nunciation of all claims of Regency or Sovereignty on her own behalf. Even in this extremity not a word was said repudiating the legal and religious title by adoption of Jeswunt Rao. Sentries mounted guard no more; trusty garrisons were maintained at every post of the appropriated realm; trusty agents were set to watch each chief suspected of harbouring resentment, and the Civil Administration of the country was rapidly reorganised in accordance with injunctions from Calcutta. Local self-rule at Nagpore, which had lasted for generations, ceased to be; and all was

over.

Not all for the trophies of this glorious exploit were still to be displayed; and the value of the stolen goods was yet to be realised in cash. In the Calcutta Morning Chronicle of 12th October 1855, was read the following advertisement, which it were a pity to abate by any jot or tittle of what it has to say for itself:

GRAND PUBLIC SALE

OF THE

NAGPORE JEWELS.

HAMILTON AND COMPANY

Have the honour to announce, that they have been favoured with the

COMMANDS OF GOVERNMENT,

To submit to Public and Unreserved Sale,

THE WHOLE OF THE

NAGPORE JEWELS,

&c. &c. &c.

These Magnificent Ornaments (the Largest and Most Valuable Collection ever exhibited in Calcutta), are now on View at Messrs Hamilton and Company's Show Rooms.

THEY COMPRISE

DIAMONDS, of Immense Size and Weight, and of Pure Water, Set as Armlets, Bracelets, Rings, and Large Diamond Drops of Various Weights. One of these Diamonds is Considerably Larger than the 'Darya-i-Noor.' PEARL NECKLACES, Very Large and Uncommon, Single, Double, and Four-Rows, with Diamond Pendants, or Dook Dhookies.

serve for immediate improvement, and as a model for future imitation; the only European part of it should be the functionary by whom it should be superintended, and it should only be retained till a complete reform might be brought about."

every Bazaar, and cursed in every Zenanah, as a threatening notice ostentatiously given that the picklock of despotism would be used without shame as an implement of exaction: and none could tell whose regalia or casket would next be rifled. Our historians are never weary of reprobating the sudden and summary decree of Bayonne, in which Napoleon informed the world that in the Peninsula the house of Bourbon had ceased to reign, and in reprobating the duress under which an imbecile sovereign was driven into an act of formal abdication. And many severe things have been justly said of the pictures taken from the Escurial, and of the bronze steeds borne away from the Piazza of San Marc. But at least Napoleon cannot be upbraided with stealing or selling the gems and apparel of his victims. It was bad enough to appropriate the sword of Frederick, but Napoleou, unscrupulous though he was, would have been ashamed to make away with rings and necklaces of the Prussian queen, and then to have put them up to the highest bidder among the brokers of his capital. If vice loses half its hideousness by losing all its grossness, it may likewise be said that public violence becomes more hateful when it is tarnished with the reproach of base cupidity. At the very time when the Queen's Lieutenant-General in Asia was thus playing the freebooter and auctioneer, our Foreign Secretary was addressing to the court of St Petersburg remonstrances against the sequestration of the revenues of certain Polish noblemen upon suspicion of their complicity in seditious designs. Well might the minister of the Czar scornfully retort,-"Physician, heal thyself."

Another absorption which belongs to the same period is that of Jhansi, whose chief, from having been a vassal of the Peishwa, became a feudatory of the British Government. Ragonath Rao, at his death in 1835, left a youth

regarded as incurably evasive of responsibility, and incurably vicious in its abuse of patronage. The time had arrived when national opinion ratified the prescient condemnation of Francis, Burke, and Fox, and pronounced decisively, though tardily, that a secret Committee of the Directors of a joint-stock company should be permitted no longer to share with the Imperial Cabinet the power of nominating the rulers of our great dependency. The public voice called on Parliament to do its duty to India, as well as to portions of the empire inferior in extent, population, and importance. However it had been acquired, all political parties agreed in owning that the Queen was bound to the natives of her Empire in Asia "by the same obligations of duty which bound her to all her other subjects." These were in fact the words placed in Her Majesty's lips by Lord Stanley, when, as Secretary of State, he counselled and countersigned the memorable Proclamation, assuming the direct and unqualified government of her possessions in India. But while Parliament in its legislative capacity acknowledged and confirmed to the Crown the undivided dignity and authority of supreme administration, it did not thereby renounce or pretend to shake off the enhanced burthen of its own obligation to exact a rigorous and righteous account of all that might be done from time to time in the name of the Queen. The Statute of 1858, putting an end to the Charter of the East India Company, and declaring that in time to come no privilege of race or creed should be tolerated, and no respect of persons by reason of their lineage or place of birth be known in the eyes of the law, bade the tribes and nations of Hindustan stand forth and claim their full measure of rights and immunities, and pledged Queen, Lords, and Commons to be ready to hear and determine their plaint for

and Jhansi was by proclamation incorporated with the Company's possessions. Luckshim Bai grieved unforgivingly. At the first note of insurrection in 1857, she took to horse, and for months in male attire headed bands, squadrons, and at length formidable corps of the Mahrattas, until she became in her way another Joan of Arc to her frenzied and fierce followers. No insurgent leader gave more trouble to the columns of Sir Hugh Rose; but not even in desperate and deadly fight, lasting for many hours, could she be persuaded to quit the field. In the general melée of defeat, Luckshim fell by a random shot, but not until she had exacted terrible retribution for the wrongs and insults to her family and her country.