Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/138

Rh between the chiefs and the men of the clans — he was not alive to the profound anxiety and irritation which prevailed in consequence of the line of action which Lord Dalhousie had been taking in regard to the practice in native States of the adoption of heirs in cases of default of natural successors. In pursuance of his declared policy 'not to put aside or neglect such rightful opportunities of acquiring territory or revenue as may from time to time present themselves,' he had taken to opposing the exercise of the practice of adopting heirs, so that, on the failure of the natural or direct successors (within very restricted limits), the State concerned would lapse to the paramount power. The custom had been, in cases of the want of direct heirs, to adopt one, under definite traditional laws, subject to the approval and recognition of the paramount power; and it had been equally the custom to sanction such adoptions. The question had been occasionally raised of the legal rights of the practice; and, besides others, such authorities as Lord Metcalfe, Lord Auckland, and Sir George Clerk had asserted the positive right of the ruling chiefs to have their adoptions acknowledged, and had declared that they could not be barred by the paramount power, whose real part lay in arbitration in cases of contested adoptions.

But hitherto during Lord Dalhousie's rule, all the adoptions proposed — some fifteen or sixteen — had been refused sanction, and the principalities concerned had been absorbed under the direct administration of the