REESE LIBRARY \ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OE CALIEORNIA. 
 Af^R ';3 1894 
 
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 EDITED BY 
 
 SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.I., CLE. 
 
 M.A. (Oxford) : LL.D. (Cambridge 
 
 MAROUESS OF DALHOUSIE 
 
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 HENRY FROWDE 
 
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Statue of the Marquess of Daliiousie 
 
RULERS OF INDIA 
 
 ^be Marquess of IDalbousie 
 
 AND THE FINAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
 COMPANY'S RULE 
 
 By sir WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.L, CLE. 
 M.A., LL.D. 
 
 FIFTH THOUSAND 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS : 1894 
 
-^ 
 
 ;^' 
 
 ^~/ ^1 
 
■^IT^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PACKS 
 
 I. The Argument 9-18 
 
 II. The Man 19-59 
 
 III. Conquest of the Punjab 60-85 
 
 IV. Consolidation of the Punjab . . . . 86-107 
 V. Conquest of Lower Buema .... 10S-123 
 
 VI. Annexation of Hindu States .- - . . . 124-149 
 VII. Nagpur. The Karnatic Family. Nana Sahib. 
 
 Berars 150-166 
 
 VIII. Annexation of Oudh 167-176 
 
 IX. Internal Re-organisation .... 177-189 
 X. Railways. Commerce. Telegraphs. Public 
 
 Works 190-201 
 
 XI. The Half-penny Post. Education. Finance. 202-211 
 
 XII. Military Policy. Conclusion .... 212-225 
 
 Index 226-228 
 
 NOTE 
 
 The orthography of proper names follows the system adopted by 
 the Indian Government fur the Imperial Gazetteer of India. That 
 system, while adhering to the popular spelling of very well-known 
 places, such as Punjab, Lucknow, etc., employs in all other cases 
 the vowels with the following uniform sounds : — 
 
 «, as in woman : a, as in land : i, as in police : i, as in intrigue : 
 o, as in cold : u, as in huW : u, as in SMre : e, as in grey. 
 

 y^^^i>^ >«:i-.^ V^^^;;;?W^ 
 s^ A-*^*^ ^y^t" y^-'T-^ ^>l^».,ty^^ y^^B-*-,-^^ 
 
 Facsimile of Lord Dalhousie's handwriting, ^^a 45. 
 
 * [Minnie was his deceased wife's favourite dog.] 
 
THE MARQUESS OF DALHOUSIE 
 
 AND HIS WORK IN INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ARGUMENT 
 
 The leading idea in these volumes is to present 
 a series of historical retrospects rather than of 
 personal biographies. Each little book takes some 
 conspicuous epoch in the making of India, and, 
 under the name of its principal personage, sets 
 forth the problems which he had to encounter, the 
 work which he achieved, and the influences which 
 he left behind. Thus the rise and culmination of 
 the Mughal Empire will be briefly sketched under 
 the title of Akbar; its decay under that of 
 Aurangzeb. The volume on Dupleix will sum up 
 the struggle of the European nations for India, 
 before the ascendency of the British. The present 
 volume on Dalhousie exhibits the final develop- 
 ments of the East India Company's rule. 
 
 At the beginning of the century, the Marquess 
 of Wellesley, a king of men, organised British India 
 on the basis upon which it rested from 1798 to 
 1848. But during those fifty years, as we shall see, 
 
lO DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the old fabric gradually wore out and its props 
 began to give way. In 1848 another strong ruler 
 came out from England to India, and laid afresh 
 the foundations of the British Power — the founda- 
 tions which, notwithstanding striking changes in 
 the political control and administration, subsist to 
 this day. It is with the work of this second builder 
 of the temple of British Rule in India that the 
 following pages deal. Lord Dalhousie's administra- 
 tion is now sufficiently removed from us to permit 
 of calm historical treatment. Yet its consequences 
 have so directly produced the India of to-day, as to 
 give to his measures an almost contemporary in- 
 terest. When the master-hand was removed, those 
 measures had their reaction in the Mutiny. But 
 the Mutiny of 1857 passed away in its turn, and 
 left the permanent results of Lord Dalhousie's 
 administration to develope themselves. The present 
 foreign policy of India, the present internal pro- 
 blems of India, the new Industrial Era in India, 
 are alike legacies of his rule. 
 
 For Lord Dalhousie did three things in India. 
 He extended its frontiers, so as to bring them into 
 inevitable although indirect contact with a great 
 European nation on the one side, and with an 
 ancient Asiatic power on the othei*. He at the 
 same time consolidated the East India Company's 
 internal possessions and the intervening Feuda- 
 tory States, into the true beginnings of a united 
 
THE ARGUMENT II 
 
 Indian Empire. But perhaps his most permanent 
 claim on the gratitude of his country is that by his 
 far-reaching schemes of railways, roads, canals, and 
 public works, he inaugurated the great revolution 
 which has converted the agricultural India of 
 antiquity into the manufacturing and mercantile 
 India of our own day. Expansion of territory, 
 unification of territory, and the drawing forth of 
 material resources, these were the three labours 
 given to Lord Dalhousie to accomplish in India: 
 and in the three w^ords, conquest, consolidation, and 
 development, his work may be summed up. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie found India an isolated country. 
 In the North-west a powerful and warlike people, 
 the Sikhs, lay between us and Central Asia. By 
 the annexation of the Punjab, Lord Dalhousie 
 abolished that intervening military nationality. He 
 advanced the British boundary to the foot of the 
 mountains, and made British ofiicers the wardens 
 of the passes. Since his time the North-western 
 frontier of India has been garrisoned by British 
 armies, alike against the Muhammadan races of 
 Central Asia and against Russia. Our Asiatic rela- 
 tions with Russia, which had previously been fitful, 
 were brought by the conquest of the Punjab, 
 gradually but inevitably, within the normal sphere 
 of European diplomacy. The supreme factors in 
 Indian foreign policy have been transferred from 
 Calcutta and Lahore to London and St. Petersburgh. 
 
12 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 The neutralisation of Afghanistan has taken the 
 place of the neutralisation of the Black Sea. 
 
 The armament of India is now regulated not 
 alone by the internal need of India, but by 
 necessities which have been forced upon India 
 from beins: broudit into contact with the armed 
 camp of European nations. The latest Viceroy 
 Lord Duff'erin's military policy and military ex- 
 penditure were dominated by the responsibility of 
 guarding against Russia the North-western frontier 
 of India — the frontier which was substantially 
 created by Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 On the opposite side of India also, in the North- 
 east and the South-east, independent states sepa- 
 rated us, until Lord Dalhousie's time, from our 
 other great Asiatic neighbour, China. The an- 
 nexation of the outlying Sikkim districts, by Lord 
 Dalhousie in 1850, has brought us into contact 
 with Tibet and the Chinese Empire. In 1888 the 
 British representative in Pekin was endeavouring to 
 arrange difficulties which were the direct although 
 tardy results of that annexation ; and a delegate 
 from the Chinese Government came in 1889-90 
 to India with a view to the same object. 
 
 In the far South-eastern promontory, also, Lord 
 Dalhousie extended the British frontier. His 
 annexation of the lower districts of the Irawadi 
 slowly, but irresistibly, brought about a state 
 of things which could only end in a British 
 
THE ARGUMENT 13 
 
 conquest of Upper Burma. Lord Dufferin's Pro- 
 clamation at Mandalay in 1886, by which Upper 
 Burma passed under the government of Queen 
 Victoria, was the natural sequel of Lord Dal- 
 housie's annexation of Lower Burma in 1852. The 
 extinction of the Burmese Empire has not only 
 brought us into direct diplomatic relations with 
 China, but it has also involved an indefinite re- 
 cognition of certain semi-suzerain- claims ot the 
 Chinese Emperor. 
 
 But far-reaching as have been the results of 
 Lord Dalhousie's frontier conquests, his policy of 
 internal consolidation seems destined to produce 
 even more important consequences. That consoli- 
 dation appeared at the time to be a unification of 
 the Indian territories ; it is slowly disclosing itself 
 also as a unification of the Indian races. Lord 
 Dalhousie was convinced, and with good reason, 
 that the old system of ruling India under the 
 make-believe of sham royalties and of artificial 
 intermediate powers wrought misery to the people. 
 He held himself bound to take every fair oppor- 
 tunity that offered for substituting an honest Eng- 
 lish administration. One native State after another 
 passed under this policy to direct British Rule. 
 
 The map of India which Dalhousie pondered 
 over during his voyage out, in 1847, was a much 
 simpler problem in political geography than the 
 map which he handed over to his successor. The 
 
14 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Punjab, Sikkim, a part of Cachar, Lower Burma, 
 Satara, and a part of Sincl, marked the magnificent 
 circumference of his conquests and annexations: 
 Oudh, the Central Provinces, Baghat, Sambalpur, 
 Jaitpur, Udaipur, Jhansi, the Berars, and part of 
 Khandesh, represent the vast territories with which 
 he filled in the centre. I should be merely begging 
 the question with which this book will try to 
 honestly deal, if I were in a preliminary chapter 
 to utter one word of praise or blame regarding the 
 policy that so prodigiously augmented the dominions 
 and the responsibilities of England in the East. It 
 sufiices if we realize at the outset that it was Lord 
 Dalhousie who made the modern map of India. 
 
 To lay any stress in these preliminary remarks 
 on mere extension of territory would prejudge 
 the whole question as to the merits or demerits of 
 Lord Dalhousie's rule. For an increase of 
 territory may be only a daonnosa haereditas of 
 political robbery, prolonged popular resistance, and 
 financial strain. Lord Dalhousie would himself 
 have desired that the causes and circumstances 
 which led to each conquest or annexation should 
 be accurately set forth, before any credit was 
 claimed for it. He conscientiously believed that 
 such title as he might have acquired to the 
 gratitude of his countrymen was based, not upon 
 the extent, but on the justice of his acquisitions. 
 Whether he was rioht or wrong in this belief, I 
 
THE ARGUMENT 1 5 
 
 shall, after honestly stating the facts, leave the 
 reader to judge. 
 
 The territories which Lord Dalhousie conquered 
 or annexed, he firmly bound together. His vast 
 extension of roads, canals, steamer-routes, and 
 public undertakings of many kinds, created facili- 
 ties for commerce, and an effective surplus of the 
 staples of commerce, such as had never before 
 existed in India. But under his rule, also, four 
 new engines of consolidation were set at work : 
 railways, telegraphs, a half-penny post, and a great 
 centralising system of education on a Western 
 basis. I shall speak of each of these hereafter. 
 For the moment let me quote the words of the 
 earliest biographer of Lord Dalhousie concerning 
 a single one of them. ' Railways,' wrote Sir 
 Edwin Arnold in 1 865, when they were still a new 
 thing in India, 'railways may do for India what 
 dynasties have never done — what the genius of 
 Akbar the Magnificent could not eff*ect by govern- 
 ment, nor the cruelty of Tipti Sahib by violence — 
 they may make India a nation \' 
 
 It is to the consolidating influences thus put in 
 motion by Lord Dalhousie that we owe the India 
 of to-day, with its new mercantile era, its new in- 
 tellectual activity^ its new political awakening. 
 His geographical unification of Indian territories is 
 
 ^ The Marquis of Dalhousie' 8 Administration of British India, 
 by Sir Edwin Arnold, vol. ii, pp. 241-2, 1865. 
 
1 6 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 slowly but surely creating a sense of solidarity 
 among the Indian peoples. For while Lord Dal- 
 housie overleapt the old ramparts between India 
 and foreign nations, he also began the process of 
 throwins: down the ancient barriers between the 
 races of India itself. And if he extended the 
 foreign risks and responsibilities of India far 
 beyond their previous limits, he also laid the foun- 
 dation of a United India w^ithin her own frontiers. 
 
 I propose in this little book to write a brief but 
 clear and connected narrative of Lord Dalhousie's 
 conquests, as a whole, passing over for the moment 
 the other events of his administration, which inter- 
 vened between the conquest of the Punjab in 1849 
 and the conquest of Lower Burma in 1852. I shall 
 then endeavour to present a similar view of what 
 is known as Lord Dalhousie's annexation policy — 
 that is to say of his systematic action in regard to 
 the Native States which brought many of the 
 Feudatory Powers in India under direct British rule. 
 In this part of the work, also, I shall unfold the 
 successive acts in the great drama of annexation, 
 from that of Satara in 1848, to that of Oudh in 
 1856, without interrupting the story by the inter- 
 mediate measures of domestic administration. 
 
 Having thus shown how Lord Dalhousie built up 
 the new India, by conquest and annexation, I shall 
 exhibit the means which he took to consolidate it. 
 For in Lord Dalhousie's great scheme of empire. 
 
THE ARGUMENT 17 
 
 consolidation kept pace, step by step, with terri- 
 torial extension. It will be my duty to indicate 
 the series of beneficent measures of peace which his 
 master-mind designed as the complement of his 
 annexations and conquests by war. How he 
 welded province to province by the iron bands of 
 the railway and the telegraph. How he began that 
 process of binding together the Indian races by a 
 common system of education and by a community 
 of interest, mercantile and political, which was 
 altogether unknown in ancient India, and which 
 forms the most significant feature of the India of 
 to-day. 
 
 The time has not yet come to pronounce a final 
 judgment on Lord Dalhousie's work. He himself 
 forbad, by a Codicil, the publication of his papers 
 until fifty years after his death. To Lady Con- 
 nemara, his beloved daughter and devoted 
 companion, who has kindly gone through the 
 biographical portions of this book, I tender my 
 grateful and respectful thanks. To Dr. Grant, 
 the physician and friend of Lord Dalhousie during 
 his Indian career and later life, I am under very 
 special obligations not only for materials and 
 verifications, but for the revision of the entire 
 proof-sheets. 
 
 This little volume wiU, at any rate, correct the 
 misunderstandings and half-knowledge which ob- 
 scured Lord Dalhousie's administration at the time 
 
l8 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 of his death. I have carefully studied the works 
 of that period, from the worthless masses of in- 
 vective and panegyric, to the eloquent writings of 
 Sir John William Kaye and Sir Edwin Arnold 
 on the one side, and the calm expositions of Sir 
 Charles Jackson and the Duke of Argyll on the 
 other. I have compared their statements and con- 
 clusions with the Minutes and Despatches of 
 Lord Dalhousie himself ; with the voluminous 
 State-papers and correspondence in the Parlia- 
 mentary Blue Books ; and with the miscellaneous 
 materials now afforded by the biographies of 
 Lord Dalhousie' s contemporaries in India, espe- 
 cially by Bosworth Smith's most admirable Life of 
 Lord Lawrence, and the lives of Sir Herbert 
 Edwardes, Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir James Outram, 
 and Sir Charles Napier. The result, while not 
 justifying a final verdict as to the far-reaching 
 consequences of Lord Dalhousie's rule, will enable 
 us to obtain a clear and impartial view not 
 only of his measures, but of the considerations 
 which regulated his policy, and of the motives 
 which guided the man. 
 
CHAPTER n 
 
 The Man 
 
 First of all it is needful to distinctly realize the 
 man. The strong personality of Lord Dalhousie 
 formed so dominant a factor in his Indian adminis- 
 tration, that any attempt to exhibit his public career 
 without a clear view of his private character must 
 fail. His character, indeed, was built on such 
 solid foundations, and presented so majestic a front 
 to his fellow-men, that the temptation is to allow 
 the portrait in the foreground to occupy too much 
 of the canvas available for my whole picture. 
 
 Fortunately, however, the life of Lord Dalhousie 
 has been already written, although from inadequate 
 materials, yet by able hands. Dr. George Smith's 
 sketches in The Friend of India in 1861, and 
 subsequently in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 form models of their kind. The narrative lately 
 drawn up by Captain L. J. Trotter deserves the 
 highest praise for its conscientious labour and 
 artistic skill. I only hope that this little book 
 may prove as meritorious in its own way, as an 
 historical retrospect, as Captain Trotter's is excellent 
 B 2 
 
20 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 as a personal biography. It is due to him to state 
 that although the main body of my work was 
 written before I had access to his volume, yet 
 that I found it necessary to re-write the present 
 chapter and enrich it from the new materials, 
 especially those supplied by Dr. Grant, in Captain 
 Trotter's book. In the other eleven chapters I 
 confine myself to the materials which I had al- 
 ready collected. 
 
 James Andrew Broun Kamsay, tenth earl, and 
 first and only Marquess of Dalhousie, was born at 
 Dalhousie Castle on the 22nd of April, 1 8 1 2. ' The 
 house,' writes the Queen when recording her visit 
 to it, * is a real old Scotch castle of reddish stone.' 
 Built in the twelfth century, and restored and 
 added to in the present one, the stronghold of the 
 Dalhousies now stands calmly on the beautiful 
 bank of the South Esk, as the trains fly down the 
 incline hard by, through Cockpen parish, before 
 slackening their speed into Edinburgh. An ances- 
 tor of the family had saved King James the Sixth 
 of Scotland in the Gowrie conspiracy, and the 
 strong character of the long line of Lords of 
 Dalhousie impressed itself alike on the history 
 and the poetry of Scotland — from the Maecenas- 
 Dalhousie of The Gentle Shepherd to the old 
 bachelor Laird o' Cockpen. 
 
 James, the future Governor-General of India, 
 was the third son of the ninth earl. His father, 
 
THE MAN 21 
 
 a soldier of a noble presence, had served in the 
 Peninsular War, and was, three years after James' 
 birth, to command his own regiment at Waterloo. 
 His mother was the heiress of the Brouns of 
 Colstoun in Haddingtonshire — an ancient Norman 
 family tracing their descent upwards through 
 many illustrious houses to the Counts of Poitou. 
 One of James' brothers, the second son, died very 
 young ; and James, while still a child, was taken 
 along with his eldest brother by his parents to 
 Canada, of which province his father had been 
 appointed Governor-General. Canada formed the 
 happy childhood-land of James' memory, wistfully 
 looked back to in later Hfe; the bright opening scenes 
 of a manhood of labour, success, and sorrow ^. 
 
 When ten years old he was sent home to England 
 in a small sailing brig. He spent the next seven 
 years at Harrow, for the most part of the time 
 with his eldest brother as his fellow-pupil, and 
 with Dr. George Butler as their private tutor and 
 headmaster of the school. 
 
 ' One incident of his school-boy days,' writes 
 Captain Trotter, 'may have helped to kindle his 
 young ambition. In 1823, the Marquis of Hastings 
 returned home from India, which he had governed 
 for nine years with rare ability alike as a soldier 
 and a statesman. In the following year he paid a 
 
 1 The original materials for Dalhousie's youth were first published 
 in The Friend of India at Serampur, January 31, 186 1. 
 
22 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 visit to his old school, and won the hearts of the 
 Harrow boys by giving them a present of two 
 sovereigns apiece. So princely a largess from a 
 grey-haired hero of such fine manners, of a presence 
 so commanding, must have filled many a boyish 
 heart with other sentiments than gratitude alone. 
 The conqueror of the Marathas stood there in all 
 his glory ; and young Ramsay, for one, would see 
 in that splendid old Harrovian the embodiment 
 of a greatness which he, too, might hope some 
 day to rival.' 
 
 In 1829 James' father succeeded Lord Comber- 
 mere, as Commander-in-Chief in India. The eldest 
 son, Lord Ramsay, accompanied him to the East, 
 and James entered at Christ Church, Oxford. 
 
 That learned and ancient society was at this 
 time the home of a brilliant group of young men, 
 destined to play great parts in the history, not only 
 of their own country, but also of India. Mr. Gladstone 
 was an undergraduate, about two years senior in 
 standing. Lord Canning who succeeded Dalhousie 
 as Governor-General of India, and Lord Elgin who 
 succeeded Canning as Viceroy of India, were among 
 the friends of young Ramsay at Christ Church. 
 He was regarded from the fii*st as a youth of high 
 promise, and a vacation tour in Northern Italy 
 further stimulated his classical taste and love of 
 learning. But the death of his eldest brother, Lord 
 Ramsay, in 1832, broke in upon his reading during 
 
THE MAN 23 
 
 the critical year before the final examination for 
 his degree. James succeeded to the courtesy title 
 as eldest son, and at the same time found himself 
 involved in many family duties. He returned to 
 Oxford and took the ordinary degree in 1833. But 
 the examiners recognised his claims to something 
 higher than a pass, and the exceptional circum- 
 stances of the case, by giving him an Honorary 
 Fourth — then regarded as equivalent to a Second 
 Class. 
 
 In 1833, Lord Ramsay came of age, and in 1835 
 he contested Edinburgh at the general election. 
 The candidature of the scarcely fledged patrician 
 against two veterans like Campbell the future Lord 
 Chancellor, and Abercromby the future Speaker, 
 (afterwards created Baron Dunfermline), was almost 
 hopeless from the outset. It is chiefly memorable 
 from his vigorous speeches at the hustings, the un- 
 expected force of will with which he put down his 
 own views on his committee, and the self-confident 
 but prescient words in which he thanked his sup- 
 porters after his defeat. 
 
 ' I return,' he said, ' to my own pursuits with the 
 sensation common to every man who feels that he 
 has not to reproach himself that he has buried his 
 talents in the earth ; that so far as in him lay, he has 
 done his duty to his country ^ his fellows and himself: 
 and that, having cast his bread upon the waters, he 
 has only to await in patient confidence the day 
 
24 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 when it shall again be found ^.' To the triumphant 
 majority against him he bade farewell in a good- 
 natured joke: 'Ye're daft to refuse the Laird o' 
 Cockpen.' 
 
 The defeat, indeed, sat lightly on the brilliant 
 young man with whom politics then mingled with 
 love. Soon afterwards, in January 1836, he 
 married Lady Susan Hay, eldest daughter of his 
 neighbour and family friend, the eighth Marquess of 
 Tweeddale. Lady Susan Hay is described as a tall 
 and very beautiful girl, a perfect mistress of French, 
 and an accomplished musician. Her love of horses 
 and dogs became proverbial in iudia, where she 
 rode her husband's tours march by march, and was 
 a familiar figure on the Calcutta Course, driving 
 a pair of spirited steeds in excellent form. Some- 
 what impassive in society, her genuine Scottish 
 kindness of heart, intellectual gifts, and charm of 
 manner, made her adored in domestic life. Her 
 death in 1853 completely overshadowed the re- 
 mainder of her husband's existence on earth. 
 
 Two daughters filled up the happiness of their 
 seventeen years of married life. The younger. Lady 
 Edith, married in 1859 the Right Honourable Sir 
 James Fergusson, Bart., the distinguished Colonial 
 and Indian Governor. She died in 187 1. The elder. 
 Lady Susan, after nobly devoting herself to her 
 father's declining years, and ministering to him to 
 
 ^ The Times article on Dalhousie's death. 
 
THE MAN 25 
 
 the end, married in 1863 the Honourable Robert 
 Bourke, now Lord Connemara, brother of a later 
 Viceroy of India, the Earl of Mayo. 
 
 The year after his marriage. Lord Ramsay was 
 returned to Parliament in 1837 for Haddingtonshire, 
 a county in which his mother's influence, as heiress 
 of Colstoun, was great. In 1838, however, he 
 succeeded, on his father's death, to the Earldom, and 
 his career in the House of Commons came to a close. 
 A young conservative peer had, at that political 
 juncture, but little chance of distinction in the 
 House of Lords. So the new Earl of Dalhousie 
 threw himself with characteristic vigour into what 
 local work offered itself to his hand. He repre- 
 sented the Presbytery of Dalkeith, within which 
 lay his own parish of Cockpen, as an elder at the 
 General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland in 1839. 
 
 The great questions which split up the Church of 
 Scotland four years later were already stirring 
 men's minds. Lord Dalhousie, as an enlightened 
 conservative of the disinterested type, sympathised 
 in several important points with the reformers, 
 and is said to have voted with them on what was 
 then regarded as the crux of lay patronage. But 
 while favouring enquiry and redress of grievances, 
 he resolutely refused to be led into a line of whole- 
 sale innovation which he foresaw must end in 
 separation, and which as a matter of fact did end, 
 in 1843, in the Disruption of the Scottish Church. 
 
26 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 This firmness appeared strange in so young a man, 
 and gave deep offence to Dr. Chalmers who had 
 mistaken the Earl's outspoken sympathy, and his 
 hearty agreement on particular points, for a 
 general concurrence in the ecclesiastical leader's 
 programme. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers' friends placed Lord Dalhousie's 
 name on his committee. But, says Captain Trotter, 
 * Lord Dalhousie not only refused to sit upon it, but 
 delivered a solemn protest against the policy which 
 he had been supposed to sanction. In accepting 
 Dr. Chalmers' motion, the Church, he declared, " had 
 already rung out her knell as the Established Church 
 of Scotland." For his own part, he could no longer 
 remain a member of the General Assembly. Suiting 
 the action to the word, he took up his hat and 
 walked out of the hall ^.' 
 
 The sense of isolation caused by this parting 
 from friends whose talents he admired, and whose 
 motives he respected, was deepened by the death of 
 his mother. The Dowager Countess died in 1839, 
 and the young Earl at twenty-seven years of age 
 was henceforth to face life, stripped of all his 
 immediate kindred among whom he had grown up. 
 In 1842, the Queen paid a visit to Dalhousie Castle 
 and admired from the drawing-room window, as 
 her Journal records, the ' beautiful wooded valley, 
 and a peep of the distant hills.' It is charac- 
 
 * For full details, see The Friend of India, January 31, i86i. 
 
THE MAN 27 
 
 teristic of the somewhat haughty courtesy which 
 in later years grew upon him, that he 'playfully 
 reminded Her Majesty that the last English Sove- 
 reign who had approached the Castle was Henry 
 IV ; and he " had remained outside for weeks and 
 never gained admission." ' 
 
 The fall of the Melbourne Ministry made way 
 for Sir Kobert Peel ; and Lord Dalhousie, who had 
 early won the confidence of the great conservative 
 statesman, was appointed Vice-President of the 
 Board of Trade in 1843. Mr. Gladstone, his former 
 fellow-undergraduate at Christ Church, was Presi- 
 dent ; and on Mr. Gladstone's resignation of that 
 post in 1 845, the young Earl succeeded. 
 
 As President of the Board of Trade Lord Dal- 
 housie found himself face to face with the railway 
 mania of 1845-46. He laid before the Prime 
 Minister a scheme for treating the new system of 
 communication as a national concern, and for 
 bringing it under a more direct and effective 
 control by the State. Lord Dalhousie's admirers 
 claim for him that if his proposals had been 
 accepted, England would have been spared the 
 wide-spread ruin of the railway panic, which soon 
 afterwards resulted from leaving railway develop- 
 ment to private competition. Whether it would 
 have been in the long-run so productive of facilities 
 to English commerce is another question. Sir 
 Robert Peel, probably with good reason, believed 
 
28 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 that a s^^stem of State railways would not at that 
 time be accepted by Parliament. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's scheme remained therefore a 
 proposal only, until it fell to his lot to carry it out 
 himself in India. ' It provided among other things,' 
 writes Captain Trotter, 'that no new line of 
 railway should be sanctioned, except on some clear 
 ground of pubUc advantage, commercial or strate- 
 gic' No sentence could better describe the basis 
 on which the railway system of India — Lord Dal- 
 housie's own child — has, without a single panic or 
 a single check, been gradually but surely created. 
 
 As his counsel of perfection could not be adopted, 
 the young President of the Board of Trade set 
 himself to do the best with the means permitted to 
 him. Every new line had to pass under review 
 before sanction was accorded. Within a few 
 months the number amounted to '>,'^1, representing 
 an expenditure of 271 millions, besides many 
 foreign schemes which had come for their capital to 
 the English market. When the last day of the 
 year arrived for receiving applications, over six 
 hundred projects were deposited on his table. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie attacked the huge pile with an 
 energy which amazed and wearied out his sub- 
 ordinates and coadjutors, but which nothing short 
 of absolute illness could arrest. His persistent 
 over-work at this period laid the foundation of 
 painful future disease. In spite of physical pros- 
 
THE MAN 29 
 
 tration he stuck to his task, labouring at his desk 
 all day, and brilliantly defending his chief in 
 the House of Lords at night. ' To him more than 
 any other man,' says Dr. George Smith, ' Great 
 Britain owes its railway system.' 'He will be a 
 very leading man,' wrote Charles Greville, apropos 
 of the crucial debate in May 1846, 'for he is 
 popular, pleasing, and has a virgin unsoiled repu- 
 tation, nothing to apologise for, and nothing to 
 recant : and he is a good man of business and an 
 excellent speaker.' 
 
 Sir Eobert Peel resigned in the following month, 
 having first expressed his sense of Lord Dalhousie's 
 services by appointing him Lord Clerk Registrar of 
 Scotland. As the Dalhousie estates (his mother's 
 property of Colstoun had descended to him heavily 
 burdened) did not yield over ^1500 per annum, 
 this addition of ^1200 a year was doubly welcome 
 to him as a mark of friendship from his beloved 
 chief, and as a material addition to his income. 
 When Sir Eobert Peel laid down his office in June, 
 1846, and Lord John Russell urged the young Earl 
 to accept office under the new Cabinet, Dalhousie 
 declined. Lord John had however marked him as 
 a man likely to do credit to any Minister, and next 
 year, 1847, pressed on him the Governor-General- 
 ship of India. So splendid an offer to a young 
 nobleman, only thirty -five years of age, is perhaps 
 the best evidence of the respect which Dalhousie 
 
30 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 had inspired, not only among his own party, but in 
 the cool judgment of English statesmen who differed 
 from his views. But Lord Dalhousie did not 
 accept the honour until he obtained the cordial 
 concurrence of his late conservative chief, and 
 the generous assurance of the new Whig Minister 
 that it would in no way fetter his action in home 
 politics, or affect his relations with former allies. 
 Nor was it without a sigh of regret that the young 
 Earl turned aside from the splendid parliamentary 
 career which had opened to him, and elected for 
 the certainty of being Governor-General of India, 
 in place of the possibility of becoming Prime 
 Minister of England. 
 
 On the 1 2th January, 1848, Lord Dalhousie 
 landed at Calcutta with the Countess of Dalhousie 
 and a brilliant staff, including his talented private 
 secretary, Mr. Courtenay. The Honourable Francis 
 Fane (afterwards Earl of Westmoreland) and a young 
 relative of the Duke of Wellington, were among his 
 Aides-de-camp. He had abeady begun to pay the 
 penalty of an Indian career, that severance of the 
 dearest domestic ties which takes the pleasure out 
 of the most brilliant Indian success, by having 
 to leave his two little daughters behind him in 
 England. He was destined to pay that penalty to 
 the full. Of the state of India on his arrival it will 
 be my duty to speak hereafter ; for the crisis which 
 had then unwittingly been reached, forms the key- 
 
THE MAN 31 
 
 note to his whole administration. Meanwhile it 
 may save space, if I clearly exhibit at the outset 
 what manner of man Lord Dalhousie appeared to 
 his colleagues and contemporaries throughout his 
 eight years of Indian rule. 
 
 Small of stature, but with a noble head, a most 
 penetrating glance, and a haughty demeanour, ' the 
 little man' of Government House first inspired awe 
 in those with whom he came in contact; then 
 trust ; and finally an ardent admiration, in which 
 loyalty to the master mingled strangely with per- 
 sonal love. He was the only one of the long list of 
 Governors-General for whom both the great services 
 in India, civil and military, and also the non- 
 official British public, felt a real and lasting enthu- 
 siasm. For during eight years of trials, and sorrows, 
 and successes, he presented to our countrymen in 
 India the loftiest type, I had almost said the 
 apotheosis, of the great qualities with which we 
 in distant lands love to associate the name of 
 Englishman. 
 
 His masterful character made enemies during his 
 life ; his poliey towards the Native States raised a 
 tempest of hostile criticism after his death. But 
 during the long period of his actual rule, enmity 
 lay spell-bound by his commanding nobility of 
 soul, criticism was by degrees almost hushed by 
 his splendid successes, and throughout the vast 
 continent, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, 
 
32 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 spread a universal conviction that there was a 
 veritable king of men in India, and that that king 
 was Dalhousie. 
 
 ' Those who were most intimate with him,' says 
 the man who knew him best, his private surgeon 
 and honoured friend, Dr. Alexander Grant, ' accorded 
 to his ability and sagacity something scarcely short 
 of absolute worship. Sir James Outram told me 
 that he had had intercourse with the Duke of 
 Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and other leading 
 statesmen in England, but never felt so awed, so 
 stricken by his own inferiority, as in his interviews 
 with Lord Dalhousie, who had always treated him 
 most kindly.' This, too, in spite of the smallness 
 of his stature, and of the fact that Dalhousie was a 
 much younger man than the veteran soldiers and 
 administrators on whom he so firmly impressed his 
 will. The following description of his appearance 
 when he entered on his duties at Calcutta, I take 
 from Captain Trotter, who apparently derived it 
 from personal communication with Dr. Grant : — 
 
 'Youthful looking even for his years, erect in 
 gait, with a slim well-knit figure crowned by a 
 noble, handsome, Titianesque head, lighted up by a 
 pair of large, bright, blue eyes — " really quick, clear, 
 honest eyes" — to the frank courtesy of his manner 
 he added "an air of authority that commanded 
 respect and even awe." . . . His forehead was broad 
 and deep; the nose slightly aquihne, with fine, 
 
THE MAN ^>^ 
 
 clearly chiselled nostrils. He had a shapely and 
 most expressive mouth, with long, thin, flexible 
 lips that played in quick answer to every turn of 
 thought and feeling : now compressed with pain or 
 passing annoyance, anon relaxing into perfect sweet- 
 ness or overflowing humour. To all this may be 
 added a voice so clear, sweet, and musically intoned, 
 that his visitor found its fascination quite irre- 
 sistible.' 
 
 Such was the brilliant young statesman, as por- 
 trayed by a friendly but accurate hand, who at 
 the age of thirty-five entered on the great task of 
 governing India. We shall see him, only a short 
 eight years later, when he laid down his office — 
 heul quantum "inutatus ah illo — a worn-out, 
 crippled old man, tottering down the river bank 
 which he had once ascended with so firm a step, 
 and carrying, as he well knew, his death within 
 him. In narrating the incessant work which he did, 
 I shall say little of the strain which that incessant 
 work meant to his mind and body. He himself 
 maintained, and would have desired, a dignified 
 reticence. But in order to understand the man, it 
 is necessary throughout to bear in memory the 
 magnificent youthful activities which he brought 
 to India, and the havoc which India wrought upon 
 them. 
 
 His colleagues and subordinates quickly found 
 that there was a new and imperious will at work 
 
 c 
 
34 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 in the Government. One day's routine may serve as 
 aa example of his life during the next eight years. He 
 rose about six, and began the morning, as he ended 
 the evening, by quietly reading a chapter in the 
 Bible. From six to eight he devoted himself to 
 his office-boxes. At eight he breakfasted, glancing 
 from time to time at the Indian newspapers which 
 were laid out on his table. ' At half-past nine,' 
 writes Captain Trotter, ' he would sit down at his 
 desk, which he never quitted, even while he ate his 
 lunch, before half-past five. Eight hours of con- 
 tinuous brain-work was enough, he would say, for 
 any man, and to this rule he generally adhered. 
 His tastes, especially in the matter of food, were 
 simple. He ate little and drank less at the quiet 
 family dinners which he loved,' He hated the huge 
 banquets which form the ceaseless penance of a 
 working Viceroy's life ; but he entertained with the 
 magnificence that became his high position. A 
 morning of discomfort and lassitude, during which 
 he painfully spurred himself up to his accustomed 
 rate of labour, was the price which he almost 
 invariably paid for his night of genial hospitality. 
 
 Nothing was allowed to interfere with his daily 
 tale of work — neither weariness, nor heat, nor the 
 fatigues of an Indian march. He rode his journies 
 on a fine light-grey Arab, Maharaja, di-essed very 
 simply in riding-gear of native " puttoo," and his 
 head well protected with a white pith helmet 
 
THE MAN 35 
 
 and pagri. Whether in camp or at Government 
 House he was to be found for his long allotted 
 hours pen in hand, his papers before him, and his 
 despatch boxes piled up on either side. 
 
 ' To those around him,' wrote his personal sur- 
 geon_, Dr. Grant, ' he seemed enamoured of his task. 
 Even in that hot and depressing climate, the intel- 
 lectual exertion which he liked, brought relief 
 rather than lassitude ; for business seemed not only 
 easy, but delightful to him. He went with heart 
 and soul into details, and to the driest subjects he 
 gave vitality.' ' Everyone who had business with 
 him,' says Sir E-ichard Temple, ' felt that intercourse 
 to be a pleasure : the harder the affair the greater 
 the satisfaction : so completely trained was his 
 capacity for administration.' 
 
 How thoroughly he mastered details, may be 
 realized from a few well-known facts. The Foreign 
 Department in the Government of India is usually 
 reserved for the Governor- General's immediate 
 control. In the modern phraseology of Indian 
 official life, the Viceroy is his own Foreign Minister 
 — that is to say, he has no Member of Council to 
 aid him in that department, as he has in the others, 
 but transacts all business directly with the Foreign 
 Secretary. During Lord Dalhousie's administra- 
 tion the Foreign Department was by far the most 
 important and most severely worked of any of the 
 branches of the Government. For it included not 
 c a 
 
36 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 only the relations of the British power with the 
 independent dominions which Lord Dalhousie con- 
 quered, but also with the numerous Native States 
 which Lord Dalhousie mediatised or annexed. 
 Every arrangement, from the plan of a campaign to 
 the hutting and water-filters of the troops, or from 
 the exact wording of a treaty to the ceremonial 
 niceties of a Darbar, was carefully scanned by his 
 own eye, and formed the subject of decisive orders 
 from his own pen. 
 
 The mere amount of handwriting which Lord 
 Dalhousie did would now seem an impossibility 
 for a Viceroy of India. On mail days sheet after 
 sheet in his swift delicate characters would pour 
 into the private secretary's room, with a rapidity 
 which taxed to the utmost the powers of that 
 practised copyist. As regards his routine work, 
 the Chief Clerk of the Foreign Department once 
 remarked that ' if Lord Dalhousie had been a writer 
 paid by the sheet, he would have earned a con- 
 siderable income.' Sir Henry Elliot, his talented 
 Foreign Secretary, the dvlce decus of the Bengal 
 Civil Service of that period, found so much of his 
 daily labour done for him by the Governor-General, 
 that he had leisure to amass the materials for the 
 eight volumes which now form his memorial for all 
 time. He ' used to say with a pleasant smile that 
 he spent most of his time as Foreign Secretary in 
 pursuing his own historical studies.' 
 
THE MAN ^y 
 
 The same omnivorous activity, and it must be 
 added imperious will, characterised Lord Dalhousie's 
 work in every department of the Government. 
 'There is the master, and we are the little boys 
 under him,' said the Chief Justice when Lord 
 Dalhousie laid down the rules for the remodelled 
 judicial procedure. Lord Dalhousie claimed abso- 
 lute obedience, not only by virtue of the authority 
 committed to him, but by right of the infinite 
 trouble he took to ascertain the facts of each case, 
 and of the precision of his personal orders upon it. 
 Nor would he be satisfied with any half-hearted 
 compliance. ' In cases where he had a right to be 
 masterful,' wrote Sir Richard Temple, 'he was 
 prompt to vindicate authority; and whenever he 
 received a provocation justly to be resented, he 
 had quite a special faculty for making his dis- 
 pleasure dreaded ^.' 
 
 The obedience which Lord Dalhousie enforced 
 from those under him, he loyally yielded to those 
 under whom he himself was placed. 'He was 
 invariably courteous and respectful to the Court of 
 Directors,' says Sir Richard Temple in the work 
 above quoted — a work to which I am under many 
 obligations — , ' while he evidently felt grateful for 
 the support so consistently afibrded by them. . . 
 It is creditable to Dalhousie's tact and discretion that 
 
 ^ Men and Events of my Time in India, by Sir Eichard Temple, 
 Bart., p. 124, ed. 1882. 
 
38 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 he should, though a very progressive ruler, have 
 retained to the end the confidence of so cautious a 
 body as the Coui-t of Directors.' 
 
 He was scrupulously polite to his subordinates ; 
 and he knew so well the power of giving pain which 
 dwelt in his words, that he scarcely on any occasion 
 administered a personal rebuke. He reserved his 
 reproofs for writing, toning them down in the soli- 
 tude of his chamber. But even thus calmed and 
 moderated, a reprimand from Dalhousie cut to the 
 bone. The austere conscientiousness which he 
 enforced from himself in every part of his duty, he 
 demanded from others. ' By those who had served 
 him loyally,' continues Sir Richard Temple, 'he 
 was regarded as a trustworthy friend : but even 
 they looked up to him with a certain awe ^.' 
 
 There were those, however, who not only served 
 him loyally and trusted him as a friend, but who 
 toiled for him with enthusiasm, and loved him 
 living or dead from the very bottom of their hearts. 
 A hundred stories are told of the tenderness and 
 gratitude with which he repaid such love. The 
 illness of a trusted subordinate brought always a 
 keener pang to Dalhousie than any sufferings of his 
 own ; the death of a valued officer moved the stern 
 master to tears. No letter in the English language 
 breathes a more chivalrous sympathy than that 
 
 ^ Men and 'Events of my Time in India, by Sir Eicliard Temple, 
 Bart., p. 124. ed. 1882. 
 
THE MAN 39 
 
 which he addressed to the wife of Colonel Lawrence 
 on her release from captivity during the Sikh war : 
 nor could any words be better fitted to inspire a 
 man with the strength of a noble appreciation of 
 his own worth, than those with which he comforted 
 John Lawrence on his sick bed. As I shall have to 
 explain clearly the strained relations between Lord 
 Dalhousie and members of the Lawrence family, 
 and not to disguise the somewhat irksome domina- 
 tion which his imperious will laid upon the equally 
 strong natures of the illustrious brethren, it may be 
 well to reproduce these two letters. They will 
 suffice to show how he won the love of those whom 
 he most resolutely controlled. 
 
 ' Madam/ he wrote in 1 849 to the wife of Colonel 
 Lawrence on her release from the Afghans, — ' Since I 
 cannot have the pleasure of seeing you here, I am 
 sure you will permit me to take the liberty of 
 addressing to you myself my hearty and cordial 
 congratulations on your being once again in the 
 midst of your family, and of those who have been 
 long watching your fate with painful interest. 
 
 * The kindness of your friends has permitted me 
 during that time to see many of your notes which 
 you never meant for any mere official eye ; and I 
 trust you will not think I take too great a liberty 
 in saying — for even at the risk of your displeasure 
 I must say it — that the perusal of them during the 
 long course of your captivity, showing to me the 
 
40 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 gallant heart you kept up under it, the cheery face 
 you put upon it, and the uncomplaining and con- 
 fiding patience with which you bore it all, has filled 
 me with a respect for your character and admira- 
 tion for your conduct, which, if I were fully to 
 express them, you would perhaps suspect me of 
 flattery. 
 
 ' In the hope of one day paying my respects to 
 you in quieter times than the past, and some 
 pleasanter place than Peshawar, I am^ etc., Dal- 
 housie.' 
 
