¹ Under British rule India contained about 680 Native States, which, as declared by an Interpretation Act of 1889, were part of India, though not of that “British India” under direct British rule.

Many writers, including Indians, prefer the expression “princely states” to “Native States” of India. A probable reason for this preference is that in the past the word “native” was often used as a “smear word” in Anglo-Indian nonofficial vocabulary. Especially now that India is independent, it is hard to see why Indians should choose not to glory in being “natives.” There is no good reason at all to abandon in historical writings on British Indian administration the nineteenth century Anglo-Indian official expression “Native States,” an expression which suggests well the character of the Rulerships in distinction to the less native British Government of India, the Paramount State.

² The roles of Maharaja Jung Bahadur of Nepal and Maharaja Jayaji Rao Sindhia of Gwalior in the Mutiny wars of 1857–58 deserve full monographs. Much interesting source material relating Jung Bahadur and his Gurkhas in operation in Oudh has been published in S. A. A. Rizvi and M. L. Bhargava, Freedom Struggle in Uttar Pradesh (Govt. of Uttar Pradesh, 1958), II, 244–627. See III, 92–660 for materials on Jayaji Rao.

³ See Spear, Percival, Twilight of the Mughals (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 222–226Google Scholar; and Thompson, Edward, The Making of the Indian Princes (London, 1943), pp. 277–282Google Scholar. Spear has concluded that the British Government had no legal right to try the King for treason. Thomposn has called the trial “a piece of politics, not of justice; and, as unpublished letters of John Lawrence [Governor of the Punjab], giving instructions that the King should be found guilty, show, was a waste of time.”

⁴ See Mukherji, Panchanandas, Indian Constitutional Documents, 1600–1918 (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1918), I, 432.Google Scholar

⁵ On charges of misrule against their Rulers, charges which were well-grounded, the Company's Government took over the administration of Mysore in 1831, and between 1832 and 1835 annexed Cachar, Jaintia and Coorg. In February 1856, Lord Dalhousie, the predecessor of Canning in office, annexed Oudh and removed the King, Wazid Ali, from Lucknow to a suburb of Calcutta. One of the largest Native States (24,000 sq. miles), Oudh was the home of the bulk of the sepoys and native officers of the Company's Bengal Army, which mutinied in 1857.

Under the Doctrine of Lapse, the Company claimed that on the death of a Native Ruler having no natural heir to succeed him, his State automatically “lapsed” to the Company, the Paramount Power, and that such lapsed Native States could be annexed to the territory of the Company. In odicr words under this doctrine the Company claimed the right to withhold recognition in cases of succession by adoption from a gadi. Though according to the custom and laws of property of the Hindus since ancient times an adopted son is for all purposes of succession as good as a son born in wedlock, the supporters of die Doctrine of Lapse held that the British Government, as the Paramount Power, need not recognize in cases of succession to chiefships, as distinguished from succession to private property according to English ideas of property, the succession of an adopted son. This doctrine was used to annex Mandavi in 1839, Kolaba and Jalaun in 1840, Surat in 1842, Satara in 1848, Jaitpur and Sambalpur in Baghat, a Cis-Sutlej territory, in 1850, Udaipur in central India in 1852, Nagpur in 1853, and Jhansi in 1854. These annexations added about 100,000 sq. miles to the British empire wihin a short period of 15 years.

⁶ For correspondence relating to Dhar see Parliamentary Papers (London, 1859), (200. Sess. 1); XVIII, 589ff.Google Scholar

⁷ See Letter, Political Department No. 25, June 22, 1858, in Ibid., 593–595.

⁸ Certainly the Mutiny made no significant changes in the map of British India. In 1857–58 the Government of India declared forfeit the following Rulerships on charge of rebellion against the Paramount Power: Porahat in Chota Nagpur; Farrukhabad and Delhi in north India; Amjhera, Tiroha, Bijaraghogarh, Shahgarh, Banpur and Shorapur in central India; and, as noted above, Dhar in Malwa. Of these territories, Farrukhabad and the city and district of Delhi in the Kingdom were annexed to British India.

As for the disposal of the remaining territories, the pargana of Kot Kasim in the Kingdom of Delhi was granted to Jaipur; part of the estates of Jajjar and Bahadurgarh, and two other pieces of Delhi territory to Patiala; another part of Jajjar to Nabha; eleven villages of Bijaraghogarh to Nagod; Porahat to Saraikala and Kharswan; Banpur and Amjhera to Gwalior; and Shorapur to Hyderabad. Dhar was restored in 1860, but a large part of the State was transferred to Bhopal.

