THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.archive.org/details/abridgementofhisOOmarsricli ABEIDGMEET HISTOEY OP INDIA t ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME BY JOHN CLAEK MAKSHMAN C. S. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCM V -71 MIL INTEODUCTION I HAVE BEEN ADTiSED that an Abridgment of the History of India which has been in use by the students of the University of Calcutta for eight years would be welcome to them, and I have endeavoured to compress the substance of the three volumes into one, which, although scanty in detail, will suffice to give them a view of the salient events of the dififerent periods. The space allotted to the Mahomedan period has been abbreviated to make room for a fuller narrative of the progress of British power, in which the Queen's Indian subjects are more particularly interested. This will not be considered a matter of regret, as Elphin- stone's classical and standard History of India, which treats exclusively of the Musulman dynasties, is in- cluded in the student's curriculum of study. The present abridgment has been brought down to the close of the administration of the East India Company, and the annexation of the empire of India to the crown of Grreat Britain, which forms one of the most important epochs in Indian history. A brief notice of events from that date to the death of Lord Mayo has been added. Since the publication of the original work a new system of spelling Indian names, designated the trans- literal, has been introduced in India, which in some ivi311847 VI INTRODUCTION cases dififers so materially from that which has hitherto been in vogue, that it is not easy to identify the places or persons. I have adhered to the old form of ortho- graphy, as the student may have occasion to refer to the records and despatches of Government, to Parlia- mentary papers, to previous histories, and to current English journals, in which it has been, and continues to be, used. There are some cases in wliich names have been variously spelled by different writers, but the diversities are neither important nor embarrassing. On the principle of preferring general usage to philo- logical nicety, I have in every such instance collated diverse authors, and, to the best of my ability, made choice of that mode which appeared to have the pre- ponderance. For the convenience of the native student, the two forms of spelling are placed in juxtaposition in the following table. John Clark Marshman. London: October, 1873. NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. Mr Marshman did not long survive the publication of this Abridgment of his ' History of India.' He died in London, July 1877, and India lost in him a zealous worker, and a conscien- tious and faithful historian. During a long life liis efforts were unceasingly directed to promote her interests, and the welfare of her people ; and he held it his proudest title to be called "the Friend of India." In the present edition the summary of im- portant events, from the death of Lord Mayo in 1872 to the close of the year 1891, has been briefly chronicled by a member of the author's family. London, April 1893. TABLE OF OETHOGEAPHY CUSTOMARY TEANSLITERAL CTISTOMABT TRAN8LITERA1. Abdalee . Abd41i Bednore . Bednor Abdoolla . Abdullah Beejanuger . Bijanagar Aboo . . Abii Beejapore . Bijapur Abul Fazil . AbulFazl Beema . . Bhima Acharjyu . Ach&rya Begum . . Begam Afzool Khan . AfzalKh4n Behar . . Bih^r Agra Ahmed . . Agrah . Ahmad Bellals . . BallAlas Bellary . . Ballary Ahmedabad . . AhmaddbM Beloch . . Biliich A.hmednugur . Alnnaduagar Belochistan . Biluchi8t4u Ajeet . . Ajit Beloli . . Buhlol Ajmere . . Ajinir Berar . . Bar4r Aliverdy . Alivardi Beyas . . Beya Alla-ood-deei 1 . Ala-ud-din Bharutu . Bharata AlHwal . . Aliwal Bhawulpore . Bh4w41pur Allygurh . Aligarh Bheem . . Bhima Akim . . Alam Bhonslay . Bhonsl6 Alum gear . Alamgir Bhoobaneshu r . Bhuvaneshwar Aluptugeen Ambajee . Alptigin Bhurtpore . Bhartpur . BiAnah . Ambaji Biana . Amboor . . Ambur Bithoor . . Bithour Ameer . . Amir Bokhara . Bukhara Amercote . Amarkot Boohddha . Buddha Amrut . . Amrita Booddhisra . Buddhism Anglia . . . Inglia Booddliist . Buddhist Anund . . Anand Boorhaiipore . BurhAnpur . BhiitwAl Anwar-ood-d een . Anwar-ud-din Bootwul Argaum. . Arg^on Brahmin . Br&hman Arracan . . Arak&n Brumhapoot 3r . Brahmaputra Aseergurh . Asirgahr Budgebudge . Baj-Baj Asof Khan . AsafKhAn Budukshan . BadakshAu Assye . . Assai jBukhtijar . BakhtiAr Auruiigabad . Aurang^b^d Bulbun . . Balban Aurungzebe . AuraiifTzeb Bullabhis . Vallabhis Aylah . . Ahaly4 Bundlecund . Ban delk hand Azim . Azam Burdwan . BardwAn Azimgurh . Azimgarh Burmah . Barraah Baber . . B^bar Buxar . . Baxar Baboo . . B4bii Bye . BAi Bagdad . . Baghdad Byram . . BairAm Bahadoor . Bahidur Cabul . . KAbul Bahminee . Bahmani Cachar . . KachAr Bajee Rao Balaghaufc . BAjiRao . B41agh4t Calicut . . Calicut Caliph . . Khalif Ballajee. . Bma Callinger , KAlinjar Baiidoo . . Baiida Calpee . Cam bay. . Kalpi Bapoo . . BApii . Kambay Barcelore . Earcelor Cambuksh . KAmbaksh Bareilly. . Bareli Cam ran . . KAmrAn Beder . . . Bidar Candahar . KandahAr VIU TABLE OF OKTHOGKAPHY re CUSTOMAR-i Candesh Carrical . Cashmere Cauvery Cawnpore Chanderee Chandernagor Cheetoo . Chenab . Cheyt Sing Chillumbrum Chitftore Choule . Choute . Chumbul Chumpanere Chunar . Chunda . Chundergiree Chundragoaptu Chuttanuttee Chutter . Coirabatoor Colapore Coles . Coorg . Corah . Cossim . Cossim bazar . Cuddalore Cuddapa CunouKe Curumnassa . Cutch . Cuttack . Daniel . ^aood Khan , Peccan . Deeg Deogaum Deogurh Devicotta Dewan . Dewanee Dholpore Dhriturastu , Dhuleep Sing Dhyan . Delawur Dilere . Pindigul Doondhoo Punt Dooranees Doorjun Sal Dooryudhun Dovvlut . Drupudee Dumdum Dushuruthu . Eldoze . EUichpore Emamtrurh PiUsufzies Feroksherc Peroze . Ferozepore Firman . Furnavese Futteh Khan Futtehpore TEANSLITEEAL Kh^ndesh Kdrikal Kashmir Kaveri Cawnpur Chanaerl Chandernagar Chitu Chin^b Cliait Singh Chilambram Chitor Choul Chauth Chambal Champ4nir Chan&r Chandi Chan drag! ri Chandragupta Chattanatty Chattar Coimbator Kohlapur Kols Kiirg Korah K&sim Kasimbaz&r Cuddalor Kadapa Kanauj Karmanasa Kach Cattack Diny^l Daud Kh4n Dakkin Dig Deogaon Deogiri Devikotta Diw4n Diw4ni Dholpur Dhritar^stra Dhiihp Singh Dian Deliwar Dilir Dindigal Dhandu Pant Du ranis Durjan Sil Duryodhaiia Daulat Draupudi Damdam Dasaratha Ildnz Ilichpur Imangurh Yiisufzais Farrukh Siyar Finiz Finizpur Farman Farnavis Fathkh&n Fathpur CUSTOMARY TRANSLITERA Fyzabad . Faiz&bAd Purrnckabad . Farakh&hM Gawilgurh . . Gawilgarh Geriah . . Gheriah Ghauts . . GhAts Gliazee . . Gh^i Ghazeepore . . Gh&zipur Ghiliie . Gholam . . Khilii . Ghukm Ghore . . Ghor Ghuzni . . Ghazni Gingee . . Gingi Godavery . . Goddvari Gohud '. '. . Ghoghra . Gohad Gohur . . GauhAr Golab . . . Gulab Golconda . Golkandah Goomsoor . . Gumsur Gooptu . . Gupta Goorkha . Ghurk4 Gk)oroo . . Guru Goruckpore . . Gorakhpur Gour . . Gaur Gukkers . Gakkhars Gungadhur . . GangMhar Guntoor . Guntur Guzerat . Guzar^t Gwalior, . Gw41i4r Gya . Gaya Hafiz Ruhmut . Hafiz Rahmat Hajee . . Haii . Hahmid Hamed . Hejira . . Hyrah Hemu . . Himii Herat . . Hardt Hindee . . Hindi Hindoo . . HindTi Hindoo Coosh . Hindu Kush Hindostan . . Hindiistdn Hooghly . Hugli Hoosen AH . . HusianAli Hoshunga,had . Hilslian»i4b4d Humayoon . . Humayiin Hnooraan . Haimm&t Hussun Gunga . Hasan Gango Hustinapore . Hastiu&pura Hyderabad . . Haidai&bad Hyder Ali . HaidarAli Indore . . Indor Irrawaddy . . Irawidi Jain . . . Jaina Jaulna . . J4lna Jaut . . J&t Jehander . Jah&nd&r Jehangeer . . Jahingir Jehan Lodi . . Jaliftn Lodi Jellalabad . . JalilAbad Jellal-ood-decn . Jaiai-ud-din Jenghis Khan Changiz Khftn Jeswunt . Jeswant Jeypore . . Jaipur Jey Sing . Jai Singh Jhelum . . Jhelara Joudhpore . . Jodhpur Jounpore . Jaunpur Juggut Sett . . JagatSet Jullunder . . Jallandar Jummoo . Jammu Jumna . . Janinah TABLE OF ORTHOGKAPHY IX CU8TOMAEY Jonkojee Junuku. Katmandoo Kharism Khelat . Khizir . Khojah . Khoond . Khorasau Khosroo Khurruk Khyber . Khyrpore Kineyree Kirkee . Kistna . Koh-i-noor Kolapore Koombho Kooroos Koorookshetru Kootub . Korygaum Krishna Kshetrlyus Kuloosha Kulyan . Kureem, Kurnooi Kurrachee Kootub . Lahore . Lall . Leswaree Lohanee Loodiana Lucknow Lucknowtee . Lucksmunu M adhoo Mahmood Mahomed Mahomedan Mallojee Malown Mama Sahib Mandoo . Mangalore Mawulees Meeanmeer Meeanee Meer Meer JafiBer Meer Joomla Meerun . Meerut . Mehidpore Melown Merdai; Mewar . Mednapore Mobarik Mogul . Monghyr Moodkee Moolraj . Mooltan Moorshedabad Morad . Morteza TKANSLITEKAT, CUSTOMARY TRANSLITEEAL Jankoji Moslem . Muslim Janaka Mozuffer . Muzaffar Khatmandu iluazzim . Muazzara Khwarizm Muckwanpo] re . Makwanpur Kal4t Mugudu . Maghada Khizr Muhabharut -. Mah^bh^rata KhwAjah Khond Muhanudee . Mahanadi Mulhar . . Malh^r Khur&s&n Mundel . Mandal Khusrau Muneepore . Manipur Karak Munoo . . Manu Khaibar Musulman . Musalmiin Khairpur Muttra . . Mattra Kineri Mysore . . Maisur or Mysor Kharki Nabob . . . Naw^b Krishna Nagarcote . Nagarkot Koh-i-nur Nagpore . Nagpilr Kolhapur Khumbo Nahapan . Nahap^na Nalagurh . Nalagarh Kurus Nanuk . . Ninak Kurukshetra Narrain . . N4r6yana Kutb Nazir Jung . Nasir Jang Koreg&m Nepaul . . Nepal Krishna Nerbudda . Narbaddah Kshatriyas Nizam -ool-ni oolk Niz^m-ul-mulk Kulusha Noor Jehan . Niir Jahin Kalian Nuddea . Naddea Kharim Nundu . . Nanda Karmil Nunkoomar . Nandakumdr Karachi Nuzeeb-ood-( low- Nazib-ud-daulah Kutb lah . , Tia,hor Omar . .* Umar Lai Omichund . TJmachand Laswari Omrah . . Umara Loh^ni Ooch . . Uchh Lildhi^nah Oodypore . . ITdai pur Lakhnau Oody Sing . . UdaiSingb Laknauti Oojein . . . Ujjain Lacksmana Oude . . Oudh M^du Palghaut . Paikkat MahmM Pandoos . P^ndavas Muhammad Pandyas . Pandies Muhammadan Paniani , . PonAui Malloji Paniput . Panipat Maloun Patans . . Pathins Mama Saheb Peelajee . Pilaji M&ndii Persajee . Parsaji Mangalor Pertab Sin^r . Pratab Singh M^walis Peshawur . Peshawar Mianmir Pindarees . Pindaris Miani Plassy . . Plassey Mir Poona . . Piina MirjAfar Pooranus . Puranas Mir Jamla Pooree . . Puri Miran Poornea . Purniah Mirat Pooroosram , Piirasu Rama Mahidpur Poorundur . Piirandhar Melliin Punchala . Panchaia Mard^n Punderpore . Pandharpur Maiw^r Punjab . . Panjab Midnapur Punt . . Pant Mubarak Purwandurr a. . Parwandurra Mughul Prithee . . . Prithvi Monghir Miidki Qwettah . Kettah Raiseen . Raisin Mulraj Eaigurh . Raigarh Mult&n Rajpoot . . Rajpiit Murshidiibad Eajpootana . Rajpiitana Murad Ramayun . Ramayana Miirtaz& Eamnugger . Ramnagar TABLE OF OKTHOGRAPHY CUSTOMABY TKAIfSLIXKEAL CUSTOMAEY TEAi/SLITEEAX Ram raj . . RAmraj^ Soor . Si\r Ramu . . . RAma Sooruj Mull . SurAj Mall I . Sebaktigiti Ranu Sunga . RAn&Sanga Subuktugeei Rangoon . Rangiin Succaram . Sakaram Ravee . . . R4vi Suddaseo-rac -bhow SivadAs rAo bhao Ravunu . Rivana Suddoosain . Suddosam Rawul-pinde e . RAwal-pindi Sufder . . . Safdar Rezia . . Raziah Suraj-ood-dc wlah SirAj-ud-daulah Rhotas . . . RahtAs Surat . . Saurashtra Rinthimbore . Rantambhor Sutlej . . Satlaj Rohilcund . Rohilkhand Sutnaramees . SatuurAmis Roopur . . Ropar Suttee . . Sati Rughoojee . Raghuji Syhadree . Syhadri Rughoonath . RaghunAth Syuds . . Sayyids . Talikot Runieet Sin§ Sa'adut . ; . Rangit Singh . Sa'adat Tallikotta Talpooras . Talpiirs Sahoo . . S&hu Tamul . . TAmil Salabut Jung . Sal&batJung Tanjore . . Tanjor Salbye . . Salbai Tanna . . ThAna Sambajee . Sambaji Taptee . . TApti Satgang . SAtgawn Tara-bye . Tara-bAi Satpoora . SAtpurA Tartar . . TatAr Sanger . . S^ar Tellicherry . Tellicheri Savanoor . SAvanur •Teloogoo . Telugu Savendoorg . . Suvarnadriig Teraee . . TarAi Secunder . . Sikandar Thanesur . Thuneswar Seeta . . Sita Tinnevelly . . Tinnevelli Seetabuldee . . SitAbaldi Tippoo . . Tippfi Seeva . . . Siva Tirhoot . . Tirhiit Selim . . . Salim ToderMull . . TodarMall Seljuks . . Saljiiks Toghluk . Tughlak Sen . . . Sena Tokaiee . . Tukaji Seoraj . . SiorAj Tonk . . . Tank Setts . . Sets Toolsee-bye . . Tulsi-bAi Sevajee . . Sevaji Toombudra . . Tumbadra Shah Alum . . ShahAlam Travancore . . Travancor Shahee . Shahjee . . ShAhhi . ShAji . ShahJahdn Trichinopoly Trimbukjee ] . TrichinApalli )ang- Trimbakji Shah Jehaii lia . . Daiiiglia Shahpooree . Shahpuri Tumlook . Taniluk Shariar . . ShahryAr Ugni-Kools . Agnikulas Shastur . . Sastra Umritsir . Amritsar Shustree . Sahstri Urjoon . . Arjuna Sheah . . Shiah Vedio . . Vaidik Sheiks . , . Shaikhs Vellore . . Vellor Shere . . Sher Vencajee . VenkAji Shirjee . . Shirji . Sankara Vikrumadity u . VikramAditya Shunkur Vishnoo . "Vishnu Sikkim . . Sikhim Vizier . . Vazir Sinde . . Sind Warungul . . Warangal Sing . . Singh Wassil . . . Wasil Sipree . . Sipra Wishwanath . VishwanAth Sircars . . Circars Wiswas . . Viswas Sirhind . . Sarhind Wurda . . . Warda Sirjee Angeiig -aum Sirji Angengaon Wurgaum . . WargAm Soane . . Son Wuzeerabad. . VazirAbAd SoHman . . Sulaira&n Yoodistheer . Yudhisthira Soobah . . Stibah Zabita . . Zabitah Soobadar . Siibahdar Zeman . . ZamAn Sooder . . Sudra Zemindar . . ZamindAr Shoojah . ShujA Zoolflkar . . ZulfikAr TABLE OF CONTENTS CHRONOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL CHAPTER I. Section I. FAQE Boundaries and divisions of India 1 Early history and chronology . 2 The Aborigines ; the Aryans . 2 B.C. Rise of Brahminism ... 3 1400 The Muhabliarut; the Pandoos and the Kooroos ... 4 The battle of Kooroo B^shetrn . 5 1200 Kingdoms of Uyodhyu and Mi- thila 6 Events recorded in the Ramayun 6 Conquest of Ceylon by Ramu . 7 900 The code of Munoo ... 8 Section II. 598 Birth of Booddhu .... 8 Doctrines of Booddhism . . 8 54'i His death and his relics . . 8 521 Invasion of India bv Darius . » 327 Invasion of Alexander the Great 9 Battle of the Jhelum with Porus 9 He turns back from the Beyas . 10 324 Death of Alexander the Great . 10 Kingdom of Mugudu ... 10 325 Chundragooptu founds the Mauryan dynasty . . .10 He repels the invasion of Seleucus 10 800 Great prosperity of the dynasty 11 260 Asoka, its greatest prince . . 11 Extent of his kingdom ; his edicts 11 He establishes Booddhism . . 12 226 Death of Asoka . . . .12 188 Dynasty of the Sungas ; their temples 12 The Ugni-Kools revive Brahmin- ^ism 12 Prevalence of Booddhism in the seventh century a.d. . . 13 57 Rise of the Andhra dynasty . . 13 Vikrum-adityu ; the Augustan age of Sanscrit literature . . 13 Bengal and its capital Gour . 14 Adisoor founds the Sen dynasty . 14 Cashmere conquered by theGun- durvus 14 Dynasty of the Shahs in Surat . Displaced by the Bullabhis . The various kingdoms in the north of India between the first and tenth centuries of the Christian era First settlement of the Deccan— the Dravidian .... The Pandyas and the Cholas The Mahrattas and the Ooriyas . 473 The Kesari dynasty in Orissa CHAPTER II. Section I. 569 Birth of Mahomed and spread of his religion 18 711 Mahomed ben Cossim invades Rajpootana and is expelled . 18 872 The Samanides established in Khorasan and Afghanistan 19 Aluptugeen establishes the king- dom of Ghuzni .... 19 976 Succeeded by Subuktugeen . .19 997 Mahmood of Ghuzni . . .20 1001 He engages in twelve expeditions to India 20 1001 To Nagarcote and Thanesur . 20 11)17 To Cunouge and Muttra. . . 21 1024 Plunder of Somnath ... 21 1030 Mahmood's death and character . 22 1186 Extinction of (xhuzni . . . 23 Section II. The dynasty of Ghoeb . . 23 Mahomed Ghory the real founder of Mahomedan power in India 24 State of the Hindoo kingdoms . 24 The virtues of Bhoie Raj . .24 1193 Prithee raj defeatsAlahoined Ghory 25 1 193 Mahomed crushes the Hindoos at Tirauri 26 1194 Conquest of Bengal and Behar . 26 1206 Demolition of Hindoo power . 27 1206 Death and character of Mahomed 27 xu CONTENTS A.D. PAGE 1206 Kootub-ood-deen establishes the Slave dynasty . . . .27 1219 Invasion of Jenghis Khan . . 28 1219 ('onquests of Altumsh ... 28 1286 Reign of Sultana Rezia . . .28 li,66 Reign of Biilbun .... 29 1288 Succession of the Ghiljie line . 30 1294 First irruptionof the Mahomedans into the Deccan . . . . 30 1295 AUa-ood-deen mounts the throne 30 1298 His struggles with the Moguls . .31 1809 Malik Kafoor ravages the Deccan 31 1316 Alla-ood-deen's misfortunes and death 82 Extent of his conquests . . 32 1821 Five years of auarcliy . . . 82 Section III. Origin of the Toghluk dynasty 33 1321 Ghazee Toghluk's accession . 33 1325 MahomedToghluk's wild projects 34 1840 Dismemberment of the empire . 34 1340 Hindoo kingdom at lieejanuger . 34 1351 Feroze Toghluk's magnificent buildinss 35 His great canal . . . .35 1388 His dealh at the age of ninety . 35 1394 Universal anarchy; rise of four independent kingdoms . . .'56 1401 Kingdom of Malwa ... 36 1396Guzerat 36 Candesh 36 1394 Jouiijjore 36 139H Invasion of Timur . . . . 36 1411 The Stud dynasty ... 37 1450 The last monarch resigns his throne to Beloli-Lodi . . 38 The LoDi dynasty at constant war with Jounpore . . . .38 The magnificent court and splen- did buildingsof Ibrahim of Joun- pore 38 1478 It is reannexed to Delhi . . 38 1488 Beloli Lodi's conquest . . . 38 1517 Ibrahim third aiidf hist king ; uni- versal revolt . , . .39 1896 Kingdom of Guzcrat established 89 1411 Ah mod Shah's constant wars . 39 1469 Mahomed Shah's illustrious reign of fifty years ; his navy . . 40 1526 Bahadoor Shah conquers Malwa 40 1535 Killed, as supposed.by the Portu- guese 40 1572 AKbar annexes the kingdom to the empire 40 1401 Diiawur Ghore establishes Malwa 40 li35 Mahomed Ghiljie usurps the throne, his reign passed in inces- sant wars 41 1482 His son Ahmed's seraglio . . 41 15.'U The kingdom extinguished . . 41 1600 Eana Saiiga tlie most powerful of the Rajpoot princes . . .42 1847 Rise of tlie Bahminee kingdom in the Deccan . . . .42 Constant wars with the Hindoo kingdoms of Telingana and Beejanuger . . , .42 1397 The splendid reign of Feroze . 42 A.D. PAGU 1 482 The kingdom crumbles to pieces . 43 Five independent kingdoms created out of it . . . .43 1489 Adil Shahee dynasty remains in- dependent 197 years; capital Beejapore 43 1490 Nizam Sliahee dynasty ; indepen- dent 150 years ; capital Ahmed- nugur 43 1484 Imad Shahee dynasty; capital Berar ; independent 90 years . 44 1512 Kootub Shahee dynasty; inde- pendent 175 years; capital Gol- conda 44 1498 Small state at Beder; period of its extinction uncertain . . 44 Section IV. Mogul dynasty . . . 44 Early career of Baber . . .45 1519 First irruption into India . . 45 1526 Fifth irruption ; conquers Ibra- him Lodi at Paniput, and mounts the throne . . . 45 State of India at the time . . 46 1527 Baber totally defeats the Raj- poots 46 152S Recovers Oude and Behar . . 46 1530 His death and character . . 46 1530 Humayoon succeeds him . . 47 1 534 He conquers and loses Guzerat . 47 Early career of Shere Shah , . 48 1540 Defeats Humayoon, and mounts the throne 48 1542 Humayoon flies to Candahar . 48 1645 The five years of Shere Shah's reign the most brilliant period of Indian history . . .49 1553 Empire lost to his family . . 50 Humayoon's adventures abroad . 50 1556 Recovers the throne and dies . 50 1556 Akbar mounts the throne . . 50 1556 Hemu defeated at Paniput . . 61 1556 Akbar's great minister, Byram, his arrogance and fall . . 51 Akbar's conflict with his satrajs 62 1568 His power fully established. . 53 His matrimonial alliances with Rajpoot princesses . . . 53 1572 Conquest of Guzerat . . .54 1576 Conquest of Bengal . . . 54 1578 Conquest of Orissa . . . 55 Sketih of its previous history . 66 15C0 City of Gour depopulated . . 68 1586 Conquest of Cashmere . . . 56 Akbar's army ainiihilated in the passes of Afghanistan . . 67 1592 Annexation of Sinde . . .67 1594 Recovery of Candahar . . , 67 Section V. Akbar's views on the Deccan . 69 State of the Deccan . . .67 1336 The great Hindoo monarchy of Beejanuger established . . 58 Its magnitude and power . . 68 1565 Confederacy of the Mahomedan princes of the Deccan against it 5P CONTENTS XUl A.D. VAQ-E 1565 Extinguished at the battle of Tallikotta 59 1595 Dei:)lorable state of the Deccan . 59 1695 Akbar invades the Deccan . . 59 1595 Siege of Ah mednugur— heroism of Chan d Sultana . . .59 1600 Capture of Ahmednugur . . 60 1605 Death and character of Akbar . 61 His admirable institutions; his heterodoxy ; his toleration . 61 His revenue settlement; splen- dour of his court and pro gresses CHAPTER III. Section I. 1605 Accession of Jehanp-eer . Antecedents of Noor Jehan . 1611 Marriage with Jehangeer . 1612 Malek Amber defeats the im- perial armies in the Deccan ; his great talents .... 1614 Shah Jehan conquers Oodypore . 1615 Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the court of Delhi 1620 Shah Jehan in the Deccan . 1622 Persecuted by Noor Jehan . 1625 Mohabet driven into revolt by her 1626 He seizes the emperor . 162(j Noor Jehan rescues him 1627 Death of Jehangeer Section II. 1627 Accession of Sliah Jehan State of the three Mahomedan powers in the Deccan 1628 Rebellion of Jehan Lodi 1637 Ahmednugur extinguished . 1687 Beejapore rendered tributary 1637 Candahar recovered Expedition to Balkh 1647 Persians recover Candahar . Aurungzebe fails to regain it He renews the war in the DeC' can 1656 He plunders Hyderabad 1657 Recalled to Delhi 1657 Shah Jehan's dangerous illness his four sons intrigue for the succession ; their character 1657 Dara defeats Soojah 1658 Aurungzebe defeats Dara; de poses his father, and mounts th( throne Character of Shah Jehan ; mag nificence of his buildings and his court; his enormous wealth 1660 Aurungzebe puts his brothers to death 1662 His dangerous illness and re- covery 1663 Meer Joomla's expedition to As- 62 65 Section III. A.D. PAGB Rise and progress of the Mai ratta power 7b 1620 Origin and progress of Shahjee; his expedition to the sou^h . 77 1627 Birth of Sevajee, the founder of Mahratta power .... 77 1646 His daring adventures . . . 78 1649 His acquisitions of territory . 78 1657 Intercourse with Aurungzebe . 79 1659 Trea(!herously murders Afzool Khan 79 1662 His possessions at the age of thirty-five 80 1663 Baffles the imperial generals . 80 1H64 Plunders Surat .... 81 1665 Origin of the cJiout ... 82 1665 Proceeds to Delhi ; is confined and escapes 82 1668 Revises his institutions . . . 83 1672 i\ gain defeats the emperor's gene- rals 83 1673 Aurungzebe defeated in the Khy- ber 83 1677 He renews the persecution of the Hindoos 84 1677 Alienation and revolt of the Raj- poots .... . . 85 1 674 Sevajee assumes royalty . . 85 1676 His expedition to the Carnatic . 85 1680 His death and character . . 86 Section IV. 1683 Aurungzfihe marches to the Dec- can with a magnificent army . 87 1684 Disastrous march to the Concan . 88 1686 Extinguishes Beejapore . . 88 Unrivalled magnificence of the edifices of Beejapore . . . 89 1687 Aurungzebe extinguishes Golcon- da 89 The Deccan a scene of anarchy . 89 1680 Sambajee succeeds Sevajee . . 90 1689 His vicious reign and tragic death . . . .^ . .90 1689 Collapse of the Mahratta power; the court retreats to the Car- natic 91 Comparison of the Mogul and Mahratta armies . . .91 1698 Siege of Gingee for nine years . 92 1701 Auruiigzebe's marvellous activity at the age of eighty . . .92 Treats with the Mahrattas . 93 1707 Retreats in disgrace towards Del- hi and dies at Ahmednugur . 93 His character 94 1707 Rahadoor Shah emperor . . 94 l700 Discord among the Mahrattas . 94 1708 Daood Khan, the Emperor's lieu- tenant, grants them the chout of the Deccan . . . .35 Origin of the Sikh common- wealth; Nanuk; Gooroo Go- vind (5 1712 Bahadoor Shah drives their chief- tain Bandoo to the hi'ls, and dies 9Z nv CONTENTS 9y A.D. PA&E 1713 Jehander Shah emperor ; murder- ed by Ferokshere , . .96 1713 Ferokshere mounts the throne under the galling yoke of the Syuds ;714 Rise of the Nizam .... 1714 Ballajee Wishwauath revives the vigour of the Mahrattas . 1717 His independence acknowledged . 1717 The chout confirmed . 1718 Ferokshere murdered . 1719 Mahomed Shah emperor 1720 Relieved fromthe tyranny of the Syuds ...... 1720 Saadut All soobadar of Oude 1724 Nizam -ool-moolk establishes an independent power in the Dec- can 99 1720 Ballajee Wishwauath establishes the power of the Peshwas . . 99 1720 Succeeded by Baiee Rao . . 99 1730 Rise of the Gaickwar family . 101 1780 And of the Sindia family . . 101 1730 And of the family of Holkar . 101 1732 Baiee Rao's conquests on the Jumna 102 1734 Acquires possession of Malwa . 102 1734 His demands on the emperor . 102 1737 He marches to the gates of Delhi . 103 1738 Defeats the Nizain .... 103 Early career of Nadir Shah . . 104 1738 He crosses the Indus and defeats the emperor .... 104 1739 Sacks Delhi and returns with thirty-two crores of rupees . 105 State of India at his invasion . 105 CHAPTER IV. Section I. Rise and progress of the Portu- guese 106 1486 Bartholomew Dias first doubles the Cape 106 1497 Vasco (j^ Gama discovers India by the Cape; lands at Calicut on the Malabar coast . . .107 1500 Second Portuguese expedition . 108 1502 The third under Vasco de Gama. 108 1505 Almeyda defeats the combined Egyptian and Guzeratee fleets . 109 1508 Albuquerque appointed viceroy: he founds Goa . . . .109 1508 Extends the Portuguese power over 12,000 miles of coast, and makes them paramount in the Eastern seas .... 110 1615 Ungratefully dismissed and dies. 110 1517 Portuguese occupy Ceylon . .110 As well as Macao in China . . 110 1537 They defeat the Turkish and Gu- zeratee fleets .... i:0 1570 Resist the attack of the whole Ma- homodan power in the Deccan for nine months with success . Ill 153S Establish themselves in Bengal . Ill 1696 Rise of the Dutch power and de- cay of the Portuguese . . ill Section II. A.D. P-A^OB Rise of the French power . . 112 1674 Martin founds Pondicherry . . 112 1676 It is captured by the Dutch and restored 112 1719 French Bast India Company re- organised 112 1735 Dumas the governor raises the first sepoy army . . . .113 1740 Obliges the Mahrattas to retire . 113 1740 Dupleix enriches Ohandernagore . 1!4 1741 Is appointed governor of Pondi- cherry 114 1745 Labourdonnais arrives with a large armament .... 115 1745 First engagement in the Indian seas between an English and French fleet 116 174fi Labourdonnais captures Madras . 116 1746 Nabob of the Carnatic attacks the French and is utterly defeated . 117 Consequences of this first en- counter 117 1748 Admiral Boscawen besieges Pon- dicherry without result . . 117 1748 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle restores Madras to the Company . . 117 Section III. 1749 Madras Government invade Tan- jore Ambition of Dupleix . 1748 Death of Nizam-ool-moolk . 1749 Dupleix assists Mozuffer his grandson to become soobadar of the Deccan .... 1749 Bussy defeats the nabob of the Carnatic Mahomed Ali supported as nabob by the English .... Chunda Sahib supported as na- bob by the French 1750 Nazir Jung soobadar . He is defeated by Bussy and shot by the nabob of Cnddapa 1750 Mozuffer Jung soobadar ; is shot by the nabob of Kurnool . 1751 Bussy makes Salabut Jung soo- badar 1751 Siege and defence of Trichino- poly 1751 Clive's defence of Arcot. . . 1754 Dupleix superseded and recalled . 1764 Disgraceful treatment of him 1764 Greatness of his character . 1754 Convention between the French and Eufilish 118 118 119 119 119 119 119 120 121 121 121 122 123 124 125 125 126 Section IV. 1751 Bussy seats Salabut Jung in his capital 126 1751 He defeats the Mahrattas . . 126 1752 Ghazee-ood-deeu poisoned by his stei)mother 127 1763 Bussy acquires the Northern Sircars 127 1756 Salabut Jung dismisses him . 12S 1756 He completely recovers his power 129 1758Lally. governor of Pondicherry .1!0 CONTENTS A.r>. PAGE 1758 He ruins Bussy's power . . 1 50 1758 Lally besieges Madras . . .130 1759 Obliged to retire . . . .131 1759 Indecisive action of the fleets . 131 1759 French defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at Wandewash . . . 131 1761 Pondifherry captured and de- molished 132 1763 Trial and execution of Lally at Paris ... . . 132 Section V. 1747 Ahmed Shah Abdalee invades In- dia and is defeated . . .133 1748 Death of Mahomed Shah, empe- ror of Delhi 133 Succeeded by his son Ahmed; Na- bob of Oude appointed vizier . 133 1764 Ghazee-ood-deen blinds Ahmed and raises Alumgeer to the throne 134 1756 The Abdalee again invades India and sacks Delhi; leaves the Punjab under his son Timur . 134 1757 Ghazee-ood-deen invites the Mah- rattas to drive him out . . 134 1758 Raghoba captures Delhi and marches to the Indus . . 134 1758 Peshwa extorts large concessions of territory from the Nizam . 135 1759 Mahrattas at the zenith of their power 135 1759 The Abdalee's last invasion . . 135 1759 He defeats Sindia and Holkar . 135 1760 Peshwa puts forth the whole strength of the Mahratta com- monwealth to meet him . . 136 1761 Total defeat of the Mahrattas at Paniput 137 Section VI. The East India Company . . 138 Charter granted by Queen Eliza- beth 188 They dispatch vessels to Surat . 138 Sir Thomas Roe's embassy . . 139 Mr. Broughton cures tlie empe- ror's daughter and obtains pri- vileges for the Company . . 139 Madras founded . . . .139 Bombay acquired by the Com- ^^Pa'iy 139 Ihe Company aim at p'litical power in Bengal ; its disastrous result 140 Job Charnock founds Calcutta .* 141 Permission to fortify it . .142 Establishment of a rival Com- _ P?ny 142 UiiioH of the two Companies . 143 Moorshed Kooly Khan dewau of Bengal 143 Embassy to Delhi for permission to purchase thirty-eight vil- lages near Calcutta . . .144 Mr. Hamilton cures the emperor and obtains permission . . 144 Moorshed Kooly Khan frustrates ^* 144 1 A.D. PAGE 17-'5 His admirable administration of twenty-five years . . . 144 1725 Revenues of Beneral . . ,144 1725 His son Sujah-ood-deen succeeds him 145 1789 He is succeeded by Serefraz Khan . 145 Section VII. 1741 Aliverdy Khan supplants him at Delhi by bribery .... 145 1743 Mahrattas invade Bengal and plunder Moorshedabad . . 145 1742 The English surround Calcutta with the Mahratta Ditch . . 146 1751 Aliverdy cedes Orissa to the Mah- rattas, and pays the chout of Bengal 146 1756 His death 146 1756 Suraj-ood-dowlah succeeds him . 146 1756 He marches against Calcutta . 147 1756 Its defenceless state ; Nabob cap- tures it 147 1756 Tragedy of the Black Hole . . 14S 1756 The Company expelled from Ben- gal 148 1755 Clive captures the port of Ghe- riah 149 1757 He recaptures Calcutta . . 149 1757 He defeats the Nabob at Dum- dum 150 1757 He captures Chandernagore . 150 1757 Confederacy against the Nabob by his ministers, joined by Clive 150 1757 Battle of Plassy ; Nabob is de- feated and flies . . . .151 1757 Deception of Omichund . . 151 1757 Clive makes Meer Jaflier Nabob. 152 1757 Suraj-ood-dowlah brought back and killed by Meerun, Meer Jaffler's son 152 1600 1601 1611 1615 1620 1639 1662 1685 1702 1702 1715 1716 1717 1757 1759 1759 1760 1760 1760 1760 17t)0 1762 17(53 1763 1763 CHAPTER V. Section I. All Gohur, the emperor's son, in- vades Bengal and is obliged to retreat 153 Meer Jaffler invites the Dutch from Java to counterbalance Clive 154 The Dutch army defeated at Chinsurah 154 Clive returns to England . . 154 Second invasion of Ali- Gohur ; military operations at Patna . 155 Mr. Vaiisittart succeeds Clive . 155 Profligacy of the Council in Cal- cutta 156 They depose Meer Jaffier and make Meer Cossim Nabob. . 156 His vigorous administration . 156 Disputes about the transit duties 157 He seizes every European in Ben- „gal. . . . . . 158 The Council take the field ; he is defeated, and massacres 48 Eng- lish gentlemen and 100 soldiers . 15? KVl CONTENTS A.D. PAGE 1763 Meer Jaffler igain nabob . . 159 1763 His death 159 1765 Base conduct of the Council . 159 1701. First Sepoy mutiny . . .159 1764 Battle of Buxar; Nabob of Oude totally defeated . . . .160 1765 Clive created a peer ; sent out to retrieve the Company's affairs . 160 1765 He mediatizes the Nabob of Moor- shedabad 161 1765 Restores Oude to the Nabob . 161 1765 His arrangement with the em- peror 161 1765 He acquires the Dewanee . . 161 1765 Congratulates the Directors on the extent of their possessions . 162 1766 Quells the mutiny of the Euro- pean oflScers . . . .163 1767 His eminent success; his un- grateful treatment in England . 164 1774 His death 164 Section II. Transactions at Madras and Bom- bay 164 1762 Misrule of Mahomed Ali . . 165 1763 Spoliation of Tanjore . . .165 1765 The Northern Sircars granted to the Company by the emperor . 165 1766 Madras Council basely agree to pay tribute for them to the Nizam 166 Rise and progress of Hyder Ali , 166 1749 His first repute at Deonhully . 166 1761 At sixty is master of Mysore . 167 1763 Acquires Beduore and its wealth 167 1765 Is defeated by the Mahrattas . 167 1766 Annexes Malabar . . . .168 1767 Madras Council join the Nizam and the Mahrattas against hira 168 1767 The Nizam joins him against the English 168 1767 General Smith twice defeats the confederates .... 168 1767 The Nizam reduced to extremity 169 1768 Disgraceful treaty made with him by Mr. Palk, governorof Madras 169 1768 Madras government at the lowest pitch of degradation . . . 170 1769 Hyder dictates peace under the walls of Madras . . . .171 1770 The Council engage to assist him in his wars 171 1770 He attacks ihe Mahrattas; is de- feated at Milgota, and besieged for five weeks .... 171 1772 Madras Government refuse him succour, and he loses much territory 172 1769 Mahratta expedition to Hindo- stan 172 1772 Transactions in Rohilcund . . 173 1772 Anomaly of the Government in India 173 1772 Great embarrassmentat the India house 174 .773 Interference of Parliament; the Regulating Act . . . .174 CHAPTER VI. Section I. PA.OE . 175 175 Early career of Hastings 1772 Appointed Governor of Bengal . 1773 Abolishes the double government of Clive, introduces great re- forms, makes a new settlement, removes the treasury to Cal- cutta . . ... 176 1773 Unhappy treaty with the Nabob of Oude 176 1773 Embarks in the Rohilla war . 177 1774 New Government in Calcutta . 177 1774 Hastings Governor-General ; his counsellors ..... 177 1774 They bully him ; their unjust treatment of the Nabob of Oude 178 1775 They supersede Hastings* author- ity 178 1775 Gross charges against him . .179 1775 Execution of Nunkoomar . . 179 1775 Hastings tenders his resignation, and then recalls it . . . 180 1776 Directors appoint his successor . 180 1777 (Confusion in Calcutta by this event 181 1777 Death of Sir John Clavering . 181 1780 After six years' contest, Hastings fights a duel with Mr. Francis, who is wounded and goes home 181 Section II. . 181 182 . 182 182 183 183 184 184 186 Progress of Mahratta affairs 1772 The Peshwa Narayun Rao as- sassinated; Raghoba ascends the throne 1774 Widow of Narayun delivered of a posthumous child, and a re- gency formed 1775 Raghoba negotiates with the Bombay authorities . 1775 Treaty of Surat results in war . 1775 Mahrattas defeated at Arras 1775 Calcutta councilannuls the treaty 1776 Colonel Upton's treaty at Poena 1777 French adventurer at Poona 1778 Revolution at Poona, first in favour of Raghoba, and then against him .... 1778 Expedition fromBombaytoPoona; aisgraceful convention of Wur- gaum 1778 General Goddard's expedition from the Jumna to Bombay 1780 Brilliant capture of Gwalior 1781 Complete defeat of Sindia . 1779 General confederacy against the Company Milttary operations at Bombay . 1780 Hastings conciliates Nagpore 1781 Concludes peace with Sindia Section III. Transactions at Madras 1771-1780 191 1771 Proceedings against Tanjore . 191 1774 Paul Benfield's demand . . 192 1776 The Council arrest Lord Pigot . 19? 185 187 190 CONTENTS xvii A.D. PAGE 1779 Hastings reverses their trans- actions regarding the Guntoor Sircar 193 Progress of Hyder Ali 1773-1780 193 1779 War between Franceand England 194 1780 Hyder joins the confederacy . 194 1780 He bursts on the Carnatic . . 191 1780 Destruction of Colonel Baillie's force 195 1780 Hastings's energetic efforts . 196 Section IV. 1781 Sir Eyre Coote proceeds to Ma- dras and thrice defeats Hyder . 197 1781 Lord Macartney Governor of Ma- dras 198 1781 Negapatam and Trincomalee con- quered from the Dutch . . 198 1782 Arrival of a French armament . 199 1782 Four naval actions . . . 199 1782 Great famine at Madras . . 200 1782 Death of Hyder Ali 7th December 201 1782 Succeeded by Tippoo . . .201 1783 Supineness of General Stuart . 201 1783 He besieges Bussy at Cuddalore 202 1783 Peace between France and Eng- land 202 1783 Tippoo invests Mangalore . . 203 1783 Colonel Fullerton's successful ex- pedition towards Seringapatam 203 1784 Treaty of peace at Mangalore with Tippoo by the Madras Council 204 Section V. Proceedings in Bengal . . . 205 1774 Encroachments of the Supreme Court 205 1779 The Cossijurah case . . . 206 1779 Hastinirs stops their proceedings 206 1780 Sir Elijah Impey, chief judge of the Sudder 206 1780 Hastings's proceedings regarding Cheyt Sing . . . .207 1781 His extreme danger at Benares 208 1781 Cheyt Sing raises an army and is defeated 208 1782 Plunder of the Begums of Oude . 209 1783 Hastings, worried by the Direc- tors, resigns .... 209 1785 Embarks for England . . .210 1786 Impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours by the House of Commons .... 210 1795 His acquittal 211 His character 211 17S2 Reports of two Committees of the House of Commons . . .212 1783 Mr. Fox's India Bill . . . 212 1784 Mr. Pitt's India Bill . . .213 1784 Nabob of Arcot's debts . . 214 1784 Mr. Dundas's extraordinary pro- ceedings regarding them . . 214 1805 Fabrication of fresh loans for 32 crores of rupees . . . .214 CHAPTER VII. Section I. A.D. PAGE 1785 Mr. Macpherson, officiating Go- vernor-General; his economical reforms 215 1786 Lord Ccrnwallis Governor-Gene- ral 216 1786 Advantages of his position . .216 1786 He stems the current of jobbing, peculation, and fraud . . 217 1786 His proceedings regarding Oude 217 1788 Demands the surrender of the Guntoor Sircar .... 218 1789 His imprudent letter to the Nizam 218 1789 Tippoo attacks the raja of Travan- core, the ally of the Company . 219 1790 Lord Cornwallis's alliances with the Nizam and the Peshwa against Tippoo . . . .220 1790 General Medows' first campaign ; abortive 220 1791 Second campaign ; Lord Corn- wallis beats Tippoo ; obliged to return for want of provisions . 221 1791 Dilatory proceedings of the allies 222 1792 Third campaign; peace dictated under the walls of the capital . 223 1792 Tippoo surrenders half his do- minions 223 1792 Remarks on the campaign . . 224 Section II. Lord Cornwallis's revenue re- forms 228 1793 History and nature of the Perma- nent Settlement .... 226 1793 Reconstruction of the judicial establishments .... 228 1793 The Cornwallis Code . . .228 1793 Exclusion of natives from the public service .... 228 1793 War between France and Eng- land ; capture of Pondicherry 229 1793 Lord Cornwallis returns to Eng- land 229 1784 Progress of Sindia's power . . 229 17S5 He demands the chout for Bengal, and fleeces the Rajpoots . . 230 1788 Delhi plundered and the emperor deprived of sight by Gholam Khadir 230 1791 General de Boigne raises a Sepoy army for Sindia; he defeats the Rajpoots 231 1792 Sindia proceeds to Poona where he becomes paramount . . 232 1794 His death 232 1793 The Company's charter renewed for twenty years . . . 233 Section III. 1793 Sir John Shore Governor-General 233 1794 Mahratta designs on the Nizam 234 1794 Sir John Shore's feeble policy . 2;J4 1795 All the Mahratta princes march against the Nizam . . . 2SE XVUl CONTENTS A.D. PAGE 1795 He is routed at Kurdla and obliged to pay three crores . 235 1795 The Peshwa destroys himself . 236 1797 Three years of anarchy at Poona ; Bajee Eao the last of the Peshwas 236 1796 Second mutiny of the European officers 236 1796 Sir John Shore quails before it, and is superseded . . . 237 1797 Lord Cornwallis sworn in as Go- vernor-General .... 237 1797 The ministry concede the de- mands of the officers and he throws up the appointment . 237 1797 Sir John Shore's proceedings at Lucknow 238 1798 He embarks for England . . 239 CHAPTER Vm. Section I. 1798 Lord Wellesley Governor-General 239 State of India on his arrival . 239 1798 Hostile designs of Tippoo; the Mauritius proclamation . . 240 1798 Embarrassments of Lord Wel- lesley ; he breaks up the system of isolation : his negotiations with the native princes . . 242 1798 New treaty with the Nizam . . 242 1798 I'roposed treaty with the Peshwa rejected by him .... 243 1798 Extinction of the French force at Hyderabad . . . .243 1798 Bonaparte lands in Egypt . . 244 1798 Communications with Tippoo . 244 1799 March of the army from Madras 245 1799 Tippoo attacks the Bombay army and is defeated . . . .245 1799 Defeat of Tippoo at Malavelljr . 245 1799 Seringapatara captured ; extinc- tion of Hyder's dynasty . . 246 1799 Remarks on the campaign . . 247 1799 Consequent security of the Deccan 247 1799 Restoration of the old family of Mysore 248 Section II. 1800 The Nizam cedes territory and forms a subsidiary alliance . 249 1800 State of the Carnatic . . .260 Clandestine and hostile corrrs- pondence of the Nabobs with Tippoo 251 1801 The Nabob mediatized and the Carnatic becomes a British province 251 1800 Captain Malcolm's embassy to Persia 252 1800 Expedition to the Red Sea . . 252 1802 Peace of Amiens ; Bonaparte sends a grand armament to Pondicherry . . . .253 1800 Demand on the Nabob of ide . 254 1801 He makes a new treaty and cedes half his territories . . . 255 A.D. PAOI 1800 Establishment of the College of Fort William . . . .256 1798 Encouragement jfiven by Lord Wellesley to Free Trade . . 257 1801 Disputes between him and the Court 257 1802 He tenders his resignation . . 258 1802 Is requested to remain another year ; its consequences . . 259 Section III. 1800 Death of Nana Furnavese at Poona and its effect . . . 259 History of the Holkar family . 259 1795 Death of Aylah bye; her exem- plary and vigorous administra- tion 260 1795 Early career of Jeswunt Rao Holkar 260 1800 Rise and progress of Ameer Khan 260 1801 Joins Holkar ; their depredations 261 1801 Holkar ravages Sindia's terri- tories 1801 Sindia defeats Holkar, and de- spoils Indore .... 1802 Holkar marches on Poona and defeats the Peshwa and Sindia 1802 The Peshwa takes refuge at Bas- 261 261 262 1802 He signs the treaty of Bassein . 262 1803 Sindia and the raja of Nagpore take umbrage and resolve on war 263 1803 General Wellesley invested with full powers in the Deccan . 265 Section IV. 1803 Lord Wellesley's vigorous prepa- rations 1803 Grand military organization of Lord Wellesley .... 1803 General Wellesley captures Ah- mednugur 1803 Decisive battle of Assye 1803 Sindia loses all his possessions in the Deccan His strong position in Hiiidostan 1803 General Lake captures Allygurh 1803 His victory before Delhi 1803 Enters Delhi and restores the royal family .... 1803 Gains the battle of Laswaree 1803 (General Wellesley defeats the raja of Nagpore at Argauui 1803 Treaty of Deogaum with him 1803 Humiliation of Sindia ; signs the treaty of Sirjee Anjengaum 1803 The war which produced these brilliant results lasts only five months 1803 Treaties of alliance with the princes of Hindostan . Section V. 1804 Holkar's wildness and his en- croachments .... 1804 Lord Wellesley declares war 26S) 270 270 27« CONTENTS XIX A..D. PAGE 1804 Colonel Monson imprudently marches into his territories . 272 1804 His ignominious retreat to Agra . 272 180 i Holkar advances to Muttra . . 273 1804 He besieges Delhi, but is repulsed by Colonel Ochterlony . . 273 1804 Lays waste the Company's terri- tories and is pursued by Gene- ral Lake 274 1804 His army defeated at Deeg . . 274 1805 Siege of Bhurtpore ; its disastrous failure 274 1805 Hostile attitude of Sindia and his confederates . . . -275 1805 Their movements . . . .276 1805 Lord Wellesley superseded by Lord Cornwallis . . . .276 1805 Character of his administration . 277 1808 Attempt to impeach him . . 278 Thirty years after the Directors pass the highest eulogium on him 278 CHAPTER IX. Section I. 1805 Lord Cornwallis a second time Governor- Ge iieral 1805 Reverses Lord Wellesley's policy . 1805 Expires at Ghazeepore . 1805 Sir George Barlow succeeds him, and adopts his line of policy . 1805 Lord Lake chases Holkar into the Punjab 1805 Sir (leorge Barlow makes great concessions to Sindia and Hol- kar 1805 Jeypore and Boondee abandoned to the ravages of Holkar . 1806 Anarchy often years through the reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy 1807 Desolation of Rajpootana . 1806 Sir George's vigorous policy at Hyderabad and Poona 1806 Restoration of the finances . 1806 The Vellore Mutiny 1806 Cause of the mutiny 1806 Recall of Lord William Beu- tiiick from Madras 1806 Mutiny visited on the mission- aries 1807 Sir George Barlow's appointment as Govern or- General cancelled by the Ministry .... Section II. 1807 Lord Minto Governor-General . 288 1807 Anarchy in Bundlecund ; vigor- ous policy of Lord Minto . . 290 Early career of Runjeet Sing in the Punjab 290 1806 His encroachments across the Sutlej 290 1808 Appeal of the chiefs to Govern- ment against him . . . ?,91 281 284 A.D. PAOB 1808 Mr. Metcalfe sent on a mission to Lahore 291 1808 Runjeet Sing ordered to retire . 292 1808 His reluctant submission . . 293 1803 Mr. Elphinstone's embassy to Ca- bul 293 1809 It proves abortive . . . .294 1808 Establishment of French influ- ence in Persia .... 294 1808 Sir Harford Jones sent as envoy from the Crown to Teheran; he concludes a treaty. . .294 1809 Lord Minto sends Colonel Mal- colm envoy on the part of the Company 295 Section III. 1809 Ameer Khan invades Nagpore and Lord Minto sends aid to the raia 296 1807 Sir G. Barlow Governor of Ma- dras 297 1809 Third mutiny of the European ofiBcers 297 1809 It is inflamed by his intemp( r- ance and quelled by his firm- ness 299 1810 Recall of Sir George Barlow . 299 1809 Suppression of piracy among the Arabs 300 Depredations of French priva- teers for fifteen years in the eastern seas 30C 1810 Capture of the Mauritius and Bourbon 301 Section IV. 1811 Expedition to Java . . .302 1811 Capture of Fort Cornells and con- quest of the island . . . 303 1812 Lord Minto superseded on the pressure of the Prince Regent . 304 Connection of the Pindarees with the Mahratta princes . . . 304 Their leaders 305 Their system of plunder . . 305 1811 They plunder to the gates of Nag- pore 306 1812 Their first inroad into the Com- pany's territories . . . 306 1813 Lord Minto's vigorous represen- tations to the Court of Direc- tors 306 Character of his administration . 307 1812 Negotiations for the new Charter . 307 1813 Demand of free trade by the ma- nufacturers and merchants of England 308 1813 Opposed by the Court of Direc- tors 308 1813 They bring forward witnesses to support their monopoly . . 309 1813 The question of Indian missions . 809 1813 India thrown open to the enter- {)rise of the nation, and to tho abours of missionaries . R7A IS. CONTENTS CHAPTER X. Section L A..D. PAGB 1818 Marquis of Hastings Governor- General 310 1813 State of India on his arrival . . 311 1813 Description of Nepaul . . .311 Rise and progress of the Goork- has 311 Their encroachments . . . 312 1813 Lord Minto proposes a confer- ence 812 1814 Lord Hastings demands the evacuation of the usurped dis- tricts 812 1814 The Goorkhas determine on war — the extent of their forces . 313 1814 Lord Hastings obtains a loan from the Nabob of Oude . . .313 1814 Plan of the campaign . . .314 1814 Total failure of three divisions . 314 1814 Disastrous efifect of these re- verses on the native mind. . 315 1815 Successful operations of General Ochterlony 316 1815 The Nepaul cabinet sues for peace, but refuses to ratify the treaty 317 1816 Second campaign of General Ochterlony, and conclusion of 317 Section II. The Patans andPindarees ravage Central India . . . .318 1814 Lord Hastings's earnest represen- tations to the court . . . 318 1814 Proposed alliance with Bhopal . 319 1815 Affairs at Poona— Trimbukjee Danglia 320 1815 Gungadhur Shastree the minister of the Gaikwar murdered by him— and he is placed in con- finement 321 1816 Lord Hastings's renewed repre- sentations regarding the Pin- darees 321 1816 They plunder the British district of Guntoor 322 1816 Subsidiary alliance withNagpore 322 1816 Proposed alliance with Jeypore, rejected by the raja . . . 323 1816 The Court of Directors forbid any operations against the Pin- darees, and afterwards sanction them 323 1816 Greatest expedition of the Pin- darees 324 1817 Resolution to exterminate them 824 1817 Sindia promises to co-operate in this work 325 1817 Hostility of Bajee Rao . . .325 1817 Heavy penalty inflicted on him . 325 Anarchy in Holkar's court, from his death in 1811 to 1817 ; domi- nation of the soldiery . . 826 Section III. A.l>. PA«H 1817 Lord Hastings revives the policy of Lord Wellesley, and forms alliances with the native princes 827 1817 Peshwa forms a confederacy against the Company . . 328 1817 Great extent of Lord Hastings's military preparations . . 328 1817 Sindia signs a new treaty . . 329 1817 Ameer Khan's power dissolved . 829 1817 Peshwa breaks out ; attacks Mr. Elphinstone, is totally defeated; his power extinguished . . 380 1817 Raja of Nagpore breaks out ; at- tacks the Residency; totally defeated at Seetabuldee . . 331 1818 He is deposed and escapes . . 382 1817 Holkar's army defeated at Mehid- pore 383 1818 Pursuit and extinction of the Pin- darees 334 1818 Magnitude and results of the campaign 335 1818 Victory of Korygaum . . .335 1818 The Peshwa surrenders ; sent to Bithoor 386 1819 Capture of remaining forts . . 336 Section IV. 1819 Mr. Canning's ungracious speech in the Commons .... 837 Unworthy treatment of Lord Hastings by the Directors 1818 He encourages education . 1818 His liberality to the press . 1816 Disturbances in Cuttack Financial prosperity and territo- rial increase .... Affairs at Hyderabad; the con- tingent Administration of Chundoo lall . 1818 Loans made by Palmer & Co. 1820 Sir W. Rumbold joins the firm . 1821 Sir C. Metcalfe's remonstrance about their proceedings . 1822 The loans paid off . 1823 Lord Hastings returns to Eng- land 1823 Character of his administration 1824 His treatment at the India House 337 338 340 841 342 342 843 848 844 344 344 345 CHAPTER XI. Section I. 1823 Lord Amherst Governor-General 346 1823 Mr. Adam, while oCaciating, per- secutes the press . . . 346 182S Ruin of Mr. Buckingham . . 847 1822 Progress of the Burmese from 1811 to 1822 847 1822 The king demands the cession of eastern Bengal . . .347 1823 Origin of the Burmese war . . 348 1824 Arrangements of the campaign . 849 1824 Strength of the armament . . 349 1824 The army paralyzed at Rangoon by disease 35C CONTENTS XXI 1825 Conquest of Assam and Aracan . 350 1826 Second campaifcn and negotia- tions for peace .... 351 i826 Treaty of Yandaboo ; territorial cessions 352 1824 Sepoy mutiny at Barrackpore . 353 1825 Bhurtpore ; usurpation of Door- junSal 354 1826 Siege and capture of Bhurtpore 356 1828 Financial results of Lord Am- herst's administration . . 356 Section II. 1828 Lord William Bentinck Gover- nor-General .... 357 1828 Reduction of allowances . . 857 1828 The half batta order . . .358 1828 Examination of rent-free tenures 35y 1831 Insurrection of Teetoo Meer . 360 1832 The Cole Insurrection . . .360 1832 Anntaation of Cachar . . .361 1834 Conquest and annexation of Coorg 362 Lord W. Bentinck's non-inter- vention policy .... 862 1830 Misconduct of the Mysore raja . 363 1832 The management of the country assumed by Lord W. Bentinck 363 1834 Misgovernment of Joudpore . 361 1835 Complications at Jey pore . .365 Misgovernment in Oude . . 365 Hakim Menhdy . . . .366 1833 The Directors authorize Lord "William to assume the govern- ment of Oude . . . .366 Conquests of Runjeet Sing . . 367 His French officers . . .367 1823 His confliets with the Afghans . 368 1827 His intercourse with Lord Am- herst 368 1830 The present of the dray-horses . 369 18.J1 Resources of Runjeet Sing . . 369 183L Meeting with Lord W. Bentinck at Roopur 370 1832 Lord W. Bentinck's treaty with Sinde 371 Section III. 1881 Lord W. Bentinck's administra- tive reforms .... 1831 The judicial courts 1831 Revenue settlement 1831 Employment of natives . 1829 Abolition of suttee 1830 Suppression of thuggee . 1830 Steam communication . 1833 Education ; triumph of English . 1835 The Medical College 1835 Financial results of his adminis- tration 1835 Character of his administration . 1833 The Charter and its arrangements 1835 The governor- generalship in dis- pute 1835 The new government of Agra . 1835 Sir C. Metcalfe governor-general ad interim A.D. PAGE 1835 He establishes the liberty of the press 383 1836 Displeasure of the Court of Direc- tors; he retires from the ser- vice 384 CHAPTER XII. Section I. 1836 Lord Auckland, Governor-Gene- ral 1834 Shah Soojah invades Afghanistan 1835 Runjeet Sing's designs on Siiide 1835 He seizes on Peshawur . 1836 Dost Mahomed appeals to Lord Auckland 1837 Russian influence in Persia 1837 Persian expedition to Herat 1837 Lord Auckland proceeds to Simla, his cabinet of secretaries . 1837 Captain Burnes's mission to Cabul 1837 Russian envoy arrives at Cabul . 1838 Captain Burnes obliged to retire 1838 Expedition to depose Dost Ma- homed and place Shah Soojah on the throne .... 1838 Expedition universally con- demned 1838 Exertions of Lieut. Pottinger at Herat .... 1838 Siege of Herat raised and the Persians retire .... 385 385 385 386 387 390 391 391 392 394 Section II. 1 838 Meeting of Runjeet Sing and Lord Amherst 395 1838 The army of the Indus . . 395 1889 Coercion of the Ameers of Sinde . 396 1839 Advance of the army to Candahar 397 1839 Capture of Ghuzni . . .397 1839 Dost Mahomed flies ; Shah Soojah enters Cabul . . . .398 1839 Determination to occupy Afgha- nistan 399 1840 Honours bestowed . . .399 1839 Death and character of Runjeet Sing 400 1840 Russian complaints againstKhiva 400 1840 Russian expedition to Khiva; its failure 401 1839 The Bala Hissar given up to the Shah's zenana .... 402 1840 Unpopularity of the English . 402 1840 Movements of Dost Mahomed; he surrenders to the envoy . 403 Section III. 1840 Major Todd envoy at Herat ; ob- liged to retire .... 404 1840 General Nott and Major Rawlin- son at Candahar . . . 40? 1841 TJiiiversal spirit of discontent in Afghanistan . . . . 40P 1841 Court of Directors advise retire- xxii CONTENTS A.D. PAGE ment ; Lord Auckland resists it, and orders retrencnment . 406 1841 Outbreak of the revolt ; the passes closed .... 407 1841 Insurrection in Cabul ; Sir. A. Burnes murdered . , . 408 1841 Utter incapacity of General El- phinstone 409 1841 Progress of the revolt ; daily dis- asters 410 1841 Brigadier Shelton's perverse ob- stinacy 411 1841 Last engagement ; the army cooped up in the cantonments 411 Section IV. 1841 Akbar Khan assumes the com- mand 412 1841 Nes^otiations with the enemy ; starvation in the encampment 412 1841 Disgraceful treaty of the 11th De- cember ; arrogance of the Af- ghans 413 1841 Treaty violated . . . .413 1841 The envoy enveigled and mur- dered 414 1841 MajorPottinger assumes the com- mand; makes a new treaty, which is violated . . . 415 1842 The army 4.500 strong with 11,000 camp followers begin its retreat 415 1842 It is entirely annihilated, with the exception of one officer and 120 hostages and prisoners . 416 1842 Depression of Lord Auckland .418 1842 Want of energy in the Com- mander-in-chief .... 418 1842 Close of Lord Auckland's melan- choly reign 419 CHAPTER Xni. Section I. 1842 Lord Ellenborough Governor- General 419 1842 General Pollock arrives at the Khybor with reinforcements . 420 18*2 He reaches Jellalabad . . . 420 1841 General Sale with his column reaches Jellalabad from Cabul and fortifies it . . . .421 1842 Akbar Khan blockades it . . 422 184-^- He is totally defeated . . .422 1842 Great difficulties of General Nott and Major Rawlinson at Canda- har 4 2 1842 Lord Ellenborongh's vacillation . 4J4 1842 Shah Soojah murdered at Cabul . 425 1842 Condition of the hostages and the prisoners 42G 1842 They are sent to the Hindoo Coosh 427 1842 Akbar Khan defeated at T • 1 Till! ,1 Hindoos at- 01 tne Jr'unjab, and he led a large army across the tack Subuk- river, and attacked Subuktugeen at Lughman in ^"^s^en. the Cabul passes. On the eve of the engagement a violent storm of wind, rain, and thunder swept down the valley, which alarmed the superstitious soldiers of Jeypal to such c 2 20 ABEIDGMENT OF TRK HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. U. a degree that he was constrained to sue for an accommoda- tion, which was not granted without the promise of a heavy payment ; but on hearing that his opponent had been obliged to march to the westward to repel an invasion, he refused to fulfil his engagement, and imprisoned the king's messengers. Subuktugeen, having disposed of his enemies, marched down to the Indus to avenge this perfidy. Jeypal succeeded in enlisting the aid of the rajas of Delhi, Ajmere, Callinger, and Cunouge, and advanced across the Indus with an im- mense force, but was again defeated, and the authority of Ghuzni was estabHshed up to the banks of the Indus. A.D. Subuktugeen died in 997, and was succeeded at first by 097 his son Ismael, and a few months after by his second son, the renowned Mahmood of Ghuzni. From his 0?^.°*^ °^ early youth he had accompanied his father on his Hisexpedi- various expeditions, and acquired a passion for °"^' war and great military experience. He ascended the throne at the age of thirty, and became impatient to enlarge his dominions, and contemplated with delight the glory of extending the triumphs of his creed in the un- trodden plains of India. He began his crusade against *001 the Hindoos in 1001, and conducted no fewer than twelve expeditions, of more or less importance, against them. He left Ghuzni in August. Jeypal crossed the Indus a third time, and in the neighbourhood of Peshawur was again defeated and captured. He was generously released, but resigned the throne to his son Anungpal, and sought death on a funeral pyre to which he had himself set fire. Pass- ing over several minor expeditions, we come to the fourth, which was directed against Anungpal, who had instigated a revolt against Mahmood in Mooltan, in conjunction with six of the most powerful rajas of the north. The Hindoos again took the fatal resolution of crossing the Indus, and were a fourth time defeated with the loss of 20,000 men. The next expedition was a mere plundering excursion to Nagarcote, a place of peculiar sanctity, and so strongly forti- fied as to have been made the depository of the wealth of the neighbouring princes. The stronghold was easily cap- tured, and despoiled — according to the Mahomedan histo- rians — of 700 maunds of gold and silver plate, 200 maunds of pure gold ingots, 2,000 maunds of unwrought silver, and twenty maunds of jewels. The sixth expedition was directed against Thanesur, one of the most ancient and wealthy shrines in India. Anungpal implored Mahmood to spare it, but he made the characteristic reply that the Skc3t. I.] MAHOMEDANISM— THE GHUZNI DYNASTIC 21 extermination of idolatry was his mission, and tliat his re- ward in paradise would be measured by his success in accomplishing it. All the costly images and shrines, the accumulation of centuries, together with 200,000 captives, were transported to Ghuzni, which began to wear the ap- pearance of a Hindoo colony. After several minor expeditions Mahmood determined to a.d. penetrate to the heart of Hindostan, and to plant his 101 5 standard on the banks of the Ganges. With an j. e^itjo^ army, it is said, of 20,000 foot and 100,000 horse, to cunonge attracted chiefly from Central Asia by the love ^^ ^"^*^'^^- of adventure and the lure of plunder, he burst suddenly on the city of Cunouge, which had been for centuries the citadel of Hindooism. The descriptions given of the mag- nificence of the city and the splendour of the court, both by Hindoo and Mahomedan writers, stagger our belief, more especially when we consider the limited extent of the king- dom. The army of the state is said to have consisted of 80,000 men in armour, 30,000 horsemen, and 500,000 infantry ; yet the raja made his submission after a short and feeble resistance. Mahmood left it uninjured, and turned his footsteps to the great ecclesiastical city of Muttra, the birthplace and sanctuary of the deified hero Krishnu, filled with shrines, blazing with jewelry. For twenty days the city and the temples were given up to plunder, and the idols were melted down or demolished. Some of the temples were spared for their great solidity or their surpass- ing beauty. " Here are a thousand edifices," wrote the con- queror, " as firm as the creed of the faithfal, most of them " of marble, besides innumerable temples. Such another " city could not be constructed under two centuries." Passing over two expeditions of lesser moment, we come 1024 to the last and most celebrated, the capture of the shrine of Somnath, the most wealthy and the most re- Expedition nowned on the continent of India. At the period to somnath. of an eclipse, it is said to have been resorted to by 200,000 pilgrims. The image was daily bathed with water brought from the Ganges, 1,000 miles distant. The establishment consisted of 2,000 brahmins, 300 barbers to shave the devotees, 200 musicians, and 300 courtezans. To reach the temple Mahmood had a painful naarch of 350 miles across the desert. The raja retreated to the fortified temple, and the defenders on the first attack withdrew to the inner sanctuary, and prostrated themselves before the idol to implore its help. The neighbouring chiefs hastened 22 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. H. with large forces to the defence of the shrine, and Mahmood was so severely pressed by them that he, in his turn, pros- trated himself on the ground to invoke divine assistance ; and then, springing into the saddle, cheered on his troops to victory. After 5,000 Hindoos had fallen under their sabres, Mahmood entered the temple and was struck with astonishment at its grandeur. The lofty roof was supported by fifty- six columns, elaborately carved, and studded with jewels. The shrine was illuminated by a single lamp, sus- pended by a golden chain, the lustre of which was reflected from the numerous precious stones embossed in the walls. The image, five yards in height, one half of which was buried in the earth, faced the entrance, and Mahmood ordered it to be demolished, when the priests threw them- selves at his feet and offered an immense ransom for it, but he replied that he had rather be known as the de- stroyer than the seller of idols. Then, lifting up his mace, he aimed a blow at it, and the figure, which was hollow, burst asunder, and poured a larger treasure at his feet than the brahmins had offered for its ransom. The wealth obtained on this occasion exceeded any he had acquired in his previous expeditions, and the mind is bewildered with the enumeration of the treasures and jewels which he carried back. The sandal- wood gates were sent as a trophy to his capital where they remained for eight centuries, till they were brought back in a triumphal procession to India by a Christian ruler. He retired to Ghuzni after a toilsome and perilous march through the desert, and died in the sixtieth year of his age. Two days before his death he caused the most 1030 character of costly of his trcasurcs to be displayed before his Mahmood. eycs, and is said to have shed tears at the thought of leaving them. Mahmood was not only the greatest conqueror, but the grandest sovereign of the age. He extended his dominions from the sea of Aral to the Persian Gulf, and from the mountains of Kurdestan to the banks of the Sutlege, and the order which reigned through these vast territories gave abundant proof of his genius for civil administration. His court was the most mag- nificent in Asia, and few princes have ever surpassed him in the munificent encouragement of letters. He founded and richly endowed a university at his capital, which was adorned with a greater assemblage of Hterary genius than any other monarch in Asia has ever been able to collect. His taste for architecture was developed after he had seen Sect. II.] MAHOMEDANISM— THE GHUZNI DYNASTY 23 the grand edifices of Cunouge and of Mnttra, of Thanesur and Somnath, and his capital, which at the beginning of his reign was a collection of hovels, was ornamented with mosques, porches, fountains, aqueducts, and palaces. The dynasty of Ghuzni maybe said to have reigned, though it did not flourish, for a hundred and fifty- six years after the death of Mahmood, inasmuch as it was not dispos- p^^^j^ ^nd a.d. sessed of its last territories before 1186. During close of the h^q this period, the attention of its princes was so in- Jy^^ty. cessantly distracted by the political and mili- tary movements of Central Asia, and more especially by the aggressions of the Seljuks, as to leave them little leisure for the affairs of India. It would be idle to en- cumber the attention of the reader with the revolutions beyond the Indus, which have no bearing upon the interests of India, or with the catalogue of the sovereigns engaged in them. The provinces of Lahore and Mooltan were permanently annexed to the throne of Ghuzni, though more than one effort was made by the Hindoo princes to drive the Mahomedans across the Indus. SECTION II. FROM THE EXTINCTION OF THE HOUSE OF GHUZNI TO THE ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF TOGHLUK. The dynasty of Chore, which succeeded that of Ghuzni, was founded by Eis-ood-deen, a native of Afghanistan, who entered the service of Musaood, the king ^^ in of the of Ghuzni, and obtained the hand of his daughter House of together with the principality of Chore. His ^^*''^^- son was married to Byram, the last sultan of Ghuzni, who put him to death on the occasion of some family quarrel. The brother of the deceased prince, Seif-ood-deen, took up arms to revenge his death, and Byram was obliged to fly, but he returned soon after with a larger force, and conquered his opponent, whom he butchered with studied ignominy. Alla-ood-deen, his brother, vowed a bitter revenge, and a battle was fought under the walls of Ghuzni, when Byram was defeated and fled to Lahore, but perished on the route. Alla-ood-deen then proceeded to wreak his vengeance on the city of Ghuzni, which had become the grandest in Asia, and gave it up for three, 24 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II and, according to some authors, for seven days, to indis- criminate slaughter, flame, and devastation. The superb monuments of the kings of Ghuzni were levelled with the ground, and the palaces of the nobles sacked and demo- lished. This savage vengeance has fixed an indelible stigma on his memory, and he i^ branded by Mahomedan historians as ' the incendiary of the world.' He was suc- Gheias-ood- ceeded in 1156 by an amiable and imbecile A.D. ^^^ youth, who was murdered within a twelve- 1156 month, when Gheias-ood-deen was raised to the throne, and associated his brother Shahab-ood-deen, the renowned Mahomed Gbory, with him in the government, the most important functions of which were left in his hands. The harmony which subsisted between the two brothers for forty-five years, and the exemplary loyalty which Maho- med, though in possession of the real power of the state, continued to manifest towards his brother in an age of universal violence, deserve especial commemoration. Mahomed Ghory was the real founder of Mahomedan power in India, and it may be serviceable to glance at the state of the condition of the Hindoo thrones north of the Ner- Hindoo budda on the eve of their extinction. The king- kingdoms. ^Qj^ q£ Cunouge had passed under the authority of the Rathore tribe of Rajpoots. The kings of Benares who professed the booddhist creed had become extinct, and the principality had been divided between the rulers of Cunouge and Bengal. Bengal was independent under the dynasty of the Sens. Guzerat was governed by the Bhagilas, and the powerful kingdom of Ajmere by the Chohans. The last King of Delhi, Prithee raj, was of the Tomara tribe, and he had adopted his grandson, the raja of Ajmere, and bestowed his daughter on him. With the chief of Guzerat for his ally, the king of Cunouge was engaged in mortal conflict with the king of Delhi, with whom were associated the rajas of Chittore and Ajmere. The arrogant raja of Cunouge had, moreover, determined to celebrate the sacrifice of the horse, the emblem of universal sovereignty, and this vainglorious assumption was re- sented by half the powers of Hindostan, which was thus divided into two hostile camps, with its rulers engaged in deadly hostilities, when the Mahomedan invader was thun- dering at its gates. On the threshold of this greai revolution we pause for a moment to notice the virtues of Bhoje-raj, the last of the great Hindoo sove- reigns of India. He was of the ancient and Sect. IJ.] EXTINCTION OF HOUSE OF GHUZNI, ETC. 25 time-honoured tribe of the Prumuras, who still continued to rule, but with diminished splendour, the kingdom of Oojein. Seated on the throne of Vikrum-aditya, he resolved to emulate him in the encouragement of literature. His memory is consecrated by the gratitude of posterity, and his reign has been immortalised by the genius of poetry. Mahomed Ghory turned his attention to India with all a.d. the vigour of a young dynasty. In 1176 he took the 1176 province of Ooch, at the junction of the rivers of Mahomed the Punjab and the Indus. Two years later he ^hory. was defeated in his attempt on Gruzerat. He subsequently overran Sinde, and took possession of the two pro- vinces of Mooltan and the " Punjab, which alone had remained to the house of Ghuzni, which thus became extinct. Having no longer any Mahomedan rival within the Indus, his entire force was brought to bear on the great Hindoo monarchies. At this period there was little trace of the invasion of Mahmood ; the prosperity of the country was renewed, and it teemed with wealth and abounded in temples ; but the year li93 brought a tem- n^j pest of desolation which completely overwhelmed the Hindoo power in the north. Prithee raj, the gallant but thoughtless king of Delhi, though he had wasted his strength in his struggle with the raja of Cunouge and his associates, was still able to bring a force of 200,000 horse into the field with a proportionate number of foot. The two armies joined battle at Tirauri, not far from Thanesur, the battle-field of Hindostan, when the king of Ghore was completely defeated, and was happy to escape with the wreck of his army across the Indus. Having recruited his army with Turks, Tartars, and Afghans, he recrossed the Indus to wipe out his disgrace. The Hindoos met him on their old and, as they pefeatof the considered it, fortunate ground, with an aug- Hindoos, men ted force of infantry and cavalry; 150 chiefs rallied round the standard of Delhi, and the king sent an arrogant message to Mahomed, granting him permission to retire without molestation. He replied, with apparent humility, that he was merely his brother's lieutenant, to whom he would refer their message, and the moderation of this reply was interpreted as a symptom of weakness. The Caggar flowed between the two armies, and Mahomed, after having in vain endeavoured to surprise the Hindoos by crossing it during tSie night, feigned a retreat, which drew the enemy in confusion after him, when he charged 26 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. them with 12,000 chosen horse, and, as the historian re- lates, " this prodigious army, once shaken, like a great " building, tottered to its fall, and was lost in its own ruins." The raja of Chittore fell, gallantly fighting at the head of his Rajpoot cavalry. The king of Delhi was taken prisoner, and butchered in cold blood. Mahomed then proceeded to Ajmere, where he stained his reputation by the massacre of several thousands of his captives. Ma- homed returned to Ghuzni laden with plunder, leaving one of his slaves, Kootub-ood-deen, who had risen to eminence A..D. by his talent, to continue his conquests. He captured 1193 Meerut and Coel, and eventually Delhi, which now became the seat of Mahomedan power in India. The kings of Cunouge and Guzerat, who had looked on with maUcious delight while the Mahomedans smote down their Hindoo opponents, had no long respite themselves. Mahomed 1194 returned to India the next year with a powerful force, and defeated Jey-chunder, the Rathore raja of Cunouge, on the banks of the Jumna, and captured Benares, where he demolished a thousand t-emples. Upon this reverse, the whole tribe of Rathores emigrated in a body to Raj poo- tana, and estabhshed the kingdom of Marwar, and the ancient city of Cunouge, which had seen the days of Ramu sank to insignificance. Kootub-ood-deen lost no Bengal and time in despatching one of his slaves, Bukhtyar Behar. Ghiljie, to conquer Behar, which offered no re- sistance. That officer then advanced to Bengal, which was under the rule of Lukshmunu Sen, eighty years of age, who usually held his court at Nuddea. He appears to have made no preparations for the defence of the country, and was surprised at a meal, and fled for refuge to Jugernath. It is particularly worthy of note, that while the heroic Rajpoots, the kings of Delhi and Cunouge, and other princes in the north-west, offered a noble resistance to the Ma- homedans, Bengal feU, without the slightest effort for its independence. It remained under Mahomedan rule for five centuries and a half, till it was transferred to a European government by the issue of a single battle, which cost the conquerors only seventy men. Bukhtyar deli- vered up Nuddea to plunder, and then seized on Gour, the ancient capital. He subsequently invaded Bootan and Assam, but was gallantly repulsed by the highlanders, and died of chagrin on his return to Bengal. During these transactions Mahomed marched against the king of BIharizm, the modern Khiva, and, though at Shot, n.] EXTINCTION OF HOtrSE OF aHTJZNI, ETC. 27 first victorious, experienced so crushing a defeat that it was i^.©, with difficulty he made his way back to Ghuzni, Death of 1208 the gates of which were shut against him by the Mahomed, governor. Revolts at the same time broke out in India on the news of his reverses. He succeeded eventually in restoring his authority, and was returning to his capital, when he was murdered on the banks of the Indus by a band of Gukkers, who stole unperceived into his tent and 1206 revenged the loss of a relative in the late war. He governed the kingdom forty-nine years, forty-five in con- junction with his brother, and four after his death. His military operations in India were on a larger scale, and their result was more permanent than those of Mahmood of Ghuzni. Mahmood attacked the most opulent towns and temples and carried their wealth to Ghuzni. It was a sudden tornado of spoHation, and when it had passed over, the sovereigns recovered their power, and the country re- sumed its prosperity. But Mahomed of Ghore in the course of ten years completely demolished the Hindoo power, and at the period of his death northern India, from the Himalaya to the Nerbudda, with the exception of Malwa, had come under a permanent Mahomedan government. The treasure left by Mahomed is stated at a, sum which exceeds belief, more particularly the five maunds of jewels. He had no children, and his nephew was proclaimed throughout his dominions, and ruled them for six years. On his death there was a general scramble for power between the governors of the different provinces, and in 1215 Ghuzni 1215 was taken by the king of Klharizm, ajid the dynasty of Ghore disappears from the page of history. Kootub-ood-deen, to whose management Mahomed had confided his Indian conquests, was invested vrith the full sovereignty of them by his successor, and as- rj^ggi^^Q sumed the insignia of royalty at Lahore in dynasty. 1206, from which year the real foundation of f^*)'^'^- Mahomedan power in India is usually dated. The dynasty which he founded is known in history as that 1206 of the slave kings. He made one expedition across the Indus and overcame Eldoze, another of the slaves of Mahomed, who had caused himself to be crowned at Ghuzni, and claimed the submission of Kootub. Kootub himself was soon after defeated and returned to India, and from that time forward contented himself with the do- minions he possessed there. To conmiemorate the cap-, tore of Delhi, he commenced the magnificent Kootub- 28 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. Minar in that city, which was completed by his successor. A.D. He died in 1210, after an independent reign of five years. 1210 While Central Asia was the scene of convulsion created by the ambition of its different rulers, and more especially Jenghiz hy the violence of Mahomed the turbulent king 1219 E^an. of Kharizm, its polity was entirely subverted by the memorable irruption of Jenghiz Khan. He was the petty chief of the Moguls, a tribe of nomadic Tartars, roaming with their flocks and herds on the north of the great wall of China. By the age of forty he had es- tablished his authority over all the tribes, and burst with resistless force on China, and, after sacking ninety cities, obliged the emperor to cede the provinces north of the Yellow River. With an army of 700,000 men he then poured down on the Mahomedan principalities of Central Asia, and defeated Mahomed of Kharizm, who is said to have left 160,000 dead on the field. From the Caspian sea to the banks of the Indus, the whole region for more than a thousand miles was laid waste with fire and sword. This tide of desolation which swept over the country was the greatest calamity which has ever be- fallen the family of man. Although Jenghiz Khan did not invade India, he gave a predominant influence to the Moguls, who, after the lapse of three centuries, were led across the Indus by Baber, and placed on the throne of India. Kootub was succeeded by his son Aram, who was de- throned within a year, and Altumsh, his slave and son-in- law, was raised to supreme authority, which he d^^the"^ enjoyed for twenty-five years. He was occupied Slave in reducing to subjection the few districts which 1226 dynasty. ^^.^j remained in the hands of the Hindoos, in 1236 curbing his subordinate governors, and consolidating the new empire. He reduced the strong fortresses of Rin- thimbore in Rajpootana, of Q-walior, and of Mandoo. He captured Oojein, the venerable capital of Vikrum-adityn, and destroyed his magnificent temple of Muhakal, and sent the images to Delhi to be mutilated and placed as steps of his great mosque. He was succeeded by his son, who was deposed within six months for his vices, and his sister Rezia was raised to the throne. " She was," says the historian, " endowed with every princely virtue, and those 1286 "who scrutinised her actions most severely could find in her "no fault but that she was a woman." She managed the affairs of the empire with singulartalent, revised the laws, appeared 3kct. II.] EXTINCTION OF HOUSE OF GHUZNI, ETC. 29 daily on the throne in the habit of a Sultan, and gave audience to all comers. But an Abyssinian slave had gained her favour and was appointed to the command of the army ; the nobility were aggrieved, insurrections broke out, and she took the iield against the rebels, but was taken prisoner and put to death after a reign of three years and a half. The two succeeding reigns were without events, and occupied only six years, when Nazir-ood-deen, a grandson of Altumsh, mounted the throne. The reign of a.d. this quiet and studious monarch extended to twenty years. 12461 He was remarkable for the simplicity of his habits, his frugality, and continence, and for the royal Mahomedan virtue of transcribing the Koran. The merit of all the im- portant events of his reign belongs to his great minister, Bulbun, the Turkish slave and son-in-law of Altumsh. Throughout this reign the provinces contiguous to the Indus were constantly subjected to the ravages of the Moguls whom Jenghiz Khan had established in Central Asia, and twenty-five of the princes whom they had ex- pelled were hospitably entertained at the court of Delhi. He died without issue, and was succeeded by his minister, Bulbun, the greatest statesman in the annals of the slave dynasty. He was a prince of great energy andabiHty, but 1266 is represented by some historians as a monster of cruelty, by others as a model of perfection. During an insurrection in Merut he is said to have put 100,000 to death, and the rebellion in Bengal was punished with such extreme severity as to constrain the ministers of religion to interpose their influence to stay the savage execution of women and children. On the other hand, he set an example of the most rigid abstemiousness, and punished immorality with great rigour. His court was maintained on a scale of great magnificence, and adorned with the presence of men of literary genius, whom he attracted by his munificence ; but he made it a rule to employ no Hindoos in the public service. His accomplished son. Prince Mahomed, the idol of the age, was sent to repel a renewed invasion of the Moguls. They were defeated, 1279 but the illustrious youth fell in the field, and with him perished the hopes of the dynasty. Bulbun was succeeded by one of his grandsons, who was speedily superseded by another, and on his falling a victim to his debaucheries, a struggle for power arose between the Tartar mercenaries and the Afghan Ghiljies. The Tartars were cut to pieces, and the dynasty, which began in 1205 with the slav«» so ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap H. Kutnb, terminated in 1288, within three years of the death of the slave Bulbun. The victorious Ghiljie, Feroze, then in his seventieth year, mounted the throne, and assumed the title of Jellal- A.D. Dynasty of ood-deou. The dynasty, which lasted only thirty 1288 the Ghiijies. years, was rendered memorable by the extension of Mahomedan power over the Deccan. The reign of Jellal-ood-deen was marked, except in one instance, by an injudicious lenity, which relaxed the whole frame of go- vernment ; the governors withheld their tribute, and the roads were infested with banditti. In the fifth year of his reign, his nephew, Alla-ood-deen, a man of great energy, violent ambition, and no scruples of conscience, projected a marauding expedition to the south. Avoiding all com- munication with his uncle, he swept down across the Nerbudda with a body of 8,000 chosen horse, and suddenly presented himself before the fortress of Dowlutabad. Neither the king nor any of the neighbouring Hindoo princes were prepared for resistance, and the town with all 1294 its treasures fell a prey to the invader. The audacity of this adventure struck terror into the chiefs on the line, and before they were prepared to encounter him he was enabled to return, on the twenty-fifth day, without any interruption. This expedition revealed the wealth and the weakness of the Deccan to the Mahomedans, and paved the way for its subjugation. The aged emperor, then in his seventy-seventh year, was delighted to find his nephew return in safety, laden with plunder and covered with glory. His ministers endeavoured to put him on his 1295 guard against the ambitious designs of his nephew, but the over-confident monarch was induced to cross the Ganges to welcome him, and at the first interview was treacherously assassinated by men placed in ambush in the tent. Alla-ood-deen hastened to Delhi, and put the two sons of his uncle to death and imprisoned their mother ; but he Aiia-ood- endeavoured to efface the memory of these atro- deen. cities by the just exercise of the power he had so nefariously acquired, and by the exhibition of games and festivities ; he was never able, however, to suppress his ar- bitrary temper, and his reign, though long and glorious, was always disturbed by conspiracies. He was ignorant of letters when he ascended the throne, but he applied successfully to study, and surrounded himself with learned men, in whose society he took great pleasure. His government Sect. II.] EXTINCTION OF HOUSE OF G-HUZNI, ETC. 31 was stem and inflexible, but not unsnited to the exigencies of the time. The military operations of his reign, which extended to twenty- seven years, were divided between the north and sonth of India. Early in his reign he finally a.d. conquered Guzerat, which had assumed independence, and 1297 two years after obtained possession of the fortress of Rinthimbore and then of Chittore, which brought the Rajpoots " under the yoke of obedience." His territories to the north-west of Delhi were constantly disturbed by the inroads of the Moguls from Central Asia^ and in 1298 Kutlugh Khan marched down from the Indus with an army of 200,000 men upon Delhi, which was crowded with fugitives till famine began to stare them in the face, when 1298 Alla-ood-deen marched out and dispersed this vast host. The invasion was twice repeated, and as often repelled, and the emperor, to deter these inveterate enemies by a severe example, caused the heads of all his male prisoners to be struck oft' and erected into a pillar at Delhi. His first expedition to the Deccan, when seated on the throne, was directed against Warungul, the ancient capital of Telingana, but it was not successful. ^^ editions Three years later, a larger army was sent under to the the command of Malik Kafoor, a eunuch, once ^^°^°- the slave, but now the favourite general of the emperor, and the object of envy to the nobles of the court. He overran the Mahratta country and recovered Dowlutabad, which had revolted. In the previous expedition against 1306 Guzerat, the wife of the raja had fallen into the hands of the victors and was placed in the imperial harem, where her singular beauty and her talents excited the admiration of the emperor. She had borne a daughter to her former husband, whose attractions were said to be equal to her own, and the generals were ordered diligently to seek her out. She was unexpectedly discovered and conveyed to Delhi, where she made such an impression on the king's son that he married her; — at so early a period do we find inter- marriages between the Mahomedans and the Hindoos in 1309 vogue. In 1309, Kafoor ravaged the north of Telingana, and conquered Warungul. The next year he was sent with a large army down to the Carnatic, and reached the capital after a march of three months. The raja was defeated and made prisoner, and with him ended the Belial dynasty of the Deccan. Kafoor then ravaged the eastern provinces along the Coromandel coast down to the extreme limit of the peninsula, and, as a memorial of his 13 iff 32 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. TI. victories erected a mosque on the island of Ramisseram, between the continent and the island of Ceylon, contiguons to the magnificent temple erected ages before in honour of Seeta, the wife of the hero of the Ramayun. The value of the plunder he acquired in these expeditions was calculated by historians deemed sober, at a hundred crores of rupees. In the decline of life AUa-ood-deen exhibited an in- 1312 fatuated attachment to Kafoor, whose depravity equalled his talents, and a spirit of discontent spread of the throughout the provinces. His strength, both draSty. ^^ body and mind, was impaired by constant in- dulgence, and the empire, which had been sus- tained by his energy, fell into a state of anarchy. Guzerat, Chittore, and Deoghur deserted their allegiance, and he sank 1316 into the grave under a cloud of misfortunes. His con- quests were greater than had ever been achieved before in India ; his internal administration was eminently successful, and the wealth and prosperity of the country were in- creased. His death became the signal for revolutions. The infamous Kafoor seized upon the regency and put out the eyes of the two sons of his benefactor. The nobles of the court, however, caused him to be put to death, and placed the deceased emperor's third son upon the throne, who lost no time in putting the instruments of his eleva- tion to death, and extinguishing the sight of his youngest brother. He reconquered some of the provinces which had revolted, but on his return to the capital gave him- self up to the most degrading vices, while his favourite, Khosroo, a converted Hindoo, undertook an expedition to the Deccan and ravaged the maritime province of Malabar, which Kafoor had spared. Khosroo returned to Delhi laden with booty, assassinated his master, and usurped the throne, and then proceeded to massacre the royal family ; but Ghazee Toghluk, tlie governor of the Punjab, marched on Delhi with the veteran troops of the marches, disciplined 1321 by constant conflicts with the Moguls, and put an end to the reign and life of the monster. Sbct, ni.] DYNASTY OF TOGHLUK 33 SECTION III. THE DYNASTY OF TOGHLUK TO THE MOGUL DYNASTY. Ghazee Toghluk was desirous of placing some scion of tlie a,d. royal house upon the throne, but the family had been ex- ^^^^ terminated during the recent convulsions, and Ghazee he yielded to the wishes of the nobles and Toghiuk. people to accept it himself. His father was originally a slave of the emperor Bulbun, but raised himself to high honour by his abilities. His reign, which lasted only four years, was as commendable as his accession had been blameless. Bengal had prospered for forty years under the viceroyalty of Kurrah, the son of the emperor Bulbun, and as charges had been brought against him, Ghazee Toghluk investigated them in person, and, finding them groundless, confirmed him in the government ; and the native historian illustrates the mutations of fortune at this period by the remark that it was the son of the father's slave who granted the royal umbrella to his son. An ex- pedition was sent into Telingana ; the capital, Warungul, was captured, and the Hindoo dynasty which had flourished there for two centuries and a half became extinct. Jona Khan, the son of the emperor, on his return from this campaign, gave an entertainment to his father in a magnifi- cent pavilion which fell unexpectedly, but not accidentally, and crushed him to death. Jona Khan, who ascended the throne and assumed the V 2li title of Mahomed Toghluk, is one of the most extraordinary characters in the Mahomedan history of India „ ^ 1 JO -J. *^ T, • Mahomed — a singular compound oi opposite qualities. Toghink; He was the most accomplished sovereign of ^ caprices. the age, skilled in every science, and versed even in Greek philosophy; the liberal patron of learning, temperate to the verge of asceticism, and distinguished in the field by his gallantry and military skill. But all these virtues were neutralised by such perversity of disposition and such paroxysms of tyranny as to render him the object of general execration. It was the intoxication of absolute power which led him to acts bordering on insanity. He began his reign by completing the reduction of the Deccan ; he extended the hmits of the empire beyond any of his predecessors, and brought the remotest districts into as good order as those 34 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IL around Dellii ; yet, before his death the whole of the Expedition Deccan was lost to the crown by his follies. He to Persia. assembled a large army for the conquest of A.D. Persia, but, after exhausting his resources, the troops de- 1325 serted for want of pay, and became the terror of his own subjects. To replenish his treasury he resolved to march into China and levy contributions in that remote region, but the army of 100,000 men which he sent across the snowy range, after encountering incredible hardships, was aU but exterminated by the Chinese and the exasperated highlanders, and the few who escaped to tell the tale were butchered by his own orders. Hearing that the Chinese had a paper currency in use, he determined to introduce it into his dominions, to the ruin of thousands and the general derangement of commerce. His exactions drove the husbandmen into the woods, and filled the country with banditti. By way of revenge he surrounded a large tract of territory with his troops, and driving the wretched in- habitants into the centre, slaughtered them with all the 1838 Change of brutality of a battue. In 1338 he took the field capital. against his nephew, who had been driven into revolt, and the young prince was captured and flayed alive. On reaching Deoghur, he was so enchanted with the beauty of the situation and the mildness of the climate, that he resolved to make it the capital of the empire, and changed its name to Dowlutabad. He then ordered the inhabitants of Delhi to migrate to it, and thousands of men, women, and children were constrained to travel a distance of eight hundred miles ; but he planted the road with ftdl-grown trees. The project of transplanting the metropolis failed, but not till it had inflicted incalculable misery on the people. At the same time, as if to mock the calamities of his subjects, he erected a splendid mausoleum over the grave of a decayed tooth. These caprices and oppressions produced the usual har- vest of insurrections. The Afghans crossed the Indus and ber ^^^^g®<^ ^^® Punjab, and when they retired the mentofthe" Gukkers completed the desolation of the pro- 1840 empire. vincc. Bengal revolted, and remained independent for two centuries. Two fugitives from Telingana esta- blished a Hindoo kingdom near the Toombudra, with Bcejanuger for its capital. About the same time a de- scendant of the royal house of Telingana founded an in- dependent principality at Golconda ; and these two Hindoo 1344 powers maintained a vigorous struggle for many years with the Mahoraedan kingfdoms which arose in the Deccan. Sbct. III.] DYNASTY OF TOGHLUK 35 A still more important revolution wrested the remaining provinces south of the Nerbudda from the sceptre of Delhi. A large body of Moguls who had settled in Guzerat raised the standard of revolt. The emperor proceeded against them with his usual vigour, gave up the cities of Surat and Cambay to plunder, and desolated the province as if it had been the possession of an enemy. The Moguls fled to the Deccan, and being joined by those whom the emperor's oppressions had exasperated, took possession of Dowlutabad, where they proclaimed Ishmael Khan, an Afghan, king, and, after one reverse, estabhshed a new monarchy, known in history as the Bahminee kingdom. Mahomed Toghluk died in Sinde after a reign of twenty-one ^j,, years, leaving the throne of Delhi dispossessed of the whole 1361 of the Deccan and of the province of Bengal. Mahomed Toghluk was succeeded by his son Feroze, whose reign extended to thirty-seven years, and though mild and beneficent, was by no means brilliant. ^^^^^ ^^_ He discouraged luxury by his own example, re- ghiukandhis pealed vexatious taxes, and abolished torture and successors. mutilation. His ruling passion was architectare ; and the Mahomedan historian records with pride the erection of forty mosques, thirty colleges, twenty palaces, a hundred hospitals, a hundred public baths, a hundred and fifty bridges, and two hundred towns. But the noblest memorial of his reign was the canal he constructed between the source of the Ganges and the Sutlege, which bears his name, and keeps it fragrant in the recollection of posterity. After a reign of thirty-four years he abdicated the throne in favour of his son Mahomed Toghluk the second ; who gave himself up to indulgence, and constrained his father 1388 to resume his power, but at the age of ninety, he resigned the sceptre to his grandson. During the next ten years the throne was occupied by four princes, two of whom held authority in the capital at the same time and for three years waged incessant war with each other. Hindostan fell a prey to anarchy ; four independent kingdoms were 1394 carved out of the imperial dominions, and nothing remained to the crown of Delhi but the districts immediately around the capital. These kingdoms were all founded by the Mahomedan viceroys ; no efibrt was made by the Hindoos to take ad- vantage of the confusion of the times, and re- _, , . gam their supremacy, and the ancient chiefs of pendent Rajpootana were the only depository of Hindoo ^^^o™*- s 2 36 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. H. power in Hindostan. Of these kingdoms two, Malwa and Guzerat, rose to great power and eminence ; while the two others, Candesh and Jounpore, were of minor weight and more Hmited duration. Dilawur Khan of Ghore, the ^D. viceroy of Malwa, who assumed independence, established 1401 his capital at Mandoo, fifteen miles north of the Nerbudda. Mozuffer Khan, a Rajpoot converted to Mahomedanism, and like all converts, more especially in India, a virulent persecutor of his former creed, was sent by one of the feeble successors of ¥eroze Toghluk to supersede the sus- pected governor of Guzerat, and, seeing no power at Delhi 1396 to enforce obedience, threw ofi" the yoke of allegiance. The viceroy of Candesh, which consists of the lower valley of the Taptee, followed his example, and formed a matri- monial alliance with the new king of Guzerat. Still nearer the capital, Khoja Jehan the vizier of Mahomed Toghluk the third, availed himself of the weakness of the throne, and " assumed the royal umbrella," in Jounpore. The empire 1394 of Delhi, distracted by these revolts, and shorn of its fairest provinces, fell an easy prey to the ruthless invader who was now advancing to despoil it of its wealth. The Ameer Timur, or Tamerlane, was bom in the neighbourhood of Samarcand, of a Turki family which had 1398 been in the service of Jenghiz Khan. His lot was ^' cast at a period when the decay of vigour in the governments in the east offered the fairest opportunity of conquest to any daring adventurer. He was raised to the throne of Samarcand at the age of thirty-four, and in a few years prostrated every throne which stood in the way of his ambition, and became at once the scourge of Asia and the terror of Europe. He led the hordes of Tartary to the conquest of Persia, Khorasan and Transoxiana, of Mesopo- tamia and Georgia, and brought a portion of Russia and Siberia under subjection. Having mastered the whole of Central Asia, he sent his grandson to invade India, but as he met with more opposition than was expected, Timur him- self crossed the Indus at Attock, September 12, 1398, with ninety-two squadrons of horse, and advanced to Bhutnere, which was surrendered by the inhabitants on terms ; but, by one of those mistakes which seemed always to occur in his capitulations, they were put to the sword and the town burnt to the ground. Villages and towns were abandoned as he advanced, but on his arrival at Delhi, he found himself encumbered with prisoners, and, according to the statement of the historians, which were doubtless ex- Sect, in.] TIMUR— THE SYUD DYNASTY 37 aggerated, he caused 100,000 men to be massacred in cold blood. A battle was fought under the walls of the capital, between the veterans of Timur and the effeminate soldiers of the empire. The emperor Mahomed Toghluk the third was defeated and fled to Guzerat, and Timur entered the city and caused himself to be proclaimed emperor. Dis- putes, as might have been expected, arose between the citizens and his ferocious soldiers, and the whole of the Mogul army was let loose on the devoted city. The inhabit- ants sold their lives dearly, but their valour was quenched in their blood. The scenes of horror defy all description ; entire streets were choked up with the dying and the dead. For five days Timur remained a tranquil spectator of iihe plunder and conflagration of the city, while he cele- brated his victory by a magnificent feast. Having glutted his revenge and satiated his cupidity he proceeded " to offer " up to the divine Majesty his humble tribute of grateful " praise for his success, in the noble mosque of polished " marble, erected by Feroze on the banks of the Jumna." This whirlwind of desolation lasted six months, and Timur ^^u, recrossed the Indus in March 1399. Mahomed Toghluk re- 1399 turned to Delhi after the departure of Timur, and continued to exercise a precarious authority for twelve years, when Khizir Khan, the governor of the Punjab, marched to Delhi, and extinguished the dynasty of the Toghluks, after it had subsisted ninety-one years. The dynasty established by Khizir Khan which lasted 1414 only thirty-six years, is designated in Indian history the dynasty of the Syuds, as they claimed descent Dynasty of from the Prophet. The founder professed to be *^« ^y^^* only the lieutenant of Timur, who had bestowed the government of the Punjab on him, and caused money to be coined and prayers to be read in his name. His adminis- tration, which was extended to nine years, was beneficial to the distracted provinces, but, with the exception of his own province, he recovered none of the revolted districts. 