The Sun.
London, England, 1842-08-29 00:00:00

THE DEPOSED RAJA of ATTARA.

The following
eloquent speech deli
the India House, w
nate Prince came un
prietors. It is of gre
the affairs of In will
attention :

Fowerful, argumentative, and
'd by .3.1 r. Charles Norris at
the treatment of this unfortu-
the 'consideration of the Pro-
ngth,- but those interested in
d'many facts deserving their
•

Mr. Chairman, I rise fort* purpose of offering to the
attention of the Court varikits reasons which present
themselves to me why the motio of adjournment should
not be carried, and why aifull de eon the case of the
ikEtde-
posed Raja should- be allowd e place. In doing so, I
1,4
mean in the first instance:4l,o refer to the Report and
proceedings of the Commission which have already been
largely commented upon by e Proprietor who has
just sat down (Mr. Thompson). Upon this branch of
the subject, there are one or two points on which I am
' desirous of offering a few, observations. First with respect
to the pawn (betel nut given '.on occasion of - taking
leave), which the two Soobadars declare that they re-
ceivedfrom the hand of t'ie Raja, after, their treasonable
interviews with his Highness ; they both positively
swear that they did so receive it, and they sent
the pan which they stated they had so
received, to their officer, by whom it was sent
to General Lodwick. It seems to me most remark-
able that the Commission in mentioning in their Report
what they considered proved with respect to the inter-
views of the Soobadars with the Raja, do- not include
this presentation of pan. The - Soobadars,- as I
have said, swore to it, and they forwarded to their
officer the pan which they said they had re-
ceived. There is- therefore no possibility of mistake
here. The evidence of the Soubadars on this point
is either true or absolutely and wilfully false. The Com-
mission do not include the presentation of pan among
the circumstances proved, and I suppose there-
fore they considered that it was not established. The
evidence againSt the Soobadars on this point is that of
Balajipunt Nattoo, who positively declares that the
Raja with his- own' hand never gave a single packet
of pan to any one, while the Soobadars declare
they each so received it; and that of General Lodwick who
in a letter, (Appendix B to the Commissioners' pro-
ceedings, pp. 152 and 153, vol. iii. Sattara Papers), , also
declares that the Raja never presented a single packet
of pan to any one ; and further declares that the
packets sent to him by the officer to whom the Soobadars
had delivered them were three times the size
of those given at the Court of the Raja, and
were "not loose (as was usual at the Court) but made up
with particular care." "' At the time (he says) Lieut.
Stock gave them to me, I attached no great importance
to these circumstances, and from the perishable nature
of the leaf, I did not attempt toleep them. The leaves
were fine, and even superior in appearance to those
above submitted, but the peculiar circumstances attach-
ing to them consisted in the great size of the bundles
and the extreme nicety with which they were done up ;
and to the best of my recollection, this was contrived
without being. tied with plantain leaf, as in those before
the Commission" (then - produced by the General, as
having been received by him the night before, Oct. 17,
1836, at the Palace). I must say I consider this evi-
dence as prodigiously strong against the averment of the
Soobadars, and I presume that the Commission so con-
sidered it, inasmuch as that averment is not stated by
the Commission as established ; yet how so' ma-
terial • a circumstance, regarding which there
could be no ' mistake, could be disbelieved witheut
utter destruction to the credit of the Soobadars,
I find it difficult to conceive. For my part I must say
that if I believed the rest of the story of the
Soobadars, I should really, I- think, feel myself
constrained, difficult as it - would be, to believe
also this assertion so positively made by the Soobadars,
and confirmed by their transmission of the pan to
their officer. However, lam in no such difficult situa-
tion. I consider their evidence utterly unworthy of credi
on other grounds, and believe that their assertion re-
garding the pan is only one falsehood among
many. To place a parallel case before gentlemen who
have not been in India, let us suppose a person who
might not be expected to enjoy that honour, to declare
to us that he had had an interview with the Queen, and
further, that her Majesty had presented him with her
portrait ! We Might surely be expected to doubt the
truth of his statement. But then let us suppose him, by
way of proving the truth of his assertion, to produce a
portrait of Madame Vestris ! Then, surely, the only
question for us to decide would be, whether such person
was a madman or an impudent impostor. Such is the
condition in which the Soobadars seem to me to stand, and
I consider them to have wilfully given false evidence.
There are other points also in which their evidence ap-
pears to me to be beyond measure weak and unworthy of
belief. First, with respect to the important point of the
spot where the treasonable interviews with the Raja
took place. We find the Soobadar Sentgool tm Sing
saying (p: 92, yid. iii., Sattara Papers), " Going on a few
paces, we arrived at a narrow staircase, which we ascended.
The Dewan went first, Untajce second, I third, and
Gooljar fourth, and entered a good sized room, where
we saw the Raja sitting, and smoking a hooka with a
long snake, and a woman on his right-hand. When we
