Enclosures of Letter to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India, No.213, dated 27 November 1874: Nos. 3 to 31 of Abstract of Contents, from Foreign Department, Fort William [‎32v] (64/102)

of the Baroda State may be paid to Mr. Badabhai Nowrojee, I have the honor
to submit that, coDsidering our experience of Mr. Dadabhai's connection with
the Baroda State since the close of the year 1872, and his invariable line of
conduct towards the British Government, we should, I think, be incurring a
very grave responsibility were we formally to recognize Mr. Dadabhai as
Dewan, thereby virtually approving the Gaekwar's selection of him and his
party to carry out a work of reform, which we have reason to believe from the
events of the past 8 or 9 months they are entirely incapable of effecting.
2. I have already shown at various times since April 1873 that Mr.
Dadabhai w T cis the principal adviser of the present Gaekwar at the close of
1872, when his contumacious conduct in refusing to attend His Excellency the
Viceroy and Governor-Generars Durbar A public or private audience held by a high-ranking British colonial representative (e.g. Viceroy, Governor-General, or member of the British royal family). in Bombay elicited the displeasure of
the Bombay Government, an example like that being set by one of the principal
Native Princes in India, no doubt had a very bad political effect at the time,
and is still remembered by many ; and there can also be no doubt from what
has since occurred at Baroda, that it has exercised a baneful effect upon the
character of Mulhar Bao Gaekwar ever since.
3. Subsequent to that Mr. Dadabhai wrote the precedence khureeta An important letter usually sent in an elaborate textile pouch, dispatched as part of the royal or diplomatic correspondence of rulers and elites. for
His Highness, and under various pretences persuaded the week-minded Mulhar
Rao to appoint him his Agent in England to conduct that and other imaginary
cases of grievance, and it should be especially noted that whilst Mr. Dadabhai
was at Baroda at that period, he was both openly and secretly aided in his
designs by the then Parsee head clerk of the Baroda Besidency Office
establishment.
4. Having secured Rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. 50,000 from the Gaekwar for these supposed
good services, Mr. Dadabhai went to England in about April 1873, but returned
to Baroda in the following December, and has been here ever since.
5. My reports as per margin give a sketch of Mr. Dadabhai's career as
Administration Report No, 17U., Devvan ot ' tj" 3 Baroda State from the 24th of De-
dated i6th of June 1874, paragraph cember 1873 up to the present time, during which
^Confidential Report No. 172A., time I submit that several of the khureetas which
dated 16th June 1871, paragraphs 3,4, he liaS Written, notably tllOSC ill the Luxmaebai
5 'Report 1 (In i.pium? 1 No. 202T., dated case, contain ample proof of his unfitness for the
ist August 1874. office of Dewan of such a State as Baroda. Super-
Saiduma Boo's case. Report No. 237- iiii.j.1 -..i 4 ,.
617, dated 3rd August 1874. added to these proofs, however, there is the deh-
Bochesan Patei's case. Report No. berate neolect of the recommendations of the Com-
258C., dated 1st July 1874. •• /» • i i. i.i j.i • •
Confidential Memoranda since May miSSlOll 101 eigllt mOlltllS, tllC Increasing injustice
1874, inclusive. done to British subjects, the continued oppression of
the ryots, the systematic resistance to all reasonable demands of the British
Government as represented in the large,number of cases still pending; there
is the neglect to take notice of Government references of the most urgent
kind ; there is the injury done to our trade and the direct act of disrespect shown
to the Besklent in the opium case; and there are others also in which we have
exercised forbearance under the hope that as soon as the decision of the Gov
ernment of India upon the Commission Report arrived a change for the better
would take place.
G. His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General's khureeta An important letter usually sent in an elaborate textile pouch, dispatched as part of the royal or diplomatic correspondence of rulers and elites. of the
25th ultimo was delivered by me to His Highness on the 3rd instant, but
instead of a change for the better manifesting itself, one of the first efforts of
Mr. Dadabhai and his party was to turn the advice contained therein to their
own account by endeavouring to induce the Gaekwar to sign an agreement to
the general ellect that the administration should be placed in their hands for
a certain period. This I am given to understand the Maharaja declined to do,
upon which Mr. Dadabhai and his party threatened to leave Baroda. I was
then consulted as to the advisability of retaining Mr. Dadabhai in power, and I
at once replied that he ought to be allowed to depart. 1 at the same time
pointed out how a good X )rovisional Government could be organized, pending
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