The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-01 00:00:00

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highest importance, and exercised as a religious rite,
andto interfere with which must inevitably inflict
great injury upon all classes in India.—(Hear, hear.)
Independently, too, of this, the original Act of Par-
liament n
leooaatvn emt h,ere
wisdom
gave the people of India to understand in
express words that neither the courts nor the local
urism but without
guide
wt
hein ntne governments
Hithertooo wouldagtn
lo interfere
sd suchs sense
n
se aw nit
d wordsh the
wisdom d lnao
inAv oetf
oughtsouf succes-
sion, Par-
liamentest
the Court
rtanhdadinshaoct%inng
great
nt
deference to the feelings of the people of India ; and
for the Court now to tell them that heirs and suc-
cessors did not include adopted heirs was one of the
most extraordinary opinions he had ever heard of.—
(Cheers.) But it seemed the Court relied upon the
Arabic words in the Mahratta version of the treaty,
and no doubt the Hon. Chairman in guiding the
Court in that respect was a good authority, but it
seemed to him, notwithstanding what had fallen from
the Hun. Gentleman, that the words extended
beyond heirs of the body, and he said, without
hesitation, that according to the common language
of India, the words furzund and warisan implied in-
heritance generally. The third, word, hayeem ma-
kam, properly interpreted, implied even more than
that, and it seemed to him more than possible that
it
was put in expressly to meet a case like this. -.l\ o
doubt it was put in to meet any case of doubt as to
a succession, because it was more than likt ly that at
the time the treaty was made the contingency
was entertained that it might be necessary
to remove the Raja, as indeed they had done, and the
treaty must therefore be received in the light as
having been in fact entered into for the benefit of the
state, and the Raja so interpreting the treaty ap-
pointed his successor, who at his death became his
representative.—(Hear, hear.) With regard to the
expediency or necessity of the course the
Court of Directors were pursuing he woula only
say one word, nor would he attribute improper mo-
tives to the Directors; but this he would say that,
in
their anxiety to pursue a course consistent with the
duty of men of honour, and compatible with the
interest and advantage of the Company, they had
acquired a bias unfavourable to the late Baja, and in
order to excuse that course they nad availed themselves
of the Mahomedan law. The word warisan, as he
had said before, was universally used to express in-
heritance generally ; and it did really appear to him
to be absurd to put any other construction upon it
without going back to the niceties of the Mahome-
dan law.—(Hear.) He was an old translator, and he
could assure the Court that this was a common word
used in most if not all the Company's treaties. He
wished now to advert to the danger of considering
the Baja an entirely dependent prince. He was
ready to admit that the Baja was in one sense not
independent. In one sense he certainly was subordinate,
and could not exercise certain privileges without the
consent of the Government, but the real point at issue
related to the inheritance, whether the inheritance was
dependent upon the will, or ruling of the Government,
or whether, as far as the inheritance was concerned,
the Raja was entirely independent upon that point—
he had no hesitation in saying that he really thought
the Baja was left independent. Any other independence
he did not claim for the Baja, nor had he, or those
who agreed with him, any wish to claim more inde-
pendence for the Raja than what the law conferred
upon him.—(Hear, hear.) Looking over all the
treaties of Sir John Napier he found precisely the
same words, " heirs and successors," and the same
words appeared to be employed in most if not all the
East India Company's treaties.—(Hear, hear.)
Therefore to adopt the Directors' view of the matter
would be wrong and unjust, and to say that the
inheritance in this case depended upon the will of the
just
as paramount or Supreme Government was
as absurd as if a man were to deny the inheri-
tance to a copyholder because he did not hold
the freehold. (Cheers.) He freely admitted
that the Raja did not hold the full sovereignty, but
the title upon which he held his territory vested in
him the inheritance. A better title could not be
found all the world over than that which was based
upon the faith of the British Government.—(Loud
cheers.) Well, then, upon such a title rested
the inheritance in this case, and he hoped
it would be respected, or the good faith
of the British Government would no longer
be relied on in India. He had looked, and
looked in vain, for a single letter or word in the
treaty to justify the notion that they were to have the
control of the inheritance; and, as be said before, he
really believed that, with the Iliudoos, heirs, by the
universal custom of their country, included the chil-
dren of adoption. Therefore he held that the Baja
was entitled to inherit without leave, and was also
entitled to adopted without leave, unless some special
grounds and exceptions were introduced into the
treaty which were not found here.—(Cheers.) He
had looked carefully over all the minutes before
the Court of the Supreme Government of Bombay, and
with all due respect to the Court, he had looked
also into the able paper signed by one of their own
body—a gentleman whom he highly esteemed and
whom he should always hold in the highest respect,
and for whose opinion, by the way, he took some
responsibility if not credit to himself, because that
gentleman—Mr. Mangles he alluded to—acted at
one time in subordinate co-operation with
himself, and he very much feared the Honourable
Director might have learnt some lessons while he
acted under him as a meritorious secretary which he
was afraid would rather bias his mind in this case.—

(Hear, hear.) Like the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, the business of the office of the Ho-
nourable Gentleman was to collect and get
money—honestly, he admitted, but still his main
purpose was to get money, and the strict
discharge of his duty to the Company as their
territorial secretary, was most likely to prejudice
him against the case.—(Hear.) The wisdom of their
Government made their revenue officer look pretty
closely after the public funds without infringing any
private rights, if possible, but still his duty was to
maintain the public purse ; and it appeared to him
that, actuated by such motives, the Honourable Gen-
tleman might declare himself hostile to this case.
