Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/166

158 after the Company's fall. The result was that, on more than one occasion, the reputation of its greatest officers became the sport of popular clamour; and that the Company itself, in its supreme moment, tried vainly to defend itself by eloquent asseveration, rather than by an array of ascertained and publicly acknowledged facts.

The misrepresentations that were successfully set afloat regarding Lord Dalhousie, when a victim for the Mutiny was demanded, form a striking illustration of this. The lie got the start, and before it could be overtaken and throttled by the truth, it had found its way into the permanent literature of the time. Even works of serious history, with good claims on our respect, still reproduce some of the foolish flying falsehoods of that day. I have shown how the generous measures taken by Lord Dalhousie to secure a fund for the Bhonsla family figured in England as The Spoliation of the Nágpur Palace. An even more curious misrepresentation still survives regarding Lord Dalhousie's dealings with the titular princes of the Karnatic. The Treaty of 1801 granted certain dignities and emoluments, personally, to the Nawáb of the Karnatic, who at that time ceased to be a political power in India. His son was allowed to succeed him for specific reasons in 1819, but was distinctly informed that the treaty had not made his rank or dignity hereditary in his