The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-12 00:00:00

THE RAJA OF SATTARA.

Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON then rose to bring
forward ,the motion of which he had given notice
with respect to the case of the late Raja of Sat-
tara, and to move for a Select Committee to inquire
into the conduct of Lieutenant Colonel Charles
Ovens (of the Bombay Army), while British Political
Resident at the Court of Sattara; and into the pro-
ceedings of the Bombay Government, and the Court
of Directors of the East India Company, in re-
lation • to certain charges preferred against that
officer. The Honourable Member observed,
that he was anxious to merit the indulgence
which he ventured earnestly and respectfully to solicit at
the hands of the House, by proceeding at once, as briefly
as possible, to state the reasons which induced him to
bring forward the motion of which he had given notice.
He (Mr. Thompson) wished, at the outset, to disclaim
any personal ill-feeling towards the Gallant Officer whose
conduct was the subject of the proposed inquiry. His
private character was, as far as he (Mr. Thompson)
knew, unreproached and free from suspicion. He
had received nu injury at his hands, nor did he
(Mr. Thompson) believe that that gentleman had
ever meditated any towards him. He had no one
cause for individual resentment against that officer,
nor was he conscious of cherishing any sentiment ap-
proaching to personal animosity. It was as a
public man, and a servant of the State, that he had
then to do with Colonel Ovens. It was on public
grounds, and on public grounds solely, that he referred
to him in the Parliament of Great Britain, and deemed
it his duty to impeach certain of the acts done by
that officer in his official and responsible cha-
racter. But it was not simply the conduct of
Colonel Ovens that he (Mr. Thompson) was there to
arraign; still less was it upon Colonel Ovens exclusively,
or even as the principal offender, that he thought the
censure of that House and of the country ought to fall,
and would fall if the inquiry sought was granted.
Through Colonel Ovans a nigher and more important
duty was then endeavoured to be discharged,
namely, that of arraigning the conduct of those
to whom that officer was, and still is, immediately
amenable—whose commission he had long held, by
whose orders he was placed at Sattara, and by whom
his conduct had been repeatedly sanctioned, approved,
and rewarded. Nor was it merely to obtain an inquiry
into the acts of those under whom Colonel Ovans had
served, that the present motion was brought
forward, although the conduct of the East
India Company, and her Majesty's Government, in
the administration of the affairs of a vast empire like
that of India, was, of necessity, a subject of the highest
importance ; but it was because that conduct was inse-
parably linked in the present case with the melancholy
tate of a distinguished Indian sovereign, with the observ-
ance or breach of a solemn treaty, and with the disposal
at the present time of a throne without an occupant, a
principality without a ruler, and a numerous people with-
out a prince; and, further, because that conduct was con-
nected with whatever is valuable to the British name
and character in India, with the principles of national
honour and good faith, and with the mainte•
of-
thpartincePsini°orfl the state, which could
in the minds of the
pneaonpcele
alone constitute a lasting foundation for British
dominion in that distant part of the world. It was due,
however, to his (Mr. Tnompson's) own feelings that he
should state that he had long cherished the hope of being
wasit then endeavouring to dis-
o
trusted would have been
charge.
ad
That
hwt
ce
ec
shns ct
hyees
hs e y f undertaking so painful a
fondly
removed, by a reconsideration, on the part of the Indian
Government in this country, of the decision now fully
admitted to have been prematurely arrived at, in the
case of the late deposed Raja of Sattara. In common
were far more
judgmentsewnittihtlemdantOgernetslpeemcetn'thwoseahnhis own, he had always
felt convinced that a reconsideration of the case of
the Raja of Sattara—due weight being given to all the
facts which had been disclosed subsequently to that
Prince's deposal—would not fail to issue in the reversal
of the heavy sentence carried into execution wsainst
the accused. The hand of death having recently re-
moved both the Prince deposed in 1839 and the one
subsequently exalted in his place, the hope to
which he (Mr. Thompson) had referred, obtained fresh
vigour, from the belief that as the Raja had left an
adopted son who, besides the circumstance of his adop-
tion, stood next in succession to the vacant throne,
as the nearest in lineal descent, and as no politi-
cal or other impediment existed to render it diffi
cult or inexpedient to declare that person the Raja
of Sattara, that therefore justice would be
done, as far as the present state of the case admitted,
ny the acknowledgment of the rightful heir, the re-
storation of the deposed Raja's family to their native
country, and the preservation of the territory of Sattara
to the family of Sevajee, in accordance with the
express terms of the treaty of 1819. That hope
had, however, been considerably weakened by the in-
ability of the friends of the Raja's cause to obtain,
either from the Court of Directors, during two meetings
at the India House, or from her Majesty's Minister at
the head of the Board of Control, any assurance
of an intention to recognise the claim of the
individual who, according to Hindoo law, stood towards
the deposed Raja in a relationship as near and as sacred
