INDIA—CLAIMS OF AZEEM JAIL SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR.

HC Deb 13 June 1864 vol 175 cc1641-69

MR. SMOLLETT

said, he rose to more that "A Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the claims of his Highness Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and further to report upon the circumstances under which the Treaty entered into between his High-ness's father, Azeem ul Dowlah, and the East India Company, dated the 31st day of July, 1801, has been declared void." Four years ago some papers relating to the case had been laid on the table of the House at his request. Being then a new Member of the House, he did not feel himself competent to carry to a successful issue a question of such magnitude. He, therefore, looked for aid, and communicated with the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Layard), who, after examination into the matter, was so satisfied that gross injustice had been done, that upon one or two occasions he accompanied him to the India Office and endeavoured to obtain justice. Of course they were unsuccessful. Restitution was a word not known in the vocabulary of the India Office. Since that time, the hon. Gentleman had been appointed Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and he was, therefore, not in a position to support a Motion that might bring into discredit a Department of the Government which he served. Last year the hon. and learned Member for Suffolk (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) brought forward this question. On that occasion the Government had recourse to the usual expedient of counting out the House, and that they succeeded in doing after one or two unsuccessful efforts. He had, therefore, undertaken to bring forward the Motion himself, although he approached the matter with reluctance, painfully sensible of his incapacity to do it justice. He would, however, do bis best, and trusted he should receive the indulgent consideration of the House. He approached the subject with regret, because he should have to speak in terms of some asperity of Gentlemen with whom he had for some years been officially associated; but whilst he should call a spade a spade, he should, in speaking of their conduct, "nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice." He could safely say that, during the whole time of his residence in Madras, he had no communication direct or indirect with the Nawab or his family; and he simply brought forward the Motion, because he believed that the Indian Government had violated the principles of truth and honour, and that the flagitious treatment which the Nawab's family had experienced would long rankle in the minds of the Indian people, to the discredit of this country. He would give a detailed statement of the circumstances of the case, and he hoped he should make the injustice clear to the House, and he should most certainly go to a division upon it. The case of the Princes of the Carnatic was not an isolated one. The history of that family was the history of almost every Prince of India that had had the misfortune to enter into political relations with the Government. When the East India Company was a body of merchants trading in the Carnatic, their obligations to the Royal Family were great, and they were constantly acknowledged; but when the East India Company became a powerful body, the political connection subsisting between the two Powers was looked upon as cumbrous, and the family had been ultimately trampled out in the scandalous manner he should endeavour to demonstrate. Towards the end of the last century, when the East India Company had great power in the Carnatic, the existing engagements based upon the Treaties of 1787 and 1792 were considered by the Governor General of that period complicated, and no doubt they were inconvenient, because they involved the necessity of a double government, the districts of the Carnatic being administered partly by the officers of the Company and partly by those of the Nawab. To get rid of the doable government strong pressure was, therefore, brought to bear on the Nawab at the commencement of the present century in order to induce him to cede the civil and military administration of his dominions to the East India Company for a payment in cash; but that Prince would not listen to any cajolery of the diplomatists, and then threats of deposition were had recourse to. The threats of deposition were founded on the allegation that from the archives of Mysore he was known to have been engaged in a treacherous correspondence against the Company. But all in vain. The Nawab Omdut ool Omrah died in 1801, leaving behind him a son, of whose illegitimacy no doubt was ever entertained. The Marquess of Wellesley was then Governor General, a man of great ability and not very scrupulous. The Marquess at once proposed to acknowledge this illegitimate son as heir to an hereditary monarchy upon one condition. He said that no inquiry should be made into the young man's birth, provided he would make the concession demanded with respect to the civil and military administration. Unexpectedly, however, Hoossein AH, the illegitimate son, not being made of very squeezable materials, positively refused. Upon that the Marquess full of expedients took quite the opposite course—he declared the throne of the Carnatic to be vacant on the ground of a disputed succession. He did more than that, in all the public and semi-official correspondence of the period he proclaimed his belief that he might then have lawfully seized on the Carnatic and held it by force, and he would have justified such a proceeding on the grounds of the treacherous correspondence which he affected to have discovered in the archives of Mysore. But he declared he would not act upon those grounds, and for this reason, that if he did, a strong impression would be created, that lust of power and a desire for territorial aggrandizement are the principles of our rule in India. The Marquess of Wellesley therefore instructed Lord Clive, the ancestor of the present Earl of Powis, his lieutenant at Madras, that he should acknowledge as heir to the Carnatic, Prince Azeem ul Dowlah, the first cousin of the late Prince, the real heir, with whom was made the Treaty of 1801, which existed for fifty-six years, and then was disgracefully violated. That treaty set forth in the preamble that security had not been obtained for British interests in the Carnatic, that therefore a new treaty was necessary to correct the defects of the Treaties of 1787 and 1792, and to place the relations between the two parties upon a permanent basis of security. It spoke of drawing closer the ties of amity heretofore existing, so that they might endure for ever. The main object of the treaty was stated to be to settle the succession as against the reputed son, and to that end the Prince Azeem ul Dowlah was declared to be established in the rank and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic, with the consent of the East India Company. The Prince so acknowledged ceded in perpetuity the civil and military administration of the Carnatic to the British Government. The East India Company undertook on their part that the Nawab and his heirs should preserve his title and dignity, and agreed to pay to him one-fifth of the net revenues after defraying all the expenses, with the proviso that the amount should not fall short of £100,000 per annum. It was also stipulated that such portions of the former treaties as were not expressly repealed by that of 1801 should remain in full force. The treaty was signed by Lord Clive on the one part, and by the Nawab on the other, and it was ratified by the Marquess of Wellesley. As soon as the treaty was ratified, a proclamation was issued and sent to all the Native Courts in India, announcing the nature of the arrangements that had been made. The Prince thus acknowledged died in 1819. The fact was immediately announced to the Madras Government, and that Government, in communicating the event to the Supreme Government at Calcutta, inquired whether it considered the treaty a permanent one, whether it guaranteed the succession in the direct line of descent, and whether some modification of the treaty might not be advisable. The Marquess of Hastings, then Governor General, and a man of the highest honour and integrity— and he wished they bad some of the same cast now—replied that it wag not necessary to require the surviving Princes of the Nawab's family to acknowledge their adherence to the treaty, because ipso facto they were parties to it already; that the treaty was permanent and not temporary, and that there was no necessity for making the slightest modification in it. It was now allged that the treaty expired in 1819, and that it was a temporary one. But would such an answer have been made by the Marquess of Hastings, if the treaty had been merely a personal one, and not permanent? Such a supposition was too preposterous to merit refutation. As soon as the reply of the Marquess of Hastings was received, the Madres Government installed the eldest son in the Musnud, and a ceremony equivalent to our coronation was performed. General Abercrombie, then holding the rems of government at Madras, attended and made a speech, in which he congratulated the Nawab on ascending the throne in the direct line of hereditary succession, and informed him that the Treaty of 1801 was held by the Governor General to be as equally binding upon the sons as it was on their late father Azeem ul Dowlah. In 1825 the second Nawab died, in the prime of life, leaving one child. Sir Thomas Monro, then Governor of Madres, at once acknowledged that child as the Nawab, but as he was an infant in arms, the next brother of the deceased Nawab was acknowledged by Sir Thomas Monro Regent and heir apparent, and as such he was received with regal honours at the Government House. The Regent addressed a letter to George IV., who responded, congratulating him on his elevation, and hoping "that the splendour and dignity, which are the inheritance of the illustrious house of the Carnatic, might long continue." The man thus congratulated was now a beggar. The Regent also wrote to the Court of Directors, and they too replied, expressing their gratification at the succession, and concluding with these words— We pray God" — he never knew that they prayed, but it seemed they did in 1828— "we pray God that the young Nawab may long live to enjoy the honours and perpetuate the line of the ancient and illustrious family of which he is the heir. That devout prayer was not fulfilled. Indeed they themselves prevented its fulfilment, for they supposed his dignity. The child who was thus acknowledged in 1825, wag permitted to grow up in perfect ignorance. Successive Governments took no care to see that he was educated; and he had a urinate in his band in which Lord Harris