 To John Lawrence, during his serious fever in 
 1 850, Lord Dalhousie wrote as follows ^ : * I have 
 not plagued you with any letter since I heard of 
 your illness. I need not say how deeply and truly 
 I grieved to learn the severe attack you have suf- 
 fered, and how anxious I shall be to learn again 
 that you are improving during your march, and 
 that you are not foolishly impeding your recovery 
 by again returning to work. I am terrified at the 
 thought of your being compelled to give up work 
 and go home for a time, and I plead with you to 
 spare yourself for a time as earnestly as I would 
 plead to save my own right hand. Two of you 
 have been working hard enough. Heaven knows, 
 for the third : let the other two now take their turn 
 
 ^ I quote this letter from Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord 
 Lawrence, vol. i, p. 311, ed. 1885: a work to which both in this 
 and other chapters I am much indebted for an insight into Lord 
 Dalhousie's private character and public policy. 
 
THE MAN 4T 
 
 of working for you. Keep enough work in your 
 hands to employ you, but don^'t take so much as 
 to burden you.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie did not keep his expressions of 
 affection only for the sick. The whole body of 
 officers immediately under him knew that the im- 
 perious 'little man' watched every incident in 
 their lives with an interest which no pressure of 
 public anxieties could slacken. I cannot refrain 
 from quoting one more letter, a little note which, 
 with the heavy burden of the Burmese War upon 
 him, he found time to write to Major Reynell 
 Taylor, when that officer took furlough to England 
 in 1852. 'My dear Taylor, — The power of 
 encouraging and rewarding such men as yourself 
 is one of the few things which make the labour 
 and anxiety of ruling men in some degree bearable. 
 I have seen your progress with great satisfaction. 
 I earnestly hope you may have future oppor- 
 tunities for gaining distinction which you are so 
 fitted to win. Farewell, my dear Taylor. Always 
 yours sincerely, Dalhousie.' 
 
 A letter like any of the three preceding became 
 an heirloom in the family of the recipient. It 
 was by such words of noblest sympathy and strong 
 comfort, and genuine warmth of heart, that Lord 
 Dalhousie welded together the ambitions and aspi- 
 rations of his great lieutenants with his own, and 
 plucked allegiance from the souls of men. 
 
42 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Their allegiance, however, had its sure foundation 
 in their recognition of the fact that Lord Dalhousie 
 owned the truest right to command — the right of 
 personal knowledge gained by personal work. He 
 learned India for himself as no other Governor- 
 General had ever learned it. He deliberately 
 placed the newly conquered Punjab under that 
 most unintelligent of administrative machines, a 
 Board, because he determined that the Board 
 should be his right hand, but that he himself 
 should be its directing intelligence. He succeeded 
 because he laboured by travelling through the 
 Punjab, and by fixing his residence for many 
 months in one of its hill districts, to acquire the 
 personal knowledge which enabled him to control 
 with a well-grounded self-confidence the strong 
 men whom he selected to carry out his views. 
 
 The official documents and private papers in 
 which he recorded the results, prove that no detail 
 of administrative importance escaped his keen eye 
 while on his tours through the Punjab : from the 
 constitution, distribution, and commissariat of the 
 troops, in regard to which he showed a more exact 
 knowledge than the fiery old Commander-in-Chief, 
 to the composition of the police, the discipline of 
 the jails, the planting of trees (which led to the 
 true commencement of the Indian Forest Depart- 
 ment), the creation of a great system of roads and 
 canals, the provision of schools and hospitals, the 
 
THE MAN 43 
 
 abolition of cruel rites, and the reform of the 
 domestic and marriage customs which lay at the 
 root of infanticide in Northern India. Sailing down 
 the Indus, he circled round by Eombay, the Straits 
 Settlements, and Tenasserim, back to Calcutta in 
 March 1850. 
 
 His famous Punjab Minutes have, perhaps, ren- 
 dered that province a too familiar instance. Let 
 me therefore merely enumerate the journeys by 
 which he brought the newly conquered provinces 
 of Burma under his control. In 1852, during the 
 crisis of the Burmese war, he sailed from Calcutta 
 in defiance of the monsoon, to visit and encourage 
 the army amid the swamps of the Irawadi. Those 
 who know what Rangoon is in August, and what 
 the Bay of Bengal can be during that month, will 
 realize what the journey meant to a man already 
 broken down by the climate and over- work, and 
 subject to constant fever. But however severe his 
 own sufferings, he had abundant energy to see that 
 the troops were clothed, and housed, and fed, in a 
 way which contrasted strongly with their condition 
 during Lord Amherst's Burmese War, in 1825, and 
 which saved thousands of British lives during the 
 campaign. 
 
 The blow having been delivered, and Burma 
 annexed in December 1852, Lord Dalhousie set 
 forth in the following February to study for him- 
 self the best means of governing it. But instead of 
 
44 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 proceeding to the newly conquered provinces, he 
 visited and examined the Burmese territories which 
 had been under our rule during twenty-seven years. 
 He sailed along the coast of Arakan, inspecting the 
 ports and administrative centres, from Chittagong 
 to Akyab and Kyuk-phyu. From that visit many 
 local improvements, and indeed the great modern 
 commerce of Arakan date. But it was not in the 
 improvement of our older Burmese territories that 
 Lord Dalhousie's visit proved most fruitful. He 
 returned to Calcutta with the beginning of the 
 scheme which, during the following summer, he 
 worked up into a complete frame-work of govern- 
 ment for British Burma. He united the isolated 
 coast strip that had been conquered in 1826, with 
 the valley of the Irawadi, henceforth the main 
 sphere of British influence, by a military road hewn 
 through the Yoma Mountains. 
 
 In December of the same year, 1853, he again 
 sailed for Burma, but this time to the capital of his 
 new southern conquests, with a carefully matured 
 scheme for the administration, which he had 
 elaborated during the interval. On the present 
 occasion he made a thorough inspection of the 
 Irawadi valley to the extreme boundary of our 
 dominions, marched along their frontier, and then, 
 sweeping down again to the coast, visited Bassein, 
 and examined the possible new outlets of commerce. 
 
 This visit lasted to the beginning of 1854. 
 
THE MAN 45 
 
 During the following year and a half he allowed 
 the strong man, whom he had chosen for the charge 
 of the united Burmese provinces, to carry out his 
 views. Having thus given time for his system to 
 be brought into working order, he proceeded at 
 the end of 1855 to inspect for himself the results. 
 Once more, now alas the wreck of his former self, 
 he sailed from India to Burma, visiting not only 
 the busy emporium which his energy had created 
 at Kangoon, but also the island of Negrais, and the 
 new harbour that had sprung up near the mouth of 
 the Bassein Kiver, and which still bears his name. 
 If ever a conqueror earned, by personal labour, the 
 right to govern a newly subjected country, and to 
 impose his will upon his subordinates in the execu- 
 tion of the task, it was Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 For by this time the cares of empire, and all 
 worldly pomps and successes, had become to him 
 merely a matter of stern duty. The clouds of 
 desolation had during the previous two years fallen 
 heavily upon his soul. Himself ' bowed down and 
 crippled by an exhausting disease,' he had been 
 stripped one by one of the consolations which had 
 cheered him amid his own infirmities and suffering. 
 In the spring of 1852 Lady Dalhousie's health com- 
 pelled her to leave her husband, to seek a chance 
 of recovery in the hill climate of Ceylon. The 
 following year was the saddest in Lord Dalhousie's 
 life. One of his most trusted lieutenants in the 
 
46 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Punjab, Colonel Mackeson, fell by an Afghan 
 knife. His loss, Dalhousie declared in a General 
 Order, ' would have dimmed a victory.' Two years 
 before, he had mourned the sudden end of his great 
 English Chief, Sir Robert Peel — his stern composure 
 melting into tears at the news. Now, in 1853, he 
 was also to lose his right-hand man in India, Sir 
 Henry Elliot, most accomplished of Foreign Secre- 
 taries, and most brilliant and genial of private 
 friends. 
 
 But the desolation which fell upon Lord Dal- 
 housie in that year and wrung his heart, was of a 
 more intimate character. Although Lady Dalhousie 
 had improved by her visit to Ceylon in 1852, yet 
 it was found necessary in the following spring that 
 she should ao^ain leave India. She started via the 
 Cape for England, in the hope that the long sea 
 voyage, and the meeting at home with the two 
 daughters for whom she yearned, might enable her 
 to return to Calcutta at the beginning of winter in 
 restored health. The longings of the mother's 
 heart were destined never to be satisfied in this 
 world ; nor were the hopes of the husband ever to 
 be fulfilled. Lady Dalhousie died on the homeward 
 voyage, on the 6th of May, 1853. 
 
 The terrible task of breaking the news to her 
 husband fell upon his kinsman and Military Secre- 
 tary, Major James Ramsay. Lord Dalhousie one 
 evening returned from his usual drive on the Cal- 
 
THE MAN 47 
 
 cutta Course ; within a few minutes the light of his 
 life had gone out for ever. ' He fell to the ground 
 as if suddenly stricken dead. From that time 
 forth/ says Captain Trotter, ' the sense of his be- 
 reavement never left him.' ' For the first two days 
 he shut himself up alone with his grief. Then he 
 wrote a line to Courtenay (his Private Secretary) 
 begging only for "work, work," no matter what 
 kind. For several months he would see no one 
 except on urgent business, and seldom left the room 
 even for a drive.' 
 
 Consolation he would none of. Each mail brought 
 letters of tender sympathy : from the greatest 
 Lady of England, whose royal heart has never failed 
 to share the sorrows of those who serve her in 
 distant lands, down through a long succession of 
 illustrious and humbler friends whose knowledge 
 of his strong nature made them recognise the depth 
 of his desolation. It was, however, a touching 
 letter from his eldest daughter, Lady Susan Ramsay, 
 that ' first taught him in his own words that he 
 had " still something left to love." ' In December, 
 1854, this dear daughter, then seventeen years old, 
 joined her father in India. How she laboured to 
 fill the place which was left empty; with what 
 fine womanly tact and girlish brightness she won 
 her way into the darkened chambers of that 
 sad heart; how she shared Dalhousie's public 
 cares, and at length brought a new sunshine into 
 
48 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 his private life— is attested by those who had 
 watched around the stricken man, helpless to 
 assuage his gi'eat sorrow. 
 
 Why lengthen out the story of the remaining 
 years of sickness and toil? In 1853, during his 
 months of desolation, Lord Dalhousie saw his pro- 
 jects for railways and telegraphs for India become 
 accomplished facts. In 1854, he put the corner- 
 stone to the legislative edifice which was to exercise 
 so great an influence upon the destinies of the 
 country. In May, 1854, a year after his wife's 
 death, the new Legislative Council met for the first 
 time ; and during the same year the great Despatch 
 was penned by the Secretary of State which laid 
 the foundation of a national system of Indian 
 public instruction. 
 
 Before the end of the rains, however. Lord Dal- 
 housie's health was so broken that it seemed im- 
 possible for him to continue longer at his work. 
 ' He suppressed,' says Sir Richard Temple, ' as 
 much as possible any manifestation of his distress 
 or suflTering ; and the public was scarcely aware 
 that his strength and life were gradually but surely 
 ebbing away ^.' A voyage along the Orissa coast re- 
 cruited his strength for a moment ; but his surgeon 
 found it necessary to call into consultation another 
 leading Indian physician. The two advisers 
 
 ^ Men and Events of mij Time in India, p. 124, ed. 1882. 
 
THE MAN 49 
 
 made an earnest representation that his physical 
 condition demanded he should lay down the 
 Governor-Generalship. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie might have done so with honour 
 to himself. The splendid conquests of his rule 
 were completed ; his beneficent schemes of reform 
 and consolidation had been successfully introduced. 
 Had Lord Dalhousie then sailed from India, he 
 would have left behind him a name second to none 
 in the splendid series of British conquerors and 
 rulers of the East. But the worn-out Proconsul 
 had reason to know that the next twelve months 
 would bring a new and great labour which he did 
 not deem it right for him to decline. The dangerous 
 question of what must be done with Oudh was 
 pressing for decision. The Government in England 
 trusted to Lord Dalhousie, not only to find the 
 true answer to that question, but also to carry out 
 the policy which they might determine to adopt. 
 Lord Dalhousie had promised not to flinch from 
 the task, and well knowing the peril which he ran, 
 refused to quit his post. ' Believing it to be my 
 duty to remain in India during this year,' he de- 
 liberately replied in writing to his physicians' 
 protest, ' in fulfilment of my pledge, and trusting 
 in the Providence of God to avert from me those 
 indirect risks against which you have so clearly 
 and faithfully warned me, I have resolved to 
 remain.' 
 
50 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 The arrival of his daughter, Lady Susan, at the 
 end of 1854, and the comfort which she brought 
 into his life, alone enabled him to go through 
 the next thirteen months. A tour in Southern 
 India, and a refreshing pause on the Nilgiris, 
 nerved him for his final efibrt. On the 13th of 
 February, 1856, Oudh was annexed. On the last 
 day of that month Lord Dalhousie resigned his 
 office. ' It is well,' he said to his physician on the 
 26th, ' that there are only twenty-nine days in this 
 month. I could not have held out two days 
 more.' 
 
 ' As for my health, Jan Larin,' he wrote to John 
 Lawrence, ' I am a cripple in every sense.' On the 
 28th February he presided at Council for the 
 last time, bidding each of his colleagues an affec- 
 tionate farewell. The touching words of reply, by 
 the Senior Member, reveal the habitual control 
 which Lord Dalhousie so sternly imposed on his 
 haughty temper in dealing with men. Not one angry 
 word, said Mr. Dorin, had ever passed among them 
 in that room. Next day, the 29th, Lord Dalhousie 
 went through the formal ceremony of receiving his 
 successor. Lord Canning, at the top of the spacious 
 stairs which lead up to Government House. 
 
 The contrast between the two men, once under- 
 graduates together at Christ Church, long dwelt in 
 the memory of the civil and military dignitaries 
 who, according to custom, stood on either side of 
 
THE MAN 51 
 
 the broad stairs to take part in the spectacle. Lord 
 Canning still young-looking, and a little shy amid 
 the throng of strange faces : Lord Dalhousie lame, 
 bent with disease, and prematurely aged, but stately 
 and imperial to the end. When the procession 
 reached the Council Chamber, and the new Governor- 
 General was being sworn in, John Lawrence whis- 
 pered to Dalhousie, and asked him what was his 
 feeling at that moment. ' I wish I were in Canning's 
 place and he in mine,' was the Dalhousie-like reply. 
 'And then, wouldn't I govern India! But no — I 
 could not wish my worst enemy to be the poor, 
 miserable, broken-down, dying man I am now.' 
 
 During the next week Lord Dalhousie rested — if 
 deep and anxious converse with his great lieutenants 
 and the new Governor-General on the pressing 
 needs of India can be called rest. The public, 
 Native and European alike, awakened to the fact 
 that in a few days they were to lose for ever ' the 
 glorious little invalid' who, during eight years of 
 toil and sorrow, had been the foremost man in 
 India. Addresses and deputations from every 
 section of the community poured in upon him. 
 The only day of real repose which he allowed 
 himself was his last Sabbath. As Governor- 
 General, Lord Dalhousie had punctiliously main- 
 tained the dignity of the Church of his Sovereign, 
 and regularly attended the Cathedral with the Aide- 
 de-camp on duty. This Sunday he went quietly 
 D 2 
 
52 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 to Saint Andrew's Kirk, so weak that he had to be 
 carried up the staii'case to the gallery in a chair, 
 and worshipped after the graver Scottish manner 
 of his fathers. 
 
 The scene on the bank of the Hugli, when he 
 embarked for England, was a memorable and 
 pathetic one. ' The attempted cheers of the well- 
 dressed crowd that saw him totter on his crutches 
 towards the river side faded away into a silence 
 more eloquent than the loudest hurrahs.' 
 
 'I am sure,' writes an eye-witness^, ' that no one 
 who was present on the Maidan [the great plain] 
 of Calcutta on the evening when Lord Dalhousie 
 embarked ; who saw the whole population moved as 
 one man with a deep sense of regret and admir- 
 ation^ and observed the emotion of the departing 
 statesman under the manifestation of that feeling, 
 would consider him as one incapable of either ex- 
 citing, or feeling, sympathy. Many who witnessed 
 that triumphant departure had a melancholy fore- 
 boding that the curtain was falling on the last act 
 of a great public career; that neither plaudits in 
 India, nor well-merited honours at home, could 
 avail to prolong a life almost exhausted in the 
 public service. Others, more sanguine, hoped that 
 he would recover his wasted strength, and enter on 
 a new course of honour and success, as bright and 
 
 ^ Sir Charles Jackson in his Vindication of the Marquis of 
 Dalhousie's Indian Administration, pp. 178, 179, ed. 1S65. 
 
THE MAN ^2f 
 
 glorious as his Indian career. But no one in that 
 vast assemblage dreamed that in a few years the 
 great reputation of their departing Governor would 
 be doubted, sneered at, and assailed/ 
 
 Lord Dalhousie allowed himself no false hopes. 
 ' You have made kindly allusion,' he replied to the 
 farewell address from the citizens of Calcutta, ' to 
 the future that may await me. I do not seek to 
 fathom that future. My only ambition long has 
 been to accomplish the task which lay before me 
 here, and to bring it to a close with honour and 
 success. It has been permitted to me to do so. I 
 have played out my part ; and while I feel that in 
 any case the principal act in the drama of my life 
 is ended, I shall be well content if the curtain 
 should drop now upon my public course. . . I am 
 weai'ied and worn, and have no other thought or 
 wish than to seek the retirement of which I stand 
 in need, and which is all I am now fit for.' 
 
 On his voyage home, Lord Dalhousie penned the 
 great Minute, in which he set forth with noble 
 simplicity the principal measures of his adminis- 
 tration. Compelled to lie on his back, and 
 unable to use ink, he wrote that masterly review, 
 which makes forty-five printed pages of close folio, 
 for the most part in pencil. It left his strength 
 reduced to a perilously low ebb. The ship's crew 
 had to carry him on shore at Suez. The passage 
 in the jolting van across the desert drained almost 
 
54 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 to the last drop his remaining vitality. But after 
 a pause of ten days at Malta, he was able to 
 continue his voyage, in the Tribune Frigate, and 
 reached England on the 13th of May, 1856. 
 
 A pension of ^^5000 per annum voted to him on 
 the following day by the East India Company, the 
 gracious message of welcome from his Sovereign, 
 and the cordial expressions of admiration by men 
 of many shades of political opinion, for a time 
 revived the spirits of the worn-out Proconsul. In 
 September, 1856, he lost his faithful friend and 
 physician. Dr. Grant, who accompanied him home, 
 but had now to return to India. ' I felt very sad,' 
 Dalhousie wrote to him in a farewell letter, ' when 
 we parted at the station under the North Bridge 
 [Edinburgh] : and even with the preparatory 
 training, which your absence in the North has 
 given me, I shall long feel strange, ill at ease, and 
 altogether amiss in the absence of the kind 
 and sedulous daily care which I have been long 
 accustomed to receive from you. I thank you a 
 thousand times for it all. My confidence in your 
 judgment and skill was entire and unabated from 
 first to last : and my gratitude for your never- 
 flagging attention to myself, and to that dear 
 suffering companion whom I lost, will remain in 
 memory as long as I have memory left. . . Farewell, 
 and God bless you. Write to me often, and never 
 cease to believe me your sincere friend, Dalhousie.' 
 
THE MAN $$ 
 
 The clouds gathered thicker and darker around 
 him. After a cold winter at Dalhousie Castle, he 
 writes despondently to Dr. Grant early in 1857, 
 'I am weak, incapable of exertion or resolution, 
 tormented with the numbness of my nose and throat, 
 without any appetite — and done.' He thinks of 
 seeking a warmer climate. ' Susan (in whom I 
 place more medical confidence than in anybody 
 since you left me) and I have discussed the 
 subject. . . She and Edith decidedly incline to 
 Malta. . . I believe they are right, and I think 
 we shall end in passing the winter there.' 
 
 The terrible news of the Mutiny found the Mar- 
 quess of Dalhousie too prostrate to take any part 
 in the parliamentary discussions which followed. 
 * You can well imagine,' he writes to Dr. Grant in 
 India, in July 1857, 'with what deep grief I have 
 heard the tidings which the last mail has brought. 
 In a public and private sense all is bitter. . . I can 
 think of nothing else but this outbreak ; and though 
 no alarmist, as you well know, I await with the 
 keenest anxiety the tidings which next mail and 
 successive mails shall bring us. From this side I 
 can tell you nothing but what the journals will tell 
 you better, for I am still closely secluded. . . I am 
 very sad, my dear Grant, at the state of things on 
 your side.' 
 
 To the misery of physical prostration, and the 
 bitterness of being unable to aid by his counsel 
 
56 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 and experience in the public measures taken to 
 meet the calamity, was super-added the deeper 
 sorrow of knowing that if the military precautions 
 which he had urged as Governor- General had been 
 adopted by the Home Government, the spread of 
 thcv Mutiny would, humanly speaking, have been 
 impossible. On this point it will be my duty to 
 speak fully and frankly in a later chapter. Mean- 
 while it only remained for him to suffer in silence, 
 and to bear with fortitude, but without reply, the 
 popular clamour against him for not having pro- 
 vided the very safeguards which he himself had 
 clearly foreseen to be necessary ; and of the neces- 
 sity for which he had solemnly warned the respon- 
 sible Ministers in England. 
 
 ' Of course there are plenty who inculpate me,* 
 he wrote in August, ' and although it is very hard 
 to be incapacitated from defence when one believes 
 oneself to be without blame, I believe that I care 
 less for the blame and the defencelessness than for 
 the misfortunes which lead men to blame, and 
 render defence of my administration necessary. In 
 the meantime the rest of mind which I feel to be 
 essential to my progress towards recovery is gone.' 
 
 He chafed at the absence of that swift and stern 
 action in India with which he himself would have 
 crushed the disaffection at the outset. ' This last 
 business at Dinapur,' he writes in August, ' exceeds 
 all powers of imagination. General Lloyd, it is 
 
THE MAN sy 
 
 said, put undue faith in the Sepoys. But why was 
 it left to General Lloyd or to General or Mr. Any- 
 body, to order the measures so obviously necessary 
 to safety? . . My whole heart is sick and sore at 
 what I hear ; and the mental anxiety and disquie- 
 tude which are produced by what is going on in the 
 scenes of my services, I am conscious is retarding 
 the course of my progress towards health.' 
 
 That progress, alas, was altogether deceptive. 
 A short residence at Malvern in the summer of 
 1857 enabled him, indeed, for the moment to 
 make a rally. But the calamities of the country 
 for which he had toiled, and the deaths of the 
 loved friends with whom he had laboured, were 
 steadily wearing him out. ' My God ! what rend- 
 ing asunder is here of the household which, a few 
 months since, was living so happily together 
 in the Hills!' 'I have not been able to join,' he 
 sayS; in the public supplications for the deliverance 
 of the English in India, for which he heard the 
 church bells tolling on the 7th October, 1857, 'for 
 I have passed the last two days in bed. But God 
 knows, my dear Grant, I do pray with all my heart 
 for that blessing, without which even the splendid 
 efforts which have been made for the restoration of 
 our fame, by those who have been fighting for it in 
 Hindustan, will have been made in vain.' 
 
 The winter of 1857-58, spent at Malta, brought 
 no relief. Amid his private sufferings and public 
 
58 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 anxieties he found a moment to tell Dr. Grant of 
 the death of the dog which had been his wife's 
 faithful companion in her long ill-health. ' She lies 
 buried in the garden here, and there are very few 
 human beings whose death would make me so sad as 
 the loss of this dumb old friend has done. You, at 
 least' (Dr. Grant had attended Lady Dalhousie for 
 years) ' will recall a thousand reasons why this 
 should be so — and it is so.' ' My rest is destroyed,' 
 he writes to the same dear friend on one of the 
 last days of 1857, 'my appetite again wholly gone. 
 I loathe the sight of food, and in spite of tonics, and 
 careful treatment, with which I have no fault to 
 find, I am low, languid, sick, deaf, stupid, weak and 
 miserable.' Lord Dalhousie was now a confirmed 
 cripple, able only to move about upon crutches; 
 'as deaf as the Ochterlony Monument,' he says, 
 ' and as dull as the pulpit in the Old Cathedral.' 
 'It is just two years to-day,' he wrote in the 
 spring of 1858, 'since I laid down the office of 
 Governor-General ; and ill as I then was, upon my 
 word, my dear Grant, I was a better man than 
 I feel myself at this moment.' 
 
 He knew full well by this time that there could 
 be but one end to his sufierings. ' Beware, my 
 good friend,' he writes in April 1858, on hearing of 
 Dr. Grant's indisposition, 'how you follow my 
 stupid example, and do not remain in India when 
 your health requires you to leave it — either from a 
 
THE MAN 59 
 
 sense of supposed duty, or from any other motive. 
 I have paid heavily for doing so. . . I should be 
 glad to warn you off a similar fate/ 
 
 Lord Dalhousie had most truly given his life to 
 India. He deliberately elected, as we have seen, 
 to finish his task, at the imminent peril of his life, 
 and in spite of the protest of his physicians. He 
 had now to pay the penalty. The curtain must 
 fall upon the two remaining years of his sufferings. 
 They were cheered for a moment by the marriage 
 of his younger daughter, Lady Edith Ramsay, to 
 Sir James Fergusson, Baronet, of Kilkerran, whose 
 public services she shared during thirteen years. 
 But the stricken Governor- General found his great 
 consolation during his remaining painful months on 
 earth, in the tender and unwearied ministrations of 
 his eldest daughter. Lady Susan. ' Now, Brigadier,' 
 he said to his kinsman General Ramsay, after a 
 convulsive seizure ; ' now, Brigadier, when I am 
 dead, you must stay here and take care of poor 
 Sue ; for she will require it.' In the last wintry 
 days of i860 they laid him, not yet forty-nine, in 
 the ancient burial-place of the Dalhousies, within 
 his own quiet parish of Cockpen. 
 
CHAPTER HI 
 
 The Conquest of the Punjab 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, the youngest ruler of India 
 since Clive, and with his only administrative ex- 
 perience gained from a few years' work in the 
 English Board of Trade, succeeded a veteran soldier 
 and statesman as Governor-General. On the 1 2th 
 of January, 1848, Lord Hardinge, the friend of 
 Wellington and one of the heroic figures of the 
 Peninsular War, closed his four years of eventful 
 administration. The old soldier made over India 
 to the young civilian in a state of profound peace. 
 The nearly ten years of warfare which followed the 
 aggression of Lord Auckland upon Afghanistan, 
 had ended in what promised to be a permanent 
 calm ^. 
 
 ^ The original and contemporary authority for the events narrated 
 in this chapter down to the taking of Multaii, p. 77, is A Year on 
 the Punjab Frontier, in 1848-9, by Major Herbert B. Edwardes, 
 C.B., H.E.I.C.S., 2 vols., Bentley, 1851. Major (afterwards Sir 
 Herbert) Edwardes' work is followed by [Sir] Edwin Arnold in his 
 Marquis of Dalhousie' s Administration of British India (2 vols., 
 Saunders, Otley, & Co., 1862-5), and by most subsequent writers. 
 I have made use of both these works ; and of the later biographies 
 of the three Lawrences, and other officers at that time employed in 
 the Punjab. 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 6i 
 
 The first Afghan War, in 1841-42, had cost us 
 five thousand men, sixty thousand camels, twelve 
 millions sterling, and the spectacle of a British 
 Army doomed to death, by the incapacity of its 
 leaders, amid the snows of Afghanistan. The Sind 
 War, which followed as one of the consequences of 
 Lord Auckland's Afghan invasion, had, in 1843, 
 added the Lower Indus Valley to the British 
 dominions, at the expense of British justice and good 
 faith. The first Sikh War, in 1 845-46, annexed 
 the eastern .districts of the Punjab to the British 
 possessions, and placed the upper plains of the Indus 
 and Five Rivers under a British Protectorate. 
 
 Lord Hardinge, on assuming the government of 
 the Sikh territories during the minority of the 
 infant Sikh Sovereign, Dhulip Singh, had partially 
 disbanded the Sikh troops, and materially strength- 
 ened our own army. The Sikh troops were cut 
 down from 85,000 men and 350 guns concentrated 
 in a commanding position, to 24,000 men and 50 
 guns, dispersed over the whole Punjab. Our own 
 army, even after a recent reduction of 50,000 men, 
 was still 70,00c stronger than at the last Indian 
 peace ^. 
 
 The permanent strength which Lord Hardinge 
 believed that he had given to the British Army of 
 India was not, however, the strength of additional 
 
 ^ These and the foregoing figures I take from Sir Edwin Arnold's 
 Marquis of Dalhousie' s Administration, vol. i, pp. 54-57, ed. 1862. 
 
62 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 numbers alone. It was the strength of improved 
 strategic positions which, he believed, abundantly 
 compensated for the numerical reductions that he 
 ordered on the close of the first Sikh War. Lord 
 Hardinge doubled the garrison of North-Western 
 India. Fifty thousand men with sixty guns com- 
 manded the line of the Sutlej. A standing camp of 
 9000 men held the Punjab capital Lahore. Another 
 great standing camp of equal strength, with in- 
 fantry, cavalry, artillery complete, lay at Firozpur ; 
 ready to be hurled, at a day's notice, against an 
 enemy — everything in a state of perfect preparation 
 down to its commissariat carts, transport bullocks, 
 and litters for the wounded or sick. 
 
 Lord Hardinge might fairly claim that he had 
 ended the long period of war entailed by the 
 aggressions of Lord Auckland, and the vain- 
 glorious histrionics of Lord Ellenborough : that he 
 had done what human prudence could accomplish 
 to combine effective strength with military re- 
 trenchment ; and to render the calm of the moment 
 a permanent peace. He did emphatically claim to 
 have done these things. Before sailing from India 
 in January 1848, he assured Lord Dalhousie, his 
 successor, that so far as human foresight could 
 predict, ' it would not be necessary to fire a gun in 
 India for seven years to come ^.' 
 
 ^ Life of Lord Lawrence, by Bosworth Smith, M.A., vol. i, 
 p. 214, ed. 1885. 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 63 
 
 As a matter of fact, those seven years were, from 
 the very outset, years of war, and of strain which 
 might at any moment develop into war. The fine 
 old soldier who laid down the office of Governor- 
 General in January 1848, was not accustomed to 
 look very far below the surface of things. Prompt 
 to strike and easy to conciliate, he dealt firmly with 
 the facts as they presented themselves, without 
 caring to penetrate deeply into their causes. If he 
 had had either leisure or inclination for such scru- 
 tiny, he would have seen that his rule really marked 
 the close of a worn-out system which had ceased to 
 be possible in India. 
 
 That system slowly grew up during the weakness 
 of the British power during the i8th century, 
 and received its complete development from Lord 
 WeUesley at the beginning of the present one. It 
 was a system which enabled the English to exercise 
 a political control, more or less effective according 
 to their own strength at the moment, over the 
 States of India ; without burdening themselves 
 with the responsibility for the welfare of the 
 peoples of India. By treaties and alliances, the 
 Native Princes had, one after the other, been 
 brought into subordinate relations to the British 
 Government. Our Government took upon itself the 
 duty of the external defence of the subject princes. 
 We were also practically bound to maintain their 
 dynasties against internal revolt, as long as they 
 
64 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 remained loyal to ourselves. English Governors- 
 General were compelled to stand by, and witness 
 the cruel results of rendering an oriental prince 
 independent of his people. 
 
 This system had, during Lord Hardinge's ad- 
 ministration, produced its mature fruits. In al- 
 most every Native State of India, there was a 
 ruler whose family had during two generations 
 been exempted from the necessity of ruling for 
 the benefit of their subjects. In many cases the 
 Chief sank into the depths of a hereditary de- 
 bauchery. In almost all he could, without fear, 
 indulge in the life-long neglect of his duties, 
 and treat himself, if so inclined, to outbursts of 
 cruelty and oppression. 
 
 The British Government had from 1830 to 1847 
 watched these results with sorrow, not unmingled 
 with shame. It fell to Lord Hardinge to sound 
 the first knell of the system. In the south of 
 India the great Muhammadan Court of the Nizam 
 was fallen into insolvency. During 1843 ^^^ 
 several succeeding years, the pay of the troops 
 required by treaty for the security of Haidarabad 
 had to be advanced from the British Treasury. In 
 Central India the great Maratha Prince of Nagpur 
 made himself notorious for private vices and public 
 oppressions, so flagrant, that it is impossible to 
 read the ofiicial reports by our Resident, without 
 a sense of shame that an English representative 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 6^ 
 
 had to give the sanction of his presence to such a 
 Court. In the great native kingdom of Northern 
 India, Oudh, matters were advanced a stage 
 farther. As far back as 1837, Lord Auckland 
 saw that the cup of iniquity was there full to the 
 brim, and solemnly reserved the right to assume 
 the management of the misgoverned country. Ten 
 years afterwards. Lord Hardinge, during the last 
 twelve months of his administration, placed the 
 King of Oudh under two years' warning ; plainly 
 telling His Majesty that, unless he amended, the 
 British Government would have no option with 
 regard to the performance of its duty. 
 
 The truth is that to whatever region of India we 
 look, whether in the South, or in the centre, or in 
 the North, the great Native States were fallen 
 before the end of the first half of this century into 
 a depth of misery and misrule, that imperatively 
 demanded the intervention of the Suzerain power. 
 
 The attempt to control the destinies of India, 
 without assuming the direct responsibility for the 
 welfare of the people of India, was not confined, 
 however, to our relations with the Feudatory 
 States. Lord Hardinge also tried the system upon 
 the unsubdued military races of the Punjab. The 
 Sikh Power had performed an important service 
 for the British in India. During our days of 
 weakness in the last century, its bitter religious 
 hatred of the Muhammadans was a source of safety 
 
 E 
 
66 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 to ourselves. Under Eanjit Singh, 'the Lion of 
 the Punjab/ the Sikh confederacy stood as a 
 barrier between the invading races of Central Asia, 
 and the new British Empire which was consoli- 
 dating itself during the first half of the present 
 century in Hindustan. The death of that great 
 ruler let loose the passions and ambitions which 
 his iron hand so firmly held down among his 
 military chiefs ; and the Sikh leaders forced a 
 war upon the British in 1845. 
 
 After their crushing defeat at Sobraon on the 
 loth February, 1846, Lord Hardinge was merely 
 acting in accordance with the traditions of Indian 
 policy, in attempting to obtain a control over the 
 Punjab without actually saddling himself with its 
 administration. How that attempt failed, in spite 
 of much excellent work which it accomplished, is 
 told with admirable force and fulness of detail, in 
 the lives of the two great brothers, who, during 
 1846-47, alternately ruled as Resident at Lahore, 
 Henry and John Lawrence. The Treaty of March, 
 1 846, had, after intrigue, conspiracy, and rebellion, 
 to be drawn tighter by the condemnation of the 
 Prime Minister and paramour of the Queen Mother, 
 and by the Treaty of December in the same year. 
 By this treaty Sir Henry Lawrence, as head of the 
 Council of Regency at Lahore, became the ruler 
 of the Punjab until the child Prince should reach 
 the age of majority. 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 6 J 
 
 As a matter of fact he was only the chief figure 
 amid a loosely-subjected crowd of ambitious military 
 nobles. The Sikh leaders regarded the condemna- 
 tion of the Prime Minister and the forced seclusion of 
 the Queen Mother from public affairs, as a new 
 chance for themselves. The Queen Mother perfectly 
 understood the situation, and went to work with 
 new machinations of amorous and political intrigue, 
 in the hope of deriving her own advantage from 
 the nominal supremacy of the British. When 
 officially rebuked for the open treason talked in her 
 darhars, she replied to the Resident with bitter 
 irony ; scarcely deigning to use the veil of a Per- 
 sian idiom to disguise her arrogant claims to the 
 sovereign power. 
 
 All these elements of weakness in Lord Har- 
 dinge's well-meant arrangements in the Punjab 
 lie open to us now. It is clear that only a spark 
 was wanting to set fire to the combustible mate- 
 rials accumulated at Lahore, and in the other capi- 
 tals of the Sikh Confederacy. But the system of 
 secrecy in which all official transactions were then 
 shrouded in India, rendered the danger invisible 
 to the public and the Press. 'Everything seems 
 to favour the new ruler,' said one journalist. 
 'India is in the full enjoyment of a peace which, 
 humanly speaking, there seems nothing to disturb ^' 
 
 ^ The Morning Herald, quoted in Sir Edwin Arnold's Dalhousie's 
 Administration of British India, vol. i, p. 58, footnote, ed. 1S62. 
 
 E 2 
 
68 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 'No Governor-General has ever taken charge of 
 the Government of India under such peculiar and 
 advantageous circumstances/ wrote another and 
 more distinguished editor. ' The youngest ruler 
 who has assumed the responsibilities of this empire,, 
 he receives it from his predecessor in a state 
 of tranquillity which has hitherto no parallel in 
 our Indian annals. He arrives at a time when 
 the last obstacle to the complete, and apparently 
 the final, pacification of India has been removed ; 
 when the only remaining army which could create 
 alarm has been dissolved ; and the peace of the 
 country rests upon the firmest and most permanent 
 basis. The chiefs whose ambition or hostility 
 have been the source of disquietude to his prede- 
 cessors, have one and all been disarmed ^.' 
 
 Exactly three months after these words were 
 written by the leading newspaper of Bengal, a 
 terrible tragedy had taken place 1200 miles off", 
 on the bank of the Indus ; a tragedy which, 
 after some of the greatest, and one of the most 
 disastrous, battles in the history of the British 
 army, led within fifteen months to the annexation 
 of the whole Punjab. Lord Hardinge as a sequel 
 to the first Sikh war in 1 846 had, as we have seen, 
 placed the Punjab under a regency of Sikh nobles, 
 
 ^ The Friend of India, 20th January, 1848, quoted in Sir 
 Edwin Arnold's Dalkousie's Administration of British India. 
 vol. i, pp. 59-60, footnote, ed. 1862. 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 69 
 
 controlled by an English Resident at Lahore, 
 during the minority of the infant Prince Dhulip 
 Singh. In the fulfilment of his duty our Resident 
 at Lahore required the powerful Sikh Governor 
 of Multan to render an account of his stewardship. 
 This potentate, known to history as the Diwan 
 Mulraj, held an almost semi-independent position 
 in the middle valley of the Indus, and carried 
 on an enormous mixed business of merchandise 
 and government at his capital, the ancient river 
 emporium Multan. 
 
 After various delays and makeshifts the Sikh 
 trader-prince preferred, or thought he preferred, 
 to resign, rather than to render up his accounts. 
 His offer was immediately, perhaps too abruptly, 
 accepted by our Resident at Lahore. Two young 
 English officers, Mr. Vans Agnew of the Civil 
 Service and Lieutenant Anderson, were sent to 
 take over the government and fortress of Multan 
 from Mulraj, and to install the new Sikh Governor 
 appointed by ourselves. On their arrival in April 
 1848 at Multan, after Mulraj had submissively 
 given up the fortress on the 19th, and the two 
 young English officers were returning with a 
 slender escort to their camp, a fanatical soldier 
 rushed out of the mob, and stabbed Vans • Agnew 
 on his shoulder. Lieutenant Anderson was cut 
 down and the escort bore off their two officers 
 covered with blood to the Idgah — a Muhammadan 
 
70 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 festival mosque at some distance from the Fort, 
 but commanded by its guns. 
 
 Vans Agnew, while his shoulder was being 
 bandaged, dictated an urgent note to the British 
 Resident at Lahore, 200 miles off, and pencilled 
 another to the Commissioner of Bannu, about half 
 that distance, stating what had happened and beg- 
 ging for immediate help. But next day the guns 
 from the Multan fort, of which Mulraj re-gained 
 possession, opened on the mosque, where the young 
 officers and their followers had sought shelter. I 
 have spent a day within its riddled waUs, and 
 under its shattered dome, and bitterly realized the 
 hopelessness of their defence. When the guns from 
 the fort had done their work, the city rabble 
 rushed in, but paused for a moment at the sight 
 of Vans Agnew sitting quietly on the cot where 
 Anderson lay unable to move, holding his friend's 
 hand and calmly awaiting death. The soldiers and 
 better sort of people stood still, and shrank from 
 taking the lives of defenceless Englishmen. But 
 presently a deformed low caste ran in on the two 
 wounded officers, and hacked off their heads. ' We 
 are not the last of the English,' were Vans Agnew's 
 dying words. 
 
 Vans Agnew's letter found Sir Frederick Currie 
 acting as E-esident at Lahore for Sir Henry Lawrence 
 who had lately gone to England on sick-furlough. 
 Currie called on the Commander-in-Chief, Lord 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 71 
 
 Gough, to advance with a British force from the 
 great armed camp at Firozpur, to Multan. Lord 
 Gough declined, and urged the inexpediency of a 
 general movement of British troops, sixteen marches 
 across 200 miles of burning wastes, in the height of 
 the hot weather. Lord Dalhousie, 1200 miles 
 further off in Calcutta, felt himself constrained to 
 support the decision of his Commander-in-Chief, 
 who knew the local circumstances of the case, and 
 who could judge of them with the authority of 
 being nearer the scene of action. 
 
 Meanwhile Vans Agnew's pencilled appeal for 
 help reached Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes in his 
 solitary tent at Dehra-Fateh-Khan on the banks of 
 the Indus ^. The red bag bore the Persian address 
 for the Commissioner, ' To General Cortland in 
 Bannu, or wherever else he may be.' But the young- 
 English subaltern, divining the urgency of the case, 
 tore open the letter. Hastily thrusting aside his 
 Civil work, he made a rush with his ordinary 
 District escort and some local companies for 
 Multan, eighty miles distant. He had only 400 
 men upon whom he could really rely. Mulraj met 
 him on the way with 4000 men and 8 heavy guns 
 from the fortress. ' I am like a terrier barking at 
 a tiger,' wrote the young Lieutenant. 
 
 ^ The facsimile of this pathetic scrawl and a duplicate of the 
 official letter to Sir Frederick Currie, corrected by Vans Agnew in 
 pencil, are given by Herbert Edwardes in his Year on the Punjab 
 Frontier, vol. ii, p. 76, ed. 1851. 
 
72 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 But all through the summer heats of 1848 the 
 terrier kept on barking at the tiger. Haviug sum- 
 moned to his aid the loyal levies of the Musalman 
 State of Bahawalpur, Edwardes won two pitched 
 battles in June and July against immense odds ; 
 his Muhammadan Pathdns breaking with yells of 
 hatred through the Infidel Sikh battalions. The 
 English subaltern and his native allies fairly drove 
 Mulraj and his 4000 back, with the loss of eight 
 guns, into Multan. 
 
 It almost seemed as if Lord Gough was justified 
 by the event, in his determination not to subject 
 the British army to the sufferings and losses 
 inseparable from a hot weather campaign. A 
 single English subaltern had driven Mulraj out of 
 the field. The Sikh Queen Mother, also, whose 
 intrigues and vices acted as a perpetual ferment of 
 disloyalty among the Sikh nobles, had been firmly, 
 although respectfully, removed from Lahore to the 
 distant sacred city of Benares. On the 1st of July 
 Lord Gough reviewed with complacency his policy 
 of deliberate inaction. 
 
