[15]. Ras-Karpūr or Kapūr, I am aware, means ‘corrosive sublimate,’ but it may also be interpreted ‘essence of camphor’ [Kāfūr].
[16]. [About 75 miles S. of Jaipur city.]
[17]. [The reference is possibly to the text: “That king who through folly rashly oppresses the kingdom will, with his relations, ere long be deprived of his life and of his kingdom” (Laws, vii. 111).]
CHAPTER 4
The British Alliance, A.D. 1818.
Procrastination is the favourite expedient of all Asiatics; and the Rajput, though a fatalist, often, by protracting the irresistible honhar (destiny), works out his deliverance. Amir Khan, the lieutenant of Holkar, who held the lands and tribute of Jaipur in jaedad, or assignment for his troops, was the sole enemy of social order left to operate on the fears of Jaipur, and to urge her to take refuge in our alliance; and even he was upon the point of becoming one of the illustrious allies, who were to enjoy the “perpetual friendship” of Great Britain. The Khan was at that very moment [378] battering Madhorajpura, a town almost within the sound of cannon-shot of Jaipur, and we were compelled to make an indirect use of this incident to hasten the decision of the Kachhwaha prince. The motives of his backwardness will appear from the following details.
Hesitation to accept the Treaty.
The enlarged and prophetic views of Marquess Wellesley, which suggested the policy of uniting all these regular governments in a league against the predatory powers, were counteracted by the timid, temporizing policy of Lord Cornwallis, who could discover nothing but weakness in this extension of our influence.[[3]] What misery would not these States have been spared, had those engagements, executed through the noble Lake (a name never mentioned in India, by European or native, without reverence), been maintained; for the fifteen years which intervened between the two periods produced more mischief to Rajwara than the preceding half century, and half a century more will not repair it!
A circumstance that tended to increase this distrust was our tearing Wazir Ali from his sanctuary at Jaipur, which has cast an indelible stain upon the Kachhwaha name.[[4]] We have elsewhere[[5]] explained the privileges of saran, or ‘sanctuary,’ which, when claimed by the unfortunate or criminal, is sacred in the eye of the Rajput [379]. This trust we forced the Jaipur State to violate, though she was then independent of us. It was no excuse for the act that the fugitive was a foul assassin: we had no right to demand his surrender.[[6]]