142 J His son, Mobarik, was assassinated after a reign of thirteen years, in which no event of importance requires to be noted. Syud Mahomed who succeeded him left the throne to his son AUa-ood-deen, during whose feeble reign the territory annexed to the crown was still farther re- duced till at length it extended twelve miles from Delhi on one side and only one in another. In 1450 Beloli Lodi 1450 marched down to Delhi, and the emperor resigned the empty honours of royalty to him without a sigh, and re- 38 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. H. tired on a pension to Budaon where he passed the re- maining twenty-eight years of his life in cultivating his garden. The grandfather of Beloli Lodi, the founder of this dynasty, was an Afghan, of the tribe of Lodi, or Lohance, The dynasty engaged in the transport of merchandize, in of Lodi. which he had amassed a fortune. He repaired to the court of Feroze Toghluk, and gradually rose to the government of Mooltan. He was not content with the 4.D. narrow limits to which the imperial domains had been 1391 reduced, but his chief object was the conquest of Jounpore, The king- which had become independent in 1394 by the domof revolt of Klhoja Jehan. The Jounpore dynasty ounpore. flourished for eighty-two years, under six sove- reigns, the most illustrious of whom, Ibrahim, occupied the throne for one half that period. Under his beneficent rule the country reached the summit of prosperity. Learned men from all parts of Asia were invited to his court, which was esteemed the most polished and illustrious in Lidia. His capital was adoraed with superb and massive edifices, the remains of which still excite our admiration. Not merely was it the rival of Delhi in magnificence, but the strength of the kingdom was so pre-eminent that the struggle between the emperor and the king was prolonged with varied success for twenty- eight years, during which Delhi was twice besieged by the arms of Jounpore. Hostilities were occasionally suspended by a hollow truce, 1478 but they came to a final issue in 1478, when the last of the " kings of the east," as the dynasty was termed, fled to Bengal, and the kingdom was reannexed to the dominions of Delhi. Beloli Lodi succeeded in extending the terri- tories of the crown from the Jumna to the Himalaya, and from the Indus to Benares ; and after a reign of thirty- eight years bequeathed the throne to his son Secunder, who added Baber to his conquests. But his administra- tion, though otherwise just and equitable, was marked by the oppression of the Hindoos, whose pilgrimages he pro- hibited, and whose temples he demolished in every direc- 617 tion, erecting mosques with the materials. In 1517, Ibrahim, the third and the last of the line, succeeded to the crown, and alienated his nobles by his arrogance and hauteur to such a degree that his reign of nine years was a constant succession of revolts, which broke out in Behar, in Jounpore and in the Punjab, where the governor opened negotiations with Behar for the invasion of India. The fitacT. in.] KINGDOM OF CANDESH— OF aUZERAT 39 emperor's own brother joined him at Oabul. The success which attended the expedition of the Mogul will be nar- rated in a subsequent chapter. Having thus reached the threshold of the period when the imperial throne \yas transferred to the last Mahomedan dynasty, under which it was gradually restored to its integrity, we turn back to the progress of events in Hindostan and in the Deccan when it was first dismembered. Candesh became independent about the year 1399, and a.d, was not reannexed to the empire till the reign of Akbar, 1399 two centuries after. It was a small principality, candesh. of no note in history, remarkable only for the fertility of its soil, and the prosperity of its people ; it was, moreover, always considered subordinate to its more powerful neighbour Guzerat. The independence 0.^2^^^. of Guzerat was established in 1396 by Mozufier ^ ' 1396 Shah, and a succession of thirteen princes governed it for 165 years, till it expired in 1661. At the period of the revolt the province was of limited extent, consisting of the land lying between the mountains and the sea, but it was enlarged by successive acquisitions. The great figure it makes in history is owing to the energy and abilitj- of its princes, the first of whom Mozufier, the son of a Rajpoot convert, was constantly at war with the king of Malwa, or with the raja of Edur, the most powerful Hindoo princi- pality in the north. His son Aimed Shah reigned thirty- 1411 eight years, and was likewise incessantly engaged in hosti- lities with his neighbours, but he brought the country into good order, and built the town of Ahmedabad, which he made his capital, and adorned with such a profusion of magnificent mosques, caravanseras, and palaces, as to lead the Mahomedan historians to pronounce it the handsomest city in the world. The next two reigns, which extended to sixteen years, were occupied chiefly with struggles with Koombho, who was then building up a great Hindoo power in Rajpootana. Mahomed Shah, who ascended the throne at the age of fourteen, shed a lustre on it for a 1469 period of more than half a century. The European travellers who visited his court formed the most extrava- gant conceptions of his power, and asserted that a portion of his daily food consisted of mortal poisons with which his system became so impregnated that if a fly sat on him it fell down dead. He was the original of the picture drawn by the British poet of the prince of Cambay, * whose food was asp, and basilisk, and toad.' But even without 40 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. the power of digesting poisons he was a most puissant prince. He captured Gemar, a Hindoo fortress renowned for its antiquity and its strength. He overran Cutch, de- feated an army of Belooches, and annexed Sinde to his dominions. But the distinguishing feature of his reign was the navy he constructed, and the numerous naval expeditions which he undertook. He cleared the coast of pirates, who are said to have fought twenty battles before they were subdued. His memorable conflict with the A.D. Portuguese will be narrated in a future chapter. He was 1511 succeeded by his son, Mozufier the second, whose reign of fourteen years consisted of constant campaigns against Malwa, and the renowned Rana Sanga of Rajpootana. The rapid disappearance of two of his sons, in a single 1526 year, opened the throne to his third son, Bahadoor Shah, Bahadoor ^^^ subdued the hereditary foe of his dynasty, Shah. the Hindoo prince of Edur, and compelled the kings of Berar, Ahmednugur and Candesh to do him homage. His next exploit led to a more splendid result. The king of Malwa having provoked his hostility, he marched against him in conjunction with his ally, Rana Sanga, cap- tured both his capital and his person, and annexed the 1634 kingdom to his own territories. Soon after, the brother of the last emperor of Delhi of the Lodi family, which had been dispossessed by the Mogul Baber, sought an asylum at the court of Guzerat, and Bahadoor Shah supplied him with the means of raising an army, which was however defeated. Humayoon, then emperor of Delhi, incensed at this proceeding, marched down to Guzerat, expelled Baha- door, and took possession of the kingdom. But he was soon after recalled to defend his own throne against Shore Khan; dissensions broke out among his generals, and Bahadoor was enabled to recover his throne. After a reign of ten years he was drowned in the harboar of Diu, 1536 as he left the vessel of the Portuguese admiral. The next sovereign was distracted for sixteen years by the factions of his chiefs. Two pageants were set up in succession by the courtiers, but they eventually partitioned the kingdom among themselves. At length, after nearly twenty years of convulsions, Akbar put an end to this state of anarchy by annexing the kingdom to the throne of Delhi, after it 1572 had been alienated a hundred and seventy-six years Malwa became independent in 1401, under Dilawur Ghoro, who bequeathed the throne four years 1401 ^^^'^ after to his son Hoosein Ghore. His reign of Sbct. m.] KINGDOM OF MALW A— RAJPOOT ANA 41 twenty-five years was passed in incessant wars with his neighbours. His son was assassinated by his minister, a.d. Mahomed Khan Ghiljie, who mounted the throne, and 1435 during a period of forty-seven years proved himself the ablest of the kings of Malwa. He appears to have had the unobstructed range of northern India, as we find him besieging Delhi, and establishing his son as governor of Ajmere. It was recorded of him that ' the tent was his house, and the battle-field his resting place.' His son, Gheias-ood-deen, mounted the throne in 1482, and, having 1482 invited his courtiers to a splendid entertainment, informed them that he had passed thirty-four years of his life in the field, fighting by the side of his gallant father, and that he was resolved to spend the remainder of his days in peace and enjoyment ; while therefore he retained the royal dignity, he should leave the management of public afiairsto his son. The youth was proclaimed vizier, and the king retired to his seraglio, which he had stocked with 15,000 of the most beautiful women he could procure. In this female court the pomp and parade of royalty was strictly maintained. The royal body-guard consisted of 500 TurH maidens, arrayed in male attire, and of 500 Abyssinian maidens. Strange to say, he was allowed to retain this pageantry for eighteen years, without any attempt at rebellion. His son succeeded him in 1500 and his reign of twelve years was marked only by cruelty and sensuality. Mahmood, the last king, was assailed by the Rajpoots, and rescued by Bahadoor Shah, king of Guzerat ; but he was incapable of gratitude, and attacked his benefactor, who marched down to his capital in conjunction with the 1531 Rajpoots, and extinguished the kingdom after a hundred and thirty years of independence. At the period of the first invasion of the Mahomedans in 1001 , the Rajpoots appear to have been in possession of aU the governments in northern India; but, although ^^. q^^^^^ they succumbed to the conquerors, they continued to maintain a spirit of independence under their respective chieftains in the table-land of Rajpootana, in the centre of Hindostan. The most important of these chiefs was the rana of Oodypore, in his capital of Chittore. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the throne was filled by Rana Sanga, whose genius and valour raised it to the height of power. His army consisted of 80,000 horse and 500 war elephants ; and seven rajas of superior rank and more than a hundred of inferior note attended his stirrup into 42 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. the field. The chiefs next in importance, the rajas of Jey- pore and Joudpore, or Marwar, served under his banner, and he was the acknowledged head of the Rajpoot tribes. The national historian dwells with pride on the eighteen battles he fought with Gruzerat and Malwa. His genius consolidated the power of that gallant and chivalrous race, and prepared it for the resistance which it was soon to offer to the Moguls, which, if it had been successful, would doubtless have restored the sovereigniy of Hindostan to the Hindoos. It has been stated that the oppressions of Mahomed Toghluk led to the establishment of an independent Ma- Aj). rj^g -g^jj homedan government in the Deccan, by Hussun 1347 minee Gunga, an Afghan, in 1347. Out of gratitude dynasty. ^^ j^g Hindoo patron, he took the additional title of Bahminee, by which the dynasty is known in history, and extended his authority over all the territories belonging to the crown of Delhi south of the Nerbudda, with the exception of those included in the two Hindoo kingdoms of Beejanuger and Telingana. His son, who 1368 succeeded him in 1358, commenced his reign by attacking the king of Telingana, from whom he obtained the sur- render of a throne, which, with the jewels he added to it, was valued at four crores. In a drunken revel he offered an insult to the king of Beejanuger, who attacked the town of Moodgul, and put the inhabitants to the sword. Mahomed, the king, swore that food and sleep should be unlawful to him till he had propitiated the martyrs of Moodgul by the slaughter of 100,000 infidels. He entered the raja's territories, and ravaged them without mercy ; and having, as he supposed, completed his vow, granted him honourable terms, and on his return devoted his attention to the improvement of his country. After a reign of seventeen years he left the crown to his son, but he was murdered by his uncle. Feroze, the son of the 1897 assassin, mounted the throne in 1397, and his reign, together with that of his brother, which extended over thirty-seven years, are considered the palmy days of the dynasty. He made twenty-four campaigns, and carried fiire and sword through the length and breadth of the Carnatic. At the same time, he was an eminent patron of literature. He likewise estabhshed a mercantile marine, and instructed his commanders to bring the most learned men and the handsomest women from every port they visited. His seraglio is said to have contained beauties Sect. III.] FIVE KINGDOMS IN THE DECCAN 43 jfrom thirteen different countries, and tlie historians affirm that he was able to converse with each one in her own tongue. He likewise made a point of copying sixteen pages of the Koran daily. Towards the close of his reign he attacked the raja of Beejanuger, and was totally de- feated, when the triumphant Hindoos retaliated on him for the destruction of their temples, by the demoKtion of his mosques. His brother, Ahmed Shah, in his turn defeated the Hindoos, and pursued them with ujirelenting severity from day to day, not pausing till the number of the slain was reported to have reached 20,000. We pass on to the last monarch of the dynasty. Mahomed Shah, who was placed on the throne at the age of nine, was affectionately nurtured by his minister Mahomed Gawan, a.d the most eminent general and statesman of the age, through 1463 whose energetic efforts the kingdom reached its greatest limits, and was extended from the Malabar to the Coromandel coast, and from the Nerbudda to the Kistna. His in- ternal administration was equally successful, and the prosperity of the country rose to its highest measure. The envious courtiers succeeded, however, in alienating the king from the man to whom he was under these obli- gations, and in a fit of drunken revelry, he ordered him to be put to death. Gawan was then in his seventy-eighth year, and he knelt down with his face towards Mecca, and received the fatal blow. Though he had held high office under five kings, he died in grsicefiil poverty. The king himself became a prey to remorse, and died within a twelve month. It is unnecessary to pursue the history of this dynasty ; Mahomed Shah, his son, ascended the throne in 1482, and lived on, though he cannot be said to have 1482 reigned, for thirty-seven years. The kingdom crumbled away as governor after governor revolted, and was at length resolved into five independent sovereignties. 1. Adil Shah, the adopted son of Mahomed Gtiwan, 1489 founded the kingdom of Beejapore and the Adil Shahee dynasty in 1489, which retained its independence ^^^ ^^ for one hundred and ninety-seven years, until it pendent was absorbed by Aurungzebe in 1686. kingdoms. 2. Hussun Bheiry, who instigated the murder of Ma- 1490 homed G^wan, was executed by order of his master, and his son Ahmed Nizam raised the standard of revolt in 1487, at Alimednugur, where he established the Nizam Shahee dynasty, which continued for one hundred and fifty years, till it was subverted by Shah Jehan in 1637. 44 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. 1L A.D. 3. Imad-ool-moolk made himself independent at Berar 1484 in 1484, and commenced the Imad Shahee dynasty, which was extingnished at the end of ninety years by the king of Ahmednugur in 1574. 4. Koolee Kootnb, a Turkoman, who rose to be governor 1612 of Golconda, established his independence there in 1512, under the name of the Kootnb Shahee dynasty, which sub- sisted for a hundred and seventy five years, and was ex- tinguished by Aurungzebe in 1687. 5. Ahmed Bereed, who was appointed minister on the 1498 murder of Mahomed Gawan, gradually absorbed all the power of the state, and erected what remained of its do- mains into an independent state at Beder. It was of limited extent, and the period of its extinction is uncertain. This partition of the Deccan among five independent sovereigns who were constantly at war with each other, or with the Hindoo monarch s, subjected the wretched country to perpetual desolation ; but there can be little advantage to the reader in wading through a long succession of sieges and battles, and encumbering the memory with a string of names and dates of no interest. The salient events of this long period of anarchy will come up in the history of the Mogul empire, in which they were eventually absorbed after more than a century and a half of conflict. SECTION IV. THE MOGUL DYNASTY — BABER — HUMAYOON — AEBAB. 1626 In the month of April 1526 Sultan Baber captured Delhi, and established the Mogul dynasty, which continued to The Mogul flourish with only one interruption, and with dynasty. increasing lustre, for a hundred and eighty years, under a succession, unprecedented in Indian history, of six sovereigns, distinguished by their gallantry in the field, and, with one exception, by their ability in the cabinet. Baber, the sixth in descent from Timur, was the son of Sheikh Mirza, the ruler of Ferghana on the upper Baber's early Jaxartes. His mother was a descendant of Jen- career, ghiz Khan, and he inherited the spirit of enter- prize which distinguished both his renowned ancestors, and at the early age of fifteen commenced that adventurous career which he pursued without intermission for thirty- Sbct. IV.] THE MOGUL DYNASTY— BASER 45 five years. His first campaign was directed against the city of Samarcand, the capital of Timur and the metropolis of Transoxiana, but though he captured it three times, he was as often expelled from it. For eight years he was engaged in a series of perilous and romantic enterprizes, and experienced vicissitudes of fortune which would have crushed an ordinary mortal, but which only seemed to give fresh vigour to his buoyant spirit. In the year 1504!, see- ing Httle prospect of success in his native province, he seized the city of Cabul, of which he retained posses- sion for twenty-two years, incessantly employed in defend- ing or enlarging his dominions. His greatest peril arose from the progress of the Uzbeks, a tribe of ferocious Turks and Tartars, then swarming from their native hive, whose leader, Sharbek, had swept the posterity of Timur from Khorasan and Transoxiana. In his march towards the Indus the Uzbek captured Candahar, and threatened Cabul, and would probably have extinguished the hopes and the ambition of Baber had he not been recalled to resist the hostility of Ishmael Shah, who had recently founded the dynasty of the Sophis in Persia. The Uzbek chief was routed and slain, but the footing which his tribe obtained in Transoxiana they retain with vigour to this day. Baber, who had again occupied Samarcand, and had been again expelled from it, now turned his attention to India, where the imbecility and the unpopularity of the emperor, Ibrahim Lodi, ofiered an allurement too Baber in strong for a descendant of Timur to resist. He ^<^*- was invited to invade it by men of influence who had been aHenated from the emperor by his oppressions, and more particularly by his own brother, who sought refuge at Cabul. In the course of five years, commencing with 1519 he made five irruptions across the Indus, with alternate success and disappointment. In 1526 he undertook his last and crowning expedition, with an army not exceeding 12,000 men, but, though a heterogeneous mixture of mercenaries, they were all veterans, disciplined in many fields. The des- tiny of India was decided on the field of Paniput, where the emperor Ibrahim encountered him with, it is said, 100,000 jy^jj,- troops and 1000 elephants, and was totally discomfited and 1626 fell. Delhi opened her gates to the conqueror, and in May 1526 he vaulted into the vacant throne. But Delhi had long ceased to be the capital and the mistress of state of India. The great Mahomedan empire which, in India. the early days of Mahomed Toghluk, embraced the whole continent, had been broken up a century and a half before 46 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IL by his extravagances, and the victory of Baber only gave him possession of the districts to the north-west of the capital, and a strip of territory extending along the banks of the Jumna down to Agra. The various provinces were in the hands of independent rulers. In the southern extremity of India the great Hindoo monarchy of Beeja- nuger was lord of the ascendant. Farther north lay another Hindoo principality, and the territories of the five kingdoms recently formed on the dissolution of the Bahminee monarchy. Guzerat was governed by a wild youth who had recently absorbed Malwa. Bengal, in- cluding Behar, was ruled by an Afghan king. Orissa was still in possession of its ancient Hindoo dynasty, and in northern India Rana Sanga had consohdated Hindoo sovereignty in Rajpootana, and was at this time the most powerful ruler north of the Nerbudda. Rana Sanga, elated by the success he had recently ob- tained over the king of Malwa in conjunction with the Baber'svic ^^^? ^^ Guzerat, espoused the cause of the tory over the dethroned family of Lodi. All the Rajpoot Rajpoots. princes ranged themselves under his banner, and he advanced with 100,000 men, the flower of the A..D, Rajpoot chivalry, to drive Baber back across the Indus. In 1627 the first engagement at Biana, Baber experienced a very disastrous defeat : some of his officers and men deserted their colours, others went over to the enemy, and all were disheartened, but he did not allow himself to despair. He states, in his interesting memoirs, that he repented of his sins, and determined to reform his life, that he for- swore the use of wine, melted down his silver and gold goblets, and determined to live like a true Moosulman and cultivate his beard. His enthusiasm reanimated his troops, and in the engagement to which he led them, he obtained a splendid victory which completely crippled and humbled 1628 the Rajpoot power. The next year he attacked and mastered Chanderee, a Rajpoot fortress hitherto deemed impregnable ; and in the succeeding year recovered Oude and northern Behar, and chastised the king of Bengal. But his constitution, which had been impaired by early indulgences, was worn out by these exertions in an uncon- 1630 genial climate, and he died at Agra in 1530, at the age of fifty, and was interred at Cabul, in a beautiful and charac spot he had selected for his grave, the simple and *^' chaste monument erected over which has con- tinued to attract the admiration of three centuries. No Sect. IV.] HUMAYOON 47 Mahomedan prince in India is held in higher estimation than Baber. His career exhibited all that romantic spirit of advenfcnre of which nations are always proud. His personal courage bordered on rashness ; his activity appears fabulous ; for thirty-eight years, as he records, he had never kept the feast of Ramzan twice in the same place. But he was rather a valorous soldier than a great general, and lost almost as many battles as he won, but he never lost heart, and was as buoyant after a defeat as after a victory. Amidst all the bustle of war he found leisure for the culti- vation of literature, and his poetry has been not a little admired. There is no Indian prince with whose individual character and tastes and feelings we are so famihar ; and this is owing to his interesting autobiography, in which he records his transgressions with so much candour, and his repentance with so much sincerity, and his friendships with such warmth, that the reader is led involuntarily to regard him as a personal friend. a.d. Humayoon succeeded his father in 1530, at the age of 1530 twenty-six, and the first act of his reign displayed the weakness of his character. His brother Camran, the governor of Cabul and Candahar, refused to °™*y°°°' acknowledge his authority, but he resigned those provinces to him — adding thereto the Punjab — and thus deprived himself of the means of recruiting his army with the hardy mountaineers of Afghanistan, and, as Baber' s veterans died out, was obliged to depend on those whom he could enlist from his half-subdued subjects in India. In the third year of his reign he was involved in hostilities with Bahadoor Shah, the wild king of Gruzerat, who had fur- nished the dethroned family of Lodi with the means of 1634 assailing him. Bahadoor was defeated, and obliged to take refage at the land's-end of Din, and the whole province was occupied by the Mogul troops. Humayoon then pro- ceeded against Chumpanere, a fortress likewise considered impregnable, but with 300 troops he climbed a perpen- dicular rock by means of spikes driven into it, and cap- tured it at once. He was immediately after recalled to Agra to arrest the progress of Shore Klhan, but was defeated and expelled from India after a reign of ten years, and a new dynasty mounted the throne. Shere Khan was an Afghan of noble parentage, born at Sasseram, in Behar, where his father held a jageer under the governor. He enlisted as a Dynasty of private soldier under the revolted viceroy of ShereShah. 48 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. Jounpore, but cultivated his mind with great assiduity and educated himself for a future career of ambition. A long series of adventures, ended in his obtaining posses- ^.D, sion of Behar, and invading Bengal, and it was to oppose 1636 his alarming progress that Humayoon was recalled from Guzerat. He marched down upon him, but wasted six months in the siege of Chunar, which was at length cap- tured by the powerful artillery of Humayoon manned by Portuguese gunners and directed by Roomy Khan, a Turk of Constantinople, whom he had brought with him from Gruzerat. Meanwhile Shere Klhan had defeated the king of Bengal and captured Gour, but not deeming himself sufficiently strong to resist the imperial troops he retired to the mountain region of Behar and deposited his family and his treasures in the stronger fortress of Rhotas. 1638 The emperor took possession of Gour, but when the rains set in, the delta of the Ganges became a sheet of water, and his army was isolated and decimated by sickness and desertion. Shere Khan then issued from his fastnesses, took possession of Behar and Benares, recovered Chunar, and pushed his detachments up to Cunouge. Humayoon was obliged to retreat towards his capital, but was inter- cepted and defeated, and Shere Khan assumed the im- Defeat of perial title. Humayoon at length reached Agra Humayoon. after his defeat, and employed eight months in recruiting his force, while his rival was employed in organising the provinces he had conquered. The two armies met at Cunouge, where the emperor experienced a second and more fatal defeat, and fled first to Delhi, and 1/540 then to Lahore ; thus at the end of fourteen years, the power which the energy and perseverance of Baber had estabUshed was subverted, and scarcely a vestige of Mogul sovereignty remained in India, while the throne of Delhi reverted to the Afghans. Humayoon fled to Sinde and was engaged for eighteen months in fruitless negotiations with its chiefs. He then threw himself on the kindness of the Rajpoot prince of Marwar, but was rudely repulsed from his court and pursued with an armed force by his son. The wretched emperor, after suffering incredible hardships in crossing the desert, at length succeeded in reaching Amercote with only seven mounted attendants ; and there his queen, who had nobly shared with him the torments of the journey, gave birth to a son, afterwards the illustrious 1542 Akbar. After another series of reverses, he quitted India and repaired to Candahar. Sbct. IV.] DYNASTY OF SHERE SHAH 49 Leaving Humayoon across tlie Indus, we turn to tlie a.d. career of Shere Shah, who mounted the throne and esta- 1540 blished a new dynasty, which however did not ^^ last more than sixteen years. In 1542 he con- quered the province of Malwa, and reduced the great fortress of Raiseen, of boundless antiquity. Here his repu- tation was tarnished by the only stain ever attached to it. The garrison capitulated on terms, but the Mahomedan doctors assured him that, according to the doctrines of the Koran, no faith was to be kept with unbelievers, and they were slain to a man. In 1544 he invaded Marwar, which was 1544 defended by 50,000 Rajpoots, and he was exposed to such peril, that, in allusion to the barrenness of the country, he exclaimed that " he had nearly lost the empire for a "handful of millet." Soon after, the capture of Chittore placed Rajpootana at his feet, and he then proceeded to attack Callinger, an ancient and strong fort in Bundlecund, but was killed by the explosion of a magazine. The five years of his reign form the most brilliant period in native 1545 history. He was equally qualified for the duties of war and of peace — a consummate general, and a liberal and enlightened statesman. Though incessantly engaged in the field, he reformed every branch of the civil administration ; and of his institutions it is sufi&cient to say that they became the model of those of Akbar. He constructed a grand trunk road, lined with trees, from Bengal to the banks of the Indus, erected caravanseries, and excavated wells for the convenience of travellers ; he was, moreover, the first prince to establish a mounted post. His second son Selim, after quelling a dangerous rebellion, was enabled to enjoy the throne in peace for nine years, indulging his hereditary taste for architecture. It was the profligacy of his brother and successor, known in history as Adili, which at length extinguished this short-lived dynasty. Having exhausted the treasury, he began to resume the estates of his Patau nobles, who went one by one into rebellion, and estabUshed five independent authorities, and nothing was 1544 at length left to the crown but the districts immediately around Delhi. To turn to the career of Humayoon. He proceeded from India to Candahar, but was driven from it by the hostility of his brother, and constrained to seek refuge at the Bestoration court of Persia, where he was subject to all the mor- ''f Hunia- tifications a capricious despot could inflict. He was ^°°°' even constrained to undergo the indignity of putting on the £ 50 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA I CHi.p. II. ^-^ Kuzzilbash, or red cap of the Persians, and it was "proclaimed 1544 " by a triumphal flourish from the king's band." After re- peated importunity, he was famished with 14,000 horse for the conquest of Afghanistan, but only on condition of ceding the frontier provinces to the king. Candahar was cap- tured after a siege of five months, and made over to the Persian prince who had accompanied him to receive posses- sion of it. On his death Humayoon put a large portion of the Persian garrison to the sword — an act of perfidy which has left an indelible blot on his memory. He then marched to Cabul, and after various severe struggles succeeded in 1553 wresting it from his brothers, one of whom he deprived of sight, with excruciating torture. The increasing confusion in India led him to make a bold stroke to recover his throne. He crossed the Indus and encountered the for- midable army of Secunder Soor, who had seized the Punjab on the dissolution of the imperial authority, and gained a complete victory. It was in this battle that the young Akbar earned his spurs. Humayoon hastened to Delhi, and remounted the throne which he had lost fifteen 1565 years before, but was not destined to enjoy it long. Six months afterwards, while descending the steps of his library, he heard the muezzin's call to prayer, and, as usual, stopped to repeat the creed, and then sat down ; but on endeavouring to rise, the stafi" on which he leaned slipped over the polished steps, and he fell headlong over 1S56 *^® parapet, and expired within four days, in the forty- ninth year of his age, and, including the period of his exile, the twenty- sixth year of his reign. Akbar, the pride and ornament of the Mogul dynasty, was only thirteen years and three months of age when he Akbar's ^^^ Called to the throne, which he adorned by his early years, genius for fifty years. He was contemporary with Queen Elizabeth, his reign having begun two years before, and ended two years after hers. The administration was managed during his minority by Byram Khan, a Turko- man, the companion of Humayoon in all the vicissitudes of his career, and an eminent statesman and general, but austere, arrogant, and exceptionally bigoted. Hemu, one of the greatest commanders of the age, and, though a Hindoo, most loyal to the deposed emperor AdiH, on hearing of the death of Humayoon, deposited his master at Chunar, and moved up to the capital with 100,000 men. Agra and Delhi opened their gates to him, and the ministers of Akbar entreated him to abandon India, and retire to Bkct.IV.] BYRAM'S AEROGAJfCE AND DEATH 51 Afghanistan ; but Byram advised an immediate and vigo- rous attack, and Akbar supported his opinion. The two armies met at Paniput, and the destiny of India was again ^j^ decided on that memorable field. Hemu was completely 1556 defeated, and conducted bleeding into the presence of the young monarch. Byram urged him to secure the rehgious merit of slaying an infidel, but he refused to imbrue his hands in the blood of a gallant and now helpless foe, and Byram struck ofi" the head of the captive with one stroke of his scimitar. It was the military talent and the energy of Byram which had seated the Moguls again on the throne, and maintained Akbar' s power ; but the minister had grown too big for a subject, and for four years after his accession Akbar felt himself to be a cipher in his own court. Such bondage was intolerable to a high-spirited prince, and, at the age of eighteen, he resolved to emanci- pate himself from it. While out, therefore, on a hunting party, he suddenly returned to Delhi without his minister, and issued a proclamation, announcing that he had taken the government into his own hands, and that no orders were to be obeyed which did not issue from himself. Byram felt that his power was waning, and retired to Nagore, giving out that he was going on pilgrimage to Mecca, not without the hope of being reinstated, but Akbar sent him a message dismissing him from all his offices. He immediately went into revolt, and having raised an army, attempted an invasion of the Punjab, but was defeated and captured. As he entered the royal pre- sence with his turban humbly cast around his neck, and threw himself at the feet of the prince he had cherished from the cradle, Akbar hastened to raise him, seated him on his right hand, and, after investing him with a robe of honour, ofiered him his choice of any post in the empire. He preferred a retreat to Mecca, but was assassinated on the route by an ALfghan, whose father he had put to death. Akbar was now his own master at the age of eighteen, iseo Born amidst hardships, and trained up in adversity, he was beset with difficulties which would have broken a Akbar's spirit of less energy. Of all the Mahomedan difficulties, dynasties which had ruled India, that of the Moguls was the weakest. It was not connected with any large and powerful tribe beyond the Indus, ready to advance and support the ascendency of its fellow-countrymen in India. His army was a collection of mercenaries di*awr to his ■ 2 52 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. U. A.D. standai'd from the various countries of Central Asia by the 1660 }iope of plunder. His officers were a band of adventurers 1567 ^<^^^"^^ ^^ ^^ ^y ^^ *^®^ ^^ hereditary loyalty, and more disposed to carve out principalities for themselves than to build up a Mogul empire. Before he could attempt to recover the dominions of the crown, it was necessary for him to establish his authority over his own chiefs, and for seven years he was engaged in crushing their revolts. In the first year of his reign, his territories were confined to the Punjab and the districts around Agra and Delhi, but he gradually recovered Ajmere, Gwalior and Oude. The son of the late emperor Adili made an attempt to recover his throne; he was defeated by Zeman Shah, but the general, despising the youth of his sovereign, withheld the royal share of the booty, and Akbar was obliged to take the field against him. Adam Khan, another general, was sent to expel the Afghans from Malwa ; but, after defeating them, kept the fruits of the victory to himself. Akbar marched against him, but consented to accept his submission, and he re- quited this lenity by stabbing the vizier while at prayer in a chamber adjoining that occupied by the emperor, who thereupon ordered him to be thrown headlong into the Jumna. Soon after, Abdoolla Kian, a haughty Uzbek, who had been received with a host of his countrymen into the Mogul service, " withdrew his neck from the yoke of " obedience," but Akbar came down upon him with prompti- tude, and constrained him to fly to Guzerat. Great dis- satisfaction was thereby created among the Uzbek officers, and a treasonable confederacy was organised in the army. One of their number, Asof Jah, was sent to sub- jugate the little Hindoo principahty of Gurra, on the Nerbudda, near Jubbulpore, then governed by the Princess Doorgawutee, who was no less renowned for her valour than for her beauty. She commanded her army in person, and maintained the conflict with a noble heroism, till she 1564 received a wound in her eye. The troops, missing her presence, began to give way, when, to avoid falHng into the hands of the enemy, she seized the stiletto of the elephant driver, and plunged it into her bosom. Her martial exploits are still a favourite theme with the bards of the Deccan. The principality was conquered by Asof Jah, but he appropriated the largest share of the rich booty to his own use, and then joined the confederacy, which now embraced the most considerable of Akbar's generals. His danger was extreme ; it was no less than a Sect. IV.] ALLIANCE WITH EAJPOOT FAMILIES 53 struggle for the throne, and the question at issue was, whether the empire should be Uzbek or Mogul. Q^^g^i BKs detachments were repeatedly defeated, but Uzbek con- he maintained the conflict with unflinching reso- ^P"'^°y- lution for two years. At this critical juncture he was obliged to quit the pursuit of the Uzbeks, in consequence of the revolt of his brother, to whom he had entrusted the government of the Punjab. It was at once crushed, but on his return to the south he found that the revolted generals had taken possession of Allahabad and Oude, and were preparing to march on the capital. Though the rains had set in, when military operations are usually suspended in India, he did not hesitate to take the field against them, and, by his promptitude and vigour, suc- ceeded at length in breaking up the confederacy. He had now subdued all his adversaries by his valour, or his clemency, and, at the age of twenty- five, he had the happi- ness of seeing his authority completely established over all the revolted provinces. With a spirit of liberality foreign to preceding conquerors, Baber determined to strengthen his throne by matrimonial alliances with the Hindoos. Humayoon had Matrimonial espoused the daughter of the raja of Jeypore. ^^JJ^the Akbar had hkewise married two Rajpoot prin- Rajpoots, cesses, and his son had followed his example. Offices of great dignity and responsibility were conferred on these Hindoo princes, and they took a pride in these imperial aUiances. But the orthodox house of Chittore, wrapped up in its religious exclusiveness and hauteur, disdained every such connection, and excommunicated those who had adopted them. The raja had given encouragement to the king of Malwa, and Akbar was determined to Attack of chastise him. The throne was at the time cwttore. occupied by Oody Sing, the degenerate son of the illus- trious Rana Sunga. He took refuge in the hills on the approach of the Mogul troops, and left the defence of his capital to Jeymul, the Rajpoot chief of Bednore, esteemed a.d. by his countrymen the bravest of the brave. The siege 156f was protracted by his skill and valour, but he was killed by a bolt from the bow of Akbar. His death deprived the garrison of all confidence, and they devoted themselves to death with the accustomed solemnities. The women threw themselves on the funeral pyre of the chief, and the men rushed recklessly on the weapons of the Moguls, and perished to the number of 8,000. 54 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II, Akbar's next enterprise was of greater magnitude. The kingdom of Gnzerat, enlarged by the conquests of Conquest of Bahadoor Shah, had been a prey to faction Gnzerat. since his death in 1537, and four weak and profligate princes had occupied the throne in thirty-five years. Etimad Khan, once a Hindoo slave, who managed the government for Mozuffer the third, seeing no other mode of terminating the distractions of the country, in- vited Akbar to take possession of it, and he proceeded to A..D. Patun, where that feeble monarch resigned the sceptre to 1572 Uni, and Guzerat was again annexed to the crown of Delhi, after two centuries and a half of independence. But no sooner had he returned to his capital with the bulk of his army, than a turbulent chief of the name of Mirza raised a new revolt, and the imperial general was reduced to extremities. The rains had set in, but Akbar was ready for action at all seasons. He immediately despatched 2,000 cavalry, and followed them with 300 of his own guards, marching 450 miles in nine days. The promptitude of his 1573 movements confounded the rebels, and the subjugation of the province was rendered complete. The attention of Akbar had been directed to Bengal while he was engaged in Guzerat. Under the successor ^ades °^ Shere Shah, the Afghan governor of the pro- Bengal, vinco assumed independence, and four kings of his line reigned in Bengal during a period of thirty years. The last was assassinated soon after he ascended the throne, which was then seized by Soliman, an illustrious Afghan, who determined on the conquest of Orissa, which was effected by his general, Kala-pahar. Soliman died in 1573, and was succeeded by Daood Khan, a debauchee and a coward, who, considering himself a match for Akbar, ven- tured to attack a fort above Ghazeepore. Akbar ordered an army down for the conquest of the kingdom, and the king retired to Orissa, where he encountered the Mogul army, and was defeated, but was allowed to retain the kingdom as a feudatory. The next year, on the withdrawal of the imperial troops, he revolted, and was defeated. He fell in the action, and with him terminated the last line of 1676 the Afghan kings of Bengal, which they had held for a period of two hundred and thirty-six years. The Mogul officers seized the jageers of the discomfited Afghans, but on being summoned to account for the revenues, and to pro- duce the roll of the troops they were bound to maintain, they rose in a body, and 30,000 of Akbar's finest cavalry Skct.IV.1 CONaUEST OF BENGAL AND OEISSA 55 appeared in arms against him. The new conquest was lost a.d, for a time, and the spirit of disaffection was spreading ^^^^ through Oude. In this emergency the emperor, finding it impossible to trust the fidelity of his Mogul officers, sent an army of Rajpoots under the celebrated raja, Toder Mull, to reduce the province. He succeeded in giving a severe blow to the insurgents, but the war was protracted and the Afghans of Orissa took advantage of the confusion, and recovered their footing in the southern districts of Bengal. The great Rajpoot, raja Man Sing, was then despatched to quell this formidable insurrection, but it was not before the year 1592, after a dozen engagements and sixteen years 1692 of conflict, that the authority of the emperor was folly established in this province. Two years after the conquest of Bengal, the kingdom of Orissa was added to the Mogul empire. Orissa had for 1678 twenty centuries been considered the Holy Land conquest of of India, and the region of pilgrimage under o^"^*- three successive creeds. I'or more than seven centuries it was the depository of the sacred tooth of Booddha, until that reHc was removed to Ceylon. Then came the Hindoo dynasty of the Kesaris, who covered it with thousands of temples in honour of Seeva. This was succeeded by the dynasty of the Gunga-bungsas, who are believed to have come from the Gangetic province, and who assumed the title of Lords of the Elephant. Their do- minions covered 40,000 square miles, and extended from the banks of the Hooghly to the banks of the Godavery. They gave the ascendency to the worship of Vishnoo, and although Jugernath, a form of that god, makes his first appearance in that land of religious merit early in the fourth century, it was under the auspices of this dynasty that the ' Lord of the World ' attained that supreme homage throughout the continent which he still maintains. The first sovereign of the line was fourteen years in erecting the magnificent temple at Pooree, and the resources of the state were exhausted by a succession of princes, in ecclesi- astical endowments and the support of brahmins. Inroads were occasionally made by the Mahomedan rulers of Bengal, but the Hindoo princes of Orissa continued to maintain their independence with great vigour tiU the death, in 1532, of the last able monarch of the Gtingetic dynasty, which was followed by a period of anarchy for twenty-four years, when Soliman, the king of Bengal, sent his general, Kala-pahar, to invade it. He was a brahmin by birth, but 56 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. had embraced the religion of the Prophet to obtain the hand of a princess of Gonr, and became the unrelenting oppressor of his former creed. He defeated the raja, and with him ended the independence of this ancient and re- nowned kingdom. Kala-pahar persecuted the brahmins and confiscated the religious endowments which had accu- mulated during twenty generations of devout monarchs. He destroyed the idols and pulled down the temples to erect mosques with the materials, and he dug up the image of Jugemath from the Chilka lake, into which it had been thrown for safety, and conveying it to the banks of the Hooghly, committed it to the flames. According to popular rumour, the arms and legs of the idols dropped off at the sound of his kettledrums. Upon the conquest of Bengal, the king Daood took refuge in Orissa, and was pursued by the generals of Akbar, and after more than one revolt, was slain, and Orissa became a province of the Mogul empire, A.D. A short time previous to this invasion of Bengal by 1560 Akbar, the ancient city of Gour, the metropohs of Bengal, The city ^^s depopulated and abandoned. It was admir- of Gonr. ably situated on the confines of Bengal and Behar for the government of both provinces. It had been the capital of a hundred kings, who adorned it, more especially those of the Mahomedan creed, with massive and superb edifices. It extended along the banks of the river, and was defended from its encroachments by a stone emlDank- ment, said to have been fifteen miles in length. This magnificent city, the abode of wealth and luxury, was suddenly prostrated by some pestilence which has never been explained, and has since been the abode of wild hogs and tigers. The next event of importance in the reign of Akbar was 1586 the conquest of Cashmere, by his brother-in-law, the raja Conquest of of Jcypore. The king, on his submission, was Cashmere, enrolled among the nobles of the court, and this noble valley, considered the paradise of Asia, which enjoys " a delicious climate, and exhibits in the midst of snowy "summits a scene of continual verdure," became the summer residence of Akbar and his successors. The effort to curb the highlanders between the Indus and the passes into Afghan- istan, which was next undertaken, proved a more arduous task. These wild mountaineers had been for ages the plague of every ruler of the province. They regarded it as their hereditary vocation to plunder travellers passing through the defiles, and to levy black mail on the industry of Srct. IV.] INVASION OF THE DECCAN 57 the valleys. Akbar sent a strong army under the raja of Jey- pore to subjugate them, but it was assailed in the passes and annihilated ; and the Mahomedan historian records The that of 40,000 horse and foot, scarcely a man re- ^i^yberees. j^j^ turned. Such wholesale destruction would appear incredible, ^^^^ if we had not witnessed a repetition of it, in the same scenes, ■under the British Government in 1841. The rajas Toder Mull and Man- sing imposed some restraint on their vio- lence by the establishment of military posts which cut off their supplies from the plains ; but they were as trouble- some as ever a century after in the reign of Aurungzebe. 1^91 Soon after, Akbar proceeded to the conquest of Sinde, and reannexed Candahar to the crown; and thus, sindeand after a series of conflicts which extended over Candahax. twenty-five years, he found himself at length undisputed '594 master of his hereditary dominions across the Indus, and of all the territories north of the Nerbudda which had ever belonged to the imperial throne, and it only remained for him to extend his authority over the Deccan. A brief notice of the progress of events in that division of India during the sixteenth century will be a suitable introduction to the expedition which the emperor now undertook. SECTION V. AKBAR. INVASION OF THE DECCAN. HIS DEATH. [t has been stated in a previous chapter that five inde- pendent kingdoms — Beejapore, Abmednugur, Golconda, Beder, and Berar — arose on the ruins of the Bah- minee kingdom. Beder rarely appears on the ^the^'^*^ page of history, and Berar which was never of sixteenth much weight in the politics of the Deccan, was ^^° ^^' absorbed by AJimednugur in 1572. The attention of the kings of Golconda was chiefly directed to the subjugation of the various Hindoo principalities which lay on its eastern frontier, and stretched along the Coromandel coast from Orissa southward. It appears also to have gradually absorbed the Hindoo state of Telingana, with its capital at Warungul, which had assumed independence on the fall of the Bahminee kingdom. Beejapore and Ahmeinugur, 58 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. wLich bordered ou each otlier, were engaged in constant hostility. Within the circle of their territories was in- cluded the region inhabited by the Mahrattas, which had formerly belonged to the Hindoo kingdom of Deoghur, conquered by Alla-ood-deen in 1295 ; and the origin and growth of their importance is to be attributed primarily to the training they received in the constant warfare of these princes. During the sixteenth century the armies of these two Mahomedan states were constantly recruited by Mahratta soldiers, sometimes to the extent of 20,000. There was not as yet any bond of national unity among them, and they sold their mercenary swords to the highest bidder, without caring whether their own countrymen might not be fighting in the opposite ranks. But the great event of that century was the extinction of Hindoo power in the Deccan. To the south of the Klistna Beeja- lay the great Hindoo monarchy of Beejanuger, niiger. established in 1336, which had maintained a per- petual conflict with the Bahminee dynasty, and subsequent- ly with the kingdoms which arose on its decay. In the early period of the sixteenth century Beejanuger had attained its greatest extent and power. It was enriched by maritime commerce ; and all the Hindoo chiefs south of the Kistna — below which the Mahomedans had no footing — were completely under its control, even where they were not under its government. No single state was able to cope with it. The reigning raja, Ram-raj, had recently wrested several districts from Beejapore ; he had overrun Golconda, laid siege to the capital, and exacted large concessions from the king. The four Mahomedan kings — Beder still existed — felt the necessity of restraining the growth of his power, and, suspending their mutual jealous- ies, formed a quadruple alliance against him. It was nothing less than a conflict between the Hindoos and the Mahomedans for the supremacy of the Deccan. Although Ram-raja called up all the strength of his Hindoo feuda- tories from the south down to its extreme limits, the enumeration of his host by Ferishta appears fabulous. His younger brother is said to have commanded a wing of the army consisting of 20,000 cavalry, 100,000 foot, and 500 elephants. His second brother had another wing of equal strength, while the raja himself led the flower of the army. The confederate force was likewise prodigious, and included 20,000 elephants and 600 pieces of artillery of all calibre. This important battle, known in history as that of Talli- Sbct. V.J CHAND SULTANA 69 kotta, which lies at a short distance from the EZistna, was a.d. fought on the 25th January, 1565, and it resulted in the 1565 total defeat of the raja, and the slaughter, as the Mahom- edan historians boast, of 100,000 infidels. The raja, seventy years of age, was beheaded in cold blood, and his head was preserved as a trophy at Beejapore, and annually exhibited on the anniversary of his death. The Hindoo power in the south was irretrievably broken, but dissensions among the victors enabled the brother of the raja to retain a fraction of his territory, and to establish his court event- ually at Chundergiree, which has been rendered memorable in the history of British India as the town, where, seventy years after the battle of Tallikotta, the descendant of the raja granted the East India Company the first foot of land they ever possessed in India, and on which they erected the factory of Madras. At the period of Akbar's invasion of the Deccan, the three Mahomedan princes were those of Beejapore, Gol- conda, and Ahmednugur. This expedition was, » tbar' doubtless, dictated by the "lust of territorial views on " aggrandisement ;" but, if it had been completely *^® deccan. successfal, it would have been an unquestionable blessing to the country. Nothing could be more deplorable than the condition of the Deccan at this period. Its various kings had no occupation but war, aggressive war without even the excuse of provocation. Scarcely a year passed in which villages were not desolated, and the fair fruits of industry blasted by their mutual hostilities ; and the sub- stitution of a single authority, even though despotic, was a real godsend. On the death of Boorhan Nizam Shah, the king of Ahmednugur, four factions arose in the state, the most powerfal of which sent an invitation to Akbar, which he accepted at once ; but, before the force which he despatched could reach the capital, another revolution placed the government in the hands of Chand ntand Sultana, the aunt of the minor raja. This cele- suitana of brated woman, the favourite heroine of the ^^' 169i Deccan, and the subject of a hundred ballads, determined to defend the city to the last extremity. The Moguls had constructed three mines, two of which she countermined ; the third blew up, leaving a large opening in the wall, and her officers prepared to desert the defence. The sultana flew to the spot fally armed, with a drawn sword in her hand, and a veil over her face. Combustibles »f every description were thrown into the breach, and so 60 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. II. heavy a fire was directed upon it, that the assailants were constrained to retire. It is a popular and cherished tra- dition that, when the shot was exhausted, she charged the guns with copper, then with silver, and lastly with gold. Her allies were now approaching, and the Mogul camp was The sultana straitened for provisions. Morad, the son of A.D. ^^^^ ^^^^' Akbar, offered to retire upon the cession of Berar, 1596 and the sultana, who placed little confidence in her own troops, reluctantly accepted these terms. Within a year the kings of Ahmednugur, Golconda, and Beejapore formed a league to drive the Moguls out of the Deccan, and brought 60,000 troops into the field. An action was fought at Soniput, which lasted two days without any decisive result. Discord broke out among the Mogul officers, and Akbar, 1699 who had resided for fourteen years near the Indus, felt the necessity of proceeding to the Deccan in person. He advanced to the Nerbudda, and sent his son Morad to lay siege to Ahmednugur. The government of Chand Sultana was in a more disturbed state than ever, and, seeing defence hopeless, she felt the necessity of negotiating a peace with the Moguls, when the soldiery, instigated by her enemies, Her tragic burst into her chamber, and put her to death, death. rpjjg ^.-^ ^g^g stormed and plundered, and the 1600 young king and the royal family were sent prisoners to Gwalior ; but the kingdom was not incorporated with the Mogul territories till thirty- seven years later. This was the last political event of any importance in the 1601 reign of Akbar, who returned to the capital in 1601. The Last four last four years of his life were embittered by the ^^l^l miscondact of his eldest son Selim, a violent and life. vindictive prince, and the slave of wine. He took up arms against his father, but was conciliated by a grant of the provinces of Bengal and Orissa. He had contracted an inveterate dislike of Abul Fazil, one of the most illustrious and esteemed of the emperor's officers, equally eminent as a general, a statesman, and a historian, to whose classic pen his reign is indebted, in no small degree, for its lasting renown. Selim caused him to be assassinated by a zemin- dar of Bundlecund. In September 1605, Akbar began to feel the approach of death. The profligacy of Selim had induced an influential body of courtiers to contemplate the elevation of a younger son to the throne, but Akbar assembled them around his dying couch, and in their pre- sence ordered Selim to gird his own scimitar to his side, as a token of the bequciit of the empire. Then, addressing Sect, v.] CHAEACTER OF AKBAR 61 the assembled omrahs, lie asked forgiveness for whatever offence he might have given them, and, after repeating the Moslem confession of faith, expired in the odour Death of of sanctity, though he had lived the life of a ^^bar. ^^ heretic. He died at the age of sixty-three, after a reign of I6O6 forty-nine years. AlrV>a,r is described as " a strongly built and handsome " man, with an agreeable expression of countenance, and " very captivating manners.*' He was not only the character pride of the Mogul dynasty, but incomparably the °* -^bar. greatest of all the Mahometan rulers of India. Few of these princes have ever exhibited greater military talent or per- sonal courage. He never fought a battle which he did not win, or besiege a town which he did not take. Yet he had no passion for war ; and he had no sooner turned the tide of victory by his skill and energy, than he left his com- manders to complete the work, and hastened back to the more congenial labours of the cabinet. The glory of his reign rests not so much on the extent of his conquests, as on the admirable institutions by which they were consoH- dated and improved. In the early part of his career he was a devout follower of the Prophet, and, at one time, contemplated a pilgrimage to his tomb, the earnest longing of every Mahomedan. But, about the twenty-fifth year of his reign, he began to entertain latitudinarian views. Re- jecting all prophets, priests, and ceremonies, he professed to take simple reason as his guide. The formula of his creed seems to have been : " There is no god but God, and " Akbar is his Caliph." Yet with all his scepticism, he was not without a touch of superstition, of which he afforded an instance by the awe and veneration with which he adored the image of Jesus Christ and the Virgin, when shown to him by the Roman Catholic missionaries. The tendency of his measures was to discourage Mahomedanism. He changed the era of the Hegira ; he restrained the study of Arabic, and of Mahomedan theology, and wounded the dearest pre- judices of the faithful by prohibiting the beard, though it was enjoined by the Koran. Nothing but the ascendency of his character, and his brilliant success in war and in peace, could have preserved his throne amidst the discon- tents occasioned by these heterodox proceedings. Amidst a people with whom the persecution of infidels was regarded as a sacred duty, he adopted the principle, not only of religious toleration, but of religious equaHty, and deter- mined to rest the strength of his throne upon the attach- 62 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTOBY OF INDIA [Chap. II. ment of all his subjects. He secnred the loyalty of 1-lie Hindoos by inviting them to share the highest civil offices and military commands with those of his own creed. He abolished the jezzia, the odious capitation tax inflicted on unbelievers, rescinded the pilgrim tax, sanctioned the marriage of Hindoo widows, and positively prohibited suttees. Under the supervision of the Hindoo raja, Toder MuU, the great financier of the age, he remodelled the whole His revenue revenue system of ihe empire, and thus brought settlement, ^q maturity the great plans which Shere Shah in his brief reign of five years had inaugurated. The lands were measured accordmg to a uniform standard, and divided into three classes according to their character and fertility. The demand of the state was fixed, generally, at one-third the produce, and then commuted into money. The settlement was made with the ryots, to the exclusion of all middle-men, and all arbitrary cesses were aboHshed. The whole empire was divided into fifteen provinces or soobahs, each of which was placed under the authority of a soobadar. Ho was entrusted with full powers, civil, military and financial, and assisted by a mihtary commander and finance minister, who were accountable to him, though nomi- nated by the crown. Akbar's military system was the least perfect of the departments of the state, and was enfeebled by paying the commanders for their men by the head, which created an irresistible temptation to present false musters, and to fill the ranks with vagabonds. The same organisa- tion which pervaded the state establishments was intro- duced into every division of the court, and the whole was regulated, to the minutest detail, by the emperor himself. Every department was maintained upon a scale of imperial Splendour of magnificence, of which there had been no exam- his court, pie aince the estabhshment of the Mahomedan power in India. During his progress through the country his camp was a moving city, and the eye was dazzled by the splendid tents of his ministers and officers, and more especially by the royal tents, blazing with ornaments and surmounted with gilt cupolas. A taste for literature was difiused through his court. Translations were made under his directions from the Hindoo classics, and his accom- pHshed courtier, Fiezi, was directed to make a correct Yersion of the Evangelists, Shct.I.] JEHANGEEB 63 CHAPTER III. SECTION L BEIQN OF JEHANGEEB. On the death of Akbar, Selim stepped into the throne and a.d. assumed the title of Jehangeer, the Conqueror of the World. ^^^^ The great empire to which he succeeded was in a Accession of state of profound tranquillity, not disturbed by Jehangeer. any insubordination among the public officers nor by foreign aggression . His first measures were judicious and ben evolent. He confirmed most of his father's ministers in their posts, remitted some vexatious taxes which had survived his father's reforms, and made arrangements for giving easy access to the complaints of his subjects. He hkewise re- placed the Mahomedan creed on the coin, and manifested a superstitious obedience to the precepts of the Koran. But the quiet of the realm was speedily interrupted by the rebellion of his son, Khosroo, to whom he had always ex- 16O6 hibited a feeling of strong antipathy. The unhappy youth fled to the Punjab, and collected a force of 10,000 men, but was pursued and captured, when the emperor exhibited the brutahty of his disposition by causing 700 of his adherents to be impaled alive, while Khosroo was de- liberately carried along the line to witness their agonies. The event which exercised the greatest influence on the reign of Jehangeer was his marriage with Noor Jehan, contracted in the sixth year of his reign. This ^^^ j^j^^ celebrated princess was the daughter of a Persian noble, who had been reduced to poverty, and, following the current stream of emigration, proceeded to India to repair his fortunes. During the journey his wife gave birth to a daughter, under very distressing circumstances. A mer- chant, who happened to be travelling on the same route, offered them timely assistance, and conveyed them in his own train to the capital. He took the father into his service, and eventually introduced him to the Court of 64 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. Akbar, where he rose to considerable eminence. As the daughter grew np, she received all the accomplishments which the metropolis of the empire could provide, and attracted admiration by her exquisite beauty and elegance. In the harem of Akbar, which she visited with her mother, she excited the passion of prince Selim ; but as she had been abeady betrothed to a young and gallant Persian noble, who had acquired the title of Shore Afghan, from having killed a tiger in single combat, the marriage was completed by the orders of the emperor, and a jageer in the distant province of Burdwan was bestowed on him, to withdraw his wife from the capital. But Jehangeer had no sooner mounted the throne than he determined to remove every obstacle to the gratification of his wishes, and the noble Persian perished in an affray which was not believed to be accidental. His lovely widow was conveyed to the capital, and the emperor offered to share his throne with her ; but she rejected his advances with such disdain as to disgust Jehangeer, and she was consigned to neglect in the harem. Reflection served to convince her of her folly, j^D, and she contrived to throw herself in his way and to re- 1611 kindle his passion. The nuptials were celebrated with ex- Hermar- traordinary pomp, and she was clothed with liagewith honours such as no princess had ever enjoyed emperor. ^^^^^^ ^^ India. Her name was associated with the emperor's on the coin, and announced in these graceful terms : " By order of Jehangeer, gold acquired a hundred- " fold value by the name of Noor Jehan." Her talents for business were not inferior to her personal charms, and her influence was beneficial in softening the emperor's dispo- sition, and producing that reformation in his habits which marked the early years of his reign. Her taste imparted grace to the splendour of the court, while, at the same time, she curtailed its extravagance. Her brother was raised to high ofl&ce, and her father placed at the head of the administration, which he managed with great ability. The capture of Ahmednugur and the murder of Chand Sultana did not ensure the conquest of the kingdom. A kinsman of the late king was placed on the throne by Malik Amber, the chief of the Abyssinian nobles of the court. He holds the foremost rank in the history of the 1610 Deccan monarchies as a statesman and general of surpass- ing ability. He took entire charge of the administration, and maintained the sinking fortunes of the state for many years with singular energy. Planting himself on the Sect. I.] EMBASSY OF SIR T. ROE. 65 borders of the Deccan, he repeatedly- drove the Moguls across the Nerbudda. Two powerful armies were sent by Jehangeer into the Deccan ; one was completely baffled by MaHk's peculiar mode of warfare, and obliged to retreat, and the other was too disheartened by this event to advance ^ j,^ far. His artillery, which was obtained from the Portuguese 1612 in his ports, was greatly superior to that of the imperial array. He availed himself, moreover, of the contingents of the Mahratta chieftains, which served to foster and to ma- ture their military power, and it was under his banner that Shahjee, the father of Sevajee, laid the foundation of the greatness of his family. Malik Amber had no natural passion for military enterprises, though his success in the field has seldom been surpassed. It was his attention to the duties of peace on which his renown rests, and his revenue settlements rival those of the raja Toder Mull. Jehangeer' s faihire in the Deccan was counter- subjugation balanced by his success in Rajpootana. Pertab °^ Oodypore. Sing, the rana of Oodypore, who is sfcill idolized by his countrymen for the heroism with which he repelled the Moguls and eventually regained the provinces they had conquered, was succeeded by his son Omrah, who, though equally valliant, was not equally fortunate. He was attack- ed by Shah Jehan, the favourite and the gallant son of Jehangeer, and obliged to acknowledge his fealty to the empire. The independence of Oodypore, which had been maintained for eight centuries, was virtually extinguished, 1614 for although Shah Jehan, himself of Rajpoot blood on the mother's side, generously restored the territories he had conquered to the fallen rana, it was only as the vassal of the emperor of Delhi. The tenth year of the reign of Jehangeer was rendered memorable by the arrival of Sir Thomas Roe, as the ambassador of James I., to solicit privileges sir Thomas 1616 for the East India Company. The result of his ^^' embassy will be stated in its place hereafter. Here it may be sufficient to remark that he was fascinated with the oriental magnificence of the court, which completely eclipsed the tinsel pomp of his own master ; but he saw little comfort among the people, who were ground down by extortion. The emperor dispensed justice daily in person, but retired in the evening to his cups, which he seldom quitted before his reason was obscured. The different governments were farmed out; the courtiers were uni- versally corrupt, and military discipline was relaxed. There F 66 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. was a large influx of Europeans at tlie court ; one of the emperor's nephews had embraced Christianity, and the emperor himself had an image of Christ in his rosary. Ajj^ Shah Jehan, the emperor's gallant son, who was married 1615 to the niece of Noor Jehan was now declared heir apparent. Shah Jehan ^^^ ^ent in the following year to invade the heir Deccan. The prosperity of Malik Amber had apparen . created a feeliDg of envy at the court, and he was still farther weakened by the desertion of the king of Beejapore. He was constrained, therefore, to cede to Shah Jehan the fortress of Aiimednugur, as well as all the conquests he had made from the Moguls. Within four years he renewed the war, and drove the imperial troops across the Taptee. Shah Jehan was again selected to 1620 command the army, and the usual success attended his arms. Malik Amber was deserted by his own officers, and obliged to purchase peace by a large sacrifice of territory and treasure. Just at this juncture Khosroo, the brother of Shah Jehan, 1621 died, and his own misfortunes began. Noor Jehan had be- intrigues of stowed her daughter by Shere Afghan on Shahriar, Noor Jehan. ^]^g youngest SOU of the empcror, and, in the hope of retaining her power under his weak administration, determined to secure the reversion of the throne for him. To remove Shah Jehan out of the way, she persuaded Jehangeer to employ his great military talents in recovering Candahar from the Persians, who had recently conquered it. Shah Jehan was fully aware of the danger of quitting India, and began to stipulate for securities. His request was pronounced treasonable; all his jageers were confiscated, 1622 and he was driven into revolt, and Mohabet, the most eminent of the imperial commanders, was directed to pro- ceed against him. After a partial and indecisive action in Rajpootana, Shah Jehan injudiciously retreated to the Deccan, where he arrived with the loss of his prestige. Malik Amber and the kings of Beejapore and Golconda refused him any assistance ; his own troops began to desert his standard, and he retired to Telingana. On reaching 1624 Masulipatam, he marched along the coast up to Bengal, and, having taken possession of that province as well as of Behar, advanced towards Allahabad. Mohabet, who had lost sight of him, on hearing of his progress, hastened from the south to the banks of the Ganges, and Shah Jehan was obliged a second time to fly to the Deccan, but was pursued with such vigour that, seeing his fortunes desperate, he Bect. I.] AGE OF BOODDHU TO MAHOMEDAN INVASION 67 sought reconciliation with his father, for -which he was obliged to give his two sons as hostages. A new scene now opens in this drama. Mohabet, the ^j,, greatest subject in the empire, and the prime favourite 1625 of the emperor, manifested no disposition to jjooj-Jehan's second the wishes of Noor Jehan, and raise her persecution son-in-law, a prince devoid of energy or ability, °^ Mohabet. to the throne, and she resolved on his destruction. A charge of embezzlement during his last expedition was trumped up against him^ and he was summoned to the court to answer it. He came, but with a body of 5,000 Rajpoots. He had recently betrothed his daughter to a young noble- man, without having first obtained the usual consent of the emperor. Jehangeer summoned the youth into his pre- sence, and, in a fit of brutal rage, ordered him to be stripped naked and scourged with thorns before the courtiers. Moha- bet perceived that his ruin was determined on, and resolved to strike the first blow. The emperor was then on his way to Cabul, and was encamped on the Hydaspes, which the army crossed in the morning on a bridge. The emperor had not recovered from the debauch of the previous night, and remained behind with a slender guard, when Mohabet proceeded to his tent, and seized his person, jj^j^^^^. Seeing himself helpless, he submitted to mount seizes the an elephant, together with his cupbearer and his emperor, goblet, and to proceed to Mohabet's tent. Noor Jehan crossed the river in disguise the next morn- ing, and joined the army which she led to the rescue of the emperor; but the Rajpoots had broken down the Noor Jehan bridge, and she advanced at the head of her troops rescues him. to a ford which had been discovered, mounted on a large elephant, and fully armed. The struggle was long and deadly. In spite of all her efforts, her troops were precipi- tated into the stream by the shower of balls, rockets, and arrows which Mohabet's Rajpoots discharged from their vantage ground. Her elephant was assailed with particular violence, and of the numerous missiles aimed at her, one at length struck the infant son of her daughter, whom she carried in her lap. The ford became a scene of universal confusion. The elephant driver was killed, and the elephant was wounded and borne down the stream back to the opposite bank. Her female attendants hastened to the spot, and found the howda, or seat, covered with blood, and the empress employed in binding up the wound of the infant. Noor Jehan yielded to necessity, and joined the emperor f2 68 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. in his captivity, and affected to be reconciled to Moliabet, who had assumed the command of the army, and marched on to Cabul. There the fertile genius of the empress was employed in cajoling Mohabet and throwing him off his A.D. guard, while, by a series of skilful manoeuvres, she gradually, 1626 and without observation, assembled a body of troops. See- ing his position becoming daily less secure, Mohabet was led to make her offers of submission. She agreed to con- done his revolt on condition that he should proceed in pursuit of Shah Jehan, who had fled to Sinde. Mohabet dreaded a reign of weakness under Shahriar, and resolved to join Shah Jehan ; and N"oor Jehan, on hearing of this defection, ordered him to be hunted through the empire, and set a price on his head. But all her plans of ambition were at once extinguished by the death of the emperor. After his liberation, he proceeded from Cabul to Caslunere, but his constitution was exhausted by a life of indulgence ; Death of he was seized with a violent fit of asthma, and died jehangeer. qj^ jj^g ^ay to Lahore, on the 28th October, 1627, 1627 in the sixtieth year of his age, and the twenty-second of his reign. He was contemporary with James the First of England. Not only were their reigns of the same duration, but there was a remarkable similarity in their characters. They were both equally weak and contemptible, both the slaves of favourites and drink ; and by a singular coinci- dence, they both launched a royal decree against the use of tobacco, then recently introduced into England and India, and in both cases with equal success. SECTION II. SHAH JEHAN AND AURUNGZEBE. 1627 On the death of Jehangeer, Asof Khan, one of the chief ministers of the cabinet, the brother of Noor Jehan, though Accession of ^^ owed his position to her influence, determined, Shah Jehan. from a patriotic motive, to support Shah Jehan, and invited him to the capital, while at the same time he placed the empress under restraint. Her power expired with the death of her husband, and she retired from the world upon an annuity of twenty lacs a year, and passed the remaining twenty years of her life in cherishing his Sect. II.] SHAH JEHAN AND AUEUNGZEBE 69 memory. Shah Jehan was proclaimed emperor at Agra, and rewarded the instruments of his elevation — Asof Khan and Mohabet— with offices of the highest dignity. His reign was distinguished by a passion for magnificence, ^^j, which was developed on the very first anniversary of his 1627 accession, when he was weighed against silver and gold and precious substances ; vessels filled with jewels were waved over his head — from the superstitious notion of averting misfortune — and then scattered on the floor for a general scramble. The expense of this festival was com- puted at a crore and a half of rupees. The first ten years of his reign were occupied with military operations in the Deccan. The genius of Malik Amber had restored much of its former splendour ^ars in the to the kingdom of Ahmednugur, but he had i^eccan. recently died at the age of eighty, and the country was distracted by factions. The Tang of Beejapore, Ibrahim Adil Shah, renowned for the grandeur of his buildings, had died about the same time, bequeathing to his successor a flourishing country and an army, reported, not without exaggeration, at 80,000 horse and upwards of 200,000 infantry, sufficiently powerful to cope for years with the whole strength of the Mogul empire. The king of Gol- conda was employed in extending his authority over his Hindoo neighbours to the east and the south. These three Deccan monarchies had recovered their former limits, and of all the conquests made by Akbar nothing remained to the crown of Delhi but the eastern portion of Candesh and Berar. The war in the Deccan on which Shah Jehan entered in the second year of his reign, was occasioned by the revolt of Jehan Lodi, an Afghan adventurer of low birth, 1628 but great courage and enterprise, who had commanded the imperial troops in the Deccan, but was disliked and mis- trusted by the emperor. Suspecting some sinister designs on his part, he marched out of his palace at Agra at the head of 2,000 of his veteran Afghans, with his kettledrums beating a note of defiance, and fought his way to the Deccan, where he was joined by many adherents, and supported by the king of Ahmednugur. The revolt became so serious that Shah Jehan ordered three armies into the field and proceeded in person to the Deccan. The king of Ahmednugur was defeated. Jehan Lodi sought aid of the king of Beejapore and was refused, and he then endeavoured to make his way to Afghanistan, but was brought to bay in Bandiecund, where he fell pierced with 70 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. in. wounds, after having performed prodigies of valour at the head, of 400 men who adhered to his fortunes to the last. Moorteza Nizam, of Ahmednugur, after his defeat, had fallen out with his minister Futteh Elhan, the son and Extinctio successor of Malik Amber, and imprisoned him, of Ahmed- but, when threatened with disorder and ruin on nugur. g^Yl sides, restored him to power. The ungrateful ^.D. Abyssinian rewarded his kindness by putting him and his 1630 chief adherents to death, and then, after placing an infant on the throne, offered his submission to the emperor. But Shahjee, the Mahratta chief, who had risen to great import- ance under Malik Amber, found himself strong enough to set up a new pretender to the throne, and obtained posses- sion of the greater portion of the country. The Deccan was thus as far from being subjugated as ever, and Shah Jehan deemed it necessary to undertake another expedition 1637 in person. Shahjee was driven from Ahmednugur, and the whole force of the empire was brought to bear on Beejapore, the king of which had made common cause with Ahmednugur, and now maintained a struggle of five years with the imperial generals. To baffle their efforts, he created a desert for more than twenty miles round his capi- tal, destroying every particle of food and every vestige of forage. Both parties became at length weary of this war, and listened to terms of accommodation. The result of this conflict of eight years may be thus briefly summed up : the kingdom of Ahmednugur was extinguished, after a century and a half of independence ; a portion of it was ceded to Beejapore for a tribute of twenty lacs a year, and the remainder absorbed in the Mogul dominions, while the king of Golconda consented to pay an annual subsidy. 1637 Shah Jehan was soon after gladdened by the recovery of Candahar. Ali Merdan, the governor under the Persians, was driven into revolt by the tyranny of his and AH sovereign, and made over the town and terri- Merdan. j-qjj ^q ^^^q Moguls. He was taken into the ser- vice of Shah Jehan, and employed in many military expeditions beyond the Indus, but his fame rests on the public works he constructed in India, and more especially, on the noble canal near Delhi, which still preserves the grateful remembrance of his name. After several years of repose, the emperor determined to prosecute the dormant claims of his family on the distant regions of Balkh and Sect. II.] SHAH JEHAN AND AURITNGZEBB 71 Budukshau, and he proceeded to Cabul. Ali Merdan and Morad, the emperor's son, reduced Balkh, but it was im- mediately after overrun by the Uzbeks. Raja Juggut Sing was then sent with 14,000 Rajpoots, and they manifested their loyalty to a just and tolerant government by crossing the Indus, in spite of their Hindoo prejudices, traversing the loffcy passes of the Hindoo Coosh, constructing redoubts by their own labour — the raja himself taking an axe like the rest — and encountering the fiery valour of the Uzbeks in that snowy region. Aurungzebe, the emperor's third son, was subsequently sent there, but, after gaining a great victory was obliged to retreat in the depth of winter, and with the loss of the greater part of his army ; after which the em- peror had the moral courage to relinquish this ill-advised enterprise. Two years after, the king of Persia, marched down on a.d. Candahar, and recaptured it, and Aurungzebe was directed 1647 to recover it, but was obliged to retire after having in vain besieged it four months ; a second expedition led by him, and a third by his brother Dara, were equally unsuccessfal. These failures were followed by two years of tranquillity, 1653 during which Shah Jehan completed the revenue settle- to ment of the possessions he had acquired in the Deccan. ^ 656 The year 1655 marks an important era in the history of Mahomedan India ; — the renewal of the war in the Deccan, which continued for fifty years to exhaust the resources of the Mogul empire, and hastened its the war in downfall. During the eighteen years of peace t^e Deccan. which followed the treaty made with Ibrahim Adil Shah, the king of Beejapore, he had devoted his attention to the construction of those splendid palaces, mausoleums, and mosques by which his reign was distinguished, and to the conquest of the petty Hindoo chiefs in the south. The king of Golconda had punctually paid his subsidy, and manifested every disposition to cultivate the favour of the emperor. The Deccan was tranquil, but in an evil hour Aurungzebe was appointed viceroy, and resolved to efface the disgrace of his repulse from Candahar by the subjuga- tion of its two remaining kingdoms. An unexpected event gave him the desired pretext. Meer Joomla, born of indi- gent parents at Ispahan, had repaired to Golconda, and amassed prodigious wealth in commerce and maritime enterprises. He was taken into the service of the king, and, having risen to the office of vizier by his extraordinary talents, led the armies to the southern provinces of the 72 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. Deccan, and established the royal authority over many of the Hindoo chieftains. While absent on one of these ex- peditions his son incurred the displeasure of the king, and Meer Joomla, unable to obtain any consideration from him, determined to throw himself on the protection of the Moguls. Aurungzebe was but too happy to take up the quarrel ; and, with the permission of his father, sent a haughty Aurung- mandate to the king to grant redress to the zebe's pro- youth, to which the king replied by placing him ^h?Deccan. ^^ Confinement and confiscating all the estates of the family. Shah Jehan ordered his son to enforce compliance with his command by the sword, and he advanced to Hyderabad, now become the capital of the kingdom, with the most friendly assurances. The king was preparing a magnificent entertainment for his recep- tion, when he was treacherously attacked and obliged to seek refuge in the hill fort of Golconda. Hyderabad was plundered and half burnt, and the king was constrained to submit to the humiliating terms imposed on him of bestow- ing his daughter on one of Aurungzebe*s sons with a rich A^.^). dowry, and paying a crore of rupees as the first instalment 1666 of an annual tribute; but the emperor, who had a con- science, remitted a considerable portion of it. Aurungzebe now prepared for a wanton attack on Beejapore. A pretext was found in the assertion that the youth who had recently succeeded to the throne was not the real issue of the late king, and that to the emperor belonged the right of deciding the succession. Aurungzebe suddenly burst upon the territory His attack while the bulk of the army was absent in the on Beeja- Carnatic ; two important forts were captured, ^^' and the capital was invested. The king was obliged to sue for peace on reasonable terms, which were peremptorily refused, and the extinction of the dynasty appeared inevitable, when an event occurred in the north which gave it a respite of thirty years. News came posting down to the Deccan that Shah Jehan was at the point of death, and that the contest for the empire had begun ; and 1667 Aurungzebe was obliged to hasten to the capital to look after his own interests. Shah Jehan had four sons. Dara, the eldest, had been declared his heir and entrusted with a share of the BhahJehan's government. He possessed great talents for sons. government, and an air of regal dignity ; he was brave and frank, but haughty and rash. Soojah, the second, Sect. II.] SHAH JEHAN AND AURUNGZEBE 73 though addicted to pleasure, had been accustomed to civil and military command from his youth, and was at this time viceroy of Bengal, which he had governed with no little ability and success for twenty years. Aurungzebe, the third, was the ablest and most ambitious, as well as the most subtle of the family. Morad, the youngest, though bold and generous, was little better than a sot. Dara was a freethinker of Akbar's school. Aurungzebe was a fierce bigot, and courted the suflfrage of the orthodox by repro- bating the infidelity of Dara. The claims of primogeniture had always been vague and feeble in the Mogul dynasty, and were, moreover, always subordinate to the power of the sword. When therefore four brothers, each with an army at his command, aspired to the throne, a conflict was inevitable. Soojah was the first in the field, and advanced from a.d. Bengal towards Delhi. Morad, the viceroy of Guzerat, seized 1 651 the public treasury and assumed the title of soojah takes emperor. Aurungzebe extorted a large sum ^^^fi^^*^' from the king of Beejapore, and moved northward to unite his fortunes with Morad, whom, with his usual craft, he succeeded in cozening. He saluted him as emperor, and congratulated him on his new dynasty, declaring that, as for himself, he was anxious to renounce the vanities of the world, and proceed on pilgrimage to Mecca, as soon as he had succeeded in releasing his father from the thraldom of the godless Dara. Morad was so simple as to give credit to these professions, and their united armies advanced to the capital. Dara prepared to meet both attacks, and sent raja Jey Sing, of Jeypore, and his own son, to Dara de- oppose Soojah, and raja Jeswunt Sing to encoun- *®^*^ soojah. ter Aurungzebe. The selection of two Hindoo generals to command the armies which were to decide the fortunes of the Mogul throne afibrds the strongest evidence of the principle of fidelity which the generous policy of Akbar and his two successors had inspired in the Hindoo mind. At this juncture. Shah Jehan recovered his health, and endeavoured to resume his authority ; but it was too late. Soojah was defeated and obliged to fly to Bengal, shahjehan's and, the year after, was pursued by Meer Joomla, recovery, and obliged to seek refuge in Aracan, where he was basely murdered, together with the whole of his family. Aurung- zebe defeated the Rajpoot raja at Oojein, and then advanced to Agra, where Dara met him with a superior army, but, contrary to the wise advice of his father, hazarded an 74 ABRIDGMENT OP THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. A.D. engagement in wliick he was completely overpowered, and 1658 fled. Three days after, Aurungzebe entered the capital in ShabJehan triumph, depossd his father, and mounted the deposed. throne. The character of Shah Jehan is thus described by his native biographer : — " Akbar was pre-eminent as a warrior Character of ' ' ^^^ ^ lawgiver ; Shah Jehan for the incomparable Shah Jehan. "order and arrangement of his finances, and the *' internal administration of the empire. But although the " pomp of his court and his state establishments were such " as had never been seen before in India, there was no in- *' crease of taxation, and no embarrassment to the treasury." By the general consent of historians, the country enjoyed greater prosperity during his reign than under any pre- vious reign, and it has therefore been characterised as the golden era of the Mogul dynasty. This is to be attributed to that respite from the ravages of war which afforded scope for the pursuits of industry ; for though en- gaged in foreign wars, his own dominions enjoyed unin- terrupted repose. He was the most magnificent prince of the house of Baber ; but in nothing was the splendour of his tastes more visible than in the buildings he erected. He contributed to the grandeur of many of the cities of India by the construction of noble palaces. It was he who founded the new city of Delhi, in which his castellated palace, with its spacious courts, and marble halls, and gilded domes, was the object of universal eulogy. Of that palace, the noblest ornament was the far-famed pea- cock throne, blazing with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds, the value of which was estimated by one of the European jewellers of his court at six crores of rupees. To him also the country was indebted for the immaculate Taj Mehal, the mausoleum of his queen, the gem of India, and the admira- tion of the world. But all his estabhshments were managed with such vigilance and care, that after defraying the cost of his numerous expeditions, he left in his treasury, according to his native biographer, a sum not short of twenty- four crores of rupees, though the annual income of the empire did not exceed thirty. Aurungzebe having thus obtained possession of the capital and the treasury, threw off" the mask. He no Aurungzebe longer talked of renouncing the world and disposes of becoming a pilgrim, but assumed all the powers ^* of government, and took the title of Alumgeer, the Lord of the World. His father was placed in 8kct. II.] SHAH JEHAN AND AURUNGZEBE 75 honourable captivity in his own palace, where he was treated with the greatest respect, and survived his depo- sition seven years ; but Aurungzebe did not consider his ihrone secure while there remained any member of his a.d. family to disturb it. Morad was invited to an entertain- 1658 ment, and allowed to drink himself into a state of helpless- ness, when he was taken up and conveyed to the fort of Agra. Soojah was chased by Meer Joomla out of India. Dara fled to Lahore, but was driven from thence to Guzerat, where he obtained aid from the governor, and was 1660 enabled to advance against the emperor, but was defeated, and sought refuge with the raja of Jun, whom he had formerly laid under great obligations. That ungrateful chief, however, betrayed him to his vindictive brother, who paraded him on a sorry elephant through the streets of Delhi, where he had recently been beloved as a master. A conclave of Mahomedan doctors was convened, who gratified the emperor's wishes by condemning him to death as an apostate from the creed of the Prophet. His body was exhibited to the populace on an elephant, and his head was cut off and carried to Aurungzebe. His son, Soliman, was betrayed by the raja of Cashmere, and, like his father, was paraded through the streets of the capital, but with his hands bound in gilded fetters ; and his noble bearing and his deep calamity are said to have moved the spectators to tears. He and his younger brother, together with a son of Morad, were consigned to death in the dungeons of Gwalior. Morad himself, after a mock trial for some exe- cution he was said to have ordered when viceroy of Guzerat, was likewise put to death. Aurungzebe had thus in the space of three years secured, to all appearance, the stability of his power by the con- finement of his father, and the destruction of his brothers and their families, when his own life was threatened by a dangerous attack of illness, and his court was filled with intrigues while he lay helpless on his couch. One party espoused the cause of his eldest son, Muazzim, and another that of Akbar, his brother, while the rajah Jeswunt Rao advanced from Rajpootana and Mohabet from Cabul, to liberate and reinstate Shah Jehaii. But Aurungzebe, having passed the crisis of the disease, summoned the officers of his court to renew their alle- giance to him, and his recovery dissolved all these disloyal 1662 projects. A short time previous to the illness of the emperor, 76 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. Meer Joomla, who had been appointed governor of Bengal, MeerJoomia assembled a large army and proceeded np the m Assam. Bmmhapooter, for the conquest of Assam, and eventually of China. The capital was reduced without diffi- culty, but the rains set in with extraordinary violence ; the river rose beyond its usual limits, and the whole country A.D. was flooded. The supplies of the army were cut off, and a 1663 pestilence completed its disasters, while Meer Joomla was obliged to retreat, and was pursued by the exasperated Assamese. He returned to Dacca in disgrace, and died there at a very advanced age, leaving behind him the reputation of the ablest statesman and general of that age of action. In the letter of condolence which the emperor sent to his son, on whom he conferred all his father's honours, he said, " You have lost a father, and T, the greatest and most dan- " gerous of my friends." After the recovery of Aurungzebe, it became necessary for him to send an army to check the devastations of the Mahrattas ; and the reader's attention must now be called to the origin and progress of this nation, which rose to dominion on the ruins of the Mogul empire, and for more than a century swayed the destinies of India. SECTION III. