222 SOUBAHDAR RAMCHUND RAO. 



her in 1854 ; when upon the death of her hus- 

 band, Gungadhur Rao, without heirs of his own 

 body, the Government of India peremptorily 

 refused to acknowledge her adopted son, Da- 

 madhur Rao, as heir; and, as in the case of 

 Nagpore, at once unscrupulously seized upon 

 and annexed the territory of the Jhansi State, 

 producing a revenue of £60,000 sterliug per 

 annum, and in lieu thereof assigned a pension 

 of £6000 a year, for the use of the widowed 

 princess and her adopted son. The prede- 

 cessors of the deceased Maharajah had, more- 

 over, for upwards of half a century, been so 

 distinguished for fidelity, that in 1832 Lord Wil- 

 liam Bentinck, then Governor-General of India, 

 in consideration of the faithful attachment that 

 had always been manifested by the Jhansi 

 family towards the British rule, conferred on 

 the Soubahdar Ramchund Rao the dignity and 

 title of Maharajah, with the privilege of using 

 the English flag. By the above one act of 

 spoliation, in defiance of all right, Lord Dal- 

 housie added £54,000 per annimi to the rent- 

 roll of the British Government, but at what a 

 sacrifice of British honour ! 



Nearly sixty years *ago the Duke of Welling- 



