, in the case of Colaba, far froi 
 being a proper and opportune assertion of Imperial rani 
 
 * The Empire in India, " Sattara." t Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 127 
 
 and functions, as some have argued, was an absolute ab- 
 dication of that federal rank, and a repudiation of those 
 functions of protection and reforming control, which alone 
 could entitle the de facto Paramount Power to be recognised 
 and obeyed as the Imperial Sovereignty of India. By this 
 new policy our Government has denied its origin and his- 
 tory, contradicted all its precedents, renounced the bene- 
 ficent duties of Empire, and assumed the offensive and 
 defiant position of an all-absorbing acquisitive Kingdom. 
 And the consequence is that our territorial acquisitions in 
 India have already overstepped the limits of profit, utility, 
 and safety. 
 
 Between the years 1848 and 1856 the doctrine had be- 
 come universally accepted at Calcutta, that the native 
 Princes were disqualified for any good purpose, useless as 
 allies, impotent as enemies, and yet capable of being very 
 troublesome, and that our only true policy was, in Lord 
 Dalhousie's own words, that of " getting rid of those petty 
 intervening Principalities, which may be made a means of 
 annoyance, but which can never be a source of strength".* 
 Mr. George Campbell wrote as follows in 1852, alluding to 
 the case of Sattara: 
 
 " One right of Lord Paramount we have unequivocally estab- 
 lished, that of succeeding to the estates of Princes who die with- 
 out legitimate heirs; yet that right has not always been exercised. 
 In former times, when it was the policy of the Government to 
 maintain and even to create subsidiary States, heirs were generally 
 found or created j but latterly, better understanding our position, 
 we have been more inclined to insist on our rights. It is indeed 
 only in this way that we can hope gradually to extinguish the na- 
 tive States, which consume so large a portion of the revenues of 
 the country, and so prevent us from lightening the burdens and 
 improving the condition of the mass of the people."f 
 
 The rights of Princes, represented by certain musty old 
 parchments called Treaties, were allowed to weigh as nothing 
 
 * Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 83. 
 
 t Campbell's Modern India, 1852, p. 169. This plausible and smartly 
 written book represents very fairly the ordinary views of Indian affairs held 
 by the Bengal Civil Service, of which Mr. Campbell, now a Judge of the High 
 Court of Calcutta, is a very able and distinguished member. The book con- 
 tained a great mass of information, was favourably received, and much read ; 
 and it was published just in the nick of time, as if to serve as an exponent 
 and defence of Lord Dalhousie's policy of annexation. 
 
128 CHAPTER V11I. 
 
 against the "real good" of their contented subjects, " whose 
 best interests, we sincerely believe," says Lord Dalhousie, 
 " will be promoted by the uniform application of our system 
 of government."* 
 
 This alleged desideratum "the uniform application of 
 our system of government" appears to me to be the ex- 
 treme abuse and perversion of what I have called the second 
 assumed prerogative of Imperial power, Administrative 
 Dictatorship. Based, like the claim to regulate successions, 
 on truth and reason, on the dominant power and dominant 
 interests of Great Britain throughout the continent of India, 
 it has been pushed, beyond all bounds, to a climax of ex- 
 aggeration and falsehood. Confined to a fair supervision oi 
 public affairs in the secondary States, to the reproof an<~ 
 correction of scandalous misrule, to the inculcation of sount 
 general principles, and the deprecation of barbarous pre- 
 judices, the reforming action of the de facto Paramount 
 Power has effected great and beneficial changes in their laws 
 and customs, and in the prevalent tone, temper and opinions, 
 both of rulers and subjects ;t and would have been capable 
 of indefinite extension, without infringing any engagemem 
 without exciting any dissension or mistrust. Every ste 
 gained in this way is a substantial and permanent advance 
 in the course of civilisation and progress. But when, ac- 
 cording to recent practice, the defects of native institutioi 
 are not only denounced, but deplored as being quite in- 
 curable by native and natural means, and the introductioi 
 of English officers into every place of authority is 
 
 * Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 83. 
 
 t I allude particularly to the prohibition of Suttee ; the resolutions against 
 female infanticide among the Rajpoots, and the combined plan for relaxing 
 the restrictions on marriage connexions and the enormous expense attending 
 them, which were the chief incentives to that horrible crime ; the suppressic 
 of Thuggee, and consequent disappearance of the superstitions which tendt 
 to its concealment and toleration; the cessation of torture, cruel punisl 
 ments, the arbitrary infliction of death, and imprisonment without trial ; th 
 abolition or mitigation of transit duties, and other impediments to trade ; am 
 in more complete protection to the accumulation of wealth and its transmis 
 sion by inheritance. Some of these reforms are as yet but partially secure ; am 
 it is above all to be regretted that our Government should have struck the 
 heaviest blow possible against that last mentioned the inviolability of pro- 
 perty by its recent inroads upon the jewel-rooms and wardrobes of mediatised 
 royal families. Native Princes and Ministers were already but too prone to 
 similar high-handed acts, on due provocation; and needed no such example of 
 confiscation in cold blood. See The Empire in India, " The Bhonsla Fund." 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 129 
 
 scribed as the only panacea, there is an end of harmonious 
 co-operation ; advice appears as an insult and a menace, 
 and the very idea of reform becomes detestable. During 
 the last twenty years, while the prerogative of regulating 
 successions has been vitiated by the lust of territory, the 
 prerogative of correcting abuses has been vitiated by the 
 lust of patronage ; the one assumed prerogative has been 
 employed to prove, explain and strengthen the other, and 
 the two together have been made the pretext and justifica- 
 tion for destroying Principalities and extinguishing dynas- 
 ties, for abolishing native nobility and proscribing native 
 talent. 
 
 A reconstructive policy for the Indian Empire can never 
 grow out of a series of illicit assumptions and silent en- 
 croachments : any apparent gain that can be traced to no 
 other source than that, must always be illusory and pre- 
 carious ; there is nothing to show for it ; it is matter neither 
 of record nor of repute. A solid and permanent Imperial 
 fabric can only be built on explicit, acknowledged and re- 
 corded declarations, preceded by general confidence, followed 
 by general consent. Our relations with the native States 
 have been reduced, legally and morally, to a stagnating 
 Chaos of confusion and contradiction. Is it possible to 
 evoke a Cosmos out of this Chaos ? I think it is possible. 
 
 Up to this time, the British Government has done nothing 
 to deserve the general confidence, or to secure the general 
 consent. The two great Imperial prerogatives which natu- 
 rally devolved upon our Government, and which, if fairly 
 exercised, would have been gladly conceded by all, have 
 been turned into weapons of offence and destruction, until 
 the only chance of honour and security for a native Prince 
 appears to lie in denying those prerogatives to the utmost 
 limits of subordination, and in evading their operation by 
 every practicable device. Our counsels and our assistance 
 are seen to be fatal, not only to the independence, but to 
 the very existence of the most friendly and submissive 
 Principalities. In one most conspicuous and important in- 
 stance that of Mysore we have effectually reformed the 
 administration of the country, but have signalised our 
 management by the complete and permanent exclusion of 
 the Rajah from all voice and share in the government, and 
 
 K 
 
130 CHAPTER V11L. 
 
 by giving all places of high trust and emolument to English 
 officers ; and an intention is now very plainly shown of 
 making our administrative possession at once the oppor- 
 tunity and the pretext of absorbing the State and abolish- 
 ing the sovereignty. If this contemplated breach of trust 
 and violation of Treaties as I think I have shown it to be 
 be allowed to proceed to the final extremity, what reli- 
 ance can thereafter be placed in our moderation and good 
 faith ? 
 
 In order that we may be able to undertake the reform of 
 the native States, in order that the native States should 
 accept our instruction and guidance, it is necessary not 
 only that our moral influence should be restored to its 
 former height, but that it should rise to a revolutionary 
 strength. Three great political operations appear to me to 
 be required to produce this full effect : (1) a Golden Bull, 
 or declaration of paramount authority over all the Princes of 
 India, explaining the Imperial principles, and the reciprocal 
 rights and duties of the secondary Powers ; (2) a demonstra- 
 tion of good will and liberal intentions towards native Princes 
 in general, which should precede or accompany, and thus 
 illustrate the Golden Bull ; (3) the exhibition as an ex- 
 ample, model and encouragement of one or more native 
 States, reformed under British tutelage, and then re-esta- 
 blished in their former dimensions, or aggrandised by the 
 Paramount Power, as active members of the Federation. 
 
 These measures would be intelligible and acceptable to 
 all, would involve no embarrassing confessions, would not 
 openly break the continuity or consistency of our political 
 action, but would vindicate, to a certain extent, the se- 
 verities of the past, while removing all menace from the 
 future. 
 
 One very plausible objection might be brought against 
 the fundamental notion of an Imperial manifesto or Golden 
 Bull : it might be denounced as being after all an arbitrary 
 usurpation of prerogatives and functions not lawfully ap- 
 pertaining to the British Government, as being, in whole- 
 sale and with the widest extension possible, just one of 
 those high-handed " acts of state" against which, in detailed 
 and particular instances, I have myself protested. But thi 
 is a complete misconception of my views. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 131 
 
 I have not protested, and do not protest against arbitrary 
 acts of state in general, any more than I protest against war, 
 conquest, revolution or rebellion in general. An act of state, 
 however arbitrary and rigorous, may or may not be justifiable, 
 just as in the case of war, conquest, revolution or rebellion. 
 I have protested against certain transactions in which the 
 British Government has violated solemn treaties, while pro- 
 fessing by sophistical arguments to respect their provisions, 
 has repudiated treaties in full force as if they were waste 
 paper, has claimed Imperial prerogatives, which not only it 
 had never acquired, but which never existed in any age or 
 country, and has not employed those assumed prerogatives 
 for the protection, instruction or reform of friendly and or- 
 derly Native States, but for their confiscation and destruc- 
 tion.* And in those cases to which I refer, the British 
 Government did not pretend to act under any sense of re- 
 volutionary or belligerent necessity, did not admit that its 
 action was abnormal or extraordinary, but asserted its 
 legality ; appealed, without a shadow of right, to "the uni- 
 versal and immemorial custom of India," and invoked a 
 visionary series of precedents, which were said, without a 
 vestige of proof, to have come down from "the Imperial 
 House of Delhi," and the other "Governments which preceded 
 us."| These are not legitimate acts of state, these are not 
 acts of war, these are not conquests, they do not present 
 themselves as such, they are simply appropriations on false 
 pretences. They do not command the respect, assent or ap- 
 proval of any native party or of any native interest, either 
 in our long settled possessions or in the newly acquired pro- 
 vinces, or in the allied Principalities that are still preserved. 
 They are utterly unintelligible to the native mind, except 
 when viewed as despotic equivocations, as disingenuous 
 pretexts for predetermined violence. Such transactions as 
 these can give no valid title, can destroy no adverse right ; 
 they do not even produce terror and submission, but simply 
 exasperate, and generate permanent conspiracies. 
 
 Open undisguised conquest is an intelligible process ; and 
 the title to possessions so gained is not, within certain limita- 
 
 f The Empire irt India, Letters on the Carnatic, Sattara, Nagpore, and 
 J ban si, and passim. 
 
 t Ibid., " Adoption" and " Sattara." 
 
 K 2 
 
132 CHAPTER VIIT. 
 
 tions, impugned even by modern international law, while, 
 according to the popular conceptions of the East, the right 
 of conquest is a sufficient plea before God and man. The 
 lapse of time, general acquiescence and content, may confirm 
 a conquering Power in dominions that were originally ac- 
 quired by an unprovoked aggression. Nor is it necessary 
 that a conquest should be consecrated with blood : over- 
 whelming force may produce all the effect of conquest with- 
 out a sword being drawn. But there must be a visible pro- 
 cess, and an open avowal. 
 
 It is not then against high-handed acts of state that I 
 protest, but against the underhand and undeclared proceed- 
 ings of a secret Executive. I do not protest against con- 
 quest in hot blood, but against the cold-blooded denial of 
 rights, without even the form of a proclamation, in contempt 
 both of a lawful and unoffending claimant, and of an un- 
 willing and bewildered people. 
 
 A war, a conquest, a revolution, a rebellion, an act of state, 
 may be justifiable, when international discussion or munici- 
 pal law affords no prospect of redress or remedy. There 
 must be a beginning to every political constitution, and to 
 every constitutional change. The most Pragmatic of Prag- 
 matic Sanctions becomes good public law, if it is founded on 
 truth and justice, if it supplies a great political want, if the 
 promulgating Power is manifestly competent to enforce its 
 provisions, and if a great majority of the secondary Powers, 
 and the people of the Empire, accept it with joy and grati- 
 tude. All these conditions could, I believe, be fulfilled in 
 Queen Victoria's Imperial manifesto ; and therefore I think 
 that all objections to its issue on grounds of international 
 law or public faith, can be fully refuted. 
 
 From the following passage in the Adoption despatch oi 
 the 30th of April 1860, Lord Canning would seem to have 
 been partially conscious that a clear definition of Imperial 
 pretensions was required under the altered circumstances of 
 British rule : 
 
 " The last vestiges of the Royal House of Delhi, from which, 
 for our own convenience, we had long been content to accept 
 vicarious authority, have been swept away. T^e last pretendei 
 to the representation of the Peishwah has disappeared. The 
 Crown of England stands forth the unquestioned Ruler and Para- 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 133 
 
 mount Power in all India, and is, for the first time, brought face 
 to face with its feudatories. There is a reality in the suzerainty 
 of the Sovereign of England which has never existed before, and 
 which is not only felt, but eagerly acknowledged by the Chiefs." 
 
 But this despatch, confined to the subject of succession in 
 certain States, is addressed, riot to the Princes and people of 
 India, but to the Secretary of State. It contains no sufficient 
 avowal of principles, even within its limited scope, and was 
 followed up by no precise and public declaration of Imperial 
 supremacy. 
 
 We have hitherto failed to appreciate the sources of power 
 that lie hidden in the peculiar civilisation and social life of 
 India. We have hitherto neglected to guide, to mould or to 
 encourage the political sentiments of the natives, which are 
 thoroughly monarchical and conservative, but have left them 
 to brood over the memories and glories of bygone days and 
 fallen dynasties. It is our fault that both Princes and people 
 have learned to gaze for the centre of their national exist- 
 ence, interests and honour, anywhere but towards the British 
 Throne. In order to authenticate a thorough change in the 
 legal relations between the British Government and the 
 minor States of India, to make the transition harmonious, 
 and to place the Imperial constitution on a secure basis, the 
 evident stamp of Eoyal Personality, a distinct assertion of 
 the Eoyal will, should characterise each document, and dig- 
 nify each transaction. Were attempts to be made to insti- 
 tute a general reform of the native States merely by the or- 
 dinary official means, by a greater stringency of local inter- 
 ference, the movement would be opposed and hampered in 
 every direction by the terms of existing Treaties, by the 
 irresistible mistrust which our past dealings have generated, 
 and even by our own recorded practice and precedents. 
 Without the avowed assumption of Imperial supremacy, in- 
 augurated and exemplified by Eoyal acts of restoration and 
 re-assurance, our reforming propensities will merely provoke 
 native Princes to antagonism, and us to annexation. 
 
 For until an Imperial Constitution for India is solemnly 
 proclaimed and acknowledged, the British claim to paramount 
 authority over the more important States will rest upon 
 nothing but a silent usurpation, unjustified, unrecognised 
 and undeserved. 
 
134 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 When in consequence of Napoleon's conquests, and his 
 alliances with the minor Princes of Germany, the Holy 
 Roman Empire was dissolved in 1805, and the Emperor 
 Francis assumed the hereditary title of Austria, the Elec- 
 toral and Feudal Principalities were transformed into inde- 
 pendent and sovereign States, and w r ere ultimately so recog- 
 nised by the Treaties of Vienna, and the Acts constituting 
 the German Confederation. 
 
 The practical dissolution of the Mogul Empire, and the 
 reduction of its political elements, some into British pro- 
 vinces and British dependencies, others into protected, 
 allied and independent States begun by the Mahratta 
 Confederacy, and perfected by British victories was defi- 
 nitely registered and recorded in our long series of treaties 
 with the Princes of India of every degree. We maintained 
 as the supposed medium of political influence an out- 
 ward ceremonial and verbal deference towards the Great 
 Mogul, down to a later period than even any of our native 
 Allies ;* but when in all our negotiations we had entirely 
 ignored and set aside his Imperial pretensions, and dealt 
 on terms of equality and alliance with the Princes who, 
 from his point of view, were undutiful vassals, it was clear 
 that the throne of Delhi had fallen, and that the ancient 
 constitution of the Empire had fallen with it. That shadowy 
 succession to the Mogul Emperor, which has been some- 
 times attributed to the East India Company, rests upon no 
 basis either of inheritance or of testament, of ancient forms 
 or of modern compact. 
 
 It is true that some of the Indian Princes, with whom 
 treaties were made, or their ancestors, had been tributaries 
 feudatories or provincial Governors under the Great Mogul 
 the Rajah of Sattara or the Peishwa : some of them had no 
 better original title than that of a rebellious vassal or con- 
 
 * The Nawab of Oude, hereditary Vizier of the Empire, openly renounce< 
 his ancient allegiance to the throne of Delhi in 1819, by assuming the title 
 and insignia of King, and coining money in his own name. This was un 
 doubtedly done with the consent and approval of the British Government ; but 
 as Sir John Malcolm observes, " no alteration was made in the relations sub 
 sisting between the Company's Government and the Imperial family." Am 
 the Honourable Company continued for some years longer " to coin money in 
 the name of the Emperor of Delhi, and to style itself, upon the face of tha 
 coin, the servant of a monarch who owed his daily subsistence to its bounty.' 
 Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. i, pp. 536, 540. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 135 
 
 tumacious Lieutenant ; but then the East India Company 
 in whose name, and not in that of the British Sovereign, 
 all the treaties were concluded entered upon the field of 
 negotiation with no more secure footing, with no more valid 
 pretensions. 
 
 The English Authorities avowed themselves to be vassals 
 of the King of Delhi, tenants and tributaries of the Nizam 
 and the Nawab of the Carnatic, and entered into various 
 complicated relations of joint management, partnership and 
 assignment, with Chieftains of inferior rank. At successive 
 political conjunctures these embarrassing engagements were, 
 for the most part, shaken off or commuted ; the ambiguous 
 tenures were simplified or converted into cessions ; but 
 whatever new rights of sovereignty and independence may 
 have been gained by the East India Company, must have 
 been equally conceded to those confederates and to those 
 defeated adversaries with whom treaties were concluded. 
 
 The British Government having made treaties of "per- 
 petual friendship and alliance," in which the reciprocal 
 position of both parties is strictly defined ; having received 
 cessions of territory from these Princes as the consideration 
 for military defence ; and having thus generally, and with 
 more or less precision, recognised them as the absolute 
 masters of their dominions and subjects, has acquired no 
 right to term them or treat them suddenly as feudatories, 
 or to assume over them the prerogatives and functions of a 
 dictatorial Suzerain. 
 
 That right, those functions and prerogatives, may be 
 acquired, but not without an open assertion and justifica- 
 tion, not without fair limitations and compensations ; and 
 this acquisition will never be advanced by a contempt for 
 existing treaties, or by destroying Mysore, a reformed 
 Principality, the work of our own hands, before the face of 
 those whom we wish to subject to a similar reforming pro- 
 cess, but only by measures of persuasion and encourage- 
 ment, and by the offer of reciprocal advantages. 
 
 By very simple and equitable means, as I believe, the 
 Nizam, and other Princes who are, equally with him, left, 
 under the terms of their treaties with the East India Com- 
 pany, in the possession of absolute local power, might be 
 induced not only formally to acknowledge the Queen as 
 
136 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 their Imperial Suzerain, but to adopt, under Her Majesty's 
 guidance and example, constitutional government, judicial 
 reform, and a sound financial system. 
 
 The Nizam of the Deccan, who rules over ten millions 
 of subjects, had asserted and secured his independence of 
 Delhi for upwards of forty years before our first Treaty 
 with him in 1766.* The English have never known the 
 Nizam, have never had any dealings or any communica- 
 tions with him except as an independent Sovereign. Lord 
 Dalhousie himself, while aiming to deprive the Nizam of a 
 large portion of his dominions, t observed that he was " an 
 independent Prince,"J and that "the British Government 
 was bound by the solemn obligations of a Treaty to abstain 
 from all interference in his Highnesses internal affairs," and 
 "had guaranteed to him the exercise over his own subjects 
 of his own sole and absolute authority." The obligations 
 referred to are contained in Article XV of the Treaty of 
 1800: 
 
 " The Honourable Company's Government, on their part, 
 herehy declare that they have no manner of concern with any of 
 his Highnesses children, relations, subjects or servants, with re- 
 spect to whom his Highness is absolute." || 
 
 And in another part of the same Minute Lord Dalhousie 
 says : 
 
 "Were it not for the existence of the Subsidiary and Con- 
 tingent Forces, our relations with the State of Hyderabad would 
 be merely those which usually are found between two independent 
 Powers, and the position of the Resident at Hyderabad would 
 correspond in all respects with that of any accredited Minister of 
 a foreign State."1f 
 
 It is expressly stipulated in Article VIII of the Treaty 
 of 1804 with Maharajah Dowlut Eao Scindia of Gwalior, 
 
 * Grant Duff's History of the Mahrattas, 1826, vol. i, p. 478; Volume of 
 Treaties, 1853, p. 116. 
 
 t Papers relating to the Nizam, 1854, p. 107. See also the English in 
 India, p. 79. 
 
 Papers relating to the Nizam, p. 39. Ibid., pp. 38, 39. 
 
 || Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 149. 
 
 IF Papers relating to the Nizam, 1854, p. 37. Lord Dalhousie's words in 
 1853 suffice to contradict the assertion of Sir John Lawrence in 1865, that " at 
 the time of the fall of Seringapatam and of the conquest of Mysore, the Nizam 
 was in a state of subordinate alliance with the British Government, and had 
 passed from the condition of an independent to that of a purely dependent 
 ruler." Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 55. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 137 
 
 confirmed by the subsequent engagements of 1805, 1817 and 
 ] 844, that " the Honourable East India Company's Govern- 
 ment have no manner of concern with any of the Maha- 
 rajah's relations, dependents, chiefs or servants, with respect 
 to whom the Maharajah is absolute ; and it is further agreed, 
 that no officer of the Honourable Company shall ever inter- 
 fere in the internal affairs of the Maharajah's Govern- 
 ment."* 
 
 The British Government obtained, under Article IX of 
 the Treaty of 1817 with Maharajah Dowlut Kao Scindia, 
 freedom from those restrictions of the former Treaty which 
 prevented alliances being formed with the States of Oodey- 
 poor, Joudpore and Kota, which had hitherto paid tribute 
 to Scindia ; but a condition is added, " that nothing in this 
 Article shall be constructed to give the British Government 
 a right to interfere with States or Chiefs in Malwa or 
 Guzerat, clearly and indisputably dependent on or tributary 
 to the Maharajah ; and it is agreed that his Highness's 
 authority over those States or Chiefs shall continue on the 
 same footing as it has been heretofore."t The suzerainty 
 of Scindia over certain petty States is hereby clearly re- 
 cognised ; but no suzerainty or right of superintendence 
 over the State of Gwalior is claimed for the British Govern- 
 ment in this or any other Treaty. 
 
 In Article X of the Treaty concluded in 1818 with Ma- 
 harajah Mulhar Eao Holkar of Indore, " the British Govern- 
 ment declares that it has no manner of concern with any of 
 the Maharajah's children, relations, dependents, subjects or 
 servants, with respect to whom the Maharajah is absolute." J 
 
 And " the English Government engages," in Article XVI 
 of the same Treaty, " that it will never permit the Peishwa, 
 nor any of his heirs or descendants, to claim or exercise any 
 sovereign rights or power whatever over the Maharajah 
 Mulhar Rao Holkar, his heirs and descendants." 
 
 The dissolution of the Mahratta Confederacy, and the 
 cessation of the Peishwa's authority, are thus admitted by 
 both parties : complete independence is guaranteed to the 
 Rajah of Indore, but none of the Peishwa's prerogatives are 
 transferred to the East India Company. 
 
 * Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 357. t Ibid., p. 365. 
 
 + Ibid., p. 410. Ibid., p. 411. 
 
138 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 By Article III of the Treaty of 1803 the British Govern- 
 ment agreed, "never to interfere in the concerns of the 
 Maharajah of Bhurtpore's country, nor to exact any tribute 
 from him."* And after the outbreak of hostilities, the un- 
 successful siege of Bhurtpore, and the submission of the 
 Eajah in 1805, this condition was repeated in Article V of 
 the new Treaty : " The Honourable Company, in considera- 
 tion of the friendship now established, will not interfere in 
 the possession of this country, nor demand any tribute on 
 account of it."t 
 
 There is a similar provision in Article III of the Treaty of 
 1803 with the Maha Eao Eajah of Alwur, that "the Ho- 
 nourable Company shall not interfere with the country of 
 the Maha Eao Eajah, nor shall demand any tribute from 
 
 The Eana of Dholepore, a small Principality with about 
 one hundred thousand inhabitants, is the only Indian Sove- 
 reign who retains the full power of declaring war and peace, 
 and of establishing diplomatic relations with all the poten- 
 tates of the world. Article IV of the Treaty of 1806 pro- 
 vides that this State " will remain exempt from all orders of 
 the Adawlut, and other demands of the Honourable Com- 
 pany, and the Maharajah Eana hereby agrees to take upon 
 himself the responsibility of adjusting all disputes which 
 may arise, either external or internal, and no responsibility 
 for assistance or protection remains with the Honourable 
 Cornpany." 
 
 " The Honourable East India Company engages/' by Ar- 
 ticle II of the Treaty of 1833, " never to interfere with the 
 hereditary or other possessions of the Nawab of Bhawul- 
 poor." And Article III declares that " as regards the in- 
 ternal administration of his Government, and the exercise of 
 his sovereign rights over his subjects, the Nawab shall be 
 entirely independent, as heretofore. ; '|| 
 
 Many other States of Eajpootana and Central India, oi 
 which the more important are Oodeypoor, Jeypoor, Jodh- 
 poor, Kota, and Bhopaul, are bound by their treaties " to 
 act in subordinate co-operation "^[ with the British Govern- 
 
 * Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 471. t Ibid., p. 473. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 468. Ibid., p. 384. || Ibid., p. 502. 
 
 H A reference to the original negotiations, and to the position of this en- 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 139 
 
 ment, and to acknowledge its supremacy ; but the British 
 Government on its part, agrees that the Princes, their heirs 
 and successors, " shall remain absolute rulers of their domi- 
 nions, and that the British jurisdiction shall not be intro- 
 duced."* 
 
 The Principalities of this numerous class, acknowledging 
 their subordination to the one Great Power of India, are 
 true feudatories of the British Crown. But the very fact of 
 their acknowledged subordination of British supremacy 
 over them being expressly admitted in their treaties, 
 contributes to prove that the Principalities of that more 
 important and less numerous class, such as the Mzam, 
 Scindia, and Holkar, in whose contemporaneous treaties 
 subordination is not promised, and British supremacy is not 
 admitted, are not feudatories, but independent States. 
 
 There are thus two classes of native States, those which 
 are independent sovereignties, connected with the dominant 
 Power by treaties of friendship and alliance only ; and 
 those which are confessedly dependent. All those of the 
 former, and many of the latter class, are left, by the terms 
 of their engagements with the East India Company, in 
 possession of the absolute and uncontrolled power over their 
 own subjects and revenues. They have renounced for 
 themselves all the prerogatives of external action, and we, 
 on our part, have repudiated all pretensions to interfere 
 with their internal affairs. 
 
 But it may be objected that it is useless at this late 
 period to claim perfect administrative freedom for the petty 
 States of India ; that the practice of many years sanctions 
 our supervision ; that, in the interests of humanity, and for 
 the good of trade, we have constantly interfered with be- 
 neficial effect in their internal concerns, and that we must 
 continue to do so. It is true that we have frequently 
 interfered with our advice, for the protection of individuals, 
 for the improvement of public communications, and for the 
 removal of objectionable imposts, such as transit duties 
 which had been found burdensome on commerce, or in- 
 jurious to some of our own sources of revenue ; and when 
 
 gagement among the terms of the Treaty, will prove that it invariably applied 
 to military and diplomatic " cooperation" only. 
 
 * Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 420, 426, 430 r 435, 441. 
 
140 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 our suggestions have been steadily pressed upon a native 
 Court, regardless of evasions and delay, they have at last 
 produced the desired result : but, however sound in prin- 
 ciple and advantageous in practice such changes may be, 
 they are hardly calculated to work a permanent reform in 
 the local system, or to create an impression of our disinte- 
 rested intentions. They generally appear to the native 
 Prince as proposals that he should incur additional expenses, 
 abandon some profitable tax or monopoly, or even prohibit 
 some produce or manufacture within his dominions such 
 as salt or opium for the benefit of his gigantic friend. 
 These proposals are recommended by no prospect of gain to 
 the Prince himself, are not even demanded by his own 
 people, and are dreaded more especially as pretexts and 
 precedents for further encroachments and for continued 
 dictation. 
 
 The truth is, that except by an intrusive regard for the 
 protection and advancement of individuals, which in its 
 best aspect resembles jobbery and favouritism, and in its 
 worst, approaches the confines of corruption and an inter- 
 mittent mediation in favour of those peculiarly British 
 objects to which I have alluded, our Eesidents and Political 
 Agents have seldom brought their influence to bear either 
 upon the general form of administration, or upon any par- 
 ticular measures of the Princes to whom they are ac- 
 credited. Our own Government has never enjoined or 
 encouraged such interference, nor would it be easy in most 
 cases to interfere with effect. Those very clauses of trea- 
 ties which I have just cited stand in the way of such 
 schemes of reformation ; and even if not firmly insisted on 
 by a Prince or Minister of some talent and resolution, (as 
 has often been done,) they would not fail to supply the 
 means of obstruction and delay. A Eesident has neither 
 resources at his disposal for enforcing his suggestions on a 
 friendly native Court, so long as the country is peaceable 
 and orderly, nor has he always any adequate sources of 
 information to assure him whether his suggestions are 
 actually adopted, or whether their adoption is really prac- 
 ticable. Unless during a minority, when a struggle for 
 power has induced an appeal or an intrigue for British 
 support, or during some crisis of political danger and dis- 
 

 IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND ' INTERESTS. 141 
 
 order not always of provincial origin it is seldom that 
 any pretext or opportunity has been afforded for directly 
 assuming or controlling the management of one of those 
 Principalities which are entitled to internal independence. 
 
 What the votaries of annexation considered the most 
 splendid opportunity possible, not merely for interference 
 but for acquiring territory, was offered to Lord Ellenbo- 
 rough in 1843, by the open contumacy and formidable 
 warlike preparations of Scindia's Government. But having 
 been compelled to invade Gwalior, to fight two pitched 
 battles, and to occupy the capital, Lord Ellenborough re- 
 placed the Eajah on the throne ; imposed very moderate 
 conditions of peace ; and though he secured, by the new 
 Treaty, a certain control over the Eegency during the 
 reigning Prince's minority, no steps were taken to subvert 
 the native administration or the established usages of the 
 State. This equitable and considerate settlement had a 
 most reassuring effect throughout India soon, however, to 
 be effaced by Lord Dalhousie and secured to us a most 
 faithful and serviceable ally at Gwalior, whose loyal and 
 gallant conduct in 1857, went very far to prove how much 
 a native Prince's influence could contribute to the stability 
 of our Empire. 
 
 In this instance the Eesident's supervision was imposed 
 as a consequence of the recent hostilities, by virtue of a 
 special Article in the Treaty of peace, and only for the 
 minority of the Eajah then reigning ;* so that, as the 
 former Treaties were expressly confirmed in the new one, 
 the general principle of the autonomy of Gwalior was not 
 attacked or questioned. 
 
 During the last twenty-five years, however, we have 
 exerted our practical supremacy very seldom to persuade 
 and improve, but very often to coerce and destroy. A 
 notion seems gradually to have become established, and to 
 have been accepted as a political maxim during the pro- 
 gress of Lord Dalhousie's acquisitive operations, that we 
 were on every occasion reduced to an absolute choice be- 
 tween the complete abandonment and the total abolition of 
 
 * Article vin. " Inasmuch as it is expedient to provide for the due ad- 
 ministration of the government during the minority of his Highness the 
 Maharajah, which shall be considered to terminate when his Highness shall 
 
142 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 a native State. This is very clearly stated in a Minute by 
 Mr. Dorin, who was a member of the Supreme Council 
 when the annexation of Nagpore was carried out : 
 
 "If it were possible to withdraw British influence entirely 
 from any Native State, so as to ]eave its Government to stand 
 or fall on its own merits, there might be reason for trying the 
 experiment of self-government ; but in the position in which 
 the British Government, as paramount in India, stands to Nag- 
 pore, this isolation is not practicable. Between the two extremes 
 of entire neutrality, or entire possession, I see no justifiable 
 cause of interference for the Government of India. "* 
 
 Mr. Dorin could write in these terms, and the Governor 
 General in Council could endorse them with approval ; and 
 the Bhonsla dynasty was extinguished, and the Nagpore 
 territories were annexed, mainly on the plea of incorrigible 
 misrule : although it was quite manifest that the real and 
 ultimate blame of the alleged misrule must rest with the 
 Government of India, since the Treaty of 1829 conferred 
 upon it full power to dictate, through the Eesident, such 
 administrative measures as it pleased, and in case of ex- 
 treme disorder to assume the entire management of the 
 Nagpore country for so long a period as it might deem 
 necessary.f 
 
 No such necessity ever did arise. The State of Nagpore 
 was certainly so far well governed, that our active and open 
 interference was never once required, during twenty-five 
 years of purely native administration, to check oppression, 
 to keep the peace, or to restore order. That this Princi- 
 pality was not very badly managed, may be fairly inferred 
 from the following words, in which Lord Hardinge, warn- 
 ing the King of Oude in 1847 of the inevitable conse- 
 quences of his continued misrule, holds up the case of Nag- 
 pore before him at once as an example and an encourage- 
 ment : 
 
 have attained the full age of eighteen years, that is, on the 19th January, 
 3853, it is further agreed that during such minority the persons entrusted 
 with the administration of the government shall act upon the advice of the 
 British Resident in all matters whereon such advice shall be offered, and 
 no change shall be made in the persons entrusted with the administration 
 without the consent of the British Resident, acting under the express authority 
 of the Governor-General." Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 373. 
 
 * Papers relating to the Rajah of Berar, 1854, p. 38. 
 
 t " It shall be competent to the British Government, through its local re- 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 143 
 
 " The Nagpore State, after having been restored to order by 
 a British administration of the land revenue, is now carried on 
 under native management, with due regard to the rights of the 
 Prince and the contentment of the people."* 
 
 Lord Dalhousie refused to undertake the temporary ma- 
 nagement of Oude, which Lord Hardinge had intended, 
 and which was proposed by Sir William Sleeman and Sir 
 Henry Lawrence, the two wisest and most successful 
 officials of the time ; he refused to take measures for re- 
 forming the administration of the Nizam's Dominions which 
 were pressed upon him by General Eraser, the able Resident 
 at Hyderabad in 1851. He did not wish for the reform of 
 the minor States, but rather for that rottenness that might 
 lead to their fall or justify their extirpation. 
 
 The true cause of such defects as really existed in the 
 Government of Nagpore and of Oude, may be easily divined 
 from the following remarks by Mr. Mansel, an officer of 
 great distinction and long experience, and the last Resident 
 at Nagpore, in a despatch to the Government of India, 
 dated the 14th December, 1853 : 
 
 " This oscillation of interference, and of principles by which 
 people of a country are to be guided, is a most serious evil. The 
 Chief who to-day is subject to the control of a strict Resident, 
 is amused by his flatterers with the prospect of a successor of a 
 wholly different character. The advice of to-day is disarmed 
 of half its force if it can be expected to be followed by a different 
 course of policy on the morrow ; and when the season of indiffer- 
 ence and ease has produced its natural effects of misgovernment 
 and debt, the reaction must needs be violent and doubly distaste- 
 ful to an arbitrary Prince, on the appointment of an officer im- 
 pelled by duty to enforce a general reform. It has frequently 
 been a subject of astonishment to me that so much difficulty 
 should exist in forcing a Mahratta Chief to follow out the views 
 
 preservative, to offer advice to the Maharajah, his heirs and successors, on all 
 important matters, whether relating to the internal administration of the Nag- 
 pore territory or to external concerns ; and his Highness shall be bound to act 
 in conformity thereto. If, which God forbid, gross and systematic oppression, 
 anarchy, and misrule, should hereafter at any time prevail, in neglect of re- 
 peated advice and remonstrance, the British Government reserves to itself the 
 right of reappointing its own officers to the management of such district or 
 districts of the Nagpore territory, in his Highness's name, and for so long a 
 period as it may deem necessary, the surplus receipts in such case, after defray- 
 ing charges, to be paid into the Rajah's treasury." Volume of Treaties, 1853, 
 p. 404. 
 
 * Oude Papers, 1858, p. C3, 64. 
 
144 CHAPTER VTII. 
 
 of the Resident, as I have found at Nagpore with this Rajah. 
 But after long thought upon this subject, I am convinced that 
 the main cause of the difficulty lies in the system of filling up 
 diplomatic appointments. It seems to be quite a chance if the 
 system of the officer who precedes, and of the officer who follows, 
 agrees. The Rajah and his Ministers speculate on this difference 
 of action or opinion. Honesty is lukewarm and roguery is fearless, 
 as there is no certainty or no permanence in the policy to be 
 enforced/'* 
 
 Mr. Mansel speaks of the oscillation of the Resident's 
 policy and system, in a style that clearly indicates that our 
 Government had no system or policy whatever of its own, 
 and furnished its diplomatic agents with no definite in- 
 structions as to their control over the local administration. 
 
 The last Rajah of Nagpore and his Ministers were always 
 submissive and well affected to British supremacy ; during 
 his reign upwards of two millions sterling were paid to our 
 Government as tribute, and his troops marched four times 
 across the frontier to the assistance of his powerful Ally. 
 On his death, however, in December, 1853 though his 
 grandnephew, Janojee Bhonsla, was well known to be his 
 intended successor and was adopted by the widow t the 
 Bhonsla family was declared to be extinct, and the Nagpore 
 country annexed to the British dominions. And thus dis- 
 appeared from the political scene one of the few native 
 States that were really well affected and accustomed to our 
 principles, amenable to our guidance, and capable of inde- 
 finite improvement. 
 
 By Article VII of the Treaty of 1837, the King of Oude 
 promised " to take into his immediate and earnest consider- 
 ation, in concert with the British Resident, the best means 
 of remedying the existing defects in the police, and in the 
 judicial and revenue administration of his dominions," and 
 the following arrangements were made : 
 
 " If his Majesty should neglect to attend to the advice and 
 counsel of the British Government or its local representative, and 
 if, (which God forbid) gross and systematic oppression, anarchy 
 and misrule should hereafter at any time prevail within the Oude 
 dominions, such as seriously to endanger the public tranquillity, 
 the British Government reserves to itself the right of appointing 
 
 * Papers relating to the Rajah of Berar, 1854, p. 17. 
 t The Empire in India, ' Nagpore." 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 145 
 
 its own officers to the management of whatsoever portions of 
 the Oude territory in which such misrule may have occurred, for 
 so long a period as it may deem necessary." 
 
 And in Article VIII : 
 
 " It is further agreed that in case the Governor- General should 
 be compelled to resort to the exercise of the authority vested in 
 him by the preceding Article, he will endeavour, as far as pos- 
 sible, to maintain, with such improvements as they may admit 
 of, the native institutions and forms of administration within the 
 assumed territories, so as to facilitate their restoration to the 
 Sovereign of Oude when the proper period for such restoration 
 shall have arrived."* 
 
 But besides this very explicit provision for the restora- 
 tion of the Oude territories to native rule when an im- 
 proved system should have been established, there was also 
 a stipulation in Article VII, that during the time of 
 British management, "the surplus receipts, after defray- 
 ing all charges, should be paid into the King's Treasury, 
 and a true and faithful account rendered to his Majesty 
 of the receipts and expenditure of the territories so as- 
 sumed."f 
 
 By the cession of nearly two-thirds of his possessions, 
 made in the Treaty of 1801, the Nawab Saadut Ali Khan, 
 crushed by arbitrary exactions, purchased exemption from 
 all further pecuniary demands, and " paid such a price for 
 it as no other native ruler ever did," as General Low, when 
 negotiating the Treaty of 1837, wrote to the Government 
 of India. J But the Treaty of 1801, according to Lord 
 Dalhousie's interpretation, gave us no right of interference, 
 except as friendly advisers, and " peremptorily and insur- 
 mountably barred the employment of British officers" in 
 the administration. The Treaty of 1837 was concluded 
 with the express object of supplementing these supposed 
 defects, and of giving us the positive right to interfere 
 effectually and to assume the management of the coun- 
 try, in case of "gross and systematic oppression and 
 misrule." 
 
 * Volume of Treaties, 1853, p. 93-94. 
 t Ibid., p. 93. 
 t Oude Papers, 1858, p. 19. 
 
 Oude Papers, 1856, p. 182. See also the Proclamation, p. 256. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 When, however, the assumption of the Government of 
 Oude began to be a practical and urgent question in 1854, 
 it was perceived by the Governor-General and his advisers 
 that these two Articles (VII and VIII) in the Treaty of 
 1837, providing for the ultimate restoration of native rule, 
 and for the intermediate payment of all surplus receipts to 
 the native Sovereign, would deprive the British manage- 
 ment of that permanent and profitable character which, 
 under Lord Dalhousie's acquisitive maxims, was now in- 
 variably contemplated, when any disorder in the affairs 01 
 break in the direct lineal succession of a native Principality, 
 appeared to afford an opening for our " paramount" claims 
 Therefore Lord Dalhousie proposed that this Treaty, althougl 
 duly ratified by both the contracting parties, and official!] 
 published as a valid engagement, should be declared nul 
 and void by the perverted interpretation of a secret lettt 
 from the Court of Directors in 1838.* 
 
 In Nagpore we had a right to interfere ; no occasion foi 
 interference arose, yet we seized upon the first plausible 
 though false pretext the death of the Eajah without mal( 
 issue to destroy the native State, and we justified oui 
 proceedings by alleging defects and corruption in its in- 
 ternal affairs, that could only have arisen from the neglecl 
 connivance, or incompetency of our own accredited agenl 
 
 Thus in Oude we had a right to interfere ; the v< 
 best justification for our interference arose, but we 
 jected alike the right and the justification, and violently 
 extinguished, instead of reforming, another friendly nativ< 
 State. 
 
 In Mysore we had a right to interfere. A fair occasio] 
 for such interference presented itself. A rebellion broke 
 out in one of the provinces, and the management of My- 
 sore was assumed in 1832 by the Governor-General Loi 
 William Bentinck, avowedly for a temporary purpose, 1 
 introduce order into the finances and a regular system fc 
 the good government of the State. But according to tl 
 spirit of the Treaty, and the declared intentions of 
 William Bentinck, of several of his successors and of th( 
 Court of Directors, order and regularity having been estal 
 
 The Empire in India, " Lord Dalhousie." 
 
DU 
 
 th 
 
 v- n 
 
 
 IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 147 
 
 lishecl in every department, and ample guaranties existing 
 for their continuance, no cause remains for any longer 
 retaining the Bajah's dominions under the exclusive au- 
 thority and control of the British Government. On various 
 pretences, however, the restoration of the Eajah to his 
 proper position has been postponed and evaded ; until 
 now, in his old age, this unfortunate Prince finds, from the 
 manner in which his last urgent appeal is treated, not only 
 that he is to remain degraded in his forced retirement, but 
 that a private decree has been registered for the annexation 
 of his country and the extinction of his family at his death. 
 Long and uninterrupted possession has produced the usual 
 effect. The fancied power and the real patronage derived 
 from the sequestration, are too precious to be relinquished ; 
 the contemplated sacrifice is too much for the virtue of the 
 Calcutta Foreign Office. 
 
 And thus another friendly and influential native State is 
 threatened with destruction, the native State of all others 
 that is certain to afford us invaluable material and moral 
 support, and to relieve us of all risk and responsibility over 
 a large area in any time of political or military danger, and 
 which, in ordinary days of peace and tranquillity, pays 
 handsomely for our general protection. As a British Pro- 
 vince, filled with bitter regrets and reminiscences, where 
 no one would be responsible and no one would have any- 
 thing to lose, Mysore could never be denuded of troops, 
 it could never be relied on, and might at any time be- 
 come a centre of hostility, or the scene of anarchy and 
 confusion. 
 
 The flourishing existence of Mysore as a separate though 
 dependent Principality, must always be creditable and 
 profitable to Great Britain, and might be held up to the 
 other Sovereigns of India as an example of our beneficent 
 influence, as an encouragement for them to submit to our 
 tuition and guidance. As an annexed Province it would 
 constitute a flagrant instance of British duplicity; it would 
 prove to the native Princes and statesmen that all their 
 suspicions of advice from Calcutta were well founded ; that 
 
 e first suggestion of reform must be resisted as a malig- 
 nant encroachment, and that the control or management of 
 their administration by English officers would be merely 
 
 L 2 
 
148 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 the first step towards the extinction of the dynasty, the 
 absorption of the State, and the proscription of all native 
 talent. 
 
