MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.

HC Deb 14 March 1865 vol 177 cc1663-717

MR. CHARLES POPSTER

said, he regretted that it was his duty, as Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions, to acquaint the House that a gross abuse of the right of petition and an undoubted breach of the privileges of the House had, he feared, been committed in connection with some of the petitions which had been presented in support of the Motion about to be made by the hon. and learned Member for Suffolk (Sir FitzRoy Kelly). The Committee, at its meeting yesterday, felt itself bound to present a Report, which would be in the hands of Members tomorrow. In reporting to the House the number of names appended to these petitions, they thought there was strong ground for suspecting that many of the signatures were fictitious, and that some of the persons whose names were attached to the petitions had not really signed them. It would be the duty of the Committee, at its meeting on Thursday next, to continue their examination of the petitions which had since been presented, and should they then be of opinion that the matter was one calling for further notice on the part of the House, they would feel it right to make a Special Report on the subject.

MR. VANSITTART

hoped his hon. and learned Friend (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) would postpone the Motion of which he had given notice in consequence of the statement which had just been made.

SIR FITZROY KELLY

having presented several petitions praying for inquiry into the claims of His Highness Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic, said:—Mr. Speaker, before I proceed to call the attention of the House to the Motion which I am about to submit, perhaps I may be allowed to allude in a single sentence to what has just passed concerning certain petitions in support of these claims. Sir, I am quite sure that this case requires not the aid of fictitious signatures, or of any other species of deception; and I hope and desire that my hon. Friend who has brought these irregularities under notice will pursue his inquiries, and if there have been misconduct of any kind, that justice may be done upon the offender with no prejudice to the cause of the prince.

