present, called Nazzur, which the inferior offers in public to the superior; it had been the habit for the Resident at Delhi to present the Mughal Emperor, on certain occasions, with a Nazzur, in the name of the Governor-General. But Lord Hastings refused to allow this custom to continue, and did away with it, 'considering such a public testimony of dependence and subservience as irreconcileable to any rational policy[1].'
It should, however, be stated that the Government of Calcutta coined money which bore the effigy of the Delhi Emperor, and that Lord Hastings appears to have made no attempt to abolish this proceeding, which survived until the time when the Crown formally assumed the direct government of India, without the interposition of the East India Company. It would seem therefore that the Governor-General had no leisure to go thoroughly into the question, and contented himself by ignoring the fictitious supremacy of the Mughal Emperor, and by encouraging his principal vassals to throw off a technical allegiance which might be eventually dangerous to British power.
It has already been remarked that one of the defects of the subsidiary and protective system, introduced by Wellesley and completed by Lord Hastings, was the difficulty of dealing with native princes who persistently refused to discharge the duties of government. Impossible as it was to abstain from interference where misrule assumed proportions which amounted to a
- ↑ Private Journal, i. 318 and 323.