 The acquisitive proceedings of the last twenty years 
 have made native Princes and Ministers averse to our laws 
 and institutions, and have served to render our principles 
 of government more conspicuously offensive to the higher 
 classes, even in our own Provinces, as the cause and badge 
 of their degradation and ruin. But if British good faith 
 and the majesty of the British Throne were vindicated by 
 gracious acts of restoration and restitution, royally decreed 
 and royally performed ; if the era of annexation were 
 manifestly closed for ever, and a proposal of innovations 
 were seen not to be an insidious encroachment, but the 
 preliminary step to territorial aggrandisement and admis- 
 sion to the security and dignity of a place in the Imperial 
 Federation reform would appear in a much more favour- 
 able light. 
 
 Peaceful reforms can never flourish or take permanent 
 root in an atmosphere of distrust and hatred. The aliena- 
 tion of the Princes, the nobility, and all the conservative 
 classes and interests, will never tend to the conciliation and 
 improvement of the mass of the population. If, in spite of 
 its own professions and promises, our Government is to be 
 quietly allowed to recommence the career of annexation, 
 under the pretence of reforming native institutions, by 
 first assuming or accepting a trust and then playing the 
 part of a fraudulent trustee we shall soon discover that 
 an army of even 100,000 British soldiers will be in- 
 sufficient to prevent a second great rebellion, in which 
 we might find most of the native Princes ranged against 
 us, instead of their co-operating with us, as they did in 
 1857. If the new system of management is permitted to 
 succeed and to spread, such a hostile coalition of native 
 Princes could hardly be considered either morally unjusti- 
 fiable or politically imprudent. Extinction being the in- 
 evitable fate of our best friends, our worst enemies could 
 anticipate no more dreadful doom for themselves, in the 
 event of their bold attempt failing. 
 
 In 1858-9 there were 122,000 British soldiers employed 
 in India. A special return, showing the casualties among 
 
IMPEEIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 149 
 
 our troops during the hottest year of the insurrection, 
 1858, would present a fearful picture, would prove that 
 35,000 men, or thirty per cent, of those engaged, dis- 
 appeared entirely in that year, from death or ruined con- 
 stitutions, while a large proportion were always in hos- 
 pital. But the rebellion was nothing to what it would 
 have been if a coalition of native Sovereigns had been 
 in the field against us, or even if one of the more im- 
 portant Princes Sciiidia, Holkar, the Nizam, or one of 
 the leading Kajpoot Eajahs had entered with heart and 
 soul into the movement, instead of assisting us as most 
 of them did, and discountenancing the rebellion as they 
 all did. 
 
 Undoubtedly, better sanitary appliances, and less intem- 
 perance, have lowered the percentage of deaths in our 
 tropical stations in time of peace ; and greater attention 
 to the soldier's requirements will make a still more marked 
 improvement ; but little or nothing can be done, I fear, to 
 lower the mortality in time of war, which, as is well known, 
 arises from fatigue, over-crowding, exposure to the sun and 
 rain, and malarious epidemics, and depends to a very slight 
 extent upon the deaths in action. 
 
 The following extract very ordinary in its purport 
 rom the military intelligence of the Times, October 25th, 
 1864, will give some idea of the human expenditure in 
 Eastern service : 
 
 New colours for the 31st Regiment have arrived at Aldershot, 
 and will shortly be presented. The Regiment has seen much 
 service in India, the Crimea, and in China. In 1860 it left India 
 for China over 1,100 strong, and received during its stay in that 
 country a draft of 102 men. It embarked from the latter place 
 for England only 642 strong, having experienced a total loss of 
 588 of all ranks, or nearly one-half of its strength, in the space of 
 three years and a half." 
 
 This is a loss of 15 per cent, per annum. In all proba- 
 bility not fifty of these men were killed or died of wounds. 
 It is thus, that on a^i average of twenty years, the per- 
 centage of deaths in India appears so high, although 
 during the last two or three years of quiet garrison duty a 
 favourable return may be made. 
 
 And if the disaffection of the people, and the area of our 
 
150 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 military occupation and civil responsibility, arc to spread 
 and widen progressively by this new process of annexation, 
 we shall soon find that the demand for European troops 
 will far exceed the present enormous establishment of 
 75,000 men. At the rate of average casualties which pre- 
 vailed from the first year of this century up to 1857,* 
 fully 10,000 would be required yearly to keep up the pre- 
 sent force in India. Double that number would be wanted 
 in one year of war or rebellion. Recruiting is becoming 
 more difficult every day. The standard height of the 
 infantry has been gradually lowered. Our army grows 
 more expensive as the condition and prospects of the sol- 
 dier require and receive more attention. Emigration, stea- 
 dily operating on Great Britain, has, within twenty years, 
 drained away an entire generation of able-bodied men from 
 Ireland, once the most fruitful source to fill the ranks of 
 the army, and the exodus has scarcely slackened yet. The 
 day may come when we shall want some of those men 
 from India, and wish for them in vain. It may then be 
 no comfort or consolation whatever to know that this large 
 force is paid for from the Indian revenues. We may want 
 British soldiers in Europe at any price ; and the absence in 
 India of 75,000 men of the age, class, habits, and tempera- 
 ment of which soldiers are made, must lead to the offer of 
 larger inducements to the limited number of that class that 
 remain in the country. 
 
 In the midst of a general war, when the national honour, 
 great interests, and great principles were at stake, we should 
 of course make efforts that would astonish the world. We 
 might, for a time, find it difficult to raise our armies to the 
 numerical strength we required, but in a crisis of great 
 importance and difficulty we should certainly do it, be- 
 cause we are a nation of thirty millions, and because we 
 can afford to pay whatever may be found absolutely neces- 
 sary to attract recruits and to keep veterans in the ranks 
 We have the population to furnish the men,f and we have 
 the wealth to supply the cost, and for a limited time and a 
 
 * 69 per 1000 by death, 82 by invaliding ; total 151 per 1000 per annum. 
 
 t The last returns, however, show that the population of Great Britain i 
 now nearly stationary, increasing only at the rate of about 80,000 per annum 
 and the rate of increase perceptibly diminishing. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 151 
 
 definite object the prospect of a great war charge and a 
 highly-paid army is not so alarming to our old-fashioned 
 statesmen as the younger school of Liberals might desire. 
 When the crisis is passed, it will be said, the army may be 
 diminished. But in India there is not merely a crisis to be 
 passed ; it is a permanent occupation with 75,000 men 
 that is contemplated. 
 
 When it has become necessary to raise the pay and per- 
 quisites of the troops required for European service, the 
 same advantages will at once be extended to those in India 
 and the Colonies. And no emoluments or privileges granted 
 to our army can ever be retracted. It appears, therefore, 
 to me that the entertainment of a permanent force in India 
 of 75,000 men, and a permanent force of 40,000 men at 
 home solely to relieve and recruit this great army of occu- 
 pation, is likely to prove a rapidly progressive strain on 
 our military resources. And when we perceive how the 
 numerical demand upon a population which is at once 
 prosperous and drained by emigration, and the natural 
 aversion to a long tropical service, are combining to hasten 
 the period when the pay and pensions of the entire army 
 must be enhanced, I think the formidable menace to the 
 finances both of Great Britain and India, can scarcely escape 
 observation, and ought not to be treated with levity by any 
 section of British politicians. 
 
 If we can devise no plan for ruling India except that 
 of retaining and extending our direct possessions ; if we 
 can offer our good offices to India only on condition of 
 taking all the good offices in the country for our sons and 
 nephews, then two great objects must be abandoned by 
 English statesmen the one (with which I have myself 
 but little sympathy) that of maintaining what is called our 
 just influence in Europe by the display of an imposing 
 force at home, as desired by the two old established parties 
 the other, that of reducing our armaments so as to mi- 
 nimise taxation and expenditure the cherished aim of 
 our social and financial reformers. These two great objects, 
 if the first be kept within bounds, are by no means irre- 
 concileable with each other ; for by judiciously organising 
 the Militia, a reserve of veterans, and the newly-acquired 
 defensive arm, our noble Volunteers, nearly all the regular 
 
152 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 troops in Great Britain might be made disposable for foreign 
 service ; but both objects are utterly incompatible with the 
 reluctant subjection of India. I do not hesitate to say that 
 so long as the present repulsive, contemptuous and hopeless 
 plan for governing India continues, neither of these two 
 great objects can ever be fully attained. Should a general 
 war break out in Europe, a desperate war of principles, 
 when Great Britain ought to strike an effectual blow for 
 the good cause, or even an aggressive coalition against us 
 no troops could be safely withdrawn from the East, our 
 vulnerable point. Nor could our force in the East be easily 
 sustained or relieved: while in a time of general tran- 
 quillity, the Indian depots and relieving reserves at home 
 useful as they may be for defence could neither be re- 
 duced nor made available for the contingency of active 
 operations. 
 
 It appears to me to be a manifest and incontrovertible 
 fact that it is only by organising an Imperial Federation, by 
 trusting, reforming, and strengthening the native States, 
 that the actual and prospective strain on our own military 
 resources can be relieved, and those of India made available 
 for Imperial objects. Wherever there is a native State, 
 there is a competent and visible authority, responsible for 
 for the peace and good order of a certain area, and of a cer- 
 tain population. Even now we could, on an emergency, 
 march all our troops out of Mysore, or out of the Nizam's 
 dominions, with much more confidence, and with much less 
 anxiety, than out of any part of our immediate pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie was enabled to keep up the temporary 
 and superficial appearance of not having entailed a heavy 
 burden both on India aod on the Imperial resources, solely 
 by not calling for a proper and reasonable augmentation of 
 European troops to occupy his territorial acquisitions. Had 
 he demanded, as he should have done, the reinforcement of 
 15,000 British soldiers required for the Punjaub, Nagpore, 
 and Oude, the expense would have opened all eyes to the 
 ruinous nature of his policy.* 
 
 * He did ask for two or three battalions, but did not insist upon the rein- 
 forcement as a precaution that was urgently and imperatively required ; and 
 this very moderate request leaves my statement intact. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 153 
 
 " Lord Dalhousie," said a writer in the Saturday Review, 
 by no means an advocate for annexation,* " can scarcely 
 have been mistaken in the inference that the pressure of a 
 fixed charge would be lightened by an extension of the area 
 of taxation." The inference is quite correct ; but where is 
 the " fixed charge" ? Lord Dalhousie undoubtedly thought 
 there was a fixed charge ; he thought that he could occupy 
 the Punjaub, Nagpore, Oude, and Scinde, enlarged by con- 
 fiscating the greater part of Ali Morad's possessions, with 
 the same force of 40,000 Europeans that had sufficed before 
 those acquisitions were made. He seems even to have 
 thought that in certain cases the acquisition of territory 
 enabled him to diminish the number of occupying troops. 
 Thus, he writes in a Minute dated the 5th of February, 1856, 
 paragraph 27 : 
 
 " Scinde would be perfectly safe with one European corps, 
 now that Meer Ali Morad has been deprived of even the sem- 
 blance of power, while the Punjaub has become a British Pro- 
 vince."f 
 
 Ul 
 
 secure- 
 
 Seikhs after the Punjaub had become a British possession, 
 garrisoned by an army of 60,000 men, including 13,000 
 Europeans, besides an Irregular Force of 15,000 men, at an 
 expense of '2,100,000 per annum, equal to the entire 
 revenue of the Province !j The cost of this additional 
 security may appear rather heavy, but the whole charge of 
 the Regular troops was laid on the Bengal Presidency ; and 
 Scinde, I may admit, reaped a part of the benefit. But that 
 Scinde was more safe, more able to dispense with European 
 Regiments after Meer Ali Morad had been deprived of his 
 richest districts than it was before, I cannot admit at all. 
 Surely Lord Dalhousie did not mean that he had been 
 accustomed to regard Meer Ali Morad, whom we had set 
 up as Rais of Khyrpoor, in despite and at the expense of his 
 brethren, as a Prince likely to commit some aggression or to 
 engage in some conspiracy against us ! Ali Morad was not 
 
 * Saturday Review, February 26th, 1859. 
 
 t Parliamentary Papers, East India, Additional Troops, 1858, p. 16. 
 
 J First Punjaub Report, p. 95. 
 
 'nquestionably Scinde might well be considered more 
 .re though I doubt if it was ever in danger from the 
 
154 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 the man to be a popular leader. But still, such as he was, 
 he would obviously have had a much greater inclination for 
 mischief, and, I believe, quite equal power for mischief, 
 when injured and disaffected by a partial confiscation, than 
 when enjoying, undisturbed by us, the increased wealth and 
 dominion which he owed to our patronage. 
 
 But this was always Lord Dalhousie's argument, brought 
 forward in every case of annexation, that by destroying the 
 native Princes and disbanding their armies, all the hostile 
 and dangerous elements in the country were to be dissi- 
 pated, and none but external enemies would remain, the 
 truth of which may be estimated by comparing the work 
 cut out for us in Oude and Jhansi, recently annexed, and in 
 our older provinces of Eohilcund and Bahar, by discontented 
 pretenders and adventurers, like the Nana, Khan Bahadoor 
 Khan, Kooar Sing, and Tantia Topee, with the moral and 
 material assistance we received from native Princes and 
 Chieftains of every class, during the rebellion of 1857. The 
 very reverse of Lord Dalhousie's theory is true : no Sove- 
 reign in India is so foolish as to think of committing any 
 aggression against us ; we require literally no troops for the 
 special duty of watching the little armies of native States ; 
 every native Prince is a conservative agent, who knows 
 himself to be bound over under heavy penalties to keep the 
 peace ; and whenever we extinguish a Principality, we not 
 only let loose all the swash-bucklers and fanatics who have 
 hitherto been harmlessly employed and amused within its 
 precincts, but we rouse the spirit which makes the men of 
 that class powerful and popular. 
 
 The idea that the great use of our army is to protect the 
 frontiers, and that our " settled" provinces may almost be 
 left to take care of themselves, pervades all the writings of 
 the acquisitive school. Thus Mr. George Campbell, per- 
 haps the most able advocate of consolidation, wrote in 
 1852: 
 
 " The army heretofore employed in guarding our frontiers has 
 only been moved forward and, in fact, instead of being in- 
 creased in number and expense, has rather been diminished 
 since the conclusion of the war."* 
 
 * G. Campbell's Modern India, 1852, p. 430. 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 155 
 
 The force in Hindoostan was indeed diminished ; im- 
 portant stations were denuded to garrison the Punjaub ; and 
 the consequence was that in 1857 the great strategic points 
 and centres of political influence, the cities of Delhi and 
 Agra, and Bareilly, the chief town of Eohilcund, with the 
 surrounding districts, at once fell into the hands of the mu- 
 tineers and rebels, and were not recovered until after several 
 months of marching and fighting. And again : 
 
 " It is perfectly clear that our older territory must require 
 fewer troops than it did in 1835-6, now that the frontier is 
 advanced many hundred miles, (!) that the Grwalior army is trans- 
 formed into a British force, and that the country has in every 
 way become more settled."* 
 
 A great part of the Gwalior army was transformed into a 
 British force, and although restrained and delayed for some 
 time by the Maharajah Scindia, took the field against us in 
 1857, and gave a great deal of trouble ; while that part of 
 the Gwalior army which did not become a British force, but 
 remained in the native Prince's service, though equally ill- 
 disposed, was perfectly inactive and innocuous throughout 
 the rebellion. 
 
 It must also be remarked that at the outbreak of the mu- 
 tinies in 1857, the native army was not only unnecessarily 
 large and expensive, the lust of patronage having swelled 
 the local Contingents, providing good places for English 
 officers, without diminishing the Staff or the number of the 
 Eegular Eegiments, but it was dangerously large. Every 
 one who has observed the habits and sentiments of the 
 Indian soldiery can testify to the accuracy of Lord Ellenbo- 
 rough's opinion : 
 
 ' ' It was impossible for me not to see the respect which our 
 own soldiers entertained for native Princes. I felt satisfied that 
 I never stood so strong with our own army as when I was sur- 
 rounded by native Princes. They like to see respect shown to 
 their native Princes."f 
 
 Eecruited, in the various arms of the service, from all the 
 most warlike tribes of India, animated with recent and tra- 
 
 * G. Campbell's Modern India, 1852, p. 431. 
 
 t Evidence before the Select Committee of the Lords on Indian Territories, 
 June 18th, 1852, Question 2305. 
 
156 CHAPTER V1I1. 
 
 ditional achievements, and yet alienated by the exclusion of 
 their race from even the lowest military command and dis- 
 tinction ; stationed, frequently for years, within the limits 
 of the allied States, the Sepoys took the deepest interest in 
 the fate of the native Princes ; and they were peculiarly 
 exposed to be personally taunted in places of public resort, 
 with being accomplices in the destruction of all the his- 
 torical dignities and ancient institutions, which every native 
 with a spark of honour and national pride, was bound to 
 admire, to love, and to respect. The same temper, the same 
 passions exist now-a-days. Sir Mark Cubbon, a very shrewd 
 and practised observer of native character and feelings, 
 wrote as follows in a private letter to a friend, dated the 
 22nd of May, 1859 : 
 
 " There never was such a mistake as to suppose that the 
 hostile spirit has been extinguished or cowed by the suppression 
 of the mutiny, and that we can safely do now what would have 
 been dangerous in former times." 
 
 It is as true now as it was in 1857, that every extinction 
 of a friendly Principality at once adds to our immediate 
 responsibilities, burdens our military strength, and lowers 
 our moral dignity before the people of India. Not only 
 does that grasping and greedy policy cause an ever in- 
 creasing demand for European troops, but it prevents us from 
 having a trustworthy native army, it deteriorates and de- 
 moralises the best native soldiers in the service. Maintain 
 the allied States in willing allegiance, and the native army 
 may be safely recruited from the most warlike races in 
 India to any strength required, trusted with the most 
 efficient arms, and (a great part of them) employed, for 
 occasional and emergent service, in almost any part of 
 the world. But turn those States into British Provinces, 
 and then, besides British troops being required for their 
 occupation, the necessity for cautiously raising and arming 
 native Eegiments, and for balancing their numbers by a 
 certain proportion of European soldiers, will be indefinitely 
 enhanced. 
 
 It is strange to see how Lord Canning, led away by the 
 particular temptation of Mysore, could yet express himself 
 with such force and decision on the general question of 
 extending our territorial limits. He writes to the Secretary 
 
IMPERIAL RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS. 157 
 
 of State, in paragraph 33 of the Adoption despatch of the 
 30th April 1860, to the following effect : 
 
 ' ' "We shall not become stronger so long as we continue adding 
 to our territory without adding to our European force ; and the 
 additions to that force which we already require, are probably as 
 large as England can conveniently furnish, and they will certainly 
 cost as much as India can conveniently pay." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 BUT presuming that I have successfully established my two 
 points, firstly, that on grounds of legal right, and accord- 
 ing to the terms of Treaties, the State of Mysore ought to 
 be preserved as a separate Government, and not incor- 
 porated in our immediate possessions, and, secondly, that 
 its distinct preservation is the most prudent and advan- 
 tageous policy for the British Empire, there is still a class 
 of objections to a course of mere abstract justice, that has 
 considerable weight both in India and at home, that de- 
 serves our notice, and even demands our respect. 
 
 It is asked whether the British Government having de 
 facto, if not de jure, attained to the position of Imperial 
 Suzerain of all India, is to exercise its immense power for 
 the benefit of the Princes and nobles, or for the benefit of 
 the people at large ; whether a native administration can 
 possibly be as good as ours ; and whether we are not bound 
 even at some risk and sacrifice to take every fair oppor- 
 tunity of extending the uniform application of our system 
 of government to those whose best interests will be thereby 
 promoted. " The obligations of the British Government to 
 the people of Mysore," said the memorable Calcutta letter 
 of llth March, 1862, to the Rajah, "are as sacred as its 
 self-imposed obligations to your Highness."* 
 
 Many people would point to the Rajah's misrule of My- 
 sore, or to the acts of oppression and cruelty that were 
 perpetrated in Oodeypoor,t and ask whether it is advisable 
 that the native Princes of India should be everywhere re- 
 leased from British control. I do not wish to emancipate 
 the Princes from British control. I complain more espe- 
 cially in this particular case of Mysore that control has 
 
 * Ante, p. 73. t The Empire in India, p. 393. 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 159 
 
 never been properly or steadily applied, that we have 
 always neglected general principles and meddled in obscure 
 particulars: and that after finding our intermittent and 
 desultory dabbling in details to be utterly unproductive of 
 substantial reform, we have pressed that false and fruitless 
 method to its extreme, by deposing all the local dignitaries, 
 sweeping all the patriarchal institutions into the dustbin, 
 and distributing English officers over the country in every 
 place of honour and emolument. 
 
 Thus in Mysore, as in our own possessions, although we 
 have indeed introduced order and regularity into every 
 department, we have done very little to initiate or in- 
 struct the rank and wealth of the country the old govern- 
 ing classes, or the new class of educated natives, in the 
 practical working of the reformed administration. 
 
 We have stopped the independent development of the 
 Hindoo races, by taking the management of every detail of 
 their affairs upon ourselves, and condemning their best 
 men to an insignificant and humilitating position, or to a 
 discontented inactivity. All the progressive energy and 
 ambition of India is forcibly turned by our exclusive 
 policy into the direction either of fanaticism, or of con- 
 spiracy, or of both combined. We have carried the sys- 
 tem of class-government to the greatest extreme, retaining 
 the entire and distinct series of superior offices all access 
 being denied to natives, in the hands, not only of a class, 
 but of foreigners, not only of foreigners, but to a great 
 extent of inefficient and unqualified foreigners. 
 
 Of course I would not be understood to make any com- 
 parison, either as to moral end and aim, or as to beneficial 
 results, between our Government and that of Tippoo Sultan 
 in Mysore ; and yet we seem to have fallen into the very 
 error attributed by Sir John Malcolm to that bigoted Ma- 
 homedan Prince, with the same effect of a positive de- 
 terioration in the character of our native coadjutors. In a 
 Eeport to the Governor-General on the state of Tippoo's 
 dominions, Malcolm comments on the Sultan's want of 
 success in the administration of Mysore, as compared with 
 what had been done by his father, Hyder Ali, and says that 
 " it may be ascribed to his chiefly employing Mussulman 
 Asofs and Amildars, which Hyder seldom did. The Hin- 
 
160 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 doos still do the business, but are more venal, from having 
 less responsibility"* 
 
 While the founders of our Indian Empire were maintain- 
 ing and strengthening a precarious position, controlling and 
 conciliating allies, and contending with powerful enemies, 
 the English in India continued to place a high value on the 
 good will and good opinion of the natives. While they 
 were evoking peace and order out of a chaos of conflicting 
 interests, they learned at^every step to appreciate the value 
 of native tact in negotiation, and of native skill and experi- 
 ence in the settlement of districts. And, as in all times of 
 real difficulty, the work was done by a few men : our 
 most celebrated tasks of pacification and organisation were 
 effected by one or two able and experienced English officers 
 in each province, by means of some special native agency. 
 No doubt on many occasions, at a very early period in the 
 process of conversion, the ignorance and prejudices of the 
 local authorities whom our officers found in the districts, 
 induced some of that passive obstruction and counteraction, 
 of which General Cubbon, as we have seen, had reason to 
 complain in Mysore, and necessitated for a time the em- 
 ployment of European Assistants, who could understand 
 what was required of them, and could be trusted to obey 
 orders. But there was no wish to bring the natives back 
 to their old places, or to train up a new generation to suc- 
 ceed to them. Every appointment gained for the domi- 
 nant race was permanently appropriated, if it was worth 
 having. 
 
 As our supremacy became every day more surely estab- 
 lished and acknowledged, the immediate obvious necessity 
 for reliance on native agency rapidly diminished, and the 
 stream of patronage, swelled by private interest, by national 
 and professional pride, and by official pedantry, has filled 
 the country with English gentlemen, to be provided for, 
 with apparent functions to be performed, and with ever 
 increasing claims for promotion or pensions. The mass of 
 English idlers and nonentities in the civil and military 
 services certainly do not add to the physical strength of 
 the British Empire in India, while they detract from its 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. i, p. 655. 
 

 BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 161 
 
 moral strength, lower the native ideal standard of English 
 ability and dignity, and introduce those constant provoca- 
 tions of levity, insolence, and contempt, which are so 
 dangerous to our power, and derogatory to our national 
 reputation. The same great vice pervades the whole or- 
 ganisation ; an unnatural and degrading rule of exclusion 
 is manifest in all our establishments ; appointments for 
 Englishmen are multiplied ; and young Englishmen with- 
 out any peculiar qualifications aro> placed even in minor 
 positions, the duties of which could be fulfilled in a much 
 more efficient manner by natives, with the great advantage 
 of their improvement in knowledge, in self-respect, and in 
 attachment to British institutions. 
 
 Just in proportion as our direct possessions have been 
 extended by annexation, competent English officers have 
 been more thinly scattered over the country. The Civil 
 Service has been largely supplemented by the Army. Even 
 that source has frequently seemed to be exhausted ; and 
 promotions of Englishmen from the " uncovenanted" ranks 
 have been occasionally made to appointments that had been 
 previously reserved for commissioned and covenanted ser- 
 vants ; but all natives were, and are still, consigned to an 
 inferior range ; they are destined to remain Deputy Col- 
 lectors and Deputy Magistrates for ever, subordinate and 
 inferior to the youngest newly-arrived covenanted Assistant 
 or military officer, and incapable of attaining to any post 
 where distinction may be won by original and independent 
 action. 
 
 It is the greatest mistake to suppose that our elaborate 
 arrangements have put an end to corruption in high places. 
 What with the confusion of tongues, and the want of a 
 public opinion, it is generally impossible to prove or to dis- 
 prove particular cases ; but with well-informed and expe- 
 rienced persons there is no doubt as to its prevalence. The 
 corruption is still in high places, although among a different 
 set of persons from those who would have been the reci- 
 pients under native rule. The class of officials that is really 
 tainted with corrupt and fraudulent malpractices, is chiefly 
 to be found among the Amla, the wretchedly paid minis- 
 terial officers of the Courts and of the Collectors' offices, 
 those who too often can retard or expedite business, and 
 
 M 
 
162 CHAPTER' ix. 
 
 bar access to their superiors, at their will ; and who, in the 
 worst instances, absolutely pull the wires of an indolent or 
 incapable principal, who shields them from view, and re- 
 lieves them from responsibility. Our English hierarchy, 
 with all its symmetrical procedure, with all its apparatus of 
 checks and balances, is too often the whited sepulchre of 
 administration, beautiful on the outside, but within which 
 are dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 
 
 An English public servant in India is perfectly secure 
 and comfortable so long as he preserves amicable relations 
 with his official superiors. By keeping up his monthly re- 
 turns, annual reports, and English correspondence, and 
 keeping down the arrears of current business with the aid 
 of clever native subordinates, a smooth appearance can be 
 easily maintained before the higher authorities. However 
 incapable and indolent, however dependent on his under- 
 lings he may be, so long as he is popularly reported to have 
 a good name at head- quarters, no native will undertake the 
 Quixotic task of denouncing him or his adherents. All 
 open scandal may be avoided, and with a little good luck 
 and prudence, he may safely and successfully float and rise 
 far above the highest point attainable by the ablest and 
 most deserving native. How he stands with the people of 
 his district, how they speak among themselves of his public 
 conduct or private character, is a matter of very little 
 moment, and can neither injure his prospects nor affect his 
 social position. 
 
 On the other hand, a native Judge or Prefect is sure to 
 find his own level ; he would be fully subjected, in all the 
 intercourse of life, to the public opinion of his town or 
 district ; and if he became justly obnoxious to the commu- 
 nity, not only might he be visited with those legitimate 
 social penalties from which the European in a similar posi- 
 tion is perfectly exempt, but there would be none of that 
 despair of being heard, and dread of the consequences of 
 such audacity, which too often prevents a complaint being 
 made against an English Civilian, and there would be no 
 compunction, on the part of Government, as to his removal, 
 reduction, or dismissal. 
 
 And while it is notorious that in our own Provinces 
 corrupt practices are very seldom detected or punished, ex- 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 163 
 
 cept in petty and trifling cases, the highest offenders in 
 native States are exposed to summary and exemplary cor- 
 rection, if popular indignation is roused to the pitch of 
 clamour by their extortion, or if by any other means the 
 scandal is forced upon the Prince's attention. No doubt 
 the inquisition would be conducted without any regular 
 arraignment, and with a complete disregard of the rules of 
 evidence ; even if no specific charge could be proved, the 
 possession of unaccountably large private funds would pro- 
 bably be held to criminate the accused sufficiently to war- 
 rant his degradation and the forfeiture of his goods. Un- 
 questionably this check is intermittent and capricious in its 
 performance ; but, maintained and set in motion by public 
 opinion of which the Prince himself is susceptible it 
 does constitute a check more effective, as every native will 
 tell us, than any that has been devised by the British 
 Government. 
 
 We are not, in short, justified in concluding either that 
 official oppression and corruption reign unbridled and un- 
 punished in the normal and unreformed native Principality, 
 or that these evils are expunged, or even materially lessened, 
 on the introduction of British rule. Matters are neither so 
 bad in native States, nor so good in the British dominions, 
 as is commonly represented. 
 
 The English Government has attempted by merely penal 
 measures, to obtain the irreconcileable advantages of the 
 cheapness of Oriental, and the purity of European, adminis- 
 tration. Very insufficient pay, and but little confidence 
 and encouragement have been hitherto afforded to native 
 officials. Not only are they badly paid, but no amount of 
 ability and faithful service can secure their advancement to 
 places of consideration and profit for which they may be 
 well qualified. It is not reasonable to expect honour and 
 loyalty to spring up and flourish as the return for neglect, 
 contempt, and humiliation. Hopeless exclusion and pro- 
 scription will not produce a reformation, but something 
 very different. 
 
 It has been argued, from the results of the attempt in 
 Mysore, that native agency, except in subordinate places, is 
 a failure under our legal and orderly system, and that all 
 the superior officers of every department in provinces 
 
 M 2 
 
164 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 under our control must be European. Now, so far as the 
 experiment was a failure, I believe that the failure was 
 inevitable, that the experiment of native administration 
 in the higher ranks under British supervision, was never 
 fairly tried, was never allowed a fair chance of success 
 in Mysore. We tried at first to work our civilised ma- 
 chinery, requiring punctuality, patience, and assiduous at- 
 tention, and presupposing the equality of all before the 
 law, with the instruments we found to our hand, with the 
 old set of prejudiced and uneducated native officials. We 
 tried to keep a complex and delicate engine at work with 
 unskilled and unwilling labour. We did not try very long. 
 No opportunity was lost of getting rid of the Foujdars, the 
 higher officials whom we found in charge of districts, and 
 as they were removed their places were taken by English 
 Superintendents. No attempt seems ever to have been 
 made to obtain natives of English education, judicial train- 
 ing and established character, for such offices. No one 
 ever thought of strengthening the local administration by 
 bringing a single well educated and trained native Judge 
 or Collector from Calcutta, Bombay, or Madras. No one 
 ever thought of turning to such men for assistance. No 
 one thought of finding an appointment for any one who 
 was not an English gentleman, a " covenanted" Civilian, or 
 an officer in the Army. 
 
 I deny that it is impossible or even difficult, now-a-days, 
 to find a certain number of native gentlemen morally and 
 mentally competent to execute the duties of the highest 
 posts in the civil government of India, in conformity with 
 our own principles and practice. There are literally no 
 grounds and I challenge contradiction on this point for 
 casting the slightest general aspersion on the honour and 
 probity of the higher class of our native public servants, 
 either in the Judicial or Eevenue Departments the Sudder 
 Ameens and Deputy Collectors. They are, for the most 
 part, fairly, though not handsomely, paid ; and notwith- 
 standing their subordinate functions, undefined rank, and 
 circumscribed prospects, their credit for efficiency and in- 
 tegrity stands deservedly high, both with the Government 
 and the people. 
 
 Now let us inquire what has been done for this deserving 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 165 
 
 class in Mysore, where Lord William Bentinck, in assuming 
 the charge, desired that " the agency should be exclusively 
 native ; indeed, that the existing native institutions should 
 be careful] y maintained."* Here, at least, in this reformed 
 native State, we might expect to find that during our thirty 
 years' management, a body of native gentlemen had been 
 educated and trained to the public service, and would be 
 capable of undertaking many, if not nearly all of the im- 
 portant posts throughout the country, the power of super- 
 vision and control, and the highest executive authority 
 being vested in the hands of three or four British officers. 
 But no ! ever since 1832 the natives have been steadily 
 losing, and English gentlemen have been continually gain- 
 ing ground in the field of civil employment. There has 
 been a constantly recurring tendency to a more elaborate 
 organisation of departmental establishments, sometimes 
 with good reason, but always with the same result, more 
 appointments for European officers. Not a single native 
 has ever been promoted to the charge of a district, 
 although, in spite of the small encouragement offered to 
 educated men, there are many fully competent for such 
 duties. 
 
 The details of the Mysore Educational Department, as 
 given in Mr. Bowring's Administration Eeport for 1862-3, 
 afford a good epitome of the scope and effect of the educa- 
 tional operations of Government throughout India, a fair 
 example of that shallow, showy, and fussy misdirection of 
 the public resources, which we call civilisation and progress, 
 and for which we claim so much credit. 
 
 The population of Mysore is nearly four millions. The 
 number of scholars in the schools maintained or aided by 
 the local Government during the official year, was 2317. 
 Of these it is said that 1450 are learning the English lan- 
 guage, and 722 are educated up to the University entrance 
 standard evidently belonging to an urban class whose 
 parents are well able to pay for their education, most of 
 whom would do so if the Government would leave them 
 alone, but who certainly have no claim whatever to 
 an education for their children the school-fees being 
 
 * Ante, p. 30. 
 
 
166 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 quite nominal at the expense of the agricultural popu- 
 lation. 
 
 But out of these 2317 scholars, we find that 434, or 
 about one-fifth, are of English or East Indian parentage, 
 and that the schools they attend receive fully one-fourth of 
 the public money expended as grants in aid. The people 
 of this description may perhaps be able to muster, at the 
 very most exclusive of the military, who have their own 
 schools two thousand out of the four million inhabitants 
 of Mysore, and they are all located in the town and canton- 
 ment of Bangalore. By no means a poor class, as compared 
 with others, utterly insignificant in numbers, and consisting 
 chiefly of British military pensioners and their descendants, 
 they are yet allowed to swallow up one quarter of the funds 
 allotted for the encouragement of Education. 
 
 The total expenditure of the Mysore Educational Depart- 
 ment for the year 1862-3 was, in round numbers, 5,000. 
 Of this, 2,000 went in the salaries of the Director and 
 Inspectors ; and of the remainder, two-thirds, or 2,000 
 more, were devoted to schools at the official capital, Banga- 
 lore population under 100,000 leaving just one-fifth, 
 1,000, for the schools of the 3,900,000 provincials.* 
 
 Doubtless the highly respectable gentleman who perhaps 
 receives a better income as Director of Public Instruction 
 than he could earn in his legitimate sphere of an independent 
 schoolmaster, does his work most conscientiously, and sends 
 in a most satisfactory annual Eeport of his labours, with 
 the prettiest tabulated statements ; but with the doubtful 
 exception of himself and his inspecting colleagues, I do not 
 believe that any man, woman, or child in Mysore, derives 
 any real benefit from this absurd misapplication of the 
 public funds certainly no one who has the slightest claim 
 to assistance from the State. I believe that if the Govern- 
 ment of Mysore and my remarks are intended to apply 
 .equally to the Government of India were to give up 
 meddling with the details of education, and were to confine 
 its action to providing the machinery, either by Universities 
 or by boards of examiners, for ascertaining and declaring 
 the qualifications of candidates for the public service, and 
 
 * Administration Report of Mysore for 1862-3, paragraphs 111 to 118 ; and 
 Appendix D. 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 167 
 
 for granting degrees and certificates of proficiency in Law 
 and Medicine, it would undertake quite as much as any 
 Government legitimately and fairly can, and would promote 
 education much more effectually than by sustaining or as- 
 sisting any number of schools. I believe that Government 
 schools and stipendiary instruction attract the wrong sort 
 of students, and obstruct the efforts of the right sort of 
 teachers. If proper inducements were held out to persons 
 of recognised position and ample fortune to give their 
 children a good English education if a fair field to all 
 qualified natives were opened by Government the greatest 
 possible encouragement would be given both to school- 
 masters and scholars.* 
 
 I would exclude no person from . employment, or from 
 competition for employment, on account of his caste or 
 connections in India, any more than I would in England ; 
 but I believe that those who can qualify themselves without 
 any extraneous aid, will in general be found to be better 
 qualified, both morally and intellectually, than those who 
 have been raised above their ordinary sphere by charity 
 schooling, public or private, by Government scholarships or 
 other factitious means, or who have sought for education 
 merely as a stock in trade. Men of decided genius, and 
 even of extraordinary talent, may be left to work their way 
 upwards ; most certainly the Government has no special 
 faculty for drawing them from their obscurity in their early 
 youth. The connection between the Government and edu- 
 cation in India, hampers the progress of reform by render- 
 ing education unpopular and unfashionable, and by dis- 
 couraging natural enterprise and individual self-reliance.*!" 
 
 It must not be supposed that I attach any very great 
 importance to this particular topic ; that I consider a very 
 grievous injury to be inflicted on Mysore by this annual 
 prodigality of five thousand pounds; that I burn with in- 
 dignation against so very harmless a hobby as Government 
 education. The reason of my expatiating so far on this 
 
 * What deters men of rank in India from entering the British service, or 
 bringing up their children with that object, is that, whether in Civil or military 
 employ, a native has been hitherto compelled to commence life in a position 
 little, if at all, raised above that of a meuial servant. 
 
 t Appendix E. 
 
168 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 question is, that this fallacious system of public instruction 
 is one of those " inestimable blessings of British rule", that 
 would most certainly be declared to be imperilled by the 
 restoration of the Rajah's Government. 
 
 An altered distribution of the territorial divisions of My- 
 sore and a comprehensive revision of establishments, mainly 
 after the pattern of the Punjaub, was recommended by the 
 present Commissioner, Mr. Bowring, in June, and sanctioned 
 by the Government of India in September, 1862 ; and the 
 complete inauguration of the new arrangements is announced 
 in the Administration Eeport of Mysore for the official year 
 1862-3. The general effect of the revised organisation may 
 be briefly summed up as follows : the number of appoint- 
 ments in the Executive and Judicial Departments, filled by 
 English gentlemen, is raised from twenty-one to twenty- 
 seven, their aggregate salaries from 28,000 to 40,000, 
 and the average annual salary from the Commissioner's 
 5,000 down to the junior Assistant's 500 is increased 
 from 1,300 to 1,500.* "The good work which had 
 been so well begun" in Lord Dalhousie's time is still carried 
 on ! 
 
 But the higher native officials participate very moderately, 
 if at all, in the benefits of this revision of establishments. 
 Some of the changes are not as fully explained as could be 
 wished ; but, on the whole, it appears to me that this body 
 of public servants gains a little in position and prospects 
 though even that is doubtful but loses decidedly in the 
 number of superior appointments open to the class, and in 
 the aggregate of its emoluments. f 
 
 This latest inroad upon the constitution of My sore- 
 though introduced merely as a revision of establishments, 
 and evidently considered as a mere matter of routine 
 strikes me as being a very remarkable disclosure, after a 
 thirty years' probation, of the utter inability or unwilling- 
 ness of our authorities in India, according to the maxims 
 which prevail at Calcutta, to carry out the reform of a native 
 State with the express object, loyally avowed and loyally 
 fulfilled, of replacing the administration in native hands. 
 
 * Administration Eeport of Mysore, 1862-3, paragraph 181. 
 t Appendix F. 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 169 
 
 If the present administration of Mysore is of such a 
 nature that it cannot be maintained without a full com- 
 plement of English officers, and without the constant sup- 
 port of British troops, then I say it is not an administration 
 that is really suited to the country or to the people. It 
 may last for a time, it may be compatible with a high state 
 of social order and material prosperity, it may have been a 
 necessary stage in the production of that state of order and 
 prosperity, but on the face of it such an administration is 
 temporary and provisional, and it ceases to be a reforming 
 or progressive agent when its temporary nature is forgotten, 
 when class interests and national arrogance suggest that 
 it should be perfected and perpetuated. 
 
 By the opposite policy which I recommend, British au- 
 thority would be greatly strengthened. In that diplomatic 
 reconstruction of the Empire in India, which I believe is 
 now urgently required, I would not resign an atom of Im- 
 perial power ; I would more openly assert it. I would 
 cause it to be more distinctly acknowledged, and more 
 generally understood and respected I would give up no 
 means of influence, I would strengthen those that exist 
 already, and I would acquire more. Our influence poli- 
 tical, moral, and social is at present quite as strong in the 
 native States of Mysore or Hyderabad, as it is in our own 
 districts of Bellary, Kurnool, or Cuddapah, which fell to the 
 Nizam's share in the partition of Tippoo's dominions, and 
 were eventually ceded to us in 1800, to provide for the 
 expense of our subsidiary troops. Indeed on the proverbial 
 grounds of omne ignotum pro magnified, I believe that the 
 reputation and authority of the British Government and 
 nation stand much higher in the more remote native States, 
 than in those under direct control, or in our own immediate 
 possessions, where familiarity with our institutions and 
 manners has dispelled awe and blunted admiration. 
 
 And I totally and emphatically deny that by anything I 
 have said in this Chapter, or in any part of this book, I 
 have depreciated the achievements, or cried down the just 
 fame of those eminent public servants, who during the last 
 half century, have raised the stately structure of our Indian 
 Empire, and have adorned it with so many enduring tro- 
 phies of humane and peaceful progress. The great names 
 
170 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 of the past generation, and the greatest who yet survive 
 such men as Mountstuart Elphinstone, Malcolm, Metcalfe, 
 St. George Tucker, General Briggs, and Sir George Clerk- 
 are all on my side. And though many of the new school 
 are, I fear, at present opposed to that policy by which alone, 
 as I believe, the Indian Empire can be long preserved by 
 Great Britain as a beneficial and honourable charge, I am 
 neither hopeless of seeing them converted, nor blind to 
 their great merits. I do not presume to disparage a Law- 
 rence, a Temple, or an Edwardes ; I feel myself unworthy 
 and unqualified to express the admiration that I feel for 
 their unrivalled labours. The mistake against which I con- 
 tend is that of assuming, as the indiscriminate eulogists of 
 " the services" and the system sometimes appear to do, that 
 every English official who supplants a native in a recently 
 annexed Province, or excludes one in a settled district, is 
 necessarily a Lawrence, a Temple, or an Edwardes. 
 
 What I desire, and venture humbly to recommend, is that 
 we should endeavour to gain the confidence of the Princes 
 and their advisers; that we should aim at the instruction 
 and not at the destruction of native administrators; and that 
 whenever and wherever the local abuses are so rooted and 
 inveterate, the local magnates so ignorant and depraved, 
 that the only possible cure consists in radical extirpation 
 and removal and this may have been the case in Mysore 
 we should never lose sight of what ought to be the chief 
 end and object of our most rigorous measures, the installa- 
 tion, one by one, as soon as may safely be, of trained native 
 statesmen and magistrates in the place of their British 
 teachers and precursors. This plan may seem to the bureau- 
 cratic mind to savour too much of a self-denying ordinance, 
 and to endanger the official fabric : but I am convinced that 
 the happiness and permanent civilisation of a people will 
 be more advanced by the development of their capacity for 
 self-government, than by a stereotyped system be it ever 
 so symmetrical and ever so benevolent of foreign and ex- 
 clusive nepotism. 
 
 Even if there were the greatest reason to dread that a 
 large proportion of native officials, when installed in the 
 higher posts after an apprenticeship in our schools, would 
 prove intriguers, tyrants, and corruptionists I should still 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 171 
 
 say that it would be better to leave the Hindoo to stagger 
 and struggle through the bogs and thickets of bribery and 
 oppression, than to keep him for ever cramped and con- 
 strained in the strait-waistcoat of foreign management. 
 Having once placed him in the right way, we need not 
 ibandon him to his fate ; we may still give him a helping 
 land in his difficulties. 
 
 There will always be work enough in India for our Law- 
 rences and Temples ; but a great part of the work that has 
 now fallen through patronage, official pedantry, and na- 
 tional arrogance into the hands of Brown, Jones, and 
 Kobinson, ought to be transferred cautiously and gradually 
 
 the hands of educated and trained natives, by whom it 
 mid be executed in a style and with actual results more 
 genuine, more finished, and more popularly acceptable than 
 can ever be expected under existing arrangements. And 
 the proportion of higher appointments, the positive share 
 in the Government of India, that may be safely entrusted 
 to natives in the Principalities as well as in British Pro- 
 vinces is an increasing proportion, and the demand for its 
 concession will every day become more irresistible. 
 
 It is in the reform of the native States, and in that 
 direction alone, as I believe, that the regeneration of India, 
 including our own immediate possessions, can be pursued. 
 And if the most sanguine expectations of political success 
 and material prosperity should be realised ; if by sheer 
 dint of a long peace and administrative skill, the resources 
 and revenues of our Government should continue to in- 
 crease, and British capital continue to be more largely in- 
 vested in works of productive utility, and railway communi- 
 cations become perfected throughout India ; our provocations 
 and our obligations to interfere with the administration of 
 native States will become more frequent. I wish to make 
 our interference more easy and more efficient. I am by no 
 means of opinion that our power should be timidly exerted 
 in controlling and superintending the government of native 
 States. I should rather complain that it has not been used 
 sufficiently, and not in the most effectual and acceptable 
 manner and direction. Hitherto we seem to have aimed 
 more at extending our boundaries than our laws and customs, 
 more at enlarging our patronage than our moral influence. 
 
