The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-30 00:00:00

W<IN after 1"..

firawd

ti.f. or ztv ,
fore, to set that aside withouE the most striogend'
reasonF, and nothing but the deepest necessity an
the strictest justice should induce them t()
sot thit deliberate and solemn act aside.—(Pleat,
hear.) That brought him now to observe, further/
that with re: t,ct to the other case thPt had been el'
luded to, it seerned to hint that it did not bear upon
the question at all. They were bound in fairness to
show that the interpretation put upon this treaty
legal, lair, and ju,t, or the character for good faith'
of the East India Company v%ould he irretrievahlY,
destroyed in the estimation of the native Princes no
people of India.—(Hear, hear.) The Sete.°
treasury was found to have a very largo, balance In
it, and it certainly was unfurtunate that the E4st
,
India Company should have selected this time to 0:
upon that state—at a time when it was notorious that
their funds in India were certainly not in the
most prosperous condition. It might, therefore, be
useful and agreeable for the Company to have an 01;
portunity of laying their hands on 150,0001.1:
whatever it might be, in the treasury of Sattara, buti.
their doing so would by no means elevate them in tije)
estimation of the people of India.—(Hear, hear./
He could have wished that the promises made by *1..;
Frere, upon which the Raja founded the proclarnatle;
in which he said that all his people were sure to re
ceive justice and kindness from the British Govern'
ment, had been fulfilled long ere the arrival of thlo
day.—(Cheers.) But it was not too late even 01l
for them to fulfil the pledge which Mr. Frere
gave to deal out to the people of Pa,..
' ;
tars that justice and kindness; and let ll°
the people of India say to the East India Coin'
pany what Octavius said to the Romans, that, they
a
had grown insolent with success, and they Wee
their allies after the same manner they did those they
had conquered.—(Cheers.) Let the Directors re,
,
member that in the west they were not in the bes,
possible condition, but still they had the power le
their own hands, and if they acted towards the other
states with justice and fairness, they would ult.ol-
inately regain security in every part of India, and tia
attachment and loyalty of the people.—(Cheers.) t
Mr. WEEDON said the only question that the Co.ord
had now to consider was the expediency of adoptle
the child whom the late Raja had elected for his sue:
cessor, and it was unnecessary to discuss any other
matter.

At the conclusion of this gentleman's speech, The CHAIRMAN proposed that at that late Wl', (nearly five o'clock) it would be advisable to adjoul
the debate until Friday next, as the Directors bfl
to send off important dispatches by the mail that night,
respecting the vote of thanks passed by the Court to
the army in India.
The Court then adjourned.

ANNEXATION OF THE SATTAO
TERRITORY.
TO THE PROPRIETORS OF EAST IND-11`

-
STOCK. ----
the
BROTHER PROPRIETORS,—On the 25th instant, the
following motion was submitted to a Special Genet
Court of Proprietors:--
6. That this Court is of opinion that the treaty Coll'
eluded by the British Government in 1819, with ref;
Laub Singh, the Raja of Sattara, and subsequent'.
renewed with his brother and successor, the late APP"
Sahib, conferred upon, and guaranteed to, till
Princes, the hereditary sovereignty of the principality °
Sattara, and this Court being further of opini°l:'
that the heirs and successors to those PribeZ;
whether by adoption or blood, are entitled to tZ
inheritance under the terms and condition of b'o
treaty, this Court considers it to be right and necesiall
to record its opinion, that no case has been made out We
justify the annexation of the said Sattara PrincipalitY
1° the British Territory." The motion was discussed
two days, in an unusually well attended Court. Of sif'
teen members who took part in the debate, twelve strongly
supported the motion. Of these supporters, five were
your Directors. Instead of allowing the question to ';1
decided by the voters present, who were instructed 10
its merits, upon the motion of one of your Diecctorsi
supported by some of his colleagues, it was resolved
that it should be determined by ballot. 13a
question hinges upon the meaning of certain terms 115,
',
in a treaty. The authorities under whose auspices tYO
treaty was made, the commissioners by whom the treaty
was actually made, and who explained its terms %fie
conditions to the other contracting party, before the
treaty was signed, are now living within the limits of the
United Kingdom. Instead of referring to these
:,
gentlemen, as they have been strongly and r";
peatelly urged to do, to ascertain in what
they used the disputed terms in the treatt,o
the majority of the Court of Directors have resolved
refer this question to you, one-half of whom bzil
probably, never heard of such a treaty, and 01";
tenths of whom have, probably, never read it. Neither'
can you have been interested on the subject: by lb
e
reports of the debate which are given in the new"
papers, for while the speeches of those few who
posed the motion aro given in extenso, the speeches,;
the many, who supported it, are either suppressed ok„
gether, or given so scantily as to be of no use to 1011'
formed readers.