justified his being kept in ignorance on the ground that if be had been educated he would have been discontented. That was the opinion of a liberal lord. He was happy to say it was not his. The successive Governments of Madras did more than this — they permitted and connived at the plunder of this young Prince. They allowed his revenues to be made away with, although they had a resident at his court, which was not a quarter of a mile from the Government House. No pains were taken to see that Ms revenues were properly appropriated; the consequence was that the Nawab's property was, he believed, largely dissipated by the ladies of his family, and hon. Members knew what ladies would do in that way, if they were net placed under control. Many European gentlemen were als0 allowed to sell him property at three times its value, and that was allowed to go to wreck and ruin. Under these circumstances, when the young Nawab came of age, instead of being in the possession of a considerable fortune, he found himself overwhelmed with debt, and his impecuniesity embittered and shortened his existence. Yet the Government that had permitted this state of things charged the family with such improvidence as justified their suppression. The Nawab died at the end of 1855, and did not leave behind him the numerous progeny for which the Court of Directors had put up their prayers. His decease was reported by the Regent to the Government, and be requested to be acknowledged as the Nawab's successor, and to receive the sums that had been paid through the Treasury and were guaranteed by the treaty. To this application no answer had ever been returned. The Governor of Madras had received the Regent with regal honours, yet he now treated him as though he had been a base and impudent impostor. But although the authorities gave him no answer they were not idle. Within ten days of the death of the Nawab the Governor and his Council—Mr. W. Elliott and Sir H. Montgomery, now of the Indian Office—put on record a minute embodying every objection that ingenuity could suggest to the treaty. Now to this Minute be (Mr. Smollett) most advert at length for two reasons, first because the reasons contained in that minute were endorsed by Mr. Vernon Smith then the President of the Board of Control, now Lord Lyveden, and to him he attributed the greatest share, of the blame in the matter. Others were responsible—the Court of Directors, for example, and Lord Dalhousie —but they were both defunct. Secondly, he must advert to this document because it was a minute which for hardihood and recklessness, of official statement exceeded anything he had ever heard of. It began by admitting that the uncle was heir to the nephew just deceased, and that if the treaty were worth a rush, he must have obtained the same privileges and received the same income as his nephew. But the minute then proceeded to show how the whole engagements of the treaty might be safely if not honourably dispensed with. The Governor started with the astounding, assertion that the treaty bore on its very face the character of being a personal treaty, made with the late Azeem ul, Dow lah, for a temporary purpose. In the minute, the temporary purpose was not very clearly designated, but he assumed that what the Company- wanted in framing this treaty wag a title deed, by which at a future time they might cheat and swindle the family out of their inheritance. Lord Harris admitted that there was an obstacle in the way of construing this treaty as a personal engagement — namely, that in the preamble the terms "perpetual" and "permanent" were used; he also admitted that the treaty was described as one that was to "endure for all time to come" and "for evermore," the terms being more than once repeated. But the noble Lord was very adroit in his argument. He construed "perpetual" to mean "temporary," and contended that "for evermore" and "for all time" meant "during the life of the prince." In this way, and this construction of the word admitted, the argument of Lord Harris was quite serene. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh; but the fact was so. Did, any one ever hear such an argument? Did any one ever hear such an argument even from a lordling? even from a Lord Tomnoddy? He presumed that many hon. Members had seen that amusing piece at the Haymarket, Our American Cousin. The hero of the; piece was a lord who was such an idiot that he could not count his fingers;, but even Lord Dundreary, he believed, would be ashamed to contend that "perpetual" meant "temporary," and that the expression "for all time to come" meant "for the life of himself and his bro- ther Sam." Lord Harris then went on to admit that one main object of the treaty was to settle the succession. But "settling a succession," in the Madras vocabulary, meant the suppression of a dynasty, and the noble Lord and his council "settled the succession" of the unfortunate Nawab with a vengeance. The noble Lord went on to speak of the "well-known sentiments of the Marquess of Wellesley;" and he quoted sundry small sentences front long despatches written by the Marquess of Wellesley to Mr. Dundas, afterwards first Viscount Melville. In those sentences the Marquess of Wellesley certainly said he thought that at the time—in 1800—he would have been justified in seizing and confiscating the: Carnatic, on account of the traitorous, correspondence in which he seemed to put implicit credence, though no one else did But What did: this prove? Why, nothing at all; for Lord Harris for got to add that although that was the Marquess of Wellesley's opinion he did was act upon it. But still further, if it Were really desired to know what Lord Wellesley proposed to effect by this treaty, if his actual. intentions were not apparent in the words of the document itself, he (Mr. Smollett) was fortunately enabled to prove them by the evidence of the greatest subject Her-Majesty ever had, he meant by the late Duke of Wellington. In the earlier part of his career the Duke of Wellington,: then Colonel Wellesley, was secretary to his brother, the Marquess of Wellesley, at Calcutta, In that capacity he had access to the cabinet of the Marquess, and was acquainted with the motives for all the great measures of his policy, and was also well aware of every fact connected with them. It chanced that the Duke of-Wellington, having returned to this country in the earlier part of the century, was Solicited by the Board of Control to write an official account of his brother's brilliant career, who had been impeached in the House of Commons by a Mr. Paul, a tailor of Calcutta, who afterwards aspired to be a metropolitan representative, and stood for the City of Westminster. Well, what did the Duke of Wellington write in that memorandum? It should be remembered that it was submitted to the Board of Control and the Court of Directors, that the blanks were filled up by those functionaries, and that it wag now a State document in the office of the India Board. What said the Duke of Wellington in that memorandum? He told the story of his brother's great achievements in Madras; he adverted to the decease of Omrah ool Omrah; be referred to the supercession of the reputed son Hoossein Ali; he described the investiture of Azeem al Dowlah; and then he concluded— The Prince Azeem nl Dowlah having agreed to an arrangement with Lord Olive, a treaty was concluded by which the whole of the civil and military government of the Carnatic was transferred for ever to the East India Company, with a condition that Prince Azeem ul Dowlah and his heirs were to preserve their titles and dignities, and receive one fifth part of the net revenues of the country. The Duke of Wellington then asserted that his brother, Lord Wellealey by this treaty, confirmed the right, title, and dignity, and one fifth of the revenue, to Aseem ul Dowlah and his heirs. Now, who were his heirs? Two of bis sons were still alive; the last Regent was his second son, and there were yet two sons who had not "shuffled off the mortal coil." Without waiting for that event, however, they bad been basely and scandalously disinherited. One object which he (Mr. Smollett) had in view in quoting from that memorandum of the Duke of Wellington was to rescue the memory of the Marquess of Wellesley, who with all his failings was a great statesman, from the foul assertion that he purposely made the treaty of 1801 vague and ambiguous in order to aid in the plunder of the family at a future period. The Governor of Madras, Lord Harris, asserted that all this guarantee of succession was fake, that the treaty was a personal treaty, that it was purposely ambiguous, But the Duke of Wellington wrote when the events were fresh in his mind; he had no ulterior object to serve; the narrative was acknowledged and sanctioned by the Board of Control and the Court of Directors. But, besides all this, the Duke of Wellington was incapable of falsehood; and that was more than could be asserted of some other men. He trusted, therefore, that the House would believe the statement of the Duke of Wellington, and treat with contempt the assertion of the Governor of Madras and his satellites, that the treaty was made to expire in 1819; that it had never been renewed; that it was mere waste paper. He repeated that these Madras assertions were untrue, they were concocted more than half a century after the events, and they were framed to carry out a foregone conclusion, and to bolster up a scheme of robbery and spoliation which was then rife in India. The Madras Minute went on to speak of the two successions in 1819 and 1825, and Lord Harris admitted that these were very stubborn facts; but he added that no argument as to the duration of the treaty could be drawn from those two successions, because on both occasions the authorities of Madras made use of language which showed that the treaty was conceived to be at an end, and was not worth a rush. That assertion was untrue. It was untrue that such opinions were ever given by the Governor of Madras, and certainly ail idea of this sort was never expressed by Sir Thomas Monro, Unfortunately for the accuracy of the Madras narrative, Sir Thomas Monro wrote a minute about the treaty in 1822, three years after the death of Azeem ul Dowlah, and three years, therefore, after the treaty, according to the Governor of Madras, had expired. That minute was not on the question of succession, for no lapse in the succession had then been anticipated. It was written in the case of one of this first gentlemen of the Carnatie, by name Kullum Oollah Khan, who had become entangled in a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Madras. It appeared to Sir Thomas Monro that the action of the Supreme Court of Madras in this nobleman's case, trenched on the prerogatives of the Nawab as a sovereign prince. He appealed to England, and the decision of the Supreme