 But before the summer passed he found cause to 
 reconsider his decision. The local rising at Multan 
 had spread over the Punjab, and the rebellion of 
 the Governor of Multan had grown into a revolt of 
 the Sikh nation. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Edwardes 
 was urgently begging for help, on however small a 
 scale, if only promptly rendered. ' A few heavy 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 73 
 
 guns, a mortar battery, sappers and miners, and 
 Major Napier to head them, are all we want,' he 
 wrote, to lay siege to Multan. In July he fairly 
 cooped up Mulraj in that great warehouse-fortress. 
 But Lord Gough was still calmly planning on the 
 cool heights of Simla a regulation campaign for the 
 winter. ' As if the rebellion,' so runs an indignant 
 letter from Multan, ' could be put off like a cham- 
 pagne tiffin with a three-cornered note to Mulraj, 
 to name a date more agreeable.' 
 
 It could not be put off. Lahore, the capital of 
 the Punjab, was seething with rebellion ; the fron- 
 tier tracts of Hazara were in open revolt. The 
 Afghans entered into an alliance with the Sikhs, 
 and poured through the Khaibar Pass to sweep the 
 English out of the Land of Five Rivers. Sir 
 Frederick Currie, the Resident at Lahore, felt him- 
 self compelled, civilian though he was, to despatch 
 on his own authority, and from his own slender 
 battalions, a relief force to Edwardes at Multan. 
 Then at length Lord Gough, the Commander-in- 
 Chief, realized the situation. To the brigade which 
 Sir Frederick Currie determined to send from 
 Lahore, Lord Gough added a siege-train and column 
 from Firozpur. On the 19th of August the forces 
 met before Multan, and on the 4th of September the 
 heavy guns arrived, amid the cheers of the British 
 troops. 
 
 It is impossible not to feel enthusiasm for the 
 
74 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 young lieutenant who, during the long burning 
 months of the hot weather of 1848, had almost 
 single-handed held the field against the revolt, and 
 driven the arch-rebel to the ignominious shelter of 
 his walls. It is difficult not to be carried away by 
 the magnificent verve of the 734 pages, here con- 
 densed to less than 1 2, in which he has rendered 
 immortal the heroic deeds of that summer. It is 
 difficult, also, to refrain from censure of the inability 
 to move which the Commander-in-Chief betrayed 
 during that period, in spite of his two great camps 
 of nine thousand men apiece at Lahore and Firozpur 
 — camps standing in readiness to march at a day's 
 notice. But it is right to state quite frankly that 
 Lieutenant Edwardes underrated, indeed from fii-st 
 to last failed to perceive, the military difficulties of 
 the situation. It was indeed a blindness glorious 
 to himself, and worth to the British name the 
 keenest eyesight of a dozen elderly generals. Let 
 it suffice for Herbert Edwardes that he, a young 
 subaltern, maintained the prestige of England 
 through the critical months during which the head 
 of the British army in India was unable, or thought 
 he was unable, to place a force in the field. 
 
 I have had the advantage of hearing, on this 
 question, the opinion of the greatest engineer officer 
 whom India has in our age produced. Lord Napier 
 — the Major Napier who Edwardes supposed would 
 suffice with a few heavy guns and some sappers 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 75 
 
 and miners for the capture of Multan — told me 
 that the gallant young officer could not have com- 
 prehended the nature of the task. The fortifica- 
 tions were of an extent and a strength which 
 demanded a very large force, if they were to be 
 approached without disaster, quite apart from the 
 question of taking them. 
 
 The events of the siege themselves furnish a 
 commentary on this view of Lord Napier of 
 Magdala. It was commenced immediately after the 
 arrival of the heavy guns on the 4th of September, 
 1848. But even with the united British force from 
 Lahore and Firozpur, together with the subsidiary 
 Sikh troops supplied by the Regency under the 
 Raja Sher Singh, it was found impracticable to 
 attempt the place by storm. A trench had to be 
 run to the south-western face of the fort, and 
 scarcely was this accomplished when the defection 
 of Raja Sher Singh and the Sikh subsidiary force 
 which represented the last remnant of loyalty to 
 the British among the Sikh Regency at Lahore, 
 reversed the situation, and turned the besiegers into 
 the besieged. The Sikh subsidiary force supplied 
 to us by the native Regency threw in their lot with 
 Mtilraj and the rebels. A Council of War, held by 
 the British General, came to the conclusion that the 
 question before it was no longer the capture of 
 Multan, but the safety of our own camp. 
 
 On the 15th of September, 1848, the siege was 
 
76 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 raised, and the British troops were drawn off to a 
 position of safety. Meanwhile the new Governor- 
 General had, from his distant post in Calcutta, 
 watched with profound dissatisfaction the tardiness 
 of the military authorities in the Punjab. During 
 his first months of office he prudently abstained 
 from overruling the local knowledge and long 
 experience of his Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gough. 
 But before the summer was over he determined to 
 act on his own judgment. 'There is no other 
 course open to us,' he wrote to the Secret Com- 
 mittee, ' but to prepare for a general Punjab War, 
 and ultimately to occupy the country.' With swift 
 resolution he ordered an addition of 17,000 men to 
 the army, and hurried up troops to the Punjab 
 from Sind and Bombay. ' If our enemies want war/ 
 said Lord Dalhousie in a speech at a great military 
 ball at Barrackpur on October 5, 1848, a ball 
 which may well compare with the festivities on 
 the eve of Waterloo, ' war they shall have, and 
 with a vengeance.' 
 
 The Governor-General promptly started for the 
 British frontier on the Sutlej. Sir Richard Temple 
 describes him as he passed through Agra, ' fresh and 
 youthful for his great office, but vigilant and self- 
 sustained.' In November, 1 848, Lord Gough moved 
 out his grand army to the task. Twenty thousand 
 men, and nearly 100 guns swept across the Punjab 
 under his command. His tardiness to start was 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 77 
 
 equalled by his rashness in the field. The bloody 
 cavalry blunder at Ramnagar was followed by the 
 doubtful engagement of Sadullapur on December 
 3rd. 
 
 The troops from the south were now, however, 
 advancing upon Miiltan. The arrival of the 
 Bombay contingent before that city on the 26th 
 December, 1848, increased the forces there, under 
 General Whish, to 1 7,000 men with sixty-four heavy 
 guns. The siege which had been interrupted for 
 three and a half months, since September 15th, was 
 resumed on the 27th December. After a most 
 gallant defence, an English shell fortunately ex- 
 ploded the powder magazine of the besieged. On 
 the 2nd January, 1 849, the city was captured ; and 
 on the 22nd, after 40,000 shot and shell had been 
 poured into Multan from seventy British cannon, the 
 citadel surrendered unconditionally, and Mulraj 
 delivered himself up to the English camp. 
 
 The strong fortress-warehouse of the middle 
 Indus was fallen. But nine days before its fall a 
 calamity had happened to Lord Gough's gi-and army. 
 Of the battle of Chilianwala it need here only 
 be said, that it was an evening battle fought by a 
 brave old man in a passion, and mourned for by 
 the whole British nation. On the news of that 
 fatal 13th of January reaching England, Lord 
 Gough was recalled, and Sir Charles Napier was 
 appointed Commander-in-Chief. 
 
78 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 But meanwhile the siege-force at Multan, having 
 accomplished its work, moved northwards to join 
 the shattered forces of the Commander-in-Chief. 
 Before Sir Charles Napier could arrive, Lord 
 Gough, on the 20th February, 1849, retrieved his 
 reputation, and ended the war by the crowning 
 victory of Gujrat. The British army with 24,000 
 men and ninety guns there found themselves face 
 to face with the Sikh forces 40,000 strong with 
 sixty cannon — and an open battle-field between the 
 two arrays. Gujrat was essentially a forenoon 
 battle, with the whole day before the combatants 
 to finish their work. It commenced with a magni- 
 ficent duel of artillery; the British infantry 
 occupying post after post as they were abandoned 
 by the enemy ; and the British cavalry breaking up 
 the Sikh masses and scattering them by pursuit. 
 Of the sixty Sikh guns engaged, fifty -three were 
 taken. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie resolved to make the victory a 
 final one. ' The war,' he declared, ' must be pro- 
 secuted now to the entire defeat and dispersion of 
 all who are in arms against us, whether Sikhs or 
 Afghans.' He hurried out General Gilbert with a 
 pursuing force of twelve thousand, horse, foot and 
 artillery, the day after the battle. In the breathless 
 chase which followed across the plains of the 
 Punjab to the frontier mountain- wall, the Sikh 
 military power was destroyed for ever. On the 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 79 
 
 1 2th of March, 1849, General Gilbert received the 
 submission of the entire Sikh army at Kawal 
 Pindi, together with the last forty-one of the 
 160 Sikh cannon captured by the British during 
 the war. While the Sikh army heaped up their 
 swords and shields and matchlocks in submissive 
 piles, and salamed one by one as they passed 
 disarmed along the British line, their Afghan allies 
 were chased relentlessly westwards, and reached 
 the safety of the Khaibar Pass panting, and barely 
 twenty miles in front of the English hunters. 
 The horsemen of Afghanistan, it was said, ' had 
 ridden down through the hills like lions and ran 
 back into them like dogs.' 
 
 The question remained what to do with the 
 Punjab. The victory of Sobraon in 1846 gave to 
 Lord Hardinge the right of conquest : the victory 
 at Gujrat in 1849 compelled Lord Dalhousie to 
 assert that right. Lord Hardinge at the end of the 
 first Punjab war in 1846, tried, as we have seen, an 
 intermediate method of ruling the province by 
 British officers for the benefit of the infant prince. 
 This method had failed. It produced, what many 
 had foreseen it would produce, a period of perpetual 
 intrigue, ending in a general insurrection. Under 
 such a policy, a local spark of treason or revolt 
 might at any moment spread into a general con- 
 flagration. 
 
 Li determining the future arrangements for the 
 
8o DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Punjab, Lord Dalhousie had as his advisers the two 
 Lawrences. Sir Henry Lawrence, the former Resi- 
 dent at Lahore, hurried back from his sick-leave 
 in England on the breaking out of the war. He 
 was of opinion that the annexation of the Punjab 
 might perhaps be just, but that it would be in- 
 expedient^. His brother John, afterwards Lord 
 Lawi'ence, who had also acted as Resident, although 
 as much averse in general principle to annexation 
 as Henry, was convinced that, in this case, annexa- 
 tion was not only just, but that its expediency was 
 ^ both undeniable and pressing '^! 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, after a full review of the efforts 
 which had been made to convert the Sikh nation into 
 a friendly power without annexation, decided that 
 no course now remained to the British Government 
 but to annex. ' I cordially assented,' he wrote, 
 ' to the policy which determined to avoid the an- 
 nexation of these territories on a former occasion. 
 I assented to the principle that the Government of 
 India ought not to desire to add further to its 
 territories, and I adhere to that opinion still.' But 
 events stronger than his individual opinion had 
 now convinced Lord Dalhousie that, ' there never 
 will be peace in the Punjab as long as its people are 
 allowed to retain the means and the opportunity of 
 
 1 L^fe of Sir Henry Lawrence, by Sir Herbert Edwardes and 
 Herman Merivale, vol. ii, p. 129, ed. 1872. 
 
 2 Idem, p. 129. 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 8 1 
 
 making war. There never can be now any guarantee 
 for the tranquillity of India, until we shall have 
 effected the entire subjection of the Sikh people, and 
 destroyed its power as an independent nation ^' 
 
 These being the stern facts, Lord Dalhousie 
 pointed out the folly of any make-believe system 
 of annexing the Punjab in reality, holding it by 
 means of British troops, and administering it by 
 British Officers, and at the same time professing 
 that we were governing it in the name of a native 
 prince. Under such a system, he declared that ' it 
 would be a mockery to pretend that we have pre- 
 served the Punjab as an independent State.' ' By 
 maintaining the pageant of a Throne,' he added, 
 ' we should leave just enough of sovereignty to keep 
 alive among the Sikhs the memory of their nation- 
 ality, and to serve as a nucleus for constant intrigue. 
 We should have all the labour, all the anxiety, all 
 the responsibility, which would attach to the terri- 
 tories if they were actually made our own ; while 
 we should not reap the corresponding benefits of 
 increase of revenue, and acknowledged possession.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie deeply lamented that the neces- 
 
 ^ The whole of the great State-paper in which Lord Dalhousie 
 submitted his reasons for the Annexation of the Punjab to the 
 Court of Directors should be attentively studied. The preceding 
 and following few extracts, which are all that space permits of in 
 a small volume like the present, altogether fail to do justice to it. 
 A convenient although not complete reprint is given in Arnold's 
 Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration, vol. i, pp. 205-219, ed. 1862, 
 
 F 
 
8a DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 sity of bringing the Sikh nation under effective 
 control involved the supersession of their boy- 
 Maharaja, Dhulip Singh. But after anxiously 
 considering the necessities of the case, he thus 
 writes : ' When I am fairly convinced that the 
 safety of our own State requires us to enforce 
 subjection of the Sikh nation, I cannot abandon 
 that necessary measure, merely because the effec- 
 tual subjection of the nation involves in itself the 
 deposition of then* Prince. I cannot permit myself 
 to be turned aside from fulfilling the duty which 
 I owe to the security and prosperity of millions of 
 British subjects, by a feeling of misplaced and mis- 
 timed compassion for the fate of a child.' The 
 child was amply provided for by a pension of 
 i^5o,ooo a year, and the titular dignity of prince. 
 
 'While deeply sensible of the responsibility I 
 have assumed,' continues Lord Dalhousie, ' I have 
 an undoubting conviction of the expediency, the 
 justice, and the necessity of my act. What I have 
 done, I have done with a clear conscience, and in 
 the honest belief that it was imperatively demanded 
 of me by my duty to the State.' 
 
 The annexation of the Punjab was deliberately 
 approved of by the Court of Directors, by Parlia- 
 ment, and by the English nation. But perhaps 
 what gave him more pleasure, was the weighty 
 opinion of Lord Hardinge, who, at the end of the 
 first Punjab War in 1846, had inaugurated the 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 83 
 
 intermediate policy of a regency, ' The energy and 
 turbulent spirit of the Sikhs,' wrote Lord Hardinge 
 to Sir Henry Lawrence, ' are stated by one section 
 (of politicians here) as ground for not annexing. 
 In my judgment this is the argument which would 
 dispose me, if I were on the spot, to annex. . . I 
 should be ashamed of myself if I would not depart 
 from a line of policy which was right at the time, 
 because I might be charged with inconsistency^.' 
 This frank confession of the noble old Governor- 
 General, whose scheme of governing the Punjab 
 without annexation had broken down, must have 
 strengthened the conviction of Sir Henry Lawrence 
 that he did well in withdrawing his resignation of 
 the Residentship of Lahore ; a resignation which 
 he placed in Lord Dalhousie's hands when he 
 learned that his views against annexation were 
 overruled, and that the Punjab was to become a 
 British Province 2. 
 
 Thus, almost within a year of his arrival in 
 India, the young Governor-General found himself 
 compelled to add a great country to the Empire. 
 Amid his engrossing cares for the welfare of the 
 new territories, he did not forget the couple of shal- 
 low graves, hastily dug by alien hands, from whose 
 blood-stained soil had sprung the conquest of 
 
 ^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii, p. 132, ed. 1872. Lord 
 Hardinge's letter is dated 24th March, 1849. 
 
 ^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii, p. 134, ed. 1872. 
 
 p a 
 
84 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the Punjab. The remains of Vans Agnew and 
 Anderson were reverently removed from their 
 humble resting-place, and laid by the victorious 
 British army on the lofty platform which crowns 
 the fortress of Multan. 
 
 From that historic height, which gives the 
 command of the whole middle valley of the Indus, 
 successive conquerors, Greek, Hindu, Muhammadan, 
 Sikh, British, had proudly looked down : beginning 
 with Alexander the Great, who was wounded in 
 the assault of Multan, onwards through twenty- 
 two centuries. As I stood beside the massive 
 obelisk which shoots up seventy feet from the 
 tomb of the two young officers, and dominates 
 the plains for twenty miles below, I could not 
 help feeling that it was indeed a noble place of 
 sepulture. All around were the memorials of a 
 long heroic past, while the only sound that floated 
 upwards was the continuous creaking of the Persian 
 wheels in the sugar-cane grounds, drawing water for 
 the peaceful toil of the present. 
 
 A beautiful marble tablet in the Calcutta 
 Cathedral bears the following epitaph : — 
 
 'Not near this Stone, nor in any consecrated 
 ground, but on the extreme frontier of the British 
 Indian Empire, lie the remains of Patrick Alex- 
 ander Vans Agnew, of the Bengal Civil Service, 
 and William Anderson, Lieutenant, ist Bombay 
 Fusilier Regiment, Assistants to the Resident at 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB 85 
 
 Lahore, who being deputed by the Government to 
 relieve, at his own request, Diwan Mulraj, Viceroy 
 of Mtiltan, of the fortress and authority which he 
 held, were attacked and wounded by the garrison, 
 on the 19th April, 1848 ; and being treacherously 
 deserted by the Sikh escort, were, on the following 
 day, in flagrant breach of national faith and hos- 
 pitality, barbarously murdered in the Idgah under 
 the walls of Multan. 
 
 ' Thus fell these two young public servants, at 
 the age of 25 and 28 years, full of high hopes, 
 rare talents, and promise of future usefulness. 
 Even in their deaths doing their country honour. 
 Wounded and forsaken, they could offer no re- 
 sistance, but hand in hand calmly awaited the 
 onset of their assailants. 
 
 ' Nobly they refused to yield, foretelling the day 
 when thousands of Englishmen should come to 
 avenge their death, and destroy Mtilraj, his army 
 and fortress. 
 
 ' History records how this prediction was fulfilled. 
 Borne to the grave by their victorious brother- 
 soldiers and countrymen, they were buried with 
 military honours, on the summit of the captured 
 citadel, on the 26th January, 1 84- ^. 
 
 ' The annexation of the Punjab to the British 
 Empire was the result of the war, of which their 
 assassination was the commencement.* 
 
 ^ 1849. Alas for the uncompleted inscriptions of our Indian 
 memorials and tombs ! 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Consolidation of the Punjab 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, having annexed the Punjab, 
 determined to give it a strong administration. 
 The obvious precedent was the military form of 
 government adopted six years previously for the 
 recently conquered province of Sind. He had, 
 moreover, at his right hand, the new Commander- 
 in-Chief, Sir Charles Napier, who, in 1843, intro- 
 duced that system and was still its firm supporter. 
 But he had also, as his advisers, the influential 
 Civilian Members of his Council, who believed that 
 martial rule is a bad rule for a British Province, 
 and whose ideal of government was a regular 
 Civilian administration. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie adopted neither of these opposite 
 systems. He struck out for himself a mixed form 
 of government which should combine military 
 strength with civil justice ; and erected an admin- 
 istration composed in equal propoi-tions of trained 
 civilians and military officers. He did so in 
 masterful opposition to his Commander-in-Chief 
 who has left on record that, if he could have had 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 87 
 
 his way in India, ' No Indian Prince should exist ' 
 . . ' and the Indian Army [should be] all in all in 
 the East V 
 
 A difficulty more serious than the fiery words of 
 Sir Charles Napier lay, however, in Lord Dalhousie's 
 path. His predecessor, Lord Hardinge, was an old 
 soldier, who gladly made over to others the work of 
 civil administration. Sir Henry Lawrence had 
 completely won Lord Hardinge's confidence, and 
 was uniformly spoken of and written to by him, 
 ' with the tenderness of a brother 2.' Lord Hardinge 
 provided, indeed, for Sir Henry Lawrence's friends 
 and relatives with more than a brother's care. 
 One Lawrence, John, administered the eastern 
 districts of the Punjab annexed at the close of the 
 first Sikh war ; another Lawrence, George, held the 
 great western tract of the Punjab, Peshawar; a 
 third Lawrence, Henry, ruled over the central 
 districts and controlled the whole Punjab, as Kesi- 
 dent at Lahore. When Heniy Lawrence took tem- 
 porary rest from his duties, John acted for him as 
 Resident. The administration consisted to a large 
 extent of their friends, and the Lawrence family 
 practically held the patronage of the Punjab, and 
 the fortunes of its officers, in the hollow of their 
 
 1 Quoted from the lAfe of Sir Senry Lawrence, vol. ii, p. 133, 
 ed. 1872, and Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i, 
 p 294, ed. 1855. 
 
 '^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii, p. 118, ed. 187a. 
 
88 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 hands. Happy for England that the three brethren 
 proved worthy of the responsibility thus intrusted 
 to them ! 
 
 But it was a responsibility which no Governor- 
 General, in the full vigour of his working powers, 
 would deem it right to make over to a single family, 
 however distinguished. An officer even of Council 
 rank could declare that, in connection with the 
 Lawrences and Lahore, his own ' convenience is a 
 thing which has never been consulted.' Lord 
 Hardinge, men said, *had set up a triumvirate of 
 Lawrences ' in the Punjab. The old soldier, in the 
 last days of his rule, seems to have been not 
 unconscious of the charge. When Henry Lawrence 
 took sick-leave to England at the end of 1847, 
 Lord Hardinge declined to confirm his brother John 
 as Resident at Lahore, and appointed an experienced 
 officer, Sir Frederick Currie, from Bengal. On 
 hearing of the Sikh rising in the following summer, 
 Henry Lawrence, now Sir Henry, threw up his 
 sick-leave in England, as we have seen, and 
 hastened back to Lidia. 
 
 He returned in a very sensitive frame of mind. 
 Honestly believing his presence in the Punjab to 
 be of the highest importance, he made the mistake 
 of supposing himself indispensable to the Govern- 
 ment. The Court of Directors had received with 
 official calm his eager offer to start back at once for 
 Lahore. Sir Hemy writes that he 'was disap- 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 89 
 
 pointed' at their thus 'politely ignoring' him^. 
 Nor was his journey out calculated to smooth his 
 ruffled susceptibilities. Lord Dalhousie had frankly 
 assured him, indeed, that ' my word is passed that, 
 on your return at the end of a year, you shall be 
 replaced at Lahore ; and so you shall.' But hearing 
 of some pretty stage effect contemplated at Multan, 
 in the shape of a personal surrender of the rebel 
 Mtilraj to Sir Henry in the hope of favourable con- 
 ditions on his first arrival, Lord Dalhousie promptly 
 wrote to the returning Resident : ' I have to inform 
 you that I will grant no terms whatever to Mulraj, 
 nor listen to any proposal but unconditional sur- 
 render 2.' After a scrupulously fair trial, Mulraj 
 was sentenced to transportation. 
 
 Sir Henry did not even yet realize that he was no 
 longer dealing with a Governor-General like Lord 
 Hardinge, with ' something almost feminine in his 
 tenderness of nature ^' On his arrival at the head- 
 quarters of the army, he drafted a Proclamation 
 to the Sikhs under Lord Dalhousie's instructions, 
 but in a very different sense from what Lord Dal- 
 housie had prescribed. Lord Dalhousie replied in a 
 letter which I quote at some length, for it practi- 
 cally laid down the conditions under which alone Sir 
 Henry Lawrence could retain his place in the Punjab. 
 
 * Life, vol. ii, p. 103, ed. 1872. 
 
 2 Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i, p. 233, ed. 1855. 
 
 ^ LAJe of Sir Henry Laurence, vol. ii, p. 118. 
 
90 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 * In my conversation with you a few days ago, I took 
 occasion to say to you that my modes of conducting public 
 business in the administration with which I am entrusted, 
 and especially with the confidential servants of the 
 Government, are, to speak with perfect openness, without 
 any reserve, and plainly to tell my mind without disguise 
 or mincing of words. In pursuance of that system I now 
 remark on the Proclamation you have proposed. It is 
 objectionable in matter, because, from the terms in which 
 it is worded, it is calculated to convey to those who are 
 engaged in this shameful war, an expectation of much 
 more favourable terms, much more extended immunity 
 from punishment, than I consider myself justified in 
 granting them. It is objectionable in manner, because 
 (unintentionally, no doubt) its whole tone substitutes you 
 personally, as the Eesident at Lahore, for the Govern- 
 ment which you represent. It is calculated to raise the 
 inference that a new state of things is arising, that the 
 fact of your arrival with a desire to bring peace to the 
 Punjab is likely to affect the warlike measures of the 
 Government, and that you are come as a peacemaker for 
 the Sikhs, as standing between them and the Govern- 
 ment. This cannot be. . . There must be entire identity 
 between the Government and its Agent, whoever he is. . . 
 I can allow nothing to be said or done which should raise 
 the notion that the policy of the Government of India, 
 or its intentions, depend on your presence as Eesident in 
 the Punjab, or the presence of Sir F. Currie instead.' 
 
 Sir Henry Lawrence painfully accepted the 
 situation thus defined for him. Lord Dalhousie 
 had a perfect appreciation of Sir Hemy's great 
 qualities, an admii'ing sympathy for his chivakous 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 91 
 
 character, and a high-minded forbearance, up to 
 the furthest limit that forbearance was safe, to- 
 wards his failings. He resolved that, so far as 
 in him lay, the Punjab should not lose the services 
 of such a man. 
 
 When Sir Henry, on finding his advice against 
 annexation rejected, tendered his resignation, 
 Lord Dalhousie sent his Foreign Secretary to 
 quietly lay before him the considerations, which 
 from Sir Henry's own point of view, should render 
 the step inexpedient and uncalled for. When Sir 
 Henry withdrew his resignation, Lord Dalhousie 
 allowed no recollection of the incident to affect his 
 estimate of the sterling value of his sensitive lieu- 
 tenant. ' You give and will, I hope, continue to 
 give, me your views frankly,' he said to him on the 
 13th of February, 1849. 'If we differ, I shall say 
 so ; but my saying so ought not to be interpreted 
 to mean want of confidence.' 
 
 To outsiders, indeed, it appeared that Lord 
 Dalhousie had allowed himself to fall into the same 
 dependence on the Lawrence family that had 
 marked his predecessor's rule. For each of the 
 three brothers he had a sincere admiration, and 
 each of them he employed in great public trusts. 
 ' The Lawrences have been forced upon Lord Dal- 
 housie,' wrote Sir Charles Napier, putting the 
 shallow opinion of the moment into strong and 
 lasting words. As a matter of historical fact it was 
 
92 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Lord Dalhousie who forced his master- will upon 
 the Lawrences. 
 
 The stronger man of the two illustrious brothers 
 went heartily with the Governor-General from the 
 first. When Lord Dalhousie asked him ' What is to 
 be done with the Punjab now ? ' writes Lord Law- 
 rence's biographer, ' John Lawrence, who knew well 
 that his questioner had made up his mind, at all 
 hazards, ultimately to annex the conquered pro- 
 vince, answered with characteristic brevity, " Annex 
 it now^."' Henry did not go heartily with the 
 Governor-General either at first or afterwards. 
 ' Had Lawrence been Dalhousie,' says Sir Henry's 
 admiring chronicler, * he would certainly have rid 
 himself of a right-hand man who thwarted him — not 
 indeed by disobedience, but by opposition of opinion 
 — as did Dalhousie himself.' Lord Dalhousie took 
 a wiser course. 
 
 At the outset he plainly, even sternly, told Henry 
 Lawrence on what terms alone Henry Lawrence 
 could continue to serve as his lieutenant in the 
 Punjab. Henry Lawrence decided to serve on 
 those terms. When his opinion against annexation 
 was overruled, Henry Lawrence, after a struggle 
 with himself, accepted the policy of annexa- 
 tion. Throughout his four years of service to 
 Lord Dalhousie in the Punjab, however widely 
 his own views might differ from those of the 
 
 ^ Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i, p. 242, ed. 1855. 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 93 
 
 Governor-General, his action was firmly prescribed 
 by the Governor-General. At the end of those four 
 years, when Lord Dalhousie had to choose between 
 John and Henry Lawrence as his Chief Commis- 
 sioner in the Punjab, he chose John. But he 
 found an appointment of equal dignity for Henry 
 in an adjoining territory, and made his salary equal 
 to that which he had drawn in the Punjab. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie having, in 1849, clearly shown 
 the Lawrences that he intended to govern the 
 Punjab on principles and methods of his own, so 
 arranged the local governing body as to secure that 
 its guidance should remain in his own hands. 
 Instead of appointing one or other of the brethren 
 Chief Commissioner, he constructed them together 
 with a third ofiicer into a Board. The plan seemed 
 to on-lookers particularly unsuitable for the control 
 of a newly conquered province. Sir Charles Napier 
 shot out his bitter word at it. ' Boards rarely have 
 any talent/ he wrote, ' and that of the Punjab ofibrs 
 no exception to the rule.' Less unfriendly critics 
 remarked 'that it was self-condemned from its 
 birth.' To Sir Henry Lawrence's biographer it 
 naturally appeared a ' contrivance calculated only 
 to enhance the ordinary faults of divided councils, 
 and to eventuate in compromises where action was 
 required, in ill concealed differences and final disor- 
 ganisation.' Lord Dalhousie was, as we shall see, no 
 admirer of Boards, and was perfectly aware of the 
 
94 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 weakness of any Board as a controlling power in a 
 newly subjected province. Yet a Board was pre- 
 cisely the instrument he wanted in the Punjab. 
 For he did not intend that the Board should be the 
 controlling power: he had determined to be the 
 controlling power himself. 
 
 It was a novel and most difficult experiment in 
 Anglo-Indian rule. The brilliant success which it 
 attained is due primarily to the master-mind of 
 Dalhousie who designed and continuously directed it ; 
 in the next place, to the able instruments selected to 
 work it out. The two Lawrences and Mr. Charles 
 Greville Mansel formed the Board, with common 
 responsibility, but each with his own Department. 
 Mr. Mansel;, as a trained civilian from a Regulation 
 Province, smoothly and effectively organised the 
 judicial administration of the Punjab. John Law- 
 rence, as a strenuous revenue officer, re-settled the 
 land-tax and fiscal system on a basis at once more 
 favourable to the people and more profitable 
 to the Government. Sir Henry Lawrence, as a 
 soldier-political, was charged more directly with 
 the military defence and our relations towards the 
 lately subdued Chiefs and Sikh fief-holders. He 
 also presided as head of the Board. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie did not, however, trust the 
 success of his scheme entirely to the members of 
 the Board — able as they were. He resolved that 
 the administration of the Punjab should be, from 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 95 
 
 top to bottom, an administration by thoroughly 
 good men working on lines laid down by himself. 
 'You shall have the best men in India to help 
 you,' he wrote to Sir Henry, — ' your brother John 
 to begin with.' 
 
 During the two following years — the years which 
 converted the Punjab from a powerful enemy's 
 country into a prosperous British Province — the 
 three members of the Board exactly fulfilled the 
 expectations which Lord Dalhousie had formed of 
 them. Mansel did his work quietly if not very 
 strongly, gave no trouble to the Governor-General, 
 and acted often as mediator, sometimes as peace- 
 maker, between the two other members. John 
 Lawrence, with a wider grasp and swifter hand, 
 frequently took an independent view ; but having 
 frankly laid it before Lord Dalhousie, he without a 
 moment's wavering carried out Lord Dalhousie' s 
 decision, and made that decision his own. Henry 
 Lawrence, with a more sensitive personality and 
 perhaps a finer genius than his more illustrious 
 brother, could not so subordinate his will to 
 another man even more masterful than himself. 
 He had more than once to be reminded by Lord 
 Dalhousie, in very plain words, that there must be but 
 one ruler of the Punjab, and that that ruler must be 
 the Governor- General, and not Sir Henry Lawrence. 
 
 The new Province was promptly divided into 
 convenient districts, each under a carefully-selected 
 
96 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 English head with European and native subordin- 
 ates. A strong local administrative body of fifty- 
 six superior officers, Commissioners and Deputy 
 Commissioners, was thus built up : twenty-nine of 
 them being drawn from the Military and twenty- 
 seven from the Civil Service. Lord Dalhousie 
 resolved, from the outset, to convert the Punjab 
 into a safe British Province, and to make it a 
 source of strength instead of a source of danger. 
 For the first time in the history of India a really 
 effective system of defences was created on the 
 North- Western frontier against the races of Cen- 
 tral Asia. A line of forts and cantonments rose 
 along the border, and the whole western side of the 
 Indus was strongly held by connecting military 
 roads. 
 
 A wall of steel and stone was thus raised be- 
 tween the British territories and the wild Pathan 
 tribes and Afghanistan. The internal peace of the 
 province was at the same time secured by a mili- 
 tary police of horse and foot with a separate 
 detective force, under the British District Magis- 
 trates, making a total police force of ti,ooo men. 
 The old Village Watch was retained in addition, 
 and its responsibility for tracking criminals from 
 hamlet to hamlet was strictly insisted on. The 
 warlike instincts of the population were repressed 
 by a general disarmament : the Peshawar valley and 
 the frontier districts beins:, however, allowed to 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 97 
 
 retain their weapons. The rest of the Punjab was 
 sternly disarmed, and no fewer than 120,000 
 matchlocks, swords, daggers, and murderous im- 
 plements of ancient curious kinds, were delivered 
 up through the village heads and the town police. 
 
 The Sikh army was disbanded and scattered. 
 But the best of the soldiery were re-enlisted under 
 the British colours or incorporated into the Punjab 
 military police. The Khdlsa, or central governing 
 body of the Sikh confederacy, was completely 
 broken up, and its chiefs and fief-holders were 
 deprived of their military grants of land, and 
 reduced to the position of private persons. In 
 three years after the conquest, the Punjab Board 
 were able to truly report that ' in no part of India 
 had there been more perfect quiet than in the 
 territories lately annexed.' 
 
 This great task had not been accomplished with- 
 out several conflicts between Lord Dalhousie and 
 his advisers and lieutenants. The Punjab with 
 its native states, as now constituted, has an area 
 of 142,499 square miles and a population of 22f 
 millions. The territories which Lord Dalhousie 
 annexed in 1849 made up about 73,000 square 
 miles : nearly 1 \ times the area of England 
 and Wales. Dalhousie, although he rejected Sir 
 Charles Napier's idea of a military government, 
 was quite willing to accept any features of Sir 
 Charles Napier's system in Sind which seemed 
 
 G 
 
98 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 good. It was on Sir Charles' suggestion that 
 the Punjab military police was formed. It con- 
 sisted of 7000 men in six regiments of foot 
 and twenty-seven troops of horse. But Lord 
 Dalhousie, instead of giving the command of the 
 force to British military officers, as in Sind, placed 
 it under the orders and at the disposal of the 
 District Magistrates. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie also gave the control of the 
 Frontier Force to the Civil Government of the 
 Punjab. This force was a creation of his own, 
 based upon an idea of Sir Henry Lawrence, and 
 starting from a nucleus which Sir Henry had 
 formed in 1 846. Lord Dalhousie expanded it into 
 a frontier force, always in motion ; its sole bag- 
 gage train being the saddle of the trooper, and the 
 back of the foot-soldier. Behind this living fence 
 of steel Lord Dalhousie massed over 50,000 regular 
 troops as an army of occupation in the Punjab. 
 His masterful arrangements gave umbrage to Sir 
 Charles Napier, who complained that he had no 
 patronage and but little voice in the defence of 
 the Punjab. 
 
 But, as usual, Lord Dalhousie's most serious 
 difficulty arose not from the fiery exaggerations of 
 the old Commander-in-Chief, but from the inability 
 of Sir Henry Lawrence to heartily carry out the 
 Governor-General's orders. Lord Dalhousie was 
 not content with disarming the people, he deter- 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 99 
 
 mined that the chiefs and fief-holders of the Punjab 
 should be efiectively deprived of the power of doing 
 mischief. Most of these men had been in arms against 
 us ; almost all of them held their lands from the 
 previous Sikh Government on condition of render- 
 ing military service. From either point of view 
 they had small claims for tenderness on the part of 
 a Power which they had fought to the bitter end, 
 by means of the resources placed by the native 
 government at their disposal. Lord Dalhousie 
 resolved, while liberally rewarding individual cases 
 of loyalty, to destroy the status of the class. 
 
 John Lawrence heartily agreed with the Governor- 
 General. Sir Henry Lawrence also accepted the 
 policy laid down, but desired so to modify it in 
 practice as to take the pith out of it. Lord Dal- 
 housie frankly told him that he could not permit 
 this. He would give the revolted fief-holders ' their 
 lives and their subsistence,' but that was all. 
 * Nothing/ he said to Sir Henry, ' is granted to 
 them but maintenance. The amount of that is 
 open to discussion, but their property of every kind 
 will be confiscated to the State. . . In the interim, 
 let them be placed somewhere under surveillance ; 
 but attach their property tiU their destination is 
 decided. If they run away, our contract is void. 
 If they are caught, I will imprison them. And if 
 they raise tumult again I will hang them, as sure 
 as they now live, and I live then.' 
 G 2 
 
lOO DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 If, during the Mutiny of 1857, the Punjab could 
 be denuded of its British troops, and its army set 
 free for the Siege of Delhi and the stamping out of 
 the revolt, it was because the powerful Sikh Chiefs, 
 who had fought so splendidly against us in 1848, 
 had been thus sternly broken up by Dalhousie. If 
 Sir Henry Lawrence's half-and-half policy had been 
 adopted, Lord Dalhousie clearly foresaw that the 
 Punjab under annexation would have been scarcely 
 more secure than the Punjab under the Treaties 
 of 1846 — except indeed for the loss of the Sikh 
 artillery. But while Lord Dalhousie insisted upon 
 the absolute dismemberment of the Sikh Con- 
 federacy, he was willing to carry it out with the 
 utmost measure of mercy compatible with the per- 
 manent safety of the province. 
 
 ' The arrangements regarding jaghirs [the mili- 
 tary fiefs], as lately received from your Lordship,' 
 wrote John Lawrence to the Governor- General, 
 after they had been carried into effect, ' have given 
 much satisfaction, and have exceeded all expecta- 
 tion. A Sikh Sirdar remarked to me that they had 
 got more than Kanjit Singh ever would have given 
 them, and that too free of all service.' I repeat 
 that if the Punjab was both safe and contented 
 during the Mutiny, it was this policy of firmness 
 tempered by consideration, and rigorously enforced 
 by Lord Dalhousie upon Henry Lawrence as head 
 of the Lahore Board, which rendered it so. 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB lOl 
 
 Nor did Dalhousie concern himself less with the 
 revenue and judicial system which his lieutenants 
 established under his orders in the Punjab. Justice 
 under the Sikhs had been a matter of bribery 
 mingled with caprice. The old native judges 
 regarded their petitioners in the same light in 
 which an English barrister views his clients, as a 
 source of honourable emolument. In the criminal 
 administration the great Sikh ruler, Kanjit Singh, 
 had been averse to capital punishment, and sub- 
 stituted for it a regular system of fines and mutila- 
 tion. Imprisonment seemed to His Highness to be 
 a clumsy and costly device for keeping criminals 
 at the public expense. He adopted in place of it 
 a regular gradation of maiming, from cutting off 
 the nose as a penalty for theft, to chopping ofi" the 
 hands for highway robbery, and ham-stringing for 
 burglary by night. The British Government had 
 to organise the whole system of civil and criminal 
 justice de novo. 
 
 In the revenue administration the task of recon- 
 struction was even more severe. Ranjit Singh 
 acknowledged only two instruments of government, 
 the soldier and the tax-gatherer. In the last years 
 of his reign he had indeed established a rude form 
 of central audit. How rude the audit was, may 
 be inferred from the fact that the pay-master of the 
 Sikh forces had presented no balance-sheet during 
 the sixteen years before the British annexation. 
 
I03 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Indeed, neither Mulraj nor his father seems ever to 
 have rendered accounts with any pretence to com- 
 pleteness for the great province of Multan. Ranjit 
 Singh, while in full vigour at the head of the Sikh 
 nation, trusted to his memory in the matter of 
 revenue payments, assisted by a notched stick. 
 
 But if the pubhc accounts were loosely kept, the 
 public burdens were numerous and severe. Forty- 
 eight taxes had been levied : a long and curious list 
 of imposts, from the land revenue (one half the en- 
 tire crop, and in some years more) to the transit 
 duties, exacted and re-exacted at every city gate, 
 and paid twelve times over before a bale of goods 
 could pass across the province. Dalhousie^s lieu- 
 tenants reduced them to about half-a-dozen. But 
 an honest system of collection, and an exact audit 
 of public accounts, produced from them a larger 
 revenue than had reached the Sikh exchequer. 
 The land tax of the Punjab was resettled on a 
 fairer basis. Each village and field was surveyed, 
 and every peasant's claim to his holding was scru- 
 pulously ascertained. This 'Record of Rights' 
 forms at once the Magna Charta and Domesday 
 Book of the Punjab. It stands as the beneficent 
 landmark of the commencement of British rule. 
 
 The rapid advance to prosperity in the Punjab 
 was due in no smaU measure to the powerful 
 impulse given to trade and agriculture by roads 
 and irrigation works. Money was advanced to the 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 103 
 
 villagers to enable them to reclaim the wastes. 
 A system of State forests was introduced under 
 Lord Dalhousie's personal initiation. Old canals 
 were repaired, new canals were vigorously com- 
 menced. A single one of these great irrigation 
 works, the Bari Duab Canal, now fertilises the 
 country with a network of over twelve hundred 
 miles of main and distributing channels (1882), 
 which have cost one and a half millions sterling, 
 and water annually half a million of acres. While 
 the productive powers of the soil were thus mar- 
 vellously increased, the Grand Trunk Road was 
 pushed forward across the whole breadth of the 
 Punjab, and served as the main artery for a branch- 
 ing system of highways and communications. 
 
 The task of Public Instruction was also under- 
 taken. Before ten years elapsed, schools both on 
 the Western and on the Oriental system of edu- 
 cation had been dotted over every District. The 
 people were not slow to feel the quickening of the 
 new moral life thus imparted to the province. 
 At a great public meeting held at the sacred city of 
 Amritsar, native delegates from the Sikh nobility, 
 priesthood and people, solemnly agreed to reduce 
 the heavy wedding expenses, which, by increasing 
 the difficulty of providing for daughters in mar- 
 riage, had acted as one of the chief causes of 
 female infanticide. Similar meetings assembled in 
 various parts of the Punjab with a view to social 
 
I04 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 and moral reforms — reforms backed by the resolute 
 will of Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 The measures detailed in the preceding pages, 
 and many others which I can barely mention in 
 passing, formed part of a complete scheme of con- 
 solidation designed by Lord Dalhousie, and worked 
 out by his lieutenants under his watchful eye. 
 Lord Dalhousie was not content with throwing a 
 paper constitution at the heads of his subordinates. 
 He dealt personally, indeed with his own pen, with 
 each question as it arose : personally inspected 
 each part of the province ; and personally resided 
 for many months a year at the comparatively new 
 hill-station of Simla within it. He found the 
 Sikh territories disunited by a confusion of civil 
 and criminal laws, by a confusion of taxation and 
 finance, by a confusion of coinage, by a confusion 
 of languages, and by the absence of roads and 
 means of communication. He bound together 
 those disunited territories into the British Pro- 
 vince of the Punjab by uniform systems of 
 civil and criminal justice, by a common system 
 of taxation and finance, by a single coinage, by 
 a recognised language for public business in each 
 of the natural divisions of the country, and by 
 the strong cohesive force of roads and highwaj^s. 
 