as that of a child born of his own body ; and they had
even failed to obtain so much as an intimation
of the intention of those authorities to consider
favourably the claims to which reference had been
made. The treatment, too, which that Prince lead
received from the agent of the Governor-General at
Benares, had, so far from furnishing any grounds of en-
couragement, been of a nature to induce his friends to
believe that the supreme authority in India was not
favourable to the recognition of the rights of the
adopted son. And there it would be necessary that
he (Mr. Thompson) should distinctly connect the
inquiry which was sought by the present motion with
the future fate of the surviving members of the de-
ceased's Raja's family, and the disposal of the titles and
territory which that Prince for so many years pos-
sessed. Within the last few days it had been
asserted, that the Raja being still held to be
guilty of the acts charged against him, was,
there-
fore, incompetent to bequeath any political right to his
heir, and that consequently the adoption he had made was
null and void, so far as constituting any ground
for recognizing his heir. It became, therefore,
necessary to revive the question of the guilt or inno-
cence of Pertaub Sheen, so that by placing that
Prince in the position, as respects his character, which
he occupied prior to the charges brought against
him they might give validity to the act by which
he nominated as his successor on the throne the youth
whom they were anxious to see taken into
alliance with the British Government. The inquiry
which he (;qr. Thompson) asked for would, he believed,
fully answer that end, and by resulting in the entire vin-
dication of the late Raja's character, remove every doubt
respecting the right and title of his living son to succeed
to the state and dominion of which his father was, as he
(Mr. Thompson) firmly believed, unjustly deprived.
Even at that, the eleventh hour, he (Mr. Thomp-
son) was willing to forego the right which he
and of reading various extracts from the blue books
possessed of making certain statements to the House,
whose own conduct and motives were necessarily then upon the table, if her Majesty's Government,
in-
volved in the case, would consent that the whole matter
should be referred, either to a Committee of that House,
or if such a tribunal should be unable to pursue its inves-
tigation at sufficient length during the residue of the

present session, then to a Commission, whose duty it
should be to inquire, not only into the conduct of the
particular individual named in the motion, but into the
acts generally of all parties concerned in the deposal of
the late Raja of Sattara, and into the claims of his sur-
viving relations up, n the property, territory, and Go-
vernment, which had lapsed by the death of the late
niece Appa Sahib. From the beginning it had been
his (Mr. Thompson's) constant desire, that instead of
that question having to be determined by the vote of a
General Court of Proprietors in one place, or a large
assembly, by a debate in the House of Commons in an-
other, it should be submitted to the cake, patient, and im-
partial examination of persons wholly disinterested, free
from improper influence, and capable of judging between
conflicting evidence, and of duly estimating the opinions
of parties more or less biassed in their feelings and
judgments. Still cherishing that desire, he would say
no more on that occasion than should appear to him to
be necessary to establish the necessity for such a tribu-
nal, and to prove that there was a bona fide case for such
an investigation. Finally, ere he went into the details
of the evidence, he would state, that punishment was
not the end he had in view. Free from all vindictive
feeling, he sought the redress of the wrongs of those
whom he believed to have been injured, the restitution
of rights, as he conceived unjustly forfeited, and the
correction of errors and abuses in the administration of
the Government in India which not only inflicted grie-
vous injury upon the natives of that country, but im-
paired the influence, by lowering the character of Bri-
tish authority amongst the countless millions there sub-
jected to its sway. Colonel Ovens as an officer in the
Indian army, after holding various posts, was appointed,
in June, 1837, to the situation of political resident at the
Court of his late Highness the Raja, of Sattara. For
the sake of brevity, he (Mr. Thompson) should pass
over the circumstances attending the removal of Colonel
Lodwick, the predecessor of Colonel Ovens, and merely
state, in passing, that it was obvious, upon the face of
the printed papers, that the former officer was removed
from his residency in consequence of his known disin-
clination to take an active part in those secret and dis-
honourable proceedings whl2h had been already com-
menced with a view of criminating the Raja of Sattara.
The duties of a political resident at the Court of Sat-
tara were those of a friendly adviser of the ruling
Princes, and he (Mr. Thompson) was bound to say, that
few better selections could have been made than those
which had placed near the person of the late Raja suchi
gentlemen as Captain Grant Duff, Major-General Briggs,!
the late lamented General Robertson, and his immediate
successor General Lod wick. During the whole period
of their administration of political affairs at Sattara—an
administration commencing in 1818, and extending to
the middle of 1836—50 straightforward and confiding
had been the conduct of the Raja, that not a single se-
cret communication had ever been recorded amongst the
proceedings of the residency; a fact which he (Mr.