entered, the Raja smiled, and told us to be seated."
Gooljar Missur again (Sattara Papers, vol. iii., p. 97) says,
" We passed by some servants sleeping in a room, and
first turning to the right, and then to the left, we came
to the apartment of the Raja, who was sitting
on a cushion, smoking a • hooka. He was not
in an upper room." (The witness is here spe-
cially asked whether they ascended a staircase, and replies,
No.) Now, first, I would observe that the natives of
India have a great aptitude for remembering correctly
places, directions, and any peculiarities in their path ;
but, secondly, these men had been deputed by their offi-
cer to this visit under special orders to observe carefully
in order that they might report 'correctly, and I do there-
fore think it impossible that such a- discrepancy as this
could have occurred..in their ' story, had it been a true
one. The CointhisSion, in a subsequent part of their
Report (S. P. iii., 112), • most justly call this " a dis-
crepancy of importance," and say that it " at the time at-
tracted the attention of the Commission." Ido not wonder
at that. lam only surprised that the utmost distrust
of the veracity of the Soobadars : was not at once
engendered in the minds of the Commissioners, and
that they did not instantly - take measures for
keeping them strictly separate, and proceed to that
further cross-examination of them which would, in all
probability, if they had wilfully sworn falsely, have pro-
duced a disclosure of still wider and more desperate dis-
crepancies.' Indeed ! Let us reflect, where was this
Commission sitting? At Sattara, within, probably, three
quarters of a mile from the Raja's palace. Why might
not the one Soobadar have been required at once to
conduct one of the members of the Commission to the
upper room, where the treason, he said, was committed,
and the other then, in like manner, have been required
to point out the lower room, which he alleged to be the
scene of the treason ? Nothing, however, of this kind
was, done ; on the contrary, facility to falsehood was •
given. That important discrepancy, which at the time
attracted the attention of the Commission, occurred on. the
sth day of the Commission's sitting, and on the 9th
day we find that the Soobadar Gooljar Missur, when.:
called before the Commission to be confronted with
Govind Row, "repeats generally, and with great mi-
nuteness, what he had bsfore stated to the Commission,
and corrects, of his own accord, a discrepancy of import- •
ance between his and Sewyool ini Sing's evidence, which at
the time attractedthe attention of the Commission, by stat-
ing, as Sewgoolam had, in the first instance, done, that the
meeting with the Raja occurred in a room up stairs!"
There is no mention of any precautions taken to prevent
these men from communicating with each other freely,
from the sth to the ' 9th day; and I find on the other
hand, that in page 3 of General Lodwieles letter to the
Court, dated 13th June, 1842,' it is stated that the senior
•Suobadar (Sewjoolam Sing) " was allowed full liberty to
communicate and compare notes with. the other native
qfficer, until the limited and imperfect cross-examina-
tion dint was gone into did take place," and time cross-
examination, we find from the proceedings, did not
take place until the 18tis day. .Under these eirentn-
stances. I would ask, what is this r.luntary corr,,tion Of
,his evidence, by Gooljar sue Worth ? In my oeint.m,
nothing—indeed J sin disposed to consider it a e Hli
tiona I ground, foe, suspecting the colinsion; it. woo fil 1140`
looked better, 1 think, glad he iii td.,.; no voluntary coy -
reetion at all. Before quitting thiS topic, I would gate
that Govind Rois, who subsequently confessed, under
circumstances to which 1 will hereafter allude, that lie
was a party to the treasonable interview with the. Raja
(if it did occur), states, that 'it took place in the "oho/c"
of the palace. In S. I'. vol. iii., p. 28, there is a plan of
the palace by Colonel Ovans, from which it will be seen
that Govind Row's account of the scene of this mysterious
treason, differs from both of those given by the Soobadars.
I must seize this opportunity of observing, that though
I take the liberty of commenting freely on the Report and
proceedings of the Commission, nothing in the world is
further from my intention than the design of imputing
to the members of the Commission, all of whom' believe
to be men of honour, and one 'of whom is my most
valued friend, of I cannot just now mention how
many years' standing, anything but honest and
well-intentioned error, if error shall be thought to
have been committed. It is also far from my
intention to separate the three Commissioners. It has
given me much concern to see their differences brought
so prominently forward; I consider them to be such
only as might arise from the association of three men of
honour, circumstanced as they were. They commenced
the inquiriy-, all of them believine• that there was b(-round
for suspicion that the Raja was 'guilty ; as the inquiry
Lis
str"i'telaykie•enptse
advanced, two of them found their opinion strenethened,
did
nthoitrd agogfOueneda
nlttini; probable that they
...
to each other the
state of, their minds—differences became greater without
being comprehended, and the difficulty of accounting for
them constantly augmented. With these few words I
shall take leave of this subject. lii commenting upon the
Report and proceedings of the Commission, r must view
it of course as the production of the three gentlemen
Whose signatures it bears; and it is a satisfaction to me