The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-20 00:00:00

I E: E,N N

EAST INDIA HOUSE.

A quarterly general Court of the East India Com-
pany was held on We]ffsitly et their house in Learin-
hall-street. Mr. John Shepherd, chairman cf the
company, w•as in the chair.

The minutes of the last quarterly meeting were
read and confirmed.
The CHAIRALIN announced that the
.warrants for
the half-yearly dividend would be ready fur delivery
on the 7th of July next.
The report or the committee on the bye-laws was
then read, and the committee re-appeintedfor the en-
suing year.

A AJ 4J N

sity. The chiefs of that country having first attacked
the British power, Lord Hardinge, in subduing them,
displayed great moderation in maintaining Lahore as
an indep.:ndent state, taking the young Raja under
British protection. The chiefs again rebelled, and
then it, was found necessary to take possession of the
country; but there was no one who knew the chanc-
ter of Lord Dalhousie but would acquit him of any
intention to adopt violent or unjust measures under
any circumstances whatever. He was very sorry that
this subject should have been alluded to on the pre-
sent occasion.

Mr. SULLIVAN said he did not entertain the same
opinion of the motion as bad been expressed by the
Cna.irman, nor did he think the public would. The
motion appeared to him to have a very intelligible and
responsible object. His friend, Colonel Dickenson,
had said the Governor-General had passed a sentence
on every native prince in India, he having proulaimed
that henceforward all the possessions of native princes
who died without natural heirs should be confiscated
to the British Government, and that principle had
been recognised by the Chairman. It appeared to
him (Mr. Sullivan) that the least they could do to
the parties who were so deeply interested in this mat-
ter was to apprize them of the fate now hanging over
them. Up to the present moment they had been
spending all their revenues under the confi-
dent belief that treaties made would be observed,
and therefore the least they could do was to
tell these native princes that they had only
a life interest in their estates and possessions,
and ought to begin at once to make adequate provi-
sion for their families. Perhaps the directors thought
it was a reasonshle thing that they should not know
their sentence until it would be put into execution.
He, however, contended that they were not only
bound to tell them to make timely provision for their
families, under the sentence thus summarily passed
by the Governor-General, but were also bound to
induce them to place such provision in the hands of
the Governor-General and the British Government ;
tor, strange and paradoxical though it might seem, it
was nevertheless true that the only place of security
for the property and possessions of native princes was
in the treasury of the East India Company ; for when
native princes put their property and possessions in
the British treasury they were under the protection
of the law. So long as the Governor-General
was limited to the Company's territories
he was a constitutional monarch, but when
he went beyond that he became an auto-
crat, and seized the property and possessions of
native princes, and nobody could call him to account.
He would say again, therefore, that they were bound
to make the people over whom the sentence was im-
pending to lay by some adequate provision for their
families, and moreover bound in all equity and jus-
tice to point out to them that their fate would be the
same as that which overtook the Raja of Sattara—
they were bound to tell them that 26 lace of rupees,
the property of the family of Pertaub Sing, if in-
vested in the company's funds, would amount to a
permanent provision of one lac of rupees a year, and
that the benevolent Governor-General thought he had
made a sufficient and ample provision for his family
by giving him a life annuity of 30,000 rupees a year,
and that though Appa Sahib had an adopted son, who
was formerly recognised as his real heir, and was en-
titled to all his private property and possessions,
they disposed of them as they pleased, and simply
gave him in return a life interest. That was the po-
iition, without any exaggeration whatever, in which
the native princes of India were placed at the present
moment. The Chairman had said the company had
no treaties with these princes, but what was the fact ?
There were no less than 150 native princes with
whom they had treaties, and his Gallant Friend's
motion only amounted to a request that they might be
warned that they had only a life interest in their es-
tates. In the 150 treaties with these native princes
and chiefs they had guaranteed to them and their
heirs in perpetuity all their estates and possessions ;
but the construction now sought to be placed on them
was, that they were to have only a life interest. That
being so, he would say again, " Warn them ; tell
them to begin to make a provision for their families,
so that they may not be reduced to the same state as
the families of the Raja of Sattara and Pertaub
Sing, who first had their property confiscated, and
then received an annuity of 30,000 rupees a year."
Every person who denounced the proceedings of the
Governor-General, or was opposed to him, must ex-
pect himself to be held up as a factious opponent, as a
person who used undue influences, and who possessed
no discretion. He found such expressions frequently
used in the papers just laid before the House of Com-
mons. But the Chairman himself was one of the
old faction who denounced in the strongest possible