Thompson) believed was without a parallel in the his-
tory of British rule in India. It was of importance that
he should state to the House, that General Lod wick was
removed from his post at Sattara, on the plea that he had
lost, to some extent, the confidence of the Prince, and that
it was necessary that some gentleman should succeed him,
who had the power to wits back that confidence, and
cause the communications between the resident and the
ruler to be as free and unreserved as they had always
been before the misunderstanding which had occurred
on a question relating to the Raja's power over certain
feudal chiefs. This fact it was of importance should be
borne in mind by the House, while he (Mr. Thompson)
proceeded to notice the manner in which Colonel Ovans
commenced his official duties at Sattara, which he did on
the 16th of June, 1837. The first act which he (Mr.
Thompson) had to allege against that officer—an act
contrary alike to the letter and the spirit of the
existing treaty—was committed on the day be-
fore specified. The charge which he (Mr. Thomp-
son) had preferred against Colonel Ovens was, that
being hound by treaty to give his advice to the Raja fur
the good of Sattara his state, and for the maintenance
of the general tranquillity, did, on the very day of his
arrival at Sattara, on the 16th of June, 1837, and of his
assuming office as resident and commanding officer of
the British troops, authorise his staff officer, Captain F.
Durack, to pay to one Bhow Leley, a man Col. Ovens
had never seen, and of the " worst character," the sum
of two hundred rupees for the production of certain do-
cuments purporting to criminate the Raja, and also to
give to the said Bhow Leley a written assurance that he
should be further rewarded, in preportion to the services
he might render; and that when Bhow Leley failed to
produce such documents at the time appointed, Colonel
,)vans authorised Captain Durack to give him another
trial; which acts of Colonel Ovens were a subornation
of evidence against the Raja, a gross violation of his
duty as resident, and such as proved him to have come
to Sattara as the unscrupulous enemy of the Raja; fur-
ther, that these acts were concealed by Colonel Ovens
from the knowledge of his Government.
Sir J. HOBHOUSE—Whose statement is that?
Mr. G. THOMPSON—It is my charge against Col.
Ovens. In the first place, he would prove the commission
of the act itself; and here he would refer to a letter from
that officer, addressed to his Government, on the 24th of
June, detailing most minutely his proceedings since his
arrival at Sattara, but containing no allusion whatever
to the important event which had taken place on the 16th
of the same month. Charged by his instructions to give
the Government the fullest information relating to the
alleged intrigues of the Raja, he nevertheless omitted to
inform his Government of the important fact that he
had authorised the employment of an individual, who
had stated his ability to obtain certain treasonable docu-
ments, which would establish the guilt of his Highness.
He (Mr. Thompson) would retiu,at the g.tttatttinn of the
House to a most important document, addressed by the
Raja of Sattara to the Government of Bombay, on the
17th of July following. Cognizant as he (Mr. Thomp-
son) believed the Raja was at that time of the existence
of secret machinations to effect his ruin, he, nevertheless,
offered, in a document which then lay before him (Mr.
Thompson), to resign his power and kingdom into the
hands of the Government, in order that the friendship sub-
sisting between himself and that Guvernment might not be
interrupted, and expressing, moreover, his willingness
to retire into obscurity, if he might be thereby spared
the disgrace which secret accusations were calculated
to bring upon him. That conduct was in perfect keep-
ing with a similar request, preferred in 1836, when first
accused, and again in 1839, when offered the restoration
of the friendship of the Government, on condition of
admitting his guilt. That most important letter was
sent to Bombay; and there was a minute, recorded by
Sir Robert Grant, the Governor, dated July 21st, in the
same year, in which he stated that " he did not think
any notice should for the present be taken of that com-
munication, which he thought betrayed the Raja's un-
easiness, arising from a consciousness of guilt. The
acting resident should be requested to follow up the in-
quiry he had so ably commenced." The Raja never
received so much as an acknowledgment of the receipt
of that letter, still less any expression of' the opinions
of Government respecting it. But to return to the
means taken by Colonel Ovens to obtain evidence
against the Raja. In a voluminous defence, which
Colonel Ovens had deemed it necessary to
furnish to the Right Ilonourable the Presi-
dent of the Board. of Control, in anticipation of the
motion then under consideration, there was found an
admission of the fact that that officer did employ the
person referred to, and in the manner described, but
Colonel Ovens denied altogether the accuracy of his
(Mr. Thompson's) charge of' having concealed such act
from the knowledge of his Government. It had been
proved that his letter of the 24th of June contained no
reference to that act. He (Mr. Thompson) would show
the House that the first information furnished by Colonel
Ovans to his Government of having taken so extraordi-
nary a step as that of employing a servant and subject of
the Raja to obtain evidence to criminate his own Sove-
reign, was extorted by the fortuitous discovery of his
having done so, through the confession of the guilty man
himself of the compact into which he had entered with
the resident. He M , hompson) had before him a
letter, addressed ss, ghly respectable European, r.
