Queen Victoria to the Marquis of Dalhousie

DEPOSED INDIAN PRINCES

Balmoral, 2nd October 1854.

As the Queen knows that the East India Company are chiefly guided by Lord Dalhousie's advice with respect to all Indian affairs in public as well as of a more private nature, she thinks that she cannot do better than write to him upon a subject which she feels strongly upon, and which she is sure that Lord Dalhousie will enter into. It is the position of those unfortunate Indian Princes who have, either themselves or their fathers, been for public reasons deposed. Two instances are now before the Queen's eyes upon which she wishes to state her opinion.

The first is old Prince Gholam Mohammed, and his son Prince Feroz Shah. The Queen understands (though she is not sure of the fact) that the old man is here in order to try to obtain his pension continued to his son. This is very natural, and it strikes the Queen to be an arrangement difficult to be justified, in a moral point of view, to give these poor people—who after all were once so mighty—no security beyond their lives. Whilst we remain permanently in possession of their vast Empire, they receive a pension, which is not even continued to their descendants. Would it not be much the best to allow them, instead of a pension, to hold, perhaps under the Government, a property, which would enable them and their descendants to live respectably, maintaining a certain rank and position? The Queen believes that Lord Dalhousie himself suggested this principle in the case of the Ameers of Scinde.

Nothing is more painful for any one than the thought that their children and grandchildren have no future, and may become absolutely beggars. How much more dreadful must this be to proud people, who, like Prince Gholam, are the sons and grandsons of great Princes like Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib! Besides it strikes the Queen that the more kindly we treat Indian Princes, whom we have conquered, and the more consideration we show for their birth and former grandeur, the more we shall attach Indian Princes and Governments to us, and the more ready will they be to come under our rule.

MAHARAJAH DHULEEP SINGH

The second instance is that of the young Maharajah Dhuleep Singh (and the Queen must here observe that the favourable opinion she expressed of him, in her last letter to Lord Dalhousie, has only been confirmed and strengthened by closer acquaintance). This young Prince has the strongest claims upon our generosity and sympathy; deposed, for no fault of his, when a little boy of ten years old, he is as innocent as any private individual of the misdeeds which compelled us to depose him, and take possession of his territories. He has besides since become a Christian, whereby he is for ever cut off from his own people. His case therefore appears to the Queen still stronger than the former one, as he was not even a conquered enemy, but merely powerless in the hands of the Sikh soldiery.

There is something too painful in the idea of a young deposed Sovereign, once so powerful, receiving a pension, and having no security that his children and descendants, and these moreover Christians, should have any home or position.

The Queen hears that Lord Dalhousie himself would wish and advise his pension to be exchanged for a property on which the Maharajah might live, which he might improve (giving thereby a most valuable example) and transmit some day to his descendants, should he have any; she hopes therefore that this may be so settled, and that he may, on attaining the age of eighteen, have a comfortable and fitting position worthy his high rank.

Where such a property might be must be of course left to Lord Dalhousie to decide, but the Queen hopes that Lord Dalhousie will give it his serious attention.