1 628 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB. .
2 in despatch of business, the best intentions and the greatest cleverness will
3 not secure good government.” In conclusion, His Honour expressed his hope
4 that the honourable and prudent disposition and kind temper which the Raja
5 had hitherto always displayed would make him ajust and considerate ruler of
6 his subjects in the Panjab, and a liberal landlord of his great estates in Oudh,
7 from which he Had derived so splendid an income. His Honour closed
8 his most impressive speech by reminding the Rdjdé of the words of an
9 English poet which had been addressed more than 200 years ago to aking
10 of England, aid which were specially admired and often tepeated by him :—
11 “The glories of our birth and state,
12 Are shadows, not substantial things :
13 There is no armour against fate,
14 Death lays his icy hands on kings:
15 Sceptre and Crown must tumble down,
16 And in the dust be equal made
17 With the poor crooked scythe and spade :
18 Only the memory of the just
19 Smells sweet and blossoms in the dust.”
20 Pardon of Maharijé Among the unconsidered trifles of history may be recorded the profession of
21 Dulip Sinah by the penitence made to the Queen-Hinpress by that eccentric personage, Mahardjd
22 ; Dulip Singh, who, not content with the priticely allowance of £40,000 a year,
23 which had been provided for him in England by thé bounty of the British,
24 had, it will be remembered, gone over to Russia, in 1885, hoping to gain -the
25 favour of the Czar, by representations, however false, that he still exercised
26 influence over the Sikhs of the Panjab, and was capable of turning the scale
27 of affairs in that country. But the damp squib which, after his abortive
28 journey to India and return from Aden, he persistently endeavoured to light,
29 failed to ignite. As was expected, the Czar treated him coldly, and the
30 Mahardjd, finding his pretensions of no avail, and seeing that he was no
31 welcome guest at St. Petersburgh, thought it his best policy to profess re-
32 pentance to the Queen. He had been sufficiently long in obscurity to be
33 almost forgotten, and the Queen, after his notorious intrigues, might well
34 have turned a deaf ear to his appeal, for mercy. Gifted, however, as Her
35 Royal Majesty is by nature, with a noble and a magnanimous heart and a
36 philanthropic disposition, she was most graciously pleased to extend her
37 pardon to him, and permitted him to return to England. His pension, which
38 the British Government had been compelled to discontinue, was generously
39 restored, and the arrears discharged. It being the Queen’s personal command
40 that Dulip Singh’s return to his former position in England should be made
41 as easy and gentle as possible, his subsequent prayer to be restored to the
42 order of the Star of India, as a G.C.S.1, was also graciously granted.
43 There never was a case of a man more wilfully and wantonly bringing
44 misfortune upon himself. As pointed out by a Continental journal, “he
45 would have led a happier life, upon the whole, if he had continued to
46 entertain shooting parties at Thetford Hall, instead of running about all
47 over Europe with a bee in his bonnet.” But the lesson which has been
48 taught the Mahardj4 in the school of adversity to which he chose to go for
49 it, has profited him, for he has now come to know that, after all, he is not so
50 important a personage as he imagined himself to be, and that his life in
51 the country of his first adoption was infinitely more agreeable than his sub-
52 sequent experiences have been.
53 As the reader is aware, the scandal would probably have never occurred,
54 Sees the intrigues of a Sindhianwaldé sardar, a maternal relation of the
55 ; aharaja, who, later. on, closed his disgraceful career in aeons . His
56 Sri Sakiuureljaiquik Singh G AAFUY.General va nabadleWorarvea amoakeaeh te the