172 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Hitherto we have seldom exerted our vast and irresistible 
 authority in India to transmute Asiatic despotism into 
 limited and legal monarchy. Still, enough has been done 
 in that direction to furnish a precedent and an example ; 
 and this good work could have been, and still can be, as 
 well done in Mysore, as it has been in the less important 
 State of Travancore, under the auspices of the Madras 
 Government, and with the hearty approval of the pre- 
 sent enlightened Rajah, and by the Government of Bom- 
 bay in the small Principalities of Kolapore and Sawunt 
 Warree. 
 
 Undoubtedly much remains to be done in Travancore ; 
 but, on the whole, this Principality is decidedly more ad- 
 vanced than any one of those in direct subordination to the 
 Calcutta Foreign Office, and the condition of the people, 
 and their feelings towards the Government, may be favour- 
 ably compared with the state of affairs in the adjoining 
 districts of the Madras Presidency. 
 
 Travancore pays an ample Subsidy to the Government of 
 Madras ; and yet both Prince and people would cheerfully 
 acknowledge how much it owes to British protection and 
 guidance. But they certainly do not see, and I cannot see, 
 that any benefit would accrue to them by its becoming a 
 province of Madras. I cannot see that the annexation of 
 Travancore in 1809 would have been advantageous to the 
 British Empire. And I cannot see that any benefit or ad- 
 vantage would be conferred, either upon the people of My- 
 sore or upon the Imperial Government, by the annexation 
 of that Principality. On the contrary, for manifold reasons, 
 already stated, I believe the change would be injurious to 
 all classes, and, sooner or later, most damaging and burden- 
 some to us ; while the restoration of native rule which 
 might be brought about by a very gradual process, would 
 greatly redound to the honour of Great Britain, would im- 
 mensely augment our moral influence, and our means of 
 extending reform ; and might almost immediately be turned 
 to account as a relief to our military expenditure. 
 
 The question of the relative advantages to the people, 
 and to the Imperial power, of provincial uniformity, admi- 
 nistered by Englishmen, and of the greatest possible de- 
 velopment of native rule, both in subordinate States and 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. ] 73 
 
 in British territories, is not settled by proving if it could 
 be proved, that all the English gentlemen employed in 
 the public service in India, are certain to be more talented 
 and better educated and more high-principled, than any 
 native gentlemen that are available for the same duties 
 that a British Governor or Commissioner must necessarily 
 be a more wise and a more able ruler than a Hindoo Prince. 
 No one but a professed Republican would think of setting 
 up such a comparison between a European Sovereign and 
 an eminent Statesman, of comparing and contrasting, for 
 instance, King Victor Emmanuel with Count Cavour, and 
 condemning the former as an expensive superfluity. No 
 Bengal Civilian, whether he be the " highly distinguished" 
 offspring of Haileybury, or the winner of untold " marks" 
 in open competition, can ever supply --even with twenty 
 years experience the twenty generations of the Mysore 
 .Eaj. 
 
 We can appreciate in Europe the value of a hereditary 
 Monarchy, and a hereditary Peerage, without wishing to 
 subject either Prince or Peer to a competitive examination, 
 but in India the alleged incapacity of a Sovereign or 
 Chieftain is made the pretext, not for limiting his power, 
 but for abolishing it altogether, and for degrading the family 
 to stipendiary insignificance. We can give due weight at 
 home to the claims of wealth and rank ; but in India, far 
 from admitting the great proprietors to participate in the 
 management even of communal or civic affairs instead of 
 enlisting them on our side, we have done everything to 
 injure the property and the prospects of the class, to out- 
 rage their keenest susceptibilities, and to reduce them to a 
 social position even lower than that of our secondary of- 
 ficials. Even if I admitted in full the arrogant preten- 
 sions of professional administrators, I should not believe in 
 the efficacy of a system of Government and of society 
 under which there are to be great establishments, but 
 no great estates ; no privileges, except official privileges ; 
 no prescriptive rights, except those of the " covenanted 
 Services"; no subordination, except official subordination, 
 to which Princes must daily bow down; no dignity, ex- 
 cept official dignity ; no access to even the lowest share 
 in public life, except through a competitive examina- 
 
174 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 tion. The ideal of Indian officials has never been brought 
 to perfection : the greatest servants of Government in 
 India, and the Home Authorities, have, from time to time, 
 opposed its full realisation ; but the inevitable tendency of 
 our system has been just what 1 have described. This has 
 been, and continues to be, the tendency of our operations 
 in Mysore ; and the consummation would be much facili- 
 tated by the disappearance of the Eajah and his Court. 
 
 I can place no hope or reliance upon such a system, either 
 as a Conservative power or as a reforming agent, when once 
 the point of good order and a working administration has 
 been gained. Perhaps we are entitled to a full acquittance 
 for the past ; perhaps we could not have instituted order 
 and progress without territorial possession, without exclu- 
 sive control. But if repression and proscription are main- 
 tained too long, and pushed too far, I believe that the system 
 will be found not only in Mysore, but all over in India, 
 to be ephemeral and explosive. 
 
 It is an extraordinary thing that any English statesman 
 should be found to speak of the supposed deficiencies of an 
 Indian Sovereign, as if, according to the best theory of 
 government extant, the Prince was bound to be the ablest 
 and most active administrator in his dominions. 
 
 There have been native Princes who completely answered 
 to that description ; we might find some now, if we cared 
 to look for them ; but, if a sound and practical form of 
 government were fairly established in each important State, 
 it is very doubtful whether the all-accomplished, all-inquiring, 
 all-seeing Prince would be the best ruler. We ought not 
 to expect or wish a native Prince to be the best possible 
 financier, legislator and judge in the country. On the con- 
 trary, Oriental Sovereigns must be taught to do less, rather 
 than to do more, than they attempt or assume to do, under 
 the maxims and canons of ancient state-craft. 
 
 A Hindoo Prince, such as the Kajah of Mysore, is not 
 wanted to be an accomplished administrator, not to be a 
 profound statesman, but to be the living symbol of authority 
 and order, the visible and avowed representative of allegi- 
 ance and obedience to Her Majesty's Imperial Crown, an 
 indispensable connecting link and medium of communica- 
 tion between the Teacher and the Pupil. 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 175 
 
 There cannot be a greater mistake than to set up that 
 invidious comparison which is so often made, between a 
 British Commissioner and a Hindoo Prince. Their attri- 
 butes and functions are quite distinct. With a native 
 Prince on the throne, and in the full possession of every 
 befitting prerogative, all the influence of a British Commis- 
 sioner may be maintained in the person of a Eesident, exer- 
 cising with more or less stringency, according to time and 
 circumstances, the right of authoritative counsel. But no 
 British Commissioner or Governor can, on the extinction of 
 a native Sovereignty, fill the Prince's place, exert the same 
 influence, or wield the same moral authority. A certain 
 moral force is destroyed, and physical force must supply the 
 loss. The most energetic Commissioner would not under- 
 take to govern Mysore without the constant support of 
 British troops. More especially at any period of great na- 
 tional excitement during an actual or impending invasion, 
 or extensive rebellion a British Commissioner, though bur- 
 dened with full responsibility, would be absolutely power- 
 less unless backed by European soldiers. A British Eesident 
 in a native State of similar area, with less responsibility, 
 would have more power and influence ; for he could bring 
 all his representative authority and all his personal talents, 
 to bear with full force upon the Sovereign, his Ministers 
 and nobles, upon the most intelligent, the most deeply in- 
 terested, and most influential personages in the country, 
 upon six or eight persons who have the most to lose, and 
 who know that they can be individually identified, and 
 made to answer for their conduct. But no British Commis- 
 sioner could bring his own influence, his own powers of 
 persuasion, to bear upon four millions or ten millions of 
 people without a recognised leader, or led by a deposed 
 Prince, or a desperate pretender. 
 
 At such a time, when a British Commissioner, without 
 adequate military support, would be a laughing-stock, a 
 victim, or fugitive a Hindoo Prince, such as the Rajah of 
 Mysore, unaided by our troops, with or without the coun- 
 tenance and advice of a Resident, in the face of much local 
 opposition, might, by lifting up his finger, preserve the 
 peace, not merely in his own dominions, but over a large 
 area of adjacent British territory ; and would, to say the 
 
176 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 least, neutralise or impede a considerable part of the hostile 
 resources, which, if unrestrained, would be arrayed against 
 us. Such has ever been and, I believe, always will be, the 
 general effect of an allied native State, as a conservative 
 power in the Empire. 
 
 And in peaceful times, the beneficial effects of an allied 
 native State, as a reforming agent throughout the Empire, 
 ought, in my opinion, to be equally conspicuous. A British 
 Eesident, properly instructed, can bring all his representative 
 and personal influence to bear upon the Sovereign and his 
 Ministers, upon six or eight persons with whom he is in close 
 communication, and who are connected by innumerable ties 
 with all the great interests and centres of thought of the 
 country. When these are gained the battle is won ; but 
 until they are gained, the British Instructor cannot hope to 
 make a very deep or permanent impression upon the mil- 
 lions of an Indian Principality. 
 
 So long as the Princes, and all those to whom the people 
 look up as their national and social leaders and celebrities, 
 regard our political system with distrust and disaffection, so 
 long will every reform, every material improvement, even 
 in our longest settled Provinces, rest upon a precarious 
 foundation, so long will our Government continue to be not 
 an organism in India, but a mechanism ; not rooted in the 
 soil, not vitally connected with the population, but loosely 
 attached to localities, running smoothly in the presence and 
 by the authority of English officers, liable to sudden and 
 total disarrangement when military force is withdrawn. I 
 believe that India under the existing course and practice of 
 our rule is very much over-administered, and that if a great 
 crisis and time of trial were to come upon us, while we still 
 adhere to Calcutta principles, she would be found not to be 
 governed at all. 
 
 It is a fact very deplorable, perhaps, but not the less 
 true that men, even in a very advanced stage of civilisa- 
 tion, are not guided entirely by reason, but to a great ex- 
 tent by their affections and their imagination. Men, also, 
 in some strange countries, are known to have a certain re- 
 gard to their own interests and their own worldly enjoy- 
 ments, and even to such intangible consideratiens as a love 
 of excitement, loyalty to a Prince, national pride and per- 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 177 
 
 sonal vanity. Of course these untutored feelings may be 
 considered to be very unphilosophical, but still it cannot 
 surely be advisable to overlook the 'fact of their existence. 
 Perhaps a judicious ruler might detect their hidden mean- 
 ings, divine their tendency, and turn their forces to some 
 good purpose. Up to the present day we have ventured, 
 as it seems to me, to navigate the vessel of the State in 
 India too much by the compass and the dead-reckoning, 
 without allowing for the force of the wind and the current, 
 without observing the clouds by day or the stars by night. 
 We have trusted too much to rule and plumb-line, without 
 paying attention to those invisible and imponderable ele- 
 ments which are as potent in social and political action, as 
 the physical imponderables are in physical dynamics. 
 
 Man cannot live on bread alone ; and even with an ample 
 supply of bread, man cannot be made happy by adminis- 
 trative tidiness, or by the perfect punctuality of returns 
 and reports. The most striking effect of Sir Mark Cubbon's 
 improved management in the eyes of the agricultural popu- 
 lation, is the vast increase in the revenue, which has risen 
 from what may be roughly stated as an average of 600,000 
 under the Eaj all's rule, to its present annual amount of 
 1,000,000. This great augmentation has been chiefly 
 produced by the gradual commutation of the Battoya land- 
 assessment, or equal division of crops between the tenant 
 and the Sovereign, into a money payment, which has been 
 steadily carried on for upwards of thirty years, concurrently 
 with a constant rise in the prices of all agricultural produce. 
 The vexatious imposts, upwards of sixty in number, abolished 
 by General Cubbon, were not very heavy in their aggregate 
 amount, were levied chiefly from special classes and profes- 
 sions, and their remission was not felt as a boon to the bulk 
 of the population to the occupants and cultivators of .the 
 soil. I have no doubt myself that the people are much 
 better able to pay the present land-assessment than they 
 were to pay the nominally smaller amount demanded thirty 
 years ago ; owing to higher prices, and access to markets 
 by good roads, the relative burden of taxation, has, I be- 
 lieve, been lightened. But we must not be su prised or in- 
 dignant if the farmers, proverbially laudatores temporis 
 acti, are not nearly as grateful as they ought to be for the 
 
 N 
 
178 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 abolition of transit duties and petty cesses, while they are 
 fully alive to the fact that they are paying a much higher 
 land-tax than they did under native rule, that they no 
 longer share a bad crop with the Sircar, but have to find 
 cash on the day of reckoning, whatever the past season may 
 have been. In short, they do not feel at all satisfied that 
 they get more " panem" under the Commissioner's, than they 
 did under the Eaj all's auspices ; while they know for a cer- 
 tainty that on the extinction of the Raj, their loved " cir- 
 censes" would for ever disappear. 
 
 Is it surprising that the natives should perversely prefer 
 a Eajah to a Commissioner ? A considerable share of the 
 public revenue is allotted to the Eajah,* which doubtless 
 stirs the spleen and rouses the cupidity of our Financial 
 Department ; but this large income is all expended in My- 
 sore; the Eajah's patriarchal bounty supports thousands 
 who would find no place at our board ; and the splendour 
 of his genial hospitality, public ceremonies and processions, 
 is a constant source of pride, entertainment and excitement, 
 to all ranks and classes. All this must cease on annexation ; 
 all encouragement to native art and learning ceases ; the 
 manufacture of many fabrics and articles of luxury falls 
 off ; all public pomp, state, and general amusement disap- 
 pear ; the sting and vivifying charm of life is gone ; every- 
 thing is doomed to settle down to a dead, dull, and uniform 
 level.f . The stately dinner-parties and gay balls, in which 
 English officials and their families take delight, may be 
 highly civilised and intellectual recreations, worthy of 
 general respect and admiration ; but these festivities can 
 hardly be expected to rouse much popular interest, for they 
 take place in private houses, and natives, even of the highest 
 rank, are very seldom invited to them. The diversions of 
 the British hierarchy being of this exclusive nature, the 
 current rumours of their ordinary expenditure can scarcely 
 call forth any warmer sentiment than that of cold esteem. 
 No doubt it is very proper that the Commissioner and his 
 
 * About .140,000 per annum. His successor might probably be persuaded 
 to manage with a smaller Civil List. 
 
 t On this aspect of the case, see a curious article, " Christmas in Bombay," 
 from a native newspaper, the Hindu Prakash, which will be found in Ap- 
 pendix G. 
 

 BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 179 
 
 Assistants should remit half of their salaries to Europe, for 
 the education of their children, and as a provision for their 
 own retirement ; but this respectable economy, even when 
 contrasted with the Rajah's barbaric profusion, is not calcu- 
 lated to raise a moral enthusiasm throughout Mysore in 
 favour of the permanent installation of a British bureau- 
 cracy, and the permanent exclusion of a native Sovereign. 
 
 Far from desiring to see " the uniform application of our 
 system of government" extended to every State and pro- 
 vince, I believe that by such means the harmonious esta- 
 blishment of sound principles of morals and politics would 
 be rendered impossible, that our reforms would not be 
 really accepted and naturalised in India, but would dege- 
 nerate, even to a greater extent than now, into a superficial 
 and deceptive crust, concealing from us the volcanic ele- 
 ments that boil beneath it, and gather strength from the 
 external pressure. I would rather look forward to a mul- 
 tiplicity of political and municipal centres, giving rise to a 
 free and noble emulation, to a more active production of 
 wealth, and to a more permanent type of civilisation. I 
 believe that in a Federation of reformed native States, 
 owning allegiance to the Imperial Crown, accepting such 
 general rules of law and judicial procedure, and such prin- 
 ciples of financial administration, as may suffice to make 
 each Prince a constitutional Sovereign, and only in such 
 a Federation, Conservatism and Progress may be reconciled 
 and secured. There would be found the legitimate and 
 benevolent application of the old Roman maxim of govern- 
 ment " Divide et impera." 
 
 I object to an extreme centralisation, even in administering 
 our immediate possessions. I think that a larger discretion 
 in devising improvements, and in promptly carrying them 
 out by local expenditure, after providing for certain Im- 
 perial disbursements and contributions, ought to be allowed 
 to the Viceroy, to the Provincial Governors, and by them, 
 under analogous conditions, to their Prefects, and to Mu- 
 nicipal Councils, both in towns and districts. But object- 
 ing, as I do, to a centralised dictation of administrative and 
 personal details, either in the control of dependent States, 
 or in the general control, by Her Majesty's Government, of 
 all proceedings in India, I would yet maintain most firmly 
 
 N2 
 
180 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 the right of supervision and ultimate decree in the hands 
 of the Home Authorities, so as to ensure a constant appli- 
 cation of British principles, from the purest and least pre- 
 judiced source, to the government of the Indian Empire ; 
 so as to save the people of that Empire from the curse of 
 professional rule, and the people of Great Britain from the 
 consequences of that curse. 
 
 The Home Government might, I think, with much ad- 
 vantage to the public service, place more confidence in the 
 Viceroy and in the Provincial Lieutenants, and charge them 
 with a greater responsibility. The Secretary of State 
 might relinquish in practice, if not in theory his power 
 of previously sanctioning estimates, expenditure and alter- 
 ations of establishments, retaining the power of criticism, 
 correction and prohibition, as it is now exercised in Legis- 
 lative matters. I have no fear that the dignity and au- 
 thority of the Viceroy's office would be lowered by the rare 
 occurrence of his orders being modified or reversed. No 
 Minister of the Crown could be unmindful of the deep 
 responsibility under which such a step must be taken ; and 
 I assume that on both sides a proper understanding is to 
 be kept up, and that good temper and all forms of courtesy 
 are to prevail. 
 
 I think the occasional decisive intervention and peremp- 
 tory explicit orders of the Secretary of State, in matters 
 involving some broad general principle especially in mat- 
 ters where great difference of opinion has existed in India, 
 have frequently produced a most beneficial effect, and 
 will continue to do so. I believe that a more willing obe- 
 dience and submission would be paid to the Imperial Go- 
 vernment, if it were certain that an appeal to London 
 against some "act of state/' or departmental oppression 
 was not a mockery ; if every native Prince, and every native 
 official were fully convinced that the Royal Government 
 was a living reality. The consultations in London, with- 
 drawn from contact with the strange indigenous race, un- 
 affected by local and temporary interests and antipathies, 
 are much more likely to be carried on with a cool and 
 deliberate impartiality, to be characterised by a fair and 
 generous spirit, and to lead to an impartial conclusion, than 
 those which take place at. Calcutta or Bombay. Even a 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 181 
 
 Governor-General of high rank and dignified antecedents 
 even Councillors of mature years, appointed by virtue of a 
 distinguished career at home must, to a certain extent, 
 succumb to local influences. 
 
 The Jamaica planters could never have been induced to 
 legislate for the emancipation of their slaves, even though 
 the same amount of compensation for that purpose had 
 been voted to them by the British Parliament. Not a 
 single native would have been appointed to a seat in the 
 High Courts or in the Legislative Council of India, had the 
 initiative of those conciliatory measures been left to the 
 local authorities. 
 
 The cry that has been from time to time raised in Cal- 
 cutta, that " India must be governed in India," has never 
 been raised from a wish to infuse a more liberal spirit into 
 Anglo-Indian institutions ; but either to assert and main- 
 tain the vested rights and privileges of the "covenanted" 
 hierarchy, or to augment, concentrate, and strengthen the 
 influence of the English commercial class over the Legis- 
 lative and Executive of India. This cry has never been 
 raised on behalf of the legitimate operations of capital 
 not for any broad principle, not for any national interest, 
 British or native, not for the great or small landholders, not 
 for the toiling millions, but for the hundreds of temporary 
 settlers with no permanent stake in the country, encumbered 
 by no public duties, and restrained by no public opinion. 
 With very few exceptions, European capitalists are only to 
 be found in the Presidency cities ; the " up-country" settlers 
 are either their servants or their debtors. These so-called 
 Bengal settlers and planters, the most noisy of whom are 
 not settlers or planters, but manufacturers of indigo, their 
 employers and creditors, and others interested in their 
 operations, exasperated at the rejection in London of the 
 coercive Contract Law, which after a long and laborious 
 agitation they had carried through the Legislative Council 
 at Calcutta, exasperated also at the effectual modification in 
 London of the Kules for the Sale of Waste Land, drawn 
 out in the interest of their class, and too hastily published 
 by Lord Canning have never ceased to pursue with their 
 querulous and impotent/ abuse the present Secretary of State,* 
 
 * Sir Charles Wood, now Viscount Halifax. 
 
182 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 and to denounce all attempts to govern India, as they com- 
 plain he has done, directly and in detail from a Council 
 Chamber in London. There may sometimes be a doubt 
 and a difference of opinion in drawing the line between 
 matters of detail and matters of principle ; but with ordi- 
 nary prudence and moderation, there ought to be no prac- 
 tical difficulty. The particular cases complained of appear 
 to me to have involved great and fundamental principles ; 
 an impartial and deliberate revision in London was most 
 urgently required, and with the exception of the European 
 planting interest of which I have spoken a party small 
 in numbers, but strong in speech and means of influence 
 the results were most satisfactory to the public at large. 
 
 In another case, which led to a collision between the 
 Viceregal Government and the Home Authorities, and to a 
 considerable ferment for a time among the official and com- 
 mercial classes in Calcutta the grant of an increased or 
 more settled provision to Tippoo Sultan's family the Se- 
 cretary of State acted in consequence of an appeal to Her 
 Majesty's Government ; and although it was an isolated 
 case, and the wrong redressed had not roused much general 
 attention or sympathy, the decision was hailed throughout 
 India as an auspicious omen, as the sign of a better era 
 commencing. 
 
 But it must be acknowledged, in accordance with esta- 
 blished precedents, that unless under the obligation of an 
 appeal in regular form, and in an affair beyond the cogni- 
 sance of municipal law, the Home Authorities ought not 
 to interfere with the proceedings of the Viceregal Govern- 
 ment, or to issue direct orders in personal questions, or in 
 matters of individual grievance. For example, the Secre- 
 tary of State might properly lay down the general principle 
 that henceforward natives were to be eligible or to be ad- 
 mitted in larger proportion to a certain class of appoint- 
 ments ; and with that object in view, Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment might open the door by a special order, or, if legal 
 obstacles existed, by an Act of Parliament ; but it would 
 not be advisable or right that the Secretary of State should 
 officially propose or forbid any particular appointment or 
 promotion. If the general instructions should produce very 
 scanty or very slow results, the proper remedy would be 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 183 
 
 found, not by tampering with the Executive power and 
 patronage of the Indian Government, but by the installa- 
 tion, either at the ordinary period or immediately as de- 
 manded by circumstances of a Viceroy whose opinions 
 were in accordance with those of the Ministry. 
 
 The same broad distinction between the principles and 
 the details of Government ought to be maintained by the 
 Imperial Power of India, in controlling and instructing a 
 subordinate or protected State, when it has passed, or has 
 never undergone, the probationary stage of direct tutelage 
 or management by a Commission of English officers. For 
 example, the British Government might very properly exert 
 all its influence to induce or constrain a native Prince to 
 promulgate a Code, or to limit by a law his own Privy 
 Purse. Great judgment, tact, and patience might be re- 
 quired to render these reforms acceptable ; and in certain 
 quarters, where our right of interference was least clear, 
 and our means of control least efficient and available, it 
 might be expedient to offer some highly coveted privileges 
 and material advantages, such as cessions of territory, on 
 the condition of constitutional government. In ceding ter- 
 ritory no real power would be abandoned ; on the contrary, 
 on giving up the administration we should retain a stronger 
 hold on the government ; in many instances the occasion 
 might be taken for expressly assuming Imperial supremacy; 
 and the loss of direct possession would be a decided gain 
 so far as it enabled us to reduce our establishments, and to 
 consolidate our military strength.* 
 
 But however much the process* for converting the dis- 
 orderly and careless despotism of native States into the 
 government of Law and Order, may be varied under 
 diverse circumstances and eventualities the general object, 
 of at once reforming the administration and strengthening 
 the throne of an allied and friendly Prince, is, I maintain, 
 quite within the limits of just Imperial action. But in 
 carrying out that object, unless it were necessary to 
 assume the entire management for a time, we should aim 
 at the imposition of principles, not of persons at the in- 
 culcation of permanent Law, not at the dictation of par- 
 
 * The Empire in India, p. 393-406. 
 
184 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ticular judgments. Thus I can conceive every possible 
 gradation of moral pressure, from gentle persuasion to im- 
 minent coercion according to the urgency of the case 
 being justifiably employed by the British Government, to 
 induce or compel a native Sovereign to institute a Code 
 and a sound financial system, and even to introduce a cer- 
 tain class of persons as educated Collectors and trained 
 Judges into the administration of his country. The last- 
 mentioned innovation would be the most delicate of all, 
 and by an injudicious excess or precipitancy might approach 
 very near to the forbidden confines ; but if the questions 
 of Law and procedure were first settled, and then the want 
 of competent initiation were demonstrated if great care 
 were taken to recommend persons likely to be agreeable to 
 the Prince and to command respect among the people, if 
 the smallest possible number were brought in, and obviously 
 as a trained class to serve under the local Government, not 
 as personal hangers-on of the Resident, or professed ad- 
 herents of the Imperial Power the difficulty might be 
 easily overcome. The strangers would be employed in the 
 administration, not obtruded into the Government. So far, 
 with temper and discretion, the boundaries of a just Im- 
 perial supremacy would not be transgressed. 
 
 But while I should be prepared, in an extreme case, to 
 resort to the most decided measures to induce or compel a 
 native Prince to reform his government, I should be very 
 slow to exercise any moral pressure whatever, merely to 
 induce or compel him to dismiss a Minister, or to accept 
 one of our nomination. That would be quite a different 
 style of interference, that would be the widest departure 
 from what ought to be the Imperial rule to suggest or 
 impose great principles, but not to dictate in personal 
 details. From the most aggravated form of this oppressive 
 supervision, where a Minister known to be offensive is 
 brought face to face with the Prince to overrule his wishes 
 and to direct his movements, no result can be reasonably 
 expected but the utter degradation and despair of the 
 Sovereign, and the complete demoralisation of all his estab- 
 lishments, even if it did not operate as a provocative to 
 intrigue and contumacy, the preliminary stages to deposi- 
 tion or annexation. 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 185 
 
 Yet this fruitless task of meddling with individual claims 
 and particular grievances, of pitting the protege of the 
 Residency against the favourite of the Court, of interfering 
 in details and disregarding substantive reform, has hitherto 
 characterised our system of Political Agency in India with 
 this additional defect, as pointed out by Mr. Mansel,* that 
 from our Government having had no definite policy of 
 directing or remodelling native States, having given no 
 consistent instructions to its diplomatic Agents, and de- 
 manded from them no precise course of action, a period of 
 irritating importunity would often be followed by a season 
 of indifference and repose, so that no lasting impression was 
 ever made. In its best aspect, under the guidance of an 
 energetic and conscientious Resident, the existing system of 
 Political Agency merely plucks at the leaves instead of 
 attacking the root ; while in that worst aspect which it has 
 occasionally assumed, the noxious tree flourishes and brings 
 forth its corrupt fruit in security and abundance. 
 
 Such has been the conduct of the Calcutta Foreign 
 Office such is the practice of the professional rulers of 
 India. They are satisfied if the Resident's Diaries are 
 regularly transmitted and contain no startling disclosures. 
 They have devised no plan for improving a dependent 
 State, except that of destruction. 
 
 I think I may now claim to have proved that though the 
 Rajah's incapacity constitutes a plausible but a most un- 
 tenable plea for refusing his reinstatement, it affords no 
 plea whatever for abolishing the Principality. The plea of 
 the Prince's personal incompetence, does in effect strike at 
 the root of hereditary monarchy. The Rajah of Mysore, 
 according to Calcutta doctrines, was bound to have been a 
 benevolent and enlightened despot at the age of sixteen, 
 and, failing that, was properly reduced to be a pensioner 
 for life, and the last Prince of his family. And yet we 
 may surely assume that the Rajah never was really incom- 
 petent for the duties of a limited Monarch, when we find 
 that Lord William Bentinck, after a careful inquiry, pro- 
 nounced him to be " in the highest degree intelligent and 
 sensible," described his disposition as " the reverse of tyran- 
 
 * Ante, p. 143. 
 
186 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 nical or cruel," and expressed his belief that he would 
 " make a good ruler in future." 
 
 The Eajah has repeatedly invited the imposition of regu- 
 lations and ordinances ; . he has often in his correspondence 
 with our Government, alluded to sanitary regulations that 
 might have been imposed upon him, and which he was 
 " bound by the Treaty to regard." Ample power is con- 
 ferred upon the British Government by Article XIV of the 
 Treaty, to offer authoritative advice on all subjects " con- 
 nected with his Highnesses interests, the happiness of his 
 people, and the mutual welfare of both States." It is hard 
 to understand why our Government should not have intro- 
 duced the first essentials of a limited Monarchy, such as a 
 Code, a Civil List, and a Council of State, instead of making 
 use of the Eajah's alleged incapacity and profusion as a 
 pretext for destroying the Principality. 
 
 The alleged incapacity of the Eajah is not only an anti- 
 quated and retrogressive objection, but it is a most unfair 
 and unfounded imputation. Lord William Bentinck's 
 opinion of his Highnesses character has been already cited. 
 The Eajah of Mysore, if left to his own unassisted devices, 
 might not be found to be a very profound statesman, or a 
 very skilful administrator ; but, even setting aside the 
 powers of guidance and control retained by our Govern- 
 ment under the terms of the existing Treaty, the Eajah 
 knows well where to look for good advisers, and there 
 would be no danger of his promoting any great alterations 
 in that system, towards which, as General Sir Mark Cubbon 
 reported in a despatch of the 2nd June, 1860, " the greatest 
 cordiality has been observed by his Highness for a good 
 many years." The Eajah has never shut his eyes to the 
 errors of his youth ; he has not been unmindful of the 
 benefits conferred upon the country by General Cubbon's 
 long administration, and by the existing system of European 
 superintendence. Hope deferred may have made his heart 
 sick, but it has never turned him from the firm attachment 
 to British supremacy and reliance on British protection, 
 which was the first lesson of his childhood, and has been 
 the guiding principle of his public life. The Eajah of 
 Mysore is, in fact, a Prince of more than average acuteness 
 of intellect, active for his years, and capable of taking a 
 
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION. 187 
 
 shrewd and lively share in a discussion on public affairs ; 
 master of three languages spoken in his dominions, Canarese, 
 Mahratta, and Hindustanee ; sufficiently acquainted with 
 English to appreciate and control a correspondence,* and 
 to understand a good deal of a conversation, though unable 
 or unwilling to take part in it.t At his advanced age, and 
 with his severe experience, there could not be a better 
 instrument in our hands than the present Rajah, there 
 could not be a Prince more admirably adapted for our 
 Imperial purposes, both as a conservative power and as a 
 visible agent for accepting and assimilating reforms. His 
 disposition is acknowledged to be humane and beneficent ; 
 and, apart from the general respect for his lineage and 
 station, the popular love and regard for the Eajah's person 
 and dignity, always very remarkable throughout Mysore, 
 have been much heightened of late years, in the midst of 
 conflicting rumours as to the restoration of his authority, 
 and with the ever approaching prospect of losing him 
 altogether. J With the government of a hundred and fifty 
 millions in our hands, with seventy thousand British soldiers 
 locked up in India, we are as little able to afford, we ought 
 to be as unwilling, to lose the Eajah, as are the people of 
 Mysore. But if we lose him or his family by annexation, 
 we shall lose many other native Princes, and millions of 
 native hearts, by alienation. If we regain him, or even his 
 successor, by restoration, we shall redouble our moral influ- 
 ence, we shall redouble our reforming capacity, we shall be 
 able to take the first steps for relieving our military strength. 
 
 * In 1844, when the Government expressed some doubt on this point, and 
 wished his Highness to correspond in Canarese, he gave assurance as to his 
 entire knowledge and approval of his own English despatches. 
 
 t In my own experience I have known several instances of native Princes 
 and nobles, both Hindoo and Mussulman, who, though fairly proficient in 
 English, had an insurmountable objection to converse in that language. There 
 seemed to me to be a prejudice against its use, as a clerTdike accomplishment. 
 This aversion, however, is not shared, or has been overcome, by the Rajah of 
 Travancore and his brother, Prince Rama Vurma, both of whom are excellent 
 English scholars ; the latter, indeed, has published, under the modest nom de 
 plume of " A Hindoo", several remarkable letters and pamphlets on political 
 and religious topics. 
 
 It An interesting letter will be found in Appendix I, written by one who 
 had ample means of forming a judgment, which will give a very fair idea of 
 the feelings with which the threatened extinction of the Mysore dynasty is 
 viewed, not only by the natives, but by some of our own most experienced and 
 devoted officers. 
 
188 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The local governors of India, the leading members of 
 the Bengal Civil Service, have taken no such steps, and 
 they never will do so without instructions and orders from 
 home. They are professional administrators, and they are 
 English gentlemen among subservient Hindoos. The greed 
 of patronage, the arrogance of race, the pedantry of office, 
 all the evil influences of their position and training, pre- 
 judice them against the extension or restoration of native 
 rule, and make it impossible that they should judge such a 
 question impartially. Even their highest aspirations for 
 the good of the people are perverted to injustice by their 
 professional habits and predilections. Annexation, not 
 reform or instruction, is their political panacea for India. 
 They are prepared to annex the Mysore State, and they 
 most assuredly will do so, if they are not checked by the 
 Government of Great Britain. They have even had the 
 extraordinary imprudence to urge upon the Rajah very 
 recently, in reply to his unanswerable claims, that during 
 the last thirty years "great changes have taken place, and 
 new interests have grown up ; "* as if it could be maintained 
 with dignity or with decency, that as new interests arise, 
 Treaties may be disregarded. The Rajah of Mysore is in 
 his seventy-second year, and it will be too late to interfere, 
 too late to remonstrate, when he is no more when the 
 Calcutta professionals have committed the British Govern- 
 ment beyond retreat by a proclamation, by preferring sup- 
 posed new interests to undeniable ancient rights, by openly 
 rejecting the Rajah's heir, by intimidating the Nizam into 
 silence, perhaps by some "just and necessary" measures of 
 coercion and correction. 
 
 It will then be too late to reconsider either the justice or 
 the policy of extinguishing the Mysore Principality. The 
 question must be decided in England, and must be decided 
 without delay. 
 
 * Papers Relating to Mysore, 1866, p. 70. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866, AND 
 ME. R. D. MANGLES. 
 
 THE Papers " relative to the claims of the Rajah of Mysore 
 to be restored to the government of his territories, and to 
 be allowed to adopt an heir/' called for by Sir Henry Raw- 
 linson, and ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 
 on the 13th March, 1866, authenticate the more important 
 documents published in the first edition of the Mysore 
 Reversion, and will, I think, fully prove that I have neither 
 overstated the case in favour of the Rajah, nor understated 
 the adverse case set up against him. Not one of the 
 despatches from the Governor-General in Council, or from 
 the Secretary of State, which now see the light for the first 
 time, nor even the hostile Minutes by Mr. R. D. Mangles 
 and Mr. H. Thoby Prinsep, contain a single fact or allega- 
 tion against the Rajah's character or conduct which I have 
 not already noticed ; and not a single argument, whether 
 based on right or policy, is advanced against his cause 
 which I may not claim to have met and refuted. 
 
 On the other hand, the Papers include Minutes of Dissent 
 from the instructions sent to India in this matter, recorded 
 by five of the most distinguished Members of the Council 
 of India Sir George Clerk, Sir Frederick Currie, Sir John 
 Willoughby, Sir Henry Montgomery, and Captain W. J. 
 Eastwiek all of whom support the Rajah's claims, in 
 general accordance with the views contained in my book. 
 
 The objections, urged with earnestness almost amounting 
 to vehemence, by so many men of grave character and 
 large experience, might well give pause to the most re- 
 morseless advocate of annexation. Even Lord Dalhousie, 
 in his Minute of the 30th August, 1848, printed in the 
 Sattara Papers of 1849 (p. 83), when recommending that 
 no just opportunity of taking possession of Native States 
 by the process of " lapse," should be omitted, declared that 
 
190 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "wherever a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim 
 should at once be abandoned." The solemn protests re- 
 corded by the minority of the Secretary of State's Council 
 a minority so strong in acknowledged ability and high 
 reputation, ought surely to be sufficient to raise more 
 than that " shadow of doubt " which Lord Dalhousie held 
 should lead to the abandonment of such a design. 
 
 If the Kajah's case is so far plausible, and the adverse 
 claim so far questionable, as to admit of the gravest scruples 
 being entertained by five eminently competent judges, all 
 of whose instincts and prejudices would naturally lead 
 them to coincide with the majority, we ought seriously to 
 reflect on the impression that must be produced in India 
 on those who naturally sympathise with the Eajah, and 
 who cannot help feeling that the downfall of the State may 
 form a precedent for the ruin of their own dearest interests 
 and for the destruction of all they hold sacred. 
 
 When Sir Henry Montgomery is seen to accuse his own 
 Government of " a breach of good faith" ; when Sir John 
 Willoughby denounces " the flagrant injustice" of the de- 
 cision ; when Sir Frederick Currie declares it to be " unjust 
 and illegal^ and a violation of special treaties, which the 
 British Government have bound themselves to maintain 
 inviolate ;" when Sir . George Clerk condemns it as " the 
 result of wild counsel, prompting the indiscriminate grati- 
 fication of a selfish policy" "unworthy of a great nation" 
 neither " honest nor dignified" and regrets that " so loyal 
 a Prince" should be made " the victim of such extreme 
 measures;" and when Captain Eastwick asserts that the 
 treatment of the Kajah " cannot be justified by our treaty 
 obligations, nor by the law and practice of India ;" what 
 can we expect to be said and thought on the subject by the 
 dependent Sovereigns of India and their advisers and 
 adherents ? 
 
 This Blue Book may do infinite good or infinite harm. 
 If the publication does not save the Principality of Mysore, 
 it will, by displaying the origin, progress, and pretexts of 
 the scheme for its extinction, and the cogent reasoning by 
 which these pretexts were refuted, aggravate and extend 
 the worst effects of this mischievous and shortsighted 
 measure, and remove every shadow of excuse or palliation. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 191 
 
 The most remarkable feature of the arguments adduced 
 in the Despatches and Minutes adverse to the Rajah's 
 claims, is that they are invariably based upon the most 
 obvious contradictions and misstatements of facts officially 
 recorded. For instance, in the despatch from the Governor- 
 General in Council to the Secretary of State, dated 31st 
 August, 1864, it is said that "by twenty years of misrule, 
 by extravagance, venality, and oppression, resulting in the 
 rebellion of his subjects, who, but for the interference of 
 the British Government, would have shaken off his authority, 
 the Maharajah violated the conditions which were the basis 
 of his dominion, and forced the British Government to the 
 exercise of the sovereign power, which, under the 4th 
 Article of the Subsidiary Treaty, they had retained, of 
 superseding the Maharajah's rule, and of carrying on the 
 government of Mysore in their own name and by their sole 
 authority."* 
 
 The terms in which the misgovernment and its results 
 are denounced, are exaggerated far beyond what the facts 
 warrant ; but it is simply untrue that the 4th Article of the 
 Subsidiary Treaty gives the Honourable Company the power 
 of " superseding the Rajah's rule, and of carrying on the 
 government of Mysore in their own name, and by their sole 
 authority." There is nothing in the 4th Article that in the 
 least resembles these terms. That Article of the Treaty 
 simply empowered the British Government to assume the 
 management of such "part or parts" of the Rajah's domi- 
 nions as might be sufficient to supply funds for the Subsidy, 
 " whenever" and " so long" as there should be " reason to 
 apprehend a failure in the funds so destined." The powers 
 of temporary management acquired by our Government 
 under this Article, were hastily and harshly enforced by 
 Lord William Bentinck, on insufficient and erroneous 
 grounds, according to his own candid admission,"!" and 
 since that time have been amplified far beyond the inten- 
 tions and contrary to the instructions of that Governor- 
 General and his two immediate successors, so that many 
 apparent obstacles have now been raised against a return to 
 native administration. And yet the British Government 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 48. t Ante, p. 22-27. 
 
192 CHAPTER X. 
 
 have never ventured to do what Sir John Lawrence inac- 
 curately says they have done. They have never carried on 
 the government in their own name. On the contrary, the 
 official designation of the British officer at the head of the 
 Mysore Commission, has always been that of " The Com- 
 missioner for the Government of the Territories of the 
 Rajah of Mysore."* 
 
 In the same despatch from the Governor-General to the 
 Secretary of State, dated the 31st August, 1864, the fol- 
 lowing words occur : " By no act or promise, actual or 
 constructive, have the British Government ever revived the 
 Maharajah's forfeited rights, or given ground of hope that 
 they would be revived/'f 
 
 The Governor- General's assertion that the Maharajah's 
 rights were " forfeited," is quite unwarrantable, as we see 
 from Lord William Bentinck's own words, quoted in this 
 passage from Sir John Willoughby's Minute : 
 
 " We have the explicit declaration of Lord William Bentinck 
 himself, that the assumption of the administration of the Mysore 
 Territory in 1831 was intended only as a temporary measure. 
 In a Minute (dated 14 April, 1834), commenting on the Report of 
 a Commission appointed to investigate into the causes of disturb- 
 ances which were the pretext for depriving the Rajah of the man- 
 agement of his country, Lord William Bentinck makes the fol- 
 lowing important admissions : 
 
 " ' The entire question hinges, I think, upon this consideration; 
 Has the Company's Government assumed the management of 
 the Mysore country on its own account, or is that country still 
 managed for, and on behalf of, the Rajah ? Is the Subsidiary 
 Treaty of Mysore virtually cancelled, or is it still in full force ? 
 
 " ( The answer must decidedly be that the management has 
 been assumed for and on behalf of the Rajah, and that the Treaty 
 is in full force/ "J 
 
 Article V of the Subsidiary Treaty provides that the 
 Governor-General shall " render to his Highness a true and 
 faithful account of the revenues and produce of territories 
 
 * Thus the Foreign Secretary writes to the Commissioner on the 29th 
 March, 1 864 : " The Governor-General in Council can allow of no change in the 
 existing form of the administration, which, at the same time that it is well 
 adapted to the best interests of the country, sufficiently consults the dignity 
 of the Maharajah by having its head entitled, ' Commissioner for the Govern- 
 ment of the Territories of His Highness the Maharajah of Mysore.' " Mysore 
 Papers, p. 40. 
 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 48. J Ibid , p. 26. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 193 
 
 so assumed," and that " in no case whatever shall his 
 Highness's actual receipt or annual income arising out of 
 his territorial revenue" be less than a certain sum. How 
 could the territorial revenue be his, and for what purpose 
 could accounts be furnished to the Eajah, if his rights were 
 to be forfeited, if his sovereignty were to cease in the event 
 of this Article being enforced ? Far from there having 
 been any intimation or intention of forfeiture, the objects 
 of the British interference, as declared to the Rajah by Lord 
 William Bentinck, were " the preservation of the State of 
 Mysore," and " the permanent prosperity of the Raj."* 
 
 In the same Minute Sir John Willoughby writes as 
 follows : "The present decision is in contradiction of the 
 public records, which in a continuous stream indicate the 
 intention to restore the administration of Mysore to its 
 native rulers at some future but hitherto undefined period. 
 The Maharajah has never ceased to urge his claim to the 
 restoration of his sovereign rights, and until now has never 
 been peremptorily refused. On the contrary, on more than 
 one occasion, hopes have been held out to the Maharajah 
 that restoration would ultimately be made to himself 
 personally." 
 
 And he adds in a foot-note to this part of his Minute : 
 
 "In the year 1844, lie urged his appeal no less than five 
 times ; namely, 15 February, 10th April, 9th May, llth August, 
 and 7th September. He again appealed in June 1845, and 
 again on the 8th August, 1848, and lastly, and more urgently 
 than ever, on the anticipated retirement of Sir Mark Cubbon, 
 on the 23rd February 1861. In these appeals the Maharajah 
 asks many perplexing questions ; such, for instance, as, ' Who 
 was to be the judge of when the conditions for restoration 
 prescribed by the Court of Directors have been fulfilled? Had 
 it ever been before heard, that because a Prince or indivi- 
 dual had been in his youth extravagant, he should there- 
 fore be disinherited ? Have not disturbances occurred in the 
 Company' s territories, as they have done in those of Mysore, 
 without blame being imputed to the governing authorities ? 
 Have not the best and most upright of governments incurred, 
 as he had done, debts ? What proportion does my debt bear 
 to the revenues of my country ?' Finally, he strongly contends, 
 and I think with success, that the original assumption of the 
 administration of Mysore was not justified by the Treaty of 1799, 
 
 * Appendix, 0. 
 
194 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Vide, in particular, his letters dated 7th June 1845, and 8th 
 August, 1848, in the last of which he claims the fulfilment of 
 Lord Auckland's promises irade in 1836."* 
 
 And Sir Henry Montgomery remarks in his Minute that 
 " it is impossible to deny that it has throughout been the 
 professed purpose of the Home authorities to restore to the 
 Eajah the administration of the country, and that they 
 regarded the direct management of it only as a temporary 
 measure."t He also objects that in one paragraph of the 
 Secretary of State's despatch, dated 17th July, 1863, "it is 
 said that ' the state of the finances was such as to afford 
 no security for the punctual payment of the Subsidy ;' 
 whereas, up to that very period the Subsidy had been paid 
 punctually in advance, and Lord W. Bentinck had subse- 
 quently recorded his belief that it was at no time in 
 jeopardy." J 
 
 Mr. Prinsep, in his Minute adverse to the Eajah, falls 
 into the very same error, and, still more strangely, selects 
 the exact term which Lord William Bentinck had employed 
 in a negative sense, Mr. Prinsep asserts, that " the strong 
 measure of 1832" was required " for the security of the 
 Subsidy, which was jeopardised". J Lord William Bentinck 
 expressly acknowledged that "the Subsidy was not in 
 jeopardy." 
 