 Whatever might be the constitution of the local 
 Punjab Government, whoever might be the members 
 of the Board, or whether there was a Board at all, 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 105 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's policy of consolidation brooked 
 neither interruption nor check. At the end of 1 850, 
 Mr. Mansel, having laid the foundations of the 
 judicial system, was relieved of his difficult inter- 
 mediate position between his conflicting colleagues, 
 and was promoted to the Residency of Nagpur. 
 Sir Robert Montgomery succeeded him at the Board. 
 After another two years the Board itself was dis- 
 solved, and Lord Dalhousie confided its manage- 
 ment to John Lawrence as Chief Commissioner of 
 the Punjab. But even in the hands of so com- 
 pletely trusted a lieutenant, the mainspring of the 
 Government of India's policy in the Punjab was the 
 Governor-General himself. I cannot do better than 
 to quote, although at some length, the account 
 which Lord Lawrence's biographer gives of his 
 relations to Lord Dalhousie, while Lawrence was 
 Chief Commissioner of the Punjab. 
 
 ' The Punjab, John Lawrence's charge, was Lord 
 Dalhousie's pet province. It was his own child, his own 
 creation. John Lawrence might he its Chief Commissioner, 
 but woe he to him if he ever forgot that he [Lawrence] 
 was not its supreme ruler ! If he ever did forget this, 
 and if, acting on his own responsibihty, he invited a 
 friend to serve within its sacred precincts, or became 
 involved in a frontier disturbance beyond them, without 
 first applying to the Governor-General, he too was called 
 to account, and felt what might be the weight of Lord 
 Dalhousie's heel. But here his tact and his loyalty to 
 superior authority came in. His notions of duty to 
 
 T*>*^ Fit rue ' 
 
I06 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Government he carried to a degree which one might 
 liave expected to find in a disciple of Hobbes, but hardly 
 in a man of such popular sympathies and of such com- 
 manding powers as his. It Avas these notions of public 
 duty which helped him to put up with occasional rebukes 
 from his chief, which, if they had come from any other 
 quarter, would have made him turn and rend his assailant. 
 
 ' But Lord Dalhousie was much too great a man not to 
 wish his subordinates to speak their minds frankly to 
 him. This John Lawrence always did. There was not 
 a step which Lord Dalhousie took in the Punjab, not an 
 appointment he made, not an expression he dropped, 
 which John Lawrence, if he was unable to approve of it, 
 did not, with all his " heroic simplicity," fasten upon and 
 controvert. This done, if he could not succeed in modify- 
 ing his chief's views, he thought himself not only at 
 liberty, but bound in honour to carry them out. And it 
 was this mixture of resistance and of submission, of 
 loyalty and of tact, and yet of plainness or even abrupt- 
 ness of speech, which, combined with his other and in- 
 finitely greater qualities, exactly suited Lord Dalhousie, 
 and enabled two such master-spirits, if I have read their 
 characters and correspondence aright, to move, in the 
 same sphere, with mutual appreciation, and without 
 coming into anything like dangerous collision \' 
 
 I have thought it right to set forth the powerful, 
 perhaps at times imperious, personality with which 
 Lord Dalhousie designed and enforced the policy 
 that made the Punjab what it became. He felt 
 himself so strong a master, that he did not fear 
 
 1 Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i, cli. 15, p. 419, 
 ed. 1885. 
 
CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB 107 
 
 to choose strong subordinates. Many of his sub- 
 ordinates in the Punjab were so well chosen and 
 themselves so distinguished, all of them played 
 so splendid a part in 1857, and the lives of several 
 of them have been so brilliantly written, while 
 Lord Dalhousie's papers still remain shut up, that 
 we are apt to forget that, from the moment of 
 annexation in 1849 ^^ ^^ \^Q\n: when Lord 
 Dalhousie laid down his office in 1856, they were 
 in the strictest sense Dalhousie's subordinates, 
 carrying out Dalhousie's policy, under his own 
 vigilant, and sometimes stern, control. 
 
 All honour to that noble band of workers ! But 
 the day will come when Lord Dalhousie's side 
 of the case will also be laid before the public. 
 It will then be seen, even more clearly than I 
 have in this chapter been permitted to show, that 
 it was not Henry Lawrence, nor even John 
 Lawrence, nor Herbert Edwardes and Nicholson 
 and their gallant brethren in arms, who made 
 the Punjab what it became in 1857, — the saviour 
 province of India, — but the Marquess of Dalhousie. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Conquest of Lower Burma 
 
 Before entering on the narrative of Lord Dal- 
 housie's other great conquest, Burma, I may briefly 
 refer to an intermediate episode. The next frontier 
 annexation made by the new Governor-General, 
 after the Punjab, was a small outlying tract of 
 Sikkim. This was a punitive measure rendered 
 necessary by the treacherous seizure, in 1849, of 
 our frontier political ofiicer, Dr. Campbell, and 
 the distinguished botanist Sir Joseph Hooker, 
 while travelling in Sikkim with the permission 
 of the Raja. A military expedition thus became 
 necessary, and a submontane strip of inconsiderable 
 extent, together with certain hills, was exacted 
 from the Raja by way of punishment and fine. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's third extension of the British 
 
 r 
 
 frontier belongs to a later period, and was on 
 a more extensive scale. The first Burmese War 
 in 1824-6 had given us, among other territories, 
 the coast strip of Burma on the Eastern shores of 
 the Bay of Bengal. Under the Treaty of Yandabu, 
 which closed that war in 1826, British merchants 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 1 09 
 
 had settled at Rangoon, the seaport of the Irawadi. 
 Rangoon, however, together with the Irawadi 
 delta and its upper valley, continued to form the 
 Burmese Empire. The lofty barrier of the Yoma 
 mountains and their outlying spurs separated the 
 British coast strip on the Bay of Bengal from the 
 inner Burmese dominions. A British Resident 
 at the inland Burmese capital of Ava maintained 
 the treaty and protected our frontier. 
 
 The bitterest part of the treaty of i825 to the 
 Burmese Emperor had been this compulsory ac- 
 ceptance of a British Resident at his capital. 
 That Buddhist potentate boasted himself to be 
 ' The Elder Brother of China,' and ' The Lord who 
 is the Greatest of Kings.' He regarded the presence 
 of a barbarian envoy as a personal humiliation, 
 and a pollution to his sacred metropolis. While 
 the prince with whom we had made the treaty 
 remained in power, however, its provisions were 
 fairly carried out. But on a change of dynasty 
 in 1837, the successful usurper killed off the pre- 
 vious reigning family, and by studied insults to 
 the British Resident, drove him from the imperial 
 capital of Ava down to the seaport of Rangoon. 
 
 In 1840, the Resident had to be formally with- 
 drawn from the dominions of the Burmese Emperor. 
 A long series of provocations and insolent extor- 
 tions on our merchants followed; for which the 
 sufferers vainly endeavoured to obtain redress 
 
no DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 through the Commissioner of the British coast 
 strip. During twelve years, direct diplomatic 
 relations with Burma remained suspended. At 
 length on the 27th September, 1851, the British 
 merchants at Rangoon, under the recent irritation 
 of two signal outrages, laid their wrongs before 
 the Governor-General of India. 
 
 Besides individual acts of oppression, they 
 complained that the Treaty of Yandabu was 
 habitually violated, and 'that now affairs have 
 arrived at such a crisis that, unless protected, your 
 memorialists will be obliged to leave the country, 
 and doing so must sacrifice their property.' 
 ' Neither life nor property is safe, as the Governor ' 
 of Rangoon, they declare, 'has publicly stated to 
 his dependents that he has no money to pay them 
 for their services ; and has granted to them his 
 permission to rob the inhabitants, and to get money 
 as they best can.' In conclusion, 'That your 
 memorialists are here under the provisions of the 
 Treaty of Yandabu, and beg to state, with all due 
 deference and respect^ that they claim to seek your 
 protection.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie was not the man to deny such a 
 claim, based upon treaty-rights, nor would any 
 Governor-General of India be fit for his high office 
 who turned a deaf ear to a memorial of this nature. 
 A naval officer was despatched with three ships 
 to Rangoon to enquire into the truth of the 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA iii 
 
 complaints. His instructions were to observe 
 every form of courteous remonstrance, and only to 
 demand compensation for the ascertained actual 
 losses suffered by the merchants, amounting to 
 about Ks. 9,000 ; together with the dismissal of the 
 local Burmese Governor of Rangoon. 
 
 No redress could be obtained. When the 
 English officer asked for an interview, it was at 
 first refused on the ground that ' the Governor was 
 asleep.' After being kept waiting in the burning 
 sun^ the naval envoy urged his studiously moderate 
 requests in vain, and further provocations rendered 
 it clear that the English barbarians would never 
 secure redress except by force of arms. Lord 
 Dalhousie was compelled to accept the only alter- 
 native — a Burmese War. 
 
 In the conduct of the operations which followed. 
 Lord Dalhousie profited by the lessons taught by 
 the first Burmese War in 1 824-6. He realized, first, 
 that the losses incident to a Burmese campaign 
 were due, not so much to the fighting power of the 
 enemy, as to the malaria of the country, and the 
 sickness caused by exposure to sun and rain. In 
 the second place, he clearly perceived that until 
 the Burmese Emperor, in his distant inland capital, 
 was made to feel that the English barbarians had 
 the power to compel redress, no real redress would 
 be given. 
 
 To meet the first difficulty Lord Dalhousie 
 
112 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 equipped his army in 1852 against the climate, 
 with a foresiojht which would have saved thousands 
 of Hves during the first Burmese War in 1825. 
 ' The care and provision,' wrote General Godwin to 
 whom Lord Dalhousie entrusted the command of 
 the expedition in 1852, 'which has been made to 
 enable us to meet the weather is parental. There 
 are to be bake-houses and a constant supply of 
 fresh meat, hospitals at Amherst to relieve me, and 
 arrangements to carry the sick thither/ Skeleton 
 huts of wood were fitted together on the sea-coast, 
 and a contingent of carpenters marched with the 
 troops to put them up. By a Hberal commissariat, 
 Lord Dalhousie found it possible to record at the 
 end of his Governor- Generalship that he had 
 'abolished the morning dram;' and his arrange- 
 ments during the Burmese War, personally initiated 
 and directed by himself, form one of the first and 
 most signal triumphs of Indian military sanitation. 
 Lord Dalhousie saw that it was to be a war against 
 climate, and he armed his troops for this conflict 
 with as much care as he equipped them against the 
 enemy. 
 
 He grasped the political situation with equal 
 firmness. From the outset he perceived that the 
 Burmese Emperor would not accept the teaching 
 of a few distant defeats on the sea-coast. ' I fear,' 
 he wrote, ' that it must be regarded as probable 
 that operations will not be brought to a termina- 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 113 
 
 tion, till a campaign shall again have led us to the 
 gates of the capital.' He realized that any back- 
 ward movement or momentary retreat would be 
 misinterpreted as a sign of weakness, and he laid 
 down the principle that ' with a nation so ridicu- 
 lously but mischievously self-conceited and arro- 
 gant,' whatever was conquered must be annexed. 
 With this end distinctly in view from the be- 
 ginning, he organised the expedition on a scale to 
 insure such a success as would convince even the 
 blind arrogance of a Burmese Emperor. 
 
 At the same time he determined to make the 
 Emperor contribute to the cost of the war, which 
 had been forced on by His Majesty's refusal of 
 redress. Lord Dalhousie accordingly now re- 
 quested not the mere punishment of a local officer 
 at Rangoon, and compensation to the Rangoon 
 merchants for their actual losses of Rs. 9,000. 
 He demanded that the Emperor should not only 
 disavow the conduct of his Governor at Rangoon, 
 but should himself apologise, receive a British 
 Resident at Rangoon, and pay a war-fine of one 
 million rupees. 
 
 The expeditionary force was made up of separate 
 contingents from Calcutta and Madras, with a 
 squadron from Bombay. In Calcutta and Madras 
 there was a repetition, on a smaller scale and for a 
 shorter period, of the same want of capacity in 
 those responsible for placing the troops on the 
 
 H 
 
114 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 scene of action, that disgi*aced the first months of 
 the Punjab revolt in 1 848. In Calcutta the military 
 authorities seem at first to have been imperfectly 
 informed. With the exception of six or seven 
 regiments, the Bengal Native Army was enlisted 
 for service in India only. Yet Lord Dalhousie 
 was permitted by his responsible advisers to name 
 a Native regiment for service across the sea in 
 Burma, without due regard to this fact. The men 
 objected, and pleaded the terms of their enlistment. 
 Lord Dalhousie acknowledged the mistake which 
 had been made, and rescinded the order for the 
 38th Native Infantry to proceed by sea. 
 
 In Madras the military difficulty threatened to 
 be a more serious one. Sir Henry Pottinger, piqued 
 at not been taken into consultation about the 
 campaign, refused to embark the Madras troops 
 except upon the personal responsibility of the 
 Governor-General. As a matter of fact the Madras 
 troops were enlisted for general service, and the 
 responsibility for moving them was vested in the 
 Governor-General by Statute. The wounded mili- 
 tary vanity of the Governor of Madras was over- 
 come, and indeed he had no alternative but to obey. 
 His objections, however, caused annoyance and 
 delay; and the Madras troops had the vexation 
 of arriving a little after the Bengal contingent at 
 the place of rendezvous. 
 
 In April, 185 a, the expeditionary force occupied 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 115 
 
 the mouths of the Irawadi. The successive capture 
 of the weak defences of Martaban, of the almost 
 impregnable temple-fortress of Rangoon, and of the 
 strongly held port of Bassein, placed the whole sea- 
 coast and lower delta of the Irawadi in the hands 
 of the invaders. 
 
 Their most brilliant feat of arms, and indeed one 
 of the most splendid achievements of modern war- 
 fare, was the storming of Rangoon. As Multan, 
 the starting-point of Lord Dalhousie's first great 
 annexation in the Punjab, was really an enormous 
 fortified warehouse, so the Rangoon pagoda, which 
 formed the key to his other great annexation in 
 Burma, was not so truly a fort as a great temple- 
 citadel. Standing at the base of that lofty mound 
 of earth-work and solid brick, I could not help 
 repeating to myself the exclamation of Lord 
 Dalhousie on visiting Rangoon at the close of the 
 war — ' I cannot imagine, General, how your men 
 ever got in at this place!' 
 
 They got in, too, against the overwhelming 
 numbers of the besieged. The Burmese troops held 
 the city and pagoda of Rangoon with 1 8^000 men ; 
 the English could only bring 5,700 to the attack. 
 Among the Burmese were the picked guards known 
 as ' The Immortals of the Golden Country,' whose 
 discipline compelled them to die at their posts. 
 The courage of the ordinary troops was also in- 
 sured, as the king kept the wives and children of 
 H 2 
 
ii6 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the married soldiers as hostages, while the bachelors 
 were chained up to the guns and embrasures of the 
 fort. 
 
 The attacking column slowly advanced under 
 the blazing sun and amid the crashing shot from 
 the heavy guns of the pagoda. ' Our men are 
 dropping,' an officer exclaimed, ' ten for one here to 
 what we should lose in a storm.' At last they 
 dashed up the steep and narrow stairs, from which 
 the Burmese cannon might have swept them into 
 the air. But their headlong rush, and the fierce 
 cheer with which they came on, seem to have 
 struck terror into the hearts of the defenders. As 
 the storming party broke in at one gate the Bur- 
 mese garrison fled by an opposite exit, the Im- 
 mortals in their gilt lacquer accoutrements heading 
 the stampede, without having time to loosen some 
 women and childi-en who had been fastened up 
 among the guns, as pledges for the valour of the 
 defenders. 
 
 But even this disastrous lesson could not teach 
 the Burmese authorities wisdom. The fugitive 
 Governor of Rangoon insolently wrote to the 
 English General, advising him ' to retreat while he 
 could.' It became apparent to Lord Dalhousie that 
 even the capture of the whole sea-coast would not 
 avail to bring the Burmese Emperor to reason. 
 He therefore determined to push the war into the 
 interior and again raised his terms. Instead of 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 117 
 
 bare compensation for the actual losses of the 
 merchants amounting to Rs. 9,000 as at the outset, 
 or a fine of a million of rupees as on the com- 
 mencement of hostilities, he now demanded a 
 million and a half of rupees, with the cession of 
 the Negrais or Diamond islands, and of the Mar- 
 taban districts on the sea-board. If these terms 
 were not accepted by the Emperor, Lord Dalhousie 
 plainly warned His Majesty that ' the Burmese 
 forces will be defeated wherever they stand, and 
 the British army will reach the capital.' 
 
 The Elder Brother of China, still lulling himself 
 to security amid the flatteries of his women and 
 courtiers, declined to take the chance thus offered. 
 The war had to be carried up the country, at a 
 further outlay in money and at some loss of life 
 from disease. In the autumn of 1852, the city of 
 Prome fell to our arms, and gave us the command 
 of the river approach to the royal capital, Ava. 
 The question then arose whether the hostilities 
 should be carried to the bitter end by advancing 
 on the metropolis. The Court of Directors, as 
 represented by the Secret Committee in London, 
 had declared for this extreme course, in event of 
 the Emperor not having accepted the terms already 
 offered to him. Lord Dalhousie preferred more 
 moderate measures. 
 
 * To march to Ava,' he wrote in a private letter, 
 'will give no peace unless the army remain at 
 
it8 DALHOUSIE'S work in INDIA 
 
 Ava; in other words, unless we absorb the whole 
 Burmese Empire.' With a clear insight as to the 
 ultimate results of the war which he was now 
 ending, Lord Dalhousie added, ' that necessity may 
 come some day. I sincerely hope it will not come 
 in my day.' He accordingly stayed his hand, and 
 as the Emperor still declined to come to terms. 
 Lord Dalhousie, after the final capture of Pegu, 
 closed the war by a Proclamation annexing Lower 
 Burma to the British territories. 
 
 This document, dated the 20th December, 1852, 
 broke down the haughty isolation of the Burmese 
 Emperor by the still more haughty fiat of the 
 English Governor-General. 
 
 'The Court of Ava,' it declared, 'having refused to 
 make amends for the injuries and insults which British 
 subjects had suffered at the hands of its servants, the 
 Governor- General of India in Council resolved to exact 
 reparation by force of arms. 
 
 ' The forts and cities upon the coast were forthwith 
 attacked and captured. The Burman forces have been 
 dispersed, wherever they have been met, and the Province 
 of Pegu is now in occupation of British troops. 
 
 ' The just and moderate demands of the Government 
 of India have been rejected by the king. The ample 
 opportunity that has been afforded him for repairing the 
 injury that was done, has been disregarded; and the 
 timely submission, which alone could have been effectual 
 to prevent the dismemberment of his kingdom, is still 
 withheld. 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 119 
 
 'Wherefore, in compensation for the past, and for 
 better security in the future, the Governor- General in 
 Council has resolved, and hereby proclaims, that the 
 province of Pegu is now, and shall be henceforth, a 
 portion of the British territories in the East. 
 
 ' Such Burman troops as may still remain within the 
 Province shall be driven out. Civil government shall 
 immediately be established, and officers shall be appointed 
 to administer the affairs of the several districts. . . 
 
 ' The Governor-General in Council, having exacted the 
 reparation he deems sufficient, desires no further conquest 
 in Burma, and is willing to consent that hostilities should 
 cease. 
 
 ' But if the king of Ava shall fail to renew his former 
 relations of friendship with the British Government, and 
 if he shall recklessly seek to dispute its quiet poi^ session 
 of the Province it has now declared to be its own, the 
 Governor-General in Council will again put forth the 
 power he holds, and will visit, with full retribution, 
 aggressions which, if they be persisted in, must, of 
 necessity, lead to the total subversion of the Burman 
 State, and to the ruin and exile of the king and his 
 race/ 
 
 Lower Burma thus passed in 1852 under British 
 government. I have narrated the four visits which 
 Lord Dalhousie himself made to the Peninsula, 
 to secure that his policy and system of adminis- 
 tration were firmly carried out. The new British 
 Burma was the product of his own personality 
 in a scarcely less degree than the new British 
 Punjab had been three years before. But the 
 
I20 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 problem of administration was essentially different 
 in the two Provinces. In the Punjab the people 
 had been accustomed to obedience to a ruling class. 
 Lord Dalhousie transferred their allegiance from 
 the native ruling class to the British Government. 
 In this process the previous ruling class of the 
 Punjab disappeared as a military confederacy; 
 but retained their position as an important social 
 factor, intermediate between the masses and the 
 new Kuling Power. 
 
 In Burma there was no such ruling class. There 
 were only the King, the people ground to dust 
 beneath him, and the officials who were the instru- 
 ments of his oppressions. Towards the officials the 
 people entertained no sentiment of allegiance, nor, 
 indeed, any feeling save one of detestation. The 
 official class in Burma were appointed, dismissed, 
 imprisoned, promoted, mutilated, or beheaded, at 
 the caprice of the Monarch, or as the result of an 
 intrigue in the women's apartments. When, there- 
 fore, the English took possession of the sea-coast 
 strip of Burma in 1826, they found nothing like 
 a hereditary ruling class or a native nobility who 
 might act as intermediaries between themselves 
 and their new subjects. Exactly the same difficulty 
 repeated itself on Lord Dalhousie's annexation 
 of Lower Burma, in 1852. Exactly the same 
 problem once more severely tested the British 
 capacity for steady effort in the teeth of slow 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 121 
 
 results, after the annexation of Upper Burma by 
 Lord Dufferin on the ist of January, 1886. 
 
 The difficulty in Burma was complicated by the 
 fact that the whole population had been bred up, 
 during a long period of native misrule, to look 
 upon disorder as the natural state of society. The 
 Burmese villagers, even when they had themselves 
 settled down into hard-working fathers of families 
 and tillers of the soil, regarded dakditi or gang- 
 robbery as a manly sport in which every young 
 Burmese of spirit should, at one time or another, 
 have engaged. This was the deep-rooted popular 
 sentiment which Lord Dalhousie had to encounter 
 in Lower Burma in the years following 1852, 
 precisely as Lord Dufferin had again to encounter 
 it in the years following 1886. Lord Dalhousie 
 accomplished his task not by any sudden magic 
 of transformation, but by constructing a British 
 administrative body strong enough and patient 
 enough to weary out the elements of disorder. 
 But it was only by slow degrees that his able 
 lieutenant. Sir Arthur Phayre, could create a public 
 conviction among the Burmese that, under British 
 Rule, peaceful industry yields an easier livelihood 
 than crime. 
 
 Lito the splendid results of the administration 
 which Lord Dalhousie then inaugurated in Burma, 
 I am precluded from entering. They are written 
 in large letters in every account which has been 
 
 '^^i 
 
122 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 drawn up of the Province. The Gazetteer of 
 Burma loses its character as a dry official record of 
 facts from the magnificent story of progress which 
 it relates. Since annexation by Lord Dalhousie in 
 1852, the inhabitants of the town of Rangoon have 
 multiplied fifteen-fold. The trade of this sea-port, 
 which four years after annexation barely exceeded 
 two millions sterling, had increased by 1883 to 
 thirteen millions. The rural parts have equally 
 prospered. Since 1 855, the population of Amherst 
 District has increased four-fold. The trade of the 
 harbour and district of Akyab, annexed in 1826, has 
 multiplied itself nearly three-hundred-fold during 
 the next fifty years. 
 
 I have now narrated the wars by which Lord 
 Dalhousie extended the British frontier at the 
 opposite extremities of India. By the annexation 
 of the Punjab, Lower Burma, and the outlying 
 districts of Sikkim, Lord Dalhousie added to the 
 British dominions in Lidia territories equal to 
 nearly twice the area of England and Wales. 
 But the increase of territory was only one of the 
 results, and perhaps not the most important result, 
 of Lord Dalhousie's frontier wars. 
 
 By the annexation of the Punjab he threw down 
 the old native breakwater between British Lidia 
 and external attack. He abolished the warlike 
 Sikh power which had formerly stood between us 
 and the races of Central Asia. Since that time 
 
CONQUEST OF LOWER BURMA 123 
 
 British armies have garrisoned the great dividing 
 line. British India has thus come indirectly into 
 contact with Russia's sphere of activity, and event- 
 ually into that costly system of armed neutrality, 
 which constitutes what we are pleased to call the 
 concert of nations in Europe. By the annexation 
 of the submontane tract of Sikkim, Lord Dalhousie 
 brought within the British frontier a territory 
 which, from its capabilities as a tea-growing tract, 
 has given an impulse to a new and an important 
 branch of English enterprise. By the annexation 
 of Lower Burma he placed the rice trade and teak 
 trade of the East in British hands, and converted 
 a vast ruined country into one of the most pro- 
 gressive and most prosperous Provinces of Asia. 
 But here also territorial extension involved an 
 increase of political responsibility. As already 
 mentioned, our connection with Sikkim has led us 
 into not always happy relations with Thibet. 
 Important problems of Indian government, the 
 future of the opium-revenue, the proposed develop- 
 ment of trade-routes to the eastward, the control 
 over the south-eastern frontier Hill States, are 
 powerfully influenced by the fact that the extinc- 
 tion of the Burmese Empire has now brought us 
 into contact with China. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Annexation of Hindu States 
 
 I HAVE, according to the plan of this little volume 
 as set forth in Chapter I, exhibited Lord Dalhousie's 
 frontier conquests in the form of a consecutive nar- 
 rative, in order that I may now deal with his internal 
 policy of consolidation without interruption and as 
 a whole. The most conspicuous, although not the 
 most important or most permanent, feature of that 
 policy of consolidation was his treatment of the 
 dependent Native States. 
 
 In applying the doctrine of lapse to the Hindu 
 chiefdoms, on default of natural successors or of 
 an heir legally adopted with the sanction of the 
 Ruling Power, Lord Dalhousie merely carried out 
 the declared law of the case, and the deliberately 
 formulated policy of the Government of India, 
 years before he arrived in the country. 
 
 In so doing, however, Lord Dalhousie became 
 the unconscious but effective instrument by which 
 the old India of Lord Wellesley at the beginning of 
 the century was prepared for its conversion, in 
 1858, into the new India of the Queen. The 
 Government in India, the Court of Directors at 
 
ANNEX A TION OF HIND U STA TES 1 25 
 
 home, and that small part of the English people 
 which gave its thoughts to our great Eastern 
 Dependency, had gradually come to the conclusion 
 that the old system of ruling through the make- 
 believe of sham royalties in India could not longer 
 endure. This conviction slowly but inevitably 
 followed from the acceptance by Parliament and 
 the British nation of the principle that India was 
 not to be governed for the profit of the Governors, 
 but for the benefit of the people. 
 
 Lord Wellesley (179 8-1 805) gave, as we have 
 seen, the final development to the system of ruling 
 India by British armies and by British adminis- 
 trators, under the disguise of setting up and main- 
 taining native princes dependent upon us. The 
 result had been two generations of petty despots, 
 secured from the consequences of misrule by British 
 bayonets, and spending their lives in a long listless 
 debauchery, broken by paroxysms of cruelty and 
 oppression. *If they cannot plunder strangers,' 
 wrote Sir Henry Lawrence, ' they must harry their 
 own people. The rule holds good throughout 
 India.' 
 
 The Times newspaper thus summed up, in 1 853, 
 the results of this system^. 'Sovereigns over 
 almost all the sea-coast, we have left many rich 
 Provinces in the interior still under the nominal 
 
 ^ Eeproduced from Sir Edwin Arnold's Marquis of Dalhousies 
 Administration, vol. ii, pp. 382-84, ed. 1865. 
 
126 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 dominion of native rulers. With the exception of 
 the Rajput princes, these potentates are not gener- 
 ally of high rank or remote antiquity. Their pos- 
 sessions rest usually upon a title no better than our 
 own, with this remarkable difference, that though 
 their dominions like ours were won by the sword, 
 that sword unlike ours is drawn to oppress, and 
 not to defend. We have emancipated these pale 
 and ineffectual pageants of royalty from the or- 
 dinary fate that awaits on an Oriental despotism. 
 
 ' The history of Eastern monarchies, like every- 
 thing else in Asia, is stereotyped and invariable. 
 The founder of the dynasty, a brave soldier, is a 
 desperate intriguer, and expels from the throne the 
 feeble and degenerate scions of a more ancient 
 house. His son may inherit some of the talent of 
 the father ; but in two or three generations luxury 
 and indolence do their work, and the feeble inher- 
 itors of a great name are dethroned by some new 
 adventurer, destined to bequeath a like misfortune 
 to his degenerate descendants. Thus rebellion 
 and deposition are the correctives of despotism, 
 and thus, through the medium of periodical anarchy 
 and civil war, was secured to the people of the East 
 a recurrence, at fixed intervals, of able and vigorous 
 princes. 
 
 ' This advantage we have taken away from the 
 inhabitants of the states of India still governed by 
 native princes. It has been well said, that we give 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 127 
 
 these princes power without responsibility. Our 
 hand of iron maintains them on the throne, despite 
 their imbecility, their vices and their crimes. The 
 result is, in most of the states, a chronic anarchy, 
 under which the revenues of the State are dissipated 
 between the mercenaries of the camp and the 
 minions of the Court. The heavy and arbitrary 
 taxes levied on the miserable raiyats serve only to 
 feed the meanest and most degenerate of mankind. . . 
 The theory seems in fact admitted, that govern- 
 ment is not for the people, but for the king, and 
 that so long as we secure the king his sinecure 
 royalty, we discharge all the duty that we, as 
 sovereigns of India, owe to his subjects, who are 
 virtually ours.' 
 
 I have quoted at some length these remarkable 
 words of the Times in 1853, because when the 
 Times could permit to itself so eloquent a conviction 
 as to the necessity of reform, we may be sure that 
 that necessity was clear and urgent. Lord Dal- 
 housie has been represented by one school of writers 
 as an innovator who, upon general principles, deter- 
 mined to abolish the old system of ruling India by 
 means of intermediate native princes. By another 
 school he is declared to have been merely the 
 passive instrument of destiny in accomplishing 
 a revolution necessary and inevitable in itself. 
 
 As a matter of fact Lord Dalhousie was neither 
 a doctrinaire innovator nor a passive instrument in 
 
128 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the hand of fate. He carried out changes in the 
 government of India which had become inevitable, 
 and which must have been carried out probably 
 at about the same time, even if he had never set 
 foot in India. He carried them out, however, in 
 by no means a passive spirit, but as a ruler deeply 
 convinced of their justice and necessity, and re- 
 solved to take every legitimate opportunity that 
 arose for giving them effect. Lord Dalhousie 
 deliberately applied to India the principle which 
 during his early manhood he had seen triumph in 
 England — the principle which Englishmen of every 
 political party now adopt, and which an enlightened 
 conservative like Lord Dalhousie would cordially 
 enforce — the principle that Government is not de- 
 signed for the profit of princes but for the welfare 
 of the people. 
 
 In this noble sense Lord Dalhousie was a doc- 
 trinaire. Let there henceforth be no doubt as to 
 his exact views. ' No man,' he declared in an 
 official paper at an early date in his rule ^, ' no man 
 can deprecate more than I do any extension of the 
 frontiers of our territory which can be avoided, or 
 which may not become indispensably necessary for 
 considerations of our own safety, and of the main- 
 tenance of the tranquillity of our own Provinces. 
 But I cannot conceive it possible for any one to 
 
 1 Quoted from the Duke of Ar;,^}irs celebrated article in the 
 Edinburgh Revieiv, 1863 [Reprint, 1865]. 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 129 
 
 dispute the policy of taking advantage of every 
 just opportunity which presents itself for consolida- 
 ting the territories which already belong to us, by 
 taking possession of States which may lapse in the 
 midst of them ; for thus getting rid of those petty 
 intervening principalities which may be made a 
 means of annoyance, but which can never, I venture 
 to think, be a source of strength ; for adding to the 
 resources of the public treasury ; and for extending 
 the uniform application of our system of govern- 
 ment to those whose best interests, we sincerely 
 believe, will be promoted thereby. . . The Govern- 
 ment is bound, in duty as well as in policy, to act 
 on every such occasion with the purest integrity 
 and in the most scrupulous good faith. When 
 even a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim 
 should be at once abandoned.' 
 
 In enunciating these principles Lord Dalhousie 
 laid down no new doctrine. He only reiterated 
 the maxim which in the words of a statesman of 
 a different school, the Duke of Argyll, ' had governed 
 the action of the Indian Government in every 
 previous case in which the failure of natural heirs 
 had been made the occasion of appropriating petty 
 states, principalities or jaghirs. It had been ex- 
 plicitly laid down in very similar terms by the 
 Court of Directors nearly twenty years before ^* 
 
 ' Keprint of the Duke of Argyll's 'Edinburgh Review Articles as 
 India under Dalhousie and Canning, p. 28. Longmans, 1865. 
 
 I 
 
I30 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 What Lord Dalhousie did was to uniformly 
 apply the principle. The fundamental question 
 was whether we should allow the government of 
 a dependent State, in absence of natural heirs, to 
 pass like mere private property to an adopted son. 
 The Court of Directors had at one time permitted 
 the adoption of a successor in special cases to a 
 principality on failure of natural heirs. It de- 
 clared however, in 1 834, that such an ' indulgence 
 should be the exception, not the rule, and should 
 never be granted but as a special mark of favour 
 and approbation.' As the evils of the old system 
 of government by sham royalties further developed 
 themselves, the Government of India determined 
 in 1841 to enforce a more uniform policy. It 
 unanimously laid down the principle, ' to persevere 
 in the one clear and direct course of abandoning 
 no just and honourable accession of territory or 
 revenue, while all existing claims of right are at 
 the same time scrupulously respected.' 
 
 What was this ' right ' 1 By ancient law every 
 Hindu is entitled on failure of male heirs of his 
 body to adopt a son. Such an adoption was 
 necessary for the discharge of the rehgious cere- 
 monies upon which the welfare of the deceased 
 parent depended in the future state. The adopted 
 son, who is usually, although not necessarily, 
 selected from among the junior relatives of the 
 family, represents the spiritual persona of his 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 131 
 
 adoptive father and succeeds to his property. But 
 this theory did not apply to the political functions 
 of the deceased. Those functions could only pass 
 to an adopted son with the express sanction of the 
 Sovereign Power. 
 
 'Are crowns and empire, 
 The government and safety of mankind, 
 Trifles of such light moment, to be left 
 Like some rich toy, a ring, or fancy'd gem. 
 Like pledge of parting friends? Can kings do thus, 
 And give away a people for a legacy ^ % ' 
 
 *When the Hindu is a prince/ writes the most 
 eminent legal authority on the question ^, ' holding 
 his principality subordinate to, or as a gift from, 
 a paramount state, it is a condition of succession 
 to the principality that the adoption be made with 
 the consent of such paramount state. His private 
 property will pass to the adopted son, whether the 
 paramount state has or has not consented to the 
 adoption; but in the absence of such consent, the 
 principality reverts to the paramount state.' 
 
 The legal right of the sovereign power to with- 
 hold its consent to adoptions for the purpose of 
 transmitting a subordinate principality was ac- 
 knowledged. But the expediency of so doing was 
 
 ^ Kowe's Lady Jane Grey, Act III, bc. i. 
 
 ' A Vindication of Lord Lalhousie's Indian Administration, by 
 Sir Charles Jackson (formerly Advocate-General of Bengal), p. 5, 
 ed. 1865. 
 
 I 2 
 
132 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 by no means so clear. The actual practice had 
 varied in British India, from Lord Wellesley's 
 system of deliberately raising up and perpetuating 
 intermediate States, to Sir John Malcolm's rough 
 and ready suggestions of using the right to sanc- 
 tion adoptions as a means of raising revenue, and 
 the Court of Directors' more discriminating orders 
 to recognise adoptions only ' as a special mark of 
 favour.' 
 
 What Lord Dalhousie did, therefore, was not to 
 invent a new principle of Indian law but to steadily 
 apply an old principle. In so doing he carried out 
 a deliberate decision arrived at seven years before 
 he came to India, by the Governor- General in 
 Council. He perceived the real issue to be, 
 whether it was, or was not, expedient to artificially 
 prolong the system of governing India by irre- 
 sponsible intermediate princes. For in each case 
 of permitting a subordinate State to devolve by 
 adoption, Lord Dalhousie held that he was arti- 
 ficially prolonging that system, by reconstituting 
 the dependent government or State in new hands. 
 It was not a question of inheritance, but of the 
 expediency of creating afresh an intermediate power 
 between the British Government and the people. 
 
 The first case in which this principle came to be 
 applied, shortly after Lord Dalhousie's arrival, was 
 the Native State of Satara. That Maratha princi- 
 pality had been constituted by the British Govern- 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 133 
 
 ment on the general break up of the Maratha 
 power in 1818, and confirmed to the 'sons and 
 heirs, and successors' of the recipient in 181 9. In 
 1839 the reigning prince was deposed for mis- 
 conduct by the British Government in the exercise 
 of its Suzerain rights. By the same rights the 
 British Government then set up the brother of the 
 deposed prince on the throne. 
 
 The Governor of Bombay pointed out at the 
 time that as the new Raja had no family, there 
 was a distinct prospect that the principality would 
 lapse on his death to the British Government, 
 ' unless,' to use His Excellency's words, * it should 
 be thought expedient to allow the line of princes 
 to be continued by the Hindu custom of adoption 
 — a question which should be left entirely open 
 for consideration when the event occurs.' In due 
 time the event thus foreseen, when of our own free 
 will we raised the new Raja to the government of 
 Satara, did occur ; and the Raja, whom in 1839 we 
 had placed on the throne, applied for permission to 
 adopt a son. The British Government deliberately 
 withheld the permission; and in the last hours 
 of his life the Raja, in 1848, hastily adopted a son 
 without the consent of the Government. This 
 was the state of things with which Lord Dalhousie, 
 a few months after his arrival in India, found 
 himself called upon to deal. 
 
 He and his advisers acknowledged the right of 
 
134 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the adopted child to inherit the treasures and 
 private estate of the deceased Raja. But under 
 the rule laid down by the Government of India 
 seven years previously, in 1841, they could not 
 admit that any valid claim had been created to 
 succeed to the government of Satara. As to the 
 legal soundness of this view, there can now be no 
 question. The sanction of the Paramount Power 
 was necessary to constitute an adopted son ' an 
 heir' or ^successor' to the government of a sub- 
 ordinate State. That sanction had been withheld, 
 and the adopted child at Satara never came within 
 the category of ' heirs ' so far as the succession to 
 the government of the State was concerned. 
 
 ' Sir George Clerk, who was then Governor of 
 Bombay, alone, of all the authorities in India,' 
 writes the Duke of Argyll^, 'was in favour of 
 allowing the succession of the child. But among 
 the reasons urged by this eminent servant of 
 the Company for the advice he gave, there is no 
 trace of several assertions which have since been 
 popularly believed. Sir George Clerk did not 
 deny that adoption with the effect of continuing 
 the Raj required the sanction of the Paramount 
 Power. He did not affirm that this was a mere 
 form, or a matter of course, or that all previous 
 
 ^ Reprint of articles in the Edinburgh Revieto of January, 1S63, 
 published as India under Dalhousie and Caiininy, pp. 24-25. 
 Lougmans, 1865. 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 135 
 
 precedent and a uniform rule of practice required 
 us to give it. He had himself given peremptory 
 instructions to our Resident at the Court of the 
 Raja that he was " to abstain from recognising any 
 adoption by means of which the childless Raja 
 might desire to perpetuate the sovereignty, as- 
 signing to the Raja as his reason for withholding 
 consent the absence of the sanction of the British 
 Government." Sir George Clerk did not confound, 
 as so many have done since, the right of adoption 
 as conveying sovereignty with the right of adop- 
 tion as conveying property, or as qualifying for the 
 discharge of religious duties. He not only ad- 
 mitted but specially dwelt upon this distinction: 
 " The adoption having taken place according to 
 Hindu usage, there can be no doubt but that such 
 adopted son is the late Raja's legal heir, and should 
 succeed to all his personal property. The question, 
 however, remains whether he is entitled to the 
 Sovereignty of the Satara Rajas." ' 
 
 Sir George Clerk, before leaving Bombay, per- 
 sonally answered this question in the affirmative. 
 But the Bombay Council, after full consideration, 
 could not be brought to accept his opinion; and 
 the succeeding Governor of Bombay agreed with 
 his Council against the transfer of the government 
 of Satara to the adopted child. The Supreme 
 Council of the Governor-General in Calcutta also 
 decided that such an adoption could not carry 
 
1^6 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 with it the political status of the deceased Raja. 
 The Court of Directors in England thus summed 
 up the legal and constitutional bearings of the case. 
 * We are fully satisfied that by the general law and 
 custom of India, a dependent principality like that 
 of Satara, cannot pass to an adopted heir without 
 the consent of the Paramount Power ; that we are 
 under no pledge, direct or constructive, to give 
 such consent ; and that the general interests 
 committed to our charge are best consulted by 
 withholding it.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie in this, as in every subsequent 
 case of lapse, was not content with dealing with 
 the question as merely one of expediency to the 
 British Government. The question before him was 
 whether it was for the good alike of the British 
 rulers and of the people of the Native State, to re- 
 constitute the intermediate government afresh in 
 the hands of the adopted child. The previous 
 Raja of Satara but one had been an oppressor and 
 was deposed. The brother by whom we superseded 
 him in 1839 governed well. But Lord Dalhousie 
 held that we had no right to subject the people of 
 Satara to the chances involved by again setting 
 over them an irresponsible ruler. 
 
 'In my conscience/ he wrote, 'I believe we 
 should ensure to the population of the State a 
 perpetuity of that just and mild government which 
 they have lately enjoyed ; but which they will 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 137 
 
 hold by a poor and uncertain tenure, indeed, if 
 we resolve now to continue the Raj, and deliver it 
 over to a boy brought up in obscurity, selected for 
 adoption almost by chance, and of whose character 
 and qualities nothing whatever was known by the 
 Raja who adopted him, nothing whatever is known 
 to us.' ' I do not presume to dispute the wisdom 
 of creating the Raj of Satara,' in 181 9, he else- 
 where writes. 'I conceive that the same reasons 
 do not prevail for its reconstitution now, when it 
 is again placed by events at our disposal.' 
 
 The Court of Directors dealing with the case 
 not as a question of conscience, but as one of law 
 and expediency, thus recorded its final decision. 
 I repeat certain sentences already quoted. 
 
 ' The result of our deliberation is, that, concurring 
 with you in opinion, we are fully satisfied that, by 
 the general law and custom of India, a dependent 
 principality, like that of Satara, cannot pass to an 
 adopted heir without the consent of the Paramount 
 Power; that we are under no pledge, direct or 
 constructive, to give such consent ; and that the 
 general interests committed to our charge are best 
 consulted by withholding it. The pretensions set 
 up in favour of the adopted son of the ex-Raja 
 being wholly untenable, and all claims of collaterals 
 being excluded by the fact that none of them are 
 descended from the person in whose favour the 
 principality was created, the ex-Raja Partab Singh, 
 
 ''^f. I 
 
138 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 it follows that the territory of Satara has lapsed by 
 failure of heirs to the Power which bestowed it, 
 and we desire that it be annexed to the British 
 dominions.' 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the annexation 
 of Satara. For it is not only the leading case, but 
 it illustrates two very important features in the 
 application of the doctrine of lapse. It shows that 
 Lord Dalhousie, three months after his arrival in 
 India, found his responsible advisers almost unani- 
 mous as to the necessity of enforcing that doctrine. 
 It also shows that they were thus almost unanimous 
 in a case which had claims to indulgence. The 
 deceased Eaja of Satara was a good ruler. But the 
 Government of India had, previous to Lord Dal- 
 housie's arrival, laid down the principle in 1841, 
 that even in such a favourable case it was inexpe- 
 dient to reconstitute a subordinate native State by 
 recognising a death-bed adoption of a successor. 
 