Sir, I have now to entreat the attention of the House to the statement I have to make on behalf of His Highness Azeem Jah, who claims to be Nawab of the Carnatic. It is not denied that he is the heir and representative of a line of princes who had ruled in that part of India for more than a century, and during that entire period had been the powerful and ever faithful and devoted allies of the East India Company. But the prince now complains to this House that by an act of arbitrary power he has been deprived of his hereditary dominions and of his revenues without any just cause; the reasons assigned having been withheld from him for years, and only at last made known by means of papers moved for and laid upon this table. He now appeals to your sense of right and justice. He desires a fair, a free, and a full inquiry before a Select Committee. I do not ask the House to pronounce a decision upon this case, or even to form any conclusive opinion upon the questions which it involves. They are not of a nature and character to be fittingly discussed in this House. I seek only to refer them for consideration to a Committee of Inquiry. Sir, two great questions arise in this case. The first, whether two princes of this race, or either of them whose reigns extended from 1749 to 1801, were guilty parties to certain letters which passed between the agents of Tippoo Saib at Madras, and the Sultan himself, or his Ministers, and said to have been treasonable or contrary to good faith, or hostile to the East India Company; and if they were parties to or cognizant of these letters, which were written as long back as 1790, and became known to the Governor General in 1799, but were never communicated to either of the princes implicated, and only brought forward after the last of them was in his grave; whether these acts done in 1790 justified the British Government in seizing the territory and revenues of the Carnatic, and putting an end to the sovereignty of the Nawabs in 1855. The remaining question is, whether the true meaning and effect of a treaty made in 1801 was to limit the sovereignty of the Carnatic to the life of the reigning Nawab, extinguishing it at his death; but to confer the territory and revenues upon the Company, and secure them to the British Government for ever. Now, I would ask the House to bear in mind the position of the unfortunate prince who appeals to you for justice. If a private individual has to complain of a wrong done, he can resort to a court of law for redress. In Europe, or almost throughout the world, if a small and weak State be assailed by one more powerful, its ruler may look to his allies or to neighbouring nations for assistance and support. But when one of these Native princes of India falls a victim to the policy of a Governor General, and the, Minister of the day turns a deaf ear to his complaint, he is beyond the reach of human aid, and without the hope of justice upon arth, unless he can obtain a hearing in this House, and appeal with effect to its sense of honour and of right. The present Nawab of the Carnatic is descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors, who occupied for some centuries a high station at the court of the Great Mogul. In 1744 the then chief representative of the family was made Nawab of the Carnatic—a dignity at that time subject to the Nizam of the Deccan, and a tributary to that prince. When the war with France began, many of the States within the peninsula of India combined with the French forces against our rule; but from first to last the Nawab of the Carnatic was the faithful and effective ally of the East India Company, and he ended his life fighting side by side with British soldiers, at the age of 100, some say 107, in the year 1749. His successor was the celebrated Wallah Jah, the first of the princes of India, whose title was recognized among the sovereigns of Europe, being declared the lawful Nawab of the Carnatic by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. By another treaty in 1768 he is expressly confirmed in the dignity of Nawab of the Carnatic, which was made from that time forth, independent of the Deecan, and secured to him and his heirs for ever. The East India Company are parties to that treaty, and I undertake to show that that treaty is to this hour in force, and is now binding upon Her Majesty the Queen. Another treaty was entered into in 1787, and yet another in 1792; and thus from 1744 to 1801, the year of the death of Omdut-ul-Omrah, the son of Wallah Jah, and of the treaty with his successor Azeem-ul-Dowlah, from that period when the Company had scarcely a rood of land in all India that they could call their own, to the time when they had become the victorious and undisputed possessors of almost the entire peninsula, no one member of this princely family had ever failed or faltered in his fidelity to the Company, or in attachment and devotion to their interests. The histories, the State papers, the despatches of the last century abound in proofs and testimonies to their merits and their services; and no trace of evidence to the contrary is to be found, save in the letters to which I have adverted, and shall hereafter further refer. To give a single example, here is the language of the Governor of Madras in 1780— The first and most distinguished of our connections is that which has been formed with the present Nawab of the Carnatic. Our influence in the Carnatic is founded upon the free will and consent of the Nawab. From his confidence in our attachment and power he requested, of his own accord, that the Company might garrison his forts and maintain his troops at his own expense for the protection of the Carnatic. Such a confidence ought never to be abused. To have deserved it reflects honour upon our moderation; to abuse it would be to throw an indelible stain upon our character and our memory… It is certain that all the inconveniences we suffer will be amply compensated by the advantages derived from an exclusive influence in the Nawab's country. It is unquestionably to this influence we are indebted for a great portion of our prosperity, for our success against the French in India in the last war, and the decisive stroke made against them so early in the present war, to which, as affairs have since turned out, we owe, perhaps, our present existence in the East. The support of the Company was originally given to him, not upon his account, but their own. Well, Sir, within this eventful period we fought against and overcame the French, We fought against and conquered Hyder Ali. We fought against and destroyed Tippoo Saib and annihilated his empire in India. As long as we were in peril, as long as we needed the support of the Nawabs, we treated them with the distinction and the honours that were their due. When with their powerful aid our struggles and our dangers were at an end, the course of oppression and persecution which has ended in their destruction began. Just mark the history of the time. In 1790 Tippoo Saib was reduced to the necessity of suing for peace, which was granted upon terms dictated by the Company, and his sons were delivered over to us as hostages, and sent to the town of Madras. In 1799 Seringapatam was taken, Tippoo himself fell, and his dominions were annexed to our own. We were then without an enemy in the peninsula, and the time had come when we might venture to turn round and attempt to consolidate our newly acquired empire at the expense of our friends. The Company had long possessed the fortresses and held military possession of the Carnatic, which was indeed necessary to the security of the Nawab as well as their own during the war; but they had urged and importuned in vain both Wallah Jah and his successor to deliver over to them the control and the collection of the revenues; and Omdut-ul-Omrah died in July, 1801, in the full possession and control of the whole financial resources of the State. Upon his death, however, the design of our Indian Government assumed a substantial form, and their efforts were more successful; for it was then that the charge of treachery by the two last Nawabs was for the first time openly brought forward, and the charge was this:—in 1790 Tippoo Saib had been compelled to deliver up his sons as hostages; and they were sent to Madras in the charge of two vakeels, who reported to their master certain conversations they had held with Wallah Jah and his son, and in which they alleged expressions had been uttered and sentiments avowed, hostile to the Company and favourable to the Sultan. These letters or despatches were found upon the taking of Seringapatam in 1799. In the middle of 1800, or before, they came to the knowledge of the Governor General, and upon the contents of these letters, and upon no other ground, the charge of treachery against Wallah Jah and his son was founded. But howl can this charge be justified or excused? The first duty of the Governor General was to make it known to the accused, and call upon them for explanation, and give them the opportunity of making their defence. Wallah Jah was dead; but his son Omdut was alive, and lived till July, 1801; yet not one word was ever said to him upon the subject, and he died in ignorance that such an accusation had ever been made. Again, was it likely that Wallah Jah, who had steadily and faithfully adhered to the Company throughout their deadly struggles with France, and with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib, from 1744 to the defeat of Tippoo in 1790, would suddenly have become the enemy of the Company and the friend of Tippoo, when the Sultan was helpless and powerless, and the Company who had gained the ascendant could have destroyed him at any moment? But see how the historians of the time have treated this question. Mill, in his History of British India, deals with it summarily in these words— Not only does this evidence afford no proof of a criminal correspondence with Tippoo on the part of the Nawab, but the total inability of the English to procure further evidence, with all the records of the Mysore Government in their hands, and all the living agents of it within their absolute power, is a proof to the contrary; since it is not credible that the criminal correspondence should have existed and not left more traces of itself. This author indeed adds, that the Indian Government had been accused of forging these papers to make an excuse to them for seizing the revenues of the Carnatic. But he shows at once his impartiality and his sagacity when he observes that they could not have fabricated these letters, for if they had resorted to a fabrication they would have fabricated something that would have proved the guilt of the Nawabs; whereas these papers proved nothing. There is, therefore, absolutely no proof that the Nawabs ever departed from the strictest principles of good faith and honour in their conduct towards the East India Company. Was not this charge then an unworthy excuse to impose hard and unjust terms upon the successor of Omdut, and compel him to grant the administration of the revenues to themselves, which had been refused by his father and grandfather as an act of degrading submission? That such was the dishonest policy of that day, and that the princes were innocent of the treachery charged, is proved by every genuine document to be found in the repositories of the East India Company and the Board of Control. To the authority of Mill the historian may be added the still higher testimony of Sir Archibald Campbell, Governor of Madras, who, at the very period when these princes are now charged with this secret correspondence, thus wrote to the Court of Directors— This venerable Prince (Wallah Jah) would rather subject himself and family to difficulty and distress than be thought backward for a single moment in contributing most liberally to any arrangement which might lead effectually to the defence and prosperity of the Carnatic. I have narrowly watched the Nawab's conduct and sentiments since my arrival in this country, and I am ready to declare that I do not think it possible that any prince or person on earth can be more sincerely attached to the prosperity of the honourable Company than His Highness; or that any one has higher claims to their favour and liberality. It is indeed lamentable to reflect upon the dishonourable and degrading sentiments expressed in these times by men of high honour and high station when once they became involved in the tortuous and intricate policy which governed our intercourse with the princes of India. Lord Wellesley appears to have referred the designs of the Indian Council upon the Carnatic to the Home Government, who in their turn consulted Lord Cornwallis, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Here is that nobleman's reply— Mr. Dundas sent me Lord Wellesley's letter, and his answer and papers respecting the Nawab of Arcot. I told him that I wished the Nawab to be so managed as either to frighten him so much as to induce him to give up the management of the country, or to furnish a pretext for taking it from him. Sir, no Minister, or statesman, or gentleman of England would dare to write such a letter as this in the present day; but it does somehow or other occur that men, even of the highest honour and character, when they come to deal with the affairs of India and its people, and its princes and their possessions, do look upon men and things, and facts and principles, and acts, and duties through a medium which discolours all that they look at, and leads them to entertain views of policy and of human action which excite the wonder of the rest of mankind. The unworthy hint of Lord Cornwallis was taken. Instructions were sent by the Governor General to the Governor of Madras, and the very hour that Omdut-ul-Omrah expired a file of soldiers entered the palace of the Nawabs; and the family of the deceased prince were forbidden to meddle even with his corpse, which was scarcely cold, without the authority of the Company's officers. Omdut-ul-Omrah had left an only son, Ali Houssain, then eighteen years of age; and after him the next heir was Azeem-ul-Dowlah, nephew of the deceased Nawab Omdut-ul-Omrah, and father of Azeem Jah the now claimant. It is at this stage of the history that we must pause for a moment and consider the defence which the right hon. Gentleman opposite in the name of the Crown, as the successor of the East India Company, now makes to the demands of the prince. A right hon. Gentleman once a Member of the Government, the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe), in a former debate rested the case of the Government on what he was pleased to call the simple fact that the Nawab (he did not say which or when) was guilty of treason to the British, and so forfeited his throne and dominions, which were, therefore, justly seized by the East India Company. And this defence was immediately adopted by the first Minister of the Crown. But, Sir, I now in the presence both of the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman declare, with all deference to them both, that there is not the slightest foundation in fact for this statement. The Governor General, in the then precarious and unsettled state of British power in India, would not have ventured upon a step which would have alarmed every Native prince with whom we were in alliance, and perhaps provoked another war in which our opponents might again have been supported by France. The Company never did depose a Nawab, or seize the Carnatic as their own, or by proclamation, or even a Minute of Council, or any other open act put an end to the dynasty of this race of princes, or deny or question the effect of the treaties under which the Nawabship was guaranteed to them and their heirs for ever, until they refused to recognize the succession of the present claimant, Azeem Jah, in 1855, retaining the territories and the revenues which had been made over to them in 1801, and seizing and appropriating to themselves the one-fifth, or £116,000 a year which had been reserved to the Nawab. What the Governor General really did was first to question and throw suspicions upon the legitimacy of Ali Houssain, the son of the last Nawab, and so make a case of disputed succession, upon which the Company might choose between the contending candidates; and then which-ever it might prefer, bring up the charge of treachery against the deceased Nawabs, declare that their guilt, had descended upon their innocent successors, and so compel them to yield to them the collection of the revenues which they had striven in vain to exact from Wallah Jah. These were the instructions of Lord Wellesley to Lord Clive, while Omdut-ul-Omrah was yet alive, and acted upon with his son and his nephew, upon his death, resulting in the Treaty of 1801. Various rumours exist relative to the birth of the person of whom the Nawab Omdut-ul-Omrah declares himself to be the father; it is, however, certain that the mother of this young man is of loose origin, and that she was never married to the Nawab. It is reasonable to believe that the succession of this young man would be felt as an injury to the right of the late Ameer's son, by all who might think favourably of the latter's title; and all such persons would undoubtedly use every practicable effort to defeat such a succession. Under the circumstances neither party could claim our support under existing treaties; and in determining to whom your support should be granted, we are at liberty to consider the security of Great Britain's interests in the Carnatic, and the general prosperity of the country, and the happiness of its people as the primary objects both of our right and duty. On this principle, it is manifest, that from the candidate whom we may resolve to raise to the Musnud, we may justly require the most ample pledges for the effectual remedy of the evils which now afflict the Carnatic. For this purpose the successor of Omdut-ul-Omrah must be required to surrender to the Company, in the most absolute manner, the Civil and Military Administration of the Carnatic, not retaining possession of a single fortress, nor maintaining an armed force, under any pretext whatever. No other arrangement would be adequate to the attainment of the indispensable objects which have been stated. To Ali Houssain, the boy of eighteen, accordingly the overtures were made. He was told of the charges against his father, and his grandfather, and required to surrender what they had refused to part with, the entire civil administration of the Carnatic. He also steadily refused, and thereupon the illegitimacy was brought forward; the Company were all-powerful, and Ali Houssain was set aside. Azeem-ul-Dowlah was next applied to; the same arguments were used, the same conditions exacted; and he at length yielded, and the Treaty of 1801 was concluded. Now, down to the moment of the signature of this treaty, the hereditary right of the princes of this house to succeed to the Musnud or sovereignty of their ancestors existed unimpaired and unquestioned. The Company having brought about a dispute as to the succession, might choose between the rival pretenders, and confer the Nawabship upon the candidate of their choice. But the Nawabship existed; and the Carnatic and its revenues belonged subject to the provisions of the treaties, but according to the treaties to the right heir, whoever he might be. The Company adopted and accepted an heir, Azeem-ul-Dowlah, whose title, it may be observed in passing, became perfect and indisputable in the following year, 1802, when his cousin, Ali Houssain, died without issue; and the sole question now between the Crown and this unfortunate prince is whether the terms of this Treaty of 1801 are such as to extinguish and destroy the hereditary character of the Nawabship, and to limit its existence to the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah, so that at his death, even had he died the next year or the next day, the Nawabship came to an end; his son and his descendants became private individuals, subjects of Her Majesty, and their revenues, including the one-fifth or £116,000 a year reserved by the treaty, became the property of the Company; the next heir, the whole family, and their posterity for ever, left absolutely destitute, and dependent upon the bounty or charity of the Company, or their countrymen, once their subjects, for their daily bread. That, Sir, is the question which I desire to submit upon the construction of this treaty to a Committee of this House. But before I come to the treaty itself, I would appeal to this House whether if it was really intended by the Compaq- to put an end for ever to this dynasty, to grant the title to this one Nawab for the term of his own life only, and at his death to seize his revenues and possessions, and leave his family beggars, it was not their bounden duty, upon every principle of honour and fair dealing, to tell him so in express terms, and let him judge for himself whether he would accept the treaty upon such conditions. Now, what was the language used to these princes, and by which one of them was at last induced to cede the revenues and agree to the treaty? We find it in the Report of the Commissioners appointed to treat with them; and here it is— We then informed the Khans that the only remedy applicable to the errors of the present Government of the Carnatic was the substitution of one permanent authority, in lieu of the flue- tuating authority which had hitherto subsisted; that the appropriation of the resources of the Garnatie, during the Government of the Nawab and under the pressure of actual war, had been found from experience to be incompatible with the objects of the alliance; and, therefore, the only adequate security for the right and interest of the British Government in the Carnatic against the dangers with which they have been menaced was the entire and exclusive administration of the civil and military Government of the Carnatic. We accordingly informed the Khans that this condition would form the basis of the arrangement which it was our intention to propose to them. Najeeb Khan observed that such a proposition was calculated to frustrate the professed object of the arrangement; for if the entire Government of the Carnatic should be transferred to the hands of the Company, the station of Nawab of the Carnatic would be annihilated. We replied to the Khans that the condition now proposed actually existed in the Treaties of 1787 and 1792; and that although the entire civil and military Government of the Carnatic had been transferred under the operation of that condition to the exclusive administration of the Company, no doubt was entertained that the rank and dignity of Mahomed Ali and Omdut-ul-Omrah, as the Nawabs of the Carnatic, had been preserved. We, therefore, drew this conclusion—that the rank and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic could not be injured by extending the operation of that condition; and that the object of proposing an amicable