 Sir Henry Montgomery urges against the same despatch 
 of the Secretary of State, that the harsh meaaure of totally 
 superseding the Eajah's Government is justified by alleging 
 as facts the exaggerated stories which led to Lord William 
 Bentinck's hasty action, but were disproved by the investi- 
 gations of the Special Commission of Inquiry : " Lord W. 
 Bentinck's letter to the Eajah, written, as admitted subse- 
 quently by Lord W. Bentinck, when he had not made him- 
 self master of the subject, is quoted. In it, it is stated, 
 ' that the greatest excesses were committed, and unparalleled 
 cruelties were inflicted by your Highness's servants,' such 
 allegations of cruelties having been shown to be untrue by 
 the Committee's Eeport." 
 
 This is only one instance of the unpleasant characteristics 
 
 * Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 27. 
 
 t Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 20. I hid., p. 21. 
 
 Ibid., 1866,' p. 89. j| Ibid., 1866, p. 21. 
 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF I860. 195 
 
 pervading all the official documents, that while not even a 
 specious case can be stated against the legal rights of the 
 Kajah and his adopted heir, without re-asserting the fictitious 
 prerogative which Lord Canning publicly repudiated, it is 
 equally impossible for any moral grounds to be alleged for 
 rejecting the Eajah's claims without re-asserting those ficti- 
 tious accusations against him which Lord William Bentinck 
 regretted and retracted. 
 
 We are not surprised when a journal like the Friend of 
 India, representing the Calcutta Civilians and the Calcutta 
 shopkeepers, casts a random epithet or two, such as that of 
 " tyrannical sensualist", at the Eajah of Mysore. Although 
 Lord William Bentinck, after personal observation and in- 
 quiry, declared that theKajah's disposition was "the reverse 
 of tyrannical", that he believed his Highness was " in the 
 highest degree intelligent and sensible", and would " make a 
 good ruler in future", although the slightest local research 
 would convince even the Friend himself of the utter falsity 
 of both his imputations, we are too well accustomed to 
 that style of discussion in the official and commercial circles 
 which the Friend of India represents, to feel any extra- 
 ordinary indignation. At Calcutta it is always quite safe, 
 and quite acceptable to an English audience, to call any 
 Hindoo or Mussulman Prince a tyrant and a sensualist. 
 The arrogance and prejudice of race and religion, the lust of 
 patronage, and jealousy of any native pretensions, there 
 reign rampant and triumphant. The Friend of India has 
 no more claim to be considered as an organ of public opinion 
 than the Pawnbroker' 's Gazette, but it may be very fairly 
 considered as the organ of that powerful guild of professional 
 administrators who are allowed to rule India, and whose in- 
 fluence affects extensively the public opinion of Great Britain 
 as to Indian affairs. The intimate connection between the 
 Friend and the Calcutta Secretariat* is so well known, its 
 leading articles have so often sounded the first note of an- 
 nexation, that even its most reckless calumnies, and its 
 most improbable threats and prognostications against the 
 
 * Even more mischievous than the close tie between the Friend of India 
 and the Calcutta Foreign Office, is the post of vantage occupied by its Editor 
 as the Calcutta Correspondent of the Times, so that the sources of information 
 are constantly poisoned at both fountain heads, in the metropolis of India and 
 of the Empire. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 CHAPTER X. 
 
 minor States, have frequently struck terror into the hearts 
 of our best allies and some of the best rulers in India. 
 
 We do not wonder, therefore, to encounter in the columns 
 of the Friend of India a contemptuous, disingenuous, and 
 unjudicial tone with reference to the position and claims of 
 a native Prince, to see his character bespattered with random 
 abuse, and his rights under treaty derided as mere matters 
 of grace and favour, originating in temporary expediency 
 and terminable at our own discretion. 
 
 When Mr. Bowring captiously taunts the Eajah with 
 being " wavering, inconstant, and led away by trifles", be- 
 cause at the formal official communication of a message 
 which the Eajah " had long ago learnt from other sources",* 
 his Highness presumed "to talk jocosely"; when Mr. Bow- 
 ring in two successive paragraphs (5 and 6) of a despatch, 
 first announces the Rajah's demands that his adopted son 
 should be recognised, that " Mysore should permanently re- 
 main a Native State", and " that a landed estate should be 
 secured to some of his illegitimate grandchildren" the very 
 demands that effectually provided for all his relations and 
 retainers, and then immediately imputes to the Rajah 
 " purely selfish" motives, and a total want of " anxiety about 
 the future of his many dependants and retainers, or even of 
 his numerous connections"^ we may marvel at the blind 
 carelessness with which the commentary is made to contra- 
 dict the text, but we are not much surprised at the peevish 
 and contemptuous spirit betrayed by the Bengal Civilian. 
 
 Mr. Bowring is, doubtless, an excellent public servant 
 and an honourable man, but he knows the objects and 
 wishes of his official superiors, and cannot but sympathise 
 with them ; his own greatest success and distinction in life 
 have consisted in his promotion to be Commissioner of My- 
 sore, and he can hardly be expected to entertain with much 
 complacency the notion of his functions not being perma- 
 nent and indispensable. The more firmly he is conscious 
 or convinced of his own ability arid industry, the more must 
 his personal and professional pride be outraged by the pros- 
 
 * Mr. Bowring had himself privately communicated the message several 
 months before the interview reported in his letter of the 18th February, 1864. 
 (Mysore Papers, p. 36.) Ante, p. 76. 
 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 37. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 1.97 
 
 pect of even a partial return to native government. And 
 possibly the natural amiability of the Commissioner's tem- 
 perament may have been slightly affected for the worse by 
 the long and unsettled controversy as to the Rajah's claims 
 having delayed and interrupted business, causing him much 
 annoyance and throwing additional work upon his hands. 
 The Governor-General, clearly quoting Mr. Bo wring, writes 
 to the Secretary of State: "Such a discussion cannot 
 benefit his Highness, while the tendency must be to un- 
 settle the minds of the people, and to disturb the growing 
 prosperity of the country."* This excessively official objec- 
 tion evinces just that irritation at the Rajah's unanswerable 
 claims that might be expected. 
 
 We do not, then, find fault so much with Mr. Bo wring's 
 unfair and uncivil detraction, as with the toleration and 
 apparent approval his despatches receive from the Govern- 
 ment of India. The honour and dignity of Great Britain 
 are committed to so great an extent to those hands, that it 
 cannot be a matter of indifference to us when we see them 
 turned to iniquity. But we are still in the atmosphere of 
 Calcutta, and the Viceroy himself is a Bengal Civilian. 
 
 For my part it is not until I arrive at the despatches 
 from the Home Government that my heart sinks a little. 
 Even the Minutes by Mr. R. D. Mangles and Mr. H. T. 
 Prinsep, both of them retired Bengal Civilians, do not 
 astonish me. The official experience of Mr. Mangles never, 
 I believe, extended beyond the precincts of the Presidency 
 City. It is so natural for professional administrators to 
 be deeply impressed with the transcendent Blessings con- 
 ferred by their own forms and regulations, and by the em- 
 ployment of their own friends and relatives in every 
 imaginable office, that the efforts of all this class may be 
 forgiven. But to my mind it is a most painful and ominous 
 circumstance to see the same cold shade creeping over the 
 home despatches ; to find the Secretary of State, having 
 deferred an explicit discussion and an absolute decision for 
 a considerable time, reduced at last to adopt all the perver- 
 sions and prevarications of Calcutta, to revive acknowledged 
 calumnies, to reassert exploded fallacies. 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 54. 
 
198 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mr. E. D. Mangles in 1849 acted as the spokesman of 
 the majority of the Court of Directors in sanctioning and 
 approving the annexation of Sattara, the first step in that 
 systematic policy of extinguishing our best friends which 
 culminated in the confiscation of Oude, and a year later 
 exploded in the fire of mutiny and rebellion. The minority 
 of the Court on that occasion, each of whom recorded a 
 written protest, would have been almost universally ac- 
 knowledged at that time as the five most able and distin- 
 guished Directors, Messrs. H. St. George Tucker, W. Leslie 
 Melville, and J. Shepherd, General Caulfield, and Major 
 Oliphant. And now when, after a respite of ten years, it 
 is proposed to recommence the extinguishing process, Mr. 
 Mangles once more appears as the spokesman of the ma- 
 jority, while the five most able and distinguished Members 
 of the Indian Council, Sir George Clerk, Sir John Wil- 
 loughby, Sir Henry Montgomery, Sir Frederick Currie, and 
 Captain East wick, record their written protests against 
 the measure. The parallel is remarkable. It can only be 
 hoped that the result of this second conflict may be very 
 different from that of the first ; that noise and numbers 
 may fail this time to get the better of history, logic, and 
 morals. 
 
 The style adopted by Mr. Mangles in his Minutes is 
 essentially noisy and boisterous, and owes all its effect to a 
 certain audacity of assertion and invective. In his attempt 
 to answer one of the weightiest arguments of his eminent 
 colleagues, Sir George Clerk and Sir Frederick Currie, he 
 professes to "''brush away a fallacy spun to ensnare the 
 ignorant;' he ridicules the Eajahs of Sattara and Mysore 
 as " mere puppets ;" the latter Prince was " the merest 
 puppet" and "a nominal Rajah;' the State of Mysore 
 always was and must be " a sham Principality" and he 
 denounces in general " the treachery, sottishness, and im- 
 becility of these puppet rulers." In short, he affords here, 
 as he did in his too successful Minute on the Sattara suc- 
 cession, the most perfect illustration of the contemptuous 
 spirit and the unjudicial disposition with which so many 
 Englishmen, more especially if they have graduated in a 
 Calcutta bureau, approach any claim of right on the part of 
 a Hindoo Prince or community. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 199 
 
 All the apparent force of Mr. Mangles's Minute is derived, 
 as I shall show, from his loose and incorrect statement of 
 facts, frequently amounting to a direct contradiction of the 
 records before him, from the most cynical defiance of every 
 dictate of good faith and public morals, and especially from 
 his persistent reassertion of an imaginary prerogative, which 
 after having been unjustly assumed during twelve years, 
 the Government of India solemnly and publicly disclaimed 
 in 1860, with the approval of the Secretary of State. 
 
 Mr. Mangles begins by " brushing away a fallacy, spun," 
 as he says, " to ensnare the ignorant." He says : 
 
 " Advantage has been taken upon this, as on former occa- 
 sions, to raise an argumentum ad invidiam, for the purpose of 
 misleading the general public into the erroneous persuasion, 
 that to prohibit such an adoption as that proposed to be made 
 by the Rajah of Mysore, is not merely an act of temporal 
 injustice, but a grievous injury extending beyond the grave, 
 and an outrage upon the religious feelings of the whole Hindoo 
 community ; and this misrepresentation is the more mischievous, 
 because it would be undeniably true if the British Government 
 had really prohibited adoption, in the broad meaning of the 
 term."* 
 
 The fallacy which Mr. Mangles professes to brush away 
 is nothing more than a cobweb which he spins himself. 
 Every one knows that although the term may conveniently 
 be abbreviated into " the right of adoption," what is meant 
 is the right of succession by adoption. Although we may 
 very properly speak of the Government having prohibited 
 an adoption, every one understands that what has been 
 prohibited is the succession of an adopted son. To forbid a 
 Hindoo Prince to adopt a son, would be as futile as to for- 
 bid him to marry or to beget a son ; to interdict a Kajah's 
 widow from performing the brief and simple ceremony of 
 adoption, would be as futile as to forbid the birth of a 
 posthumous son. But to prohibit the succession of a son 
 born in lawful wedlock, of an adopted son, or of a post- 
 humous son, would be, in every case, and equally in each 
 case, a prohibition utterly devoid of legal or historical war- 
 rant. It would be no consolation to a Hindoo family to be 
 told, after their patrimony had been confiscated, that an 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 83. 
 
200 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 adoption had not been really prohibited, " in the broad 
 meaning of the term," that the funeral rites might still be 
 duly performed, and that there had been no interference 
 with religious observances. The complaint would be that 
 succession had been refused to a lawful son and heir. 
 
 But although Mr. Mangles urges that for the due per- 
 formance of a Hindoo's funeral ceremonies, "it is by no 
 means necessary that his adopted son should be a Sovereign 
 Prince",* it is not the less certain tliat the refusal of suc- 
 cession to a Prince's adopted son is " an outrage upon the 
 religious feelings of the whole Hindoo community", because 
 it amounts to an assertion of the legal nullity and inefficacy 
 of an adoption, and proclaims the illegitimacy of an adopted 
 son. Even Mr. Bowring, the Commissioner of Mysore, 
 admits that " the feeling of all Hindoos, whether in Mysore 
 or in any other part of India, on the subject of adoption, is 
 deeply rooted."t The insult and the outrage are doubly 
 embittered when the rejected heir represents an ancient 
 and illustrious family, and when his rejection carries with 
 it the extinction of a Hindoo State, the ruin of many local 
 interests, and the downfall of a respectable and influential 
 class. 
 
 There is literally no foundation whatever in Hindoo law 
 or in the history of India for that distinction which Mr. 
 Mangles attempts to draw between the succession to per- 
 sonal property and to a dependent Principality. Ever since 
 the annexation of Sattara in 1848, Mr. Mangles and his 
 school have been constantly defied to show some proof of 
 such a distinction having ever existed, to adduce one single 
 precedent for the refusal to recognise an adoption, but they 
 have remained silent. As Captain Eastwick remarks in his 
 Minute :- 
 
 "It is a remarkable fact that, as far as I know, Lord Dal- 
 housie, the originator of the policy of annexation on the plea of 
 escheat, and its persistent upholder, has nowhere quoted any 
 precedent for annexation in disregard of adoption, though he 
 must no doubt have directed careful search for such precedents, 
 which would have established his policy on something like a 
 basis."} 
 
 Mr. Mangles does not hesitate to charge his distinguished 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 84. t Ibid., p. 52. J Ibid., p. 75. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 201 
 
 friends with spinning a fallacy, " to ensnare the ignorant", 
 and " for the purpose of misleading the general public",* 
 and we have shown that this alleged fallacy is a mere 
 verbal confusion of his own raising. But how shall we 
 characterise the conduct of a judge or councillor who 
 doggedly persists in referring to fictitious precedents, with- 
 out attempting to produce them, in spite of repeated 
 challenges from aggrieved appellants and dissentient col- 
 leagues \ 
 
 It is still more sad to find the Home Government misled 
 by the fictitious precedents invoked by Mr. Mangles. The 
 Secretary of State in his despatch of 17th July, 1865, writes 
 as follows : 
 
 "In my Despatch to you, No. 45, of the 30th July, 1864, 
 which conveyed my approval of the course you had adopted for 
 carrying out the instructions contained in my letter of the 17th 
 July, 1863, I merely remarked in paragraph 5, ' with regard to 
 the question of adoption, I will only observe, that you could not 
 recognise more than the Maharajah's right to adopt, so far as 
 his private property is concerned/ I have now to convey to you 
 expressly my concurrence with your Government in the argu- 
 ments you have adduced against the Rajah's claim to do more 
 than is above specified, and my approval of your having intimated 
 to the Maharajah, that ' no authority to adopt a successor to the 
 Raj of Mysore has ever been given him, and that no such power 
 can now be conceded'." f 
 
 The best answer to this extraordinary recurrence to the 
 destructive prerogative disclaimed in Lord Canning's Adop- 
 tion despatch, and to what are called the " arguments" by 
 which the Governor-General, in his letter of the 5th May, 
 1865, reclaims that prerogative, will be found in this brief 
 extract from Sir George Clerk's Minute : 
 
 " This new doctrine regarding adoption is so novel and unjust, 
 so opposed to all customs and religions in India, and so utterly 
 inconsistent with the course of administration as previously ex- 
 ercised during the paramountry of Hindoos, Mohammedans and 
 ourselves, that I can only conceive it to be the result of wild 
 counsel prompting an indiscriminate gratification of a selfish 
 policy, which it is endeavoured to veil under a plea of expe- 
 diency." J 
 
 But we will give some attention to Sir John Lawrence's 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 83. t Ibid., p. 71. t Ibid., p. 71. 
 
202 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "arguments." In paragraph 21 of the letter dated 5th 
 May, 1865 (Mysore Papers, p. 59) this passage occurs : 
 
 " Forced to acknowledge that in the time of the Mogul em- 
 perors it was customary for vassal Chiefs to obtain the assent of the 
 Sovereign to adoptions for state succession, the Maharajah never- 
 theless does not hesitate to call in question, by the line of argument 
 his Highness advances, the rights of the British Government to 
 limit the issue of the adoption sunnuds to Chiefs who govern 
 their own territories. His Highness bases his reasoning partly 
 upon an assertion, the historical accuracy of which is not only 
 open to be controverted by the facts of both Mahommedan and 
 Mahratta supremacy, but upon which the history of the Maha- 
 rajah's own family might have suggested to his Highness a 
 comment, how far weak Hindoo Chiefs were allowed any discre- 
 tion by Moslem conquerors/' 
 
 The grammar and sense of the last sentence are some- 
 what obscure ; but if we assume the most obvious and 
 probable meaning, it is difficult to see how the Calcutta 
 doctrines are advanced by it. We are not " Moslem con- 
 querors." Moslem conquerors did not make treaties of 
 perpetual friendship and alliance, "to be binding, by the 
 blessing of God, as long as the sun and moon endure," with 
 the " weak Hindoo Chiefs" whom they conquered. And, on 
 the other hand, "the history of the Maharajah's own family" 
 would only " suggest to his Highness" this " comment," that 
 Hyder Ali, the " Moslem conqueror" who usurped the power 
 of a weak Hindoo Prince" without dethroning him, did 
 permit an adoption to take place, when the present Rajah's 
 father was chosen, as in the case of the recently adopted 
 heir, from a distant branch of the royal family.* 
 
 As to what the Calcutta authorities say the Maharajah 
 was "forced to acknowledge," that the sanction of the 
 Mogul Emperors to their adoption of a successor was always 
 sought by dependent Princes, the fact, though requiring 
 much qualification, and doubtfully applicable to Princes 
 with whom Treaties exist, may be fully admitted without 
 injuring the Bajah's cause. The right of sanctioning and 
 controlling a succession, even the right of investiture, does 
 not, and never did in the days of " Mahommedan or Mah- 
 ratta supremacy," involve the right of forbidding a succession. 
 This is very clearly explained in Sir George Clerk's Minute : 
 
 * Wilks's History of Mysore, vol. ii, p. 163. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 203 
 
 "A fact well known to those of us who have been much in the 
 way of observing the circumstances of adoptions of Heirs to Chief- 
 ships, and to those who have made researches with a view to 
 elucidate the subject, as Sir Henry Lawrence in the Kerowlee 
 case in 1853,, and Lord Canning on the general question in I860, 
 is that, if guided by the custom of the country and the practice 
 of all our predecessors, our concern in adoptions consists only in 
 adjusting the rival pretentious of two or more such heirs ; a pre- 
 caution which we and our predecessors have made it our duty to 
 exercise in the interests of the peaceable public generally. Hence 
 our sanction may in one sense be said to be necessary ; for, natu- 
 rally, a record of it is always sought by the rightful or by the 
 successful claimant. Hence it is, too, that the confirmation has 
 never been refused. Hence it is that I never found an instance 
 on the old records at Delhi, and that I never knew one occurring 
 within my experience of our own times, of any Chiefship, either 
 Raj or Surdarree, great or small, being held to have escheated, 
 excepting for felony, to the Paramount State."* 
 
 But the Governor-General proceeds thus : " Further, it 
 may be added that the principles of the Hindoo law of 
 inheritance have no application to Chiefships ; but, above 
 all, none to those held under the conditions on which My- 
 sore was conferred on his Highness." Now the principles 
 of the Hindoo law of inheritance have application in India 
 to everything that is heritable. It is not true that any 
 special limitation was ever applied to the descent of Chief- 
 ships. Nor has the Governor-General attempted on this 
 occasion to show how the Hindoo law of inheritance, which 
 is the law of Mysore, and the main object of which is to 
 prevent the extinction of families, can be inapplicable to 
 the family of the Rajah of Mysore. Nor did Lord Dalhousie, 
 or any of his school, ever attempt to show on any previous 
 occasion how the Hindoo law of inheritance, which is the 
 law of India, and by virtue of which every Hindoo subject 
 can transmit to an adopted heir all his rights which are 
 heritable, can be inapplicable to the dignity and possessions 
 of a Hindoo Prince, who, although a tributary and dependent 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 71. See also The Empire in India, " Adoption" and 
 " Sattara." It is really too bad that we should have again and again to put 
 to flight these mendacious phantoms, to attack those false positions which Lord 
 Canning expressly abandoned, although he was of course compelled to write 
 cautiously, and to avoid directly condemning the past action of Government. 
 It is irresistible to say of the Calcutta Secretariat : " The dog returns to his 
 vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." 
 
204 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Ally of Her Majesty, cannot be properly included among 
 the subjects of the British Crown. The rights, dignity, and 
 possessions of a Sovereign in India, and throughout the 
 world, are transmitted either by the ordinary law of the 
 land or by some special law of royal succession. No special 
 law, no special limitation is applicable to the Rajah's case. 
 He is the Hindoo Sovereign of a Hindoo Principality. 
 
 But it is said that, " above all," the Hindoo law of in- 
 heritance has no application to Chiefships " held under the 
 conditions on which Mysore was conferred" upon the Rajah. 
 The conditions under which Mysore was conferred upon the 
 Rajah are recorded in the two Treaties of 1799. There are 
 no other conditions ; and no Article or Clause of those 
 Treaties institutes any new or special law of succession, 
 impugns or limits the operation of the Hindoo law, or 
 declares it to have become inapplicable to a family whose 
 successions had been regulated by its principles for many 
 centuries. 
 
 It is very questionable whether the State of Mysore, 
 bound to the British Government by a Treaty of perpetual 
 friendship and alliance, can be rightly classed among 
 " Chiefships." It is frequently termed the Kingdom of 
 Mysore by the Marquis Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, 
 and many subsequent Indian statesmen ; and at the pre- 
 sent day the Rajah is one of the few Princes of India, who 
 sits upon a throne, and who is entitled to a royal salute of 
 twenty-one guns. Were it not for the incessant efforts to 
 damage the Rajah's position by depreciatory epithets, these 
 would be matters of little or no weight, points rather of 
 form and courtesy than of serious import ; for the pettiest 
 Hindoo Chief is really as much entitled to adopt a successor 
 as the most. exalted and ancient Maharajah. 
 
 After declaring that the Rajah's claim to adopt an heir 
 to the State of Mysore ought not to be sanctioned, the 
 Governor-General says : 
 
 " The Maharajah is not a Sovereign Prince in the sense in 
 which he uses the term ; on the contrary, his Highness is a de- 
 pendent Prince, having no rights whatever beyond those conferred 
 upon him by the Subsidiary Treaty, and no power or authority 
 to amplify those rights beyond the strict letter of the Treaty. 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p 60. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 205 
 
 That Treaty was a purely personal one with the Maharajah, and 
 conveyed no authority to adopt, and made no mention whatever 
 of heirs."* 
 
 The Maharajah " uses the term" Sovereign Prince in its 
 ordinary " sense." In what sense does the Governor- General 
 maintain that it ought to be used by his Highness ? The 
 Govern or- General would perhaps reply, in the immediately 
 succeeding words of this passage, that " on the contrary 
 his Highness is a dependent Prince," as if the two terms 
 were inconsistent and contradictory, whereas they are quite 
 compatible. Any work on International Law will explain 
 that a Sovereign Prince may also be a dependent Prince. 
 But in fact all the attributes and titles of sovereignty were 
 attached to the Rajah of Mysore in the transactions and 
 Treaties of 1 799, 1 803, and 1807; and Lord Canning, when 
 Viceroy of India, so late as 30th March 1860, simply re- 
 newed a continuous recognition when he observed, in his 
 despatch to the Secretary of State, that his Highness was 
 "the Sovereign of Mysore," and that the people of Mysore 
 were "his subjects."t 
 
 Captain East wick observes on this point : 
 
 " With regard to the Maharajah not being a Sovereign Prince, 
 we have never discovered this until lately. It is only since the 
 absorption of Mysore has been contemplated, that we have 
 changed our style of address to the Maharajah, and have adopted 
 language more convenient for our purposes. Up to a very recent 
 date, the sovereignty of the Maharajah has been uninterruptedly 
 acknowledged by the representatives of the British Government 
 and by the Home authorities. "J 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to cast a shade of doubt and 
 confusion over the Rajah's sovereignty, the Governor- 
 General then proceeds to say that his Highness has " no 
 rights beyond those conferred upon him by the Subsidiary 
 Treaty!' Here we have the indispensable misstatement of 
 the transactions of 1799, without which it would be impos- 
 sible to degrade the Sovereign of Mysore into a mere 
 tenant for life or during good behaviour, at the discretion of 
 the British Government. The despatch speaks of " rights 
 conferred upon the Rajah by the Subsidiary Treaty" No 
 rights whatever were conferred upon the Rajah by the 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. GO. t Ante, p. 51. Mysore Papers, p. 70. 
 
206 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Subsidiary Treaty, except strange to say ! that right of 
 calling for the aid of British troops, (Article X) the exercise 
 of which, although so clearly contemplated and anticipated 
 when the Treaty was concluded, is now both cast in his 
 teeth as an extraordinary boon, and made the chief pretext 
 for his permanent supersession. With this singular excep- 
 tion, nothing whatever is conferred upon the Rajah by the 
 Subsidiary Treaty. I challenge any one to read the Treaty 
 through from beginning to end, and to find one word in the 
 Preamble, or in any one of the Articles, which purports to 
 grant or to concede anything to the Rajah. Everything 
 settled by the Subsidiary Treaty is for the benefit of the 
 East India Company. 
 
 Sir John Lawrence in his letter to the Rajah of the 5th 
 May, 1865,* makes the same misstatement a misstate- 
 ment, as I have just remarked, which is indispensable for 
 his object. He says : " The Nizam was not even admitted 
 as a party to the Subsidiary Treaty which effected the ces- 
 sion of Mysore to your Highness.'' The cession of Mysore 
 was not effected by the Subsidiary Treaty, but by the 
 Partition Treaty. It is expressly stated in Article V of the 
 Subsidiary Treaty that his Highness's " territories" were 
 " ceded to him by the Fifth Article of the Treaty of My- 
 sore" (the Partition Treaty). 
 
 Nothing was ever conferred upon the Rajah by the East 
 India Company acting alone. Whatever was conferred 
 upon the Rajah of Mysore in 1799 was conferred by the 
 Partition Treaty between the East India Company and the 
 Nizam. And not only is nothing conferred, ceded, or 
 granted in the Subsidiary Treaty, but not one single dis- 
 trict or village that had been conferred upon the Rajah in 
 the Treaty of Partition is even specified or named in the 
 Subsidiary Treaty. In the Preamble and several of the 
 Articles a simple reference is made to the Partition Treaty 
 with the Nizam, as the document containing both full 
 authority and full particulars. Indeed, the Partition Treaty 
 is cited in Article XV of the Subsidiary Treaty, as consti- 
 tuting the sufficient title to the districts therein " declared 
 to belong respectively to the English Company and to his 
 Highness." Both parties are referred to the Treaty with 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 69. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 207 
 
 the Nizam as the ultimate record. And in Article XIII, 
 which contemplates a commercial Treaty between the Com- 
 pany and the Rajah, mention is made of " their respective 
 dominions," and of "the subjects of both Governments." 
 In Article XIV there is a stipulation " for the mutual 
 welfare of both States." It is thus impossible to deny that 
 the Rajah is a Sovereign Prince, in every sense of the term ; 
 and it is equally impossible to separate the two Treaties of 
 1799. 
 
 When the Subsidiary Treaty was about to be concluded, 
 the cession of territory to form the restored Principality, 
 "under a descendant of the ancient Rajahs of Mysore," and 
 to be " a separate Government, as long as the sun and moon 
 endure," had been already effected by the Partition Treaty ; 
 and by its ninth Article a Subsidiary Force, for " the 
 effectual establishment" of the Rajah's Government, was 
 to be furnished by the Company, " according to the terms 
 of a separate Treaty to be immediately concluded" with 
 the Rajah. 
 
 The Subsidiary Treaty is simply supplementary to the 
 Partition Treaty " ancillary" and " subordinate," as was 
 rashly acknowledged in the memorable Calcutta Letter of 
 llth March, 1862.* It declares itself in the Preamble to 
 be concluded "in order to carry out the stipulations" of 
 the Partition Treaty with the Nizam, and " to increase and 
 strengthen the friendship subsisting between the English 
 East India Company and the Maharajah" words which 
 in themselves sufficiently indicate that the Rajah's restora- 
 tion to the position of a reigning Sovereign was the fore- 
 gone cause and not the consequence of the Subsidiary 
 Treaty. 
 
 The dates of the two Treaties, compared with the time 
 and incidents of the Rajah's installation, prove clearly that 
 the cession of territory to his Highness, and the recognition 
 of his sovereignty, took effect from the joint action of the 
 Allies, arid were quite unconnected with the Subsidiary 
 Treaty. The Partition Treaty is dated the 22nd June, 
 1799. The Rajah was enthroned on the 30th June his 
 right hand being taken by Lord Harris, the British Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and his left by Meer Allum, the Nizam's 
 
 * Ante, p. 66. 
 
208 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Plenipotentiary. The Subsidiary Treaty, to which the 
 Nizam was not a party, was not signed till the 8th July, 
 eight days after the Eajah's public inauguration, and was 
 not ratified by Lord Wellesley till the 23rd July.* 
 
 The next assertion in the Govern or- General's despatch 
 of the 5th May, 1865, is that the Eajah has "no power or 
 authority to amplify his rights beyond the strict letter of 
 the Treaty." Certainly not and no more has the other 
 party to the Treaty. The Eajah, as we have seen, acquired 
 no rights, possessions, or privileges from the Subsidiary 
 Treaty ; but he undertook certain obligations towards the 
 East India Company, which have always been punctually 
 and faithfully performed. The Company, on the other 
 hand, did acquire certain rights from that Treaty ; among 
 others, the right to an annual Subsidy, and the right of 
 securing its regular payment by authoritative counsel, and 
 by temporary management in case of extremity. How 
 those rights have been amplified ; how the strict letter of 
 the Treaty has been interpreted by the stronger party, I 
 have endeavoured to show in the preceding pages. 
 
 The Governor-General thus continues : " That Treaty was 
 a purely personal one with the Maharajah, and conveyed 
 no authority to adopt, and made no mention whatever of, 
 heirs." 
 
 No Treaty concluded with any Hindoo Prince has ever 
 conveyed an authority to adopt, because treaties of per- 
 petual friendship and alliance between two States never do 
 include a law of succession applicable to one of them ; and 
 because until the year 1848, when, as Sir George Clerk 
 observes in his Minute, " the Calcutta Government led off 
 with the barefaced appropriation of Sattara,"t no one ever 
 doubted that the only law of succession applicable to 
 Hindoo Princes was the Hindoo law, the law of the land. 
 
 But the Governor-General says that the Subsidiary Treaty 
 is merely " personal," and that it contains " no mention of 
 heirs." The absence of the words " heirs and successors," 
 becomes quite immaterial, and the notion of a personal or 
 life grant becomes quite inconceivable, in the presence of 
 the fact that this document is announced as " a Treaty of 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 85, ante, p. 89. 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 72. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 209 
 
 perpetual friendship and alliance," and contains a special 
 formula implying perpetuity in the asseveration that all its 
 provisions are to be binding " as long as the sun and moon 
 shall endure." 
 
 But here Mr. Mangles comes to the rescue again. He 
 says : 
 
 " I am aware, of course,, that the Treaty contains the expres- 
 sion that, ' It shall be binding upon the contracting parties as 
 long as the sun and moon shall endure/ but I need hardly tell 
 any one well informed in regard to Oriental phraseology, that, 
 strange as it may appear to us, these words certainly do not 
 imply perpetuity to Indian minds."* 
 
 And then he quotes Sir Thomas Munro as to " the terms 
 employed in such documents, or in Hindoo grants." The 
 documents to which Sir Thomas Munro alluded were not 
 treaties, but grants of land or charges on the revenue ; and 
 if Mr. Mangles were allowed to quote and to amplify a 
 hundred arbitrary resumptions of estates and pensions by 
 an Eastern despot, he would be no nearer a precedent for 
 annulling a perpetual treaty of friendship and alliance. 
 What does Mr. Mangles mean by talking about " Oriental 
 phraseology", and " Indian minds", and " Hindoo grants " 1 
 The phraseology in question did not emanate from an Indian 
 mind ; nor does it occur in an Oriental document, or in a 
 Hindoo grant, but in two British treaties, which were drafted 
 in the English language, and every word of which was dic- 
 tated by the Marquis Wellesley himself. 
 
 There really must be a lurking conviction in the minds 
 of the most eager votaries of territorial extension, that there 
 is something inconveniently sacred in the nature and essence 
 of a Treaty, when we observe their evident aversion to a 
 simple and straightforward use of the word, their efforts to 
 avoid it altogether, to substitute some less solemn term, or 
 to overlay it with contemptuous qualifications, even, at the 
 last pinch, with inverted commas. t Thus Lord Dalhousie, 
 when arguing for the annexation of Jhansi, pronounced the 
 Treaty between " the two Governments", to be " a grant 
 such as is issued by a Sovereign to a subject". J When the 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 84. 
 
 t As the Duke of Argyll does in his India under Dalhousie and Canning, 
 (Longman. 1865,) reprinted with additions from the Edinburgh Review. 
 t The Empire in India, "Jhansi," p. 208. 
 
 P 
 
210 CHAPTER X. 
 
 appropriation of Sattara was under discussion, Mr. R. D. 
 Mangles, then one of the Directors of the East India Com- 
 pany, attempted to disguise the " Treaty of perpetual friend- 
 ship" made with the Kajah, ''his heirs and successors", under 
 the insignificant term of an " agreement," and compared it 
 with the grant of a sinecure office or pension.* And Mr. 
 Willoughby, then a Member of Council at Bombay, whose 
 Minute was mainly conducive to this first step in Lord 
 Dalhousie's annexing career, insisted on the Principality of 
 Sattara having been " gratuitously conferred" on the Raj ah. f 
 In the same way when the question of the Nagpore succes- 
 sion was under consideration, Lord Dalhousie made a great 
 point by asserting (most inaccurately) that " the sovereignty 
 of Nagpore was bestowed as a gift" on the Rajah. 
 
 And Mr. R. D. Mangles, in his Minute against the claims 
 of the Rajah of Mysore, calls the Subsidiary Treaty of 1799 
 " a deed of gift". J 
 
 It is strange that any man, having any pretension to be 
 a statesman, should consider it politic or dignified to depre- 
 ciate the value of a British gift, to indicate as distinctly 
 as is done in the several instances, that the gifts of Great 
 Britain confer an insecure and precarious title, and, even 
 when confirmed by treaties, are less valid and less perma- 
 nent than the grants of Delhi or Poonah ! But, as I have 
 just shown, there is no gift, of any sort, in the Subsidiary 
 Treaty ; and whatever was given to the Rajah in 1799 was 
 given by the joint cession of the East India Company and 
 the Nizam. 
 
 Mr. H. T. Prinsep, the only other Member of the majority 
 in Council who has followed the example of Mr. Mangles by 
 recording an argumentative Minute, has fallen into exactly 
 the same mistake as his colleague. Mr. Mangles speaks of 
 the Subsidiary Treaty as " a deed of gift". No form, or 
 term, or word signifying a gift occurs in any part of that 
 Treaty. And Mr. Prinsep says : " A separate Treaty was 
 made by the British Government with the Rajah of Mysore, 
 to which the Nizam was no party, assigning the territory 
 to him personally." Now in the Subsidiary Treaty between 
 the Rajah and the East India Company, to which the Nizam 
 
 * The Empire in India, " Jhansi," p. 172. t Ibid., "Sattara," p. 1 9. 
 
 t Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 84. Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 88. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 211 
 
 was not a party, nothing whatever is assigned to the Eajah, 
 personally or otherwise. In that Treaty there is no cession 
 or grant of territories, no assignment of districts, no defini- 
 tion of the frontiers and limits of the Mysore State ; but 
 reference is therein made to the cession and assignment of 
 territories as having been already effected and recorded in 
 the Partition Treaty with the Nizam, and one of his 
 Schedules. 
 
 And on this point we are able to quote the direct testi- 
 mony of the Marquis Wellesley himself, who speaks of the 
 "country assigned to the Eajah of Mysore by the Partition 
 Treaty ".* 
 
 Mr. Mangles, having raised a dust round the question of 
 adoption by brushing away a fallacy which no one has ever 
 advanced, and flourishing once more his own fictitious law 
 arid precedent, five years after its public and official renun- 
 ciation by Lord Canning, f then proceeds to argue that the 
 Subsidiary Treaty of 1799 was intentionally made with the 
 omission of the words " his heirs and successors", and that 
 it was Lord Wellesley 's intention " to leave his successors 
 free to act, if the expectations with which the British Go- 
 vernment made the experiment should be disappointed, as 
 the circumstances of the case might demand." J 
 
 All that Mr. Mangles says as to Lord Wellesley 's pro- 
 bable intentions, is the purest effort of imagination, and 
 utterly at variance with all that statesman's recorded inten- 
 tions. Mr. Mangles speaks of the reconstruction of the 
 Mysore State " as an experiment", an experiment to last as 
 long as the sun and moon endure ! Lord Wellesley speaks 
 of it as " a settlement", as a " restoration", and not as an 
 experiment, as " the restoration of the ancient family of 
 Mysore", not as a personal and experimental installation. 
 In accordance with this view, and at Lord Wellesley 's dic- 
 tation, the Eajah is designated in the Partition Treaty as 
 " a descendant of the ancient Eajahs of Mysore". In the 
 same way Lord William Bentinck, in his letter to the Eajah 
 of the 7th September, 1831, thus describes what was done 
 in 1799 : " The sovereignty was restored to ihe family of 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 114. 
 
 t Lord Canning's Adoption Despatch of 30th April, and Sir Charles Wood's 
 replyof 26th July, I860, were both published in the Calcutta Gazette, 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 84. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 the ancient Rajahs of the country, and your Highness was 
 placed on the musnud." Not a trace of an experiment, or 
 of a personal Treaty, is to be found in the Marquis Welles - 
 ley's papers, or in any official document before 1856, when 
 Lord Dalhousie, in the full career of annexation, sounded 
 the first note of menace against Mysore. 
 
 Mr. Mangles having failed to find a single word in the 
 Marquis Wellesley's despatches, or in the records of that 
 period, to strengthen his argument, endeavours to set up a 
 case of antecedent improbability, or, as he puts it, impos- 
 sibility, against anything more than an experiment having 
 been intended, and immediately involves himself in a dis- 
 tinct contradiction of Lord Wellesley's avowed views. He 
 says : " The family of this child had long been deposed, 
 and it had not the slightest claim upon the justice or gene- 
 rosity of the British Government."* 
 
 In the year 1799 the family had been deposed for exactly 
 sixteen years ; and even after their deposition by Tippoo, 
 the British Government in 1782 had concluded a treaty 
 with Cham Eaj, father of the present Rajah. 
 
 Lord Wellesley, writing to the Court of Directors on the 
 3rd August, 1799, refers to "the antiquity of their legi- 
 timate title", and observes that moral considerations and 
 sentiments of generosity, favoured the restoration of the 
 ancient family 'of My sore", "j" 
 
 Contrast this with the assertion by Mr. Mangles that the 
 family "had not the slightest claim upon the justice or 
 generosity of the British Government". 
 
 And observe that Lord Wellesley in explaining his policy, 
 never uses one expression that denotes what Mr. Mangles 
 calls " ephemeral political expediency" J; he even seems to 
 avoid the use of terms implying a mere personal arrange- 
 ment. He acknowledges the weight, without admitting the 
 validity, of " the pretensions of the ancient house of the 
 Rajahs of Mysore", and says that "no alternative remained, 
 but to depose the dynasty which I found upon the throne" 
 (Tippoo's) " or to confirm the Mahomedan usurpation, and 
 with it the perpetual exclusion and degradation of the legi- 
 timate Hindoo Sovereigns of the country ". 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p 84. t Ante, p. 9. t Mysore Papers, p. 86. 
 
 Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 78. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 213 
 
 Undoubtedly he determined to make the Eajah so "de- 
 pendant" on the East India Company, that all his " interests 
 and resources might be absolutely identified with our own, 
 and the Kingdom of Mysore, so long the source of calamity 
 and alarm to the Carnatic, might become a new barrier of 
 our defence".* But he describes the transaction as the 
 " restoration of the ancient family" ; as " their elevation" ; 
 and observes that " by our support alone could they ever 
 hope to be maintained upon the throne against the family 
 of Tippoo Sultan".t He speaks of " the establishment of a 
 Hindoo State", and of " a friendly and allied State in My- 
 sore", f and declares it to be a " durable settlement". And 
 in a letter to Colonel Malcolm, the Resident at Mysore, 
 dated the 22nd October, 1803, Sir Arthur Wellesley wrote 
 as follows : " The pensions were thrown upon the Eajah 
 as so many encumbrances upon the revenues of Mysore, 
 which was evidently occasioned by the settlement of the 
 Government in his family, ." In short, a perfectly fair 
 summary of Lord Wellesley 's views is given by Captain W. 
 J. Eastwick, in paragraph 26 of his Minute : 
 
 ' f Lord Wellesley re-established ' the Hindoo State' of Mysore, 
 with definite political objects of high importance, irrespective of 
 the person of the Maharajah. It was intended to make Mysore 
 entirely subordinate as to foreign relations, and to preserve a 
 command over its resources, but there is no condition in the 
 Treaty, and no trace in the correspondence, of any intention to 
 make it merely a personal treaty, or to provide for the lapse of 
 the country to the British Government." || 
 
 Mr. Mangles having so completely misinterpreted the 
 Marquis Wellesley 's declared motives and objects, we may 
 well refuse to accept his conjectural version of that great 
 statesman's secret intentions. He says that Lord Wellesley 
 was riot likely to do "important business with so much 
 haste and carelessness as to allow the accidental omission of 
 the words ' heirs and successors' to pass without notice", 
 and that in fact " it is quite impossible to believe that such 
 an omission was accidental or devoid of a significant mean- 
 ing".^ But Mr. Mangles, unable to preserve a consistent 
 line of reasoning through two consecutive paragraphs, does 
 
 * Wellesley's Despatches, p. 82; t Ibid. t Ibid., p. 99 and 100. 
 
 Supplementary Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, vol. iv, p. 205. 
 || Mysore Papers, p. 77. IT Ibid., p. 84. 
 
214 CHAPTER X. 
 
 not perceive that Lord Wellesley, if incapable of overlooking 
 a verbal omission in the Treaty, must have been even less 
 capable of using the affirmative words, " to be binding as 
 long as the sun and moon endure", without " a significant 
 meaning". And the introduction of these words in a docu- 
 ment declared to be a Treaty of perpetual friendship and 
 alliance, renders the omission of the words "heirs and suc- 
 cessors" a quite insignificant circumstance. This is the 
 obvious verdict of common sense, as it is the unanimous 
 and undisputed dictum of the authorities on International 
 Law. Perpetual treaties are of course permanent and not 
 personal. A " State", a " Government", when mentioned in 
 a perpetual Treaty, signifies a sovereignty ; and the con- 
 tracting party to such a Treaty, who is said to have " domi- 
 nions" and " subjects", is a Sovereign. A sovereignty is 
 always hereditary, and a Sovereign always has heirs and 
 successors. 
 
 I am quite willing to accept the opinion offered by Mr. 
 Mangles that "no statesman was less likely than Lord 
 Wellesley to do important business with haste and care- 
 lessness" ; and therefore I think that if he had intended to 
 make " a deed of gift", by way of experiment, as Mr. 
 Mangles most unwarrantably pretends, he would have made 
 one, and not have made " a Treaty of perpetual friendship and 
 alliance to be binding as long as the sun and moon endure". 
 
