wars with unabated energy. It was therefore only natural that so warlike and aggressive a people should endeavour to push into the plains and thus come in contact with the British power. Frequent encroachments on the part of these mountaineers took place even in the last century, and these led to protests and to reprisals, but not, until Lord Hastings' time, to actual war[1].
The immediate cause of dispute arose through the treaty of Lucknow, 1801, under which portions of the possessions of the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh were ceded to the British Government, in lieu of a large sum of money due from that prince. Gorakhpur, a part of these territories, bordered upon Nepál, and on this frontier there were frequent quarrels, which had continued from time immemorial, between the petty Rájás owning the rich plains and the valuable forests beyond, and those who lived in the hills; as a consequence of numerous raids and counter-raids, several chieftains held lands both in Nepal and in Hindustán. Now the English, on acquiring a province, left all existing rights intact; but the Gúrkhas, on conquering a district, dispossessed the Rájás of their territories and secured them for themselves; hence they asserted and vindicated claims on lands in Bengal which were held by chiefs they had ousted from Nepál. Two cases of dispute became prominent during the administration of Sir George Barlow: one, in which the Nepalese
- ↑ Wilson's Hist. of British India, viii. 4 (title set forth in full in foot-note, ante, p. 55; and hereafter quoted for brevity as Wilson).