adjustment, instead of proceeding to exercise the rights acquired by the British Government, was manifestly founded on the desire of preserving to the family the rank, dignities, and splendour of the Nawabs of the Carnatic. To this, though Ali Houssain rejected the proposals of the Commissioners, his cousin at last yielded; and the treaty was signed. The Company, while agreeing expressly to confirm all former treaties which made the dignity hereditary for ever, desired only to modify the statement that Azeem-ul-Dowlah had succeeded by hereditary right, and declare that he had been established by the Company; which was, indeed, the truth. But even this was not insisted on, in case the Nawab should object to the change. On the 18th of August, 1801, Lord Wellesley thus writes— His Excellency in Council, therefore, does not consider the objection to be of sufficient force to preclude the ratification of the treaty in its actual form; nor does he deem the proposed alterations to be of such importance as that they should be proposed to His Highness the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah, at the hazard of forfeiting any of the advantages already acquired, or even of exciting any degree of alarm and jealousy in the mind of His Highness Azeem-ul-Dowlah. But the prince, who relied upon the good faith of the Company, accepted the change without hesitation; and the words excepted to were omitted, and the treaty declared that— The Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor has been established by the East India Company in the rank, property, and possessions of his ancestors, heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic. How could he be established in "the rank of his ancestors heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic" if he became a Nawab for his life only, and the rank was to cease at his death? I come now to the treaty itself, upon which the question is whether it recognizes the prince as established in the hereditary rank and dignity of his predecessors, Nawabs of the Carnatic, or whether it is an agreement that he is to enjoy the dignity for his life only, and that it is to terminate for ever at his death; the Company, however, retaining the revenues which, by the treaty the Nawab has ceded to them, and they have accepted from him, in perpetuity for ever. And first the treaty recites that it is made— For the purpose of supplying the defects of all former engagements, and of establishing the connection between the said contracting parties on a permanent basis of security in all times to come. Then after further declaring that it is made "for settling the succession," and again providing in the 1st Article that— The Nawab is established in the state and rank with the dignities dependent thereon, of his ancestors, Nawabs of the Carnatic, and the possession thereof guaranteed by the honourable Company. The 2nd Article, in this plain and most precise language, continues the provisions of former treaties— Such parts of the treaties heretofore concluded between the said East India Company and their Highnesses heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic, as are calculated to strengthen the alliance, to cement the friendship, and to identify the interests of the contracting parties, are hereby renewed and confirmed. Sir, among the treaties thus referred to, and renewed and confirmed is the Treaty of 1768, between the East India Company and Wallah Jah, and other powers of India, containing in Article 7 the following provision:— The exalted and illustrious Emperor, Shah Allum, having been pleased to grant to Wallah Jah and his eldest son, and their heirs for ever, the government of the Carnatic, Payen Ghaut, and the countries dependent thereon (and the Nizam having agreed to release him and his heirs in succession for ever from all dependence on the Deccan) it is now agreed and acknowledged that the said Nawab Wallah Jah, and after him his son and their heirs and successors, shall enjoy for ever, &c, the government of the Carnatic. Now, Sir, I pause at this point of the treaty, and seriously would ask the House whether it is possible to deny the hereditary right of this line of princes consistently with this solemn renewal and confirmation of former treaties, one of them thus declaring that the reigning Nawab (Wallah Jah), and after him his son, and their heirs in succession, shall enjoy for ever the Government of the Carnatic. To this treaty the powers and duties of the East India Company in India having been superseded by Act of Parliament, Her Majesty the Queen has now become a party. The most eminent jurists and lawyers in this country and in India, Dr. Travers Twiss, Mr. Lush, the Queen's Counsel, Mr. Norton, Advocate General in India, have all unhesitatingly pronounced their decided opinion in favour of these claims under this treaty; and I challenge the Ministers of the Crown to produce a single opinion to the contrary by any member of any Bar within Her Majesty's dominions. Sir, I hasten on to the conclusion of this treaty. I deny that a single word is to be found within it which points to a limitation of the dignity to the life of the reigning Nawab. The 3rd Article speaks of "the alliance between the ancestors of the Nawab and the English nation." The 4th provides that— The full and exclusive right to the revenues of the Carnatic (with the exception of such portion thereof as shall be appropriated to the maintenance of the Nawab and for the support of his dignity) shall be for ever vested in the Company. How can it be contended that the Nawabs were to part with their revenues—then upwards of half a million, now several millions a year —for ever, and the 5th reserved to themselves, and never parted with at all, was to pass away from them and be forfeited at the death of one who might not live a month? How could the Company accept these large revenues in perpetuity, from an individual who was only, as they now say, possessed of them for life? I now come to the 5th Article, which is in these terms— It is hereby stipulated and agreed that one-fifth part of the net revenues of the Carnatic shall be annually allotted for the maintenance and support of the said Nawab and of his own immediate family, including the Mahal of his Highness the Ameer-ul-Omrah, and the said fifth part shall be paid by the Company in monthly instalments, &c, &c. It is this portion of the revenues, amounting as I have stated to £116,000 a year, which after being duly paid under this treaty to Azeem-ul-Dowlah, to his son and his grandson, from 1801 to 1855 the East India Company have withheld from the next heir Prince Azeem Jah, and confiscated and appropriated to their own use, insulting him with the offer of £10,000, afterwards increased to £15,000 a year for his life. So much then for the treaty itself; and I now proceed to show that not only did the Company never intimate or hint to the Nawab that the sovereignty of his family was to end with life, but the contrary was held out to him, to his family, to the other princes of India, and to the world, in every public document of which any trace is now to be found. It was notified to the Governor of Bombay and other authorities that— His Highness Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah having entered into engagements for the express purpose of reviving the alliance between the Company and his illustrious ancestors, and of establishing an adequate security for the British interests in the Carnatic, the British Government had now resolved to execute its rights and its power, under Providence, in supporting and establishing the hereditary pretensions of the Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor in the Soubadarry of the Carnatic. As early as the month of December, 1801, the Governor of Madras addressed the family in these terms— That the new arrangement was made to preserve to that respectable family its ancient rank among the princes in Hindustan. That when the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah was raised to the rank of Nawab of the Carnatic his Highness succeeded to the rights of his illustrious ancestors, heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic. That the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah, whom God preserve, had made himself the instrument of restoring the foundation of alliance with the British Government and the rank and dignity of his illustrious family. That it is incumbent on the British Government to respect the rights acquired by His Highness by the late treaty; and it is my special duty to resist every attempt which may be made to encroach on those rights, or to violate the principles of the alliance now firmly and perpetually established. So in another letter from Lord Clive we find— And on the other hand, the faith of the executive Government is pledged by a treaty to secure to the Nawab his rights and immunities in the same full and ample manner as they have heretofore been by his Highness' predecessors, Nawabs of the Carnatic. But, Sir, we have also a very remarkable testimony to the construction put upon this Treaty of 1801, and to the hereditary character of the rank recognized in the Nawab, upon the high authority of the Duke of Wellington, who from the termi- nation of his own brilliant career in India, took a deep interest in the events and the affairs of that country, especially during the Government of his brother the Marquess Wellesley. In the Supplemental Despatches recently published by the present Duke, is a paper upon the then state of India, in which after narrating with his usual accuracy and terseness the occurrences in the family of the Nawabs which led to the Treaty of 1801, the Duke concludes his summary in these words— The Prince Omdut-ul-Omrah having agreed to the arrangement, a treaty was concluded by which the whole of the Civil and Military Government of the Carnatic was transferred for ever to the Company; and the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah, and his heirs, were to preserve their title and dignities, and to receive one-fifth part of the net revenues of the country. Thus was this important arrangement concluded in a peaceable manner, by which a remedy was provided for all the evils which had attended the former connection between the Company and the Nawabs of the Carnatic; additional security was given to the British Government, and an addition of £800,000 a year, value of twenty lacs of star pagodas, was made to their pecuniary resources. It is impossible to state in clearer or more emphatic terms the whole substance and true meaning and effect of this treaty, and unless the Duke of Wellington's account of these transactions is to be set aside as erroneous and worthless, it is perfectly conclusive of the question before the House. To all this must be added the view evidently taken of the treaty by the advisers of the Crown in this country. Upon the news of the treaty reaching England and being communicated to the King, His Majesty George the Third, under date of the 27th of January, 1804, wrote thus— We congratulate your Highness on your accession to the Musnud of your ancestors. Your Highness may be assured that we shall seize every occasion of affording you proofs of regard, and of continuing to your Highness and to your family our especial friendship and protection. And the same impression prevailed throughout the Government of the Marquess of Hastings. In the journal of that nobleman, published after his death, he thus refers to a conversation with Azeem-ul-Dowlah, in which it should seem that the prince expressed some apprehensions as to the observance of the treaty by the Company— I answered that a treaty plighted the public faith of the nation, so that it must be my duty to maintain its terms according to its true spirit, which ought always to be construed most favourably for the party whose sole dependence was on the honour of the other. And again— I answered that the case was widely different between a vanquished enemy and the representative of a family which had always preserved the most faithful alliance, and added that nothing should ever induce me to give a colour for others to imply a doubt which I myself could not for an instant entertain. Sir, these are sentiments worthy of the representative in India of a British Sovereign and the British nation. But we now come to the time when if this treaty was really for the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah only, and was to terminate at his death, the Sovereignty must have ceased; the Company must have become entitled to the £116,000 a year, and the son of the Nawab became a pensioner dependent upon their bounty. In 1819, Azeem-ul-Dowlah died, leaving two sons, the eldest of whom was Azum Jah; and that I may accurately represent what took place upon that event, directly bearing upon the question of this treaty, I beg the attention of the House to the Minute of the Government of Madras, and the prompt reply of the Governor General, Lord Hastings— Under date 2nd October, 1819, the Madras Government stated to that of India that it would have been satisfactory to them to have been informed whether the Governor General in Council considered the treaty concluded with the late Nawab on the 31st July, 1801, to have guaranteed the succession to the Musnud in the direct and legitimate line of descent to which opinion they themselves had always been inclined, as well from the spirit in which the treaty was concluded, as from the tenor of its professions, and also from the terms of the declaration published at the period. Lord Hastings, in reply to the suggestion of a new treaty with Azum Jah, observed— A new treaty was unnecessary, because he considered His Highness to he ipso facto, a party to the treaty concluded with his father in 1801. This total absence of any idea that the Nawabship had ceased to be hereditary, and the interpretation of the treaty now insisted on by the prince is proved and confirmed by a very remarkable Minute of Sir Thomas Munro during the reign of Azeem Jah. It was to this effect— By the 1st Article of the Treaty of 1801, the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor is formally established in the state and rank, with the dignities dependent thereon, of his ancestors. By the 3rd Article the Company charges itself with the maintenance and support necessary for the defence of the Carnatic, and for the protection of the rights, person, and property of the said Nawab; and the said Nawab stipulates that he will not enter upon any negotiation or correspondence with any European or Native Power, &c. By this the Nawab does not relinquish his Sovereignty; he merely renews the article of former treaties, by which he engaged not to correspond with foreign States without the consent of the Company. By the 5th Article, one-fifth part of the net revenue of the Carnatic is allowed for the maintenance and support of the said Nawab. The fifth part is his claim as Sovereign of the whole Carnatic. It is the revenue which remains after providing for the civil and military charges, and is probably as large a clear revenue as was received by any of his ancestors. By the 10th Article the rank of the Nawab as prince and as an ally of the British Government is declared. No change in the political situation of the Nawab has taken place since 1801. He is still Prince of the Carnatic, and he is a party to the treaty by which one-fifth part of the revenue is secured to him. Without a breach of the treaty we cannot without his consent alter any of the Articles. This was written after Azeem-ul-Dowlah had died, and had been succeeded by his son, whom Lord Hastings declared to be a party to the treaty. It is utterly impossible to reconcile this with the construction of the treaty first put forth in 1855, and now persisted in by Her Majesty's Government. But we have a higher authority still against the limited construction of the treaty. It is no less than that of the East India Company themselves. In 1825 Azum Jah himself died, and was succeeded without any question made by his son Mahomed Ghouse, a minor. Azeem Jah, the prince next in succession, and the now claimant, was appointed guardian and regent; and to him the Court of Directors addressed a letter in the following terms:— The accession of Goolam Mahomed Ghouse Khan Bahadoor, the legitimate son of the late Nawab, to the throne of his ancestors, we readily confirmed, and we pray God that he may long live to enjoy the honours and perpetuate the line of the ancient and illustrious family of which he is the descendant and heir. And still later the Marquess of Tweeddale, in 1843, affirmed the right of these princes to their titles and dignities by a Minute expressly treating the present claimant Azeem Jah as the next heir in succession to the then reigning Nawab. These are its terms— His Lordship in Council observes, that His Highness Prince Azeem Jah Bahadoor (the late Naib i Mooktar) does not hold that place in List No. 1 (of the Nawab's relatives) to which he is entitled in consideration of the position he has lately occupied in connection with the British Government, and of that which he still holds in relation to His Highness the Nawab, and to his succession to the Musnud. It is, therefore, resolved that the name of Prince Azeem Jah Bahadoor be placed first on the list of the male relations of His Highness the Nawab. Thus, Sir, before and after this Treaty of 1801 the treaty itself, and every document, public and private, that emanated from the officers of the Company at Calcutta or Madras, or from the Company themselves, or from the Sovereign of this country here, recognized and confirmed a hereditary character in the Nawabship of the Carnatic. And it was not till 1855, when Mahomed Ghouse expired, that this foolish tale of treason imputed to the progenitors of the prince some sixty or seventy years before was revived—a false and contradictory construction put upon the Treaty of 1801; and the representative and heir of the most faithful and devoted of the allies, who had stood by us in all our struggles and distresses and perils, set aside with the cold and heartless contumely of official despotism, and degraded to the rank of a subject and the condition of a dependent upon the bounty of his oppressors. Sir, I address myself now especially to the Ministers of the Crown. The East India Company exist no longer; and if the general tenor of their policy is to be judged of by their conduct in 1855 towards this prince, it is well that their power has passed away from them, and that a higher and greater administrator has become the ruler of the people of India, and the disposer of the destinies of its Native princes. The Queen has now assumed the government of that country, and declared herself the protectress of its princes. I entreat the House to consider the language of Her Majesty's proclamation. It speaks in these terms to the princes of India— We hereby announce to the Native princes of India that all treaties and engagements made with them, by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company, are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained; and we look for the like observance on their part. We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions; and while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions, or our rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of our Native princes as our own, and we desire that they, as well as our own subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government. Sir, this prince has never done an act to forfeit the goodwill, the countenance, the protection of the Queen. In the unhappy crisis of 1857, though smarting under the insults and the injuries of the Company, he stood faithfully and loyally by the British Crown and the British people. He is the high-priest of the Mahometan religion in those parts, and he exercised the influence which that character conferred upon him, to tranquillize and pacify the people around him, and while agitation and disturbance prevailed throughout more than half of our dominions in the East, Madras and the Carnatic were at peace. Sir, I am not insensible to the inconveniences that may arise from the existence of a number of these titular sovereigns above or beyond the reach of the law scattered throughout India, with numerous families and retinues, of different habits and different codes of morality from ourselves, with us and among us, but not of us. I cannot, however, admit that these considerations should prevail against the great and universal and everlasting principles of truth, good faith, and justice. When I last addressed this House on behalf of the prince, though I ventured upon an opinion, I could hold out no pledge as to the future. Now, however, I have the authority of His Highness to say that he is ready to agree to a convention, to be sanctioned by an act of the Legislature of India, under which his family and dependents, with the single exception of the heir-apparent for the time being would become in all respects subject to the law, and the jurisdiction of the courts. Sir, I shall not enter upon the vexed question of the policy of annexation in India, which has divided public opinion and left the world in doubt whether impartial history hereafter will confer undying fame and honour, or throw deep discredit upon the great names and the memory of Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning. It may be a profitable and a beneficial policy to England to annex to its already gigantic possessions the territories of every prince in India, from Cape Comorin to the confines of China. But no policy can be sound and good which wars against the eternal and unchanging principles of justice. It is to these that I appeal, when I ask of this House not to pronounce a decision upon these claims, but to put them in a course of fair and impartial inquiry. If the result of that inquiry be that the claims are groundless, the Government will have satisfied the House and the country that it has done its duty. If, on the other hand, the documents, the high legal authorities, the undoubted and unquestionable facts which, though at great and inconvenient length, I have but sparingly and cursorily submitted to the House, should be found to prove, as I feel that they do prove, that these claims are righteous and just, then I cannot doubt that the Ministers of the Crown will hasten to repair the wrong that has been done, and this House will have exercised its sacred and inestimable privilege of granting protection and redress to the helpless and the oppressed, when no other tribunal exists upon the earth to which they can appeal. I beg, Sir, to conclude by moving— That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the claims of His Highness Prince Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and the claims of his Highness under a treaty entered into in 1801 between the Honourable the East India Company and His Highness Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah.