Milne, late Medica , ; p
•rintendent of Bombay, to the
Governor-General of. . eta, calling his attention to cer-
tain tranastetions connected with the secret proceedings
against the Raja, and, amongst them, to
That the
letter was dated the
affair of Bhow Leley and Colonel. ;Ovans.
18th of September,being
more than three months subsequent to the 16th of
w a
ytogether .
June. Having to pass through the hands of the Bombay.
to Calcutta,. it was copied in
with its enclosure, and
el Ovens for his remarks thereupon.
the Bombay Government had re-
ceivedllable of intelligence. respecting the
it)lloeforwardedw sneetroet Department, Government,
to
that o(
Inoli
Colonel
sn
date,
affair. From nForsoimngtlheatsyletter, and its enclosures, it appeared
that the man Bhow Leley made certain confessions to his
Highness the Raja of Sattara, of the manner in which he
had been tampered with by.
.Colonel Ovens and his staff
officers; and that his depositions, with other documents,
were forwarded to D. r. Milne, to be used by him as he
might think fit in his communication to the Supreme
Government. In his letter of the 18th of September,
1)r. Milne called the especial attention of the Governor-
General to the circumstances referred to. On the receipt
by Colonel Ovens of a letter from his own Govern-
ment, dated the 21st of September, he thought
Dc uornafierkm, confirming
giving t the ea tdreuttahileodf
account
choouwn t Lesley's I ehyi'ss
nego-
tiations state-
ments, i
it necessary . to furnish the information he had
previously withheld, and accordingly they found
enclosingß ho Bhow
L a e
5,1 e. t taenrdf from m
his his
finallyow n
havings staff-officer,
-offi
pcaeird,
a letter from. him, dated the 27th of De-
cember, a
nthd withe order of Colonel Ovens, 150 rupees, as an
by
the
ye c
Colonel
charactere
o d
l o nw ei
1 hovo Ovens;
n
instalment, and given him a certain promise of future
secret caorcetst
at
hypur
sowshpe
ecrtuohtveieordn
to
(h: i
ef
h'
cat
hvh
aee r
gbßeeaejonat..
doI
ni
eereward, according to the services he might render, con-
(Mr. Thompson) would leave the House to determine
thetsh;
con-
cealment was not made out, by the fact that it was not
till after the lapse of more than three months, and then
only in consequence of the accidental discovery of the
secret steps he had taken, that he acknowledged his
connexion with a man whom he had never seen, for
the purpose of obtaining evidence wherewith to accuse
the Raja of treason to the British Government.
He (Mr. Thompson) left the House, too, to say
whether or not such conduct did not prove
that Colonel Ovens was the enemy of the
Prince towards whom he was bound by treaty
to act the part of a friendly adviser, and whether
the means which, in that instance, he adopted did not
deserve to be designated by the term with which he (Mr.
Thompson) had designated them, ." unscrupulous."
It
was for the House, too, to say whether, in their judg-
ment, British officers were legitimately employed, when.
they were thus entering into secret combination and fel-
lowship with persons like the traitor Bhow Leley, and
whether the publication of such facts as those which had
been detailed throughout India, was likely to beget in
the minds of the princes of that country the confidence
and respect with which they would be inspired towards
those who represent the British power at their respective
courts. The second charge was, " That Colonel Covens 11

'did, from the time of his assuming office as resident,
down to the period of the Raja's dethronement in the
month of September, 1839, systematically intercept, and
cause to be intercepted, the whole of the correspondence
of the Raja, his servants and his friends ; and that Col.