See Aitchison, C. U., A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanaa's Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries (4th ed., Calcutta, 1909), I, 49Google Scholar; I, 367; IV, 157; IV, 465–466; V, 5–9, 225; VIII, 119–120, 179; IX, 9–10.

⁹ For the text and history of the petition see Calcutta Review, LIII (1871), 262ff.

¹⁰ See Aitchison, Charles, Lord Lawrence (Oxford, 1892), p. 138.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Canning's minute of Sept. 2, 1859; Home Dept. Public, Sept. 9, 1859, Nos. 29–30, doc, in the National Archives, New Delhi.

¹² On Canning's Kanpur durbar, see Calcutta Gazette, Nov. 12, 1859, p. 2485; and Calcutta Review, LIII (1871), 263.

¹³ See Canning's letter Apr. 30, 1860 on adoptions; in Gazette (Governor General's Camp, Mirzapur), Dec. 15, 1860, p. 7. For official account of the Agra durbar see Cat. Gaz., Dec. 24, 1859, p. 2701. For interesting descriptions of the Rulers present at this durbar, see Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Forty-One years in India (London, 1897), I, 466–467.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For the full text of Canning's letter to the Secretary of State, For. Dept. No. 43 (A), Apr. 30, 1860, see Gazelle (Gov. Genl's Camp, Mirzapur), Dec. 15, 1860, pp. 6–15. From the place of the publication of this Gazette Extraordinary, it appears that Canning ordered its publication immediately on receipt of the Secretary of State's reply, also published in full in the same Gazette (see pp. 17–18).

¹⁵ An overwhelming body of documents relating to such rewards, tokens of Canning's policy of goodwill in concrete form, are preserved in the National Archives, New Delhi.

¹⁶ In Aitchison, Treaties, see Vol. I, p. 3, on Rampur; II, 98, on Nepal; IV, 21–22, on Gwalior; V, 22–23, on Charkhari; V, 222, on Rewa; VIII, 353–354, on Kapurthala; and IX, 9–10, on Hyderabad. In cases like those of Gwalior, Charkhari and Hyderabad, land grants were accompanied by provisions of exchange of small pieces of territory to suit administrative convenience or settle old questions regarding boundaries.

¹⁷ See the following documents in the National Archives: For. Dept. Politic. Mar. 2, 1860, Cons. No. 48 on Indore; For. Dept. Politic. Apr. 1860, Progs. No. 4 on Baroda, Nos. 622–623 on Jodhpur, Nos. 634–635 on Karauli, Nos. 642–643 on Tonk, Nos. 648–649 on Panna; and For. Dept. Politic. Apr. 1860, Cons. Nos. 608–609 o n Udaipur, Nos. 646–647 on Bikaner. On rewards to Gaurihar see Aitchison, Treaties, V, 38. In Cal. Gaz., see Nov. 12, 1859, p. 2485 on Rewa, Banaras and Charkhari; Nov. 23, 1859, p. 2533 on Rampur; and Mar. 21, 1860, p. 486 on Khuttak. On titles granted to Patiala, see Lionel J. Trotter, History of India Under Queen Victoria, From 1836 to 1880 (London, 1886), II, 114.

¹⁸ See Aitchison, Treaties, II, 98.

¹⁹ See Cat. Gaz., Dec. 24, 1859, p. 2701.

²⁰ See For. Dept. Politic. Apr. 1860, Progs. Nos. 628–629, 630–631, 636–637. docs., in Nat. Arch.

²¹ See Ibid. Dec. (A), 1861, Progs. Nos. 67–68. docs., in Nat. Arch.

²² The camp had only 10,000 men, 1,000 horses, 2,000 camels, 2,000 bullocks, and 180 elephants. See Lord Roberts, Forty-One Years, I, 487 ff., for a description of die tour. The purpose of die tour was to visit parts of central India and to receive in durbar die native aristocracy and Rulers of central India, of whom the Maharaja of Indore was among die most eager to be received by die Governor General. See For. Dcpt. Politic. May 1860, Progs. No. 281; and For. Dept. Politic. June 1860, Progs. Nos. 81–82., docs., in Nat. Arch.