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE MAHEATTAS. The country inhabited by the Mahrattas, designated in the Hindoo shasters, Muharastra, is generally considered to Rise of the extend from the Wurda on the east to the sea Mahrattas. coast On the west, and from the Satpoora range on the north down to a line drawn due east from Goa. The salient feature of the country is the Syhadree mountains, called the ghauts, which traverse it from north to south at a distance of from thirty to fifty miles from the sea, and which rise to the height of 4,000 or 5,000 feet above its level. The strip of land along the sea coast is called the Concan. The inhabitants are of diminutive stature, and present a strong contrast to the noble figure of the Rajpoot, but they are sturdy, laborious, and persevering, and distinguished for cunning. " The Rajpoot is the most worthy antagonist, " the Mahratta the most formidable enemy. ' * This mountain region was difficult of access, and its salient points were Skct. ni.J KISE AND PKOGRESS OF THE MAHRATTAS 77 strengthened by fortifications. For centuries the Mahrattas had been known as plodding accountants and managers of villages and districts, and it was not till the sixteenth cen- tury that they came to be noticed as soldiers. Their country was comprised within the territories of Beejapore and Ahmednugur, and the two kings, who were incessantly at war with each other, or with their neighbours, were happy to employ the Mahratta chiefs in raising levies of their hardy countrymen, each one commanding his own body of free lances. It was the wars which raged for a century in the Deccan which cradled their military prowess, and no small portion of the national aristocracy trace their origin to the distinction gained in these confl.icts and the lands they acquired ; but it was chiefly under Malik Am- ber that they made the most rapid strides to military and political importance. A community of village clerks and husbandmen was transformed into a nation of warriors, and it only required a master spirit to raise them to empire. Such a spirit appeared in Sevajee. Mallojee Bhonslay was a man of ignoble rank, but a valiant captain of horse in the service of the king of Ahmednugur at the beginning of the seventeenth origin of century, and obtained from the venal court the shahjee. jageers of Poona, Sopa and some other districts. His son Shahjee inherited the jageers on his death in 1620, and ^.u. augmented his mihtary force and his importance by a close 162C alliance with Malik Amber. Nine years after he joined the revolt of Jehan Lodi, already mentioned, but deserted his cause when it began to wane, and went over to the Moguls, by whom he was rewarded with the title of a com- mander of 5,000, and the confirmation of his jageer. Soon after he again changed sides, and on the capture of the young king was sufficiently strong to set up a pretender and obtain possession of all the districts of the kingdom, from the sea to the capital. After a warfare of three years with the imperial troops, he was driven out of the country, and having obtained an asylum at the court of Beejapore, was entrasted with an expedition to the Carnatic. His success was rewarded with the extensive jageers in the vicinity of Bangalore, which he had conquered, and he formed the design of establishing an independent Hindoo kingdom in the extreme south of the peninsula, resigning his Poona jageer to his son Sevajee. Sevajee, the founder of the Mahratta empire, was bom 1627 in 1627, and — his father having taken a second wife — was 78 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. Ill placed under tlie tutelage of Dadajee Punt, a Bralunin, who, in conformity with the national usage in a corn- Birth and i^uiiity in which all the chiefs were illiterate, early life of managed the affairs of the estate. Sevajee, who Sevajee. ^^^ never able to read or write, became expert in the use of the weapons required in the hills, and in all manly exercises, and an accomplished horseman. He likewise grew up a devout and rigid Hindoo, with a profound venera- tion for brahmins and a cordial hatred of mahomedans. His young imagination was kindled by the recital of the ^.D. national epics, and he longed to emulate the exploits cele- 1643 brated in them. At the age of sixteen, he formed an asso- ciation of youths of wild and lawless habits, with whom he engaged in hunting or marauding expeditions, and thus became familiar with every path and defile in the hills. Having trained the inhabitants of his native glens, the Mawulees, to arms and discipline, he commenced his career 1646 of ambition at the age of nineteen by capturing the hill Captures the fortress of Toma, and the next year erected the fort of Torna fort of Rajgurh, which became his headquarters. These proceedings roused the attention of the king of Beejapore, and Shahjee, to whom the jageer belonged, was called to account for them. He remonstrated with Dadajee Punt, the guardian of his son, who entreated Sevajee to desist from a course which must inevitably bring destruc- tion on the family ; but the old man perceived that the pur- pose of his pupil was not to be shaken, and, worn out with age, disease, and anxiety, sunk into the grave ; but just before his death is said to have sent to Sevajee, and advised him to prosecute his schemes of independence, to protect brahmins, kine, and husbandmen, and to preserve the Hindoo temples from violation. Sevajee immediately took possession of the jageer, and 1648 with the treasure which had been accumulated by his guar- sevajee's ac- diau, augmented his force, and within two years qnisitions. extended his authority over thirty miles of terri- tory, attacked a convoy of royal treasure and carried off three lacs of pagodas to his eyrie in the mountains. The audacity of these and similar proceedings roused the indig- nation of the Beejapore monarch, who seized the father Shahjee, and threatened him with death. Sevajee, then twenty-two, entered into a negotiation with the emperor Shah 1649 Jehan on his father's behalf, which is believed to have saved him from a cruel death, though he was detained for four years at Beejapore, till the increasing disorders in the Carnatio Sect, m.] RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE MAHRATTAS 79 induced the king to release him and send him back to his government. During the period of his father's detention, Sevajee discreetly abstained from further encroachments, but renewed them on his release, and by an act of base treachery, which has inflicted a deep stain on his memory, caused two chieftains of Jowlee to be assassinated. While Aurungzebe was engaged in hostilities with Beejapore, Sevajee professed himself a devoted servant of the throne of Delhi, and obtained a confirmation His inter- of his title to the lands he had wrested from the ^^e 'wi^ empire. But no sooner had the prince set his face towards Delhi to secure the crown, than the Mahratta chief began to ravage the Mogul territories. To extend his a.d. operations to a more distant sphere, he likewise organised 1667 that corps of light horse which afterwards became the scourge of India. At the same time, he took a body of mahomedans into his service, but placed them under Mahratta officers. The success of Aurungzebe' s efforts to obtain the throne gave just alarm to Sevajee, and he sent an envoy to Delhi to excuse his incursions and to conciliate the emperor, and offered to protect the Mogul interests in the Concan if they were intrusted to his charge. Aurung- zebe considered that the security of these possessions in the Deccan was likely to be promoted by encouraging the Mahratta adventurer, and consented to his occupation of that maritime province ; but in his attempt to take possession of it, Sevajee experienced the first reverse he had ever sustained. The court of Beejapore was at length roused to the danger of these incessant encroachments, which had been 1669 increasing in audacity for fourteen years, and sent Aizooi Khan Afzool Khan with a body of 12,000 horse and assassinated. foot and a powerful artillery to suppress them. He was a vain and conceited nobleman, and Sevajee determined to destroy him by treachery. He professed a humble sub- mission to the king, and offered to surrender all the ter- ritories he had usurped if he were allowed to hope for forgiveness. Afzool Khan was thrown off his guard by this flattery, and agreed to give a meeting to Sevajee with only a single attendant. Sevajee performed his religious devotions with great fervour, and advanced with all humility to the interview, and while in the act of em- bracing Afzool, plunged a concealed weapon into his bowels, and despatched him with his dagger. The troops of the murdered general were suddenly surrounded by a body of 80 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Ill, Mahrattas placed in ambnsli, and routed with the loss of all their equipments. The success of this stratagem, not- withstanding the atrocity of the deed, obtained the admira- tion of his countrymen beyond many of his other exploits, and the weapon was carefuily preserved as an heirloom in the family. Sevajee followed up his victory by plundering the country to the very gates of the capital. The king then took the field in person, and recovered many of the forts and much of the territory he had lost. The war was pro- tracted for two years with varied success, but generally in favour of the Mahrattas. A reconciliation was at length effected, and a treaty concluded through the mediation of Shahjee, who paid a visit to his son after an absence of twenty years. He congratulated him on the progress he had made towards the establishment of a Hindoo power, ;^,D, and encouraged him to persevere in the course he had 1662 begun. At this period, Sevajee, then in his thirty-fifth year, was in possession of the whole coast of the Concan, extending four degrees of latitude, and of the ghauts from the Beema to the Wurda. His army, consisting of 50,000 foot and 7,000 horse, was out of all proportion to his territories and his resources, but he was incessantly en- gaged in war, and made war support itself by his exactions. Sevajee being now at peace with Beejapore, let loose his 1663 predatory bands on the Mogul possessions, and swept the shaistaKhan country to the suburbs of Aurungabad. The attacks Se- emperor appointed his own maternal uncle, vajee. Shaista Khan, to the viceroy alty of the Deccan, with orders to reduce Sevajee to submission. He captured Poona, and took up his residence in the house in which Sevajee had passed his childhood, and the Mahratta chief conceived the design of assassinating the Mogul general in his bed. He got up a marriage procession, and entered the town in disguise with thirty followers, and proceeding un- perceived to the palace, suddenly attacked its inmates. The viceroy escaped the assaalt with the loss of two fingers, but his guards were cut down. Sevajee, bajffled in his project, returned to his encampment amidst a blaze of torches. This daring exploit was so completely in har- mony with the national character as to be viewed with greater exultation than some of his most famous victories. 1664 The operations of Sevajee were now extended to a bolder enterprise. A hundred and fifty miles from Poona lay the Attack of city of Surat, the greatest emporium of commerce Snrat. on the western coast, and two of the firms in the Sect. III.] SEVAJEE'S FIRST DEMAND OF CHOUT 81 town were considered the most wealthy merchants in the world at the time. It was, moreover, the chief port to which devout Mahomedans resorted from all parts of India to embark on pilgrimage to Mecca. Sevajee suddenly- appeared before it with 4,000 of his newly raised cavalry, and after plundering it leisurely for six days, returned to ^jj, his capital. He met with no resistance except from the 1664 European factories. Sir George Oxenden, the English chief, defended the property of the East India Company, and likewise of the natives under his protection, with such valour and success as to extort the applause of Aurungzebe. It is worthy of note that this was the first occasion on which European soldiers came into collision with native troops, and that the result filled both Hindoos and Mahomedans with astonishment. On his return from this expedition, Sevajee heard of the death of his father at the age of seventy, and immediately assumed the title of raja, and struck the coin in his own name. Finding that his power would not be sevajee complete unless he could obtain the command of creates a the sea, he had been employed for some time in constructing a navy, and while his troops were employed in ravaging the Mogul territories on land, his fleet was engaged in capturing the Mogul vessels bound to the Red Sea and exacting heavy ransom from the opulent pilgrims. In February, 1665, he secretly drew together a fleet con- sisting of eighty-eight vessels and embarked with 4,000 troops to Barcelore, then a great trade mart on the Malabar coast, where he obtained large booty, and returned to his capi- tal before it was known that he had left it. On his return, he found that a large Mogul army commanded by the renowned Rajpoot raja Jeysing, and the Stickedby general Dilere Khan, had entered his territories. Jeysing and Aurungzebe, an intense bigot, had felt greater indignation against Sevajee for obstructing the progress of the devout pilgrims than for any of his audacious assump- tions of power, and the largest force yet sent against him now entered his territories, and reduced him to such straits that he was constrained to have recourse to negotiations. They resulted in the memorable "Convention of Poorundur," 1666 in which it was stipulated that he should restore all the forts and districts he had taken from the Moguls with the exception of twelve, which he was to retain as a jageer, and that his son Sambajee should hold rank as a noble in the command of 6,000 men. But he dexterously inserted fv Q 82 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. III. clause in the treaty granting liim, in lieu of certain pretended claims on the old Nizam Shahee state, assign- ments of a fourth and a tenth of the revenue, — termed by Origin of the l^i^ ^^^ Ghout and Surdeshnoohee, — of certain Chout. districts above the ghauts, the charge of collecting vfhich he took on himself. So eager was he to obtain the imperial authority for this grant, that he offered a sum of forty lacs of pagodas for it, and intimated his intention of visiting the emperor at Delhi, and " his desire to kiss the " royal threshold. ' ' This is the first mention of the celebrated claim of chout, which the Mahrattas marched throughout India to enforce. In the communication which Aurungzebe addressed him on this occasion, no allusion was made to this claim, the insidious tendency, or even the import, of which the imperial cabinet could not comprehend, and bevajee assumed that the principle was tacitly conceded. Sevajee had now entered the service of the Moguls and lost no time in marching with 10,000 horse and foot against ^•^' Sevajee at Beejapore, though his half-brother commanded 1 666 Delhi ^j^g Mahratta contingent in its services. Aurung- zebe was gratified with his success and invited him to court, to which he repaired with an escort of 1,500 troops. But he found himself regarded by the emperor in the light of a troublesome captain of banditti, whom it was politic to humour, and he was presented at the durbar with nobles of the third rank. He left the " presence " with ill-concealed indignation, and is said to have wept and fainted away. It became the object of the emperor to prevent his leaving Delhi, and his residence was beleagured, but he contrived to elude the vigilance of his guards and made his escape in a hamper, and reached Rajgurh in the disguise of a 1666 pilgrim, with his face smeared with ashes. The Rajpoot commander in the Deccan was not insensible to the influ- ence of money, and Sevajee was thns enabled through him to make his peace with Aurungzebe, who acknowledged his title of raja and even made some addition to his jageer. Having now a season of greater leisure than he had yet enjoyed, he spent the years 1668 and 1669 in revising and Revision of Completing the internal arrangements of his his institu- government, and nothing gives us a higher idea 1668 tions. ^£ j^.g ggj^-^g ^j^g^j^ J.Q ^^ g^ rough soldier, who 1669 ^^^ unable to read or write, and who had for twenty years been employed in predatory warfare, establishing a form of government and a system of civil polity so well suited to the consolidation of a great kingdom. His military Sfxt. m.] AURUNGZEBE IN THE KHYBER 83 organisation, wHch was equally distingnislied for its rigid discipline and its strict economy, was admirably adapted to the creation of a new and predominant power in India. This was also the most prosperous period of Aurungzebe's ^^j, long reign. The empire was at peace ; the emperor was 1666 held in the highest esteem throughout the Tranquimty ^ Mahomedan world, and received complimentary of Hindos- 1670 missions from the Scheriff of Mecca, the K^han of the Uzbeks, the king of Abyssinia, and the Shah of Persia. But his restless ambition again kindled the flames of war, which continued to rage, without the intermission of a single year, during the remaining thirty- seven years of his reign, and consumed the vitals of the empire. Finding it impossible to inveigle Sevajee into his power, war with he issued the most peremptory orders to pursue Sevajee. him to the death. Sevajee prepared for the conflict with unflinching resolution. He opened the campaign by the capture of two important fortresses, and, with an army of 14,000 men, again plundered Surat, where the Company's factors once more covered themselves with renown by their military energy. He overran the province of Candesh, and for the first time levied the chout on a Mogul province : in this instance it was simply black mail. Aurungzebe was dissatisfied with the inactivity of his general, and sent Mohabet with an army of 40,000 against Sevajee, who met his opponents for the first time in the open field and gained 1572 a complete victory, which elevated the crest of the Mahrat- tas, and not a little disheartened the Mogul generals. The turbulent Khyberees and Eusufzies in Afghanistan, the hereditary enemies of order and peace, had again broken out and defeated the Mogul general in the passes j^^^^j^^„ subsequently rendered memorable by the annihi- zebe's con- lation of a British army. The emperor deter- S?Khy- mined to undertake the subjugation of these bereeaand incorrigible highlanders in person, and led his ^ laramees army as far as Hussun Abdal, where he left the expedition 1573 to his son, who was obliged to content himself with the nominal submission of the tribes, after a bootless warfare of two years. On his return to Delhi Aurungzebe found himself involved in an unexpected and formidable difficulty. Such is the nature of the natives of India, that the peace of the country is liable to be broken any day by the most insignificant cause : the shape of a turban, or the make of a cartridge. On this occasion it was the violence of a single police oflBcer, who insulted a sect of Hindoo fanatics called g2 84 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. UI. A.D. Sutnaramees. Their excitement created an emeute, and the 1676 emeute grew into a revolt. The devotees assembled in thousands, and being joined by some disaffected zemindars, defeated the troops sent against them, and obtained posses- sion of the two provinces of Agra and Ajmere ; a general revolt, therefore, appeared imminent. They gave out that they possessed the magic power of resisting bullets, and the imperial troops naturally shrank from an encounter with them, till Aurungzebe wrote out texts of the Koran with his own hand, and attached them to his standards, when the confidence of his troops was revived and the rebellion quelled. Akbar and his two successors had adopted the wise and generous policy of granting the Hindoos religious liberty Revival of 8,nd equality, and they served the state as zeal- persecution, ously and faithfully as the Mahomedans, even when employed against their own countrymen. The same principle appears to have prevailed in some degree during the early period of Aurungzebe's reign, and he had formed two family alliances with Rajpoot princes ; but his defeat in the Eiyber, and the revolt of the fanatics, appear to have embittered his temper, and roused a feeling of bigoted animosity. No pains or penalties were inflicted on the Hindoos for the profession of their creed, but they were made to feel that they lay under the ban of the ruling power of the empire. Aurungzebe ordered that no Hindoos should in future be employed in the public service, and 1677 he reimposed the odious poll-tax, thejezzia, on infidels. His measures, however disguised, breathed the spirit of intolerance. The Hindoo temples in Bengal, and even in the holy city of Benares, were demolished, and mosques erected on the sites, and the images used as steps. These bigoted proceedings produced a feeling of disaffection in Revolt of the ©very province, but it was only in Rajpootana Rajpoots. that they created political disturbance. Jeswunt Sing, the faithful Rajpoot general of the emperor, had died in Cabul, and as his widow and family passed through 1677 Delhi, Aurungzebe surrounded their encampment with troops, intending to detain them as hostages. They were rescued by the contrivance of Jeswunt Sing's minister, and conveyed to Joudpore ; but this ungenerous treatment of the family of a devoted servant roused the indignation of the high-spirited Rajpoots, and the country was speedily in a blaze. Aurungzebe lost no time in marching into it, 1679 and obliged the rana of Oodypore to make his submission ; Sect. III.] SEVAJEE'S EXPEDITION TO TANJOKE 85 but on a second revolt, he summoned troops from every direction, and let them loose on the unhappy country. The Joudpore territory was laid waste, villages were de- a.d. stroyed, families carried into slavery, and the inhabitants ^ ^79 made to feel the extremities of war. The Rajpoots retaliated by plundering the mosques and burning the Koran in Malwa. The alienation of the various tribes was complete. After this period they were often at peace with the empire, and furnished their contingents of troops, whom Aurungzebe was happy to employ as a counterpoise to his Mahomedan soldiers ; but that cordial loyalty to the Mogul throne which had for a century made them its most reliable champions, was extinct. It was during these disturbances that the emperor's son Akbar went over to the Rajpoots, and was encouraged by them to assume the title and func- tions of royalty, and to march with an army of 70,000 men against his father ; but he was defeated, and fled to the Mahrattas. To return to Sevajee. He took advantage of the absence of Aurungzebe in the Khyber, and the death of the king of Beejapore, to annex the whole of the Concan, . and likewise of a considerable tract above the assumes ghauts. He had long struck the coin in his own ^^oy^^^y- name, and he now determined to proclaim his independence, and to assume all the ensigns of royalty and the pomp of a Mahomedan potentate. After many religious solemnities, 1674 on the 6th June, 1674, he was enthroned at his capital, Rajgurh, and announced himself as the " ornament of the " Kshetriyu race, and lord of the royal umbrella." He was weighed against gold, which was distributed amongst the brahmins, who found to their chagrin that he only weighed ten stone. Two years after he undertook one of ^^ gxpedi- the most extraordinary expeditions on Mahratta tion to the record, with the object of recovering his father's ^e*''^*^- jageer in the distant south from his brother. Having concluded an armistice with the Mogul general who had charge of the operations against him, by a large douceur, he marched to Golconda with an army of 30,000 foot and 167fi 40,000 horse, and extorted a large supply of money and artillery from the king, together with an engagement to cover his territories during his absence, on condition of receiving half his acquisitions in land and money. He then proceeded to pay his devotions at the shrine His of Purwuttum. Naked, and covered with ashes, fanaticism. he assumed the character of a devotee, and after having, 86 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. III. for uine days, committed various acts of superstitious folly, whicli at one time led Ms officers to doubt Ms sanity, he resumed the command of his army, wliich he had sent for- ward in advance. He swept past Madras, then an unnoticed factory, and captured fort after fort, not excepting even the redoubted fortress of Gingee (pronounced Jinjee) *' tenable "by ten men against an army,*' and at Trivadey, 600 miles from his own territory, met his brother Vencajee. He held possession of Tanjore, and the other jageers bequeathed to him by his father, and refused to share them with his brother, who thereupon occupied them by force, and sent A.D. his horse to ravage the Carnatic. The dispute between the 1678 brothers terminated in a compromise, by which Yencajee was to retain the jageer, paying half the revenues to Sevajee, while he was to keep possession of all the conquests he had made from Beejapore. He reached Rajgurh after an absence of eighteen months, but no portion of his conquests or of his plunder did he think of surrendering to the king of Golconda. The next year Aurungzebo sent a formidable army to 1679 besiege Beejapore, and the regent, during the minority Aurtmgzebe ^^ *^® ^^^g) invoked the aid of Sevajee, who laid attacks waste the Mogul territories between the Beema Beejapore. ^^^^ ^-^^ Godavery, and subjected the town of Aurungabad to plunder for three days. MeanwMle, his son Sambajee, who had been placed in durance by his father for an attempt to violate the wife of a brahmin, made his escape, and went over to the Mogul general, and was re- ceived with open arms ; but Aurungzebe ordered him to be sent as a prisoner to his father's camp. Sevajee renewed his exertions for the rehef of Beejapore upon a fresh concession of territory ; but in the midst of these events, all his plans of ambition were demolished by his death, which happened Death and ^^ "'^^J ^^^^» ^^ ^^® ^^^ April, 1 680, in the fifty- third character of year of his age. Aurungzebe did not conceal his 1680 Sevajee. satisfaction at the death of his formidable oppo- nent, but he did full justice to his genius. " He was," he said, " a great captain, and the only one who has had *' the magnanimity to raise a new kingdom, while I have " been endeavouring to destroy the ancient sovereignties of " India ; my armies have been employed against him for " nineteen years, and, nevertheless, his state has been always "increasing." That state, at his death, comprised a terri- tory 400 miles in length and 120 in breadth. It was created by his own genius, and consolidated by a com- Sect. IV.l AUKUNGZEBE IN THE DECCAN 87 mtmion of habits, language, aiid religion among his country- men. He is one of the greatest characters in the native history of India, greater even than Hyder Ali and Runjeet Sing, who subsequently trod the same path of ambition and conquest. . He did more than simply found a kingdom; he laid the foundation of a power which survived the decay of his own family, and he kindled a national spirit of enthusiasm which in a few years made the Mahrattas the arbiters of the destiny of India. SECTION IV. AURUNGZEBE TO MAHOMED SHAH. AuRUNGZBBE having now in a great measure subdued the opposition of the Rajpoot tribes, determined to bring the whole strength of the empire to bear on the snb- ^Qj^mffzebe jugation of the Deccan. It was a wanton and proceeds to iniquitous aggression, and, by a righteous retribu- *^® i>eccan. tion, recoiled on himself, and led to the downfall of his dynasty. In the year 1683 he quitted Delhi, which he was a.d. destined never to see again, with an army of unexampled 1683 magnitude. The finest cavalry was assembled from the countries beyond and within the Indus, supported by a large and well-equipped body of infantry, and several hundred pieces of artillery, xinder European officers. A long train of elephants, intended both for war and equipage, and a superb stud of horses accompanied the camp. There was, moreover, a large menagerie of tigers and leopards, of hawks and hounds without number. The camp, which resembled a large moving city, was supplied with every luxury the age and country could provide. The canvas walls which surrounded the emperor's personal tents were twelve hundred yards in circumference, and they contained halls of audience, courts, cabinets, mosques, oratories, and baths, all adorned with the richest silks and velvet and cloth of gold. There is no record of such extravagant luxuriousness in any modern encampment. Yet, amidst all this grandeur, the personal habits and expenditure of the emperor exhibited the frngality of a hermit. With this unwieldy army Aurungzebe advanced to Aurung- invasion of sibad, and, by a strange infatuation, signalised theConcan. 88 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. his arrival in the Deccan by ordering the hateful jezzia to A.D. be imposed on the whole Hindoo population. His first 1684 expedition was disastrous. His son Mnazzim was sent to lay waste the Conean with 40,000 cavalry ; the little forage that was to be found in the rocks and thickets of that wild region was speedily destroyed ; the Mahratta cruisers intercepted the supplies sent from the Mogul ports ; the Mahratta light horse blocked up the passes, and pre- vented the approach of provisions ; and the wreck of this noble army, exhausted by hunger and pestilence, was happy to find shelter under the walls of Ahmednugur. Aurungzebe then sent his son to attack Beejapore, and in this the Jast year of its national existence, the king and his troops defended their independence with Beefapore^^ exemplary courage. They cut off the supplies 1686 and (Joi- of the Mogul army, intercepted its communi- cations, and obliged it to retire. On the failure of this expedition the emperor turned his force against Golconda, the king of which had formed an alliance with the Mahrattas. His chief minister was a Hindoo of singular ability, and had equipped an army of 70,000 men for the defence of the country ; but the employment of an infidel gave offence to the bigoted Mahomedan courtiers. The minister was murdered, and Ibrahim K!han, the general, treacherously went over to the enemy with a large portion of the army. The helpless king sought refuge in the fort of Golconda; the capital, Hyderabad, was plundered for three days by the Mogul soldiers, whom their commander was unable to restrain, and the treasure which Aurungzebe had destined for his own coffers was, to his great chagrin, partitioned among them. The king was obliged to sue for 1686 peace, which was not granted him without the promise of two crores of rupees. Aurungzebe now brought his whole strength to bear upon Beejapore. The lofty walls of the city were of hewn stone ^^°^ six miles in circumference, with a deep moat and BSore°* a double rampart. The artillery was, as it had and Goi- always been, superior to that of the Moguls, and the emperor was constrained to turn tlie siege into a blockade. The garrison was reduced to a state of starva- tion and obliged to capitulate ; and on the 15th October Beejapore was blotted out of the roll of Indian kingdoms, after an independent career of a hundred and fifty years. This Adil Shahee dynasty employed its resources in works of utility or magnificence which were without a rival in srct.tv.] fall of beejapoee and golconda 89 India. The majestic ruins of the palaces in the citadel, and of the mosques and tombs in the city, after two centuries of decay in an Indian climate, still attract the admiration of the traveller. " The chief feature in the scene is the " mausoleum of Mahomed Adil Shah, the dome of which, " like the dome of St. Peter's, fills the eye from every point "of view, and though entirely devoid of ornament, its " enormous dimensions and austere simplicity invest it with " an air of melancholy grandeur, which harmonises with the " wreck and desolation around it. One is at a loss in seeing " these ruins, to conjecture how so small a state could have " maintained such a capital." The fate of Golconda was not long delayed. Aurungzebe, with his usual craft, advanced into the country on pretence of a pilgrimage to the tomb of a saint, and extracted from the fears of the monarch all his treasure, even to the jewels of the seraglio, and then charged him with the crime of having employed a brahmin for his minister and formed an alliance with the infidel Mahrattas. The prince, though addicted to pleasure, defended his capital with a heroism worthy his ancestors, but it was at length taken, though only by an act of trea- chery, and the royal house of Kootub Shah became extinct, ^ j,^ after a brilliant career of a hundred and seventy years. 1687 The ambition of Aurungzebe was now consummated. His power was extended over regions which had never submitted to the sovereignty of the Mahomedans, confusion in and after seven centuries, the whole of India did *^e Deccan. unequivocally acknowledge the supremacy of a Lord Para- mount. The year 1688 was the culminating point of Moslem grandeur, and Kkewise of its decay. The misfortunes of Aurungzebe commenced with the fall of Golconda. The 1688 governments which had maintained public order in the Deccan had disappeared, and no system of equal vigour was established in their stead. The public authority had been maintained in the extinct states by a force of 200,000 men; the Mogul force on their subjugation did not exceed 34,000. The disbanded soldiery either joined the predatory bands of the Mahrattas, or enlisted under disaffected chiefs. There was no vital energy at the head- quarters of the emperor. Oppressions were multiplied, and no redress could be obtained. The Deccan became a scene of general confusion, and presented a constant succession of con- spiracies and revolts which consumed the spirit of the Mogul army, and the strength of the empire. Sevajee's son Sambajee, succeeded to the throne aftermuch 1680 90 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. intrigue and opposition, and at first exhibited considerable Sambajee's vigouT and method, but it was not long before he cnS death ^^^® ^^^ *^ *^® ferocity of his natural disposition. He had none of his father's qualifications except his ardent bravery. He put his widow to death, and im- prisoned his brother Raja Ram ; he threw the ministers into irons, and beheaded those who opposed his wishes, and proceeded so far as to execute a brahmin. These atrocities alienated the great men who had contributed to build up A..D. the Mahratta power. Sambajee rendered himself still 1681 farther an object of general contempt by his infatuated attachment to a favourite, Kuloosha, a Cunouge brahmin, a man totally unfitted for the conduct of pubhc affairs, which was entrusted to him. In the early period of his reign he 1684 took an active share in driving Prince Muazzim out of the Concan. He was engaged for several years in endeavouring to reduce the power of the Portuguese, but without success, and was incessantly in conflict with the forces of Aurungzebe. He formed an alliance with the king of Golconda, and, to ci'eate a diversion in his favour, plundered the cities of Boorhanpore and Broach, and likewise despatched bodies of Mahratta horse to the relief of the capital, but they acted without vigour. In fact, under his inejficient rule, the discipline introduced by Sevajee had been relaxed and the morale of the army deteriorated. On the extinction of the two Mahomedan powers of Beejapore and Golconda, Aurungzebe directed his whole attention to the reduction of his remaining opponent, and fort after fort was captured, while Sambajee abandoned public business, and resigned 1688 himself to sloth and pleasure. One of the emperor's generals, at length, succeeded in surprising him after a night*s revel, and he was conveyed on a camel to the imperial presence. The emperor at first deemed it politic to spare his life io secure the surrender of the Mahratta 1688 fortresses, and asked him to turn Mahomedan. " Not if "you would give me your daughter in marriage," was his reply, pouring at the same time a torrent of abuse on the Prophet. Aurungzebe ordered his tongue to be cut out, deprived him of his sight, and consigned him to death with excruciating torture. He had occupied the throne for nine years, amidst the contempt of his subjects, but 1689 liis tragic death excited emotions of pity amongst them, and gave a keener edge to their detestation of the Maho- medans. The Mahrattas were now exposed to the whole power of Sbct. IV.] MAHEATTA COURT BETIRES SOUTH 91 the Mogul empire under the immediate eye of the emperor, whose personal reputation, together with the grandeur of his estabhshments, and the prestige ^atta Covat of the imperial throne, filled them with a feeling gtires to of awe, and they bent to the storm. The cabinet ^^^^' a.d. elected Shao, the infant son of Sambajee, to succeed him, ^^^^ and appointed his uncle, Raja Ram, regent. Of the great kingdom founded by Sevajee, there was only a mere vestige left in the north, and it was resolved to preserve the embers of Mahratta power by emigrating to the south. Raja Ram and twenty-five chiefs made their way in dis- guise to the Mahratta jageers in Tanjore with many ro- mantic adventures carefully preserved in the ballads of the nation, and established the Mahratta court at Gingee. ^^^^ The regent soon after despatched two of his ablest generals with a largo force, which was increased in its progress, to desolate the Mogul territories in the north, and they ex- tended their ravages up to Satara, where Ram-chundur was left in charge of the Mahratta interests. He devised a new plan for molesting the Moguls. Among the Mah- Now exac rattas the thirst for plunder was always the ^°^^°J^^® strongest national passion ; indeed, the only word for " victory " was " the plunder of the enemy." To this predatory spirit he gave an extraordinary impulse, as well as a systematic direction, by conferring the right to levy the " chmU " and the " tenth " for the state treasury on any Mahratta chieftain who could bring his followers into the field, and allowing them to appropriate the new exaction he invented of ghaus dana, or food and forage money, to their own use. Under this new impetus, every mountain glen 1692 and valley poured forth its tenants, and Aurungzebe, instead of having the army of a single responsible chief to deal with, had a hundred-headed hydra on his hands. The imperial army was ill-fitted to contend with this new swarm of assailants. Its silken commanders were not the iron generals of Akbar, and they vied with comparison each other only in the display of extravagance, of the Mogta The spread of effeminate luxury had eaten up the rat^^raies. spirit of enterprise, and there was nothing they desired so little as the sight of an enemy. There was a total relaxation of discipline. The stipend of the com- manders was regulated by the number of their men, and not only was it never honestly maintained, but the ranks were filled up with miserable recruits, totally unable to cope with the Mahratta soldiers, accustomed to hard fare 92 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. A.D. and harder work. " The horse without a saddle," as the army 1692 was aptly described, " was rode by a man without clothes ; " footmen inured to the same travail, and bearing all kinds " of arms, trooped with the horse ; spare horses accompanied " them to bring off the booty and relieve the wounded or " weary. All gathered their daily provision as they passed. " No pursuit could reach their march. In conflict their " onset fell wherever they chose, and was relinquished even " in the instant of charge. Whole districts were in flames " before their approach was known, as a terror to others to " redeem the ravage." The rallying point of the Mahrattas at this time was the fort of Gingee, the siege of which lasted as long as the Siege of siege of Troy. Zoolfikar KJian, the ablest of the Gmgee. Mogul generals, was sent against it, but he was too often in collusion with the Mahratta chiefs. It was during the languor of the siege that Suntajee, the Mah- ratta general, having defeated the imperial forces in the 1697 north, and augmented his army, appeared before it with 20,000 horse. The besieging army was besieged in its turn, and Cam-bnksh, the son of the emperor, the nominal commander-in-chief at the time, was driven to conclude a humiliating convention. It was disallowed by Aurungzebe, who recalled his son and sent Zoolfikar Khan, a third time to command the army, but as he was again in communica- tion with the garrison, the siege was protracted till the emperor threatened him with degradation if it was not successful. The fort was then assailed in earnest, and fell, but Zoolfikar connived at the escape of Raja Ram, who 1898 made his way to his native mountains, and selected Satara as the capital of the Mahratta power. He was able in time to collect a larger army than Sevajee had commanded, and he proceeded to collect what he termed the " Mahratta dues " with vigour, and the settlement of the Deccan was as distant as ever. To meet the increasing boldness of the Mahrattas, 1699 Aurungzebe separated his army into two divisions, one to Plans of be employed in protecting the open country, Aurungzebe. the other in capturing forts. The first he en- trusted to Zoolfikar, who repeatedly defeated the Mahrat- tas, but was unable to reduce their strength, and they always appeared more buoyant afler a defeat than his own troops after a victory. Aurungzebe reserved to himself the siege of the forts, in which he was incessantly employed 1701 for five years. It is impossible to withhold our admira- Sect. IV.] DEATH OF AURUNGZEBE 98 tion of the spirit of perseverance exhibited by this octo- genarian prince during these campaigns in which he was subjected to every variety of privations. Amidst all these harassing operations his vigour was never impaired. All the military movements in every part of the Deccan, in Afghanistan, in Mooltan, and at Agra were directed by the instructions he issued while in the field. With indefa- tigable industry he superintended all the details of adminis- ti-ation throughout the empire, and not even a petty officer was appointed at Cabul without his sanction. But all his energy was unable to cope with the difficulties which were accumulating around him. The Rajpoots were again in open hostility, and other tribes, emboldened by his continued absence, began to manifest a spirit of insubordination. The treasury was exhausted by a war of twenty-five years' a.d. duration, and the emperor was tormented with incessant 1705 demands for money, which he was unable to meet. The .Mahrattas became more aggressive than ever, and in every direction around his camp, north and south, east and west, nothing was seen but the devastation of the country and the sack of villages. In these deplorable circumstances he made overtures to the Mahrattas, and offered them ^^ ^^^^^^ a legal title to the cJiout and the teyith of the re- with the venues of the Deccan, but they rose in their de- ^^att^s. mands, as might have been expected, and the negotiations weipe thus broken ofi". The imperial camp began to retire to Ahmednugur closely followed by the Mahrattas, who 1706 plundered up to its very precincts, and converted the re- treat into an ignominious flight. Twenty years before Aurungzebe had marched from his capital in all the pride and pomp of war ; he was now returning to it in a state of humiliation, with the wreck of a broken army, pursued by a victorious foe, and he expired at Ahmednu- ^. , ., 1707 , -I ny^,-, -n t -, i-TA t-, -liis death. * • " • gur on the 27th February, 1707. Of all the princes of the house of Baber, Aurungzebe is the greatest object of admiration to the native historians, and his name is invested even among Europeans Remarks on with an indefinite idea of grandeur, but the illusion ^^^ ^^^^' vanishes on a close inspection of his biography. Few cha- racters in Indian history, whether amongst its Mahomedan or English rulers, have been more overrated. The merit of his personal bravery, his civil administration, and of his attention to business will be fully admitted, but for twenty- five years he persisted in a war of intolerance and aggres- sion, though he must have been aware that it was sapping 94 AERIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. 1 [1. the foundations of the empire. He had no heart and no friend ; he was crafty and suspicious, and often cruel ; he mistrusted all his officers, and they repaid him by pre- carious loyalty. Notwithstanding his manifest abilities, the rapid decay of the empire dates from his reign, and may in some measure be traced to his personal character. On the death of Aurungzebe,hisson, prince Azim, came in to the encampment, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor, Bahadoor and marched towards the capital. At the same A.D, ^^*^ time, the eldest son. Prince Muazzim, who had 1707 been nominated heir to the empire, was hastening to Delhi. The armies met in the neighbourhood of Agra, and Prince Azim was defeated and fell in action. Prince Akbar was a fugitive in Persia, and the remaining son of Aurungzebe, Cam-buksh, who was assembling troops in the Deccan, was defeated by Zoolfikar Khan, with the aid of a Mahratta contingent, and there ceased to be any rival to the throne which Prince Muazzim ascended at the age of sixty- seven, with the title of Bahadoor Shah. The Mahrattas were unable to take advantage of these distractions by their internal dissensions. Raja E-am, the 1700 jjjgpQ^ regent, died soon after his return to Satara, and among the the government was administered for seven years Mahrattas. j^^ j^^g ^(Jqw Tara Bye, in the name of her own son. The lineal heir, Shao, the son of Sambajee, was a captive in the Mogul encampment, but treated with great kindness. Prince Azim, when starting for the capital, had released him, and afforded him the means of asserting his rights, on condition of his doing homage to the Mogrd throne. Tara Bye proclaimed him an impostor, and collected an army to resist his claims, but he obtained pos- session of Satara and in 1708 assumed the functions of royalty. In this family contest, the Mahratta sirdars espoused opposite sides, and drew their swords on each other. In the course of five years the son of Tara Bye died ; her minister superseded her authority and placed another son of Raja Ram on the throne of Kolapore, which became the capital of the junior branch of Sevajee's family, and the rival of Satara. Bahadoor conferred the viceroyalty 1708 Kivai house of the Deccan on Zoolfikar, the chief instrument of Kolapore. ^f ]^jg elevation, and as his presence was required at court, the administration was left in the hands of Daood Khan, a noble Patau, famous throughout the Deccan for his matchless daring and his love of strong drink, of whom Sect. IV.] EISE OF THE SIKHS 95 it is recorded that when he visited Madras, Mr. Pitt, the father of the first Lord Chatham, the governor, gave him a grand entertainment in the council chamber, and that the a.u. Patan " pledged the chief largely in cordial waters and ^708 "French brandy, amidst a discharge of cannon." By the desire of his master, he granted to the Mahratta the concession of the cJiout on the six soobahs of the Deccan, which Aurnngzebe in his extremity had offered them, and this arrangement, though made by a subordinate authority, kept them quiet to the end of the reign. The tranquillity of Rajpootana was secured by the same spirit of conciliation and concession to its three principal chiefs of Oodypore, Jeypore, and Joudpore. The emperor was now called to encounter a new enemy in the north — the Sikhs. About the end of the fifteenth century, Nanuk, the founder of their ^^ ^^^^ religious community, taught that devotion was due to God alone, that all forms were immaterial, and that the worship of the Hindoo and the Moslem was equally acceptable to the Deity. The sect increased in numbers, but was fiercely persecuted by the bigoted Mahomedan rulers, who massacred their pontiff the year after the death of Akbar. In 1675, Gooroo Govind, the tenth spiritual 1675 successor of Nanuk, conceived the idea of forming the Sikhs into a military as well as a religious commonwealth. He abolished all distinction of caste, but required every member of the society to be pledged as a soldier from his birth or his initiation, and to wear a peculiar dress and to cultivate his beard. He inculcated reverence for brahmins and prohibited the slaughter of cows. This union of martial and religious enthusiasm rendered the Sikhs a formidable body, and they had to maintain an arduous struggle with the Mahomedans, who captured the strongholds of the Gooroo, murdered his mother and sisters, and mutilated, slaughtered, or dispersed his followers. Still the sect grew and multiplied, and towards the close of Aurungzebe's reign, under a formidable chief of the name of Bandoo, extended its depredations to the vicinity of Delhi. 1710 Bahadoor Shah took the field against them and drove them back to the hills. On his return from this expedition he died at Lahore, after a brief reign of five years, at the age of thof Ba- ^'^^^ seventy- two. His death was followed by the usual hadoor shau scramble for power among his four sons, three of ^ah.^^*°*^®^ whom were defeated and killed. The survivor 96 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. mounted the throne with the title of Jehander Shah, and pnt all the members of the royal family within his reach to death ; he resigned liimself to the influence of a dancing girl, and indulged in the most degrading vices. His career A.D. was cut short by his nephew, Ferokshere, the viceroy of *713 Bengal, who marched up to Delhi, and deposed and mur- dered the wretched emperor, as well as the noble but crafty Zoolfikar. Ferokshere, the most contemptible, as yet, of the princes ot his line, mounted the throne, and for six years disgraced it by his vices, his weakness, and his cowardice, ero s ere. jj^ owed his elevation to two brothers descended from the Prophet, and thence denominated the Syuds. Abdoolla, the eldest, was appointed vizier, and his brother, Hoosen Ali, commander-in-chief, but the emperor held them in detestation, and his reign was httle else than a series of machinations to destroy them. Hoosen Ali was sent against the Rajpoot raja of Joudpore in the hope that the expedition would prove fatal to him ; but he concluded an honourable peace with the prince and induced him to give the hand of one of his daughters to the emperor. The nuptials, which were celebrated with great splendour, were rendered memorable by an incident which will be noticed in a subsequent chapter. The office of viceroy of the Deccan had been bestowed 1714 on Ghazee-ood-deen. The family had emigrated from Tar- Nizam-ooi- ^^^J ^ seek its fortunes in India, and he had risen mooik. to distinction in the service of Aurungzebe, who granted him the title of Cheen Killich Kian, to which was now added that of Nizam-ool-moolk. He was a statesman of great ability and experience, but of still greater subtilty. During the seventeen months in which he held the office of viceroy he fomented the dissensions between the houses of Kolapore and Satara. Shao had been brought up in all the luxury of a Mahomedan seraglio, and was fonder of hunting, hawking, and fishing than of the business of the state. The Mahratta commonwealth was falHng into a BaUajee statc of anarchy, when the genius of Ballaj ee Wi sh- Wishwanath. wanath placed the party of Shao in the as- cendant, and rekindled the smouldering energies of the nation. Ballaj ee, a brahmin, was originally a simple vil- lage accountant, but rose through various gradations of office till he became a power in the state, and was ap- pointed Peshwa, or prime minister. It was to his energy that the rapid expansion of the Mahratta power is to be Sbct.iv.j great concessions to the mahrattas 97 attributed, and he may justly be regarded as the second founder of its greatness. With the view of separating the two brothers, the Syuds, from each other, Ferokshere displaced Nizam-ool-moolk, and appointed Hoosen Ali viceroy of the Deccan. At jj^^g^^ ^^ the same time he sent secret instructions to the re- nowned Daood Khan to offer him the most strenuous oppo- sition, and he rushed at once into the field, and attacked him with such impetuosity as to disperse his army hke a flock of sheep ; but in the moment of victory he was killed ^•^• by a cannon ball, and the fortune of the day was changed. His devoted wife, a Hindoo princess, stabbed herself on hearing of his death. Hoosen Ali, flushed with his suc- cess, took the field against the Mahrattas, whose depreda- tions had never ceased, but was completely defeated. In these circumstances, distracted by Mahratta encroachmenfcs on the one hand, and on the ofcher by the hostility and in- trigues of the emperor, he entered into negotiations with BallajeeWishwanath which resulted in a conven- -^^ conces- tion as disgraceful to the Mogul throne, as it was sions to the fortunate for the Mahratta state. Shao was ^ ^* ^* acknowledged as an independent sovereign over all the ^ dominions which had belonged to Sevajee. The cJiout and ' ' the tenth of the revenues of the six soobahs in the Deccan, which were valued at eighteen crores — their assumed pro- duct in their most palmy state — were conferred on him, together with the tributary provinces of Tanjore, Mysore, and Trichinopoly, on condition that he should furnish a con- tingent of 15,000 troops, andbe responsible forthe peace of the Deccan. This was the largest stride to power the Mahrattas had yet achieved. They were furnished with a large and per- manent income by these assignments on districts stretching from the Nerbudda to Cape Comorin, and from the Malabar to the Coromandel coast, the collection of which gave them a right of constant and vexatious interference with the inter- nal admin stration of every province. An army of Mahratta officers, chiefly brahmins, was planted throughout the country with indefinite powers of exaction for the state, which they did not fail to turn also to their own profit. Ferokshere was advised to disallow the convention, and the breach between him and the Syuds became wider, Abdoolla called up his brother, who hastened to Death of the capital, accompanied by 10,000 Mahrattas Ferokshere. under Ballajee, and entered it without opposition. The emperor made the most abject submission, but was dragged H 98 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. from the interior of the zenana, where he had taken refuge, and assassinated. Two puppets were then placed on the throne, but they disappeared in a few months by disease or poison, and a grandson of Bahadoor Shah was raised to i^?q Accession of ^^^ imperial dignity, and assumed the title of Mahomed Mahomed Shah, the last who deserved the name of emperor of India. Weak and despicable as Ferokshere had been, his tragic death created a feeling ot compassion throughout the country. The popular indigna- tion agaiust the Syuds was increased, and they found them- selves the mark of universal execration ; but the great object of their alarm was Nizam- ool-moolk, who, though he had been united with them in opposition to Ferokshere, was now alienated from their cause. He marched across the Nerbudda with a large force into the Deccan, where he had many adherents both among the Mahrattas and the Mahomedaiis, defeated two armies sent against him, and re- mained master of his position. Meanwhile, Mahomed Shah was fretting under the yoke of the Syuds, and, under the dis- creet guidance of his mother, formed a confederacy among his nobles to relieve himself from it. Distracted by the difficulties which accumulated around them, they resolved that Hoosen Ali should march against Nizam-ool-moolk, taking the emperor with him, while AbdooUa remained at 1720 Delhi to look after their common interests. Five days after the march commenced, a savage Calmuk, instigated by the Hnssun AU Confederacy, approached the palankeen of Hussun assassinated, ^jj^ under the pretence of presenting a petition, and stabbed him to the heart. In the conflict which en- sued the partizans of the emperor were victorious, and he returned to Delhi. AbdooUa, whose energy rose with his danger, set up a new emperor and marched against Baha- door Shah, but was defeated and captured, though his life was spared in consideration of his sacred lineage. SECTION Y. MAHOMED SHAH TO NADIE SHAH'S INVASION. Mahomed Shah entered Delhi with great pomp, a free 1 720 monarch a twelvemonth after he had ascended the Proceedin throne ; but his reign, though long, was marked of Mahomed by the tokens of rapid decay. The canker worm ^^*^* was at the root of the august Mogul throne, and Sbct. v.] MAHOMED SHAH— CABINET OF POONA 99 every year disclosed its ravages. He abolished the odious jezzia, and bestowed high appointments on the rajas of Jeypore and Joudpore ; but the rana of Oodypore, wrapped up in his orthodox dignity, refused all intercourse with the court and sank into obscurity. Saadut Ali, a Khorasan merchant, who had taken an active -^ . ^^ ad. share in the recent proceedings, was appointed saadutAU, ^^^^ soobadar of Oude, and laid the foundation of the ^^ef ^°' royal dignity, which was extinguished in 1856. The office of vizier was reserved for Nizam-ool-moolk, who repaired to the capital, but found the emperor immersed in pleasure, and so indifferent to the interests of the state as to have given the custody of the imperial signet to a favourite mistress. He endeavoured to rouse him Nizam-ooi- to a sense of his responsibilities at a time when "^oo^- the empire was crumbling around him, but the emperor rejected all advice, and joined his dissolute companions in turning to ridicule the antiquated habits and solemn de- meanour of the venerable statesman, then in his seventy- 1723 fifth year. Disgusted with the profligacy of the court, and despairing of any reform, he threw up his office and re- turned to his government in the Deccan. The emperor loaded him with honours on his departure, but instigated the local governor at Hyderabad to resist his authority ; but he was defeated and slain, and the Nizam fixed on that city, the capital of the Kootub Sahee dynasty, as the seat of his 1724 government, and from this period may be dated the origin of the kingdom of the Nizam. Ballajee had accompanied Hoosen Ali with his troops to Delhi, but made his submission to Mahomed Shah, and obtained from him a confirmation of the grants which had been made by the Syud Hoosen, and ^^wamth's returned to Satara with these precious muniments, acquisitions fourteen in number, and died soon after. The ^*^*^®**^' poHtical arrangements he made before his death estabhshed 172< the predominant authority of the eight brahmins who formed the cabinet, and it was likewise extended throughout the interior, by means of the brahmin agents employed to collect "Mahratta dues." He was succeeded by his son Bajee Rao, who had been bred a soldier and a states- Bajee Eao man, and "united the enterprise, vigour, and and Ms " hardihood of a Mahratta chief with the polished °^°^^°^'^*'- "manners and address of a Concan brahmin." The interest of the succeeding twenty years in the history of India centres in the intrigues, the alliances, and the conflicts of e2 100 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. III. the Maliratta statesman at Satai*a, and the crafty old Tartar, Nizam-ool-moolk, at Hyderabad, who made peace and war without any reference to the authority of the emperor at Delhi. Bajee Rao felt that unless employment could be found abroad for the large body of predatory horse who formed the sinews of the Mahratta power, they would be employed in hatching mischief at home. Fully aware of the weakness of the empire, he urged on his master, Shao, " to strike the trunk of the withering tree ; the branches A.D. " must fall off of themselves. Now is our time to drive ^'^^* " strangers from the land of the Hindoos. By directing onr " efforts to Hindostan the Mahratta flag shall float, in " your reign, from the Kistna to the Attock." But Shao had been bred in the luxuriance of a Mogul seraglio, and Bajee Rao, finding his ardour ill-seconded by his effeminate sovereign, was constrained to act for himself; and thus the house of the Peshwa waxed stronger, and the house of Sevajee weaker. Nizam-ool moolk, while vizier, had appointed his uncle, Hamed Khan, governor of Guzerat, in opposition to the Aifairs of court, and Sur-booland Khan was sent to expel Guzerat. him. Hamed defeated him with the aid of two Mahratta commanders, whom he had rewarded with a grant of the cliout and the tenth of the revenues of the province. Bajee Rao took advantage of this discord to send Sindia, Holkar, and Puar, of Dhar, to levy contribu- tions in Malwa, while he himself proceeded on the same errand to Seringapatam in the south. Alarmed St^Sn°°^ by the increasing audacity of the Mahrattas, Koiaporeand Nizam-ool-moolk endeavourcd to renew the dis- sensions of the rival houses of Kolapore and Satara. They were at issue for their respective shares of the assignments granted to the Peshwa on the revenues of the six soobahs of the Deccan ; and the Nizam, as the repre- sentative of the emperor, called on them to substantiate their claims before him. Bajee Rao, indignant at this attempt to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Mahratta commonwealth, assembled an army and marched against him, and though the Nizam was supported by a large body of .72 7 Mahrattas, he was driven into a position which constrained him to enter upon negotiations. The Peshwa, having his eye upon the course of proceedings in Guzerat, granted him favourable terms. Sur-booland had succeeded in establish- ing his authority in that province, and the Peshwa was negotiating with him to obtain for himself the grant of the Sect, v.] RISE OF SINDIA AND HOLKAR 101 chout and the tenth which Hamed Klhaii had granted to the two Mahratta generals. To expedite the bargain he sent his brother to ravage the country, and the Mogul governor was obliged to purchase peace by conceding his demands. While Bajee Rao was thus engaged, Sambajee, the ruler of Kolapore, crossed the Wurda and laid waste the territories of Shao. He was defeated, and obliged to sign an acknowledgment of his cousin's right to the whole of the Mahratta dominions, with the exception of a small a.d. tract of country around Kolapore, to which this branch of 1730 Sevajee's family was to be confined. The principality still exists, while the kingdom of the elder branch has been absorbed in the British Empire. The Nizam now found a new instrument of mischief in Dhabaray, the Mahratta commander-in-chief, who was mortified to find that the prize of the chout and other dues he had obtained from Hamed in Guzerat, had been carried off by the Peshwa. Under the instigation of the Nizam, he proceeded with an army of 33,000 men towards Satara, on the pretence of re- leasing his master, Shao, from the tyranny of Bajee Rao, but 1731 he was defeated, and fell in action. The Mahratta interests in Guzerat were then entrusted to Peelajee Gaikwar, whose immediate ancestor was a cowherd, and whose descendants still occupy the throne of Baroda. To this period also belongs the rise of the families of Holkar and Sindia, destined to play an important part in the subsequent politics of India, and whose Rise of descendants continue to wear the crowns they guj^aand acquired. Mulhar Rao Holkar was the son of a herdsman who exchanged the crook for the sword, and by his daring courage recommended himself to Bajee Rao, by whom he was entrusted with the very agreeable charge of levying contributions in eighty-four villages in Malwa. Ranojee Sindia was of the caste of husbandmen, and entered the service of Ballajee as a menial, but was intro- duced into his body-guard, and became one of the foremost of the Mahratta chieftains in that age of enterprise. Like Holkar, he was sent to establish the Mahratta authority in Malwa, and these assignments became the nucleus of their future dominions After the defeat of Dhabaray, the Nizam was, to a certain extent, at the mercy of Bajee Rao, but they both perceived that it would be for their common interest to Bajee Rao'8 come to an understanding, and they entered into h^*^^!^^ a secret compact, which stipulated that the 102 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Ill, ^j,. Nizam's territories should not be molested, while Bajee Rao 1731 should be at liberty to plunder the Mogul territories in the north. He accordingly crossed the Nerbudda, and laid waste the province of Malwa. The imperial governor was at the time employed in coercing a refractory chief in Bundle- cnnd, who called in the aid of Bajee Rao, and rewarded his services by the cession of a third of the province of 1732 Jhansi, and thus the Mahratta standard was for the first time planted on the banks of the Jumna. The government of Malwa was then bestowed on tbe Rajpoot raja Jeysing, whose reign was rendered illustrious by the patronage of science, the erection of the beautiful city of Jeypore, with its palaces, halls, and temples, and its noble observatory. The profession of a common faith promoted a friendly 1734 intercourse between him and Bajee Rao, the result of which was the surrender of the province to the Mahratta, with the tacit concurrence of the helpless emperor. These multiplied concessions only served, as might have been expected, to inflame the ambition and to increase the Hisincreaaed demands of the Pesbwa. Great as were the demands. resources of the Mahratta commonwealth, the larger portion of the revenues was absorbed by the differ- ent feudatories, and only a fraction reached the treasury at Satara. The magnitude of Bajee Rao's operations had in- volved him in debt ; his troops were clamorous for pay, and the discipline of the army necessarily suffered by these arrears. He demanded of the imperial court a confirma- tion of the assignments granted by Sur-booland Khan on the revenues of Guzerat, of the rights he had acquired 1736 in Bundlecund, and the absolute cession of the rich pro- vince of Malwa. The feeble cabinet at Delhi endeavoured to pacify him by minor grants, which only led him to in- crease his claims, and he proceeded to demand the cession of all the country south of the Chumbul, together with the holy cities of Muttra, Benares, and Allahabad. To quicken the apprehensions of the emperor, he sent Holkar to plunder the Dooab, the province lying between the Jumna and the Ganges, but he was driven back by Saadut Ali, the soobadar of Oude. This was magnified into a great vic- tory, and it was reported that the Mahrattas had been obliged to retire. " I was compelled," said Bajee Rao, " to 1737 ** tell the emperor the tmth, and to prove to hi-m that I was " still in Hindostan, and to show him flames and the Mah- " rattas at the gates of his capital." He therefore took the field in person, and marching at the rate of forty miles a Sbct. v.] invasion of NADIR SHAH 103 day, suddenly presented himself before the gates of Delhi. The consternation in the capital may be readily conceived ; a.d. but the object of Bajee Rao was not to sack the city, but 1737 to intimidate the emperor into concessions, and circum- stances rendered it advisable for him to retreat to Satara. The Mahrattas now appeared to be paramount in India, and the Nizam was considered the only man who could save the empire from extinction. He listened jjgfeatof the to the overtures of the emperor and proceeded to Nizam by Delhi, where he was invested with full powers ^^^^® ^^' to call out all the resources of the state ; but they were re- duced to so low a point that the army under his personal command could only be completed to 30,000 men, with which he returned to the south. Bajee Rao crossed the Nerbudda with 80,000 men. Owing, perhaps to his great age — ^ninety-three — perhaps to over confidence in the great superiority of his artillery, the Mzam entrenched himself nearBhopal. Bajee Rao adopted the national system of warfare, laid waste the country, intercepted all supplies, attacked every detachment which ventured beyond the lines, and on the twenty- fifth day of the siege obliged the Mzam to sign a humiliating treaty, granting him the sove- 173E reignty of Malwa and the territories up to the Chumbul, and engaging to use his influence to obtain from the im- perial treasury the sum of half a crore of rupees, which he had not ceased to demand ; but that treasure was to find a very different destination. It was in the midst of these distractions that Nadir Shah appeared on the banks of the Indus, and India was visited with another of those tempests of desolation to ^^^^ ^^^ which it had been repeatedly subject for some centuries. The Persian dynasty of the Sofis, which had occupied the throne for nearly two centuries, was sub- verted in 1720 by the Ghiljies, the most powerful tribe in Afghanistan. Shah Hossen, the last of that royal line, was besieged by them in his capital, Ispahan, then in the height of its prosperity, and after enduring for six months the extremities of misery and starva- tion, went out with his court in deep mourniDg to the Afghan camp, and surrendered his crown to Mahmood, the Afghan chief. He died at the end of two years, and was succeeded by his son Asruf. Nadir Shah, the greatest general Persia has produced, was the son of a shepherd of Khorasan, and commenced his career by collecting a band of freebooters. Finding himself, at length, at the head of a 104 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. HI. powerful army, lie freed Ms native province from the Afghans, and then constrained the Ghiljie monarch to A.D. resign all his father's conquests in Persia. He raised 1729 Thamasp, the son of the dethroned Sofi king, to the throne ; but after expelling the Turks and the Russians from the provinces they had conquered, deposed Thamasp and be- ^731 stowed the nominal sovereignty on his infant son, while he himself assumed the title of king, upon the importunity, as it was affirmed, of 100,000 nobles, soldiers, and peasants 1736 whom he had assembled on a vast plain To find employ- ment for his troops and to gratify his own ambition and avarice, he carried his arms into Afghanistan, and resolved to re- annex Candahar to the Persian throne. While engaged in the siege of that town he sent a messenger to Delhi to demand the surrender of some of his fugitive subjects, but, owing to the distraction of the times, the claim was 1738 neglected. A second messenger was murdered at Jellala- bad. The Grovernment of India had from time immemorial paid an annual subsidy to the wild highlanders who oc- cupied the passes between Cabul and Peshawur, and the imperial cabinet doubtless trusted to their power to arrest the progress of Nadir. The payment of this black mail had, however, been for some time withheld, and they opened the gates of India to the Persian monarch, who crossed the Indus with 65,000 of his veteran troops and overran the Punjab before the court of Delhi was aware of his approach. The emperor Mahomed Shah marched to Kurnal to meet this invasion, but experienced a fatal defeat, and pro- „ . . ceediner to the Persian camp, threw himself on Capture of ,-, ° • r i.1, ^n^ x.- l c Delhi, and the compassion 01 the conqueror. Ihe object of massacre. J^adir Shah was treasure and not conquest, and it is affirmed that he was prepared to retire on the payment of two crores of rupees ; but Saadut Ali, the soobadar of Oude, having some cause of offence with the emperor, represented to the Persian that this was a very inadequate ransom for so rich an empire, and that his own province alone could afford this sum. Nadir resolved, therefore, to levy exactions under his own eye. He entered Delhi in March, and on the 1 739 succeeding day a thousand of his soldiers were massacred upon a report of his death. He went out to restore order, but was assailed with missiles, and one of his chiefs was killed by his side, upon which he issued orders for a general massacre. For many hours the metropolis presented a scene of rapine, lust, and carnage, and 8,000 are said to Sect, v.] STATE OF INDIA IN 1739 105 have fallen victims to his infuriated soldiery. Yet so com- plete was the discipline he had established that every sword was sheathed as soon as he issued the order. He took possession of all the imperial treasures, including the peacock throne; plundered the nobles, and caused every house to be sacked, sparing no cruelty to extort confessions of wealth. From the disloyal Saadut Ali he exacted the full tale of two crores, and the traitor terminated his exist- ence by poison. The governors of other provinces were not a.d. spared ; and ISTadir Shah, after having thus subjected the 173£ capital and the country for fifty- eight days to spoliation, and feeling satisfied that he had exhausted the wealth of the empire, prepared to retire with an accumulation of thirty-two crores of rupees. He restored Mahomed Shah to the throne, but annexed all the provinces west of the Indus to the crown of Persia. On his departure he issued a proclamation to the princes of India, stating that he was now proceeding to the conquest of other regions, but that if any report of their having revolted from " his dear "brother, Mahomed Shah," reached his ears, he would return and blot their names out of the book of creation. The Mogul power, which had been in a state of rapid decay since the death of Aurungzebe, received its death blow from the invasion of Nadir Shah, and the state of sack of the capital. The empire was breaking up i^^^i** into fragments, and the authority and the prestige of the throne was irrecoverably gone. The various provinces yielded only a nominal homage to the crown. All its possessions beyond the Indus were permanently alienated. In the extreme south of the peninsula the Mogul sovereignty was a matter of history. The Nabob of the Carnatic acknowledged no superior. The rest of the Deccan was shared between the Nizam and the Mahrattas. In the provinces of Guzerat and Malwa, the power of the Peshwa was already predominant. The allegiance of the princes of Rajpootana was very vacillating. The viceroys of Oude and Bengal, the richest provinces of India, acknowledged the emperor as their suzerain, but yielded him no obedience. Even in the vicinity of the capital, new chiefs were, as the native historian remarks, " beating the " drum of independence." The house of Baber had accom- plished the usual cycle of Indian dynasties, which seldom exceeded two centuries, and its sceptre was now to pass into the hands of a company of European merchants, with the sea, and not Central Asia, for the base of its enterprise. 106 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. Having thus readied the period when the Mogul throne ceased to exercise any influence on the politics of India, we turn to the progress of the European settlements on the continent, and to the history of the East India Company, which began its career with a factory, and closed it by transfei-ring the Empire of India to the Crown of England. CHAPTER IV SECTION I. RISE AND PROGRESS OP THE PORTUGUESE. For five centuries the tide of Mahomedan invasion had rolled across the Indus from Central Asia, and spread from north to south. A new era now dawns upon us, ushered in by the appearance of a European fleet, and the progress is, henceforth, from south to north. The Mahomedans entered India in the spirit of conquest ; the Europeans came in search of trade. The productions of the East had, from time immemorial, been a great object of desire to the inhabitants of the West, who had been accus- tomed to obtain them through many circuitous channels. In the middle ages the trade had enriched the republics of Venice and Genoa, and a general anxiety was created to obtain direct access to India. During the fifteenth century the spirit of maritime adventure was strongly developed in Europe, and more especially in the small but spirited king- dom of Portugal, in which great progress had been made in the science of naval architecture. This spirit was warmly encouraged by its sovereigns, who fitted out a succession of expeditions, and gradually advanced along the coast of Africa, making fresh discoveries in each voyage. At length, John II. sent three vessels, under the command of Bartho- lomew Dias, to discover the southern limit of the African continent. He was the first navigator to double the Cape, where the tempestuous weather he encountered led him to 1486 Discovery designate it " The Cape of Storms " ; but his of the Cape, delighted sovereign, hoping to reach India by Sect. I.] RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PORTUGUESE 107 this route, more appropriately called it the Cape of Good Hope. Soon after, Christopher Colinnbiis, the enterprising Genoese sailor, convinced that India was to be discovered by saiKng west, offered his services to king John, but they were not accepted, and he proceeded on his adventurous expedition under the auspices of the king of Spain, and the continent of America was discovered in 1492. Eleven years elapsed after Dias had rounded the Cape before any attempt was made to improve the discovery. Eang John was succeeded by Emanuel, who entered on the field of enterprise with great ardour, and in 1497 fitted out three vessels in the hope of finding a way to India from the Cape. The little fleet, consisting of vessels of small tonnage, was entrusted to Yasco de Gama, who a.d. quitted Lisbon, after the performance of religious solem- 1^97 nities, on the 8th July, 1497, amidst the acclamations of the king, the court, and the people. Having reached the Cape in safety, he launched out boldly into the unexplored Indian Ocean, where, while traversing three thousand miles, nothing but the sea and the sky was visible for twenty-three days. He sighted the Malabar coast in May, Discovery 1498, and brought his enterprise to a glorious ^^ ^^• issue as he cast anchor off the town of Calicut. It lay 1498 in that portion of the Deccan which the Mahomedan arms had not reached, and belonged to a Hindoo prince styled the Zamorin, who gave the Portuguese commander an honourable reception, and at once granted him the privi- lege of trade in his dominions. But the commerce of the Malabar coast, with its fifty harbours, had hitherto been monopolised by the traders from Egypt and Arabia, who felt no little jealousy at the arrival of these interlopers, and having gained over his minister, persuaded the Zamorin that the Portuguese were not the merchants they represented themselves to be, but pirates who had escaped from their own country, and had now come to infest the eastern seas. The feelings of the prince were at once changed to hostility, and Yasco, after a residence of several months on the coast, seeing little hope of an amicable intercourse, set sail on his return. He entered the Tagus, after an absence of twenty-six months, on the 29th of 1499 August, 1499, in regal pomp, and received the homage of the court and the people, who crowded to the beach to admire the vessels which had performed this wonderful voyage. It was six years and a half after Columbus had astounded the nations of Europe by the discovery of the New World, 108 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. that Vasco increased their amazement by annonncing the discovery by sea of the way to India, the region of fabu- lous wealth. The king of Portugal lost no time in following up the enterprise, and immediately fitted out an expedition, which Second ex- Consisted of thirteen ships and 1,200 men, the pe<^tion— command of which was given, not to Yasco, but to Cabral, who was, however, well qualified for the undertaking. He was accompanied by eight friars, and directed to carry fire and sword into every province A.D. which would not receive their teaching. After launching 1500 into the Atlantic, his fleet was driven, in 1500, by the violence of the wind, to the coast of South America, where he discovered, and took possession of, Brazil, which has ever since remained an appanage of Portugal. On the 13th of September he anchored off Calicut, and having restored the hostages who had been taken away by Yasco, was graciously received by the Zamorin, and obtained per- mission to erect a factory. But the Mahomedan traders effectually prevented his obtaining any cargoes, and he seized one of their richest vessels, and having transferred its contents to his own ships, set it on fire. An attack was immediately made on his factory, and fifty men were killed. Cabral resented it by capturing and burning ten other vessels, after he had taken possession of their cargoes. He then cannonaded the town from his fleet, and sailed to the neighbouring port of Cochin, where he formed an alliance with the chief, a dependent of the Zamorin, and returned to Lisbon. The disasters which Cabral had encountered induced the officers of state to advise the abandonment of these enter- Second prises, but the king was ambitious of founding an voyage of oriental empire, and having obtained a bull ^^°' from the Pope conferring on him the sovereignty of all the countries visited by his fleets in the East, he assumed the title of" Lord of the navigation, conquest, and commerce *' of Etliiopia, Persia, Arabia, and India." A third expedi- tion, consisting of fifteen vessels, was fitted out and entrusted to Yasco de Gama, who, on his arrival at Calicut, de- 1602 manded reparation for the insult offered to Cabral, which was peremptorily refused, and he set the town on fire. He then proceeded to the friendly port of Cochin, where he left Pacheco with a handful of men to protect the Portu- guese factory, and unaccountably set sail for Europe. The Zamorin of Calicut marched to the attack of Cochin for Bbct.I.] expedition OF CABRAL 109 having harboured the Portuguese, and invested the fac- tory, but though his troops exceeded those of Pacheco by fifty to one, they were ignominiously defeated, and the superiority of European to Asiatic soldiers, which has ever since been maintained, was now for the first time ex- hibited, and the foundation was laid for European as- cendancy in India. a.d. In 1505, the king of Portugal sent out Almeyda with 1605 the grand title of viceroy of India, though he did not possess a foot of land in it. Almeyda had to en- counter a new and more formidable opponent. ^ The Venetians, who had hitherto monopolised the lucrative trade of India, regarded with a jealous eye the attempts of the Portuguese to divert it into a new channel round the Cape. The bulk of the commerce which had made their island the queen of the Adriatic and the envy of Europe, was con- veyed through Egypt, where they enjoyed a paramount influence, and they prevailed on the Sultan to send a fleet down the Red Sea to sweep the interlopers from the coast of India, and assisted him with naval materials from their forests in Dalmatia. The king of the maritime province of Guzerat was equally alarmed at the growing power of the Portuguese on the sea, aud sent his ships to co-operate with the Egyptian fleet. They came up with a portion of the Portuguese fleet in the harbour of Choul, and defeated it. Young Almeyda was killed in the action ; his father determined to avenge his death, and, finding that Dabul, one of the greatest commercial marts on the coast, had taken part with the Egyptian fleet, reduced it to ashes, with great slaughter. He then proceeded in Kavai search of the combined fleets, and found them actions. anchored in the harbour of Diu, and obtained a splendid 1608 victory over them ; but he stained his reputation by the massacre of his prisoners to avenge the death of his son. He had been previously superseded by Albuquerque, sent out by the court of Lisbon to take charge of the Portu- guese interests in India. He was a man of great ^bu- enterprise and boundless ambition. He attacked querque. the town of Calicut, but lost a fourth of his force in the assault. He came to the conclusion that, instead of these desultory attacks in which the Portuguese had hitherto been engaged, it would be more advisable to make a per- manent establishmeut on that coast, in some port and town which would afibrd a safe harbour for their ships, and oecome the citadel of their power. He fixed on Goa, on llOABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Cha?. /V. the coast of Canara, situated on an island twenty-three miles in circumference, and one of the most valuable ports on that coast. It thus became the metropolis of the Por- tuguese dominions in India, and every effort made from time to time to capture it by the native princes proved unavailing. He now assumed the position of an eastern prince, and received embassies with oriental pomp. He proceeded to the remote provinces in the Malay archipelago, where he established his authority, and carried his commercial enter- prises to Siam, Java, and Sumatra. His efforts were next directed to the west, and he obtained possession of Ormuz, the great emporium of the Persian Gulf. The genius of Albu- querque had thus in the course of nine years built up a great European power in the East. He appeared rather to eschew than to court territorial possessions, but his power throughout the eastern seas was irresistible, and his authority was su- preme along 12,000 miles of coast, on which he had planted thirty factories, many of which were fortified. But his last days were clouded by the ingratitude of his country. In the midst of his triumphs he was superseded by the intrigues A.D. of the court ; the reverse broke his heart, and he died 1516 as he entered the harbour of Goa. He was interred in the great settlement which he had established, amidst the re- grets of Europeans and natives, by whom he was equally beloved. During the whole of the sixteenth century the maritime power of the Portuguese continued to be the most formid- able in the eastern hemisphere, and the terror of guese six- ' every state on the sea-board. They took possession 1517 t^th cen- of the Island of Ceylon, and in 1517 proceeded to China, and established the first European factory, 1681 at Macao, in the Celestial Empire. In 1531 they equipped an armament of 400 vessels, with an army of 22,000 men, of whom 3,600 were Europeans, and captured Diu, which, 1537 though lost for a time, was regained. In 1537 the king of Guzerat implored the Grand Seigneur to assist him in freeing India from the presence of the infidels, and a large fleet, with 7,000 Turkish soldiers on board, was fitted out at Suez, and being joined by the Guzerat army, 20,000 strong, laid close siege to Diu. Sylviera, the commander, had only 600 men for its defence, but he sustained the siege, amidst the deepest privations, with European gallantry, for eight months. The assailants, driven to despair, were obliged to withdraw, and the fame of the foreigners who had baffled the united forces of the Sultan of Turkey and the king of Sect.L] PORTUGUESE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTQKY lU Guzerat was diffused througli India. The most memorable event in the annals of Portuguese India was the combina- tion formed for their expulsion by the kings of Ahmed- ^j,^ nugur and Beejapore and the Zamorin of CaHcut. The 1570 siege of Goa, which they undertook, lasted ten months, but was at length abandoned after the confederates had lost 12,000 men. The king of Bengal, pressed by Shore Sing, in 1538 sent an embassy to Goa to implore the aid of the 1538 Portuguese Governor- General, who despatched nine armed vessels with troops to his assistance. This was the first introduction of Europeans into the valley of the Ganges. The Portuguese established a factory at a place called the Gola, or granary, — subsequently designated Hooghly, — and completely drew off the trade of the province from the neighbouring town of Satgang, which had been the great mercantile emporium of Bengal for fifteen centuries. The factory grew to be a flourishing town, adorned with nu- merous churches, and so strongly fortified, that when the Moguls subsequently attacked it with three armies, they were unable to carry it by storm, but were constrained to have recourse to mines. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the greatness of the Portuguese had reached its zenith, they were encountered, and eventually supplanted by a European rival. The Dutch, having thrown off Sutehl^d^ the yoke of Spain, entered upon a career of mari- ^^^7 of ^'^^ timeenterprise with extraordinary ardour. In 1596 ° ^^^®' they sent an expedition round the Cape to the eastern islands, 1596 which returned laden with spices and other valuable com- modities, and gave so great a stimulus to the spirit of com- merce that, within five years, forty vessels, of from four to six hundred tons burden, were embarked in the trade. They gradually wrested the spice islands and Malacca and the island of Ceylon from the Portuguese, but not without many a sanguinary conflict. An expedition, undertaken jointly by the king of Persia and the East India Company, deprived the Portuguese of Ormuz, and within a century and a half of the arrival of Vasco de Gama there remained nothing to the crown of Portugal of its eastern possessions but Goa, Mozambique, and Macao in China. The com- merce of the Dutch lay chiefly with the eastern archipelago ; on the continent of India they never possessed more than a few factories. 