right to succeed alike to the private fortune and the public
government of their father. But when there was only an
adopted son, Lord Dalhousie, while scrupulously respecting the
claims of the heirs to the private fortune of the late chief, denied
the right of the adopted son to succeed to the public government of the State. He held the government of a Native State
to be a public trust; he also held that, in the absence of
direct male issue with a lawful claim to succeed, the succession
must be decided by the British Government, not in the interests
of the family of the late chief, but in the interests of the people.
Those interests he believed to be most effectually protected by
bringing them under direct British rule.
Lapsed Native States.—The first State to escheat to the British Government, in accordance with these principles, was Sátára, which had been reconstituted by Lord Hastings on the downfall of the Peshwá. in 1818. The Rájá of Satára, the last direct representative of Sivají, died without a son in 1848, and his deathbed adoption of a son was set aside (1849). In the same year, the Rájput State of Karauli was saved by the Court of Directors, who drew a fine distinction between a dependent principality and a protected ally. In 1853, Jhánsi suffered the same fate as Sátára. But the most conspicuous application of the doctrine of lapse was the case of Nágpur. The last of the Maráthá Bhonslas, a dynasty older than the British Government in India, died without a son, natural or adopted, in 1853. His territories were annexed, and became the Central Provinces. That year also saw British administration extended to the Berars, or the Assigned Districts, which the Nizám of Haidarábád was induced to hand over to us as a territorial guarantee for the subsidies which he perpetually left in arrear. The relics of three other dynasties also passed away in 1853, although with- out any attendant accretion to British territory. In the extreme south, the titular Nawáb of the Karnátik and the titular Rájá of Tanjore both died without heirs. Their rank and their pensions died with them, but compassionate allowances were continued to their families. In the north of India, Bájí Ráo, the ex-Peshwá, who had been dethroned in 1818, lived on till 1853 in the enjoyment of his annual pension of £80,000. His adopted son,
