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London, England, 1841-07-23 00:00:00

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LONDON:
FRIDAY, JULY 23, 1841.

The five days' debate at the India House
upon the case of the Raja of SATTARA is
over, and the RAJA'S dethronement is again
confirmed, in the face of the British people,
by the Court of Directors, as an irreversible de-
cision. The manner of his dethronement was
this. In the dead of night, his palace was sur-
rounded by a body of British troops; the Politi-
cal Resident at his Court, and another officer,
headed by the RADA's own brother, and now his
successor, APPA SAHIB, burst upon him while

asleep, hurried him out, with hardly any cloth-
ing upon him, thrust him into a palanquin—
thrust into the same palanquin, and in the same

conditipn, his cousin, the head of his forces,
BALLAIiIB SENNAPUTTEE, and marched them
usprisoners, 800 miles away, to Benares. Dur-
Ing the march, the wife of BALLA SAIIIB Was
seized With the pangs of child-birth, and was not
suffered to halt. A few days after, BALLA SAHIB

himself, brought to the point of death, also

solicited a halt—it was *refused:. at the end
of the day's march he was found dead in his pa-

lanquin t If, as his accusers say, the EX-RAJA

Is guilty, still this conduct is without justification ;
but, if he be innocent, it covers with disgrace and
infamy not them alone, but the British nation, in
whosename these deeds have been done. The case
of the RAJA, therefore, can no longer be confined
to the walls of the India House ; it is now a na-
tional cAse, and it becomes the duty of every man,
possessed either of feeling or patriotism, to pass
judgment upon the facts of that case.
What are the facts, as elicited by the debate ?
These. From 1818 to 1835 the Raja of SATTA nA
had so demeaned himself:in every relation of life,
public and private, as a Prince and as a man
that he was the fayourcd child of the ,Bombay
Government and the Court of Directors. They
loaded him with their accumulated praises. That
he deserved these praises, three successive Poli-
tid Residents at his Court, bore their personal
testimony in the Court of Proprietors. As the
highest and most gratifying mark of admiration
stud respeet they could bestow, the Court of Di-
rectors, in 1836, sent him a sword,and alettcr
to
be delivered. with it. These testim a.,0m.,s were

withheld by the Bombay Governini:,nt, because
the ItAsA complained of certain gros3 infractions
of the treaty, and also cow:lained that, for four
years, he had been ne-ilected and deceived by
that Golternment. *Upon his last appeal being
repelled, he- det.lrmined, openly, to appeal, by an
°Went of Vs own, to the Court of Directors.
fhe now admitted infractions of the treaty, re-

ferred
certain jagheers, or estates, originally-
Znir."ted to high officers, in rewaid of public ser-
'atm such being the mode, and not by pensions,
In which it is the invariable practice, in India, to
acknowledge desert, the sovereignty over which
was guaranteed to the RAJA in the same manner
as over his own dominions. It was impossible,
therefore;' but that the RAJA should attach the
utmost importance to these breaches, and be ur-
gent in demanding redress. If a decree of one
of the Gnpany's Courts or Justice could sell
one of these jag-beers, a decree might attach,
..and sell his other dominions. Thus, the duty of
self-preservation, it was, which compelled the
RAJA to resort to his undoubted right of appeal
to the Home Authorities from the oppression of
the Local Government. This intention of appeal,
the Local Government construed, not only into

an infraction of treaty on the RAJA'S part, but
into an insult to themselves, which they retali-

ated, by rejecting the RAJA'S customary annual
present and letter ; thus breaking off all amicable
relationS with him. The temper and public con-
duct of the Bombay authorities, was the signal
for a host of enemies rising up against him, who
found the Government prepared' to listen to
every accusation they could forge. That he had
..many powerful and unscrupulous enemies, the
Boray Government had long been officially
attv sedi Ills throne, that of a Mahratta,
was
railed on the ruin of the PnisTrwit, who was a
Brahmin... For years, every Brahmin bad been
plotting his downfal. Aecordinoqy 1J
one of the' most abandoned and lirofiiiratileTßAjramhE'
mins, accuses the RAJ A of having tampered With
two nati-'e officers. This charge is gone into be-
.
fore 1121111661011, sent up to Sattara, in a

manner to try the RAJA at his own capi-
tal, but behind his back. The President
of the Commission, General LODWICK stated in
Court, that lIATAJEE declared himself to be ut-
terly unworthy of belief, and to have been actu-
ated by revenge—that one of the native officers
deposed that he had taken a solemn oath which
he never intended to observe, and that neither of
the native officers was suffered to be cross-ex-
amined. The next charge against the RAJA was,
that he conspired with Don MANOEL DE PORTU-
GAL, the Viceroy of Goa, for the procuring of
30,000 troops from Europe, to drive the British
out of India. The witnesses to this charge are
proved to be, almost to a man, Brahmins ! Se-
veral among them arc gang robbers, whom
the Bombay Government pardoned. The
written evidence is a bundle of Mah-
ratta and Portuguese letters found in
pawn, with an obscure inhabitant, of an obscure
village, in the Goa territories, and purporting to
have belonged to two Brahmins, who had died
ten months before, and are declared to have
been the RAJA's agents, while it is admitted,
that these persons had for years been in the
service of the Pope of the Brahmins (the Swamee
of SUNKESHWAR), an enemy of the RAJA'S.
These papers were bought by the Government
for 401. The Portuguese documents, thus found,
and affirmed by the Bombay Government to be
signed by Don MANOEL, Don MANOEL has
declared, before a notary public at Lisbon, to
be utter forgeries, and his correspondence
with the RAJA a gross falsehood. The
third charge is, that the RAJA intrigued,
with the same design of overthrowing the
English, with the dethroned Raja of NAG-