Ovens did convert such systematic intercepting, opening,
and perusing of the said correspondence, into a means of
counteracting and defeating every endeavour which the
Raja muscle to obtain a hearing, and to make known his
case to the British Government ; and into a means of se-
cretly calumniating the friends of the Raja to the Bri-
tish authorities." The admission of Colonel Ovens, in
his own defence, which had been referred to,
of the practice alluded to in the second charge
against that officer, rendered it unnecessary to
adduce any evidence in its support. He (Mr. Thompson)
was anxious, however, that a Committee of that House,
or some equally competent tribunal, should pronounce
its judgment upon the morality, as well as governmental
policy, of such acts as those resorted to by the Bombay
Government and their servants, in the prosecution of au
inquiry into the conduct of a person standing in the re-
lation of the Raja of Sattara ; and to say whether such
proceedings were fair and just towards those who were
thoroughly ignorant of the means adopted by a Govern-
ment, whose governmental machinery was co-extensive
with India itself, and who, by resorting to such means,
offered a premium to disaffected and malicious indivi-
duals to bring about the ruin of innocent. unsophisti-
cated, and confiding persons. Colonel Ovens did not
deny that, in the course of his own secret correspond-
ence, he had expressed freely his opinions upon the
character and conduct of those who, from the
purest motives, attempted, although unsuccessfully,
to render service to the Raja during the long
period of his relentless persecution by the Bombay
Government. He (Mr. Thompson) was happy to say,
that not one line could be quoted from amongst the ac-
cumulated papers which had been laid upon the table of
that House, showing that any British officer, or other
European, was ever connected with the case of the Raja
of Setters, except in the most virtuous, loyal, and ho-
nourable manner, or that they ever tendered to him any
counsel, but such as was in strict accordance:with the ob-
servance of the treaty he had entered into with the Bri-
tish Government; or, in fact, did anything on his behalf
that was inconsistent with their duty to their own Sove-
reign, or the safety and honour of the British Govern-
ment. He would also as confidently affirm, that during
the years that the practice of intercepting letters pre-
vailed, no line ever came into the possession of the Bri-
tish Government, furnishing the least evidence of the
Raja himself, or any of his friends, entertaining feelings of
hostility to British rule in India. On the contrary,
every such intercepted document demonstrated the
earnest anxiety of the Raja himself, and of his agents and
friends, for a strict, but open and fair, inquiry into the
whole conduct of his Highness, during the period of his
connexion with the British Goveanment, and of the de-
sire, above all things, of the accused Prince himself, to
maintain undisturbed and untarnished the friendship he
had for eighteen years avowed and exhibited towards his
European allies and protectors. Should the inquiry
asked for be granted, it would be made abundantly ap-
parent that the system of intercepting letters alluded to
did lead, in a multitude of instances, to the prevention,
on the part of the Raja and his friends, of the success
of his efforts, which would, had not such illicit inter-
ception not taken place, have issued in the revelation of
a conspiracy existing to bring about the ruin of the
Raja. The House would be at no loss to judge of the
helplessness of the unfortunate Raja of Sattara, who by
such a practice was unable to effect any of the just
ends which himself and his friends had in view in
their correspondence with each other. At every step it
would be found that secret artifices had been resorted
to for the purpose of frustrating such ends, and of mis-
representing the objects and designs of such communi-
cations. The next matter to which he was desirous of
calling the attention of a Committee of that House was
the manner in which Colonel Ovens obtained certain
evidence against the Raja, to which evidence great im-
portance had been attached. He (Mr. Thompson) re-
ferred to a confession, so called, said to have been made
by a person of the name of Govind Row, occupying the
situation of Dewan, or Minister, to the Raja of Sattara.
This individual was implicated in the first charge
brought against the Raja, of attempting to seduce two
native officers in the British service from their allegiance.
When accused of that charge by the Resident, the Dewan
was instantly delivered up by the Raja. When the in-
quiry into the charge ceased that person was continued a
prisoner, in a state of mild restraint, at Poonah,
a British station. Whilst there, Colonel ()vans
commenced his duties at Sattara, and prosecuted his in-
quiries into the authenticity of a certain document to
which reference would presently be made. He (Mr.
Thompson) would show that the information Colonel
Ovens sent to his Government relative to that document
was wholly false. He appeared to have thought, how-
ever, that a confirmation from Govind Row of the truth
of the charge which that document contained, was im-
portant; and he took the following means of getting it.
He made such a representation to Government as led to
permission being granted by Government to send the
prisoner from Poonah to Ahmednugger, seventy-four
miles distant, there to be kept in solitary confine-
ment. He next obtained permission to dispatch a secret
emissary—a man who had already given a false account
of the origin of the document, the truth of which
Govind Row was to confirm. That agent remained a
considerable time with the prisoner, until at last he made
him willing to sign a previously prepared paper crimi-
nating his prince; and the judge at Poonah, Mr. Hutt,
was then called in to attest and forward it to Govern-
tnent. I will prove that this paper was extorted by in-
timidation. I will demonstrate that it was wholly false.
I will show that Govind Row was detained in prison for
two years after he gave it, notwithstanding the opinion
of the Supreme Government that be was entitled to his
liberty. The depositions, declarations, and petitions of
this prisoner, made since his liberation, shall be pro-
duced and my charge fully sustained. There were many
other charges into which he might enter, if not fearful
of multiplying his accusations beyond the ability of the
friends of Colonel Ovens to reply. There was one other
charge, however, to which he must allude—the fabrica-
tion of the document ascribed to the mother of Govind
Row, and the concealment for eleven months of the
evidence showing the true history of that paper. In a
few sentences he (Mr. Thompson) could put the House
in possession of all the material points of the case. A forged
petition was received by the Government of Bombay, in
March, 1837, and confided to Col. Ovens in the following
June, with strict orders to discover the writer: -.Colonel
Ovens, from time to time, sent letters and documents to
his Government, professing to give a minute history of
the origin of the petition, and all the circumstances con-
nected with it, save the discovery of the person of the
actual writer, whose name, however, he supplied. When
he had succeeded in bringing his Government to believe
in the genuineness of the petition, there elapsed not
more than a fortnight before the real fabricator
of the papers appeared, who not only fur-
nished from his own lips an account of every
fact connected with it, but laid before Colonel Ovens
documents which proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
that everything previously said of it to the Bombay
Government was entirely false.
