The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-19 00:00:00

ever retain of this additional proof of that warm inte-
rest and watchful care which he has never ceased to
manifest for the welfare and advancement of all classes
of our native subjects, and for the preservation, to the
principalities in alliance with the East India Company, of
those indefeasible and most cherished rights, upon which
such fearful inroads have of late years been made, under
no other sanction then that of the irresistible means
which a succession of military triumphs has at length
placed at our ei posal, for enforcing such not less impo-
litic than unjust exercises of an assumed right. Atter
those lucid expositions ef the Hindoo law, and
usages as rettards succession by adoption, by which
this. Court has of late been edified, proceeding as
as they did from many of its most experienced, most
enlightened, and best informed members—after the
unqualified recognition by the British Government in the
fifteen cases so pertinently quoted, and so ably
commented upon by the mover of these resolutions,
in practical illustration of the inviolability of the
rights thereby conveyed,— unwilling as I feel
to occupy the time cf the Court by any further cita-
tions of a like tendency, there is one so remarkable
from the pre-eminent authority in a hich it rests', and
from the important result to which it led, that I do not
think, on such a review, it should pass unnoticed. I
aUude to the ease of the tributary principality of Kur-
noul on the death of the Nabob, in the year 1821, with-
out male heirs, and to the memorable minute by the late
Sir T homl s Munro, fully concurred in by Lord Hastings,
which was to the following effect:--
"I think we have no right to meddle in the affairs of
kurnoul on the pretence of maladministration on the
sufferings of the people, or on any other grounds
than those of securing our own rights of pescush and
military service, and the peace of our own districts. I
tbiuk we ought to wait quietly for the Nabob's death,
and to acknowledge for his successor the person of his
family who by his choice, and the support of his officers,
may be enabled to assume the government."
Upon this case, Mr. Chairman, too much stress cannot
bo laid, from its having led, after three years' consider-
ation, to the authoritative adoption of a fixed principle
by the Court of Director: for the future guidance of the
Government of India. Your Honourable Court, on
the review of a similar tranaction elsewhere, so long
back as the year 1819, thus, disposed of the
question of succession by adoption in your letters to
Bengal, dated 1824, which direct as follows:—" It does
not appear ,to us, that the treaty of Bhopal affords a
warrant for all this kterference; it is not provided by
that treaty that you shall have either the power of inter-
fering with the appointment of a Nabob, that of choos-
ing a minister, or that of dismissing any of the Nabob's
attendants." Can, gentlemen, language be stronger
confirmatory, except when by treaty it is otherwise ex-
pressly provided for, of the absolute right of every
native principality to provide for its own successor?
It remains fur me to point out that this disavowal by
the first authorities, both of England and India, of all
claims on the part of the East India Company to in-
terested interference with the usages of succession in
default of male heirs in the direct line, among our de-
pendent and tributary states, is in perfect unison, not
with the speculative opinion, but with the well-founded
convictions of all your must eminent governors and
eteteemen from the date of our earliest alliances with
the native powers. Warren Hastings, so long back as
1774, thus expresses himself:--
"The general principle upon which we have acted,
and which we mean to make the rule of our future
policy and conduct, is, no other than that which your
aut'sority and that of the Legislature have equally pre-
seribed to us, to maintain peace in India. The preser-
vation of power necessarily includes the vigorous defence
of your possessions with such parts of the dominions of
your allies as are guaranteed by treaty; it excludes
every idea of conquest, much less could we suffer the
small states which look up to you for protection to be
swallowed up by the great one..
In the same unmistakable language the late Mar-
quis of Wellesley, thirty years afterwards, thus expressed
himself:—
" Every principle of true policy demands that no
effort should be omitted by the British Government to
establish a permanent foundation of general tranquillity
by securing to every state the free enjoyment of its just
rights and independence, and by frustrating every pro-
ject calculated to disturb the possessions or to violate the
sights c f the est tblisbed powers of Hindostan and of the
Doccsv."
After a lapse of nearly forty years the same distin-
guished Nob'eman thus expresses himself:—
" No further extension of our territory is desirable in
India, even in the event of war, for conquest, if that
could he justified or were legs', as the law most wisely
stands." While, us regar Is some other meditated inno-
vations in Bengal, he has enj 'sued in the same letter,
quieta non tn,vei e" _ _

