it wounded every moral and religious, as well as every social and political, feeling. In the case of Sattara, it casts a retrospective glare upon the pretended conspiracy of 1837 and all the events of that time. What made the annexation of Sattara recklessly unjust even in European eyes, was the fact that Pratab Singh, whom Lord Hastings had made much ado about restoring to his ancestral throne, was himself the heir of Sivajî by the observance of the law of adoption. Twice had the descent in the male line failed, and on the second occasion it had been preserved so late as 1777 by resort to this natural, legal, and hitherto undisputed expedient. Appa Saib was a wise ruler, who laid out, it is said, eight per cent. of his income on works of public utility, and there never was an allegation of the country being misgoverned. But, in truth, one sickens in the unavailing search for plausible ground of justification, or of palliatives for wrong, so repugnant to every principle of public equity or private right.

Throughout Malwa and Rajpootana the tidings spread dismay and hate. There was no mistaking their import or their scope. All landed property held by tenure, analogous to our fee simple or fee tail, was put in jeopardy. The decencies of consistency, legality, expediency, were rent and torn. The Resident, Sir John Low, a friend of Malcolm, reported that "the confidence of the native States was shaken." Colonel Macpherson wrote from Gwalior that Scindia and other Hindu princes were thrown into "a state of great anxiety on the subject of family succession." Sir Frederick Currie also placed on record his conviction, as a Member of the Council at Bengal, that "the decision in the Sattara case caused surprise and alarm throughout India." He exposed the fallacy of those who argued against the right, because it required recognition by

the Paramount Power. This was equally true with respect to heirs natural, and amounted to no more than the ordinary discretion of investiture or confirmation, which, in some form or other, has always belonged to suzerainty, whether temporal or ecclesiastical. But a discretion to guard against heedless choice, or the imposition of an incapable successor through corrupt artifice or deathbed fraud, cannot warrant the indiscretion of a usurping power to destroy for the future the very relation in virtue of which it claims to act. This, likewise, was the opinion. of Sir G. Clerk, who contended again and again that adoption conveyed as clear an equitable right to recognition by the Suzerain as heirship by birth.1

Sir Frederick Currie's views, ably and unbendingly expressed in Council, were happily sustained by Sir Henry Lawrence as successor to Sir John Low, when, in 1852, the Governor-General meditated the application of his doctrine of lapse to the small State of Kerowli. It was the first of the Rajpoot States thus threatened, and there can be little doubt that had one of them been sacrificed, a great fear would have fallen upon all of them, and implacable feelings engendered of detestation proportionate to their dread. Intelligence reached England, moreover, of what was impending, and the India Reform Association, led by Mr Dickinson, succeeded in calling public attention in time to its impolicy and iniquity. A motion by the late Mr Blackett was threatened in the House of Commons, and the Peelite Administration, careful of the repute of one of the chief personages of their party, bade the Viceroy hold

his hand.

See the authorities and arguments on the subject, carefully collected and lucidly arranged in "Thoughts on the Policy of the Crown," by J. M. Ludlow; and in "Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy," by Major Evans Bell.

authority had indeed been pitilessly continued under all circumstances by the never failing means of an exorbitant subsidiary force. The Vizier being left every year less discretion in affairs, fell ever more lamentably under the influence of parasites, who wasted his revenues, and shut him in from all knowledge of his people's condition, and from all hearing of their complaints. It cannot be doubted that beneath the unchecked cupidity and caprice of some of the Talookdars they suffered grievously, and that portions of their fair and fertile country had in consequence become impoverished and wasted. Disorganisation had in fact become normal; and making every allowance for sinister exaggeration, it is impossible to regard the remonstrances of successive Residents at Lucknow as having been made without substantial cause. Reforms in every branch of the administration had become urgent and indispensable, and it may freely be admitted that it was the duty of the Paramount Authority to insist upon their being made. But until it can be shown that honest, intelligible, and consistent efforts were tried to redeem the local institutions, which mercenary encroachment had perverted, and to restore the local health imperialism had poisoned, there cannot be a shadow of justification for inflicting the sentence of death arbitrarily pronounced against them. To the last men of intellect and honour, who had intimate knowledge of the whole state of the case, believed that reparation was in our power, and pleaded hard that it ought to be made. But from first to last it never was seriously attempted. Things were suffered year by year to go from bad to worse, while the gripe of exaction never was relaxed, until at length, in 1856, the scandal of mismanagement was pronounced ripe, not for the

was the bitter cry on all sides, he observed, that our rule exhibited no sympathy, especially for the natives of rank, and not even for other classes; that the improvement of the native princes was in our own power; and that whatever sins of mismanagement were chargeable on the past Government of the Principality, the blame was at least partly due to want of care and solicitude on the part of the representatives of the suzerain.' The Viceroy and his Council treated such suggestions with disdain. Mr Mansel's functions as Resident were at an end, and his advice was no longer wanted. Measures were taken to cut down pensions to the Ranees, and minutes were recorded of the value of the jewels, no more to be accounted heirlooms in a family about to be stripped of royal rank and fortune. Jeswunt Ahee Rao publicly performed the obsequies of the deceased prince, and, attended by the nobles and officers of the household, was installed in the palace of the Maharajahs of Nagpore without the semblance of contention. Suddenly in October it was surrounded by British troopsthe regalia and caskets containing gems valued at £1,000,000 sterling were seized and subsequently put up to sale by auction in the Viceroy's name; the princesses and their retinue were treated as prisoners of State, and interdicted from holding any communication with persons outside their garden bounds, save through the newly appointed Commissioner sent to take charge of the dominions of our late ally; and, finally, those dominions were publicly proclaimed by Lord Dalhousie to have, by failure of heirs male, lapsed to the Central Power, and to be henceforth incorporated with those of Britain. In vain the aged Maharanee Banka Baee pleaded and remonstrated with her gallant gaolers on behalf of the ladies and children of

1 Despatch, 29th April 1854.

her court; in vain she asked permission to send persons of distinction, hitherto treated with every outward mark of honour, and against whom not a breath of complaint had been ever heard, to sue for justice at Calcutta. All intercourse save through the Commissioner was for months forbidden, and effectual means were taken to prevent any evasion of the interdict. Major Ouseley was arrested on his way to Nagpore, where he was ready to offer such services as loyalty would permit, to the unhappy princesses; and certain Mahajurs, who were willing as bankers to advance funds for their release, were likewise flung into prison for their contumacy.

When the chief articles of value had been removed, and all apprehension of tumult or resistance had passed away, some of the captive nobles were allowed to approach the rifled treasure-house, and to communicate by letter with the bereaved and broken-hearted Queen, urging her in language of desperation never to acknowledge the disinheritance of her race or the annexation of her country. She contrived to send agents to England in the idle hope of obtaining justice here. Could she not await their answer ere she signed the capitulation drafted by the Commissioner, whereby pensions were offered to her helpless relatives and courtiers as the price of her nominal acquiescence? Her Vizier had died of mortification and rage, and most of those who were suspected of being able to counsel her aright, were still detained in custody. A hot breath or two strove to rekindle the embers of expiring self-respect and pride in her aged bosom; but the chill of eighty years and the feebleness of despair, quenched each spark of hope ere it could be fanned into flame; and the widow of the once feared and formidable Raghogee Bhonsla, amid tears and tremblings, was driven at length to sign a re