112 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. SECTION 11. PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH TO THE PEACE OP ADt-LA-CHAPELLE. The great advantages whicli the trade of India had con- ferred on the Portuguese and Dutch inspired the French The French with E dcsirc to participate in it, and several East India attempts worc made to acquire a commercial ompany. footing in the East during the first half of the seventeenth century, but without success. At length, the great minister, Colbert, who had created the French navy and harbours, took up the matter, and established the French East India Company. Its first enterprise was directed to the island of Madagascar, but it was abandoned, owing to the unhealthiness of the climate and the hostihty of the natives, and the Company took possession of the A.D. uninhabited island of Bourbon and of the larger island of 1674 the Mauritius in its vicinity. In April, 1674, Martin, the earliest of the French colonists, and a man of remarkable energy, having obtained a grant of land on the Coromandel coast from the native prince, laid the foundation of the Erection of town of Pondicherry, which he was permitted to Pondicherry. fortify. Three years later it was threatened by 1676 Sevajee in his southern expedition, which has been noticed in a previous chapter, but was saved by the tact of Martin. War broke out at length between Holland and France, and the Dutch, envious of the prosperity of Pondicherry, sent a fleet of nineteen vessels against it. Martin was obHged to capitulate, and all hope of establishing French power on that coast appeared to wither away. The Dutch improved the fortifications and rendered it one of the strongest fortresses in India, but four years after were obliged to restore it by the treaty of Ryswick. Martin, with hia usual energy, strengthened the works, and attracted native settlers by his honest dealings and his conciliatory man- ners ; and on the spot which he had occupied thirty-two years before with six European settlers, there had grown up at the period of his death a noble town with 40,000 inhabitants. The charter of the Company was cancelled 1719 in 1719, and it was absorbed in the schemes of Law, of Mississippi notoriety. On the collapse of his project, the Company was re- organised as a commercial association ; the town gradually recovered its prosperity, which had been affected by the extinction of the Company, and was Sect. II.] PKOGRESS OF THE PEENCH 113 embellished by the taste of its governors, who also rivalled the native princes in the state they now assumed. a.t). M. Dumas was appointed governor of Pondicherry in 1735 1735. He united great energy of character with, what is so rarely found among Europeans in India, a Dumas, go- genial disposition, which in an eminent degree vemorof conciliated both the native princes and the people. °^ ^ ^'^* Rughoojee Bhonslay, the raja of Berar, poured down with 50,000 Mahratta troops, and Dost AH, who had become nabob of the Camatic amidst the confasion of the times, en- deavoured to arrest his progress, but was signally defeated and fell in battle. His son, Sufder Jung, and his son-in- law, Chunda Sahib, prevailed on M. Dumas to grant them and their families and property an asylum at Pondicherry, the strongest fortress on the coast. He received them in princely state, surrounded by his horse and foot guards, and they and their cortege entered the gates of the town under a royal salute. Soon after Sufder Ali made his peace with the Mahrattas, upon an engagement to pay a crore of rupees, and was installed nabob of the Carnatic without any reference to the emperor, or even to his repre- sentative in the Deccan, Nizam-ool-moolk. His family was withdrawn from Pondicherry, but the family and the wealth of Chunda Sahib remained under the protection of the French ramparts. Rughoojee Bhonslay, disappointed of this treasure, sent a force of 16,000 men to demand the payment of sixty lacs of rupees and the surrender of Chunda Sahib's family. Dumas had organised a body of 1,200 Europeans and 4,000 or 5,000 native troops — the germ of a sepoy army — and he received the envoy with courtesy, and after showing him over his military stores and equipments, and drawing up his force, desired him to assure his master that so long as a single Frenchman was left there would be no surrender. The resolute character of Dumas, and the resources of the garrison, made a deep 1740 impression on the Mahratta prince, but it was French cor- dials rather than French bayonets that carried the day. M. Dumas sent by the envoy a present of French liqueurs to Rughoojee, who gave them to his wife, and she was so dehghted with them as to insist on a further supply. The desire to gratify her, combined, doubtless, with a Kughoojee reluctance to risk an assault on a fortress of Bhonslay. European strength, led to a negotiation which ended in the retreat of the Mahrattas. M. Dumas was congratulated by the native princes of India on his successful resistance 114 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. of the redoubted Mahrattas, and the emperor conferred on him and his successors the title of nabob, and the rank of a commander of 4,500 horse. Dumas was succeeded by Dupleix, a man of extraordinary- genius, and one of the most illustrious statesmen in the Energy of annals of French India. He had acquired a Dupleix. large fortune in trade before he was appointed Intendant of Ohandernagore, on the banks of the Hooghly, where a French factory had been established in 1676. It had never flourished, while the EngHsh factory at Calcutta had been rising in wealth and importance, but the creative genius of Dupleix in the course of ten years made it one of the most opulent European factories in Bengal. At the period of his assuming the charge of the town not more than half-a-dozen small coasting craft were to be seen at the landing-place; before his departure seventy vessels were engaged in trade to Teddo, to Mocha, to Bussorah, and to China. He established agencies in the great marts in the interior, and his transactions were extended to Thibet. He surrounded the town with fortifications, and assisted A.D. in the erection of two thousand houses. He was appointed 1741 to the government of Pondicherry in October, 1741, and well knowing that in the East the pomp of state is always an element of political strength, made such a display of magnificence, and exacted such deference as an of&cer of the Mogul Empire, as to dazzle the princes and people of the Deccan, and to augment the reputation of French power. BSs first attention was given to the improvement of the fortifications, but before they were completed he was informed by the Directors of his company that war between France and England was imminent; and, moreover, that they would be unable to supply him with 1 746 money, ships, or soldiers. At the same time he learned that a large naval squadron was ready to sail from Eng- war between land, while he could only muster 436 European Prance and troops, and had only a single vessel of war at his ^ * disposal. In this emergency he determined to invoke the aid of the native princes whose friendship his predecessors had assiduously cultivated, and to solicit Anwar-ood-deen, who had been appointed nabob of the Camatic by Nizam-ool-moolk, to lay an injunction on the 1745 governor of Madras to abstain from any aggression on the French settlement. The governor considered it prudent to obey the order. The anxieties of Dupleix were likewise relieved by the arrival of Labourdonnais with a powerfal SiKJT.n.] CAEEER OF DUPLEIX 115 Frencli fleet. This officer, a man of singular enterprise, ^'J- had been for several years governor of the Manritiufl and Bonrbon, and had raised the islands by his energy and ability to a state of the greatest prosperity. He fonnd the greater part of the Mauritins on his arrival covered with an almost impenetrable jnngle, and inhabited by a sparse and indolent population. He created magazines and arsenals, barracks and fortifications ; he erected miQs, quays, and aqueducts, and gave the settlement that importance in the operations of his nation, which it maintained for nearly seventy years ; but the value of all his noble qualities was impaired by his pride and arrogance. The two fleets were not long before they came to an engagement. The conflict between the French and the English in India, which began with this naval battle in 1746, forms an important era in its modem history. Hitherto, Besuit of the European settlements dotted around the the conflict. Malabar and Coromandel coasts, content with the peaceful pursuits of commerce, had taken no share and little interest in the revolutions of power in the interior, and in the rise and fall of states. Down to the present time, moreover, while the French and English nations were often at war in Europe, during seventy years their Indian settlements lay peaceably side by side. But the scene was now changed. The governors of the two Companies embarked in a struggle for supremacy, embodied native troops and imported regiments from Europe, directing their attention more to the operations of war than of commerce, and, in more than one instance, fighting to the death in India after peace had been restored in Europe. They formed alHances and were drawn into conflicts with the native princes, which served to demonstrate the vast superiority of European soldiers over native troops, and this led to the rapid acqui- sition of political influence in the country, and, by an inevitable consequence, to the possession of territory. Within the brief period of eleven years after the two European powers had fired the first shot at each other, the French had acquired the undisputed authority of a territory in the south, containing a population of thirty-five millions, and in the north the English had the supreme command of provinces exceeding in area and population the whole of Great Britain. The two fleets met in July, 1746. The action was inde- 1741 cisive, but the English admiral, on the plea that one of his ships stood in need of repairs, sailed away to the south I 2 116 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. and left Madras, whicli he had been sent out to protect, Capture of at the mercy of the French. The little hamlet Madras. qj^ which the British ensign was planted in 1639, had in the course of a century expanded into a town with a native population of between one and two hundred thousand. The fortifications of Madras, which had never been very substantial, were now dilapidated, and of the small garrison of two hundred Europeans few had ever seen a shot fired. Against this defenceless town Labourdonnais advanced with a large fleet, 1,100 European troops, and 800 native sepoys Sept. ^^^ Africans. The President, after a decent resistance, 21 ST, surrendered it, and Labourdonnais held it at ransom for a 1746 sumof about sixty lacs of rupees; but Dupleix asserted that as long as the English held possession of the settlement, Pondi- cherry could not be expected to flourish, and he was deter- mined to extinguish all English interests on the coast. The violent altercations which arose between these two able but inflexible men may be readily imagined. Meanwhile, the monsoon set in with exceptional violence, and the French fleet sufiered to such an extent as to oblige Labourdonnais to return to the islands to refit. Dupleix immediately an- nulled the convention he had made with the president of Madras, and conveyed all the European of&cers prisoners to Pondicherry. Labourdonnais retired to France, where he was followed by the accusations of Dupleix and of the enemies he had made, and was thrown into the Bastile, where he lingered for three years, and, though released when the 1753 charges against him were disproved, died of a broken heart. On the approach of the French armament, the president of Madras, in his turn, had appealed to the nabob of the Carna- Battie of *ic> ^s Dupleix had done, and prevailed on him to St. Thomd. prohibit any attack on the town. Dupleix, how- ever, found little difficulty in persuading him to withdraw the injunction by promising to make over the settlement to him when it was captured, but after he had obtained pos- session of it it appeared too valuable a prize to be relin- quished. The nabob was irritated beyond measure, and asked who were these foreigners that they should thus set him at defiance, with a handful of European and native troops not equal to a twentieth of his own army ? His son was sent with 10,000 men to drive the French from Madras, but half a dozen rapid discharges of cannon bewildered them, and they retired more quickly than they had advanced. Dupleix, on hearing of .the investment of the town, despatched a reinforcement consisting of 230 Euro- cSect.II.] defeat of THE CAENATIC NABOB 117 peans and 700 sepoys. The son of tlie nabob marched to js^ot meet the detachment, and came up with it at St. Thome, 4th, aboTit four miles from Madras. The commander, Paradis, 174(1 though without guns, assaulted the enemy with such vigour that the young nabob, who was mounted on a lofty elephant, and carried the royal ensign, was the first to fly from the field. He was followed precipitately by the whole body of 10,000 men, who never paused till they were almost in sight of Arcot. This engagement, although small in com- parison with others, may be considered one of the most important and decisive battles in India. For the first time it gave the European settlers confidence in their own strength, and took all conceit of fighting out of the native princes. It taught the Europeans to disregard the disparity of numbers, however great, and dissolved the spell which had hitherto held them in abject subjection to the native powers. The success of the French induced the nabob at once to change sides. The only possession left to the English on the coast was Fort St. David, and Dupleixsent an siege of Pon- 1746 expedition against it ; but it was defended by the ^c^erry. earliest of our Indian heroes, Major Stringer Lawrence, and the French were obliged to retire, after four unsuccessful assaults. Soon after, admiral Boscawen arrived ofiP the coast with a large fleet and a large reinforcement of troops, and it was determined to retaliate on the French by the cap- ture of Pondicherry. The admiral unhappily determined to take the conduct of the siege on himself, but being altogether ignorant of military science and impatient of advice, he 1748 was subject to an ignominious failure. After having in- vested it for fifty days with the largest European force, little short of 4,000 men, which had ever yet been assembled in India, he was obliged to raise the siege, but not before he had lost one-fourth of his troops. Dupleix lost no time in trumpeting his success throughout India, and he received 1748 congratulations from the nabob at Arcot, from the Nizam at Hyderabad,, and even from the emperor at Delhi. Imme- diately after this event, the peace of Aix la Chapelle restored Madras to the English, and Dupleix had the mor- tification of seeing his bated rivals reinstated in all their 1749 possessions. 118 ABBIDGMENT OF THE HISTOBY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. SECTION III. FROM THE PEACE OP AEC LA CHAPELLE TO THE TEAR 1756. It might have been expected that the English and the French would now sheathe their swords and return to the English in- P^^suits of Commerce ; but, as the great historian, vadeTan- Orme, remarks, "The two nations having a jore. <4 large body of troops at their disposal, and being " no longer authorised to fight with each other, took the " resolution of employing their armies in the contests of " native princes, the English with great indiscretion, the " French with the utmost ambition." The English were the first to set the ex.imple ; they were anxious to obtain an accession of territory on the coast, and they accepted the ofier of Sahoojee, who had been deposed from the government of Tanjore, to cede the town and district of ^jy^ Devicotta, at the mouth of the Coleroon, if they would 1749 restore him to the throne. A force of about 1,500 men was accordingly sent under Major Lawrence, who obtained pos- session of the town, after a long and clumsy siege — the first the English were engaged in. But he found the cause of Sahoojee hopelessly unpopular, and returned to Madras, and persuaded the president to come to an accommodation with Pertab Sing, the prince then on the throne. Dupleix, however, aimed at a higher object than the ac- quisition of an insignificant town and a few miles of terri- Ambition of tory on the coast. He had seen a single battalion, Dupieix. consisting only in part of Europeans, disperse a native army, of ten times its number, like a flock of sheep. The rise of this new military power filled the minds of the native princes with awe ; and Dupleix determined to avail himself of their rivalries, and the fermentation of the times, to erect a French empire in India. Chunda Sahib, the most enterprising prince in the Deccan, had been deprived of the important town of Trichinopoly by the Mahrattas, and carried away prisoner to Satara, where he languished for seven years. He was exceedingly popular throughout the Camatic, and Dupleix conceived that his ambitious plans would be promoted by making him the nabob, in the room of Anwar-ood-deen, whose government was greatly dis- liked. He therefore obtained his liberation by the payment of a ransom of seven lacs of rupees ; and Chunda Sahib speedily collected a body of 6,000 men, and advanced Sect, in.] DUPLEIX'S AMBITION 119 towards the borders of the Carnatic. Just at this period, Nizam-ool-moolk, the soobadar of the Deccan, pg^^^^j and the founder of the kingdom of Hyderabad, Nizam-ooi- died at a patriarchal age, and the affairs of the "^^o*- Deccan were thrown into a state of confusion which greatly- facilitated the ambitious projects of the French governor. Of the five sons of the Mzam, Nazir Jung, though often in revolt against his father, happened to be with him at the hour of death, and having obtained possession of the trea- sury and bought over the chiefs in the army and the state, proclaimed himself soobadar. But there was a grandson • of the Nizam, Mozuffer Jung, the son of his daughter, whom he had destined for the succession, and in whose favour he had obtained a, firman from the emperor of Delhi. He lost no time in collecting an army to assert his claim to the throne, and was joined by Chunda Sahib, to whom he promised the nabobship of the Carnatic. The French at once embarked in the cause, and a force was despatched to his aid under the command of Bussy, the ablest officer in the French service. The confederates encountered the : army of Anwar-ood-deen at Amboor ; he was completely ' defeated, and fell in action, and his son, Mahomed ^^^^.j^ ^^ •^^i'^ - Ali, fled to Trichinopoly, where the treasures of Anwax-ood- ^'^^ ■ the state were deposited. Mozuffer marched the ^^' ' next day to Arcot, and assumed the state and title of soo- ' badar of the Deccan, and conferred the government of the * Carnatic on Chunda Sahib. They then proceeded to Pon- ' dicherry, where Dupleix received them with an ostentatious ' display of oriental pomp, and was rewarded by the grant of eighty-one villages. Mahomed Ali, finding that he could not hold Trichinopoly against the victors, sought the aid of the president of Madras, who sent a small detachment of 120 men j, ,. , to support him. It was a feeble movement, but it Mahomed had the important effect of engaging the English ^^' in the cause of Mahomed Ali, which from that time forward they considered themselves bound in honour to support, under every vicissitude, as a counterpoise to French in- fluence. Meanwhile, Nazir Jung assembled an army of 300,000 men, of whom one-half were cavalry, with 800 176O pieces of cannon, and marched in search of the confede- rates. At Yaldaur, about fifteen miles from Pon- ^azir Jung dicherry, he was joined by Major Lawrence with in t?ie Car- 600 Europeans, while Dupleix augmented the ^^^^' vContingent with Mozuffer to 2,000 bayonets. But on the 120 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV eve of the engagement, thirteen of the Frencli officers re- fused to fight ; the force became demorahsed, and nothing could stop its precipitate flight to Pondicherrj. Chunda Sahib joined in the retreat, but Mozufier determined to throw himself on the mercy of his uncle, who took an oath to protect him, and then loaded him with irons. Nazir Jung, now undisputed master of the Deccan, appointed Mahomed Ali nabob of the Carnatic. All Dupleix's plans were apparently demolished by this blow, but never did the fertility of his genius appear more conspicuous than on this occasion. He sent envoys to treat with Nazir Jung, and they discovered that his three Patau feudatories of Kurnool, Cuddapa, and Savanoor, were displeased at his proceeding, and prepared to revolt. Dupleix opened a cor- respondence with them, and, at the same time, to intimidate the soobadar into a compliance with his terms, sent an expedition to Masulipatam, and occupied the town and district. He attacked and defeated the force of Mahomed Ali, the remnant of which sought refuge in the renowned Capture of f^rt of Gin gee. It was immediately besieged by Gingeeby Bussy, and within twenty-four hours of his °*^' appearance before it, the French colours were lygQ ^'pT^g on its ramparts, though the armies of Aurungzebe had besieged it for nine years. It was the first instance in which a European force had attacked a fortress considered impregnable, and its success spread a feeling of dismay through the Deccan, and created the conviction that nothing could withstand European valour. Nazir Jung, astounded by these proceedings, hastened to concede all Dupleix's demands — that the town and district of Masulipatam should be made over to him, Mozufier Jung released, and Chunda Sahib installed nabob of the Car- natic. The soobadar concluded a treaty on these terms with Dupleix, but Dupleix had previously come to an under- standing with the three mutinous Patau nabobs, and had directed Bussy to attack the army of the soobadar as soon as he received a requisition from them. Bussy was igno- rant of the settlement which Dupleix had made with Nazir Jung when he was called upon to assail him by the Patau chiefs. He accordingly marched with 800 Europeans and 8,000 sepoys, and ten guns, against the soobadar's army, which he found stretched over eighteen miles of ground, Bussy de- and obtained a complete victory. " Never," re- feats Narir marks the historian of these events, "since the ^^* " days of Cortes and Pizarro did so small a force Sbct.III.] FRENCH 3VIAKE A SOOBADAH 121 " decide the fate of so great a sovereignty." As the nabobs were moving off to join the French, Nazir Jung rode up to them with burning indignation, and engaged ina hand to hand struggle with the nabob of Cuddapa, whom he upbraided with his treachery. The nabob lodged two balls in the heart of his unfortunate master, and having cut off his head, presented it to Mozuffer Jung. Mozuffer Jung, then confined in the camp, whom Nazir Jung had ordered to be decapitated if the day went against him, was proclaimed soobadar of the Deccan, j^Qj^^g, and proceeded in company with Chunda Sahib to Jung soo- Pondichorry to express his obligations to Dupleix, ^*^"* and to make a suitable return for his aid. Dupleix, arrayed in the gorgeous robes of an imperial noble, received- him with oriental magnificence. A splendid tent was erected, and in the presence of the native chivalry of the Deccan, Dupleix invested him with the office of soobadar, and, having paid homage to him, received the title of governor of all the country lying between the Kistna and Cape Comorin. Dupleix then presented Chunda Sahib to the soobadar, and requested that the real sovereignty and emoluments of the Camatic might be granted to him. Mo- zuffer Jung was extremely anxious to return to the capital, and requested Dupleix to allow a French force to accompany him, and Bussy was sent with 300 Europeans and 3,000 disciplined sepoys. The encampment broke up from Pon- y_. dicherry on the 7th of January, but within three weeks the turbulent Patan nabobs who had conspired against Nazir Jung, entered into a conspiracy against his successor. Their troops were speedily dispersed by Bussy ; but Mozuffer Jung, rejecting all advice, insisted on pursuing them and was struck dead by the javelin of the nabob of Kumool. The camp was thrown into wild confosion, but Bussy's g^ v |. presence of mind never forsook him. He imme- Jung sooba- diately assembled the officers and ministers, and, ^^^' with the ascendancy he had gained, prevailed on them to assent to his proposal of raising Salabut Jung, the brother of Nazir Jung, to the vacant dignity, and he was drawn from confinement to rule over thirty-five millions of subjects. The camp then moved forward, and in due course reached Aurun- gabad, then the capital of the Nizam. Dupleix had now attained the summit of his ambition, and the power of the French had reached its zenith. The soobadar reigned over , the northern division of the Deccan, but it was virtually ruled by a French general, whose authority was supreme. 122 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. i^.o. In the south, all the country south of the Kistnawas under ^761 tiie sway of Dupleix and all its resources were entirely sub- servient to his interests. We turn to the proceedings in the Oarnatic, where the French and EngHsh were employed for four years in Career of attempts to obtain possession of Trichinopoly, cuve. which they both considered essential to the control of the country. It was held by Mahomed Ali, with the aid of a small body of English troops, and Dupleix, in conjunction with Chunda Sahib, sent a strong detachment under Law, the nephew of the famous South Sea financier, to expel them. It was on this occasion that the military genius of OHve, the founder of the British empire in India, was first developed. The son of a private country gentle- 1744 man, he came out to India in 1744, in the civil service of the East India Company. Two years after, he was in Madras when it surrendered to Labourdonnais, and made his escape to Fort St. David, where he exchanged the pen for the sword and took part in the defence of the fort. He was present at the abortive siege of Pondicherry by admiral Boscawen, 1748 and in the assault on Devicotta, where he attracted the admiration of Major Lawrence. He was attached to the force which the president of Madras, Mr. Saunders, 1749 despatched to the relief of the besieged garrison of Trichinopoly, and he perceived, by the instinct of his military genius, that it must fall unless some diversion could be 1761 created in its favour. He returned to Madras, and advised Mr. Saunders to sanction an expedition against Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, which he was convinced would have the efiect of drawing off a considerable portion of Chunda Sahib's army for its defence. The president, who, happily, appreciated his merits, entrusted the enter- prise to his direction, and he marched with 200 Europeans^ and 300 sepoys, and eight officers, of whom one half were- in the mercantile service and six had never been in action. They were allowed to enter the town, and, as Clive had calculated, Chunda Sahib withdrew 10,000 men to recover it. The fort was a mile in circumference, defended by a low and lightly built parapet and by towers, of which several were in a state of decay, and the ditch was dry and choked up. From the day of its occupation, Clive had been incessantly occupied in repairing the fortifications. 1751 , During the siege, one of his officers had been defence of killed and two wounded, and another had ^^^' returned to Madi'as. The troops fit for duty were' Sect. III.] OLIVE'S BRILLIANT CAEEER 123 reduced to 120 Europeans and 200 sepoys, but with this handful of men he sustained for seven weeks the incessant assault of Chunda Sahib's force, aided by 150 French soldiers. The last assault lasted eighteen hours, after which Clive had the unspeakable gratification of seeing the enemy strike their tents and retire in despair. " Thus," says Orme, " ended this memorable siege, maintained for " fifty days under every disadvantage of situation and force " by a handful of men in their first campaign, with a spirit " worthy of the most veteran troops, and conducted by the " young commander with indefatigable activity, unshaken " confidence, and undaunted courage, and notwithstanding " he had at this time neither read books nor conversed " with men capable of giving him much instruction in the " military art, all the resources he employed in the defence " of Arcot were such as were indicated by the greatest "masters of the art." Truly did the great statesman, William Pitt, designate him the heaven-born general. On his return from Arcot, Clive was employed in a variety of enterprises, in which he distinguished himself by the same energy and talent. After the French had opejataonsat besieged Trichinopoly in vain for a twelvemonth, TricM- theywere driven into a position which obliged the ^°P°^y- a.d. commander, Law, to surrender at discretion with aU his 1752 troops, stores, and ammunition. In the early part of the siege, Mahomed Ali had called in the aid of the great Mahratta general, Morari Rao, of the regent of Mysore, and of the troops of the raja of Tanjore. Chunda Sahib, reduced to extremity by the surrender of his French allies, sought an asylum with the Tanjore general, who caused him to be assassinated at the instigation of Mahomed Ali ; and that prince, as barbarous as he was cowardly and perfidious, after feasting his eyes with the sight of his murdered rival, caused his head to be cut ofi" and bound 1762 to the neck of a camel and paraded five times round the walls of the city. Unknown to Major Lawrence, he had promised to make over the fortress of Trichinopoly, which it was important for the English to hold, to the Tanjore general. Disgusted with this baseness. Major Lawrence withdrew to Madras, leaving a body of European troops to hold the citadel. Mahomed Ali refused to fulfil the bargain, and the Tanjore troops joined the French in the siege, which Dupleix lost no time in renewing. The operations in and around it continued with little interruption for two years ; but even the fascinating pages of Orme are no* 124 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. sufficient to induce the reader to wade through the narrative of the marches and counter-marches, the suc- cesses and the discomfiture, which marked these dreary- campaigns. Suffice it to state that the French were three times worsted by the superior tactics of Major Lawrence, and that on one occasion the English sustained a memor- able defeat, and that their native allies consequently deserted them. Dupleix at length, proposed the appoint- ment of commissioners to treat of an accommodation, but the English agents, ^Ir. Vansittart and Mr. Palk — who had divested himself of his holy orders to enter the Civil Service — defeated the object by insisting,as an indispensable preliminary, that Mahomed Ali should be acknowledged nabob of the Camatic. To these terms, Dupleix, to whom the soobadar had granted the control of the Camatic affairs, could not be expected to agree, and the operations A.D. of war were resumed, and continued with varied success 1754 till the 1st of August, 1754, when Dupleix was suddenly superseded by the arrival of his successor, and all his schemes of ambition were at once subverted. The French and English had been tearing each other to pieces in India, while the mother countries were at peace FaU of ill Europe. The two Companies had been Dupleix. straining their energies and wasting their re- sources in the cause of native princes whose fidelity was always doubtful. Their attention had been withdrawn from the counting-house to the field. They were both anxious, especially the English East India Company, to terminate this anomalous state of things, which the president at Madras attributed primarily, and not without justice, to the ambition of Dupleix. There was an influential minority at the French Board hostile to him,and they were strengthened by the disasters of the campaign of 1753. The cabinet of St. James, moreover, sent over a strong remonstrance to the French ministry, and supported it by the despatch of an entire regiment and four ships of war, under Admiral Watson, and the Directory in Paris was thus induced to take up the question in earnest, and they sent out Godeheu, a member of their own body, with absolute authority over all the French settlements in the East Indies. He had already been in their service in India, and had always lived on the most friendly terms with Dupleix, but being a man of base and treacherous disposition, solicited permission to send him home ia irons at the time when he was making fulsome pro- testations of cordiality. On his arrival at Pondicherry he D. Sbct.III.] fall and PERSECUTION OF DUPLEIX 125 spared no pains to degrade and ruin him. The public accounts showed that twenty-five lacs of rupees were due to him for sums he had advanced to carry on the Government, from the fortune he had acquired before he assumed office, but Godeheu refused to allow these accounts to be audited. Dupleix had been in the habit of assisting the native allies with advances from his own purse on the security of cer- tain districts, but Godeheu seized the districts, and farmed them out for the benefit of the Company. Dupleix, dis- honoured and beggared, quitted the scene of his glory on the 14th October, 1754. On his arrival in Paris he was {754 at first received with some show of distinction, but as soon as the Directors were assured that aU difierences had been adjusted in India, they treated him with hostility, and for ten years, to the day of his death, refused even to look into his accounts. He was pursued by creditors who had advanced money to Government on his security, and during the last three months of his life his house was in the hands of bailifis. Three days before his death he wrote in his diary, — "I " have sacrificed my youth and my fortune to enrich my " country. I am treated as the vilest of mankind." Thus perished the second victim of the ingratitude of the French East India Company. Of those illustrious men who have 1754 established European supremacy in India, Dupleix stands among the foremost. He was the pioneer of European conquest. It was he who taught the way to govern native states by a handful of civil functionaries and a small body of European troops, and it was he who created a sepoy army. No Indian statesman has ever exhibited a more fertile political genius, and it is not improbable that, if he had remained in power in India for two or three years, with the two thousand European troops brought out by Godeheu, he would, in conjunction with Bussy, have made the French as complete masters of the Deccan as the English became of Bengal and Behar two years after. Godeheu and Mr. Saunders, the commissioner on the part of the East India Company, agreed upon an immediate suspension of arms, and concluded a convention which provided that the territories of the two between^°^ Companies should eventually be of equal value ^^^and"*^ when the convention was ratified in Europe. Ma- homed Ali was confirmed as nabob of the Camatic. The treaty was most disastrous to the French. It gave up all they had been contending for ; — the nabobship of the Carnatic, the Northern Sircars, their allies, their influence, and their 126 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. honour. Both parties boand themselves for ever "to " renounce all Moorish government and dignity," and never to interfere in the affairs of the native princes. The ink, however, was scarcely dry before the treaty was given to the winds. The English despatched a force to subdue the districts of Madura and Tinnevelly for their nabob, and the French sent a detachment to seize Terriore. ^D. But the prospects of peace were at once dissipated by the 1756 proclamation of war between France and England in 1756, and hostilities were prosecuted with greater Siry than ever for five years. SECTION IV. CAREER OF BUSST — WRECK OP THE FRENCH POWER — NATIVE STATES, TO PANIPUT. To turn to the brilliant career of Bussy in the north of the Deccan : In military genius he stands on a level with Clive, Bussy at l>^* '^^^ greatly his superior in the art of political the capital, organisation. For several years he had been in association with natives of distinction, and had obtained a thorough knowledge of the native character. He also acquired the tact of managing them by the exercise of that wise accommodation to their feehngs and habits, in which the French have always been more successful than the English. Having elevated Salabut Jung to the throne, he Junk conducted him in triumph to his capital ; but his elder 29th, brother, Ghazee-ood-deen, who held a high position in the ^^^^ court of Delhi, had obtained a patent of appointment to the soobadaree of the Deccan, and, having gained over the Mahrattas by the promise of a large section of territory, commenced his march to the south. His ally, the Peshwa, with 40,000 horse, advanced to encounter Salabut Jung, laying the country waste on his march. Bussy, with his handful of Europeans and 2,000 sepoys, and eight or ten field pieces, received the shock of the Mahratta cavalry, who came thundering down upon him in full speed with shouts of triumph. He awaited their approach with per- fect coolness, and then poured volleys of grape with great 1761 rapidity into their ranks, and in a few moments they Ho defeats turned round and fled in disorder. This was the the Peshwa. first time the Mahratta horse, the terror of th* Deccan, had encountered a European force in the field, and Sbct. IV.] BUSSY DEFEATS THE MAHRATTAS 127 the result of the conflict increased the power and infl.nence of Bussy in no ordinary degree. He followed up his suc- cess with great spirit, and vigorously pursued the Peshwa within twenty miles of Poona, and constrained him to a.d. sue for an accommodation. Meanwhile, Ghazee-ood- 1753 deen was advancing from the north with 150,000 men. The army of Salabut Jung was mutinous for want of pay, and Bussy wisely advised him to conciliate the Peshwa by ceding the territory west of Berar from the Taptee to Godavery, which had been promised by Ghazee-ood- deen, and which, being in a remote corner of his dominions, it would not be easy to protect. There was living at the time at Aurungabad, where Ghazee-ood-deen's army was en- camped, one of the widows of Nizam-ool-moolk, to whom she had borne one son, Nizam Ali, and it was her earnest desire to seat him on the throne of the Deccan. To remove Ghazee-ood-deen out of the way, she invited him to a feast and urged him to partake of a par- Murder of ticular dish, which she had prepared, she said, Ghazee-ood. with her own hands. It was poisoned, and he ^°* died the same night, and his troops immediately dispersed. The ascendancy which Bussy had acquired at the court of the soobadar had raised him many enemies, and the minister, though under great obligations to him, The North- began to plot his destruction. At the beginning ®™ sircars. of 1753 he was obliged to resort to the sea-coast for the 175a restoration of his health, and the treacherous minister, having dispersed his European forces in small bodies over the country, and withheld their pay, entered into a hostile correspondence with the president of Madras. One of his letters fell into the hands of Bussy, who felt that his cause was lost unless he could regain his influence, and though still labouring under disease, determined to make an imme- diate effort to baflSe his enemies. He directed the detach- ments which had been scattered to assemble near Hydera- bad, and, marching 500 miles to Aurungabad, unexpectedly presented himself at the court wibh4,500 men, Europeans and natives. Not only was his ascendancy restored, but he was enabled to obtain from the fears of the soobadar and his ministers a grant of the four Northern Sircars for the main- tenance of his force. They lay on the Coromandel coast, pro- tected by a chain of hills running parallel with the sea, stretching about 450 nules along the coast, and from 30 to 100 miles inland. They contained many important towns, admirably adapted by the bounty of Providence and tho 1 28 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA rCHAP. IV. industry of the inhabitants to sustain a lucrative com- merce, and abeady yielded a revenue of half a crore of rupees. " These territories," remarked the great historian, " rendered the French master of the greatest dominion, ** both in extent and value, that had ever been possessed in " Hindostan by Europeans, not excepting the Portuguese " when at the height of their prosperity." On his return from the coast, Bussy found the soobadar resolved on an expedition to Mysore, in conjunction with *-^" Bossy's the Mahrattas, to extort whatever sums, under trials. t^ie pretence of tribute, could be obtained, and Bussy was informed that he " must attend the stirrup of " his sovereign." But the regent of Mysore was in alliance with the French authorities at Pondicherry, and had sent the flower of his army to co-operate with them in the siege of Trichinopoly. Bussy was placed in a serious dilemma, from which he was relieved only by his extraordinary tact. He ac- companied the soobadar's army with 500 European troops, and assumed the command of the expedition. He moved forward with such rapidity as to astound the Mysore regent and dispose him to agree to terms, and, assuming the cha- racter of a mediator, prevailed on the soobadar to accept of fifty- six lacs of rupees, to realise which he was obliged to despoil the females of their jewels and the temples of their wealth. Soon after, Bussy, joined by a Mahratta 1756 force and the army of the Nizam, was sent against the rebellious nabob of Savanoor, and was enabled to bring hiTn to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Nizam ; but his ever vigilant enemies misrepresented his proceedings to the Nizam, and induced that silly prince to dismiss him summarily, while he was yet in the south-west several hun- dred miles distant from the capital, and from his own re- sources. Bussy received the order of dismissal with his Dismissal of usual impertui'bability. After crossing the Kistna, Bnasy. finding his ammunition running short, he turned out of his way to Hyderabad, and took up a position at Charmal, which he fortified. His ungrateful master, whom he had raised from a prison to a throne, summoned every tributary and dependent to his standard, and for two months assailed the encampment of his benefactor, who defended himself with his usual skill — his sepoys had deserted him — and was at length released from danger by the fortunate arrival of reinforcements from the coast. Salabut Jung was in a fever of alarm, and sued humbly for a reconciliation, and within three months of his dismissal Sbct.iv.] bussy's extraokdinary success 129 theantliority of Bussy was more firmly established than ever. The zemindars in the Northern Sircars took Bnssy'8 advantage of this season of embarrassment to triumph. ^^ revolt, and Bussy was obliged to give five months of un- 1766 remitting attention to the settlement of the province. The incidental efiect of these events on the fortunes of the Eng- glish in India deserves particular notice. It was during this period that Clive re- captured Calcutta, as will be here- after related, and defeated the nabob, who sent an urgent request to Bussy to advance to his aid in Bengal. But he was detained by the necessity of regaining his power in his own province, and when the pacification of the province was complete, and he was prepared to move up through Orissa with a powerful body of troops, he heard to his mortification that Chandemagore had already sur- rendered. His presence in Bengal before that event might have given a different turn to the battle of Plassy. During the absence of Bussy on the coast, the impotent 1766 Salabut Jung was threatened with ruin by his profligate min- ister, who had seized the fortress of Dowlutabad, ^^^ ^ and placed the authority of the state in the hands lievea sai»- of one of the Nizam's brothers. The crown was ^"* '^^^^' falling from his head, and the country was threatened with convulsions, when Bussy started from the coast with his army, and, traversing a region never yet trodden by Europeans, reached Aurungabad, a distance of four hundred miles, in twenty-one days. His presence extinguished these conspiracies as if by the wand of a magician. The minister was killed in a tumult created by his own devices ; Nizam Ali fled, and Dowlutabad was recovered by a coup de main, and the French bead- quarters were fixed in an impregnable position. Bussy had now been for seven years the arbiter of the Deccan. He had placed the interests of France on a foundation not to be shaken by any ordinary contin- gency, and they were as substantially estabhshed in the 1766 south of India as those of England were in the north by the victory of Plassy ; and it seemed as if the empire of India would be divided between these two European nations. But it was otherwise ordained ; the power of the one was destined to become permanent and expansive, that of the other was extinguished by the folly of one man. Lally arrived in India in 1758 as governor of the French 1768 possessions, and partly from caprice and partly KecaUof from envy, ordered Bussy to quit the scene of his ^^^say. triumphs and return to Pondi cherry with all his force. 130 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. Bussy considered obedience the first duty of a soldier, and, to the inconceivable surprise of the native princes, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, who trembled at the sound of his name, at once retired from the Deccan at the period of his greatest strength, and the sun of French prosperity in India set not to rise again. Lally, a member of an Irish Roman Catholic family, which retired to France on the flight of James II., j^^j _ had from his early youth, and for forty years, Siege of been trained in arms. His military reputation Madras. stood SO high that when war broke out between France and England in 1766, he was considered the fittest man to command the large armament the French ministry was sending to India to establish French power. He was A.D. accompanied by the scions of the most illustrious families i 7 58 in France. He landed at Pondicherry in April, 1758, and marched at once against the EngHsh factory at St. David's, which was surrendered within a month. The time was pecu- liarly favourable for the expulsion of the English from the Deccan. Madras was unfortified, its European force and its fleet were in Bengal, and the French commanded the sea and were paramount on land. Lally was bent on attacking Madras without delay, but he was basely thwarted by the admiral, who refused the aid of his ships, and by the council of Pondicherry, who would not afibrd him any pecuniary assistance. Seven years before this time the rajah of Tanjore, pressed by the demands of Mozufier Jung and Chunda Sahib, had given them a bond for fifty- six lacs of rupees, which was considered valueless, and made over to Dupleix. As a last resource, Lally resolved to supply his military chest by demanding payment of this bond. With the largest European and native force which had ever till then taken the field, he hurried on to Tanjore ; on his route he levied forced contributions, and blew six brahmins from the guns. The town was besieged for a fortnight, and a practical breach had been made when an English fleet appeared on the coast, and threatened Carical, the French dep6t ; Lally, who had only twenty cartridges left for each man and two days' provisions, raised the siege and retired. On his return to Pondicherry, he prevailed on the council to grant him some aid towards the siege of Madras, which 1768 was the object nearest his heart, and in JN'ovember advanced to it with an army of 2,000 European foot and 300 Euro- siege of pean cavalry, the first ever seen in India, besides MadraB. j^ large forco of sepoys. The garrison of the fort Sbct.ivj battle of wandewash 131 consisted of 1,758 Europeans and 2,200 natives, but they were under the command of the veteran Lawrence, who was supported by thirteen officers trained under his own eye. The siege was prosecuted for two months with great vigour, and a breach was at length effected, but, at the last moment, the refusal of his officers to second him defeated Lally's plans, and the appearance of an English fleet in the ^ jj roads obliged him to raise the siege and retire, g.^ ^ ^^^^ I75j Misfortunes thickened upon him. The Northern Sircars were occupied by a force despatched from Calcutta by Clive, under the gallant Colonel Forde, and Salabut Jung, having no longer anything to hope or fear from the French, threw himself into the arms of the English, and bound himself by treaty never to allow a French force to enter his service. Lally returned to Pondicherry, with his anny, officers as well as men, in a state of insubordination. But his hopes were raised by the arrival of a powerful Naval fleet consisting of eleven vessels, the smallest of engagement, which carried fifty guns ; the English squadron was scarcely less powerful. In the engagement which ensued both 1759 parties were crippled, but neither of them beaten. The French admiral, however, disregarding the entreaties and even the menaces of the authorities at Pondicherry, sailed away with his whole fleet to the Isle of France, leaving the command of the sea with the English. The French troops mutinied for their pay, which was ten months in arrear, and marched out of Pondicherry towards Madras, but were induced to return by the discharge of a portion of it. Lally, determined to bring on an engagement, marched on Wandewash, and captured the town and laid siege to the fort. The English force under Colonel Coote, an officer second in ability only to Clive, came up for its relief. The result was a pitched battle, known defeated at as the battle of Wandewash, one of the most Waudewash. severely contested and most decisive which had as yet been fought in India, in which the French, after prodigies of valour, sustained a signal defeat. It was the last struggle ^^qq for empire between the French and English on the plains of India, and it demolished the hopes of establishing a French power. Lally fell back on Pondicherry, where he encountered nothing but intrigue and sedition from those who ought to have been unanimous in sustaining the national honour at this crisis. " From this time," he said, " without money, without ships, without even provisions, k2 132 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. " Pondicherry miglit be given up for lost." Coote, in the j^j), meantime, drove the French from all the towns and posi- 1760 tions they held in the Camatic, and prepared for the siege Siege of of Pondicherry, when the folly of the Court of Pondicherry. Directors had well-nigh marred it, by sending out orders to supersede him by the Honourable Colonel Monson, the second in command. In the first independent enterprise of Colonel Monson, his success was so equivocal as to present an ill- omen of his efibrts, but he was disabled by a severe wound, and Colonel Coote was prevailed on by the council of Madras to resume the command. The town was subject to a strict blockade during the rains, and vigor- ously besieged as soon as they ceased. Lally was thwarted at every turn by the civil functionaries who detested him, and in whom every spark of honesty and loyalty was extinct ; but he maintained a long and energetic defence with a spirit and courage which elicited the applause of his English opponents, and he did not surrender the town until he was reduced to two days' provisions. As the victors 1761 marched into it, their feelings were deeply excited by the skeleton figures to which the noble forms of the two gallant Capture of regiments Lally had brought out with him were Pondicherry. reduced by months of fatigue and famine. The French Court of Directors had sent instructions to Lally to erase the English settlements from the land. The despatch had fallen into the hands of the English Directors, and, by their orders, Pondicherry was levelled with the ground, and not a roof left of that noble colony. The war which, with a brief interval, the two nations had waged for fifteen years, terminated in the extinction of the French power. The ambitious hope of establishing a French empire in India, which had equally animated Labourdonnais and Dupleix, Bussy and Lally, was extinguished. Their settlements were, indeed, restored at the peace of Paris in 1763, but they never recovered their political position in India. Lally returned to Paris and was thrown into the Bastile, where he Hngered for three years. He was then Fate of brought to trial, denied the assistance of counsel, Lally. j^jjcl condemned to death for having betrayed the interests of the king and the company. He was drawn on a dung cart to the scafibld and beheaded, the third illustrious victim of the ingratitude of his country in fifteen years. Sbct. v.] INVASIONS OF AHMED SHAH ABDALEE 133 SECTION V. NATIVE STATES, PROM THE SACK OF DELHI, 1739, TO THE BATTLE OP PANIPUT, 1761. To return to the events in the native states, from the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739, to the battle of Paniput in 1761. The atrocities perpetrated by Nadir j^j^^ Shah on his return to Persia, for eight years, Shah were at length terminated by his assassination. -*-^*^®®' But a new and more formidable foe to India arose on his death in the person of Ahmed Shah, the chief of the tribe of Abdalee Afghans, who was proclaimed king at Candahar before the close of the year, and became supreme in the regions beyond the Indus. Encouraged by the success of Nadir Shah, whom he had accompanied in his expedition, he turned his attention to India and occupied the province of Lahore, and advanced to Sirhind, where he ^y^'- was defeated by prince Ahmed, the son of the emperor of Delhi, who obliged him to recross the Indus, ma first Mahomed Shah, the emperor, after a reign of ^^as^o"- more than thirty years, during which the imperial throne had been steadily becoming weaker, died in 1748, and was succeeded by his son Ahmed, who appointed the nabob of Oude his vizier. Alarmed by the growing power of the Rohillas, who had taken advantage of the invasion and of the confusion of the times to enlarge their power in Rohil- cund, the Vizier attacked them and was defeated, and his province overrun, when he had recourse to the humiliating and dangerous expedient of calling in the Mahratta chiefs Holkar and Sindia, by whose aid he chased the Rohillas back to their hills. To gratify their avarice, he authorised them to plunder the conquered territory, which did not recover from the effect of their ravages for many years. Ahmed Shah, having recruited his force, again occupied the Punjab and Mooltan, and sent an envoy to Delhi to 1761 demand the formal cession of them. The emperor, ^^^ second under the influence of a profligate eunuch, com- and third plied with the request. The Vizier, then absent i"^«^o°- in the pursuit of the Rohillas, hastened to Delhi, but being too late to prevent the surrender of the provinces, invited the eunuch to a banquet and caused him to be assassinated. The emperor was exasperated by this outrage, and enlisted the services of Ghazee-ood-deen, the grandson of Nizam* 134 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. I\ . ool-moolk and the son of the prince who was poisoned by his mother-in-law. This brought on a civil war between the emperor and the Yizier, and for six months fche capital was deluged with blood. Ghazee-ood-deen then called to his assistance Holkar's mercenaries, and the Vizier, unable to cope with them, consented to an accommodation, and was allowed to retain possession of Oude and Allahabad, which were now finally alienated from the empire. The emperor, unable to bear the arrogance of Ghazee-ood-deen, marched out of his capital to oppose him while he was engaged in the siege of Bhurtpore, but was defeated and made prisoner, when the monster deprived him and his ^ jj mother of sight, and raised one of the princes of the blood 1 764 to the throne, with the title of Alumgeer the second. He then proceeded to the Punjab and expelled the Alumgeer II. lieutenants of Ahmed Shah, who no sooner Bmperor. heard of the insult than he hastened to avenge it, and having recovered the Punjab, advanced to Delhi. Ghazee-ood-deen made the most abject submissions, and was forgiven, but the Abdalee was determined to obtain a pecuniary indemnity, and gave the city up to plunder. For many days the atrocities of Nadir Shah's time were repeated, and the wretched inhabitants were a second time 1756 subject to the insolence and rapacity of a brutal soldiery. Soon after, several thousand unofiending devotees were sacrificed in the holy city of Muttra at the time of a religious festival. A pestilence which presently broke out in his camp obliged him to recross the Indus. He left his son Timur in charge of the Punjab, and at the par- ticular request of the emperor, placed the Rohilla chief 1767 Nujeeb-ood-dowlah in command of the imperial army to protect him from the designs of Ghazee-ood-deen. That abandoned minister immediately called the Mah- rattas to his aid, and Rughoonath Rao, more commonly Mahratta known in history as Raghoba, advanced and cap- grandeur, tured Delhi after a siege of a month, and then proceeding to the Punjab, drove the force of Timur back 1768 into Afghanistan and planted the Mahratta standard for the first time on the banks of the Indus. He returned to Poena, afber having conferred the government of the province on a Mahratta ofl&cer. The Peshwa had, mean- while, been intriguing for the possession of Ahmednugur, » the most important city south of the Nerbudda, and at length obtained it by treachery. This aggression brought on hostilities with Salabut Jung and his brother Nazir Sect, v.] FOUETH INVASION OF AHMED SHAH 135 Jung, who had been reconciled. They had no longer the sup- port of Bussy's genius or his troops, and even Ibrahim Elhan, the ablest of Bussy's native generals, had been dismissed, and gone over with a powerful and well-served artillery to ^^j,^ the Peshwa. The Nizam was reduced to such straits as to 1768 be obliged to agree to whatever terms the Peshwa might dictate, and obliged to surrender four of the most important fortresses in the Deccan, to confirm the possession of Ahmednugur, and to make over districts yielding fifty- six lacs of rupees, which reduced the Mogul possessions in the Deccan to a very narrow circle. The power of the Mahrattas was now at its zenith ; it was aclmowledged equally on the banks of the Indus and of the Coleroon, and it was pre- dominant both in Hindostan and in the Deccan. The vast resources of the commonwealth were wielded by one chief ^'^^ and directed to one object, and they began to talk proudly of establishing Hindoo sovereignty throughout the con- tinent of India. Raghoba had left Holkar and Sindia to support the Mahratta interests in the north, and to despoil Rohilcund, of which Sindia had laid waste thirteen hundred ^he Abda- villages in the course of a month, but he was j^^^j^^^^^ soon after driven across the Jumna by the nabob Vizier. Just at this juncture the north of India was 175^ astounded by the report that Ahmed Shah Abdalee had crossed the Indus a fourth time in September, with a large army, to recover and extend his possessions. During his advance, Ghazee-ood-deen, dreading an interview between the Abdalee and the emperor Ahmed Shah, whom he had blinded, put him to death, and placed an unknown youth on the throne, who was, however, never acknowledged. Holkar and Sindia were in command of 30,000 horse, but they were widely separated from each other, and the Abdalee determined to attack them before they could form a junction. Sindia was overpowered, and lost Defeat of two-thirds of his army. Holkar was routed with ^oSar*"^ great carnage. The news of these reverses only served to inflame the ardour of the Peshwa and his cabinet, 1761 and it was resolved at Poena to make one grand and decisive effort to complete the conquest of India. The command of the force destined to this object was entrusted to Sudaseo Rao Bhow, commonly known as the Bhow, the cousin of the Peshwa, a general who had seen much service and was not wanting in courage and energy, but rash and impetuous, and filled with an overweening conceit of his own abilities. 136 ABKIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. A.D. The army which now moved up to encounter Ahmed 1760 Shah was the largest with which the Mahrattas had ever The battle taken the field. Its gorgeous equipments of Paniput. formed a strong contrast with that of the humble and hardy mountaineers of Sevajee. The Mahrattas had already begun to assume the pomp of Mahomedan princes The spacious and lofby tents of the chiefs were lined with silks and brocades, and surmounted with glittering orna- ments. The finest horses richly caparisoned, and a train of elephants with gaudy housings, accompanied the army. The wealth which had been accumulated during half a century of plunder was ostentatiously displayed ; and cloth of gold was the dress of theofficers. The niilitary chest was furnished with two crores of rupees. Every Mahratta commander throughout the country was summoned to attend the stirrup of the Bhow, and the whole of the Mahratta cavalry marched under the national standard. It was considered the cause of the Hindoos as opposed to that of the Mahomedans, and the army was therefore joined in its progress by numerous auxiliaries, more especially from Rajpootana. Sooruj Mull, the Jaut chieftain, brought up a contingent of 30,000 men. The army was, however, encum- bered with two hundred pieces of cannon, and Sooruj Mull wisely advised the Bhow to leave them at Gwalior or at Jhansi, and resort to the national system of warfare, cutting off the supplies, and harassing the detachments of the enemy ; but this sage counsel was haughtily rejected, and the Jaut withdrew from the camp in disgust, together with some of the Raipoot chieftains. The Bhow entered Delhi and defaced the palaces, tombs, and shrines which had been spared by the Persian and Afghan iuvader. The 1761 two armies met on the field of Paniput, where for the third time the fate of India was to be decided. That of the Mahrattas consisted of 55,000 cavalry in regular pay, 15,000 predatory horse, and 15,000 infantry, who had been trained under Bussy, and were now commanded by his ablest native general. The Mahomedan force numbered about 80,000 chosen troops, besides irregulars almost as numerous, with seventypieces of cannon. After a succession of desultory- engagements, some of them, however, of considerable magnitude, the Mahrattas formed an entrenched camp, in which, including camp followers, a body little short of 300,000 was collected. Within a short time this vast mnltitnde began to be straitened for provisions. Cooped up in a blockaded encampment, amidst dead and dying Sbct.VI.] fatal battle OF PANIPUT 137 aDimals, and surrounded bj famishing soldiers, the officers demanded to be led out against the enemy. The battle began before daybreak on the 7th of January, and the Mahratta chiefs nobly sustained their national reputation ; but about two hours after noon Wiswas Rao, the son of the Peshwa, was mortally wounded, and Sudaseo Rao Bhow fled from the field, and the army became irretrievably disorganised. No quarter was asked or given, and the slaughter was prodigious. Not one-fourth of the troops escaped with their lives, and it was calculated that from the opening of the ca.mpaign to its close the number of casualties, including camp followers, fell httle short of 200,000. Seldom has a defeat been more com- Prodigionfl plete or disastrous. There were few families slaughter, throughoat the Mahratta empire which had not to mourn the loss of some relative. The Peshwa died of a broken heart, and his government never recovered its vigour and integrity. All the Mahratta conquests north of the Nerbudda were lost, and though they were subsequently recovered, it was under separate chieftains, with individual interests, which weakened their allegiance to the central authority. The Abdalee having thus shivered the Hindoo power, turned his bdck on India, and never interfered again in its affairs. The Mogul throne may be Eirecton said to have expired with the battle of Paniput. t^e Mogul Its territory was broken up into separate and ^^p""®* a.d. independent principalities ; the claimant to the throne 1761 was wandering about Behar with a band of mercenaries ; and the nation which was destined to establish a new empire, and, in oriental phrase, to " bring the various " tribes of Lidia under one umbrella," had already laid the foundation of its power in the valley of the Granges. To the rise and progress of the English Government we now turn. SECTION VI. THE EAST mDU COMPANY IN BENGAL. The wealth which Portugal had acquired in the sixteenth cemtury by the trade to the east raised an earnest desire in England to obtain a share of it ; and Drake, ^he East Cavendish, and other navigators were impelled incUa by the spirit of maritime enterprise, which Qaeen °^^^^' Elizabeth fostered, to undertake voyages of discovery in 138 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. IV, A.D. the eastern seas. In 1583 Fitch and three other adven- 1583 turers traversed the length and breadth of the nnknown continent of India, and the accounts they brought home of the opulence of its various kingdoms, and the grandeur of the cities, opened up the vision of a lucrative commerce to the English nation. The ardour of enterprise was, how- ever, damped by the unsuccessful issue of a voyage of three years undertaken by Captain Lancaster, but it was re- vived by the report of the first mercantile expedition of the Dutch, which had resulted in a rich return. An association was accordingly formed in London, consisting 1600 of " merchants, ironmongers, clothiers, and other men of " substance," who subscribed the sum of £30,133, for the purpose of opening a trade to the East. The next year Queen Elizabeth granted them a charter of incorporation, under the title of the *' East India Company," which for a hundred and fifty years confined itself to commercial pursuits, and then took up arms in defence of its factories, and impelled by the normal law of progression, became master of the continent of India. The first attention of the Company was drawn to the spice islands in the eastern archipelago, in which the Its first Dutch were endeavouring to supersede the Portu- enterprises. guese. The chief object of the India trade at that period was to obtain spices, pepper, cloves, and nut- megs, in return for the exports from England of iron, tin, lead, cloth, cutlery, glass, quicksilver, and Muscovy hides. IflOl The first expedition sailed from Torbay in April, 1601. Bight voyages were undertaken in the next ten years, which yielded a profit of more than a hundred and fifty per cent. A portion of this return was obtained by piracy on their European rivals, which all the maritime nations at that period considered a legitimate source of gain. In 1611 the Company despatched vessels to Surat, then the great emporium of trade on the western coast of India ; but the Portuguese were determined to repel the interlopers, and planted a squadron of armed vessels at the mouth of the Taptee. In the several encounters which ensued, the Portuguese were invariably discomfited, and as they were universally dreaded by the natives for their oppressions, the reputation of the English rose high, and they obtained 1818 permission to establish factories at Surat, Ahmedabad, and other towns. These privileges were confirmed by the emperor Jehangeer. Soon after, the Company prevailed on James I. to send Sbct.VI.J settlement OF MADRAS AND BOMBAY 139 Sir Thomas Eoe as his ambassador to the conrt of Delhi, a.d. where he met with a distinguished reception sir t. Roe's ^^^* and obtained farther privileges for the Company, embassy. The Company also succeeded in wresting Ormus from the Portuguese, and obtained a commercial footing in the Persian Gulf, but it never proved to be of any value. In 1620 the Company's agents for the first time visited the 1620 valley of the Ganges, and set up a factory at Patna ; but it was through the patriotism of Mr. Boughton, mt. Bough- one of their surgeons, that they obtained per- J^^^^^g^ mission to settle in Bengal. The emperor was at the time in the Deccan, and his daughter being taken seriously ill, he sent to the Company's factory at Surat to request the services of an able physician. Mr. Boughton was despatched to the camp, and effected a cure ; and being requested to name his own reward, asked permission to establish factories in Bengal, which was at once granted. Two years after, the emperor's second son, who had been appointed viceroy of Bengal, established his court at Rajmahal. One of the ladies of the seraglio was attacked with disease, and the services of Mr. Boughton were again solicited, and he again declined any personal remunera- tion, but obtained permission for his masters to plant fac- tories at Hooghly and Balasore. The first factory of the Company on the Coromandel coast was opened at Masulipatam and then transferred to Armegaum ; but as the trade did not flourish, the -^^^^ superintendent accepted the invitation of the raja of Chundergiree, the last representative of the Hindoo kingdom of Beejanuger, to settle in his territories, and a plot of ground was accepted at Madraspatam, one of the most inconvenient places for trade on the Coromandel coast, on which the Company erected a fort, called, after the 1639 patron saint of England, Fort St. George, around which arose the city of Madras. Surat continued to be the port of the Company on the western coast till 1662, when, on the marriage of Charles II. to the Infanta Catherine, ^Qj^^ay. the daughter of the king of Portugal, he bestowed the port of Bombay as her dowry, and the 1662 Crown, finding it more expensive than profitable, made it over to the Company, who removed their chief estabhsh- ments to it. The annals of the Company for a period of forty years in Bengal are barren of events. They enjoyed great prosperity, and their trade flourished to such an extent that it was erected into a separate Presidency, but 140 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. the simple men of the connter in Dowgate were at length seized with a fit of political ambition, which brought them to the verge of ruin. The Court of Directors had obtained admiralty jurisdic- tion from the Crown, with Hberty to seize all interlopers. The Com- The profits of the Company had, as usual, led to P^^y*^ the establishment of a new and rival Company in London, which it was deemed advisable to root out. The agent of the old Company, with the view of ex- cluding them from Bengal, had sought permission of the Mogul viceroy to erect a fortification at the mouth of the river, but he resented their application by increasing the duty on their exports, in violation of the firman granted by the emperor. Such impositions which had frequently been made before, had been eluded by a discreet distribution of presents, but on the present occasion the Company assumed a high tone, and determined to seek redress by ^ ^ engaging in hostihties with the Mogul empire, then in the 1685 zenith of its power. With the permission of the Crovni, they sent out admiral Nicholson with twelve ships of war, carrying 200 guns and 1,000 soldiers, to seize and fortify Chittagong, to demand the cession of the neighbouring territory, and to establish a mint. But these ambitious prospects were destined to a severe disappointment. The fleet was dispersed in a storm, and a portion of it sailed to Hooghly where the advanced-guard of 400 men had already arrived from Madras. The appearance of this formidable armament induced the nabob to seek an accommodation, when three intoxicated sailors reeled into the bazaar, and fell out with the police. Both parties were Battle at reinforced, and a regular engagement ensued, Hooghly. which resulted in the defeat of the Moguls. The admiral set the town on fire, and burnt down five hundred houses. Job Charnock, the chief of the Com- pany's factory, dreading an attack from the nabob's troops, moved down with all his establishment to the village of Chuttanutty, and then to the island of Ingelee, a swamp in the Soonderbun, where half his people perished of jungle fever. He was relieved from this embarassing position by the appearance of an envoy from the nabob with proposals of peace. The Court of Directors, who were determined to carry their views by force, had directed their chief at Bombay to blockade Surat, which was the pilgrim port on the western coast, and the departure of Sbct. VI.] FOUNDATION OF CALCUTTA 141 devout Mahomedans to the shrine of the Prophet was at once stopped. Auriingzebe's fanaticism over- stoppage of came his pride, and, in order to open the road to pilgrimage. Mecca, he condescended to seek accommodation with the infidels who had blocked it up. A treaty was accordingly- concluded, and Charnock returned to Chuttanutty, but not to remain there. The Court of Directors, hearing of the proceedings at Hooghly, determined to prosecute the war a.d. with increased vigour, and despatched Captain Heath with 1688 several vessels of war to Bengal. On his arrival, he dis- allowed the treaty and commenced warlike operations, and embarking the whole of the Company's property and officers on fifteen vessels, proceeded to Balasore, which he burnt, and then crossed over to Ohittagong. Its fortifi- cations were stronger than he had expected, and he sailed to Madras, where he landed all the Company's establish- ments. Aurungzebe, incensed at these renewed aggressions, ordered all the English factories in every part Bengal of India to be confiscated, and nothing remained of abandoned, the Company's possessions except the fortified towns of Madras and Bombay. Sir John Child, the governor of Bombay, sent two gentlemen to the emperor's encamp- ment at Beejapore to treat for a reconcihation. Aurungzebe by the recent conquest of Beejapore had extended his power over the whole of India ; but though it was irresistible on the land, the English were masters of the sea, and they blockaded the Mogul ports, and both obstructed the pilgrimage, and destroyed the trade of the Moguls. Nor was he insensible to the loss his subjects sustained by the suspension of the English trade, which was calculated at a crore of rupees a year, and he agreed " to overlook their "ofiences," and restore their factories. The nabob of Bengal, who was favourable to them, lost no time in acquainting Mr. Charnock at Madras with the emperor's wishes, and beseeching him to return to Bengal. He landed at Chuttanutty on the 24th of August, 1690, and 1690 in the neighbouring village of Calcutta laid the Foundation foundation of the future metropolis of British o* Calcutta. India. This spasm of ambition did not last more than five years, and for half a century afterwards the servants of the Company were instructed to consider themselves " the representatives of a body of merchants, and to live *' and act accordingly." The Company having now a settlement of their own in 142 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. A.D. Bengal, were anxious to place it, like Madras and Bombay, 1695 in a state of defence ; but it was contrary to the policy Erection of ot the Mogul empire to permit the multiplica- w^am *^°^ ^^ ^^^^ fortifications. The forts at the two other Presidencies had been erected before the authority of the Moguls was extended over the territory in which they were situated. The nabob of Bengal refused the permission which the governor had sought, but in 1695 the zemindar of Burdwan revolted, and in conjunc- tion with Rehim Khan, the chief of the Orissa Afghans, plundered Hooghly, and threatened the foreign settlements. The danger to which they were exposed was strongly re- presented to the nabob, who was bewildered by the rebellion, and he desired the agents of the Companies, in general terms, to provide for their own security. Im- mediately every hand was set to work, night and day, to raise the fortifications, by the Dutch at Chinsurah, the French at Ohandernagore, and the English at Calcutta. In compliment to the reigning monarch the fortress was designated Fort WiUiam. The Company was now threatened by a more formidable opponent in London. The dazzling profits of the India Eivaicom- trade had drawn forth a multitude of competi- panies. ^^^g^ l^^^ they succeeded in obtaining a renewal 1693 of their charter from the Crown in 1693. A few months after, however, the House of Commons passed a resolution to the efiect, " that it is the right of all Englishmen to trade " to the East Indies unless prohibited by Act of Parlia- " ment." This gave fresh animation to those who were eager to share in the trade, and they petitioned Parlia- ment for a charter, backed by the tempting offer of a loan of two millions to the treasury at eight per cent., and it was accepted. The old Company had not been able to offer more than a third of the sum, and they were ordered to wind up their affairs in three years. But the rivalry of the Disastrous two Companies was found, even in the first year, results. ^Q Iqq fj^^i Iq ^^q public interests. Their compe- tition enhanced the price of produce in every market in India, and created a scarcity. The native officers, courted by two parties, fleeced them in turn, and oppressed both, and the money which should have been laid out in invest- ments was squandered in bribes, to the extent of seven lacs of rupees. At Surat, the agents of the old Company were seized by the agents of their rivals, dragged through the streets and delivered to the Mogul authorities of the town Sect. VI.] MOOESHED KOOLY KHAN 143 as disturbers of the public peace. The nation became a.d. at length sensible of the disastrous results of this conten- 1702 tion, and in 1702 the two Companies were amalgamated under the title of the " United Company of Merchants " trading to the East." Their former privileges were granted by the Crown ; the new charter was sanctioned likewise by Parliament, and the strength of union inspired them with greater animation in the prosecu- tion of their commerce. The fortifications of Calcutta were silently but diligently improved, and gave confidence to the native merchants, who came there in large numbers, and it became one of the most flourishing settlements in the province. But the history of it from this time to the battle of Plassy, for more than fifty years, and more espe- cially during the viceroyalty of Moorshed Kooly Khan and his successor, is only a register of the extortions of the Mogul government, and the contrivances of the president to evade them. It is an unvaried tale of insolence and plunder on the one part, and humihating submission on the other, which was at length avenged by the battle of Plassy. 1702 In the year in which the Companies were united, Moor- shed Kooly Khan was appointed dewan, or financial administrator, of Bengal. He was the son of a Moorshed- poor brahmin in the Deccan, and was purchased K:ooiy-Kimn. and circumcised by an Ispahan merchant. On the death of his master, he obtained service with the dewan of Berar, and by his financial ability attracted the notice of Aurungzebe, who appointed him dewan of Bengal in 1702. He was soon after invested with the soobadaree, or vice- royalty of the three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and removed the capital to the new city of Moor- shedabad, which he founded and called after his own name. He was aware that the prosperity of Bengal was greatly promoted by its maritime trade, and gave every encourage- ment to the Mogul and Arab merchants, but regarded the fortified factories of the foreign companies, and more especially that of the English, with great jealousy, and when firmly seated in power, trampled under foot the privileges obtained from the emperor by the English Com- pany. He imposed heavy taxes on the trade of the Company, which they had no means of evading except by the offer of exorbitant bribes. The president in Calcutta determined, therefore, to 1715 appeal to the emperor, and despatched an embassy to 144 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. IV. Dellii with presents so costly as to make the Court of Embassy to Directors wince. Moorshed Kooly used all his in- Deihi. fluence at court to defeat an application directed against his own interest and authority, and would doubt- less have succeeded in baffling it but for an unexpected event. The emperor Ferokshere was betrothed to a Rajpoot princess, but the nuptials were postponed in con- sequence of a sharp attack of disease, which the royal physicians were unable to subdue. On the advice of one of the miuisters, who was favourable to the English, Mr. Hamilton, the surgeon of the mission, was called in, and effected a cure. He was required by the grateful emperor to name his own recompense, and, imitating the noble patriotism of Mr. Boughton, only asked that the emperor would grant the privileges the embassy had been sent to solicit, the chief of which was permission to purchase thirty-eight villages adjacent to Calcutta. Many objections were raised to this concession by the representatives of the Bengal vice- roy, but it was at length conceded. The possession of these villages, extending ten miles on each side of the river, would have given the Company the complete control of the ^ j,^ maritime trade of the province, and Moorshed Kooly 1717 threatened the zemindars with his vengeance if they parted with a single inch of land. The firman became a mere piece of waste paper. Moorshed Kooly Khan is one of the greatest names in 1702 the Mahomedan history of India. He was as eminent a to ^(iministra- financier as Toder MuU. He caused an accurate 1 725 tion of survey to be made of the lands, and revised the as- sessment ; he divided the province into chuklas, or districts, and appointed officers over each to collect the rents, who became rich and powerful zemindars, and as the office, as usual, became hereditary, assumed the title and the state of rajas. Of these rajas, only one — ^in Burd- wan — retains his zemindaree unimpaired at the present time. The Mahomedan officers were regarded as sieves, which retained nothing ; the Hindoo officers as sponges, which could be squeezed when saturated with plunder, and they were accordingly employed in the collections, to the entire exclusion, except in one instance, of the professors of the creed of the Prophet. The revenues of Bengal were a little in excess of a crore and a quarter of rupees, of which one-third was reserved for the expenses of the G-ovemment, and a crore regularly transmitted to the imperial treasury, the viceroy invariably accompanying Sbct.VU.] invasion OF THE MAHKATTAS 145 the procession which conveyed the tribute in person, the first inarch ont of Moorshedabad. Though severe in the exac- tion of revenue, he was eminently just in his administra- tion, constant to one wife, frugal in his domestic habits, and exemplary in his charities. Under his administration the prosperity of the country was abundantly increased, ^^.b. He died in 1725, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, 1725 Soojah-ood-deen, a Turkoman noble from Khorasan, who retained his post in spite of the intrigues at the imperial court, chiefly through the punctual transmission of the tribute. He was succeeded in 1739 by his son, Serefraz 1738 Khan, at the time when Nadir Shah was plundering Delhi, and as the dictate of prudence, the nabob ordered the coin to be struck and prayers to be read in his name. SEOTIOlSr VII. SACK OP CALCUTTA AND CONQUEST OF BENGAL. Within a twelvemonth Aliverdy Khan, a native of Tur- kistan who had been entrusted with the government of Behar, succeeded, by large bribes and larger Aliverdy promises to the venal ministers of the emperor '^^^' Mahomed Shah in obtaining the office of viceroy, and marched against Serefraz, who was defeated and slain. 174] Aliverdy had been employed for twenty years in public affairs, and was eminently fitted by his talents to adorn the position he had clandestinely obtained, and it was through his energy that Bengal was saved from becoming a Mah- ratta province. While Rughoojee Bhonslay was employed in the Carnatic, as narrated in the last chapter, one of his generals, Bhaskur Punt, entered Bengal and laid waste the whole country west of the Bhagruttee, from Mahratta Cuttack to Rajmahal. A division of his army invasion. j^^j suddenly appeared before Moorshedabad and plundered the suburbs and extorted two crores and a half of rupees from the Setts, the most opulent bankers in Hindostan. The Mahratta commander then moved down upon Hooghly, which he plundered, and the wretched inhabitants crowded for shelter into the foreign settlements. The president at Calcutta sought permission of the viceroy to surround the settlement with an entrenchment, which was readily granted, and the work was prosecuted with vigour, but sus* L 146 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. pended on the retirement of the enemy and never com- A.D. Mahratta pleted. This was the celebrated Mahratta Ditch, 1742 ^^^^- which, though it has disappeared Hke the old wall of London, long continued to mark the municipal boundaries of the town, and to give its citizens the sou- briquet of the " inhabitants of the Ditch." The Mahrattas, though invariably defeated, renewed their ravages from year to year. The recollection of these 0^^^ devastations was not effaced for several genera- ceded to the tions from the memory of the inhabitants in the Maiirattas. ^©stem districts, and the invasion of the Bur- gees — the name by which the Mahrattas were called — continued, even in the present century, to be an object of horror. Wearied out with the conflict of ten years, which ruined the country and exhausted the revenue, Aliverdy, then in his seventy-fifth year, agreed to pay the raja of Berar the chout on the revenues of Bengal, and to cede the province of Orissa to him. The nabobs of Bengal con- 1761 tinned, however, to retain the name of Orissa as one of the three soobahs under their rule, though nothing was left ot it to them but a small territory north of the Subunreka. Aliverdy devoted the remaining five years of his vice- royalty to repairing the ravages of this harassing warfare, 1756 and died in April, 1756, at the age of eighty. The very next year the sovereignty of the three provinces passed from the Turkoman Mahomed ans to the English, and became the basis of the British empire in India. Aliverdy Khan bequeathed the government to his favourite grandson Suraj-ood-dowlah, a youth of twenty, who had 1756 suraj-ood- already become the object of universal dread and dowiah. abhorrence for his caprices and cruelty. He had long evinced particular animosity towards the English, and the Court of Directors had specially enjoined the presi- dent to place Calcutta in a state of defence. The factory was reported to be very rich, and the young tyrant had marked it out for early spoliation, but an unexpected event hastened his movements. Before he came to power he had despoiled the Hindoo governor of Dacca, and placed him in confinement. His son Kissendas, anxious to place his family and treasures in a state of security, under pretence of a pilgrimage to Jugernath, proceeded with a large retinue to Calcutta, where he received a cordial welcome from the president, Mr. Drake. Immediately on the death of the old nabob, Suraj-ood- dowlah peremptorily demanded the surrender of Kissendas SBCT.Vn.] CAPTURE OF CALCUTTA 147 with all his wealth. It was followed by a second comnmni- cation, ordering him to demolish the fortifications which it was reported he had erected at Calcutta. Mr. Drake replied that he had only put the ramparts facing the river in repair, in the prospect of a war with France, but he refused to give up the refugee to whom he had given protection. The young soobadar was at this time marching into Pumeah to coerce the refractory governor, his cousin ; but enraged at this opposition to his wishes, he ordered his army to turn back and march directly down to Calcutta. The town was ill-prepared for such an assault. During ^.d. fifty years of peace the defences had been neglected, and 1756 warehouses had been built up to the ramparts, capture of The attention which the French had always Calcutta. paid to the fortification of their settlements formed a singular contrast to the indifi'erence manifested by the EngHsh ; and Chandernagore was at this time so thoroughly defensible that it would have baffled all the attacks of any native army. After the capture of Madras by Labour- donnais, the Court of Directors had sent out orders to strengthen the works, and these orders were repeated with increased importunity as the health of the old viceroy declined. But their servants iu Calcutta were too busily intent on amassing fortunes to heed these injunctions, and their infatuation down to the latest moment was exceeded only by their cowardice when the crisis came. The militia was not embodied, and the powder furnished by a fraudulent contractor was deficient both in quality and in quantity. There were only 174 men in garrison, not ten of whom had ever seen a shot fired, and the besiegers were 50,000 in number. Yet, against these odds, Clive would have made as noble and successful a defence as he did at Arcot; but the governor was Drake, and the commandant Minchin. The nabob's army sat down before it on the 17th June ; 176f the town was occupied the next day, and the day after, it was determined to send the women and children on board the vessels anchored off" the fort. As soon, however, as the Watergate was opened, there was an indiscriminate rush to the boats, many of which were capsized. The enemy sent some " fire arrows" at the ships, which did no damage at all, but the commanders immediately weighed anchor and dropped down the river two miles. Two boats alone remained at the stairs, and Mr. Drake, without leaving any instructions, quietly slipped into one of them ; he was followed by the military commander, and they rowed dowD 1.2 148 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA LChap.IV. <^D. to the ships. As soon as this base desertion of their posts ^7 ^^ became Imown, and calmness had been restored, Mr. Holwell was unanimously placed in command, and it was resolved to defend the fort to the last extremity. It held out for forty-eight hours, during which signals were made day and night to the vessels anchored below, and they might have come up with perfect ease and safety and have rescued the whole of the gallant garrison, but not a vessel moved. On the 21st the enemy renewed the attack with redoubled vigour : more than half the force was killed or wounded, and the European soldiers broke into the liquor stores and became unfit for duty. Mr. Holwell was obliged to agree to a parley, during which the nabob's soldiers treacherously rushed into the fort and obtained possession of it. Search was immediately made for treasure, but only five lacs of rupees were found in the vaults, and the nabob's indignation knew no bounds. The nabob retired about dusk to his encampment. The European prisoners were collected together in a veranda, The Black while the native officers went in search of some Hole. building in which they might be lodged for the night, but none could be found, and they were desired to move into an adjoining chamber, which had been used as the lock-up room of the garrison. It was not twenty feet square, with only a single window, and, however suitable for the confinement of a few refractory soldiers, was death to the hundred and forty- six persons now thrust into it, in one of the hottest months of the most sultry season of the year. The wretched prisoners soon became frantic with sufibcating heat and intolerable thirst, and called upon the sentries to fire upon them and put them out of their misery. They sank one by one in the arms of death, and when the door was opened in the morning, only twenty-three were dragged out alive, the most ghastly of forms. This is the tragedy of the Black Hole, which has fixed an indelible mark of infamy on the name of Suraj-ood-dowlah. Yet so little did it appear an extraordinary occurrence that it excited no attention in the native community, and is not even mentioned by the great Mahomedan historian of the period. The nabob returned to Moorshedabad and con- fiscated all the property of the Company at the out Bxtin ti n ^^ctories, and they were as completely expelled of the from Bengal as they had been seventy years Company. before in the reign of Aurungzebe. 1757 But the time of retribution was not distant. The Court SKCT.Vn.] RECOVEEY OF CALCUTTA 149 of Directors had regarded the progress of Bnssy in the Deccan with a feeling of great jealousy, and deter- cure's mined to contract an alliauce with the Peshwa to ^Jf^^^^ arrest it. Clive, who had been received with dis- tinguished honour by the Company and the ministry, was a.d. sent for this purpose to Bombay with a considerable force, ^^^^ but on his arrival found the president and his council inflexibly averse to embark in so perilous an enterprise. Admiral Watson happening to arrive at the same time with his fleet from Madras, it was determined to employ the powerful armament thus assembled in rooting out the piratical chief Angria on that coast. His power had become so formidable, and his audacity had increased to such an ex- tent, that in the previous year his corsairs had overpowered three Dutch ships of war, respectively, of fifty, thirty- six, and eighteen guns, the two largest of which they burnt. The English fleet and army proceeded against Geriah, his capital, and within an hour after the attack began, the whole pirate fleet was in a blaze. In the arsenal were found two hundred pieces of cannon, with a very large store of ammunition, and twelve lacs of rupees, which the captors, with very commendable wisdom, distributed among themselves without ceremony. The admiral and Clive then returned to Madras, where information had just been re- ceived of the sack of Calcutta ; and although a strong party in the council was still bent on a conflict with Bussy, the majority came to the conclusion that it was their first duty to retrieve the afiairs of their masters in Bengal. An expedition was accordingly fitted out and entrusted to the genius of Clive, who sailed from Madras with admiral Watson's fleet, on which were embarked 900 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. They entered the Hooghly, and on the 15th December 1766 reached Fulta, where they found the dastardly Drake and his fellow fugitives in the ships on which they had capture of taken refuge in June. A little higher up the Calcutta, river there was a small fortification at Budge Budge, held by the BGbidoo general of the nabob, who had been left in charge of the army. It was attacked by Clive, and a ball happening to pass too close to the commander's turban, he hastened back to Calcutta. Not deeming himself, however, safe there, he fled to Moorshedabad, leaving 500 men to defend the fort, which was delivered up to Clive on the 2nd 1767 January, when the Company's standard was again hoisted on its ramparts. The nabob had persuaded himself that the 150 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. Englisli would never again enter his dominions, and lie was filled witli indignation when he heard of their audacity. He refused to listen to any overture from Clive, and thus marched down in haste with an army of 40,000 men. Finding a contest inevitable, Clive determined to take the initiative, and long before dawn on the 5th February marched out with his entire force, augmented by 600 marines, and assaulted the nabob's encampment. Towards sunrise a February fog bewildered the troops and weakened the strength of the attack, but the Nabob, who had never been under fire before, and had moreover seen Battle at many of his officers fall around him, hastened Dumdmn. -fco make overtures of peace, and a treaty was con- cluded on the 9th February. All the former privileges of the Company were restored, and permission was given to establish a mint and to fortify Calcutta. Information had soon after been received of the declaration of war between England and France. The French settlement of Chandernagore, twenty miles above Calcutta, was garri- soned with 700 Europeans, besides a large body of native troops, and Bussy was encamped with a victorious army at a distance of oidy four hundred miles in the Northern Sircars. The nabob had no sooner signed the treaty than he importuned Bussy to march up to Bengal and expel the English. Clive felt that the junction of the two French forces would compromise the position of the Company, and he determined to attack Chandernagore before it could be efiected. He attacked it by land while admiral Watson bom- barded it with his fleet, and the town was surrendered upon Capture of honourable terms after a very gallant resistance Ohanderna- of nine days. When the capture had been ***** efiected, Clive remarked, "We cannot stop here," and his prediction has been verified by a century of pro- gress which has carried us beyond the Indus. Meanwhile, the violence and the atrocities of the nabob 1767 continued to augment the disgust of his ministers and offi- Confederacy cers. Every day produced some new act of at the capital, oppression, and in May, Meer Jaffier, the military paymaster and general, and the brother-in-law of Ali- verdy Khan, entered into a combination with other officers of state, and the all-powerful bankers, the Setts, to super- sede him. There was at Moorshedabad at the time one Omichund, who had settled in Calcutta about forty years before, and amassed immense wealth by contracts with the Company, and who maintained the state of a prince. He ac- sbct.vii.] battle of plassy 151 companied the nabob to the capital after the battle of the 9th February, constantly attended the durbar, and obtained such influence in the public councils as to render it advis- able for the confederates to take him into their confidence. a.t). Clive was invited to join the league vrith magnificent offers 1 765 for the Company ; and as he was convinced that "there could " be neither peace nor security while such a monster as the "nabob reigned," he entered readily into their plans. A secret treaty was concluded, stipulating that the English should instal Meer Jaffier, and that he should pay a crore and three-quarters of rupees to make good their losses. Omichund got scent of the treaty and threatened to dis- close the transaction to the nabob — which would have led to the immediate massacre of the whole party — unless an additional article was inserted guaranteeing to him a dona- tion of thirty lacs, and a commission of five per cent, on all the payments. Clive on hearing of this outrageous demand came to the conclusion that " art and policy were " warrantable to defeat the plans of such a villain," and he drew up a fictitious treaty on red paper, in which his demand was provided for, while the real treaty, authenti- cated by the seals of the confederates, contained no such stipulation. He is said to have died within a year raving mad, but this statement is utterly unfounded. This is the only act in the bold and arduous career of Clive which does not admit of vindication, though he himself always defended it, and declared that he was ready to do it a hundred times over. Clive marched from Ohandernagore on the 13th June with 900 Europeans, consisting partly of the 39th Regi- ment of foot, who still carry on their colours Battle of " Primus in Indis," 2,100 natives, and ten pieces Glassy. of cannon. He marched up to Cutwa, where he called a council of war, which voted against any farther advance ; but immediately after he resolved to carry out the enterprise, and on the night of the 22nd moved on to the grove of Plassy. The nabob's army, consisting of 50,000 horse and foot, was encamped in its immediate vicinity. Meer Jaffier had taken an oath to join Clive before or during the engagement, but he did not make his appearance, and was evidently waiting the result of events. On the memorable 23rd of June the 1 767 nabob's troops moved down on the small band of English troops, and Clive advanced to the attack. The enemy with- drew their artillery ; Meer Mudun, the general-in- chief, was mortally wounded and expired in the presence of the nabob. 