Page:Earl Canning.djvu/67

of his conquerors, to Bithúr, an estate in the neighbourhood of Cawnpur, where his adopted son, forty years later, was destined to take a terrible revenge for his father's reverses. The Berár Sovereign tempted his fate with a like result. His kingdom was shattered and dismembered. Holkar received a crushing blow at Mehidpur. The Maráthá States bent their stubborn neck beneath the yoke, and owned themselves feudatories of the conquering Power. Such a history leaves no kindly recollections; nor had subsequent intercourse tended to induce a more friendly mood. Southward of Bombay, behind the Western Gháts, lay a tract, known as the South Maráthá Country, reaching from Sátára to Dhárwár. Here there was at work a special cause of animosity, the proceedings of a Commission, whose function it was to inquire, with the exactness of an English Court, into the validity of various titles and privileges purporting to emanate from former dynasties. The holder of a title, which has served well enough for his fathers before him, naturally resents official intrusion into his muniment room. The 'Inam Commission' and its agents were odious, especially to those whom their proceedings ruined. There was, moreover, one Maráthá, whose hatred toward the English was tinged with a deep personal animosity. The last of the Peshwás had lived on at Bithúr till 1851. His adopted son, known to infamy as Náná Sáhib, petitioned to have the ex-Peshwá's life-pension continued to himself. The claim had no legal basis, and Lord Dalhousie con-