CHATSWORTH HOUSE, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.
much of his attention, and he established a model farm in Windsor Park, which showed how much may be effected by intelligent supervision, and a systematic application of those scientific principles which modern times have placed at the disposal of enterprising men. At the chief agricultural shows, his name soon became familiar as a constant and often successful exhibitor, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than any notable achievement in this field of human industry. Speaking of the model works in Windsor Park, a contemporary writer observed that “the most practical man could not go that pleasant round, from the Flemish farm to the Norfolk, and so back again by the Home and the Dairy, without learning something wherever he went.” The farm at Windsor was established about the end of 1840, and the Prince always took the greatest interest in the working of his establishment. On the 30th of October, 1843, he wrote to Baron Stockmar that the prices of cattle were up again, and that he had netted a very good return from his auction in the Park. Since the death
LORD GOUGH. (After the Portrait by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A.)
of his Royal Highness, the farm has been continued with equal zeal by the Queen; and the Prince of Wales has also shown an intelligent interest in pursuits and experiments calculated to raise in no slight degree the productive powers of our country.
While the Queen was gaining a more extended knowledge of her home dominions, and Prince Albert was interesting himself in many departments of science and art, some events were passing in India, to which brief reference should be made. During the Afghan war of 1838-9, the Anglo-Indian Government intimated its intention to take temporary possession of Shikarpoor, in Scinde, an independent State in the north-west of the Peninsula. The Ameers of Hyderabad and Mizpoor thereupon assented to a treaty which placed them under the control of Calcutta; but the people themselves never agreed to this sacrifice, and the British Residency at Hyderabad was attacked in the early part of 1843. Hereupon, the British envoy, Sir Charles James Napier, marched a large military force against the malcontents, routed them at Meeanee on the 17th of February, and, by a further victory on March 24th, completed the subjugation of Scinde. During the next two years, the country continued in a state of extreme agitation, owing to the depredations of certain marauding tribes in the west; but these brigands were hunted down, and at length entirely extirpated, by the conqueror of Scinde, whose unresting energy and fiery resolution procured from him, from his half-admiring adversaries, the title of “the Devil’s Brother.” The administration of the province has greatly improved since then; but it may be questioned whether its annexation was not an act of high-handed power, which the concomitant circumstances were insufficient to justify.
In the latter part of the same year, another war broke out in Asia. The State of Gwalior, situated in Central India, had been under our protection since 1803; but the death of the native sovereign, in 1843, produced a degree of anarchy which led to the interposition of the British Government. Lord Ellenborough made a public announcement that he could “neither permit the existence of an unfriendly Government with the territories of Scindia” (the reigning family in that part of Hindostan), “nor that those territories should be without a Government capable of coercing its own subjects.” This was on the 20th of December; on the 29th, the army of Gwalior, under the command of Sir Hugh Gough, Commander-in-Chief, and in presence of the Governor-General, defeated the native forces at Maharajpoor. On the same day, the left wing of the army, under Major-General Grey, defeated the enemy at Punniar; and the strong fort of Gwalior, sometimes called “the Gibraltar of the East,” was taken by our soldiers. By a treaty concluded in January, 1844, the native dynasty was permitted to retain 9,000 troops of its own, in addition to a large contingent under British authority; and Gwalior still preserves a certain amount of independence, though strictly under the supervision of the Anglo-Indian Government.