152 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IV. who was unable to control his terror, but mounted a swift camel and fled at the top of his speed with 2,000 horse, and did not pause till he reached Moorshedabad. His army immediately dispersed, and this battle, which decided the fate of Bengal and Behar, and eventually of India, was gained with the loss of only seventy- two killed and wounded. As soon as the victory declared in favour of Clive, Meer Jaffier advanced with his troops to congratulate him, and to obtain the fruits of it. Suraj-ood-dowlah on reaching the capital found himself deserted by all his courtiers, and after a day of gloomy reflections, descended in disguise from a window in the palace with a favourite eunuch and a con- cubine, and embarked in a boat in the hope of overtaking M. Law, a French officer, whom Bussy had sent up with a small force. He proceeded up the river and landing at Rajmahal to prepare a meal, entered the hut of a religious mendicant, whose ears he had ordered to be cut off the preceding year. He was recognised and made over to those who were in pursuit of him, and conveyed back to Moor- shedabad, eight days after he had quitted it. Meerun, the son of Meer Jaffier, immediately caused him to be put to death, and his mangled remains were paraded the next day through the city and buried in the tomb of his grandfather. A.D. Clive entered Moorshedabad on the 29th of June, and 1767 proceeded to the palace, where the great officers of state Clive at were assembled, and having conducted Meer dab'S^^ Jaffier to the throne, saluted him as soobadar of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. The change in the position of the English in the course of a twelvemonth appears more like a scene in a fairy tale than in sober his- tory. In June, 1756, Calcutta had been sacked and burnt, and the Company extirpated. In June, 1757, they had not only recovered the seat of their commerce and ex- tinguished their European rivals, but defeated and dethroned the nabob, and disposed of the sovereignty of a country larger and more populous than England. Of the treasures at Moorshedabad more than two crores were made over to the conquerors, and the first instalment of eighty lacs was conveyed in a triumphant procession to Calcutta, along the road where, a twelvemonth before, Suraj-ood-dowlah had marched back to his capital with the plunder of Calcutta. For the Company Clive reserved only the fee simple of 600 yards of land around the Mahratta Ditch, and the zemin- daree rights of the districts south of Calcutta. For himself, he rejected the magnificent offers of the opulent nobles who Sbct.vij hostilities with the dutch 153 were anxious to secure his favour, and contented himself with a gift of sixteen lacs from Meer Jaffier. When his services were afterwards forgotten, and he was upbraided in the House of Commons with his rapacity, he rephed indignantly—" When I recollect entering the treasury of " Moorshedabad, with heaps of gold and silver to the right *' hand and to the left, and these crowned with jewels, I " stand astonished at my own moderation." Intelligence of the loss of Calcutta was eleven months in reaching Eng- land, and seven weeks after the Directors heard of its re- covery and of the briUiant results of the battle of Plassy. Seventy years before they had sent admiral Nicholson with a powerful armament to establish them as a political power in Bengal, but so completely had they dismissed all the dreams of ambition, that with the richest provinces of India at their feet, the only satisfaction they expressed was that their factors would now be able to provide investments for two years without drawing upon them. CHAPTER V. SECTION I. PEOCEEDINGS IN BENGAL FROM THE BATTLE OF PLASSY TO HASTINGS' ADMINISTRATION. . . . A.D. The emperor of Delhi was at this time a puppet m the hands 1757 of his unprincipled minister, Ghazee-ood-deen, and his eldest son and heir, Ali Gohur, had succeeded in making invasion of his escape from the capital, and raising the im- ah Gohur. perial standard. India was swarming with military adven- turers ready to take service under any chief, and the prince found no difficulty in collecting an army of 40,000 men, and, being joined by the nabob Yizier of Oude, invaded Behar, and appeared before the city of Patna. Clive lost no time in advancing to its defence, and the prince retired in all haste on his approach. During his flight he was reduced to such distress as to throw himself on the con- sideration of Clive, and the heir and descendant of Ak- 1758 bar and Aurungzebe was happy to receive a donation of eight thousand rupees to relieve his necessities. The influence which Clive necessarily exercised in the 154 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.^. A.D. government of Bengal from his character and position 1759 Battle at tended to lessen the importance of Meer Jaffier, Chinsurah. and his court and family could not fail to re- member with chagrin that the foreigners who now over- shadowed the throne had only three years before approached it as suppliants. The nabob, looking about for the means of counterbalancing Olive's ascendancy, began to intrigue with the Dutch at Chinsurah. The governor of Java, moreover, viewed with no friendly eye the superior ad- vantages which the English had acquired in Bengal, and in the hope of fishing up some prize in the troubled waters of the province, fell in with the projects of the nabob, and despatched a fleet of seven vessels with 700 Europeans and 800 well-trained Malay sepoys to Chinsurah. Clive was resolved not to tolerate any rival European influence in Bengal, and, although the two nations were at peace, seized the vessels, and directed Colonel Forde to intercept the progress of the troops. That officer shrank from the responsibility of attacking the soldiers of a friendly power, and requested a written authority from his chief. Clive was sitting at cards when the Colonel's letter was placed in his hands, and sent a reply in pencil on the back of one of them — " Fight them immediately. I will send you the " order in council to-morrow." The Dutch force was attacked and defeated as it approached Chinsurah. Im- mediately after the action, the nabob's son appeared in sight with an army of 7,000 men who were to have joined the Dutch if the fortune of the day had gone against the English. Clive exacted from the Dutch the expense of the expedition sent to defeat their plans, and having sent a haughty and defiant despatch to the Court of Directors, from whom he had long been estranged, embarked for England on the 25th of February, 1760. )760 At the period of Clive's departure, the prince Ali Gohur was advancing a second time to the invasion of Behar. Second ^^ route, he heard of the assassination of the invasion of cmperor, his father, by Ghazee-ood-deen, and AU Gohur. assumed the imperial dignity under the title of Shah Alum. The nabob Vizier joined his force in the hope of adding Behar to his possessions, and they moved down upon Patna. Colonel Calliaud, one of the great soldiers trained under Lawrence and Clive, marched up to the defence of the town, together with 15,000 of the nabob's troops under his son Meernn, and the imperial force was completely routed. The emperor, having received Sect. I.] BATTLE OF PATNA 155 a promise uf assistance from the Mahrattas, marched down through the hills in the hope of surprising Moorshedabad. 176O Colonel Calliaud followed him without loss of time, and the two armies confronted each other about thirty miles from the city; but the emperor hearing no tidings of his Mahratta auxiliaries, broke up his encampment and marched back to Patna, to which he laid close siege for nine days. All hope of prolonging the defence was fading away when Captain Knox, who had been despatched in haste by Colonel Calliaud, was seen approaching the walls with a handful of troops. He had performed the march from Moorshedabad to Patna, under the burning heat of a Bengal sun, in the extraordinary space of thirteen days, marching himself on foot to encourage his men. The next day he attacked the emperor's camp, and completely de- feated him and dispersed his entire force. The nabob of Pumeah, who had been intriguing with him, now threw off the mask and immediately advanced to his aid with 12,000 men and thirty pieces of cannon. To the utter amazement of the natives, Captain Knox marched out with a battalion of sepoys, 200 Europeans, a squadron of cavalry, and five field pieces, and, after a conflict of six hours, completely routed the nabob. The native historian dwells with ad- miration upon the conflict, and describes the breathless anxiety with which the inhabitants of Patna crowded on the walls watching the exit of this gallant little band, and the delight with which they were welcomed back, covered with dust and sweat. This was another of those Q^Yiant of daring exploits which in our early career Captain established the prestige of our arms and con- ^^°^- tribnted to give us the empire of India. Colonel Calliaud and Meerun arrived after the engagement ; Meerun was struck dead by a thunderbolt as he lay in his tent, and the country was rid of a monster, in whose cabinet was found a list of three hundred men of note whom he had destined to destruction. Clive had become so completely identified with the ex- istence of British power in Bengal that it seemed to the public officers as if the soul had departed from ^r. Van- the Government on his retirement. He was sue- sittart ceeded by Mr. Vansittart, a man of great probity, ^°^^™°^* but without any strength of character. He belonged to the Madras service, and the appointment was resented by the members of the Beugal council, who set themselves to thwart him on every occasion. To increase the confasion 156 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. which bewildered his weak mind, three of the elder mem- bers of council who had signed the contumacious letter of Olive to the Court of Directors were peremptorily dis- missed by them, and their places were filled, on the rule of rotation, by men of violent passions, who regarded Mr. Vansittart with a feeling of hatred, and he was constantly outvoted in council. The death of Meerun increased the complication. Notwithstanding his profligaxjy, his vigour had been the main stay of his father's government, and on his death the administration fell into a state of complete anarchy. The troops besieged the palace for their arrears, and Meer Jaffier sent his son-in-law, Meer Cossim, to Calcutta to obtain pecuniary assistance from the council, but the treasure obtained at Moorshedabad had been dissi- pated, and there was scarcely a rupee in the treasury. It was vain to expect any farther supplies from the nabob, and the council determined to depose him and to elevate Meer Cossim to the throne, on his promising to reward his 4.15. benefactors with twenty lacs of rupees, to make good all 1760 arrears, and to transfer three rich districts in lower Bengal Meer Cossim to the Company. Mr. Yansittart proceeded to nabob. Moorshedabad with a military force to persuade the nabob to resign the Government, and the old man was obliged, though not without the greatest reluctance, to yield, and retire to Calcutta. Meer Cossim met the difficulties of his position with great skill and energy. He curtailed the extravagance of the court establishments; he obliged the public officers to disgorge their plunder ; he revised the land assessments, and added a crore of rupees a year to his rent-roll. He faithfully discharged all his obligations to the Company and to the members of the council, but the great object he set before himself was to emancipate himself from their control, and to become the soobadar in reality, and not in name only. He removed the seat of government from Moorshedabad to Monghyr, three hundred miles from Calcutta, and strengthened the works of that important fortress. In the course of three years he created a force of 15,000 cavalry and 25,000 infantry ; he established a large arsenal, he manufactured firelocks, and cast cannon, and had made great progress in consolidating his power, when a storm was raised by the unprincipled conduct of the council board in Calcutta, which in a few months swept him from the throne. From time immemorial a large proportion of the public 1762 revenue had been derived from the duties levied on the Sbct.i.] the transit duties 157 transport of goods through the country. Under the firman ^q. of the emperor, the merchandise of the Company The transit 1762 intended for export by sea was allowed to pass ^°*^®*- free, under a dustuk, or pass, signed by the president. The battle of Plassy transferred all power to the Company, and their servants immediately embarked on the inland trade of the country, and claimed a similar exemption for their private investments. The native merchants, in order to pass their own cargoes duty free, adopted the plan of pur- chasing passes from the civilians, and the boys in the service were thus enabled to realise two or three thousand rupees a month. The country traders, moreover, fre- quently hoisted the English flag ; and as it was deemed in- dispensable to maintain its immunity. Company's sepoys were sent to release their boats whenever they were seized by the nabob's officers. The trade of the country was para- lysed, and its peace destroyed, and the two ruling powers were brought into a state of perilous antagonism. These encroachments, which were rare during Clive's administra- tion, increased to an alarming extent on his departure. In order to remedy these disorders Mr. Vansittart proceeded to Monghyr, and concluded a convention with the nabob, which provided that the trade of the Company's servants should pay nine per cent., though that of his own subjects was often weighted with twenty-five per cent. On his return to Calcutta he found the members of council indig- nant at this unauthorised concession, and resolved not to pay more than two and a half per cent., and that only on the article of salt. The nabob then determined to put all 1763 parties on an equality, and abolished all transit duties throughout the provinces. The council voted this measure a crime, and demanded, as a matter of right from one whom they had raised to authority, that the native traders should be subject to the usual duties, while their own flag was exempt. This flagitious demand was indignantly resisted by the only two honest men in the council, Mr. Yansittart and Mr. Hastings. The Company's factory at Patna was unfortunately at this time under the charge of Mr. Ellis, the war with most inveterate of Meer Cossim's opponents, and ^eerCossim. the most violent and unscrupulous of the civiHans. He was resolved to bring about a change in the government, and, in a time of peace, suddenly seized on the city of Patna with a handfal of European troops. The native commandant, on hearing that the soldiers were rendered 158 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V, incapable by drink, returned to the town and recaptured it, and Mr. Ellis and his officers, who had proceeded up the river, were overtaken and brought back prisoners. Meer Cossim was no sooner informed of this wanton aggression than he ordered every Englishman in the province to be seized. Both parties now prepared for war. The nabob augmented his army, and invited the fugitive emperor and the Vizier of Oude, who was hankering after Berar, to join his forces. The English army, consisting of 650 Europeans, 1,200 sepoys, and a troop of native cavalry, opened the campaign on the 2nd July, although the rains, the season ^ jj^ of military inaction, had just set in. The nabob's advanced 1763 guard at Cutwa was defeated. With the army stationed at Greriah to dispute the advance of the British force, there was a long and arduous battle of four hours, and never had native troops fought with greater resolution and valour than the newly-raised battahons of the nabob ; but nothing could withstand the spirit of the English soldiers. The nabob's army abandoned its guns and encampment and fled. Early in November the English commandant carried the fortified entrenchment at Oodwa-nuUa, and the nabob fled to Patna, after having ordered all his European prisoners to be put to death. His own native officers in- dignantly refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of brave and unarmed men ; they were soldiers, they said, and not executioners. But Raymond, subsequently known as Sumroo, a name of infamy, who had been a sergeant in the French army, and was now in the employ of the nabob, ofiered his services, and, proceeding to the house where the Massacre of prisoners were confined, poured in volley on Europeans. voUcy through the Venetian windows, till forty- eight English gentlemen, and a hundred English soldiers, lay lifeless on the floor. The campaign was completed in four months by the capture of Patna and the flight of Meer Cossim to Oude, where the nabob Yizier did not scruple to despoil him of his property. On the breaking out of the war with Meer Cossim, the Council determined to place Meer Jaffier again on ^ain the throne, but the old man, seventy- two years nabob. ^f g^gg^ ^^^j Scarcely able to move for the leprosy, was previously required to confirm the grant of the three districts already mentioned to the Company, to concede the flagrant exemption from the transit duties in which the war had originated, and to make further donations to the civil and military officers. But in a few months, the govern- Sect. I.] MUTINY OF THE SEPOYS 159 ment having a large army to maintain in the field, found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, which was not to be won- dered at, considering that peculation was universal, from the highest to the lowest official. Meer Jaffier was therefore brought down to Calcutta to concert the means of replen- ishing the treasury. The members of council demanded a payment of five lacs of rupees a month for the public service as long as the war lasted, and they insisted on a donation at first of ten lacs, and eventually of fifty lacs, for themselves, for what they had the efirontery to term "compensation for losses." These harassing importunities, ^u^ combined with age and disease, served to hasten his end, 1765 and on his return to Moorshedabad he expired in Death of January, 1765. ^ Meer Jaffier. The making of nabobs had for the last eight years been the most lucrative occupation of the senior civil and military officers of the Company, and the fourth Hjg ^J^ occasion which now arose was not to be neglected, nabob. The Court of Directors, exasperated by the iniquities of their servants, had peremptorily ordered them to execute covenants to abstain from the receipt of presents from the natives of the country. But these iujunctions were given to the winds, and, with the covenants on the council table, the son of Meer Jaffier was obliged to become responsible for the payment of twenty lacs of rupees to the members of the council board before he was allowed to succeed him. The conduct of these men for five years after the retirement of Clive was marked by a degree of profligacy of which it would not be easy to find a parallel in any age or country. Fortunes of vast amount were acquired by the most nefarious means in the shortest period; every idea of common morality was treated with sovereign contempt, while luxury, corruption, and debauchery pervaded every rank, and threatened the dissolution of government. Six months after the close of the war with Meer Cossim, the nabob Yizier determined to take advantage of the confusion of the times to acquire possession of the province of Behar, and marched down upon Patna with a large but Ul-trauied force, accompanied by the fugitive emperor and the disinherited nabob of Bengal. The attack was unsuc- cessful, and he withdrew his encampment to Buxar. Meanwhile Major Munro, who had assumed the command of the army, found the sepoys in a state of flagrant Mutiny of mutiny, and demanding increased pay and large theSepoya. 17^4 gratuities. With undaunted resolution the Major resolved 160 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. to subdue this spirit of revolt at once, and twenty- four of the ringleaders were arraigned before a court martial, con- sisting of native officers, and condemned to death. Twenty of them were blown away from the guns, and the discipline of the army was restored. This was the first of that series of mutinies which have broken out from time to time among the sepoys, and which in less than a century culminated in the dissolution of the whole army of the Bengal Presi- dency. At the close of the rains, the Major did not hesitate to lead this army, so recently in a state of in- OcT. subordination, to Buxar, where the nabob Vizier had been 23ed, encamped for several months. His army, consisting of Battle of 50,000 troops, was completely routed, with the Buxar. loss of his entire camp and a hundred and thirty guns. The victory of Buxar was an important supplement to the victory of Plassy. It demolished the only indepen- dent power in the north of India, and it left the Company masters of the entire valley of the Ganges from the Hima- laya to the sea. The Vizier fled to Bareilly, and offered to redeem his forfeited kingdom by the payment of half a crore of rupees to the Company and the army, and a large douceur to the commandant, but the negotiation came to nothing. Immediately after the victory, the emperor joined the English camp, and began to negotiate for a share of the territories of his late ally, the nabob Vizier, and the council was contemplating a division of them between him and the Company, when Clive made his appearance in Bengal. On his return to England in 1760, Clive was received 1760 with great distinction by the king and his great minister, Mr. Pitt, who pronounced him " a heaven- second ap- " born general," and he was honoured with an pointment. j^gj^ peerage. But the Court of Directors, in which his enemies were predominant, treated him not only with malevolence, but with injustice, and he was obliged to file a bill in equity to recover an annuity which Meer Jaffier had settled upon him, and which they had un- gratefully sequestered. The war with Meer Cossim, the massacre of the Europeans, and the total disorganisa- tion of the government, had dissipated the golden dreams of prosperity in which the Company had been indulging. The Proprietors began to tremble for their dividends, and they constrained the Directors, to their infinite reluctance, 1765 to send Clive out to retrieve their affairs. He landed at Calcutta on the 3rd of May, 1765, and found the whole Sect. I.] ACQUISITION OF THE DEWANEE 161 service steeped in corruption, and felt himself justified in as- serting that " there were not five men of principle to be found " in it." His first duty was to enforce the signature of the covenants the India House had prescribed to abolish the receipt of presents. The corrupt officials questioned his right to make such a demand, but he reduced them to silence by declaring that he would dismiss every one who refused to sign them, and send him back to England ; and they found it prudent to submit to his iron will. Having thus, in the course of seven weeks fully established his authority in the Government, CHve proceeded to the upper provinces to dispose of the imperial questions Arrange. ^•^' which awaited his decision. To prevent another ment with 1765 rising like that of Meer Oossim, he took away the power of the sword from the nabob of Moorshedabad, and assigned him out of the revenues of the province the sum of fifty- three lacs for the expenses of his court and the ad- ministration of justice. The young nabob exclaimed with delight, " Thank God, I shall now have as many dancing- " girls as I like." The Vizier of Oude had forfeited his kingdom by the result of the war he had vizier 1755 wantonly waged against the Company ; but Olive, °* ^^^^' who was indisposed to the enlargement of the Company's territories, determined to restore it to him, with the excep- tion of the two districts of Corah and Allahabad, which he reserved for the emperor, who was now a dependant on the bounty of the Enghsh. CHve treated the vagrant with the ,-«, prince with much consideration, and assigned e^pe^^o^- him an annual payment of twenty- five lacs of rupees from the revenues of the country, in addition to the product of the districts. Looking back on the cession of Oude with the light of a century of experience, we are enabled to per- ceive that it was anything but judicious ; and that if Olive had at that period annexed it, and given it the benefit of a British administration, as in the case of Bengal and Behar, he would have conferred a boon on the population, and benefited the Company's government. The emperor had repeatedly ofiered the Company the Dewanee, that is, the revenues of the three provinces, and Olive now took occasion to solicit the official The grant of it. Orissa was still considered one of Dewanee. them, although all but one district in the north belonged to the Mahrattas. This act was completed on the 12 th of August, 1765, a memorable day in the political and con- stitutional history of British India. As a substitute for a M 162 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. throne two dining-tables were put together in Olive's tent, with a chair on them, and covered with embroidery. The em- peror took his seat, and transferred the government of twenty-five millions of people and a revenue of three crores to Lord Olive, as the representative of the East India Company. The Mahomedan historiaji of this period, scandalized by the simplicity of this great transaction, ex- claims with indignation that " a business of so much " importance, which at other times would have required " the sending of wise ministers and able envoys, was done '' and finished in less time than would have been taken up '* in the sale of a jackass." What will appear scarcely less re- A D Exte • f ^^^^^ble is the expansion of Olive's sentiments. 1765 Olive's On taking leave of the Oourt of Directors in views. 1764, he assured them that nothing but extreme necessity ought to induce them to extend their views of territorial acquisition beyond the three districts ceded to them by Meer Oossim. Before sixteen months had elapsed, he congratulated them on having become the sovereigns of three kingdoms ; yet, with this demonstration of the vanity of all such resolutions, he again ventured to circumscribe the British empire in India, and after ac- quiring the Dewanee, declared that "to extend our *' possessions beyond the Ourumnassa," — the north-west boundary of the three soobahs, — " would be a scheme so " extravagantly ambitious that no Government in its senses " would dream of it." Not more than eighty- four years after this solemn denunciation, our boundary had crossed the Indus and was extended to the Khyber Pass. This transaction was scarcely completed when the new empire, which Olive assured the Directors that " all the Mutiny of " princos of Hindostan could not deprive us of 1766 the Euro- " for many years," was shaken to its foundation peano cers. ^^ ^-^^ mutiny of the European officers. They had been accustomed to an extra allowance, called hatta, when in the field, which the gratitude of Meer Jaffier had doubled when he was first raised to the throne, and, as it was not withdrawn when they were in cantonments, they considered it a permanent right. When the Oourt of Directors became responsible for the finances of the country, they found that the military expenses swallowed up its resources, and they ordered this extravagant allowance to cease ; but the timid Oouncil was deterred by the imperious- ness of the officers from executing their ordsrs. The duty of reduction was imposed on Olive as he left England, and Sect. I.J MUTINY OF EUROPEAN OFFICERS 163 on his arrival he announced that the double batta was to cease on the 1st of January, 1766. The officers im- mediately formed a confederacy to resist the order, and it was agreed that two hundred of them should resign their commissions on the same day, and, as an army of 50,000 Mahrattas was advancing to invade Behar, they felt con- fident that the Government would be obliged to retain their services on their own terms. But they had to deal with a man of inflexible resolution, who declared that he must see the bayonets levelled at his throat before he would yield to their demands, cuve's '^•^• He directed the commandants to accept the resig- inflexibility. 1766 nation of every officer, and to send him under arrest to Cal- cutta. He ordered up officers and cadets from Madras ; he engaged the services of others in the settlement, and proceeded with those who remained faithful, to the head- quarters of the army, arrested the ringleaders, and ordered them to be tried by court-martial. In the course of a fortnight this formidable conspiracy was quashed by his undaunted firmness. He was fully aware, however, that all the officers of Government had a real grievance in the preposterous policy of the Court of Directors, who limited their allowances to a pittance on which it was not possible to live, and forbad all engagement in trade, while they were surrounded with wealth, which their official position enabled them to grasp with ease. He therefore esta- blished a Society for conducting a traffic in salt, on the principle of a monopoly, the profits of which, after a large reservation for their masters in Leadenhall Street, were to be proportionately divided among their servants, civil, mihtary, medical, and ecclesiastical. But it was speedily suppressed by the Directors, who substituted for it a com- mission of two and a half per cent, on the gross revenue of the province. After a residence of twenty-two months in India, Clive was driven home by an acute attack of disease. It has fallen to the lot of few men to exercise so im- cuvein portant and so permanent an influence on the ^^iand. 7 7 course of human afiairs. He not only made the Company sovereigns of a country larger than England, with a revenue of imperial magnitude, but he laid the foundation of an empire in the east with an irrepressible element of expansion. Still more, he established the supremacy of Europe in Asia, which has ever since been growing more complete, and is never likely to be shaken. His reception x2 A.D. 164 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. in England corresponded, at first, with his eminent merits, but the tables were soon turned against him. His great- ness excited envy and censure. He had made many- enemies in India by his stern probity and resolution, and they purchased India stock that they might wreak their vengeance on him. One SuUivan, a Director, who possessed great power at the India House, pursued him with inveterate malignity, and the Court of Directors, who had always been hostile to him, now manifested their feelings by re- storing to the service those whom he had cashiered for peculation or mutiny. The king's ministers joined the hue and cry. The Attorney- General proposed to confiscate all 1773 the donations he had received from native princes. In Parliament his conduct was stigmatised as a '* mass of the " most unheard of villanies and corruption." But the feeling of the House revolted from the proposal which was made to fix a brand of infamy on him, and substituted for it a resolution that he had rendered great and meritorious Death of services to his country. But his lofty spirit 1774 ^^^®* could ill brook the treatment to which he had been subject, and, under the pressure of physical and mental sufiering, he put a period to his existence. The next five years of administration were a disgrace to 1767 Five years the national character. No sooner was the strong to of ^archy arm of Clive removed, than the whole system of 1772 °^ • Government was paralysed by the rapacity of the Company's servants. The covenants they had signed were treated as waste paper, and they plunged into the inland trade of the country, and prosecuted it with the strength of their official authority. The Council had not the power and still less the inclination to restrain these abuses. The nefarious charges of commissaries, contractors and engineers drained the treasury. Every man who was permitted to make out a bill against the state made a fortune. These evils were indefinitely aggravated by the memorable famine of 1770, which swept away one-third of the population of the lower provinces. SECTION n. PROGRESS OF EVENTS AT MADRAS AND BOMBAY, 1761 — 1772. Having thus narrated the progress of events in the Gangetic valley, we turn to the transactions in the Deccan during Affairs at ^his period, and to the intrigues, perfidy, and Madras. hostilities in which the Mahrattas, the Nizam, Sbct. IL] ACQQISITION OF THE NOKTHERN SIRCARS 165 and Hvder Ali, were incessantly involved. The extinction of the*^ French power in 1761 placed the protege of the English, Mahomed Ali, in the position of nabob of the Carnatic. Among the native princes of the time he was dis- tinguished by his imbecility and his unscrupulousness. His army was a mere rabble, and the Company's Government found itself encumbered with the expense of defending a territory of 50,000 square miles without the command of its revenues. The country had been without any settled government for twenty years; it had been despoiled by successive invasions, and it was now administered by a court profligate and wasteful, supported by loans raised at Madras on usurious interest, which impaired the conduct of ^u. strength of those who borrowed them, and the Mahomed j^gj morals of those who provided them. The governor of Madras was constrained to make a demand of fifty lacs from the nabob to discharge the obligations incurred in seating him on the throne; but his treasury was empty, and he proposed to him to obtain fands from the spoliation of several chiefs, and more particularly spoliation of 1753 of the raja of Tanjore, from whom a contribution Tanjore. of twenty-four lacs in four instalments was extorted. The peace of Paris restored to the French all the possessions they had held in India, and provided, moreover, that Mahomed Ali should be acknowledged by both parties nabob of the Carnatic, and Salabut Jung Peace of soobadar of the Deccan. He had been deposed ^"^• eighteen months before by his brother Nizam Ali, who, on hearing that his right to the throne had been acknowledged by these two great powers, caused him to be assassinated. On the memorable 12th of August, 1765, Clive obtained from the emperor, at the same time with the Dewanee, a firman releasing the nabob of the Carnatic from all ^^^^ dependence on the Nizam, and a grant of the Northern 1766 northern Sircars to the Company. These districts Sircars. on the Coromandel coast had famished Bussy with the sinews of war, but, on his departure, had been wrested from the French by Colonel Forde. Nizam Ali was not disposed to submit to the alienation of this province, and on hearing that an English force was marching down to occupy it, threatened to send his army and exterminate it. The government of Madras was at this time in the hands of Mr. Palk, who had gone to India as one of the Company's chaplains but renounced his orders, went into the civil service, in which he amassed a noble fortune, and on his return to 166 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. England obtained a baronetcy. The feeble Council of the Presidency directed the commander to suspend all military operations and proceed to Hyderabad to negotiate a treaty ; A.D. and on the 12th November, 1766, he concluded the humili- 1766 ating convention which provided that the Company should Disgraceful ^^^Id the northern Sircars, which had been con- Madr °*^ °^ ferrcd on them by the supreme authority in India, as vassals of the contemptible soobadar of the Deccan, paying a tribute of seven lacs of rupees a year. But the Madras Presidency went farther, and involved the Company in the intricate web of Deccan politics, by agreeing to furnish the Nizam with two battalions of infantry and six pieces of cannon, " to settle everything right and " proper in the aiFairs of his highness' government," well knowing that his immediate object was to employ them in attacking Hyder Ali. The rise and progress of this extraordinary chief, one of the three men who during the last two centuries have Else and risen from obscurity to be the founders of great ^gress of kingdoms in India, will now demand the reader's attention. Mysore was one of the provinces of the Hindoo empire of Beejanugor, extinguished in 1564, and fell to the lot of a family of Hindoo princes, who gradually enlarged their territories, and, though repeatedly invaded by the Mahrattas, maintained their independence for two centuries, till they were dethroned by Hyder Ali. His family emigrated from the Punjab, and his father raised himself to the post of head-constable and obtained the command of a 1702 His birth small body of troops. Hyder was born about the year 1702, and remained without distinction for forty-seven years. It was not before 1749, during the struggles of the French and English for power in the Deccan, that he attracted the attention of the regent of His firet Mysore at the siege of Deonhully, and was pro- 1749 distinction, moted to an important command. This brief epitome affords no space for narrating the progress of his career ; and it is sufl&cient to notice that he augmented his resources by false musters, and by his incomparable tact and duplicity gradually absorbed the chief authority in the state. Having at length acquired the absolute command of the army, he constrained the feeble raja to resign the sceptre to him and to retire into private Hfe on an annuity, which 1761 was soon after curtailed. He was a brave soldier, a bold and skilful general, and a brilliant administrator. Like Sevajee and R-unjeet Sing, ho was unable to read or write, and it may A.D. Sect. II.] MAHEATTAS AND NIZAM ATTACK HYDEE 167 be questioned whether either of them could have passed the modern test of talent in a competitive examination, but they could all three create empires and govern them. Hyder became master of Mysore at the age of sixty, and devoted himself for twenty years to the aggrandisement of his power at the expense of his neighbours. Within two years he extended his authority up to the Eastna, and overran the territory of Bednore on the summit Acquires fiei of the western ghauts, which overlooks the ^e^o^®. maritime province of Canara. The capital, then esteemed the most wealthy city in the Deccan, fell without a struggle, and Hyder always attributed his subsequent prosperity to the treasure he obtained in it. He had previously cast off the title of Hyder Naik, or constable, and assumed the dignity of Hyder Ah Khan Bahadoor, and he now introduced a style of greater splendour and etiquette into his court. The Peshwa, Ballajee Rao, died of a broken heart on hearing of the fatal battle of Paniput, and was succeeded by his son Mahdoo Rao, then eighteen years of ^ar be- age. The Nizam determined to take advantage ^^°J^ I7g] of the weakness of the Mahrattas, to recover the the Nizam districts his predecessor had been obliged to cede *°^ Hyder. to them in their palmy days, and having formed an alliance Avith Bhonslay, raja of Nagpore, marched upon Poona, which 1763 he plundered and partially burnt. Raghoba, the uncle of the Peshwa, retaliated by laying Hyderabad under contribu- tions, and the two armies met on the banks of the Godavery. Before the battle, Raghoba had managed to buy off the raja of Nagpore by the promise of lands valued at thirty- two lacs a year, and on the eve of the battle he accordingly deserted the Nizam, who was defeated with great slaughter. But as the Mahrattas were incensed at the raja for joining the Nizam, and the Nizam was annoyed by his desertion at a cri- 1765 tical moment, they united their forces, invaded his kingdom, and stripped him of the greater portion of the territory he had acquired by his perfidy. Mysore had hitherto been regarded by the Mahrattas as a reserve field for plunder when there happened to be no other marauding expedition on hand, but the Mahrattas rapid rise of a new power under Hyder Ali, with attack an army of 20,000 horse and 40,000 foot, one half °^^'''' of which consisted of well-disciplined battalions, aroused the alarm and the indignation of the Poona cabinet, and it was determined to chastise his audacity. An army was accordingly despatched into the country, and Hyder was 168 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap.V. A.D. brought for the first time into contact with the Mahrattas, 1765 and suffered a signal defeat. The next year the Peshwa again took the field, and the Mysore army was a second time defeated, with the loss of 10,000 men, and Hyder considered himself fortunate in being reheved from the Repeated Mahrattas by restoring the greater portion of the 1765 gf^^of districts he had usurped, and paying an indemnity ^ ^* of thirty-two lacs of rupees. To compensate for these losses he invaded the maritime province of Malabar, which had never been subjugated by the Mahomedan arms. The gallant Nairs, or military chieftains, offered a noble resistance, but the whole province was nevertheless occupied, and the Mysore flag was planted on the towers of Calicut, the chief of which was still designated the Zamorin, as in the days of Albuquerque, two centuries and a half before. From these schemes of conquest Hyder was recalled to defend his own dominions and to resist a confederacy of the Mahrattas and the Nizam, into which 1766 the Company was unwilHngly drawn by the fatal article in the treaty of the 12th November, 1766, which bound the Madras Government to assist the Nizam with an auxiliary force. He now claimed the fulfilment of this engagement, and, in an evil hour, Colonel Smith was sent with an army to co-operate with him and the Mahrattas in coercing 1767 Hyder. The Mahrattas forestalled the Nizam, and crossing the Klistna in January, let loose their predatory horse on Hyder's northern dominions, and constrained him to purchase their retreat by the payment of thirty lacs of rupees. Colonel Smith, on his arrival in the Nizam's camp, found that he was basely negotiating with Hyder for a joint attack Operations ^^ *^® English army, and he withdrew with the of the bulk of his force to defend the frontier of the torS!^ Carnatic. The bargain with Hyder was completed by an engagement on the part of the Nizam to fall on the British force on receiving an immediate payment of twenty lacs of rupees and a promise of six lacs of annual tribute. The confederate armies numbered 42,000 cavalry and 28,000 infantry, with a hundred guns, while the British force did not exceed 1,030 sabres and 5,800 bayonets, with Col Smith sixteen guns. With this disproportionate force lygy defeats Colonel Smith twice defeated the allies and fedOTates. captured sixty-four pieces of cannon. During these operations Hyder's eldest son Tippoo, then seventeen years of age, suddenly advanced to Madras with Sect. II.] MADRAS TREATY WITH THE NIZAM 169 a body of 5,000 horse, and plundered the country houses of the Madras gentry, and the members of Government only es- caped being captured by the eagerness of the Mysore troops for plunder. In the meantime, the Government of Bengal sent an expedition by sea under Colonel Peach, to create a diversion in the Nizam's territories. He landed on the coast, carried everything before him, and advanced to Warungul, within eighty miles of Hyderabad, territories and the Nizam deserted Hyder, and hastened to ''^^^^^^ed. make his peace with the English. The affairs of the Nizam were now in a desperate con- dition. He had been defeated in two engagements ; his northern territories were occupied and his capital Disgraceful was threatened ; and the Madras President, Mr. J^^^^J^l^*^ Palk, might have dictated his own terms. It might have been expected that he would, at least, have declared the former treaty annulled by the monstrous perfidy of the Nizam ; but, after several weeks of negotiation, he concluded another treaty, the most disgraceful which had ever sullied the annals of the Company. It confirmed the j^gj dishonourable engagement to pay tribute for the northern Sircars, which had been granted by the imperial firman " to the Company, their heirs and descendants for ever and " ever, free, exempt and safe from all demands of the " imperial dewanee office and the imperial court," and it postponed the possession of the Guntoor Sircar till the death of the Nizam's brother, Basalut Jung, to whom he had illegally assigned it. Hyder Ali, who had been a sovereign prince for seven years, was contemptuously described in the treaty as Hyder Naik, or constable, a rebel and a usurper, and it was stipulated that the EngHsh Government should wrest the Carnatic Balaghaut, the table- land of Mysore, from him, and hold it as a fief of the Nizam on the payment of seven lacs a year, and likewise pay chout for it to the Mahrattas, who were no parties to the treaty. To crown their folly the Madras Council again ii^volved their masters in all the intrigues and dangers of Deccan politics, by engaging to assist the Nizam, the most treacherous prince in that ago of perfidy, with two battalions of sepoys and six pieces of artillery whenever he should require them. The treaty was reprobated by the Court of Directors, who remarked, " We cannot take a view of your conduct " from the commencement of your negotiations for the " Sircars, without the strongest disapprobation, and when " wo see the opulent fortunes acquired by our servants since 170 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. " that period, it gives but too much weight to the public " opinion that this rage for negotiations, treaties and " alliances, has private advantage for its object more than " the public good." A truer verdict was never pronounced in Leadenhall Street. During this disgracefal decade tlie Madras Presidency was sunk in peculation and profligacy as deeply as that of Bengal, with the additional vice of official poltroonery. Hyder, who was fully cognizant of this treaty which ^ jj treated him as an usurper, and bound the English Govem- 1768 War with ment to dismember his dominions, saw that he Hyder. jj^d now to maintain a struggle for his political existence, and he prepared for the conflict. An expedition from the Bombay Presidency had destroyed a portion of his fleet and captured some of his towns on the Malabar coast ; but he speedily recovered them, and returned to prosecute the war in his eastern districts. In the management of the war into which the Madras Council had so wantonly plunged, they exhibited the same spirit of infatuation as in their negotiations. Two "field deputies" were sent to control the movements of the force, and the supply of the commissariat was entrusted to the imbecile nabob of the Carnatic, who disappointed the Grovemment, as a matter of course. But notwithstanding every disadvantage, Colonel Smith overran half Hyder' s territories and captured some of his principal fortresses. Under the dread of a simul- taneous invasion of the Mahrattas, Hyder deemed it prudent to bend to circumstances, and offered to cede the Baramahal and to pay down ten lacs of rupees ; but the President, 1768 ooi. Smith's inflated by recent successes, advanced the most success. extravagant and inadmissible demands, and Hyder prepared for a mortal struggle. Colonel Smith, who had remonstrated with the Council on the folly of their proposals, was recalled to Madras, and the tide now began to turn against the Company. The siege of Bangalore was raised, and Hyder, with his usual energy and rapidity, recovered all the forts he had lost ; descended into the Bara- mahal, and turned south to Tanjore, and having exacted four lacs of rupees from the raja, moved up northwards towards Madras. The consternation of the community may be readily conceived. It was now the turn of the bewildered Hyder Council to sue for an accommodation, but after a 1769 dictates fruitless negotiation, they obtained an armistice of ^^^' only twelve days when they had asked for forty. Hyder resumed his course of desolation. Hfi drew Colonel Sect. II.] WAR OF THE MAHRATTAS WITH HYDER 171 Smith, Mko had been reinstated in his command, to a distance of one hundred and forty miles from Madras, and determined to bring the war to a termination by dictating peace under its walls. Placing himself at the head of 6,000 of his best cavalry he marched a hundred and thirty miles in three days and a half, and suddenly making his appearance at St. Thome, about four miles from Madias, demanded that an order should be sent to stop the pursuit of Colonel Smith, who was following him with the greatest rapidity, and that the President, Mr. Du Pre, who had succeeded Mr. Palk, might be sent to his camp to treat with him. Hyder was master of the situation and dictated a.d. Hs own terms. A treaty was concluded on the 3rd April, 1769 the salient points of which were a mutual restitution of conquests, and an alliance offensive and defensive. Hyder was to be assisted by a British contingent if he was attacked by any of the powers in the Deccan, and for the third time did the Madras Council involve the Company in the ever shifting and perilous politics of the Deccan. Thus ended the second Mysore war, with the loss of all the acquisitions which had been made and all the treasure which had been expended, and above all, of the prestige of the English arms. Hyder Ali, having settled his dispute with the Madras 1770 Government, and obtained the promise of its support, with- held the payments due to the Mahrattas and ^ ^^^ invaded their territories. The Peshwa assembled and the a large army with the determination to subjugate ^*^J^*^^ Mysore. Hyder's forts were rapidly reduced and his districts laid waste, and he was induced to make overtures of peace ; but as the Peshwa demanded a crore of rupees the negotiation was broken off. Hyder then advanced with 35,000 men and forty guns to Milgota, where he found himself entrapped into a false position. After sustaining an incessant cannonade for eight days he 1771 commenced a stealthy retreat by night to Seringapatam, twenty-two miles distant. It was, however, discovered, and the Mahrattas assaulted the fugitive army with great vigour, and it was saved from annihilation only by their eagerness for plunder. Hyder's capital was besieged for five weeks, and he importuned the President of Madras for that assistance which he was bound to afford by the recent treaty. The President and Council considered it of vital consequence for the honour and the interests of the Com- pany to support him, but they were overruled by the 172 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.V. interference of Sir John Lindsay, whom the prime minister, deluded bj the representation of the nabob of the Carnatic, had, by an act of incredible folly, sent out as the king's representative to his court. The authority of the Company's Government was at once superseded by that of the Crown, and the profligate nabob not only set the Madras Council at defiance, but induced Sir John to insist on an alliance with the Mahrattas. Hyder Ali, deprived of Biitish support, was reduced to extremities, and obliged to purchase peace by the payment of thirty- six lacs of rupees and submitting to an ^ jj annual tribute of fourteen lacs, and making a 1772 S^teStory! cession of territory which reduced the kingdom of Mysore to smaller limits than it comprised at the beginning of the century. He never forgave or forgot this desertion, and ten years later exacted a fearful penalty. Eight years after the Mahrattas had been expelled from Hindostan by the battle of Paniput, the Peshwa equipped Mahratta ^^ army of 50,000 horse and a large body of 1769 expedition infantry, with a numerous artillery, to recover to^Hmdo- their footing, and renew their spoliations. The first operations of this force were directed against the Rajpoots, from whom they exacted ten lacs of rupees ; and then against the Jauts, who agreed to pay them sixty- five lacs ; after which they overran the districts of the 1770 Rohillas, and ravaged the whole of the Dooab, or country lying between the Jumna and the Ganges, and returned to Delhi before the rains. The emperor, after the arrange- ment made with Lord Clive in 1765, had continued to reside at Allahabad, in the tranquil enjoyment of the annuity settled on him, and of the revenues of Corah and Allahabad, while the districts around Delhi still attached to the Crown were administered by Nujeeb-ood-dowlah, and, on his death, by his son Zabita Klhan. The emperor was naturally desirous of mounting the throne of his ancestors and estabhshing his court in the ancient capital. The Mahrattas were equally desirous of seating him on it, and obtaining the important influence of his name. In spite of the advice of the Council in Calcutta, who warned him of the danger of such a movement, he threw himself into their arms, and was by them installed on the 25th December. The next year the Mahrattas again overran Rohilcund, and the Rohilla chiefs were driven to solicit the aid of the Vizier of Oude. There are few transactions involved in greater obscurity than the negotiations between the Mah- Sect. II.] REFORM OF THE GOVERNMENT 173 rattas, tlie Rohillas, and the Yizier, on this memorable oc- ^•^• casion. It would appear that the Mahrattas offered to retire ^^^^ on receiving forty lacs of rupees, or a bond for Negotiations that amount from the Rohilla chiefs, but guaran- ^*^^® teed by the Vizier himself. The Vizier endorsed ° ^' the bond, and received an instalment of five lacs from Hafiz Ruhmut, the Rohilla chief, but neglected to pay any portion of it to the Mahrattas. Meanwhile, the Mahrattas offered to cancel the demand on the Rohillas if they would join in an attack on Oude, receiving half the conquered territories ; but they refused to listen to the proposal, and cast in their lot with the nabob Vizier. Several detach- ments of Mahrattas laid waste a portion of Rohilcund, but they were held in check by the combined force of the Rohillas, of the Vizier, and of the English brigade sent to protect the country. The Peshwa Mahdoo Rao, meanwhile, died at Poena, and his successor planned an expedition to the Carnatic, and recalled the whole of the Mahratta force from Hindostan, and they quitted it laden 1773 with the booty of three campaigns. At the close of the previous year the emperor, unable any longer to support the arrogance and rapacity of the Mahrattas, met them in the field, but his army was completely defeated, and he was obliged to open the gates of Delhi to their hostile battalions, and submit to all their demands. The British Government in India at this period presented a singular anomaly. The agents of a London trading Company had acquired the sovereignty of pro- Reform of vinces larger and more populous than England, the Oovem- They were making war and peace, putting up and pulling down thrones, and disposing of princely revenues. Their servants in India, with salaries of three and four hundred rupees a month, were coming home, year after year, with colossal fortunes, and setting up establishments which cast the ancient aristocracy into the shade. The Indian nabobs, as they were called, were exposed on the stage and avoided in society, from the impression that their sudden and enormous wealth had been acquired by injustice and oppression. The machinery of the Government at home had been constructed for the management of com- merce, and was ill suited for the administration of an empire. The posts in India which afforded the means of amassing these ambitious fortunes were at the disposal of the Directors, who were elected by the votes of the Pro- prietors. A vote was consequently considered so valuable 174 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. V. that in 1771 the ship's husbands, then a wealthy and power- fal body, bought fifteen lacs of rupees of stock to create three hundred votes. The India House became a scene of jobbery and corruption never seen in England before. The A.u. Indian Government was equally fetid in London and in 1771 Calcutta. A general cry was raised for Parliamentary investigation, which was redonbled by the financial em- barrassments of the Company. The frauds of their servants in India had exhausted their treasury. With an annual revenue of two crores and a half of rupees, they owed more than a crore and a quarter in England, and a crore in Calcutta. It was in these circumstances of impending bankruptcy that the Court of Proprietors voted themselves a dividend at the rate of twelve and a half per cent. The Court of Directors borrowed of the bank of England as long as the bank would lend, and then solicited a loan of a million from the English exchequer, to prevent the doors of the India House from being closed. The ministers referred them to Parliament, which was consequently convened 1772 earlier than usual. A select Committee was appointed to collect evidence, when the scenes of violence and iniquity by which the British name had been disgraced in India were, for the first time, laid bare to the nation, and Parliament determined at once to take the regulation of Indian afiairs into its own hands. The Company protested against this invasion of their chartered rights, but the universal odium they had incurred throughout the country placed them at the mercy of the ministry. The vicious constitution of their corporation was reformed. The Directors were to be chosen for four years instead of one; the votes of the Proprietors were to be limited to four, whatever amount of ,773 Regulating stock they might hold ; and twelve hundred of the Act. proprietors were disfranchised at a stroke. The governor of Bengal was appointed Governor- General upon two lacs and a half a year, with a Council consisting of four, on one lac each, and a Supreme Court was to be established in Calcutta on the model of the courts of Westminster, with a Chief Justice and three puisne judges. The Act, which was designated the " Regulating Act," purified the home administration, but it shook the British power in India to its foundation. Sbct. I.J HASTINGS'S ADMINISTEATION 17v5 CHAPTEE VI. SECTION I. MR. HASTINGS'S ADMINISTRATION TO THE DEPARTURE OF MR. FRANCIS. Warren Hastings was appointed in tlie Act the first Governor-General of India. He had landed in Calcutta as a writer on the Company's establishment in 1750, and was employed for the first seven years in Hastings's A"^ appraising silks and muslins and copying invoices. ^^^^^ career. The great events which followed the battle of Plassy afibrded the first opportunity of developing his talents, and he was selected by Colonel Clive to represent the Govern- ment at the durbar of Moorshedabad, then the most j^gQ important of subordinate ofi&ces in the service. Three years after he came by rotation into the Council board, and ofiered a strenuous resistance to those profligate measures of his colleagues which brought on the war with Meer Cossim. He returned to England after fifteen years' 1766 service comparatively poor, while Mr. Vansittart, who sailed in the same ship with him, was reported to have taken home little short of fifty lacs. After a residence of several years in England the Court of Directors restored him to their service, and appointed him second member of Council at Madras, where he exhibited such zeal and ability as to be selected to take charge of the Government of Bengal. Hastings found the administration in a Governor of state of complete anarchy. The double Govern- bengal. 1772 ment estabhshed by Clive, which was considered a master- piece of policy, had turned out to be the curse of the country. The management of the revenue, which embraced the most important functions of Government, was in the hands of natives, acting under the venal court of the nabob, though nominally under the control of the English Resident, and they were practically without any control whatever. The people were oppressed by the native functionaries and zemindars, who enriched themselves at the expense of the state. Supervisors were appointed in 17G9 to check these abuses, but they knew nothing of the language or of the people, or of the value of the lands, and became mere tools in the hands of their rapacious banians, or head officials. The Coart of Directors determined therefore " to stand forth as Duan," as they termed it, and 176 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. to take on themselves the collection and management of the revenues through the agency of their own European servants. To Hastings was committed the arduous duty of carrying out this difficult poUcy, and he entered upon it with his accustomed resolution. A. new revenue settlement was formed under the immediate direction of members of the Council. The charge of civil and criminal jurisprudence was committed to the covenanted servants of the Company, ^^* His vigorous and the treasury was removed from Moorshedabad 1773 reforms. to Calcutta, which became from that time forward the capital of Bengal. Without the aid of a lawyer, he drew up a simple code of regulations for the courts he had established, which exhibited in a remarkable degree the versatility of his talents. All these organic changes were completed in the brief space of six months. The first military operations of Hastings's administration exercised unhappily a very inauspicious influence on his reputation. The Vizier had long eagerly coveted the The Rohiiia possession of Rohilcund, and the Mahrattas had war. j^Q sooner returned to their own country, as already stated, than he importuned Hastings to assist him in seizing it, with the offer of forty lacs of rupees, as well as a subsidy of more than two lacs of rupees a month for the pay of the troops employed in the service. He represented that the Rohillas had offered to pay him forty lacs to deliver them from the Mahrattas, that they had been expelled by his army, aided by a brigade of Company's troops, and that the Rohilla chiefs now repudiated the obligation. The Vizier's tempting offer was made at a time when the Court of Directors, overwhelmed with debt and disgrace, were importuning the Council by every vessel for remittances. The treasury at Calcutta was not only empty, but more than a crore of mpees in debt. The nabob wanted territory and Hastings wanted money, and he persuaded his conscience that the statements of the Vizier were true, and that the ingratitude of the Rohillas merited punishment, more especially as this act of retributive justice would like- wise promote the interests of the Company. Hastings proceeded to Benares and concluded a treaty with the nabob to that effect, and at the same time restored 1770 Treaty with ^o ^im the two districts of Corah and Allahabad, nabob. which Clive had taken from him and made over to the emperor, and which the emperor had transferred under compulsion to the Mahrattas. For this grant the treasury was enriched by a further payment of fifty lacs. The nabob A.D. Sect. I.] NEW GOVERNMENT IN CALCUTTA 177 Vizier, having secured the aid of an English force, demanded of the Rohilla chief the balance of the bond, of which only five lacs had been paid. Hafiz Ruhmut offered to make good whatever the Vizier had actually paid to the Mahrattas, though they had left the country by orders from Poena and not through any exertions on his part ; but as nothing had been paid them, the offer was treated with contempt. The Rohilla chief, seeing the storm ready to burst, offered to compromise the claim, but the perfidious Vizier raised his demand to two crores. The Rohillas determined, therefore, to defend themselves to the last extremity, and brought 40,000 troops into the field, but they were Eohuias i^f^ defeated and dispersed, and the brave Hafiz defeated. Ruhmut fell with three of his sons. The Vizier re- mained beyond the reach of fire, but as soon as the battle was decided let his troops loose to plunder. " We have the " honour of the day," exclaimed the English commandant, " and these banditti the profit of it." This transaction is one of the few stains on the bright and honourable career of Hastings. It is doubtless true that the Rohillas, who had recently occupied the country, were, like all other Afghan tribes in Hindostan and the Deccan, dangerous and formid- able neighbours, and might at any time have joined the Mahrattas and overrun Oude, which the Company's Grovern- ment was bound to defend, but the war unquestionably originated in the rapacity of the Vizier and also in the necessities of the treasury in Calcutta. The assertion that half a million of people were driven across the Ganges, and that " the country became a howling wilderness," was an oriental figure of speech. Six months after the conquest of the Rohillas, the four judges of the Supreme Court, and the three new councillors, landed in Calcutta, and the new Government was j^g^ proclaimed on the 20th November. Of the Gov«mment 1774 councillors, Colonel Monson was a scion of nobility ^^ '^^ic'^**^^- and had served on the Coast ; General Clavering was the personal favourite of the king, and all powerful with the prime minister ; and Mr. Francis, the reputed author of Juninis, was equally distinguished by his talents and his malignity. They came out with the impression that the Government was a compound of tyranny and corruption, and that Hastings was a monster of iniquity whom it was the duty of virtuous men to oppose in every mode. At the first meeting of Council in which Hastings presided as Governor- General, they outvoted him, and at once divested N 178 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. him of all power in the Government. They proceeded to recall Mr. Middleton, whom Hastings had placed as the Company's representative at Lucknow, and sent Mr. Bristow one of their friends to occupy the post, thereby proclaiming the extinction of Hastings's authority through- out Hindostan. They ordered the officer in command in Oude peremptorily to withdraw the brigade, and to demand the payment of all arrears from the Vizier within a fortniglit, and thus compromised the safety of Oude, and the faith of the Britisb Government. During these transactions the Vizier died, upon which Mr. Francis declared that every engagement between the Company's Government and that of Oude was ^7^5 conduct thereby cancelled, except that which referred to towards the payment of arrears. Mr. Francis accordingly constrained his son to enter into a new treaty, and though he had denounced Hastings for " letting out "British troops for hire to the Vizier," not only repeated the bargain, but increased the hire of the troops. He likewise obHged the Vizier to cede to the Company the province of Benares, valued at twenty-two lacs a year. The deceased Vizier had accumulated two crores of treasure, which were buried in the vaults of the zenana. His widow and his mother, historically known as the " begums," claimed the whole of this property under the terms of a will, which, however, was never produced. The Vizier was under heavy obligations to the Company, and the troops, 100,000 in number, were twelve months in arrear. The treasure was state property and answerable in the first instance for its debts, but Mr. Bristow constrained the Vizier to affix his seal to a deed assigning three-fourths of it to the princesses, under the guarantee of the Govern- ment in Calcutta. The troops mutinied for pay, and it was reported that 20,000 were slaughtered, but the state was preserved from a revolution by the presence of the Company's brigade. As soon as it became known that Hastings's authority was extinct, and that the surest mode of obtaining the favour of those who were now in the seat of power 1776 against was to biing accusations against him, a swarm of Hastings. informers hastened to Calcutta and filled the antechambers of his opponents. Charges of every variety were rapidly manufactured and eagerly welcomed, and the triumvirate placed it on the minutes of Council " that there *' appeared to be no species of peculation from which the Sect. I.] EXECUTION OF NTINKOOMAB 179 " Hononrable the Governor- General liad thought it reason- " able to abstain, and by which he had amassed a fortune " of forty lacs of rupees in two years , ' ' The most important and memorable of these charges was that brought forward by Nunkoomar. He was by birth a brahmin, who had taken an active part in public affairs at Moorshedabad and Calcutta, and had accumulated a crore of rupees by intrigue and treachery. He had been repeatedly denounced to the Council by the Court of Directors for his knavery. On this occasion he came forward and offered to impeach Hastings of having received a bribe of three lacs and a half from Munee begum, who had been appointed by him to superintend the nabob's household. The hostile councillors proposed to confront him with the Governor- General in the Council chamber, but Hastings asserted that he knew what was due to the Hastings's a.d. character and dignity of the head of the Govern- dignified 1775 ment, and would not preside at the board to be criminated by the dregs of society. He dissolved the sitting and retired, when his opponents placed General Clavering in the chair, and called in Nunkoomar, who descanted on the venality of Hastings, and produced a letter from Munee begum, which testified to the payment of the douceur. The Council immediately voted that the Governor- General had clandestinely and illegally received the sum of three lacs and a half, and should be called upon to refund it to the treasury. The begum denied all know- ledge of the letter ; the best Persian experts pronounced the signature a forgery, but the seal appeared to be genuine, and the mystery was not cleared up till, after I^Tunkoomar's death, facsimiles of the seals of every eminent character in the state were found in his cabinet. For the vindication of his own character Hastings now brought an action for con- spiracy in the Supreme Court against Nunkoomar and several others. The judges admitted the charge, and held him to bail. Eight weeks after the commencement of this suit, a native merchant in Calcutta brought an action for forgery against Nunkoomar. It had been instituted originally in the old mayor's court, and Nun- execution of 1775 koomar was committed to prison, but released Nunkoomar. through the intervention of Hastings. On the establishment of the Supreme Court this suit, together with all others then pending, was transferred to its files. The forgery was established by the clearest evidence, before a jury consisting N 2 180 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTpKY OE INDIA [Chap. VI. of the most respectable European residents in Calcutta, and he was found guilty and hung in the most conspicuous portion of the town. This transaction was long considered the culminating crime of Hastings's administration. It was asserted in high quarters that the brahmin was murdered by Hastings through the forms of law, and that the execu- tion was designed to stifle all further accusations. But time, the vindicator of truth, has dispelled the clouds of prejudice. The coincidence of the charge of Hastings against Nunkoomar and of the native against Nunkoomar was purely accidental. There has never been a particle of evidence to connect Hastings with the forgery suit, and his own assertion that he had neither prompted nor encouraged it must be considered conclusive. The sentence, however conformable to the sanguinary laws of England at the time, was essentially iniquitous. The crime was not capital by the law of India, nor in the opinion of the native community, and it was committed before the Supreme Court brought the weight of English law to press on India. The odium of the deed is divided between the judges of the Supreme Court and the triumvirate who, possessed of supreme power, declined to suspend the execution of the sentence pending a reference to England, which they must have known would have saved his life. The Court of Directors, to whom both parties had appealed against each other, passed a vote of censure on Hastings, but it was overruled by the Court of Proprietors, who entertained an exalted opinion of his merits. During Hastings *^® height of the conflict in Calcutta, Hastings, A.D. tenders his worried by the opposition and insults of his oppo- 1776 ^^ K"«' 1 "• jigj^tg, had instructed his agent in London to tender his resignation, but two or three months later, having re- covered the tone of his mind, revoked the authority. The agent, however, seeing the strength of the current against Hastings both in Leadenhall Street and Downing Street, took upon himself to intimate to the Court of Directors that he was authorised to offer his patron's retirement from office. Then ensued several months of violent disputes in the Court between Hastings's friends and enemies, which resulted in a resolution by the majority that he had positively resigned his post, although his letters revoking his first instructions were before them, and they proceeded to fill up the vacancy. The intelligence of these transac- tions created a serious convulsion in Calcutta. General Clavering, the senior member of council, determined to A.D. Sect. II.] PROaRESS OF MARRATTA AFFAIRS 181 take possession of the Government, and was sworn in by his colleagues as Governor- General ; but Hastings, who repudiated the fact of his resignation, refused to give up the keys of the fort or of the treasury, and issued his com- mands to all civil and military officers to obey no orders but his own. The dispute was drifting into hostilities, yjoience and which must have been fatal to the public interests, death of j^'^ j when Hastings brought it to a safe issue by g^n-ciayer. offering to refer the question to the arbitrament of the judges of the Supreme Court, who, after long and anxious deliberation, continued till four in the morning, decided that any assumption of authority by Sir John Clavering would be illegal. He died shortly after, and Hast- ings recovered his authority for a time by his own casting vote ; but he was systematically opposed by Mr. Francis upon every question, political, military, between and administrative. The contest ended, ac- Ji^^p^lJ^^jg cording to the barbarous practice of the period, in a duel, in which Mr. Francis was wounded, and soon ijgo after returned to England. SECTION II. WAR WITH THE MAHRATTAS. To resume the thread of affairs in the Mahratta common- wealth, the constitution of which was passing through great and important changes. The four chiefs — ^^^ ^^ ^^ Sindia and Holkar, the Gaikwar and the raja of Mahratta Nagpore — originally the generals of the Peshwa, ^^^^^' were outgrowing his authority, and developing into inde- pendent princes, and enjoyed two-thirds of the Mahratta revenues. The military force of the state, consisting of 100,000 splendid cavalry, with a proportionate strength of foot and artillery, was no longer under the single control of the Peshwa ; a large portion of it acted under the command of these princes, each one of whom had his own individual interests to pursue. The young Peshwa, Mahdoo Rao, little inferior to any of his race in the cabinet or in the field, died in November, and was succeeded by his younger I77i brother, Narrain Rao, who recalled the troops from the banks of the Ganges, as already stated. After a brief reign of nine months he was assassinated, as the Mahrattas universally believed, by the orders of his uncle Raghoba, a 182 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. brave soldier, but an inveterate intriguer, always imprudent A.i>. Raghoba and never fortunate. He took possession of the 1773 assa^nates vacant throne, and at once plunged into hostili- ties with the Nizam, and constrained him to make a large cession of territory, which, however, by an act of infatuation, he restored to him. He then proceeded against Hyder, from whom he obtained nothing but empty promises. From these southern expeditions he was recalled to the seat of government by a formidable confederacy raised against him by the leading ministers at Poona. They had received intimation that the widow of the deceased Peshwa was about to become a mother, and they conveyed her for security to a hill fortress, taking the precau- tion of sending with her a number of brahmin females in the same condition, to meet the contingency of her giving birth to a daughter. The widow was confined of a son, who was 1774 installed as the Peshwa Mahdoo Rao the second, and a regency was formed to conduct the Government. Raghoba Raghoba's hastened towards Poona, and with the aid of movements. Morari Rao of Gooty, the greatest Mahratta general of the age, who had measured swords with Law- rence and Clive, inflicted a crushing defeat on the army of the regency ; but, instead of following up his victory by advancing at once upon the capital, and taking advantage of the consternation which prevailed, he turned off to Boorhanpore, and moved across the Nerbudda. There he was joined by Sindia and Holkar, as they returned from Rohilcund, and advanced into Guzerat to secure the aid of the Gaikwar's troops. Raghoba now opened negotiations with the President of Bombay, and made an offer of money and territory, in return for military support, which was eagerly nS^iates embraced. The Company, whose possessions had 1776 with Bom- been confined for a century to Bombay, had *^' always coveted the acquisition of the harbour of Bassein, and the island of Salsette, separated from it by a narrow channel. The President offered to assist Raghoba with a body of troops, on his providing funds for their maintenance, and ceding these coveted possessions in per- petuity to the Company; but he could not bring himself to alienate the island and the harbour, which the Mahrattas prized the more highly as they had been wrested from a 1739 European power, the Portuguese, about thirty years before. An engagement was nevertheless concluded with him, and a British force of 1,600 men sent to his aid. While the Sbct.ii.] battle of AKKAS 183 negotiation was pending, the Bombay authorities received information that a large armament was abont to be sent from Goa to recover Bassein and Salsette, and as they con- sidered that the Portuguese were likely to be more trouble- some neighbours than the Mahrattas, proceeded to take a.d. summary possession of them. Meanwhile, the regency at 1774 Poena having succeeded, by large offers, in detaching Sindia and Holkar from the cause of Raghoba, sent a large force to attack him. He was routed at Wassud, and fled with 1,000 horse to the encampment of Colonel Keating, who had by this time reached Surat with the Bombay de- tachment. A treaty was then presented for his acceptance, which 1775 stipulated that the Bombay G-overnment should famish him with a body of 3,000 troops to reinstate him as Peshwa, on condition of his ceding territory of the annual value of nineteen lacs of rupees, making an immediate payment of eighteen lacs, and irrevocably ceding Salsette and Bassein ; and he could no longer continue to refuse this demand. It was this treaty, called the treaty of Surat, which Treaty of involved the Company in the first Mahratta war, Surat. and it was concluded without the knowledge of Hast- ings and the Supreme Council. The Bombay authorities having thus embarked in a war with the regency, Battle of 1775 ordered Colonel Keating to march down on Poena. -^rraS' He found the Mahratta army strongly posted at Arras, and it was on this field that the English and Mahratta forces met for the first time since the gentlemen of the factory of Surat had gallantly repulsed Sevajee in 1669. The dis- proportion of the armies was as ten to one, but the Mahratta generals sustained a signal defeat and fled pre- cipitately across the Nerbudda, after having thrown their guns into it. The Gaikwar, who had hitherto held aloof, now hastened to join Baghoba, and promised to furnish him with a large supply of money and to secure to the Company a share of the revenues of Broach. The Mahratta fleet was simultaneously crippled by the English commo- dore. The campaign had been prosperous beyond the highest expectation, and the insignificant Presidency of Bombay had obtained territory of the value of twenty-four lacs a year. The Poena regency was tottering, and the Nizam had been emboldened by their weakness to exact a considerable cession of territory. These brilliant prospects were marred by the folly and perversity of Mr. Francis and his associates. They 184 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap, VI, pronounced the treaty impolitic, dangerous, and unjust, and A.D. Folly of the ^^^^^ ^^^ Unauthorised by the Supreme Council, 1775 suprenie which had been invested with the control of the Council. minor Presidencies, and they sent peremptory orders to annul the treaty and recall the army from the field. Hastings equally disapproved of the treaty, but took a statesman's view of their position, and affirmed that as the Company's Government was actually involved in war, it should be prosecuted with vigour, and concluded as speedily as possible. At the same time the majority in Council deputed Colonel Upton to Poena to disavow the proceedings of the Bombay Government, and to open negotiations with the regency. It was in vain the Bombay autho- rities remonstrated on the imprudence of destroying their influence, and withdrawing the victorious troops from the field, and the disgrace of violating a solemn engagement. Colonel Upton, on his arrival at Poena, found the astute ministers determined if* take advantage of these divided I77fi ^^- "^P^on councils. The;y extolled to the skies " the wisdom at Poena. "of the great governor of Calcutta, who had "ordered peace to be concluded ;" but when the Colonel proposed that Salsette and Bassein should be guaranteed to the Company, they assumed an arrogant tone, and demanded the immediate surrender of Raghoba, and the restoration of all the territory the Company had recently acquired. The insolent demands of the regency roused the indignation of Mr. Francis and his colleagues, and they determined to support Raghoba ; the troops were again ordered to take the field, and a supply of treasure was despatched to Bombay. But the regency, after a little more bluster, came to terms with Treaty of Oolonel Upton, and the treaty of Poorundur was 1776 Poorundur. concluded, which stipulated that Raglioba should disband his army, and retire to the banks of the Godavery, that all the territorial acquisitions of the Company should be relinquished with the exception of Salsette, which " might be retained if the Governor- General desired it," and that twelve lacs of rupees should be paid for the expenses of the war " by way of favour." Considering that all the advantages of the late campaign had been on the side of the English, the Bombay President was justified in pro- nouncing the treaty " highly injurious to the interests and *' reputation of the Company." It was a flagrant breach of faith with Raghoba ; it shook the confidence of the native princes in the engagements of our Government, and it Sect. II.] REVOLUTIONS AT POONA 185 inflated the regency with an undue sense of its power, which led to future difficulties. Four months after the signature of the treaty, a despatch was received from the Court of Directors approving of the treaty of Surat, directing that the territories Decision of a.d. ceded by Raghoba should be retained, and that H^.° ^J"'^*^ °* 1776 the other Presidencies should assist in supporting him. The Bombay Council, smarting under the indignity which had been inflicted on them, gave the treaty of Poornndur to the winds, invited Raghoba to Bombay, and settled a monthly allowance on him. The Poona regency raved at this violation of the treaty, but their strength was weakened by discord between the aged premier Succaram Bapoo and his younger associate Nana Fnmavese. To increase the complication of aflairs at Poona, a French adventurer, of the name of St. Lubin, anived ^^^^ there in March, and announced himself as the envoy of the king of France, then on the eve of a war with England. He was authorised, he said, to offer the regency the support of 2,600 Europeans, and equipments for 10,000 sepoys, as well as officers to discipline and command them. Nana Furnavese affected to believe in his mission, and made over to him the harbour of Choul, only twenty-three miles from Bombay, for the reception of the troops. Soon after another despatch was received from the Conrt, regretting the sacrifices made by the treaty of Poorundur, and stating that while the Directors ||spatch were determined to adhere to it, if any attempt frpm were made to evade any of its provisions, the "^'^ ^' Bombay Government should be at liberty to renew the alliance with Raghoba. The President found little difficulty in discovering infractions of a treaty which the Mahrattas never intended to respect, and prepared to espouse the cause of Raghoba. These movements were quickened by a revolution in the cabinet at Poona which placed the 1778 partisans of Raghoba in the ascendant, and an envoy was sent to Bombay to request the President to conduct him to the capital with a military force. Within a few months a counter-revolution placed Nana Furnavese in power, and extinguished the party of Raghoba, but the Bombay Council were determined not to abandon him. Their passions were enKsted in his cause, which they identified with their own ho- nour; and, without adequate preparation, without alliances, without even a commander in whom they had any confi- dence, they determined to launch a handful of men against 186 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA IChap. VI. the whole strength of tlie Maliratta empire. Nana Furna- vese prepared to meet the coming storm, increased his army, provisioned his forts, and refitted his fleet. A new treaty was now made with Raghoba, which differed little from that of Sarat. An army of 4,000 men, ^•^' Expedition of whom 600 were Europeans, was sent to capture 1778 tx)Poona. the Mahratta capital, under Colonel Egerton, an officer utterly unfit for the charge. Encumbered with 19,000 bullocks, besides other cattle, the army moved at tbe rate of two miles a day, while the forces of the enemy were accumulating around it. Colonel Egerton resigned the command to Colonel Cockburn, but the responsibility of all movements lay with Colonel Carnac, who bad been sent as civil commissioner with the force. On reaching TuUygaum, which had been burnt, a report was spread that the Mahrattas intended also to burn Chinchore, and even the capital itself. Colonel Carnac was seized with a panic, and though only eighteen miles from Poona, with eighteen days' provisions in the camp, determined, in the first instance, to open a negotiation with the regency, and then to retreat. Without waiting for the result of the negotia- tion, he threw his heavy guns into a pond, and commenced his retreat, hotly pursued by the enemy. On the evening Convention ^^ *^® ■'■^*^ January the army encamped at l779ofWur- Wurgaum. The Mahrattas brought up their gaum. guns dui'ing the night, and assailed the camp with great vigour in the morning. The bewildered Carnac declared that even a retreat was now impossible and made overtures to Nana Furnavese, who demanded the surrender of Raghoba before he would listen to terms. The commis- sioner would have complied with the demand had he not saved them from this infamy by delivering himself up to Sindia, and, under the auspices of that chief, the British army was rescued from destruction by a convention which sacrificed all the acquisitions obtained since 1773, and for the first time obliged the British Grovernment to give hostages to a victorious enemy. The Court of Directors lost no time in dismissing Colonels Egerton, Cockburn, and Carnac from their service. Bombay was now at the mercy of the Mahrattas, and its preservation depended on the arrival of General Goddard's expedition from Hindostan. Hastings, who had recovered his ascendancy in Council, gave his sanction to the proposal of the Bombay Council to support Raghoba, and resolved likewise to send an expedi- tion from Bengal across the continent, to frustrate the Sbct. II.] EXPEDITION OF GENEEAL aODDARD 187 mtrignes of the French at Poona, and to strengthen the ^ ^ Bombay Presidency. The force consisted of Q^^^^.g 1778 between 4,000 and 5,000 men, and was destined expedition. to march from the banks of the Jumna to Bombay, through 1,000 miles of unknown country occupied by chiefs who were far more likely to be hostile than friendly. It was pronounced by Mr. Dundas, the India minister, one of " the frantic mili- *' tary exploits of Hastings," but it was through such frantic exploits that British power and prestige had been estab- lished in India by a handful of foreigners. It was conducted by General Groddard, one of the most illustrious names in the history of British India. So strict was the discipline which he maintained, so punctual his payments, and so con- ciliatory his intercourse with the chiefs and people on the route, that they cheerfully supplied him with all his requisitions. The raja of Bhopal particularly distinguished himself by his generous hospitality, though threatened with the vengeance of the Mahratta regency. On reaching Boorhanpore the general heard of the misfortunes of the Bombay force, and turned out of his route to Surat, by which he avoided an encounter with a body of 20,000 horse sent fi'om Poona to intercept him. The timely arrival of General Goddard on the western coast, and the eclat of this celebrated expedition, proved the salvation of the Bombay Presidency, and re- stored the reputation of the British arms. The Goddsali's 177^ convention of Wurgaum was equally repudiated continued by the Bombay Government and by Hastings, ^^^^^^^' who directed General Goddard to open a fresh negotiation with the regency on the basis of the treaty of Poorundur. In the mean time Sindia connived at the escape of Raghoba, who repaired to Surat, where he was honourably entertained by General Goddard, and received an allowance of half a lac of rupees a month. The reception granted to him gave mortal offence to the regency, who determined to join the confederacy which had just been formed against the Com- pany, and in reply to the General's categorical demand of a reply to his proposal, informed him that the sur- render of Raghoba, and the restoration of Salsette, were the indispensable preliminaries of any treaty ; he therefore dismissed their vakeels and prepared for war. At the same time he concluded a treaty, offensive and defensive, with the Gaikwar, which provided that he should join the Enghsh camp with 3,000 horse, and receive possession of all the Peshwa's territories north of the Myhee, and make 188 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. over corfcain districts south of it to the Company, On the A.D. 10th February Greneral Goddard captured the noble city of 1779 Ahmedabad, the modern capital of Guzerat, and, having dispersed an army of 20,000 horse with which Sindia and Holkar were advancing to attack him, encamped for the season on the banks of the Nerbudda. The success which meanwhile attended our arms in the north-west of Hindostan was equally brilliant. Hastings Capture of sent a force of 2,400 infantry, with cavalry and GwaUor. artillery, under the command of Major Popham, one of the most enterprising officers in the service, to protect the little principality of Gohud, sixty miles south- east of Agra, from the encroachments of Sindia. He marched in February, and after having captured Lahar, 1780 without a battering- train, by the sheer gallantry of his men, proceeded to the celebrated fortress of Qwalior, on the summit of a stupendous rock scarped almost entirely round, and deemed throughout India impregnable. Sir Eyre Coote, the veteran hero of the Carnatic, then General in chief in Bengal, pronounced the attempt to capture it an act of madness, but Popham had set his heart on the " glorious " object," as he called it, and lay about the fort lor two months silently maturing his plans. On the night of the 3rd of August, under the guidance of Captain Bruce, twenty European soldiers, and two companies of sepoys, led by four officers, applied their scaling ladders to the successive stages of rock and battlements ; the bewildered garrison made a feeble resistance ; and at daybreak, without the loss of a single man, the British ensign was waving over the ramparts. The report of this achievement resounded through India, and served to wipe out the disgrace of the " infamous convention " of Wurgaum, as Hastings always designated it, and which he said it was worth millions to obUterate. Major Camac, who succeeded Major Popham, brought up an additional force, and not only invaded Sindia's possessions in Malwa, but threatened his capital, Defeat of ^^^ ^6 "^^s obHged to quit Poena to attend to the • Sindia. defence of his own dominions. Major Camac, who was no soldier, allowed himself to be surrounded by the more numerous army of Sindia. His camp was reduced to a state of starvation, and he would have been obliged to surrender had not Captain Bruce, who had distinguished himself at Gwalior, made a vigorous attack on Sindia's camp during the night. The surprise was complete, and he lost elephants, horses, baggage, and men, but, above all. Sect. II.j CONFEDERACY AGAINST THE COMPANY 189 his reputation, while the crest of his rival, Holkar, was elevated by a successful attack on General Goddard. Towards the close of 1779 Hastings received intimation of a general confederacy organised by the Nizam to ex- tinguish the power of the Company, which confederacy ^•^• embraced all the princes of India with the excep- against the 1779 tion of the Gaikwar. A simultaneous attack was ^gii^h. to be made on all the Presidencies. Hyder was to invade Madras ; the attack of Bombay was assigned to Sindia, Holkar, and the regency ; while the raja of Kagpore was to enter Bengal through his province of Cuttack. England was at the same time at war with the French, and they were intriguing at Poena. Never had the Company been menaced with such peril, and it required the extraordinary genius of Hastings to avert it. Hyder was the first in the field, and burst upon the Carnatic, as will be hereafter narrated. Bombay was left to its own resources, and the governor, Mr. Hornby, proved equal to the emergency. The gallant Colonel Hartley had cleared the Concan of the Mahrattas, but it was again invaded by Nana Fumavese, and he had to sustain for two days the assault of 20,000 Mahratta horse with only 2,000 exhausted troops, and 600 sick in his camp. On the third day the Mahratta general was killed, and the army became dispirited and retired. General Goddard ascended the ghauts with a large force, in the hope of capturing Poena, but he was incessantly assailed by the Mahrattas, and, being vigorously attacked by Holkar with 25,000 troops, was obliged to retreat to Bom- 1781 bay with the loss of 450 of his troops — the only reverse he experienced in his victorious career. The raja of Nagpore, in accordance with the compact, sent his son Chimnajee with 30,000 troops to Cuttack, but he was lukewarm in the cause of the allies, and Nagpore de- loitered seven months on the road. On reaching tachedfrom 1780 the province he found himself straitened for ^^ ^' funds, and he accepted the offer of sixteen lacs of rupees which Hastings made him on condition of his withdrawing from the confederacy. Hastings was thus enabled to buy off the most formidable member of the league, and to save Bengal from the horrors of predatory warfare. To relieve Madras from the pressure of Hyder's army, Hastings resolved to send a detachment of Bengal troops ; but as the sepoys had recently broken into revolt, and murdered their of&cers, to avoid a sea voyage, he adopted the bold plan of Bending them by land seven hundred miles along the coast, 190 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. ^P through unknown and probably hostile provinces. This 1781 was another of the "frantic military exploits of Hastings," but it effectually overawed the native chiefs and augmented our prestige. The raja of Nagpore, on the receipt of the money, agreed to send 2,000 horse to co-operate with this expedition, which Colonel Pearce conveyed to Madras in safety. After his defeat by Major Camac, Sindia perceived that with a victorious enemy in the heart of his dominions he had everything to lose by continuing a conflict £f(Sl?"