He believed when the must got into wine
it seriously injured it; the best materials were liable
to be attacked in that manner, and he was afraid the
clear intellect of his Hon. Friend, when he came to
decide upon a cause involving the interest of the
public exchequer, will be found to have been attacked
by the must. But he did think that his lion. Friend,
with all his strong feeling for their public
welfare, would succeed in maintaining his
ground, for this was not merely a question of treaty,
but of public faith.—(Cheers.) 'The same feeling
or error ran through Sir Henry Willoughby's dis-
patches, but to a less extent, inasmuch as he
confounded all tenures together. He admitted at
once that there were some tenures that were
subject to the control of the supreme power, and they
must draw a distinction between that form of tenure
and the present.—(Hear, hear.) Sir Henry Wil-
loughby, in speaking of tenures in his letters, alluded
only to the jaghadeers, but that was quite a different
form of tenure to the Rajas of Sattara.—(hear, hear.)
The jaghadeers were servants of the Government
holding land for military duty, and though their in-
heritance was provided for, it was subject to great
conditions. Whether they left behind them an
adopted son, or a son of the body, a distinct
investiture was required at every succession,
which marked them as subjects, and showed
that they had not the slightest pretence to
any of those rights which belonged to hereditary
princes in India. They had no distinct hereditary
right, and they did not at all resemble any of those
Rajas between whom and the East India Company—
the highest power in India—a solemn compact
had been made.—(Hear, hear.) He did think
that it was very much to be lamented that Sir
Henry Willougnby had so much to do with the
decision in the case of the Raja of Sattara.—(Hear,
hear.) There was a very pregnant remark, and he
was sure, in referring to it, that they would not un-
derstand him as meaning anything derogatory toetb
b_e
officer, than whom there was no more honour
zealous, and upright man—(Near, hear)—but thens,
was a pregnant remark made by a distinguished in-
dividual, warning the Governor-General against
intrusting the details :of relations with petty states to
subordinate presidents in India. He very justly ob-
served that the subordinate presidents of the Govern*
meat were not possessed of the necessary knowledge,
and that they were unacquainted with those great
principles which ought to regulate our poli-
tical relations.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") And
the original treaty with Pertaub Shean was made
by Mr. Elphinstone, not as Governor of Bomb's'',
but in another capacity under the orders of the Gn•
vernor •General. He looked in vain through the an-
nals of their proceedings for any precedent to'support
the confiscation of the Raja's territory, while in re-
ferring to what had been done in parallel cases he
found many precedents in favour of the
view which he took with respect to the right
of succession. There was the case of Tangerel
in which a decision was passed upon misinformation
against the adoption ; but after a long series of years
the Supreme Government came to a resolution' to
undo the act of injustice which it had committed.--,
(Hear, hear.) The decision in that case was one_ litr
great importance, and it showed that they, lik
all other men, Mere liable to err, but
should that
truth and justice would in the endotstand
pre-
vail, and that past errors n
in the way of undoing an act of positive injustice, and
thereby adding to the honour of the British character.
—(Cheers.) If the adoption was according to the
Hindoo law they were as much bound to support it
as they were to support any Raja with whom they
had amicable relations.
lie freely admitted that m
cases of adoption and disputed succession the sanction of
the paramount power was generally necessary, because
it had taken upon itself, and was entitled to take
upon itself, the duty of maintaining peace in India,
and of seeing that the feelings ot subjects AVIV ll°