ART. V.-1. Report on the territories conquered from the Peishwa, by the Hon. M. Elphinstone. Calcutta 1821: Bombay 1838.

2. Minute of a visit to the Satara Court, by Sir John Malcolm, in 1828. Lithographed 1829.

3. Papers relating to the Raja of Satara, 1818-1842, Parts I. and II. presented to the House of Commons, 1843.

4. Further papers, relating to the Raja of Satara, presented to the House of Commons, in 1843, in 1847, in 1848.

5. Debates at the India House, on the Satara Question, 1840-1847.

6. Speech of the Right Hon. Sir John Hobhouse, Bart. on the Satara Question, in the House of Commons, July 4, 1847.

66

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IT has not been without some degree of misgiving that we have transcribed the titles of the different publications, to which we are about to invite the attention of our readers. We are well aware that SATARA has become a word of significant omen, both in England and in India. We are conscious of the fact, that there exists no more potent talisman than this to clear the benches of "the House," and to induce even the most stant reader" to skip whole columns of an evening edition of the Sun, or an entire issue of the British India Advocate.* In the face of all this discouragement, however, and notwithstanding the recent and memorable denunciations of the leading journal,† we have resolved, with the halter round our neck,' to introduce our readers to the Satara Court, and to lay before them a brief outline of the recent history and government of that state. And we have come to this resolution, because we are satisfied that there is no chapter in British Indian History which exemplifies, in so many and such various ways, the good and evil effects of our Indian political system-none where the causes of success and failure are so clearly marked and so little liable to question.

Our purpose, then, in the following pages, is to take a general review of British connection with the Rajas of Satara. In the

* There are probably many of our readers who are indebted to the spontaneous generosity of some unknown benefactor for occasional numbers of the two papers named in the text, and who never open them, on such occasions, without a painful foreboding of their contents.

"If, after such a thorough exposure as this case has received, any person should again rise to speak about the Raja of Satara, he ought to do so, like the legislators of antiquity, with a rope about his neck, and the proper functionary close behind him awaiting the decision of the audience."-The Times, July 13, 1848.

course of this retrospect, we shall be led to examine the internal administration of the Satara state; to trace more minutely than has yet been done, the more remote causes of the unequal conflict between the Ex-Raja and the British Government; to weigh, with an impartial hand, the justice and policy of each step in a series of measures, extending over several years, and carried out by successive Agents; to point out the errors which, on a dispassionate review of all the circumstances, may appear to have been committed; and finally, to draw from the history of our connection with this small state, such instruction as may admit of useful application in our dealings with other semiindependent native sovereignties.

The SATARA STATE- -as we are now to describe it-owes its existence to the generous and enlightened policy of MOUNT STUART ELPHINSTONE. Its establishment formed an important element in the political measures which that great statesman adopted for the subjugation and settlement of the territories of the Peishwa. For three quarters of a century all the substantial attributes of royalty had passed from the house of Sivaji, and the titular sovereign of Satara was now a prisoner in Baji Row's Camp, when the intention was publicly announced of rescuing him from captivity, and of re-instating him on the Satara Musnud-not to exercise independent rule over the extended dominions of his ancestors, but to govern, under British supremacy, a new and limited principality.

The considerations which principally weighed with Mr. Elphinstone, in founding a new sovereignty for the descendant of Sivaji, were to conciliate the great body of the Mahrattas, with whom such a measure could not fail to be popular; and thus to induce them to quit the Peishwa's standard, to which they were found to adhere, with an obstinacy arising more from the dread of the complete extinction of their national independence and of the entire loss of their means of subsistence, than from affection for Baji Row's person or interest in his cause. The success of the measure in detaching the Mahrattas from the standard of the Peishwa was soon apparent: while it was well calculated to serve the ulterior object of providing employment for a portion of the Mahratta soldiery whose habits were unsuitable to our service, and a maintenance for some of the civil and religious orders whom it would have been difficult to dispose of under our own Government.*

Opposed to these political advantages were some counter

* Parl. Papers, 498-508.

balancing evils, which did not escape the penetration of Mr. Elphinstone. The total inexperience of the Raja, and of the people around him, in every thing connected with the govern ment of the country; the extravagant ideas of their own pretensions which he and his family were known to entertain; and the facilities which the indulgence of such notions might afford to the intrigues of evil and designing men, rendered it expedient that the administration of the new government should for some time be entirely conducted by the British Political Agent.

The Raja, having been rescued from captivity on the field of Ashta six weeks before, was installed with great pomp in his new sovereignty, by Mr. Elphinstone, on the 11th of April 1818; and Captain GRANT (now GRANT DUFF) was selected for the important office of Political Agent at His Highness's Court. In order the more effectually to impress upon the Raja's mind the true nature of his relations to the paramount state, and to convince him that it was not intended to revive even in name the empire of Sivaji, the whole of the districts which were to be afterwards incorporated in the Satara state were, on their conquest from the Peishwa, taken possession of in the first instance in the name of the British Government. Even the precise limits of his territory and the terms on which it was finally to be conferred upon him, were at first left undetermined, on the distinct understanding that they would be in a great measure regulated by the disposition which he might evince during a prescribed period of trial.