 The subsequent annexations which took place 
 under Lord Dalhousie' s rule must be treated with 
 greater brevity. For they were cases in which no 
 valid claim could be made on the basis of law, nor 
 any special indulgence hoped for on the ground of 
 past good government. One large piece of terri- 
 tory thus brought under direct British rule was 
 Sambalpur — an extensive region of forests, valleys, 
 and mountains on the South-western frontier of 
 Lower Bengal. The childless Chief of this secluded 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 139 
 
 State had declined to adopt an heir, with the 
 express view that his people might after his death 
 obtain the security of the English administration. 
 
 A more historically important case was that of 
 Jhansi. This State, a fragment of the Maratha 
 plunder of Northern India, was ceded to the British 
 by the Peshwa in 181 7. Its new rulers confirmed, 
 in the same year, the hereditary title of the local 
 Subahdar, and advanced the holder of that office to 
 the dignity of Raja in 1832. In 1835 the Raja, 
 after a weak and oppressive administration, died 
 childless. The British Government declined to 
 recognise a son whom he had adopted, and out of 
 four claimants selected a great-uncle to succeed to 
 the principality. He in his turn oppressed and mis- 
 governed during a brief rule, and after mortgaging 
 part of his territories for debt, disappeared from the 
 scene, also childless. Again four claimants pre- 
 sented themselves, and again the British Govern- 
 ment selected a successor to the State of Jhansi. 
 Meanwhile, however, the country had fallen into 
 such disorder that the British Government had to 
 assume the direct administration. After establish- 
 ing order and nursing the finances of the State, the 
 management was restored in 1842, to the Raja 
 whom we had selected. He proved in his later 
 years to be a fair ruler judged by native standards. 
 On his death, in 1853, the British Government had 
 to decide whether, in the absence of a male heir, the 
 
HO DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 sovereignty of the State should be permitted to 
 pass to an adopted child. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie and his advisers decided the 
 question by reference to the misery which the 
 misgovernment of the subordinate native princes 
 had brought upon the people of Jhansi, and its 
 present Northern district Jalaun, during the pre- 
 vious thirty years. The British Government as the 
 Paramount Power had been responsible for that 
 misgovernment, and yet had been unable to prevent 
 it. The misrule of the first two Kajas, whom we 
 set up in Jhansi, ruined and drove away the culti- 
 vators, and reduced the revenues from .^180,000 to 
 .^30,000 a year. In Jalaun, where a succession by 
 adoption had been permitted in 1832, Lord Auck- 
 land thus described the results in 1 840. ' Li the 
 course of nine or ten years, the land had been 
 most profusely alienated ; debts to the amount of 
 thirty lacs had been contracted ; extensive districts 
 had been mortgaged as a security for them ; there 
 was neither order nor security in the territory; 
 every village was exposed to the attacks of plun- 
 derers ; cultivation was deserted ; and a country 
 which had been fruitful and prosperous, was from 
 day to day becoming desolate ^.' 
 
 ' Warned by these results, I hold,' wrote Lord 
 Dalhousie, * that sound policy combines with duty 
 
 * Quoted from Sir diaries Jackson's Vindication of the Marquis of 
 Dalhousie's Indian Administration, p. 19, ed. 1865. 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 141 
 
 in urging that the British Government, in the case 
 of Jhansl, should act upon its right, should refuse 
 to recognise the adoption, and should take posses- 
 sion of Jhansi as an escheat.' An ample pension 
 was granted to the widow of the late Raja, and the 
 territories were brought under the direct adminis- 
 tration of the Government of India. 
 
 The same principle of lapse on failure of heirs 
 was applied by Lord Dalhousie to several other 
 dependent States. Jaitpur in Bundelkhand, Bag- 
 hat a petty hill Chiefdom of thirty-six square miles 
 in the Punjab, Udaipur on the Western frontier of 
 Lower Bengal, and Budawal in Khandesh, passed 
 under direct British rule from this cause. The 
 fort and military fief of Tanjore were annexed 
 after Lord Dalhousie's departure from India, but 
 practically on the grounds set forth by his govern- 
 ment. The estates of one of the Amirs of Sind were 
 forfeited on the discovery of the forgery of the 
 document, under which he had fraudulently obtained 
 possession of certain British districts. Two patches 
 of territory, the one in Cachar, the other in Orissa, 
 were also forfeited on account of the misconduct of 
 the ruler, or the persistent practice of human sacri- 
 fice. The great case of the Central Provinces will 
 receive separate treatment in the next chapter. 
 
 I have thus summarised, as far as it is possible to 
 do so in a single paragraph, what may be termed 
 the miscellaneous annexations made during Lord 
 
143 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Dalhousie's rule. In several cases the annexation 
 was practically unavoidable. But this does not 
 alter the fact that Lord Dalhousie deliberately en- 
 forced in dependent Hindu States the principle 
 of lapse upon the failure of male heirs. He found 
 this principle laid down for him alike by the 
 Government of India, and by the Court of Direc- 
 tors in England, before his arrival. He did not 
 extend that principle to the sovereign Native States 
 of India, but strictly confined it to dependent 
 principalities which the British Government had 
 itself created. In their case he held it impolitic, 
 as Lord Hardinge had held it impolitic before him, 
 to create afresh, on failure of male heirs, a sub- 
 ordinate government between the British rulers 
 and the people — a government directly dependent 
 on the British Power for its maintenance, but 
 only indirectly subject to British supervision and 
 control. 
 
 In uniformly enforcing this principle, however, 
 Lord Dalhousie unquestionably advanced a step 
 beyond his predecessors. In the time of our weak- 
 ness in India, during the eighteenth century, British 
 administrators had been too anxious to emerge in 
 safety from the break up of the Mughal Empire, to 
 think about the validity of titles. When the 
 British Power succeeded de facto to the Mughal 
 Empire, it slowly but unavoidably began to con- 
 sider this question. During the first half of the 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 143 
 
 present century the principle had gradually hard- 
 ened and set into a constitutional maxim, that the 
 distinction between private property and political 
 functions must be applied to cases of adoption in 
 the dependent States. As to the legal validity of 
 that maxim, and as to its acceptance by previous 
 Governors- General^ there can now be no doubt. 
 
 But between the acceptance of a constitutional 
 principle and its consistent enforcement, there is 
 usually a period of its uncertain application. That 
 period had extended over many years before Lord 
 Dalhousie's arrival in India. I have carefully read 
 the official correspondence concerning the cases of 
 adoption in Native States, from 1820 downwards. 
 I find that two principles slowly emerge from the 
 conflicting views contained in the records. 
 
 The first is that, in regard to the sovereign 
 Native States of India, the British Government 
 held it of the highest political importance that an or- 
 derly devolution of the succession should take place 
 on the demise of each Prince. The Government 
 of India accordingly directed its efibrts to secure 
 that an heir should be invariably forthcoming, 
 whether by public declaration, or by testamentary 
 provision, or by adoption. This anxiety is con- 
 spicuous on the death of Sindhia in 1826^: and 
 
 * Bengal Political Consultations, dated 6th October, 1826 : Letter 
 from the Deputy- Secretary to the Government of India, to the 
 Assistant-Resident in charge of the Gvvalior Residency, par. 2. 
 
144 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 again on the serious illness of his successor in 
 1836^. The same anxiety is disclosed to secure 
 a successor, by adoption or otherwise, for the other 
 Hindu Sovereign State of Central India, Indor^. 
 Even when no successor was declared or adopted 
 by Holkar, the British authority deemed it politi- 
 cally expedient to at once provide for the devolution 
 of the chiefship ; providing, however, ' that the 
 Maharaja who might be selected should be altogether 
 without any pretensions to the Guddee but such 
 as he should derive from being placed there by 
 the British Government^.' An equal solicitude in 
 regard to secure a successor for a Muhammadan 
 Sovereign State appears in the case of Bhopal, 
 in 1820*. 
 
 But while the policy of the Government of India 
 was consistent in maintaining the succession, by 
 whatever means, in the sovereign Native States, 
 its practice in regard to the dependent Native 
 States had been by no means uniform. As long 
 as the influence of Lord Wellesley continued 
 to be felt, the disposition was to maintain the 
 succession even in the dependent Native States. 
 
 ^ Despatch, Political Department, Government of India, to Court 
 of Directors, dated 25th July, 1836, pars. 171, 172. 
 
 2 Despatch, from same to same, dated 22nd December, 1841, 
 par. 94 ; also Despatch, dated 21st November, 1843, par. 2. 
 
 ^ Despatch from the Government of India to the Court of 
 Directors, dated 23rd December, 1844, par. 10. 
 
 * Idem, dated 8th July, 1820, par. 12, and connected corre- 
 spondence. 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 145 
 
 But during the second quarter of the century, the 
 British Government gradually determined to en- 
 force its rights as the Suzerain Power in this latter 
 class of cases. It did so, for example, by annex- 
 ing Kolaba in 1841^, and Mandavi in 1842 2. 
 In the cases in which it permitted the succession 
 of a dependent Native State to pass by adoption, 
 it did so for special reasons, or as a mark of special 
 favour or indulgence. 
 
 Nothing can be clearer than the words in which 
 the principle was enforced, with reference to de- 
 pendent Native States. ' To permit the adoption,' 
 writes the Court of Directors when dealing with 
 Kolaba in 1841, 'would therefore be to give up 
 by an act of mere grace, a territory which has 
 undoubtedly lapsed to the British Government as 
 the Paramount Power.' 
 
 Once, and so far as I have discovered only once, 
 did the Government of India contemplate the ap- 
 plication of this principle to a sovereign Native 
 State. In 1841, the Governor-General in Council, 
 fortified by the principle laid down by the Court 
 of Directors in 1834, unanimously declared their 
 intention, as we have seen, ' to persevere in the one 
 clear and direct course of abandoning no just and 
 
 ^ Despatch from the Court of Directors to Our Governor in Council 
 at Bombay, dated 25 th May, 1841, par. 9, and subsequent corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 ^ Ide])i, dated 30th December, 1842, par. 2, and Despatch dated 
 2nd August, 1844, par. 49, etc. 
 
 E 
 
146 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 honourable accession of territory or revenue, while 
 all existing claims of right are at the same time 
 scrupulously respected.' In 1844 Lord Hardinge's 
 Government provided for the application of this 
 principle to the sovereign Hindu State of Indor. 
 He distinctly intimated to the newly-appointed 
 Chief, ' that the State is to descend to the heirs male 
 of his body in lawful succession, and to no others, 
 thus precluding the possibility of adoption^.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie was careful not to apply this 
 principle to sovereign Native States. He re- 
 stricted it in express words to ' petty intervening 
 principalities.' 
 
 When, in 1854, an attempt was made to mis- 
 represent his views on this point, and to give them 
 a wider extension, Lord Dalhousie placed the 
 matter beyond the possibility of doubt, to any one 
 who will take the trouble to read his words. ' The 
 opinion which I gave,' he wrote, ' was restricted 
 wholly to subordinate States, to those dependent 
 principalities which, either as the virtual creation 
 of the British Government, or from their former 
 position, stood in such relation to that Government 
 as to give to it the recognised right of a Paramount 
 Power in all questions of the adoption of an heir to 
 the sovereignty of the State. The opinion I gave 
 referred exclusively to " subordinate States," to a 
 
 ^ Despatch from the Government of India to the Court of 
 Directors, Political, dated 23rd December, 1844, par. 27. 
 
ANNEX A TION OF HIND U ST A TES 1 47 
 
 ■' dependent principality " like that of Satara and 
 others that I have named ^.' 
 
 Practically Lord Dalhousie classified the Native 
 States of India into two divisions as Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe had done in 1837. First, the Sovereign 
 or quasi-sovereign States dating from the time of 
 the Mughal Empire, or from a still earlier period, 
 or from the period immediately following its dis- 
 ruption. Second, the dependent Native States 
 which we had ourselves created in subordinate 
 relations to the British Government. The first class 
 included not only the great Muhammadan, Rajput, 
 and Maratha States ; but also, in Lord Dalhousie's 
 opinion. States of small area if they had the claim 
 of antiquity in favour of their semi-independence. 
 This is clearly shown in his Minute upon the 
 proposed lapse of Karauli on failure of heirs. That 
 State had been incorporated into the Mughal Empire ; 
 it became a tributary State of the Marathas on the 
 decline of the Mughal Power ; it was transferred to 
 us by the Marathas in 1 8 1 7. On the failure of direct 
 heirs in 1852, the question was debated whether the 
 State should lapse to the British Government. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie himself pointed out as an argu- 
 
 1 Lord Dalhousie's Minute on N^orpur, dated 28th January, 1854. 
 In tlie printed copies of liis Sdtdra Minutes, the word ' independent ' 
 unfortunately appeared in one of the most important passages 
 instead of ' dependent.' But if his meaning had ever been doubtful 
 (and the preceding sentence had distinctly referred to * petty inter- 
 vening principalities '), Lord Dalhousie now made it clear. 
 
 K ij 
 
148 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 ment against the annexation of Karauli, that ' though 
 not a very old State, still it is a Kajput principality, 
 and, unlike the existing Marathd, and Muhammadan 
 dynasties, has the claim of antiquity in its favour.' 
 ' I presume,' he elsewhere says in the same document, 
 ' that the Government of India would not at any 
 time be disposed to interfere with the customary 
 modes of succession among these old Rajput States^.' 
 Lord Dalhousie therefore, while of opinion that the 
 arguments seemed 'to preponderate in favour of 
 causing Karauli to lapse,' referred the whole case, 
 for and against, to the Court of Directors, and, on 
 receipt of their somewhat tardy reply, carried out 
 their decision in favour of continuing the State 
 under a Native Chief.' 
 
 I have thought it needful to set forth from the 
 original documents, the progress of the Doctrine of 
 Lapse, as applied to dependent Native States in 
 cases of adoption. For the invention of this doctrine 
 was one of the many unfounded charges raised by 
 popular clamour against Lord Dalhousie after the 
 Mutiny. I have now placed beyond question the 
 six following facts. 
 
 First, that Lord Dalhousie did not invent the 
 Doctrine of Lapse. Second, that he never interfered 
 with the Hindu right to adopt an heir to inherit 
 the private estate of the deceased, and to perform 
 
 ' Quoted from Sir Cliarles Jackson's Vindication of the Marquis 
 (f Dalhousie' s Indian Administration, pp. 46, 47, ed. 1865. 
 
ANNEXATION OF HINDU STATES 149 
 
 the religious ceremonies for his benefit. Third, 
 that, in regard to the succession to the government 
 of dependent Native States, he carried out the 
 established principle, as formulated into a consti- 
 tutional maxim by successive Governors-General 
 and the Court of Directors before he set foot in 
 India; namely, that the right of adoption, while 
 creating a right to inherit the private property and 
 personal status of the deceased, did not carry with 
 it the right to succeed to his political functions, 
 nor to the government of a dependent State, except 
 by the consent of the Paramount Power. Fourth, 
 that before Lord Dalhousie's arrival, the Govern- 
 ment of India had decided ' to persevere in the one 
 clear and direct course,' of withholding its consent 
 in the case of dependent Native States. Fifth, that 
 so far from extending the principle of lapse. Lord 
 Dalhousie refrained from following in the direction 
 indicated by his predecessor Lord Hardinge, of pos- 
 sibly applying the principle to sovereign Native 
 States. Sixths that what Dalhousie really did was 
 to steadily enforce the principles previously laid 
 down by the Indian Government and the Court 
 of Directors. 
 
 It was reserved for the Queen's Government of 
 India to discover a more excellent way. But, as I 
 have shown in my volume on Lord Mayo, this more 
 excellent way was rendered possible by the work 
 done by Dalhousie. 
 

 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Nagpuh. The Karnatic Family. N^na Sahib. 
 Berar 
 
 By far the largest accession of territory made, 
 during Lord Dalhousie's rule, to the British do- 
 minions on the failure of heirs, was the great 
 central tract of India known as Nagpur. This 
 Maratha principality as now constituted into the 
 Central Provinces, and after various rectifications 
 of frontier, has an area of ii3,:Z79 sq. miles (1881) 
 with a population of twelve million souls. The 
 territories annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1854 
 make nearly four-fifths of the present Central 
 Provinces. 
 
 Their wide-spreading mountains, forests, and 
 plains, had been the seat of powerful dynasties of 
 the aboriginal races, which were crushed by the 
 Marathds in the last century. The years that fol- 
 lowed the final overthrow of the native Gond 
 Bajas by the Marathas, in 1781, were years of 
 terrible suffering in the Central Provinces. The 
 Marathas so harried and oppressed the people that 
 the sole refuge of the husbandman was flight. The 
 
NAGPUR 151 
 
 cultivators migrated in large numbers to other 
 territories, or sought shelter in the forests. There, 
 the refugees formed themselves into plundering 
 banditti, who became the terror of Western India, 
 and helped to swell the Pindari hordes during the 
 first quarter of the present century. The mushroom 
 Maratha princes of Nagpur came into conflict with 
 the British in 1803, and their power was broken 
 by the Duke of Wellington on the field of Assaye. 
 In 1817, the fourth Raja conspired against the 
 English Government, treacherously attacked our 
 Resident, was defeated, and pardoned. A second 
 series of treacheries, however, brought about his 
 ruin, and compelled him to fly into a life-long 
 exile. 
 
 In 1 81 8, the State of Nagpur was thus left with- 
 out a ruler, at the disposal of the British Govern- 
 ment. The Marquis of Hastings reconstituted a 
 portion of it as a subordinate Native State under 
 the nominal rule of an infant descendant of the 
 second Raja, but under the actual administration 
 of an English Resident, Sir Richard Jenkins. The 
 period of minority which followed was long looked 
 back to by the inhabitants as the golden age of 
 Nagpur. After the boy prince attained his ma- 
 jority in 1830, the scene changed. He quickly 
 disclosed a distaste for business and a passion for 
 the lowest forms of debauchery. As he grew older 
 he dissipated the treasure which had been accumu- 
 
152 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 lated during his nonage, and recommenced the old 
 Mardtha extortions upon his people. 
 
 ' Of late years,' wrote our Resident at Ndgpur in 
 i853\ 'all the anxiety of the Eaja and his favourite 
 ministers has been to feed the privy purse by an annual 
 income of two or more lacs of rupees from nuzzurs, fines, 
 bribes, confiscation of property of deceased estates, the 
 composition of public defaulters, or the sale of their 
 effects, and such Hke sources. The Raja has thus been 
 led on by his avarice to discard all feeling, and to throw 
 himself into the hands of the most unprincipled of his 
 servants, who plundered the country and put justice up 
 to sale for profits, but a slender part of which reached 
 the Raja. He has done many cruel acts, and even 
 carried war into the country of his feudal dependents, on 
 the misrepresentation of those parties gilded by the ofi'er 
 of a nuzzur. Orders of the most contradictory character 
 have been issued at the bid of rival parties from time to 
 time in cases before the Law Courts. . . All this has 
 been aggravated by the low tone of mind originally 
 belonging to the Raja. . . Profits and pickings are to be 
 made anyhow. The choicest amusement of the Raja is 
 an auction sale, when some unfortunate widow is ruled 
 not to be entitled to her husband's estate.' 
 
 These are the words of the temperate and fair- 
 minded Mansel who mediated between the two 
 Lawrences on the Punjab Board, and who was 
 himseK an opponent of annexation. The Raja's 
 sole idea regarding the treaty by which he had 
 been raised to the Chiefship, was that it secured 
 
 ^ Mr. Hansel's Report, dated 14th December, 1853. 
 
NAGPUR 153 
 
 for him the British protection against the ven- 
 geance of his subjects. 'Now go away,' he said to 
 a newly-appointed Minister, ' and study the pro- 
 visions of the treaty, so as to see that they are 
 enforced to protect me in the enjoyment of those 
 pleasures of dancing and singing that I have loved 
 from my boyhood.' In 1853, this contemptible 
 being died, leaving no son or legitimate daughter. 
 Mr. Mansel had, as an advocate of succession by 
 adoption, urged the Eaja during his last two years 
 to adopt a child. The Raja had persistently re- 
 frained from doing so. ' The silence of the Raja,' 
 wrote Mr. Mansel the Resident, 'was thus a de- 
 liberate act of his own.'' Indeed Mr. Mansel ad- 
 mitted ' that the Raja possessed no right to transmit 
 his Kingdom but to the heirs male of his body 
 lawfully begotten.' Yet Mr. Mansel thought that 
 it might be well to artificially create an heir, after 
 the Rajahs death, by consenting to an adoption by 
 one of his widows. Lord Dalhousie came to the 
 opposite conclusion. 
 
 ' We set up a Eaja at Nagpur,' he wrote \ ' We afforded 
 him every advantage a Native Prince could command. 
 His boyhood was trained under our own auspices ; an able 
 and respected Princess was his guardian and the Regent 
 of the State. For ten years, while he was yet a youth, we 
 
 ^ Papers relating to the Raja of Berar, 1854. Quoted from the 
 Duke of Argyll's India under Dalhousie and Canning, pp. 37, 38, 
 ed. 1865. 
 
154 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 governed his country for him. We handed it over to him 
 with an excellent system of administration in full and 
 practised operation, with a disciplined and well-paid 
 Army, with a full treasury and a contented people. Yet, 
 after little more than twenty years this Prince, descend- 
 ing to the tomb, has left behind him a character whose 
 record is disgraceful to him alike as a sovereign and as a 
 man. So favoured and so aided, he has, nevertheless, 
 lived and died a seller of justice, a drunkard, and a 
 debauchee. 
 
 'What guarantee can the British Government now 
 find for itself, or offer to the people of Ndgpur, that 
 another successor will not imitate and emulate this bad 
 example % And if that should be the case, what justifica- 
 tion could the Government of India hereafter plead for 
 having neglected to exercise the power which it possessed 
 to avert for ever, from the people of Nagpur, so probable 
 and so grievous an evil '? ' 
 
 In applying the Doctrine of Lapse to the 
 sovereignty of Nagpur, Lord Dalhousie was careful 
 to reserve the jewels and private estate of the Raja 
 for the benefit of his family. The widowed Ranis 
 tried to secrete a large portion of the efifects, and 
 to secure them for their personal use. Their op- 
 position, and the measures necessary for overcoming 
 ic and realizing the property, afforded a pretext for 
 another of the false charges afterwards brought 
 against Lord Dalhousie. The Court of Directors 
 had declared the possessions of the late Raja (pur- 
 chased by him out of the revenue of State), to be 
 'fairly at the disposal of the Government.' Lord 
 
NAGPUR 155 
 
 Dalhousie, always tender to private rights, gener- 
 ously took upon himself to differ from this view, 
 so far as to secure those possessions for the benefit 
 of the Raja's kindred. ' I would therefore propose \' 
 he wrote, ' that jewels and furniture, and other 
 personal property suitable to their rank having 
 been allotted to the Ranis, the value of the rest 
 of the jewels, etc., should be realized, and that the 
 proceeds should be constituted a fund for the 
 benefit of the Bhonsla family.' 
 
 A sum of ^200,000 was thus realized as a 
 ' Bhonsla Fund,' after payment of the debts of the 
 household; and pensions amounting to ^78,700 
 (eventually to af 98,200) a year, were assigned to 
 the Raja's widows, connections and dependents. 
 The transaction was carried out with great for- 
 bearance by the British Commissioner, under the 
 strictest orders from Lord Dalhousie to treat the 
 widows, whatever provocations they might offer, 
 with ' the courtesy due to their rank, their sex, 
 and their changed condition.' Yet it was this 
 transaction, expressly designed by Lord Dalhousie 
 for the benefit of the Raja's family, which was 
 afterwards distorted in England into The Spoli- 
 ation of the Nagpur Palace. 
 
 It requires an effort of imagination to realize 
 that such misrepresentation was possible in regard 
 to a public transaction in India in the middle of 
 
 1 Lord Dalhousie's Minute of the loth June, 1854. 
 
156 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the present century. But the popular ignorance 
 respecting India under the Company was so dense 
 that any romance could be safely hazarded. For 
 although a denial might be given to it, the public 
 only shrugged its shoulders, and felt that there was 
 another Indian lie afloat, without being able to 
 determine on which side was the truth. An Indian 
 debate in Parliament often resolved itself into a 
 series of contradictory statements. Even in re- 
 spect to what we now consider as elementary 
 questions of statistics, widely varying opinions 
 were publicly maintained. It must be remembered 
 that the first general census of India was not 
 taken until 1872, thirteen years after the Com- 
 pany's downfall. That enumeration disclosed the 
 previous official estimates to be erroneous as regards 
 the Lieutenant-Governorship of Bengal alone by 
 25,000,000 of souls. 
 
 No authoritative work existed, to which either 
 the public or the administrative body could refer, 
 for the essential data concerning the princes or 
 people of India. Districts now within half a day's 
 railway journey of the capital were spoken of in 
 the Calcutta Revieiv, with more truth than we can 
 now believe possible, as ' unexplored.' The Revue 
 des Deux Mondes, in the height of its fame and not- 
 withstanding its efforts at accuracy, could publish 
 misstatements regarding India which would now 
 simply raise a laugh, but for whose contradiction 
 
NAGPUR 157 
 
 and exposure no materials were then available. 
 Famines, agrarian agitations, tribal or sectarian 
 movements, in short all the less common but 
 inevitable incidents of Indian rule, were wont to 
 take the Government not less than the public by 
 surprise. The actual revenues and administration 
 of even a British District were official secrets into 
 which no outsider could penetrate. 
 
 The Government of India's relations with its 
 Feudatory States were shrouded in a still deeper 
 mystery. It was not until four years after the 
 East India Company ceased to exist, that anything 
 approaching to an accurate and complete collection 
 of its treaties and engagements with the Native 
 States was rendered accessible to the English public. 
 When a feudatory prince felt himself aggrieved, he 
 sent home a confidential agent laden with uncut 
 gems and bags of rupees, to stir up an agitation 
 in London. If he was a very great prince, and 
 thought it worth his while, he could always secure 
 the services of one of the many English mal- 
 contents who had their own grievances against 
 the Company. 
 
 Half the lies disseminated in England about 
 India, from the time of Warren Hastings downward, 
 would now be exposed in a moment by a reference 
 to Aitchison's Treaties and Tlie Imperial Gazetteer. 
 These works, at once complete, authoritative, and 
 available to the public, were not produced until 
 
J 58 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 after the Company's fall. The result was that, 
 on more than one occasion, the reputation of its 
 greatest officers became the sport of popular 
 clamour ; and that the Company itself, in its 
 supreme moment, tried vainly to defend itself by 
 eloquent asseveration, rather than by an array of 
 ascertained and publicly acknowledged facts. 
 
 The misrepresentations that were successfully set 
 afloat regarding Lord Dalhousie, when a victim for 
 the Mutiny was demanded, form a striking illus- 
 tration of this. The lie got the start, and before it 
 could be overtaken and throttled by the truth, it 
 had found its way into the permanent literature of 
 the time. Even works of serious history, with good 
 claims on our respect, still reproduce some of the 
 foolish flying falsehoods of that day. I have shown 
 how the generous measures taken by Lord Dalhousie 
 to secure a fund for the Bhonsla family figured in 
 England as The Spoliation of the Nagpur Palace. 
 An even more curious misrepresentation still sur- 
 vives regarding Lord Dalhousie's dealings with the 
 titular princes of the Karnatic. The Treaty of 1801 
 granted certain dignities and emoluments, person- 
 ally, to the Nawab of the Karnatic, who at that 
 time ceased to be a political power in India. His 
 son was allowed to succeed him for specific reasons 
 in 1819, ^^^ w^s distinctly informed that the treaty 
 had not made his rank or dignity hereditary in his 
 
THE KARNATIC FAMILY 159 
 
 family ^. He in turn died in 1825, and his son was 
 again permitted to succeed. This third Nawab, 
 after a disgraceful life, to use Sir Edwin Arnold's 
 words, ' died of dancing girls and ennui in October, 
 1 855,' leaving no child. The local Government of 
 Madras declared it impolitic to artificially create a 
 successor. The pension to the preceding Nawabs 
 had been a personal grant, and Lord Harris, the 
 Governor of Madras, thus summed up the evils of 
 continuing a state of things that had grown into a 
 public scandal. 
 
 ' First, on the general principle that the semblance 
 of royalty without any of the power is a mockery 
 of authority, which must be pernicious. Second, 
 because though there is vii'tually no divided rule 
 or coordinate authority in the government of the 
 country, for these points were finally settled by the 
 Treaty of 1801, yet some appearance of so baneful 
 a system is still kept up by the continuance of a 
 qiimi royal family and court.' Third, because the 
 said family claimed exemption from our courts 
 and were ' not amenable to the law.' Fourth, be- 
 cause the pageant of such a court, * may at any time 
 become a nucleus for sedition and agitation.' 
 Fifth, because that court itself had become a sink 
 of iniquity. 
 
 1 Sir Charles Aitchison's Collection of Treaties, Engagements, and 
 Sunnuds relating to India and neighbouring countries, vol. v, p. 297, 
 ed. 1876. 
 
l6o DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Will it be believed that these words of Lord 
 Harris, the Governor of Madras, were quoted in 
 England as written by ' Lord DaJhousie's own 
 hand' ? Or that the very clause in the treaty with 
 the Nawab of 1801, which declared the allowance 
 to be ' appropriated for the maintenance of the said 
 Nawab,' is still quoted in history as showing that 
 the allowance was 'for ever appropriated for the 
 support of the dignity of the Nawabship ' ? I repro- 
 duce the italics as I find them ! Two examples, 
 like The Spoliation of the Nagpur Palace, and The 
 Plunder of the Karnatic Family, will probably be 
 now regarded as sufficient specimens of the mis- 
 representations, by which popular clamour em- 
 bittered the last days of the great Pro-consul, who 
 had given up his life to India. 
 
 The decision of the Government of India resrard- 
 ing the Karnatic family was thus summed up by 
 Lord Dalhousie. ' I entirely agree with Lord Harris, 
 and with the members of the Government of Fort 
 St. George, in holding that the treaty of 1801 con- 
 fers no right of hereditary succession. It is a 
 purely personal treaty. . . There is no mention of 
 heirs and successors in any part of the treaty, and 
 no grant of anything is made by it to any one 
 except to the Nawab Azim-ul-Dowlah himself.' 
 Elsewhere, ' As the treaty by which the 3Iasnacl of 
 the Karnatic was conferred on His Highness's pre- 
 decessors was exclusively a personal one; as the 
 
THE KARNATIC FAMILY, l6i 
 
 Nawab had left no male heir ; and as both he and 
 his family had disreputably abused the dignity of 
 their position, and the large share of public revenue 
 which had been allotted to them, the Court of Direc- 
 tors has been advised to place the title of Nawab in 
 abeyance, granting fitting pensions to the several 
 members of the Karnatic family.' 
 
 ' The family,' writes Sir Charles Aitchison whose 
 impartiality has always been beyond suspicion, 
 'was liberally provided for; a pension of a lakh 
 and a half of rupees (0^15,000) and the rank of the 
 fii-st native nobleman of Madras being assigned to 
 Azim Jah,' the uncle of the deceased childless 
 Nawab 1. His pension was afterwards consoli- 
 dated with the allowances to other members and 
 dependents of the family, and fixed at ^30,000 a 
 year. The debts of the family amounting to 
 ^420,000 have also been paid off by the British 
 Government. 
 
 Another great pension lapsed by the death of the 
 annuitant during Lord Dalhousie's rule. Some 
 excuse may perhaps be pleaded for the misconcep- 
 tions regarding the case of the Karnatic family, 
 although a careful study of the ' Karnatic Papers,' 
 printed by order of the House of Commons in i860, 
 mio-ht have avoided them. But it is difiicult to find 
 
 o 
 
 any ground for the charge which Mr. Kaye brought 
 
 ^ Aitchison's Treaties^ &c., vol. v, p. 298, ed. 1876. 
 L 
 
i62 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 in 1 865 against Lord Dalhousie, for ' harshness ' to- 
 wards the man afterwards known as the infamous 
 Nana Sdhib^. As this charge, however, is still 
 occasionally repeated, and as it has even been 
 suggested that Lord Dalhousie was to some extent 
 responsible for the Mutiny of 1857, in consequence 
 of his action towards Nana Sahib in 1851, I must 
 briefly state the facts. 
 
 In 1 81 8, the Peshwa of the Marathas, completely 
 beaten in the field, threw himself on the generosity 
 of the British. Sir John Malcolm, then the 
 Governor-General's Agent in the Deccan, assured 
 him of his protection, and engaged that he should 
 receive an allowance of <^8 0,000 a year for his 
 support. The Governor-General, Lord Hastings, 
 thought the arrangement too liberal, but would 
 not go back from it ; especially as Sir John 
 Malcolm argued that even a short continuance of 
 the war 'would have cost more than the value 
 of the life pension granted to Baji Rao ^.' These 
 distinct words of General Malcolm, who conducted 
 the business, show that the allowance was expressly 
 intended as a 'life pension.' Lideed there could 
 not be the shghtest pretension that it was ever 
 
 ' A History of the Sepoy War in India, by John William Kaye, 
 vol. i, p. 103, ed. 1S65. 
 
 2 This letter, dated 19th June, 18 18, explaining ah initio the 
 purely life interest conveyed by the pension, was known to Mr. Kaye, 
 and is quoted by him in his Life of Sir John Malcolm, vol. ii, 
 p. 259. Indeed Mr. Kaye himself speaks in that work of Baji K^o 
 as * an annuitant.' 
 
NAN A SAHIB 163 
 
 anything more than a personal annuity ; and from 
 first to last all mention of heirs is carefully ex- 
 cluded^. The records show that the ex-Peshwa, 
 Baji Rao, was well aware of this. 
 
 Baji Rao lived until 1851, leaving to his adopted 
 son, Nana Sahib, an immense fortune admitted to 
 amount to a^2 80,000, and believed by the Govern- 
 ment of the North-western Provinces to greatly 
 exceed that sum. The Government of India at 
 once acknowledged the adopted son's title to this 
 splendid heritage, and out of its own beneficence 
 added to it the Jaghir, or grant of land, on which 
 his father had resided in the North-western 
 Provinces. But the pension, paid out of the 
 taxpayers' pockets, lapsed upon the death of the 
 annuitant. In these arrangements Dalhousie 
 carried out the views of the Local Government of 
 the North-western Provinces. The Secretary to the 
 Government of India thus summed up the matter : 
 ' For thirty-three years the Peshwa received an 
 annual clear stipend of ^80,000, besides the pro- 
 ceeds of the Jaghir. In that time he received the 
 enormous sum of more than two millions and a 
 half sterling. He had no charges to maintain, 
 he has left no sons of his own, and has bequeathed 
 property to the amount of twenty-eight lacs to 
 his family. Those who remain have no claim 
 
 ^ Aitchison's Treaties and Engagements^ vol. v, p. 73, eJ. 1876. 
 L 2 
 
1 64 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 whatever on the consideration of the Government. 
 Neither have they any claim on its charity, because 
 the income left to them is amply sufficient.' 
 
 The Chiefs not only oppressed their subjects, 
 but many of them were sunk in debt and bank- 
 ruptcy. By the middle of the century the end of 
 the old system had obviously come : and it must 
 have come whoever might have then been at the 
 head of the British Government. The great Mu- 
 hammadan State of Southern India affords a 
 striking example of the miseries to. both the Prince 
 and the people involved by the pecuniary em- 
 barrassments of a native Court. In 1799, ^^ 
 Nizam had been permitted to participate largely 
 in the division of territory consequent upon the 
 death of Tipu Sultan, and the downfall of Seringa- 
 patam. By the treaty of 1800, the Nizam agreed 
 to furnish to us in time of war 6,000 infantry and 
 9000 cavalry ; and to support us in the field with 
 the whole force of his dominions. The troops thus 
 supplied proved very inefficient in the first Maratha 
 War, and various schemes were proposed from time 
 to time for their reform with little success. Event- 
 ually, after a mutiny in 18 13, new battalions were 
 raised, who were armed, clothed, and equipped as 
 the Company's troops, but paid from the Nizam's 
 treasury in fulfilment of the treaty. 
 
 In course of time the Nizams, like other of the 
 
THE NIZAM AND BERAR, 165 
 
 native Princes, felfc the deteriorating influence of 
 absolute power, when divested of the responsibility 
 to their subjects by which alone such power is, in 
 the East, tempered and controlled. Personal in- 
 dulgence and public indebtedness sum up the history 
 of their Court during many years. The Nizam at 
 length found himself unable to pay the contingent 
 of troops which he was bound by treaty to maintain, 
 and the British Treasury had to make advances for 
 the purpose. In 1843, His Highness was dis- 
 tinctly informed that in event of further advances 
 becoming necessary, the British Government would 
 demand a territorial security for the discharge of 
 the debt. After repeated efforts to obtain payment 
 a territorial cession was demanded in 1851, to 
 liquidate the debt — then grown to upwards of 
 ^780,000. The Nizam paid a part and promised 
 to appropriate the revenues of certain districts to 
 meet the remainder. The promise proved illusory. 
 In 1853, a new treaty was made with the 
 Nizam. ' The British Government,' writes Sir 
 Charles Aitchison, ' agreed to maintain an auxiliary 
 force of not less than 5,000 infantry ; :z,ooo cavalry, 
 and four field-batteries of artillery ; and to provide 
 for its pajnnents and for certain pensions and 
 interest on the debt. The Nizam ceded, in trust, 
 districts yielding a gross revenue of fifty lacs of 
 rupees, it being agreed that accounts should be 
 annually rendered to the Nizam, and that any 
 
1 66 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 surplus revenue which might accrue should be paid 
 to him. By this treaty the Nizam, while retaining 
 the full use of the subsidiary force and contingent, 
 was released from the unlimited obligation of service 
 in time of war, and the contingent ceased to be 
 part of the Nizam's army, and became an auxiliary 
 force kept by the British Government for the 
 Nizam's use ^.' 
 
 The Assigned Districts have so prospered under 
 British rule, and have been so long accustomed 
 to consider themselves entitled to the benefits of 
 British rule, that their eventual rendition to the 
 Nizam is now regarded as one of the difficult ques- 
 tions of Indian politics. That question, however, 
 was not raised by Lord Dalhousie. It is essentially 
 the product of the improved position of the Nizam 
 in our own days. This improvement has been 
 greatly facilitated by Lord Dalhousie's arrangement 
 for securing the maintenance of order at Haidara- 
 bad, by a body of drilled troops, not directly depen- 
 dent on the Haidarabad Treasury for the regularity 
 of their pay. The perpetual financial strain of the 
 years preceding that arrangement has disappeared 
 in the Nizam's dominions. 
 
 ^ Aitchison's Treaties and Engagements, vol. v, p. 139, ed. 1S76. 
 See pp. 212-221 for the Engagement, dated 21st May, 1853. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Annexation of Oudh 
 
 The last and greatest of the annexations of terri- 
 tory made by Lord Dalhousie was the Province of 
 Oudh. We have seen that in regard to the other 
 Native States, annexed on failure of heirs, Lord 
 Dalhousie did not invent the doctrine of lapse, 
 that he did not widen it, but that he steadily ap- 
 plied it as a part of the deliberate policy of the 
 Government of India, laid down before his arrival 
 by preceding Governors-General, and sanctioned 
 by the Court of Directors in England. In the 
 case of Oudh we shall see that the annexation 
 was ordered by the Home Government in oppo- 
 sition to the advice of Lord Dalhousie, and was 
 carried out by him in obedience to the command 
 of the Court of Directors who rejected his own 
 proposals for a milder measure. 
 
 The great Province of Oudh, in the upper central 
 basin of the Ganges, was guaranteed to the Nawab 
 Vizier by Lord Wellesley's treaty of 1801 ; and 
 the Nawab Vizier afterwards, with the consent of 
 our Government, assumed the title of King of 
 
i68 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Oudh. The treaty of 1801 was made on the en- 
 gagement of the Nawdb Vizier (article 6) that His 
 Excellency would establish 'such a system of 
 administration, to be carried into effect by his 
 own officers, as shall be conducive to the prosperity 
 of his subjects, and be calculated to secure the lives 
 and property of the inhabitants, and His Excellency 
 will always advise with, and act in conformity to 
 the counsel of, the officers of the said Honourable 
 Company ^.' 
 
 The Nawab Vizier, a miserable sensualist and 
 debauchee, failed to carry out these stipulations. 
 Instead of establishing a system of government 
 conducive to the welfare of his subjects, he entered 
 on a course of oppression and heartless misrule, and 
 trusted to the British troops to protect him from 
 the vengeance of his people. Lord Wellesley 
 himself perceived what the end must be. 'I am 
 satisfied,' he wrote in 1801, 'that no effectual se- 
 curity can be provided against the ruin of the 
 Province of Oudh, until the exclusive management 
 of the civil and military government of that country 
 shall be transferred to the Company, under suitable 
 provisions for the maintenance of His Excellency 
 and family.' 
 
 Before thii-ty yeai*s passed, it became clear that no 
 other alternative was indeed possible. In 3831, 
 
 ^ Aitchison's Treaties, Engagements ^ and Sunnuds,\o\. ii, p. 102, 
 eJ. 1876. 
 
THE ANNEXATION OF OUDH 169 
 
 Lord William Bentinck accordingly warned the 
 King of Oudh that 'unless his territories were 
 governed upon other principles than those hitherto 
 followed, and the prosperity of the people made the 
 principal object of his administration, the prece- 
 dents afforded by the principalities of the Karnatic 
 and Tanjore would be applied to the kingdom of 
 Oudh, and to the entire management of the country, 
 and the king would be transmuted into a State 
 prisoner.' 
 
 The wicked old king died in 1837, and Lord 
 Auckland, then Governor-General, determined to 
 provide for the inevitable transfer of Oudh to the 
 British administration. Article 7 of the new 
 treaty in that year declared that if 'gross and 
 systematic oppression, anarchy and misrule should 
 hereafter at any time prevail within the Oudh 
 dominions, such as seriously to endanger the public 
 tranquillity,' the British Government reserved to 
 itself the express right of assuming the manage- 
 ment of the country by its own officers^. This 
 treaty was signed by the King of Oudh, but was 
 disallowed by the Court of Directors. The latter 
 fact was, however, withheld from His Majesty — one 
 of the shifty acts of Lord Auckland which brought 
 discredit on the British name. The Court of 
 Directors by their Despatch of April 15, 1839, 
 
 ^ Aitchison's Treaties^ Engagements, and Sunnuds, vol. ii, p. 140, 
 ed. 1876. 
 
