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66 acquiescence in an infidel ruler is always contingent on the impossibility of rebellion. If a favourable opportunity offered, it would not be for pious believers to let it pass unused. A stimulus was afforded to disloyalty by a colony of fanatics from India, who had established themselves at Sitana, in the mountain ranges beyond the Indus, with the alliance of a local ruler, the Akhond of Swát. They issued incendiary proclamations, while the Múlvies of Patná secretly co-operated, and kept up a train of political converts from that city to the British frontier.

Apart from race or religion there were large classes in India on whom the British rule weighed heavily, or who had old scores to settle with the new regime, or who were sufficiently uneasy to wish for change. There were other great landholders besides those of Oudh, who had experienced a rude transition, and come out of it with lessened dignities and a lighter purse. Lord Dalhousie's Government had rigorously enforced the principle that the right of an Indian Prince to transmit sovereignty to his adopted heir was contingent on the permission of the paramount Power. That permission had been on several notable occasions refused. The princely families of India could not fail to recognise that, as failure of natural heirs is a continual incident in an Eastern magnate's family, their absorption in the Empire was, sooner or later, inevitable.

Such feelings in high quarters may have tended to unsettlement, and in any case have weakened the