 In a later passage of his Minute Mr. Mangles says : " It 
 cannot surely be pretended that such a Treaty as that which 
 Lord Wellesley dictated to the infant Eajah of Mysore 
 ought to constrain us" to recognise his heir. What does 
 Mr. Mangles mean by " such a Treaty" ? He forces me to 
 reiterate that it is a Treaty of perpetual friendship and 
 alliance. What does he mean by referring to the undoubted 
 fact that it was " dictated" by Lord Wellesley ?* Does he 
 
 * Lord Wellesley himself thus describes what took place : " On the 8th 
 June I had forwarded to the Commissioners the first draft of the Subsidiary 
 Treaty, to be concluded between the Company and the Rajah of Mysore. 
 After an ample discussion with the Commissioners, who had communicated the 
 whole arrangement to the Brahmin Poorneah and conciliated his cooperation, 
 and after the adoption of several alterations, this Treaty was executed in the 
 fortress of Nuzzerbagh, near Seringapatam, by the Commissioners, and certain 
 proxies on the part of the young Rajah, on the 8th of July, and ratified by 
 me in Council on the 23rd of July, under the title of the Subsidiary Treaty of 
 Seringapatam." Wellesley's Despatches, vol. ii, p. 85. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 215 
 
 suppose that this dictation makes it less binding ? I really 
 believe he does, because I find the same idea expressed by 
 the Duke of Argyll, who generally agrees with Mr. Mangles, 
 and is indeed considerably indebted to that gentleman for 
 the arguments in favour of annexation contained in his 
 India under Dalhousie and Canning, reprinted (with ad- 
 ditions) from the Edinburgh Review.* The Duke, who 
 approves of all Lord Dalhousie's acquisitions and of the 
 processes by which they were effected, and disapproves of 
 the Queen's Proclamation of 1858, expresses great contempt 
 for what he calls " the system of ' Treaties', which expressed 
 nothing but the will of a Superior imposing on his Vassal 
 so much as for the time it was thought expedient to re- 
 quire" ;t and throughout his two dissertations, when refer- 
 ring to our engagements with the Native Princes of India, 
 he invariably places the word " Treaty" or " Treaties" be- 
 tween inverted commas. From his employing the expres- 
 sion " for the time", it may also be presumed that the Duke 
 of Argyll cares as little for the word " perpetual" as Mr. 
 Mangles. 
 
 When the Duke writes of a Superior imposing treaties 
 " for the time" on his Vassals, he falls into the common but 
 quite inexcusable error of regarding the transactions of half 
 a century ago as if the comparative power and reciprocal 
 serviceableness of the Native States and of the British 
 Government had been the same then as they are now. I 
 believe his Grace very much underrates the actual power 
 and influence for good or evil of the tributary aod protected 
 Princes at the present day ; but even he would admit, on 
 due consideration, that both the absolute and the relative 
 strength of our own Government has enormously increased 
 since 1799. At that time the faithful alliance and co- 
 operation of the Nizam and other minor potentates were 
 known to be of the highest importance to us, and were 
 therefore much more assiduously cultivated than has of late 
 been thought necessary. But gradually altered circum- 
 stances altered partly in consequence of their continued 
 and faithful co-operation cannot convert our Allies into 
 Vassals, change a Treaty of perpetual friendship between 
 
 * Longman and Co., 1865. 
 
 t India under Dalhousie and Canning (Longman, 1865), p. 11. 
 
216 CHAPTER X. 
 
 two contracting parties into a grant or deed of gift from a 
 Superior, or justify the subsequent addition of inverted 
 commas. And I must remind the Duke of Argyll that 
 there were no inverted commas to the word "Treaties" in 
 the Royal Proclamation of 1858. 
 
 But passing over with a renewed protest the Duke's un- 
 warrantable application of the words " for the time", to en- 
 gagements which purport to be perpetual, it is surely very 
 remarkable that his Grace, Mr. Mangles, and the Governor- 
 General, Sir John Lawrence, should all, in their endeavours 
 to depreciate the binding force of Treaties, lay so much 
 stress on the fact, or alleged fact, of their having been " dic- 
 tated" or " imposed" by the stronger upon the weaker party. 
 This seems to be very like arguing that the stronger party 
 who dictates terms is only bound to observe them " for 
 the time", or for so long as may be " thought expedient". 
 Because we were able to impose our own conditions, there- 
 fore we need not abide by them ! This is very strange 
 doctrine. We have heard the validity and permanence of 
 a contract disputed on the ground of its having been ex- 
 torted or imposed by compulsion ;* but here we have that 
 principle reversed in favour of the stronger party, who, by 
 the right of having used compulsion once, is only bound to 
 observe the conditions of his own choice " for the time" or 
 until he chooses to employ or to threaten another dose of 
 compulsion.! 
 
 We now come to deal with the question of policy ; and 
 although Mr. Mangles seems to me to be equally unfair in 
 his array of facts and equally wrong in his conclusions, as 
 when he was arguing against the validity of Treaties, it is 
 
 * Some of our Oriental Treaties might be impugned or protested against on 
 that score ; and we ourselves recently, and with justice, repudiated the Treaty 
 with Bhootan, signed on compulsion by our Envoy, Mr. Ashley Eden. 
 
 t The hideous cynicism of the following passage from the Friend of India, 
 of the 25th of October I860 has never perhaps been surpassed : " Annexation 
 is in abeyance for the hour, and it is right that Government should forswear all 
 approach to it now. But the destiny of British power is in time to sweep the 
 effete princelings who now rule Hyderabad, Gwalior, Indore, Guzerat, and 
 Travancore off the face of the Peninsula." No Machiavellian precept has 
 ever surpassed this unscrupulous proposal, that we should " forswear " for the 
 present that policy which it is our destiny and our firm intention to accom- 
 plish " in time," or as soon as possible. Forswear annexation : swear eternal 
 friendship ; swear to respect treaties "/or the hour" (the Duke of Argyll says 
 "/or the time,) the pear is not ripe ! 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 217 
 
 impossible to avoid respecting the convictions formed by 
 him, and by the Calcutta Secretariat under successive Vice- 
 roys, as to the insuperable difficulty of restoring the Eajah 
 to the head of the executive Government after thirty years 
 of British administration. I have no doubt whatever that 
 all of them have, in the words of Mr. Mangles, " an anxious 
 regard for the interests of the great body of the people."* 
 I think they very much overrate the difficulty and danger 
 of the gradual transmutation of Mysore governed as a 
 Non-Begulation Province into Mysore governed as a Re- 
 formed Native State ; and I cannot but attribute these 
 doubts and fears in a great measure to official and national 
 prejudices and interests. But such doubts and fears most 
 naturally arise, and deserve attentive consideration. 
 
 The Governor-General writes as follows to the Secretary of 
 State in the Despatch of the 5th May, 1865 (paragraph 20) : 
 
 "There is no instance in which an administration, presided 
 over by an organised executive establishment of British officers, 
 has ever been under the direct power and control of a native 
 ruler. His Highness asserts that, if the administration of the 
 country were restored to him, it is not for one instant his inten- 
 tion to make any change in the present system, which would re- 
 main as it is now, a native administration, superintended and 
 controlled in its every branch by English officers. Were this 
 practicable, it is not clear what advantage would be derived from 
 such a transfer." f 
 
 The Governor-General in alluding to " the direct power 
 and control/' " the power and administration of the Maha- 
 rajah," adheres to the erroneous assumption that has so long 
 pervaded all the doctrine and practice of the Calcutta 
 Government with regard to native States, the assumption 
 that a Prince must either be a despot or a puppet. Mr. 
 Mangles again is profuse with contempt for such "mere 
 puppets in the hands of the British Government," as the 
 Eajahs of Sattara and Mysore, " held in leading-strings" 
 even when they were in charge of their own administration. J 
 Would it then be such a terrible disaster for India if all 
 , the Native Princes were " held in leading-strings," and could 
 become " mere puppets in the hands of the British Govern- 
 ment" ? In my humble opinion that would be a consum- 
 mation devoutly to be wished for, enabling the Imperial 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 87. t Ibid., p. 59. t Ibid., p. 84. 
 
218 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Power to wield the immense influence of ancient and 
 popular dynasties for purposes both of order and progress, 
 to keep the peace without bayonets or cannon, and to im- 
 prove the administration without superseding and degrading 
 all the higher classes of the country. None of the annexa- 
 tionists seem capable of appreciating either the advantages 
 of monarchy or the disadvantages of despotism. They 
 never seem to have considered the utility or the possibility 
 of a native Prince being controlled by a Code of laws, and 
 limited in his expenditure to a Privy Purse, under the 
 watchful superintendence not necessarily obtrusive or of- 
 fensive of a British Kesident. Such a Prince would not, 
 according to them, be "a real Sovereign ;" he would be 
 merely " a pageant Prince, a puppet, held in leading strings." 
 They cannot contemplate or tolerate a constitutional and 
 limited monarch in India ; they will admit no alternative 
 between a native despot and a British Commissioner. 
 
 Setting aside, then, this unnecessary supposition of abso- 
 lute power in the Sovereign, the Governor-General is not 
 quite right in saying that " there is no instance in which an 
 administration, presided over by an organised executive 
 establishment of British officers," has existed in a Native 
 State, without the Prince being displaced or deprived of all 
 share in the Government. There was something very like 
 it introduced into the Nizam's dominions, when Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe was Eesident at Hyderabad, as described in the 
 following extract from a recent publication : 
 
 t( Sir Charles Metcalfe, in the course of a few months after his 
 arrival, discovered the total disorganisation into which every de- 
 partment of the State, but more particularly the revenue, had 
 fallen before his appointment. He applied a prompt and efficient 
 remedy by placing European officers as Superintendents in the 
 different districts, who were entrusted with the general super- 
 vision of the subordinate officers employed by the Minister. The 
 Nizam's Government entered into the scheme with the greatest 
 readiness and seeming conviction of its expediency. The great 
 object in view was to effect a general settlement of the land 
 revenue throughout the Nizam's territories, and to afford the 
 cultivators and other classes protection against oppression or ex- 
 tortion on the part of the Government or its agents. For this 
 purpose the country was divided into several districts, to each of 
 which was assigned an European officer charged with the general 
 supervision of the revenue assessments and police. The exe- 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 219 
 
 cutive, however, was still vested in the subordinate officers of the 
 native Government. 
 
 " This system during the experience of eight years produced 
 the happiest results, and the country in general enjoyed an im- 
 munity from oppression, and a state of repose to which for cen- 
 turies past it had been a stranger."* 
 
 And if, after the departure of that eminent man, the 
 first opportunity was taken to discontinue this system of 
 supervision and gradual improvement, it is but one in- 
 stance of the utter indifference of the Calcutta officials to the 
 internal and independent reforms of a Native Principality. 
 
 What the Eajah asked for was that the British official at 
 the head of the administration of Mysore, should be called 
 Eesident instead of Commissioner, and should be, in fact, 
 the Prime Minister of the country, t not, as Mr. Bo wring 
 and the Secretary to Government at Calcutta choose to 
 misunderstand, that a separate and additional officer should 
 be appointed, with concurrent jurisdiction, certain to lead 
 to complications and inconvenience.lj: The Resident, at the 
 head of the administration of Mysore, would be very much 
 in the same position, though more firmly seated and armed 
 with greater power, as Sir Charles Metcalfe was when 
 Eesident at Hyderabad with his staff of English Superin- 
 tendents. The Eajah, like the Nizam, would be recognised 
 and respected as the reigning Sovereign. 
 
 But the Despatch inquires : " Were this practicable, it 
 is not clear what advantage would be derived from such a 
 transfer." There would be two advantages, first, the 
 maintenance of British honour, which is inestimable, even 
 as an element of conservative strength ; and second, the 
 maintenance of a reformed and tributary Native State, of 
 more value to us, in a political and military and even 1 in a 
 financial point of view, than a Province held in our imme- 
 diate possession, of double its extent and revenue. The 
 advantages to the people of Mysore and of all India, of 
 maintaining a reformed native Sovereignty among them, I 
 consider to be incalculably great. 
 
 The Governor-General then proceeds as follows : 
 
 " His Highness must be well aware that it is a practical im- 
 
 * Our Faithful Ally, the Nizam, by Capt. Hastings Fraser (Smith and 
 Elder), 1865, p. 232. 
 
 t Ante, p. 76. J Mysore Papers, p. 39 and 40. 
 
220 CHAPTER X. 
 
 possibility thus to transfer a body of British officers in civil 
 employment, and a considerable number of European planters, 
 and British-born subjects, and that the reversion of Mysore to 
 the power and administration of the Maharajah is synonymous 
 with the withdrawal of the European officers, and the abandon- 
 ment of a system of upwards of thirty years' growth. It is 
 tantamount to the collapse of order, and a rapid return to the 
 state of confusion and of insecurity of life, honour, and property, 
 from which, in 1831, the people of Mysore were rescued/'* 
 
 All this inflammatory declamation is so devoid of a sub- 
 stantial basis, and is in some points so opposed to facts 
 officially recorded, that it is difficult to acquit the writers 
 entirely of disingenuous exaggeration. They write, no 
 doubt, with the strongest belief that the Rajah's reinstate- 
 ment would be impracticable and injurious ; but it would 
 really seem as if, relying on their good intentions, they felt 
 themselves free from all responsibility for utterly unscru- 
 pulous rhetoric. Sir John Lawrence and his colleagues at 
 Calcutta must know very well that the Mysore rebellion of 
 1830 was declared by the Special Commissioners of Inquiry, 
 in their Report of 12th December, 1833, to have been 
 " partly attributable to causes which were beyond the con- 
 trol of the Rajah's administration," especially "to the with- 
 drawal of the advice of the British Resident ;" and that 
 both by the Commissioners of Inquiry and by Lord William 
 Bentinck, after his own strict local investigation, the Rajah 
 was almost entirely acquitted of personal misconduct. The 
 Calcutta officials must be well aware that Lord William 
 Bentinck and his two immediate successors, Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe and Lord Auckland, were quite ready and willing 
 to replace the Rajah at the head of his own Government. 
 The Rajah has pledged himself to maintain the laws and 
 plan of administration approved by the British Government ; 
 and there is as little reason to doubt the Rajah's sincerity 
 in giving that pledge, as there is to doubt the ample means 
 and appliances at the disposal of the British Government 
 to watch over and secure its due and exact observance. 
 Well knowing, as the writers of this despatch do, the unre- 
 stricted power held by themselves to guide and control the 
 Rajah, and to preserve the existing system unaltered, if 
 thought necessary, fully aware of the Rajah's willingness 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 59. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 221 
 
 to accept the position of a constitutional Sovereign, with 
 the Eesident as his Minister, until such time as the Imperial 
 Government should consider it safe and advisable to entrust 
 more freedom of action to his Highness, or his successor, 
 or to a native Minister, it is quite inexcusable that they 
 should profess to believe that the reinstatement of the 
 Maharajah would be "synonymous with the withdrawal of 
 the European officers, the abandonment of the present 
 system, and the collapse of order." 
 
 The rhetoric of Mr. Mangles on this part of the question, 
 as might be expected, is even more flagrantly unfair than 
 that of the Calcutta Foreign Office. 
 
 " Let us assume/' says he, " for the sake of argument, that 
 the remonstrances of those who insist with so much earnest- 
 ness that justice and the faith of treaties should constrain 
 us to allow the Eajah to adopt a successor were permitted 
 to prevail. There would then be two, and only two, courses 
 open to us ; either the adopted son must be permitted to 
 become the actual ruler of his country, to appoint his own 
 officers, and to administer justice and the revenue accord- 
 ing to his own views and principles, or affairs must be car- 
 ried on, as at present, by a British Commissioner, assisted 
 by a body of British officers, who would exercise all real 
 power, and in whose hands the nominal Rajah would be the 
 merest puppet."* 
 
 Let me draw attention to the words which I have placed 
 in italics. The " actual ruler" is of course the inevitable 
 despot, uncontrolled and unimprovable. The "nominal 
 Eajah" and " merest puppet" is that contemptible character 
 a constitutional Sovereign. Why must a Eajah placed at 
 the head of a reformed government, "administer justice 
 and the revenue according to his own views and prin- 
 ciples" 1 Why should he not administer justice and the 
 revenue according to our views and principles, as the 
 Eajahs of Travancore and Kolapore no thanks to the 
 Calcutta Foreign Office, have learned to do ? If Mr. 
 Mangles and Sir John Lawrence do not know perfectly well 
 that all the advantages of the present administration of 
 Mysore could be naturalised and perpetuated under a re- 
 stored native Government, then they are grossly ignorant 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 85. 
 
222 CHAPTER X. 
 
 of the happiest and most hopeful results of our political 
 operations in India, and blind to the administrative ability 
 sufficient though not superabundant which lies at their 
 disposal. If, instead of hunting after imaginary precedents 
 for ignoring adoptions, counting them before they have 
 caught them, and constructing out of them a fictitious law 
 of confiscation, they would turn their attention for no 
 research is required to the real precedents for reforming 
 Principalities, they would find that the "schemes, which 
 Mr. Mangles pretends have ended in " utter and hopeless 
 ship wreck,"* --the "experiments" which the Governor- 
 General declares must be " futile and pernicious," J" have 
 never failed. 
 
 It would be useless at this time to enter into any dis- 
 cussion as to the alleged ingratitude and plots of the E-ajah 
 of Sattara, which Mr. Mangles rakes up for the occasion. J 
 
 Suffice it to say that four of the Directors of the East 
 India Company, Messrs. H. St. George Tucker, Cotton, 
 Shepherd, and Forbes, recorded Minutes of dissent against 
 his deposition ; that Mr. Henry Shakespear, a Member of 
 the Supreme Council of India, considered that " no charge 
 of a serious nature had been substantiated against the 
 Eajah ; that one of the Directors, Mr. Forbes, declared his 
 belief that all that Prince's misfortunes were caused by a 
 Palace conspiracy, of which, in his words, we were " the 
 dupes" and he was "the victim ;"j| and that many other 
 competent judges at the time expressed opinions equally 
 decided in favour of the Rajah's cause. And there is at 
 least this presumptive proof of his innocence, that he 
 steadily rejected all compromise, and when a full amnesty 
 was offered him, resolved to sacrifice his throne, to abandon 
 his treasures, to relinquish his home, and to go into exile 
 with his family to a distant part of India, rather than sub- 
 scribe certain articles which implied a confession of his 
 criminality. " Guilt," said Mr. Tucker, " would have found 
 it easy to accept the conditions proposed, in order to escape 
 from the threatened penalty. The consciousness of rectitude 
 must be strong when it impels a man to make a great sacri- 
 fice to a sense of honour, however mistaken."<[[ And in this 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 87. t Ibid., p. 59. J Ibid., p. 85, 86. 
 
 || Sattara Papers, 1843, p. 1260. Ibid., 1255. H Ibid., p. 1258. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 223 
 
 instance the sacrifice was tremendous, and was made with 
 perfect deliberation and great dignity. 
 
 Mr. Mangles has used the supposed treachery of the 
 Eajah of Sattara once before, with complete success, as a 
 plea for the extinction of that State, at the death of the 
 Ex-Eajah's brother. He may well be satisfied with that 
 exploit, for he not only carried his point then, but he 
 thereby fabricated the sole precedent for the annexations of 
 Jhansi and Nagpore. I have but a few words to add on 
 this subject. Mr. Mangles thinks that by maintaining a 
 native Sovereign in Mysore we run the risk of future in- 
 trigues and doubtful allegiance. It may be so. Let us 
 consider the guilt of the Eajah of Sattara to have been as 
 clear as day. Then during his reign we had one disaffected 
 and intriguing tributary. Is it equally certain that we had 
 one less when the Principality was abolished ? I believe, 
 on the contrary, that by that unjust, useless, and unprofit- 
 able acquisition we created hundreds of enemies, and ex- 
 cited innumerable intrigues and conspiracies. Bad news 
 travels apace, and travels afar. Sir John Low tells us that 
 " the confidence of our native allies was a good deal shaken 
 by the annexation of Sattara", and that it roused feelings 
 of discontent and alarm throughout Malwa and Eajpootana, 
 where he was at that time Agent to the Governor-General.* 
 And Sir Frederick Currie, in his Dissent from the despatch 
 of 1864, remarks: "The decision in the Sattara case, 
 whatever its merits may be, undoubtedly caused surprise 
 and alarm throughout the length and breadth of India", t 
 
 Mr. Mangles, though from his position at the India Office 
 he ought to know better, may still be under the same delu- 
 sion as the Duke of Argyll, who as a Cabinet Minister 
 might have had access to the best information, that " the 
 infection of the mutiny never reached the Presidencies of 
 Madras or of Bombay", and that " the entire armies of 
 Bombay and of Madras escaped the plague". J The Field 
 Forces that were actively engaged for so many months in 
 suppressing insurrection, not without much bloodshed, in 
 
 * Papers relating to the Rajah of Berar, 1854, p. 43. 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 46. 
 
 I India under Dalhousie and Canning (Longman and Co.), 1865, p. 118 
 and 92. 
 
224 CHAPTER X. 
 
 the Eewa Kanta, in the Satpoora district, on the Goa fron- 
 tier, in Kolapore, Nargoond, Shorapore, Jumkhundee, and 
 Kopal, and other parts of the Mahratta country ; the muti- 
 nies of the 27th Bombay Native Infantry at Kolapore, 
 where some of their officers were murdered, of the 21st at 
 Kurrachee,* the partial misconduct of the 2nd and 3rd 
 Bombay Cavalry at Neemuch and Nusseerabad, and of the 
 Golundauz Artillery in Scinde ; the disaffection and plots 
 among the 10th and llth Native Infantry and the Marine 
 Battalion, in the city of Bombay itself, when two sepoys 
 were blown from guns, and others transported ; the attempted 
 mutiny of the 2nd Grenadiers at Ahmedabad, for which 
 upwards of twenty men were executed ; the notorious con- 
 spiracies throughout the Deccan ; the sixteen executions 
 at Sattara, several at Belgaum, and twenty-six in Nag- 
 pore,t might suggest even to Mr. Mangles and the Duke of 
 Argyll some little doubt whether the disappearance of the 
 Eajahs of Sattara and Nagpore from the political scene of 
 India, did actually reduce the number or lessen the proba- 
 bility of hostile intrigues, or whether it did not rather add 
 to and augment their number and their incentives. 
 
 And, therefore, while Mr. Mangles adduces for the second 
 time in his career as an Indian statesman, the alleged plots 
 of the Rajah of Sattara, for the purpose of crying down 
 native dependencies, as if by abolishing the Mysore Raj we 
 should be relieved from at least one chance of princely 
 treachery, I shall retain the opinion, shared by many more 
 competent and more entitled to speak than myself, that if 
 that great injustice should really be perpetrated, those 
 chances would be infinitely multiplied, and that in exchange 
 for the one good friend whom we throw away, we should 
 engender a hundred enemies, and justify their enmity. 
 
 Mr. Mangles has been very dexterous, I might say, am- 
 
 * Both of these regiments were disbanded, and their numbers struck out of 
 the Army List. 
 
 t In the Province of Nagpore, without counting those killed in open rebel- 
 lion or summarily hanged by military authority, there were nine executions 
 in 1857 for high treason, and seventeen for mutiny. But amid the greater 
 dangers and horrors further north, these trifles were little noticed. And it is 
 very natural that those who did their best to promote the rapacious schemes 
 which mainly caused the revolt, should shut their eyes to those facts which 
 prove a general disaffection, and should speak of the great national movement 
 of 1857-8 as a mere mutiny of Bengal Sepoys. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 225 
 
 bidextrous, in the treatment of his two illustrations. He 
 heightens the tints of both pictures, and then produces the 
 highest effect by their alternate exhibition. At the same 
 time he is very careful not to display the whole of either 
 of them. Thus he draws away our attention to the alleged 
 disloyalty of one of the Rajahs of Sattara, without alluding 
 to his administration, because the State was always well 
 governed. He dwells exclusively, and in exaggerated lan- 
 guage, on the alleged misgovernment of Mysore, because 
 the Rajah has always been conspicuously loyal. 
 
 The administration of the deposed Rajah of Sattara was 
 declared by the Court of Directors to be "a model to all 
 native rulers."* The country was equally well governed by 
 his younger brother, who was not possessed of half his 
 abilities and energy ; one instance among many that might 
 be given, though none ought to be required by a states- 
 man imbued with constitutional principles, that the good 
 government of a well organised State is not entirely de- 
 pendent on the talents and personal character of the 
 monarch. 
 
 Sattara was well governed, because the administration 
 was admirably constructed, and the Rajah carefully and 
 judiciously instructed, by an excellent political officer, Cap- 
 tain Grant Duff,f whose name is still revered in the Mah- 
 ratta country. Mysore was badly governed, because it was 
 disgracefully neglected. In the year 1811 the Rajah, then 
 sixteen years of age, having received merely an ordinary 
 Hindoo education and utterly untrained in administrative 
 affairs, was allowed to assume absolute power. In the year 
 1814, when the young Prince was nineteen years old, he was 
 encouraged by the Government of Madras to resent and resist 
 the advice of the British Resident. Sir Henry Montgomery 
 writes as follows in his Dissent of the 13th July, 1863 : 
 " The Maharajah is declared to have failed to have fulfilled 
 the conditions of the Subsidiary Treaty by neglecting the 
 advice of the British Government, though it is well known 
 and officially on record, that not only was no advice ren- 
 dered, but that it was systematically and purposely with- 
 
 * Sattara Papers, 1843, p. 1268. 
 
 t Author of the History of the Mahrattas, (Longman, 1826). 
 
226 CHAPTER X. 
 
 held." And Sir Frederic Currie says : " The conditions of 
 the 14th Article of the Treaty the British Government had 
 themselves, it must be admitted, ' failed to fulfil/ when 
 they systematically withheld from the Rajah the advice 
 which, by that Article, they are bound to give him in 
 the conduct of every detailed department of the admi- 
 nistration."* 
 
 This is what the Calcutta officials call " patient yet re- 
 monstrant forbearance !"j- Yet Mr. Mangles, knowing all 
 this, does not scruple to say that " it could not reasonably 
 be expected that the adopted son should enjoy such great 
 advantages in the way of political education as the present 
 Rajah turned to so miserable an account." J I should like 
 to hear from Mr. Mangles what his idea of political educa- 
 tion is, and what great advantages in that respect were, in 
 his opinion, enjoyed by the Rajah of Mysore, The- obvious 
 truth is that the present Rajah received no political educa- 
 tion at all ; while nothing but the continued neglect of 
 our Government could prevent his heir and successor from 
 receiving the best possible education, both in the ordinary 
 branches of study and in political affairs. 
 
 Mr. Mangles, however, would probably explain that in 
 referring to " great advantages in the way of political edu- 
 cation," he alluded to " the tutelage of a native statesman 
 of high character and great ability," Poorniah, " who was 
 the wise and honest guardian of the Rajah's youth." But 
 Mr. Mangles must know very well, or ought to know from 
 the records before him, that Poorniah's tutelage consisted in 
 removing from the young Prince's reach all means of im- 
 proving his mind and of becoming acquainted with public 
 business, and encouraging him in every sort of frivolous 
 pursuit. Poorniah's great project, in which he tried very 
 hard to obtain the countenance of the British authorities, 
 was to throw his Master completely into the background, 
 and to gain for himself and his family the position of here- 
 ditary Premier. 1 1 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 21-22. t Ibid., p. 59. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 85. Ibid. 
 
 || Ante, p. 14. This is referred to in the Rajah's letter (Mysore Paper 
 p. 63), but Mr. Mangles can see the detailed account in the Resident's reports 
 of the time. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 227 
 
 And Mr. Mangles must know very well that the Special 
 Committee of Inquiry, in their Keport of 12th December, 
 1833, include in their censure the .period of Poorniah's 
 administration, and that the " oppression and extortion," of 
 which the Rajah is accused, was simply the continuance of 
 Poorniah's overstrained assessment.* 
 
 Having thus made the most effective use in his power, 
 of the alleged disloyalty in the one instance, and of the 
 alleged misrule in the other, Mr. Mangles then inquires, 
 " what there is in the result of these two deliberate expe- 
 riments/' those of Mysore and Sattara, "to encourage 
 us to convert the real Government which now exists in 
 Mysore, as administered exclusively by British officers, into 
 a second sham Principality, by allowing the Rajah of Mysore 
 to adopt a successor ?") 
 
 Before I proceed further in my answer to that question, 
 let me ask one, viz., What is there in the result of the de- 
 liberate experiment of annexing Sattara, to encourage us to 
 repeat it in Mysore ? Have we gained that increase of 
 revenue that was promised 1 Have we gained the military 
 advantages that were contemplated ?+ Have we gained 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 64, ante, p. 25, 26. t Ibid, p. 85. 
 
 J General Sir John Littler, the gallant soldier who was a member of the 
 Supreme Council in 1848, at once perceived the absurdity of the military plea 
 for annexation. Lord Dalhousie having urged that Sattara lay " in the very 
 heart of our own possessions," and was " interposed between the two principal 
 military stations in the Presidency of Bombay" (Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 83), 
 Sir John Littler remarked as follows in his Minute : " Should it be ultimately 
 decided that the adopted son of the late Rajah shall succeed to the sovereignty 
 of the Sattara territory, as suggested by Sir George Clerk, I am not aware 
 that any practical inconvenience would result, in a military point of view, 
 from its being situated between two of our divisions. As a general rule, how- 
 ever, the absorption of small independent Principalities, which happen to be 
 surrounded by our territories, will not always in my opinion tend to augment 
 our power : on the contrary, it appears to me that such a policy would be apt 
 to weaken it (except in special cases), by extending the British possessions 
 beyond the limits to which our supervision could be safely and effectually 
 afforded." (Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 86.) Yet when he was arguing for the 
 annexation of Nagpore, Lord Dalhousie again began to urge the great advan- 
 tage it would be " to absorb a separate military power," and " to combine our 
 military strength." (Rajah of Berar Papers, 1854, p. 35, 36.) We required no 
 European Regiment at Nagpore before the annexation ; there is one there now 
 besides Artillery. There was not a single British soldier in the Kingdom of 
 Oude from 1846 to 1856, when it was annexed, including the period of our 
 Sutlej and Punjaub wars, when every man was urgently required. We have 
 now in the Province of Oude one Regiment of Dragoons, seven batteries of 
 Artillery, and four Battalions of Foot. And this is the way we consolidate our 
 military strength ! 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 CHAPTER X. 
 
 the love and cheerful allegiance of the people and of the 
 Mahratta Chieftains'? Let Mr. Mangles turn to the records 
 in the India Office and answer rny first question, as to the 
 financial gains ; I can find a full answer to the others 
 in those bloody events of 1857, to which I have just re- 
 ferred. 
 
 But why does Mr. Mangles term the existing administra- 
 tion of Mysore " a real government" \ It appears to me 
 that the British Commissioner is quite as much " in leading 
 strings," which Mr. Mangles seems to think such a degrading 
 and ridiculous position, as the Kajah of Travancore is, and 
 as I should wish the Eajah of Mysore to be. Why does 
 not Mr. Mangles either insist on despotic powers being con- 
 ferred on Mr. Bo wring, or deride him as a mere puppet, 
 " devoid of political volition" ?* 
 
 I am very far from admitting that the Eajah of Mysore 
 ever was, or even that he is now devoid of political volition. 
 However closely a Hindoo Prince may be held in leading 
 strings, whether his constitutional adviser be a Resident, 
 a Dewan, or a Council of State, he will always retain that 
 political volition and influence which no British Commis- 
 sioner can ever acquire. 
 
 Without going as far back as the eventful period between 
 1819 and 1825, when the Rajah, then in very loose leading 
 strings, received the warmest acknowledgments of his 
 "zealous and efficient assistance" from the Marquis of 
 Hastings, which having been repeated in an autograph 
 despatch to the Court of Directors, can certainly not be 
 treated as a mere conventional compliment,t we can find 
 sufficient proof in the Blue-Book before us that the " poli- 
 tical volition" of the Rajah of Mysore, now really reduced 
 to the position of a "pageant Prince," was of essential ser- 
 vice to our Government during the terrible crisis of 1857. 
 Jn reply to the Govern or- General's Circular, dated 26th 
 February, 1858, requiring a report on the conduct of parties 
 during the mutiny, Sir Mark Cubbon reported, that "the 
 Brahminical caste (very powerful), even those in the actual 
 employ of Government, were discontented and hostile ; the 
 heads of religious institutions, the great Sowcars, the petty 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 86. t Ibid., p. 34. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 229 
 
 Poligars and heads of villages, who subside with reluctance 
 into their proper and ancient position of the wealthiest and 
 most influential ryots of their respective neighbourhoods, 
 are all against our rule, and disaffected towards the British 
 Government." The Commissioner added : " In watching 
 over such a community, there had been a constant call for 
 information, and much had been obtained, proving beyond 
 doubt the existence among the classes above named, of a 
 spirit exceedingly hostile to the British Government ; evinced 
 in carrying on correspondence with the malcontents in the 
 North, in the favourable reception of emissaries of mischief 
 from that quarter ; and in the convening of treasonable 
 meetings at their own houses, for the purpose of plotting 
 the subversion of our power." At this time, said Sir Mark 
 Cubbon, in his letter to the Governor-General, dated 2nd 
 June, 1860, "to no one was the Government more indebted 
 for the preservation of tranquillity than to his Highness the 
 Eajah, who displayed the most steadfast loyalty throughout 
 the crisis ; discountenancing everything in the shape of 
 disaffection, and taking every opportunity to proclaim his 
 perfect confidence in the stability of the English rule." 
 And Sir Mark Cubbon declares that the Rajah's influence 
 and the display of his friendly offices, " produced great 
 moral effects throughout the country. In fact, there was 
 nothing in his power which he did not do to manifest his 
 fidelity to the British Government, and to discourage the 
 unfriendly."* 
 
 Perhaps I can hardly expect to bring sudden conviction 
 to the minds of Mr. Mangles and the Duke of Argyll ; but 
 1 hope our leading statesmen, both Liberal and Conservative, 
 will not remain blind, until it is too late, to the vast ma- 
 chinery of moral power, fitted to our hands and subject to 
 our guidance, which the professional administrators of Cal- 
 cutta are still sedulously bent on destroying. By twenty 
 years of determined hostility to native States, these worse 
 than Eed Eepublicans, these Red Tape Republicans have 
 gained promotion and swelled their patronage, but they 
 have drained the military strength of the Empire almost to 
 exhaustion, and have left us little else to rely on in India. 
 Indeed, they seem every day more and more inclined to 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 33, ante, p. 47. 
 
230 CHAPTER X. 
 
 trust to nothing but material force. How much longer will 
 British Statesmen permit their hands to be tied in Europe 
 and their faces blackened in Asia, by the officials of Calcutta 
 and the retired officials of the India Office 1 Can they not 
 think for themselves ? Conservatives might be supposed to 
 set some value on monarchical institutions ; and Liberals 
 ought to feel some compunction at the continued and 
 extended degradation of an intelligent and docile people. 
 
 There is no reason that Mysore should become more of 
 " a sham Principality" than it is at present ; there is 110 
 necessity for any such degeneration. I hope for better 
 things. Without recommending any hasty measures of 
 change, and well understanding the prudence of very cau- 
 tious alterations, both during the present Rajah's lifetime 
 and during the minority of his successor, I can see no ne- 
 cessity for Mysore being for ever " administered exclusively 
 by British officers." 
 
 Mr. Bowring, the present Commissioner of Mysore, has 
 evinced an enlightened and disinterested desire to do equal 
 j ustice to all his subordinate officials, without regard to race 
 and creed, and with a sole view to the public good, by 
 promoting and I believe he is the only Provincial Lieu- 
 tenant in India who has ventured on such a bold step, a 
 Brahmin gentleman, a native of Mysore, to the charge of a 
 District, and by what he probably has found still more 
 difficult, maintaining him in that position for two years.* 
 I doubt very much whether this Brahmin gentleman is the 
 only native servant of Government in Mysoje or in India, 
 who is fit for so high or even for a higher position. And 
 if the reigning Rajah or his successor were again permitted 
 to take a share in the executive government of the country, 
 it is probable that the gradual introduction of well-qualified 
 and educated natives into posts which have been hitherto 
 exclusively reserved for English officers, might, by the 
 Prince's influence and in deference to his natural prepos- 
 sessions, be considerably accelerated. And this is the 
 greatest reason of all why I wish to see the native monarchy 
 
 * My attention was first drawn to this incident by seeing the appointment 
 in the Calcutta Gazette of 3rd September, 1864 ; and I have lately ascertained 
 that no change has taken place, though Mr. Bowring has been often importuned 
 to remove the native in favour of an English officer. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 231 
 
 substantially and not colourably restored. This is my 
 greatest reason for deprecating any attempt to settle this 
 question by a measure, however liberal, of compromise and 
 compensation. I earnestly wish to save British honour in 
 the face of the Princes and people of India, I certainly do 
 not underrate the urgency of that consideration, but above 
 all I want to extend our means of usefulness. It is only 
 by employing a native dynasty as our medium that we can 
 arrive at the most satisfactory and durable result of our 
 struggles and labours, a reformed native State, organised 
 on British principles, and never released from Imperial 
 supervision, but governed and administered entirely by its 
 own Prince and its own Statesmen and officials. The re- 
 formed institutions that are only to be found in our own 
 immediate possessions, under the management of English 
 officers, are superficial and precarious, and even while they 
 seem to work smoothly, are maintained by a disproportionate 
 waste of life and power on our side, and at a cruel cost 
 of humiliation and political proscription to the most 
 advanced and most improvable classes of the native com- 
 munity. 
 
 The most powerful arguments against renewed annexa- 
 tions seem to me to spring from the impossibility that all 
 the varying interests and requirements of an immense con- 
 tinent, with nearly two hundred millions of inhabitants, 
 speaking upwards of twenty distinct languages, can be 
 adequately watched and tended by a centralised Govern- 
 ment of salaried officials such as now attempts to rule all 
 India by correspondence from Calcutta. Such a Govern- 
 ment cannot continue for an indefinite period to command 
 respect and obedience, or to be satisfactory and improving 
 to the people in its action. The happiness and progress of 
 nations do not depend on forms. The best institutions are 
 not permanently safe unless they are under the custody of 
 men who understand them, who have a personal interest iri 
 their security, and who are bound to the soil by the ties of 
 blood and property. The system of governing India, in 
 every district and in every detail, by Englishmen, is open 
 to these fatal objections, that it lowers the moral influence 
 of the Paramount Power, that it deprives of political pri- 
 vileges those among the natives who, with a little help and 
 
232 CHAPTER X. 
 
 guidance, are fit to use them, while it does not educate for 
 political life those who are as yet unfit. And the perpetual 
 continuance and extension of such a system can only be 
 plausibly justified on those grounds of utter contempt for 
 the races to be governed which consign them to perfect 
 stagnation, or incite them to privy conspiracy. 
 
 A more hopeful and a more progressive policy will never 
 be devised amidst the antipathies and antagonism and 
 vested interests of Calcutta. It must originate here, and 
 it is high time to make a beginning. Let us begin by 
 abstaining from the unjust extinction of a reformed native 
 State. 
 
 For it is not merely with a view to the Statics of the 
 Empire, not merely as a guardian and guarantee of order, 
 that we should maintain a Rajah of Mysore on the throne. 
 We require him much more as an agent in the Dynamics of 
 government, with a view to progress. The people will 
 follow their leaders. We can never become popular leaders 
 ourselves, but we can easily control, manage and direct 
 those who are the natural leaders of the people, and who 
 are perfectly amenable to British instruction. 
 
 And let me once more call attention to the fact that 
 British instruction has never failed. It was eminently 
 successful in Sattara, so much so that, while arguing against 
 the recognition of the second Rajah's adopted son, Lord 
 Dalhousie admitted "the excellence" of the deceased Prince's 
 " administration", declaring it to have been " conspicuous 
 for wisdom and mildness",* and only expressing a doubt 
 whether this was not attributable rather to "the personal 
 qualities" of the Rajah than to "the nature of the institu- 
 tions of the State." But, as we have just remarked, the 
 State was equally well governed by the elder brother ; and 
 the greater part of the credit which on this occasion Lord 
 Dalhousie was pleased to ascribe to a Hindoo Prince, was 
 clearly due to Captain Grant Duff's instructions, and to the 
 institutions which he established. 
 
 Sir Charles Metcalfe's reforms, carried out by English 
 Superintendents, succeeded in Hyderabad ;* but unfor- 
 tunately on the very first application of the young Nizam, 
 Nasir-ood-Dowla, who came to the throne in 1829, the 
 
 * Sattara Papers, 1849, p. 82. 
 

 THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 233 
 
 system of supervision was entirely discontinued, and the 
 beneficial results of eight years' labour, prematurely checked, 
 were almost thrown away. 
 
 In Nagpore, during the minority of the last Rajah, from 
 1818 to 1829, the efforts of Sir Richard Jenkins were most 
 successful in introducing a regular plan of administration ; 
 and although many defects and abuses subsequently sprang 
 up, owing to the neglect and total want of settled principles, 
 which characterised our diplomatic relations with that State, f 
 the good effects of British instruction were so far permanent, 
 that during twenty-five years of purely native government, 
 our active and open interference was never once re- 
 quired, to check oppression, to keep the peace, or to restore 
 order. 
 
 The State of Travancore, now so noted for its prosperity 
 and good government, was in the year 1808 in a much worse 
 plight than Mysore was in 1831. There were no doubtful 
 intrigues, as alleged against Sattara ; there was no question 
 of fiscal extortion, paralleled and even exceeded in British 
 districts, as alleged against Mysore, but there was open 
 war against the Paramount Power, and utter disorganisation 
 throughout the country. The Subsidy due to the Honour- 
 able Company had fallen into a long arrear ; the Rajah, 
 under the influence of an ambitious Minister, defied the in- 
 junctions of the Madras Government to reduce the number 
 of his troops ; the Resident's house was attacked, and an at- 
 tempt made to murder him. One of the chief officers of the 
 Court, the Minister's brother, treacherously induced a party 
 of English soldiers to come on shore from a ship for refresh- 
 ment, and had them all put to death. For several months 
 the Rajah's troops resisted in the field the military measures 
 that were adopted for his coercion. When the Travancore 
 army was dispersed, the Minister committed suicide ; his 
 brother was taken prisoner and publicly executed ; and the 
 Rajah was reduced to submission. The disorders consequent 
 on this insurrection were so difficult of repression, and a 
 spirit of disaffection became so manifest throughout the 
 country, that in 1809, under Article V of the Treaty of 
 
 * Ante, p. 218. 
 
 t See the opinions expressed by Mr. Mansel, the last Resident at Mysore, 
 ante, p. 143. 
 
234 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1805 (identical with Article IV of the Subsidiary Treaty 
 with the Rajah of Mysore,) the management of Travancore 
 was assumed by the British Government. For five years 
 full authority was exercised by Colonel John Munro, the 
 Resident, as Dewan or Minister; and in 1814 on the ac- 
 cession of a young Rajah, the administration of the State 
 was transferred to a native Dewan, extricated from its em- 
 barrassments, and in a condition of great prosperity.* The 
 good eifects of this period of British instruction have never 
 been lost ; the supervision of the Madras Government has 
 never been withdrawn ; and although neither the local ad- 
 ministration nor the exercise of the Resident's influence has 
 been uniformly irreproachable, on the whole the progress of 
 Travancore has been steady and satisfactory. The Maha- 
 rajah and the heir apparent,*)* his brother, Prince Rama 
 Vurmah, both of them accomplished English scholars, are 
 distinguished for their exemplary conduct, and their en- 
 lightened attention to public affairs and scientific pursuits. 
 The Brahmin Minister of Travancore, Madava Rao, is a 
 graduate of the. Madras University. In special recognition 
 of his merits as a ruler, the Rajah has lately received an 
 augmentation of his titles and honours, and has been in- 
 vested with the Star of India ; while his able Minister has 
 been deservedly admitted to the Companionship of the 
 same Exalted Order. 
 
 The Mahratta Principalities of Kolapore and Sawunt 
 Warree, within the frontiers of the Bombay Presidency, 
 were placed under the control of English officers, the 
 former in 1845, the latter in 1838, in both instances after 
 a period of rebellion and disorder of a very formidable 
 character, directly hostile to British power, and in the sup- 
 pression of which large military forces were engaged for 
 many months, and much blood was shed. And in both 
 instances certain members of the Prince's family were im- 
 plicated in conspiracies against our Government. Sawunt 
 Warree is still retained under British management ; but 
 the Chief has received a sunnud from the Viceroy, assuring 
 
 * Thornton's Gazetteer of India (compiled by authority of the Court of 
 Directors), article " Travancore." 
 
 t According to the law of succession in the Travancore family, the Rajah's 
 brother has the first right of succession, and then the sister's son. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 235 
 
 him that the adoption of a successor will be recognised in 
 his family, should direct male issue fail. And in the mean 
 time the Eajah's eldest son, who, scarcely emerged from 
 boyhood, was engaged in the rebellion of 1844, and had 
 taken refuge in the Portuguese settlement of Goa, has been 
 restored to his forfeited birthright. This is a generous 
 policy, by which we shall sooner or later gain more than 
 the revenue of this little Eaj is worth ten times told. But 
 how strange a contrast it offers to the treatment of the 
 Rajah of Mysore, upon whose fidelity or that of his family 
 and adherents, no suspicion has ever been cast ; during 
 whose reign upwards of fifteen millions sterling have been 
 paid as tribute ; whose troops have constantly cooperated 
 with ours on active service ; who has been repeatedly 
 thanked by several Viceroys, by the Secretary of State and 
 by the Queen herself, for his friendly influence on our be- 
 half and the ready and useful assistance rendered in time 
 of need. 
 
 After having been entirely administered under British 
 control for seventeen years, the State of Kolapore was re- 
 stored to the rule of its Hindoo Sovereign in the year 1862. 
 The results of this transfer may be estimated from the fol- 
 lowing extract of a speech made by Sir Bartle Frere, the 
 present Governor of Bombay,* at a public Durbar held at 
 Belgaum on the 28th November, 1865 : 
 
 " 1 had lately the pleasure of congratulating his Highness 
 the Eaj ah of Kolapoor on having shown himself, after a 
 long probation, worthy to resume the direct administration 
 of his territories, which in the time of his predecessor and 
 previous to his own coming of age, had, as you all know, 
 so often been a prey to every form of misgovernment and 
 confusion. I found his Highness not only himself able to 
 converse in English with English gentlemen on most topics 
 of public and private interest, but carefully training up, 
 under his own eye, and in his own palace, a class of young 
 Chiefs, the sons of all the principal officers of his State, 
 who will have the means of obtaining as good an English 
 education as his Highness himself received under the pa- 
 
 * He was Resident at Sattara in 1848, and remonstrated against the annex- 
 ation as ranch as was possible to an officer in that position. See Sattara 
 Papers, 1849. 
 