That pre eminent statesmen the Hon. Mountstuart
Elphinstune, when interrogat d by tie Legislature 'thir-
teen years after our conquest of the Mahratta country,
thus replied t—
"lt appears to me to be our interest as well as our
duty to use every en ens to preserve the allied Govern-
ments; it is also our ict-rest to keep up the number of
independent powers; their territories afford a refuge to
all those whose habits, of war, intrigue, or depredation
rneke them inseparable of remaining quiet in ours."
After an avowal, gentlemen, of these sentiments, can an
iota of doubt be entertained in the mind of any reason-
able man what would have been the result cf a refer-
ence to such preacieet authority regarding the recent
annexation of the Sattara territory? That practical and
far-seeing statesman, and that best of trieads which the
natives of our own territory, as well as the principalities
of India ever had, the la!e Sir John Malcolm, thus ex-
prcsi a himself in their behalf; when on the same occa-
sion interrogated:—
" The wars to which we have been compelled from our
condition have left us solo sovereigns of this vast terri-
tory, but they have involved us in great, though not ir-
retrievable embarrassment; the pressure of financial
(lithe:fides recommends every measure which promises
imintafiete relief, but that to be permanent must be
sought, not in the fruro annexation of territory,
but in the improvement of what we pos-
sess, and in the general revision and reduc-
tion of our establishments. To enable us to effect
these objects we must not cast away one iota of good
feeling or motive for allegiance that exists, or which we
have a prospect e f crea,ing in the minds of our native
subjects. • We must mairit tin to the utmost of our power
the higher orders of the community, fur on their being
conciliated to our rule, the future peace of this empire
must greatly depend, and with it our power to lessen
the expenses of its Government. . We
cannot admit "cur right to carry the privilege of
giving advice, and a modified interference, stipulated by
treaty, to go under any circumstances short of hostilities,
extreme public danger, or the violation of faith, to the
estahlishment of a right to assume the government of
tiip country. with the power of which our treaties are
contra,ted.

In a letter to the Court of Directors, of the 25th April,
len, on the occasion of his leaving England to take
upon hitriself the Government of Bombay, the same dis-
tinguished officer, in accordance with the views of those
'lige authorities bef ire cited, and aware of the cotre-
spun:lir% sentim: nts of those to whore ho was addressing
himself, thus again F t ttes—
T 1 e petty *'a es can cherish no hope of resisting the
power of the British Governmt of of which they are the
tributaries and d pendants:, and if we can succeed in
placing their miuda at repose, as to the conti-
nua:lee of their power over their respective tribes
and territories, I have ne doubt but that, by
their gradual reform, we may establish a system
caleulited teyond any we have yet adopted to give
permanence to our power, and to reconcile the upper
as will es the lower ranks of society to our Goverment."
Than experience
TI • d officer acid political functionary,
:
Colonel J. elunre, thus expresses himse f on the all-
important matter under discussion:—
`' The moee and extent of our interference must de.
p. ne upon tire circumstances and character of the allied
princes, and Governments, and must rest very much on
Iho judgment and discretion of the British Itesideut and
(',vernalont• To procure the choice of en able and
active elini.ter, and to guide and support his pro-
ceedings, will often be the policy of the British
Government, &Inflected with assiduous endeavours to
concentrate and maintain the dignity of the Prince.
Justice and policy equally dictate the necessity of avoid-
ing every occasion that might lead us to take terri-
teral possession el the dominions of any of the
allied states; for it is of high importance to retain these
naive Governments, on the ground, without reference
to other reasons, of their giving situations of
trust, emolument, and dignity, to the natives in
general, and especially to the higher classes of them."
ui,osk such an occasion, I am not lees unwilling to omit
what has been prominently noticed by that most expe-
rienced and most distinguished of your public servants
in the politiCal department both in the Councils of Eng
land and India, the late Mr. N. B. Edtnoneteee, who thus
expresses himself
It must be our endeavour to conduct our relations
with the allied states as much as possible in subserviency
to the professed principle of their foundation. We must
endeavour to render the chiefs what in words and by our
treaty we recognise them to be, the absolute rulers of
their country.'"
Though last not least, that distinguished historian and
political functionary, the late Colonel Todd, thus ex-
presses himself on the same occasion:—
"If the impression should become general—if no me-
thod be devised to convince the Rajpoot states that ul-
timate appropriaion is not our object, what can we
expect but the conversion of our best friends into our
bitterest foes?"
Such, .gentlemen, are the authorities on which this
f
appeal is now made to your sense of justice, or th e
adoption of 8012118 legislative enactment, for arresting
the progress of encroachment upon the hereditary and
indefeasible rights of the tributary and dependent states
with which we have firmed alliances. Upon an occasion
like the present, I could not but feel it a duty in-
cernbent upon me as a member of this Court to come
forward in their behsle I have done so, gentlemen, ac-
tuated by no factious spirit of hostility towards our re-
spected executive. I have done so with a view, not of
lowering but of clevatiolg the reputation for moderation
end mod faith of the British Government. I have done
so, g. nil. mete with the view of arresting those to whom
such a large share of their atithority is delegated, in a
carer of harshness, selfishness, ;
and injustice, which hes
st alien the confidence cf every principality through-
out
India in our probity and honour; and everywhere
created the greatest alarm and anxiety, lest a
similar
fate to that which has befallen the Sattara d •
3 nasty
should await them and their families.
Tt.e Citereziee then rose and said, that he should not
attempt, nether did he think that it would be expected
from him, to follow the flqn. Mover and Seconder
throughout the whole of the long arguments which they
La 1 used on the present occasion. The first part of the
Alen. plover's address consisted merely in a series of
eulogies on the manner in which our government had
been carried on, and it must be quite muiecessary for