MR. SMOLLETT

, in seconding the Motion, wished to say a few words. He knew that the Secretary of State for India (Sir Charles Wood) liked to hear everything that could be said against his Department before replying, and he would indulge the right hon. Gentleman in that respect. Language had not been given to him to conceal his thoughts. He would not touch on the legal phases of the question, which had already been sufficiently treated; besides which the case was one so plain and simple that "he who ran might read," and, moreover, Lord Harris had never taken the trouble of consulting any legal person in the matter. Having himself last Session brought forward a Motion of the same nature as this, and dwelt at considerable length on the details of the case, he would on the present occasion merely state how the matter had been disposed of in India, and how it was left in that House last year. To enable the House, however, to understand his argument they must bear in mind the broad features of the case. They must remember that the last Nawab of the Carnatic died in October, 1855, being then possessed of a titular dignity and of a considerable revenue attached thereto, held under the provisions of a treaty entered into in 1801. The prince who died in 1855 had succeeded in 1825, when a child, to his father, who then died, and the father had succeeded in 1819 to his Highness Azeem-ul-Dowlah, the prince with whom the Treaty of 1801 was made. There were thus three generations of princes in succession. When the last prince died, in 1855, the right of succession was claimed by his uncle, his father's brother—a prince who had himself been created by Sir Thomas Monro, Regent and successor with a native title which he need not trouble the House to name. In that capacity he had been received with Royal honours on every public occasion at Government House. His title appeared to be clear, indisputable, indefeasible; but when he made the application no answer whatever was returned to him, and he was treated as if he had been an abject impostor. At the time when the case was disposed of in India the Governor of Madras was Lord Harris, who, with his faithful henchman, Sir Henry Montgomery, wrote a Minute that was submitted to the Home Government by Lord Dalhousie. Like everybody else since the days of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Harris gave three reasons for his conduct. First, he said he treated the claims of the Nawab with contempt, because the arrangement of 1801, upon which he based his claim, was a purely personal treaty made with the Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah, that it terminated with him in 1819, when he died, and after that event it had been looked upon as waste paper by every one of his predecessors in office. If that reason had been true, it would have been a most sufficient and ample one, and to advance any other reason would have been a work of supererogation. But, unfortunately there was not a single word of truth in it. It required, indeed, a considerable amount of Corinthian brass—in common parlance,"cheek"—for that noble Lord to assert that an arrangement terminated in 1819 which had continued up to 1856 unchallenged. It was, moreover, no ordinary demand upon their faith to ask them to believe that the payments of money amounting to some two and a half millions in all, which had been made up to the year 1856, would have been continued by the East India Company if they had been under no moral or legal obligation to do so. An idea appeared to have flitted across the feeble mind even of Lord Harris that he would not be believed in that assertion, and, therefore, he invented a second reason on the spot—namely, that admitting the Treaty of 1801 to be permanent and in- tended to endure for all time coming—as its preamble stated, the time had come, in his Lordship's estimation, for declaring the whole instrument null and void, be-cause, he said, it contained an immoral provision. He was a very religious man, Lord Harris, and the immoral provision of the treaty was that it made a permanent and suitable provision for the representative of a distinguished Native family. That in his Lordship's estimation was so scandalous a job, a proceeding so indecent that it vitiated the whole transaction. But, lest that should not suffice, his Lordship fell back on a third reason—namely, that there never was a Treaty of 1801 at all. That was the way in which he disposed of the whole case. Last year, he (Mr. Smollett) had protested against the absurdity of such a view of the case, and he had asked the House, as the hon. and learned Gentleman now did, to appoint a Committee to inquire whether the Treaty of 1801 was not a permanent arrangement, when he then commented at some length on the folly, the insolence, the grotesque absurdity of assigning such reasons for an official decision, the Treasury Bench was more than usually filled with its ordinary occupants. There were then present the noble Viscount the First Lord of the Treasury—once a juvenile Whig, and now called an ancient Minister; on his right sat the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of his disciples, whom he loved most dearly—a Gentleman who, it was said, was intriguing for the succession, though his chief still looked hearty and vigorous, and it was hoped would long continue so to be; on his left was the Secretary of State for India, of whom he should say something presently; and on either side of these sat the Attorney and Solicitor General, their faces beaming with intelligence, but like harpies, eager for the prey. He had really thought he should be utterly discomfited by the united learning, ability, and wisdom of these Gentlemen; but, strange to say, neither the noble Viscount nor his right hon. Friend, nor his learned associates, so much as ventured to approach the discussion. They were there at the commencement and remained till the end, but it was only to vote. Although he did not arrogate to himself that he was a man of any consequence in the House, still, as an independent Member, having brought a grave charge against a Department of the State in no improper spirit, he thought he was entitled to a reply—an official reply. It had, been said more than once in his hearing in that House by the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Bernal Osborne) that Whig Gentlemen when long inured to office were apt to become arrogant and insolent. The hon. Member for Liskeard was, he believed, a discontented politican, but being himself a very good-natured fellow in the main, he would not use language like that towards Ministers. Again, they all remembered the kind way in which the hon. Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff) last year spoke of the Secretary of State for India. He said the right hon. Gentleman could not make a statement regarding his Department intelligible, because Providence had deprived him of the power of lucid articulation. These were samples of the usual amenities, the little compliments passed by the rank and file of the Liberal party upon their leaders and captains. There was too much familiarity in the ranks, and sometimes it engendered contempt. As he had no claim to be on familiar terms with the right hon. Gentleman, as no amorous dalliance had passed between himself and the Treasury Bench, although he was open to an offer, he would speak of them as great functionaries of the State ought to be spoken of, and would tell them plainly and distinctly that he believed they gave him no answer because no effective answer could be given to him. There were some cases too discreditable to be defended, and in these a prudent reticence was possibly the most prudent course to follow. But though he received no official reply, some hon. Members with more zeal than discretion offered what they said was an explanation of the case. First came the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent (Mr. Grenfell). He could not understand that hon. Gentleman's argument at the time, but he had since read it in Hansard, and he believed that he now comprehended the drift of his observations. The hon. Gentleman stated that if the Nawab of the Carnatic had lived under a pure and perfect Mahommedan Government he would have been immured in a prison for life because he was the next heir to the throne, and he appeared to regard him as a most ungodly scoundrel, deserving almost of the bow-string, because having been allowed to go at large, he had turned round upon his benefactors and accused them of defrauding him of his inheritance. The hon. Member then maintained that the Indian Exchequer ought to be sharply looked to. He agreed with him in that, but he did not think that the best way to fill the Exchequer was to plunder the Native princes. Honesty was the best policy, though that was a doctrine that did not find much favour on the Treasury Bench. And, in conclusion, the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent said that he would vote against inquiry, because no ground had been shown for considering that the Treaty of 1801 was a permanent treaty, except by the production of a stray expression found in a loose memorandum written by the Duke of Wellington, a memorandum which contained sentiments diametrically opposed to the opinions of every statesman, from Lord Clive downwards. He denied that any statesman from Lord Clive downwards had ever declared that the Treaty of 1801 was a temporary one. Lord Clive declared that it was made for perpetuity, and if Lord Wellesley ever asserted that it was a temporary one, why was not the despatch which contained that statement produced? If it could be shown that either Lord Clive or the Marquess of Wellesley had ever laid down that doctrine he would give up the case at once. In 1805 it is admitted that the Duke of Wellington expressly stated that his brother made the treaty with the Nawab and his heirs. In 1812 the Marquess of Hastings in a personal interview had with Azeem-ul-Dowlah assured the Prince that the treaty would always be construed in its plain signification, because the honour of England was involved in its maintenance; and in 1819 an official opportunity occurred to that great statesman for deciding what the proper construction of the treaty was. The Nawab died in that year, and the Government of Madras then asked if the succession was to go to the eldest son. Lord Wellesley answered that the treaty included the sons as well as the father, and that there was no occasion whatever for a new treaty arrangement. He put it to the Secretary for India how could this be a personal treaty with Azeem-ul-Dowlah and yet include his sons, who were living to-day, and had been disinherited. The right hon. Gentleman sat still and made no answer, but he hoped he would yet rise and tell the House how that could be. Again, in 1822, Sir Thomas Monro, than whom there never was a more efficient or honourable Governor of Madras, declared the treaty to be permanent and in full force; that it recognized the Nawab of the Carnatic as a Sovereign prince, and that no alteration could be made without the consent of the family. Again, in 1833, the Marquess of Tweeddale gave notice to the home authorities that the present Regent was the heir presumptive to the Musnud—that was, to the titular dignity and to the emoluments belonging thereto, and no objection was taken to this Report. Who, then, were the band of great statesmen who, from the time of "Lord Clive downwards" had declared this treaty to be a temporary one? They existed only in the brain of the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent. Nor was the Duke of Wellington's memorandum unworthy of attention. The hon. Gentleman could not have spoken of it more contemptuously if it had been written after dinner when his Grace was half seas over; but the fact was that it was an historical memorandum, extending over more than four hundred pages, compiled from the private papers of the Marquess of Wellesley and the Public Records written at the suggestion of the first Minister of the Crown, revised, corrected, and placed in the Government archives as a State document. To speak of this document as undeserving of credit was an artful dodge, but it was a manoeuvre unworthy of the Member for Stoke-upon-Trent and of his position in this House. His hon. and gallant relative the Member for Ayr (Sir James Fergusson) also took part in the debate to which he was referring, but he was a discreet Conservative and therefore he would deal with him lightly. The hon. Baronet, however, knew nothing about India, but he appeared to have some idea that the mantle of the Marquess of Dalhousie had fallen upon his shoulders. He passed a panygeric upon that noble Marquess, and seemed to think that these proceedings must be all right because he had been concerned in them. He had not, for reasons which were known to the hon. Baronet, introduced the name of the Marquess of Dalhousie into this question; but, as he had thus been challenged, he would say what he thought of what that noble Lord did. In a Minute, dated the 28th of February, 1856, a few months after the suppression of the Nawab's title, in which Lord Dalhousie gave a history of his brilliant achievements in India, and blew his own trumpet pretty loudly, he stated that in the autumn of 1855 the Nawab of the Carnatic died very suddenly; and then, like a true Peelite, he proceeded to assign three reasons for what he did. He said— First, as the treaty with the predecessor of the Nawab was a purely personal one; secondly, as the late Nawab had left no heirs male; and thirdly, as the family had grossly abused their dignity and the large sums which had been set apart for their maintenance, the Court of Directors had been advised to put the title of Nawab in abeyance. These few lines contained a vast amount of equivocation and some absolute untruths. As the noble Lord's Minutes had not come home, he cautiously said that he had advised the Court of Directors to put the title of Nawab in abeyance; but the fact was that he had recommended its suppression. In Don Juan, Lord Byron described the pirate Lambro, the father of the amorous young woman Haidee, as a "sea attorney." The swell mobsmen of London were accustomed to describe the theft of a watch as "an act of conveyancing." So Lord Dalhousie, when he plundered one of the princes of India, spoke of the act quite sportively and jocosely as "putting the title in abeyance." His Lordship first called the Treaty of 1801 a personal treaty; well, the object of this proposed inquiry was to ascertain whether it was or not. Secondly, the Nawab, he said, had left no heirs male; but that was a positive misstatement. Lord Harris was at that time in frequent communication with Lord Dalhousie but he never made so audacious an assertion. He said there were so many heirs male that he hoped the treaty would be declared null and void to get rid of them. But thirdly, said Lord Dalhousie, these people had abused their dignity and honour and spent their money in an unworthy manner, and therefore they should be suppressed. It was his Lordship that abused his high position in plundering the family of an ancient ally. The truth was, as he knew personally, that this young prince had been neglected by the Government of Madras, and left uneducated; he had been plundered; we were his guardians; we lamented his impecuniosity, which had been caused by ourselves, and in the end gave that as a reason for suppressing the title and taking from him the accompanying allowances. He should not have gone into these matters, but his hon. Friend the Member for Ayrshire had incited him to it by passing a eulogium on the merits of Lord Dalhousie, which he hoped he would never do again. His hon. Friend was followed by the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) who had the reputation of being a close and severe logician, although his logic on this occasion was shallow and inconclusive. He said "that happily for himself the case of the Nawab could be disposed of in three or four sentences," and then characteristically in those few sentences misrepresented the whole case. He (Mr. Smollett) had asked by what title we held the Carnatic if this treaty were null and void. The right hon. Gentleman replied that the native right to hold it had been forfeited by their treason and rebellion; but where was the proclamation in which any such pretext had been put forward? In 1801 Azeem-ul-Dowlah, the legitimate monarch, transferred the country to us, and by that treaty alone we held it now. Treason and rebellion existed nowhere but in the imagination of the right hon. Member for Calne. But he went further, and said that the Treaty of 1801 decided the point of hereditary succession, as it said nothing whatever on the subject, while the preceding Treaties of 1787 and 1792 had expressly provided for the hereditary succession. This omission in 1801, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman held showed that it was not to be continued. But the right hon. Gentleman forgot, if he ever knew, that the Treaty of 1801 sanctioned and confirmed the other treaties which are not, therefore, repealed, but which still exist, and are yet in full force. But, after all, said the right hon. Gentleman, this was not a transaction of which any person could be proud. Well, he had always heard that the right hon. Gentleman was regarded as a master of severe and unbending logic; but a more extraordinary, a more illogical conclusion never came under his observation. According to the right hon. Gentleman's showing, the Acts of Lords Harris and Dalhousie were strictly legal and correct. A treaty which ought never to have been made, because made with traitors expired in 1819. By some chicanery it had been continued; through this, a vast sum of money had been wasted. At last, on the death of the head of the family, in 1855, the fraud was brought to light by Lord Harris and the matter was put upon a proper footing. Surely if this be a true statement the transaction is one which might challenge the approbation of the world; and yet the right hon. Gentleman says it is one which we must regard with pain. He quite agreed that this was a transaction that they must look on with pain, but for very different reasons from those assigned by the right hon. Gentleman. They must look on it with pain because it was conceived in secresy, suggested by fraudulent misrepresentation, and consummated by a vast amount of equivocation. These were the only reasons he could conjure to himself why this transaction should be regarded with pain. These, at all events, were the reasons why he looked on the authors of this transaction with mingled feelings of contempt and disgust. On what ground was the case of the Nawab based? It was founded on an allegation that under a document signed on the 31st of July, 1801, he was entitled to hold this titular dignity. He did not come before the House with the moan of a beggar and with the whine of a mendicant, as the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) said Irishmen were accustomed to do in that House. He claimed this title and the large annuity which had been conferred on him legally, and he asked for inquiry into his claims in the interests of justice. The case was so clear, and reduced to so narrow a point—whether this treaty was meant for permanence—that he really could not conceive how any Committee could meet three or four times without being in a position to give an authoritative decision upon it. And why was not the Committee granted? The House was in the habit of appointing Committees even on somewhat trivial occasions to inquire into injustice said to be done to individuals. Last year a Committee was appointed to inquire into the conduct of the Department with which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne had been connected. The case was investigated, and the right hon. Gentleman had been acquitted of blame. To-night an inquiry was proposed with reference to a trivial act of injustice committed on Mr. Morell. If Committees were appointed for such objects, why were they not to inquire into this great injustice perpetrated by two noble Lords? Why was a Committee refused? The reason was that by no official act, by no contrivance, could any Committee be got together at all likely to take a favourable view of this Carnatic transaction. That was the reason why the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Wood) offered to this case such an amount of passive resistance. They were told last year that if matters of this kind were raked up the founda- tions of our Indian Empire would be rent asunder. If that were so, the sooner such an empire, founded on a rope of sand, passed away the better. This was mere subterfuge, mere invention. The case of the Nawab was not the only instance of injustice perpetrated in Southern India in 1855. The Rajah of Tanjore, a titular prince, enjoying a large income, under a treaty, also died suddenly in 1855; he and his father had enjoyed it for sixty years, and there were not any heirs male left. The title was declared lapsed quite properly, and the annuity ceased. But the Rajah had been thrifty; his property was worth £350,000, and the Governor of Madras, thinking it would be a good opportunity to replenish the coffers of the State, confiscated the whole amount. He sent down auctioneers, sold off the property as he would that of a bankrupt linendraper; he treated the wives and female children with greater indignity than they would have been treated if they had fallen into the hands of thieves or bandits. The case was taken before the Privy Council, and he (Mr. Smollett) brought the subject before that House, and with the assistance of some Friends on both sides of the House he obtained at least a promise that the case should be investigated. At the lapse of two or three years the case was reconsidered, and the whole of the plundered property restored. Did this act of justice cause rebellion in Southern India, or was our dominion less secure in consequence? He had had hundreds of letters assuring him that the restitution of that property had given the greatest possible satisfaction to all, except the individuals who had plundered it, and, he asked, would there not be equal satisfaction if justice were done to the Nawab of the Carnatic? That prince did not come suing for mercy, but rested his claim on the Treaty of 1801. He asked that the subject should be investigated conscientiously, and he (the Nawab) would abide by the result. He (Mr. Smollett) thought the House would fail in its obvious duty if it did not compel an inquiry. He thought that the Legislature, now that we professed to govern India on Christian principles was especially bound to see that when charges were made involving our honour and good faith, such charges were not to be thrown aside merely because those concerned held high and responsible positions under the British Government.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the claim of His Highness Prince Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of Nawab of the Carnatic, and the claims of His Highness under a Treaty entered into in 1801 between the Honourable East India Company and His Highness Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah."—(Sir Fitz Roy Kelly.)

