Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/833

809 HISTORY.] INDIA 809 &quot;Rangoon have increased tenfold in number, and that port now ranks third in British India, being surpassed only by Calcutta and Madras. Lord Dalhousie s dealings with the feudatory states of India can only be rightly appreciated as part of his general policy. That rulers only exist for the good of the ruled was his supreme axiom of govern ment, of which he gave the most conspicuous example by the practice of his own daily life. That British adminis tration was better for the people than native rule followed from this axiom as a necessary corollary. He was thus led to regard native chiefs from somewhat the same point of view as the Scotch regarded the hereditary jurisdictions after 1745, as mischievous anomalies, to be abolished by every means practicable. Good faith must be kept with rulers on the throne and with- their legitimate heirs, but no false sentiment should preserve dynasties that had for feited all consideration by years of accumulated misrule, or prolong those that had no natural successor. The &quot; doctrine of lapse &quot; was merely a special application of these principles, though complicated by the theory of adoption. It has never been doubted that, according to Hindu private law, an adopted son entirely fills the place of a natural son, whether to perform the religious obsequies of his father or to inherit his property. In all respects he continues the persona of the deceased. But it was argued that the succession to a throne stood upon a different foot ing. The piramount power could not recognize such a right, which might be used as a fraud to hand over the happiness of millions to a base-born impostor. Here came in the maxim of &quot; the good of the governed.&quot; The material benefits to be conferred through British administration surely weighed heavier in the scale than a superstitious and frequently fraudulent fiction of inheritance. The first state to escheat to the British Government in accordance with these principles was Satara, which had been reconsti tuted by Lord Hastings on the downfall of the peshwa in 1818. The last direct representative of Sivaji died without a mile heir in 1848, and his deathbed adoption was set aside. In the same year the Rajput state of Karauli was saved by the interposition of the court of directors, who drew a fine distinction between a dependent principality and a protected ally. In 1833 Jhansi suffered the same fate as Satara. Bat the most conspicuous application of the doctrine of lapse was the case of Nagpur. The last of the Bhonslas, a dynasty older than the British Government itself, died without a son, natural or adopted, in 1853. That year also saw British administration extended to the Berars, or the assigned districts which the nizam of Hyderabad was induced to cede as a territorial guarantee for the subsidies which he perpetually kept in arrear Three more distinguished names likewise passed away in 1853, though without any attendant accretion to British territory. In the extreme south the titular nawab of the Carnatic and the titular raja of Tanjore both died without heirs. Their rank and their pensions died with them, though compassionate allowances were continued to their families. In the north of India, Baji Rao, the ex-peshwa who had been dethroned in 1818, lived on till 1853 in the enjoy ment of his annual pension of 80,000. His adopted son, Nana Sahib, inherited his accumulated savings, but could obtain no further recognition. nnexa- The annexation of the province of Oudh is to be de- on of fended on very different grounds. Ever since the nawab wazir, Shuja-ucl-Daula, received back his forfeited terri tories from the hands of Lord dive in 1765, the very existence of Oudh as an independent state had depended only upon the protection of British bayonets. Thus, pre served alike from foreign invasion and from domestic rebellion, the long line of subsequent nawabs had given way to that neglect of public affairs and those private vices which naturally flow from irresponsible power. Their only- redeeming virtue was steady loyalty to the British Govern ment. Oudh has been called &quot; the Garden of India &quot; by an author 1 who endeavours to show that the evils of native rule were never so black as they have been painted. But at any rate that fair corner of the Gangetic basin, which now supports a denser population than any equal area on the surface of the globe, had been groaning for generations under anarchy for which each successive governor-general admitted that he was partly responsible. Warning after warning had been given to the nawabs (who had assumed the title of shah or king since 1819) that they must put their house in order. What the benevolent Bentinck and the soldierly Hardinge had only threatened was re served for Lord Dalhousie, who united honesty of purpose with decision of character. In this determination he had the full support of the court of directors at home. In 1856, the last year of his rule, he issued orders to General (afterwards Sir James) Outram, then resident at the court of Lucknow, to assume the direct administration of Oudh, on the ground that &quot;the British Government would be guilty in the sight of God and man, if it were any longer to aid in sustaining by its countenance an administration fraught with suffering to millions.&quot; The king, Wajid All, bowed to irresistible force, though he ever refused to recognize the justice of his deposition. After a mission to England, by way of protest and appeal, he settled down in the pleasant suburb of Garden Reach near Calcutta, where he lived in the enjoyment of a pension of 120,000 a year. Oudh was thus annexed without a blow ; but it may be doubted whether the one measure of Lord Dalhousie upon which he looked back himself with the clearest conscience was not the very one that most- alarmed native public opinion. The marquis of Dalhousie resigned office in March 1856, being then only forty-four years of age ; but he carried home with him the seeds of a lingering illness which resulted in his death in 1860. Excepting Cornwallis, he was the first, though by no means the last, of English statesmen who have fallen victims to their devotion to India s needs. He was succeeded by his friend, Lord Canning, who, at Cannin the farewell banquet in England given to him by the court of directors, uttered these prophetic words : &quot; I wish for a peaceful term of office. But I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, no larger than a man s hand, but which, growing larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with ruin.&quot; In the following year the sepoys of the Bengal army mutinied, and all the valley of the Ganges from Patna to Delhi rose in open rebellion. The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear Mutiny inadequate to the European mind. The truth seems to be that native opinion throughout India was in a ferment, predisposing men to believe the wildest stories, and to act precipitately upon their fears. The influence of panic in an Oriental population is greater than might be readily believed. In the first place, the policy of Lord Dalhousie, exactly in proportion as it had been dictated by the most honourable considerations, was utterly distasteful to the native mind. Repeated annexations, the spread of educa tion, the appearance of the steam engine and the telegraph wire, all alike revealed a consistent determination to sub stitute an English for an Indian civilization. The Bengal sepoys, especially, thought that they could see into the future farther than the rest of their countrymen. Nearly all men of high caste, and many of them recruited from Oudh, they dreaded tendencies which they deemed to be de nationalizing, and they knew at first hand what annexation 1 The Garden of India, or Chapters on Oudh History and Affairs, by H. C. Irwin, London, 1880. XII. 102