Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/486

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430
INDIA UNDER THE CROWN

sive or criminal misconduct committed by a chief or his ministers. In illustration of the use made of this prerogative of interposition, two cases of unusual gravity may be noticed. In 1876 the Gaikwar of Baroda, who had been tried before a Commission for complicity in an attempt against the life of the British Resident, and who was convicted of gross maladministration, was formally deposed and removed to a place of detention. And in 1891, the Maharaja of Manipur, a small state on the eastern frontier cf Bengal, took refuge in British India from a military revolt, headed by his brothers. When the Chief Commissioner of Assam proceeded to make an inquiry into the affair, and to take measures for suppressing the disorder, he was enticed to a conference and treacherously murdered, with some of his officers, within the town of Manipur. A British force was despatched, which occupied the state for a time, until those concerned in the assassination had been punished. The Maharaja had abdicated; and since his incapacity was proved beyond doubt, he was replaced by another representative of the reigning family.

An important addition has been made to the list of these self-governing principalities by the revival of the State of Mysore, in southern India. In the fourteenth chapter[1] brief reference has been made to its previous history. The territory had been forcibly seized by Hyder Ali, and reconquered from Tippu Sultan by Lord Wellesley,[2] when part of it was restored to the old

  1. See pages 309-310.
  2. At that time known as Lord Mornington.