Mr. REPTON here rose and moved that the House
be counted.
Strangers were ordered to withdraw. Upon counting
the Members, it was ascertained that there were suffi-
cient to form a House; and, upon our return, we found
Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON proceeding to state
that, to avoid a motion similar to that which had just
been made, he would draw his remarks to a conclusion.
He (Mr. Thompson) had made some of his charges so
long ago as 1843, anxious that Colonel Ovens, if he
could purge himself from them, might afford him (Mr.
Thompson) the opportunity of admitting his error, and
if not, that the late Raja might have the benefit of the
discoveries which had been made into the means taken to
effect his ruin. The inquiry now sought for was de-
manded, in justice to Colonel Ovens, who could only be
effectually cleared by an investigation before a patient
and impartial tribunal— in justice to himself (Mr.
Thompson), who desired the opportunity of proving all
he had said—in justice to the profession to which the
accused belonged by the Government under whose
orders the acts alleged had been done, and for the sake
of the reputation of the British name in India and
throughout the world. Should the inquiry be refused
by her Majesty's Government, the House would, he
(Mr. Thompson) trusted, acquiesce in the mo-
tion. Eulogiums on Colonel Ovens would be no
answer to allegations such as those which had been laid
upon the table, with a tender of ample proof in support
of every one of them. Justice required that these
allegations should be sifted, and the evidence to sustain
them be fully heard. That evidence would be exclusively
official and Parliamentary, and open to the most rigorous
scrutiny. He (Mr. Thompson) sincerely thanked the
House for their protracted attention to his address while
discharging a painful duty, and he ventured to antici-
pate a vote in favour of a full and fair inquiry.
Mr. HUME seconded the motion.

The question having been put,
Mr. ELLIOT said that having spent the greater part
of his life in the East Indies, he might be allowed to offer
a few observations on the motion of the Hon. Gentleman.
He begged to direct the attention of the House to the
course which the Hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets
(Mr. Thompson) had pursued with reference to this
question. That Hon. Gentleman had brought forward
a motion relating to this subject on the 6th of April ; the
debate was adjourned ; and the Hon. Gentleman, after
having deferred the resumption of the debate from one
night to another, had now dropped his original motion,
and had proposed a new resolution, in order that he might
have an opportunity of making another speech, before
the accusations contained in his former speech had been
replied to. The Hon. Gentleman asked the House to
enter upon an investigation which, according to his
own showing, was utterly impossible; for the Hon.
Gentleman l proved by his own statement that it was
impossible to obtain evidence of the circumstances to
which he had referred. The Hon. Gentleman accused
Colonel Ovans, an officer of the highest possible charac-
ter, who had received the marked approbation of two
Governors of Bombay, of two Governors-General of
India, of the Court of East India Directors, and of three
Presidents of the Board of Control, with having been
guilty of subornation of perjury and forgery. He (Mr.
Elliot) considered that an Hon. Gentleman who pre-
ferred charges of this nature was bound to show that he
was free from any personal feeling in the matter, that
he had no pecuniary interest in bringing it forward—
(Hear, hear)—and that he was not actuated by any per-
sonal animosity. The Honourable Gentleman had
told them he could prove the charges he had
made against Colonel Ovans, but he had not referred
to the defence of that Gallant Officer which was
contained in the papers laid upon the table. It
was impossible for him (Mr. Elliot), in consequence of the
length of that defence, to attempt to go into it ; but he
would endeavour to test the accuracy of the statements
made by the Hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, and
upon which he had charged the most base and disgrace-
ful crimes against a gentleman of high position and
repute. He (Mr. Elliot) would, in the first place, ask the

House to consider what was the character and position
of Colonel Ovans. The Hun. Member for the Tower
larnlets had iiiinsclf admitted that that ;.;allant officer's
character stood very high ; arid, in the papers laid upon
the table, there were documents from ever% department
of the Government of Bombay with which Colonel Ovans
had been connected, bearing the strongest testimony to
his high and honourable character. But the Hon. Mem-
ber for the Tower Hamlets was not content with attack-
ing Col. ()vans. He had also charged Sir R. Grant, the
late Governor of Bombay, a man of tried honour and
integrity, and the Council and Government of that Pre-
sidency, with being suborners of perjury and forgery.
Now he (Mr. Elliot) would ask the House if they could
for a moment believe that persons of such high character
and position in India could be guilty of these crimes ?