Court was reversed. On that occasion Sir Thomas Monro went into a complete inquiry, the time being three years after the period when, according to the Governor of Madras, the treaty had expired, and declared the treaty to be valid and in full force, the Nawab and his family to be sovereign princes, and he insisted that not one of the provisions of the treaty could be changed without the consent of the Nawab and his family. Yet, with this document before him, another Governor, twenty-five years afterwards, boldly declared that the treaty expired in 1819, and was never renewed, and was mere waste paper, insolently quoting Sir Thomas Monro's dictum in support of his declaration! The boldness, the audacity, and effrontery of such an assertion was really almost beyond belief. The Governor of Madras having then, to his own entire satisfaction, shown that the treaty was a personal one, that it had terminated in 1819, and was never renewed, proceeded to speak of the treaty as if it were a perpetual one; and he argued that, according to the authority of Vattel and another great writer Wheaton, even if it had been intended to be perpetual it was void by reason of containing immoral conditions. These writers, the Governor urged, had held that treaties containing immoral conditions were voidable. The argument went over thirty paragraph of the minute; but he would endeavour to condense it into a syllogism. Treaties containing immoral conditions were voidable; new, that Treaty of 1801 contained a provision that was immoral; therefore it was void. Voidable would be the logical conclusion; but logic was not much studied in Madras. The noble Lord got still wilder as he Advanced; In paragraph 38 of Lord Harris's minute; his Lordship said, and the language was terse and epigrammatic, "wonder that any one can think this is a treaty at all." That was a very insolent assertion even for a nobleman to make. It was very insolent to speak thus of a treaty framed by Lord Gibe, and ratified by the Marquess of Wellesley, men both immeasurably his superiors, andacknowledged by the successive Governments of various monarchs of Great Britain. But how did; the noble Lord make out that this treaty contained immoral provisions? In this way. He said, "If the treaty is permanent it, contains a provision for a perpetual annuity. Now, a perpetual annuity is a nuisance." Well, so perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer might deem the -payment of the National Debt. "But if the annuities were paid to a black prince- it would be a dangerous nuisance." No danger, however, his Lordship admitted, had happened during the last sixty years. Nevertheless, a nuisance might arise from paying the annuity in future and nuisances ought to be abated therefore the treaty was void." That was the argument, it was upon that pretence, which was too pettifogging for even an Old Bailey lawyer to address to a Middlesex jury; it was on the pretence that it was inconvenient to pay just debts that the Government was asked to put an end to a treaty and declare it to be null and void. And what was the treaty they would de-clare to be null and void? Why, it was the single title deed by which the British Government held the Carnatio. The noble Lord seemed-to have forgotten that that treaty was the single title deed of his Government for the possession of that country, and that title deed he declared void. And what was the Carna- tic? A country worth £2,000,000 or£3,000,000 a year, the possession of which, that treaty being annulled, was nothing but a usurpation. The noble Viscount at the head of Her Majesty's Government often spoke of treaty rights; and their sacred nature. He said we had a treaty with Chinas and we must compel the barbarians to observe it; we had a treaty with the Japanese, and we must compel them to respect it. He wished the noble Viscount would compel his Colleagues to pay some Respect to treaties with the Native Princes of; India, which; they had violated on the most- false and frivolous pretexts. But towards the end of that precious minute the Governor and his Council argued as follows: — After all, it would be good thing to acknowledge this poor old- fellow for ha is very old, and cannot long subsist-on our bounty; and if the payment of this subsidy expired on; his demise, I should have little hesitation in recommending this act of justice; but there is an obstacle in the way." And what did the House think the obstacle was? "He the quondam Regent, has got brothers; his brothers are sons of Azeem ul Dowlah, with wbom the treaty was made; they have equal rights with himself, and they have children, If, therefore, we recognize this man, there will be no end to the payments of this annuity, at least in our own time "It Seemed, therefore, to the Governor that the best thing they could do was to put a-bold face on the matter, and once for all declare the treaty at an end. Unfortunately the Government was nothing 10th to act on that advice, and thus a family was allowed to be trampled upon, who, of all: the Royal Princes in India, had manifested the greatest devotion to the East India, Company, giving them various grants of land, and ceding a valuable kingdom without the shedding of a single drop of blood. He would not go farther into this miserable minute. From beginning to end it did not contain one word of truth or honest Statement. It was not true that the treaty of 1801 came to an end in 1819, and was never renewed. The Governor who asserted that knew right well that it was not renewed, because the Marquess of Hastings declared it to be permanent and did not require renewal. It was not true to state that Sir Thomas Monro said it ended in 1819, for in 1822 he declared it to be still in full force. It was not true that the family had been regarded as pensioners since 1819. The very reverse was the fact, for they were ever treated as Royal Fringes. An instance had come under his own cognizance. In the government of Sir H. Pottinger, a civil servant in high office was charged with having had pecuniary dealings with the Nawab, and was brought to trial for it, under the Act which declared any pecuniary transactions on the part of members of the service with Native sovereign Princes a misdemeanor. He put it to the House whether he had not fully justified his description of this minute as surpassing in hardihood of official assertion and recklessness of misstatement any state paper ever panned? One word with regard to the Motion with which he should conclude. The Motion was for a. Committee to inquire, and he thought he had shown ample grounds for an inquiry. The Motion was be reasonable that he really could not tee what answer could be made to it. He had often spoken of the Prince's treatment to gentlemen out of the House, and some bad said he was a d—d nigger, awl ought to be plundered. [Laughter.] That was no laughing matter is his opinion; be could mention the names of these gentlemen— gentleman of high position. Others had said, "Oh, why should you fall foul of the authorities about these things? They did not benefit personally by the Act." He hoped that no such defence would be put forward in that House. The question was in a nutshell. He had heard people of honourable station say, "Well, there would be an imperium in imperio at Madras if the Nawab were restored. It was a bad tiling for a man so circumstanced to be receiving £100,000 a year, and it was desirable that an end should be put to it." But the Prince did not receive £100,000 a year. He admitted that that would be a large sum for an individual to receive; but the £100,000 went to maintain ten or twelve families living apart. But was there no such imperium in imperio in England as a subject of Her Majesty with £100,000 a year? The question, as he had said, lay in a nutshell. It did not involve the transfer of a kingdom, nor the transfer of a single inch of soil from Her Majesty to any one else. The simple question was, should or should not a pecuniary engagement entered into in 1801, and observed for fifty-six years, be carried out? Should an engagement to which the faith and honour of England were pledged be persevered with? Or should the honour of England be trampled in the dirt? That was the question. He would assume that the men of whom he complained were honourable men in private life. He would admit that they were. Still, they were charged with a grave political misdemeanor by men whose honour was as unassailable as their own. They were charged with setting aside a treaty as the most frivelous pretence, calling for that purpose "permanent," "temporary," and "for ever and all time coming" the uncertain duration of one man's life—were it a day, or a year, or twenty years. How ought charges of that nature to be met? They ought to be met by inquiry. An honest man, conscious of his own in integrity, would naturally say., "Sir, deny the charge; stand upon my honour, and claim inquiry; assert that in the matters in question was actuated by the beat motives; if there has been mischief it has been done unwittingly, if errors or injustice have been committed let them new be rectified. will not stand on the support of my superiors alone, for nay employers benefited by the judgment in this case, and were therefore interested in the decision. therefore demand a full and fair inquiry, and shall be satiated with nothing less." That was the language which an honest man would use in such a position, unless there was something behind which would not bear investigation. That also, he hoped, would be the language which would that evening be held by the Secretary of State for India for his own sake, and for the sake of those other gentlemen who were connected with the transaction, and whom he should be glad to see purged from the accusations which he had brought against them, for he bore them no malice. But if the right hon. Baronet took a different line, if with that lofty eloquence for which he was renowned he endeavoured to throw dust in the eyes of the House, or if with that sophistry which Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench so aptly used he should endeavour to elude inquiry, then he hoped the independence of the House of Commons would come to his aid and compel the Government to institute an investigation into the dark and iniquitous transactions to which he had called attention— words which he would not use did he not believe them to be fully deserved.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the claim of his Highness Azeem Jah to the title and dignity, of the Nawab of the Carnatic; and further to report upon the circumstances under which the Treaty entered Into between his High-ness's fetter, Azeem ul Dowlah and the East India, Company, dated the 31st day of July, 1801, has been declared void,"—(Mr. Smollett,) —instead thereof.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. H.R. GRENFELL