236 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ternal care of the Political Agents who have been Eegents 
 of his State, from Colonel Douglas Graham and Mr. Ander- 
 son to Mr. Havelock. I found every department of the 
 State well superintended by his Highness in person, and 
 every visible mark of justice being duly administered, and 
 of the people being well governed, prosperous, and con- 
 tented." 
 
 Surely this reform is deeper, this progress is more per- 
 manent, than anything that could have been effected if the 
 Kolapore State had been appropriated, and had become a 
 Collectorate of the Bombay Presidency, But it must be 
 remembered that in the case of Tr a van core the policy of 
 reformation and restoration was designed and carried out 
 from Madras, in the other two cases from Bombay, not from 
 Calcutta ; and in all three instances the good work was ini- 
 tiated before Lord Dalhousie's arrival in India. 
 
 Without adducing any more facts and illustrations, I 
 think I may now claim to have made out my assertion that 
 instead of any of our " experiments" having ended, as Mr. 
 Mangles declares, in "utter and hopeless shipwreck," they 
 have never failed. Wherever British instruction has been 
 allowed a fair trial, it has invariably succeeded. It has 
 never been allowed a fair trial in Hyderabad ; it was re- 
 laxed too soon and too suddenly at Nagpore ; it was never 
 tried at all in Oude. In Mysore, after that disastrous and 
 discreditable period of neglect and indifference, which the 
 Governor-General terms " remonstrant forbearance," we in- 
 terfered and introduced a regular and orderly administration; 
 but thenceforward we unfortunately drifted into the opposite 
 extreme from negligence. We have carried out certain 
 reforms most effectually : but we have signalised our man- 
 agement by the complete and persistent exclusion of the 
 Eajah from all share in the government ; costly and super- 
 fluous establishments, entailing numerous lucrative offices 
 for English gentlemen, have been imposed upon the country ; 
 and young Englishmen without any peculiar qualifications 
 have been placed even in minor positions, the duties of 
 which could be fulfilled in a much more efficient manner by 
 natives, with the great advantage of their improvement in 
 knowledge, in self-respect, arid in attachment to British su- 
 premacy and Western institutions. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 237 
 
 These errors were not committed in Travancore and Ko- 
 lapore : those Principalities were not overrun with expensive 
 establishments, out of all proportion with the requirements 
 of the time and people ; nor were appointments for young 
 English gentlemen multiplied, to the detriment and degra- 
 dation of native talent. The good work was done there, 
 as all our more celebrated tasks of pacification and organi- 
 sation in India have been done, by one or two able and 
 experienced English officers in each State, with the aid of 
 some special native agency, and the existing local authori- 
 ties, so far as they were amenable to improvement. The 
 large and growing revenue, affording so solid a basis for 
 increased expenditure, may partly account for the progress 
 of patronage in Mysore ; but in the early stage of British 
 management there was good cause for the introduction of 
 a few more English officers than was at first contemplated, 
 in the prejudices and passive obstruction of the older native 
 officials whom we found installed in the districts. But 
 nothing of the sort is now to be feared ; no counteraction 
 could possibly take place from any quarter ; a large body 
 of public servants have been trained in our system ; and 
 well qualified natives, educated in our schools arid Univer- 
 sities, are available for employment. There is nothing now 
 to prevent our Government from gradually restoring a 
 native administration in Mysore. Mr. Bowring, the present 
 Commissioner, as already noticed,* has shown us how easy 
 it is to make a beginning ; and if definite instructions and 
 orders on the subject were given, and the work of recon- 
 struction were entered upon in good faith and with a good 
 will, it could be thoroughly completed in a very few years. 
 The first and most essential step in the restorative process 
 would be the public reinstatement of the Rajah at the head 
 of his own Government, with a British Resident as his 
 Minister. 
 
 So long as a considerable number of English officers were 
 still engaged in the administration, it might fairly be con- 
 sidered advisable to maintain a provisional restraint over the 
 executive action of the reigning Sovereign, unaccustomed as 
 he must be to the forms and procedure of a limited monarchy. 
 
 * Ante, p. 230. 
 
238 CHAPTER X. 
 
 But I can see no reason why the young Prince, his adopted 
 son, after receiving for fifteen or sixteen years those advan- 
 tages of English education and political training, which 
 pace Mr. Mangles not his father, but the Eajahs of Tra- 
 vancore and Kolapore, enjoyed, should not be admitted to 
 the same freedom of action as those Princes, and, with the 
 assistance of a native Minister, perform all the functions of 
 a constitutional Sovereign. 
 
 There is still one somewhat plausible argument, advanced 
 both in the despatches from Calcutta and in the Minute by 
 Mr. Mangles, which must not be passed over without a reply. 
 The Governor-General in that passage of the Despatch of 
 the 5th May, 1865, which we last quoted (ante, p. 220), de- 
 clares it to be "a practical impossibility" to transfer "a con- 
 siderable number of European planters" to a native Govern- 
 ment. And Mr. Mangles expands the same objection in the 
 following terms : 
 
 " In another very important respect, the adopted son of the 
 Rajah would find himself beset with difficulties which did not 
 embarrass his predecessor, and with which, I apprehend, that 110 
 native ruler, even with the best abilities and intentions, could 
 successfully cope. Mysore is now full of European settlers, coffee 
 planters and others, and every day is adding to their numbers. If 
 English magistrates find it no easy task to hold the balance even, 
 and to keep the peace between the planters and ryots of Bengal, 
 we might well expect that Mysore would be thrown into a state 
 little short of civil war and anarchy, if native officials had to deal 
 with differences carried on, probably with the same heat and per- 
 tinacity between the same classes with equally conflicting interests 
 in that Principality."* 
 
 Now the term "a considerable number," is somewhat 
 vague : I hardly think that a community of Jive or six and 
 thirty individuals in a population of about four millions, 
 ought to be called "a considerable number." But perhaps 
 this is a specimen of what they call at Calcutta "conven- 
 tional phraseology which can mislead no one."! 
 
 But Mr. Mangles employs no relative term, no vague ex- 
 pression, no conventional phraseology. He boldly declares 
 that "Mysore is now full of European settlers, coffee-planters 
 
 '* Mysore Papers, p. 85. The italics are mine. 
 
 t " Such phraseology was conventional and misled no one, and least of all 
 the Nizam." Ante, p. 100, Mysore Papers, p. 55. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 239 
 
 and others, and every day is adding to their numbers." As 
 Mr. Mangles has immediate access to the best information 
 on this subject, it is difficult to account for his having given 
 utterance to this extravagant statement ; and leaving him 
 to explain the origin of his error, if he thinks it worth the 
 trouble, I shall endeavour to show how the case really 
 stands. 
 
 My figures are open to correction ; but from the concur- 
 rent testimony of several gentlemen who have recently re- 
 sided in Mysore, I have no doubt that the number of Euro- 
 pean planters in that State does not amount to forty, and 
 is probably about five or six and thirty.* And the informa- 
 tion that I have received is fully borne out by what can be 
 gathered from the Administration Keport of Mysore for 
 1862-63, the latest in my possession. Indeed, from the 
 data there given, it seems doubtful whether the number of 
 European planters can much exceed thirty. In paragraph 
 219 of the Report (p. 51), the number of acres held by 
 Europeans is stated at 22,650, with the addition of 1,800 
 acres from the latest returns, making a total of 24,450. 
 And in the next paragraph the average area of holdings is 
 given as 933 acres for each European, one of them, Mr. 
 Middleton, being said to occupy an estate of sixteen square 
 miles. If, therefore, we divide the number of acres, 24,450, 
 by the average area of each estate, we obtain the quotient 
 26 ; which I believe will give a greater approximation to 
 the truth than can be derived from the Calcutta despatch 
 or the Minute of Mr. Mangles. And without some better 
 evidence than the conventional phraseology of the one, and 
 the bold assertions of the other, I am not prepared to be- 
 lieve that there are more than between thirty and forty 
 European planters residing in the Mysore territories. I 
 
 * It is not worth while disputing about words ; and this is not the occasion 
 for entering fully on the question; but there are in fact no European "settlers" 
 in Mysore or in India. The planters of coffee, tea, indigo, sugar, cotton and 
 other valuable produce, are for the most part agents, or servants of mercantile 
 houses at the Presidency Towns. Some, of course, are engaged on their own 
 account and with their own capital ; and in Mysore there are a few retired 
 officers. But none of them have any intention of settling in India ; none of 
 them have any abiding place or permanent stake in the country ; all are bent 
 on making a fortune and going home as soon as possible. I know of one ex- 
 ception, and I have heard of another, but these are extraordinary phenomena; 
 and who can answer for their sons 1 India can never become a Colony. 
 
240 CHAPTER X. 
 
 should not be surprised to hear that the number is very 
 much less. 
 
 By his wild statement that Mysore is "full of European 
 settlers," Mr. Mangles not only gives a very erroneous 
 notion of their number, but an equally erroneous notion of 
 their location. Instead of being distributed over the 
 country, as one would suppose from the phrase that "Mysore 
 is full of European settlers," the planters are to be found 
 only in two small corners, in the South- West of the Ash- 
 tagram Province contiguous to the Coorg Hills, and in the 
 Baba Booden Hills, in the North-West of the Nuggur Pro- 
 vince, bordering on the Western Ghauts. If there were 
 really any practical difficulty from the presence of thirty or 
 forty European planters in a Native State, these small dis- 
 tricts adjoining our frontiers, could easily be ceded by the 
 Eajah, either with a corresponding deduction from the Sub- 
 sidy, or in exchange for British territory.* For these hilly 
 regions alone are suitable for coffee cultivation, which can 
 never be extended beyond them, and their area is very 
 limited. 
 
 Mr. Mangles having told us that Mysore is "full of Euro- 
 pean settlers", adds that "every day is adding to their num- 
 bers". If every day, or even every week added one to their 
 numbers, the European planters of Mysore would long ere 
 this have formed an important body. But notwithstanding 
 the authority of Mr. Mangles, and in his position he ought 
 to know, I am doubtful of a very rapid or continuous in- 
 crease in their numbers. The Administration Eeport of 
 1862-63 (para. 220) tells us that at that time "the best land 
 in most places had been taken up". We are also told that 
 although the larger holdings are in the possession of Euro- 
 peans, "the vast majority of grants are held by natives" ; 
 whose aggregate estates more than double those in European 
 hands. And the latest returns from the Ashtagram Province 
 referred to in paragraph 219 of the Report, show that 85 per 
 
 * Some small interchanges of territory were effected by Treaty in 1804. 
 One very convenient and obvious exchange would be that of transferring 
 Seringapatam, (the administration of which has long been left to the Govern- 
 ment of Mysore at an annual rent,} to the Rajah. The political and military 
 advantages which were in 1799 supposed to be derived from its possession, are 
 now quite insignificant, if not imaginary. Besides we have the right under 
 the Treaty of occupying at our discretion any fort or position in the Rajah's 
 dominions. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 241 
 
 cent, of the recent increase was in native holdings. From 
 the latest information I am inclined to believe that the 
 number of European planters is rather on the decrease. I 
 have been told that the great success of the early planters 
 consisted in their obtaining large grants on very favourable 
 conditions, stocking them with coffee-trees, and disposing of 
 their estates on terms which are not to be obtained now, 
 when the actual profits are more clearly ascertained, and 
 have, indeed, become, by the rise of wages in the Hills* and 
 other circumstances, more equalised with those of ordinary 
 agricultural enterprise and thus it would appear that new 
 grants of land are chiefly made to natives, content, as they 
 are, with a more moderate rate of profits. The Commis- 
 sioner informs us, in paragraph 222 of the Administration 
 Eeport for 1862-63, that the provisions of these grants and 
 their assessment have been several times relaxed for the 
 relief of the coffee-planters ; and that the tax levied at 
 present, "although popular with Natives from its indirect 
 incidence", is found to be "a heavy burden", and "is objected 
 to by the European planters". 
 
 I believe that Mr. Bowring quite sums up the results and 
 the future prospects of Mysore coffee-planting in paragraph 
 224 of the Eeport, in which he says that the English 
 planters " have acted as pioneers in a new country, a part 
 of the country formerly considered as the least promising, 
 their undertaking has been shown to be successful, and the 
 Natives of all classes are now awake to the value of land, 
 and anxious for its possession." The original pioneers have 
 reaped a well-deserved reward, and most of them have 
 retired from the scene of their success ; but I question very 
 much whether the English coffee-planters in Mysore, 
 though no doubt some are doing well, form on the whole 
 so prosperous and so contented a community at present, as 
 to render any further increase in their number at all pro- 
 bable. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Mangles, after having satisfied himself that 
 Mysore is not yet quite full of English planters, that their 
 number does not amount to forty among four millions, and 
 that their numbers are not increasing " every day", might 
 
 * In Paragraph 224 of the Administration Report the rise of wages is 
 mentioned. 
 
 R 
 
242 CHAPTER X. 
 
 be induced to modify his views as to the insurmountable 
 objections to their residence in a Native State. He may 
 refer at his leisure to some other facts of a reassuring ten- 
 dency. Travancore is a long way from Calcutta, and pos- 
 sibly even the Governor General and his Secretaries may 
 not be aware that in the Hills of that Native State there 
 are numerous coffee-plantations belonging to English gen- 
 tlemen. The Dewan, in the Administration Eeport for the 
 year 1864-65, states that about 24,312 acres have already 
 been appropriated, about one third of the area under 
 coffee cultivation in Mysore, and he remarks, (paragraphs 
 102 and 103, page 22, 23) 
 
 " This enterprise promises to be the means of giving employ- 
 ment to many subjects of Travancore." 
 
 ' ' It is gratifying to state that the advantages held out to the 
 labourer by this new field of industry are, so far as the experience 
 hitherto acquired extends, quite unalloyed. All the planters are 
 gentlemen sincerely solicitous to deal fairly with their labourers, 
 and to rely upon good treatment and good wages alone for at- 
 tracting labour." 
 
 He does not seem to anticipate that the introduction of 
 British capital and enterprise into the Principality will 
 produce anything like that " civil war and anarchy", which 
 Mr. Mangles dreads ; nor have I heard that the Eesident 
 at Travancore has expressed any apprehension of that sort. 
 And yet in Travancore the " differences" and " conflicting 
 interests", between the planters and the ryots, which Mr. 
 Mangles looks upon as quite irreconcileable without our own 
 elaborate forms, must be settled by. " native officials" exclu- 
 sively, for there are no others. If the views expressed by 
 Mr. Mangles were accepted by our Government, they would 
 be bound, as soon as Travancore became " full of European 
 settlers" i. e., when they reached the number of thirty-five, 
 to watch eagerly, out of a regard for this new interest, 
 for the first opportunity to annex Travancore. And if the 
 doctrine of Mr. Mangles and Mr. Prinsep as to " a personal 
 Treaty", were worth anything, we should not have long to 
 wait. The demise of the reigning Kajah would serve our 
 turn ; for the Treaty of 1805, identical in almost every re- 
 spect with the Subsidiary Treaty of 1799 with the Rajah 
 of Mysore, is identical with it in having no mention of 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 243 
 
 " heirs and successors." It is a Treaty between the East 
 India Company and the Maharajah Earn Eajah Bahadoor, 
 and is declared in the Preamble to be concluded by that 
 Eajah "for himself."* It is true that it is to last " as long 
 as the sun and moon endure", but Mr. Mangles tells us that 
 is an insignificant form. It is true that a succession has 
 taken place since it was concluded, but Mr. Prinsep assures 
 us that is of no consequence.f 
 
 Not only are disputes between these planters and cul- 
 tivating occupants settled by the native authorities in Tra- 
 vancore, but even in Mysore, under the existing adminis- 
 tration, nearly all the differences between the planters and 
 the ryots are actually disposed of by native officials, whose 
 duties, it is true, are carried on subject to an appeal, and to 
 the revision of English Superintendents. But this super- 
 vision and protection of the planters' interest, would equally 
 exist if a native government under the Eajah were restored 
 in Mysore. Mr. Mangles knows perfectly well, and so do 
 the Civilians at Calcutta, that English planters and British 
 born persons in a Native State are never made subject to 
 the local magistrature in criminal matters, and only to a 
 certain limited extent to the local civil jurisdiction ; but 
 that under special capitulations with the Native Princes, of 
 which one was concluded with the Nizam in 1861,J the 
 Eesident is constituted the judge in crimes and disputes 
 arising among Europeans and descendants of Europeans. 
 
 Many experienced persons, both among the planters and 
 the English official class, are of opinion that the interests 
 and enterprise of a few scattered individuals of the dominant 
 race can be much more effectually fostered, and their pecu- 
 liar relations with the labouring occupants more fairly re- 
 gulated, by a machinery like our Consular system in the 
 East, than by that ostensible equality before the law which, 
 as Mr. Mangles seems more than half to understand, has 
 failed and still fails grievously to secure even-handed justice 
 and good order in our own long settled province of Bengal. 
 
 One thing is very certain, that the idea of a European 
 
 * Collection of Treaties, Calcutta, 1864 (Longman and Co.), vol. v, p. 311. 
 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 90. 
 
 $ Collection of Treaties, Calcutta, 1864 (Longman & Co., London), vol. v, 
 p. 117. This concession was, I believe, made by the Nizam, chiefly on account 
 of the Railwav passing through his dominions. 
 
 R2 
 
244 CHAPTER X. 
 
 planter or merchant being oppressed or persecuted by a 
 native official, or even a Native Prince, or by a British 
 Resident, is so utterly preposterous and incredible, that it 
 will never meet with anything but ridicule from persons 
 acquainted with life and manners in India. The independent 
 and non-official Englishman belongs to a very visible and a 
 very audible class. Even the Thugs never ventured to 
 operate on a European. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that either by the transfer of two 
 small hilly districts to the British Government, or by about 
 three dozen European planters being left subject to the 
 judicial control of the same English official, under another 
 designation, to whom they are now subject, the "practical 
 impossibility", denounced by the Calcutta Government, 
 would disappear. For it must be remembered that legally 
 Mysore is still a foreign State, that British law cannot be 
 administered there,* and that the Commissioner is the 
 supreme authority over the English planters, as the Resident 
 would be if the Rajah were reinstated. 
 
 Although I consider the question of right to have been 
 adequately treated by me before I turned to that of policy, 
 some remarks by Mr. Mangles towards the close of his 
 Minute, compel me once more to revert to it. The Calcutta 
 officials did not fail to perceive the obstruction offered by 
 Lord Canning's Adoption Despatch, but they endeavour to 
 remove it in the following fashion : 
 
 ' ' Nor, it is plain, can the Maharajah have any claim under the 
 general right of adoption guaranteed by Lord Canning to Hindoo 
 Chiefs governing their own territories. - For thirty years the 
 Maharajah had ceased to govern ; and while, in accordance with 
 the expressed intention of Lord Canning's Despatch that the as- 
 surance should be conveyed to each Chief individually, a sunnud 
 guaranteeing the right to adopt was granted to every Chief go- 
 verning a State f no matter how small/ a sunnud was advisedly 
 withheld from the Maharajah of Mysore."f 
 
 But even granting what is quite inadmissible, that it 
 could be legal or equitable in certain cases to exclude 
 Princes who were not then governing their own territories, 
 
 * All these inconveniences, and even the difficulties arising from British 
 process not running in a foreign State, could easily be remedied, partly by 
 British legislation and partly by treaty with the native Princes. 
 
 t Mysore Papers, p. 48. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 245 
 
 it would, in the instance of the Eajah of Mysore, be taking- 
 advantage of our own wrong, to exclude him. For the 
 strongest points of his appeal are, that we were too hasty 
 and sweeping in assuming the management of his country ; 
 and that we have retained the management in our hands 
 long after the declared object has been attained, and far 
 beyond what was contemplated by the Treaty. 
 
 There is no principle or consistency of purpose visible in 
 the exclusion of the Eajah of Mysore ; and it is impossible 
 to believe that Lord Canning purposely, and with a hostile 
 intention, gave him no written notice that his adoption 
 would be recognised, when we observe that such a written 
 notice was sent to the Eajahs of Kolapore* and L Sawunt 
 Warree, neither of whom, as already observed, were then 
 " governing their own territories." 
 
 As to Lord Canning having " advisedly" withheld a sun- 
 nud from the Eajah, the Governor-General and his Secre- 
 taries know perfectly well that Lord Canning did so, not 
 from any doubt of the Eajah's right to adopt, but because 
 he was labouring under the erroneous impression that the 
 Eajah did not wish to adopt, and that therefore it would be 
 equally impolitic and inconsiderate to encourage or urge 
 
 * Since the first part of these pages was printed, the news has arrived of 
 the sudden death of the Rajah Sivajee of Kolapore on the 4th August. It 
 is thus noticed in the Times of India : " The announcement of the death of 
 the Rajah of Kolapoor in the prime of life, and in the midst of many plans of 
 usefulness for the well-being and advancement of his people, has been received 
 with unfeigned regret by all classes in Western India, and many in England 
 also will share in this regret. The Rajah was a representative of the younger 
 branch of the House of Sivajee, the founder of the late Mahratta dynasty, 
 whose name he bore, and was looked up to in the Deccan as the head of the 
 Mahratta chiefs and nobility. He succeeded to the Kolapoor Principality in 
 1838 when quite a child, and a Council of Regency was formed to administer 
 the country during his minority. The members of this Regency quarrelled 
 among themselves, and by their misgovernment compelled the British Govern- 
 ment to interfere. This was followed by an insurrection in 1844-5, which was 
 put down at considerable expense to the State. On the restoration of order 
 the British Government assumed the entire administration of the country and 
 placed it under the control of a political officer, to whom the care and educa- 
 tion of the young Rajah was specially entrusted. During the mutinies the 
 Rajah behaved with conspicuous fidelity, while his half-brother Chimna Sahib 
 (now a state prisoner at Kurrachee) threw all his influence into the opposite 
 scale. The loyal example of the Rajah, and his acknowledged fitness to rule, 
 induced Her Majesty's Government, in 1862, to invest him with the manage- 
 ment of his Principality. The Rajah's administration since this period has 
 afforded many proofs of his being one of the most enlightened among the 
 native Princes of Western India." 
 
246 . CHAPTER X. 
 
 him to take that step.* Sir John Willoughby states as 
 follows ID one of his Minutes : " By a comparison of dates, 
 it seems to me clear that Lord Canning had no idea of ex- 
 cluding the Eajah from the benefits of his adoption policy 
 by resorting to such a quibble as that the Eajah is not 
 1 governing his own territoryV't 
 
 On this point, however, Mr. Mangles says : 
 
 " The name of the Rajah of Mysore is not found in those lists, 
 and no sunnud was addressed to him. Can it be believed that 
 these were accidental omissions,, and that Lord Canning, if he 
 had not forgotten for the time the existence of such a person, 
 would have treated the Rajah on the same footing as the here- 
 ditary Princes of Rajpootana, or of what were formerly called 
 ' the protected Sikh States^ ? I cannot give credit to such an 
 hypothesis, and, therefore, I must believe that Lord Canning in- 
 tentionally omitted the name of the Rajah of Mysore from the 
 list of those to whom ' the assurance' of his Government was to 
 be conveyed, because he was satisfied, as I am satisfied, that, 
 under the circumstances of his case, he had no just or reasonable 
 claim to the privilege in question." J 
 
 But if Mr. Mangles is not aware of the fact, some of his 
 colleagues, and the two last Secretaries of State, are well 
 aware that Lord Canning, though anxious to obtain Mysore 
 by bequest from the Eajah (which in itself is a full admission 
 of his Sovereignty), has left in writing the most distinct 
 avowal that the Rajah's right of adopting a successor could 
 not be disputed. 
 
 Mr. Prinsep, like Mr. Mangles, has " no doubt whatever" 
 that the omission of the words " heirs and successors" in 
 the Subsidiary Treaty was intentional on the part of the 
 Marquis Wellesley. I have already shown that this omis- 
 sion could not have been intentional, and that in " a per- 
 petual Treaty to be binding as long as the sun and moon 
 endure", such an omission is quite insignificant. But Mr. 
 Prinsep endeavours to prove Lord Wellesley's intention by 
 adducing another case in which he supposes that statesman 
 to have excluded the words " heirs and successors" from a 
 Treaty, in order to convert it into a merely personal grant. 
 And here he has only afforded one more instance of those 
 misquotations of public documents and misstaternents of 
 
 * Ante, p. 115. t Mysore Papers, 1866, p. 31. 
 
 I Ibid., p. 86. Ante, p. 213, 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 247 
 
 officially recorded facts, without which it seems impossible 
 to make even a semblance of assailing the Rajah's rights. 
 He says : " In the case of Arcot, this Governor-General 
 specifically erased the words * heirs and successors' from 
 the Treaty with that Prince when it was sent up to him 
 for approval and ratification/'* 
 
 Mr. Prinsep, a Member of the Council of India, with all 
 the records at hand, is entirely wrong. ^The Governor- 
 General did not " specifically erase" the words " heirs and 
 successors" from the Treaty as sent up to be ratified ; and 
 he did not do so for the simple reason that those words were 
 riot in the Treaty. All that Lord Wellesley did was to 
 have the word " established" substituted for the word " ac- 
 knowledged." The passage in the original edition of the 
 Treaty to which Lord Wellesley objected, had no reference 
 to the future descent of the Nawab's dignity, but to his 
 accession to the throne by " the hereditary right of his 
 father, the Nawab Ameer-ool-Omrah Bahadoor." Instead 
 of this right being " acknowledged by the East India Com- 
 pany", the new Preamble, drafted by Lord ^Y e ll es l e y> an - 
 nounced that the Nawab had been " established by the East 
 India Company in the rank, property and possessions of 
 his ancestors, heretofore Nabobs of the Carnatic." 
 
 Lord Wellesley attached so little importance to the alter- 
 ation, that he expressly cautioned Lord Clive that it should 
 not be proposed to Azeem-ood-Dowlah "at the hazard of 
 exciting any alarm or jealousy in his Highnesses mind", or 
 of incurring his "dissent or displeasure."^ And in the 
 meantime, anticipating the possibility of Azeem-ood-Dow- 
 lah's objections, Lord Wellesley ratified the original Treaty. 
 But the modified Preamble was accepted by the Nawab 
 without discussion. 
 
 There was no necessity for inserting the words "heirs 
 and successors" in the Carnatic Treaty of 1801, because its 
 second Article expressly " renewed and confirmed" all the 
 former Treaties, which contained ample guaranties of here- 
 ditary succession. And the alteration suggested and ^ car- 
 ried out by Lord Wellesley was not aimed at hereditary 
 succession, but against the inherent and independent right 
 and power of the Nawab to succeed to the throne, at a 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 90. t Carnatic Papers, 1861, p, 109, 110. 
 
248 CHAPTER X. 
 
 political crisis, without British sanction and support. I am 
 fully convinced that Lord Wellesley had no more notion of 
 making a personal Treaty with the Nawab of Arcot than 
 with the Eajah of Mysore. But having pointed out that 
 Mr. Prinsep's citation of the Carnatic case is completely 
 erroneous and unfounded, consisting in fact of a misquota- 
 tion, I am relieved from any call to notice it further. 
 
 I may mention, however, that Mr. Mangles also refers to 
 the Carnatic case as " a precedent."* I can only say that 
 it is fully as worthy of being a precedent as the case of 
 Sattara. 
 
 Before finally concluding my task I must ask Mr. Mangles 
 whether he can, on serious reflection, reconcile it with his 
 notions of public duty to have failed so flagrantly in accu- 
 racy and precision of statement and reference, throughout 
 his Minute of Consultation, as I have proved him to have 
 done. He was selected for the honourable position of a 
 Councillor to her Majesty's Government in a special depart- 
 ment, from trust in his professional experience, and his long 
 familiarity with bygone transactions recorded in the volu- 
 minous chronicles of the India Office, with which no Secretary 
 of State can become immediately conversant. If the Minister 
 can place no reliance on statements of fact and quotations 
 of public documents laid before him by his confidential ad- 
 visers, the Council will be a snare to him rather than an 
 assistance. He had much better trust to humbler aid. No 
 clerk, no precis writer, no Under-Secretary would venture 
 to mislead the head of his Office as Mr. Mangles has done, 
 and would certainly not be allowed to do so twice. For the 
 worst derelictions with which I have charged Mr. Mangles 
 are not to be palliated by a plea of carelessness or inad- 
 vertence. The best sources of information, the best means 
 of verification lay within his reach, and the specific asser- 
 tions of which I complain, can be found nowhere at the India 
 Office, except in his own Minute. 
 
 And in my humble opinion it is just because Mr. Mangles 
 is not open to reproof and correction as a subordinate 
 official, but is invested with the sacred and judicial cha- 
 racter of a Councillor, and associated as a colleague with 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 84 (note). I have discussed the Carnatic case in The 
 Empire in India. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 249 
 
 the Secretary of State, that he should be held to a stricter 
 account by the Government and by the country. Although 
 not a subordinate official, he is now a salaried public ser- 
 vant. In his former capacity as a Director of the East 
 India Company, he was not exactly a servant of the public, 
 owing merely a nominal responsibility to his constituents 
 in the Court of Proprietors. And in the House of Com- 
 mons, a few occasional loose assertions and rash contra- 
 dictions may be excused, in a man of a certain tempe- 
 rament, from considerations of the heat of debate, the 
 urgency of immediate reply, and the absence of the records 
 required. If Mr. Mangles, as Member for Guildford, had 
 assured the House of Commons that " Mysore was now full 
 of European settlers, and that every day was adding to 
 their numbers", the enormity even of this exaggeration 
 might have been passed over or pardoned, as a sudden 
 flight of rhetoric called forth in the excitement of a party 
 struggle, or in defending the credit of the Court of Directors. 
 But what might be tolerated and forgiven in a speech, is 
 quite inadmissible and inexcusable in a consultative Minute, 
 penned in cold blood, in the calm retirement of a room at 
 the India Office, with access to every piece of information 
 connected with the subject, and every opinion that has ever 
 been passed upon it. 
 
 Notwithstanding the good intentions for which Mr. 
 Mangles may receive full credit, it must not be forgotten 
 that he is committed beyond retreat to a policy of unrelent- 
 ing annexation, by his active participation in all the terri- 
 torial acquisitions of the last twenty years, from Sattara to 
 Oude. He could not spare Mysore without condemning all 
 his previous utterances and exertions. In truth Mr. Mangles 
 has always manifested, and manifests most signally in this 
 particular case, that unjudicial frame of mind which seems 
 the peculiar growth of those Calcutta bureaux to which his 
 Indian experience was confined. From extensive research 
 among the Minutes and Despatches of Indian Governors and 
 Councillors in the leading political cases of the last twenty 
 years, I have been struck with the general prevalence of the 
 same unjudicial method. Instead of starting with a straight- 
 forward determination to settle the points of right and 
 wrong, with few exceptions each Councillor has evidently 
 
250 CHAPTER X. 
 
 begun by deciding what arrangement will be the most ad- 
 vantageous for all parties, with especial regard to the sup- 
 posed interests of his own Government, and has then set to 
 work to concoct ingenious and elaborate pretexts for carry- 
 ing out the desired arrangement. There is no actual insin- 
 cerity, no disingenuous perversion of the truth, but an un- 
 mistakeable subordination of judgment, logic and law to the 
 political and social results that are expected and desired, 
 and a dexterous adaptation of the premisses to meet the 
 required conclusion. And when I see plain evidence both 
 of national prejudice and professional bias, I neither question 
 nor value benevolent motives. 
 
 I have pointed out some errors of fact into which Mr. 
 Prinsep has fallen. Himself an old Bengal Civilian, he 
 betrays in his Minute the characteristic want of personal 
 and class sympathy for those who are to be despoiled and 
 degraded, and an utter contempt for the feelings and wishes 
 of the people of Mysore. And moreover it would hardly be 
 consistent with human nature if Mr. Prinsep were entirely 
 free from a very strong though probably unconscious bias 
 against the Eajah. Mr. H. T. Prinsep, as Foreign Secretary, 
 signed all the despatches in 1831, by which the suspension 
 of his Highnesses authority was explained and carried out. 
 Even the severe letter from Lord William Bentinck to the 
 Eajah, of September 7th, 1831, announcing that he was 
 about to assume the management of Mysore, that letter 
 which contains at least two erroneous charges against the 
 Eajah, first, that "the Subsidy had not been paid monthly 
 according to the Treaty"* and second, that "the greatest 
 excesses were committed and unparalleled cruelties inflicted 
 l>y his Highness s officers"^ was issued from his office, and 
 according to the ordinary routine must have been drafted 
 by himself. Of course these charges were brought against 
 the Eajah, probably in stronger terms, in all the despatches 
 home. In his Minute of the 1st August 1865, Mr. Prinsep 
 does not repeat these accusations, but he does not withdraw 
 them. When the Eeport of the Special Commissioners of 
 Inquiry, dated the 12th December, 1833, which dispelled 
 
 * The Subsidy was proved not only never to have been a mouth in arrear, 
 but to have been paid in advance (Mysore Papers, p. 64). 
 
 t Ante, p. 25, 27, and 194. The letter will be found entire in Appendix C. 
 
THE PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS OF 1866. 251 
 
 several of the imputations cast upon the Kajah's rule and 
 personal conduct, and opened Lord William Bentinck's eyes 
 to the wrong that had been committed, was submitted to 
 the Government of India, Mr. Prinsep was no longer Foreign 
 Secretary, but had been replaced by Mr. (afterwards Sir W. 
 H.) Macnaghten, who was always favourable to the Kajah's 
 reinstatement. 
 
 In conclusion I would say, if the Eajah is ever to be re- 
 instated, it should not be done as a half measure, but with a 
 definite purpose and policy. The object should not be 
 that of pleasing, consoling, and flattering an aged Prince, 
 and smoothing the transition of Mysore into an ordinary 
 British Province. The ultimate object, even though post- 
 poned till the young Prince's majority, should be that of 
 preserving the Principality, and maintaining the Treaties of 
 1799 inviolate. No measure of compensation and com- 
 promise, however liberal, will save the honour of Great 
 Britain, relieve the alarmed and outraged feelings of the 
 Princes of India, or secure to the Imperial Power the full 
 advantages of a reformed Native State. We do not want 
 the Eajah of Mysore as a pageant, or as a nobleman, or as a 
 pensioner, but as a tributary and protected Sovereign, ruling 
 his own territories according to our views and principles, 
 acting for us as a Conservative agent, as the symbol of law 
 and allegiance. 
 
 The policy and practice of the rulers of India have been 
 necessarily modified by circumstances. The experiment even 
 of unrelenting appropriations was perhaps inevitable for a 
 time ; nor do I think it was carried too far, until we began 
 absorbing friendly and faithful dependencies, until, as Sir 
 George Clerk says, " the Calcutta Government led off with 
 the bare-faced appropriation of Sattara".* We need not con- 
 demn or deplore the exploits of our predecessors. It was 
 necessary to restore order ; it was necessary to produce sub- 
 mission. The rule, the very idea of law unmixed with 
 religious and ceremonial sanctions and exemptions, was 
 introduced, and could only have been established by the 
 hands of our countrymen. But the perpetual degradation 
 of our docile pupils cannot be essential to British supremacy. 
 Slavery, or polygamy, or the feudal system may have been 
 
 * Mysore Papers, p. 72, 
 
252 CHAPTER X. 
 
 necessary to human progress in a certain age and region, 
 and may therefore have been justifiable ; but it does not 
 follow that these historical conditions are either necessary or 
 justifiable now. 
 
 We want the Native Princes of India much more than 
 they want us. We cannot get near the people without the 
 good will of their natural leaders. We want them both for 
 the discipline and the education of that vast population. 
 Mr. Gladstone eloquently observed in his speech of the 1 2th 
 March last : " When we are told that affairs are managed 
 more economically, more cleverly, and effectually in foreign 
 countries, we answer, 'Yes, but here they are managed 
 freely ; and in freedom, in the free discharge of political 
 duties, there is an immense power both of discipline and of 
 education for the people'." The nearest approach to political 
 freedom that the people of India can make in their present 
 phase of civilisation, must be made by means of reformed 
 Native States, owning allegiance and subordination to the 
 Imperial Power. The British Government of India should 
 not attempt to be ubiquitously executive ; it should .be con- 
 structive and critical, not operative ; it should everywhere 
 contrive and control the organisation, but wherever native 
 agency is available, it should not undertake more than the 
 superintendence of functions. 
 
 Even if natives administer judicial and financial affairs 
 worse than English officers, which I do not admit, Native 
 Princes, when once put in the right way, can govern much 
 more effectually and economically for themselves as well as 
 for us, than English Commissioners. And even if we are 
 not at present prepared to increase the number or the area 
 of our reformed Native dependencies, let us not, at an im- 
 mense sacrifice of honour and moral influence, strike out of 
 our system the most prosperous and to us the most profit- 
 able of them all, by reverting to an abandoned policy, and 
 reasserting a usurped and disclaimed prerogative. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 (A.) 
 THE ADOPTION DESPATCH. 
 
 THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL TO THE SECRETARY OP STATE FOR INDIA, 
 
 Foreign Department, 
 Simla, 30th April 1860 (No. 43 A). 
 SIR, 
 
 In accordance with the intention expressed in my Despatch 
 No. 16, of the 6th of December last, I desire to bring to the 
 notice of Her Majesty's Government the general subject of adop- 
 tion as affecting the succession to the Native States and Princi- 
 palities of India. 
 
 2. I have, in the course of my recent march to Upper India, 
 been forcibly struck by the want of some clear and well under- 
 stood rule of practice in our dealings with the Princes and Chiefs 
 upon this subject. 
 
 It is not that the measures taken under the orders of the late 
 Court of Directors, in dealing with doubtful or lapsed succes- 
 sions, have not in many instances been liberal and even generous, 
 and certainly there is, at the present moment, an indisposition on 
 the part of the Native States to doubt the general good-will 
 towards them of the Paramount Power. But there appears to be 
 a haze of doubt and mistrust in the mind of each Chief as to the 
 policy which the Government will apply to his own State in the 
 event of his leaving no natural heir to his throne, and each seems 
 to feel, not without reason, that in such case the ultimate fate of 
 his country is uncertain. 
 
 3. It is to this alone that I can attribute the extraordinary 
 satisfaction with which my assurance to Scindia that the Govern- 
 ment would see with pleasure his adoption of a successor if lineal 
 heirs should fail, and that it was the desire of the Paramount 
 Power that his House should be perpetuated and flourish, was 
 accepted by those attached to his Court, to the extent that at 
 Gwalior the news was received with rejoicings very like that 
 which would have marked the birth of an heir. For there is not 
 a State in India which has had stronger or more practical proofs 
 of the wish of the British Government that its integrity should 
 
254 APPENDIX A. 
 
 be maintained than Gwalior, from the time when, in 1826-27, 
 the then Maharajah was, in his last illness, perseveringly pressed 
 by Lord Amherst to adopt an heir, and was assured that nothing 
 could be- further from the wish and intention of the Government 
 than to exercise then or thereafter any intervention in the in- 
 ternal administration of his country or to pretend to control the 
 succession to his State, down to 1843, when the present Maha- 
 rajah, then a child, was placed upon his throne and confirmed in 
 the possession of it by Lord Ellenborough in person. 
 
 4. To the same cause I ascribe the manifest pleasure of the 
 Maharajah of Rewah, when a like assurance was given to him. 
 He said to me that his family had been in Rewah for eleven 
 hundred years, and that my words had dispelled an ill-wind that 
 had long been blowing upon him. A son had lately been born 
 to him, but if any Prince might reasonably expect his adoption 
 of a successor to be respected, without a special promise to that 
 effect, it would be one who is bound to us by treaty, and who 
 can show an unusually long and uninterrupted descent from an 
 ancient Kajpoot stock, which for centuries has steadily held its 
 own against all intrusion, whether by Mahomedans, Mahrattas 
 and Pindaries, as is the case with the Maharajah of Eewah. 
 
 5. I could adduce other instances, such as those of the Maha- 
 rajah of Cashmere, the Maharajah of Puttiala, and the Chiefs of 
 the Cis-Sutlej country, in which the value attached to the an- 
 nouncement, and the eagerness to have it solemnly recorded, 
 were strongly marked. 
 
 6. I believe that the chief cause of this feeling is the vagueness 
 that has prevailed in our policy respecting adoptions. That 
 policy has not only been incoherent, but even when an adoption 
 has been admitted there has often been long discussion in India, 
 and references to the Home Government, before a final decision 
 has been taken, thereby giving rise to doubts of our real desire 
 to admit it. 
 
 7. But it is not only through what has passed between the 
 Government of India and Native Courts that our hesitation and 
 uncertainty have been made manifest to the latter. Within the 
 last ten or twelve years the discussions between the Government 
 of India and the Home Government, and the keen conflict of 
 opinion between the individuals of experience and of the highest 
 authority in India and in England, upon this question of adoption, 
 have been laid bare to all who have chosen to examine them. 
 Since 1849, the official correspondence on not less than sixteen 
 or seventeen cases of doubtful succession and of adoption have 
 been printed by orders of Parliament. In these papers there is 
 every variety of opinion as to the claims of Native States on the 
 one hand, and as to the duty, rights, and policy of the British 
 Government on the other. 
 
THE ADOPTION DESPATCH. 255 
 
 And it must not be supposed that because these documents 
 are published in Blue Books and in English they are beyond the 
 knowledge of Native Courts. They are, on the contrary, sought 
 for and studied by those whose dearest prospects they so closely 
 affect. It is not many months since I was informed, by the 
 Governor General' s Agent in Central India, that a native Court 
 had received from England the Parliamentary Papers on Dhar 
 before they had reached my own hand. 
 
 Papers relative to the Rajah of 8. A brief examination of the 
 
 Sattara, printed by order of the g named in the margin 
 
 House of Commons, March 1st, 1849. -li i i~ *i ui 
 
 Papers respecting the succession Wl11 snow ^ irreconcilably 
 
 and adoption of Sovereign Princes in at variance with each other are 
 
 India, printed by order of the House the views which the highest 
 
 of Commons, February 15th, 1850. authorities have taken of a sub- 
 
 Papers on the annexation of Jhan- - t ^ ^ ^ t ^ t 
 
 sie, printed by order of the House of J V,, ^ , . , *T& i 
 
 Commons, July 27th, 1855. of the future existence ot JNative 
 
 Papers on the annexation of Ke- States, 
 rowlee, printed by order of the House 
 of Commons, August 3rd, 1855. 
 
 9. There is disagreement even on the first fundamental point 
 of all, our own duty. 
 
 See Minute of Lord Dalhousie on In one place, it is urged that 
 Sattara, August 30th, 1848, paras. 25 we are ^ oun a not to neglect 
 
 l^pTra ?. ' ^ ' ri g htful opportunities of acquir- 
 Minute of *Mr. Lowis on Kerowlee, ing territory or revenue by re- 
 September 2nd, 1852. fusing to permit adoption in 
 Minute of Mr. Willoughby on Sat- independent States, where there 
 tara, May 14th, 1848. has ^ ft total failure of ^ 
 
 heirs; and that we should take these opportunities of consoli- 
 dating our territories and of getting rid of petty intervening 
 Principalities. 
 
 f o- T T .. .1 In another place, and by 
 
 See Minute of Sir J. Littler on Sat- , , . , *. , . ' , -, ^ 
 
 tara, September 5th, 1848. otner authority, it is contended 
 
 Dissent of Mr. Shepherd on Sattara, that the absorption of small m- 
 
 January 6th, 1849. dependent Principalities, which 
 
 Dissent of Mr. Tucker ^ on Sattara, happen to be surrounded by 
 
 January 3rd, u our own territories, will not 
 
 always augment our power, but will be a source of weakness to 
 
 ourselves, without being a benefit to the people. 
 
 10. Neither is there agreement on the subject of our own 
 rights. On this head there arise, as might be expected, many 
 complications from differences of origin, of race, and of tradition 
 amongst the various Native States. Some are designated " in- 
 dependent," as having maintained their existence under succes- 
 sive paramount dynasties, and having suffered comparatively 
 little interference in their internal affairs from any. Such are 
 the Kajpootana States, some of the Bundelcund States, and 
 
256 APPENDIX A. 
 
 others. Some are called " dependent," as having been created 
 or re-established by the Moguls, or the Peishwa, or ourselves, 
 and as having been invested, in some instances, with authority 
 short of sovereign authority. Such were Sattara, Jhansi, Jaloun. 
 Then there are disputed points arising out of race and usages ; 
 whether, in a Rajpoot State, the widow of a Rajah may adopt a 
 son without having received her husband's permission. To what 
 extent, in a Rajpoot State, the voice of the principal officers of 
 the State is necessary to the recognition of the succession. 
 Whether, in a Bundeela State, the Chief may adopt a stranger, 
 to the exclusion of collaterals. Whether, in Hindoo States gene- 
 rally, the senior widow of a Chief is allowed to adopt unreserv- 
 edly, or is limited to a choice within certain degrees of affinity. 
 These are points of nicety which, probably, it would be impossible 
 to rule absolutely and with satisfaction to all, but putting aside 
 for the present all small complications, remain broad and im- 
 portant questions of right on our part, upon which the very 
 highest of our officers are at issue. 
 