It IS lit ooaa• *v....fore, to explain to you that the
question upon which you are called upon to vote is rob;
this, viz.:—

" Whether a majority of the Court of Directors cant
in good faith, seize upon this principality of Sattara solely
upon their own construction of the treaty by which it was
ceded by the East India Company to the Raja °,
Sattara, his heirs and successors, in perpetual 00;
reignty, whilst they refuse to hear the appeals of the
representatives of the other contracting parties, vi,130
0
claim to be heirs under that treaty, and
reject the only evidence that would enable them to
arrive at! the true construction of the disputed terms? f
And as this seizure of the principality: °
Sattara is avowedly to be made a precedent
for the disposal of other independent sovereignties 1°
India, in that question is involved another, still more
important, viz.—" Whether the East India Company f
liberty to seize upon and to appropriate the territorlii,
any native Prince in India, whom they, the East btu A
Company, may, by a construction put by themselves &ll'
for their own benefit, upon their treaties with such Prince'
determine to have died without heirs."
You will not, I am sure, be offended with me for 00!
pointing out to you the vastly important interest:
which are involved in the vote you are now called upon
give, although, from the breathless haste of the re(101:
sition, it is doubtful whether this warning will retie"
you before your vote is deposited in the ballot-box. ,
Whether this whole proceeding is calculated,to raise tto
character of the East India Company in the eyes of the
,
British pubic, or to command the respect and sae":
ment of the Princes and people of India, are question'
which I leave to your calm judgment to determine.
" I am, Brother Proprietors, yours,
"J. SULLIVAN'

" Bansted, 28th April, 1849."

TO THE SECRETARY OF
METROPOLITAN REFORM ASSOCIATIODI• Sir,—On Wednesday the 25th the Bribery
Elections Bill went into Committee, and was speedit
li
reduced to the oddest state imaginable, by the ei!e
tion of essential words in the first clause by a majo-
rity of 146 against 54. So that the Bill as it
stands, bears some resemblance to what is left of 9
crow hung up in terrorem, when the flesh and bowels
have been returned to the elements.
The truth is, that so long as there is a determin9°
tion to refuse the efficient measures for preventingf
Bribery which consist in increasing the
number
voters and giving to bribers the uncertainty of the
Ballot, declarations like those proposed in the Bill 9113
simply traps, for the chance of catching an honest
man and letting rogues go through. They are Jill
spring-guns set in a man's park with the perfect
privity of poachers to the means of evasion, an
which consequently can have no other result tbs°,
shooting his grandmother, or covering some of his
little boys with pellets of swan shot.
Imagine now the ease (which has been before and
may be again) of a Member on either side of the
House, on whom a good deal of party animosity 1!
concentrated;—whom it would be a great godsend to
one-half of the combatants to find some morning
buried in a quicksand or in any other way removed
from the field of action. And imagine that after
hotly disputed election, all the power of all the
lawyers within the borders of the hostile party an
lay assistants besides, is to be concentrated upon the
chance of finding out,—not what this man, for ee
may be wise and cautious beyond the chance °I
human peccability,—but what some whom the 10(
makes his agents, which means anybody who bag
taken the same side, may have done in infringement
of laws which in point of fact were enacted in the
perfect knowledge that they were not expected to be
kept. And if a remote limb of his party is found te
have passed this line, the consequence is to be,--net
that the peccant individual is to be visited, nor that',
the principal who is so unfortunate as to have a Pee.
cant supporter shall be visited to any moderate
amount, as for instance even to the vacating 01 his
seat,—but that he is to be stamped with life-long
disgrace in the shape of perpetual incapacity for
Parliament. It would be as reasonable to decree,
that the candidate should be hanged if any of his
supporters was proved to have blown his nose with
his fingers. Such an enactment would clearly be
meant only to catch. It would be an ambuscade, set
to demolish such as should be unlucky enough to be
fixed on for its operation.
Some innocents cannot see this, and therefore go
on glorying in the proof they give of their own
purity in encouraging such legislation. What is to
become of the Bill after the excision which has been
made in it, events must show.
On the same evening the Bill for attaching car"
riages to the Post-office trains on Sundays in Scot-
land, land, was unexpectedly lost by a majority of 15,.
against 122. The Government, or such of them t.!
were present, took against the measure; which 7,
enough to account for the majority. But at the same
time they declared that they did so in the confidence
that the resistance was diminishing, and the question
would finally be settled by the Scotch themseiveir
Poorer women might have cried at railway stations
long enough; hut Duchesses are dangerous. r.
On Thursday the Solicitor-General brought 10