१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

THE VOLCANO
the situation. As long as the general policy is dictated
from 'Home', those whose duty is merely to execute it can
act no more honestly than Dalhousie did. It would cer-
tainly be unjust to hold Dalhousie responsible for all those
combined acts and deeds which had to flow directly from
the situation created for him by his masters in England
and his assistants in India. Dalhousie merely reaped that
harvest of political robbery the seeds of which had been
sedulously sown for a hundred years by his predecessors.
The intrigues born of political avarice had been sown long
before and Dalhousie's regime was the season in which
they bore fruit. But for this heritage of iniquitous power
behind him, how many kingdoms could Dalhousie have
annexed ? It was chiefly because generations of his pre-
decessors had prepared the way for him by slowly under-
mining the foundations of the different kingdoms of India
that Dalhousie was enabled, by the mere stroke of his pen,
to annex so many of them.
It was in 1764 that the relations between the Company
and the ruler of Oudh were first established. Since
then, the servants of the Company had been steadily try-
ing to usurp the fertile land of Ayodhya. Having first
compelled the Nabob of Oudh to keep English regiments
in his pay for 'protecting' him, they obtained from him
in return Rs. 16 lakhs (£160,000) per annum as the pay
for these regiments. By such forced protection and volun-
tary compulsion, the treasury of the Nabob was rapidly
emptied ; and then the English suggested to the Nabob
(it was a veiled command) that a replacing of all the
native army of the Nabob by English regiments would be
a valuable step towards the effectual 'protection' of the
principality. A treasury which could not afford to
pay even the pay of the "subsidised troops" could certain-
ly not pay the salaries of the "additional" troops forced
on the Nabob, and the English thoroughly knew this
fact. Indeed, the additional demand was made because
the English knew this fact. At last it was forced (most
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