 See Minute of Lord Dalhousie on 11. In one paper, it is main- 
 Sattara, paras. 8, 9, and 30. tained to be beyond doubt that 
 
 Minute of Mr. Willoughby on Sat- a Prince's adoption of any in- 
 tara, para. 10. dividual does not constitute the 
 
 latter heir to the Principality, or to sovereign rights, until the 
 adoption has received the sanction of the Sovereign Power; 
 and that this sanction may be withheld even from independent 
 States. 
 
 See Minute of Lord Metcalfe, Oc- Elsewhere, it is confidently 
 tober 20th, 1837. laid down that Hindoo Sove- 
 
 Minute of Lord Auckland on Oor- reign Princes, on failure of 
 cha, January 2nd, 1842, para. 4. heirg ma]e of ^ e bod ^ have a 
 
 right to adopt to the exclusion of collateral heirs, and that the 
 British Government is bound to acknowledge the adoption, pro- 
 
 ~, , vided that it be regular and 
 See Minute of Sir George Clerk on . , , . & 
 
 Sattara, April 12th, 1848, paras. 11, 12. not m violation of Hindoo law; 
 
 and further, that even in the 
 
 case of a fief or dependency, a legal adoption cannot be barred 
 by the Government or Lord Paramount. 
 
 12. It is impossible that the minds of native rulers and of their 
 people should not be disquieted so long as such a question as 
 this, bearing as it does upon every class of State, independent 
 and dependent, is allowed to remain in doubt ; for the doubt has 
 been only partially resolved by the decisions of the Court of Di- 
 rectors on the cases at issue. The Court " were fully satisfied 
 
 that by the general law and 
 
 See Despatch from the Court of cus t om of India a dependent 
 Directors to the Government of In- -r> v n J.-L 4. r o 
 dia, January 24th, 1849. Principality like that of Sat- 
 
 tara, cannot pass to an adopted 
 
1853 nt " a 
 
 THE ADOPTION DESPATCH. 257 
 
 heir without the consent of the Paramount Power." But this 
 decision extends only to dependent Principalities, and not even 
 to these unreservedly, for all dependent Principalities are not 
 like that of Sattara, which was created, or resuscitated, by the 
 British Government, upon conditions framed by that Govern- 
 ment, and of which that Government might, perhaps, be assumed 
 to be the rightful interpreter. 
 
 In another place, the Court 
 
 See Despatch from the Court of Di- of Directors draw a marked 
 
 distinction between the case of 
 battara, a State of recent origin 
 and of our own creation, and that of Kerowlee, an old Rajpoot 
 State, which had existed long anterior to our rule in India. But 
 there is no admission that, even in such a case as that of Ke- 
 rowlee, we are bound to recognise an adoption. It is rather 
 implied that the question is one of expediency, and that, even in 
 that case, there might have been grounds for taking the oppor- 
 tunity to substitute our own Government for that of a native ruler. 
 
 13. Another point upon which strong difference of opinion will 
 be found in the papers referred to, and which has a most im- 
 portant bearing upon the claims of many Native States, is the 
 meaning of the words "heirs and successors" in the several 
 treaties and grants in which we find them used. 
 
 The instances in which the Government of India has bound 
 itself by engagements or concessions to a Chief and his " heirs 
 and successors," or to his heirs for ever, without explanation of 
 what is to constitute the right of succession or inheritance, are 
 very numerous. The question arises whether the expression is 
 to be interpreted according to our own sense, which would limit 
 it to heirs and successors by blood, or to be extended to heirs 
 and successors by adoption, when the adoption has taken place 
 in accordance with Hindoo law and with the custom of the other 
 party to the engagement. 
 
 14. This question has never, so far as I know, received an 
 authoritative answer; perhaps the decision of the Court of Di- 
 rectors on the case of Sattara may be regarded as having deter- 
 mined it against the admission of an adopted heir and successor 
 where a dependent Chiefship is concerned ; but this is not clear, 
 for other considerations were mixed up in that case. 
 
 It is a question which is sure to recur. There are several of 
 the Hill States, the possession of which was confirmed to their 
 respective Chiefs by special grants after the Ghoorka War of 
 1814, and in dealing with which a decision upon it may any day 
 be called for, owing to the terms in which the grants are couched. 
 
 15. Whilst there has been so much doubt as to the duty and 
 rights of our Government in India, there has not been less as to 
 its policy. 
 
 16. Probably that view of our policy which would prescribe 
 
258 APPENDIX A. 
 
 the retention in our hands of the power to disallow adoption, and 
 thereby to secure to ourselves an accession of territory, could 
 not be expressed in terms more moderate or less calculated to 
 alarm Native States than those used by Lord Auckland, when, 
 in reference to the Colaba succession, he declared that we ought 
 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 at the same time scrupulously re- 
 spected." 
 
 But this declaration contains nothing reassuring or clear to 
 those who will be most affected by it. It has been shown that 
 the opinions of the very highest authorities in India and in Eng- 
 land, of those in fact with whom alone the decision of such mat- 
 ters rested, have differed widely as to what accessions of territory 
 would be just, and as to what claims of right do exist, and do 
 deserve our respect. 
 
 17. Nor does it appear possible to lay down these points with 
 certainty by any declaration, however detailed and elaborate. 
 
 We profess, indeed, to be guided by the Hindoo law, and by 
 the practice of those who have preceded us as rulers in India ; but 
 as to what that practice has been we are not agreed amongst our- 
 selves. If, indeed, we never referred to it but for the purpose of 
 avoiding carefully all new encroachments upon the liberties of 
 Native States, and with the determination that our authority 
 in questions of succession should be exercised with at least as 
 much forbearance as was shown by the Mahomedans and Mah- 
 rattas, a little uncertainty would be immaterial. We would easily 
 make sure of erring only on the right side. But it has even been 
 appealed to in support of a pretension to withhold our assent to 
 adoption, even in the case of independent States, thereby making 
 the State a lapse to the British Government ; and yet we have 
 not shown, so far as I can find, a single instance in which adop- 
 tion by a Sovereign Prince has been invalidated by a refusal of 
 assent from the Paramount Power. 
 
 18. I venture to think that no such instance can be adduced, 
 and that the practice which has prevailed is truly described by 
 Sir Henry Lawrence, where he says : " The confirmation of the 
 
 Suzerain is necessary in all 
 
 See letter from Sir H. Lawrence ra ~ pq Tip i<a flip avbitrfltor of 
 en Kerowlee, November 17, 1853. 
 
 all contested adoptions ; he can 
 
 set aside one or other for informality, irregularity, or for mis- 
 conduct ; but it does not appear, by the rules or practices of any 
 of the sovereignties, or by our own practice with the Istumrar- 
 dars of Ajmere, that the Paramount State can refuse confirma- 
 tion to one or other claimant, and confiscate the estate, however 
 small." 
 
 I am aware that Sir H. Lawrence, who, when this was written, 
 was the Agent of the Governor-General in Rajpootana, speaks 
 
THE ADOPTION DESPATCH. 259 
 
 only of that part of India ; but although the strong brotherhood 
 of the Rajpoot States, their geographical position, and other cir- 
 cumstances caused their relations with the Emperors of Delhi to 
 be more clearly defined, and less subject to capricious change 
 than those with other feudatory States, I believe that there is no 
 example of any Hindoo State, whether in Eajpootana or else- 
 where, lapsing to the Paramout Power, by reason of that Power 
 withholding its assent to an adoption. 
 
 19. It has been argued that the right to grant sanction implies 
 
 the right to withhold it. This, 
 
 See Minutes of Mr. Reid and Lord h owever SO und logically, is 
 Falkland on Sattara, April 25th and .,, -, f ^ 
 
 TnW 9ftfV, i4s neither sound nor safe practi- 
 
 Jmy zotn, lo4o. . r 
 
 cally. The histories of feudal 
 
 Governments furnish abundant examples of long-established 
 privileges habitually renewed as acts of grace from the Para- 
 mount Powers, but which those powers have never thought of re- 
 fusing for purposes of their own, or upon their own judgment alone. 
 
 20. Then as regards our other rule of guidance, the Hindoo 
 
 law, it has been said, by one 
 
 *v Se nu 1 - e r t ? f /i r G u eor S\ T cierk , on who is well competent to speak 
 the Chiefship of Busrhaut, November , -, -, , , \ , f f , -i 1 , 
 
 10th 1842 on tne subject, that "it is hunt- 
 
 ing after a shadow to search for 
 
 laws of inheritance to Chiefships in India so fixed as the Govern- 
 ment desires to obtain." 
 
 ****** 
 
 ( f The Hindoo law, which is comprehensive regarding rights to 
 private property, does not provide distinctly for Chiefships. It 
 is not fair, therefore, to desire a claimant to support his preten- 
 sions by adduced fixed laws." And in the same letter it is ob- 
 served, in reference to certain views of the right of succession 
 amongst the Hill Chiefs, " that it is the inconsistency, caprice, 
 and mutability of our opinions regarding all great principles that 
 is the bane of our supremacy in India." I fear that as regards 
 the matter now under consideration, this is too true. 
 
 21. And now I would beg Her Majesty's Government to con- 
 sider whether the time has not come when we may, with advan- 
 tage to all, adopt and announce some rule in regard to succession 
 in Native States, more distinct than that which we have been 
 seeking to derive from the sources above mentioned ; not by 
 setting aside the Hindoo law wherever that avails, and not by 
 diminishing in the least degree the consideration which the 
 feudatory States have experienced at the hands of former ruling 
 dynasties, but, on the contrary, by increasing this consideration, 
 and at the same time making our future practice plain and 
 certain. 
 
 22. A time so opportune for the step can never occur again. 
 The last vestiges of the Royal House of Delhi, from which, for 
 our own convenience, we had long been content to accept a vica- 
 
 s 2 
 
260 APPENDIX A. 
 
 rious authority, have been swept away. The last pretender to 
 the representation of the Peishwah has disappeared. The Crown 
 of England stands forth the unquestioned ruler and Paramount 
 Power in all India, and is, for the first time, brought face to face 
 with its feudatories. There is a reality in the suzerainty of the 
 Sovereign of England which has never existed before, and which 
 is not only felt but eagerly acknowledged by the Chiefs. A great 
 convulsion has been followed by such a manifestation of our 
 strength as India had never seen, and if this, in its turn, be 
 followed by an act of general and substantial grace to the native 
 Chiefs, over and above the special rewards which have already 
 been given to those whose services deserve them, the measure 
 will be seasonable and appreciated. 
 
 23. Such an act of grace, and in my humble opinion, of sound 
 policy, would be an assurance to every Chief, above the rank of 
 Jagheerdar, who now governs his own territory, no matter how 
 small it may be, or where it may be situated, or whence his au- 
 thority over it may, in the first instance, have been derived, that 
 the Paramount Power desires to see his Government perpetuated, 
 and that, on failure of natural heirs, his adoption of a successor, 
 according to Hindoo law (if he be a Hindoo) and to the customs 
 of his race, will be recognised, and that nothing shall disturb the 
 engagement thus made to him, so long as his House is loyal to 
 the Crown and faithful to the conditions of the Treaties or Grants 
 which record its obligations to the British Government. 
 
 24. The effect to be expected from this measure may be shortly 
 described. 
 
 25. To the old Principalities of Rajpootana it would be of no 
 direct importance. There adoptions have been hitherto gene- 
 rally respected by all Ruling Powers, and if any class of Chiefs 
 feel secure that we shall not question their claims to adopt suc- 
 cessors, it is probably the Princes of Rajpootana. 
 
 To the great Houses of Scindia, Holkar, Rewah, Puttialla, and 
 to other smaller ones to whom the promise has already been 
 made, it would be no new concession. 
 
 But to all other Chiefs, to the Guicowar and others in Western 
 India, to those in Central India, in Bundlecund, and in the Hill 
 States, it would be a most welcome assurance. 
 
 26. It would reassure them upon a matter on which they are 
 especially sensitive, the continuance of the representation and 
 dignity of their families. 
 
 It would remove a distinction already adverted to, which has 
 been drawn between independent and dependent States, founded 
 (though I venture to think not quite correctly founded) upon 
 Lord MetcattVs Minute of October 28th, 1837, and would do 
 away with the difference of treatment between the independent 
 Chiefs, and the Chief of a State like Jaloun and Jhansie, who, al- 
 though he and his forefathers may have exercised for more than 
 
THE ADOPTION DESPATCH. 261 
 
 a century the full functions of government, is not considered en- 
 titled to adopt a successor, because the Peishwah had recognised 
 his ancestor only as a Soubadar. 
 
 It would show at once, and for ever, that we are not lying in 
 wait for opportunities of absorbing territory, and that we do de- 
 liberately desire to keep alive a feudal aristocracy where one still 
 exists. It would establish this more conclusively, and bring it 
 home to many more minds, than the promises and declarations 
 recently made in Durbar to the powerful Chiefs to whom we are 
 under special obligations. 
 
 27. I have proposed that the assurance should be given to 
 every Chief who now governs his own territory, and who holds a 
 position higher than that of a Jagheerdar. 
 
 This will mark a line which will be generally clear and intelli- 
 gible, and it will accord with the one main distinction drawn by 
 Lord Metcalfe between Chiefs who are, and Chiefs who are not, 
 entitled to adopt. 
 
 Nevertheless, I think that some exceptions in favour of Jag- 
 heerdars should be made. A Jagheer is usually an assignment of 
 land or revenue, in consideration of services, and not hereditary, 
 or hereditary only for a generation or two. But, as Lord Met- 
 calfe observes, there are in Bundlecund Chiefs whom it is diffi- 
 cult to place in either of the classes which he describes ; and it 
 is clear that he alludes to some who are there called Jagheerdars. 
 
 In their case the word means 
 ! 6 9 e S Delations, much more than ^ other parts 
 
 of India. Their territories and 
 
 the administration thereof have been granted to them and to 
 their successors in perpetuity, so long as certain obligations are 
 observed, and the concession of the privilege of adoption to the 
 most influential among them would have a beneficial effect, not 
 only in that disjointed Province, which, whatever may be our de- 
 sire and however stringently we might enforce lapses, we could 
 not hope to consolidate under our own administration for many 
 generations to come, but throughout India.* In these last men- 
 
 * These Jagheerdars resemble those of whom Sir John Malcolm wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 " Adoptions which are universally recognised as legal among Hindoos are 
 not a strict right (any more than direct heirs) where grants of laud are for 
 service. * 
 
 " But we have received the submission of the Jagheerdars, confirmed their 
 estates, honoured them, and have continued to do so, by treating them as 
 Princes ; but while a few have been permitted to adopt, others are denied the 
 privilege ; and while we declare their direct heirs are entitled to succeed, 
 we lie in wait (J can call it nothing else) to seize their fine estates on failure 
 of heirs, throwing them and their adherents and the country into a state of 
 doubt and distraction. These families should either never have been placed 
 in possession of these countries, or never have been removed from them." 
 Life and Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm, Nov. 14th, 1829. 
 
262 APPENDIX A. 
 
 tioned cases it would be expedient to require Nuzzerana when- 
 ever adoption took effect. From a fourth to a third of a year's 
 revenue would, I think, be a fitting amount. 
 
 28. The case of the Mahomedan Chiefs remained to be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 Adoption in the full sense in which it is exercised by Hindoo 
 Chiefs they cannot claim. But adoption of one collateral in pre- 
 ference to another of closer affinity, has been allowed to them 
 where lineal heirs have failed; and it seems that it is also in accord- 
 ance with Mahomedan law and 
 
 See Papers on the Bhopal Succes- Q that ^ Sovere i gll sllollld 
 
 sion, 18, 19, 20. . . e 
 
 select irom among his sons the 
 
 one whom he may desire to succeed to him. The King of Delhi 
 exercised this right shortly before his rebellion. 
 
 To the Mahomedan Chiefs, then, the assurance to be given would 
 be that the Paramount Power desires to see their Governments 
 
 perpetuated, and that any suc- 
 
 ^ e ^ ui& f L rd Metcalfe > Oct ' cession to them which may be 
 3th, 1837, para. 6. legitimate according to Maho- 
 
 medan law will be upheld. 
 
 29. I recommend that in every case, Mahomedan or Hindoo, 
 the assurance should be conveyed to each Chief individually, and 
 not by a general notification addressed to all. This would be 
 necessary, in order to avoid future claims from petty Jagheerdars 
 or others whom it is not intended to include in this measure. 
 
 30. The proposed measure will not debar the Government of 
 India from stepping in to set right such serious abuse's in a Native 
 Government as may threaten any part of the country with anarchy 
 or disturbance, nor from assuming temporary charge of a Native 
 State when there shall be sufficient reason to do so. This has 
 long been our practice. We have repeatedly exercised the power 
 with the assent and sometimes at the desire of the chief authority 
 in the State, and it is one which, used with good judgment and 
 moderation, it is very desirable that we should retain. It will, 
 indeed, when once the proposed assurance shall have been given, 
 be more easy than heretofore to exercise it without provoking 
 jealousy of any designs upon the independence of the State. 
 
 31. Neither will the assurance, if worded as proposed, diminish 
 our right to visit a State with the heaviest penalties, even to 
 confiscation, in the event of its disloyalty or flagrant breach of 
 engagement. 
 
 Upon this point, I beg to refer to the following passages in 
 papers by Sir George Clerk : 
 
 , T . . ., . . , " We should look for escheats 
 
 See Minute on Sattara. April 12th, n 
 
 1848, para. 26. D k fr m sucn a source as the 
 
 doubtful meaning of the stipula- 
 tion of an agreement, but from the incorrigible misconduct of allies 
 when thrown back, as they should be, on the responsibilities of 
 
THE ADOPTION DESPATCH. 263 
 
 the Sovereign rights relinquished to them, rendering punishment 
 in such cases signal and salutary, by abstaining from half 
 measures, such as largely pensioning or managing for the delin- 
 quent, or substituting his child, wife, or minister." 
 And again, 
 
 See Letter on Chiefship of Bughafc, . " ^ P r P er , Punishment for 
 November l()th, 1842. tne Paramount State to inflict 
 
 for gross mismanagement and 
 
 oppression, such as prevails to a considerable extent in these 
 Hills, would be sequestration of the Chieftaincies ; but this would 
 not be fair until we had revived their interest in their ancestral 
 territories, by manifesting the same respect for their rights, 
 founded on a possession of many centuries, as is ^entertained by 
 the people in general. Could we inspire them with confidence in 
 our general disinterestedness, our severity, when called for, would 
 be rightly and beneficially understood ; and for the most part, 
 that confidence would correct the motives to neglectful or tyran- 
 nical conduct requiring punishment." 
 
 I consider those views to be sound, not only in the cases to 
 which they refer, but in those of Native States generally ; and I 
 would apply them generally, with this single limitation that the 
 penalty of sequestration or confiscation should be used only when 
 the misconduct or oppression is such as to be not only heinous in 
 itself, but of a nature to constitute indisputably a breach of loyalty 
 or of recorded engagement to the Paramount Power. 
 
 32. It is certain that objection to the proposed measure will be 
 taken on the ground that it will cut off future opportunities of 
 accession of territory, and that it is our duty not to forego these. 
 
 I regard this not as an objection, but as a recommendation ; and 
 I cannot take that view of our duty. 
 
 33. Notwithstanding the greater purity and enlightenment of 
 our administration, its higher tone, and its surer promise of future 
 benefit to the people, as compared with any Native Government, 
 I still think that we have before us a higher and more pressing 
 duty than that of extending our direct rule, and that our first care 
 should be to strengthen that rule within its present limits, and to 
 secure for our general supremacy the contented acquiescence and 
 respect of all who are subjected to it. 
 
 Our supremacy will never be heartily accepted and respected so 
 long as we leave ourselves open to the doubts which are now felt, 
 and which our uncertain policy has justified, as to our ultimate in- 
 tentions towards Native States. 
 
 We shall not become stronger so long as we continue adding 
 to our territory without adding to our European force j and the 
 additions to that force which we already require are probably as 
 large as England can conveniently furnish, and they will certainly 
 cost as much as India can conveniently pay. 
 
 As to Civil Government, our English officers are too few for 
 
264 APPENDIX A. 
 
 the work which they have on their hands, and our financial means 
 are not yet equal to the demands upon us. Accession of territory 
 will not make it easier to discharge our already existing duties in 
 the administration of justice, the prosecution of public works, and 
 in many other ways. 
 
 34. The safety of our rule is increased, not diminished,, by the 
 maintenance of Native Chiefs well affected to us. Setting aside 
 the well known services rendered by Scindia, and, subsequently, 
 by the Maharajahs of Rewah, Chirkaree, and others, over the wide 
 tract of Central India, where our authority is most broken in upon 
 by Native States, I venture to say that there is no man who re- 
 members the condition of Upper India in 1857 and 1858, and who 
 is not thankful hat in the centre of the large and compact British 
 province of Eohilcund there remained the solitary little State of 
 Earn poor, still administered by its own Mahometan Prince, and 
 that on the borders of the Punjab and of the districts above Delhi, 
 the Chief of Puttiala and his kinsmen still retained their hereditary 
 authority unimpaired. 
 
 In the time of which I speak, these patches of Native Govern- 
 ment served as breakwaters to the storm which would otherwise 
 have swept over us in one great wave. And in quiet times they 
 have their uses. Kestless men, who will accept no profession but 
 arms, crafty intriguers bred up in Native Courts, and others who 
 would chafe at our stricter and more formal rule, live there con- 
 tentedly ; and should the day come when India shall be threatened 
 by an external enemy, or when the interests of England elsewhere 
 may require that her Eastern Empire shall incur more than ordi- 
 nary risk, one of our best mainstays will be found in these Native 
 States. But, to make them so, we must treat their Chiefs and 
 influential families with consideration and generosity, teaching 
 them that, in spite of all suspicions to the contrary, their inde- 
 pendence is safe, that we are not waiting for plausible opportuni- 
 ties to convert their country into British territory, and convincing 
 them that they have nothing to gain by helping to displace us in 
 favour of any new rulers, from within or from without. 
 
 25. It was long ago said by Sir John Malcolm, that if we made 
 all India into Zillahs, it was not in the nature of things that our 
 Empire should last fifty years ; but that if we could keep up a 
 number of Native States, without political power, but as royal 
 instruments, we should exist in India as long as our naval supe- 
 riority in Europe was maintained. 
 
 Of the substantial truth of this opinion I have no doubt, and 
 recent events have made it more deserving of our attention than 
 ever. 
 
 I have, etc. 
 
 CANNING. 
 
265 
 
 (B.) 
 PARTITION TREATY OF MYSORE, 1799. 
 
 'Treaty for strengthening the Alliance and Friendship subsisting 
 between the English East-India Company Behauder, his Highness 
 the Nabob Nizam-ul-Doivlah Asoph Jah Behauder, and the 
 Paishwah, Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder, and for effecting a 
 Settlement of the Dominions of the late Tippoo Sultaun.* 
 
 Whereas the deceased Tippoo Sultaun, unprovoked by any act 
 of aggression on the part of the Allies, entered into an offensive 
 and defensive alliance with the French, and admitted a French 
 force into his army, for the purpose of commencing war against 
 the Honourable English Company Behauder, and its Allies, 
 Nizam-ul-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, and the Paishwah Row 
 Pundit Purdhaun Behauder ; and the said Tippoo Sultaun having 
 attempted to evade the just demands of satisfaction and security 
 made by the Honourable English Company and its Allies, for 
 their defence and protection' against the joint designs of the said 
 Sultaun and of the French, the allied armies of the Honourable 
 English Company Behauder and of his Highness Nizain-ul- 
 Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder proceeded to hostilities, in vindica- 
 tion of their rights, and for the preservation of their respective 
 dominions from the perils of foreign invasion, and from the 
 ravages of a cruel and relentless enemy. 
 
 And whereas it has pleased Almighty God to prosper the just 
 cause of the said Allies, the Honourable English Company 
 Behauder and his Highness Nizam-ul-Dowlah Asoph Jah 
 Behauder, with a continual course of victory and success, and 
 finally to crown their arms by the reduction of the capital of 
 Mysore, the fall of Tippoo Sultaun, the utter extinction of his 
 power, and the unconditional submission of his people; and 
 whereas the said Allies, being disposed to exercise the rights of 
 conquest with the same moderation and forbearance which they 
 have observed from the commencement to the conclusion of the 
 late successful war, have resolved to use the power which it has 
 pleased Almighty God to place in their hands, for the purpose of 
 obtaining reasonable compensation for the expenses of the war, 
 and of establishing permanent security and genuine tranquillity 
 for themselves and their subjects, as well as for all the powers 
 contiguous to their respective dominions ; wherefore a Treaty, for 
 the adjustment of the territories of the late Tippoo Sultaun 
 between the English East-India Company Behauder and his 
 Highness the Nabob Nizam-ul-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, is 
 now concluded by Lieutenant General George Harris, Commander 
 in Chief of the Forces of his Britannic Majesty and of the English 
 
 * The Paishwah refused to accede to this Treaty. 
 
266 APPENDIX B. 
 
 East-India Company Behauder in the Carnatic and on the Coast 
 of Malabar, the Honourable Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the 
 Honourable Henry Wellesley, Lieutenant Colonel William Kirk- 
 patrick, and Lieutenant Colonel Barry Close, on the part and in 
 the name of the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Mornington, 
 K.P., Governor General for all Affairs, civil and military, of the 
 British Nation in India ; and by the Nabob Meer Allum 
 Behauder, on the part and in the name of his Highness the 
 Nabob Nizam-ul-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, according to the 
 under-mentioned Articles, which, by the blessing of God, shall be 
 binding upon the heirs and successors of the contracting parties, 
 as long as the sun and moon shall endure, and of which the con- 
 ditions shall be reciprocally observed by the said contracting 
 parties. 
 
 i. It being reasonable and just, that the Allies by this Treaty 
 should accomplish the original objects of the war (viz. a due 
 indemnification for the expenses incurred in their own defence, 
 and effectual security for their respective possessions against the 
 future designs of their enemies), it is stipulated and agreed, that 
 the districts specified in the Schedule A, hereunto annexed, 
 together with the heads of all the passes leading from the territory 
 of the late Tippoo Sultaun to any part of the possessions of the 
 English East-India Company Behauder, of its Allies or tributaries, 
 situated between the Ghauts on either coast, and all forts situated 
 near to and commanding the said passes, shall be subjected to 
 the authority, and be for ever incorporated with the dominions of 
 the English East-India Company Behauder, the said Company 
 Behauder engaging to provide effectually out of the revenues of 
 the said districts, for the suitable maintenance of the whole of the 
 families of the late Hyder Ali Khan and of the late Tippoo 
 Sultaun, and to apply to this purpose, with the reservation 
 hereinafter stated, an annual sum of not less than two lacs of 
 Star Pagodas, making the Company's share as follows : 
 
 Estimated value of districts enumerated in the Schedule 
 A, according to the statement of Tippoo Sultaun 
 in 1792 Canterai Pagodas 7,77,170 
 
 Deduct, provision for the families of Hyder Ali Khan 
 and of Tippoo Sultaun, two lacs of Star Pagodas, 
 in Canterai Pagodas - 2,40,000 
 
 Remains to the East India Company - 5,37,170 
 
 ii. For the same reason stated in the preceding Articles, the 
 district specified in Schedule B, annexed hereunto, shall be 
 subjected to the authority, and for ever united to the dominions 
 of the Nabob Nizam-ul-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, the said 
 Nabob having engaged to provide liberally, from the revenues of 
 
PARTITION TEEATY OF MYSOKE, 1799. 267 
 
 the said districts, for the support of Meer Kummer-ud-Dien 
 Khan Behauder, and of his family and relations, and to grant him 
 for this purpose a personal Jaghire in the districts of Gurrum- 
 condah equal to the annual sum of 2,10,000 rupees, or of 70,000 
 Canterai Pagodas, over and above and exclusive of a Jaghire, 
 which the said Nabob has also agreed to assign to the said Meer 
 Kummer-ud-Dien Khan, for the pay and maintenance of a pro- 
 portionate number of troops to be employed in the service of his 
 said Highness, making the share of his Highness as follows : 
 
 Estimated value of the territory specified in Schedule 
 B, according to the statement of Tippoo Sultaun 
 in 1792 Canterai Pagodas 6,07,332 
 
 Deduct, personal Jaghire to Meer Kummer-ud-Dien 
 
 Khan, 2,10,000 rupees, or - 70,000 
 
 Eemains to the Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph Jah 
 
 Behauder - - 5,37,332 
 
 in. It being farther expedient for the preservation of peace 
 and tranquillity, and for the general security, on the foundations 
 now established by the contracting parties, that the fortress of 
 Seringapatam should be subjected to the said Company Behauder, 
 it is stipulated and agreed that the said fortress, and the island 
 on which it is situated (including the small tract of land, or 
 island, lying to the westward of the main island, and bounded on 
 the west by a Nullah, called the Mysore Nullah, which falls into 
 the Cauvery near Chenagal Ghaut) shall become part of the 
 dominions of the said Company, in full right and sovereignty 
 for ever. 
 
 iv. A separate Government shall be established in Mysore ; 
 and for this purpose, it is stipulated and agreed, that the Maha 
 Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, a descendant of 
 the ancient Rajahs of Mysore, shall possess the territory herein- 
 after described, upon the conditions hereinafter mentioned. 
 
 v. The contracting powers mutually and severally agree, that 
 the districts specified in Schedule C, hereunto annexed, shall be 
 ceded to the said Maha Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah, and shall 
 form the separate Government of Mysore, upon the conditions 
 hereinafter mentioned. 
 
 vi. The English East India Company Behauder shall be at 
 liberty to make such deductions, from time to time, from the 
 sums allotted by the first Article of the present Treaty, for the 
 maintenance of the families of Hyder Ali Khan and Tippoo Sul- 
 taun, as may be proper, in consequence of the decease of any 
 member of the said families ; and in the event of any hostile 
 attempt, on the part of the said family, or of any member of it, 
 against the authority of the contracting parties, or against the 
 
268 APPENDIX B. 
 
 peace of their respective dominions, or the territories of the Rajah 
 of Mysore, then the said English East India Company Behauder 
 shall be at liberty to limit or suspend entirely the payment of the 
 whole, or any part of the stipend hereinbefore stipulated to be 
 applied to the maintenance and support of the said families. 
 
 viz. His Highness the Paishwa Row Pundit Purdhaun Behau- 
 der shall be invited to accede to the present Treaty ; and although 
 the said Paishwah Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder has neither 
 participated in the expense or danger of the late war, and there- 
 fore is not entitled to share any part of the acquisitions made by 
 the contracting parties (namely, the English East India Company 
 Behauder and his Highness the Nabob Nizam- ud-Dowlah Asoph 
 Jah Behauder), yet for the maintenance of the relations of friend- 
 ship and alliance between the said Paishwa Row Pundit Purdhaun 
 Behauder, the English East India Company Behauder, his High- 
 ness the Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, and 
 Maha Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah Behauder, it is stipulated and 
 agreed that certain districts, specified in Schedule I), hereunto 
 annexed, shall be reserved for the purpose of being eventually 
 ceded to the said Paishwah Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder, in 
 full right and sovereignty, in the same manner as if he had been 
 a contracting party to this Treaty ; provided, however, that the 
 said Paishwa Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder shall accede to the 
 present Treaty, in its full extent, within one month from the day 
 on which it shall be formally communicated to him by the contract- 
 ing parties, and provided also that he shall give satisfaction to 
 the English East India Company Behauder, and to his Highness 
 Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, with regard to certain 
 points now depending between him, the said Paishwa Row Pundit 
 Purdhaun Behauder, and the said Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph 
 Jah Behauder, and also with regard to such points as shall be 
 represented to the said Paishwah, on the part of the English 
 East India Company Behauder, by the Governor General or the 
 British Resident at the Court of Poonah. 
 
 vni. If, contrary to the amicable expectation of the contracting 
 parties, the said Paishwah Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder shall 
 refuse to accede to this Treaty, or to give satisfaction upon the 
 points to which the Seventh Article refers, then the right to, and 
 sovereignty of, the several districts hereinbefore reserved for 
 eventual cession to the Paishwah Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder, 
 shall rest jointly in the said English East India Company Behauder 
 and the said Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph JahBehauder, who will 
 either exchange them with the Rajah of Mysore for other districts 
 of equal value, more contiguous to their respective territories, or 
 otherwise arrange and settle respecting them, as they shall judge 
 proper. 
 
 ix. It being expedient for the effectual establishment of Maha 
 Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah in the Government of Mysore, that 
 
PARTITION TREATY OF MYSORE, 1799. 269 
 
 his Highness should be assisted with a suitable Subsidiary Force, 
 it is stipulated and agreed, that the whole of the said Force shall 
 be furnished by the English East India Company Behauder, 
 according to the terms of a separate Treaty, to be immediately 
 concluded between the said English East India Company Behauder 
 and his Highness the Maha Rajah Mysore Kishna Rajah Oodiaver 
 Behauder. 
 
 x. This Treaty, consisting of ten Articles, being settled and 
 concluded this day, the 22d of June, 1799 (corresponding to the 
 17th of Mohurrun, 1214 Anno Hegiras) by Lieutenant General 
 George Harris, the Honourable Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the 
 Honourable Henry Wellesley, Lieutenant Colonel William Kirk- 
 patrick, and Lieutenant Colonel Barry Close, on the part and in 
 the name of the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Morningtori, 
 Governor General aforesaid ; and by Meer Allum Behauder 011 
 the part and in the name of His Highness the Nabob Nizam-ud- 
 Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder; the said Lieutenant General Harris, 
 the Honourable Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the Honourable Henry 
 Wellesley, Lieu tenant Colonel William Kirkpatrick, and Lieutenant 
 Colonel Barry Close, have delivered to Meer Allum Behauder one 
 copy of the same, signed and sealed by themselves ; and Meer 
 Allum Behauder has delivered to Lieutenant General George 
 Harris, the Honourable Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the Honourable 
 Henry Wellesley, Lieutenant Colonel William Kirkpatrick, and 
 Lieutenant Colonel Barry Close, another copy of the same, sealed 
 by himself ; and Lieutenant General George Harris, the Honour- 
 able Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the Honourable Henry Wellesley, 
 Lieutenant Colonel William Kirkpatrick, and Lieutenant Colonel 
 Barry Close, and Meer Allum Behauder, severally and mutually 
 engage, that the said Treaty shall be respectively ratified by the 
 Right Honourable the Governor General, under his seal and 
 signature, within eight days from the date hereof, and by his 
 Highness the Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, 
 within twenty-five days from the date hereof. Ratified at Hyder- 
 abad, by his Highness the Nizam, on the 13th day of July, Anno 
 Domini 1799. 
 
 (Signed) J. A. KIEKPATRICK, Resident. 
 Schedule A (The Company's Share). 
 
 Schedule B (The Nizam's Share). 
 * * * * 
 
 Schedule C (Districts ceded to Maha Rajah Mysore Kishna 
 Rajah Oodiaver Behauder. 
 
270 APPENDIX B. 
 
 SEPARATE ARTICLES OF THE TREATY WITH 
 THE NIZAM. 
 
 Separate Articles appertaining to the Treaty of Mysore, concluded 
 on the 22nd of June, 1799 (corresponding to the 17th of 
 Mohurrum, Anno Hegirce 1214) between the Honourable English 
 East India Company Behauder, and the Nabob Nizam-ul-Dowlah 
 Asoph Jah Behauder. 
 
 i. With a view to the prevention of future altercations, it is 
 agreed between his Highness the Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph 
 Jah Behauder and the Honourable English East India Company 
 Behauder, that to whatever amount the stipends appropriated to 
 the maintenance of the sons, relations, and dependants of the late 
 Hyder Ali Khan and Tippoo Sultaun, or the personal Jaghire of 
 Meer Kummer-ud-Deen Khan, shall hereafter be diminished, in 
 consequence of any one of the stipulations of the Treaty of 
 Mysore, the contracting parties shall not be accountable to each 
 other on this head. 
 
 ii. And it is further agreed between the contracting parties, 
 that in the event provided for by the Eighth Article of the Treaty 
 of Mysore, two-thirds of the share reserved for Row Pundit 
 Purdhaun Behauder shall fall to his Highness the Nabob Nizam- 
 ud-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, and the remaining third to the 
 Honourable English East India Company Behauder. 
 
 Ratified at Hyderabad by his Highness the Nizam, 
 on the 13th day of July, Anno Domini 1799. 
 
 (Signed) J. A. KIRKPATRICK, Resident. 
 
 SUBSIDIARY TREATY OF SERINGAPATAM, 1799. 
 
 A Treaty of perpetual Friendship and Alliance, concluded on the 
 one part by his Excellency Lieutenant- General George Harris, 
 Commander in Chief of the Forces of his Britannic Majesty and 
 of the English East India Company Behauder in the Carnatic 
 and on the Coast of Malabar, the Honourable Colonel Arthur 
 Wellesley, the Honourable Henry Wellesley, Lieutenant Colonel 
 William Kirkpatrick, and Lieutenant- Colonel Barry Close, on 
 behalf and in the name of the Right Honourable Richard Earl of 
 Mornington, K.P., Governor General for all Affairs, civil and 
 military, of the British Nation in India, by virtue of full powers 
 vested in them for this purpose by the said Richard Earl of Mor- 
 nington, Governor General; and on the other part by Maha 
 RajahMysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, Rajah of Mysore. 
 
 Whereas it is stipulated, in the Treaty concluded on the 22nd 
 of June, 1799, between the Honourable English East India 
 
SUBSIDIARY TREATY, 1799. 271 
 
 Company Behauder, and the Nabob Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph 
 Jah Behauder, for strengthening the alliance and friendship 
 subsisting between the said English East India Company 
 Behauder, his Highness Nizam-ud-Dowlah Asoph Jah Behauder, 
 and the Peshwa, Row Pundit Purdhaun Behauder, and for 
 effecting a settlement of the territories of the late Tippoo 
 Sultaun, that a separate Government shall be established in 
 Mysore, and that his Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah 
 Oodiaver Behauder shall possess certain territories, specified in 
 Schedule C, annexed to the said Treaty, and that, for the 
 effectual establishment of the Government of Mysore, his 
 Highness shall be assisted with a suitable Subsidiary Force, 
 to be furnished by the English East India Company Behauder ; 
 wherefore, in order to carry the said stipulations into effect, and 
 to increase and strengthen the friendship subsisting between the 
 said English East India Company and the said Maha Rajah 
 Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, this Treaty is concluded 
 by Lieutenant- General George Harris, Commander in Chief of 
 the Forces of his Britannic Majesty and of the said English East 
 India Company Behauder in the Carnatic and on the Coast of 
 Malabar, the Honourable Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the Honour- 
 able Henry Wellesley, Lieutenant Colonel William Kirkpatrick, 
 and Lieutenant Colonel Barry Close, on the part and in the name 
 of the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Mornington, Governor 
 General aforesaid, and by his Highness Maha Rajah Mysore 
 Kishna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, which shall be binding upon 
 the contracting parties as long as the sun and moon shall endure. 
 
 i. The friends and enemies of either of the contracting parties 
 shall be considered as the friends and enemies of both. 
 
 ii. The Honourable East India Company Behauder agrees to 
 maintain, and his Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah 
 Oodiaver Behauder agrees to receive, a military force, for the 
 defence and security of his Highnesses dominions; in consideration 
 of which protection, his Highness engages to pay the annual sum 
 of seven lacks of Star Pagodas to the said East-India Company, 
 the said sum to be paid in twelve equal monthly instalments, 
 commencing from the 1st of July, Anno Domini 1799. And his 
 Highness further agrees, that the disposal of the said sum, 
 together with the arrangement and employment of the troops to 
 be maintained by it, shall be entirely left to the Company. 
 
 in. If it shall be necessary for the protection and defence of 
 the territories of the contracting parties, or of either of them, 
 that hostilities shall be undertaken, or preparations made for 
 commencing hostilities against any State or Power, his said 
 Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, 
 agrees to contribute towards the discharge of the increased 
 expense incurred by the augmentation of the military force, and 
 the unavoidable charges of war, such a sum as shall appear to the 
 
272 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Governor General in Council of Fort William, on an attentive 
 consideration of the means of his said Highness, to bear a just 
 and reasonable proportion to the actual net revenues of his said 
 Highness. 
 
 iv. And whereas it is indispensably necessary, that effectual 
 and lasting security should be provided against any failure in the 
 funds destined to defray either the expenses of the permanent 
 military force in time of peace, or the extraordinary expenses 
 described in the Third Article of the -present Treaty, it is hereby 
 stipulated and agreed between the contracting parties, that when- 
 ever the Governor General in Council of Fort William in Bengal 
 shall have reason to apprehend such failure in the funds so 
 destined, the said Governor General in Council shall be at liberty, 
 and shall have full power and right, either to introduce such 
 regulations and ordinances as he shall deem expedient for the 
 internal management and collection of the revenues, or for the 
 better ordering of any other branch and department of the 
 Government of Mysore, or to assume and bring under the direct 
 management of the servants of the said Company Behauder, such 
 part or parts of the territorial possessions of his Highness Maha 
 Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, as shall appear 
 to him, the said Governor General in Council, necessary to render 
 the said funds efficient and available either in time of peace 
 or war. 
 
 v. And it is hereby further agreed, that whenever the said 
 Governor General in Council shall signify to the said Maha Rajah 
 Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, that it is become 
 necessary to carry into effect the provisions of the Fourth Article, 
 his said Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver 
 Behauder shall immediately issue orders to his Aumils, or other 
 officers, either for carrying into effect the said regulations and 
 ordinances, according to the tenor of the Fourth Article, or for 
 placing the territories required under the exclusive authority and 
 control of the English Company Behauder. And in case his 
 Highness shall not issue such orders within ten days from the 
 time when the application shall have been formally made to him, 
 then the said Governor General in Council shall be at liberty to 
 issue orders, by his own authority, either for carrying into effect 
 the regulations and ordinances, or for assuming the management 
 and collection of the revenue of the said territories, as he shall 
 judge most expedient for the purpose of securing the efficiency of 
 the said military funds, and of providing for the effectual pro- 
 tection of the country and the welfare of the people. Provided 
 always, that whenever, and so long as any part or parts of his said 
 Highnesses territories shall be placed, and shall remain under the 
 exclusive authority and control of the said East India Company, 
 the Governor General in Council shall render to his Highness a 
 true and faithful account of the revenues and produce of the 
 
SUBSIDIARY TREATY, 1799. 273 
 
 territories so assumed ; provided also, that in no case whatever 
 shall his Highnesses actual receipts or actual income, arising out 
 of his territorial revenue, be less than the sum of one lac of Star 
 Pagodas, together with one-fifth of the net revenue of the whole 
 of the territories ceded to him by the Fifth Article of the Treaty 
 of Mysore ; which sum of one lac of Star Pagodas, together with 
 the amount of one-fifth of the said net revenue, the East India 
 Company engages, at all times and in every possible case, to 
 secure and cause to be paid for his Highnesses use. 
 
 vi. His Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver 
 Behauder engages, that he will be guided by a sincere and 
 cordial attention to the relations of peace and amity, now estab- 
 lished between the English Company Behauder and their Allies, 
 and that he will carefully abstain from any interference in the 
 affairs of any State in alliance with the said English Company 
 Behauder, or of any State whatever. And for securing the object 
 of this stipulation, it is further stipulated and agreed, that no 
 communication or correspondence with any foreign State what- 
 ever, shall be holden by his said Highness without the previous 
 knowledge and sanction of the said English Company Behauder. 
 
 vn. His Highness stipulates and agrees, that he will not admit 
 any European foreigners into his service, without the concurrence 
 of the English Company Behauder ; and that he will apprehend 
 and deliver up to the Company's Government all Europeans, of 
 whatever description, who shall be found within the territories of 
 his said Highness, without regular passports, from the Company's 
 Government, it being his Highnesses determined resolution not 
 to suffer, even for a day, any European foreigners to remain 
 within the territories now subjected to his authority, unless by 
 consent of the said Company. 
 
 vni. Whereas the complete protection of his Highnesses said 
 territories requires that various fortresses and strong places, 
 situated within the territories of his Highness, should be garrisoned 
 and commanded, as well in time of peace as of war, by British 
 troops and officers, his Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna 
 Rajah Oodiaver Behauder engages, that the said English Company 
 Behauder shall at all times be at liberty to garrison, in whatever 
 manner they may judge proper, all such fortresses and strong 
 places, within his said Highnesses territories, as it shall appear 
 advisable to them to take charge of. 
 
 ix. And whereas, in consequence of the system of defence 
 which it may be expedient to adopt, for the security of the terri- 
 torial possessions of his Highness Maha Rajah Mysoor Kistna 
 Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, it may be necessary that certain forts 
 and strong places, within his Highnesses territories, should be 
 dismantled or destroyed, and that other forts and strong places 
 should be strengthened and repaired, it is stipulated and agreed, 
 that the English East-India Company Behauder shall be the sole 
 
 T 
 
274 APPENDIX B. 
 
 judges of the necessity of any such alterations in the said 
 fortresses ; and it is further agreed,, that such expenses as may be 
 incurred on this account, shall be borne and defrayed, in equal 
 proportions, by the contracting parties. 
 
 x. In case it shall become necessary, for enforcing and main- 
 taining the authority and government of his Highness in the 
 territories now subjected to his power, that the regular troops of 
 the English East-India Company Behauder should be employed, 
 it is stipulated and agreed, that upon formal application being 
 made for the service of the said troops, they shall be employed in 
 such manner as to the said Company shall seem fit : but it 
 is expressly understood by the contracting parties, that this 
 stipulation shall not subject the troops of the English East-India 
 Company Behauder to be employed in the ordinary transactions 
 of revenue. 
 
 xi. It being expedient for the restoration and permanent estab- 
 lishment of tranquillity in the territories now subjected to the 
 authority of his Highness Maha Rajah Mysoor Kistna Rajah 
 Oodiaver Behauder, that suitable provision should be made for 
 certain officers of rank in the service of the late Tippoo Sultaun, 
 his said Highness agrees to enter into the immediate discussion 
 of this point, and to fix the amount of the funds (as soon as the 
 necessary information can be obtained) to be granted for this 
 purpose, in a separate Article, to be hereafter added to this 
 Treaty. 
 
 xn. Lest the garrison of Seringapatam should, at any time, be 
 subject to inconvenience from the high price of provisions and 
 other necessaries, his Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna 
 Rajah Oodiaver Behauder agrees, that such quantities of pro- 
 visions and other necessaries, as may be required for the use and 
 consumption of the troops composing the said garrison, shall be 
 allowed to enter the place, from all and every part of his 
 dominions, free of any duty, tax, or impediment whatever. 
 
 xin. The contracting parties hereby agree to take into their 
 early consideration the best means of establishing such a com- 
 mercial intercourse between their respective dominions, as shall 
 be mutually beneficial to the subjects of both Governments, and 
 to conclude a Commercial Treaty for this purpose, with as little 
 delay as possible. 
 
 xiv. His Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver 
 Behauder hereby promises to pay at all times the utmost atten- 
 tion to such advice as the Company's Government shall occasion- 
 ally judge it necessary to offer to him, with a view to the economy 
 of his finances, the better collection of his revenues, the adminis- 
 tration of justice, the extension of commerce, the encouragement 
 of trade, agriculture, and industry, or any other objects connected 
 with the advancement of his Highnesses interests, the happiness 
 of his people, and the mutual welfare of both States. 
 