SIR EDWARD DERING

said, he did not rise so much for the purpose of going into the general question before the House as to make a few observations on the remarks that had been made by the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Smollett). The hon. Gentleman said he did not intend that his language should conceal his thoughts. But if his language correctly conveyed his thoughts he (Sir Edward Dering) could not congratulate him on his frame of mind. He would endeavour to avoid the example set by the hon. Member, and to express his opinions in language more in accordance with the general usage of that House. The hon. Gentleman had thought fit to impugn in, no measured terms, the conduct of Lord Harris, the late Governor of Madras. Nothing was so easy as to frame a charge against any individual, provided actions were imputed to him of which he had not been guilty, and language was attributed to him entirely and totally at variance with that he had used. He would first state the charges made against Lord Harris by the hon. Gentleman, he would then refer to the original account given of the transaction by Lord Harris, and finally he would leave the House to form its own opinion as to how far those charges were established. The tendency of the whole of the speech to which they had just listened was to show that Lord Harris, in his position of Governor of Madras, had in 1855 compromised the national honour and the national faith. Now, Lord Harris on that occasion, in one of the opening paragraphs of the Minutes, while expressing his opinion in favour of determining this mock Royalty, explicitly stated that he would not advocate its abrogation if any breach of national honour or faith would be thereby involved. If the noble Lord had put an arbitrary construction upon the treaty in order to accomplish the end he had in view, no doubt there might have been some ground for the contention of the hon. Gentleman; but it was an established fact that Lord Harris, so far from adopting such a course, had made the Treaty of 1801 the keystone of his policy. The noble Lord had quoted the recorded opinions of those by whom the treaty was framed—he had quoted the opinions of Lord Wellesley and Lord Clyde to show that the treaty was a mere personal one, and that its provisions would come to an end on the death of the Nawab. On this point Lord Wellesley said— The whole question of the succession will therefore be completely open to the decision of the Company upon the decease of the present Nabob. Lord Clyde said— Throughout the whole of these negotiations the Nabob stated his conviction that the right of his Highnesses family founded on its connection with the Company was annihilated, and that he considered the causes of his own elevation to have flowed from the generosity and moderation of the British Government. Sir John Malcolm, the historian, a high authority upon such a subject, also said— Azeem-ul-Dowlah was positively openly declared to have no hereditary claims; the treaty is made with him alone, and no provision is made for a successor. Lord Wellesley had thought it so desirable to put that question beyond the possibility of dispute, that he altered the original draft of the preamble and the first article of the treaty, in order that it might be placed upon record that the grant was made by the generosity of the British Government, and that the claim of the Nawab did not proceed from any hereditary right. The hon. Gentleman had blamed Lord Harris for asserting that the same policy was adopted in 1819 as he followed in 1855. Now, the Madras Government, on the death of the Nawab, informed the agent that as it did not appear that any positive stipulation had been inserted in the Treaty of 1801 respecting the rights of his eldest son, or of any other member of his family, to succeed to the Nawabship of the Carnatic, the Government would be precluded from acknowledging him until specific orders had been received from the Governor General. The Governor General replied that the Government were pleased to acknowledge the eldest legitimate son, and had resolved that the pecuniary provisions of the Treaty of 1801 should remain in force. If the eldest son had succeeded by hereditary right there would have been no necessity for the Government of India to have passed a Resolution that they should pay him as they had done his father. [Mr. SMOLLETT: Certainly there would.] He thought otherwise. Exactly the same policy was followed in 1825, when the Government of India, in reply to a communication of Sir Thomas Monro, stated that they had resolved to place the infant son of the late Nawab in his father's position, and thus showed that they then entertained views similar to those previously expressed. It must have been a great satisfaction to Lord Harris to find that eminent statesman Lord Dalhousie in one of his despatches say— I entirely agree that the Treaty of 1801 confers no right of hereditary succession—it is a purely personal treaty; there is no mention of heirs and successors. Lord Wellesley was not a man who did things without reason. When, therefore, while negotiating treaties with the Nawab of Oude and others, and forming treaties with those princes, their heirs and successors, and omitting all mention of them in the Treaty of 1801 alone, it is very certain Lord Wellesley did not intend to extend its provisions beyond the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah. He thought it must have been equally satifactory to Lord Harris and Lord Dalhousie to find that their first opinion on the subject was confirmed by the Court of Directors. Those who lived at the time must of necessity be better judges of the circumstances than a Committee of the House would be. The hon. and learned Member had referred to a passage in Mr. Mill's book of India, which he relied on as throwing considerable doubt on the fact of a treasonable correspondence; but in the passage of that work immediately following the one to which the hon. and learned Member alluded—Mr. Mill observed— It is most remarkable that of all the Englishmen in India of whose sentiments on that occasion we have any record, the Governor General, his Council, the Governor of Fort St. George, his Council, the Examining Commissioners, and the Persian translator, the very foremost men in India, not one appears to have doubted that the evidence we have examined established undeniably the facts which they so eagerly desired to infer. Under all the circumstances he could not see —notwithstanding the able and lengthened address of the hon. and learned Gentleman—that a Committee was called for in this case. The archives of Calcutta and Madras had been searched, the evidence had been on the table for years, and the House had before them all the materials necessary for enabling them to come to a conclusion. He did not mean to question the assertion of the hon. and learned Gentleman that the terms of the treaty were vague and ambiguous, but he thought this was one of the cases in which they must look to the spirit of the treaty, and not catch at vague and ambiguous expressions. They must take the circumstances as a whole; and looking at them in this way they must remember the statement of Lord Wellesley and the declaration of Lord Clive, that the young Nabob was perfectly cognizant of and assented to the provisions of the treaty. He regarded the revival of demands as this as calculated to stir up strife, engender bad feeling, create a sense of insecurity in India, and encourage hopes only doomed to disappointment. He thought, also, that on reflection the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Smollett) would feel that it would have been better taste to try the question on its merits than to throw out aspersions upon a man who stood so high with all parties as his noble Friend Lord Harris—a nobleman under whom the hon. Gentleman himself had had the advantage of serving, whose high character he must have had an opportunity of appreciating, and of whom he must therefore have known that there was no man less likely on any occasion to compromise the honour of his Sovereign or his country.

MR. VANSITTART

could not recognize the justice of the claim now put forward after the very liberal manner in which the Indian Government had treated the family of Prince Azeein Jah. They had paid a sum of £320,000 for debts incurred by the profligacy of the late Nawab. They had continued the allowance of £15,000 a year to his concubines and "pretty horse-breakers," and the payments to this family had been increased. Immense sums had been paid to natives of India who had put forward every sort of claim in the manner adopted by the individual who called himself Prince Azeein Jah. Why were so many of those claims put forward over and over again? He must express his conviction that the vacillating and evasive manner in which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India was in the habit of replying to questions of this nature induced hon. Members who took an interest in Indian affairs to revert to those claims again and again. In 1861 he called attention to the munificence of the right hon. Baronet, whereby in 1860 he bestowed upwards of half a million on the worthless descendants of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan, and at the same time put all these Indian claimants on the qui vive. On the 25th of July, 1861, the junior Member for Southwark brought forward this claim, and the right hon. Baronet said that he concurred generally in the remarks of the hon. Gentleman. On the 15th of August, three weeks after, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Layard) was appointed Under Secretary of State; and by way of showing his gratitude for the same he gave the cold shoulder to Azeem Jah when the hon. Member for Dumbarton brought the claim forward last Session and divided the House on it. This was a most unsatisfactory state of affairs, and such a shuttlecock system was ill-calculated to give the princes of India much respect for the decisions which the House came to on these questions. He believed that several cases in which large amounts were involved would shortly be brought before the House. One of those cases was that of the Begum Sombrie, which involved no less a sum than £700,000 and had been pending for upwards of twenty-nine years. On the subject of these Indian claims he would take the liberty of quoting an extract from a speech of a great Indian authority, the late Lord Macaulay. After eulogizing most highly the administration of the late East India Company and the eminent services always rendered by the Company's civil servants, he observed— It would clearly have been the duty of those who were charged with the superintendence of India to scrutinize with the utmost severity every claim which might be made on the Indian revenues, and to oppose with energy and perseverance every such claim unless its justice were manifest. What India pays to these nominal princes, to the titular Nabob of Bengal, for example, or to the titular King of Delhi, who, while they did anything did mischief, and who now do nothing, she—that is India—may well consent to pay to her real rulers if she receives from them, in return, efficient protection and good legislation. He submitted that the opinion of Lord Macaulay was worthy of being considered by the House when they had to deal with questions of this kind; and he, for one, should feel bound to vote against the hon. and learned Gentleman's Motion.

