impartially dealt with, we had no just claim against the Nizam.⁴ In 1858,⁵ he repeats 'we had little or no claim against the Nizam.'⁶ In 1859,⁷ the balance of 430,000l., which was
in fact, in a fact, was made out by debiting the Nizam with cash payments from our Treasury for the Hyderabad Contingent, while refusing to credit him with sums due by him to our Government on other accounts. Interest first at 12 and afterwards at 6 per cent., on all our advances, formed nearly a quarter of the principal. The principle of the Nizam's counter-claim, with any calculation of interest, was wrong. The balance of a set-off, was tolerated by Lord Dalhousie's Administration; though subsequently, under Lord Canning's Government, the chief item—the abkare, or excise collections of Secunderabad and Jauhal—was prospectively allowed to be a portion of the legitimate revenue of the Hyderabad State.⁸
No proper set-off was listened to. A distress was put in, embezzled by terms of money.⁹ Lord Dalhousie, for the most part of this most questionable peculiar claim—most questionable even if the Nizam's large counter-claims were excluded—had written personally to the Nizam, telling him that the Hyderabad State was bound to maintain the Contingent 'by the stipulations of existing treaties;⁹' reminding him that it was dangerous 'to prove the resentment of the British Government,' 'whose power can crush you at its will,'⁹ and warning him that his dependence 'was a danger.' The same letter to the Nizam was advised, as an indispensable measure of economy, to disband 'the Arab soldiery,' those 'turbulent merchants who consumed so a large a portion of the revenues, and to rouse himself to make a great effort for 'the early meeting of the accumulated treaties.' If the Nizam were unable to meet the call on his treasury, the districts of his territory occupied in an annulation to this letter.⁹
It was a ready money question entirely. In 1851, when the unpleasanant letter from which I have quoted was addressed to him, the Nizam stayed off the difficulty by paying a large sum on account. If he had produced the cash that was demanded in 1853, when similar pressure was applied, he would have avoided the sequestration of his districts. But his resources and his credit were exhausted. The Governor-General would no longer be able to give the Nizam the money he was owed by an infatuation that unless he at once consented to sign the new treaty, he would be given for the delivery of British troops, not merely into the districts that were wanted, but also into his capital. Then the Nizam and his assistants saw that he had before him the choice of signing the treaty
or being dethroned. They understood perfectly, if every one else is ignorant of it—which is not likely—that it must come to that. The Nizam's Government was not as strong in 1853, as it was in 1855, as it was as ordered by the British Government in 1858. Without counting the treaty years' administration of the Nizam's territory, as they have become during the armied men in a fortified city of 200,000 inhabitants, were almost every man armed, the Government was full of those turbulent merchants whom our Government, as they are, of course, were not aware, being the Nizam to disband. They knew that military occupation meant not only the loss of their bread, but the loss of their property. The Nizam was the greatest money-lenders in Britain, and in after years, and with their expansion, they would obviously have had great difficulty in collecting their little accounts. Their leaders would certainly have taken every advantage of Muslim fanaticalism and general excitement to have one last desperate struggle before they submitted to the loss of their homes, and of all that was left to them. In 1853, for six hours, it would not have been occupied without a contest. But the first shot fired from the walls, the first drop of blood shed, would in those days, so far as we can argue, the general tone and temper of Lord Dalhousie's administration, have cost the Nizam his throne. It would certainly have been worse, if they had not been willing to plight that he could not control the unruly rable of his capital. If, as might easily have been the case, a great number of the combatants had been proved to be in his own pay, his conduct would have been statustagian as gross and infamious treachery. It would have gone hard with him.
We have seen Lord Dalhousie representing to the Nizam the Hyderabad State was bound to maintain the Contingent 'by the stipulations of existing treaties,' and he said that this stipulation was his own mouth, and this will afford a very striking illustration of the iniquous manner in which the actual system of secret correspondence and consultation affects the weaker party. In 1851 the Governor-General insists that 'the efficient maintenance of the Force is a duty imposed on the Government of Hyderabad by the stipulations of existing treaties;⁹ and again, that it is necessary to fulfil the obligation of treaties.' In 1853—having in the meantime, we may suspect, examined more carefully documents bearing on the case— he arrived at a very different result. 'I have found myself myself, he says, to the conclusion that the Government of India has no right whatsoever, either by the spirit or by the letter of the law. A request to the Nizam to stipulate of existing treaties' is the present form.' And again, in the same minute he says: '1, for my part, can never consent, as an honest