But while these necessary restraints were at first imposed upon the Raja they were enforced in a spirit of the utmost conciliation; and every care was taken to uphold his dignity, and to win his confidence and good will. Nor was the important object neglected, of endeavouring, by every possible means, to give him a taste for business and a knowledge of the principles of government. Having been given to understand that he would be entrusted with power in exact proportion to his proved ability to exercise it, we are told by Grant Duff that in a short time he labored as assiduously as any Karkún under his govern

ment.

After a probation of eighteen months, a treaty of friendship and alliance was concluded with the Raja at Satara, on the 25th September 1819. This engagement, it must be remarked, differs altogether in its nature and provisions from the treaties contracted with pre-existing states. The treaty of Satara called a new state into existence, defined its limits,* and spontaneously

The ceded territory, as most of our readers are aware, comprises the compact and fertile tract lying on the western border of the Dekhan, between the Nira and

conferred it, in perpetual sovereignty, on the Raja, his heirs and successors, under certain specified conditions, on the observance of which the continuance of the sovereignty was declaredly to depend. The most important of these stipulations were, First, That the Raja should hold his territory in subordinate co-operation with the British Government, and be guided in all matters by the advice of the British Resident (Act. II.) ;—and Secondly, That he should forbear from all intercourse with foreign powers and all persons whatsoever not being his own subjects, except through the Resident-this being expressly declared a fundamental condition, the breach of which was to subject him to the forfeiture of his sovereignty (Act V.) The British Government, further, charged itself with the military defence of the territory, and guaranteed the possessions and rights of the Jaghirdars placed under the Raja's government.

Such was the title-deed of the Satara sovereignty. Its provisions are clear and explicit: and it is particularly important to remark (what His Highness and his partisans in after years altogether lost sight of) that the infraction by the Raja of any of the conditions under which the grant was conferred, and more especially of the non-intercourse clause, involved not simply the dissolution of the alliance but the entire forfeiture of his dominion. The restrictions imposed upon the Raja's authority may at first sight appear rigorous: but it was deemed advisable under the circumstances to take high ground in the treaty, so as to admit of a gradual and voluntary descent, should the conduct of the Raja safely admit of it. Although the Government, by retaining the right of civil as well as military control over the new state, reserved to itself ample power to protect the prince from external aggression and the people from oppression and misrule, it was far from their intention to exercise any systematic interference with the internal administration of the country. So far from wishing to reduce the Raja to a state of pupilage and to make him a sovereign only in name, it was considered essential to the respectability of the state, to its efficiency as a subordinate ally of the British Government, and to the success of the whole arrangement, that he should be as little fettered as possible in his internal government, and in the exercise of his authority over his own subjects. "I hope (writes Mr. Elphinstone to the Governor-General a month after the conclusion of the treaty) that in the course of two years the Raja may be left in a great mea

Bima rivers on the north, and the Wama and Krishna to the south; and extending from the western ghats eastward to the districts of Bijapur and Punderpúr. It yields a revenue of from 14 to 15 lakhs of Rupees, and is noted for the salubrity of its climate.

sure to conduct his own internal government: but the military protection of his country, his political relations and perhaps a general and distant superintendence of his whole proceedings, must always remain with us. We must also retain the power of knowing exactly every thing that passes in his court and territory; and it will for a long time be a necessary part of our policy most carefully to destroy all connexion between him and the Mahrattas not subject to his control."* In short-it was clearly intended that the nature and degree of British interference should be regulated by the disposition which the Raja might evince on being entrusted with the full power of the state; and that his sovereign authority should be respected and upheld so far as this was compatible with the more important objects of maintaining the public tranquillity, and of securing just and good government to the people.

The personal character and disposition of PERTAB SEN. The newly-installed sovereign, appears to have produced a favorable impression on all who were brought into contact with him. Though imperfectly educated, and shut out, from his birth from all intercourse with the world, he evinced a considerable degree of shrewdness and intelligence, united with a prepossessing frankness of demeanour. Beneath this outward semblance of openness and candour, however, there was concealed a good deal of cunning and dissimulation. Brought up from infancy amid the petty plottings of a captive court, he had acquired a taste for intrigue, the unrestrained indulgence of which, under the influence of evil advice and the promptings of his own vanity and ambition, was destined ultimately to lead to his ruin. On his enlargement he expressed, and probably felt, great gratitude for his restoration to liberty and a throne, and made great professions of attachment to the Government by whom these important boons had been conferred. But surrounded as he was by ignorant and designing men who had shared his captivity, and who now flattered his vanity with extravagant ideas of his consequence and claims as the hereditary King of the Mahratta nation, he soon exhibited symptoms of dissatisfaction with the dependent and limited sovereignty to which he had been raised.

Such feelings were not unnatural, under the circumstances, to the descendant of a long line of kings, who, even amid the privations of his captivity, had been treated with the pageant forms of sovereignty and every excuse was, therefore, to be made for him. It was no less necessary, however, that his extravagant pretensions should by all possible means be repressed. Accor

*Parl. Papers, 508.