future abuses which required correction. It is seldom that any reform can be final or complete in its operations, and if this is so in smaller affairs, how much the more must it not be the case in a gigantic work of reconstruction where misgovernment had existed for generations over an immense area of territory? The imperfections of the re-settlement were foreseen at the time, and while it was held that the general principles upon which it was based were the best that could be adopted, yet it was also allowed that they would require modifications in detail at no distant date. We have seen that the principles consisted in the following points, viz. that the native chiefs were left as free as possible in the administration of their internal affairs, but that they were absolutely restrained in their foreign relations, and that their military establishments were removed from their practical control. In time the system disclosed its defects, for the Indian princes too often neglected the duties of their own limited government, and far from ruling their subjects for the benefit of the people, tyrannised and oppressed them in an intolerable manner[1]. Such a shameless disregard of every principle of government when it occurred, could not but concern the paramount authority of England, and the consequences have been the further extension of British rule in a way which has been totally undesired by the supreme power. These events form no part of the present
- ↑ See Marquess of Dalhousie, Rulers of India series, by Sir W. Hunter, p. 125.