170 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 directed that the disallowance of the treaty should 
 be immediately announced to the King of Oudh. 
 But Lord Auckland merely informed His Majesty 
 that the British Government had determined to 
 relieve him of certain onerous conditions respecting 
 the subsidiary force established under the treaty. 
 The formal abrogation of the treaty was never 
 intimated to the king. 
 
 Ten years later there was an honest Governor- 
 General of India. Lord Hardinge, in 1 847, proceeded 
 in person to Lucknow, and solemnly warned the 
 king that unless His Majesty reformed his ad- 
 ministration within two years, ^ the British Govern- 
 ment would be forced to interfere by assuming the 
 government of Oudh ^.' Lord Hardinge emphasized 
 his personal remonstrances by a declaration in 
 writing that, under the treaty obligations, no other 
 course was open to him. ' The Governor-General is 
 required,' he wrote, 'when gross and systematic 
 abuses prevail, to apply such a remedy as the 
 exigency of the case may require : he has no option 
 in the performance of this duty.' Knowing what 
 we do of Lord Hardinge's soldierly exactitude in 
 keeping his word, there can be little doubt that, 
 had he remained in India, Oudh would have been 
 brought under British management in 1849, at the 
 end of the two years' probation. 
 
 ^ Aitchisou's Treaties and Engagements, etc., vol. ii, p. 63, ed. 1876. 
 
THE ANNEXATION OF OUDH 171 
 
 Meanwhile, however, Lord Dalhousie had suc- 
 ceeded him in 1848. No improvement took 
 place in Oudh, but the new Governor-General 
 resolved before carrying out the sentence passed 
 on the King by Lord Hardinge, to give the native 
 dynasty one more chance. His Majesty was again 
 remonstrated with, but Oudh was not brought 
 under British management in 1849. The king 
 used the delay as a renewed license for oppression. 
 At length in 1851, Colonel Sleeman, an officer of 
 well-known sympathies for Native States, reported 
 as Resident of Lucknow, in terms which compelled 
 the Governor- General to ask himself whether he 
 could any longer be responsible for such a spectacle 
 of human misery and callous misrule. 
 
 Still Lord Dalhousie hoped against hope. It 
 was not till 1854 that he found himself absolutely 
 compelled to request Colonel Outram, then repre- 
 senting the Government of Lidia at the Court of 
 Lucknow, to report whether the evils described 
 by previous Residents had been abated, or the 
 reforms carried out for which Lord Hardinge had, 
 in 1847, allowed a period of two years. Colonel 
 Outram's report proved that not only had no real 
 improvement taken place, but that Oudh was now 
 completely delivered over to anarchy and the most 
 cruel forms of oppression. 
 
 In June 1855, Lord Dalhousie thus summed up 
 
172 DALHOUSIE'-S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the situation. 'For tolerating so long this total 
 disregard of the obligations of solemn treaty, 
 and for all the ills and human suffering which 
 have sprung therefrom, the British Government is 
 heavily responsible. It cannot, indeed, be charged 
 with indifierence to the evils whose existence it 
 perceived, or with neglect of all exertions to palliate 
 or remove them. For, from the date of the treaty ' 
 [of 1801] ' to the present day, the records of Govern- 
 ment exhibit one unbroken series of acts of counsel, 
 of complaint, and of condemnation, on the part 
 of the Government of India, and its representatives 
 at Lucknow. By official notes, in friendly letters, 
 through the mouth of the Resident, and at formal 
 personal interviews, the Governor- General has 
 urged, from time to time, upon the notice of the 
 Ruler of Oudh, the wretched internal condition 
 of his kingdom ; and throughout all that period, 
 at frequent intervals, words of indignant censure 
 have alternated with earnest remonstrances, with 
 warning, and with threats. 
 
 ' But the Government of India has never taken 
 the one measure which alone could be effectual, 
 by withdi-awing its countenance from the Sovereign 
 of Oudh, and its troops from his dominions. It 
 is by these aids alone that the Sovereigns of Oudh 
 have been enabled for more than half-a-century 
 to persist with impunity in their course of op- 
 pression and misrule. Their eyes have never seen 
 
THE ANNEXATION OF OUDH 173 
 
 the misery of their subjects ; their ears have never 
 been open to their cry. Secure of the safety of 
 his person — secure of the stability of his throne- 
 each successive ruler has passed his lifetime within 
 the walls of his palace, or in the gardens round 
 his capital, careful for nothing but the gratification 
 of his individual passion — avarice, as in one ; in- 
 temperance, as in another; or, as in the present 
 king, eff'eminate sensuality, indulged among singers, 
 musicians, and eunuchs, the sole companions of 
 his confidence, and the sole agents of his power. 
 Were it not for the support which the Government 
 of India is known to be bound to afibrd the king 
 against all domestic as well as against foreign 
 enemies; were it not for the constant presence 
 of British troops at Lucknow, the people of Oudh 
 would speedily work their own deliverance, and 
 would impose upon their Ruler the efiectual check 
 of general revolt by which Eastern Eulers are 
 best controlled.' 
 
 * Colonel Sleeman,' continues Lord Dalhousie,' thus 
 bears his testimony to this important truth : " I am 
 persuaded," he says, " that, if our troops were with- 
 drawn from Oudh [Dominions], the landholders 
 would in one month march over them all, and pillage 
 the capital of Lucknow." I respectfully submit to the 
 Honourable Court, that the time has come when in- 
 action on the part of the British Government, in 
 relation to the affairs of the kingdom of Oudh, can 
 
174 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 now be no longer justified, and is already convert- 
 ing our responsibility into guilt ^.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie set forth in careful detail the three 
 possible methods of dealing with the situation. 
 The King of Oudh might either be compelled to 
 abdicate, and his territories be annexed to British 
 India : or he might be maintained in his royal state 
 and dignity, and the actual administration might 
 be vested for ever in the East India Company : or 
 he might be made to give over Oudh for a limited 
 period to the British Government. Lord Dalhousie 
 decided against the extreme course of enforced 
 abdication on the ground that, although the Kings 
 of Oudh had been execrable as rulers to their sub- 
 jects, they had been faithful as allies to ©urselves. 
 ' I for my part, therefore,' he wrote, ' do not advise 
 that the Province of Oudh should be declared to be 
 British territory. . . It is my earnest counsel . . 
 that while the king should be permitted to retain 
 his royal title and rank, he should be required to 
 vest the whole civil and military administration of 
 Oudh in the hands of the Company, and that its 
 power should be " perpetual in duration, as well as 
 ample in extent.'" 
 
 Lord Dalhousie was unable to obtain the assent 
 of his own Council to this milder policy. Two of 
 
 ^ I reproduce this Minute of Lord Dalhousie from Sir Charles 
 Jackson's Y indication of the Marquis of Dalhousie s Administration, 
 pp. 131-134, ed. 1865. 
 
THE ANNEXATION OF OUDH 175 
 
 the Members were for the most extreme measure ; 
 the two others were for the more moderate course. 
 They all recorded separate Minutes, and were only 
 unanimous in urging, ' that if the British Govern- 
 ment felt the wrongs of the people of Oudh so 
 strongly, as to interfere on their behalf under the 
 Treaty of 180 1, they would be acting inconsistently, 
 and at the same time unjustly, if they annulled the 
 Treaty, quitted the country, and left its people 
 without redress^.' 
 
 The Court of Directors and Her Majesty's Min- 
 istry, after carefully weighing the opinions of the 
 Governor-General and of his Council, decided to 
 adopt the sterner course. In a Despatch dated the 
 2 1 st November, 1855, which has been characterised 
 as 'a specimen of the art of wiiting important 
 instructions so as to avoid responsibility,' the 
 Court of Directors expressed their disapproval of 
 Lord Dalhousie's milder plan, and issued their 
 final orders for the annexation of Oudh. They 
 further desired that the task should be carried out 
 by Lord Dalhousie himself before laying down his 
 office. 
 
 The worn-out Governor- General, now so crippled 
 that he could scarcely walk, and broken down by 
 illness and premature old age, would fain have 
 avoided the heavy burden thus laid upon him. He 
 
 ^ Sir Charles Jackson's Ftnc^tca^io/z 0/ the Marquis of Dalhousie's 
 Administration^ p. 144. 
 
176 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 had distinctly forewarned the Court that the mea- 
 sure would be violently assailed by the opponents 
 of the Indian Government, and would bring odium 
 on the man who carried it out. But he had pro- 
 mised that, however the Court of Directors decided, 
 he would bear the odium himself, instead of leaving 
 it to be borne by the new Governor-General in the 
 first days of his arrival in India. 
 
 It only remained for him to discharge his duty 
 in the most considerate manner. After some 
 fruitless negotiation with the king, the Province 
 of Oudh was annexed to the British territories by 
 Proclamation on the 13th February, 1856, on the 
 ground, to use Lord Dalhousie's words, that ' the 
 British Government would be guilty in the sight 
 of God and man, if it were any longer to aid in 
 sustaining by its countenance an administration 
 fraught with suffering to millions.' ' With this 
 feeling on my mind,' he wrote devoutly in his 
 private diary, 'and in humble rehance on the 
 blessing of the Almighty (for millions of His crea- 
 tures will draw freedom and happiness from the 
 change), I approach the execution of this duty, 
 gravely and not without solicitude, but calmly and 
 altogether without doubt.' 
 
 Thus was consummated, on the very eve of Lord 
 Dalhousie's departure from India, the last of his 
 great annexations. 
 
iiSITT 
 
 VC4/ 
 
 0- 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Internal Re-organisation 
 
 Lord Dalhousie clearly discerned that these vast 
 additions of territory implied momentous changes 
 in the system of holding and ruling India. Until 
 his time British India was, as I have mentioned, an 
 isolated country, shut off from all powerful neigh- 
 bours by intervening States, and commanded for 
 strategical purposes from the sea-board. The mag- 
 nificent harbour of Bombay dominated the Western 
 Presidency, that of Karachi formed the key to Sind. 
 Madras had its long open littoral, with numerous 
 roadsteads, and the great naval station at Trincoma- 
 lee near its Southern extremity, on the Ceylonese 
 coast. In Bengal the noble port of Calcutta, with 
 the connected river-systems of the Ganges, Indus, 
 and Brahmaputra, afforded water-ways inland to- 
 wards the frontier of the British dominions in 
 Northern India. 
 
 The conquest of the Punjab beyond the Gangetic 
 system, the annexation of Oudh on the limit of 
 that system, the lapse of the great Nagpur terri- 
 tories midway between the Eastern and Western 
 
 M 
 
178 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 coasts, together with the administrative possession 
 of the Berars at the backbone of India, completely- 
 altered the strategic basis of our power, and con- 
 verted British India from an isolated ocean-washed 
 peninsula into an inland Asiatic realm. 
 
 The new territorial problem was not merely how 
 to consolidate the new dominions of nearly a 
 quarter of a million of square miles, but how to 
 consolidate those dominions situated, as they were, 
 at unprecedented distances from our military base 
 on the sea-board. The new race problem was not 
 merely how to govern new peoples, now numbering 
 thirty-eight millions of souls, but how to adapt a 
 system of government which had slowly grown up 
 amid a contented population of British subjects, to 
 warlike tribes and nations, some of them still 
 smarting under recent conquest and defeat. The 
 new political problem was how to extend the 
 supervision of the Governor-General, which had 
 hitherto been largely absorbed in the direct ad- 
 ministration of Lower Bengal, so as to enable him 
 to maintain watch and ward over the numerous 
 new provinces as far apart as the Punjab, Burma, 
 and the Berars. For it must be borne in mind that 
 not one of Lord Dalhousie's conquests and annexa- 
 tions was erected into a separate Local Government. 
 They were aU retained as ' Local Administrations ' 
 under the immediate control of the Governor- 
 General in Council. 
 
INTERNAL RE-ORGANISATION 179 
 
 Any attempt to adequately state the methods by 
 which Lord Dalhousie solved this triple problem, 
 territorial, ethnical, and political, would involve a 
 lengthy history of the times. It may be my privi- 
 lege hereafter to make that attempt, and to trace 
 the steps by which Lord Dalhousie converted the 
 stationary India of Lord Wellesley into the pro- 
 gressive India of our own day. In the present 
 volume I can only very briefly indicate a few of 
 the main lines by which he advanced towards the 
 accomplishment of his great task. 
 
 The British India which Lord Dalhousie be- 
 queathed to his successor, was between a third 
 and a half larger than the India of which he had 
 received charge when he assumed the Governor- 
 Generalship. He realized that in this new India the 
 political centre of gravity had profoundly altered. 
 He saw that it was no longer possible to hold 
 the British dominions from the sea-board. The 
 Governor of Bengal had, by a series of historical 
 developments, grown into the Governor-General 
 of India. Until Lord Dalhousie's rule the Governor- 
 General was also Governor of the Lower Pro- 
 vinces of the Ganges, and responsible for their 
 administration. His permanent seat of govern- 
 ment had been Calcutta. When the Governor- 
 General was absent from that capital, the senior 
 member of his Council became Deputy-Governor 
 of Bengal for the time being. But, except during 
 
 M 1 
 
i8o DALHOVSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 these intervals, the responsibility as head of the 
 Local Government of Bengal rested, by law, upon 
 the Governor-General of India. 
 
 This arrangement had long worked badly ^. The 
 conquests and annexations of Lord Dalhousie 
 rendered it obsolete. Accordingly, by the Act of 
 Parliament of 1853, the Governor-General was 
 relieved of his functions as Governor of Bengal ; 
 a Lieutenant-Governor was appointed for the 
 Lower Provinces ; and Lord Dalhousie became the 
 first Governor-General of India, in the strict sense 
 of the term ^. 
 
 Under the previous system great bodies of troops 
 had been massed round Calcutta, and the head- 
 quarters of the Bengal Artillery lay at Dum Dum, 
 seven miles ofi*. These arrangements also became 
 obsolete, after the conquest of the Punjab trans- 
 ferred the main military interests of India to 
 the distant North. In 1853, therefore, Lord Dal- 
 housie ordered the headquarters of the Bengal 
 Artillery to be removed from the outskirts of 
 Calcutta to Meerut, a thousand miles inland. A 
 general movement of troops from around Calcutta, 
 and fi-om the Lower Provinces of Bengal, began to 
 
 1 For its unsatisfactory results, see Sir John Strachey's India, 
 PP- 340-343. ed. 1888. 
 
 2 The legal title of Governor-General of India was created by 
 the Statute of 1833 : the official designation had previously been 
 Governor-General of Bengal, or Governor-General of Fort William 
 in Bengal. 
 
INTERNAL RE-ORGANISATION l8i 
 
 take place towards the Punjab ; a movement which 
 received a further impulse from the annexation of 
 Oudh in 1856. 
 
 This process has gradually completed itself. 
 The once strong cantonment of Barrackpur, sixteen 
 miles from Calcutta, is now a charming suburb for 
 the merchants and British citizens of the metro- 
 polis, pleasantly diversified by uniforms, but more 
 vitally concerned in the matter of monthly railway 
 tickets than in any military problem. Chinsurah, 
 ten miles further up the Hugli, with its magnificent 
 accommodation for European troops and invalids, 
 is now a solitude of palatial barracks without a 
 soldier. The cordon of military stations which 
 stretched across Lower Bengal, are abandoned for 
 strategic positions in Oudh, the Punjab, and the 
 Central Provinces. Native soldiers are dotted here 
 and there in the Lower Gangetic valley, but the 
 nearest place of military strength is Dinapur, 344 
 miles by railway, or 6 2,^ by the old river-route 
 from the capital. I have seen the handsome and 
 spacious mess-house of a Bengal station offered at 
 auction for .^40, and eventually knocked down 
 for the value of the Venetians and glass in its 
 folding doors and windows. 
 
 With this alteration in the political and military 
 centre of gravity in India, Calcutta has ceased to 
 be the continuous seat of the Supreme Government. 
 The Governor-General found it necessary to be 
 
1 82 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 nearer to the chief scene of his responsibilities in 
 the North-west. The hill-station of Simla in the 
 Punjab, formerly an occasional health-resort, 
 gradually grew into the seat of the Government 
 of India during the chief part of the year. Lord 
 Dalhousie used it as his eyrie from which to 
 watch the newly-annexed plains that stretch 
 below. In 1865, after the Mutiny had taught the 
 lesson that India must be won or lost in the North, 
 the permanent headquarters of the army were 
 transferred to Simla. 
 
 The change, caused by military considerations, 
 inevitably led to the Governor-General and his 
 Council, together with the chief departments of the 
 civil government, being concentrated in a larger 
 measure at the Punjab hill-station. For experience 
 disclosed the risks of mi sunder standingrs and 
 delays, involved by the distant separation of the 
 political and military heads of the Indian adminis- 
 tration. The Governor-General of India has during 
 over forty years, by the Statute of 1853, been 
 completely dissociated from the Governorship of 
 Bengal ; and it is twenty-five years since the 
 headquarters of the army were fixed at Simla. 
 During a quarter of a century, except in seasons of 
 famine, the Viceroy has spent eight or nine months 
 annually at Simla or on tour, and about three 
 or four months in Calcutta. 
 
 Calcutta has thus ceased to be distinctively the 
 
INTERNAL RE-ORGANISATION 183 
 
 political and military headquarters of the Govern- 
 ment of India. It has been outstripped in popula- 
 tion by the Western capital, Bombay; and it is 
 being run hard by that great harbour in the race 
 for commercial pre-eminence. The port of arrival 
 and embarkation for the British troops has long 
 since been transferred from Calcutta to Bombay. 
 
 But in spite of these changes, and of the rapid de- 
 velopment of its Western and other rivals, Calcutta 
 still goes on growing with the majestic growth of a 
 vigorous maturity. Its unrivalled position at the 
 mouth of the combined river-systems of Northern 
 and North-eastern India, gives it a great advantage 
 in regard to the older and bulkier staples of Bengal, 
 rice, jute, and oil-seeds — although even these have, 
 to a very large extent, deserted the slower water- 
 routes for the railways. The enterprise of its 
 merchants' and capitalists has called into existence 
 new industries on a vast scale, tea-planting, coal- 
 mining, engineering foundries, and steam factories 
 of many sorts. The new railway to the West will 
 bring to it an increasing share of the wheat-trade ; 
 and it only awaits the better adaptation of the 
 European smelting processes to the Indian coals 
 and ores, to become the financial centre of a great 
 iron industry in Bengal. Meanwhile Calcutta sits 
 calm and strong on its ancient river-bank, and 
 watches the produce of the richest provinces of the 
 world float down to it by many waters, or pour 
 
1 84 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 into it by an ever-extending network of railways. 
 8edet aetemumque sedebit. 
 
 For his four great new provinces, the Punjab, 
 Burma, the Nd,gpur territories, and Oudh, Dal- 
 housie organised a mixed system of government, by 
 which he endeavoured to unite military strength 
 and promptitude with civilian exactitude of justice 
 and vigilance in administrative details. This in- 
 volved not alone a combination of civilian and 
 military officers in the personnel of the local 
 administration, such as I have described in my 
 chapter on the Punjab. It also demanded a very 
 careful reconsideration of the law and judicial pro- 
 cedure, suited to the requirements of each of the 
 new territories. To suddenly introduce the elabo- 
 rate judicial systems of the older presidencies, 
 would have been ahke impolitic and impracticable. 
 It would have been impolitic, for it would have 
 subjected the newly-annexed populations to a 
 standard of civil discipline, to which they had been 
 unaccustomed, and which might have proved a 
 burden heavier than they could bear. It would 
 have been impracticable, because the new admin- 
 istrative bodies, hastily put together from the youth 
 of the Civil Service and the military establishment, 
 could not have fairly been expected to master the 
 multifarious details of the older and more exact 
 procedures. 
 
INTERNAL RE-ORGANISATION 185 
 
 Lord Dalhousie devised, therefore, a system of 
 judicial and revenue administration for his new 
 provinces made up from two sources. First, the 
 local usages and customs which previously had the 
 force of law in the individual territory annexed, so 
 far as those usages and customs were consistent with 
 public policy, and did not contravene the funda- 
 mental principles of humanity. Second, the simpler 
 class of our own laws, enactments and regulations, 
 for the judicial and revenue management of the 
 country and for its police, culled from the systems 
 at work in the older presidencies. The indigenous 
 customs and usages of the individual territory 
 formed the ground-work of the whole, while the 
 super-structure was shaped with a considerate hand 
 upon the models at work within British India. 
 
 Such was the leading idea of Lord Dalhousie's 
 plan of administration, adopted for what were long 
 known as the Non-Regulation Provinces. Examples 
 of the system existed on a small scale before the 
 time of Lord Dalhousie. Nor was it till after Lord 
 Dalhousie's time that the system obtained the full 
 development which I have indicated in the last 
 paragraph. Indeed, it must be remembered that 
 Oudh was added to the Empire in the last weeks of 
 his rule. Yet it may be fairly stated that the 
 Non-Regulation system of India was the child of 
 Dalhousie, devised by his swift and comprehensive 
 mind for his conquests and annexations. 
 
1 86 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Under this system the affairs of Native life went 
 on with scarcely a perceptible change upon the 
 previous footing ; unless a man had dealings with 
 our revenue officers, or came into our courts. In 
 his customs of inheritance, and in all the affairs of 
 his household, he could perceive no alteration. 
 His usages of trade, his old system of contracts and 
 of mercantile transactions, were undisturbed. His 
 religious faith and even his religious prejudices 
 were absolutely respected, so long as they did not 
 involve a breach of the peace with rival religionists. 
 But if he committed a crime, he found himself dealt 
 with by a stricter judicial procedure, and fined or 
 sent to prison, instead of having his hand or foot 
 chopped off. The criminal classes soon discovered 
 that they had a worse time under British rule, and 
 many of them settled down to peaceful industry, 
 aided by grants of land at low rent from the British 
 Government. 
 
 In matters of civil justice the annexed popula- 
 tions had the benefit of fairer and more upright 
 judges, together with a system which permitted of 
 the decision being generally given according to their 
 ancient native notions of right and wrong. The 
 procedure was a little more exact and effective than 
 that which they had been accustomed to, but at 
 fu'st only a little. The main difference between the 
 judicial system under which they had grown up 
 and the new one amounted to this — that the 
 
INTERNAL RE-ORGANISATION 187 
 
 English judge was as much interested in doing 
 justice as the litigant was in obtaining it. In dealing 
 with our revenue officers the peasants exchanged 
 the old uncertainties of heavy demands irregularly 
 enforced, and further mitigated or intensified by the 
 venality or extortion of the tax-gatherer, for a fixed 
 but moderate sum, which they knew they had to 
 pay upon a definite date. 
 
 The essential feature of Lord Dalhousie's system, 
 from the high political point of view, was that the 
 new provinces remained under the direct control 
 of the Governor-General in Council. No semi- 
 independent Local Government, with a Governor 
 or Lieutenant-Governor at its head, was created. 
 Even in the case of the Punjab, in which Lord 
 Dalhousie for special reasons established a Board, 
 the control was retained directly, and in every 
 important question, by the Government of India. 
 Except in that special and temporary case, the 
 local administration was presided over by a Chief 
 Commissioner or Commissioner, immediately under 
 the direction of the Governor-General in Council. 
 
 The essential feature of the system from the 
 practical administrative point of view, was the 
 concentration of all powers, judicial, executive, 
 revenue and police, in the hands of the District 
 Officer. In the older presidencies, the separation 
 of the judicial and executive functions had gone on 
 steadily in the Districts since before 1793. A 
 
1 88 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 District Judge was charged with the conduct and 
 supervision of civil justice within his jurisdiction. 
 The functions of the District Magistrate were con- 
 fined, more or less, to the pursuit and detection of 
 crime, the trial of the less heinous ofiences, the 
 police, the collection of the revenue, and the general 
 executive work and government of the District. 
 Under Lord Dalhousie's system all the duties of 
 administration, judicial, revenue and police, were 
 firmly combined in the hands of one officer, the 
 Deputy Commissioner, as the head of the District, 
 aided by assistants under his immediate orders. 
 
 In process of time this Non-Regulation system 
 has undergone changes in both its essential aspects. 
 As the country settled down and required a more 
 detailed administration, the Chief Commissioner 
 developed into a Lieutenant-Governor, and a Local 
 Government with large powers of independence 
 was created for the Province. Thus the Punjab is 
 now a separate Lieutenant- Governorship ; Oudh 
 has been united with the North-western Provinces 
 under a Lieutenant-Governor ; and the creation of 
 a Lieutenant - Governorship for Burma (Upper 
 and Lower) is one of the current Indian pro- 
 posals of the day. In like manner, as the people 
 grew in prosperity, and as the legal questions 
 attendant upon the growth of industry and trade 
 became more complex, a separation gradually began 
 to take place between the judicial and the executive 
 
INTERNAL RE-ORGANISATION 189 
 
 functions of the Deputy-Commissioner in Lord 
 Dalhousie's Non-Regulation Provinces. 
 
 This division of duty, salutary and necessary as 
 it has become in the present more complex state of 
 native society, would have weakened the hands of 
 the executive in the newly-annexed provinces. ' I 
 want no such personage as a Sessions Judge here \' 
 wrote Mr. Commissioner John Lawrence in the 
 Trans-Sutlej States, half a century ago. The 
 judicial work in the Districts formed out of those 
 States is now conducted with as much regularity 
 and precision by Civil and Sessions Judges, as it 
 is in the oldest British territories of Madras or 
 Bengal. The Non-Regulation system devised by 
 the genius of Dalhousie for the administration of 
 his new provinces was not only perfectly effective 
 for bringing them under British government. It 
 also proved to have within itself the capacity of 
 adaptation to the new wants and requirements of 
 the people, as they prospered and multiplied under 
 British rule. 
 
 1 Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i, p. 202, ed. 
 
 1885. 
 
 UNIVlRSiTt 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Railways. Commerce. Telegraphs. Public 
 Works 
 
 I HAYE hitherto dealt with the territorial and 
 political aspects of Lord Dalhousie's government, 
 for these were the aspects which the public opinion 
 of his time pronounced, and which the dehberate 
 voice of history must still declare, to be the most 
 conspicuous features of his rule. But I have 
 pointed out from the commencement that Lord 
 Dalhousie's work in India was not alone a work of 
 conquest, it was also a work of consolidation. He 
 not only augmented the British dominions in India 
 by between a third and a half, but he created a new 
 mechanism for amalgamating them, and literally 
 bound together the old and the new territories by 
 bands of iron. Lord Dalhousie is the father alike 
 of the Railway and of the Telegraph in India. 
 
 Clearly discerning that his improved strategic 
 distribution of the mihtary forces was only half 
 his task, he introduced an entirely new system of 
 internal communication for the defence of his new 
 India. The idea of the Indian railway had been 
 
RAILWAYS AND COMMERCE 191 
 
 suggested by Sir Macdonald Stephenson and others 
 in 1841-43. But it was reserved for Lord Dal- 
 housie to overcome what seemed to be the in- 
 superable difficulties, and to initiate the work. 
 The year after his annexation of the Punjab, 1850, 
 saw the first sod turned. 
 
 In 1853, the year in which he removed the head- 
 quarters of the Bengal Artillery a thousand miles 
 inland from the outskirts of Calcutta to Meerut, 
 Lord Dalhousie wrote his great Railway Minute. 
 That scheme, one of the most comprehensive and 
 far-seeing which ever issued from a human brain, 
 remains the basis of the whole railway system of 
 India to this day. Lord Mayo, when amplifying 
 it by feeder-lines and filling in connecting links, 
 seventeen years afterwards, was careful to point 
 out that his proposals still proceeded on the plan 
 laid down by his illustrious predecessor. Lord 
 Dalhousie pushed on the work so vigorously that 
 the terminal section of the Great Indian Peninsular 
 Railway was opened as far as Thana in 1 853 ; and 
 before the end of 1856, thousands of miles were 
 under construction or survey. During the official 
 year 1856-57, the lines carried close on two million 
 passengers : they now carry over a hundred millions 
 per annum. The railway system of India thus 
 devised by Lord Dalhousie, and developed by his 
 successors, had 17,768 miles at work in 1892. 
 Lord Dalhousie seized the opportunity, affiarded 
 
192 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 by the introduction of railways, to throw the 
 country open to private enterprise and to English 
 capital, in a degree before unknown, and with 
 results which practically inaugurated a new in- 
 dustrial era in India. Instead of making railways 
 a purely Government undertaking, he offered them 
 to public companies under a system of State- 
 guarantee. He did this with the deliberate in- 
 tention of awakening and encouraging, in India, 
 that spirit of private enterprise which had wi'ought 
 such marvels in England. ' One of the greatest 
 drawbacks,' he wrote to the Court of Directors, 
 ' to the advance of this country [India] in material 
 prosperity, has been the total dependence upon the 
 Government, in which the community has placed 
 itself, and its apparent helplessness to do anything 
 for itself. Until very recently the only regular 
 carrier in the country has been the Government, 
 and no man could make a journey but with the 
 Government establishments, or by the agency of 
 a Government officer. It was but the other day 
 that the agent of Lloyd's in the Port of Moulmain, 
 where there is a considerable community of Euro- 
 pean merchants, formally complained that the 
 Government of India did not keep a steam-tug, to 
 tow their ships to sea for them. . . It is so in every- 
 thing else. . . I submit that any time and money 
 which the Honourable Court could save by under- 
 taking such [railway] works itself, would be well 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE 193 
 
 expended in securing the introduction at this time 
 of a large amount of English capital and English 
 energy, so as to encourage, by the successful issue 
 which I contemplate for these railway undertakings, 
 a more extensive employment of similar capital 
 and similar efforts hereafter in connection with the 
 products and trade of India.' 
 
 This was Lord Dalhousie's masterly idea. Not 
 only would he consolidate the newly-annexed 
 territories of India by his railways, and immensely 
 increase the striking power of his military forces 
 at every point of the Empire, but he would use a 
 railway construction as a bait to bring British 
 capital and private enterprise to India on a scale 
 which had never entered the imagination of any 
 previous Governor-General. He succeeded to an 
 extent which even his daring foresight would not 
 have ventured to predict. By 1 879, over 98,000,000 
 sterling of private capital had been attracted 
 to the construction of Indian Railways, under 
 the system of guarantee planned and initiated by 
 Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 In aU these arrangements Lord Dalhousie had 
 from the outset a vigilant eye to the mercantile 
 aspects of his railway routes. 'The commercial 
 and social advantages,' he wrote in his masterly 
 Minute on Railways, 'which India would derive 
 from their establishment are, I truly believe, be- 
 yond all present calculation. Great tracts are 
 
194 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 teeming with produce they cannot dispose of. 
 Others are scantily bearing what they would carry 
 in abundance, if only it could be conveyed whither 
 it is needed. England is calling aloud for the 
 cotton which India does ah-eady produce in some 
 degree, and would produce sufficient in quality, 
 and plentiful in quantity, if only there were pro- 
 vided the fitting means of conveyance for it, from 
 distant plains, to the several ports adopted for its 
 shipment. Every increase of facilities for trade 
 has been attended, as we have seen, with an in- 
 creased demand for articles of European produce 
 in the most distant markets of India ; and we have 
 yet to learn the extent and value of the interchange 
 which may be established with people beyond our 
 present frontier, and which is yearly and rapidly 
 increasing. Ships from every part of the world 
 crowd our ports in search of produce which we 
 have, or could obtain in the interior, but which 
 at present we cannot profitably fetch to them ; and 
 new markets are opening to us on this side of 
 the globe under circumstances which defy the 
 foresight of the widest to estimate their probable 
 value, or calculate their future extent.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie provided free play for the mer- 
 cantile possibilities of the railways by removing 
 the previous checks and hindrances on Indian 
 trade. Sir Edwin Arnold sums up these measures 
 in a pithy marginal note — ' All ports in India 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE 195 
 
 made free.' If his words cannot be taken in their 
 full modern significance, we may yet accept his 
 statement that the results practically amounted to 
 'enfranchisement of all the coasting industry of 
 Hindustan.' 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's commercial reforms extended 
 over the whole of the British dominions in the 
 East — from the consolidation and reform of the 
 old vexatious excise regulations at the Straits 
 to the declaration of Aden as a free port. He 
 not only threw the coasts of India open to the 
 world, but he facilitated the approach to them by 
 lighthouses, marine surveys, and improved harbour 
 accommodation. Merchant Service Acts were passed 
 to improve and regulate the condition of sailors. 
 An effort was made to put down the old adulte- 
 rations practised in the cotton trade. An alterna- 
 tive port was planned at the mouth of the Matla 
 River, to protect Calcutta from the then appre- 
 hended consequences of the shifting and silting 
 up of the Hugli channel. 
 
 The unprecedented impulse which Lord Dal- 
 housie thus gave to Indian trade may be realized 
 by the following figures. During his eight years 
 of rule the export of raw cotton more than doubled 
 itself, from ij millions sterling to close on 3 J 
 millions. The export of grain multiplied by more 
 than three-fold from ^890,000 in 1848 to 
 .^^2,900,000 in 1 856. Not only was the export of 
 
 N 2 
 
196 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 the old staples enormously increased, but new 
 articles of commerce poured into the markets, 
 under the influence of improved internal communi- 
 cations and open ports. The total exports of 
 merchandise rose from 13^ millions sterling in 
 1848 to over 23 millions in 1856. 
 
 The vast increase of productive industry, repre- 
 sented by these figures, enabled the Indian popu- 
 lation to purchase the manufactures of England on 
 an unprecedented scale. The imports of cotton 
 goods and twist into India rose from 3 millions 
 sterling in 1848 to 6 J millions in 1856. The 
 total imports of merchandise and treasure increased 
 during the eight years from 10^ to 25^ millions. 
 
 The Parliamentary statistics speak themselves 
 so eloquently as to the results of Lord Dalhousie's 
 commercial policy, that any comment of mine 
 would only weaken the force of the bare figures. 
 
 The great Pro-consul was not content, however, 
 to bind together the Empire of India by the iron 
 lines. He also introduced two other powerful 
 instruments of consolidation into India — the tele- 
 graph and a half-penny post. His cheap universal 
 postal rates for India will be treated of in the next 
 chapter. The creation of a telegraph system 
 seemed like a dream of the genii to the Asiatic 
 imagination, and appeared almost an impossibility 
 in India to the practical European mind. To 
 
THE TELEGRAPH 197 
 
 realize the difficulties which Lord Dalhousie had to 
 encounter and which he overcame, we must again 
 go back to the descriptions written while the sense 
 of the achievement was still fresh. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's telegraph makers were no 
 skilled engineers, but such men as he could lay his 
 hand on, with a Calcutta doctor as their chief. ' He 
 had a field for experiment,' wrote Sir Edwin Arnold 
 a quarter of a century ago, 'subject to electric 
 storms and perturbations, unknown in Europe: a 
 soil alternately baked into one electrical condition, 
 and sodden into another ; winds that would lay the 
 telegraph posts in England across the lines from 
 Birmingham to London in a night: little timber, 
 less iron, no skilled labour, no appliances at start- 
 ing, and— the white ant. The ground which he 
 selected to begin upon, on the principle of measur- 
 ing difficulty by its maximum, was a lake from 
 June to December, and a wilderness of fissured clay 
 from December to June. . . His posts had to pass 
 through jungles, where wild beasts used them for 
 scratching-stations, and savages stole them for fire- 
 wood and rafters for huts. Inquisitive monkeys 
 spoiled the work ... by dragging the lines into 
 festoons, or dangling an ill-conducting tail from 
 wire to wire. Crows, kites and fishing eagles made 
 roosting-places of the lines in numbers so great as 
 to bring them to the ground ; though once or twice 
 a flash of lightning, striking a wet wire, would 
 
198 DALHOUSIES WORK IN INDIA 
 
 strew the ground with the carcases of the feathered 
 trespassers by dozens. The white ant nibbled gal- 
 leries in the posts, and the porcupine and bandicoot 
 burrowed under them.' 
 
 The tremendous electrical disturbances caused by 
 storms in India, seemed for a time to render success 
 impossible. ' I was di-iven/ writes Su' William 
 O'Shaughnessy, 'step by step to discard every 
 screw, and lever, and pivot, and foot of wire, and 
 frame-work and dial, without which it was practic- 
 able to work. I successively tried and dismissed 
 the English vertical astatic needle-telegraph, the 
 American dotter, and several contrivances of my 
 own invention. Every thunderstorm put the 
 astatic needles hors de combat.' He then goes on 
 to state how he at length triumphed over these 
 difficulties. The Indian storms and sky-artillery 
 were at length brought under control. In one terrific 
 North-wester of the equinox, he says, ' a flash of 
 lightning struck the line, traversed the instrument, 
 made its wires red-hot, and melted their ends into 
 beads. In less than two minutes, Charles Todd, 
 the signaller on duty, had placed another coil in 
 gear, and reported by telegraph to Calcutta (150 
 miles off) what had taken place in his office.' 
 
 These heroic labours of Lord Dalhousie's self- 
 trained electricians were destined to have marvel- 
 lous results. The railway and the telegraph were 
 worth thousands of men to us in the Mutiny of 
 
HIS PUBLIC WORKS POLICY 199 
 
 1857, and it is by the railway and the telegraph 
 that India is now strategically held. The telegraph 
 wire followed Lord Clyde's rapid campaigns yard 
 by yard. It brought the latest news from Cal- 
 cutta to his breakfast tent, 1000 miles off, by the 
 time that he had bathed after his morning march. 
 It flashed back the details of the day's battle or 
 assault to the Governor-General in Calcutta, before 
 he sat down to dinner. 'It is that accursed 
 string that strangles us,' exclaimed a mutineer 
 pointing to the telegraph wire as he was led out 
 to execution. 
 
 The electric telegraph now forms the basis not 
 only of our military policy in India, but of the 
 modern mercantile system of India. Indeed, in a 
 country of such vast distances, it is difficult to con- 
 ceive how the operations either of civilised govern- 
 ment or of civilised commerce could be carried 
 on without it. Every morning the great Indian 
 merchant begins his work by reading the cypher 
 instructions from his correspondent in London, 
 despatched the previous night. Calcutta and Bom- 
 bay, 1409 miles distant by railway on the opposite 
 coasts of India, are within a few minutes' speaking 
 distance by wire, and discuss their hourly transac- 
 tions with each other throughout the day. There 
 are now 130,000 miles of telegraphic wire in India, 
 along which more than 4 million messages are 
 transmitted each year (1893). 
 
200 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 In order to introduce the railway and the tele- 
 graph in India, Lord Dalhousie had to reconstitute 
 the whole Department of Public Works. Indeed, 
 before his time such a Department, in the modern 
 sense of the term, did not exist. A Military Board 
 had mismanaged a parsimonious expenditure aver- 
 aging, during seventeen years, only ^169,901 per 
 annum, on all works of public utility apart from Mili- 
 tary and Civil Buildings. Even of this sum a large 
 proportion had gone for repairs, and one estimate 
 returns ' the average Public Works expenditure 
 (after deductions) of the pre-Dalhousie period at 
 .^''90,000 or a half per cent, of the public revenue ^.' 
 Even down to 1 850, the most competent authorities 
 state that the average yearly charge for the whole 
 of India, for all Public Works, excepting of course 
 Military and Civil Buildings, 'hardly exceeded 
 .^250,000 ^.' According to the Parliamentary return 
 the entire charge of Public Works of every sort in 
 1847, the year preceding Lord Dalhousie's arrival, 
 only amounted to ^£''260,000. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie during his eight years of office 
 abolished the old incompetent Military Board, 
 created a great Department of Public Works, and 
 increased the Public Works expenditure to %\ 
 
 1 Sir Edwin Arnold's Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration, 
 vol. ii, p. 284, ed. 1865. 
 
 ^ The Finances and Public Worls 0/ J»J/a, by Sir John Strachey, 
 G.C.S.I., and Lieutenant-General Richard Strachey, R.E., F.E.S., 
 p. 86, ed. 1882. 
 
HIS PUBLIC WORKS POLICY 201 
 
 millions sterling in 1856. He not only gave roads, 
 canals, court-houses, jails, treasuries and the whole 
 fabric of civilised administration to the Punjab: 
 no province escaped his attention, and the routes 
 throughout all India, with their strongly constructed 
 bridges and permanent metalled-ways, date their 
 improvement from him. Among Lord Dalhousie's 
 irrigation works, I have already described the great 
 Bari Duab Canal in the North 1. Time would fail 
 me to merely enumerate all his beneficent enter- 
 prises. The operations on the Godavari River 
 would alone form a magnificent memorial of his 
 rule. 
 
 In order to carry out these and other of his 
 great Public Works, Lord Dalhousie not only 
 created a new Department of Government, but he 
 also organised a new branch of the Government 
 Service. He realized that the operations of civil 
 engineering are best conducted by civil engineers. 
 He, accordingly, laid the foundation of that noble 
 service of highly-trained engineers brought out 
 from England, to whom India is so largely indebted 
 for the material frame-work of its modern develop- 
 ment. At the same time he endeavoured by estab- 
 lishing and encouraging engineering schools in each 
 of the three Presidencies, to rear up an indigenous 
 branch of the profession within India itself. 
 
 ^ Vide ante, p. 103. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Half-penny Post. Education. Finance 
 
 Lord Dalhousie is also the father of cheap 
 postage, I had almost said of the civilised Post 
 Office, in India. We are assured by one of his 
 contemporaries that, on Lord Dalhousie's arrival 
 in India, the country was no further advanced in 
 regard to postal facilities than it had been two 
 centuries before, under Muhammadan rule. Indeed, 
 the people were rather worse off, for we had made 
 private letter-carrying penal, and yet levied such 
 prohibitive rates on the public carriage of letters, 
 as to practically place the Post Office beyond the 
 means of the native population. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie appointed a Commission of three 
 able civilians to enquire into the working of the 
 Indian postal system. They found that the Post 
 Office was a heavy drain upon the public revenues. 
 The Station Doctor or some half-employed subaltern 
 was usually the local post-master. The postage on 
 a single letter amounted to three or four days' 
 wages of a skilled native artisan. The subordinates 
 in the country Post Offices were notoriously cor- 
 
THE HALF-PENNY POST 203 
 
 rupt, forwarding or delaying letters as they pleased, 
 and seldom delivering one to a villager without a 
 personal fee. 
 
 In 1853-54, Lord Dalhousie swept away the 
 whole antiquated fabric of obstruction, and re- 
 placed it by the modern postal system of India. 
 He levied a uniform rate of half an dnd^ now 
 equal to a half-penny (although then about three 
 farthings) for all letters not exceeding half a told 
 in weight, and for all India. The idea of thus 
 substituting a uniform unit of weight and of charge 
 for the whole of the vast Indian Empire, seemed 
 to many orthodox financiers of his time to be an 
 act of sheer folly. It was, they said, pushing 
 Rowland Hill's scheme of a penny postage for 
 England to an inconsequential extreme. It was 
 not so much an extension as a reductio ad ahsur- 
 dwiJi of the reform which had been effected in the 
 postal system of Great Britain. What could be 
 more extravagant, or indeed more unjust, than to 
 levy the same charge on two letters, one of which 
 was to be delivered in the adjoining street, and the 
 other on the opposite side of India. Lord Dal- 
 housie listened, and pursued his own course, with 
 the following remarkable results. 
 