MR. NEATE

said, he was not sure that the meaning of the treaty was to convey upon the Nawabs an indefeasible right of hereditary succession. On the contrary, the Indian Government always claimed the right of superseding the right of succession, and of depriving the ruler, if they conceived his acts to be inconsistent with his duty of allegiance to the sovereign. Still there was no doubt —though it was stated on the authority of Mr. Edmonstone that there was no direct line —that the present claimant was a lineal descendant of the Nawab with whom the treaty was made; and a renunciation of the actual government of the Carnatic did not necessarily involve a renunciation of its revenues. After a careful consideration of the whole question, he thought there was just sufficient doubt about it to make it advisable and right that the Government should accede to the proposition of his hon. and learned Friend.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

thought his hon. and learned Friend (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) had acted wisely in protesting at the outset of his statement that he should avoid all questions of policy, for if the questions of policy connected with this subject were taken into consideration there could be but one opinion—that it was impolitic to maintain in India a number of nominal Sovereigns and nominal Courts—Sovereigns who had no power and to whom no power could be safely intrusted—who had only this attribute of sovereignty that they were above all law, and could commit almost any wrong with impunity. The existence of these mock courts was nothing but unmixed evil to the people of India, their abolition would inflict no harm on a single human being, and would confer an immense benefit upon the people of India and upon ourselves. The question, then, came to this, where we bound to perpetuate these acknowledged evils for all time? Certainly very strong arguments would be needed to bring the House to a conclusion so disastrous to our Government in India. The discussion though it had travelled over a wide field, might be compressed within comparatively narrow bounds. It was asserted by those who said that we ought to perpetuate these evils for all time that we were bound to do so by the Treaty of 1801. He contended that the terms of that treaty warranted no such construction—next, that if we were to travel beyond the terms of that treaty to ascertain what the intentions of the parties to it were, it would be seen that they were diametrically opposed to the representation which the hon. and learned Gentleman had given of them; and, further than that, that the treaty was expressly framed for the purpose of excluding the possibility of any such interpretation. But, before coming to the terms of the treaty, perhaps it would be as well to cast a glance at the state of the Carnatic at the time. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke repeatedly of the Nawab of the Carnatic as a Sovereign succeeding through a long line of ancestors, and an opinion of Dr. Twiss had been quoted, which was said to refer to an ancient consuetudo to that effect. In a note to Mr. Mill, Mr. Wilson said— The Nawab of the Carnatic was originally nothing more than an officer of the Soubadar of the Deccan, appointed and removed at the pleasure of his superior. That he had been rendered independent of the Soubadar was not even his own act, it was the work of the English; he owed everything to their protection; he was their creature, not their equal. We were asked from time to time by what title did we hold the Carnatic before the Treaty of 1801? and it was supposed that our right rested entirely on that treaty. Why, we were masters of the Carnatic as early as 1763, when the power of the French was destroyed. From that time we had sole power, and the Nawab had just as much power as we chose to grant him. Mr. Mill said— After the final overthrow of the French in the Carnatic (1763), they not only now beheld the man whose interest they had espoused in the possession of the Government of the country, but they beheld him dependent on themselves, and the whole kingdom of the Carnatic subject to their absolute will. It was the grand object of deliberation, and the grand practical difficulty to settle in what proportion the powers and advantages should be divided between the nominal Sovereign and the real one. The English were not disposed to forget that upon them the whole burden of the war had devolved, that they alone had conquered and gained the country, that the assistance of Mohammed Ali had been of little, or rather of no importance, and that even now he possessed not resources and talent sufficient to hold the Government in his hands unless they continued to support him. From that time we were the real rulers of the Carnatic, the Nawabs were our creatures, though to a certain extent we did acknowledge a nominal sovereignty in them. It was perfectly true that we entered into treaties with the Nawabs in 1762, 1787, and 1792 in which were contained the potent words," heirs and successors. "The value of these words was perfectly understood by the parties and by all the lawyers and statesmen throughout the world. But in the Treaty of 1801—the only one now relied upon—which as he should show put an end to all the former treaties—those words, "heirs and successors," were omitted, in order that there might be no possibility of a contention arising. They were omitted by Lord Wellesley, because, whatever might be the opinion of his hon. and learned Friend opposite, a clearer case of treachery never was made out against anybody than was made out against the Nawab of the Carnatic. Lord Wellesley's private secretary, Sir John Malcolm, thus wrote on this point— The impression made on the mind of the Governor General by this conduct of the Nabob and his officers was such that the Governor General repeatedly declared that if the Nabob had been decidedly in league with the enemy, he could not have adopted measures more calculated to embarrass the operations of the British Government, and to favour the cause of the enemy, and that his conduct could not be explained on any other grounds than that he actually was in league with Tippoo Sultan. Lord Wellesley did not condemn the Nawabs on suspicion. It was only upon the taking of Seringapatam that there was found in the palace of Tippoo Saib a correspondence which was in cypher with the Nabob. ["No!"] It was so asserted in the papers. He would read what was written by Lord Wellesley, Lord Clive, and Sir John Malcolm, who had accesss to that correspondence, and formed an opinion therefrom. They said that the correspondence was found in Tippoo's Palace, and the key also. [Sir FITZROY KELLY: There is nothing of the kind in the papers.] He asserted that it would be found in the papers that the key was found and examples were given explaining the key as applicable to the cypher. Upon those grounds Lord Wellesley and Lord Clive, together with those who assisted them in the inquiry, came to the conclusion that there had been the deepest treachery on the part of the Nabob, who owed everything to us, and that while pretending to assist us he had been carrying on a correspondence with Tippoo Saib adverse to our interests, and for the purpose of our destruction. Upon that point he would call attention to the statements of those who were most competent to give opinions upon this matter. Lord Wellesley said— No doubt exists in my mind that the British Government would now be completely justified in depriving the Nabob of all power over his country and reducing him to the state of a mere pensioner. Lord Clive, writing to Lord Wellesley, said— Previously to the receipt of your Lordship's despatches,… I had determined to take immediate measures, on the demise of the Nabob Omrat-ul-Omrah, for exercising the Government of the Carnatic on the part of the Company. Sir John Malcolm said— The evidence of the Nabob's treachery, which was as positive as ever can be expected to be obtained in such cases, added to His Highness's conduct, which in every act from the day of his accession corroborated the truth of that evidence, would certainly have justified the Governor General in immediately proceeding against him as an enemy of the State, and the intimacy of his connection with the Company increased the danger to be apprehended. That was the state of things in 1801, before the treaty, when those who had discovered the treachery of the Nabob felt justified in treating him as an enemy, and that we had the right and the power to take possession of his country, and that all former treaties were abrogated by his acts of hostility. But whether this were so or not it was not for the present claimant to deny it, owing as he did his title to the abrogation of those treaties, and the passing over the rightful heir in his favour. It was by the Treaty of 1801, therefore, that the present claimant must stand, for if the former treaties were in force he would not be the right heir, and instead of sitting upon the throne he would probably have found himself in a dungeon. That being the state of affairs, we had the power and the right to take possession of the Carnatic; but it was not thought wise to exercise that power to the full extent, and negotiations were entered into with the son of the old Nabob, which failed, because he would not accede to the terms proposed; and it was upon the failure of these negotiations that Azeem Dowlah was taken out of the regular line of succession and placed upon the throne by the Company. With him a treaty was entered into, from which the words "heirs and successors" were omitted, which had given validity to former treaties beyond the life-time of the contracting parties. Although those words were not in the treaty, originally there was a recital that he succeeded by hereditary right; but Lord Wellesley said that would not do, and that clause was struck out. In order that the House might see clearly what were the views of Lord Wellesley, he would read an extract of a letter to Lord Clive, then Governor of Madras— Your Lordship is fully aware that the result of the discovery which has been made of the late Nabob's treacherous correspondence with the late Tippoo Sultan had placed the Soubadar of the Carnatic in the situation of a public enemy to the British Government, had annihilated the existing treaties between the Nabob and the Company, and had sanctioned the enforcement of such measures as the British Government might deem necessary for the security of its rights and interests… This is the fundamental principle upon which the late arrangements have been founded; and consequently the acknowledgment of an inherent right in any member of the family of the late Nabob to succeed to the Soubadarry of the Carnatic is incompatible with the maintenance of that principle. That was the ground upon which Lord Wellesley sent back the treaty. Afterwards an altered form of treaty was submitted to the Nabob, to which he acceded, the particular words objected to being omitted. In order, further, to prove the intentions of both parties he would quote an extract from a letter from Lord Clive, stating the manner in which the Nabob received the altered treaty. Lord Clive said— Lord Clive is happy to inform the Governor General that this acknowledgment was entirely voluntary on the part of His Highness, and that the faith of the British Government has in no degree been pledged to recognize any inherent rights in the Nabob Azeem-ul-Dowlah. Throughout the late negotiations His Highness stated his conviction that the rights of His Highness's family founded on its connection with the Company, had been annihilated by the violation of the alliance, and that he considered the causes of his own elevation to have flowed from the generosity and moderation of the British Government. His Highness relinquished all claim to the acknowledgment of his hereditary pretensions. Therefore it was clear that not only did the words of the altered treaty not imply hereditary rights, but that both contracting parties knew that the words "heirs and successors" were intentionally omitted, and that the Nabob fully assented to hold his title from the Company. The real question was on the construction of the treaty, and that could not well be affected by what was said or done by the parties after its completion. If expressions were used on one side, however, they must be used on the other, and it was not immaterial to see what was done on the death of Azeem Dowlah in 1819. Upon his death his successor was not recognized by the Government of Madras, and the question was referred to the Government of Bengal; but after some time he was recognized, and there was no necessity for any new treaty, because he adopted the provisions of the former treaty, which applied to him. He (the Solicitor General) would read an extract from a letter written by the successor of Azeem Dowlah, which would prove that he regarded himself as holding his position at the will of the East India Company. The young prince wrote— The gracious condescension of his Lordship, in acknowledging me as the successor of my deceased father, in the rank and title of Nabob of the Carnatic; the congratulations which you offer me on this occasion; your informing me that my succession to the Musnud will be immediately proclaimed; and that the pecuniary provisions of the treaty concluded between the Hon. Company and my late father will be continued, have bound me by the strongest ties of attachment to his Lordship and yourself. You have acted towards me as an affectionate grandfather would act towards a beloved grandson, and it is quite impossible for me to express my gratitude in adequate terms. That letter was an admission that the writer possessed no hereditary title, but held his position entirely under the East India Company. He would not trouble the House further upon that point, as he had shown that neither by the letter nor by the spirit of the treaty, nor by the expressed intentions of its framers, could the Government be called upon to accede to the claims now put forth. His right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India had simply declined to reverse the judgment of Lord Dalhousie—a judgment formed ten years ago, after the most mature consideration, and concurred in by Lord Harris, to whom it would only be an affront to attempt any reply to the vituperation showered upon that nobleman by a hon. Gentleman (Mr. Smollett) who had spoken. He would venture to say that his right hon. Friend was right in the course he had adopted, and that no good, and probably much evil, would result from the appointment of a Committee to investigate, after a lapse of more than fifty years, and with necessarily imperfect information, questions which had been determined by Lord Wellesley and Lord Clive upon the fullest information, and after mature deliberation. They had heard, too, of similar claims from other princes, and the appointment of the Committee would, therefore, in his opinion, only have the effect of impressing the people of this country with the idea that it was the intention of the Government to perpetuate those mock Indian courts, and to rake up a number of claims which would be advantageous to none but the claimants themselves, and would tend to undermine the stability of our rule in India.

