When in February, 1832, the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, assured the
Resident that Moonna Jan was not his son. Lord William Bentinck was
Governor-General of India. A more thoroughly honest man never, I
believe, presided over the government of any country. The question of
right to succession was long maturely and most anxiously considered,
after these repeated and formal repudiations on the part of the King,
Nuseer-od Deen Hyder; and Government would willingly have deferred a
final decision on so important a question longer, but it was deemed
unsafe any longer from the debauched habits of the King, the chance
of his sudden death, and the risk of a tumult in such a city, to
leave the representative of the paramount power unprepared to
proclaim its will in favour of the rightful heir, the moment that a
demise took place. Under these considerations, instructions were sent
to the Resident, on the 15th of December, 1833, in case of the King's
death without a son, or pregnant consort, to declare the eldest
surviving brother of the late King, Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, heir to the
throne, and have him placed upon it. According to the law already
noticed (which applies as well to sovereignty as to property) the
sons of Shums-od Dowlah, the second son of Saadut Allee Khan, who had
died shortly before his eldest and reigning brother, Ghazee-od Deen,
were excluded from all claims to the succession, and the right
devolved upon the third son of Saadut Allee, Nuseer-od Dowlah.
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