 Instead of Indian letters being charged at differ- 
 ential rates, according to distance, they are now 
 carried throughout the length and breadth of India, 
 for a distance sometimes exceeding 3000 miles, at 
 
204 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 a uniform rate of half an dnd^ at present equal to a 
 half-penny, for the half told. Instead of the old 
 wrangle over every letter as to the payment and 
 delivery, a wrangle in which the rural postman 
 invariably managed to squeeze something for him- 
 self out of the native recipient, Lord Dalhousie 
 substituted a simple system of postage stamps. 
 Instead of the Post Office being a chronic drain on 
 the finances, Lord Dalhousie's reform made it self- 
 supporting, and has of late years converted it into 
 a source of actual revenue, so far as its operations 
 in British India are concerned. The social results, 
 however, have proved even more important than 
 the administrative or financial ones. Lord Dal- 
 housie's half-penny post has done more than 
 perhaps his railways, or his telegraphs, and possibly 
 as much as even the great system of the Public In- 
 struction to which I shall presently refer, in revolu- 
 tionising the old stagnant and self-isolated life of 
 India. 
 
 These results are now so familiar to us, that in 
 order to realize what they were felt to be at the 
 time, we must as usual go back to the local Indian 
 literature of (in this case) more than 40 years ago. 
 'The Post Office Commission alone,' said the 
 Calcutta Revieiu in 1854, 'The Post Office Com- 
 mission alone, had Lord Dalhousie done nothing 
 else, would suffice to place his name in the list of 
 Anglo-Indian reformers alongside of Cornwallis.' 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 205 
 
 The regular post within India now runs over 
 8o,oco miles, and over a large proportion of this 
 distance it runs several times each day. It 
 distributes 360 millions of letters annually, col- 
 lected at over 23,000 Post Offices and letter-boxes. 
 But the growth of Indian correspondence under 
 Lord Dalhousie's system may, perhaps, be best 
 indicated by the figures for three single years. The 
 year previous to the introduction of his half-penny 
 post in 1854, barely 19 millions of letters were 
 posted in all India, and a very large proportion of 
 them were official letters. In i860, six years after 
 Dalhousie's postal reform, the number had increased 
 to 47 millions. It now amounts, as I have said, to 
 360 millions, and the increase has been chiefly 
 derived from private, as distinguished from official, 
 correspondence. Lord Dalhousie, in fact, created 
 letter- writing on a great scale among the natives 
 of India. 
 
 In the same year that Lord Dalhousie introduced 
 the cheap post and created the modern postal 
 system of India, the foundations of a national 
 system of education in India were also laid. 
 During his first five years of office, Lord Dalhousie 
 had carefully studied the various experimental 
 methods of Public Instruction at work. In 1853, 
 during the lull between his conquest of Lower 
 Burma and the annexation of the Nagpur terri- 
 
206 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 tories, he earDestly recommended that the system 
 of vernacular education, associated with the hon- 
 oured name of Mr. Thomason, should be extended 
 to the whole North-western Provinces. In the 
 following year the Court of Directors, with these 
 and other proposals for the development of verna- 
 cular instruction before them, at length dealt in a 
 comprehensive spirit with the great question of 
 Indian Education. 
 
 The Despatch of Sir Charles Wood in July, 1 854, 
 to use the words of Lord Dalhousie, ' left nothing 
 to be desired, if, indeed, it did not authorise and 
 direct that more should be done than is within 
 our present grasp.' This great State-paper put an 
 end for ever to the old controversy between the 
 rival supporters of English and of the classical 
 languages of India, as the basis and main subject 
 of education. For it founded Indian education 
 neither on the one nor the other, but on the modern 
 vernacular languages of the Indian peoples. A vast 
 network of educational institutions has, under 
 the system thus initiated, been spread over India. 
 Those institutions start from the indigenous hedge- 
 schools of the Hindus and the old Mosque schools 
 of the Musalmans, which have now been brought 
 within Government inspection. They advance, by 
 well-ordered upward steps, to the Vernacular and 
 Anglo-vernacular Schools, the High Schools, the 
 Affiliated Colleges, and the Universities. The 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 207 
 
 whole forms a complete gradation of Public 
 Instruction, under the direction and control of the 
 State. 
 
 This was the crowning act of consolidation, 
 accomplished in India under Lord Dalhousie. It 
 has set in motion new forces, intellectual and 
 political, whose magnitude it is impossible to 
 gauge, but which the British Government now 
 finds itself compelled to reckon with. Amid all the 
 checks which occurred to Dalhousie' s consolidating 
 system in India, after his firm hand was withdrawn, 
 this tremendous factor of unification has gone on 
 working without break or intermission, gaining 
 strength, and displaying its marvellous results on 
 an ever-extending scale. Even the Mutiny did not 
 interrupt the progress of Indian education. The 
 year 1857, which saw us forced to fight for our 
 existence, also saw the Acts passed to establish the 
 three Indian Universities, since increased to five, 
 which form the cope-stone of Public Instruction in 
 India. Every Viceroy, whatever his public policy 
 or private idiosyncrasies, has sought to connect his 
 name with the magnificent system of Indian State- 
 education introduced during Lord Dalhousie' s rule. 
 Under that system, five Universities and i45^<^°o 
 schools and colleges are now educating 4 million 
 pupils in India (1893-94). 
 
 I have been careful to describe the educational 
 system of India, not as the direct work of Lord 
 
2o8 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 Dalhousie, but as having been introduced under his 
 rule. The name of Sir Charles Wood, afterwards 
 Lord Halifax, must always be the name chiefly 
 associated with this great work. The lesser, but 
 by no means unimportant, functions of Lord 
 Dalhousie were to supply in part the materials 
 which guided Sii* Charles Wood, and to strenuously 
 carry out Sir Charles Wood's views. Nor must it 
 be forgotten that the scheme of Public Instruction, 
 thus initiated by Sir Charles Wood, practically 
 introduced into India by Lord Dalhousie, and 
 strictly developed on the lines then laid down, has 
 received from later Governors-General an expansion 
 which Lord Dalhousie would scarcely have ventured 
 to anticipate. For side by side with the Govern- 
 ment Schools and Colleges, and incorporated with 
 them into the system of official inspection, a great 
 body of aided institutions is now maintained and 
 conducted by private enterprise. 
 
 The India of the railway, the telegraph, the half- 
 penny post, and the State-inspected school, that is 
 to say, the India created by Lord Dalhousie, is the 
 India of to-day. We know of no other India. But 
 to the Englishmen who stood by and witnessed the 
 construction of that India, it seemed as if an 
 entirely new Empire was being called into existence. 
 The immediate visible result of Dalhousie's rule 
 was, as I have said, a unification of territory. Yet 
 to close observers it was evident from the first, as it 
 
DALHOUSIE'S NEW INDIA 209 
 
 was clear to Lord Dalhousie himself, that this uni- 
 fication of Indian territory was only the first stage 
 in a still more splendid, if more perilous, work of 
 unification — the unification of the Indian races. 
 Let me once more quote from a writer of a quarter 
 of a century ago, when ' the conception which Lord 
 Dalhousie cherished of a consolidated Empire ' was 
 still fresh in men's minds. ' We are making,' wrote 
 Sir Edwin Arnold in 1 865, when summing up the 
 results of Lord Dalhousie's rule, 'We are making a 
 people in India, where hitherto there have been a 
 hundred tribes, but no people ^.' 
 
 It is very easy to over-estimate the progress 
 which has since been effected, it would be most 
 foolish to exaggerate the degree of solidarity which 
 has yet been attained. What I have endeavoured 
 to do is to enable Englishmen to calmly gauge the 
 strenoth of the movement now at work in India, 
 by a careful exposition of the forces from which 
 the movement derived its impulse. 
 
 In the midst of his great measures of conquest 
 and consolidation. Lord Dalhousie kept a firm 
 although liberal hand upon the public expenditure 
 of India. Changes in the system of account render 
 it difficult to bring out the facts of Lord Dalhousie's 
 finance with exactitude, except by going into a 
 mass of detail unsuitable for the present book. The 
 
 ^ Marquis of Dalhousie s Administration, vol. ii, p. 388. 
 
 
2 TO DALHOUSIE S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 brothers Strachey in their admirable work have 
 dwelt on the difficulties which beset any attempt at 
 financial comparisons between the past and the 
 present in India ^. I shall, therefore, confine myself 
 to reproducing the main figures from the official 
 statement annually presented to Parliament^. 
 
 During the twenty-one years, from 1842 to 1862 
 inclusive, there were seventeen years of deficit, 
 and only four years of surplus, in the Indian Ex- 
 chequer. Those sole four years of surplus were the 
 central years of Lord Dalhousie's rule, from 1850 
 to 1853 inclusive 2. Yet Lord Dalhousie spent with 
 a liberality never ventured on by any previous 
 Governor-General upon Public Works. The Par- 
 liamentary figures on this item are obscured by 
 changes in account. But we are informed by Lord 
 Dalhousie's first historian that his Public Work 
 expenditure was %\ millions in 1854, 3 millions 
 in 1855, and 2\ millions in 1856 (according to the 
 Parliamentary Abstract close on 2^ millions) : as 
 compared with an average expenditure of only 
 .^''169,901 during seventeen preceding years. 
 
 In every Department Lord Dalhousie, while in- 
 creasing efficiency chiefly by re-organisation, did not 
 
 ' TTie Finances and Public WorTcs of India, by Sir John Strachey, 
 G.C.S.I., and Lieutenant-General Richard Strachey, R.E., F.R.S., 
 pp. 23-26, ed. 1882. 
 
 " Statistical Abstract relating to British India, 2 2ud Number, 
 dated India Office, 7 September, 18S8, pp. 310-313, 
 
 3 Idem, p. 311. 
 
HIS FINANCE 21 1 
 
 shrink from an increase of expenditure when an 
 increase was absolutely required. In 1856, the 
 Parliamentary Accounts show an increase of | of a 
 million on the Army compared with 1848, and a 
 still larger increase of over i^ millions in the ex- 
 penditure on Civil Administration. The total ex- 
 penditure was 5 J millions sterling greater in 1856, 
 than in 1848, the first year of Lord Dalhousies 
 rule^ This increase of expenditure, due partly to 
 expansion of territory, partly to increased efficiency, 
 and chiefly to Public Works, was more than met by 
 the increase in revenue. 
 
 During the same period (i 848-1 856 inclusive) the 
 total revenue of India rose from over 24 1 millions 
 to over 30I millions, or, in round figures, by nearly 
 6\ millions sterling ^ Of this great increment more 
 than 2 millions were derived from the land revenue 
 — which in India is not so much a tax as a low 
 rental that Government derives from the land. 
 Lord Dalhousie swept away the cumbrous lumber 
 of the antiquated Boards, alike in the Commissariat 
 and Public Works, and replaced them by vigilant 
 Departments under individually responsible Heads. 
 
 1 Statistical Abstract relating to India, presented to Parliament, 
 pp. 310-3 1 1, ed. 1888. 
 
 O 2 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 Lord Dalhousie's Military Policy 
 
 Lord Dalhousie perceived that the defence of 
 the new India would prove an onerous burden. 
 What he could accomplish by removing the troops 
 from the sea-board where they were no longer 
 required, and massing them in North-western 
 India, where he foresaw that danger might arise, 
 he accomplished. What he could effect by pushing 
 on railways and telegraphs, and thus increasing 
 the striking force of his armament at any threatened 
 point, he effected. But he also clearly discerned 
 that the future safety of India was not alone a ques- 
 tion of the distribution, but also of the numerical 
 strength of the army, and of an equipoise between 
 the British and Native Forces in that country. 
 
 The previous chapters of this book have re- 
 corded what Lord Dalhousie accomplished in each 
 of the great Departments of his work. This chapter, 
 unhappily for England in 1857, will have to record 
 chiefly the measures which he proposed, and which 
 the Home Government failed to carry out. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, while acknowledging the great 
 
DALHOUSIE'S MILITARY POLICY 213 
 
 military qualities of the Eegular Native Army, was 
 deeply impressed with the possible dangers in- 
 volved by its large increase in numbers since 
 the first Afghan War. In 1838, the total Native 
 Force is stated to have been under 154,000 men. 
 The outbreak of the first Sikh War in 1845 found 
 it at 240,310. After reductions on the close of 
 that war, Lord Hardinge bequeathed to Lord Dal- 
 housie a Native Army more numerous than at the 
 last great peace. Lord Dalhousie's conquest of the 
 Punjab led to a further increase of the regular 
 Sepoy regiments from 800 to 1000 men — 'a step 
 taken at the urgent solicitation of Sir Charles 
 Napier, after the second Sikh War^.' Lord Dal- 
 housie, himself, became afterwards convinced of 
 the impolicy of this increase to the regular regiments, 
 and proposed their reduction. But towards the 
 close of his rule the Native Army still stood as high 
 as 233,000 men. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie endeavoured to meet the possible 
 perils of so large a Native Kegular Army by four 
 series of measures. First, by a better distribution 
 with a view not only to holding the country more 
 securely, but also to breaking up the masses of 
 the Kegular Native troops. This measure, which 
 served us in such good stead in 1857, he effected 
 upon the principle laid down by Lord Hardinge, 
 
 ^ India under Dalhousie and Canning, by the Duke of Argyll, 
 p. 56, ed. 1865. 
 
214 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 and in spite of the protest of Sir Charles Napier. 
 *I have heard,' sneered Sir Charles, 'that Lord 
 Hardinge objected to the assembling of the Indian 
 troops, for fear they should conspire. I confess 
 I cannot see the weight of such an opinion^.' 
 Lord Dalhousie's next measure was one in which 
 Sir Charles actively concurred, the raising of 
 Ghurka or hill regiments — a class of troops which 
 Lord Dalhousie so highly valued, that one of his 
 last acts was to urge their further increase. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's third and, as it proved during 
 the Mutiny of 1857, most important measure, was 
 the creation of a new Irregular Force in the Punjab. 
 This force he placed under a separate system and 
 discipline of its own. Notwithstanding the re- 
 monstrances of Sir Charles Napier as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, Lord Dalhousie kept it apart 
 from the general army of India, under the direct 
 orders of the Punjab Administration 2. Lord Dal- 
 housie's fourth measure, or rather series of measures, 
 with a view to maintaining a safe counterpoise to 
 the Regular Native Ai-my, consisted in his protests 
 against the withdrawal of European regiments 
 from India, and his proposals for their still further 
 increase — protests disregarded, and proposals never 
 carried into effect, by the Government in England. 
 
 ^ Report hy the Commander-in-Chief in India to the Governor- 
 General in Council, dated 27th November, 1849. 
 
 ^ Minute hy the Most Noble the Governor- General of India, 
 dated 26th, October, 1850, et in aliis locis. 
 
HIS MILITARY POLICY 215 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, while thus endeavouring to pro- 
 vide against the dangers of the Regular Native Army 
 in India, frankly and generously acknowledged the 
 merits of the Native troops. In so doing he could 
 scarcely go further than the encomiums passed upon 
 them by his soldier-predecessor Lord Hardinge, and 
 indeed by Sir Charles Napier himself, when that 
 fiery warrior was in a praising mood. 
 
 During the embittered discussions which Sir 
 Charles Napier afterwards raised, Sir Charles posed 
 as the foreseeing man, and accused the Native troops 
 of general mutiny at Wazirabad in December, 1849, 
 or January, 1850. This charge was quite honestly 
 believed by the passionate old Commander-in- 
 Chief to justify the usurpation which he had made 
 on the powers of the Governor-General in Council, 
 when ordering, on his own authority, an increase 
 in the Code of Allowances to the troops. Such an 
 act, if permitted, would have rendered illusory the 
 financial and general control of the Army vested 
 in the Governor-General by Parliament. 
 
 In judging of this occurrence we must correct the 
 subsequent, and perhaps pardonable, violence of 
 the disappointed old soldier, in his Indian Mis- 
 government ^, by the Official Records written at 
 the time. Those Records have been printed in a 
 
 ' Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government, by 
 Lieu tenant-General Sir C. J. Napier, edited by Lieutenant-Geueral 
 Sir F. W. P. Napier. 
 
2i6 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 complete form, beginning with Sir Charles Napier's 
 original indiscretion down to his resignation, and 
 the final verdict by the Duke of Wellington upon 
 an officer whose noble qualities as a life-long 
 comrade and thorough soldier the Great Duke 
 highly valued, but whose follies of temper he 
 deeply deplored^. I, as a civilian, confine myself 
 to the Duke of Wellington's words. 
 
 * A close examination of the papers sent to me by Sir 
 Charles Napier himself,' wrote the Duke of Wellington ^, 
 ' with his report of the transaction, convinced me that 
 there was no mutiny of the troops at Wazirdbdd, in 
 December, 1849, ^^ January, 1850. There were mur- 
 murings and complaints, but no mutiny. But it appears, 
 according to Sir Charles Napier's statement, that there 
 existed in the country a general mutiny, which pervaded 
 the whole army of 40,000 men in the Punjab, in the 
 month of January, 1850. Where is the report.? where 
 is the evidence of that mutiny, except in Sir Charles 
 Napier's report sent to the Horse Guards, and in the 
 66th regiment, the corps at Govindgarh, which had been 
 suppressed in a most signal manner without difficulty 
 and without effort ? 
 
 'It appears that the 66th regiment at Govindgarh, 
 having mutinied, piled its arms in the fort under the 
 orders of its officers, was marched out, disbanded, and 
 
 ^ Disciissions hettoeen the Marqnis of Dalhousie and General 
 Sir C.J. Napier, G.C.B. Folio printed by order of a General 
 Court of the East India Company, 21st December, 1853. 
 
 - Memorandum of the Duke of Wellwgton, dated London, July 
 30tli, 1850, pp. 52-54 of the printed papers. 
 
HIS MILITARY POLICY 217 
 
 sent into the Company's provinces, in this very month of 
 January, 1850, with the knowledge of the whole army 
 of the Punjab, and that there had not been the sign of 
 movement of a man in favour or support of the mutinous 
 regiment, thus punished and disarmed, the Commander- 
 in-Chief having quitted Wazirdbdd and proceeded on his 
 inarch to Peshdwar (sic). 
 
 * On the 1 6th of January he issued to the army a 
 general order as follows : — " I have seen most of the armies 
 in the world, and I have never seen one that is better 
 cared for than the army of the East India Company. 
 Neither have I ever seen a more obedient, more honour- 
 able army. I will not allow a few malignant, discontented 
 scoundrels to disgrace their colours and their regiments, 
 by an insolent attempt to dictate to their Government 
 what pay that Government should give to soldiers towards 
 whom it has always been both just and generous." Thus 
 it appears that His Excellency did not conceal that in- 
 subordination existed, nor evade the mention of it, and 
 that he characterised its nature and described its extent.' 
 
 I have reproduced the text of the Duke of 
 Wellington's verdict for two reasons. First, be- 
 cause I believe that his words will now be read by 
 the great majority of even the more exact students 
 of Indian History for the first time. Second, 
 because they place in a true light the foolish 
 charges wafted about after the Mutiny in 1857, 
 with reference to Lord Dalhousie's alleged neglect 
 of the symptoms of Mutiny, seven years pre- 
 viously. I now leave those foolish charges to 
 the fate they deserve, and shall set forth, as briefly 
 
21 8 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 as possible, the steps which Lord Dalhousie actually 
 took to maintain the equipoise between the Regular 
 Native Forces and the British Troops in India. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie was deeply convinced of the 
 dangers incident to an inadequate strength of 
 English regiments in Lidia. He not only pro- 
 tested against any reduction of the English troops, 
 but urged the necessity of their increase. Under 
 the Bill of 1853, the Government obtained the 
 sanction of Parliament to raise the strength of 
 the Local European Regiments in India, from a 
 maximum of 12,000 to a maximum of 20,000 men. 
 But instead of vigorously availing themselves of this 
 permission, it is stated that the Home Authorities 
 added only three regiments to the Company's Local 
 European Force during Lord Dalhousie's rule. 
 
 Meanwhile the Home Government began that 
 fatal process of depletion which was, in 1857, to 
 cost so dear. Under the pressure of the Crimean 
 War they demanded two of Her Majesty's Infantry 
 Regiments from India. Lord Dalhousie protested 
 in terms which have been well described as pro- 
 phetic. He solemnly warned the Home Govern- 
 ment that the question was not alone one of the 
 present exigencies of India, but the larger and 
 more permanent question of 'the security and 
 stability of our position in the East.' 
 
 ' We are perfectly secure so long as we are 
 strong, and are believed to bo so ; ' wrote Lord 
 
HIS MILITARY POLICY 219 
 
 Dalhousie on the 13th Sept., 1854. 'But if 
 European troops shall now be withdrawn from 
 India to Europe ; if countenance shall thus be 
 given to the belief, already prevalent, that we 
 have grappled with an antagonist ' [in the Crimea] 
 ' whose strength will prove equal to overpower us ; 
 if by consenting to withdrawal we shall weaken 
 that essential element of our mihtary strength' 
 [the British troops in India], ' which has already 
 been declared to be no more than adequate for 
 ordinary times; and, if, further, we should be 
 called on to despatch an army to the Persian 
 Gulf, an event which, unlooked for now, may any 
 day be brought about by the thraldom in which 
 Persia is held, and by the feeble and fickle 
 character of the Shah ; then, indeed, I shall no 
 longer feel and can no longer express the same 
 confidence as before, that the security and stability 
 of our position in the East will remain unassailed. 
 *I confidently submit to the candour of Her 
 Majesty's Ministers that, placed as it is amid 
 distances so vast, amidst multitudes so innu- 
 merable, amidst people and sects, various in many 
 things, but all ahke in this, that they are lately 
 conquered subjects of our race, alien to them in 
 religion, language, in colour, in habits, in all 
 feelings and interests, the Government of India has 
 had solid grounds for the declaration, more than 
 once made of late years, that the European force 
 
220 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 at its command is not more than adequate for 
 preserving the Empire in security and tranquillity 
 even in ordinary times, much more then,' etc. 
 
 In spite of this remonstrance, two British 
 regiments were withdrawn from India in 1854, 
 and three years later the danger so accurately 
 foreshadowed by Lord Dalhousie arrived. Of the 
 thirty-three battalions of European infantry, which 
 Lord Dalhousie regarded as the minimum com- 
 patible with safety, two had been recalled to 
 England, and notwithstanding the promises of 
 the Home Government they had never been re- 
 placed. Five or six of the nominally remaining 
 European regiments were absent (as Lord Dalhousie 
 had foreseen that they might be absent) in the 
 Persian War. The Mutiny thus found India 
 drained of the British troops on which Lord 
 Dalhousie had solemnly warned Her Majesty's 
 Ministers that our existence in India depended. 
 
 But a still more fatal disregard of Lord Dal- 
 housie's representations had taken place. He felt 
 that the annexations and conquests during his rule 
 rendered absolutely necessary an increase of our 
 European regiments, and a decrease both of the 
 cavalry and infantry of the Regular Native Army. 
 He gave to his declaration on this subject aU the 
 solemnity which belongs to a great Viceroy's last 
 official act in India. On the 28th February, 1 856, 
 at his final meeting of Council, he laid on the table 
 
HIS MILITARY POLICY 221 
 
 nine Minutes, setting forth the military changes 
 that had become necessary for the safety of the 
 territories which he was about to quit for ever. 
 
 These nine Minutes were, by his request, immedi- 
 ately forwarded to the Court of Directors. Yet, 
 wrote Sir Charles Jackson in 1865, 'I cannot find 
 that any further attention was paid to these Minutes, 
 either at home or in India. Nothing more was 
 heard of them until the year 1858. . . . Even now 
 it is impossible to state the full effect of these 
 Minutes. For although the authorities at the India 
 House, including Mr. Kaye himself, rendered me 
 every assistance, two of them are not to be found ; 
 and I have been obliged to collect as much as 
 possible of their effect (but whether or not the 
 whole, I am unable to say,) from references to them 
 in the other Minutes^.' 
 
 Yet these nine Minutes, if they had been acted 
 on, might have themselves sufficed to avert the 
 Mutiny of 1857. The first Minute proposed to 
 raise two new European Cavalry regiments for the 
 Company's service in Bengal. It also proposed 
 to disband four regular regiments of Native Cavalry 
 — the very force which in 1857 proved so disloyal. 
 By the second and third Minutes, the European 
 Infantry would have been increased from its reduced 
 strength, in 1854, of 31 battalions to ^^ battalions, 
 
 1 Space compels me to still further summarise Sir Charles Jackson's 
 abstract of their contents. 
 
222 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 and if possible to 37 ; disbanding four Native 
 regiments to obtain officers for the new European 
 troops. If his request for 37 European battalions 
 of infantry could be granted, then two more Native 
 regiments were to be disbanded. The fourth 
 Minute, proposed to move the European Invalid 
 Companies, stationed at Chanar, to some strategic 
 point where they might add to our visible military 
 strength. The fifth Minute urged 'the augmen- 
 tation of European Companies of Artillery.' 
 
 The sixth proposed, in addition to the disband- 
 ment of the four or six regiments of Native In- 
 fantry, referred to under the second and third 
 Minutes, a further reduction of 200 men in each of 
 the remaining regiments of Bengal Native Infantry. 
 This would have given a further regimental re- 
 duction of the Sepoys by 14,910 men, in addition 
 to the four or six Native regiments of infantry 
 disbanded. It also proposed to increase the strength 
 of the Ghurka regiments and of the Irregular Native 
 Infantry, in the Punjab — the two very forces which 
 proved so useful in the Mutiny — by 3,200 men. 
 
 The seventh Minute urged, in addition to the 
 four regiments of Native Bengal Cavalry which 
 were to be disbanded, a further reduction of eighty 
 troopers in each of the remaining regiments. The 
 total reduction in the Native Regular Cavalry, 
 would have amounted to 2,400 troopers. The 
 other Minutes proposed to increase the number of 
 
HIS MILITARY POLICY 223 
 
 the European officers in the Native regiments, and 
 to thoroughly reform the Commissariat arrangements 
 by separating it from the regimental strength, and 
 constituting it (as it now is constituted) a separate 
 Staff Department. 
 
 From first to last Lord Dalhousie insisted on the 
 European Force, 'as the essential element of our 
 strength.' He urged the decrease of the Regular 
 Native Army, which was the cause of our disaster 
 in 1857. He not less solemnly urged the increase 
 of the Punjab Irregular Regiments and gallant 
 Ghtirkas, whose loyalty so materially helped us to re- 
 trieve that disaster. Again I feel that any words of 
 mine would only weaken the force of the actual facts. 
 
 While the public was declaring that his con- 
 quests had put an end to the possibility of war in 
 the Company's possessions, and was prophesying 
 smooth things, Dalhousie seriously admonished not 
 only the Government in England, but likewise the 
 officials whom he was leaving behind in India, of 
 the perpetual presence of danger. Nor was he 
 content with impressing this great fact on the 
 authorities, English and Indian alike. He spoke 
 also with the utmost plainness, and in memorable 
 words, to the Anglo-Indian community. Let me 
 quote the solemn warning, I had almost said the 
 too prescient forebodings, with which he rephed 
 to the congratulatory addresses of the citizens of 
 Calcutta in February 1 856 : 
 
224 DALHOUSIE'S WORK IN INDIA 
 
 ' No prudent man, having any knowledge of 
 Eastern affairs, would ever venture to predict a 
 prolonged continuance of peace in India. We have 
 learned by hard experience how a difference with 
 a native power [the Sikhs], which seems at first to 
 be but the little cloud no bigger than a man's 
 hand, may rapidly darken and swell into a storm 
 of war, involving the whole empire in its gloom. 
 We have lately seen how, in the very midst of us 
 [among the Santals], insurrection may rise like an 
 exhalation from the earth, and how cruel violence, 
 worse than all the excesses of war, may be suddenly 
 committed by men who, to the very day on which 
 they broke out in their frenzy of blood, have been 
 regarded as a simple, harmless and timid race, 
 not by the Government alone, but even by those 
 who knew them best, who were dwelling among 
 them, and were their earliest victims. Kemem- 
 bering these things, no prudent man will venture 
 to give you assurance of continued peace ^.' 
 
 Neither on this, nor on any other question, did 
 Lord Dalhousie shrink from declaring the plain 
 truth, however unwelcome the truth might be at 
 the time. His briefest ' office-notes,' thrown off in 
 a moment, upon the daily multitude of questions 
 which came up to him for decision, have in 
 them the ring of a great soul. ' I circulate these 
 papers,' he wrote hastily on one case, in which 
 
 ^ The Friend of India, Serampur, 31st January, 1861. 
 
HIS MILITARY POLICY 225 
 
 he had successfully insisted on justice being done at 
 the risk of a tumult ^. ' They are an instance of the 
 principle that we should do what is right without 
 fear of consequences. To fear God and to have no 
 other fear is a maxim of religion, but the truth of 
 it and the wisdom of it are proved day by day 
 in politics.' 
 
 I have now briefly told the story of Lord 
 Dalhousie's work in India. I am painfully con- 
 scious that there are many of his acts, indeed 
 whole departments of his all-pervading activity, 
 that I have been compelled, by want of space, 
 to leave out of the narrative. But I shall have 
 written in vain, if I have written a single sentence 
 which is not justified by the authoritative records 
 of his rule. For I feel that the man was so great, 
 that his policy was so prescient, and that his work 
 has been so enduring, that one word of exaggeration 
 or overstatement would be alike a disobedience to 
 his dying wish, and a disloyalty to his memory. 
 
 ^ I quote from Sir Charles Bernard's personal recollection of the 
 words. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Afghans, 73, 79. 
 
 Agneav, Vans, see Vans Agnew. 
 
 AiTCHisoN, Sir Charles, 157,159, 
 161, 166. 
 
 Anderson, Lt. W., 69, 70, 84. 
 
 Annexation Policy discussed, 
 of Punjab, 80-3 : of Burma, 
 118 : of Hindu States by- 
 Lapse, 124-49 • of Njfgpur, 
 150-56 : of Oudh, 167-76 : 
 Lapse of Pensions, 158-64. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, 129, 153, 213, 
 &c. 
 
 Army, see Military Ee-organi- 
 
 SATION. 
 
 Ariiies, Native and European, to 
 be carefully balanced, 212-5. 
 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 15, 124-6, 
 209, &c. 
 
 Berars, the, 164-6. 
 Burma, 13, 43-5 : conquest of, 
 108-23. 
 
 Calcutta, 177, 1S0-4. 
 Canals, 103, 201. 
 Canning, Lord, 50. 
 Carnatic, see Karnatik. 
 Chilianwala, 77. 
 Commercial development under 
 
 Lord Dalhousie, 190-6. 
 Connemara, see Lady Susan 
 
 Kamsay. 
 
 Dalhousie, Lady, 24, 45, 45. 
 
 Dalhousie, Marquess of: his 
 three-fold work in India sum- 
 marised, 10-15 : his codicil, 
 17 : his family and youth, 20- 
 3 : parliamentary contests, 
 23-5 : in the General Assem- 
 bly of the Kirk of Scotland, 
 25, 26 : at the Board of 
 Trade, 27-9 : Governor-Gene- 
 ral of India, 29-30 : his ap- 
 pearance and character, 31- 
 7 : his day's work, 34 : rela- 
 tions to subordinate-;, 38-42 : 
 his tours, 42-5, 48 : death of 
 Lady Dalhousie, 45-7 : illness 
 and last years in India, 48- 
 53: return to England, 54: 
 at Malta, 54, 55, 57 : the 
 news of the Mutiny, 55-7 : 
 the struggle against disease, 
 54-8 : death, 59 : conquest 
 and consolidation of Punjab, 
 60-107 : conquest of Burma, 
 108-23: annexations by 
 Lapse, 124-58: tbe Karnatic 
 family, 158-62 : N<Cn^ Sahib, 
 162-4: the Berjlrs, 164-6: 
 Oudh, 167-76 : military and 
 political re-organisation, 177- 
 84 : non-regulation system, 
 184-9 • railway and comnier- 
 
INDEX 
 
 227 
 
 cial system, 1 90-6 : telegraphs, 
 196-9 : public works policy, 
 200-1 : postal reforms, 202-5 : 
 public instruction, 205-9 • 
 financial policy, 209-1 1 : com- 
 plete military scheme to pro- 
 vide against mutiny, and to 
 maintain preponderance of 
 British troops in India, 212- 
 25: his final warning, 224: 
 the principle underlying all his 
 work, 225. 
 
 Education, 205-9. 
 Edwaedes, Sir Herbert, 60, 71- 
 
 5- 
 Elliot, Sir Henry, 36-46. 
 
 Financial results, 209-11. 
 
 Godwin, General, 112. 
 
 GouGH, Lord, 71-7. 
 
 Grant, Dr. Alexander, 17, 32, 
 
 35, 58. 
 
 GUJRAT, 78. 
 
 Hardinge, Lord, 61-6, 87, 142, 
 
 213-4. 
 Hastings, Marquess of, 21. 
 
 Jackson, Sir Charles, 52, 131, 
 
 148, 144-5, 221, &c. 
 Jeans I, 139-41. 
 
 Karauli, 147-8. 
 Karnatik Family, the, 15S- 
 62. 
 
 Lapse, see Annexation. 
 Lawrence, Lord, 40, 50, 80, 
 
 87-95, 100, 105, 107, 189. 
 Lawrence, Mrs., 39. 
 Lawrence, Sir Henry, 66, 67, 
 
 80, S3, 87-100, 107. 
 
 Hansel, C. G., 94, 105, 153. 
 
 Military re-organisation, 177- 
 84 : complete scheme of army 
 reform, 212-5. 
 
 Mulraj, 69-77, 89. 
 
 Multan, 68-77, 84. 
 
 Mutiny, Lord Dalhousie's warn- 
 ings, and ample provision 
 against, 212-25. 
 
 Nagpur, 150-6. 
 
 Nana Sahib, 162-4. 
 
 Napiee, of Magdala, Lord, 73- 
 
 5- 
 Napier, Sir Charles, 77, 86, 93, 
 
 97-9, 213-7- 
 Nizam (HaidarabM), 164-6. 
 Non-Regulation System, 184- 
 
 9- 
 OuDH, 49: annexation of, 167- 
 
 76. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 27, 29, 46. 
 Postal reforms, 202-5. 
 Public instruction, 205-9. 
 Public Works policy, 200-1. 
 Punjab, ii, 43: conquest of, 
 
 60-85 : consolidation of, 86- 
 
 107. 
 
 Railways, 15 : English, 27. 
 Railway system, 196-3. 
 Ramsay, Lady Edith, 24, 59. 
 Ramsay, Lady Susan, 17, 24., 
 
 47, 5°, 55, 59- 
 Rangoon, 115, &c. [See also 
 
 Burma.] 
 Russia, ii. 
 
 Sambalpur, 138. 
 Satara, 132-8. 
 
 P 2 
 
228 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sikhs, ii : conquest and con- 
 solidation of, 60-107. 
 
 SiKKiM, 12. 
 
 Simla, 182. 
 
 SiND, 141, &c. 
 
 Smith, Bosworth, quoted in 
 many places. 
 
 Smith, Dr. George, 19. 
 
 Strachet, Sir John, and General 
 Kichard, 210. 
 
 Taylor, Major Reynell, 41. 
 Telegraphs, 196-9. 
 
 Temple, Sir Richard, 35, 37, 
 
 38. 
 Trade, 190-6. 
 Trotter, Captain L. J., 19, 32, 
 
 34, 47- 
 Vans Agnew, Patrick A., 69, 
 
 70, 84. 
 
 Wellesley, Marquess of, 9, 
 
 125, 144. 
 Wellington, Duke of, verdict 
 
 on Sir Charles Napier, 216. 
 Wood, Sir Charles, 206-8. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 OXFORD : PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 BT HORACE HAKT, PEINTEK TO THE DNIVEE3ITY 
 
RULERS OF INDIA: 
 
 TEE CLABENDON PEESS SERIES OF INDIAN 
 EISTOBICAL EETEOSPEGTS. 
 Edited by Sib W. W. Hunteb, K.C.S.I., CLE. 
 Price 2s. 6d. each. 
 The following volumes have been arranged for up to June, 1893 : — 
 I. AKBAE : and the Else of the Mughal Empire, by Colonel 
 Malleson, C.S.I., Author oi A History of the Indian Matiny; 
 The History of Afghanistan; Serai, &c. [Published.] Fourth 
 thousand. 
 II. ALBUQUEBQUE : and the Early Portuguese Settlements in 
 India, by H. MoKSE Stephens, Esq., M.A., Balliol College, 
 Lecturer on Indian History at Cambridge, Author of The 
 French Bevolution; The Story of Portugal, Sfc. [Published.] 
 
 III. AUBANGZtB : and the Decay of the Mughal Empire, by 
 
 Stanley Lane Poole, Esq., B.A., Author of The Coins of 
 the Mughal Emperors ; The Life of Stratford Canning ; 
 Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum, &c. 
 [Published.] 
 
 IV. MADHAVA BAO SINDHIA : and the Hindu Eeconquest of 
 
 India, by H. G. Keene, Esq., M.A., CLE., Author of The 
 Moghul Empire, dc. [Published.] 
 V. LOED CLIVE: and the Establishment of the English in India, 
 by Colonel Malleson, C.S.I. [Published.] 
 
 VI. DUPLEIX: and the Struggle for India by the European 
 Nations, by Colonel Malleson, C.S.I. , Author of The 
 History of the French in India, &c. [Published.] Third 
 thousand. 
 VII. WABEEN HASTINGS: and the Founding of the British 
 Administration, by Captain L. J. Trottek, Author of India 
 tmder Victoria, &c. [Published.] Third thousand. 
 VIII. TEE MABQUE8S C0BNWALLI8 : and the Consolida- 
 tion of British Eule, by W. S. Seton-Kakr, Esq., sometime 
 Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Author of 
 Selections fi'om the Calcutta Gazettes, 3 vols, (i 784-1 805). 
 [Published.] Third thousand. 
 
 IX. HAIDAE A LI AND TIP U SAHEB : and the Struggle with 
 the Muhammadan Powers of the South, by Lewin Bentham 
 Bo WRING, Esq., C.S.I., sometime Private Secretary to the 
 Viceroy (Lord Canning) and Chief Commissioner of Mysore. 
 Author of Eastern Experiences. [Published.] 
 X. THE MABQUESS WELLESLEY: and the Development of 
 the Company into the Supreme Power in India, by the Rev. 
 W. H. Hutton, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of St. John's 
 College, Oxford. [Published.] 
 
 XL THE MAEqUESS OF HASTINGS: and the Final Overthrow 
 of the Mardthd Power, by Major Ross of Bladensburg, 
 CB., Coldstream Guards; F.R.G.S. [Published.] 
 
 XII. MOUNTSTUAET ELPHINSTONE : and the Making of 
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 Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, Author of The Decennial 
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EuLERS OF India Sebies (continued). 
 
 XIII. SIR THOMAS MUNJIO: and the British Settlement of the 
 
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 H.M.'s Inspector of Schools, Madras. [Immediately.] 
 
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 of Old Kensington, &c. 
 XY.LORD WILLIAM BEN TIN CK: and the Company as a 
 Governing and Non-trading Potoer, by Demetrius Boulgeb, 
 Esq., Author of England and Russia in Central Asia: The 
 History of China, &c. [Published.] 
 XVI. EARL OF A UCKLAND : and the First Afghan War, by 
 Captain L. J. Trotter, Author of India under Victoria, &c. 
 [Published.] 
 XVII. VISCOUNT SABDINGE : and the Advance of the British 
 Dominions into the Punjab, by his Son and Private Secretary, 
 the Right Hon. Viscount Hardinge. [Published.] Third 
 thousand. 
 
 XVIII. RAN JIT SIN GR: and the Sil-h Barrier heitoeen our Growing 
 Empire and Central Asia, by Sir I^epel Griffin, K.C.S.I., 
 Author of The Punjab Chiefs, &c. [Published.] Third 
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 XIX. TSE MARQUESS OF DALBOUSIE : and the Final 
 Development of the Company'' s Rule, by Sir William Wilson 
 Hunter, K.C.S.I., M.A. [Published.] Fifth thousand. 
 XX. CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN : and the Suppression of 
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 BuRNE, K.C.S.I., sometime Military Secretary to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief in India. [Published.] Third thousand. 
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 Company to the Crotvn, by Sir Henry S. Cunningham, 
 K.C.I.E., M.A., Author of British India and its Rulers, &e. 
 [Published.] Third thousand. 
 XXII. L ORD LA WREXCE : and the Reconstruction of India under 
 the Croivn, by Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison, K.C.S.I., 
 LL.D., formerly Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, 
 and late Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. [Published.] 
 
 XXlll.TEE EABL OF 3IAY0 : and the Consolidation of the 
 Queen's Rule in India, by Sir William Wilson Hunter, 
 K.C.S.I., M.A., LL.D. [Published.] Third thousand. 
 
 Supplementary Volumes. 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INDIAN PEOPLES, 
 
 by Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I. Twentieth 
 Edition ; 78th thousand. Price 3*. 6d. [Published.] 
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 Price 3s. 6d. [Published.] 
 
©pinions of tU IPress 
 
 ON 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HUNTER'S 'DALHOUSIE.' 
 
 * An interesting and exceedingly readable volume Sir William 
 
 Hunter has produced a valuable work about an important epoch in 
 English history in India, and he has given us a pleasing insight into 
 the character of a remarkable Englishman. The " Rulers of India" 
 series, which he has initiated, thus makes a successful beginning in his 
 hands with one who ranks among the greatest of the great names which 
 will be associated with the subject.' — The Times. 
 
 ' To no one is the credit for the improved condition of public intelli- 
 gence [regarding India] more due than to Sir William Hunter. From 
 the beginning of his career as an Indian Civilian he has devoted a rare 
 literary faculty to the task of enlightening his countrymen on the subject 
 of England's greatest dependency. . . . By inspiring a small army of 
 fellow-labourers with his own spirit, by inducing them to conform to his 
 own method, and shaping a huge agglomeration of facts into a lucid and 
 intelligible system, Sir W. Hunter has brought India and its innumer- 
 able interests within the pale of achievable knowledge, and has given 
 definite shape to the truths which its history establishes and the 
 problems which it suggests. . . . Such contributions to literature are apt to 
 be taken as a matter of course, because their highest merit is to conceal 
 the labour, and skill, and knowledge involved in their production ; but 
 they raise the whole level of public intelligence, and generate an 
 atmosphere in which the baleful influences of folly, ignorance, prejudice, 
 and presumption dwindle and disappear.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 * Admirably calculated to impart in a concise and agreeableform a clear 
 general outline of the history of our great Indian Empire.' — Economist. 
 
 * A skilful and most attractive picture. . . . The author has made good 
 use of public and private documents, and has enjoyed the privilege of 
 being aided by the deceased statesman's family. His little work is, 
 consequently, a valuable contribution to modern history.' — Academy. 
 
 ' The book should command a wide circle of readers, not only for its 
 author's sake and that of its subject, but partly at least on account of 
 the very attractive way in which it has been published at the moderate 
 price of half-a-crown. But it is, of course, by its intrinsic merits alone 
 that a work of this nature should be judged. And those merits are 
 everywhere conspicuous. ... A writer whose thorough mastery of all 
 Indian subjects has been acquired by years of practical experience and 
 patient research.' — The Athenceum. 
 
