"I am aware that, subsequent to the Rajah's deposal, numerous charges of cruelty and oppression, whilst he reigned in Coorg, have been brought against him; but I am bound in justice to declare that, during the whole time he has been under my care, no evidence of a cruel disposition has ever been exhibited; on the contrary, his manners and habits are mild and gentle in the extreme, and he has invariably won the regard and esteem of all parties with whom he came in contact since he quitted Coorg. * * * The Rajah is a perfect specimen of an innate gentleman. * * * The Rajah's children are especial objects of care and anxiety to him."
It will be thought that we are deviating from our proper course in entering into this discussion; but on this particular point hinges the justice or injustice of the campaign we are going to narrate. We are told on the one hand that this violent and tyrannical youth had exercised such excessive cruelties in his own family, that his sister and her husband were obliged to flee to the English for protection; that the Rajah had demanded, in the most peremptory manner, that they should be given up; and, on this being refused, had addressed letters of an insulting tenor to the Madras presidency, and the Governor-General. That one of the Company's, servants being sent to treat with him, he was put under confinement, and his release refused. He was accused at the same time of having assumed an attitude of hostility against us, and of receiving and encouraging our avowed enemies.
On the other hand we are informed[1] that the origin of the dispute was this: his sister's husband, dissatisfied with his want of power, had committed a most barbarous murder and fled towards Mysore; that on the frontier he had cut down two of the Coorg people who attempted to prevent his escape; that in Mysore, unfortunately, he was received and protected by the British authorities, and into their ears he instilled the vilest calumnies against
- ↑ "Tract on India Reform," No. 7.
