Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/485

Rh declaration was to regulate and define the succession upon a fixed principle of public policy, and above all to convince the ruling chiefs that in future no annexation, upon default of heirs, of their territories was to be feared.

The area occupied, in the aggregate, by these states is at present about 650,000 square miles, with a population of some 66 millions. They vary in size from Haidarabad, with a population of 11½ millions, to petty chief ships containing less than 1000 inhabitants; they represent for the most part, as has been said, the territorial possessions or estates acquired by force and the fortune of war after the dilapidation of the Moghul empire, or the hereditary possessions of chiefs who survived that period of general confusion, and were preserved by the establishment of British supremacy.

The internal tranquillity of these chiefships, from 1860 up to the present time, has left few events worthy of record. The British government has indeed been obliged to interpose occasionally to punish the serious or criminal misconduct of individual chiefs and to determine authoritatively on the conflicting claims to succession. The presence, at the capitals of the larger protected states, of subsidiary British troops is not only a guarantee of a ruler's rights, but also of his duties toward his subjects. Where succession to the chiefship has been disputed or doubtful, the British government has been frequently required to arbitrate between conflicting claims; occasionally to put down revolt; and in rare instances to punish acts of exces-