²³ See Letter to Lady de Rothesay, Jabalpur, Jan. 21, 1861 in Hare, Augustus J. C., The Story of Two Noble Lives (London, 1893), II, 126Google Scholar. For official account of the Jabalpur durbars, see Cal. Gaz., Feb. 6, 1861, p. 376.

²⁴ See Lord Roberts, Forty-One Years, I, 490.

²⁵ Bartle Frere, Member of the Governor General's Council, who could speak Marathi, had to run to and fro between the Governor General's camp and the Sindhia's camp at Allahabad before the durbar of Nov. 1, 1861 to make certain that Jayaji Rao, known for his unpredictable manners, would behave himself at the investiture ceremony. See Frere's letter to Charles Wood, Nov. 6, 1861, in John Martineau, Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere (London, 1895), I, 378.

Afzal-ud-Daula, the Nizam, had raised doubts whether he would not be reduced in the eyes of his people if he wore the robe of a British Order and accepted its statutes. See Memo, of representation, Sept. 2, 1861 made by Salar Jung, For. Dept. Politic. Oct. (A), 1861. Progs. No. III, doc., in Nat. Arch.

Another recipient of the Star, the witty old Begum of Bhopal, said at Allahabad, after she had cross-examined for a long time a Member of the Governor General's Council and another official on the meaning and purpose of the Star of India: “Well, I think any one may say I am in luck to get a star without going to heaven for it.” See Martineau, Frere, I, 379.

²⁶ For a specimen of these sanads given by Canning to Native Rulers, see in Mukherji, Indian Constitutional Documents, I, 581, the sanad given to the Maharaja of Baroda.

²⁷ We have failed to find any official record of the number of adoption sanads signed by Canning. William Lee Warner, The Native States of India (London, 1910), p. 184, tells us that Canning issued 160 adoption sanads, to which number 17 were added in 1890 by Lord Lansdowne. Aitchison in his Treaties, I, 391, tells us that adoption sanads similar to those issued by Canning were issued by John Lawrence in 1865 to twelve chiefs of the Central Provinces, but we have not found in the Treaties any mention of the number of adoption sanads issued by Canning. A number of these sanads are printed in the Treaties, but we have not counted them.

²⁸ Sir Richard Temple in his Men and Events of My Time in India (London, 1882), p. 504Google Scholar, puts the Native Rulers at the top of his list of the “actively loyal classes” in the British empire in India.

²⁹ Cf., Aitchison's summary comment in Lawrence, p. 136, on Canning's announcement of grants of the right of adoption to four Rulers on Nov. 4, 1859 at Kanpur: “The Doctrine of Lapse became a dead doctrine—buried and put away.” Also see footnote No. 27. That Lansdowne in 1890 could issue adoption sanads indicates that the Doctrine of Lapse remained, at least till that date, in force as a legal basis of the Government of India's action relating succession by adoption to Rulerships.

³⁰ This power was upheld and exercised by Canning's administration, like any other administration since the inception of the Doctrine of Lapse, in practice also. Though no annexations under the Doctrine of Lapse were made in Canning's time, between 1856 and 1862 the Government of India decided the fate of about ten Native States. In Aitchison, Treaties, see Vol. I, 32 on Garhwal; IV, 248 on Dewas (Senior Branch); IV, 465–466 on Dhar; V, 11–12 on Datia; V, 27 on Ajaigarh; V, 31–32 on Beri; V, 232–233 on Jaso; VIII, 305 on Hindur; and VIII, 309–310 on Baghat. On Udaipur in central India, see Lee-Warner, William, Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie (London, 1904), II, 170–171.Google Scholar

³¹ As was the routine with the Political Department of the Government of India in the nineteenth century, Canning's administration intervened whenever necessary to cure maladministration in the Native States. For instances see Aitchison, Treaties, Vol. III, 265–266, on Karauli; III, 316–317, on Alwar; V, 11–12, on Datia; V, 326, on Rajpipla; VIII, 311, on Jubal. For examples of the Governor General's correspondence with the Native Rulers exhorting them to improve their administration, see For. Dept. Politic. Apr. 1860, Cons. 418 relating the Sindhia of Gwalior; and For. Dept. Politic. Dec. (A), 1861, Progs. No. 26 relating the Maharao Raja of Alwar; docs., in Nat. Arch.