said, that having examined the different Motions which had been submitted to the House on the subject, he found that the Motion of the hon Gentleman opposite differed from that of tire hon. and learned Member for Suffolk (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) which was discussed last year; and he thought the hon. Gentleman had acted wisely in taking that course. The Motion proposed last year prayed for an inquiry, not merely into the claims of Azeem Jah, bat into the circumstances which Jed "to the Treaty of 1801. But this year the Motion was for an inquiry into the circumstances which fed to the breach of that treaty. The Motion this year was more prudent than the; speech with which it was introduced, for he could not conceive any Circumstances more telling against the "claims of Azeem Jah than an investigation into the events which led to the treaty. It was clear to him that Azeem Jah had; not suffered either in his position from any wrongs inflicted by the Government. His father Azeem ul Dowlah was removed from that unfortunate position which the uncles and younger brothers of a Prince on the Musnud usually occupied in Mahomedan so vereignties, and was placed in the enjoyment of the throne of the Carnatic. He was placed oft the mock throne of the Carnatic, and but for that he would probably have passed his life in prison, and if his son and grandson had succeeded him it was very probable Azeem Jah would have Spent his life in prison. Therefore he maintained that so far from Azeem Jah having suffered wrong he had enjoyed the protection of the British Government, and had thus been enabled to use; or misuse, as might be, the privileges which accompanied his high rank and position. He would not he might add, follow the hon. Gentleman into the observations which he had made with respect to the Minute of Lord Harris, to which he had called attention. It would be the duty of the right horn Gentleman the Secretary for India to defend Lord Harris, but he might be permitted to say that it was the duty of Lord Harris to inquire into the details of the question in order that he might be able to lay before the Government at home all that was said on both sides. An examination of the minute would moreover, he thought, clearly show that the very existence of mock thrones, such as that of the Carnatic, was the infliction of a wrong on the public, while they were of very little advantage to those by whom they were occupied. He wished to submit to the House some considerations with respect to the Motion under their consideration, and the consequences which must follow its adoption. If it should be adopted it would be tantamount to an assertion on the part of the House, that Azeem Jah had suffered some wrong at the hands of the British Government, thus reversing the opinions of some of the greatest statesmen who had ever lived, and whose views had been formed under all the weight of the responsible positions which they held. If the House granted a Committee it would virtually give an instruction to the Committee to afford Some remedy for the wrongs which it was supposed Azeem Jah had suffered. They must either recommend his restoration to the throne, or make him some larger pecuniary recompense than he now received. Now he thought the House would pause before taking any such step, for he maintained that to justify such a step it should be shown either that a private wrong had" been sustained, or that the remedy would effect a public benefit, or that the letter of the treaty had been broken. He had already shown that Azeem Jah had suffered no wrong, and he believed that, an examination into the matter would show that the existence of these mock thrones was against public policy and a wrong towards the people. Then, supposing the Committee should decline giving any recommendation with regard to the throne, the second alternative was the recommendation of a larger money grant. He did not see any ground for an additional money grant. It appeared that Azeem Jah had not accepted the terms of the Government. But although he had not done so, he actually" drew the sum of money allowed him.