 * Never have we been so much impressed by the great literary abilities 
 of Sir William Hunter as we have been by the perusal of *'The Marquess 
 of Dalhousie." . . . The knowledge displayed by the writer of the motives 
 of Lord Dalhousie's action, of the inner working of his mind, is so com- 
 plete, that Lord Dalhousie himself, were he living, could not state them 
 more clearly. . . . Sir William Hunter's style is so clear, his language 
 so vivid, and yet so simple, conveying the impressions he wishes so per- 
 spicuously that they cannot but be understood, that the work must have 
 a place in every library, in every home, we might say indeed every 
 cottage.' — Evening Neics. 
 
 ' Sir William Hunter has written an admirable little volume on 
 " The Marquess of Dalhousie " for his series of the ** Rulers of India." 
 It can be read at a sitting, yet its references — expressed or implied — 
 suggest the study and observation of half a life-time.' — The Daily News. 
 
©pinions of tbe Press 
 
 ON 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HUNTER'S 'LORD MAYO.' 
 
 * Sir William W. Hunter has contributed a brief but admirable 
 biography of the Earl of Mayo to the series entitled " Rulers of India," 
 edited by himself (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press).' — The Times. 
 
 ' In telling this story in the monograph before us, Sir William 
 Hunter has combined his well-known literary skill with an earnest 
 sympathy and fulness of knowledge which are worthy of all commenda- 
 tion. . . . The world is indebted to the author for a fit and attractive 
 record of what was eminently a noble life.' — The Academy. 
 
 ' The sketch of The Man is full of interest, drawn as it is with com- 
 plete sympathy, understanding, and appreciation. But more valuable 
 i3 the account of his administration. No one can show so well and 
 clearly as Sir William Hunter does what the policy of Lord Mayo con- 
 tributed to the making of the Indian Empire of to-day.' — The Scotsman. 
 
 ' Sir William Hunter has given us a monograph in which there is a 
 happy combination of the essay and the biography. We are presented 
 with the main features of Lord Mayo's administration unencumbered 
 with tedious details which would interest none but the most oflBcial of 
 Anglo-Indians ; while in the biography the man is brought before us, 
 not analytically, but in a life-like portrait.' — Vanity Fair. 
 
 ' The story of his life Sir W. W. Hunter tells in well-chosen language 
 — clear, succinct, and manly. Sir W. W. Hunter is in sympathy with 
 his subject, and does full justice to Mayo's strong, genuine nature. 
 Without exaggeration and in a direct, unaffected style, as befits his 
 theme, he brings the man and his work vividly before us.' — The 
 Glasgoic Herald. 
 
 ' All the knowledge acquired by personal association, familiarity with 
 administrative details of the Indian Government, and a strong grasp of 
 the vast problems to be dealt with, is utilised in this presentation of 
 Lord Mayo's personality and career. Sir W. Hunter, however, never 
 overloads his pages, and the outlines of the sketch ax'e clear and firm.* 
 — The Manchester Express. 
 
 ' This is another of the " Rulers of India" series, and it will be hard 
 to beat. . . . Sir William Hunter's perception and expression are here at 
 their very best.' — The Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 'The latest addition to the "Rulers of India" series yields to none of 
 its predecessors in attractiveness, vigour, and artistic portraiture. . . . 
 The final chapter must either be copied verbally and literally — which 
 the space at our disposal will not permit — or be left to the sorrowful 
 perusal of the reader. The man is not to be envied who can read it with 
 dry eyes.' — Allen's Indian Mail. 
 
 * The little volume which has just been brought out is a study of Lord 
 Mayo's career by one who knew all about it and was in full sympathy 
 with it. . . . Some of these chapters are full of spirit and fire. The 
 closing passages, the picture of the Viceroy's assassination, cannot fail 
 to make any reader hold his breath. We know what is going to 
 happen, but we are thrilled as if we did not know it, and were still 
 held in suspense. The event itself was so terribly tragic that any 
 ordinary description might seem feeble and laggard. But in this 
 volume we are made to feel as we must have felt if we had been on 
 the spot and seen the murderer " fastened like a tiger " on the back of 
 the Viceroy.' — Daily INev)s, Leading Article. 
 
©pinions of tU Press 
 
 ON 
 
 MR.W.S.SETON-KAIlIl'S'COIlNWALLIS.' 
 
 ♦This new volume of the "Rnlers of India " series keeps np to the 
 high standard set by the author of " The Marquess of Dalhousie." For 
 dealing with the salient passages in Lord Cornwallis's Indian career no 
 one could have been better qualified than the whilom foreign secretary 
 to Lord Lawrence.' — The Athenceum. 
 
 ' Lord Cornwallis has been very properly included in the list of those 
 ** Rulers of India" whose biographies are calculated to illustrate the 
 past growth and present development of the English administration in 
 that country. His name is connected with several great measures, 
 which more, perhaps, than any others have given a special colour to our 
 rule, have influenced the course of subsequent legislation, and have made 
 the Civil Service what it at present is. He completed the administrative 
 tabric of which Warren Hastings, in the midst of unexampled difficulties 
 and vicissitudes, had laid the foundation.' — The Saturday Review. 
 
 ♦ We hope that the volumes on the " Rulers of India " which are 
 being published by the Clarendon Press are carefully read by a large 
 section of the public. There is a dense wall of ignorance still standing 
 between the average Englishman and the greatest dependency of the 
 Crown ; although we can scarcely hope to see it broken down altogether, 
 some of these admirable biographies cannot fail to lower it a little. . . . 
 Mr. Seton-Karr has succeeded in the task, and he has not only^ pre- 
 sented a large mass of information, but he has brought it together in an 
 attractive form. . . . We strongly recommend the book to all who wish 
 to enlarge the area of their knowledge with reference to India.' — New 
 York Serald. 
 
 ' The " Rulers of India " series. This outcome of the Clarendon 
 Press grows in value as it proceeds. The account of Cornwallis is from 
 the pen of Mr. W. Seton-Kan-, who was formerly Foreign Secretary to 
 the Government of India, and whose acquaintance with Eastern aflairs 
 has been of obvious service to him in the compilation of this useful 
 manual.' — The Globe. 
 
 ♦ One might almost say that the history of our great Indian Empire 
 might be read with comparative ease in the excellent " Rulers of India 
 
 Series," published at the Clarendon Press at Oxford Of Cornwallis 
 
 i t might be said he transformed the East India Company's servants 
 from merchants to administrators, and determined to place them above 
 jobbery, which he despised.' — The Independent. 
 
 ♦ We have already expressed our sense of the value and timeliness of 
 the series of Indian historical retrospects now issuing, under the editor- 
 ship of Sir W. W. Hunter, from the Clarendon Press. It is somewhat 
 less than fair to say of Mr. Seton-Karr's monograph upon Cornwallis 
 that it reaches the high standard of literary workmanship which that 
 series has maintained. . . . His accurate and lucid summary of the necessi- 
 ties which dictated Cornwallis's policy, and the methods by which he 
 initiated and, to a great extent, effected, the transformation of our rule 
 in India from the lines of an Oriental despotism to those with which we 
 are now familiar, is as attractive as it is instructive.' — The Literary 
 World. 
 
©pinions of tU Press 
 
 ON 
 
 COLONEL MALLESON'S *DUPLEIX.' 
 
 ' In the character of Dupleix there was the element of greatness 
 that contact with India seems to have generated in so many European 
 minds, French as well as English, and a broad capacity for govern- 
 ment, which, if suffered to have full play, might have ended in giving 
 the whole of Southern India to France. Even as it was. Colonel 
 Malleson shows how narrowly the prize slipped from French grasp. 
 In 1783 the Treaty of Versailles arrived just in time to save the 
 British power from extinction.' — Times. 
 
 ' One of the best of Sir W. Hunter's interesting and valuable series. 
 Colonel Malleson writes out of the fulness of familiarity, moving with 
 ease over a field which he had long ago surveyed in every nook and 
 corner. To do a small book as well as this on Dupleix has been done, 
 will be recognised by competent judges as no small achievement. 
 When one considers the bulk of the material out of which the little 
 volume has been distilled, one can still better appreciate the labour 
 and dexterity involved in the performance.' — Academy. 
 
 * A most compact and effective history of the French in India in^a 
 little handbook of 180 pages.' — Nonconformist. 
 
 'Well arranged, lucid and eminently readable, an excellent addition 
 to a most useful series.' — Record. 
 
 COLONEL MALLESON'S 'AKBAR.' 
 
 * Colonel Malleson's interesting monograph on Akbar in the "Rulers 
 of India" (Clarendon Press) should more than satisfy the general 
 reader. Colonel Malleson traces the origin and foundation of the 
 Mughal Empire ; and, as an introduction to the history of Muhamma- 
 dan India, the book leaves nothing to be desired.' — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 * This volume will, no doubt, be welcomed, even by experts in 
 Indian history, in the light of a new, clear, and terse rendering of an 
 old, but not worn-out theme. It is a worthy and valuable addition 
 to Sii- W. Hunter's promising series.' — Athenceum. 
 
 * Colonel Malleson has broken ground new to the general reader. 
 The story of Akbar is briefly but clearly told, with an account of what 
 he was and what he did, and how he found and how he left India. . . . 
 The native chronicles of the reign are many, and from them it is still 
 possible, as Colonel Malleson has shown, to construct a living portrait 
 of this great and mighty potentate.' — Scots Observer. 
 
 * The brilliant historian of the Indian Mutiny has been assigned in 
 this volume of the series an important epoch and a strong personality 
 for critical study, and he has admirably fulfilled his task. . . . Alike in 
 dress and style, this volume is a fit companion for its predecessor.' — 
 Manchester Guardian, 
 
fiDpinions of thz Press 
 
 ON 
 
 CAPTAIU TROTTER'S 'WARREU HASTII&S. 
 
 * The publication, recently noticed in this place, of the " Letters, 
 Despatches, and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Depart- 
 ment of the Government of India, 1772-1785," has thrown entirely new 
 light from the most authentic sources on the whole history of Warren 
 Hastings and his government of India. Captain L. J. Trotter's 
 Warren Hastings, a volume of the " Rulers of India " series, edited 
 by Sir W. Hunter (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), is accordingly 
 neither inopportune nor devoid of an adequate raisou d'etre. " The 
 present volume," says a brief preface, " endeavours to exhibit for the 
 first time the actual work of that great Governor-General, as reviewed 
 from the firm stand-point of the original records now made available to 
 the students of Indian history." Captain Trotter is well_ known as a 
 competent and attractive writer on Indian history, and this is not the 
 first time that Warren Hastings has supplied him with a theme.'— 
 The Times. 
 
 * He has put his best work into this memoir . . . Captain Trotter's 
 memoir is more valuable [than Sir A. Lyall's] from a strictly historical 
 point of view. It contains more of the history of the period, and it 
 embraces the very latest information that casts light on Hastings' re- 
 markable career . . . His work too is of distinct literary merit, and is 
 worthy of a theme than which British history presents none nobler. 
 It is a distinct gain to the British race to be enabled, as it now may, 
 to count the great Governor-General among those heroes for whom 
 it need not blush.' — Scotsman. 
 
 * Captain Trotter has done his work well, and his volume deserves 
 to stand with that on Dalhousie by Sir William Hunter. Higher 
 praise it would be hard to give it.' — New York Herald. 
 
 * This is an able book, written with candour and discrimination.' — 
 Leeds Mercury. 
 
 * Captain Trotter has done full justice to the fascinating story of the 
 splendid achievements of a great Englishman.' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 * This neat little volume contains a brief but admirable biography of 
 the first Governor-General of India. The author has been fortunate in 
 having had access to State papers which cover the period of the 
 entire rule of Warren Hastings.' — The Newcastle Chronicle. 
 
 *In preparing this sketch for "The Eulers of India," Captain 
 Trotter has had the advantage of consulting the " Letters, Despatches, 
 and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Department of the 
 Government of India, 1772-85," a period which covers the entire 
 administration of Warren Hastings. The present volume, therefore, 
 may truly claim that it '* exhibits for the first time the actual work of 
 the great Governor-General, as reviewed from the firm stand-point of 
 original records." It is a book which all must peruse who desire to 
 be " up to date " on the subject.' — The Globe. 
 
©pinions cf tbe Press 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. KEENE'S 'MAMATA MO SINDHIA.' 
 
 ' The life of such a man sliould be interesting to all those who have en- 
 tered, however remotely, into the inheritance of his labours: and Mr. Keene 
 is well qualified, both by his knowledge of Indian history and his literary 
 dexterity in its treatment, to do justice to his subject.' — The Times. 
 
 ' INIr. Keene has the enormous advantage, not enjoyed by every 
 producer of a book, of knowing intimately the topic he has taken up. 
 He has compressed into these 203 pages an immense amount of informa- 
 tion, drawn from the best sources, and presented with much neatness and 
 effect . . . Such a life was worth tracing in connection with the general 
 history of the times ; and that is the task which Mr. Keene has so well 
 fultilled in this concise, yet attractive, little volume.' — The Globe. 
 
 ' In this brief monogi-aph Mr. Keene goes over the ground already tra- 
 versed b}"^ him in his " Fall of the Moghul Empire." But the particular 
 work which gives Sindhia his place in Indian history. . . is here made 
 more clearly manifest,while the book deals almost as much in general his- 
 tory as in biography . . It is valuable as bringing out the originality as well 
 as the greatness of the unacknowledged ruler of Hindustan . . . The book 
 is interesting . .. and forms a valuable addition to the series.' — Scotsman. 
 
 ' Mr. Keene tells the story with knowledge and impartiality, and also 
 with sufficient graphic power to make it thoroughly readable. The 
 recognition of Sindhia in the "Rulers" series is just and graceful, 
 and it cannot fail to give satisfaction to the educated classes of our 
 Indian fellow-subjects.' — North British Daily Mail. 
 
 ' This is probably the most romantic volume in the whole series, and 
 the Sindhia's difference in attitude towards De Boigne and Warren 
 Hastings is very interestingly stated. The history of the foundation of 
 our Indian Empire receives much elucidation from this admirable 
 volume.' — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 ' Mr. H.G. Keene, C.I.E., M. A., has added a very acceptable volume to 
 the popular half-crown series of works on former potentates in England's 
 vast Indian dependency . . . From the signal defeat of the Marathas at 
 Panipat, in 1 761, in which engagement Sindhia, after fighting valiantly, 
 very nearly lost his life, until his death in 1 794, his varying fortunes are 
 traced. The important affairs in which he figured so prominently, as also 
 the intrigues and machinations that were directed against him, are re- 
 corded, whilst the desirable effect of his policy in assuaging the fierce 
 passions and civilising the habits of the people is depicted. The volume 
 bears incontestable proofs of the expenditure of considerable research 
 by the author, and sustains the reputation he had already acquired 
 by his " Sketch of the History of Hindustan.'" — Freeman s Journal. 
 
 ' Among the eighteen rulers of India included in the scheme of Sir 
 William Hunter only five are natives of India, and of these the great 
 Madhoji Sindhia is, with the exception of Akbar, the most illustrious. 
 Mr. H. G. Keene, a well-known and skilful writer on Indian questions, 
 is fortunate in his subject, for the career of the greatest bearer of the 
 historic name of Sindhia covered the exciting period from the capture 
 of Delhi, the Imperial capital, by the Persian Nadir Shah, to the occu- 
 pation of the same city by Lord Lake. . . . Mr. Keene gives a lucid 
 description of his subsequent policy, especially towards the English 
 when he was brought face to face with Warren Hastings. The conclu- 
 sion of his hostility to us was the real beginning of his own political 
 career in India.'— The Daily O, aphk. 
 
SDpinions of tfte llf)ress 
 
 ON 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL SIR OWEN BURNE'S 
 * CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN.' 
 
 * In " Clyde and Strathnairn," a contribution to Sir William Hunter's 
 excellent "Rulers of India" series (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), 
 Sir Owen Burne gives a lucid sketch of the military history of the 
 Indian Mutiny and its suppression by the two great soldiers who give 
 their names to his book. The space is limited for so large a theme, but 
 Sir Owen Burne skilfully adjusts his treatment to his limits, and rarely 
 violates the conditions of proportion imposed upon him.' . . . ' Sir Owen 
 Burne does not confine himself exclusively to the military narrative. 
 He gives a brief sketch of the rise and progress of the Mutiny, and 
 devotes a chapter to the Reconstruction which followed its suppression.' 
 . . . '—well written, well proportioned, and eminently worthy of the 
 series to which it belongs.' — The Times. 
 
 ' Sir Owen Burne who, by association, experience, and relations with 
 one of these generals, is well qualified for the task, writes with know- 
 ledge, perspicuity, and fairness.' — Saturday/ Review. 
 
 * As a brief record of a momentous epoch in India this little book is 
 a remarkable piece of clear, concise, and interesting writing.'— TAe 
 Colonies and India. 
 
 'Sir Owen Burne has written this book carefully, brightly, and 
 with excellent judgment, and we in India cannot read such a book 
 without feeling that he has powerfully aided the accomplished editor 
 of the series in a truly patriotic enterprise.' — Bombay Gazette. 
 
 *The volume on "Clyde and Strathnairn" has just appeared and 
 proves to be a really valuable addition to the series. Considering its 
 size and the extent of ground it covers it is one of the best books about 
 the Indian Mutiny of which we know.' — Englishman. 
 
 * Sir Owen Burne, who has written the latest volume for Sir William 
 Hunter's " Rulers of India " series, is better qualified than any livir.g 
 person to narrate, from a military standpoint, the story of the suppres- 
 sion of the Indian Mutiny.' — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 'Sir Owen Burne's book on "Clyde and Strathnairn" is worthy to 
 rank with the best in the admirable series to which it belongs.' — 
 Manchester Examiner. 
 
 •The book is admirably written; and there is probably no better 
 sketch, equally brief, of the stirring events with which it deals.' 
 Scotsman. 
 
 * Sir Owen Burne, from the part he played in the Indian Mutiny, and 
 from his long connexion with the Government of India, and from the 
 fact that he was military secretary of Lord Strathnairn both in India 
 and in Ireland, is well qualified for the task which he has undertaken.' — 
 The Athenaeum. 
 
©pinions of thz Ipress 
 
 YISCOUUT HARIIII&E'S 'LORD HAEDIN&E.' 
 
 * An exception to the rule that biographies ought not to be entrusted 
 to near relatives. Lord Hardinge, a scholar and an artist, has given 
 us an accurate record of his father's long and distinguished services. 
 There is no filial exaggeration. The author has dealt with some con- 
 troversial matters with skill, and has managed to combine truth with 
 tact and regard for the feelings of others.' — The Saturday Review. 
 
 'This interesting life reveals the first Lord Hardinge as a brave, 
 just, able man, the very soul of honour, admired and trusted equally 
 by friends and political opponents. The biographer . . . has produced a 
 most engaging volume, which is enriched by many private and official 
 documents that have not before seen the light.' — The Anti-Jacohin. 
 
 * Lord Hardinge has accomplished a grateful, no doubt, but, from 
 the abundance of material and delicacy of certain matters, a very 
 difficult task in a workmanlike manner, marked by restraint and 
 lucidity.'— TAe Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 * His son and biographer has done his work with a true appreciation 
 of proportion, and has added substantially to our knowledge of the 
 Sutlej Campaign.' — Vanity Fair. 
 
 * The present Lord Hardinge is in some respects exceptionally well 
 qualified to tell the tale of the eventful four years of his father's 
 Governor-Generalship.' — The Time^. 
 
 * It contains a full account of everything of importance in Lord 
 Hardinge's military and political career ; it is arranged ... so as to 
 bring into special prominence his government of India ; and it gives a 
 lifelike and striking picture of the man.' — Academy. 
 
 * The style is clear, the treatment dispassionate, and the total result 
 a manual which does credit to the interesting series in which it figures.' 
 —The Globe. 
 
 * The concise and vivid account which the son has given of his 
 father's career will interest many readers.' — The Morning Post. 
 
 * Eminently readable for everybody. The history is given succinctly, 
 and the unpublished letters quoted are of real value.' — The Colonies 
 and India. 
 
 * Compiled from public documents, family papers, and letters, this 
 brief biography gives the reader a clear idea of what Hardinge was, 
 both as a soldier and as an administrator.' — The Manchester Examiner. 
 
 * An admirable sketch.' — The Netv York Herald. 
 
 * The Memoir is wel and concisely written, and is accompanied by 
 an excellent likeness after the poi-trait by Sir Francis Grant.' — The 
 Queen, 
 
©pinions of tU IPress 
 
 ON 
 
 SIR HENRY CUNNINGHAM'S *EARL 
 CANNING.' 
 
 * The life of Earl Canning, the Viceroy of the Indian Mutiny, affords 
 an excellent subject for a biographer who knows his business, and 
 therefore we need hardly say that " Earl Canning," by Sir H. S. 
 Cunningham, K.C.I.E., is an admirable contribution to the series of 
 the "Eulers of India" edited by Sir W. W. Hunter (Oxford, at the 
 Clarendon Press). Sir Henry Cunningham's rare literary skill and his 
 knowledge of Indian life and affairs are not now displayed for the first 
 time, and he has enjoyed exceptional advantages in dealing with his 
 present subject. Lord Granville, Canning's contemporary at school 
 and colleague in public life and one of his oldest friends, furnished his 
 biographer with notes of his recollections of the early life of his friend. 
 Sir Henry Cunningham has also been allowed access to the Diary of 
 Canning's private secretary, to the Journal of his military secretary, 
 and to an interesting correspondence between the Governor-General 
 and his great lieutenant. Lord Lawrence. Of these exceptional ad- 
 vantages he has made excellent use, and the result is a biogTaphy 
 second in interest to none in the series to which it belongs.' — 2'he Times. 
 
 * Sir Henry Cunningham's " Earl Canning " is a model monograph. 
 The writer knows India, as well as Indian history, well ; and his story 
 has a vividness which none but an Anglo-Indian could so well have 
 imparted to it. It has also the advantage of being founded to a large 
 extent on hitherto unused material.' — The Globe. 
 
 'Sir H. S. Cunningham has succeeded in writing the history of a 
 critical period in so fair and dispassionate a manner as to make it 
 almost a matter of astonishment that the motives which he has so 
 clearly grasped should ever have been misinterpreted, and the results 
 which he indicates so grossly misjudged. Nor is the excellence of his 
 work less conspicuous from the literary than from the political and 
 historical point of view. The style is clear and vivid, the language 
 well chosen and vigorous, the disposition of details and accessories 
 striking and artistic, and, indeed, under whatever aspect the work be 
 considered, it reaches the high standard of workmanship which, from 
 the outset, has been a distinguishing feature of the series.' — Glasgow 
 Serald. 
 
 * Sir H. S. Cunningham was fortunate, in a literary sense, in the 
 particular Viceroy and period of Indian history allotted to his pen in 
 the important and valuable series of biographical volumes on "Rulers 
 of India," being published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, under the 
 editorship of Sir William Wilson Hunter. In Earl Canning, first 
 Viceroy of India, Sir H. S. Cunningham had a subject sufiiciently 
 inspiring to all who admire honour, courage, patience, wisdom, all the 
 virtues and qualities which go to the building up of the character of an 
 ideal English gentleman ; while the episode of the Mutiny, culminating 
 in the fall of Lucknow, lends itself to the more picturesque and 
 graphic description. Sir H. S. Cunningham has treated his subject ade- 
 quately. In vivid language he paints his word-pictures, and with calm 
 judicial analysis he also proves himself an able critic of the actualities, 
 causes, and results of the outbreak, also a temperate, just appreciator 
 of the character and policy of Earl Canning.' — The Court Journal, 
 
©pinions of tU Ipress 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. DEMETRIUS BOULGER S 'LORD 
 WILLIAM BENTINCK; 
 
 'The " Rulers of India" series has received a valuable addition in 
 the biography of the late Lord William Bentinck. The subject of this 
 interesting memoir was a soldier as well as a statesman. He was 
 mainly instrumental in bringing about the adoption of the overland 
 route and in convincing the people of India that a main factor in Eng- 
 lish policy was a disinterested desire for their welfare. Lord William's 
 despatches and minutes, several of which are textually reproduced in 
 Mr. Boulger's praisewortliy little book, display considerable literary 
 skill and are one and all State papers of signal worth.' — Daily Tele- 
 graph. 
 
 * Mr. Boulger is no novice in dealing with Oriental history and 
 Oriental affairs, and in the career of Lord William Bentinck he has 
 found a theme very much to his taste, which he treats with adequate 
 knowledge and literary skill.' — The Times. 
 
 * His frontier policy was conciliatory, but full of foresight. His minute 
 on the subject of Afghanistan and the advance of Russia in Asia may 
 be read with advantage to-day, nearly sixty years after it was written. 
 Similarly, his observations on the armies of India have lost by no means 
 all of their force, and Mr. Boulger has done a public service in printing 
 the document.' — Daily Neivs. 
 
 ' How all this was effected has been clearly and forcibly set forth by 
 Mr. Boulger. Though concisely written, his memoir omits nothing 
 really essential to a thorough understanding and just appreciation of 
 Bentinck 's work, and of the results w^hich flowed from it, even after he 
 had ceased to be at the head of Indian affairs. Mr. Boulger's estimate 
 of the statesman is eminently fair and dispassionate, based on a 
 thorough knowledge of his administration in all its details. Altogether 
 the little work is a valuable addition to a most useful series.' — Glasgow 
 Herald. 
 
 ' Mr. Boulger writes clearly and well, and his volume finds an ac- 
 cepted place in the very useful and informing series which Sir W^illiam 
 Wilson Hunter is editing so ably.' — Independent. 
 
 ' Lord William Bentinck occupies a distinct place among Indian 
 Governors- General. His rule may be regarded as the commencement of 
 an epoch. Mr. Boulger has not to tell a stirring story of war and conquest, 
 but the record of Lord William Bentinck's domestic reforms, by which he 
 began the regeneration of India, is as deeply interesting and certainly 
 as well worth studying as any chapter of preceding Indian history. 
 Mr. Boulger has produced an excellent brief history of the period, and 
 a capital life of the Governor-General. The volume is one of the series 
 of " Rulers of India," and none of them is better worthy of perusal.' — 
 The Scotsman. 
 
 * Mr. Boulger, it should be added, has done his work with care and 
 judgment.' — Globe, 
 
©pinions of tU lpre00 
 
 ON 
 
 SIR LEPEL GRIFFIN'S ' RAN JIT SINGH.' 
 
 * Sir Lepel Grifl&n treats his topic with thorough mastery, and his 
 account of the famous Mahclrjljd and his times is, consequently, one of 
 the most valuable as well as interesting volumes of the series of which 
 it forms a part.' — The Globe. 
 
 ' We can thoroughly praise Sir Lepel Griffin's work as an accurate 
 and appreciative account of the beginnings and growth of the Sikh 
 religion and of the temporal power founded upon it by a strong and 
 remorseless chieftain.' — The Times. 
 
 ' One of the best books recently published on any Indian question,' — 
 TJie Manchester Guardian. 
 
 ' The reading public has here the essence of all that is worth know- 
 ing about the period.' — The Glasgow Evening Nens. 
 
 ' From first to last it is a model of what such a work should be, and 
 a classic. The book is one of the most interesting historical sketches 
 ever given to the public, and illusti-ated throughout by a unique 
 acquaintance with the subject, and exquisite point.' — The St. Stephen'' s 
 Bevieio. 
 
 * Sir Lepel has done justice to one of the most interesting and pic- 
 turesque episodes of Indian history. In every respect, but perhaps 
 most of all from the point of view of the general reader who does not 
 wholly subordinate enjoyment to instruction, the volume is a most 
 acceptable addition to the series.' — The Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' Tiie monograph could not have been entrusted to more capable 
 hands than those of Sir Lepel Griffin, who spent his official life in the 
 Punjaub, and is an expert in all the knowledge appertaining to a 
 thorough acquaintance, practical and bookish, with that province. This 
 is an excellent sketch of Ranjit Singh, his people, and his short-lived 
 kingdom.' — The Scotsman. 
 
 * At once the shortest and best history of the rise and fall of the 
 Sikh monarchy.' — The North British Daily Mail. 
 
 ' An excellent piece of work — candid, discriminating, and well- 
 balanced.' — The YorJi- shire Post. 
 
 ' Not only a biography of the Napoleon of the East, but a luminous 
 picture of his country ; the chapter on Sikh Theocracy being a notable 
 example of compact thought. For grasp of subject, careful treatment, 
 and charm of narration, this volume is second to none in the series. It 
 may fairly be said to " speak volumes," and possesses an exceptional 
 value as being by our chief authority on Punjab matters.' — The Liver- 
 pool Mercury. 
 
 ' The career of no Indian ruler since the Moghul Aurungzebe and 
 the Mahratta Sivaji presents a finer subject for the historian; and it 
 would be difficult to find a writer better qualified than Sir Lepel Griffin 
 to deal with such a subject.' — The St. James's Gazette. 
 
 ' A truly masterly account of Eanjit Singh and the short-lived Sikh 
 monarchy of Lahore.' — I'he World. 
 
 ' The sketch is in every respect a masterly one, and proves its author 
 to be capable of producing something on a larger scale that would be 
 unsurpassed among histories of our great dependency.' — The Literary 
 World. 
 
 Q 
 
©pinions of tfte lpre00 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. J. S. COTTON S * MOUNTSTUART 
 ELPHINSTONE.' 
 
 'Sir William Hunter, the editor of the series to which this book 
 belongs, was happily inspired when he entrusted the Life of Elphin- 
 stone, one of the most scholarly of Indian rulers, to Mr. Cotton, who, 
 himself a scholar of merit and repute, is brought by the nature of his 
 daily avocations into close and constant relations with scholars. . . . We 
 live in an age in which none but specialists can afford to give more time 
 to the memoirs of even the most distinguished Anglo-Indians than will 
 be occupied by reading Mr. Cotton's two hundred pages. He has per- 
 formed his task with great skill and good sense. This is just the kind 
 of Life of himself which the wise, kindly, high-souled man, who is the 
 subject of it, would read with jdeasure in the Elysian Fields.' — Sir M. 
 E. Grant Duff, in The Academy. 
 
 ' To so inspiring a theme few writers are better qualified to do ample 
 justice than the author of "The Decennial Statement of the Moral and 
 Material Progress and Condition of India." Sir T. Colebrooke's larger 
 biography of Elphinstone appeals mainly to Indian specialists, but 
 Mr. Cotton's slighter sketch is admirably adapted to satisfy the growing 
 demand for a knowledge of Indian history and of the personalities of 
 Anglo-Indian statesmen w^hich Sir William Hunter has done so much 
 to ci-eate.' — The Times. 
 
 ' This is the story of a brilliant life, brilliantly told. Mr. Cotton has 
 a crisp style, a wide knowledge of Indian history, and a strong sympathy 
 for his hero.'— rAe Fall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' Mr. Cotton's " Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone" is one of the most 
 readable of the valuable volumes that have appeared in the sei'ies of 
 " Rulers of India." Mr. Cotton has avoided tediousness by the con- 
 densation of matter, and has secured the interest and close attention of 
 his reader by a bright and nimble style which carries him along with 
 quite exhilarating rapidity, yet without skipping the really salient 
 features of the period.' — The Scotsman. 
 
 * Mr. Cotton has evidently ])erformed a congenial task in writing 
 this excellent little biography, for he has produced a volume so pleasant 
 to read that it can scarcely be the result of labour against the grain. 
 He has given us an account of the public career of a man who, though 
 he declined the post of (xovernor-General, well deserves to rank among 
 the ablest " Rulers of India," and of those literary pursuits which occu- 
 pied Elphinstone's spare time during his period of office, and bore good 
 and abiding fruit both in his despatches and his historical work.' — The 
 Jou rnal of Edu c< liion. 
 
 'The author has evidently taken great pains to make the book what 
 a monograph of the kind ought to be; and those who are familiar with 
 Anglo-Indian history during the early jiart of the current century will 
 appreciate the praise we offer when we say that he has succeeded in 
 making it worthy of its subject.' — The World. 
 
 * A masterpiece of skilful and sym])athetic workmanship. . . . Such 
 a life could scarcely be told without exciting interest : told as it is 
 by Mr. Cotton, it combines all the qualities of that oft-abused word — 
 fascination.' — The Queen. 
 
©pinions of tfte lprc0Si 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. MORSE STEPHENS' 'ALBUQUEEQTJE.' 
 
 ' Mr. Stephens' able and instructive monograph . . . We may commend 
 Mr. Morse Stephens' volume, both as an adequate summary of an 
 important period in the liistory of the relations between Asia and 
 Europe, and as a suggestive treatment of the problem of why Portugal 
 failed and England succeeded in founding an Indian Empire.' — The 
 Times. 
 
 * Mr. H. Morse Stephens has made a very readable book out of the 
 foundation of the Portuguese power in India. According to the 
 practice of the series to which it belongs it is called a life of AfFonso de 
 Albuquerque, but the Governor is only the central and most important 
 figure in a brief history of the Portuguese in the East down to the time 
 when the Dutch and English intruded on their preserves ... A plea- 
 santly-written and trustworthy book on an interesting man and time.' 
 — The Sattcrday Reviezo. 
 
 ' Mr, Morse Stephens' Albuquerque is a solid piece of work, well put 
 together, and full of interest.' — The Athenceum. 
 
 ' Mr. Morse Stephens' studies in Indian and Portuguese history have 
 thoroughly well qualified him for approaching the subject . . . He has 
 presented the facts of Albuquerque's career, and sketched the events 
 marking the rule of his predecessor Almeida, and of his immediate 
 successors in the Governorship and Viceroyalty of India in a compact, 
 lucid, and deeply interesting form.' — The Scotsman. 
 
 SIS CHAELES AITCHISOB'S'LOED LAWEEICE.' 
 
 * No man knows the policy, principles, and character of John 
 Lawrence better than Sir Charles Aitchison. The salient features 
 and vital principles of his work as a ruler, first in the Punjab, and 
 afterwards as Viceroy, are set forth with remarkable clearness.' — 
 Scotsman. 
 
 * A most admirable sketch of the great work done by Sir John 
 Lawrence, who not only ruled India, but saved it.' — Manchester 
 Examiner. 
 
 'Sir Charles Aitchison's narrative is imiformly marked by directness, 
 order, clearness, and grasp ; it throws additional light into certain 
 nooks of Indian affairs ; and it leaves upon the mind a very vivid 
 and complete impression of Lord Lawrence's vigorous, resourceful, 
 discerning, and valiant personality.' — Neiocastle Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' Sir Charles knows the Punjab thoroughly, and has made this little 
 book all the more interesting by his account of the Punjab under John 
 Lawrence and his subordinates.' — YorlcsMre Post. 
 
 q 2 
 
©pinions of tbt Press 
 
 ON 
 
 MAJOR ROSS OP BLADENSBURG'S 
 'MARQUESS OF HASTINGS.' 
 
 ' Major Ross of Bladensbutg treats his subject skilfully and attrac- 
 tively, and his biography of Lord Hastings worthily sustains the high 
 reputation of the Series in which it appears.' — The Times. 
 
 * This monograph is entitled to rank with the best of the Series, the 
 compiler having dealt capably and even brilliantly with his materials.' 
 —En(jlii>h Mail. 
 
 ' Instinct with interest.' — Glasgow lExening News. 
 
 * As readable as it is instructive.' — Globe. 
 
 * A truly admirable monograph.' — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' Major Ross has done his work admirably, and bids fair to be one of 
 the best writers the Army of ovar day has given to the country. ... A 
 most acceptable and entrancing little volume.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 'It is a volume that merits the liighest praise. Major Ross of 
 Bladensburg has represented Lord Hastings and his work in India 
 in the right light, faithfully described the country as it was, and in 
 a masterly manner makes one realize how important was the period 
 covered by this volume/ — Manchester Courier. 
 
 ' This excellent monograph ought not to be overlooked by any one 
 who would fully learn the history of British rule in India.' — Manchester 
 Examiner. 
 
 MR. S. LANE-POOLE'S ^AURANGZIB.' 
 
 ' There is no period in Eastern history so full of sensation as the 
 reign of Aurangzib. . . . Mr. Lane-Poole tells this story admirably ; 
 indeed, it were difScult to imagine it better told.' — National Observer. 
 
 ' Mr. Lane-Poole writes learnedly, lucidly, and vigorously. . . . He 
 draws an extremely vivid picture of Aurangzib, his strange ascetic 
 cliaracter, his intrepid courage, his remorseless overthrow of his 
 kinsmen, his brilliant court, and his disastrous policy ; and he describes 
 the gradual decline of the Mogul power from Akbar to Aurangzib 
 with genuine historical insight.' — Times. 
 
 ' A well-knit and capable sketch of one of the most remarkable, 
 perhaps the most interesting, of the Mogul Emperors.' — Saturday lieriew. 
 
 * As a study of the man himself, Mr. Lane-Poole's work is marked 
 by a vigour and originality of thought which give it a very exceptional 
 value among works on the subject.' — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 'The most popular and most picturesque account that has yet 
 appeared ... a picture of much clearness and force.' — Globe. 
 
 'A notable sketch, at once scholarly and interesting.' — English Mail. 
 
 'No one is better qualified than Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole to take up 
 the history and to depict the character of the last of the great Mogul 
 monarchs. . . . Aurangzib 's career is ever a fascinating study.' — 
 Home Neios. 
 
 ' The author gives a description of the famous city of Shah Jah;in, 
 its palaces, and the ceremonies and pageants of which they were the 
 scene. . . . Mr. Lane-Poole's well- written monograph presents all the most 
 distinctive features of Aurangzlb's character and career.' — Morning Post. 
 
©pinions of tfte press 
 
 ON 
 
 CAPT. TROTTER'S ' EARL OF AUCKLAND.' 
 
 *A vivid account of the causes, conduct, and consequences of "the 
 costly, fruitless, and unrighteous" Afghan War of 1838.' — St. James's 
 Gazette. 
 
 *To write such a monograph was a thankless task, but it has been 
 accomplished with entire success by Captain L. J. Trotter. He has 
 dealt calmly and clearly with Lord Auckland's policy, domestic and 
 military, with its financial results, and with the general tendency of 
 Lord Auckland's rule.' — Yorksliu'e Pod. 
 
 'To this distressing story (of the First Afghan War) Captain Trotter 
 devotes the major portion of his pages. He tells it well and forcibly ; 
 but is drawn, perhaps unavoidably, into the discussion of many topics 
 of controvei-sy which, to some readers, may seem to be hardly as yet 
 finally decided. ... It is only fair to add that two chapters are devoted 
 to " Lord Auckland's Domestic Policy," and to his relations with 
 <'The Native States of India".'— ^Ae Times. 
 
 ' Captain Trotter's Earl of AucJcland is a most interesting book, and 
 its excellence as a condensed, yet luminous, history of the first Afghan 
 War deserves warm recognition.' — Scotsman. 
 
 ' It points a moral which our Indian Eulers cannot afford to forget 
 so long as they still have Russia and Afghanistan to count with.' — 
 Glasgoio Herald. 
 
 Supplementary Volume : p)rice 3s. 6d. 
 
 'JAMES THOMASON,' BY SIR RICHARD 
 TEMPLE. 
 
 ' Sir K. Temple's book possesses a high value as a dutiful and 
 interesting memorial of a man of lofty ideals, whose exploits were 
 none the less memorable because achieved exclusively in the field 
 of peaceful administration.' — Times. 
 
 ' It is the peculiar distinction of this work that it interests a reader 
 less in the official than in the man himself.' — Scotsman. 
 
 * This is a most interesting book : to those who know India, and 
 knew the man, it is of unparalleled interest, but no one who has 
 the Imperial instinct which has taught the Euglijih to rule subject 
 races "for their own welfare" can fail to be struck by the simple 
 greatness of this character.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' Mr. Thomason was a great Indian statesman. He systematised 
 the revenue system of the North- West Provinces, and improved every 
 branch of the administration. He was remarkable, like many great 
 Indians, for the earnestness of his religious faith, and Sir Richard 
 Temple brings this out in an admirable manner.' — British Weekly. 
 
 ' The book is " a portrait drawn by the hand of affection," of one 
 whose life was " a pattern of how a Christian man ought to live." 
 Special prominence is given to the religious aspects of Mr. Thomason's 
 character, and the result is a very readable biographical sketch.' — 
 Christian. 
 
Vnifiivin. with the ' liiihrs of Iiiilia ' Series, 3.s-. 6r?. 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORY OP THE INDIAN 
 PEOPLES. 
 
 Standaed Edition (Twentieth), revised to 1892. 
 Seventy-eighth Thousand. 
 
 This Edition incorporates tlie suggestions received by the author 
 from Directors of Public Instruction and otlier educational authorities 
 in India; its statistics are brought down to the Census of 1891 ; and 
 its narrative, to 1892. The work has received the emphatic approval 
 of the organ of the English School Boards, and has been translated 
 into five languages. It is largely employed for educational purposes in 
 Europe and America and as a text-book prescribed by the University 
 of Calcutta for its Entrance Examination from 1886 to 1 891. 
 
 ' "A Brief History of the Indian Peoples," by W. W. Hunter, pre- 
 sents a sort of bird's-eye view both of India and of its j)eople from the 
 earliest dawn of historical records .... A work of authority and of 
 original value.' — The Daily Neus (London). 
 
 ' Dr. Hunter may be said to have presented a compact epitome of the 
 results of his researches into the early history of India ; a subject upon 
 which his knowledge is at once exceptionally wide and exceedingly 
 thorough.' — The Scotsman. 
 
 ' Within the compass of some 250 pages we know of no history of the 
 people of India so concise, so interesting, and so useful for educational 
 purposes as this.' — The School Board Chronicle (London). 
 
 * Eor its size and subject there is not a better written or more trust- 
 worthy history in existence.' — The Journal of TJducation. 
 
 * So thoroughly revised as to entitle it to separate notice.' — The Times. 
 
 * Dr. Hunter's history, if brief, is comprehensive. It is a storehouse 
 of facts marshalled in a masterly style ; and presented, as history 
 should be, without the slightest suspicion of prejudice or suggestion of 
 partisanship. Dr. Hunter observes a style of severe simplicity, which 
 is the secret of an impressive presentation of details.' — The Daily 
 lie view (Edinburgh). 
 
 ' By far the best manual of Indian History that has hitherto been 
 published, and quite equal to any of the Historical Series for Schools 
 edited by Dr. Freeman. We trust that it will soon be read in all the 
 schools in this Presidency.' — The Times of India. 
 
 Extract from a criticism by Edward Giles, Esq., Inspector of Schools, 
 Northern Division, Bombay Presidency: — 'What we require is a 
 book which shall be accurate as to facts, but not overloaded with 
 them ; wi-itten in a style which shall interest, attract, and guide un- 
 cultivated readers ; and short, because it must be sold at a reasonable 
 price. These conditions have never, in my opinion, been realized 
 previous to the introduction of this book.' 
 
 * The publication of the Hon. W. W. Hunter's *' School History of 
 India " is an event in literary history.' — lieis & Bayyet (Calcutta). 
 
 * He has succeeded in writing a history of India, not only in such a 
 way that it will be read, but also in a way which we hope will lead 
 young Englishmen and young natives of India to think more kindly 
 of each otlier. The Calcutta University has done wisely in prescribing 
 this brief history as a text-book for the Entrance Examination.' — The 
 Hindoo Patriot (Calcutta). 
 
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