terms the taking away of the Raja's property; so
also did Mr. Tucker, one of the directors ; and,
speaking of him, he would take the liberty
of saying, in parenthesis, that none was more
distinguished, none more devoted to the in-
terests of the country than Mr. Tucker, and yet
the Governor-General, in those dispatches, said that
all those who really ventured to express an opinion
as to the confiscation of the principality of the Sat-
tara territory, committed a breach of good faith. He
thought the Court could not think there was any-
thing unreasonable, or in the slightest degree im-
proper, in his Gallant Friend bringing forward this
most important subject. He confessed, on consider-
ation, that he was sorry the question of Lahore had
been introduced inadvertently into the dis-
cussion, but, as it had been mentioned,
the Court would, perhaps, allow him to say
that he dissented altogether from the opinions which
had been expressed by the Chairman. He believed
that Lord Dalhousie's Government would be princi-
pally remembered for two measures—in the first
place, for the confiscation of the principality of Sat-
tarn against all right and treaty ; and in the next, for
the confiscation of the dominions and lives of princes
with whom we had made war. The Peishwah
kindled a rebellion in that province, which was put
down at great expense and loss of life, with the loss
of his crown, and the first act of the British Go-
vernment was to seize upon the state of Lahore, to se-
parate public and private property, and to secure or
confiscate the Koh-i-noor, which, according to the ac-
counts in the papers, seemed ashamed of the country,
for they could not get it to show its lustre any how.
—(A laugh.) He would now confine himself to one
more single observation, and that was, that though
the principle on which the directors now proceeded
was, that no native prince would be allowed to adopt
children without the sanction of the paramount power,
it had been determined by Lord Auckland and Lord
W. Bentiuck, and other Governors-General of India,
that every Hindoo prince had a right to adopt a suc-
cessor, whom we were bound to acknowledge.—(Hear.)
Sir J. HOGG, the Deputy-Chairman, thought that
from the tone adopted by the last speaker he took
upon him to chide the proprietors, and that he had
been betrayed into invective as unbounded as it was
uncalled for. The cause, however, soon appeared. It
was the old question of Sattara which haunted the
Hon. Gentleman's imagination. Had it never oc
curred to the Hon. Proprietor that other people were
capable of forming an opinion as well as himself, and
that he did not concentrate all the honour, and all the
intellect, and all the knowledge of the Court of Pro-
prietors, or that the majority might be right and the
minority wrong? Had he forgotten the discussions
and decision in Parliament ? His indignation about
the Sattara affair could afford the only excuse for
such warmth. It was ever Sattara, Sattara, Sat-
tars, and for twelve years past the cry had been
Sattara. Mr. Sullivan had selected the case
of the Mahonaedan states, although such a case as that
in Colonel Dickenson's motion could never arise there.
He asked them to give a list of those native princes
who had been sacrificed for some ten, thirty, or fifty years
by some iniquitous Governor-General, and a list of
those whom it is intended to sacrifice.—(Hear, hear.)
Was it not monstrous that such a propositiion should
be made to an intelligent assembly that they were to
anticipate such gross injustice ?—(Hear.) Mr. Sul-
livan had gone the length of asserting that the con-
quest of the Punjaub was a black spot in the history
of India; but he (the Deputy-Chairman) would tell
the Hon. Proprietor that the people did not think so,
and that, in his opinion and that of the world, the
story of the Punjaub would be a bright star in that
history.—(Cheers.) Those who had given judgment
in the matter bad said that Lord Hardinge was
too forbearieg.—(Hear, hear.) With a degree of
moderation which must redound to the honour of
that nobleman, be had taken but a small territory
from the vanquished. It had been asserted that we
entered into a treaty with a minor. Why, the whole
at
the
er
chiefs. It
(wHaesarn,evheer,
supposedar.
The
treaty country
was
as was
with
we
i
e could enter into a treaty with an infant. The
Governor-General wished to try the effect of a treaty
with the chiefs, but those very chiefs, he (the Deputy-
Chairman) believed, had, without exception, taken
part in the subsequent rebellion. The Hon. Pro-
prietor had charged Lord Dalhousie with fomenting
this rebellion.—(" Hear," from Mr. Sullivan.) He
(the Deputy-Chairman) was sorry to hear that affir-
mation. Lord Dalhousie had adopted measures for
the interest, not only of British India, but of all those
people committed to his rule. The treaty could not
be impunged.—(Hear.)
Mr. SULLIVAN said he had charged Lord Dalhousie
with fomenting the rebellion in the Punjaub by his
agents. He (Mr. Sullivan) had put his opinions in
print, and should be glad to have a field day with the
lion. Deputy-Chairman, who had carried the Court
entirely away from the question before it. There
had not been one word said upon the matter of Colo-
nel Dickenson's motion. He denied that he bad re-
vived the case of the
Raja of Sattara. He merely
named it.

Colonel DICKENSON said he simply required a list
of those native princes who needed the adoption 01
the Government.
The motion was then put and negatived.
THE MADRAS LIOIT CAVALRY.
Mr. LEwIN then wade the following motion :