MR. SMOLLETT

Certainly not.

MR. H. R. GRENFELL

The greatest part of it.

MR. SMOLLETT

Not a penny of it. He never accepted a part.

MR. H. R. GRENFELL

said, that he did not say that he accepted the grant, but that he had drawn the money. Now, with regard to the recommendation of a larger money grant from the Indian revenue, it was clear the House had a right to withdraw its confidence from any Government which did not do its utmost to procedure such a grant from the Indian Council; but, for his own part, he thought it would be unfortunate that that House should be placed in opposition to the Indian Council as well as to other Indian authorities. [Lighter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but there might come a time when they would have to consider whether the Indian debt should be charged upon the Imperial Exchequer, and the making of grants out of the Indian revenue would deprive them of one of their best arguments for keeping the two Exchequers separate. There only remained the letter of the treaty. And what were the authorities quoted by the Iron, Member against the formidable array of statesmen who agree in their opinions. A stray memorandum of the Bake of Wellington, who was not a party to these transactions. The correspondence of Lord Olive and Lord Wellesley, who were officially charged with these matters, showed that they did not consider the treaty permanent, or the mock throne hereditary.

MR. SMOLLETT

The memorandum was acknowledged by the Board of Control and the Board of Directors.

MR. H. R. GRENFELL

No doubt the memorandum existed; but it was not made official with the responsibility which would have attached if the Bake of Wellington had been a party to the transaction. For these reasons he opposed the Motion. The position which the present Government of India occupied towards that which had preceded it greatly resembled the position occupied by Lords Cornwallis and Canning towards the Marquess of Wellesley and Lord Dalhousie, Those noble Lords went out with the express intention of adopting a more conciliatory policy than had been pursued by their predecessors, but they did not give up the conquests which bad been made, or the provinces which had been annexed by them. So ought the Crown to act now that it had assumed the government of India. It ought not to abandon any of the provinces which were subject to its sway, or shrink from the responsibilities incurred, but to do all that was possible to conciliate the Princes who remained, and the people who paid to it so vast a revenue.