This was a most monstrous accusation, and the person
who made it was bound to show that, in preferring such
a charge, he was not actuated by motives of pecuniary
interest or of personal animosity. Now he (Mr. Elliot)
had been anxious to ascertain what had been the avoca-
tions of the Hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets in
India. The Hon. Member had been, he believed, the
paid agent of the Raja of Sattara, and he thought that
circumstance was sufficient to excite some suspicien with
regard to the charges he had made. He (Mr. Elliot)
held in his hand a statement which he had received from
a gentleman who had met the Hon. Member for the
Tower Hamlets in India, and who seemed to have been
well acquainted with his movements. That statement
referreo to another agency in which the Hon. Member
had been engaged; and he (Mr. Elliot) thought, if he
could show that the Hon. Gentleman, in conducting that
agency, had not been quite so accurate in his statements
as he ought to have been, he might inter that the Hon.
Gentleman might have been somewhat inaccurate in the
statement he had made on this occasion. His informant
stated, that on the return of the late Baboo Dwarka-
nauth Tagore to India from his first visit to England
he was accompanied by Mr. G. Thompson, as a sort of
itinerant philanthropist; that Mr. Thompson happening
to see an advertisement circulated by the King of Delhi,
calling for tenders of services from parties desirous to
proceed to England to advocate his claims before the

Home authorities, offered his services; that Mr. Thomp:
sun undertook to proceed to England as his Majesty's
vakeel, his Majesty undertaking to advance 5,000
rupees, or 5001., for the expenses of his journey to Delhi.
Mr. THOMPSON begged to ask who was &ha author
of the document ?

Mr. ELLIOT would give the Honorable Gentleman
the name of the writer afterwards. His informant
proceeded to state that the King of Delhi agreed to
give Mr. Thompson a salary of 12,000 rupees a year,
and that a written agreement to that effect was
drawn up ; but on Mr. Thompson's arrival at
Allahabad he intimated his wish that a house
might be prepared for his arrival at Delhi. The palace
of the late Begum Sumroo was with some difficulty pro-
vided for Mr. Thompson, who also required the King to
provide both table and servants, besides making a sub-
sequent demand of 200 rupees a month for table ex-
penses during his journey from Calcutta. Mr. Thomp-
son subsequently demanded and obtained a further ad-
vance of 1,000 rupees a month for the period of his
sojourn at Delhi, which was most reluctantly paid by
the King. On Mr. Thompson's arrival in England he
submitted his Majesty's claims before a duly assembled
meeting of the proprietors, at which it appeared, from
the outlines of the debate received by the mails, that
Mr. Thompson made use of such intemperate and in-
discreet language as to call down upon him the severest
rebuke of the chairman • but by the same mail Mr.
Thompson forwarded the King of Delhi a newspaper
called the Indian Advocate, supposed to be edited by
himself, containing a full report of a totally different
version of the debate. The statement added, that he
accompanied it with a letter from himself, claiming great
credit for complete success, and reminding the King of
the promised remuneration; that the King sent to Delhi
directing a royal salute to be fired in commemoration of
Mr. Thompson's victory, but that the commandant of
the ;palace guards pointed out that all the reports of
the debate that he had seen gave quite a different view
of the case from this very peculiar report; that fur-
ther explanation followed, and the salute was
never fired, nor did Mr. Thompson pocket another
stiver of his Majesty's money—(A laugh)—that the
King's reply was, that he waited the official confirmation
of Mr. Thompson's success—(A laugh)—that other
copies of the report of Mr. Thompson's version of the
debate were sent to several natives of rank, probably
with an eye to their becoming profitable customers.
That the King having conferred the title of ambassador
upon Mr. Thompson, and thereby enlisted him, as he
imagined, in his sole employ, was much annoyed on find-
ing that he also became the paid agent of the late Raja
of Sattara, as well as by Mr. Thompson forwarding from
England repeated demands for large sums of money, said
to be required for copyists, though the 1001. per mensem
was, under Mr. Thompson's own handwriting, to cover
all demands except the reward for ultimate success.
The gentleman who had put this statement into his (Mr.
