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DEALINGS WITH THE FEUDATORY STATES
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disgrace, and was further punished by having his salute reduced from seventeen to fifteen guns.

It is only fair to the Indian Feudatories to state, that against these examples of misrule many instances could be cited of wise government and a high sense of duty. Lord Mayo gathered round him a circle of Chiefs whose character he personally admired, and in whose administration he took a well-founded pride. Of such territories, Bhopál may serve as an illustration. It is one of the Feudatory States of Central India which exercise sovereign powers over their own subjects: has an area of 6764 square miles, a population of 663,656 souls, and yields a revenue to its Chief of £240,000 a year. Its army, besides a British Contingent which the Chief was bound to maintain by the treaty of 1818, amounted to 4000 men.

The State of Bhopál was founded in 1723 by an Afghan adventurer, who expelled the Hindu Chiefs, built a fortress, and assumed the title of Nawáb. In 1778, when a British army under General Goddard marched through Central India, Bhopál stood forward as the one State friendly to our power. The Maráthá aggressions of the early part of the present century compelled it, like many other Indian States, to seek English aid. In 1819 it acknowledged the supremacy of our Government, was received under the British protection, and was rewarded by some valuable districts which we had won from the Maráthás. The Mutiny of 1857 found Bhopál under the government of a