SIR JAMIS FERGUSS0N

said, that his hon. Friend near him (Mr. Smollett) had established some claim on the consideration of the House, which on a former occasion the subject had not deserved, because he had confined his remarks to the merits of the particular case, and had not launched out as had been done before into general invective against the policy of the Indian administration; and although he had made use of some expressions of unusual force the House had a tangible case to deal with. As his hon. Friend had truly remarked, the gast of the case lay in very small compass. It was well known that Lord Mormagton on arriving in India found that among the otter great questions that were awaiting his decision the condition of the Carnatic called for his early interference. The Mahomedan Government which had been established under the Emperor of Delhi had fellen into a state of the greatest and anarchy, and that the greatest distress and misery was felt by the people. Of all the evil acts which existed none mere more manifest than those which arose out of the ambiguous Sovereignty exercised partly by the East India Company and partly by the Nawab. The treaty then in force was the Treaty of 1792, which was an extension and emendation of the Treaty of 1787. By that treaty it was stipulated that in consideration of the enjoyment of four-fifths of the revenue of the Carnatic, the Company should guarantee the stability of the throne of the Nawab, and maintain peace in his province. In fact, it amounted to an offensive and defensive alliance between the Company and the Nawab, Lord Wellesley found that the payments of revenue to the Company ware no less than sixty-six lacs in arrear; and that although the Government of India was combating an enormous Power both in India and in Europe, these Princes, instead of assisting them, as by treaty they were bound to do, were throwing ovary possible obstacle in their way. The real point upon which this question turned was the Treaty of 1801. [Mr. SMOLLETT: Hear, hear !] He was glad that bis hon. Friend admitted that. After Lord Wellesley had, by the valour of British troops and his own firmness, gained the victory of Seringapatam, he brought under the notice of the Government of Madras the conduct of the Nawab of the Carnatie to the British Government. He wrote to Lord Olive stating that the capture of Seringafatam had brought to light the existence of a secret correspond- ence of a most hostile nature to the British -power, in which Tippoo Sahib was implicated, and that the late Nawab was guilty of a flagrant violation of the Treaty of 1792. His failure to furnish the British troops with the supplies which he had covenanted to do, together with other proofs of his treachery, were recapitulated. The papers upon which these charges were founded were examined by a Commission appointed by the Government of India, a principal member of which was the Secretary of the Government of Madras; and, after a most careful examination, proofs were afforded of the treachery of which the parties implicated had been guilty. It was proved that in defiance of the Treaty of 1792 the Nawab of the Carnatic had been in constant communication with Tippoo Sultan, giving him secret information with regard to the intentions of the British Government towards the French, and as to the best means of rendering nugatory those preparations which were being made in reference to the war, that very nearly proved fatal to our empire in India. Year by year, down to 1797, Tippoo Sultan received most useful information from the Nawabs of the Carnatic, who, when the war actually broke out, threw obstacles in the way of the British Government receiving the supplies so necessary to carry on the war successfully. [Mr. SMOLLETT: That has nothing to do with the treaty.] He begged his hon. Friend's pardon, it had & great deal to do with the treaty. He could quote page after page from the most competent authorities in India, from Sir J. Outram, Mr. Elphinstone, Lord Wellesley, and Lord Olive, all1 of whom pointed out that the Treaty of 1792 had been violated to the most flagrant degree by the Nawabs of the Carnatio. He now came to the Treaty of 1801, on which his hon. Friend had laid so much stress. What was the foundation of that treaty? His hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire said its chief intention was to confirm the Succession of the Nawabs. Now, its chief intention Was to place the affairs of the Carnatic upon a more satisfactory footing; and Che first most necessary measure to be carried into effect was, to place the whole of the civil and military force of the Carnatic in the hands of the East India Company. Lord Wellesley said he had to do with a. tabula rasa, because the Government had a right to declare the establishment of the Nawab at an end. His hon. Friend talked of this as an ancient sovereignty of India being swept away by British power; but let him remind him that the very father of Mahomed Ali was established in the government of the Carnatic by the British Government ten years before he was recognized by the Emperor of Delhi. The Nawabs were, in the first place, the deputies of the Nizam, who was in turn the deputy of the Emperor of Delhi, and it was not until the British Government, with its growing power, established them in their rule that they were acknowledged as independent Princes. And that was the ancient sovereignty that his hon. Friend— [Mr. SMOLLETT: George IV. said so]—said had been swept away! Lord Wellesley pointed out that it Was not desirable in the troubled state of affairs in India at the close of the great war with Tippoo, that a great Mahomedan family should be altogether extinguished, and that what should be done should be done in such a manner as to be honourable to the family and not dangerous to the empire. Well, the Treaty of 1801 was drawn by Lord Clive and forwarded by him to Lord Wellesley, at Calcutta, for approval. The treaty was approved of, but for fear that there should creep into it anything that the Government did not design to continue, he forwarded with it another treaty to be placed before the Nawab for his acceptance. The Nawab accepted them unreservedly. Now, by the Treaty of 1792, we recognized the Nawab and the right of his heirs and successors to the government of that country. But in the Treaty of 1801, on the contrary, there was no mention of heirs and successors; and whereas in the original draft there had been a reference to hereditary right, Lord Wellesley expressly substituted the term "by the grace and favour of the East India Company." If it was possible for a man to shut the door upon such a claim as this, it was done by Lord Wellesley, and done designedly, as might be seen by the correspondence between Lord Wellesley and Lord Clive. In 1819 and 1825 the successors of the deceased Nawabs had been appointed; but it was not true that they had succeeded upon any claim of hereditary right, because when it was proposed to the Central Government that such successor should be placed on the throne at the death of the Nawab, the succession was conferred as "an act of grace and favour." In 1855 the matter was considered and determined by one who, if living, would have been the last to disclaim any responsibility that he had incurred. Both Lord Wellesley and Lord Dalhousie were men who stood far too high to be affected by the abuse of his hon. Friend or by any defence that he (Sir James Fergusson) could make for them. The grounds upon which they had proceeded were on the table of the House, Indeed there was no public question more completely ventilated, for the most important papers had been) before the House for sixty years. A Committee, if it were appointed, could not elucidate any fresh evidence; but the House by assenting to the Motion, might draw an indictment against public servants who had done their duty to their country, and who had gone to their graves. It might revive, too, claims from one end of India to the other which had long ago been settled. He trusted that the House would not act thus towards public servants of the Crown who bad raised the reputation of this country higher than it had ever stood before, but would sustain them in their high and difficult position. He hoped that the House would determine that the question should not be re-opened by arguments contrary to reason and recorded facts; that it would not revive a question settled sixty years ago, and that it would not so administer as to, unsettle the affairs of that distant country which Providence had committed to our care.

