ment against the annexation of Karauli, that 'though not a very old State, still it is a Rájput principality, and, unlike the existing Maráthá and Muhammadan dynasties, has the claim of antiquity in its favour.' 'I presume,' he elsewhere says in the same document, 'that the Government of India would not at any time be disposed to interfere with the customary modes of succession among these old Rájput States[1].' Lord Dalhousie therefore, while of opinion that the arguments seemed 'to preponderate in favour of causing Karauli to lapse,' referred the whole case, for and against, to the Court of Directors, and, on receipt of their somewhat tardy reply, carried out their decision in favour of continuing the State under a Native Chief.'
I have thought it needful to set forth from the original documents, the progress of the Doctrine of Lapse, as applied to dependent Native States in cases of adoption. For the invention of this doctrine was one of the many unfounded charges raised by popular clamour against Lord Dalhousie after the Mutiny. I have now placed beyond question the six following facts.
First, that Lord Dalhousie did not invent the Doctrine of Lapse. Second, that he never interfered with the Hindu right to adopt an heir to inherit the private estate of the deceased, and to perform
- ↑ Quoted from Sir Charles Jackson's Vindication of the Marquis of Dalhousie's Indian Administration, pp. 46, 47, ed. 1865.
