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 [‎57v] (12/100)

executed • some imprisoned for various periods ; and some escaped detection alto-
gether Reference to this outbreak is made in paragraphs 38 and 39 of the
Report No. 35A. of the 9th February 1874, above quoted.
17. His Hio-hness Khunde Rao died suddenly on the 28th November 1870,
and the then Resident, Colonel Barr, in consultation with the Acting Minister,
sent to summon Mulhar Rao from Padra to assume the reins of Government, on
the condition that his recognition as the reigning Gaekwar must be dependent
upon the sanction of the British Government. To this Mulhar Rao readily
assented and it shortly afterwards became known that Jumna Baee, the widow of
His Highness Khunde Rao was pregnant, the British Government permitted
Mulhar^Rao to assume the administration of the State as Regent till the result
of the widowed Ranee's pregnancy should decide the question of his succession
to the guddee in his own right or not.
18. No sooner had Mulhar Rao thus unexpectedly obtained the object of
all his conspiracies and plots during the previous 13 years than as might
have been expected, he at once initiated the reign of terror which has lasted
with little intermission ever since. Most of the graver personal cases against
him, such as the sudden deaths in prison of the Ex-Minister, Bhow Sindia,
Rowjee Master Gunnoo Wagh, Mulharba Shelke, and Govindjee Naik, all of
whom are universally alleged to have been poisoned by Mulhar Rao's Agents,
were not enquired into by the Commission, nor were the cases of the Ex-Ranee
Jumna Baee and the Ranee Rukhma Baee and many others, evincing the most
heartless cruelty and persecution on Mulhar Rao's part, but they have been the
subject of correspondence with Government since the Commission closed its
sittings.
19. It is unnecessary to lengthen this report by quotations from the
proceedings of the Baroda Commission. Suffice it to say that they pronounced
Mulhar Rao's personal character and conduct during his brief reign of three
years to have been pre-eminently sweeping, vindictive, violent and spoliatory
towards all classes of his subjects, including the higher ones; and consequently
that he was not a Prince who could be reasonably expected to reform existing
abuses, and to place the administration of the State on a footing to entitle it to
the confidence and support of the British Government, and the loyal and willing
obedience of all its subjects.
20. In my Progress Report to Government, No. 361-1225, dated the 2nd
N ovember instant, I gave a full account of the official administration of the
State from the departure of the Commission to that date, but I excluded from
that report certain personal matters, which it now becomes my duty to relate,
in order to throw light upon the conduct of the Maharaja and his personal
Agents towards myself as Resident for the last 16 months and upwards.
21. I arrived at Baroda on the 18th March 1873, and within about four
months from that time secret overtures were made to me through the medium
of an old banker, purporting to come from Mulhar Rao himself, and enquiring
what my price was. I merely sent backward to say that what I wished to
accomplish was His Highness' own welfare and that of his subjects, and that if
I could effect that 1 should be well paid. From that moment up to the present
I have about once or twice a month been in the habit of receiving letters con
taining threats of various kinds, most of them with the object of causing me to
refrain from systematically reporting to Government everything that was going
on, and to desist from making references to the 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). on unpleasant subjects
under the pain of being killed either by sorcery, poison, or shooting—the same
specials means, it will be remembered, as were actually used in 1863 to com
pass the death of His Highness Khunde Rao.
22. I have only kept a few of the letters to which I refer, but I may
state generally that in August 1873, when it became my disagreeable duty to
noiace certain cases which reflected upon the personal character of the Maha
raja King , Nana Saheb Khanvilkur and others of the old administration, and again
in the two following months when the number of petitioners greatly increased,
4
Exd.—R. T. B.