MR. H. BAILLIE

said, that his hon. and gallant Friend who had just sat down had laboured to make unintelligible what, in fact, was a very simple question. His hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire complained that a treaty made with a Native Prince had been violated., Her Majesty, on assuming the direct administration of the Government of India, issued a solemn proclamation stating that all the treaties made by the East India Company with Indian Princes should be faithfully and scrupulously maintained. The question, therefore, before the House involved the honour of the Crown, and was one in which the House was deeply interested. What was the view taken of the treaty by the East India Company when it was first signed? Immediately after the signature of the treaty the Government of India published a proclamation addressed to all the great Chiefs and high Officers of the Carnatic, warning them to pay due allegiance and obedience to the East India Company, which was about to assume the government of that country by virtue of a compact made with the lawful Sovereign of the Carnatic. There were, as the House would perceive, two important admissions in that proclamation—first, that the Nawab was the legitimate Sovereign of the Carnatic; and next, that the Company had acquired their rights to govern the Carnatie solely by virtue of the treaty referred to in the proclamation. What he wanted to know was—and he trusted the Law Officers of the Crown would answer the question—by what right or title we governed the Carnatic at the present time if that treaty had ceased to exist? We could not claim to govern the Carnatic by conquest, for it had never been conquered. We could not say that we governed the country by virtue of a treaty which had ceased to exist. We could not say that part of that treaty had ceased to exist, and a part remained in force, because that would be absurd. But what was it practically that the Government maintained? The Government maintained that that part of the treaty which gave us the right to govern the Carnatic remained in full force, while that portion of the treaty which assigned an income of £120,030 a year to the Nawab had ceased to exist. That was really the argument which might be suited to the old East India Company, but not to the British House of Commons. Under the treaty the Company stipulated to pay a sum equal to one-fifth of the revenues of the Carnatic, or £120,000 a year, to the Nawab for the maintenance of his dignity, and that sum was regularly, honourably, and honestly paid by the East India Company for a period of fifty-four years. In the year 1855 the Marquess of Dalhousie announced that the money should be no longer paid, on the ground that the guarantee, being a personal one, had ceased to exist in 1819, and that the payments made to the Nawab's descendants from that time until 1855 were made as matters of grace and favour by the East India Company. He knew something of that Company and their mode of conducting affairs, and he was persuaded that they never did pay and never would have paid £120,000 a year to any Nawab in India as a matter of grace and favour. The fact was that in 1819, as soon as the former Nawab died, the whole subject was taken into consideration, some fears being entertained that his successor might demand to assume the government of the country. The Madras Government suggested that a distinct treaty should be entered into with the new Prince, but the Supreme Government thought that a continuance to the Nawab of the benefits enjoyed by his deceased father, and an adhesion on his part to the existing treaty, would be preferable to new and precise stipulations. Accordingly, the Governor General was authorized by the Council at Calcutta to make a formal declaration to the Nawab, binding him to the treaty signed by his father, and such a declaration was made by Lord Hastings. It really required more than ordinary impudence to declare in 1855 that a treaty ceased to exist in 1819, when in that very year the Governor General bound the Nawab to the observance of that identical treaty. He knew that in the Madras Government, as in the Government of India, there was a party anxious to continue what was called the annexation policy, and strong enough to prevent the order sent out by his noble Friend when Secretary of State for India, to restore the Principality of Dhar, from being obeyed. That, however, was a direct disobedience of orders, which would have to come before the House. His right hon. Friend, now Secretary of State for India, asked, on the occasion when this subject was last before the House, why the Earl of Derby's Government had not taken up the question. The reason was obvious; the question never came before the Earl of Derby's Government. During the whole time the Earl of Derby's Government were in office the great rebellion was in progress, and when they had subdued the outbreak which former Governments by their misconduct had provoked, the Nawab naturally did not think the time a favourable one to bring forward his case. He waited till the proclamation was issued by Her Majesty's Government promising that all treaties made with Indian Princes should be maintained, and then he addressed his memorial to Government. When it arrived the right hon. Gentleman opposite was Secretary of State for India. [Sir CHARLES WOOD: It arrived in the year 1858.] The first that Parliament heard of the matter was when the hon. Gentleman now Under Secretary for Foreign Affaire, at that time an independent Member, asked the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for India, whether it was intended to revise the case of the Nawab of the Carnatic? The right hon. Gentleman might have answered that it was impossible for him to revise all the acts of the East India Company, and so have declined to enter into the question at all; but, on the contrary, he said that he was prepared to revise the case. He did revise the case, and re-decided it as it had already been decided by the Marquess of Dalhousie. It was the decision of the right hon. Gentleman and not that of the Marquess of Dalhousie, which was now complained of. Last year the right hon. Gentleman said that the Marquess of Dalhousie and Lord Harris both laid down that it would not be sound policy to pay down this large sum to a Native Indian Prince to enable him to maintain a rival court within a few miles of Madras, which, like that of Delhi, might become a focus of intrigue against the Government. If it were simply a question of policy he should be disposed to agree with that doctrine, but the question was one of justice and of the faithful observance of treaties; it was a question whether we were to stand before the people of India as the perfidious violators of our national engagements. We might look with great complacency at the perfect tranquility at present prevailing in India, as the Marquess of Dalhousie did upon the state of that country when he left. A short time before quitting India the Marquess of Dalhousie, in the plenitude of his power, and with all the arrogance of office, told one of the Native Princes that he regarded him no more than the dust beneath his feet. That Native Prince was the Nizam, and but a very few months afterwards it was to the loyalty, good faith, and eminent services of that Native Prince that we owed the salvation of our Indian Empire. He should say no more. The House was asked for a Committee in order to enable those who brought forward the Motion to prove their case. That request was made in the name of justice, and they trusted their appeal would not be made in vain.

MR. VANSITTART

said, he could not help rising to express his regret at the tone of that part of the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire in which he assailed so unfairly the administration of Lord Harris. It was quite unnecessary to say a word in vindication of Lord Harris's Government of Madras, which was admitted by all impartial and competent authorities to be such as to entitle him to be regarded as one of the most just and successful governors who had ever presided over that presidency. The Motion of his hon. Friend completely confirmed the predictions as to the result of transferring India from the late East India Company to the more immediate influence of the House of Commons—namely, that every conceivable grievance, with or without the slightest foundation, would be brought forward in the House, and, if possible, converted into a party question. The Carnatic, which formed the subject of his hon. Friend's Motion, became the theatre in which, during the last century, the English contested for the mastery in India against the combined forces of the Mahrattas and the French—now, happily, our truest and firmest allies. The House should distinctly bear in mind that even at that far distant period the title of Nawab of the Carnatic was merely nominal and titular, the British Government having assumed all actual power. These events, therefore, having occurred upwards of a century ago, and in 1855 it having been resolved, on the last Nawab dying without any lineal heirs, that this titular, empty, and useless dignity should expire, it would be quite loss of time to refer the claims of his hon. Friend's client to a Select Committee. By doing so they would establish a most dangerous precedent, for it could not fail to give encouragement to native pretenders to set up the most unfounded claims to provinces now in their possession, provided they possessed sufficient influence to secure the services of an hon. Member of that House to advocate them. It appeared to him that, should it be deemed expedient to interfere in such a case as that under consideration, the preferable course to pursue would be to refer it to the India House, to be investigated and reported upon by a Committee selected from the members of the Indian Council. [A laugh,] His hon. Friend might laugh, but the Members of that Council, from their ready access to papers and documents— and the claim had been frequently very closely inquired into—and from their superior Indian experience, would be more likely to draw up a satisfactory report than could be done by a Committee of that House. Besides which, he knew upon the most undoubted and reliable authority, that the Members of that Council were actually sighing and pining for the want of something to do beyond the arduous duty of drawing their salaries, and therefore it would be an act of charity to refer the inquiry to such a Committee.

