honourable accession of territory or revenue, while all existing claims of right are at the same time scrupulously respected.' In 1844 Lord Hardinge's Government provided for the application of this principle to the sovereign Hindu State of Indor. He distinctly intimated to the newly-appointed Chief, 'that the State is to descend to the heirs male of his body in lawful succession, and to no others, thus precluding the possibility of adoption[1].'
Lord Dalhousie was careful not to apply this principle to sovereign Native States. He restricted it in express words to 'petty intervening principalities.'
When, in 1854, an attempt was made to misrepresent his views on this point, and to give them a wider extension, Lord Dalhousie placed the matter beyond the possibility of doubt, to any one who will take the trouble to read his words. 'The opinion which I gave,' he wrote, 'was restricted wholly to subordinate States, to those dependent principalities which, either as the virtual creation of the British Government, or from their former position, stood in such relation to that Government as to give to it the recognised right of a Paramount Power in all questions of the adoption of an heir to the sovereignty of the State. The opinion I gave referred exclusively to "subordinate States," to a
- ↑ Despatch from the Government of India to the Court of Directors Political, dated 23rd December, 1844, par. 27.