SUBSIDIARY TREATY, 1799. 275 
 
 xv. Whereas it may hereafter appear, that some of the districts 
 declared by the Treaty of Mysore to belong respectively to the 
 English Company Behauder and to his Highness are inconveniently 
 situated,, with a view to the proper connection of their respective 
 lines of frontier, it is hereby stipulated between the contracting 
 parties, that in all such cases they will proceed to such an adjust- 
 ment, by means of exchanges or otherwise, as shall be best suited 
 to the occasion. 
 
 xvi. This Treaty, consisting of sixteen Articles, being this day, 
 the 8th of July, Anno Domini 1799 (corresponding to the 3rd of 
 Suffur, Anno Hegiraa 1214, and to the 7th of the month Assar, of 
 172 1st year of the Saliwahan era) settled and concluded at the 
 fort of Nazzerbagh, nearSeringapatam, by his Excellency, Lieuten- 
 ant-General George Harris, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of 
 his Britannic Majesty, and of the Honourable English East India 
 Company Behauder, in the Carnatic and on the Coast of Malabar, 
 the Honourable Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the Honourable Henry 
 Wellesley, Lieutenant- Colonel William Kirkpatrick, and Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Barry Close, with the Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna 
 Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, the aforesaid gentlemen have delivered 
 to the said Maha Rajah one copy of the same, in English and 
 Persian, sealed and signed by them, and his Highness the Maha 
 Rajah has delivered to the gentlemen aforesaid another copy, also 
 in Persian and English, bearing his seal, and signed by Luchuma, 
 widow of the late Kistna Rajah, and sealed and signed by Purnia, 
 Dewan to the Maha Rajah Kistna Rajah Oodiaver. And the 
 aforesaid gentlemen have engaged to procure and to deliver to 
 the said Maha Rajah, without delay, a copy of the same, under 
 the seal and signature of the Right Honourable the Governor 
 General, on the receipt of which by the said Maha Rajah, the 
 present Treaty shall be deemed complete and binding on the Ho- 
 nourable the English East India Company and on the Maha Rajah 
 Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, and the copy of it now 
 delivered to the said Maha Rajah shall be returned. 
 
 Witnessed (Seal of the Maha RajahJ 
 
 (Signed) EDWARD GOLDING, and the 
 
 Assistant Secretary. (Ranee's Signature.} 
 
 (Seal and Signature of Purniah.J 
 A true Copy, 
 
 (Signed} G. BUCHAN, 
 
 Sub- Secretary. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 APPENDIX B. 
 
 ARTICLES EXPLANATORY OF THE THIRD ARTICLE 
 OF THE SUBSIDIARY TREATY, 1807. 
 
 Additional Articles for modifying and defining the Provisions of 
 the Third Article of the Treaty of Mysore,* settled and concluded 
 between the English East India Company Behauder and Maha 
 Rajah Mysore Kishen Rajah Oodiaver Behauder, Rajah of 
 Mysore. 
 
 Whereas it is stipulated by the Third Article of the Treaty of 
 Mysore,* that in the event of hostilities, or of preparations for 
 hostilities, against any State or Power, Maha Rajah Mysore 
 Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder shall contribute towards the 
 discharge of the increased expenses thereby incurred, a sum to 
 be eventually determined by the Governor General in Council of 
 Fort William ; and whereas it has appeared expedient to the 
 contracting parties, that the provisions of the said Article shall 
 now be rendered specific, and that the said indefinite contribu- 
 tions in war should be commuted, for the fixed maintenance of a 
 certain body of Horse in peace and war, wherefore these addi- 
 tional Articles, for modifying and defining the provisions of the 
 Third Article of the said Treaty, are now concluded, on the one 
 part, by Major Mark Wilks, in the name and on behalf of the 
 Honourable Sir George Hilaro Barlow, Baronet, Governor General 
 for all affairs, civil and military, of the British Nation in India by 
 virtue of full powers vested in him for the purpose by the said 
 Sir George Hilaro Barlow, Baronet, Governor General, and on 
 the other part, by Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiavur 
 Behauder, Rajah of Mysore, in his own behalf. 
 
 i. It is agreed and stipulated, that his Highness Maha Rajah 
 Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiavur shall be relieved from the pecu- 
 niary contribution to which he was liable, by the provisions of 
 the Third Article of the Treaty of Mysore : in consideration 
 whereof, his Highness engages to maintain, at all times, fit for 
 service and subject to muster, a body of (4,000) four thousand 
 effective Horse, of which number about (500) five hundred shall 
 be Bargeer, and the rest Silladar Horse. 
 
 ii. Such portion of the said body of (4,000) four thousand 
 Horse as, in the opinion of the British Government, shall not be 
 necessary for the internal protection of the country of Mysore, 
 shall be, at all times, ready to accompany and serve with the 
 
 * By a singular mistake in drafting these Additional Articles, the Subsidiary 
 Treaty is called the Treaty of Mysore. The Partition Treaty was the Treaty 
 of Mysore ; the Subsidiary Treaty the Treaty of Seringapatam, see Wellesley's 
 Despatches, vol. ii, p. 44, 45. 
 
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES, 1807. 277 
 
 Honourable Company's army, and while employed beyond the 
 territory of Mysore, the extra expenses of their maintenance, or 
 batta, at the rate of (4) four Star Pagodas per month for each 
 effective man and horse, after the expiration of one month from 
 the date of their crossing the frontier, shall be regularly paid by 
 the Honourable Company. The extra expense of any casual 
 service beyond the frontier, not exceeding in duration the period 
 of one month, shall be borne by the Government of Mysore. 
 
 in. If it should, at any time, be found expedient to augment 
 the Cavalry of Mysore beyond the number of (4,000) four thou- 
 sand, on intimation to that effect from the British Government, 
 his Highness the Rajah shall use his utmost endeavours for that 
 purpose ; but the whole expense of such augmentation, and of 
 the maintenance of the additional numbers at the rate of (8) 
 Star Pagodas for each effective man and horse, while within the 
 territory of Mysore, and of an additional sum, or batta, at the 
 rate of (4) four Star Pagodas a month, after the expiration of one 
 month from the period of their passing the frontier of Mysore, 
 as described in the Second Article, shall be defrayed by the 
 Honourable Company. 
 
 iv. Whereas, in conformity to the wish of the Governor General, 
 a body of (4,000) four thousand Horse and upwards has been 
 provisionally maintained by his Highness the Rajah, from the 
 period of the conclusion of war in the Deccan until this time, it 
 is hereby declared, that his Highness has fully and faithfully 
 performed the obligations of the Third Article of the Treaty of 
 Mysore until this day, and is hereby absolved from all retro- 
 spective claims on that account. 
 
 These four additional Articles, which, like the original Treaty 
 of Mysore, shall be binding on the contracting parties as long as 
 the sun and moon shall endure, having been settled and concluded 
 on this 29th day of January, Anno Domini 1807, corresponding 
 to the 19th of Zilcaad, Anno HegiraB 1221, and to the 21st day 
 of the month of Poosh, of the year 1728 of the Shaliwahan sera, 
 at Mysore, by Major Mark Wilks with the Maha Rajah Kistna 
 Rajah Oodiavur Behauder, Major Wilks has accordingly delivered 
 one copy of the same, in Persian and English, signed and sealed 
 by him, to his Highness the Maha Rajah, and who has likewise 
 delivered to Major Wilks another copy, in Persian and English, 
 bearing his Highnesses seal and signature, and signed by Lut- 
 chuma, widow of the late Kistna Rajah, and sealed and signed 
 by Poornia, Dewan to his Highness Maha Rajah Oodiavur Be- 
 hauder ; and Major Wilks has engaged to procure and deliver to 
 the said Maha Rajah, without delay, a copy of the same, under 
 the seal and signature of the Honourable the Governor General, 
 on the receipt of which by the Maha Rajah the present additional 
 Articles shall be deemed complete and binding on the Honour- 
 
278 APPENDIX C. 
 
 able East India Company and on the Malia Rajah Mysore Kistna 
 Rajah Oodiavur Behauder, and the copy now delivered to the 
 said Maha Rajah shall be returned. 
 
 A true Copy, 
 
 (Signed) N. B. EDMONSTONE. 
 
 Secretary to Government. 
 (Collection of Treaties, 1812, p. 441-459, and 302-304.) 
 
 (C.) 
 
 LETTER OF LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK, GOVERNOR 
 
 GENERAL, IN 1831, ANNOUNCING HIS INTENTION 
 
 OF ASSUMING THE MANAGEMENT OF MYSORE. 
 
 To the Rajah of Mysore. 
 
 September 7th, 1831. 
 
 After Compliments, It is now thirty-two years since the 
 British Government, having defeated the Armies and captured 
 the Forts and overrun the Territory of Tippoo Sultan, laid Siege 
 to Seringapatam, and that city being taken, the dynasty and the 
 power of Tippoo was brought to an end. Your Highness is well 
 aware of the generosity displayed by the Conquerors upon that 
 occasion. Instead of availing themselves of the right of con- 
 quest and of annexing the Territories of Mysore to those of the 
 Honourable Company and of the Nizam, the sovereignty was 
 restored to the family of the ancient Rajahs of the country, who 
 had taken no part in the contest, and your Highness was placed 
 on the Musnud. But your Highness being then but a child of 
 three years old, Poorniah was appointed fiewan of the State, 
 with full powers, and, with the aid and countenance of the Officers 
 of the British Government, he conducted all affairs with ex- 
 emplary wisdom and success. Up to the period when your High- 
 ness approached the years of maturity, through his good man- 
 agement, and as the consequence of his measures, the country 
 prospered, and the State of Mysore attained splendour and ex- 
 altation, and the population of all ranks were contented and 
 happy. Further, at the time of his resigning the Government 
 to your Highness, after having conducted its affairs for ten 
 years, he gave proof of the wisdom and correct integrity of his 
 management by leaving in the Treasuries, for your Highness' 
 use, no less than seventy-five lacks of Pagodas in cash, which is 
 a sum exceeding two Crores of Rupees. 
 
 From that time, which is now more than twenty years, your 
 
LETTER OF LORD WILLIAM BENTLNCK. 279 
 
 Highness has been vested with all the powers and authorities of 
 the Rajah of Mysore, and still exercise the rights of sovereignty 
 in the Territory of the State. But I am sorry to be compelled 
 to say that the former state of things no longer exists, and that 
 the duties and obligations of your Highness' position appear to 
 have been greatly neglected ; for it seems that, besides the cur- 
 rent revenue of the State, the treasure above stated to have been 
 accumulated by Poorniah has been dissipated on personal ex- 
 penses and disreputable extravagance ; an immense debt has 
 been incurred, and the finances of the State have been involved 
 in extricable embarrassment : and although Sir Thomas Munro, 
 the late Governor, as well as the Right Honourable S. R. Lush- 
 ington, the present Governor of Madras, frequently remonstrated 
 with your Highness on the subject, and obtained promises of 
 amendment and 01 efforts to reduce your expenditure within 
 your income, it does not appear that the least attention has been 
 paid to their remonstrances or advice. The Subsidy due to the 
 British Government has not been paid monthly according to the 
 Treaty of 6th July 1799. The Troops and Soldiers of the State 
 are unpaid, and are compelled, for their subsistence, to live at 
 free quarters upon the Ryots. The debt is represented to be 
 greater than ever ; and so far from its being possible to enter- 
 tain, from past experience, the smallest hope that these evils 
 will be corrected under your Highness' management, more ex- 
 tensive deterioration and confusion can alone be anticipated. 
 
 My Friend, there are stipulations in the 4th and 5th Articles 
 of the Treaty above alluded to, of which it may be useful to quote 
 at length the substance. These provisions are in effect as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 "Art. 4. And whereas it is indispensably necessary that 
 effectual and lasting security should be provided against any 
 failure in the fund destined to defray either the expenses of the 
 permanent military force in time of peace, or the extraordinary 
 expenses described in the 3rd Article of the present Treaty, it is 
 hereby stipulated and agreed between the contracting parties, 
 that whenever the Grovernor General in Council at Fort William 
 in Bengal, shall have reason to apprehend such failure in the 
 funds so destined, the said Governor General in Council shall be 
 at liberty, and shall have full power and right, either to introduce 
 such regulations and ordinances as he shall deem expedient for 
 the internal management and collection of the revenues, or for 
 the better ordering of any other branch and department of the 
 Government of Mysore, or to assume and bring under the direct 
 management of the Servants of the said Company Bahadoor, 
 such part or parts of the territorial possessions of His Highness 
 Maharaja Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Bahadoor as shall appear 
 to him the said Governor General in Council, necessary to render 
 the said funds efficient and available in time of peace or war." 
 
280 APPENDIX 0. 
 
 "Art. 5. And it is hereby further agreed that whenever the 
 ^aid Governor General in Council shall signify to the said Maha- 
 raja Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Bahadoor that it is become 
 necessary to carry into effect the provisions of the 4th Article, 
 His said Highness Maharaja Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver 
 Bahadoor shall immediately issue orders to his Arnils or other 
 officers, either for carrying into effect the said regulations and 
 ordinances according to the tenour of the 4th Article, or for 
 placing the Territories required under the exclusive authority 
 and control of the English Company Bahadoor, and in case His 
 Highness shall not issue such orders within ten days from the 
 time when the application shall have been formally made to him, 
 then the said Governor General in Council shall be at liberty to 
 issue orders by his own authority, either for Carrying into effect 
 the said regulations and ordinances, or for assuming the manage- 
 ment and collection of the revenues of the said territories, as he 
 shall judge most expedient for the purpose of securing the 
 efficiency of the said Military Fund, and of providing * for the 
 effectual protection of the country and the welfare of the people. 
 Provided always that whenever and so long as any part or parts 
 of His said Highness' Territories shall be placed and shall remain 
 under the exclusive authority and control of the East India Com- 
 pany, the Governor General in Council shall render to His High- 
 ness a true and faithful account of the revenues and produce of 
 the Territories so assumed ; provided also, that in no case what- 
 ever shall His Highness' actual receipt, or annual income aris- 
 ing out of his territorial revenue, be less than one lakh of Star 
 Pagodas, together with one-fifth of the net revenue of the whole 
 of the Territories ceded to him by the 5th Article of the Treaty 
 of Mysore, which sum of one lakh of Star Pagodas, together with 
 the amount of one-fifth of the said net revenues, the East India 
 Company engages, in all times and in every possible case, to 
 secure and cause to be paid for His Highness' use." 
 
 These stipulations were intended to provide for the specific 
 evils which I have described, and to the consequences, I lament 
 to say, your Highness has made yourself justly liable. 
 
 Moreover, from the time when your Highness assumed the 
 management of the affairs of Mysore, every symptom of malad- 
 ministration and misgovernment began to appear. The collection 
 of the revenues has failed through the choice of improper and 
 incapable officers for the charge of districts ; alienations have 
 been made of villages and public lands to a great extent, not in 
 reward for public services, but to favourites and companions of 
 your Highness, so that the resources of the State have been 
 greatly diminished. As a means of raising funds for temporary 
 purposes, to the neglect of future prospects and of the good of 
 the country, state offices of all descriptions have been sold, and 
 privileges of exclusive trade, whereby the Ryots and subjects of 
 
LETTER OF LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK. 281 
 
 the State were made over to needy and greedy adventurers. This 
 mismanagement, and the tyranny and oppression that resulted, 
 came at length to such a pass, as to be no longer bearable by 
 the inhabitants of the Territory of your Highness : and for the 
 past year, the half of your Highness' entire dominions have been 
 in insurrection in consequence. The troops of your Highness 
 were first sent to bring the insurgents to subjection, the greatest 
 excesses were committed, and unparalleled cruelties were inflicted 
 by your Highness' officers; but the insurrection was not quelled. 
 It became necessary to detach a part of the armies of the British 
 Government to restore tranquillity and take part against the in- 
 surgents. Tranquillity has for the present been restored, but 
 the British Government cannot permit its name or its power to 
 be identified with these acts of your Highness' misrule; and 
 while it cannot escape from the necessity of putting an end to 
 insurrection, although justifiable, which should lead to general 
 anarchy and confusion, it is imperiously called upon to supply an 
 immediate and complete remedy and to vindicate its own cha- 
 racter for justice. I have in consequence felt it to be indis- 
 pensable, as well with reference to the stipulations of the Treaty 
 above quoted, as from a regard to the obligations of the pro- 
 tective character which the British Government holds towards 
 the State of Mysore, to interfere for its preservation, and to 
 save the various interests at stake from further ruin. It has 
 seemed to me that in order to do this effectually, it will be neces- 
 sary to transfer the entire administration of the country into the 
 hands of British officers ; and I have accordingly determined to 
 nominate two Commissioners for the purpose, who will proceed 
 immediately to Mysore. 
 
 I now, therefore, give to your Highness this formal and final 
 notice, and I request your Highness to consider this letter in 
 that light ; that is, as the notice required by the Treaty to be 
 given to your Highness of the measure determined upon for the 
 assumption and management of the Mysore Territory in the case 
 stipulated. I beg of your Highness, therefore, to issue the 
 requisite orders and proclamations to the officers and authorities 
 of Mysore within ten days from the date when this letter may be 
 delivered to your Highness, for giving effect to the transfer of 
 the Territory, and investing the British Commissioners with full 
 authority in all departments, so as to enable them to proceed to 
 take charge and carry on affairs as they have been ordered, or 
 may be hereafter instructed. 
 
 My Friend, it is stipulated in the Treaty that one lakh of Star 
 Pagodas per annum shall be provided for the expenses of your 
 Highness, with your family and dependants. This shall be paid 
 by monthly instalments from the British Treasury ; besides which, 
 after providing for the charges of administration, any surplus 
 revenue shall be accounted for according to the stipulations of the 
 
282 APPENDIX D. 
 
 Treaty, and one-fifth shall further be paid to your Highness. I 
 write this for your Highness' full assurance on the point. This 
 letter will be transmitted to your Highness through the Right 
 Honourable Stephen R. Lushington^ the present Governor of 
 Madras, to whom I have fully explained all my views and wishes. 
 The Right Honourable the Governor will either deliver the letter 
 in person, or cause it to be presented to your Highness by the 
 Resident at Mysore, who will offer any further explanations that 
 may be necessary. 
 
 Your Highness may be assured of the extreme reluctance under 
 which I find myself compelled to have recourse to a measure that 
 must be so painful to your Highness' feelings, but I act under the 
 conviction that an imperative obligation of a great public duty 
 leaves me no alternative. I entreat your Highness to review your 
 past conduct, and calmly to consider the discredit of your own 
 administration, and the deep injury to the population entrusted 
 by the British Government to your care and protection, which 
 have been produced by unworthy advisers and favourites. And I 
 trust that the result of your patient and deliberate reflection may 
 be that, however afflicting to your own personal feelings the con- 
 sequences must be, the permanent prosperity of the Raj will be 
 best promoted by an adherence to the course which the wisdom 
 of the Marquess Wellesley established for a crisis like the 
 present. 
 
 True copy, 
 
 (Signed) H. T. PEINSEP, 
 
 Secretary to Government. 
 
 (D.) 
 GOVERNMENT EDUCATION. 
 
 (Page 166.) 
 
 The following extracts from an article in the Bombay Times of 
 India of the 13th of August 1864, so exactly convey my views on 
 the general question, that I cannot refrain from bringing them 
 forward to my aid : 
 
 "The annual charge for 'Education' on the revenues of India 
 has come to be a very heavy one. In the Budget Estimate for 
 the current year, it stands at 561,175. * * * * It is a 
 charge, moreover, which has doubled itself since 1861-62, and 
 which bids fair to annually, and considerably, increase in amount. 
 * * * * According to the latest returns at hand, there are 
 attending Government schools, or schools under Government in- 
 spection, in the Punjab, 59,990 pupils ; in Bengal, 71,699 pupils; 
 
GOVERNMENT EDUCATION. 283 
 
 in the Central Provinces, 21,353 pupils ; in the North-Western 
 Provinces3 about 110,000 pupils ; in the Bombay Presidency, 
 about 50,000 pupils ; and in the Madras Presidency, about 30,000 
 pupils ; or a total for all India of 343,042 pupils receiving in- 
 struction either at Government schools or Government aided 
 schools. Now, comparing this total number of pupils with the 
 total estimated expenditure of the Education Department for the 
 current year, as given above, it will be seen that each pupil costs 
 the state between 1 and 2 per annum, the precise cost being 
 much nearer the latter than the former sum. * * * * If 
 the Education Department continues to be fed with the public 
 money on the same scale as at present, ten years hence it will be 
 a greater burden on the tax-payers than a treble income-tax 
 would be just now. But if we look closer into the present ex- 
 penditure, we shall find that it is mainly devoted, not to the en- 
 lightenment of 'the people/ but to the superior education of 
 classes who should have required no pecuniary aid at all, and the 
 corresponding classes to which in Europe never dream of obtain- 
 ing or seeking for any State educational aid whatever. If the 
 truth were made apparent, it would become but too clear that up 
 to the present, the educational operations of the Government of 
 India have touched neither the highest, nor the lower and most 
 numerous grades of the population. The Government Colleges 
 and schools have been mainly attended by pupils whose parents 
 would have provided an English education for them, had there 
 been no Government Education Department at all. It is the 
 children of traders and native officials, or of parties ambitious that 
 their sons shall become officials or pleaders, who constitute the 
 great bulk of the pupils at the Government schools. And it is 
 because the institutions seem as if wholly intended for such 
 classes, that the Kajahs, Jaghirdars, and other Chiefs, will not 
 send their children to them ; while, on the other hand, the high 
 schooling fees charged, effectually prevent the poorer natives from 
 sending theirs. A result is that the entire educational expendi- 
 ture is practically devoted to cheapening the cost of ' schooling' 
 to a class who would provide good schools for themselves were 
 there no Government education whatever. There is a well 
 grounded belief that a sufficing number of good private schools for 
 the instruction of the children of respectable natives of the middle 
 class, would now be in existence, and flourishing, but for a con- 
 sciousness of the hopelessness of their competing with institutions 
 supported by Government funds, and the certificates of whose 
 masters and professors are, to the pupil, a kind of diploma of 
 eligibility for State employment. 
 
 The average cost of each pupil to Government does not at 
 present exceed 2 per annum ; but if from the aggregate number 
 of pupils be excluded those of the merely "aided" schools, the 
 cost per head becomes something actually astounding to contem- 
 
284 APPENDIX E. 
 
 
 
 plate. Some of the Government Colleges have comparatively few 
 pupils, yet have a most costly educational staff. But putting the 
 Colleges out of the account, the cost per pupil at the mere schools 
 is startling. We have before us a General Statement of the 
 Progress of Education in the Punjaub, during 1862-63, and 
 therein we find that, excluding ( General establishment and 
 charges/ and all charges for ' buildings/ the expense of in- 
 structing 1,969 boys at 22 Zillah schools was Us. 87,258, or 
 Us. 44-5-0 per pupil per annum !" 
 
 (E.) 
 
 NATIVE PROMOTIONS. 
 (Page 168.) 
 
 The Commissioner of Mysore, in his Administration "Report for 
 1862-3, after describing the new appointments and increased 
 salaries for English officers under the revised arrangements, tells 
 us that a corresponding amelioration has also been made in the 
 position of the native officials : 
 
 "The new and honourable post of Native Assistant has been 
 created. The number of superior appointments opened to natives 
 has been increased from thirteen to fifteen, and the average salary 
 raised from Us. 342 to Us. 440 per mensem." (Par. 182.) 
 
 If an acceptance of this statement were to be the termination 
 of our inquiry the result would be that while the body of English 
 officials . was augmented by six, and their annual receipts by 
 12,000, the body of superior native officials would be augmented 
 by two, their receipts by 2,500, and their average salary raised 
 just to the level of that allotted to the junior European Assistant. 
 And although the Report dignifies the new offices with the title 
 of " superior appointments," they are still placed in an inferior 
 category, out of the line of ordinary promotion, and subordinate 
 to that allotted to the youngest English officers. 
 
 But this statement requires a little closer examination. Al- 
 though the Commissioner, who admits (par. 179) the propriety of 
 a "due advertence to the claims of the native officials," declares 
 that "the number of superior appointments opened to natives, has 
 been increased from thirteen to fifteen," it is somewhat remarkable 
 that the details given in that very paragraph would lead us to 
 suppose that the number had been decreased from nineteen to 
 fifteen. We are told that "of the principal native officers affected 
 by the new arrangements," there were selected for the post of 
 Native Assistant, "two Judges of the Hoozoor Adawlut (the 
 Court being abolished), three Head Sheristadars of the former 
 Divisions, and eight Moonsiffs." And then it is added that "six 
 
PUBLIC WORKS AND POLTCE. 285 
 
 individuals who were found ineligible for the new class of appoint- 
 ments, were permitted to retire on suitable pensions." These 
 pensioners seem to make up a list of nineteen " principal 
 native officers," who are now succeeded by fifteen Native As- 
 sistants. 
 
 I cannot offer an explanation of the apparent discrepancy, with 
 any degree of certainty, for want of the requisite particulars ; but, 
 from the context of the Report, I believe it to arise from four of 
 the pensioners, whose former offices were abolished and who were 
 not considered qualified for the new posts, having been Head 
 Sheristadars of the old Divisions. The other two pensioners had 
 been Moonsiffs (Judges), only eight out of ten of that class having 
 been made Assistants under the new organisation. Now while the 
 writer of the Report includes the Head Sheristadars among the 
 " principal native officers," of the old list, he does not choose to 
 classify them as "superior officials." And though I think that 
 the distinction is over-strained and calculated to mislead, it is not 
 entirely without meaning or pretext. The Sheristadar of a Divi- 
 sion, though occupying a post of great indirect influence and 
 power, was merely a ministerial officer, exercising no judicial 
 functions, entrusted with no ostensible authority, while the Native 
 Assistant is a Magistrate, Judge and Collector, whose orders in 
 every department, though subject to appeal, are valid and decisive. 
 But as the Head Sheristadar J s salary ranged from 300 to 480 
 per annum, the distinction seems to be almost without a difference, 
 and the substantial gain in "superior" appointments to the class 
 of native officials, sinks if I am not very much mistaken into a 
 clear loss. 
 
 (F.) 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND POLICE. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, contrary to Sir Mark Cubbon's opinions and 
 wishes, insisted on a Public Works' Department being cut out for 
 Mysore, on the model of that which he had then lately framed for 
 our own provinces, and which has long been a reproach to our 
 Government, and a jest among all intelligent natives, on account 
 of the large number of highly salaried English officers permanently 
 maintained out of all proportion to the work executed the very 
 indifferent style in which much of that work is executed ; and the 
 gross peculation which pervades tjie Department, in spite of all 
 the complicated safeguards of sanctioned estimates and audited 
 accounts. Previously to this unwelcome innovation, Sir Mark 
 
286 APPENDIX F. 
 
 Cubbon had, through the agency of one Engineer officer, the 
 Superintendents of Districts, their local subordinates, and native 
 contractors, provided a much more complete system of roads 
 throughout Mysore, than existed in any British province of the 
 same extent ; and always kept the irrigation works of the country 
 in good order, at a very much smaller outlay for construction and 
 repairs, than could have been shown in similar instances by our 
 own elaborate accounts. The formation and maintenance of roads, 
 tanks, and channels, and other simple engineering operations, 
 upon which the public revenue and the profits of agriculture so 
 greatly depend, have been from time immemorial familiar to 
 Hindoo experts. A very little supervision would enable these 
 men to carry out all the ordinary work of a district, and to execute 
 almost all the plans of our scientific Engineers. They are quite 
 competent to render all the necessary returns and accounts, 
 and if properly remunerated would be as trustworthy as most 
 people. The native architects and engineers, worthy of cul- 
 ture and instruction at our hands, are dying out in our older 
 possessions, and their craft, from disuse, is becoming forgotten ; 
 but some of them, and many of a similar standing, are employed 
 on the Public Works, and being, as in other departments, badly 
 paid and not burdened with responsibility, have not, as a class, 
 the highest character for purity, are popularly supposed to accu- 
 mulate small fortunes in a wonderfully short time ; and these 
 scandals are often most unfairly brought forward as examples of 
 what must be expected whenever natives are employed. 
 
 On the other hand, the English Engineers of districts, who by 
 mere position, relieve their subordinates of responsibility, and un- 
 wittingly screen them from observation, are almost entirely occu- 
 pied in clerical duties, upon the accuracy and regularity of which, 
 their official reputation depends. Although invested, in theory, 
 with the executive charge of all the works within their range, the 
 close application to accounts and correspondence imposed upon 
 them, frequently keeps them tied to the desk for months together, 
 so that they may never, or very seldom, have seen the works they 
 are nominally constructing. 
 
 Since the newly modelled Public Works Department of Mysore 
 commenced to act, its operations have chiefly consisted in opening 
 and extending communications, and maintaining those already 
 formed, in the repairs and improvement of old native works of 
 irrigation, and in ordinary building. When plans and estimates 
 have once been prepared and sanctioned, the cases are very few 
 and far between in which much scientific engineering is required 
 in completing the works. The services of English gentlemen, 
 so-called Executive Engineers, are quite thrown away on road- 
 making and repairing tanks, and are absurdly over-paid by salaries 
 of 1000 a year. No practical man, undertaking the work on 
 contract, would think of employing such expensive agency. The 
 
PUBLIC WORKS AND POLICE. 287 
 
 whole structure and system of this Department, in Mysore and 
 throughout India, is unsound ; and it affords another instance of 
 the truth of what Sir Thomas Munro said : 
 
 "Expensive establishments, when once sanctioned, are not 
 easily put down. There is never any difficulty in finding plausible 
 reasons to keep up a lucrative office."* 
 
 If the roads and tanks were re-transferred to the care of the 
 district revenue authorities, who, with the landholders, are directly 
 concerned and interested, and have the greatest facilities at com- 
 mand for prompt and constant attention to their efficiency ; if a 
 sufficient number of properly paid native Engineers were stationed 
 over the country; the English engineering Staff might be reduced 
 to one Superintendent with a Secretary or Assistant. The official 
 records might not be so voluminous ; there would be of necessity 
 a certain relaxation of red tape ; but by a judicious organisation, 
 by encouraging contractors, by placing a little confidence and 
 granting a little discretion in the right quarter, a more efficient 
 supervision of work might be instituted, expenses greatly di- 
 minished, and peculation certainly not increased. 
 
 But then many good appointments for English gentlemen would 
 have to be abolished. 
 
 We have already extended to the Mysore State "the ines- 
 timable blessings" of the British Public Works and Educational 
 Departments. Mr. Bowring, the Commissioner, in the Adminis- 
 tration Eeport for 1862-3 (paragraph 54), refers to "a complete 
 and systematic reorganisation of the Police," as the next step 
 that is to be taken. If "the good work" is to be carried on by 
 extending the new British Police Department to Mysore, there 
 will be an opening for eight or ten more English officers, with 
 salaries from 2500 to 600 per annum. 
 
 The new system of Police, which has now been introduced into 
 all the districts of the three Presidencies, is the latest and worst 
 example of that fatal tendency to excessive organisation and ex- 
 treme centralisation, which has of late years characterised the 
 Government of India. Official pedantry and the lust of patronage 
 have both been at work here. The general results of the new 
 establishment, were a public and impartial inquiry instituted, 
 would assuredly be summed up as follows : vast expense, copious 
 scribbling, general unpopularity, marked inefficiency both as a 
 detective and a protective force. Heaps of "able" reports, and 
 " elaborate" correspondence* on controversial and personal mat- 
 ters, are annually produced for the edification of Government, by 
 three or four gentlemen enjoying splendid emoluments, the 
 Director General, and the Inspectors General of the several minor 
 Governments. The Police Superintendents of Districts, mili- 
 tary officers with salaries of from 600 to 800 per annum, are 
 
 * Gleig's Life of Sir T. Munro, vol. ii, p. 453. 
 
288 APPENDIX G. 
 
 chiefly tied down to clerical duties, examining and transmitting 
 diaries and tabular statements. 
 
 Of course the stiff regularity of the new establishment was quite 
 incompatible and irreconcileable with the patriarchal structure of 
 local and village Police. The two could not exist side by side. 
 The old inexpensive system, which was susceptible of great im- 
 provement at very small cost, has lost all its own authority and 
 influence, even where it has not been formally abolished, and can- 
 not impart its local and traditional knowledge to the new-comers. 
 The new Police, armed and drilled and dressed, are, in their most 
 useful aspect, only an army of Sepoys under another name, and 
 are actually employed on certain duties from which the native 
 troops have been relieved. But their arms, their drill, their dress, 
 and the escort duties which they are made to perform, simply 
 lower their efficiency as policemen. And their pay being quite in- 
 adequate, corrupt and oppressive practices are, it is said, very 
 generally employed to secure some additional contributions from 
 the community among whom they are quartered. The Depart- 
 ment, taken as a whole, is an opprobrium to British rule. 
 
 (G.) 
 
 (Page 178.) 
 
 CHRISTMAS IN BOMBAY." 
 
 (From the Hindu Prakash, December 28th, 1863.) 
 
 "The inherent vice of all foreign rule never appears so disad- 
 vantageously, as in times like the present, specially devoted to 
 relaxation and pleasure. The ruling race has such an awful con- 
 sciousness of its own superhuman elevation, and the habits of an 
 exclusive and single life are so studiously cherished that they 
 never can unbend themselves nor relax the gravity of their 
 wrinkled front, and smiling self-pleased, enjoy themselves to 
 their heart's content. In fact, besides the hereditary element of 
 sour melancholy which has permanently quartered itself on British 
 character since the days of their Puritan psalm-singing fathers, 
 their peculiar position in this country as a race of merchant rulers 
 has served to give a sad prominence to this most unwelcome trait 
 in their character. British rule in India has most amply vindi- 
 cated the justice of Napoleon's severe distribe against their 
 character as a European nation. In its whole aspect, it is so 
 formal and rigid in the smallest as well as the most Imperial con- 
 cerns, the one guiding principle is the expectation of money's 
 worth for money paid. There is order, there is neatness, there is 
 economy, there is every possible convenience and accommodation, 
 but with all this, British rule has the appearance more of a shop, 
 
"CHRISTMAS IN BOMBAY. 289 
 
 than of a splendid imperial mansion worthy of the love of millions, 
 who might come there to honour the Sovereign Queen who sits 
 over them enshrined in majesty. In seasons of jollity as in 
 seasons of business, this same hateful thought of a selfish nature 
 intrudes and spoils the cheer. It is Christmas now, and one 
 would expect merriment and the noisy turbulence of harmless joy 
 to bustle through our streets. But our streets look even more 
 sombre and sadly desolate than when they are alive with the hum 
 of business. Each man sits in his own petty self and mopes the 
 time away ; and this is our relaxation. The native population of 
 the town, having nothing to stimulate them into the active habits 
 of enjoying merry cheer out of doors, dissipate their means in 
 worse than idleness. 
 
 Under native Sovereigns such times seldom would have come 
 unattended by their train of popular attractions and enjoyments. 
 Our temples would have blazed all night one mass of flame, and 
 thousands would have poured there to hear some popular and 
 favourite bard, reciting to them the pleasant stories of old days. 
 There would have been popular masques and public theatres 
 open to every comer. The whole public would have been freely 
 asked to partake of their Sovereign's hospitality, and milk and 
 sugar, in unnumbered rounds, would have infused cheer and 
 freshness into the joyous throng. The advent of the day would 
 have brought with it other and more martial shows. The whole 
 city would have been invited to the Prince's Palace, and there 
 the Sovereign would have held a magnificent Durbar in honour 
 of the new year that was dawning on their life and fortune. The 
 Durbar over, there would have been horse races, and foot races, 
 there would have been fencing with the sword or the stick, there 
 would have been bull fights and buffalo fights, there would have 
 been wrestling and a thousand marvellous feats of agility or 
 force. Then the whole population would have poured out in the 
 train of their Sovereign out of the city, and having rent the air 
 with their merriment, and tired all their capacity for enjoyment, 
 they would have returned home and gone to rest. These are the 
 things which forge so strong the chain of love between King and 
 people ; and in their absence the most regulated Government 
 fails to inspire any other feeling than that of thankless content. 
 We are sure London and Paris are not so subdued in their 
 Christmas merriment as this city is with a Christian population 
 of above five thousand. The people, in order to be elevated from 
 their dreary selves, want some such machinery of popular shows 
 and festivities, where they may catch and impart pleasure all 
 around. The Government sadly misunderstands this popular 
 craving for merriment and relaxation. People often feel sur- 
 prised at being told that the British Government is a standing 
 object of suspicion to its subjects, and seldom inspires any feel- 
 ing of love and attachment in their bosoms. The cause, as we 
 
 u 
 
290 APPENDIX H. 
 
 have mentioned it, is obvious enough. It treats its subjects like 
 severe masters, and is paid, in return for this severe formality, by 
 perpetual suspicion of its motives even when engaged in the 
 most philanthropic projects for their welfare. Bombay life is very 
 tiresome/'' 
 
 (H.) 
 LETTER FROM A FRIEND. 
 
 (Page. 187.) 
 
 Dear- April 10th, 1863. 
 
 In the Edinburgh Review, just published, there is an article 
 headed " India under Lord Canning," which, but for the position 
 which the putative author holds with reference to the Govern- 
 ment, would scarcely be deserving of notice. As it is, however, 
 I suppose it must be viewed in some measure as an expression 
 of the sentiments of the Government, though it is hard to believe 
 that they would be so unscrupulous, so devoid of all honour, as 
 to support the monstrous doctrines put forward by the writer of 
 the article in question. Most of our Governors General have 
 sought for and set forth some other and more specious plea than 
 that of mere expediency, for plundering weak Princes ; but the 
 reviewer boldly avows that expediency should be our guide, and 
 some of his remarks make it quite clear that the Rajah of Mysore 
 is to be the next victim. Yet he is not disloyal or disaffected. 
 The Commissioner, the Governor General, and the Secretary of 
 State have testified to the contrary. He must therefore be sacri- 
 ficed on some other plea ; and I know of none, after twenty years 
 personal experience of the Prince and his country, except that 
 the territory is rich, the climate good, the position eligible and 
 we want it. Add to this, that we are strong, the Rajah weak 
 and what more could possibly be required to satisfy the most 
 delicate Whig conscience ? It is the old story of Naboth's vine- 
 yard once more repeated only rather more flagrant, for we don't 
 propose to .give anything in return to anybody. 
 
 It will be curious to see how, when the extinction of the Mysore 
 State has been accomplished, the claim of the Nizam to a share 
 of the plunder will be met. Should we, in reference to that code 
 of honour which is said to be observed among thieves, give half 
 of the "sick" Hindoo's possessions to the Mussulman, the latter, 
 entertaining probably more chivalrous sentiments than at present 
 seem to inspire us, and feeling acutely the recent shameful attempts 
 to rob him of a part of his own country, might restore his share 
 to the Rajah or his heir, and read us a lesson of which we seem 
 to be sadly in want. 
 
 It is melancholy to think that in spite of all our asseverations, 
 
LETTER FROM A FRIEND. 291 
 
 wrung from us in the hour of our peril, all our protestations of 
 honesty and good faith, we should still be bent on robbing our 
 neighbours. It has been recently avowed in the most shameless 
 manner by a person holding high office in India, that it is our 
 intention to deprive the Nizam, at some future period, of the 
 territory which we seized, but were compelled to relinquish a 
 short time ago. Meanwhile, Mysore, already in our insatiable 
 grasp, is to be annexed, and one of the oldest Royal Houses in 
 India obliterated. It cannot be pretended that the Rajah has 
 committed any great crime. He is loyal, humane, generous, 
 intelligent, hospitable ; and his dignified courtesy to all classes 
 of Europeans, strikes all who approach him. The people of the 
 country, whose interests the author of the paper in the Review 
 guards with such jealous care, look on the Rajah with the most 
 kindly feelings, and speak of him with the deepest respect. 
 
 The whole of the Mysore country is covered with noble works, 
 executed entirely by the present Rajah and his ancestors. The 
 Mussulman Princes did nothing but plunder. We have done 
 nothing but restore some of the works that had fallen into dis- 
 repair, make "a fine road for our own convenience to the Hills, 
 build Rest Houses for European gentlemen, from which Natives 
 of all classes are carefully excluded, and construct in each station 
 the usual Jail -and Church ! The Rajah's family, on the other 
 hand, has, in the Ashtagram Division alone, constructed mag- 
 nificent dams across the principal rivers, which throw water into 
 upwards of six hundred miles of canals, excavated at a cost and 
 with an amount of skill that throw our petty works into the 
 shade. 
 
 At every town and almost every village there is a Chuttrum 
 where all native travellers are housed and fed for the day, estab- 
 lished and endowed by the Rajah. And when, in 1856, we were 
 threatened with famine, the Rajah for months fed thousands 
 daily, who but for his bounty might have perished. It makes 
 one's blood boil to think that a man who has done so much good 
 should be so shamefully maligned. His great crime, alas ! is 
 possessing a country that we covet ; and that, I have learned to 
 understand, is an unpardonable offence. 
 
 The observation that the Princes of India, with one or two ex- 
 ceptions, are politically ciphers, is as ungenerous as it is untrue. 
 Had those who only remained passive in 1857, declared against 
 us, India would have been lost, at any rate for a time. But the 
 danger has blown over, and we, as usual, forget what we have 
 passed through . And yet we have had some warnings that 
 ought not to have been forgotten. 
 
 Look at the fearful catastrophes which followed our unwarrant- 
 able invasion of Affghanistan. Then retribution followed swiftly, 
 and one at any rate of the instigators of that wickedness paid 
 for it with his head. The blood, however, of the unhappy victims 
 
292 APPENDIX H. 
 
 of this iniquitous campaign was scarcely dry, before we seized 
 Scinde, a country whose rulers had behaved in the most friendly 
 manner towards us, and who could, had they been so minded, 
 have prevented a single man of the Candahar force from ever 
 reaching India. They helped us in every possible way, in our 
 time of need, and they met their reward. The instant our hands 
 were free, we conquered Scinde, plundered Hyderabad and im- 
 prisoned the Ameers. I have always looked with horror on the 
 conquest of Scinde. I think it is perhaps the most wicked act 
 of spoliation we have ever perpetrated ; but still it is ludicrous 
 to observe how the Whig reviewer and advocate for wholesale 
 spoliation, carps at the single Tory acquisition of Scinde. But 
 Whig and Tory are, I fear, alike in this accursed lust of territory ; 
 and it seems destined that robbery shall follow robbery, till India 
 is again deluged with the blood of innocent women and children. 
 I shared in the Affghan campaign, and escaped the fate that 
 overwhelmed so many brave fellows. I have experienced the 
 kindness and hospitalities of the Ameers of Scinde, and have 
 seen them dethroned, and their country taken from them. I 
 have seen the Carnatic, Tanjore, Nagpore, and a host of other 
 Principalities fall before our unhallowed greed ; and the only in- 
 stance which I can remember when we were justified in seizing 
 the country of a Native Prince was that of Kurnool. I have seen 
 the terrible year 1857 pass away, and I believe that I shall live 
 to see something similar occur again, for I do not believe that we 
 can be permitted to continue in such a career of wholesale reck- 
 less robbery unchecked. 
 
 Before concluding these remarks, I would draw your attention 
 to the cry that is now got up, and which the author of the paper 
 in the Review put forth, about the necessity for guarding the 
 interests of the people. What that may mean exactly, I don't 
 profess to know ; but we have the author's own word for it that 
 so little sensible were the people of Oude of our tender concern 
 for their interests, that the cultivating classes were as hostile to 
 us during the Mutiny, as any other class of the people. As re- 
 gards Mysore, you and I know from intimate personal acquaint- 
 ance with the people, that however much they may fear, they 
 neither love nor respect us, and they would joyfully see our rule 
 changed to-morrow for that of the old Rajah. I could say much 
 more, but you know as well as I do, how wicked and desperate is 
 the game our rulers seem bent on playing. 
 
 Believe me, ever yours, &c., &c. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET, W.C. 
 
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