MR. HENNESSY

desired to refer for a minute to an incident which had occurred during the debate. An hon. Gentleman, the Chairman of the Petitions Committee, had in a marked manner before the debate began, stated that on the examination of the petition presented to the House in favour of the claims of the Nawab it was discovered that one of the signatures was evidently not in the handwriting of the person by whom it purported to have been written, and that he had felt it to be his duty to announce the fact to the House upon the occasion of this debate. The occurrence, however, was by no means an unusual one, and he found that the Petitions Committee had reported a similar fact only last week. It was undoubtedly contrary to the Orders of the House, but it was, nevertheless, a common thing for people to have their names written for them—a circumstance arising from the fact that the Orders of the House in this respect were not generally known. The late Mr. Gregson, when Chairman of that Committee, had noticed the frequency of those occurrences, and had accompanied the notice by a reminder that incapacity or sickness were the only excuses for the adoption of such a course. Many Government Bills had had petitions presented in their favour with regard to which the same objection might have been made. For the first time, however, the fact had been commented upon, and he could not but deprecate the course which had been adopted by the hon. Gentleman, as he feared the effect would be—whether so intended or not—the prejudicing the decision of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Solicitor General had told the House that the treaty upon which this claim was founded was a personal one, and that by it all former treaties were abrogated. That statement, however, was refuted by the second clause, which provided— That such parts of the treaties heretofore concluded between the said East India Company and their Highnesses heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic as are calculated to strengthen the alliance, cement the friendship, and identify the interests of the contracting parties are hereby renewed and confirmed. The 7th article, too, of the Treaty of 1768 provided— That the said Nawab, and after him his son and his heirs in succession, shall enjoy for ever the Government of the Carnatic. It was hardly necessary to go into every particular, as the Motion for the appointment of a Committee was merely for the purpose of inquiring into all those details. He regretted that the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), the late Secretary of State for India, was unavoidably absent that evening. The noble Lord, whom he did not regard as a violent party man, had devoted himself to public questions with an impartiality which had procured for him the respect of both sides of the House. That noble Lord, on the occasion of a similar debate last Session, expressed his regret that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India (Sir Charles Wood) had not risen in his place for the purpose of explaining authoritatively the course adopted by the Government. That remark had no effect, for the House proceeded to a division without receiving any statement from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India. When they found that every statesman living at the time in India or in this country, and who published anything upon the subject, concurred in the opinion that the treaties which had been made conferred upon the Nawab a hereditary and not a personal title, and when they found that at the present time the same opinion was held by authorities like the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn on his side of the House (Lord Stanley), and the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) on the other side, he could not but think that the hon. and learned Member who had moved the appointment of the Committee was perfectly justified in demanding such an inquiry. He must confess that he was surprised that the Government resisted such a demand after the speeches which had been made in the House year after year, and after the expression of opinion throughout England as to the justice of the claim; but if the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend was refused that night, it would be brought on again another Session. He therefore hoped that the House would do justice to the claims of the prince, and also to the feelings of the country, by granting the inquiry which had been asked for

MR. DUNLOP

said, that although he had voted with the minority on the occasion of a similar Motion last Session, he must confess that, owing to the absence of any explanation upon the part of the Government, he entertained doubts lest, not having heard their case, he might have taken a one-sided and erroneous view as to the correctness of the course which he had pursued. He was, however, delighted to find that the able speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General that evening had confirmed his first opinion. He (Mr. Dunlop) supported the Nawab's case purely on public grounds, and had not any Indian feeling or connection to influence him. He had long been of opinion that of all possible tribunals for the consideration of such questions that House was the very worst. When the India Bill was before the House, he proposed a Resolution in favour of establishing some judicial tribunal for the determination of questions between the Government and the Native princes of India. It was too much to suppose that the Native princes would receive justice at the hands of those who profited by injustice, and to expect that they would receive justice from a deliberative Assembly like the House of Commons was almost as little to be imagined. A legal impartial tribunal was, in fact, absolutely necessary to enable justice to be done in such cases. But till such tribunal was created such cases must be decided by this House unfit as they were. He would not go into the old question of the treasonable correspondence, for it had no bearing upon the case. If the conduct of the ancestors of Azeem Jah warranted their forfeiture, it had not been taken advantage of for that purpose. The Government dealt with the Nawab as the Sovereign, and their treaty with him proceeded on the assumption that he was such. The Solicitor General declared that this was a mere personal treaty, but though the Nawab was taken up instead of his cousin, and owed his being placed on the Musnud to the power and authority of the East India Company, he was placed there on the footing on which his forefathers had occupied it, and his son and his grandson have succeeded to it since. The present claimant asked to be established in the rank, property, and status of his father, which were in their own nature hereditary. The Nawab who made the treaty with the Government held a right descendible to his heirs, inherently, and of its own nature, and if it had been intended to be merely personal to the individual it would have required an express limitation of the right to his life rent. But instead of this, the form of the treaty is not that the Nawab had any right conferred upon him by the Company, but that he ceded a portion of his rights, which he held as a dignity and territory descendible to heirs, to the Company; and consequently all that was not ceded remained with him, and followed the law of inheritance. Now, the conveyance to the Company in this treaty, which is their only title of possession, was not universal. There was an express exception. By the fourth article there is ceded to the Company, by the Nawab, the "exclusive administration" of all his territories, and the right to the "revenues" thereof, "with the exception of such portion of the said revenues as shall be appropriated for the maintenance of the said Nabob, and for the support of his dignity," fixed, by the next article of the treaty, at "one-fifth of the net revenues." That fifth never went to the Company at all. They had a suzerain right over him, but no right to take the fifth. He (Mr. Dunlop) thought the case quite clear, but if there was any difficulty or doubt about it, why not let it go to a Select Committee? He would not enter upon the argument raised by the Solicitor General, that it was a matter of policy to put down the Native princes of India, for it seemed to him to be, a little in disguise, the policy recommended the other night for putting down the Maori race in New Zealand. The great and best policy of this country was to do justice.

MR. HENRY SEYMOUR

could not agree with his hon. Friend that it would be desirable to send this case to a Select Committee. The present discussion would, however, show the people and princes of India that questions of justice affecting them were fully investigated in that House. It was unnecessary to go back beyond 1801. The East India Company effected a change in the succession to the Musnud, and placed upon it a member of the family out of the regular line of succession. The Carnatic family had no legal right to what was now claimed. It was a kind of Parliamentary title, and there was the evidence of the Marquess of Wellesley and others, to the effect that the words "heirs and successors" were purposely omitted from the treaty. It conferred, therefore, a personal right only. He believed that, for the sake of the family itself, the Government of India ought to put an end to the title of Nawab of the Carnatic. It was not an ancient dynasty, and the Nawab was but the lieutenant of the Soubadar, who was in turn only the lieutenant of the Emperor. The Nawab was therefore from the beginning the vassal of this country. He had endeavoured to persuade the Government to allow these and other Maho- medan gentlemen in a similar position, who were now beggars in Madras, to re-side throughout the presidencies, and to give them jaghires or grants of the waste land of India of which there was abundance with the further grant of a small money capital upon which they might settle down to agricultural pursuits. One of his objects in rising was to say that, though opposed to a Committee of Inquiry, he thought that the India Office ought to take the case of those gentlemen into consideration, and although he would not allow them one-fifth of the revenues of the Carnatic, yet the utmost liberality should be shown to them —indeed, much more than had been shown by the Secretary of State for India in the £15,000 which he understood had been offered them. It was the duty of the Government to settle questions of this kind at once, and not to put them off so long. With a little energy the present matter might be settled in the course of a few months. He hoped the division that night would set the question at rest for ever. It depended especially upon the India Office to prevent these questions from being brought forward. The right hon. Gentleman had been particularly generous to the family of Mysore, for he made them a very large grant after he had refused the demands for a number of years. But it was a bad precedent to refuse demands for a number of years and then to yield. The proper course would be to sift thoroughly every claim advanced, and when that had been done to refuse to open the case again.

MR. INGHAM

supported the Motion for a Committee, on the ground that in the two vacancies which had occurred after the Treaty of 1801 the hereditary title had been respected, and it was upon that foundation that the right of the present claimant rested. It was stated in a Minute of the Governor General that the uncle of the Nawab of that day claimed upon the ground of certain allusions made to him in former papers, and that no attempt would be made to weaken his claim. That might be taken to mean that in the case of the Nawab leaving no children the uncle would be allowed to succeed. When expectations had been held out to a man they ought to be considered as a pledge. The Government had stated that circumstances had arisen which induced them to set Azeem Jah aside, but they did not say what those circumstances were. Circumstances might have altered, but the House should not presume that they had altered without inquiry.