Elliot's) hand was Major Angelo, who was commandant
of the palace guard at the time ; and he would be ready
to confirm the statement if the Honourable Member
should get the Committee.—(Hear, bear.) The
Honourable Member on a former occasion gave the
Hope to understand that the Raja of Sattara was
placed on the throne as his right, and that the Govern-
ment in India was not authorised to remove him for
a breach of treaty. The fact, however, was that the
country had been conquered by the -British, and it was
entirely at their option to place over it anybody or no
one, and, if anybody, whom. They chose Yertaub
Shean, who, on having the territory ceded to him, en-
gaged, "to hold it in subordinate co-operation with the
British Government, and to be guided in all matters by
the advice of the British agent at his court;" also "to
forbear from all intercourse with foreign Powers, and
with all persons not rendered by these articles subject to
his authority; to have with them no connexion or corre-
spondence; any affairs that might arise with them
relating to his Highness to be exclusively con-
ducted by the British Government;" and it was
added, that " this article was a fundamental condi-
tion of the agreement, and any departure from it, on
the Raja's part, was to subject him to the loss of all
the advantages he might gain by the agreement." Now,
he was charged with having opened communication with
the Portuguese settlement of Goa and with the ex-Raja
of Nagpere, with having endeavoured to corrupt native
officers in one of the Bombay regiments, and with refus-
ing to be guided by the advice of the British agent. The
Hon. Member, unable to deny that there was ample evi-
dence to prove these charges, had resorted to the old
Indian expedient of charging perjury against every wit-
ness, and forgery against every document--(Hear)—and
charging honourable men in high office with being su-
borners of perjury. It was monstrous that any one should
stand up in that House and make such charges against
such men.—(Hear.) The Hon. Member had appealed
to two persons as being of opinion that the Raja was
not guilty. One of them was Mr. Shakspeare, formerly
a member of the Bengal Government, and a judge of the
highest court of appeal; but the Hon. Member ought to
have stated that Mr. Shakespeare died three years before
the inquiry was completed.—(Hear.) The other was
General Lodwick, the resident at Setters, and who was
a member of the commission to inquire into the charges.
But General Lodwick, being examined before that
commission, proved that the Raja had appointed an
agent to proceed to England to represent his claims to
the home authorities, and that his Highness would not
consult him (the resident) according to the treaty; that
the Raja considered himself an injured man--(Hear)—
and was misled by a few interested and bad advisers.
He was evidently a man of weak mind, not likely to bear
up against intrigue; a witness, in whose veracity
General Lodwick said he had as full confidence
as in any native of India he ever knew, gave
an account of the Raja being promised an intro-
duction to the ghost of his deceased relation—(A
laugh)—and being led to believe that he did see and con-
verse with the ghost. The charge of intrigue with other
powers was thoroughly sifted by competent men—such
as Mr. Robertson, a member of the Supreme Govern-
ment, Mr. Bird, and General Morison, who was now a
Member of that House, and who assured him (Mr. Elliot)
that he carefully went through the whole case, and never
was more convinced of the guilt of any one. As to the
Raja having no trial, it would have been a gross indig-
nity to place him at the bar of a criminal court. His
offence was a political offence, and the inquiry was made
as it always was in such cases ; it was the description
of inquiry to which the Company's servants were
subject.—(Mr. Thompson dissented.) There was
positive regulation to that effect. A commission was
appointed to institute an inquiry oa the spot, the only
difference made in this case being that the Raja was
allowed to remain there while the investigation went
on.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member spoke of the
destitution of the Raja's family; why the Ranee was in
possession this moment of 1,000/. a year, and her
daughter of 5001. a year, and it was said that he left
43,000/. in cash and jewels.—(Hear.) He chose to have
European agents at Bombay, and that agency establish-
ment caused his ruin.—(Hear.) The fact was, as he
had before stated, that the Raja became involved' in
difficulties in consequence of placing himself under the
guidance of designing men—European agents. The
evils resulting from the practice of native princes having
recourse to European agents was forcibly depicted in-
dispatches written by Sir John Malcolm, Mr. Elphin-
stone, Sir J. Carnac, and Colonel Ovens. The last-
named gentleman stated that up to 1839 the Raja of Sat-
tara had paid 36,0001. to his European agents at
Bombay alone. It was unnecessary for him
to occupy the attention of the House for fa
longer period. His object had been to show the House
that if they wished to inflict the greatest curse possible
on the people of India, it was only necessary to give en-
couragement to complaints of this description. Any dis-
contented person in India might find an agent to act for
him in this country. If the Hon. Member for the Tower
Hamlets had a pecuniary object in view he might well
apply for this Committee. The Hon. Member had
shown in a letter which he wrote what he expected if he
succeeded in the case of the King of Delhi.
Mr. G. THOMPSON denied that he had written a
letter of the description alluded to.
Mr. ELLIOT said that the fact had been communi-
cated to him on authority in which he placed confi-
dence. The Hon. Member might not remember the
circumstance, he had no doubt, that he wrote a letter to
the King of Delhi, asking for the remuneration which
the Hon. Member deemed himself entitled to for his
services.

Mr. G. THOMPSON—I deny it.
Mr. ELLIOT.—The lion. Member had perhaps for-
gotten the circumstances; it was some time since it
occurred. If the Hon. Member should succeed in ob-
taining the Committee he might go back to India
morrow, and r9turn in a year with 100,0001. in his
pocket.—(A laugh.) Only let it be known that the
Hon. Member had succeeded in appointing a Com-
mittee to inquire into and set aside the decisions of all
the constituted authorities in India, and the Honourable
Member might not only enrich himself if he chose, but
do more towards ruining the British power in India
than could be effected by any other means, Only fur'

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