opposition, especially on the part of the favourite wife of the old King. This lady, in the manner of favourite wives generally, desired to secure the succession, with all its privileges, for her son, Jawán Bakht, then (1850) a boy of eleven. There existed at that time a strange ignorance of native feeling and native habits of thought in the Council of the Governor-General, and, notwithstanding the passionate entreaties from Dehlí, Lord Dalhousie and his advisers wrote a despatch to the Home Government recommending them to acknowledge the succession of the eldest surviving son, Fakír-ud-dín; and urging that, on the death of Bahádur Sháh, the opportunity should be taken to utilise the claims of the youngest son by obtaining from the eldest the desired concessions. Prince Fakír-ud-dín was induced to consent to this ignoble arrangement, though he hated himself for his weakness. But his death, in 1856, threw back matters into the channel in which they were before his consent had been obtained.
Lord Canning was then Governor-General, and at that time Lord Canning, could see only with the eyes of the Councillors whom I have described. In reply to the urgent solicitations of the Queen to nominate her son, he determined not only to refuse her request, but to recognise as heir-apparent the eldest surviving son of the King. He determined likewise to exhort terms less favourable to native ideas than those which had been wrung from his deceased brother, for, in addition to the renunciations to which that brother had agreed, he stipulated that the succeeding prince should renounce the title of King.
It is right that the reader should bear in mind these transactions when recollecting the conduct of the representatives of the House of Taimur when, on that eventful