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Dunlop) expressed a wish to have some other tribunal beyond the House constituted to inquire into the subject, but he had understood the objection stated by the hon. Member to be to a Committee. He was opposed to an investigation, whether conducted by a Committee or by any other tribunal. To propose an investigation by a Committee as had been done by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite into the authenticity of documents in a language unknown to them, and into occurrences which had taken place seventy years ago, was as monstrous a proposition as ever had been made to that House. He hardly thought it necessary to go into any argument on the subject of appointing a Committee, the speech of his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General upon that point had been so conclusive. The whole of the documents connected with the case had been laid upon the table and printed, and he was not aware that there was any question upon which a Committee could throw any light. The hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that the reason why Azeem Jah was deprived in 1855 of the position which his predecessors held, was the imputed treason of Wal-lajah and Omdut-ul-Omrah at the close of the last century; but it was no such thing. The reason for the course taken in 1855 was not any that had been alleged by the hon. and learned Gentleman; it was a reason of policy. The mischief of different kinds which had resulted from the maintenance of these mock Royalties was the real and valid objection to them. Lord Harris stated the reason shortly and as clearly as man could state it and concluded that the strongest grounds of public policy would justify their abolition if it could be done without violation of faith. The existence of those nominal sovereignties, possessed of no power, but beyond the law and exempt from it, wasting their revenues on a number of profligate and fanatical followers, and on some occasions becoming an. actual danger to the Government, was a state of things in the Carnatic and elsewhere which it behoved the Government of India to put an end to as soon as they could, provided no breach of faith was committed. Now, this question of policy was one upon which no person who had addressed the House had expressed an opinion. A signal instance has occurred since the Minute of Lord Harris exemplifying the danger which his foresight had pointed out. The King of Delhi, who had been before referred to, was one of these deposed and nominal princes. When we assumed the paramount sovereignty of India he was left with no territory or power, but was absolutely supreme within the palace of Delhi, and no further. Well, it was notorious that the palace of Delhi was the scene of every vice. He did not say that the King of Delhi instigated the mutiny, but it was the fact that the mutineers assembled at Delhi, that in their presence the King was induced to abet and assent to the murder of English people, and that Delhi was made the centre and focus of the insurrection. What was the result? His sons paid with their lives the penalty of treason, and the King died in exile. Was that a state of things beneficial to the State or to the individual? He maintained that in that and in other like cases it was beneficial to neither, and that an end should be put to a position so fraught with mischief. The case of the Mysore princes at the time of the mutiny at Vellore was a precisely similar one. He did not say that they instigated the mutiny at Vellore, but their followers did, their names were used, it was certain that encouragement was given to the mutiny from their palace, and very little further evidence was wanting to place them in the position of the King of Delhi and his sons. The anticipations of Lord Harris, then, were perfectly justified—namely, that these persons might become a source of great danger. It was true that at Madras no danger arose from the Nawab, because the Government of Madras was strong and vigilant; but the tranquillity of Madras was not to be attributed to any forbearance or influence exercised by Azeem Jah, but to the foresight and the strength of the Madras Government. The revenues of these princes were spent in maintaining thousands of fanatical Mussulmans, and it was better for the princes themselves that they should not be in a position which they very often could not help—becoming, if not the instigators, the puppets, and in the end, not improbably, the victims of disaffection or revolt. These were the grounds on which the measure was taken in 1855. The hon. and learned Gentleman had asked what circumstances had occurred to prevent the present claimant from occupying the same position as his predecessor. He had stated the reasons, nor were there any circumstances in the conduct of Azeem Jah to counteract these reasons. He had managed for a time his nephew's affairs. Lord Harris stated in his Minute that there had been gross and wasteful extravagance on his part, and that an amount of debt had been incurred which was almost irretrievable, and there could be little doubt that the tendency of matters was to grow worse. The only question, therefore, was whether this grant could be revoked without a breach of faith. Now, the hon. and learned Gentleman had gone into a long historical summary, and had dwelt on the great services rendered to the English by this family; and the English were often spoken of as if they had dispossessed native hereditary princes who held their territory after a long, uninterrupted, and peaceful succession. But that was by no means the case. Within four years there had been half-a-dozen persons calling themselves Nawabs—the truth being that the Nawab of the Carnatic was the Lieutenant of the Nizam who was the Governor of the southern part of India on behalf of the Mogul Emperors of India, and he at his pleasure appointed a person to govern the Carnatic under him. No doubt there was a tendency in the office to become hereditary. The son had the means of collecting treasure, by means of which he sometimes bribed the superior power to appoint him, and at other times gathered a military force together and became a rival with the person appointed. The history of India was full of instances of struggles of this kind for the Nizam-ship and the Nawabship, in which one man after another was poisoned, killed, or murdered in rapid succession. Mahomed Ali, the son of a former Nawab, who was a perfect stranger to the. Carnatic, fought in alliance with us against the French, who supported the claims of a rival candidate. The supremacy of France and England was, in fact, fought out under the names of rival candidates in the Carnatic and the Deccan. Mahomed Ali, then, fought with us, not because he was attached to us, but because it was his interest to remain faithful to us, and because it was by our assistance alone that he could hope to maintain his position. There were rival candidates also for the Nizamship. Our man was murdered, the candidate supported by the French was killed; then a couple more were set up. At last the whole thing was settled, without the slightest reference to the claims of the candidates, by the Treaty of Paris and by a compromise, the French agreeing to acknowledge our man for the Carnatic while we accepted theirs for the Deccan. Our man, Mahomed Ali, remained in the Carnatic, but the French candidate for the Deccan whom we had engaged to acknowledge was murdered by his rival, and our candidate was left in undisturbed possession. This was the peaceable, hereditary possession, transmitted from father to son in an uninterrupted line, which the English intruders were supposed to have put an end to. After the Treaty of 1763, the English rewarded Mahomed Ali by obtaining from the Mogul an acknowledgment of independence in his favour. Up to this time he had been faithful, that being his clear interest. The English Government divided the power and authority in the Carnatic; and perpetual difficulties were the result. Then came the second war with Tip poo Saib. Mahomed Ali died before it began, but Lord Wellesley declared that his son, Omdut-ul-Omrah could not have been more hostile to the English, his benefactors, if he had been in league with the enemy. This was matter of fact and history, and the explanation only came afterwards, when, at the taking of Seringapatam, evidence was discovered proving the fact of treacherous communications between Tippoo Saib, who was the known and inveterate enemy of the English, and Mahomed Ali and his son. Mr. Mill, the historian of India, doubted this. But was Mr. Mill or a Committee of this House able to form an opinion of such value as that of the men named by Mr. Mill himself? Lord Clive, Lord Wellesley, Sir John Malcolm, and some twelve or fifteen men whom Mr. Mill himself described as the foremost men of India, were all convinced of the treachery of Mahomed Ali and his son, and recorded their opinions and acted accordingly. No inquiry and no investigation by a Committee of documents, which probably, they could not understand, would at all equal the testimony of such men as these. To fathom the depths of Oriental intrigue and treachery was at all times difficult; but this was as clear as anything of the time could be made, and he did not see how anybody at this period could doubt it. The consequence was that the Government of India considered themselves perfectly entitled to deal with the Carnatic as for- feited; and Lord Clive announced his intention of taking possession of it in the name of the Government. Lord Wellesley, however, preferred doing this under the guise of a treaty, for in those days all these arrangements were in the shape of treaties, and made a stipulation with the person whom he put up to sign that treaty; but all that Lord Wellesley proposed to give him was for life, and no more. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that person who signed this treaty succeeded by hereditary right. He was not the heir, and had no hereditary right at all, and he himself disavowed that he had any, admitting that whatever hereditary rights had been in the family were forfeited by the conduct of Omdut-ul-Omrah; and that what he had he took as a free gift from the Government of India. Lord Wellesley was a master of statesmanship, and knew perfectly well what he was doing. There were no words expressive of hereditary right in the entire of the document on the death of this man, the Government of Madras examining the document, considered themselves precluded from acknowledging his son, and asked the Government of India what they were to do. The Government of India directed them to place the son of the deceased prince in his father's place, a similar transaction took place in 1825. In both cases it was an act of grace and favour on the part of the Government. In neither case was it a matter of right under the treaty. Lord Dalhousie stated that on examining other treaties made about the same time with other princes for similar purposes, he found some in which Lord Wellesley used the words "heirs and successors," and others in which those words were omitted, and Lord Dalhousie inferred, therefore, that Lord Wellesley did not mean to give in a treaty in which those words were omitted the same rights as were intended to be conferred by other treaties, in which those words were inserted. It was not easy to conceive what course Lord Wellesley could have taken to make his meaning more plain, and to preclude the possibility of an hereditary claim being urged. The Treaty of 1801 conferred no hereditary right of succession, but left the Government at liberty to do what they thought expedient on the occurrence of each vacancy, and though in 1819 and 1825 they did think it expedient to place members of Azeem-ul-Dowlah's family on the Mus- nud, in 1855 the scandal had so much increased and the evils became so apparent that the Government, possessing still the same authority as in 1819, thought it expedient to declare that this dangerous and mischievous state of things should not be continued. As regarded Lord Harris it was quite unnecessary that he should say a word in defence of his character after the able and eloquent observations of the hon. Baronet the Member for Kent (Sir Edward Dering), the force of which he should only weaken by attempting to add anything to them. Lord Dalhousie likewise needed no defence at his hands; he was one of the ablest Governors that ever swayed the destinies of that great empire—a far-seeing, sound-judging man; and to the Minute which he drew up on this very subject he had never seen any answer given. The case came home, and he had caused the records of the Court of Directors to be searched, with a view of ascertaining whether among them there had been any difference of opinion on this point. Some members of the Court of Directors, who happened now to be members of the Indian Council, had told him that the Report was agreed to with only a few verbal alterations, as, indeed, appeared upon the face of the draft, and was unanimously approved by the Court of Directors and sanctioned by the Board of Control in 1856. In 1862 he was asked to reverse the decision of six years before; and he had declined to reverse a decision so deliberately made and by such authorities as he had named. Was he to be blamed, therefore, for following such great authorities? In a former case of the Mysore princes it had been said that he was guilty of great extravagance in the allowance which he assigned for them; now when he did more he was accused of parsimony. The first thing which had been done for Azeem Jah was to pay £420,000 debts. He had been relieved from the maintenance of anybody except his own family, and having had under the old system an income of £4,500, the Indian Government proposed to give him £10,000, which he had increased to £15,000. It was said that he extravagantly increased the stipends of the Mysore princes. In their case there were one son, twenty-two grandsons, and thirteen great grandsons —that was to say, thirty-five heads of families in all; and the ultimate provision for them amounted to £17,000 a year, whereas Azeem Jah and his single family had £15,000. The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Vansittart) accused him of having endorsed all the statements made by the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Layard) when he brought forward the claims of Azeem Jah. What he had stated was that further information was required, but that in which he had entirely concurred with him was in thinking it would be unreasonable to starve the prince into submission by withholding from him the means of maintaining himself. The Nawab had been at liberty to draw the whole of his stipend if he chose. Last year it was said that he had taken no money; but though he had not accepted the situation, as Sir Charles Trevelyan once said, he had drawn the money. Whether any part of it had been applied in placarding the towns of Lancashire and trying to persuade the people to think that their cotton supply was contingent on his restoration to the throne, as he heard had been done, he would not say, but most certainly it had not been applied in paying his debts. It had also been said that it was not Lord Dalhousie's decision, but only his own that was questioned. What difference there could be between Lord Dalhousie's decision and his own, he was at a loss to comprehend, except that the case was much stronger now than at the time when Lord Dalhousie's decision was given. The existence of this class of princes in India was only a possible danger then; experience had proved—in the case of the King of Delhi—that it was actual danger. To reverse a decision of the Indian Government confirmed by the House required a case ten times stronger than one upon which a decision might be asked for in the first instance. Lord Wellesley, Lord Clive, Sir Thomas Munro, Lord Harris, Lord Dalhousie, the Court of Directors, and Lord Lyveden had all been of the same opinion. There were no grounds shown upon which he ought to reverse a decision arrived at by authorities of such weight and character. Nothing could be so dangerous or mischievous to our Indian empire as to create a belief that a decision once given by the Indian and approved by the Home Government might be unsettled or shaken. Remembering the tenure by which India was held, he earnestly entreated the House not to sanction such a Motion, and thereby establish a precedent so fraught with danger to the stability of our power in India.

COLONEL DICKSON

regretted that he had heard nothing in that discussion to justify the course pursued by the Government in this case. He agreed with the hon. Member for Kent as to the high character of the Governors who had given an opinion on the subjects, but he might use the words of the hon. Member below him, when he said that however honourable and upright they might be, there seemed to be some disturbing medium through which they viewed questions of this sort when in India. The right hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Wood) had talked of Oriental intrigue and duplicity, but surely the conduct of England in this matter had been characterized by these very qualities. The real question was, had Azeem Jah any hereditary title under the Treaty of 1801—and it could hardly be denied that the treaty was hereditary—when the claim under it had been allowed, and the money paid for fifty-five years. It was not pretended that any article of the treaty had been broken by Azeem Jah, or that there was any fault to be found with him, but the treaty was sought to be set aside upon the ground of a supposed traitorous correspondence that occurred fifty years ago. Another reason was that he, having an income of £115,000 a year, was in debt £300,000; but if that were criminal who in that House would escape scot free? He looked upon what had been done as the greatest act of injustice ever committed by a Liberal Government, and in the name of English honour and justice protested against it.

COLONEL SYKES

said, that he was Chairman of the Court of Directors at the time in question, and signed the Despatch complained of Ministerially. If he had done so in any other sense he would have belied the whole course of his conduct as one of the administrators of the affairs of India; for he had always to the utmost of his power been a supporter of the rights of the Native princes in India, and he could not help thinking that the observations which had fallen from the Solicitor General, to the effect that it was bad policy to uphold in that country the titular princes who existed there, were most mischievous in their tendency, as well as in direct opposition to the proclamation of the Queen on assuming the government of India. There were in India many of those princes, and what, he should like to know, could be their feelings if not those of distrust and doubt when they found that such expressions had been used by an Officer of the Crown? As to the claims of Prince Azeem Jah, they were, he maintained, good, as based on the original grants to his family, embodied in treaties with the Emperor of Delhi and the Soubadar of the Deccan. It will suffice to quote a few words from the treaty of perpetual alliance and friendship concluded in February, 1768, between the East India Company and the Soubadar of the Deccan (the Nizam) to prove that the rights of the Nawab of the Carnatic had been long confirmed and acknowledged by the Emperor of Delhi and the Nizam. The 7th article commences as follows:— The exalted and illustrious Emperor Shah Allum, having been pleased, out of his great favour and high esteem for the Nawab, Wallah Jah, to give and grant to him and to his eldest son, Moyin-ool-Moolk, Oomdut-ool-Dowlah, and their heirs for ever, the Government of the Carnatic, Payeen Ghaut, and the countries dependent thereon by his Royal Firman bearing date the 26th August 1765 in the sixth year of the said Emperor's reign, and the Nawab, Asif Jah Nizam-ool-Moolk, &c, having also out of his affection and regard for the said Wallah Jah, released him, his son, Moyin-ool-Moolk, and their heirs and successors for ever from all dependence on the Deccan, &c. This quotation is sufficient for the argument. The Emperor of Delhi—equally the Lord of the Nizam and the Nawab of the Carnatic by Royal Firman in an Altumgha grant, confers the government of the Carnatic upon Wallah Jah and his heirs for ever. An Altumgha means the Royal seal to a Royal grant in perpetuity descending to posterity, and never contemplates the extinction of family rights. Whatever personal rights the Nawab of the Carnatic gave up, therefore, to the Company by the Treaty of 1801 he had not any power to extinguish the rights of his heirs under the Altumgha grant, and upon such a grant before a proper tribunal the present claimant would be enabled to establish his rights. Some such tribunal, independent equally of the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, and the Government of India, he (Colonel Sykes), had often advocated while a member of the Court of Directors. Had there been such a court, half the odium thrown upon the Company for annexations would have been avoided; and with respect to the present claimant, he trusted his case would be referred to a Select Committee, when his claims could be more fairly investigated than they could possibly be in that House, where the question was argued by hon. Members more or less in the spirit of partisans.

Question, "That a Select Committee be appointed" &c, put.

The House divided:—Ayes 38; Noes 53: Majority 15.