Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/382

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334
GOVERNOR-GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY

renounced any intention of using the royal prerogative as a pretext for asserting English claims to ascendency over feudatories or to the exercise of rulership. With the avowed object of abolishing a titular sovereignty that hardly retained the shadow of its former substance, and whose representative had been rescued by British arms from a state of extreme degradation and distress, he relegated Shah Alam to the position of a state pensioner, with royal rank and an ample income assured him. The arrangement lasted fifty years until it was suddenly extinguished in 1857, when the storm raised by the Sepoy Mutiny swept away the last relics of the Moghul throne and dynasty.

GEN. HAVELOCK'S ATTACK ON NANA SAHIB AT FATHPUR.

The political outcome of Lord Wellesley's Gov-