Page:The Maharaja of Cashmere.djvu/35

 merits of loyalty and gratitude for numerous boons received as well as the instincts of self-interest and self-preservation alike prompt the people to desire the continuance of British rule under whose protecting cegis they have been making rapid marches towards prosperity and civilisation ; and bearing in mind the services ren- dered to it by the Native States, they wish as a means to an end, that these states should flourish and prosper. As for the Paramount Power, the help it has received from our Princes and Chiefs has been repeatedly acknowledged, but by none so forcibly as by that illustrious statesman who wielded the destinies of this Empire in the terrible crisis of 1857. The Native States had been ruthlessly broken up and absorbed during the preceding regune, and the terrible mutiny, which Lord Canning was called upon to face and to quell, has been imputed mainly to the discontent caused by Lord Dalhouse's policy of annexation. An almost eye-witness thus describes the situation. — 'The decade