*^ which might end in driving him across the ISTerbudda and destroying his influence in the Mahratta commonwealth. He accordingly made overtures to the British commandant which Hastings was but too 1781 happy to accept. They resulted in a treaty, signed on the 13th October, by which all the territories of Sindia west of the Jumna were restored to him, and he agreed to negotiate a peace between the Company and the regency at Poena ; and, at all events, to remain neuter. Hastings's anxiety for peace with the Mahrattas was quickened by the arrival of a French armament on the Coast, which he feared might result in the extirpation of our nation from the Carnatic. To bring the war with the Mahrattas to a close, he was ready to sacrifice every foot of ground which had been gained from them, not excepting even the harbour of Bassein. After a succession of disappointments the treaty ot Salbye was at length completed on the 17th May through Treaty of ^^^ mediation of Sindia, who undertook to 1782 Salbye. guarantee the settlement, and thus acquired additional consequence among the Mahratta chiefs. All the territory acquired by the Company since the treaty of Poorundur was relinquished, and it was stipulated that Hyder Ali should be required to restore all his conquests in the Carnatic and to release his prisoners within three months, on pain of being treated as an enemy by the regency. Nana Fumavese, after having accepted the treaty, delayed the ratification of it for six months, while he endeavoured to make advantageous terras with Hyder for repudiating it. Hastings's impatience for the completion of this pacification was raised to fever heat by the receipt on the 5th December of a copy of the resolution of the House of Commons, to the effect that he had acted contrary to the honour and policy of the nation, and that it was the duty of the Court of Directors to remove him from the head of affairs. The promulgation of this vote throughout Sbct. III.] UNJUST CONDUCT TO TANJOEE 1 91 India would not only have prevented the ratification of the treaty, but paralysed the authority of Government in a.d. every court ; but on the 7th the death of Hyder dispersed 1782 the cloud of anxiety, and Nana Furnavese immediately affixed the Peshwa's seal to the treaty. The peace thus concluded with the Mahratta powers continued unbroken for twenty years. SECTION ni. PROCEEDINGS AT MADEAS, 1771 — 1780. We revert now to the progress of events at the Madras Presidency and in the south of India. The little Hindoo kingdom of Tanjore had been in a great measure Proceedings 1771 exempt from the ravages of war during the at Tanjore. hostilities with Hyder, which terminated in the peace dictated by him under the walls of Madras. Mahomed All, the nabob of the Carnatic, now came forward and im- portuned the Madras Council to assist him in plundering the raja, as former nabobs had done. The demands of the nabob were exorbitant, but, after a little virtuous reluc- tance, the President sent an army into the country. The Tanjorines offered a spirited defence, but a breach was at length effected in the fortifications, when the nabob's second son, without consulting the EngHsh commander, who had been dragged into this unholy crusade, signed a treaty with the raja after having extorted an engagement to pay fifty lacs of rupees. In less than two years he again demanded the assistance of the Madras Council to extermi- nate the raja, on the plea that a fifth of the payment was Btill due, and that he had been in communication with Hyder Ali and the Mahrattas. The President was fully aware that to meet the extortion he had been under the necessity of pledging his crown jewels and even his princi- pality — to the Dutch at Negapatam, instead of to the English at Madras — but was base enough to resolve on his ruin. An array was despatched in September ; the raja was deposed and the principality made over to the unprincipled nabob. The Court of Directors, indignant at Directors 1774 this infamous proceeding, expelled the President, restore the Mr. "Wynch, from the service and peremptorily ^^^^' ordered the country to be restored to the raja. Lord Pigot, who had been in the Madras civil service forty years and amassed a fortune of forty lacs of rupees, obtained an Irish A.D. 192 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. peerage on his return to England, and was now sent out as governor of Madras ; and, though, offered a bribe of sixty- lacs of rupees by the nabob to prevent the execution of the Court's orders, proceeded in person to Tanjore and seated the raja on his ancestral throne. The restoration was no sooner proclaimed than Paul Benfield, a Madras civilian, came forward and advanced a J--, Paul claim on the revenues. Nothing can more clearly Benfield. demonstrate the total demoralisation of the Com- pany's service at Madras at that period than the fact that this man, who came to India without a farthing, and whose salary had never exceeded three hundred rupees a month, should not consider it preposterous to assert that for money lent to the nabob he had assignments on the revenues of Tanjore of sixteen lacs, and for money lent to individuals he had assignments on the present crop of more than seven lacs. After long dehberation, the Council rejected his claim ; but as they and other members of the civil service were creditors, real or fictitious, of the nabob to the extent of a crore and a half of rupees, they perceived that they were thereby impairing their own claims and the question was reconsidered. Lord Pigot and his friends strenuously resisted these nefarious proceedings, but a majority of seven to five voted that the assignments made to Benfield were valid. The breach in the council became wider. Lord Pigot Lord Pigot Suspended two of the members, and placed Sir 1776 confined. Robert Fletcher, the Commander-in-Chief, under arrest, and the majority retaliated by placing the governor himself in confinement and seizing the Government. The Court of Directors ordered that he should be restored to his position and then resign the service. Seven of the members of Council were dismissed, and Sir Thomas Rumbold, who had been in the public service in Bengal, was placed at the head of the Government, but neither was his administra- tion smooth, and it ended in his recall. Basalut Jung, who held the Guntoor Sircar as a fief of his brother the Nizam, had taken a small French force into Guntoor his service, but had acceded to the request of the 1779 Sircar. Madras Government to receive a British detach- ment in its stead, and to make over the Sircar for its support. The treaty was no sooner signed than it was leased for ten years to the nabob Mahomed Ali, that is, to his creditors, and a key was thus furnished to the transaction. Mr. Holland was deputed to Hyderabad to explain it to the Nizam, who expressed no little resentment at this inde- Sect. III.] PKOGKESS OF HYDER ALI 193 pendent negotiation with one of his feudatories, and this interference with the affairs of his family. But when Mr. Holland proceeded farther to request, on the part of the Madras Government, that the sum of seven lacs which was paid as tribute for the Northern Sircars should be remitted, his indignation knew no bounds, and he charged the Madras authorities with a flagrant breach of faith. It was under the influence of thin feeling of irritation that he set ^ j,^ himself to organize the general league for the expulsion of 1779 the English previously alluded to. Hastings on hearing of these proceedings immediately superseded the authority of the Madras Government at the Nizam's Court, and assured him that the intentions of the British Government were honourable and pacific ; that the Sircar should not be occupied, and that the annual tribute should be paid up as soon as possible. By these assurances Hastings was enabled to neutraHze the Nizam in the contest for existence which was now impending. The second war with Hyder Ali commenced in 1780, but before entering on the narrative of it, a review of his pre- vious progress for eight years appears necessary. Progress of It has been stated that the crushing defeat he ^I^Aq' experienced at Milgota reduced his possessions within a very narrow compass, but the confasion created at Poena by the murder of the Peshwa enabled him to recover his position. In November he subjugated the principality 1772 of Q'T^vgy which offered a noble resistance and was subjected to extraordinary barbarity. He promised the sum of five rupees for each head, and distributed the reward in person, and seven hundred heads were piled up before he ordered the carnage to cease. The next year he reconquered the districts of which the Mahrattas had dispossessed him, and 1774 strengthened his authority in Malabar. Alarmed by these incessant encroachments, and by the support he afforded to Haghoba, the regency at Poena formed an alliance against him with the Nizam, and the combined armies took the field in 1776 ; but the generals were corrupted by the gold of 1775 Hyder, the expedition proved abortive, and his power was extended up to the banks of the Kistna. Notwithstanding the refusal of the Madras Government to afford him aid, in accordance with the treaty, under the sinister influence of Mahomed Ali and Sir John Lindsay, he renewed the appli- cation, to enable him to meet the continued hostility of the Mahrattas. He asked only for a supply of stores and arms, and a small body of troops, for which he was prepared to O A.D 194 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. make a suitable return in money, but the Madras Council, who were still controlled by the nabob, resisted every over- ture and turned him into an irreconcilable enemy. Information was soon after received of the commencement of war between France and England, and PondicheiTy, vi79 War with which had been completely rebuilt, was captured France. after a gallant resistance of ten days. In an- nouncing this success to Hyder, the governor of Madras intimated that it was his intention to send an expedition against the French settlement at Mahe, a small port on the Capture of Malabar coast, through which Hyder had been ^^^^* in the habit for three years of receiving supplies and recruits from Europe. He replied that he should sup- port the French garrison with all his strength, and retaliate any attack by invading the Carnatic ; the place was never- theless attacked and taken, though his colours were hoisted side by side with those of his French allies. While Hyder's feelings were in this state of irritation, an envoy arrived from Poena to request that, as he had the same reason as the regency to complain of the perfidy of the English, he would join the general confederacy which had been formed to expel them from India. The regency promised an amicable adjustment of all differences, the relinquishment of the chout, and a confirmation of his right to all the territories he had acquired up to the Kistna. Their proposal was accepted with avidity. Preparations were now made on the largest scale. Hyder, in his seventy-eighth year, superintended every arrange- Hyder ment in person, and by the end of June had 780 bursts on the equipped the most efficient force ever collected amaic. ^^nder the banner of a native prince. It con- sisted of 90,000 horse and foot, a large proportion of which had been trained under European officers. His artillery consisted of a hundred guns, directed also by European skill and science, and his commissariat had been admirably organised by the Hindoo Poornea, one of the ablest of his officers. While this portentous cloud was advancing towards Madras, the Government was buried in a fatal security, and the Commander-in-Chief declared that there was not the slightest cause for apprehension, but this illusion was speedily dispelled. Hyder, having complet;ed his pre- parations, and proclaimed a /e^acZ, or holy crusade, in every mosque and temple in Mysore, burst on the Carnatic on the 20th of July, and his progress was marked by the blaze of villages and towns, and the desolation of the country. He Skct. m.] DEFEAT OF COLONEL BAILLIE 195 appeared determined to exhaust all the resources of cruelty which his ferocious nature could suggest. The wretched inhabitants were driven with their flocks and families to Mysore, and those who lingered were mutilated. All the forts, except four, held by English lieutenants, were sur- rendered by the venal or dastardly officers of the nabob. The Madras army did not exceed 8,000, of which number 2,500 were under Colonel Baillie in Guntoor, and it was not till clouds of smoke were seen in every direc- March of a.d tion from St. Thomas's Mount, nine miles from Madras lygQ Madras, that orders were issued to take the field. Sir Hector Munro moved out to Conjeveram to relieve Arcot, which contained the few military stores the nabob possessed, and which Hyder had besieged. Colonel Baillie was ordered to join Sir Hector with expedition, but he halted on the banks of the Cor till a when it was fordable, and the next day it was swelled by the rains, and continued impassable for ten days. Hyder Ali sent Tippoo with the flower of his army to prevent the junction, and an action was fought on the 6th September, in whichTippoo was so severely handled that he informed his father that no impression could be made on the English force without reinforcements, while Colonel Baillie informed the general that it was no longer in his power to join him at Conjeveram. Instead of proceeding at once with his whole force. Sir Hector simply detached Colonel Fletcher with 1,100 men to reinforce Colonel Baillie. So great was the dread which Hyder entertained of British prowess, that he had determined, in case of a junction of the two forces, to raise the siege of Arcot and retire. Colonel Fletcher and Colonel Baillie moved forward till the evening of the 9th, and a short march would have completed their union with the main body, but by an act of incredible fatuity Colonel Baillie ordered his men to lie on their arms for the night. Hyder Ali, seeing no preparation for any movement on the part of Sir Hector, brought his whole force up against Colonel Baillie. He planted his guns during the night with great skill, and on the morning of the 10th September the 178O encampment was enveloped by the whole Mysore army. The troops fought like heroes, and the European Defeat ol force, when reduced to 300, still demanded to be Saiiiie. led against the enemy ; but Colonel Baillie refused to sacrifice the lives of these brave men, and held out a flag of truce, when Hyder's soldiers rushed on them and would have butchered the whole body but for the interference of o 2 196 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. the French officers. Of eighty-six officers, seventy were killed or wounded, and the whole army, with all its stores, baggage, and equipments, was irretrievably lost. Had the Commander-in-Chief moved up when the cannonade was first heard, Hyder, attacked on both sides, must have suffered a severe defeat ; but the dastardly Munro threw his heavy guns into the great tank or pond at Conjeveram, destroyed his stores, and retreated in haste and disorder to Madras, hotly pursued by the enemy. A vessel was immediately despatched to Calcutta with information of the disaster. To the embarrassment of a Energy of war with the Mahrattas was now added that of a Hastings. ^^p ^ith Hyder, which had opened with the greatest disgrace the English arms had as yet suffered in India ; but never did the genius and resolution of Hastings appear more conspicuous than on this occasion. " All my " hopes," he wrote, " of aggrandizing the British name and " enlarging the interests of the Company have given instant " place to the more urgent call to support the existence of " both in the Carnatic ; nor did I hesitate one minute to " abandon my own views for such an object." He sus- pended Whitehill, the officiating governor of Madras who had refused to restore the Guntoor Sircar ; he despatched every soldier that could be spared, together with fifteen lacs of rupees, for the exclusive use of the army, not to be fingered by the civilians ; and the whole expedition was equipped and embarked within three weeks. The veteran Sir Byre Coote, who had extinguished the French proceeds to powcr on the Coast twenty years before, con- r'SO ^*'^^* sented to take the command, and retrieve the honour of the Company amidst the scenes of his early triumphs. Hastings also adopted the hazardous expedient of stopping the Company's investment and devoting the funds to the expedition ; but even this resource was found insufficient, and he was obliged, for the first time in his administration, to have recourse to a loan. Sect. IV.j COOTE RETRIEVES AFFAIRS AT MADRAS 197 SECTION TV. PBOCEEDINGS AT MADRAS, FEOM THE DEFEAT OF COLONEL BAIL- LIE TO THE PEACE WITH TIPPOO, 1780-1784. Sir Eyre Coote arrived at Madras, eiglit weeks after the a.d. disaster of Colonel Baillie, but found the equipment of the 1781 army so wretched, and the dif&cultj of obtaining Difficulties supplies in a country swept by hostile cavalry °^ ^°*'*®' so great, that it was ten weeks before he could make any movement. But his arrival raised the drooping spirits of Madras, and checked the career of Hyder, who, instead of driving the English, as he had hoped, into the sea, found himself confronted by his old opponent. Hyder had ob- tained possession of Arcot through the treachery of the nabob's brahmin commandant, and was engaged in be- sieging "Wande wash, which was defended by Lieutenant Flint with the same gallantry which had been displayed by Clive at Arcot. The hostile armies remained inactive for four months ; the English for want of provisions, and Hyder from a dread of encountering them. Coote then attacked the fortified temple of Chillumbrum, but was repulsed, and Hyder was emboldened to risk a general en- Battle of gagement, and marching a hundred miles in two ^°^^ ^°^°' days and a half, attacked the English on the 1st of July at 1781 Porto Novo ; but after an engagement of six hours* duration, was totally defeated, with the loss of 10,000 men, while the casualties on the side of Coote did not ex- ^^ poiuiore. ceed 300. The Bengal brigade was conducted along the coast by Colonel Pearce with admirable skill, and without a single accident, and he reached Pulicat in July. Hyder detached Tippoo to intercept it, and Coote marched 150 miles to form a junction with it, which he effected on the 2nd of August. Hyder had brought up the whole of his army to oppose his return, and taken up his position on the field where, exactly a twelvemonth before. Colonel Baillie's army had been exterminated, which the astrologers assured him was a lucky spot and a lucky day. The result of the battle was doubtful, and both parties claimed the vic- tory by firing a salute. In the month of September there was a third engagement at Solingur, in which ^^ soiingur Hyder was completely defeated, with the loss of 6,000 men, while only 100 fell on the side of the English, 198 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. Soon after the army retired into cantonments for the season at Madras, after a campaign in which all Hyder's plans were baffled by the superior strategy of Coote, and Coote's movements were crippled for want of supplies and equipments. In the brief period of seven years, two governors of Madras had been dismissed by the Court of Directors; one had been suspended by Hastings, and a fourth deposed by his own Council. The Presidency was demoralized to the core by corrupt transactions with the nabob, and the Court of Directors resolved to place the government in the hands of one who was free from all local associations, and untainted by the general corruption. Their choice ^ jj Lord fell on Lord Macartney, an Irish peer of great 1781 ^^^or^ political experience and dignified character. He of Madras, reached Madras in June, with the first intelli- gence of the war between Holland and England. Hyder lost no time in forming an alliance with the Dutch on the basis of mutual co-operation against the English. Their principal settlement on the Coromandel coast was Negapa- tam, 160 miles south of Madras, garrisoned by an army of 6,500 men. Contrary to the advice of Sir Eyre Coote, Lord Macartney equipped an expedition from Tanjore and Madras, which was confided to Sir Hector Munro, and 1731 Capture of greatly strengthened by the marines and seamen. Negapatam. ^he Settlement was captured in November, and found to contain a large quantity of military stores be- sides two valuable investments. Two months after, Trin- comalee, the noblest harbour in Ceylon, was also captured from the Dutch. But, notwithstanding the successes of the year, the pressure of the war was severely felt on the finances of Madras. All the revenues of the Carnatic, which ought to have been available for its defence, were absorbed by the nabob and his rapacious creditors, and the Grovernment was at length constrained to assume the entire control of the province, reserving one-sixth for the nabob. Colonel Braithwaite had been despatched to protect Tan- jore from the ravages of Tippoo, with a detachment of 2,000 .-jjp Colonel men, almost all sepoys. The treachery of his 7 Braithwaite. goj^es betrayed him into a position where he came nnexpectedly on Tippoo's army of 20,000 horse and 20,000 infantry and twenty guns ; for twenty-eight hours his force maintained the unequal contest without flinching, but was at length overpowered. "The annals of war," Sect. IV.J ARRIVAL OF THE FRENCH ARMAMENT 199 says tlie historian Mill, " can seldom exhibit a parallel to " the firmness and perseverance of this little army." This disaster was counterbalanced on the opposite coast by a sortie under Major Abingdon from Tellicherry, where he had been besieged for eighteen months, and the capture of 1,200 prisoners with sixty pieces of cannon. Hyder's de- a.d. Hyder began now to give way to despondency ; spondency. j 732 his French allies had not made their appearance; Hastings had succeeded in detaching Sindia, the Nizam, and the raja of Nagpore from the grand confederacy, and the Pesh- wa now threatened to combine with the English, and wrest from him all the territories he had gained between the Kistna and the Toombudra. He lamented to his minister his folly in having plunged into a war with the Company. " The defeat of many Braithwaites and many " Baillies," he said, " will not crush them. I may ruin " their resources by land, but I cannot dry up the sea, and " I must be exhausted by a war in which I gain nothing "by fighting." The western coast he considered the weakest part of his dominions, and he determined to con- centrate his efforts in that direction. He had issued orders to blow up the fortifications of Arcot, and to lay waste the Camatic, without leaving a vestige of human habitation, when these gloomy forebodings were dissi- pated by the arrival of the French armament. The French fleet was commanded by Suffrein, one of the greatest admirals France has produced. He met Admiral Hughes returning from the capture of Trinco- ^avai malee, and an engagement ensued which proved actions. 178J indecisive. Suffrein then proceeded to Porto Novo, and landed 2,000 French soldiers and 1,000 disciplined Africans. In June, Sir Eyre Coote attempted the capture of Amee, Hyder's chief depot in the south, but after an indecisive action under its walls, Hyder succeeded in rescuing his treasure and his stores. Two other actions were in the meantime fought between the fleets without any practical result, and Suffrein having refitted his ships, sailed to the south. Lord Macartney had received intelligence that a second French force had arrived at Galle, and he began to tremble for Trincomalee and Negapatam. He entreated Admiral Hughes to hasten to the defence of Trincomalee ; but he was jealous of interference, and sluggish in his movements, and on entering the harbour found that the place had capitulated four days before. The fleets now came again in contact, but the result was again indecisive. 200 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. VI A.D. This was the fourth naval action of the year, which was 1782 distinguished as much by the activity of the fleets as by the inefficient operations of the army. Admiral Hughes on his return to Madras announced his intention of proceeding to Bombay to refit his vessels after Admiral ^^^^ Severe actions. The governor represented the Hughes goes desperate condition to which the affairs of the to Bombay. Company would be reduced on his departure, with Hyder master of the Carnatic, Bussy daily expected with large reinforcements, and the French masters of the sea and intercepting the supplies of grain on which Madras depended 1782 for its subsistence. But he was deaf to every remonstrance, and set sail on the 16th of October. That same night the monsoon set in vrith a terrific gale ; the shore was strewed for miles with wrecks ; the largest vessels went down at their anchors, and a hundred coasting craft laden with rice were irrecoverably lost. Four days after Admiral Bickerton arrived in the roads from England, with a considerable fleet ; and having landed 4,000 troops, resisted all the importunity of the Government to remain for the protection of the coast, and insisted on putting to sea to join his commander. Madras was now subject to all the horrors of famine. The ravages of Hyder had driven the wretched inhabitants into the town for shelter and subsistence, and for some time the deaths amounted to 1,500 a week. Sir Eyre Coote's shattered constitution required him to retire to Bengal, and the mon- soon suspended all military operations. Soon after the defeat of the Mysore army at Tellicherry in February, Colonel Humberstone, who succeeded to the com- 1782 Death of mand, marched into the heart of Mysore, and sat Hyder. down before Palghaut, one of the strongest fort- resses Hyder possessed, but the Bombay Council ordered him peremptorily to retire. Hyder lost no time in sending Tippoo with a contingent of French troops to repel this in- vasion, which might have penetrated to his capital. He came up with the retiring force at Paniani, and assaulted it in four columns, but was driven back with great loss, when he determined to turn the attack into a blockade, while waiting for his heavy guns. But on the 12th of December the whole of his army was seen to strike its tents, and march ojQF to the eastern coast. A dromedary express had arrived the preceding evening with despatches announcing that *' the ever- victorious spirit of Hyder," to use the language of his native biographer, " had taken its flight to Paradise." Worn out by the fatigues of war, and suffering from a Sbct. IV.] GKOSS MISCONDUCT OF GENEEAL STUART 201 cancer in his back, lie sunk on the 7th. of December, at the a.d. age of eighty, leaving behind him the reputation of one of 1783 the ablest, most enterprising, and most successful princes in the modem history of India. An Asiatic army deprived of its head always becomes a scene of confusion and intrigue. On this occasion the danger was increased by the absence of Hyder's concealment successor, four hundred miles away ; but it was ^^ ^^ death, averted by the consummate prudence of Poomea, the ablest of his ministers. The death of Hyder was carefully con- cealed ; his body was embalmed and sent to Serin gapatam, like a chest of valuable plunder. All orders continued to be issued in his name, and his closed palankeen with the usual retinue moved out at the usual hour from the canvas enclosure of his tent. Tippoo, on his arrival in the camp, gratified the troops by a liberal donation, and entered upon the possession of a kingdom with a treasure of three crores of rupees and jewels of countless value, and an army of 100,000 men in a high state of efficiency. But the fatality which had blighted the Madras Presidency for fifteen years still seemed to pursue it. The departure of Sir Eyre Coote placed the army under the command of General Stuart, who was perverse, insubordinate, and incapable. Lord Macartney urged him to take advantage of the consterna- tion in Hyder's camp when his death was known, but he afiected to disbelieve the report, and the golden opportunity of striking a decisive blow was lost. With a nobler army and a more ample commissariat than Sir Eyre Coote had ever possessed, he allowed sixty days to pass without any effort. The anxiety which this inactivity created was happily relieved by the sudden departure of Tippoo for the opposite coast. The alarming in- Genial ^ jygt teUigence he received of the progress made by the Stuart. British force there induced him, without waiting for the arrival of Bassy, then hourly expected, to break up his en- campment and proceed in person to avert the danger. Bussy landed at Cuddalore on the 10th April, and found himself at the head of 2,300 Europeans and 5,000 sepoys ; but he found also to his mortification that Tippoo had left only 3,600 troops to co-operate with him. stuart at General Stuart, having no longer any excuse for Cuddaiore. delay, began his march towards Cuddalore with a fine park of artillery, and an army of 14,500 men, of whom 3,000 were Europeans. Nothing was wanting to the efficiency of this army — the largest ever yet assembled at 202 ABEIDaMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. the Madras Presidency — but a commander ; and the troops were looking with intense eagerness for their beloved old chief to lead them again to victory ; but Sir Eyre Coote, who had been persuaded by Hastings to return to Madras, died three days after he had landed. The expedition now moved on to Cuddalore at the rate of three miles a day, ^•D- and the town was invested on the 7th June. On the 13th ^'°^ Bussy made a sally, which resulted in a general action, and he was defeated, with the loss of thirteen guns ; but the victory was dearly purchased with the loss on the side of the English of 68 officers and 920 European soldiers. On the same day Suffrein made his appearance in the offing, and the two fleets came to an engagement, which A^as as indecisive as the former which had preceded it. Ad- miral Hughes proceeded to Madras to refit, and Suffrein reinforced Bussy with 2,400 marines and soldiers. On the 25th June, Bussy made a sortie, and was repulsed with heavy loss. But General Stuart, who had been peddling about Cuddalore for three weeks, had made no progress in the siege, while his force was daily wasting away from sickness, fatigue, and wounds ; and Bussy was waiting for the maturity of his errors to strike a decisive blow, which would have resulted, there can be little doubt, in the disgrace and retreat of the English army, and possibly also in the investment and capture of Madras. From this danger the Company was happily saved by the arrival ot 1783 intelligence that peace had been concluded between France and England. Hostilities at once ceased, and Tippoo was deprived of all the aid of the French troops. General Stuart on his arrival at Madras was placed under arrest by Lord Macartney and sent to England. It was he who had arrested Lord Pigot with great treachery ; and the facetious remark of the nabob's second son on this occasion is not unworthy of record : — " General Stuart catch one lord, and " one lord catch General Stuart ! The abrupt departure of Tippoo to the Western coast was occasioned by the success of an expedition sent by the ExDcdition Bombay Government against his possessions in fro"' that quarter. On hearing of the death of Hyder, Bombay. Greneral Matthews was despatched, contrary to his own better judgment, to seize Bednore on the table- land of Mysore. The ascent of the ghauts, which had been fortified at every point, presented the most formidable obstacles, but they were surmounted by the gallantry of the 42n(? Highlanders. When, howevep, the army arrived -5bvT. IV.] SUCCESS OF COLONEL FULLERTON 203 in front of the fortress, it was unexpectedly and uncon- ditionally surrendered. The Mysore commander, who was a favourite with Hyder, but hated by his son, had obtained ^^ the sightof a letter from him to one of the officers at Bednore, 1733 containing an order to deprive him of his command, and, if necessary, to put him to death ; and he made over the fortress to the general. After obtaining possession of it, he relaxed his vigilance, and allowed his men to disperse over the country in search of plunder. Tippoo hastened to recover it, and it was surrendered only when it had be- come a heap of ruins. Tippoo then descended to the siege of Mangalore, which forms one of the most memorable events of the war. The garrison, commanded by the valorous Colonel Campbell of the 42nd Highlanders, con- sisted of 700 Europeans and about 2,000 native sepoys, while the investing force numbered 100,000 men with 100 guns. The privations sustained by the garrison have seldom been exceeded. The place was defended for nine months with unsurpassed fortitude, and did not FaU of capitulate till the defenders were reduced to 850 Mangalore. mere skeletons. While Tippoo was wasting his strength and his reputa- tion on this siege, which cost him half his army, the Madras Government sent a force of 13,600 men q^^^^^^ across the Peninsula into the heart of the Mysore Fuiiaiton's 17S3 territory, under the command of another of the ^'^^^^• Company's great soldiers. Colonel Fullarton, who would in all probability have brought the war to a speedy and success- fol issue, if he had not been thwarted by the folly of the Madras authorities. After having captured the re- nowned fort of Palghaut and the important city of Coim- batoor, he was on the point of marching on the capital, while the Mysore army was employed at Mangalore, when he received orders to suspend all operations, and to restore the districts he had occupied. Lord Macartney, contrary to the express orders of Hastings, had opened negotiations with Tippoo, at the very time when the Peshwa, in ac- cordance with the stipulations of the treaty of Salbye, was threatening him with hostilities if he did not come to an accommodation with the English. The governor of Madras had even offered of his own accord a suspension of arms till the reply was received, and the progress of Colonel Fullarton was according arrested. Lord Macartney «ras so ignorant of the native character as not to be aware 204 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. that a proposal of negotiation is more likely to render it abortive than successful. Tippoo treated the proposal with silent contempt for three months, and then sent one of his most astute officers to FoUy of the cozen the Madras authorities, and they were ac- ^^^. tually persuaded to despatch two commissioners ment. to his camp at Mangalore. Tippoo was thus enabled to represent in every durbar that the British Government had sent two officers of rank from Madras to sue for peace. Disputes arose between the envoy of Tippoo and the commissioners which were referred to Madras ; and the Council, after reviewing their position, ordered Colonel FuUarton to relinquish all his conquests and retire, instead of directing him to push on to Seringapatam with his vic- torious army, and bring the war to a successful issue. Hastings, with his profound knowledge of the native charac- ter, reprobated the negotiation through these commissioners, and maintained that it ought to have been committed to Colonel FuUarton, and dictated under the walls of the capital ; but he was now powerless. The Court of Directors had recently renewed the condemnation of his proceedings, and the members of his Council had consequently deserted him; the conduct of the negotiations was therefore left to the Madras authorities, who fully maintained on this occasion their traditionary characteristic of imbecility. The commissioners were marched leisurely through the country, detained at every stage, and subjected to constant ___ ^ ^ indisTiity. On the fall of Mangalore they were Treatment -, -j, i - , ,i -kit ° j • U. j i. of the com- admitted into the Mysore camp and insulted by missioners. ^j^g erection of gibbets in front of their tents. The treaty, based on a mutual restitution of conquests, was at length signed. All that could be said of it was that it ^•^- Treaty of was not more disgraceful than those which the 1784 Mangalore. governor and Council of Madras had been in- variably making for fifteen years. It was equally injurious to the reputation of the Company and inimical to the in- terests of peace, and it entailed the necessity of another conflict to correct the arrogance with which it inspired Tippoo, and to which he gave expression in the following announcement : — " The English commissioners stood with " their heads uncovered and the treaty in their hands for " two hours, using every form of flattery and supplication " to induce compliance. The vakeels of Poena and Hyder- " abad united in the most abject entreaties, and his majesby, ** the shadow of God, was at length softened into assent." Sect. V.] ENCROACHMENTS OF THE SUPREME COURT 205 SECTION V. THE SUPREME COURT — CHETT SING — THE BEGUMS — CLOSE OF HASTINGS'S ADMINISTRATION — PROCEEDINGS IN ENGLAND. A.D. To RESUME the thread of events in Bengal. The Supreme Court, established in Calcutta in 1774, was intended to 1774 protect the natives from the oppression of ^^ Europeans, and to give the Europeans the supreme blessing of their own laws. The judges were ^°^^' commissioned to administer every branch of English law, and were invested with all the prerogatives of the King's Bench. Parliament had thus, in its wisdom or ignorance, established two independent powers in this new conquest, without deeming it necessary to define the limits of their respective authority, and a colhsion between them became inevitable. The first stroke fell upon the zemindars. They had been accustomed to use coercion in the collec- tion of their rents from the ryots, who had seldom paid them without it. The Supreme Court was no sooner established than it began to issue writs against them at the suit of any ryot who was persuaded to sue i*s en- them under the instigation of the attorneys who ments spread themselves over the country. They were dragged down to the Court in Calcutta, and sent to gaol if they were unwilling or unable to furnish bail. Even when the arrest was pronounced to have been illegal, they received no compensation for the expense and indignity to which they had been subject. A feeling of dismay spread over the country, such as had not been felt for thirty years, since the invasion of the Mahrattas. The arrest and humiliation of the in revenue zemindars destroyed their credit and authority, matters, and enabled the ryots to evade the payment of their rent with impunity. If the defaulters were subjected to con- finement, the attorneys advised them to apply to the court for a writ of habeas corjpus^ when they were brought down to Calcutta and discharged. The zemindars pleaded these proceedings as an excuse for withholding payment of their dues to government, and its resources, which were then dependent solely on the land revenue, were placed in extreme peril. The criminal judicature of the country, which embraced 206 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. ^.D. the police of thirty millions of people, had been entrusted tc 1775 xn criminal t^© nabob of Moorshedabad and to his judicial and judicature, executive officers ; but the judges of the Supreme Court declared that he was a phantom, a mere man of straw, without any right to the exercise of any authority whatever, and in one instance they issued a process of contempt against his Highness. They affirmed that the orders of the Provincial Courts established by Government, were of no more value than if they had been issued by the king of the fairies. They denied that the East India Company itself had any authority in India, beyond that of an ordinary commercial association, and affirmed that the Governor- General in Council was subject to their jurisdic- tion, and that it would be penal for him or any public officer to disobey any process they might issue. The judges doubtless acted conscientiously, but the whole fabric of Government was, nevertheless, shaken to its foundation, and the country was threatened with universal anarchy. 1779 The aggression of the Court reached its climax in the Cossijurah case. A native brought an action against the The Cossi- ^^j^i living at a distance from Calcutta, and not jurahcase. subject to the Court, and two sheriff's officers were sent with a body of eighty men armed with muskets and swords to execute the writ of the Court, and bring him up to Calcutta. They invaded his zenana and packed up his idols, but he escaped their vigilance. Hastings con- sidered that it was time to vindicate the authority of Government, and affiDrd protection to its subjects ; and ordered the party to be intercepted on their return, and liberated on their arrival in Calcutta. To prevent the recurrence of such visitations, he issued a proclamation to landholders of every degree to consider themselves exempt from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court unless they had especially bound themselves to submit to it. The Court then issued a process against the Governor- General and the Council, which they treated with the contempt it deserved. Petitions were addressed to Parliament both by the native and the European community, praying for redress, Appoint- ^^* three years elapsed before it was granted. In 1780 mentof Sir the meantime Hastings provided a more imme- ^^' diate remedy by offering the post of chief judge in the Sudder Court, the Company's court of final appeal, to the Chief Justice, upon a salary of 7,000 rupees a month. He accepted the office, but declined ary remuneration. All Sbct. v.] cheyt sing 207 the encroachments of the Crown Court ceased at once. The appointment was severely censured in Leadenhall Street and in Parliament, and Sir Elijah Impey was recalled and impeached, but honourably acquitted. The arrangement proved to be in a high degree beneficial to the interests of the country. Hastings had recently remodelled the judicial system, and though he placed over the civil courts the best men the service could furnish, they were necessarily without any judicial experience; and the Chief Justice, a lawyer of great eminence, was thus enabled to give form and consistency to their proceedings. With this object he drew up a code of regulations, clear and concise, and adapted to the simplicity of native habits, and it has formed the basis of subsequent legislation. The pecuniary difficulties of this period were greater than had been felt for seven years. There was war with Hyder Ali then ravaging the Camatic, war with ^ g^ the Mahrattas, and war with the French and ^ "^^' with the Dutch. The entire expense of all military opera- tions fell on the treasury of Bengal — the only Presidency which paid. Heavy loans had been contracted ; the credit of Government was low, and Hastings was obliged to cast about him for some exceptional source of relief. By the poHtical constitution of India, a feudatory was always liable to a demand for extraordinary aid to meet the exigencies of his superior lord. The grandfather of Cheyt Sing, the raja of Benares, had, in the confusion of the times, suc- ceeded in carving out a little principality for himself, which he held of the Vizier of Oude, and which Mr. Francis had constrained the Yizier to transfer to the Company, giving the raja a sunnud, or deed, which fixed his annual payment at twenty- two lacs of rupees. Hastings now made a demand on Cheyt Sing of five lacs of rupees and a body of 2,000 horse to assist in protecting Behar. The Hastings's requisition was strictly constitutional, and the requisition, raja paid it for some time, but at length endeavoured to evade farther payment on the plea of poverty. Hastings was assured that he had amassed a crore and a half, which was to a great extent true, and he construed his reluc- tance into a crime, and determined, as he said, "to make " him pay largely for his pardon, to exact a severe vengeance "for his delinquency, and to draw from his guilt the ^j^ "means of relief to the Company's distresses." Hastings 178O had occasion to visit Benares, and the raja, anxious to avert his displeasure, met him on the way, and ofiered 208 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. ^.D. him twenty lacs, but lie raised his demand to fifty lacs. On 1781 reaching the city, Hastings transmitted him a statement of his offences, and placed him under arrest by sending the two companies of sepoys he had brought with him to mount guard on his palace. The populace rose on them, and, as they had brought no ammunition, massacred them all, as well as their officers. During this emeute the raja escaped across the river, but the situation of the Governor- General was perilous in the extreme. His native force was annihilated. He was Escape of ^ ^ city renowned for its turbulence, and in the the raja. midst of an infuriated mob ; and he and the thirty gentlemen with him had only their own swords to trust to. Happily, the multitude, instead of attacking Hastings in his defenceless state, hastened across the river to join the raja. The whole province was soon in a state of revolt, but Hastings never lost his self-possession ; and it was at this critical period that he continued and completed the negotiations with Sindia which issued in the treaty of Salbye, with as much calmness as if he had been residing in his own garden-house in Calcutta. Equally remarkable was the confidence manifested by Sindia in the destinies of the Company, by affixing his seal to it under such circum- stances. Troops arrived rapidly from various quarters ; but Hastings, not considering his position tenable, made his escape by night through a window, and rowed down to Chunar. The raja collected an army of 20,000 men, but it was repeatedly defeated, and his last fortress, Bidgegurh, in The raja which his treasure was deposited, was surrendered subdued. by j^ig begums. Major Popham, the commander, 1781 took advantage of an incautious expression in one of Hast- ings's letters, and divided the whole of the prize money, forty lacs of rupees, at once, among the officers and men, to the infinite annoyance of Hastings, who had been calculat- ing on the receipt of it to relieve his pecuniary embarrass- ments. This is one of those transactions in the career of Hastings for which it would be difficulfc to offer any pallia- tion. Cheyt Sing was contumacious in having hesitated to afford the necessary aid to his suzerain in a great public emergency ; but the imposition of a fine of fifty lacs for de- murring to the payment of a tenth of that sum was a vin- dictive proceeding, and has always been considered a blot on his administration. The loss of the raja's treasure was a source of deep Sec. v.] plunder OF THE BEGUMS 209 anxiety to Hastings. There were 60,000 troops in the field, and the treasury was empty. The arrears which plunder of were due from the Vizier, however, amounted to a the Begums. crore and a half of rupees, and Hastings looked to this source for relief, when the Vizier waited on him at Chunar, and informed him that his own fands were exhausted, and that it was no longer possible for him to maintain the English troops employed in protecting his territories. He then alluded to the treasures of the begums, and requested per- mission of the Governor- General to take possession of them and thus discharge his obligations to the Company. At the same time it was asserted, but on the worthless testimony of Colonel Hannay, that the begums had abetted the re- bellion, as it was officially termed, of Cheyt Sing, and sup- plied him with troops and money. Hastings, under the severe pressure of circumstances, persuaded himself that ^ "the begums had made war on the Company," and he 1732 yielded to the earnest solicitations of the Vizier, and autho- rised the spoliation of the princesses. Seventy- five lacs of rupees were extracted from their vaults, and transmitted to Calcutta, but not before tlie two eunuchs, their ministers, had been subject to torture. For this act of atrocity, Hastings is no farther responsible than as it might be considered the result of his own injustice. To this treasure the begums had no legitimate title ; it was the property of the state and answerable for its obligations, but six years before, their right to it had been acknowledged under the seal of the Government in Calcutta, which ought to have been considered sacred. Hastings was so little conscious of the turpitude of this transaction that he ridiculed the censure which " men of virtue " might cast on it. But posterity has vindicated the principles of public morality, and although Hastings had no personal interest in the transaction, but was led into it by a mistaken loyalty to the interests of the Company, it has been the subject of general censure. These proceedings were severely condemned by the Court 1783 of Directors, and the members of his Council thereupon united in opposition to him, and he justly com- plained that while he was held personally respon- Hastings' sible for the safety of India, his degradation had Jfonj^''*^''^' been proclaimed in every native court, and in the Council he had only a single vote. In a letter of the 20th March to the Directors, after alluding to the patience and temper with which he had submitted to the indignities heaped 210 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. ^.D. on him during his long service, lie announced his determina- 1784 tion to retire from the Government. He proceeded to Luck- now, and in compliance with the injunctions of the Court of Directors restored the jageers which had been sequestered to the begums, adjusted all accounts with the Vizier, and then withdrew the Resident. On his return to Calcutta he addressed valedictory letters to the princes and chiefs of India, by all of whom he was held in the highest esteem, 1785 and embarked for England in February. From the king and queen Hastings met with a gracious reception, and even the Court of Directors greeted him with a courteous address. With one exception, ment of the ministry likewise evinced a very friendly dis- Hastings. position towards him, and Mr. Dundas, who had nioved the vote of censure upon him in the House of Commons, in terms exceptionally virulent, now pronounced him the " Saviour of India." But Mr. Pitt, the prime minister, was strongly biassed against him, and while ap- plauding his genius and his success refused to advise the king to confer any mark of distinction upon him. Burke, who had made Indian politics his especial stady for many years, had contracted a feeling akin to personal animosity towards him, and aided by the local knowledge and the unmatched rancour of Mr. Francis, who had obtained a seat in Parliament, denounced his conduct in the House of 1786 Commons. The House was induced to vote his impeach- ment at the bar of the House of Lords on twenty- two charges. Of these only three were of any serious import ; the Rohilla war, the treatment of Cheyt Sing, and the spoliation of the begums ; the rest were the mere litter of Mr. Francis's malignity. The trial commenced on 1788 the 18th February, 1788, andpresented themost august spec- tacle which had been witnessed in England since the trial of the bishops, a century before. The queen, the prin- cesses, the Prince of Wales and his royal brothers, and the peers in their ermine proceeded in state to Westminster Hall to witness the opening of the proceedings. But the most memorable scene in this great drama was the galaxy of genius in the seats appropriated to the managers of the House, Fox and Burke, and Sheridan and Grey, and Windham, names of imperishable renown in the annals of the country. In the presence of this illustrious assembly Warren Hastings, who had given law to the princes and people throughout the continent of India, was arraigned a;8 a culprit. The management of the trial was left with Sect. V.] CHARACTER OF HASTINGS 211 the Whigs, who conducted it with ability which has never been surpassed, and in a spirit of animosity which has seldom been equalled. They applied to him the epithets of thief, tyrant, robber, cheat, swindler, sharper, captain general of iniquity and spider of hell ; and then expressed their regret that the English language did not afford terms more adequate to the enormity of his offences. The trial dragged on for seven years, and ended in his complete and honourable acquittal, but it cost him ten lacs of rupees, a.d. and reduced him to poverty. 1795 The most severe censor of his administration, the philo- sophic historian Mill, admits that "he was beyond all " question the most eminent of the chief rulers q^^.^^^. "whom the Company ever employed, nor is of " there any one of them who would not have sue- Hastings. " cumbed under the difficulties he had to encounter." Cen- surable as some of his acts undoubtedly were, the grandeur of his career is by many considered as casting his offences into the shade, and one of the most eminent statesman of the day asserted that " though he was not blameless, if " there was a bald place on his head, it ought to be covered " with laurel." While the king and his ministers were losing an empire in the west, he was building up another in the east. The authority of the Company was limited to the valley of the Ganges when he assumed the government. He was anxious to avoid territorial ac- quisitions — and, indeed, he made none — but it was the object of his ambition to extend the influence of the Com- pany to every court in India, and to render it the paramount power on the continent ; and this object he fully accom- plished, in the midst of unexampled difficulties. At the time of his retirement the Company was recognised as the most substantial and important power in India, whose favour was courted and whose hostility was dreaded equally by Tippoo, the Nizam, and the five Mahratta princes. No British ruler, moreover, has ever secured to an equal extent, not merely the homage but the warm attachment of the people under his government, by whom, after the lapse of a century, the name of " Hustin Sahib " is still pronounced with a feeling of veneration. In February 1781, the petitions of the inhabitants of Calcutta against the encroachments of the Supreme Court were presented to the House and Reports of referred to a select committee, of which Mr. Committees, ^^g^ Burke was the life and soul, and which presented p 2 212 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. twelve able reports. On the receipt of intelligence of A.D. Hyder Ali's irruption into the Carnatic, a secret com- 1782 mittee was appointed, of which Mr. Dundas was chairman. On the presentation of the report, he denounced the conduct of Hastings and the governors of Madras and Bombay, and moved the recall of Hastings from Bengal, and Hornby from Bombay, for having acted in a manner repugnant to the honour and policy of the nation, and brought calamities on India, and enormous expenses on the Company. The House voted the recall of Hastings, and the Court of Directors responded to it ; but the Court of Proprietors, which, at this time, comprised men of higher standing and of greater eminence than the superior Court, passed a vote of thanks to Hastings for his eminent services. The pecuniary embarrassment occasioned by the expensive wars waged in India constrained the Company to apply to Parliament for the loan of a crore of rupees, which was not refused, but it weakened still farther their position, which had been seriously damaged by the unfavourable reports of the two committees, and there was a general outcry for remodelling the Government of India. Mr. Fox, then at the head of the coalition ministry, accordingly introduced his famous India bill, which had 1783 Fox's India been drafted by his colleague Mr. Burke. It BUI. provided that all the powers of Government should be transferred for four years from the Company to a Board consisting of seven Commissioners, to be nomi- nated in the first instance by Parliament, and subsequently by the Crown, while the trade was to be managed by nine assistant Directors. The patronage of the India House was at the time estimated at two crores of rupees a year, and it was maintained that the transfer of it to the minis- try would be fatal to the constitution. The Court of Directors, threatened with extinction, filled the town with complaints of the violation of chartered rights, and inflamed the public mind by a caricature representing Mr. Fox as Carlo Khan, mounted on an elephant and assailing the India House ; but the bill passed the House of Commons by a majority of two to one. The king had been persuaded that it would take the crown from his head and place it on the brows of Mr. Fox, and by the exercise of an unconstitutional influence, he induced the House of Lords to throw it out, and he lost no time in dismissing the ministry. Mr. Pitt, then in liis twenty-fourth year, was placed at Sbct.V.] PITT'S INDIA BILL 213 the head of the new administration, and brought in j^j^ another India bill, which provided for the appoint- pitt's India 1784 ment of a Board of Commissioners by the Crown, ^^^* with power "to check, superintend, and control all the "acts, operations and concerns," connected with the civil and military government and revenues of India. A secret committee, consisting of the chairman, deputy chairman, and the senior member of the Court of Directors was to act in subordination to the Commissioners, and control all correspondence of any importance ; and twenty-one of the Directors were thus excluded from all influence in the administration of India. Mr. Fox's bill annihilated the Company, but, under Mr. Pitt's bill they retained their golden patronage and their social position and the trap- pings of dignity, but the substantial power of Government was transferred to the Crown. The Proprietors, who had recently set the House of Commons at defiance in the matter of Hastings' recall, were restricted from interfering with any of the decisions of the Board of Commissioners, usually denominated the Board of Control, and, though they retained the empty privilege of debate, were reduced to a state of political insignificance. It was, moreover, resolved that " to pursue schemes of conquest and acqui- " sition of territory was contrary to the wish, the honour, " and the policy of the British nation ;" but this renewed attempt to stop the growth of the British empire in India only afibrded another exemplification of the vanity of human wishes. Mr. Dundas was appointed President of the Board of 178/) Control, and one of the first questions which came before him related to the debts of the nabob of Arcot. Tt^g j^^bob For many years he had been living on loans ob- o^^'^^o*'^ tamed at an exorbitant premium and usurious interest, for which he gave assignments on the districts of the Carnatic. When his court was removed from Arcot to Madras, the town became the focus of intrigue and fraud. All classes, both in and out of the service, not ex- cepting the members of Council, embarked in the traffic of loans, which became the shortest road to fortune. Every- one was eager to obta-n access to the pagoda-tree, as it was called, then in frill bloom. Hastings, on taking over the revenues of the Carnatic to support the war with Hyder, was anxious to deal summarily with this incubus on its resources, and proposed to deduct a fourth from the principal, to consolidate it with the interest to a fixed date, 214 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VI. and pay oif the amount by instalments. But the creditors would not listen to any proposal to cut the tree down. Mr. Pitt's India bill made provision for the investiga- tion of these claims preparatory to their liquidation, and Mr.Dundas's the Court of Directors entered on the duty with A.D. nary^pr?-" g^cat alacrity, but Mr. Dundas removed the case 1784 ccedings. out of their hands, and determined to pay oflP the debts without enquiry. The princes of India had already discovered that the most elGfectual mode of counteracting the Government of India, both in England and abroad, was to subsidize members of Parliament. The nabob of Arcot adopted this expedient on a magnificent scale. Paul Benfield was sent to London with large funds, established an office in Westminster for the purchase of boroughs, and in the general election of 1783, made no fewer than eight members of Parliament, whose votes were placed at the disposal of the ministry. It was to this Parliamentary influence that the anomalous proceedings of Mr. Dundas were generally attributed, by which Paul Benfield secured the undisturbed enjoyment of a sum little short of sixty lacs of rupees. The heaviest class of the loans was fixed, with interest, at two crores and a quarter, but it cost the Com- pany five crores before it was paid ofi*. Mr. Pox's Indian Bill made it penal for any servant of the Company, civil or military, to engage in money transac- Fabrication tions with any native prince, but no such clause of new loans, -vvas inserted in Mr. Pitt's bill, and the nabob and his friends embarked in the fabrication of fresh loans while the liquidation of the old loans was in progress, and on the payment of the last pagoda brought forward new 1806 demands, to the incredible amount of thirty crores of rupees. Parliament was now resolved that they should be subject to a severe scrutiny, and a board of Commissioners was appointed at Madras to investigate them, and another board in London to receive appeals. Theii' labours extended over fifty years, and cost India a crore of rupees, but they reduced the claims from thirty-two crores of rupees to about two and a half Mr. Dundas' s proceedings Revenues of regarding the revenues of the Carnatic were 1785 theCamatic. equally disastrous. The nabob had received a larger income from them while they were under the management of the Company than when administered by his own officers, but those officers and his creditors lost the opportunity of plunder, and induced him to become importunate for the restoration of the country. Sect. V.J LOKD CORNWALLIS GOVERNOR GENERAL 21 5 Contrary to the advice of the Court of Directors, Mr. Dundas ordered the districts to be given back to the nabob, that is, to his creditors, who began again to reap a rich harvest, while the Madras Presidency, with an army seven months in arrears, was reduced to a state bordering on bankruptcy. CHAPTEE Vn. SECTION I. ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS — MYSORE WAR. On the departure of Hastings, Mr. Macpherson, the senior a.d member of Council succeeded temporarily to the Govern- 1785 ment. He had originally gone out to India as Mr. Mac purser of one of the Company's vessels, but J^^^^gj attached himself to the nabob of the Carnatic Governor- and returned to England as his agent, and General, through the influence of the Duke of Grafton, who highly appreciated his abilities, was appointed to the Madras civil service, from which he was subsequently promoted to the Bengal Council. The great merit of his brief administration, which lasted only twenty-two months, lay in his economical reforms which resulted in the laudable reduction of a crore and a half of annual expenditure. The Government of the Company's possessions since the battle of Plassy had hitherto been given to one of the officers on their own estabHshment in India, j^ordCom- but it was found that whatever advantage waUis 1786 might be derived from his local knowledge and ^^l^i^' experience was counterbalanced by the trammels of local associations, and the difficulty of exercising a due control over those who had once been his equals. The ministry determined, therefore, to select for the office of Governor- General a nobleman of high character, un- fettered by any Indian ties of friendship or relationship. Lord Macartney, the governor of Madras, was chosen for the ap- pointment, but he disgusted Mr, Dundas by endeavouring to make terms with the ministry, and Lord Cornwallis was 216 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIL A.D. nominated in his stead, and he assumed charge of the 1786 Government in September, 1786. And thus, by the singular caprice of events, the man who had surrendered a British army to Washington at York Town, which entailed the loss of America, was appointed to govern India, while the man who had saved India under the most arduous circumstances was subjected to a prosecution for high crimes and misdemeanours. The Government of Lord Comwallis commenced under the most auspicious circumstances. Hastings's adminis- tration had been crippled by the chronic oppo- ofcom^ sition of the home authorities at the India House waiiis's and Downing Street. Lord Cornwallis enjoyed '^^ ^^ the entire confidence of Mr. Pitt, and of the Board of Control, to which the Directors were subordinate, and of which his friend Mr. Dundas was President. The office of Commander-in-Chief was likewise united with that of Governor- General, and Lord Cornwallis was thus enabled to control all the military arrangements and expenditure. Hastings had only a single voice in the Council, while his successor was invested with the power of overruling the votes of his colleagues whenever he deemed it necessary. The Court of Directors had been in the habit of nominating their friends and relatives to the most lucrative appoint- ments in India, and the influence of this independent connection greatly fettered the authority of government, and fostered and protected abuses. Hastings had protested against it, but he had not sufficient official strength to secure success ; Lord Cornwallis, on the other hand, was strong in the support of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas, and threatened to resign the Government unless it was discontinued ; It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that the arrival of Lord Cornwallis should have quenched the spirit of faction and intrigue, and given a higher tone to the Government. The first three years of his administration were occupied 1786 in the reform of abuses, which were to be traced mainly to mq Lord Corn- *^® vicious and traditional policy of the Court of waiiis'a Directors of giving small salaries, and allowing reforms'.*^*^ indefinite perquisites. The salaries came from their own treasury, but the perquisites from the pockets of the people. Every man, as Lord Corn- wallis remarked, who returned to England rich was deemed a rogue, and every man who went home poor a fool. He found the system of peculation in full vigour. The treasurer was lending the public fands at twelve per cent. Sect. I.] LOED COENWALLIS'S REFORMS 217 The Commander-in-Chief had given two of his favourites the lucrative commission of raising two regiments, but while they drew full allowances for the men, the regiments existed only on paper. The collectors of the land revenue, who were also armed with the power of magistrates, monopolised the trade of the district under fictitious names, and amassed fortunes. The post of political Resident at the court of the raja of Benares was considered worth four lacs of rupees a year, while the salary attached to it did not exceed a thousand rupees a month. Lord Cornwallis set himself to the task of reforming a.d. these abuses with unflinching vigour. He hunted out 1786 frauds in every corner, put a period to jobbing Lord Com. jJ^g agencies, and exorbitant contracts. He refused waiiis's stern to allow men of power and influence at home to ^^°^' quarter their friends and kindred, and sometimes their victims at the gambling- table, on Indian appointments, and he had the courage to decline the recommendations of the Prince of Wales, "who," he wrote, "was always pressing " some infamous and unjustifiable job upon him ; " but it was not till he had convinced the Court of Directors of the truth which Clive and Hastings had in vain pressed on them, that " it was not good economy to put men into " places of the greatest confidence, where they have it in " their power to make fortunes in a few months, without " giving them adequate salaries," that the purification of the public service became practicable. It has continued to improve ever since, notwithstanding the growth of the empire, and the Indian service now presents an example of administrative integrity which has seldom, if ever, been equalled. The Yizier lost no time in renewing the request he 1786 had not ceased for years to make, to be relieved from the expense of the Company's troops stationed The affairs in his dominions for their protection, but the o^O'^'^s- rapid increase of Sindia's encroachments in Hindostan, and the growing power of the Sikhs, convinced Lord Corn- wallis that the troops could not be withdrawn without great risk, but he reduced the charge by one third. The Vizier was likewise delivered from the pressure of the European harpies, who, under the predominance of British influence, had long been preying on him, one of whom, Colonel Hannay, had amassed a fortune of thirty lacs in a few years. He likewise conferred an inestimable boon on him by peremptorily refusing to recognise the claims of 218 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VII. any of his private creditors, whether European or native, and thus saved him from the fate of the nabob of Arcot. But he did not fail to remonstrate with him, though in vain, on the abuses of his administration. Tlie only con- cern of the Vizier was to obtain the means of personal gratification, and hence the zemindar was allowed to squeeze the ryot and the ministers to squeeze the zemin- dar, and he squeezed the ministers and pubHc officers when they were sufficiently gorged with plunder, and squan- dered the money in boundless dissipation. By the treaty with the Nizam, the Guntoor Sircar was assigned to the Company after the death of his brother Basalut TheGnntoor Jung. He died in 1782, but the Nizam steadily ^^^^^' evaded the surrender of it, and Lord Comwallis, A.XI. when taking leave of the Directors, was directed peremptorily '788 to demand it. In 1788, he drew a body of troops to the frontier, and instructed the Resident to claim the full execution of the treaty. To his great surprise, the Nizam at once acceded to his wishes, but he also expressed his confidence that the Company's Government would with equal alacrity fulfil the obligations to which they were bound by, the other articles of the treaty ; which were, to assist him with two battalions of troops, and six pieces of artillery whenever he should require their services, and to reduce and transfer to him the province of the Camatio Balaghaut, then usurped by Hyder Naik. With his usual duplicity he despatched an envoy simultaneously to Tippoo to propose an alliance for the extirpation of the English. Tippoo readily embraced the proposal, and demanded the hand of one of the Hyderabad princesses, but the Tartar blood of the son of Cheen Killich boiled at the idea of a matrimonial alliance with the son of a naik, or head con- stable, and the negotiation was broken off. Lord Comwallis was disconcerted by this manoeuvre. Since the unfortunate treaty of 1768, the Company's Lord Com- Government had twice acknowledged Hyder and pSnt^""' Tippoo as the lawful sovereigns of this pro- letter. vince, and to furnish the Nizam with the English brigade he desired would lead to dangerous complications ; on the other hand, it was important to prevent his throw- ing himself into the arms of Tippoo. To meet the diffi- 1789 culty. Lord Comwallis addressed an official letter to him, engaging to transfer the province if it should come into the possession of the Company with the aid of his troops, and Hkewiso to furnish him with the brigade on condition Sect. I.] AFFAIRS OF TEAVANCORE 219 that it should not be employed against any of the allies of the Company, a list of whom, which did not include the name a.d. of Tippoo, was subjoined. Tippoo was naturally irritated 1789 to find that the dismemberment of his dominions was within the contemplation of the Governor- General, and that he was prepared to place a British force at the disposal of the Nizam, with hberty to employ it against him. That this communication was highly injudicious will not be questioned ; but it is idle to attribute the war with Tippoo six months after to its influence, inasmuch as he had fitted out an expedition against the raja of Travancore six months before the date of it. The little principality of Travancore, at the southern ex- tremity of the Malabar coast, had been placed under British protection by the treaty of Man galore. Tippoo, who had long coveted the possession of it, had been andThe'^''^^ for some time assembling an army to invade it, and Madras the raja, to strengthen his defences, had purchased °^™°^®'^ • two towns in the neighbourhood of the Dutch. Tippoo demanded the surrender of them on the plea that they belonged to his vassal, the raja of Cochin. The raja appealed to Lord Cornwallis, who directed the authorities at Madras to inform both him and Tippoo that if the Dutch had really held independent and unreserved possession of these places, the raja was to be supported in retaining them. Mr. Holland, the governor of Madras, more unprin- cipled than any of his predecessors, not only withheld this communication from Tippoo, but endeavoured to extort a lac of pagodas for himself from the raja as the condition of supporting him. The SbYmy on the Coast was likewise kept in an inefficient state, and the pay of the troops was allowed to fall into arrears, while, in direct violation of the orders of Lord Cornwallis, the public revenues were appro- priated to the payment of the creditors of the nabob, of whom he was one of the principal. Tippoo suddenly attacked the "lines of Travancore," as they were termed, 1789 — the defensive wall the raja had erected — and was re- pulsed with the loss of 2,000 men, upon which he ordered up a battering train from Seringapatam, and reinforcements from every quarter. This wanton attack of an ally was an unequivocal declaration of war against the Company, but Holland proposed a pacific adjustment of the question to Tippoo, and soon after deserted his post and embarked ?or England. Lord Cornwallis considered it essential to our honour to 220 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA LChap. VII. defend an ally, and to take up the gauntlet which Tippoo Lord Corn- ^^^ thrown down. It was not a time for potter- waiiis's ing over Acts of Parliament, and he proceeded at once to oflfer alliances, offensive and defensive, to ^^p, the two native powers in the Deccan, the Nizam and the 1790 Peshwa, which their hatred and dread of Tippoo led them to accept with great alacrity. A tripartite treaty was concluded which provided that they should simultaneously attack Tippoo's dominions, and join the British army with 10,000 horse, if required, for whose services they were to be reim- bursed, and that the Mysore territories and forts conquered by their united arms should be equally divided among them. General Medows, an officer of acknowledged ability, had arrived at Madras as governor and Commander in Chief, and Lord Cornwallis entrusted the conduct of the Biedows's campaign to him. The deficiency of the com- abortive missariat, ovnug to the profligate neglect of campaign. jg[olland, retarded the departure of the army for several months, but the General was enabled to march from Trichinopoly on the 26th of May, at the head of a force of 15,000 men. Coimbatoor was captured in July, and Palghat 1790 and Dindigul, both deemed impregnable, in September, but the force was injudiciously separated, and Tippoo, hj a masterly movement, interposed between the divisions, one of which suffered heavy loss both in men and guns. When the war became inevitable Lord Cornwallis adopted the bold plan of Hastings, and despatched a large expedition to Madras along the coast where we had no allies ; and, not- withstanding the able dispositions of Tippoo to prevent its junction with the Madras army, it was effected without a conflict. Tippoo then proceeded southward, closely fol- lowed by General Medows, but these marches and counter- marches, which were without result, subjected the troops to severe fatigue, and weakened their confidence in the General. The campaign proved abortive, and Lord Corn- wallis determined to take the command of the army into his own hands. He arrived at Madras on the 12th December and made the most vigorous preparations to take the field. Meanwhile, Second Tippoo proceeded to the north, and having ravaged campaign, ^j^q Camatic, marched south to Pondicherry, and despatched a mission to Paris, to Louis XVI., soliciting the aid of 6,000 troops, for whom he would make suitable pro- vision. The unhappy king was then in the vortex of the Revolution, and replied : " This resembles the affair of Sect. I.] LOED CORNWALLIS'S SECOND CAMPAIQN 221 " America, of which I never think without regret. My " youth was taken advantage of at that time, and we are •* suffering for it now ; the lesson is too severe to be for- " gotten." The army was assembled at Vellore, on the 11th February, and marched without any opposition to a.d. Bangalore, which capitulated on the 21st, but not before 1791 Tippoo had succeeded, by forced marches, in removing his seraglio and his treasure. The Mzam's contingent of 10,000 horse was assembled at Hyderabad in the preceding year, but did not enter Tippoo 's dominions till it was certain that he had marched southward, and that there was no risk of encountering him. In 1791, they hastened to join Lord Cornwallis's camp as soon as they heard that Bangalore had capitulated ; but there was neither discipline nor valour in their ranks, and the flaunting cavaliers were unable to protect their own foraging parties, and soon ceased to move beyond the English pickets. Lord Cornwallis was now in full march on Seringapatam, and Tippoo determined to try the result of a battle. It was fought at Arikera, and he sustained a total Battle of defeat. Prom the summit of the hill, where the -Aj^era. last shot was fired, the eastern face of the capital greeted the eyes of the victors ; but here, to their deep chagrin, the campaign terminated. For several weeks the army had been suffering the extremity of want. The stores, scanty when the army began its march, were rapidly ex- hausted ; Tippoo' s light horse intercepted all supplies, and created a desert round the camp. On the 20th May the artillery ofi&cers reported that the bullocks were reduced to such a state that they could no longer drag the heavy guns, and Lord Cornwallis was convinced that the safety of the army depended on an immediate retreat. General Abercromby, who had been sent with a force from Bombay to cooperate with Lord Cornwallis from the western coast, had arrived within forty miles of the capital, but was directed on the 21st May to destroy a portion of his siege guns and bury the rest and retire to the coast. The next day Lord Cornwallis destroyed his own battering train and began his melancholy return to Madras. By the coalition treaty, signed on the 1st June, the regency at Poena engaged to furnish 10,000 troops to operate against Tippoo, but the minister, Nana Furnavese, still The Mah. allowed his envoys to remain at the court, in the ^atta army. hope — which he did not conceal — that, at the eleventh hour, Tippoo might be induced to purchase his neutrality by 222 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIl a concession of territory. When this expectation vanished and the Mahratta force took the field, it became evident that the primary object of the Nana was to use the British artillery in recovering the fortresses which Tippoo had wrested from the Mahrattas, and six months were occupied in the siege of Dharwar. Hence, in the first campaign of 1790, the Peshwa's force rendered no assistance what- ever. In the campaign of 1791 it joined the army of Lord Cornwallis only on the first day of the retreat. If he had received any intimation of its approach, the result of the campaign might have been different; but his intelli- gence department was deplorable, while Tippoo's admirable establishment of scouts intercepted all communication. The bazaar of the Mahratta army, rich with the spoils of India, presented a singular contrast to the poverty of the English camp, and the provisions they brought, though sold at an exorbitant price, proved a seasonable relief to the famishing English soldiers. The Mahratta sirdars, who had been enriching themselves by pillage from the day they took the field, set up a plea of poverty, and demanded an advance of fourteen lacs of rupees, which Lord Cornwallis was constrained to make to prevent the transfer of their alliance to Tippoo. It was on this occasion that he followed the example of Hastings, and took the funds provided for the Company's investment out of the holds of their ships. On his return to Madras Lord Cornwallis employed the A.D. army in the conquest of the Baramahal and the capture of '•^^^ Preparations *^® fortresses with which the country was for the third studded. Nothing filled the native princes with campaign, g^^,]^ g^^g ^f ^]^q military power of the Company, as the ease and rapidity with which such forts as East- naghery, Nnndidroog, Savandroog, and others that were deemed impregnable, were captured, while they considered themselves fortunate if forts of inferior strength were 1792 taken after a siege of six months. Early in January Lord Cornwallis took the field with a convoy surpassing in magnitude anything which had been seen before, and which led Tippoo to exclaim : " It is not what I see of the *' resources of the English that I dread, as what I do not " see." The army consisted of 22,000 men and eighty-six field pieces and siege guns. It was augmented, but hj no means strengthened, by about 8,000 of the Nizam's troops, more showy than serviceable, and a small contingent of Mah ratta horse. On the 5th February the whole force reached a position which commanded a view of Seringapatam, Sect. I.] TIPPOO OBLIGED TO MAKE PEACE 223 A.D. situated on an island of the Cauvery, protected by three 179J lines of defence mounting three hundred guns, and sur- rounded by a hedge of thorny plants absolutely impervious to man or beast. Tippoo's army was encamped on the northern bank of the stream, in a strongly fortified position, which Lord Cornwallis reconnoitred on the 6th, and determined to storm the same night. The generals of the allies were lost in astonishment when they heard that the English commander had gone out " like an ordinary " captain," in a dark night without guns, to assail these formidable lines. The conflict, which was carried on throughout the night, terminated in the capture of all Tippoo's redoubts, and the establishment of the British force in the island itself. Soon after Lord Cornwallis was strengthened by the junction of General Abercromby's force of 6,000 men from Bombay, and the operations were pushed on with such vigour that Tippoo was assured by his principal officers that no dependence could any longer be placed on his troops, and that he had nothing left but submission. Threatened as he was with the loss of his kingdom he accepted the severe terms dictated by Lord Cornwallis : — that he should surrender half his dominions, pay a war indemnity of three crores, and give up two of his sons as hostages. The generals of the Peshwa and the Nizam left the negotiations entirely with the English plenipotentiary ; but after they had been completed, the Mahratta commander put in a demand of sixty lacs for himself and the Nizam's general, as a "reasonable remuner- *' ation for their labours in the negotiations," but consented to its reduction by one half. From documents found at Seringapatamwhenit was captured six years later, it appears that the generals of both the allies were all the time engaged in a clandestine correspondence with Tippoo, the perfidious object of which was happily defeated by the prompt move- ments of Lord Cornwallis and the early completion of the treaty. The coalition treaty provided that the territories and fortresses conquered by their united exertions should be equally divided among the three signataries. The Mahrattas had given no assistance in the war ; indeed, their main body did not join the English camp until a fortnight after the treaty had been signed. The Nizam's force had done nothing but consume food and forage ; but Lord Cornwallis determined to adhere with scinipulous fidelity to the original compact, and made over a third of the indemnity, as well as of the territory, to each of his 224 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VII. 4j). confederates, annexing only one third, of the annual value 1792 of forty lacs of rupees, to the Company's territories. This was the first acquisition of territory after it had been resolved to prevent it by Act of Parliament. Mr. Pitt, when introducing his Bill in 1784, stated ttfe^owth" *^^t ^is first and principal object was to prevent of the em- the govcmor of Bengal from being ambitious, ^^^' and bent on conquest ; but, though the dread of territorial expansion was the bugbear of the day, and continued to haunt the India House and Downing Street till we had absorbed all India, the tendency of our policy for twenty years had lain in an opposite direction. Olive had given back the kingdom of Oude in 1765, when it was forfeited by the issue of the war, and he denounced any attempt to extend our dominions beyond the Curum- nussa. Hastings was at one time prepared to relin- quish the Northern Sircars ; Lord Cornwallis, soon after he assumed the Government expressed his wish to withdraw from the Malabar coast, and reduce Bombay to the posi- tion of a factory ; and Lord Shelburn, when prime minister in 1782. proposed to abandon Madras, and give up everything but Bengal and Bombay. If the size of the Indian empire had depended on the wishes or the policy of the public authorities of the day, it would have been comprised within very narrow limits. The increase of the Company's dominions in India, which was reprobated by the Court of Directors, by Parliament Cause of the ^^^ by the ministry, arose from the progress of growth. circumstances over which none of those authori- ties had any control. From time immemorial, aggression had been the vital principle of all native states. Twenty- five centuries before, the father of Hindoo legislation had placed conquest among the foremost of royal virtues. " What the king has not got," said Munoo, " let him " strive to gain by military strength ;" and it was a precept never disregarded. The Mahomedans adopted this stand- ing rule, not only in reference to infidel princes, but to those of their own creed. Every new dynasty proceeded to attack and appropriate the dominions of its neighbours. Daring the eighteenth century, the political cauldron in India had been seething with more than ordinary violence. The four chief powers of the period, Tippoo, the Nizam, the Peshwa and Sindia, who, had been established within the previous sixty years, were maintained in vigour by the impulse of aggressiveness. Scarcely a year had passed Sbctt. I.] EE VENUE AND JUDICIAL KEFOKMS 225 without an invasion of the rights of some prince in Hindo- ^^j,, stan or the Deccan. It was in this state of things that the 1792 Company appeared on the scene, and took np arms for the defence of their factories, and by the superior discipHne and valour of their troops became a first-rate mihtary power, and consequently an object of jealousy and dread to the belli- gerent princes of India. It was the restlessness and en- croachment of the native princes, and not the ambition of English rulers, that gave rise to nearly all the wars in which they were engaged. The slightest symptom of weakness, and too frequently the appearance of moderation, became the signal for hostihty ; and when the aggression was subdued it appeared the dictate of prudence to prevent the repetition of it by reducing the resources of the ag- gressor, and depriving him of some portion of his territory. And thus has the British empire in India been gradually extended by a mysterious and inexorable necessity, which has overpowered not only the opposition of the India House and the ministry, and the denunciations of English patriots, but the omnipotence of Parliament. The House of Commons ratified all the proceedings of Lord Com- wallis, not excepting even the acquisition of territory, and the king conferred on him the dignity of a marquis. The precedent has been scrupulously followed ever since, and every Governor- General who has enlarged the British dominions in India has received the thanks of Parliament and been decorated with honours by the Crown. SECTION II. LORD CORNWALLIS'S ADMINISTRATION — REVENUE AND JUDICIAT. REB'ORMS — PROGRESS OF SINDIA. The brilliant success of the Mysore war reflected great credit on Lord Cornwallis ; but the permanent reputation of his administration rests on his revenue and Revenue judicial reforms. The changes which had been reforms. so repeatedly made in the revenue arrangements during the thirty years of our rule were found to have been equally detrimental to the welfare of the ryots and the interests of the state, and Lord Cornwallis, soon after his arrival, affirmed that agriculture and internal commerce were in a state of rapid decay, and that no class appeared to flourish Q 226 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VU but the money-lenders. The Court of Directors felt the necessity of adopting some decisive policy to arrest the pro- gress of rain, and accordingly framed their memorable letter A.D. of the 12th April , the salient points of which were, that the 1786 settlement should be made with the old zemindars, and not with farmers or with temporary renters, — on the ground of fiscal expediency, and not as a matter of right, — and for a period of ten years, and eventually, if it was found to work well, in perpetuity. Lord Cornwallis employed three years in endeavouring to acquire information on the subject to serve as the basis of a settlement. The fee simple of the land had always been considered as belonging to the sovereign, but the Court of Directors, acting on a generous and enlightened policy, determined to confer it on the zemindars, and thus give them a permanent interest in the soil. The land thus became real property, and a large and opulent class of landholders was thereby created. The relationship between the zemindar and the ryot was an important question, and involved in great perplexity, which has not yet been removed. The zemindar had always squeezed out of the ryot every farthing that could be realised, leaving him little beyond a rag and a hovel. Mr. Shore, who superintended the settlement, the ablest revenue officer in India, was of opinion that some decisive provision should be made to ensure an equitable adjust- ment of the demands of the zemindar, but, unfortunately, the regulations passed to protect the ryot from extortion were indefinite and inadequate. He was, indeed, permitted to resort to law, but to expect that a poor cultivator could appeal to the courts against a rich and powerful landlord was an absurdity. This defect was unquestionably a blot in the settlement, which, in other respects, was benevolent, if not beneficent. After the settlement had been completed, the important question arose whether it should be decennial or permanent. 1792 Tn,^«»-^» Lord Cornwallis maintained that a fixed and un- Tne perma- t ■ i i nent settle- alterable settlement was the only panacea for the ™®°** evils which afflicted the country, and the only protection from the still greater ruin which threatened it, and that the grant of this' boon would give the zemindars an irresistible inducement to promote the cultivation of the land and the welfare of the ryots. On the other hand, Mr. Shore, who was far better acquainted with the subject than the Governor-General, opposed with equal tenacity the proposal to make the settlement irrevocable. He argued Sbct. II. J PERPETUAL SETTLEMENT 227 that the Government had only the roughest estimate of the capabilities of the land and of the collections, that the land revenue formed the bone and muscle of the public resources, and that it was preposterous to fix the revenue for ever without any definition of the boundaries of estates, and when a third of Bengal was a jungle. As to the public spirit of the zemindars which a permanent settle- ment was expected to foster, he justly remarked that the whole zemindary system was a mere conflict of extortion on the one part and resistance on the other, and that it was vain to hope for any improvement. The question was referred to Leadenhall Street, and some of the Directors, influenced partly by their own local experience in India and partly by Mr. Shore's opinion, proposed to make it decennial. It was then placed before the Board of Control, and Mr. Pitt, who had studied Indian subjects as no prime minister has ever studied them since, closely investigated it for a week in conjunction with Mr. Dundas and Mr. Charles Grant, and came to the determination to make the settlement permanent, and it was promulgated at Calcutta a.d. on the 22nd March, 1 793. It was the boldest and most impor- ^'^^^ tant administrative measure the Company had ever ventured upon. Under its operation cultivation has been extended, and the opulence of the provinces has been augmented ; the zemindars, and those who have acquired interests in the land under them, have grown wealthy, and the comfort of the cultivators has, perhaps, been promoted. But it is now universally felt that the permanent character given to it was an egregious blunder, and that a term of fifty years, if not of a shorter period, would have equally promoted the object in view. No margin was allowed to meet the in- evitable increase of expenditure which would be required for the defence of the country, or for the improvement of it by the institutions of civilisation. The Government has, however, continued for a period of eighty years to maintain the settlement to the very letter with scrupulous fidelity under every emergency, and has thus exhibited an example of good faith heretofore unknown in India. The administration of Lord Comwallis was likewise distinguished by a radical change in the fiscal and judicial branches. The control of the revenue was con- centrated in a board in Calcutta. A civil court criminal was established in each district and in the prin- <^o"^- cipal cities, presided over by a covenanted servant of the Company. Four courts of appeal were erected at Calcatta, <12 228 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIL J,.!,. Dacca, Moorsliedabad, and Patna, from whose decisions an 1793 appeal lay to the sudder or chief court at the Presidency, composed of the Governor- General and the members of Council. The judges of the four courts of appeal were to proceed on circuit twice a year to administer criminal justice and to hold jail dehveries. The district judges were likewise invested with magisterial powers, and authorised to pass sentence in trivial matters, and to commit delinquents for trial before the judges of circuit. Within circles of about twenty miles a native officer, called a daroga, was appointed to arrest offenders on written charges, and to take security, not only for his appearance, but also for that of the witnesses, before the magistrate. For more than ten years the simple rules for the adminis- tration of justice drawn up by Sir Elijah Impey had been the manual of the courts. Lord Oomwallis determined that all the regulations affecting the rights, the property, and the persons of the subjects of Govern- ment should be embodied in a code, and translated into Bengalee and Persian. Mr. George Barlow, a civilian of mark, but without any legal education, was entrusted with the charge of drawing up the new code, and he expanded the ordinances of Sir Elijah into a bulky folio of regula- tions, but without improving them. This volume of laws, however valuable as a monument of British philanthropy, was little suited to the habits or wants of a people accus- tomed to prompt and simple justice. The course of pro- cedure was loaded with formalities, and, combined with the multiplication of technical rules, tended to defeat the object in view. Every suit became a game of chess ; "justice," as the natives observed, " was made sour by delay," and equity was smothered by legal processes. To crown the grievance, the business of the conrts was transacted in a language — the Persian — equally foreign to the judges, the suitors, and the witnesses. The wisdom and judgment manifested in Lord Corn- wallis's various institutions have always been freely ac- 1793 knowledged, but they were deformed by one great and Exclusion of radical blemish. From the days of Akbar all natives. ^jiy^i ^j^j jxiiHtary offices, even those of the highest grade, had, with occasional exceptions, been open to all the natives of the country ; and, in the early days of Hastings, some of the most important offices in the state had been enjoyed by natives of merit or influence. Lord Cornwallis pronounced the natives unworthy of trust, and considered that the administration in every department Sect. IJ.] PKOaRESS OF INDIA 229 ought to be conducted by the Company's covenanted ser- vants, some three hundred in number, to the entire exclusion of native agency, with the exception of the daroga on twenty- five rupees a month, and a moonsiff to try petty civil suits, to be paid by a commission on them ; in other words, by the encouragement of Htigation. Every prospect of honourable ambition was thus closed at once against the natives of the country, and the fatal effects of this ostracism were speedily visible in the inefficiency of the whole system of govern- ment. The only other event of any note iu the year 1793 was the capture of Pondicherry on the declaration of war between France and England at the outbreak of q^^^^^.