COLONEL SYKES

said, if the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ayrshire had read Orme and the Carnatic Treaties he would have been aware of the relations which had existed between the Nawabs of the Carnatic and ourselves, and the assistance which we had received from the family in our struggles with the French for the mastery in India, and might have been induced to look with more favour upon the Motion before the House. In 1787 there were two Nawabs at the same time, one of whom was Dupleix, the French Commander, who had assumed the dignity, and the other Mahomed Ali, who supported us. In 1787 we made a treaty offensive and defensive with Mahomed Ali, in conjunction with the Nizam, by which the Government of the Carnatic, as a free government, was made over to Mahomed Ali and his heirs for ever. In that treaty it was declared that Shah Aulum, the Emperor at Delhi, who was paramount Lord with the approval of the Soubahdar of the Deccan, released the Nawab from all dependence upon the Emperor and the Soubahdar of the Deccan, and that he and his heirs for all time should enjoy the free government of the Carnatic. The person who drew up the treaty said, "with the approval of the Soubah;" but that showed the ignorance which prevailed at that time among officials in India, because "soubah" meant a large territory or province, whereas "soubahdar" meant the person who governed it. The rights so given necessarily descended to the Nawab's children and successors, whoever they might be. Was there any treaty to the effect that they had given up their possessions? Not at all. But after we had fixed on the Nawab an enormous debt, ostensibly for maintaining him in the nawabship, but really to strengthen ourselves against the French, we forced a treaty upon him by which, in consideration of receiving one-fifth of the net revenue, or something about £130,000 a year, he would hand over the civil and military power, and the dewanny, or collection of the revenue of the Carnatic. But, though there was a second treaty guaranteeing the same conditions, the Nawab had doubts and suspicions, which remained upon his mind for several years.

There was a passage in the diary of the Marquess of Hastings, in 1813 — twelve years after the Treaty of 1801—in which he said that the Nawab had expressed his anxiety for an assurance that the Marquess should cause the provisions of the treaty to be observed. He had been told that the Nawab was in great alarm lest he should be still further degraded. The Marquess, in reply, said that The treaty plighted the public faith of the nation, and therefore it must be his duty to maintain its terms according to its true spirit. Treaties ought always to be construed most favourably for the party whose whole dependence was on the honour of the other. But one of the terms of the treaty was the possession of the titular dignity by the Nawab, his heirs and successors. But if there was any doubt on the subject, what objection could there be to let it go before a Committee of that House—before a body of men who would judge impartially whether the construction put upon the treaty was justified or not? It would be some consolation to the party concerned even to have the case considered, whatever might be the result of the inquiry. He had been reminded that, as an East Indian Director, he had signed a despatch confirming the Government view of the case, and that he was now, therefore, arguing against former convictions. To that taunt he replied that despatches were signed ministerially by the directors, thirteen of whom had to sign, and that the opinions he entertained at the time he signed that despatch were the same as those he entertained now. He trusted, therefore, the House would send the matter to a Committee.

MR. LOWE

said, the case was capable of being stated in a few words. The first Nawab of the Carnatic owed his elevation to the power of England, and as a reward for the assistance he had given her in the struggle between Lawrence and Dupleix. His son who succeeded him died in 1790, and the next in succession died in 1800. When we took Seringapatam we discovered that a correspondence of a highly treasonable nature had been carried on in cipher, which proved that the Nawab was one of the allies of Tippoo Sultan. Unfortunately for the Nawab the key to the cipher was also found, so that the meaning of the correspondence became known. Upon finding that the Marquess of Wellesley declared at once in council that he considered the Nawabship of the Carnatic was forfeited by Omdut ool Omrah, and that it was his right, if he thought fit, to take possession of the country forthwith; but he considered it would be best, from motives of leniency and policy, to take away from the Nawab only the civil and military administration, and to make him a suitable allowance of about one-fifth of the revenue. The proposition was made to a person who appeared to represent the Nawab's family, but who declined to have anything to do with a treaty handing over the govern- ment of the Carnatic to the East India Company. Another person — Azeem ul Dowlah—was then sought out, and that was the person with whom the treaty was concluded. The territory became British property in consequence of seizure on account of treason; but the Indian authorities were content to surrender a certain amount on specified conditions, and not finding the elder branch wilting to agree to those conditions, they fixed upon the younger branch. The treaty made on that occasion was quite different from that executed in 1792, for nothing was said in it about heirs or successors. There were some words in it about perpetual alliance and friendship, but these were words of course which appeared in every treaty, whatever might be its nature. There was no doubt as to the intention of the Marquess of Wellesley, for, according to the first draught of the treaty made by Lord Clive, the new Nawab was stated to succeed by inheritance from his ancestors, and Lord Wellesley wrote to Lord Clive that that should be cancelled, and that it should be made to appear, that the Nawab held by the grace and favour of the Company. That was done, and the new Nawab assented in that manner to the treaty. In 1819 that Nawab died, and the case was referred to the Government, and they decided as a matter of policy that the son should succeed; and a new treaty was not deemed necessary, on the ground that the son succeeding was included ipso facto in the former treaty. The proper construction of those words was, that as soon as the English Government agreed that the son should succeed, he became entitled to all the stipulations of the treaty which existed for the benefit of the Nawab, his predecessor. The same thing was repeated in 1825; but at last the English Government, exercising the same control over the succession, decided that the time was come to put an end to the pageantry they had created. He did not say that such transactions as these were matters which any one could look at with great pleasure; but the treaty and the acts of the Government were all consistent. The treaty was meant to give no right of inheritance, and the Government by their acts exercised the right of deciding whether or not there should be a new Nawab. Therefore, it would answer no good purpose to have a Committee to inquire into these transactions. It appeared to him that no good purpose could be answered by appointing a Committee. There really seemed to be no end to these Indian questions. Such questions slumbered for years, and, long after they had been considered settled, hon. Gentlemen took them from the shelf, and again revived them. It certainly appeared to him that if these elements of uncertainty were allowed to be imported into the consideration of such questions, there was danger of our Indian empire being shaken to its foundation.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 62; Noes 45: Majority 17.

Main Question put, and agreed to.