Page:The Maharaja of Cashmere.djvu/40

 with many English statesmen was that our interest in India consisted in extending our territory to the largest possible extent. To that annexation policy the terrible disaster of the mutiny of 1857 must to a large extent be ascribed. But as time has gone on, that desire of increased dominion which is the natural temptation of all powerful States has been overcome^ and statesmen of all parties have arrived at the conclusion that we now hold in India pretty well as much as we can govern, and that we should be pursuing an unwise and dangerous policy if we tried to extend our borders or to lesson the permanence of these Native Rulers upon whose assistance we have so long relied.'

Pages might be filled with extracts hke the above, but it is superfluous to do so. It will suffice to give a passage from a document, issued in a solemn and deliberate form, after a most perilous moment had been safely passed, by the very highest authority in the whole British