^ ^^ the Hevolution, Lord Cornwallis embarked for Pondi- j^gg England in October, after a memorable reign of °^®'^- seven years, during which period he had contributed to the purity and vigour of the power created by the daring of Clive, and consolidated by the genius of Hastings. The dignity of his character, and his firmness and integrity, com- bined with his calmness and moderation, conciliated and swayed the native princes, and commanded the cheerful obedience of the European servants. The treaty of Salbye, which Sindia had concluded with Hastings in 1782 on the part of the Peshwa, gave him an elevated position in the Mahratta commonwealth, progress of He was no longer the mere feudatory of Poena, Sindia. but an independent chief, and an ally of the British Go- vernment, and he determined to push his schemes of ambition in Hindostan, for which circumstances were peculiarly favourable. The imbecile emperor was a mere puppet in the hands of his minister, Afrasiab Khan, who invited Sindia, in his master's name, to assist in demolish- ing the power of his rival, Mahomed Beg, and he accord- 1784 ingly advanced with a large army to Agra, where he had an interview with the emperor. Soon after Afrasiab was assassinated, and Sindia became master of the situation, and was appointed the executive minister of the empire, with the command of the imperial troops. The districts of Agra and Delhi were assigned for their support, and he was thus put in possession of the Doab, the province lying between the Jumna and the Granges, and its great resources. Intoxicated with this success, he preferred a demand for the chout of Bengal, which was indignantly rejected by Mr. Macpherson, the officiating Governor- 1785 General. He then proceeded to demand the arrears of 230 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VII. tribute, which he stated at sixty lacs of rupees, from the Rajpoots at the gates of Jeypore. The greater portion of the amount was paid, but, on his demanding the balance, the Rajpoots made common cause to resist him. In the battle which ensued, he was deserted by Mahomed Beg, and by the whole of the imperial troops, who took over A.D. eighty pieces of cannon to the enemy. He was discomfited 1787 and fled from the field, and in his extremity entreated Nana Furnavese, the head of the regency at Poena, to aid him in supporting the Mahratta authority in Hindostan. The Nana was jealous of his growing power, but despatched troops under Holkar, although rather with the object of watching his movements than of supporting them. Mahomed Beg fell in the battle, but his place ™®* ^' was supplied by his nephew, Ishmael Beg, who laid siege to Agra, on the part of the Rajpoots, and was joined by Gholam Khadir, a Rohilcund jageerdar, and his free lances. Sindia advanced to raise the siege, but was again completely defeated in a battle fought on the 24th April. Gholam Khadir was recalled to defend his own jageer from the encroachments of the Sikhs, now rising into power, and Sindia took advantage of his absence to attack Ishmael Beg, 1788 who was defeated, and escaped from the field by the swift- ness of his horse. He joined Gholam, and the united chiefs advanced to Delhi, of which Gholam obtained pos- session, and his licentious soldiery were let loose on the imperial city, which was subjected for two months to such scenes of violence, rapine and barbarity, as were said to be ** almost without example in the annals of the world." The ladies of the seraglio were exposed and dishonoured, 1788 and some of them starved to death, and the unhappy monarch, plundered and dethroned, was deprived of sight by this monster of cruelty. Ishmael Beg turned with horror from these atrocities, and accepted service with Sindia, who proceeded to Delhi, reseated the emperor with great pomp on his throne, and made every effort to alle- viate his sorrows. Gholam Khadir fled on his approach, but was captured, and deliberately hacked to pieces. The turbulent Ishmael Beg did not long remain faithful to Sindia, but again joined the Rajpoots, whom Sindia de- 1790 feated at Patun in 1790, and the next year at Mairta. The success of both these engagements was due chiefly to 1791 the disciplined battalions of the Count de Boigne, a native of Savoy, an oflBcer of distinguished ability and great military experience, who had come out to India in search of SEcrr.IL] SINDIA'S PKOCEEDINGS AT POONA 231 employment, and entered the service of Sindia, and in- duced him to create a sepoy corps on the model of the Company's army. De Boigne raised and organised a large force, disciplined by European officers, the majority of whom were natives of France. It was eventually aug- mented to 18,000 regular infantry, 6,000 irregulars, 2,000 irregular horse and 600 Persian cavalry, with 200 pieces of artillery. This formidable force rendered Sindia the paramount native power in Hindostan, and the most im- portant member of the Mahratta body. Sindia offered to join the alliance against Tippoo, promoted by Lord Cornwallis, on condition that the Com- pany's Government should guarantee all the pos- sindia at sessions he had acquired in Hindostan, and I'oona. furnish him with two battalions of troops, similar to those granted to the Nizam. These proposals were considered inadmissible, and he declined to become a party to the treaty of Poona. That he might, however, be in a position to take advantage of circumstances in the war in which the princes of the Deccan were about to be engaged with Tippoo, he proceeded with an army to the Mahratta capital, greatly to the annoyance of Nana Eurnavese, who dreaded his a.d. ambitious designs. He had obtained from the impotent 1792 emperor the title of Vakeel-i-Mootluk, or regent of the Mogul empire, for the Peshwa, and for himself the office of hereditary deputy, and he gave out as the pretext for the journey that he was proceeding to the Mahratta capital to invest the Peshwa ^vith this dignity. The Nana and the ministers could not view without disgust the acceptance of honours by the head of the Mahratta power from the puppet of an emperor, but their opposition was unavailing. Sindia had gained a complete ascendency over the young Peshwa by his cheerful and genial demeanour, which formed a strong contrast to the stem and morose bearing of the prime minister, Nana Furnavese. Sindia had, more- over, brought a variety of rarities for him from Hindostan, and studied to make arrangements for his amusement. The ceremony was imposing beyond anything which had been seen at Poona. A grand suite of tents was pitched ^ ^.^^^^ in the vicinity of the city, a throne was placed of the 1792 to represent that of the Great Mogul, on which ^^shwa. the patent and the insignia were deposited. The Peshwa, surrounded by his whole court and the representatives of foreign powers, approached the throne and made his obeisance, and then retiring to another tent was invested 232 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VII. with the gorgeous robes of the office, and returned to Poona with such pomp and grandeur as the inhabitants had never before witnessed. Sindia and Nana Furnavese, though plotting each others' destruction, maintained an outward appearance of civiHty, but their armies could not be restrained from hostility in Hindostan. The forces of Holkar and Sindia were jointly engaged in levying tribute from the Rajpoots, but they quarrelled about the division of the spoil. Sindia's commander, De Boigne, with 20,000 horse and 9,000 infantry, attacked Holkar's army, con- sisting of 80,000 men, including four battalions disci- plined by his French general. Holkar was completely A.D. defeated, and the four regiments were all but annihilated, 1792 only one European officer escaping the carnage. This victory rendered Sindia the first power among the Mahrattas, and deepened the apprehensions of his rival Nana Fuma- 1794. Death of vese, but he was relieved from all anxiety by the Mahdajee unexpected death of Sindia, on the 12th February. sindia. -p^^ thirty-five years he may be said to have passed his life in his camp, devoting his time and energies to the improvement of his army and the increase of his pos- sessions. From his father he received a small principality, and he bequeathed to his son a kingdom, extending from the Sutlege to Allahabad, and including two-thirds of Malwa, and some of the fairest provinces in the Deccan, and the most efficient military force in India. The period for which their exclusive privileges had been granted to the Company expired in 1793, and the Court of 1793 The new Directors applied to Parliament for the renewal Charter. of them. But new commercial and manufacturing interests had been springing up in England with great vigour, and petitions poured into the House from Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, and other seats of industry and enterprise, protesting against the exclusion of the country from any share in the trade of India. The India House met these representations by the bold assertion that it was essential to the national interests that the Company should be the sole agents for conducting the commerce and the government of India. The ministry found the existing state of things exceedingly comfortable, inasmuch as Indian affairs were, on all essential questions, under their control. Lord Cornwallis had placed the finances of India in a flourishing condition, and Mr. Dundas, the India minister, asked the House with an air of tnumph, whether they were prepared to interrupt this tide of Sbct. II.] SIR JOHN SHORE'S ADMINISTRATION 233 prosperity and the growing commerce of India for a mere theory. His arguments were received with blind con- fidence in a House in which free trade was considered the inevitable road to ruin ; and the monopoly of the Company was renewed for twenty years, although, to meet the clamours of the merchants, the Company were directed to allot 3,000 tons a year for their private trade. An effort was made by Mr. Wilberforce to obtain permission for missionaries and schoolmasters to proceed to India and give instruction, religious and secular, to the natives who might desire it, but it was resisted by the ministry, the Court of Directors, and the old Indians. The charter of 1793 was a faithful mirror of the views of an age in which it was con- sidered that the introduction of free trade and European settlers, of schoolmasters and missionaries, would be fatal to the British power in India. SECTION III. SIR JOHN shore's ADMINISTRATION. Lord Cornwallis was succeeded by Sir John Shore, one of the ablest of the Company's servants, and the author of the permanent settlement. In a letter to Mr. gj^joj^n Dundas on the subject of appointing his successor, shore's a.d. Lord Cornwallis had said that " nobody but a antecedents. 1793 " person who had never been in the service, and who was " essentially unconnected with its members, who was of a '* rank far surpassing his associates in the government, " and who had the full support of the ministry at home, " was competent for the office of Governor- General." This letter, however, did not reach England till after the selection of Sir John Shore had been made, at the instance of Mr. Pitt, who was favourably impressed with the in- dustry, the candour, and the ability exhibited by him in reference to the revenue settlement. He entered on his duties on the 28th October, 1793. The first question which arose to try the mettle of the new Governor- General was connected with the politics of the Deccan. After the termination of the war The guaran- ,^qo with Tippoo^ Lord Cornwallis, anxious to secure *ee treaty. permanent peace to the Deccan, submitted to the two native princes who were parties to the tripartite treaty of 234 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chai. VII. 1790 the draft of a "treaty of mutual guarantee," -vvliich wonld have established a balance of power in the Deccan, and guarded the rights of the princes from mutual aggres- sion. The Nizam, as being the weakest, agreed to it with alacrity ; but the Mahrattas had a long account against him which it was not their policy to close, and which they intended to settle by the sword, and they therefore, declined Rejected by ^^^ engagement which would interfere with the ^•»- the Mah- designs they formed against him. After twelve 1793 rattas. months of fruitless discussion. Lord Cornwallis was obliged to abandon all hope of securing the concurrence of the Poona regency. Sindia had been the most strenuous opponent of the guarantee treaty, and his death seemed to present a favourable opportunity for renewing the negotia- tion, and making a vigorous effort to preserve the tran- quillity of the Deccan, then menaced by the Mahrattas. They fully anticipated some decisive interference on the part of the Company's Government, such as they knew Lord Cornwallis would have undertaken. But they soon perceived that the sceptre was now in feeble hands, and 1794 they hastened their preparations when they found that Sir John Shore had resolved to limit his intervention to " good " offices." The Nizam, who advanced counter claims of even greater amount than those of the Mahrattas, imme- diately claimed the fulfilment of the treaty of 1790 ; but Sir John lacked the spirit of his predecessor. He had a morbid dread of offending the Mahratta powers, and he paid a servile homage to the Act of Parliament which dis- countenanced native alliances, though Lord Cornwallis had driven his coach through it, and he resolved to remain neuter in the impending struggle. It is, however, due to his memory to state that this decision was evidently in- fluenced, to a considerable extent, by the incompetency of the Commanders-in-Chief at all the Presidencies, with none of whom could he venture to undertake hostilities. To assemble a Mahratta army when there was any hope of plunder had never presented any difficulty. On this Expedition occasion the young Peshwa, having determined ^' against the to take the field in person, summoned his feuda- Nizam. tories of every degree, and it proved to be the last time they were ever assembled together under the national standard. Sindia, Holkar, the raja of Nagpore, the Gaikwar, and the southern jageerdars, each furnished a quota, and the whole force numbered 130,000 horse and foot, with 150 guns, while the army of the Nizam amounted to about Sbct. in.] BATTLE OF KURDLA 235 110,000. The Nizam had engaged a French officer of the name of Raymond to discipline two battalions, which were increased to twenty-three when the struggle with the Mahrattas appeared inevitable. In the ranks of Sindia were likewise 10,000 men commanded by Perron, and 2,000 with Holkar, nnder Dudrenec ; and the most efficient soldiers on each side were nnder the command of natives of France. The two armies met on the 12th March, a little in advance of the village of Kurdla, which has given its name to this decisive battle. The advanced guard of the Nizam Battle of a.d. put to flight one large division of the Mahratta Kurdia. 1795 infantry, but the whole of the Nizam's cavalry broke and fled when it was assailed by the French force. Raymond's infantry had, however, obtained considerable advantage over Perron's, and there was some prospect of his ultimate success, when he was peremptorily ordered by his master to withdraw from the field. The Nizam had taken his zenana with him, and his favourite sultana, terrified by the roar of the cannon, insisted upon his retiring beyond its reach. The dotard yielded to her importunities, and the whole army retreated in wild confusion, although scarcely two hundred men had fallen in both armies. The Nizam took refuge in Kurdla, and within two days was obliged to sign a humihating treaty, making cessions of territory of the value of thirty-five lacs a year, paying the sum of three crores of rupees, and delivering up his minister, the only able man at his court, to the Peshwa. The two battalions of Company's troops in his service were not permitted by Sir John Shore to assist him during the battle ; and on his return to Hyderabad he dismissed them in disgust, and ordered Raymond to use every exertion to augment and disciphne his sepoys, and assigned districts for their support. The power and influence in the Nizam's councils which Lord Cornwallis had secured for the Company, were thus transferred to the French. The battle of Kurdla completely prostrated the Nizam, and the Mahrattas would doubtless have returned to com- plete his humiliation, but for the unexpected Death of the death of the Peshwa, and the confusion which it Peshwa. occasioned. Nana Fumavese had, with occasional inter- missions, enjoyed the chief control in Mahratta affairs during his minority; but though the Peshwa was now of age, he was still kept in a state of galling tutelage, which at length became insupportable, and on the 25th October he 1795 236 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Vn. threw himself from a terrace in his palace, and expired two days after, bequeathing the crown to his cousin Bajee Rao, the son of the once famous Raghoba, who was then held in durance by Nana Furnavese. Then ensued a scene of intrigue and anarchy, which lasted more than three years, and which has scarcely a parallel in the native history of India. After a variety of convulsions, the fortunes of the N"ana were reduced to the lowest ebb, but retrieved by his extraordinary genius. " The vigour of his judgment," observes the historian of the Mahrattas, " the fertility of " his resources, the extent of his influence, and the com- " bination of instruments he called into action, surprised " all India, and from his European contemporaries pro- " cared him the title of the Mahratta Machiavelli." He proposed to restore to the Nizam the territory which had been wrested from him, and to remit the balance remaining due, and having thus gained his assistance, as well as that A.D. of Sindia and Holkar, marched in triumph to Poena, 1796 where he seated Bajee Rao on the throne, and regained his own power as prime minister. But Bajee Rao, the most perfidious of native princes, incited Sindia to destroy him, and he was treacherously seized at a banquet and 1797 sent prisoner to Ahmednugur. The Peshwa then made arrangements for the assassination of Sindia, but his courage failed him at the last moment, and he exhibited for the first time that indecision of character which marked all his future career. Mr. Dun das had announced his opinion that India could only be retained by a large European army, that the pro- Mutiny of portion of European to native troops should be as Baropean one to three, and that the whole force should be cere. placed under the Crown, and "act in concert ** with the general strength of the empire." The scheme of amalgamation which Lord Comwallis had drawn up 1794 was not altogether approved by the Board of Control, or the Court of Directors, and Mr. Dundas undertook to draw up a second. Bat the European officers of the Company, who were opposed to any amalgamation, were already in a state of mutiny, and Sir John Shore found, on assuming the Government, that he had to deal with the insubordination of a whole army. The officers repressed their resentment while they awaited the arrival of Mr. Dundas's regulations, but their patience was exhausted by delay. On Christ- 1795 mas day Sir John convened the Council, and informed them that delegates had been elected from each regiment SBCT.in.] MUTINY OF EUKOPEAN OFFICERS 237 to form an executive board, and that every regiment had bound itself to protect their persons and make good their losses. The terms which this board was to demand from the Government were, that the native regiments should not be reduced, or the European regiments increased, beyond a certain limit, and that all allowances which had been granted to the army at any time should be restored. If these conditions were not accepted, they were prepared to seize the Governor- General and Commander-in-Chief, and to take possession of the Government. The Council was thunderstruck by this announcement. It was a crisis similar to that which the undaunted spirit of Clive had quelled in two months, thirty years submission before ; but there was no Clive at Calcutta, of the Orders were sent to Madras and the Cape for go^«™^«^*- troops, and the admiral was desired to bring up his fleet, and even De Boigne was asked for a regiment of Sindia's cavalry. The Commander-in-Chief went to Cawnpore, and by his courteous manners soothed the feelings of the officers, but it was the firmness of the artillery that stemmed the tide of mutiny. The long-expected regula- a.d. tions of Mr. Dundas arrived in May 1796, and disgusted ^796 all parties. The Governor- General himself described them as a mass of confusion. The flame of revolt blazed forth afresh in the army, and remonstrances poured in upon the bewildered Government. Sir John Shore, in writing to the Court of Directors, stated that the pressure was so severe that he had been obliged to give way. The regula- tions were modified and concessions made which exceeded even the expectations of the army. The intelligence of this submission filled the ministry with such alarm that it was resolved to supersede Sir John Shore forthwith, and Lord Cornwallis was importuned to proceed to India, if only for twelve months, and restore order. He was accordingly j-g- sworn in as Governor- General on the 1st February, and the appointment was duly notified at all the Presidencies. But the mutineers had a representative body of officers sitting in London, and, incredible as it may appear, the Court of Directors and the Board of Control, after having recalled Sir John Shore for his weakness, entered into negotiations with them and made concession after concession, and silenced one of the ringleaders by a lucrative post at the India House. An order was passed in reference to the mutiny which Lord CornwalHs described as " milk and water," *nd he threw up the appointment in disgust. 238 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VII The last act of Sir John Shore's administration was marked by as much vigour as those preceding it had been Glide signalised by feebleness. The Vizier of Oude was a man of good disposition, but spoiled by the enjoyment of absolute power, and vitiated by the fools, knaves and sycophants who composed his court. The Government was completely effete, and but for the protection of British bayonets, the country would have been absorbed by the Mahrattas or the Sikhs. Before his departure from India, Sir John Shore visited Lucknow and endeavoured to impress on the Vizier the necessity of reforming the abuses of the administration ; but what- ever favourable impression he might have produced in the morning was effaced in the evening when the prince was surrounded by buffoons and parasites, or stupefied Death of the with opium. Six weeks after Sir John's return nabob. to Calcutta, he sank into the grave, exhausted by indulgence, and the succession of Vizier Ali, whom he had acknowledged as his son, was sanctioned by the Government of India. Information was received soon after that his birth was spurious and his character atrocious, and Sir John returned A.D. . . . to Lucknow to ascertain the truth, when he ob- 1797 * tained evidence that he was not even the illegiti- mate son of the late Vizier, but the offspring of a man of the lowest caste, and likewise that his profligacy had created a feeling of universal disgust. Sir John was convinced that he had been accessory to an act of injustice, and as the late ruler had left no legitimate issue, he conferred the throne on his brother, then residing at Benares. He was required on being installed, to sign a new treaty, by which the defence of the country was entrusted to a body of 10,000 British troops, for whom an annual subsidy of seventy-five lacs of rupees was allotted, that the native army of the state should not exceed 35,000 troops, that the saadut AU fortress of Allahabad, the key of the north-west 1798 Nabob. provinces, should be made over to the Company, and the Vizier eschew all foreign negotiations. During these arrangements, Sir John Shore was encamped with a small force near the town of Lucknow, and exposed to eminent danger from the violence of Vizier Ali,and the bands of desperate men in his pay, under the command of a reck- less adventurer, who had 300 pieces of cannon, and openly talked of assassinating the Governor-General. The fear- lessness which he ei^ibited in this perilous position, aer Sbct. ni.] LORD WELLESLEY'S ADMINISTRATION 239 well as the resolution and justice of his proceedings, created general admiration in India, and the Court of Direc- tors applauded the " great temper, ability and firmness he " had displayed on this occasion." The arrival of the Vizier with a large force from Benares rescued him from danger, and on his return to Calcutta he embarked for England, a.d. and was raised to the peerage as Lord Teignmouth. 1796 CHAPTEE VIIL SECTION I. LORD WELLE SLET— LAST MYSORE WAR, Sir John Shore was succeeded by Lord Mornington, snb- 1793 sequently created Marquis Wellesley, then in his thirty- eighth year, under whoso vigorous rule the power Lord of the Company was rendered paramount through- Weiiesiey. out India. At the Board of Control, where he had occupied a seat for four years, he had acquired a comprehensive knowledge of Indian affairs, and he moreover enjoyed the advantage of Mr. Pitt's personal friendship and the confi- dence of Mr. Dundas. He called at the Cape on his way to India, and had the good fortune to meet there Lord Macartney and Lord Hobart, both of whom had been governors of Madras, as well as Major Kirkpatrick, formerly resident at Sindia's court, and more recently at Hyderabad, and obtained from their communications the most important information regarding the views and the position of the various princes in India. At the commencement of this important epoch, it may be useful to glance at the state of India. After the humiUation of Tippoo Sultan, Lord Cornwallis en- state of deavoured to establish a balance of power in the ^^^i&' Deccan. But there never had been any real balance of power in India, and aggression and rapine had been the only principle of action among its princes. Wars were com- menced and prosecuted without any semblance of justice, and restrained only by the power of resistance. Eighteen months after the departure of Lord CornwaUis, the battle 240 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Vni. of Kurdla prostrated the power of the Nizam ; the Peshwa was reduced to extremity by the encroachments of Sindia ; and even the appearance of a balance of power in the Deccan was irretrievably lost. The Government of Calcutta had become an object of derision in all the native courts, and a prolongation of Sir John Shore's nerveless adminis- tration would have entailed very serious calamities. In the south, Tippoo was brooding over his misfortunes, and husbanding his resources to retrieve them. Though de- prived of half his dominions, he was still able to maintain a powerful army in full efficiency. The Nizam had aug- mented the battalions under Raymond to 14,000, men and the French, who were animated by the national hatred of England which then prevailed in France, exercised a paramount authority in the state. Sindia was supreme at Poena and at Delhi, and enjoyed all the influence and authority still attached to the imperial throne. His terri- tories in the Deccan extended to the Toombudra, and skirted the frontiers of the Nizam and the Peshwa, while in Hindostan it extended to the Sutlege, and abutted on the dominions of the Vizier and of the Company. The French battalions, raised and disciplined by De Boigne, had been augmented to 40,000 men, in no way inferior to the Com- pany's sepoy army, with 450 guns, and fortresses, arsenals, foundries, depots, and all the appliances of war. Lord Cornwallis had bequeathed to his successor a surplus revenae of a crore and eighty lacs of rupees a year, but it had dwindled into a deficit, and the Company's credit was so low that the treasury could not raise a loan under 12 per cent. Lord Wellesley landed in Calcutta on the 17th May, and within three weeks was startled by the receipt of a pro- ^'^* The Mauri- clamation issued by the governor of the Mauritius, ^798 tiuapro- stating that envoys had arrived from Tippoo ciamation, g^Jtan with despatches for the Government in Paris, proposing an alliance offensive and defensive, and requesting the aid of a body of troops to assist him in expelling the English from India. Soon after it was announced that a French frigate had landed 150 men, including officers, from the Mauritius at Man galore, on the Malabar coast, who had proceeded to Seringapatam and entered the Mysore service. Lord Wellesley de- termined to anticipate the hostile movements of Tippoo, and directed General Harris, the officiating governor of Madras, to assemble the Coast army for an immediate Sect. I.J LOED WELLESLEY'S EMBAKRASSMENTS 241 marcli on Seringapatam, and called on the Nizam and the Peshwa, the signataries of the treaty of 1790, to furnish their quota of troops in accordance with its twelfth article. The Presidency of Madras was thunderstruck with thi^ venturous project. They had a morbid dread of the Mysore power, which had dictated peace under Dismay at the walls of Madras, and annihilated Baillie's Madras. force, and ravaged the Carnatic ; and they conjured up the memory of all the disasters which had for twenty years attended their wars with Hyder and Tippoo. The entire disposable force of the Presidency did not exceed 8,000 men, and they were destitute both of draft cattle and commissariat stores ; and far, they said, from being in a condition to march on Tippoo' s capital, the force was not equal to the defence of the Company's territories, if he should invade them. On the other hand, the Mysore ruler a.d. could muster 60,000 troops, a large portion of whom con- 1798 sisted of the celebrated Mysore horse ; his infantry was in part disciplined by French officers; he possessed a hundred and forty-four field-pieces, a rocket brigade, a long train of elephants, an ample supply of draft and carriage cattle, and a splendid commissariat. In these circumstances Lord Wellesley found it impossible to strike an immediate blow, but he issued peremptory orders for the speedy equipment of the army, and he met the remonstrances addressed to him in his own imperious style, by threatening with his severest displeasure " those who presumed to " thwart him, and arrogated to themselves the power of " governing the empire committed to his charge." The state of affairs at Hyderabad demanded Lord Wellesley's earliest attention. The troops, to the number of 14,000, disciplined and commanded by French ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ officers, presented a serious difficulty. They ley's embar- could not be taken into the field as a portion of '•a^^^«^*«- the Xizam's contingent, without the risk of their joining the Sultan, with whose French officers they were in con- stant correspondence ; while to leave them behind without an adequate force to watch them, was equally perilous. At this critical juncture, moreover, Lord Wellesley received a communication from Zeman Shah, announcing his intention to cross the Indus and enter Hindostan, and asking the Biitish Government to assist him in driving the Mahrattas back into the Deccan. He was the grandson of Ahmed Shah Abdalee, who had astounded India by his 242 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. victory at Paniput forty years before ; and the prospect of another Abdalee invasion created a universal feeling of excitement, if not of alarm. Thus beset with embarrass- ments in the north and in the south, Lord Wellesley resolved boldly to carry out his policy of alliances with the native princes on his own responsibility, without waiting for the sanction of the Court of Directors or the ministry. He found that the Company had not augmented their security by curtailing their influence, but had drifted into a position in which it was less perilous to advance than to stand still. He determined to break up that policy of isolation which had been erroneously considered the safe- guard of British power, and within three months after he had taken the chair at the Council board, negotiations were opened throughout the continent, and every durbar was electrified by the revival of that energy which recalled the days of Hastings and Cornwallis. A.D, Lord Wellesley found it necessary to dispose of the 1798 French force at Hyderabad before he took the field against Negotiations Tippoo. The great minister of the Nizam, Meer atHyder- Alum— otherwise called Musheei-ool-Moolk — "'^*^- on being released from Poena and resuming his office, was alarmed at the power which the French officers had obtained in the state, and was disgusted with their arro- gance. He lost no time in proposing to Sir John Shore to substitute an English subsidiary force for the French battalions ; but Sir John had not the nerve for so bold a proceeding. Lord Wellesley eagerly embraced the proposal, and made an offer to protect the state from all unjust claims in every quarter with a body of 6,000 troops, to be subsidised by the Nizam, on condition that the French corps should be dismissed, and the settlement of all disputes with the Mahrattas referred to the British Government, The Nizam manifested great reluctance to contract an alliance which he could never shake off, with so irresistible a power as the Company, but his minister persuaded him that it was better to repose under the protection of a power governed by the principles of honour, than to be perpetually exposed to the avarice of the Mahrattas and the ambition of Tippoo. In the preceding year the Peshwa soHcited the aid of a British force to protect him from the encroachments of Sindia, but it was declined by Sir John Shore, alliance He then concluded an alliance with the Nizam, pShwa! ^^^ ceded territory of the annual value of eight lacs of rupees as the price of his assistance. Sect. I.] NIZAM'S FEENCH FORCE DISBANDED 243 Sindia revenged himself by releasing Nana Furnavese, whom he held in confinement, and inviting Tippoo to join him in an attack on the Nizam. These manoeuvres led to a temporary reconciliation between Sindia and the Peshwa, and it was at this juncture that the proposal of a subsidiary alliance, which included the reference of all claims on the Nizam to the arbitrament of the British Government, was renewed. The Peshwa was too astute not to perceive that such an alliance involved the extinction of his political importance, and it is not to be wondered at that he, in common with the other princes of India, with whom independence had a charm, the value of which was en- hanced by its risks, should have been indisposed to resign it. But the Peshwa assured the Resident that he would faith- fully observe the conditions of the tripartite treaty in the approaching war with Tippoo, and a large Mahratta force was ostensibly ordered into the field. To give efiect to the treaty with the Nizara, troops were a.d. despatched to Hyderabad ; but at the last moment he 179 J evinced an invincible reluctance to place himself Extinction in a state of helpless and irretrievable dependence oftheFrench on a superior power, and he fled to the fortress ^°^^' of Golconda. The Resident was obliged to assume a high tone and to assure the minister that his master would be held responsible for this breach of faith. He was at length convinced that there was more danger in endeavouring to evade the engagement than in fulfiUmg it, and a proclama- tion was issued dismissing the French officers, and releasing the sepoys from the obligation of obedience to them. Officers and men were thrown •into a state of confusion and dismay by this unexpected order — Raymond was no longer at Hyderabad — but the British force was moved into a position which completely commanded the French encampment and placed their magazines at its mercy. In this helpless state, the officers sent to inform the Resident that they were ready to place themselves under his pro- tection ; but the men, to whom large arrears were due, rose in a body and placed the officers in confinement, and it was not without great difficulty they found refuge in the English camp. Captain Malcolm, a young and ambitious officer, then rising into notice, succeeded in quelling the excitement by the payment of their arrears ; and before the evening this large body of disciplined troops, possessed of a powerful train of artillery and well-stored arsenals, was disarmed without the loss of a single Hfe. This great B 2 244 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Vin. acliievement, the first act of the new Government, filled the native princes, who were calculating on the decay of the Company's power, with amazement, while the ability with which it was planned, and the promptitude with which it was executed, diffused a spirit of confidence throughout the civil and military services which con- tributed in no small degree to the success of Lord Welles- ley's plans. A.D. On the 8th October, Lord Wellesley received information i798 that Bonaparte had landed in Egypt, on his way to the East and he reiterated his orders to press forward the organisa- tion of the Madras army, which he promised to strengthen by the addition of 3,000 volunteer sepoys from Bengal, and with the 33rd Foot, under the command of Colonel Wellesley, afterwards the Duke of Wellington. On hear- ing that the disbandment of the French force at Hyderabad Communica- ^^^ been completed, he addressed his first letter tion with to Tippoo, upbraiding him with his embassy to Tippoo. j.^Q Mauritius, and the connection he had formed with the inveterate enemies of the British nation, " which " must subvert the foundations of friendship subsisting " between him and the Company." He proposed to de- pute Major Doveton to his court, to propound a plan calcu- lated to remove all doubt and suspicion. To infuse vigour into these arrangements he resolved to proceed in person to Madras, where he landed on the last day of the year, and assumed the control of all pohtical and military move- ments, leaving the local administration in the hands of the governor. Tippoo' s reply was altogether evasive. He asserted 1799 Tippoo's tliQ't the vessel which had gone to the Mauritius repUes. -yvas Sent by a mercantile tribe, and that " the " French, who were full of vice and deceit, had put about " sinister reports to ruffle the minds of the two Sircars." He dechned the proposed conference with Major Doveton as superfluous, " inasmuch as his friendship and regard *' for the English were perfectly apparent." At this very time, however, he was despatching one of his French of&cers to the Directoiy in Paris, to solicit 10,000 troops, to be employed at his expense in expelling the English ; and he was likewise inviting Zeman Shah to join him in prosecuting a holy war against the infidels and polytheists. " Please God," he wrote, " the Englieh shall become " food for the unrelenting sword of the pious warriors." Lord Wellesley addressed another letter to him on the 9th Sect. I.] PEOaEESS OF THE MYSOEE WAE 245 January, demanding a reply in twenty-four hours, to which Tippoo, after a considerable delay, replied that he was going on a hunting excursion, as was his wont, and that Major Doveton might be despatched after him. Every moment now became precious. The capital, ^J- Seringapatam, was the heart of Tippoo's power, his principal granary, and his only arsenal. Owing to the rise Pi-ogress of of the Cauvery around the island on which it ttearmy. was built, it was impregnable from June to November, and it was necessary to reduce it before the rains set in. After waiting in vain for a definite reply. Lord Wellesley ordered the army to take the field. It was the largest and the most complete in point of equipment and disciphne which had ever yet assembled under the Company's colours. It consisted of 20,802 men, of whom 6,000 were Europeans, with a battering train of forty guns, and sixty-four field- pieces and howitzers, and 10,000 of the Nizam's cavalry, as well as the Hyderabad subsidiary force, which, under the command of Colonel Wellesley and Captain Malcolm, had become a most efficient auxiliary. The entire army was commanded by General Harris, whose personal knowledge of the route was of great value. Tippoo, leaving his generals to watch the movements of the general at Madras, proceeded with the flower of his army to the tippoo on Malabar Coast to oppose the Bombay force march- the Malabar ing on his capital. ^°*^' On the 5th March, Tippoo unexpectedly appeared before its advanced guard. General Stuart, the commandant, with the main body, was ten miles in the rear, and it fell to the gallant General Hartley — a name of high renown on that coast — to meet the shock. His little force, and more especially the battalions under Colonel Montresor, bore the assault of the whole of Tippoo's force for six hours with the most determined resolution, but as they were reduced to their last cartridge the general happily came up and decided the fate of the day. Tippoo retreated through the wood with the loss of 2,000 men, and six days after marched off in an opposite direction to resist the advance of General Harris, whose army stood on the table land of Bangalore on the 15th March. Contrary to the advice of his most experienced officers and his French commander, Tippoo fixed on Malavelly as the field for disputing the progress of the British army, and the battle ended Battle of in his complete discomfiture on the 27th March. Maiaveiiy. He felt certain that General Harris would pursue the 246 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. northern route to the capital as Lord Comwallis had done, and he had taken the precaution to lay it waste, not leav- ing a particle of food or forage. But the general moved down in an opposite direction, and crossed the Can very at the hitherto unknown ford of Sosilla, without any interruption. Nothing could exceed the rage and dismay of Tippoo when he discovered that all his plans were frus- trated by this strategy, and he called a meeting of his officers, and asked their advice with tears in his eyes ; they declared that they would make one last and desperate effort for the defence of the capital and the kingdom, and, if unsuccessful, die with him. Seringapatam was invested on the 6th April, and the siege was pushed on with such vigour that Tippoo was induced Th sice ^^ propose a conference. General Harris informed him that the only terms on which he was autho- rised to treat were the cession of half his territories, the payment of a war indemnity of two crores, and the delivery of four of his sons and four of his chief officers as hostages. These terms were rejected by the Sultan. On the 4th May A.D. the breach was reported practicable, and the troops were led 1799 to the storm by General Baird, a distinguished officer, who had been immured in the dungeons of the fort for four years, in irons, by Hyder and Tippoo. He ascended the parapet at one in the afternoon, and exhibited his noble figure in the view of both forces, and then, drawing his sword, desired his men to follow him, and show themselves worthy the name of British soldiers. A small and select band of Tippoo's soldiers met the forlorn hope in the breach, the greater portion of whom on either side fell in the desperate struggle. The works were defended with great valour, more especially in the gateway where Tippoo had taken his station, and where he fell covered with wounds. The fortress was captured, and, as his remains were conveyed through the city, the inhabitants prostrated themselves before his bier, and accompanied it to the superb monument of Hyder, where he was interred with the imposing rites of Mahomedan burial, and the honours of a European military funeral. Thus fell the capital of Mysore, though garrisoned by 20,000 troops, and defended by 287 pieces of cannon, and ^^ abundantly supplied with provisions and military stores. It was the opinion of Lord Wellesley, and of the best military authorities in the camp, that, considering the strength of its fortifications, and the diffi- Sect. I.] EXTINCTION OF MYSOEE KINGDOM 247 culty of approaching it, a thousand French troops under an able commander might have rendered it impregnable. ^^'^' But throughout the siege, and indeed throughout the campaign, Tippoo had failed to exhibit either wisdom or energy. He rejected the advice of his most experienced officers, and listened only to the flatteries of youths and parasites, and the predictions of astrologers. During the line of march Greneral Harris was so heavily encumbered with his ponderous siege train and endless impediments, that his progress was restricted to five miles a day, and it was a miracle that he was not constrained, like Lord Cornwallis, to turn back for want of provisions. There were numerous occasions on which an active and skilful enemy might have impeded his march till the rains set in, and rendered the campaign abortive ; but all these opportunities were neglected by Tippoo in a spirit of infatuation. The success of the army was owing to a combination of boldness and courage, and good fortune. Tippoo was forty-six years of age at the time of his death. He possessed none of his father's abihties for peace or war. He was a compound of tyranny and caprice, of superstition and bigotry, and likewise an atrocious persecutor. In the opinion of his own subjects, Hyder was born to create an empire, and Tippoo to lose it. For half a century the Deccan had been the scene of convulsions, and the great source of anxiety and expense to the Court of Directors, whose possessions, security of even in the intervals of peace, had always been t^e Deccan. insecure. Lord Wei lesley terminated this state of jeopardy. Within a twelvemonth after he landed in Calcutta, he had extinguished the French force and influence at Hyderabad, and obtained the command of all the resources of the Nizam. He had subverted the kingdom of Mysore, and established the authority of the Company, without a rival, in the Deccan, on so solid a basis that it has never since been menaced. The capture of Seringapatam in less than a month resounded through the continent of India, and the extinction of one of its substantial powers struck terror into the hearts of its princes, and exalted the prestige of the Company's Government. These advantages were not, however, obtained without a violation of those solemn injunctions which the wisdom of Parliament, of the minis- try, and of the India House had periodically repeated to restrain the growth of British power in India, and hence, in writing to Mr. Pitt, Lord Wellesley said, "I suppose 248 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. A.D. « jQu^ Yf{\\ either hang me, or magnificently honour me for 1799 u jjjy. (Jeeds. In either case, I shall be gratified, for an " English gallows is better than an Indian throne." He was magnificently honoured — by tbe king with a step in the peerage, and by Parliament with its thanks. The issue of the war had placed the whole of the Mysore dominions at the disposal of the Governor- General, and he New Mysore ©xercised the rights of conquest with great wis- kingdom. (Jom and moderation. He resolved to make over a portion of it to the family of its ancient and disinherited princes, though they had passed out of all recollection, and were living in abject poverty and humiliation. A child five years of age was drawn from a cottage and seated on a throne, with a revenue of fifty lacs of rupees a year. The kingdom was bestowed on him as a free gift, and it was emphatically declared to be personal and not dynastic. Every allusion to heirs and successors was therefore distinctly eliminated. Indeed, Lord Wellesley did not hesi- tate to affirm that the territories placed under the nominal sovereignty of the raja whom he created, constituted an integral portion of our own dominions, and they were treated in this light for more than sixty years. The remaining territories were thus partitioned. Dis- tricts of the annual value of about thirty lacs, were allotted Tv,» ,« „• "fco the Company, but charged with the payment of The remain- , • t T^ t "^ x xi. r '^^ v rs j ing terri- about eight lacs a year to the lamilies oi Hyder *°"^* and Tippoo, and territory valued at about twenty- four lacs was transferred to the Nizam. The Peshwa was not overlooked. He had not only violated his engage- ment by taking no part in the campaign, but, with his usual duplicity, had received envoys from Tippoo, and accepted a gratuity of thirteen lacs of rupees from him, and concerted a scheme for attacking the dominions of the Nizam while his army was employed in the siege of Seringapatam. But Lord Wellesley overlooked this dupli- city, and offered him out of the spoils of Mysore districts yielding ten lacs of ruiDces, on condition of his excluding the French from his dominions, and admitting the mediation of the British Government in the questions still in dispute with the Nizam. The offer was rejected, and the reserved territory was divided between the Company and the Nizam. The personal property captured at Seringapatam rather exceeded a crore of rupees and Lord Wellesley took on Prize himself the responsibility of anticipating, as he money. said, the assent of the Crown, and the sanction Sect. I.] CESSION OF TERRITORY BY NIZAM, ETC. 249 of the Directors, and directed the immediate distribution of it among the troops — the third instance in which prize money had been, not unwisely, divided in India, without waiting for dilatory orders from England. The Court of Directors manifested their sense of Lord Wellesley's merits by offering him ten lacs from the proceeds of the captured stores ; but his high sense of honour induced him to decline it, upon which they settled an annuity of half a lac of rupees a year on him. To complete this narrative of the last Mysore war, it only remains to be stated that a daring adventurer, Dhondia Waug, collected together a body of Tippoo's disbanded cavalry and proceeded north- ward, plundering towns and villages. Success brought a.d crowds to his standard, and the peace of the Deccan was seriously menaced. At length. Colonel Wellesley set out in pursuit of him with four regiments of cavalry, and after chasing him for four months without any relaxation, at length brought him to bay, and he was killed, and his army broken up. 180(1 SECTION n. LORD WELLESLEY THE CARNATIC — OUDE — FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE — WAR WITH SINDIA AND NAGPORE. The refusal of the Peshwa to refer the settlement of his demands on the Nizam to the arbitration of the British Government, pointed out to his able minister cession of the treatment he might expect from Mahratta territory by rapacity, and he was anxious to secure his master '^® Nizam, against it. He proposed, therefore, to Lord Wellesley that the subsidiary force should be augmented and territory allotted for its support in lieu of the monthly payment then made in money. The proposition was, on a variety of considerations, welcome to the Governor- General, and the arrangement was speedily completed. The force was increased to eight battalions, and districts yielding sixty- three lacs a year were made over in perpetual sovereignty to the Company, under the stipulation that the British ^^^C Government should guarantee all the remaining territories of the Nizam from every attack. The districts thus trans- ferred consisted simply of those which had been assigned to him from the Mysore territory in the wars of 1792 and 1798. The transaction was mutually advantageous. It 250 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. extended the Company's territories to the Kistna, and it relieved the Mzam of all further apprehension from his hereditary and insatiable enemies — and that without the alienation of any portion of his patrimonial kingdom. It is true, that by resigning the defence of his dominions and the royal prerogative of conducting negotiations with foreign princes, he lost his political independence ; but, on the other hand, he secured the continuance of his royal dynasty. Every other throne in the Deccan has been swept away, while the descendant of the Tartar, Cheen KilHch Khan, still continues to hold liis regal court at Hyderabad. About the same time the raja of the little principality of Tanjore Tanjore was mediatised. His debts to the Com- A.D. mediatised, pany were cancelled on the resignation of his 1800 territory, out of the revenues of which he received four lacs a year, and a fifth of its improved resources. By the treaty concluded with the nabob, Mahomed Ali, by Lord Comwallis in 1792, certain districts were hypothe- state of the cated for the support of the Company's troops who Camatic. defended the country. That prince, who had been placed on the throne by the Madras Government in the days of Clive and Coote and had occupied it for fifty years, died 1795 in 1795. His son Oomdut-ool-omrah was surrounded, as his father had been, by a legion of rapacious Europeans, many of them in the public service, who fed his extrava- gance by advances at exorbitant interest, and, contrary to the stipulations of the treaty, received assignments on the districts pledged for the support of the troops. The loans thus furnished the nabob with the means of paying his instalments to the Government of Madras with punctuality, but they served also to increase his embarrassments, though the crisis was for a time postponed. At the par- ticular request of the Court of Directors, Lord Hobart, the governor of Madras, proposed to the nabob to transfer the districts to the Company in lieu of the pecuniary pay- ment, and offered him as an inducement, to relinquish debts due to the Government, to the extent of a crore of rupees. But though the arrangement would have been highly beneficial to the nabob, it was not to the interest of his creditors, who held him at their mercy, to resign the lands which they subjected to rack rent, and the proposal was rejected. Lord Hobart then proposed to resort to force, on the ground that as the nabob had violated the treaty of 1792 by granting these assignments, it was no longer binding on the Company ; but Sir John Shore peremptorily Sect. II.] ANNEXATION OF THE CARNATIC 251 refased his concnrrence. The correspondence thereupon became acrimonious, and the matter was referred to Leaden- hall Street, and Lord Hobart was recalled. The -^^^^ Court, however, requested Lord Wellesley to Hobart's a.d. call at Madras on his way to Calcutta, and ''^''^"- 1798 make another effort to obtain the sanction of the nabob to the surrender of the districts, which were in a state of rapid decay, as a substitute for the payment he was bound to make ; but, under the sinister influence of the harpies around him, the proposal was again spurned. The nabob was bound by treaty " not to enter into any " negotiation or political correspondence with any Euro- " pean or native power without the consent of clandestine " the Company." But on the capture of Seringa- corres- patam, it was discovered that both the late and Po°'^®°<*- the present nabob had been engaged in a clandestine cor- j^gg respondence with Tippoo by means of a cypher, which was found ; and that they had made important communications to him, inimical to the interests of the Company. The fact of this intrigue was established by the clearest oral and documental evidence, to the satisfaction of the Governor- General, the governor of Madras, the Court of Directors, and the Board of Control ; and Lord Wellesley came to the conclusion that " they had not only violated "the treaty, but placed themselves in the position of " enemies of the Company, by endeavouring to establish a " unity of interests with their most inveterate foe." The obligations of the treaty were considered to be extinct, and it was resolved to deprive the family of the government of the Carnatic, reserving a suitable portion of the revenue for its support. But when the period for action arrived, the nabob was on his death-bed. On his death his reputed son, whom he had nominated his successor, was made acquainted with the evidence of his father's and his grand- father's treacherous correspondence with Tippoo, and in- formed that all claim on the consideration of Government was forfeited. His succession to the throne was no longer a matter of right, but of favour, and would be conceded only on condition of his making over the Carnatic to the Company, with the reservation of a suitable provision for the maintenance of his court and family. He refused to accept the title on these terms, and it was granted The nabob jgoj to a cousin, of whose legitimate bii*th there was inedmtised. no question. The nabob was mediatised, and the Carnatic became a British province. The territories obtained from 252 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. Mysore and the Nizam, from the nabobs of the Carnatic and Tanjore, may be said to have created the Madras Presidency. Of the population, which, according to the latest census, amounted to twenty-two millions, eighteen are inhabiting the districts which Lord Wellesley annexed to it. While Zeman Shah was advancing into Hindostan, Lord Wellesley despatched a native envoy to the king of A.D. Embassy to Persia to induce him to threaten his hereditary 1800 ^^^^^- dominions in Central Asia, and constrain him to retire from India. The agent urged that the Shah was a Soonee, and had grievously oppressed the Sheahs, the ruling sect in Persia, and that it would be an acceptable service to God and man to arrest the progress of so heterodox a prince. The pious monarch swallowed the bait, and instigated Mahomed Shah to invade the territories of his brother Zeman Shah, who was obliged to recross the Indus in haste. But Lord Wellesley farther deemed it advisable to send a more imposing embassy to the court of Ispahan " to establish British influence in Central Asia, " and prevent the periodical disquietude of an invasion by " Zeman Shah, with his horde of Turks and Tartars, " Usbecks and Afghans." The oflBcer selected for this duty was Captain Malcolm, who was eminently qualified for it by his thorough knowledge of the oriental character and weaknesses, and his acquaintance with eastern lan- guages, as well as his admirable tact and invariable good humour. The embassy was equipped in a style of mag- nificence intended to dazzle the oriental imagination, and to inspire the Persian court with a due sense of the power and majesty of the British empire in the east. The result, which had been in a great measure anticipated by the native agent, was not commensurate with its cost, which made the Court of Directors wince ; but it secured the object of establishing British influence in Persia, at least for a time. Lord Wellesley could not consider India safe while a French army held possession of Egypt ; and he proposed Expedition *^ ^^® ministry to send a force from India to totheEed support the army which he felt confident they ^** would despatch, to co-operate with the Turkish 1800 Government in expelHng it. After long delay the necessary orders were received from Downing Street, and an army consisting of 4,000 European troops and 5,000 volunteei sepoys, was sent up the Red Sea under General Baird, A.D. 1800 Sbct. II.] BONAPARTE'S GRAND ARMAMENT 253 with the animating remark of the Governor- General, " that " a more worthy sequel to the storm of Seringapatam " could not be presented to his genius and valour." The troops landed at Cosseir, in the Red Sea, and after traversing 120 miles of arid and pathless desert to the Nile, en- camped, on the 27th August, on the shores of the Mediter- ranean; but the report of its approach, combined with the energy of the commander from England, had induced the French general to capitulate before General Baird's arrival. The history of India abounds with romantic achievements, but no incident can be more impressive than the appearance of sepoys from the banks of the Ganges, in the land of the Pharaohs, marching in the footsteps of Caesar to encounter the veterans of his modern prototype. Within a month of the surrender of the French army in Egypt, the preliminaries of peace between France and England were signed by the former Governor- peaceof General, Lord Cornwallis, at Amiens. The Court Amiens. i802 of Directors immediately issued orders for their mihtary estabhshments to be reduced, but Lord Wellesley, with great forethought, wisely suspended the execution of them. The treaty of Amiens was no sooner ratified than Bonaparte despatched a large armament to Pondicherry, which the treaty had restored, consisting of six vessels of war, a large military stafi", and 1,400 European troops, under the command of M. Leger, who was designated, in his patent, " Captain- General of the French establishments east of " the Cape." It was to be followed by a second squadron of equal magnitude. For three years it had been the great aim of Lord Wellesley to eradicate French influence from India, and as he had now succeeded in excluding it from the Deccan, he could not regard the re- establishment of a powerful French settlement on the Coromandel coast with- out a feeling of anxiety. He felt that all the relations of Government with the native states would be at once deranged, and the seeds of a more arduous conflict than the last planted in the soil of India, ever fruitful in revolutions. The order to restore Pondicherry v/as re- iterated from Downing Street, but, by an act of unexampled Audacity, Lord Wellesley directed Lord Clive, the governor of Madras, to inform the French admiral on his arrival that he had resolved to postpone the restitution of the French settlements till he could communicate with the ministry in England. The French fleet returned to the Mauritius, and the recommencement of hostilities in 254 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA LChap. VIII. Europe saved India from the danger to which it would have been exposed if the continuance of peace had enabled Bonaparte to give full scope to his designs. On the approach of Zeman Shah to the Indus, Lord Wellesley, well-knowing that the kingdom of Oude would Demand on ^® °^® ^^ *^® early objects of spoliation, requested the nabob Sir Jamcs Craig, the commandant, to communi- of Dude. ^^^g j^g views on the defence of it. He replied that the rabble of troops maintained by the Vizier was not simply useless, but actually dangerous ; and that if he were required to take the field against the Shah, he could not leave them behind with safety. The Court of Directors had stated that the British force, 13,000 in number, was too weak for the protection of the country, more especially since Sindia had planted an army of more than 30,000 disciplined troops, commanded by European officers, on its frontier, watching an opportunity of springing on its opulent districts. The existing treaty had allotted a subsidy of seventy-six lacs of rupees a year for the payment of this force, and also provided for its augmentation, if necessary. A.D. Lord WeUesley now pressed on the Vizier the absolute 1800 necessity of disbanding his disorderly soldiers, and devoting the fifty lacs of rupees thereby saved to the support of a larger British force. This reform would have placed the military power of the kingdom absolutely in the hands of the Company; to Discussions *^^^ ^^® nabob manifested an invincible repug- withthe nance, and he proposed to abdicate in favour of his son, and to retire into private Hfe with the treasure he had accumulated. Lord Wellesley stated that he was prepared to sanction his retirement provided he took up his residence in the British dominions, and vested the government of the kingdom permanently in the hands of the Company, but could not permit him to withdraw the treasure which belonged to the state. The nabob imme- diately withdrew his abdication, and Lord Wellesley ex- pressed great indignation at his insincerity and duplicity, as he termed it, and charged him with having made a proposal, which was from the first illusory, in order to defeat the reform of his military establishment, which was imperatively required. Several regiments were ordered to march into the Oude territory, and the nabob was directed to provide for their maintenance. He remonstrated in earnest language, but Lord Wellesley returned his com- munication, which he said was deficient in the respect due to Sect. II.] OUDE DISTRICTS ANNEXED 255 the first British authority lu India. The proceedings began to assnme a very vexations appearance. The ^.p^t^yon tm Vizier continued to exhibit a spirit of passive of Mr, h. resistance, and Lord Wellesley's correspondence w^i^^^^^y- was marked by increasing hauteur ; but he was desirous, if possible, to avoid the appearance of a compulsory cession of the districts, and despatched his own brother and private secretary, Mr. Henry Wellesley, afterwards Lord Cowley, to overcome his repugnance ; but the nabob continued in- flexible, and persisted in asserting that it would inflict an indelible stain on his reputation throughout India to deprive one of its royal houses of such a dominion. The Resident at length brought the discussion to an issue by ordering the intendants of the districts selected for the support of the British force to transfer their col- ^^^ ^^^^ lections and their allegiance to the Company, with the The nabob deemed it vain any longer to contend ^^^°^- with such negotiators, and on the 12th November, signed a ^^^^ treaty which made over to the Company in perpetual sove- reignty districts yielding one crore and thirty-five lacs of rupees. The security which this transfer of military power gave to the possessions of the nabob as well as of the Company will admit of no question. A British army, fully adequate to the defence of the country, was substituted for the wretched troops of the nabob, always an object of more dread to their masters than to their enemies ; a valuable addition was made to the strength and resources of the Company, and a large population was rescued from oppres- sion. But of all the transactions of Lord Wellesley's ad- ministration, this acquisition of territory by the process of compulsion has been the most censured. For any justifica- tion of it we must look to the position of the country. The throne of Oude was upheld by British bayonets alone, and the dynasty would have ceased to exist in a twelvemonth, if they had been withdrawn. Under the perpetual menace of a Mahratta invasion, it was necessary that a large and efficient force should be maintained there ; but it was not possible for the Company to support such a force with only one-third of the revenues. The settlement of the provinces thus ceded by the Vizier was entrusted to a commission, consisting of members of the civil service, with Mr. Henry Wellesley as president, but he received no additional allow ance. Their labours were completed within a year; the Court of Directors, however, lost no time in denouncing this appointment, though temporary, as " a virtual super- 256 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. " cession of the just rights of the civil service," and drafted a despatch, peremptorily ordering Mr. Wellesley to be dis- missed ; but the President of the Board of Control drew his fatal pen across it. At the same time they expressed their cordial approbation of the terms of the treaty, which, among other merits, created thirty new appointments for their favourite service. Lord Wellesley unhappily approved and maintained the erroneous policy initiated by Lord Cornwallis of excluding The CoUe e ^^^^^^^^ from any share in the government of of Fort the country, and working it exclusively by the Wiiham. European agency of the covenanted servants ; but he determined to qualify them for their important duties 18^0 ^y ^ suitable education. The civil service was originally a mercantile staff, and India continued to be treated more in the light of a factory than of an empire. The pubHc ser- vants rose, as they had done a century before, through the grades of writer, factor, and junior and senior merchants, and though they were required to perform the functions of magistrates and judges, of secretaries of state and ambas- sadors, it was deemed sufficient, if, before they lefb England, they were initiated into the mysteries of the counting- house, and understood botok-keeping by double-entry. Of the laws and institutions, and even the language of the people, they were not required to know anything. Lord Wellesley was resolved to remove this glaring anomaly by founding a college in Calcutta, in which their European education should be completed, and they should acquire a knowledge of the laws, literature, and language of the natives. Like all Lord Wellesley' s plans, the institution was pro- jected upon a scale of imperial magnificence ; and it was, moreover, erected without so much as consulting gran eur. ^^^ Court of Directors, and they passed a peremp- 1802 tory order for its immediate abolition. Lord Wellesley was mortified beyond measure by this subversion of one of his most cherished schemes, which exposed him to the contempt of India, and he gave vent to his feelings in a passionate appeal to his friends in the ministry, and entreated them to save from extinction an institution he deemed invaluable — which indeed, he regarded with greater pride than the conquest of Mysore. On receiving the orders from Leaden- hall Street, he passed a resolution abolishing the college, with the sullen remark that it was done " as an act of " necessary submission to the controlling authority of the *' Court; " but in a second resolution he allowed eighteen Sect. II.] LORD WELLESLEY'S FREE TRADE POLICY 257 months for the gradual abohtion of it ; and in the meantime the Court of Directors, under the pressure of the andreduc- Board of Control, consented to the continuance *^°"- of it on a reduced scale. At the renewal of the chai*ter in 1793 the ministry en- a.d. deavoured to silence the clamours of the merchants and 1793 manufacturers of England, as already stated, by Private obliging the Court of Directors to allot them 3,000 trade. tons of freight annually, but this concession was found in- adequate to the demand. The commerce of India was, in fact, bursting the bonds of the monopoly > which, however serviceable it might have been during the infancy of our connection with India, was altogether unsuited to an age of development. The trade of Calcutta had been rapidly expanding, and was forcing itself into the continental markets, in foreign vessels provided with cargoes by English capital. In 1798 the exports in vessels nnder the flags of America, of Portugal, and of Denmark, had exceeded a crore and a half of rupees. Shipbuilding had likewise made great progress in 1799 Calcutta during the previous ten years, and Lord Wellesley, to finding 10,000 tons of India-built shipping in the port on ^^^^ his arrival, chartered a large portion of it for the use of the private merchants. In his letter to the Court of Directors on the subject, he said that it would be equally unjust and impolitic to extend any facili- of Lok^^^^ ties to British merchants which would sacrifice Weiiesiey's or hazard the Company's rights and privileges, *^°" ^°*' and that the commercial indulgence he had granted extended only to such articles of Indian produce and manufacture as were necessarily excluded from the Company's investments. Mr. Dundas, who entertained the same liberal views as Lord Wellesley, was anxious to authorise the Government of India to license India-built shipping " to bring home " that which the means and capital of the Company were " unable to embrace." But at the India House the dread of interlopers was still iu undiminished vigour. Though the cream of the India trade was still to be assured to the Company, the Directors would not permit others to obtain the dregs. The proceedings of Lord Wellesley were em- phatically reprobated ; he lost caste irretrievably in Leaden - hall Street, and the treatment he experienced from the Directors during the last three years of his Indian career was scarcely less rancorous than that which had embittered the life of Warren Hastings. Notwithstanding the remon- 258 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII strance of the minister, they passed a direct vote of ceasnrc on the commercial policy he had patronised. ^.D. As soon as the arrangements in Oude were completed, 1802 Lord Wellesley tendered his resignation, assigning to " his Resi ation "Honourable Masters," as he termed them, no of Lord other reason than the full accomplishment of his Wellesley. pjans for the security and prosperity of the empire. To the prime minister, however, he unburdened his mind, and informed him that the real cause of his retire- ment was the invariable hostility of the Court and the withdrawal of their confidence. They had peremptorily ordered the reduction of the mihtary establishments, while he considered it, in the existing circumstances of the empire, essential to its security to maintain them in full vigour. They had cut down the stipends he considered advisable at the close of the war, and had selected for especial censure and retrenchment, the allowances granted by the Madras Government to his brother General Wellesley to meet the cost of his important and expensive command in Mysore ; this he considered "the most direct, " marked, and disgusting indignity which could be devised." They had abrogated the power vested in the Governor- General in Council by Parliament of enforcing his orders on the minor Presidencies, though they might happen to supersede the injunctions of the Court, and they had de- stroyed the authority of the Supreme Government over them by reversing this regulation. They had wantonly dis- placed officers of the highest ability and experience who enjoyed the full confidence of the Governor- General, and, contrary to law, had forced their own nominees into offices of emolument, for which, moreover, they were totally unfit. Lord Wellesley vigorously remonstrated against this practice. " If the Government of India," he said, " was thus The caases " to ^^ thwarted in every subordinate depart- of it. « ment, deprived of all local influence, and " counteracted in every local detail by a remote authority " interfering in the nomination of every public servant, it "would be impossible to conduct the government under '* such disgraceful chains." Lord Castlereagh, the President of the Board of Control, was anxious to retain the services of Lord Wellesley, and placed his letter to the premier in the hands of the chairman at the India House. He did not disguise from him the great dissatisfaction and jealousy felt by the Company with regard to certain of Lord Welles- ley's measures, and, more especially to the employment of Sect. III.] MAHEATTA AFFAIRS 259 Mr. Henry Wellesley. He had, in fact, wounded them on a.d the two points on which they were most sensitive — their ^802 monopoly and their patronage. But Lord Castlereagh was assured that the Court were not unmindful of his eminent services, and would request him to postpone his departure to the 1st January 1804 ; little dreaming of the momentous consequences of this resolution. Before that date, the Mahratta power was prostrate, and the map of India recon- structed. SECTION III. LORD WELLESLEY — MAHRATTA AFFAIRS — TREATY OP BASSEIN WAR WITH SINDIA AND NAGPORE. The extinction of the kingdom of Mysore, and the complete control established over the Nizam, left the British Govern- ment without any antagonist but the Mahrattas, j) i.i^ f and the two rival powers now confronted each Nana Fur- other. The offer of a subsidiary alliance to the '^*'^®^®- Peshwa, made by Lord Wellesley in 1799, which would have introduced the thin end of the wedge of British ascendancy was rejected under the advice of Nana Furnavese. That great statesman closed his chequered career in March, 1800. 1 800 For more than a quarter of a century he had been the mainspring of every movement in the Mahratta common- wealth, which he had regulated by the strength of his cha- racter and the wisdom of his measures, not less than by his humanity, veracity and honesty of purpose, virtues which were not usually found among his own countrymen. " With him," wrote the Resident at Poena, " departed all " the wisdom and moderation of the Mahratta Government." His death left Sindia without a competitor at Poena, where he exercised supreme authority, and it was not without deHght that the Peshwa contemplated the rising power of his rival, Jeswunt Rao Holkar. Mulhar Rao Holkar, who raised himself from the con- dition of a shepherd to the dignity of a prince, and esta- blished one of the five Mahratta powers, died at The Hoikar the age of seventy-six, after a brilliant career of ^^^^iiy* forty years. His only son died soon after, leaving a widow, Aylah bye, and a son and daughter. The son died in 1766, 176^ and his mother, a woman of extraordinary talent and energy, resisted the importunity of the chieftains to adopt s 2 260 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chav VIII a son and retire into private life. She resolved to undertake the government of the state herself, and selected Tokajee Holkar, one of the same tribe, though not of her kindred, to command the army. Through his singular moderation and the commanding genius of the bye, this perilous ar- rangement, which placed the military power in the hands of a distinguished soldier, while the civil government was administered by a female, was perpetuated without jealousy for thirty years. She sat daily in durbar and gave audi- ences without a veil, and dispensed justice in person. She laid herself out to promote the welfare of the country by the encouragement of trade and agriculture, and raised Indore from the obscurity of a village to the rank of a capital. She acquired the respect of foreign princes by the weight and dignity of her character, and in an age of universal violence was enabled to maintain the security of her dominions. She was the purest and most exemplary of rulers, and she added one more name to the roll of those illustrious females who have adorned the native history of India by their talents and virtues. A.D. She died in 1795, and Tokajee two years later, and the 1795 reign of anarchy began, and continued without abatement, Earl move- ^o^ twenty years. Mulhar Rao, the son of Tokajee, mentB of assumed the command of the army and the go- RtoT™^ vemment of the state, but he was attacked and killed by Sindia, who was thus enabled to reduce the rival house of Holkar to a state of complete subordina- tion. Jeswunt Rao, the illegitimate son of Tokajee, fled from the field to Nagpore, but the raja, anxious to con- ciliate Sindia, placed him in confinement, but he contrived at length to make his escape, and took refuge at Dhar, which, under the same hostile influence, he was obliged to quit, with seven mounted followers and about a hundred and twenty ragged half-armed infantry. He determined now to trust his fortunes to his sword, and giving himself out as the champion of his nephew, the young son of his brother Mulhar, called upon all the adherents of the house of Holkar to rally round him and resist the encroachments of Sindia; and the freebooters who swarmed in Central India flocked to his standard. Jeswunt Rao was soon after joined by Ameer Khan, a Rohilla adventurer, about twenty-five years of age, together Ameer with a large body of free lances, and for eighteen Khan. months they spread desolation through the districts lying on the Nerbudda, but were at length Sbct. III.] WAR BETWEEN HOLKAR AND SINDIA 261 obliged to separate when the field of plunder was ex- a.d. hansted. Ameer Khan proceeded eastward to the opulent 180C town of Saugor, where he subjected the inhabitants to every species of outrage, and acquired immense booty. Nothing gives us a clearer view of the anarchy and wretchedness of Hindostan at this period than the ease with which Jeswunt Rao was able, in the space of two years, to collect under his standard, by the hope of plunder, a force of 70,000 Pindarees and Bheels, Afghans and Mahrattas. With this force Holkar entered Malwa, and the country was half rained before Sindia could come to its rescue from Poona. To expel Holkar he despatched two bodies of his troops, one of which, though commanded by Europeans, was obliged to lay down its arms, and the a.d. other was attacked with such vigour that of its eleven 1801 European officers seven fell in action and three were wounded. The city of Oojein, Sindia's capital, was saved from indiscriminate plunder, by submitting to a contribution of fifteen lacs. At Poona, Bajee Rao, relieved from the presence of Sindia, subjected his feudatories to extortion and his people to oppression, which led to the appearance of numerous bodies of brigands, one of which, Wittojee, the brother of Jeswunt Rao, was constrained to join. He was captured and sentenced to be trampled to death by an infuriated elephant, while Bajee Rao sat in the bal- cony of the palace to enjoy the yells of the expiring youth. Jeswunt vowed sharp vengeance, and it was not long before he found an opportunity of executing it. Sindia, having ordered Shirjee Rao, his father-in-law, 1801 and the greatest miscreant of Central India, to join his camp, proceeded in pursuit of Holkar, who was sindia de- totally defeated on the 14th October. The wretch featsHoikar. entered the capital, Indore, and gave it up to plunder. The noblest edifices in the city, which had been erected and adorned by Aylah bye, were reduced to ashes. Those who were possessed of property were tortured to reveal it, and the wells were choked up with the bodies of females who destroyed themselves to escape dishonour. Holkar was not long in recovering the blow. His daring spirit was exactly suited to the temper of the age, and his stan- dard was speedily crowded with recruits, with whom he proceeded to the north, plundering every town and village in his progress, and to the horror of his lawless, but superstitious soldiery, not sparing even the shrines of the gods. He then laid waste the province of Candesh, and 262 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII moved down on Poona, and the Peshwa began to tremble for his safety. Lord Wellesley had not ceased to renew the offer of the subsidiary alliance when there appeared any prospect of success. The negotiation fluctuated with the Peshwa' s hopes and fears, and when Sindia, who had earnestly dissuaded him from accepting it, sent ten batta- lions of infantry and a large body of cavalry to protect him from the assault of Holkar, it came to an abrupt ter- mination. Holkar continued to advance to Poona, and the dismayed Peshwa made him the most abject offers, but they were Battle of haughtily rejected. The combined army of Poona. Sindia and the Peshwa encamped in the vicinity of the capital, consisted of 84,000 horse and foot. Sindia' s force comprised ten battalions under the command of Col. Dawes, while Holkar had fourteen battalions, disciplined and commanded by European officers. The battle of Poona, A.u. which was long and obstinately contested, ended in the 1802 complete victory of Holkar, who captured the whole of the baggage, stores and encampment of the allies. The Peshwa, who had kept out of the reach of fire, fled precipi- tately to the sea coast, where he obtained the accommoda- tion of a British vessel from the governor of Bombay and embarked for Bassein, which he reached on the 6th December. Holkar entered the capital and placed the Peshwa's ille- gitimate brother, Amrut Rao, on the throne, after exacting the promise of an immediate payment of two crores, and territory yielding another crore, as well as the command of the army and the control of the state. After two months of singular moderation he gave up the capital to pillage. Bajee Rao, now became eager for the alliance as affording him the only chance of regaining his crown, and on the last The treaty of ^^J of December, he signed the memorable treaty Bassein. of Bassein, by which he agi'eed to entertain a ^®*'2 body of G,000 English troops, and a suitable complement of artillery, and to assign districts yielding twenty-six lacs for their support, to entertain no Europeans in his service, and to refer all his claims upon the Nizam and the Gaik- war to the arbitration of the Governor- General. The treaty likewise guaranteed the southern jageerdars in the enjoyment of their ancient rights. The treaty of Bassein, viewed in connection with its consequences, forms one of the most important events in Remarks on ^he history of British India. Although the the treaty, authority of the Peshwa had long ceased to 1808 Sect. III.] THE TKEATY OF BASSEIN 263 possess its former importance in the Maliratta counsels, he was still regarded by the other chiefs as the centre of their national unity, and the recognised chief of the Mahratta commonwealth, and the extinction of his inde- pendence essentially weakened its power. It has been the subject' of warm controversy, but the sound judg- ment of the Duke of Wellington, then General Wellesley, based upon his extensive Indian experience, may be con- sidered conclusive. " The treaty of Bassein," he asserted, " and the measures adopted in consequence of it, afforded " the best prospect of preserving the peace of India, and " to have adopted any other measure would have rendered " war with Holkar nearly certain, and war with the whole " Mahratta nation more than probable." This opinion has been fully confirmed by posterity. War with the Mahratta powers was inevitable ; the treaty may have hastened it, but it must not be forgotten that it likewise deprived them of all the resources of the Peshwa's Government. The establishment of the Company's paramount ^-^ authority at the Mahratta capital gave great umbrage to Sindia and to the raja of Nagpore. The former ■gj^^^.g^ g ^^ found all his ambitious projects in the Deccan sindia and defeated, and exclaimed : " The treaty takes the ^aja^*^"""^ " turban from my head." The Nagpore raja was at once deprived of the hopes he and his ancestors had cherished of some day obtaining the office of Peshwa. The two chiefs immediately entered into a confederacy to obstruct the objects of the treaty, and Bajee Rao himself had no sooner signed it, than he despatched an envoy to solicit their aid to frustrate it. Holkar, whose plans were thwarted by this masterly stroke of policy, agreed to join the coalition on condition that the domains of his family should be restored to him ; but, although he was reinstated in them, he no sooner perceived Sindia involved in hos- tilities with the British Government, than he let loose his own famishing hordes on his possessions in Malwa. Lord Wellesley, who had early information of this coali- tion, informed Sindia and the raja of Nagpore that he was desirous of maintaining friendly relations with Lo^^^gUes- them unimpaired, but would resist to the full ley'a military extent of his power any attempt to interfere "^^^ements. with the treaty. To be prepared for every contingency, he ordered the whole of the Hyderabad subsidiary force, and 6,000 of the Nizam's own infantry, and 9,000 horse, under Colonel Stephenson, up to the frontier. General A.D. 264 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Vin. Wellesley likewise marched up 600 miles in the same direction with the Mysore contingent, 8,000 infantry, 1,700 cavalry, and 2,000 of the celebrated Mysore horse, under an able native commander. The southern jageerdars were induced by the influence which General Wellesley had obtained over them, to join him with 10,('00 troops. Amrut Rao, whom Holkar had left in command at Poona, had declared his determination to reduce it to ashes when he could no longer hold it ; but the city was saved by the energy of General Wellesley, who made a forced march of sixty miles in thirty-two hours to rescue it. Soon after 1803 S^j^e Rao quitted Bassein, and on the 13th May, the day which had been selected by his astrologers, entered Poona, accompanied by British bayonets, and ascended the throne under a British salute. The designs of Sindia became daily more evident. He marched down with a large force from Oojein to form a Pg^gj^ junction with the i*aja of Nagpore, who moved up ment of to meet him with a large force on the 17th April. dSSi Both princes informed the Resident that it was their intention to proceed to Poona " to adjust the " government of the Peshwa." He assured them that any such movement would be considered an act of hostility, and involve the most serious consequences. Various com- munications were intercepted in different directions, which placed their warlike designs beyond doubt ; and, on the 23rd May, therefore. Colonel Close, the Resident at Sindia's court, was instructed to demand a categorical explanation of his intentions, when he replied that, with regard to the negotiations on foot, he could give no decisive answer till he had seen the raja of Nagpore, then encamped about forty miles distant, " when you shall be informed whether " there is to be war or peace." Lord Wellesley considered this announcement not merely an insult to the British QtDvernment, but an unequivocal menace of hostiHty on the part of both princes, who had planted their armies on the frontiers of the two allies, the Nizam and the Peshwa, whom the Government were bound to defend. The com- plication of affairs at this juncture was increased by the arrival of the French armament, already mentioned, at Pondicherry, which Sindia announced to all the Mahratta princes as the reinforcement of an ally. The confederates continued to prolong the discussions for two months, while they were employed in pressing Holkar to join them. During this period of suspense, the perfidious Peshwa con- Sect. IV.] WAR WITH SINDIA AND NAaPORE 265 tinued to importune Sindia to avoid any concession, but advance at once to Pooiia " to settle affairs." He obstructed the progress of supplies, and lost no opportunity of embar- rassing the Government. Time was now invaluable, but no reply could be received to any reference to Calcutta under six weeks, and Lord Wellesley, therefore, ventured to take upon him- Delegation self the responsibility, for which he was after- of powers to wards captiously censured, of vesting full powers, ^'eSley. civil, military, and diplomatic, in reference to the conduct of Mahratta affairs in the Deccan, in Greneral Wellesley, and at the same time furnished him with a clear exposition of his views of policy. The general re- ceived this commission on the 18th July, and lost no time in a.i>. calling on the allied chiefs to demonstrate the sincerity ^^^^ of the pacific declarations they were making, by with- drawing their forces from a position, not necessary for the security of their own territories, but menacing equally to the Nizam, the Company, and the Peshwa. A week of frivolous and fruitless discussion then ensued, during which Sindia had the simphcity to say that they were not prepared to determine on any movement, as the negotiation with Holkar was not yet complete. Wearied with these studied delays, General Wellesley gave them twenty-four hours for their ultimatum, when they proposed that the British armies should retire to their cantonments at Bom- bay, Madras, and Seringapatam, while their forces fell back forty miles to Boorhanpore. To this General Wellesley replied : "I offered you peace on terms of equality, and " honourable to all parties : you have chosen war, and are " answerable for all consequences." On the 3rd August the British Resident withdrew from Sindia's camp, and the Mahratta war of 1803 commenced. SECTION lY. LORD WELLESLEY — WAR WITH SINDIA AND NAGPOEE. Lord Wellesley, finding a war with Sindia and the raja of Nagpore inevitable, determined to strike a decisive blow at their power, simultaneously, in every quarter Preparations of India. In the grand combinations of this for war. campaign he was his own war rainister, and never undei 266 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIIL the Company's rule had the resources of Government been drawn forth upon a scale of such magnitude and applied with such promptitude and effect. In the Deccan the ad- vanced force under General Wellesley of about 9,000 men, and of Colonel Stephenson, consisting of about 8,000, was appointed to operate against the main armies of the con- federates. In the north 10,500 troops were assembled under General Lake, to attack Sindia's possessions in Hin- dostan, which were defended by his French battalions ; and a force of 3,500 was allotted for the invasion of Bundlecund. On the western coast an army of 7,300 men was organised to dispossess Sindia of his possessions in Guzerat, while 5,200 men were to occupy the province of Cuttack, be- longing to the raja of Nagpore, on the eastern coast. The whole force of about 43,500 men was animated by that tradi- tionary spirit of enterprise and enthusiasm which had created the British empire in India, and which, on this occasion, was heightened by unbounded confidence in the statesman at the head of the Government. The armies of the con- federates were computed at 100,000, of whom one half consisted of cavalry, with a superb train of artillery of many hundred pieces. As soon as the Resident had quitted Sindia's camp, General Wellesley opened the campaign by the capture of Capture ^^® strong fortress of Ahmednugur, Sindia's great AD, of Ahmed- arsenal and depot in the Deccan, and by taking t803 nugur. possession of all his districts south of the Goda- very. Meanwhile the confederates spent three weeks in marching and countermarching, apparently without any definite object. General Wellesley, misled by his guides, was unexpectedly brought, after a march of twenty-six miles, to a position from which he could behold Sindia's encampment, consisting of 50,000 men and 100 guns, stretched out before him, and he resolved to bring on an immediate action without waiting for the junction of Battle of Colonel Stephenson's force. The handful of ABsye. British troops which had to encounter this for- midable array at Assye, did not exceed 4,500. The Mah- ratta infantry was entrenched behind formidable batteries, which the General had particularly enjoined the oflBcer commanding the advance not to assail in front, but he charged up to the muzzle of the guns ; the carnage was appalling, but the indomitable courage and energy of the troops, more especially the 74th, bore down all opposition, and Sindia's splendid infantry, standing by the guns to Sect. IV.] SINDIA'S POWEE IN HINDOSTAN 267 the last, was at length overpowered and dispersed. The a.d. victory was the most complete which had ever crowned the ^808 Company's arms in India, but it was dearly purchased by the loss of one-third of its numbers. Sindia lost 12,000 men and all his guns, ammunition, and camp equipage. His army was a complete wreck, and he retreated with a small body of horse to the Tap tee. Colonel Stephenson was sent in pursuit of him, and captured the flourishing town of Boorhanpore and the strong fortress of Aseergurh. Meanwhile all Sindia' s districts in Guzerat were occupied, and nothing remained to him but his possessions in Hindostan. This valuable territory had been enlarged and con- solidated by the indefatigable exertions of the late Mah- dajee Sindia, and chiefly through the army raised gin^ia's pos- and disciplined by the Count de Boigne, on sessions in whose retirement to France the command de- volved on General Perron. Dowlut Rao, since his acces- sion to his uncle's throne in 1794, had continued to reside at Poona that he might maintain a paramount influence in the Mahratta councils, and the administration of these provinces in the north devolved on the general, who con- ducted it with great ability and moderation. He had succeeded in extending the control of Sindia over the Rajpoots, and was rapidly stretching it over the Sikhs up to the banks of the Sutlej. His advanced posts approached the Indus in one direction and Allahabad in the other, and the territory under his control yielded a revenue of two crores of rupees. His army consisted of 28,000 foot, not inferior in any respect to the Company's sepoy army, with 5,000 cavalry and 140 guns. The jeopardy to which the interests of the Company were continually exposed by the presence of this powerful force, entirely under French influence, along the whole of the north-west frontier was but too apparent, and Lord Wellesley considered it an object of the highest importance to extinguish it. Happily for the accomplishment of his wishes Sindia' s Mahratta officers entertained such jealousy of the extraordinary power granted to a foreigner that he considered his position no longer tenable, and was contemplating his retirement when the war broke out. General Lake had been entmsted with the same plenary powers in Hindostan which had been confided to General Wellesley in the Deccan. He opened the cam- capture of paign by advancing against General Perron's Aiiygurh. 268 ABBIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. VIIL encampment, but he withdrew his army 15,000 strong with- out firing a shot, upon which General Lake laid siege to AUygurh, the great arsenal and dep6t of Sindia in Hin- dostan. It had been fortified with extraordinary skill by A.D. French officers, but it was captured by a ccmp de main, 1803 through the irresistible gallantry of the 76th Highlanders. The number of guns captured amounted to 281. Shortly after, Perron having learnt that his enemies at Sindia's court had procured an order for his dismissal, obtained permission to pass through the British camp on his way to Lucknow, and was received with the distinction due to his rank and his talents. General Lake then advanced from AUygnrh towards Delhi, and within sight of its minarets encountered the French force under General Bourquin, 19,000 in number. The battle was severely contested, but the British infantry, led again by the 76th Highlanders, and by the Commander-in-Chief in person, advanced calmly amidst a storm of grape and chain shot, and charged with the bayonet ; the ranks of the enemy reeled, and then broke up in confusion. Three days after the engagement, General Bourquin and three of his officers delivered up their swords to The troops General Lake. The city of Delhi was imme- enter Delhi, diately evacuated by Sindia's troops, and the British standard was hoisted upon its battlements. The emperor, though a prisoner and sightless, was still con- sidered the fountain of honour by Hindoos and Mahomed- ans, and a patent of nobility under the imperial seal was as higlily prized in the remotest provinces of the Deccan as it had been in the days of Aurungzebe. " General 1803 " Lake," in the magniloquent proclamation of Lord 15th Wellesley, "was ushered into the royal presence, and Sept. " found the unfortunate and venerable emperor, oppressed " by the accumulated calamities of old age and degraded " authority, extreme poverty and loss of sight, seated " under a small tattered canopy, the remnant of his royal " state, with every external appearance of the misery of " his condition." Lord Wellesley made a noble provision for his support, and then formed the judicious resolution of removing him and the royal family from the dangerous associations of Delhi, and proposed Monghyr for his future residence ; but the emperor clung with such tenacity to the spot which had been for six centuries the capital of Mahomedan power that the Governor- General was reluct- antly constrained to relinquish the design. For this Skcjt. IV.] PEACE WITH NAGPOKE 269 generous but impmdent act the Governmeiit was required ^.d. to pay a fearful penalty half a century later. 