Enclosures of letter to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India, No.11, dated 15 January 1875: Nos. 3 to 45 of Abstract of Contents, from the Officiating Under-Secretary to the Government of India, Fort William [‎56v] (10/100)

been sent to the Decean, professedly to Akulkote, to visit a saint in that neigh
bourhood ; another died suddenly the day before yesterday, it is alleged, by poison,
as he was likely to have proved an inconvenient witness; and the tUird, tlie
Arab Sowar In the East India Company army and later Indian Army, an ordinary native cavalryman or mounted cavalryman. Salam, it is publicly rumoured, has just obtained leave ot absence
to go on n, pilgrimage to Mecca: this last however wants connimation.
3. Having thus stated the main conclusions at which I have arrived, it
onlv remains for me to supplement the judicial proceedings under despatch,
with a brief summary of the ample and highly important political evidence on
record in the Resident's Office regarding the personal character and antecedents
of His Highness Mulhar Rao Gaekwar from 1857 up to the present time, a
perusal of which will throw light upon the principal events of His Highness
Mulhar Rao's reign and previously; and at the same time show with Avhat deli
berate subtlety, forethought, and secrecy this Indian Prince plans and executes
his fell designs by means of his minions and assassins; also how, notwithstand
ing the evidence obtained and recorded against him in former years, Mulhar Rao
has hitherto eluded that justice which it is now hoped may overtake him.
4. This Prince commenced his career of crime in 1857 when about 25 or
20 years of age. In my confidential report to Government, No. 35A., dated the
9th February 1S74, it was clearly shown that, in the month of October 1857,
the peace of Guzerat was seriously threatened by a projected outbreak of the
cooly population in the Gaekwaree District of Beejapoor and in the British
District of Kaira through certain Thakoors residing in Pertabpoor.
5. On the 19th October 1857, Sir Richmond Shakespear, the then Resi
dent of Baroda, reported to Government that the object of this conspiracy
embraced in the first instance the plunder of the city of Ahmedabad, after
which an advance to raise the coolies A term used to describe labourers from a number of Asian countries, now considered derogatory. of the Ivaira District on the banks of the
Mahee about Pertabpoor, &c., was to have been made, and afterwards an
advance on Baroda for the purpose of dethroning the then reigning Gaekwar
Khunde Rao was to complete the general design. Had the latter been effected the
person who would have gained most by the transaction would have been the
present Gaekwar Mulhar Rao whose personal participation in the plot was
shown by quotations from the official correspondence of that day as well as by
the accompaniments of the report under reference.
6. A perusal of the report in question will show that His Highness Mul
har Rao was mainly saved from exposure at the time, because Sir Richmond
Shakespear believed him to be an idiot and unable to organize so extensive a
conspiracy ; hence although he was distinctly proved a few years after to have
been the prime mover in tiie renewed conspiracy of 18G3 against the life of
his brother, he again escaped adequate punishment, because Colonel "Wallace,
the Resident, adopting the opinion of his predecessor, described Mulhar Rao as
" intellectually feeble and apparently irresponsible for his actions."
7. When the conspiracy of 1863 was planned, Mulhar Rao and his four
principal accomplices were almost daily frequenting the British Camp at Baroda
for the purpose of selecting instruments, who, they believed, would not betray
their nefarious designs upon the life of the reigning Gaekwar Khunde Rao.
8. Strange to say one of the principal Agents, to whom overtures were
made on this occasion, wa? an European Non-Commissioned Officer, named
Higgins, the Serjeant-Major of the 28tli Native Infantry at Baroda. Minor
instruments were found at the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. in the person of a Naik of peons, named
Doolub Sing, who with his two brothers, Man Sing and Prem Sing, became the
tools of Mulhar Rao and still reside at Baroda. Thus so long back as ten years
ago, Mulhar Rao did not hesitate to tamper with servants of the British Govern
ment, both European and Native.
9. Serjeant-Major Higgins, as might have been expected, divulged the
whole plot to the then Resident, Colonel Wallace. Mulhar Rao's four accomplices
were seized, convicted, and sentenced to terms of long imprisonment; whilst
the main conspirator himself was merely placed in confinement at Padra
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