PORE, a Prince who, at the time, was a prisoner

at Judpore, confined to a court-yard 20 feet by
12; and the proofs that the Raja of SATTARA did
intrigue with him, in gross violation of his treaty,
are, that the ex-Raja of NAGPORE wrote a letter
to the Raja of SATTARA (which is not proved to
have been received), and that the latter sent to
the other Prince a pair of shoes ! To these
charges, the Raja of SATTARA pleaded not guilty,
and asked for a healing. In reply, Sir JAMES
CARNAC went to Sattara, called the RAJA
before him, submitted to his unconditional signa-
ture a new treaty, by which he was to acknow-
ledge himself guilty of treasonable practices
against the British Government, as the price of
retaining his throne; and, upon the RAJA'S deli-
berate refusal, and his immediate offer to sur-
render his person and throne to the Bri-
tish Government, he was dismissed from the
Governor's presence, and, without further
warning, forcibly seized and exiled in the
manner we have seen. A few days after,
the Governor himself placed upon the
throne, with every mark of public honour,
the RAJA'S brother, APPA SAHIB, an aban-

doned man in every relation of life, who
had twice secretly plotted the partition of his
brother's dominions, and now acknowledged,
under his own hand, that he was cognizant of
the treasons charged by the Government upon
the RAJA. These facts are established by the
volume of papers which the Court of Di-
rectors have themselves selected as their
case, and laid before the Proprietors ;
and upon every one of the previous acts
towards the RAJA, down to the last one of most
abhorrent cruelty, have the majority of the
Court of Directors bestowed their " warm com-
mendation." Such case, then, we repeat, is' now
a national case. For the RAJA to Expect justice
from these men, or from their minions, who
have shown themselves devoid of every senti-
ment of justice, common sense, or humanity, is
utterly hopeless. We call upon the country to
take it up, or to share, in the eyes of the civilised
world, the disgrace and infamy which
attach indelibly to the actors through..
out this transaction. The Court of Direc-
tors have dared to treat the ex-Raja of
SATTARA as the QUEEN of these realms
could not, for the brightest jewel in her sceptre,
venture to treat the guiltiest malefactor among
her subjects. The Raja of SATTARA was under
the protection of British power; and we tell the
Court of Directors, that what the Queen of
ENGLAND may not do, the Court of Directors
will not do, with impunity, in any part of her
dominions. On their heads henceforth be the
consequences of these acts. They have know-
ingly, wilfully, deliberately—aye, and insultingly
too—made those acts theirs, and upon them shall
the responsibility rest. It must be seen whether
the Government of British India, over a hundred
millions of men, is given to them for such uses.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S address to the electors
of the City of London is a Ministerial manifesto.
It defends what Ministers have done, and an-
nounces what they are to do. The former will
be more useful to them—the latter more interest-
ing to the public.
We think the former also complete, so far as it
repels the accusations of the Tories. In the early
part of last year Lord JOHN RUSSELL announced
the Government intention of proposing new
taxes ; they were carried, and the result this year
was a larger deficiency in the revenue than here-
tofore. Unable to reduce the establishments, Mi-
nisters, on a careful review of our commercial
imposts, came to the conclusion that by remov-
ing prohibitions and lessening restrictions it was
possible to replenish the Treasury. Before Eas-
ter Lord J. RUSSELL, on a debate on the Colo-
nial Customs Bill, announced the intention of
Ministers; but this did not prevent the Tories
from loudly asserting that the commercial plans
of the Ministers were only brought forward after
they had been defeated on the Irish Qualification
Bill. Lord JOHN'S refutation of their assertion
is triumphant, but it availed nothing with the
Tories.

They asserted in the House of Commons and
out of the House of Commons, and asserted most
unscrupulously in face of numerous facts, and in
the face of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S announcement,
that the Budget was a mere clap-trap to ward off
resignation. The calumnies of the Tories have
attained the object in view. Lord Joux Rus-
SELL admits that the "returns from the manu-
facturing districts have not tended to restore the
balance against the counties." The assertions of
w came not to the rescue. No
the Tories were in fact believed—the declarations
' of theMinistersere distrusted, and the manu-
facturing
districtse
Ministers kept their intentions some-
doubt
what secret from the best of motives ; but had
they been, when the resolve was first adopted,
.promulgated far and wide, they would not have
been open to misrepresentation by the Tories,
and to suspicion by the Liberals.
From this part of the case one thing is
clear, namely, that the Tories have quite
negiected no
arts, and spared no means, to defeat the Whigs.
They have pursued them unrelentingly and un-
scrupulously ; we shall sec hereafter that the
Whigs have no intention of •
paying
themfor forbearing ain i n
their
own coin.
Ministers mean to meet the Parliament, which
we never doubted. They can only receive a de-
cision from the Parliament itself; and till that
be assembled, 'there is no authorised means of
ascertaining what it will be. They aro to ask
the new Parliament for a clear and decided
opinion on the policy they have pursued. Most
likely, through the- tliedium of the Speech from
the Throne, they will pronounce a strong and
decided opinion in favour of their own measures ;
the Address moved by their friends will echo
that opinion; the opposite party will move an
amendment condemning it ; issue will he joined,
and if the majority decide against Ministers they

will resign.
We are not aware that they could with pro-
priety or honour adopt any other course. Had
they followed the suggestions of their opponents,
they would have resigned before Parliament met
—bad they listened to the calls of followers more
zealous than wise, they would hold the Govern-
ment, with her MAJESTY'S approbation, in de-
fiance of the Tories, and appeal again and again
to the people. They have adopted a middle and
a perfectly constitutional course, and their reso-

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