Page:The Maharaja of Cashmere.djvu/23

 book is to place a number of facts and arguments before His Excellency, showing how the Maharaja deserves such reparation at His Excellency's hands.

If the Maharaja were a tyrannical or an oppressive ruler, I should have been  the last to take up the pen in his favour,  or say a word on his behalf. But aware as I am from personal knowledge of the  good traits in his character — his goodness,  his benevolence, his courtesy, his deep  and earnest anxiety for the welfare and  advancement of his subjects, I have  been much pained at the underserved  treatment he has received, and having had the honour to serve him in a high  capacity though for a brief period, have  regarded it my duty to defend him against  the ungrounded, unjust and not unoften  evil-minded aspersions of his open enemies and false friends. And the call of this duty has seemed to me all the more  imperative, as I consider the question of the Maharaja's restoration to full powers  possesses a wider significance than can