invasion of an
_independent_ and friendly state on no other ground than our
disapprobation of a change of ministry, accompanied, though it may have
been, with the tumult and violence which are the usual concomitants of
an Asiatic revolution. But if the Company (as we conceive to be the
_practical_ aspect of the question) are held to be at the present day
the recognized, as well as the _de facto_, representatives of the Mogul
monarchs, there can be no doubt that, on the death of Jankojee Sindiah,
his dominions might fairly have been annexed to the Anglo-Indian empire
as a lapsed fief which had reverted to the suzerain by the failure of
heirs--a rule which would have been equally applicable to the case of
the rival Mahratta house of Holkar, the male line of which also became
extinct last year, and was replaced on the musnud of Indore by a boy
seven years old, a _adopted_ son of Hurry Rao Holkar. From the death of
Dowlut Rao Sindiah, indeed, the Gwalior state had presented a scene of
anarchy and misgovernment, to which allusion is made in the proclamation
of the governor-general;[21] and which, from the impunity it afforded to
the remnant of the Pindarrees and other marauders, and the consequent
insecurity of life and property both in the interior and on the
frontier, was intolerable alike to its neighbours and to its own
subjects. Under these circumstances, the acquiescence of the cabinet of
Calcutta in a second adoption of a child, to fill the throne of a
kingdom already brought to the verge of ruin by the vices and incapacity
of the former occupant, can be regarded in no other light than as an
injudicious stretch of forbearance, injurious to our own interests, and
uncalled for by those of the state thus subjected to a continuance of
misrule; and it is to be regretted, that our late victories have not
been followed up by the formal occupation of the country, and the
establishment of the order and strong government to which it has long
been a stranger. No other result can be anticipated from the half
measures which have been adopted, than the creation of a state of
confusion and resistance to authority, similar to that which prevails in
the distracted kingdom of Oude--ending inevitably, though perhaps at the
expense of a fresh contest, in its incorporation with the dominions of
the Company. Meanwhile, (as observed in the _Times_ of March 8th,) "we
have roused the passions of the Mahrattas against their sovereign and
agains