The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-07 00:00:00

Tli E SUN, LONDON. THURSDA Y EVENING,

TO THE CHAIRMAN AND COURT OF DIREC-
TORS OF THE EAST INDIA COMI'ANY.

Gentlemen,—A letter appeared in the Times cf.
the 28th June, stating that the widow and son of
the late Raja of Sattara, with their numerous retinue,
were starving at Benares, and that not one rupee had
been paid in relief.of their necessities since the Raja's
decease i❑ October, 1847. •

In the last return (No. 6G9, sth August, 1850),
you have made to an order of the House of Commons,
is a letter to the Directors, dated Fort William, 6th
April, 1850, and signed " Dalhousie, J. H. Littler,
F. Currie, J. Lowis," that is to say, by the Governer-
General and Council of India, which contains the fol-
lowing passages : •
Par. 7. "'The Gwernment of India has alirays
advocated the grant of an ample stipend to the adopted
son of the ex-Raja.
Par. 13. "But we 410 not feel ourselves justified
in making these grants, unless both the Ranee and the
boy at Bemires renounce all right to the Raj of
Sattara•; or, at all events, unless the use of the desig-
nation and all marks of sovereignty are abandoned
by both of them."
In the letter above mentioned, of the 231 May, your
Court was apprised " That Ballejee Punt Nattco, the
pensioned traitor and conspirator, had suddenly ap-
peared at Benares from Bombay, in the very height
of the widow's distress, and was secretly tampering
with her near relatives end servants, with the design
of stifling her complaints, and eweing her into silence
and submission" to the wishes of Marquis Dqlhousie
and his Council. The relative whose instrumentality
was employed was the Ranee's own father, who was
dispatched from the Court of Nagpore, where he had
been residing for many years, for the express purpose,
there can now be no doubt, of securing the success of
the scheme.

It he succeeded ; the last Indian Mail, it appears,
brought a dispatch, stating that the Ranee, worn out
by three years' want and incessant threats and persecu-
tion, has at length been starved into compliance; that
she has been starved into signing and dispatching to
the Most Noble Marquis Dalhousie a document, pre-
pared and dictated to her by the Brahmin, in which,
as the Governor-General exacted, " both the Ranee
and the boy at Benares renounce all right to the Raj
of Sattara, and abandon the use of the designation and
all marks of sovereignty." It is to be hoped that the
Nast Noble Marquis slept tranquilly in his bed in
Koonawur, when he at last clutched this precious docu-
ment thus obtained from the captive- widow and orphan
child. You also, gentlemen, must be congratulated
on its obtainment. Surely it merits, like other great In-
dian victories, to be celebrated, by a banquet given at
the ',expense of the natives of India, at which the
Directors may toast " the emic.ent success" of the Most
Noble Marquis, and wash their own pure hands in
rose water.! Suffer me here to suggest a fitting use
for this paper—let it be duly framed and glazed,
and shown in the largest; letters to the assem-
bled civilized world in 1.51, as one of your
valued contributions to the " Exhibition of the
Industry of ell Nations." Let me at the same
time ask the civilized world, which will be as-
sembled to behold the trephialts of an empire, " upon
which," it is vauntingly told,. " the sun never sets,"
whether the French people, when they extinguished
the sovereignty of the Bourb ens, stopped the dower
of the Duchess of Orleans until she had renounced in
writing her son's hereditary t ice of " Comte de Paris,"
and the use of the arms of France ? Let me ask if
the French people first confis sated all the private pro-
perty of the late King of the Fr nch, after pledging them-
selves five times in writing to respect it,* and next made
it a condition with his sons, not of the restoration of
that property, but of their not being left to die of
hunger, that they should renounce their family titles ?
And yet this is what the mawnaninnous British people,
as represented in India by the East India Company,
have deliberately done to the widow and son of the Reja
of Sattare. Marquis Dalhous'as says (par. 4), "The boy
wrote in the character of R kia"—(an off,nce clearly
beyond the pale of pardon in the eyes of this Most
Noble Marquis).
Par. 7. "'The Governme of of India has always
advocated the grant of an ample stipend to the adopted
son of the ex-Raja, and is still of opinion that he
should be liberally treated as well as the Ranee. Such
is evidently the wish of your Honourable Court,
which we infer from your having lately directed us to
make payments to which these persons had forfeited
all fair claim.
Par. 8. " But we apprehe.o d that you cannot wish
this Government to confer a, pension on the adopted
boy at Benares, at the time that by persisting in de-
signating himself Raja of Sa tiara he is virtually dis-
puting the right of the East: India Company to terri-
tory of which it has assumed possession. Nor do we
suppose it can be your wish that we should increase
the pension of the Ranee, while she ie recognising
and maintaining these sovers.ign rights in the adopted
son" (by signing his name to a receipt for 800
rupees !) Think of an Eu,,glishman penning such a
sentence as this !
But what is this "liberal treatment," which the
world is now so ostentatione:ily told it was the anxious
wish of the Directors and of the Governor-General
should be bestowed upon the Ranee and her son ?
Before the Ranee left Sattai-a, a captive with her late
husband the Raja in Septeeeber, 1839, the sum which
your own Resident, Colonel ;)vans, certainly no friend
to her or her family, thought it but decent should be
settled upon her in the n slure of pin-mony, as the
Raja's second wife, altogether distinct from the
monthly allowance of 7,700 rupees made to the Raja,
was 800 rupees (801.) a month. This sum she re.
ceived for her own private ttse up to the Raja's death
in October, 1847. At his decease the whole of his
allowance was at once stoplned, and all his retinue,
amounting to 1,000 or 1,201) persons who had accom-
panied him from Sattara, were cast for subsistence-
upon the Ranee, who was informed, that her pin-
money of 800 rupees would be continued to her as a
pension, provided she renounced all the rights of her
adopted son.
The " liberal allowance" to be granted jointly to
the Ranee and her son during her life has been since
increased to 2,400 rupees a month, equivalent to
2,8801. a year. Let us examine this magnificent
liberality.
In your return of the sth of August is given part
of a minute, dated 18th April, 1849, by the Governor
of Bombay, in which he staaes that the " gross rent-
roll of the Sattara territories is estimated at between
39 and 40 lacs of rupees (390,0001. to 400,0001.
a year), of which," with the necessary annual remis-
sions, little more than 141 lacs (142,5000 have been
collected."
This " liberal allowance," when truly stated in your
account with the family of the deposed Raja, stands,
therefore, thus .
Present net annual revenues of the Sattara
State taken and annexed by the E. I.
Company ... ••• ••.
(Prospective value 390,0001. a year.)
Value of private property left at Sattara by
the iteja as per inventory taken at the
time, about Rs. 30 lace., 300,0001.; annual
interest thereon at ten per cent. for eleven
years... ... ..•

