Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/418

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The Southern Maráthá Country.

action of the Inám Commission — a commission instituted to search out titles to property obtained during the decadence of the Mughal Empire. In these districts Lord Elphinstone was represented by a very able member of the Civil Service, Mr George Berkeley Seton-Karr, a gentleman whose sympathies were greatly with the class who had suffered from the Imperial legislation, and whose influence over them enabled him to repress for a time their excited feelings. His task was a difficult one for treason was stalking abroad, and the sipáhís of the regiments in the Maráthá country, mostly Oudh men, were displaying symptoms akin to those which had been so largely manifested in the Bengal Presidency. But, considering the means at his disposal, he did wonders. In June he arrested an emissary from the rebels in the North-western Provinces. Having, in July, obtained from the Governor enlarged powers, he prevented an outbreak in Belgáon, and despatched from that station the two companies of the 29th N. I., whose presence there might have been fatal. Finding, then, that the conspiracy had its ramifications all over the province, he gradually disarmed the districts under his charge, and succeeded, amid a thousand difficulties, in maintaining law and order. But, even so late as April 1858, he recognised that the fire was still smouldering, and was forced to apply for increased powers. Instead of granting to the official who had conducted the affairs of a difficult province with marked success the powers he asked for, the Bombay Government, whilst maintaining him in his civil duties as administrator, relieved him of his political functions, and bestowed these upon a gentleman who had been a member of the detested Inám Commission, Mr Charles Manson. Almost immediately followed the rebellion of the Chief of Nargúnd, the murder of Manson, the despatch to the districts of troops