The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-06 00:00:00

CHARGE.

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Terminable Annuities... • •
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The Surplus ~.....
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The Amount of Exchequer Bills issued to meet the Charge en the Consolidated Fund for the Quarter ended April
5, 1848, and paid out of the growing produce of that fund for the Quarter ended July 5,
The Amount issued in the Quarter ended
bth July, 1848, in part et the Sums granted by Parliament out of the
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but to submit to their decision. No doubt the in-
terests of the company were involved in the case,
but he (Mr. Lewis) cared not for that ; he should
still venture to submit it to their decision if they
would come to the question with unbiassed and im-
partial minds. The first proposition in the treaty was
an assertion that it was a treaty of perpetual friend-
ship and alliance between the British Government
and the Raja, his heirs and successors. The next
proposition affirmed that it was the intention of the
British Government to invest the Raja with sovereign
power and dignity. The third article affirmed that
the Raja, his heirs and successors, should have the
perpetual sovereignty of the various jagheerdars
which were in the schedule annexed to the treaty.
Every subsequent clause of the treaty entered into
by the Government was with the Raja, his heirs
and successors. Was it possible, therefore, for
any person to have made use of more re-
dundant expressions than were employed in
that treaty ? It would have been quite sufficient
to have used the word " heirs " to have given
all the rights which were claimed for his
son ; but not only was the word " heirs " used, but
his " successors, clearly showing the interest in-
tended to be given by the British Government, and
that the Raja was to have as great advantage from
the treaty as could possibly be conferred upon him
by the one party or accepted by the other. What
did the word heirs mean ? Surely it had the same
meaning in that treaty as if applied to an estate in
this country. Supposing a person had an estate in
fee simple, he would be vary much surprised if he
were to be told that if he left no son,
his brother would not succeed, or that if he had no
brother, his nephew would not succeed, or that if he
had no nephew, his nearest collateral heir would not
succeed. If the British Government intended merely
heirs in lineal descent, why hail they not expressed it
in the treaty, according to every rule which applied to
the construction of treaties ? Ile (Mr. Lewis) would
read an extract from Mr. Vattel's work on the " Law
of Nations," showing the rule which regulated the
construction of treaties : —" Those cavillers who dispute
the sense of a clear and determinate article are
accustomed to seek their frivolous subterfuges in
the pretended intentions and views which they attri-
bute to its author. It would be very often dangerous
to enter with them into the discussion of those sup-
posed views that are not pointed out in the piece
itself. The following rule is better calculated to
foil such cavillers, and will at once cut short all
chicanery. If he who could and ought to have ex-
plained himself clearly and fully has not done it, it
is the worse for him ; he cannot be allowed to intro-
duce subsequent restrictions which he has not ex-
pressed. This is a maxim of the Roman law. The
equity of this rule is glaringly obvious, and its neces-
sity is not less evident. There will be no security
in conventions, no stability in grants or concessions,
if they may be rendered nugatory by subsequent
limitations, which ought to have been originally
specified in the deed, if they were in the contempla-
tion of the contracting parties." Those words ought
to receive the fairest, most liberal, and largest pos-
sible construction which could be placed upon them—
such a construction as was placed upon
the words of a similar instrument some
years ago in the English courts of law,
where a question arose relating to the construc-
tion of a treaty. That was the case of "Barrett v.
Williams," in which, upon one view of the case, the
monopoly of the East India Company would be
broken. In that case the Chief Justice Eyre stated
that the privileges conferred by a treaty were to be
held in good faith, and not to be put aside by the
artifices of more refined politicians. Adopting the
same rule in the construction of the present treaty, it
was quite clear that there was no limitation or re-
striction whatever. The treaty was to him and his
heirs; the subject-matter of the treaty was
property lying
in the Deccan ; that property,
so far as the Raja was concerned, was sub-
ject to the 'Endo() law,
Baja as a contracting
party was himself a Hindoo,n the
Hindoo, and knew no law but
that which conferred upon him the right of adoption,
the most valuable privilege in the Hindoo code of
laws. But there were, moreover, specific words used
which precluded all doubt upon the question of adop-
tion. The word " successor was introduced as well
as " child " evidently contemplating the probability
of some person succeeding who should not be the
lineal descendant of the Baja. If the translation
of the treaty was looked at in the Persian
and in the Mahratta, it would be found
that specific words were used, denoting the two
classes of persons----the lineal heirs being expressed
by one word, and heirs by adoption being expressed
by another, so that there really could be no possible
question upon the subject. Having said so much
upon the construction of the treaty, he (Mr. Lewis)
would then submit a few observations to prove
to the Court that it ought to place the child
adopted by Pertaub Shean on the throne.
He would not for a moment suppose it possible that
they would refuse to be bound by the treaty ; there
was something so atrocious in the idea. They could
not proceed upon the ground which had been alleged,
that the blood of Pertaub Shean was tainted. The
boy to whom he alluded claimed both as the son of
Pertaub Shean and the heir of Appa Sahib. The
pedigree of the Sattara family had been
given by Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, in
the second volume of the Blue Books, where
it stated that Sahoo, the grandfather of Per-
taub Shean, died in the year 1777 ; that he adopted in
his lifetime a relative of the name of Sahoo. The
father of Pertaub Shean, and the father of Balla Sahib,
Senaputtee, was the next in succession ; so that the
child of Balla Sahib who had been adopted was the
nearest blood relation both of Appa Sahib and Per-
taub Shean. But the boy said to have been adopted
by Appa Sahib on his death has stood in a very dif-
ferent position, being an extremely remote relative
from generations back, and the act of
adoption having also been wrongly performed,
at a time when the Appa Sahib was in articulo
mortis. The boy Shahoo, therefore, was entitled to
succeed to the musnud,
because he belonged to the
elder branch of the family; and, secondly, because
the adoption which was so made was a complete
adoption, which the other Was
not, the father of the
boy said to have been adopted by Appa Sahib having
been
oautr
tHt hteoe
(Mr.time
stultify,
itself by affirming, con-
traryact which rendered the whole
Lewis)
did not at all call
upon
decision, the innocence of Pertaub
Shean, in so recognising his adopted son ; but by so re-
cognising him they would meet the ends of justice and
gain the important collateral advantage of putting
nugatory.a'the
tob s absent
itsn Court
former
n endthe question. For those
the motion of the Hon.
Mr. FIELDErs said that the Court had had a great
Proprietor, a
reasons
begged
Mr. agitation
Sullivan.t o support
upon
deal of eloquence from the friends of the Raja of Sat-
tara, but never had they made so weak a case. The
first question was whether Pertaub Shean had a
right to adopt, without the consent of the British
Government ; the next point was, whether, if he
really had such right, he had not forfeited it by his
conduct. He (Mr. Fielder) had listened with great at-
tention to Mr. Sullivan's narration of what had passed
between Mr. Elphinstone, Colonel Munro, and Lord
Hastings, who only admitted what everybody else
admitted, that at the time of the formation of that
treaty there was a bona fide intention to perform its
covenants. It was not the fact, as bad been alleged,
that the treaty had been entered into upon a footing
of perfect equality. There were certain conditions,
and by those conditions the Raja did not bind himself
merely, but also his heirs and successors; and any
misconduct of his vitiated any claim which his heirs and