.. . £142 , 5 0 0

33,000

Total annual income appropriated by the E.
I. Company ... ..• .._

DEDUCT
Liberal allowance" proposed for the Ranee
and her son during pleasure by the Di-
rectors

2,880

Balance of revenue appropriated by them by
the annexation of Sattara... £172,620
The "liberal allowance," therefore, amounts to
your offering to the Ranee and child 2,8001. a year,
for themselves and all those dependent for bread
and property 172,6201.
upon them, still detaining them prisoners, while you
atakeyet
aor, yourselveswth
ain territ o
prospectivey
increase of between
400,0001. and 500,0001. a year of their right to ail
which your Governor-General and Council exact a
peremptory written surrender from the Ranee and
child as a condition of their receiving even the 2,860/.
a year during pleasure.
These facts and figures furnished by yourselves
and your Indian Government, coupled with the last
crowning act of the latter, speak for themselves ; and
render one word of comment superfluous. They will
convince every man who reads them what the real ob-
ject of your conduct throughout has been ; first, in
entering the Palace of 0(1 ex-Raja in the dead of
night, seizing him while sleeping in his bed, and de-
posing and exiling him without trial ; next, in con-
fiscating all his private property in the face of five
public written pledges to respect it ; third, in appro-
priating all his dominions on the pretext that he left
no male heir, while you yourselves make prisoner of
the heir, and forcibly detain his person at Benares ;
fourth, in starving that lawful heir and adopted
son, and the Raja's widow, whom also you
hold captive, into a written renunciation
of their right to those dominions, of which
ihnaagsts.huternhlpeelde neverthelesssp,sl,ellaaasdwuyprf
"lawful
lonocdflaci
possessionhmt
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Bld ptoorims
prisoners
ahefiye w r
fifth, in
Government.
erßi
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have
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nt
ins that
edt
"As anticipated," writes to you Lord Dalhousie,
"the Government of Bombay strongly objected to
either one, or the other being allowed to return at
this time !'
(par. 6)—and the chivalrous Governor-
General of India, at the head of 300,000 bayonets
ready to do his every bidding, acquiesces in the guilty
fears of
.these guilty men ! It is a man who,
in the fawning parlance of his country, is
styled a " Nobleman," who makes this war upon
a woman -and child whom he has in his power.
He does so eleven years after she has been forcibly
taken from Sattara and kept captive at Bemires, while