1803 Leaving Colonel Ochterlony in command at Delhi, General Lake marched down to Agra, which capitulated after a protracted siege, when the treasure found Battle of in it, about twenty-eight lacs of rupees, was ^aswaree. promptly and prudently distributed among the officers and men, " in anticipation of the approval of the home autho- " rities." On the outbreak of the war Sindia had sent fifteen of his French battalions across the Nerbudda to protect his possessions in Hindostan. They were con- sidered the fl.ower of his army, and were usually called the " Deccan Invincibles," and nobly did they sustain the reputation they had gained. Including the fugitives from Delhi they formed a body of 13,000 horse and foot, with 72 pieces of cannon, under native commanders. General Lake came up with their encampment at Laswaree on the 1st November, and they fought as native soldiers had never fought before when they had no European officers to animate them. They were at length overpowered, but not till one-half of their number, as reported, lay on the field killed or wounded. The general himself conducted all the movements, and impetuously led the charge in person, more to the credit of his gallantry than of his military talent. Though a dashing soldier and adored by his men, he was a very indifferent general, but the flagrant errors of the day were covered — as they have since been on more than one occasion — by the chivalrous valour of the men at the sacrifice of their lives. Alarmed by the reverses he had sustained, Sindia made overtures which resulted in an armistice, and General Wellesley was now enabled to turn his whole attention to the raja of Nagpore, whom he had Jjgaum^ been closely following. On the 28th November he submission jg^j came up with his whole army at Argaum, and °^^*^°'^®- obtained a complete victory. The fortress of Gawilgurh surrendered in the middle of December, and General Wellesley prepared to march upon Nagpore, which must have at once capitulated. The province of Cuttack had also been occupied by a British army without a single casualty. The raja, reduced to extremities by these rapid reverses, and trembling for his capital and his throne, hastened to sue for peace, and the treaty of Deogaum was negotiated and concluded in two days by Mr. Mount- Stuart Elphinstone on the 18th December. Cuttack was 270 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII A.D. annexed to the Company's territories, and the uninterrupted 1803 communication between Calcutta and Madras, which the Court of Directors had coveted for many years, and for which they were at one time prepared to pay a large sum, was established. The opulent province of Berar was made over to our ally the Nizam, though during the campaign his officers had behaved with more than ordinary perfidy. The raja likewise engaged to refer all his differ- ences with the Nizam and the Peshwa to the arbitrament of the British Government. These cessions of territory, which comprised some of his most valuable districts, re- duced him to the position of a secondary power in India. Sindia could no longer hesitate to accept the severe terms dictated by the Governor- General. His French Submission battalions, the bulwark of his power, were anni- of Sindia. hilatcd. His territories in the Deccan, in Guzerat and in Hindostan, the rich patrimony bequoathed to him by his uncle, had been wrested from him, and nothing lay before him but the extinction of his power. He yielded to necessity within a fortnight after the raja of Nagpore had agreed to the treaty of Deogaum, and signed the treaty of Sirjee Anjengaum. He was obliged to cede all his terri- tories lying between the Ganges and the Dooab, and those north of the principalities of Jeypore and Joudpore, the fortress and territory of Ahmednugur in ^- the Deccan, and Broacb and its dependencies in Guzerat.' He rehnquished all claims on the Peshwa, the Nizam, and the Gaikwar, and acknowledged the independence of the rajas and feu- datories in Hindostan wdth whom Lord Wellesley had recently concluded treaties. The war which produced these great results was scarcely of five months duration, and it was concluded before it was known in Leadenhall Street that it had commenced. Ahmednugur with its territory was made over to the Peshwa, and the wealthy districts in Hindostan were united with those which had been acquired from the Vizier of Oude, to form a separate Treaties of P^'o^ir^ce now known as the North West Presi- aiiiancein deucy. Having thus reduced the Mahratta the north, power in Hindostan, Lord Wellesley was anxious to prevent the renewal of it by establishing a barrier between the possessions of Sindia, north of the Nerbudda and those of the Company, and General Lake was in- structed to conclude treaties of alliance with the Jaut prince of Bhurtpore, and the princes of Jeypore, Joudpore, Machery, Boondee and Gohud, who were thereby absolved Sect. V.] WILDNESS OF HOLKAR 271 from all allegiance to the Maliratta powers, and relieved a.d. from all dread of their encroachments. 180i The genius of Lord Wellesley had thus, in the course of five years, reorganized the political condition of India, and placed his masters on the pinnacle of power. The Com- pany had now become the absolute sovereigns of the most valuable portion of the continent, the protector of the states not included within its possessions, and the umpire in the disputes of all. Its authority was established on a more solid basis than that of Akbar or Aurungzebe. The reputation and splendour of Lord Wellesley 's administration had now reached its culmination, and the disasters which clouded the remainder of his Indian career were owing en- tirely to the blunders of the Commander-in-Chief, though his Grovemment was necessarily saddled with the obloquy of them. SECTION V. LORD WELLESLEY WAR WITH HOLKAR — COLONEL MONSON'S RETREAT. During the war with Sindia and the raja of Nagpore, Hoi- 1804 kar, instead of uniting his forces with theirs, sought more profitable employment for them in predatory ex- Hoikar's cursions into Hindostan. On the conclusion of proceedings, the peace he marched upon the wealthy town of Muhesur, where he was reported to have obtained a crore of rupees, by which he was enabled to take into his pay the soldiers whom Sindia and the raja of Nagpore had disbanded. His army was thus augmented to 60,000 horse, and 15,000 foot, a force far exceeding his rei^uirements or his resources, and which could only be maintained by plunder. He was assured by the Governor- General and General Wellesley that, as long as he abstained from invading the dominions of the Company or of their allies, no attempt should be made to interfere with his movements. But repose was in- compatible with his condition ; his fortune was in his saddle, and his reckless disposition led him to throw himself on the British buckler. In March he demanded of General Wellesley the cession of certain districts in the Deccan which he affirmed had once belonged to his family, and he sent to General Lake to demand the ohout as the inalienable right of the Mahrattas, and threatened '* if his " demands were not complied with, that countries many 272 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. A.D. " hundred miles in extent should be plundered, and calami- 1804 « ties fall on many hundred thousand human beings by a " continued war, in which his armies would overwhelm " them like waves of the sea." These insolent menaces were followed up by an inroad into the territories of the British ally, the raja of Jeypore. Lord Wellesley felt that there could be no prosperity or even peace in Central India while this large predatory War with horde continued to roam through it under this Hoikar. rampant chief, and that an army of observation would be found to be far more costly than an army of action ; and on the 16th April directed Generals Wellesley and Lake to take the field against him. General Lake moved into tht; Jeypore ten^itory, and chased him out of it. General Wel- lesley then in the Deccan urged him to continue the pursuit without pause, and assured him that if it was prosecuted with vigour, the war would be over in a fortnight. By an act of incomprehensive fatuity. General Lake rejected this advice, withdrew his army into cantonments, and sent Colonel Monson with a weak force to follow Hoikar. Lord Wellesley strenuously urged him either to recall the brigade or to strengthen it, but General Lake did neither. Colonel Monson was as remarkable for his personal bravery as for his professional incompetence. With a detachment feeble in numbers, and not supported by a single Euro- pean soldier, with only about 2,500 worthless irregular horse, he advanced into the heart of Holkar's territory to encounter a force ten times its number, and commanded by the most daring soldier of the day ; and he neglected to make any provision for supplies, or for crossing the various streams which would become unfordable in two or three weeks. » 1804 On the 7th July Colonel Monson received the alarming in- telligence that Hoikar had called up his whole force and Colonel ^^ marching upon him, and that Colonel Monson's Murray, whom General Wellesley had ordered retreat. ^p fpQ^^ Guzerat to Support him, had fallen back. The provisions in his camp were only equal to two days' consumption, and he deemed it necessary to make an immediate retreat. Whenever the troops stood at bay, Hoikar, notwithstanding the immense superiority of his force, sustained a repulse. At Rampoora Colonel Monson was reinforced by two battalions sent to his aid by General Lake, and was well supplied with provisions ; but he unaccountably lingered there twenty-four days, Sect, v.] colonel MOJSSON'S RETEEAT 273 duriDg which time Holkar never once ventured to attack a.d. him. He then recommenced his retreat, which soon 1804 became a disgraceful rout, and the last sepoy straggled into Agra fifty days after he had begun to retire. Twenty- three years before Colonel Camac had, with equal indiscre- tion, marched into the heart of Sindia's territories, and found himself in the same predicament as Colonel Monson; yet, by the unfailing expedient of a bold and aggressive movement, Sindia was completely defeated, and lost guns, ammunition, encampment, and reputation. But for the imbecility of the commander, the same triumph would have crowned the valour of the troops under Colonel Monson, and Lord Wellesley would not have had to lament the loss of five battalions of infantry and six companies of artillery. This was the most signal disgrace the Com- pany's arms had sustained since the destruction of Colonel Baillie's detachment by Hyder, and it was commemorated in ribald songs in the bazaars throughout the continent. The raja of Bhurtpore, who was the first to seek the alliance of the Government in the flood-tide of success in 1803, was the first to desert them when the tide appeared to be ebbing. Flushed with success, Holkar advanced to Muttra with an army estimated at V)0,000 men, and General Lake, with his usual energy, rapidly assembled his regiments Holkar be- to meet this unexpected inroad. Meanwhile, sieges Delhi. Holkar planned the daring project of seizing the city of Delhi and obtaining possession of the person of the emperor, and of the influence still attached to his name. Leaving his cavalry to engage the attention of General Lake, he suddenly appeared before the gates of the city on the 7th October. It was ten miles in circumference, 1804 defended only by dilapidated walls and ruined ramparts, and tilled with a mixed and unruly population. The garrison was too weak to admit of reliefs, and provisions were served to the troops on the battlements ; but Colonel Ochterlony, with a spirit worthy of Clive, defended it for nine days against the utmost efforts of the enemy, 20,000 strong, with 100 pieces of artillery. Holkar at length drew off his force in despair, and sending back his infantry and guns into the territory of his new ally, the raja of Bhurt- pore, set out with his cavalry to lay waste the Company's districts in the Doab. General Lake left his infantry under General Eraser, to T 274 ABRIDGMKNT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII watch Holkar's battalions, and started in pursuit of him Pursuit of with six regiments of cavalry, European and Hoikar. native, and his horse artillery, giving him no rest night or day. Hoikar generally contrived to keep twenty or thirty miles ahead of him, ravaging the defence- less villages as he swept along ; but, after a forced march of fifty miles in twenty-four hours, the general succeeded A.D. in overtaking him at dawn, at Futtygurh, on the 17th 1804 November. The enemy's horses were at picket, and the men asleep beside them in apparent security, when several rounds of grape announced the arrival of their pursuers. Hoikar sprang on his horse, and galloped off with a few troopers, leaving the rest of the troops to shift for themselves, and they were dispersed and cut up in all directions. He hastened back to rejoin his infantry, but found on recrossing the Jumna, that they had suffered an irreparable defeat. General Frazer with a force of 6,000 men had attacked his army consisting of fourteen battalions Battle of of foot, a large body of horse and 160 guns, Deeg. and obtained a decisive victory, capturing more than half his artillery ; but the victory was dearly pur- chased by the loss of the general. During the engage- ment, a destructive fire was opened on the British force from the fortress of Deeg, belonging to the raja of Bhurt- pore, which was immediately invested and captured. The fortunes of Hoikar were now at the lowest ebb. General Jones, who had succeeded the incompetent Colonel Siege of Murray, had captured all his forts in Malwa, and Bhurtpore. marched up, unmolested, to General Lake's encampment. The large host with which he had proudly appeared on the banks of the Jumna only four months before had disappeared, and the annihilation of his power appeared inevitable, when every advantage was thrown away by the fatal resolution of General Lake to invest Bhur^-pore. The town was eight miles in circum- ference, surrounded by the invulnerable bulwark of a mud wall of great height and thickness, protected by numerous bastions and by a broad and deep ditch, filled with water, and defended by 8,000 of the raja's troops and the rem- nant of Holkar's infantry. General Lake turned a deaf ear to all advice, and without a sufficient siege train, or an engineer officer of any experience, without even making a reconnaissance, commenced the siege with breathless im- petuosity. Four consecutive attacks were made upon it during fifteen weeks, which entailed the unprecedented Sbct. v.] SIEaE OF BHURTPORE 276 loss of 8,200 in killed and wounded, of whom 103 were a.d. officers. The siege was abandoned on the 21st April ; ISOfl but the raja, who had severely felt the loss of all the revenues of his districts and the exactions of Holkar, sought an accommodation with the Government, and a treaty was soon after concluded on condition of his con- tributing twenty lacs of rupees in four instalments towards the expenses of the war. But this issue of the campaign did not cover the disgrace of our failure, the remembrance of which was perpetuated even in the remote districts of the Deccan by rude delineations of British soldiers hurled from the battlements of Bhurtpore. This pacification was hastened by the hostile attitude of Sindia. By the treaty of Sirjee Anjengaum, he had agreed to relinquish all claim on the rajas with whom Lord Wellesley had concluded treaties. But, tndeof when the list was presented to him four months ^"^'^^* after, he was exasperated to find the name of the rana of Gohud included in it, and also the fort of Gwalior. He scouted the idea of considering the rana, whose territories he had absorbed twenty years before, as an independent prince, or of making over to him the fortress of Gwalior, which he valued not merely for its strength, but as a personal gift from the emperor. General Wellesley affirmed that Sindia had subscribed the treaty with the distinct understanding that the fort and territory should remain with him, and it was in ignorance of this agreement that Lord Wellesley had resolved to consider Gohud as an independent princi- pality. General Wellesley said, " that he would sacrifice " it, and every other frontier town ten times over, to " preserve our credit for good faith." Major Malcolm, the envoy at Sindia' s court, was equally urgent, but Lord Wellesley, who was entirely in the wrong, imperiously persisted in his resolution, and Sindia was obliged to submit, but the loss continued to rankle in his bosom. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson and the failure of the siege of Bhurtpore, produced a profound sensation throughout Hindostan. The victors of confederacy Assye had been chased by Holkar up to the against Go- walls of Agra. The captors of Gwalior had ^^™™'^"^- been baffled before a mud fort in the plains, and an im- pression was created that the Company's good fortune was on the wane. A hostile confederacy was secretly formed, which included Sindia, Holkar, Ameer Khan, and the raja of Bhurtpore; and Sindia ventured to attack our aUies T 2 276 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. A.D. and to invade Saugor. At the instance of his niinister, 1806 Sirjee Rao, the encampment of Mr. Jenkins, the Kesident, was plundered, and he was placed under restraint. Sindia moreover assembled an army of 40,000 men, and moved on towards Bhurtpore, with the intention, he said, of negotiating a peaces between the raja and the British Government. Lord Wellesley could not fail to feel acutely the insult which such a proposal implied, but he and his brother were anxious to avoid a rupture with Sindia at this time. The morale of the army was low, and the north-west frontier was defenceless. The Resident dis- suaded Sindia from crossing the Chumbul towards Bhurt- pore, assuring him that it would inevitably result in a war, and advised him to return to his own capital ; but he said his funds were exhausted, and General Wellesley assured Lord Wellesley that he was really impoverished by his late losses, and under the advice of the General an advance of money was made to him from the treasury, on which he retraced his steps to Subulgurh. He was joined soon after by Ameer Khan and Holkar, with about 3,000 of the cavalry which yet adhered to his Movements standard. The confederates pressed Sindia for of the con- money, but his exchequer was exhausted, and he federates. g^yg them permission to despoil his general, Ambajee Anglia, who had amassed two crores in his service, and Shirjee Rao, Sindia' s father-in-law, extorted fifty lacs of rupees from him by torture. The atrocities of this miscreant constrained Sindia to discard him, and Ambajee having been appointed in his stead, broke up the alliance between his master and Holkar and Ameer Khan, and the path was thus opened for an accommodation with the British Government. Sindia had nothing to expect, but everything to lose, by a struggle with the Company, and he was sincerely desirous of the restoration of concord. Lord Wellesley was equally anxious for the re- establishment of a good understanding, that he might reduce the burdens of the state. He had determined to restore Gohud and Gwalior, as a matter of policy, and another month or six weeks would have brought about an Supersedure ^.micable adjustment of all differences, and placed of Lord the tranquillity of India on a solid basis ; bat, 1806 Wellesley. ^^ ^^^ gQ^^ j^j^ ^^ ^^^ Superseded by the arrival of Lord Cornwall is, and his whole scheme of policy was at once subverted. The administration of Lord Wellesley is the most Sect. V.] LORD WELLESLEY'S GOVERNMENT 277 memorable in the amials of the Company. He found the a.d. empire beset with perils in every quarter; he Remarks on ^^^* bequeathed it to his successor in a state of com- his adminis- plete security, with the prestige of our power *''^^^°"- higher than it had ever stood. He annihilated the French force at Hyderabad, demolished the kingdom of Mysore, and became master of the Deccan. He extinguished the more formidable battalions of French troops in the employ of Sindia, and turned his possessions in Hindostan into a British province. He paralysed beyond redemption the great Msuhratta sovereigns ; he doubled the territories and resources of the Company ; he exhibited a special genius for creating and consolidating an empire, and he would rank as the greatest of the Govern ors- General if he had not been preceded by Warren Hastings and followed by Lord Dalhousie. He was resolved to quench those internecine contests among the princes of India which, for a century since the death of Aurungzebe, had turned its fairest pro- vinces into a desert. He felt as his brother the Duke of Wellington, then General Wellesley, happily expressed it, " that no permanent system of policy could be adopted to " protect the weak against the strong, and to keep the '' princes for any length of time in their relative positions, " and the whole body in peace, without the establishment " of one power which, by the superiority of its strength " and its military system and resources, should obtain a " preponderating influence for the protection of all." The Company was to be this preponderating power, but the Compa.ny was still a commercial body, with an instinctive dread of military operations, which interrupted its invest- ments and disturbed its balance-sheet. The mercantile spirit was still in the ascendant in Leadenhall-street, whereas Lord Wellesley maintained that " as long as the " Company represented the sovereign executive authority " in this vast empire, its duties of sovereignty must be " paramount to mercantile interests." These antagonistic views created a strong feeling of antipathy towards him at the India House. Parliament, moreover, had thought fit to interdict all increase of territory and all alliances with native princes without the sanction of the Court of Directors, and they hoped under the shadow of this injunction to continue at peace with the native princes, and to pursae their mercantile enterprises without any impediment. But, in defiance of this rule. Lord Wellesley had been engaged in wars from Cape Comorin to the Sutlej,had broken the power 278 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. VIII. A.D. of prince after prince, and loaded the Company with the 1805 responsibility of governing one half and controlling the other half of India. The vastness of his schemes, and the audacity of his aspirations, confounded them ; and even his friend Lord Castlereagh, the President of the Board of Control, regarded with a feeling of anxiety the vast extent of our dominion and our responsibilities. The announce- ment of the war with Holkar, however inevitable, filled up the measure of his deHnquencies, and completed the dismay of the India authorities in Leadenhall-street and at the Board of Control ; and it was resolved to supersede him, and " to bring back things to the state the legislature " had prescribed in 1792 ;" in other words, to put the political clock back a dozen years. On the return of Lord Wellesley to England, an attempt was made to subject him to an impeachment. A Mr. Attempt at P^^^l^j Originally a tailor, had gone out to India impeach- as an adventurer, and having amassed a for- ™^°*' tane in the hot-house of corruption at Lucknow, obtained a seat in Parliament, and brought articles of charge against Lord Wellesley of high crimes and mis- demeanours which were dropped on the dissolution ; and Paull having failed to obtain a seat at the election, put a period to his life. Lord Folkstone subsequently renewed the charge, but the resolution of censure which he pro- posed was negatived by 182 to 31. On the other hand, the vindictive Court of Proprietors passed a vote of con- demnation by 928 to 195. But thirty years later, when truth had triumphed over passion and prejudice, the Court of Directors took occasion, on the publication of his despatches, to assure him by a unanimous resolution, " that " in their judgment he had been anima,ted throughout his " administration by an ardent zeal to promote the well- Appiause of " being of India, and to uphold the interest and the Court of "honour of the British empire; and that they Directors, u looked back to the eventful and brilHant period " of his administration with feelings common to their " countrymen." They voted him a grant of 20,000Z. and ordered his statue to be placed in the India House as a recognition of his services. Sect. l.J LORD CORNWAiLIS 279 CHAPTEE IX. SECTION I. LORD CORNWALLIS AND SIR G. BARLOW. Lord Cornwallis was Mr. Pitt's invariable refuge in every Indian difficulty. When the Company's possessions were considered to be in danger from the proceedings ^ ^ ^ rn of Warren Hastings, Lord Cornwallis was sent waiiis's brief out to restore their security. When again, in Jeath."*^ 1797, Sir John Shore's weakness had brought on the mutiny of the officers which threatened the dissolution of Government, he was entreated to go out, if only for a year ; and now he was importuned a third time in 1805 to undertake the office of Governor- General, and save the empire from the ruin with which it was supposed to be threatened through Lord Wellesley's ambition. His con- stitution was exhausted by thirty years of labour in America, in India and in Ireland, but he would not refuse what he considered the call of duty, and he landed at Cal- cutta on the 30th June, with the finger of death visibly a..d.^ upon him. Within twenty-four hours Lord Wellesley had ^^^^ the mortification to learn that his whole system of policy was to be immediately demolished. Lord Cornwallis lost no time in announcing that it was his object to restore the native princes to a condition of " vigour, efficiency, and " independent interest," and to remove the impression of our design to establish British control over every Indian power. He was resolved, in fact, to steer the vessel of the state in 1805 by the ephemeris of 1793. He immediately proceeded up the country by water, and on the 19th September sent a despatch to Lord Lake de- fining the policy he intended to pursue. He Loj-^c^^m proposed to restore all Holkar's family domains waiiis's when he manifested a reasonable disposition ; ^^^y- to give up Gohud and Gwalior to Sindia, and even to waive the demand which had been made by Lord Wellesley 280 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. of the release of the Resident, Mr. Jenkins, whom Sindia detained in honourable bondage, if it was found to be an obstacle to a reconciliation with that chief; to abro- gate the treaty with Jeypore ; to remove the emperor and his family to some town near Calcutta, and to restore Delhi to the Mahrattas ; to dissolve all the alliances con- cluded with the princes north of the Chumbul, and to compensate them for the loss of our protection from the territories we had acquired beyond the Jumna, which was to be our future boundary. Before this letter could reach Lord Lake, Lord Comwallis was in his grave. It was dictated to his secretary at a time when he was in such a state of mental and physical debility, that it may be questioned whether he fully comprehended the scope and H" d th consequences of this abrupt and fundamental change of policy. He was put on shore at Gha- A.D.^ zeepore, where he expired on the 5th October. He had 1805 j^Q^ ^-j^Q genius of Hastings or of Lord Wellesley, and his merits as a Governor- General have been over- rated, but none of the rulers of British India have ever more richly earned the esteem and confidence of Europeans and natives by his sterling integrity, his straightforward and manly character, and the spirit of justice and moderation which regulated all his actions. Sir George Barlow, the senior member of Council, suc- ceeded temporarily to the office of Govern or- General. He Sir G Bar ^^^ presided for many years over some of the low and his most important offices in the state, in which he P^^^y- had acquired a rich fund of experience. He had been extolled for his official aptitude and ability by three successive Gove mors- General, and though the ministry had wisely resolved never again to place any local officer at the head of the Government, they had yielded to the recommendation of Lord Wellesley, and given him the reversion of the highest office. But Sir George was simply a first-rate civilian, eminently qualified for every subor- dinate department, but destitute of that patrician dignity and that elevation of mind which the management of the empire required. While he continued under the influence of Lord Wellesley's master spirit, he cordially adopted his large and comprehensive policy, and became so closely identified with it that he lost the prospect of succeeding him when that policy was discarded at the India House. This fact was communicated to him by Lord Cornwallis, and may not have been without its influence in converting him to the opposite line of policy, of which he now became Sect. I.] SIR GEORGE BARLOW 281 the Tinfliiiching advocate. He hastened to infomi Lord a.d. Lake that it was his intention to dissolve all onr alliances 1803 with the native princes, to relinquish all right to interfere in their affairs, and to withdraw from all connection with any state beyond the Jumna. Lord Wellesley proposed to rest the security of our dominion on the establishment of general tranquillity under our supremacy. Sir George considered that our position would be equally secure if the native states were allowed to tear one another to pieces, and were thus deprived of all leisure to attack us. This despicable policy was aptly described by Mr. Metcalfe, sub- sequently Governor- General ad interim, as " disgrace with- " out compensation, treaties without security, and peace " without tranquillity." Sindia was as anxious to avoid a second collision with the Government of Calcutta as the Governor- General him- self, and an envoy was sent to the head-quarters peace with of Lord Lake, then about to start in pursuit of sindia. Holkar. A treaty was concluded on the 25th December, isof by which Gohud and Gwalior were restored to him, and it was stipulated that the Chumbul should be the boundary of the two states, and that the British Government should enter into no treaties with the rajas of Oodypore, Joudpore, and other chiefs whom he claimed as his feudatories. Northern India swarmed with military adventurers, con- sisting of the fragments of the armies disbanded by Sindia and the raja of Nagpore, and of the irregulars whom our Government had dismissed ; hence Holkar, notwithstanding his reverses, was able to collect a body of 12,000 horse and 3,000 foot, whom it was important to disperse. Lord Lake set off in pursuit of him at the head of his cavalry and light infantry, and a British army was, for the first time, conducted to the banks of the Sutlej by the general who had been the first to camp on the Jumna. On crossing the Sutlej Lord Lake was brought into communication with Runjeet Sing, the young chieftain of twenty- four, then employed in laying the foundation of a new kingdom in the Punjab ; and on the banks of the Beyas (the ancient Hydaspes) concluded a treaty with him by which he en- gaged to afford no further assistance to Holkar, and to oblige him to evacuate the Punjab forthwith. Holkar, now a helpless fugitive, was pursued to the holy city of CJmritsir, and sent an envoy humbly to sue for peace, which he was ready to accept on any terms. Under the positive instructions of Sir George Barlow, 282 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. A.D. the draft of a treaty was presented to him which provided ^^^^ Dis acefui ^^^ ^^^^ Complete reinstatement in power, the treaty with restoration of aU the territories which had be- Hoikar. longed to his family, and the relinquishment of all interference with the chiefs whom he claimed as his dependents. He was required to relinquish all right to Rampoora, and all claim on Boondee, to entertain no Europeans in his service, to return to Hindostan by a presci'ibed route, and to abstain from injuring the terri- tories of the Company or their allies. To Holkar, whose fortunes were now desperate, these proposals appeared like a godsend, but their incredible leniency convinced him that they could only be dictated by fear, and his envoy returned with a demand for eighteen additional districts in Hindostan, and liberty to levy contributions on Jeypore, both of which were peremptorily refused. Fresh difficul- ties were started by his envoys, till Lord Lake threatened to recommence the pursuit, when the ratified treaty was at once produced. But Sir George Barlow was displeased with the terms of the treaty both with Sindia and Holkar. He considered that to fix the Mahratta boundary on the banks of the Chumbul, might imply a pledge to protect the princes beyond it from their rapacity ; and he there- fore added declaratory articles withdrawing British pro- tection from every state to the west of the Jumna. Ram- poora was voluntarily surrendered to him, and he fired a royal salute on the occasion, declaring at the same time that " the English were great rascals, and never to be " trusted." The raja of Boondee had the strongest claims on the gratitude of the Company as a constant and faithful ally, and as having two years before afforded shelter and aid to Colonel Monson in his retreat, in spite of the menaces of Holkar. Lord Lake made a strenuous effort to save him, but Sir George was deaf to every remonstrance, and cancelled the article in the treaty which protected him from the rapacity and revenge of Holkar. The course pursued toward Jeypore was yet more dis- graceful. The raja was the first to accede to Lord The raja of Wellesley's system of subsidiary alliances, but he Jeypore. wavered in his fidelity when Colonel Monson was flying before Holkar, and Lord Wellesley informed Lord Cornwall is that this defection had cancelled his claim to our alliance. In the following year Holkar entered his territories and claimed his assistance against the Company, but Lord Lake assured him that the boon of our protection Sect. I.] AGGRESSIONS OF HOLKAR 283 would be restored to him if he resisted the advances of a.d. that chief, and in this hope he afforded cordial and efficient 1806 « aid to onr detachments proceeding in pursuit of him. Lord Oornwallis, who was the soul of honour, said that any promise Lord Lake had given to the raja should be held sacred. Sir George Barlow, however, refused to ac- knowledge any such obligation, and as Holkar entered the Jeypore territory, bent on plunder and revenge, informed him that the protection of Government was withdrawn for the breach of his engagement during Colonel Monson's retreat. Lord Lake, indignant at the contempt with which his expostulations were treated and the degradation of the national character, threw up all his political functions. Holkar was bound by the treaty to return to Hindostan by a prescribed route, and to abstain from all aggression on the territories of the Company or their allies. Aggression But to save the field allowances Sir George ofHoikar. Barlow directed Lord Lake to hasten out of the Punjab ; and Holkar no sooner found him across the Sutlej than he let loose his predatory bands on the districts of the Punjab ; nor was there any article of the treaty which he did not violate with audacity. He halted for a month in the Jeypore territory, and, seeing the British support with- drawn from the raja, extorted eighteen lacs of rupees from him, and then marched down to wreak his vengeance on Boondee. This disastrous termination of the Mahratta war sowed the seeds of a more momentous contest. The wisdom of Lord Wellesley's policy was amply vindicated by the twelve years of anarchy which followed the sub- version of it ; while the adoption of a neutral policy and oi a system of isolation fostered the growth of a new pre- datory power, which it eventually required an army ol 100,000 men to extinguish. It was not long before the evils of this policy of non- interference became visible. The rana of Oodypore was regarded as the "sun of Hindoo glory," and an Desolation of alliance with his family as the summit of social Rajpootana. distinction. The beautiful daughter of the reigning prince had been betrothed to the raja of Joudpore, and on his premature death was claimed by his successor ; but her hand was given to the raia of Jeypore. The rivals appealed to arms, and 100,000 men, consisting not only of Rajpoots, but of Sindia's Mahrattas and Ameer Khan's Patans, were brought into the field. In February 1807 the raja of Joudpore sustained a crushing defeat, but soon 284 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. A.D. after succeeded in detaching Ameer Khan from his ally, ^807 the raja of Jeypore, by the promise of half a crore of rupees, and the plains of Jeypore were laid waste by him. The rana of Oodypore, who had taken no part in the war of which his daughter was the innocent cause, was not- withstanding subjected to plunder by Sindia and Ameer Khan, and in his extremity supplicated the Governor- General for protection, offering to make over half his teri'i- tories for the defence of the remainder. Rajpootana was bleeding at every pore, and its princes, the rajas of Joudpore and Jeypore, the rana of Oodypore as well as Zalim Sing, the renowned regent of Kotah, invoked the aid of British authority, and represented that there had always been in 1807 India some supreme power to which the weak looked for protection from the ambition and rapacity of the powerful. The Company, they said, had now succeeded to this position, and were bound to fulfil the responsibilities attached to it. The Mahrattas and the Patans, who were now spreading desolation through the country, could oflfer no resistance to the British arms, and the Governor- General had only to speak the word, and peace and tranquillity would be restored. But any such interference was contrary to the prevailing policy of the India House ; the request of the rana of Oodypore was refused, and he was obliged to come to a compromise with Ameer Khan and assign him a fourth of his dominions to preserve the rest from rapine, and likewise to submit to the indignity of exchanging turbans with the Patau freebooter. The great blot in Sir George Barlow's administration was the abandonment of Bajpootana, but he earned no Hyderabad ^^^^^^ Credit for the resolution with which he maintained the peace of the Deccan. Meer Alum, the able minister of the Nizam, had become obnoxious to his master by his steady support of the British alliance, and was obliged to take refuge at the Residency to escape assassination. The Nizam then proceeded to open nego- tiations with Sindia and Ameer Khan, and to assemble troops with the undisguised intention of dissolving all connection with the Company's Government. Sir George 1806 Barlow "felt that the dissolution of the alliance would " subvert the very foundation of British power and ascend- " ency in the political scale in India. The position we " abandoned at Hyderabad would be immediately occupied " by our enemies, and the result would be universal " turbulence and distrust." On this occasion therefore he Sect. I.] THE FINANCES 285 did not hesitate to discard the principle of nentrality, a.d. and to order the Nizam to restore Meer Alum to his post, 1806 and submit to a more direct interference of the Resident in the management of his affairs. Equally meritorious were his proceedings at Poena. The Court of ThePeshwa Directors considered the treaty of Bassein the source of multiplied embarrassments, and were desirous of withdrawing from Mahratta politics, and allowing tlie Peshwa to resume his position as the head of the Mahratta commonwealth. Sir George resisted with energy every effort to modify the treaty, and had the courage to state to his masters that, while he desired to manifest every attention to their wishes, there was a higher obligation imposed on him, that of maintaining the supremacy of British rule, which would be compromised by any deviation from the policy established by Lord Wellesley at Poena. The state of the finances demanded the early attention of Sir George. The pecuniary difficulties of the Company had always arisen from the wars in which they had been involved. There was no elasticity in a revenue derived almost exclusively from the land, and any extraordinary demand on the treasury could only be met by having recourse to loans. With the return of peace and the alleviation of the military pressure, the finances, with one exception, had recovered their spring. The extensive military operations of Lord Wellesley had aug- mented the public debt and brought on one of the inter- mittent fevers of alarm at the India House. It was over- looked that our wars in India had generally terminated in an accession of territory and revenue which speedily over- balanced the encumbrance they had entailed. Thus, in Lord Wellesley's administration the increase of the debt amounted to about eight crores and a half of rupees, and the permanent increase of revenue to about seven crores. By the cessation of war and the reduction of the regiments of irregulars, the deficit which had appalled Leadenhall- street was converted into a surplus, which, with little fluctuation, remained steady for twenty years. In the month of July the Government was astounded 180G by the massacre of European officers and soldiers by the native sepoys in the fort of Vellore. It was situ- The Veiiore ated eighty-eight miles west of Madras, and only mutiny. forty from the frontier of Mysore, had been selected, con- trary to the wise judgment of the Court of Directors, for the residence of Tippoo's family, and it was speedily filled 286 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX A.i>. with 1,800 of their adherents and 3,000 emigrants from 1806 Mysore. The European troops in the garrison consisted of about 370 men, and the sepoys numbered about 1,500, many of whom were Mahomedans who had been in the service of Tippoo. At 3 o'clock in the morning of the 10th July the sepoys suddenly assaulted the European barracks, and poured in volley after volley through the Venetian blinds, till eighty of the soldiers had been killed and ninety-one wounded. They then proceeded to the residence of the officers, of whom thirteen fell victims to their treachery. During the massacre an active communication was kept up between the mutineers and the palace of the Mysore princes, many of whose followers were conspicuous in the scene. Provisions were also sent out to the sepoys, and the royal ensign of Mysore was hoisted amidst the shouts of the crowd. The remaining Europeans held their posi- tion till they were rescued by the gallantry of Colonel Gillespie, who was in garrison at Arcot, eight miles distant, and who, on hearing of the outbreak, started without a mo- ment's delay with a portion of the 19th Dragoons and his galloper guns, and arrived in time to rescue the survivors. The searching investigation which was made revealed the cause of the mutiny. The new Commander-in-Chief, Cause of the Sir John Cradock, soon after his arrival ob- mutiny. taincd permission of the governor, Lord William Bentinck, to codify the military regulations, bat upon the express condition that no rules should be added without the permission of Government. Unknown to the governor, the adjutant-general took on himself to introduce several innovations which interfered with the religious prejudices of the sepoys. But that which gave them peculiar offence was the new form prescribed for the turban, which bore some resemblance to a European hat, an object of general antipathy to the natives. A report was industriously spread through their ranks by the Mahomedans, who led the hostile movement, that the new turban was the pre- cursor of an attempt to force them to become Christians ; and tlie panic-stricken and exasperated sepoys were thus stirred up to mutiny and massacre. The Court of Director? were overwhelmed by the news of this catastrophe, and in that wild and vindictive spirit which terror inspires, instantly recalled the governor and the Commander-in- Chief before a single lino of explanation had been received from either. Lord William Bentinck remonstrated asfainst Sect. I.] THE SERAMPORE MISSIONARIES 287 the gross injustice of punishing him as an accomplice in a.d. measures with which he had no farther connection than to 1804 obviate their evil consequences. The Court, in their reply, bore testimony to liis uprightness, disinterestedness, zeal and respect for the system of the Company, but also remarked that, " as the misfortune which happened under " his administration placed his fate under the government " of public events and opinions which the Court could not " control, so it was not in their power to alter the effect of " them." Of the panic created by the mutiny at the Council board in Calcutta, the unoffending missionaries were made the victims. In 1793, Mr. Carey had proceeded to ^j^^ ^ ^ Bengal to establish a Christian Mission, and gationof laboured with much zeal but Httle success for Christianity, seven years in the Malda district. In 1799, Mr. Marshman and Mr. Ward proceeded to join him, and, being without a licence, were ordered to quit the country the day after their arrival, but obtained an asylum at the Danish settle- ment of Serampore and were taken under the protection of the Danish crown. There they were joined by Mr. a.d. Carey, and established a fraternity which, under the ^^^^ designation of the " Serampore Missionaries," has attained jg^g historical distinction as that of the pioneers of Christian civilisation in Hindostan. They opened the first schools for the gratuitous instruction of native children ; they set up printing-presses and prepared founts of type in the various Indian characters ; they compiled grammars of the Bengalee, Sanscrit and other languages, into which they translated the Sacred Scriptures. They gave their chief attention to the cultivation and improvement of the Bengalee language, and published the first prose works which had appeared in it, and laid the foundation of that veruacular literature which has since obtained a large development. They, and the converts who had joined them, were tacitly permitted to itinerate in the districts of Bengal, and met with considerable success in the propaga- tion of Christianity. But missionary efforts had always been viewed with mistrust by the Court of Directors and by their servants in India, on the ground that they might disturb the prejudices of the natives and create disaffection. The mutiny at Vellore was hastily ascribed to an inter- ference with the religious prejudices of the Madras sepoys, and Sir George Barlow, under the influence of alarm, considered it necessary peremptorily to interdict the 288 ABRIDGMENT OF THJ-: HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. M.O. labours of the Serampore Missionaries. The Vellore panic 1^-06 gradually died out, and the restrictions imposed on them were allowed to fall into abeyance. The Court of Directors had always been anxious to have the highest office in India left open to their own servants, - and the e^reat zeal which Sir Geors^e Barlow Supersession • • • ^ of Sir George had manifested in carrying out their non-inter- Bariow. vention policy recommended him to them as the permanent successor of Lord Cornwallis. The death of Mr. Pitt and the dissolution of his ministry introduced the Whigs to Downing- street, and within twenty-four hours of their accession to power they were called upon to make pro- vision for the Governor-Generalship. The President of the Board of Control, new to office, agreed as a temporary measure to the nomination of the Court, and Sir George Barlow's commission was made out and signed ; but ten days after the ministry announced that they had selected Lord Lauderdale for the office. The Court of Directors strenuously resisted the appointment, not only as an abrupt and contemptuous rejection of their nominee, but likewise on personal grounds. His ostentatious admira- tion of the French revolution, which led him to drop his aristocratic title, might have been forgiven ; bat he had rendered himself obnoxious to them by his advocacy of Fox's India Bill, and, more recently, by his support of Lord Wellesley's free-trade policy. The Directors refused to sanction the appointment, and the ministry retaliated by cancelling the nomination of Sir George Barlow. The controversy between them was carried on for many weeks with great acrimony, but was at length terminated by the nomination of Lord Minto, the President of the Boar-d of Control. SECTION 11. LORD MINTO'S ADMINISTRATION — FOREIGN EMBASSIES. A.D. Lord Minto had been engaged for many years in the *8^7 administration of public affairs. As Sir Gilbert Elliot he was one of the managers nominated by the governor- House of Commons to conduct the impeachment general. ^f Warren Hastings, and the prosecution of Sir Elijah Impey was committed to his especial charge. He Sect. II.] LOED MINTO— BUNDLECUND 289 was subsequently minister plenipotentiary at Vienna, and •^•»- had been for twelve months President of the Board of ^^^"^ Control, where he obtained an insight into the machinery and character of the Indian Government. He was an accomplished scholar, a statesman of clear perceptions and sonnd judgment ; mild and moderate in his views, yet without any deficiency of firmness, and distinguished above his predecessors for his singular urbanity. He was accepted by the Directors with the understanding that he should eschew the policy of Lord Wellesley, and tread in the footsteps of Lord Cornwallis and Sir George Barlow. His first act in India was an act of clemency. On his arrival at Madras he found 600 of the Yellore mutineers awaiting their sentence. The Supreme Government had sentenced them to transportation beyond sea, a punishment equivalent to death, but Lord Minto adopted the more lenient course of expelling them from the service, and declaring them incapable of re- enlistment. On reaching Calcutta, his attention was immediately called to the state of anarchy into which the feeble policy of his predecessor had plunged the province of Anarchy in Bundlecund. The country was overrun by Bundiecund. military adventurers who lived only by plunder, and 160 castles were held by as many chieftains who were per- petually at feud with each other. The inhabitants, a bold and independent race, were, moreover, disgusted with the stringency of the judicial and revenue systems we had introduced, and deserted their villages, and too often joined the banditti with which the country swarmed. The two strongest forts in the province, Calliuger and Ajygurh, were held by chiefs who bid defiance to the British Go- vernment. Lord Lake considered the possession of these fortresses essential to the tranquillity of the country, and urged Sir George Barlow to reduce them, but he con- sidered that " a certain extent of dominion, power and " revenue would be cheaply sacrificed for security and " tranquillity in a more contracted circle." The sacrifice was made, but the security was farther ofi" than ever. The two chiefs who had seized the forts, together with some of the most notorious leaders of banditti, received a legal title to the lands they had usurped, with permission to settle their quarrels among themselves by the sword. Within five weeks after Lord Minto had assumed the Government he recorded his opinion that " it was essential " not only to the preservation of political influence over 290 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. A-D. " the chiefs of Bundlecund, but to the dignity and repu- '^*^'' " tation of the British Government, to interfere policy of "for the suppression of intestine disorder." LordMinto. rpj^^ simple announcement that the British Government was determined to enforce its full authority- through the province was found sufficient to induce the numerous chiefs to make their submission, and to engage to refer every dispute to its decision. The renowned fortress of Callinger, which had baffled all the efforts of Mahmood of Ghuzni eight centuries before, and which the Peshwa's general had recently besieged two years without success, was surrendered after an arduous struggle. The fortress of Ajygurh was likewise mastered, and peace and prosperity were restored to Bundlecund. The difficulty of maintaining the principle of non- interference was again demonstrated before Lord Minto Career of ^^^ been a year in India, in reference to the • Runjeet proceedings of Runjeet Sing, whose career now ^^' claims attention. On the retirement of the Abdalee after the battle of Paniput, the Punjab became the scene of confusion, and the semi-military, semi-religious community of the Sikhs was enabled to enlarge and con- solidate its power. It was divided into fraternities or misils, the chief of each of which was the leader in the field and the umpire in time of peace. Churrut Sing, the head of one of them, commenced a series of encroachments on his neighbours, and his son Maha Sing pursued the 1792 same course of ambition. He died in 1792, leaving an only son, Runjeet Sing, who at the early age of seventeen commenced that career of conquest which resulted even- tually in the establishment of a power as great as that of Sevajee or Hyder Ali. Runjeet obtained possession of the city of Lahore, the ancient seat of authority in the Punjab, and succeeded in His en- absorbing the various Sikh misils. By the year 1806 croachmentB 1806 his dominions were extended to the banks in Sirhmd. ^^ ^^^ Sutlej, and he cast a wishful eye on the province of Sirhind, lying beyond that river, and occupied by about twenty independent Sikh chieftains. They had been obliged to bend to the authority of Sindia when General Perron established his power over the province, and on the extinction of Mahratta rule in that region transferred their allegiance to the British Government, and considered themselves subject to the sovereignty of the Company, and entitled to its protection. Runjeet Sbct.ii.1 embassy to kunjeet sing 291 Sing proceeded with his usual caution, and by inducing a.d. one or two of the chiefs to invite his intervention for the 1801 settlement of their differences, obtained a pretext for enter- ing Sirhind with an army. On his return from one of these expeditions in 1807, he levied contributions indis- criminately in every direction, seized upon forts and lands and carried off all the cannon which he could lay his hands upon. These repeated inroads filled the Sikh chieftains with 1808 alarm, and in March, 1808, a deputation proceeded to Delhi to implore the protection of the British . ^^^^ Government, whose vassals the envoys stated theSikh they had always considered themselves since the vernment?^' downfall of Sindia's power. Runjeet was anxious to discover the views of the Govern or- General in reference to this appeal, and addressed a letter to him expressing his wish to cultivate friendly relations with the Company, and adding, " the country on this side the Jumna — except the " stations occupied by you — is mine ; let it remain so." This bold demand of the province of Sirhind brought up the important question whether an energetic and ambitious chieftain, who had in ten years erected a large kingdom upon the ruin of a dozen princes, should be allowed to plant his army, composed of the finest soldiers in India, within a few miles of our frontier, and Lord Minto boldly assumed the responsibility of taking the Sikh states of Sirhind under British protection, and shutting up Runjeet Sing in the Punjab. The treaty of Tilsit, concluded in 1807 between the emperor of Russia and Napoleon, was supposed to include certain secret articles intended to afford facilities Mission to for the invasion of India by the French. It was ^shove. determined, therefore, by the ministry to anticipate the designs of the French emperor, and to block up his path by forming defensive alliances with the rulers of the inter- mediate kingdoms of Persia, Afghanistan, and the Punjab. The most difficult of these negotiations, that with Runjeet Sing, was entrusted by Lord Minto to Mr. Metcalfe, a young civilian of high promise, who had been trained up in the school, and, indeed, under the eye of Lord Wellesley. He was sent to Lahore to accomplish two objects which appeared mutually irreconcilable — to frustrate Runjeet Sing's passionate desire of annexing the province of Sirhind, and to obtain his co-operation to prevent the entrance of a French army into our territories. Mr. u2 292 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. A.D. Metcalfe was treated with feelings of suspicion and hostility, ^^^° and when he was at length permitted to propound the object of his mission was given to understand that, although Runjeet Sing did not object to the proposed treaty, in which, however, he had less interest than the Company, it must recognise his sovereignty over all the Sikh states beyond the Sutlej. Mr. Metcalfe replied that he had no instructions to make this concession ; but while the nego- tiation was in progress, Runjeet Sing broke up his camj) at Kussoor, crossed the Sutlej a third time, and for three months swept through the province, plundering the various chiefs, and compelling them to acknowledge his authority. Lord Minto resolved to lose no time in arresting his Rimjeet progress, and, if necessary, to have recourse to ordered to arms. Napoleon, moreover, had begun to be en- retire. tangled in the affairs of Spain, and all idea of invading India, even if it had ever been seriously enter- tained, was abandoned. Having, therefore, no longer any- thing to ask of Runjeet Sing, Lord Minto was enabled to assume a bolder tone, and to resolve on making a military demonstration. The Commander-in-Chief was directed to hold a force in readiness to advance to the banks of the Sutlej, and a letter was addressed to the Sikh ruler informing him that by the issue of the war with the Mahrattas the Company had succeeded to the power and the rights they had exercised in the north of Hindostan. The Sikh states in Sirhind were now under British pro- tection, and the Maharaja must withdraw from the districts of which he had taken possession in his late raid, and con- fine his future operations to the right bank of the Sutlej. Runjeet Sing, on his return from the expedition across the river, hastened to Umritsur to exchange the toils of the field for the enjoyments of the harem. Like Hyder AH, he was the slave of sensual indulgence when not absorbed in the excitement of war. On the evening of his arrival Mr. Metcalfe waited on him to present the Governor- General's letter, but he exclaimed that the evening was to be devoted to mirth and pleasure, and called for the dancing- girls, and then for the strong potations to which he was accustomed, and before midnight was reduced to a state of unconscious- ness. \ 808 The letter delivered by Mr. Metcalfe remained for several weeks unnoticed, and on the 22nd December he demanded an audience of Runjeet Sing, and announced that a British army was about to take the field, and would sweep his Sbct.II.J embassy TO CABUL 293 garrisons from Sirhind. He bore the communicatioii for some time with composure, but unable at length to control his feelings, rushed out of the room, vaulted into the saddle, and galloped about the courtyard with frantic vehemence, while his ministers continued the discussion with Mr. Metcalfe. Two months were again wasted in studied delays and constant postponement, but Runjeet Mr. Metcalfe continued with unflinching firmness sing-s sub- to insist on the complete evacuation of Sirhind. Runjeet Sing was constrained to submit, and on the 25th a.d. April affixed his seal to a treaty which provided that the ^^^ British Government should not interfere with his territory or subjects, and that he should abstain from any con- nection with the states under British protection. The treaty consisted of fifteen lines, and is one of the shortest on record. In the range of our Indian history there are few incidents of more romantic interest than the arrest of this haughty prince in the full career of success by a youth of twenty-four. On the retirement of the British army a garrison was left at Loodiana, which became our frontier station in the north-west, and the British ensign which Lord Wellesley had planted on the Jumna was six years after erected on the Sutlej by Lord Minto. The embassy to Cabul was fitted out on a scale of mag- 1808 nificence intended to impress the Afghan court with an idea of the power and grandeur of the present Embassy to rulers of India, and was entrusted to Mr. Mount Cabui. Stuart Elphinstone, one of Lord Wellesley's school of statesmen. The sovereign of Afghanistan, Shah Soojah, the brother of Zeman Shah who invaded India in the days of Lord Wellesley, gave the mission a cordial reception, but his cabinet did not fail to remark that its object appeared to be more in the interests of the Company than of Afghanistan. They said they had nothing to apprehend from the French, and were desirous of ascertaining what ofiers they were prepared to make before a definite reply was given. While the negotiation was in progress, the expedition which Shah Soojah had imprudently sent to subjugate Cashmere was completely defeated. His rival brother had obtained possession of Cabul and Candahar, and was advancing on Peshawur. Shah Soojah, whose army was annihilated and whose treasury was empty, earnestly solicited pecuniary aid from the Government of India, and Mr. Elphinstone advised a grant of ten lacs of rupees, which would have enabled him to recruit his force and regain his 294 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Ciiap. IX. power ; and it might possibly have saved the Government the many crores of rupees spent thirty years after to reseat him on the throne. But the dread of a French invasion had died out, and it was no longer considered necessary to conciliate the ruler who held the gate of India, as Cabul was then deemed. The request was refused; Shah Soojah A.D. was defeated by his brother and fled to India and became 1810 a pensioner on the Company's bounty. The third mission to counteract the designs of the French was sent to Persia. The king had wantonly involved A.fFairs of himself in a war with Russia and lost some of his Persia. most valuable provinces. He applied for aid to the emperor Napoleon, who sent General Gardanne as his representative to Teheran, with a large military staff and a body of engineers to make surveys, and military officers to discipline the Persian troops. A treaty was concluded which provided that a French army marching through Persia should be furnished with supplies and joined by a Persian force ; that the island of Karrack, in the Persian gulf, thirty- three miles from Bushire, should be ceded to France, and that all Englishmen should be excluded from the country, if the emperor desired it. The British ministry, who considered the French embassy the precursor of a French army, were determined to counteract these hostile movements by sending an ambassador to the Court, and Lord Minto and General Wellesley united in recommending English *^^^ Colonel Malcolm, who was eminently quali- embassy to fied for the duty by his skill in oriental diplomacy and languages, and by the popularity he had acquired in his first embassy, should be again sent from Calcutta ; but the ministry considered that a representative of the Crown would be likely to carry more weight than an envoy from the Company, and they selected Sir Harford Jones, who had been consul at Bushire, for the office, and J 808 he landed at Bombay in April. But Lord Minto, on his arrival in Calcutta, was resolved to despatch Colonel Malcolm as the representative of the Government of India, and Sir Harford Jones was desired to tarry at Bombay till the result of his mission was known. On reaching Persia Colonel Malcolm, overlooking the paramount influence the French minister had acquired at the Court, assumed a dictatorial tone, and was forbidden to advance farther than Sheraz, where he was desired to place himself in commu- nication with the king's son. Colonel Malcolm took imbrage at this proceeding, abandoned the mission, and, Sbct.II.] embassy to PERSIA 295 returning to the coast, embarked vvitli his suite for Calcutta. Sir Harford Jones was then directed by Lord Minto to proceed with his mission. Ten days after this order had been despatched, Colonel Malcolm arrived in Calcutta, breathing vengeance against the Persian court, and persuaded Lord Minto g^ccessof that the only effectual mode of counteracting the sir Harford jgQg influence of the French was to make a military •^°°®^- demonstration, and arrangements were made forthwith to despatch an armament to occupy the island of Karrack. Repeated and peremptory orders were likewise sent to Sir Harford Jones to quit Persia, under the threat of disavow- ing his mission and dishonouring his bills ; but before they could reach him he had accomplished his object and concluded a treaty with the king. The French embassy was dismissed, and the Persian envoy at Paris recalled. Lord Minto felt that Sir Harford had been fully accre- dited by the Crown, and that the national faith was pledged to his engagements, and he accordingly ratified the treaty. He felt, however, that the rank and estima- tion of the Government of India had been compromised in the eyes of Asia by the mission from the Crown, and he considered it among the first of his duties "to transmit to " his successor unimpaired the powers, prerogatives and " dignities of the Indian empire in its relations to sur- " rounding nations as entire and unsulHed as they were " committed to his hands." Another embassy was imprudently fitted out in the most costly style, to eclipse the mission of the Crown, and en- trusted to Colonel Malcolm, in order that " he „ , , „ , . 1 1 . f» 1 /"i i /^ j_ • Colonel Mal- " might hft the Company s Grovernment to its coim's se- " own height and to the station which belonged J^sy.^"^' " to it." He was welcomed by the king and courtiers with great cordiality, but in the royal presence 1809 stood the ambassador of the Crown, " whose face the " Indian Government had spared no pains to blacken in " the eyes of the Persian court." There was every pros- pect of an unseemly and dangerous collision. The Persian courtiers, finding two rival envoys contending for their favours, were preparing to play ofi" the one against the other, in the hope of a golden shower of presents. But the good sense of Sir Harford and of the colonel smoothed down asperities and defeated the intrigues and cupidity of the court, and the English ministry soon after recalled both envoys, and appointed Sir Gore Ouseley minister from 296 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. the King of England to the Shah of Persia. The cost of Colonel Malcolm's mission was twenty-two lacs, and that of Sir Harford Jones, which was also saddled on the Com- pany, did not fall short of sixteen lacs. SECTION III. LORD MINTO'S ADMINISTRATION— AMEER KHAN MUTINY OP THE MADRAS OFFICERS. A.D. Within four months of the signature of the treaty with 1809 Runjeet Sing another occasion arose to test the possibility . ^- of maintaining the policy of neutrality. The free- Ameer Khan . ° -nri ^ / • -it,- ^ and Nag- Dootcr Ameer Khan, having withm ten years ^^^' created a principality which yielded a revenue of fifteen lacs of rupees a year, was recognised as the head of the Patans in Central India, and aspired to the rank of a prince. His army, however, was too large for his resources, and, after having drained Rajpootana, he was obliged to seek for plunder in a more distant sphere, and selected Nagpore for his next operations. Under pretence of asserting certain fictitious claims of Holkar on the raja, he poured down across the Nerbudda with 40,000 horse and 24,000 Pindarees. The raja was simply an ally of the Company, and had no claim to their protection ; but Lord Minto did not hesitate to affirm that " an interfering " and ambitious Mussulman chief at the head of a numerous " army should not be allowed to establish his authority on " the ruins of the raja's dominions over territories con- " tiguous to those of the Nizam — likewise a Mahomedan — " with whom projects might be formed inimical to our " interests." The raja had not solicited our assistance, but two armies were ordered into the field to protect his territories. The Ameer Khan ^^CT^^G general, however, twice succeeded in repulsed repulsing Ameer Khan, but he returned a third cHMhed. *^™® ^^^ blockaded the raja's army in Chaura- gurh, while his Pindarees desolated the country. The British divisions were now closing upon him, and Colonel Close took possession of his capital and his terri- tories, and the extinction of his power appeared inevitable, when the troops were unexpectedly recalled, from the apprehension felt by Lord Minto that the further prosecu- tion of hostilities might lead to complications displeasing Sect. III.] MUTINY OF MADKAS OFFICERS 297 to the Court of Directors. He was allowed to recruit his a-^* strength, and Central India was left for seven years more at his mercy. But the tide appeared to be turning at the India House against this neutral policy, and the Directors not only questioned the wisdom of the moderation Lord Minto had exercised towards him, but went so far as to advise the con- clusion of a subsidiary alliance with the raja of Nagpore. Sir George Barlow was appointed to succeed Lord William Bentinck at Madras. During the twenty months he had filled the ofiice of Governor- General he had gij.(jeorge alienated society by his cold and repulsive Barlow at manners, and the absence of all genial feehng in ^^^^^a^- the intercourse of life. He was never able to obtain that personal influence which is essential to the successful administration of public aifairs, more particularly in India. The submission he exacted to his will, which in Lord Wellesley was regarded as the natural absolutism of a great mind, was in him resented as the vulgar despotism of power. At Madras he became unpopular by his arbi- trary and unjust proceedings, as well as by the lofty assumption of of&cial dignity, and by isolating himself in a small coterie of officials and confidants. But it was the mutiny of the army which fixed a lasting stain on his administration. This was the third time in the course of half a century that the Company's Government had been shaken to its foundation by the insubordination of their Euro- jf^tinyof pean officers. The invidious distinction between European the pay of officers in Bengal and Madras, and o^^^™- the monopoly of all posts of command by the officers of the royal army, had created a feeling of discontent among the officers of the Madras army, which was un- happily fomented by the bearing of the Commander-in- Chief, Major-General Macdowall. The Court of Directors had refused him the seat in Council, which, with its liberal allowances, had always been attached to his office, and he did not care to conceal the exasperation of his feelings from the officers under him. Since the conclusion of the war in 1805, the Court of Directors had been importunate for retrenchments, and had threatened "to take the pruning knife into " their own hands " if they found any hesitation the tent on the part of the Madras Government. Among contract. the plans of economy which had been contemplated by Lord William Bentinck and Sir John Cradock was the 298 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. A-D- abolition of the tent contract, which had given the oflBcers commanding regiments a fixed monthly allowance to provide the men with tent equipage, whether in the field or in cantonments. The Quartermaster- General was ordered by the governor in Council to report on the question, and he stated that the nature of the contract was found by experience to place the interests of the com- manding ofticers in opposition to their duty. They took fiire at this remark, and called on the Commander-in-Chief to bring him to a court-martial for having aspersed their characters as officers and gentlemen. The Quartermaster- General was placed under arrest, and appealed to the governor, and the Commander-in-Chief was directed to release him. But, while yielding to this authority, he issued a general order of extraordinary virulence, protest- ing against the interference of Government and denoun- cing the conduct of the Quartermaster in having resorted to the civil power in defiance of the officer at the head of the army. Sir George Barlow, instead of treating the order with contempt as an ebulhtion of passion on the part of the general, who was on the eve of quitting the service, issued a counter order equally intemperate, charg- ing him with inflammatory language. Major Bowles, the Deputy Adjutant -General, who had signed the order ofi&cially, was suspended ; his cause was immediately taken up as that of a martyr ; addresses commending his conduct poured in upon him, and subscriptions were raised to com- pensate the loss of his allowances. Three months passed after the departure of the Com- mander-in-Chief, who was lost at sea, and the ferment had General begun to subside, when Sir George Barlow blew mutiny. the dying embers into a flame. In the height of the excitement a memorial of grievances had been drawn up to the Governor- General, though not transmitted ; but on the 1st May Sir George Barlow issued an order suspend- ing four officers of rank and distinguished reputation, and removing eight others from their commands, on the ground of their having signed the memorial, which had been surreptitiously communicated to him. The whole army was immediately in a blaze. A hundred and fifty-eight officers of the Jaulna and Hyderabad divisions signed a flagitious address to Government, demanding the restoration of the officers, in order " to prevent the horrors of civil war " and the ultimate loss of a large portion of the Company's " possessions in India." The Company's European regi- Sect. III.] THE MUTINY EEPEESSED 299 ment at Masulipatam placed the cotninanding officer in a.d. arrest, and concerted a plan for joining the Jaulnah and 1809 Hyderabad divisions, and marching to Madras and seizing the Government. Sir George Barlow had thus by his intemperance and indiscretion goaded the army into revolt, and brought on a portentous crisis; but in dealing with the mutiny Firmness of he exhibited such undaunted resolution as almost sir George to make amends for having caused it. Colonel Malcolm and other officers of high standing and great experience, advised him to bend to necessity and recall the obnoxious order of the 1st May ; but he resolved to vindicate the public authority at all hazards. He called 18IO upon all the officers in the army to sign a pledge to obey the orders of Government on pain of removal from their regiments. The sepoys and their native officers generally remained faithful to their salt, and there was no collision except at Seringapatam, where the native regiments under disaffected officers refused to submit, and were fired upon by the royal troops, and a hundred and fifty killed and wounded. The vigorous proceedings of Sir George con- founded the officers, and induced them to pause on the brink of a rebellion against their king and their country. Lord Miuto, moreover, had announced his intention to proceed at once to Madras, and the general confidence reposed in his justice and moderation promoted the return of the officers to a sense of duty. The Hyderabad brigade, which had been the first to mutiny, was the foremost to repent. Its example was followed by the other brigades and regiments ; rj^^ mutiny the seditious garrison of Seringapatam sur- extin- rendered that fortress, and a profound calm ^^^^• succeeded the storm which had threatened to overturn the Government. On his arrival at Madras Lord Minto issued a general order reprobating the conduct of the officers, but likewise expressing his anxiety for the wel- fare and the reputation of the army in kind and concili- atory language. He granted a general amnesty to all but twenty-one officers, who were either cashiered or dismissed; but they were all eventually restored to the service, and in the great Mahratta and Pindaree war, seven years later, had an opportunity of effacing the stain on their character by their gallantry and devotion. The mutiny was the subject of long and acrimonious debates at the India House, which terminated in Sir George Barlow's recall. 300 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. It was in connection with his administration that Mr. Edmonstone, Avho had served under two civilian and three Mr Edmon ^^^^® Govemors-General, and who, after filHng stone on the the highest Subordinate office in India, became G^neXhip. *^e Nestor of Leadenhall-street, said, that " he " was averse to selecting Q-ovemors from among " those who had belonged to the service, and that a person " of eminence and distinction proceeding from England to " fill that office, if duly qualified by talent and character, " carried with him a greater degree of inflaence, and " inspired more respect than an individual who had been " known in a subordinate capacity." A.D. The suppression of piracy in the eastern hemisphere 1809 ig the especial vocation of the English nation ; and the Suppression attention of Lord Minto was imperatively called, of piracy. at this time, to this duty. The Arabs, who were the bravest soldiers and the most hardy seamen in the east, were also the most notorious pirates. The chief tribe on the sea coast, the Joasmis, had recently embraced Wahabee tenets, and added the fierceness of fanaticism to their national valour ; and the only alternative they offered to their captives was the profession of Mahomedanism or death. Their single-masted vessels, manned with about 150 men, sailed in squadrons, and it was rarely that any native craft was able to escape their pursuit. Hitherto they had prudently abstained from molesting English vessels, but they became emboldened by the inactivity of the Company's cruisers, which were forbidden to interfere with them, and they had recently captured a large merchantman, and cut the throats of all the Europeans on board and thrown them into the sea with the pious ejaculation, "Alia Akbar! great is God!" Lord Minto was determined to root out these buccaneers, and sent a power- fal armament against their chief stronghold, Ras-al-Kaima. It was defended with Arab obstinacy and carried by British gallantry. The port, with all the valuable mer- chandise in it— the accumulation of numerous piratical expeditions — together with a large fleet of pirate vessels, was delivered to the flames, and piracy was for a time suppressed in these waters. The possession of the Mauritius and of Bourbon by the French in the bay of Bengal exposed British commerce in Depredations *^® castem seas to the constant depredation of the from the privateers fitted out in them. The losses sus- auntuis. Gained by the merchants of Calcutta from the Sect. III.] CAPTUKE OF THE MAUKITIUS 301 commencement of the war with France in 1793 to the year a.d. 1808 were calculated at between three and four crores of 1810 rupees. By an act of incomprehensible folly, the ministry in England had not only neglected to send an expedition against them, while they were capturing every island in the Weat Indies, but had positively interdicted any effort on the part of the Indian Government to reduce them. The French cruisers consequently continued to prey on British trade, and to sweep the seas from Madagascar to Java. With six ships of the line and sixteen frigates on the Indian station, six vessels sailing from Calcutta, valued at thirty lacs of rupees, had been captured by French cruisers in as many weeks. A memorial was at length transmitted by the mercantile community to the ministry, complaining of the insecurity of commerce and the supineness of the navy, and the Governor- General and the Admiral were instructed to take decisive measures for the protection of trade. That object, it was supposed, would be attained by blockading the Mauritius; but six of the Company's magnificent Indiamen, valued at more than half a crore of rupees, were captured by French frigates which sailed out of the port, and returned to it in triumph with their prizes, in the teeth of the blockade. An expedition was then sent, in the first instance, to the island of Bourbon, which was captured with a slender effort ; but this achievement was overbalanced by a series of unexampled disasters at sea, which were justly attributed to the ignorance and mis- management of the naval department. Three English frigates were captured, and three set on fire by the French squadron, which maintained its national honour in these seas as nobly as Suffrein in the days of Warren Hastings. Meanwhile, Lord Minto was assembling an armament of overwhelming force, consisting of one 74 gun ship and thirteen frigates, besides sloops and gunboats, and a land force of 11,000 men, which comprised 6,300 European bayonets, and 2,000 seamen and marines, and four volunteer regiments. To oppose this force the French general could only muster 2,000 European soldiers, and a body of half- disciplined African slaves, and, unwilliug to sacrifice the lives of brave men in a hopeless contest, he surrendered 1810 the island on fair and equitable terms. 302 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. IX. SECTION ly. LOED MINTO'S ADMINISTRATION — EXPEDITION TO JAVA — THE PINDAREES — THE NEW CHARTER. A.D. The subjugation of Holland by the emperor Napoleon ^^^^ placed the Dutch settlements in the east at his command, Expedition ^^^ ^® Spared no pains to complete the defences to Java. of the most important of them, the island of Java. He despatched large reinforcements under an officer in whom he had confidence, General Daendels, who repaired the old fortifications and erected new and more formidable works in the vicinity of the capital, Batavia. From some unexplained cause he was superseded by General Jaensens, who had surrendered the Cape to the English squadron four years before. The emperor at his final audience reminded him of this disaster, and said : " Sir, remember that a French general does not allow " himself to be captured a second time." Lord Minto, having obtained the permission of the Court of Directors to proceed against the island, summoned to his counsels Mr. — afterwards Sir Stamford — Raffles, a member of the government of Penan g, who had acquired a knowledge of the condition, the policy, and the language of the various tribes in the eastern archipelago superior to that of every other European at the time. The expedition consisted of 90 sail, on which were embarked 6,000- European troops, and about the same number of sepoys, and was the largest European armament which had ever traversed the eastern seas. Lord Minto determined to accompany it as a volunteer, leading the way in the "Modeste" frigate, commanded by his son, and the whole fleet anchored in the bay of Batavia without a single accident on the 4th August. The entire body of troops under the command of General Jaensens amounted to 17,000, of whom 13,000 were concentrated for the defence of Fort Cornells, which was strong from its natural position, and had been rendered, as was supposed, impregnable by science. It was an entrenched camp between two streams, one of which was not fordable, and the other was defended by strong bastions and ramparts. The entire circumference of the encampment was five miles, and it was protected by ^00 pieces of cannon. Sect. IV.] CAPTUKE OF JAVA 303 Sir Samuel Ahmuty, the General-in-Chief, determined a.d^ at first to assail it by regular approaches, but the attempt 1813 was found to be all but impracticable under a ^^ tropical sun, and must have been abandoned FortCor- when, on the setting in of the rains, the malaria ^^^^' of the Batavian marshes prostrated the army. It was resolved, therefore, to carry it by a coup de main, which brought into play the daring spirit of Colonel Gillespie, of Vellore renown, to whom the enterprise was committed. His column marched soon after midnight on the 26th August, and came upon the first redoubt as the day dawned, and carried it at the point of the bayonet. The impetuous valour of his troops mastered the other redoubts in succession, till he found himself in front of the enemy's reserve and of a large body of cavalry posted with power- ful artillery in front of the barracks. Having driven them from this position, the Colonel placed himself at the head of the dragoons and horse artillery, and pursued them for ten miles till he had completed the disorganisation of the whole army. Java was won in a single morning, and by the efforts of a single officer. The loss of the French in the field was severe, and 6,000 of their troops, chiefly Europeans, were made prisoners ; but the victory cost the invaders 900 in killed and wounded, of whom eighty- five were officers. The Court of Directors had given instructions that on the capture of the island the fortifica- tions should be demolished, and the arms and ammunition distributed among the natives, and the island evacuated. But Lord Minto was not disposed to put weapons into the hands of the natives, and abandon the colonists without arms or fortresses to their vindictive passions, and consign this noble island to the reign of barbarism. He deter- mined to retain it, and committed the government of it to Mr. Raffles, under whose wise and liberal administration it continued to flourish for several years. Lord Minto returned to Calcutta in 1812, and imme- 1812 diately after learned that he had been superseded in the Government. The usual term of office was con- supersession sidered to extend to seven years, and Lord Minto of Lord had intimated to the Court of Directors his wish " °' to be relieved early in 1814 ; but the Prince Regent was anxious to bestow this lucrative post on the favourite of the day, the Earl of Moira, who had recently failed in his attempt to form a ministry. Under the dictation of the Board of Control, the Court of Directors were obliged to 304 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chaj-. IX. pass a resolution for the immediate termination of Lord Minto's administration. Circumstances detained Lord Moira in England longer than he expected, and Lord Minto did not quit India till within three or four months of the time he had fixed for his departure ; but the in- fliction of this indignity on a Governor- General whose government had been without a failure, and who had given A.D. universal satisfaction, reflected equal discredit on the 1812 servile ministry and on their royal master. On the return of Lord Minto from Java, it becam6 necessary for the first time to order troops into the field ThePinda- ^o repel the inroads of the Pindarees. The rees. earliest trace of these freebooters is to be found in the struggles between Aurungzebe and the Mahrattas, whose armies they accompanied into the field. After the Peshwa had delegated the charge of maintaining the Mahratta power in Hindostan to his lieutenants, Sindia and Holkar, the Pindarees nominally ranged themselves under their standards, and were designated Sindia Shahee and Holkar Shahee Pindarees, but they were not allowed to pitch their tents within the Mahratta encampment. Those chiefs found it useful to attach to their armies a body of freebooters who required no pay, and were content with an unlimited license of plunder, and were always ready to complete the work of destruction. The Pindarees found their account in establishing a connection, although in- direct, with established governments, to whom they might look for protection in case of emergency. But this re- lationship did not restrain the Pindarees from plundering the districts of their patrons when it suited their interests, nor did it prevent the Mahratta princes from seizing the Pinda- ree leaders after their return from a successful foray, and obliging them to give up a portion of their plunder. The withdrawal of British protection from Central India opened a wide field for plunder, and increased the strength Pindaree ^^^ audacity of the Pindarees. Two of the leaders. chiefs in the suite of Sindia offered their services to the nabob of Bhopal to plunder the territories of Nag- pore ; and, when their offer was declined, proceeded to Nagpore, and were readily engaged by the raja to ravage the dominions of Bhopal. On their return the raja did not scruple to break up their encampment and despoil them of the rich booty they had acquired. Of the two leaders, one took refuge with Sindia, and his two sons Dost Mahomed and Wassil Mahomed collected and or- 8bct.iv.] the pindakees 305 ganised his scattered followers. The other died in con- a.d. fineraent, when the leadership devolved on Cheetoo, who 1812 had been purchased when a child, during a famine, and regularly trained to the Pindaree profession. His superior abilities and daring spirit raised him to the head of the troop, and he was rewarded for his services to Sindia by the title of nabob and a jageer. He fixed his head-quarters at Nimar, amidst the wild fastnesses of the region lying between the Nerbudda and the Vindya range. Kureem Khan another Pindaree leader of note was a Rohilla, who in the progress of events obtained a title and an assign- ment of lands from Sindia ; but, as he continued to en- croach upon the Mahratta territories, Sindia determined to crush his rising power, and treacherously seized him at a friendly entertainment. He was placed in confinement for four years, and not liberated without the payment of six lacs of rupees. On obtaining his liberty the Pindarees flocked to his standard in greater numbers than ever. Cheetoo, also was induced to join him, and an alliance was formed with Ameer Khan, then in the spring tide of his career. Their united bands did not fall short of 60,000 horse, and from the palace to the cottage every mind was filled with consternation by this portentous assemblage of banditti in Central Asia. Happily the union was short- lived. Cheetoo, who had always felt the hostility of a rival to Kureem Khan, was prevailed upon to desert him, when his camp was assailed and broken up by Sindia. These were the acknowledged leaders of the Pindarees, to whose encampment the minor chiefs repaired when the season arrived for their annual expeditions. Their system of ranks were recruited by miscreants expelled from plunder. society, and men pursued by their creditors, as well as by men weary of peaceful occupation, and eager for excite- ment. The Pindaree standard was generally raised at the Dussera, or autumnal festival, towards the end of October, when the rains had subsided, and the rivers became ford- able. Leaders of experience and acknowledged courage were selected, who took the command of bodies of 4,000 or 5,000 men, all mounted, and armed with spears of from four to six yards in length. They were not encumbered with either tents or baggage, and they obtained supplies for themselves and their horses from the villages they plundered on the line of march. Neither were they em- barrassed with any prejudices of caste, or compunctions of conscience, and the history of their career is not relieved X 306 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX. by a single generous or chivalrous act. They frequently moved at the rate of forty or fifty niiles a day, and as they were unable to remain long in one spot, the greatest de- spatch was used to complete the plunder of the village ; and tortures which almost exceed belief were inflicted on men and women to hasten the discovery of property. Their progress throughout the country was indicated by a stream of desolation, for what they could not carry off they de- stroyed. For several years their depredations had been confined to the neighbourhood of the Nerbudda and the frontiers of Attack *^® Peshwa, the Nizam and the raja of Nagpore ; British but, as tlicsc districts became exhausted, they temtones. were obliged to enlarge the sphere of their expe- ditions, and on one occasion swept through 400 miles of country south of the Nerbudda, and returned without molestation, laden with plunder. The Dussera of 1811 was celebrated by a congregation of 25,000 Pindaree horse, and a detachment of 6,000 plundered up to the gates of Nagpore, and burnt down one of its suburbs. The next A.B. year a large body under Dost Mahomed plundered the \812 British district of Mirzapore, and boldly proceeded down towards Gya, within seventy miles of Patna, levying heavy contributions in this new and untrodden field, and then disappeared up the source of the Soane, before a British soldier could overtake them. This was their first invasion of British territory, and, coupled with the period- ical devastation of the native states, induced Lord Minto to entreat the Directors to consider whether "it was " expedient to observe a strict neutrality amidst these scenes " of disorder and outrage, or to listen to the voice of " suffering humanity and interfere for the protection of " the weak and defenceless states who implored our assist- " ance against the ravages of the Pindarees and the " Patans." Before he quitted the Government he ad- dressed a second letter to the Directors, pointing out that the augmented numbers, the improved organisation, and the increasing audacity of the Pindarees, rendered the adoption of an extensive system of measures for their suppression, a matter of pressing importance. Lord Minto's administration has never been sufiiciently appreciated, perhaps from the circumstance of its inter- vening between the more active and brilliant Character of careers of Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings, Lord Minto 8 -g^^ .^ should not be forgotten that his hands were tied by the ruling policy of the India House, Sect.iv.j renewal of the charter 307 which he altogether reprobated. He assured the Court of a.d. Directors that "no extent of concession or territorial res- 1813 " titution on our part would have the efiect of establishing * any real and effective balance of power or forbearance on " the part of other states, when the means of aggrandise- " ment should be placed in their hands ; " and that " the " expectation of augmenting our security by diminishing " our power and political ascendancy on the continent of " India was utterly vain." He remarked, " that with the " native princes, war, rapine, and conquest constituted an " avowed principle of action, a just and legitimate pursuit, " and the chief source of public glory ; sanctioned and even " recommended by the ordinances of religion, and prose- " cuted without the semblance or pretext of justice, and " with a savage disregard of every obligation of humanity " and public faith, and restrained only by the power of " resistance." By these and similar representations he prepared the Court of Directors to abandon the absurd policy of non-intervention, and to assume that supremacy on the continent which was irrevocably established by his successor ; but he did not hesitate to vindicate the para- mount authority of the British Government on many occasions, in Travancore, in Nagpore, in Bundlecund, and in Sirhind ; and to his administration belongs the merit of having swept every hostile and piratical flag from the Indian seas, and established the predominance of British power on the ocean, though he was forbidden to do so on land. The period was now approaching when the question of 1809 renewing the Company's commercial monopoly was to to come before Parliament. In the preliminary 1?^^ discussions between the ministry and Leadenhall for a new '^^ Street, the Court of Directors assumed a lofty charter, tone, and made extravagant demands, which they were obliged gradually to withdraw ; but tbey continued to insist on the renewal of the charter in all its integrity. The President of the Board of Control, however, informed them that the ministry had made up their minds no longer to exclude the merchants of England from the trade of India. The points at issue between the Company and the Cabinet appeared at length to be reduced to the question of opening the outports of England to the enter- prise of private merchants, and on this point the Court of Directors determined to take their stand. They affirmed 1812 that any diversion of the trade from London to the out- X 2 308 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. IX. ports would break up large and important establishments, and throw thousands out of bread ; would increase smug- ghng beyond the possibility of control ; would entail the ruin of the China trade, and reduce the value of the Company's stock ; would paralyse their power in India, and compromise the happiness of its inhabitants ; and not only impair the interests of Great Britain in Asia, but imperil the British constitution. The ministry, however, were not appalled by these terrific spectres, which the genius of monopoly had con- jured up, but informed the Directors that if the of the Court extension of commercial privileges to the rest of of Directors. ^|^g nation would render it impossible for them to continue the government of India, some other agency might be provided for that object, consistent with the interests of the public and the integrity of the constitution. But the Directors and the Proprietors refused any con- cession, and expressed their confidence that Parliament would not consent to gratify a few interested speculators by abolishing a commercial system which had existed for two centuries, and was fortified by a score of Acts of Parlia- ment. On the other hand, the claim of the Company to a continuance of their monopoly encountered a strenuous opposition throughout the country. In the twenty years which had elapsed since the previous charter, manufactures and commerce had been developed beyond all former example, and the merchants and millowners demanded the right of an unrestricted trade with India, from their respective ports, and in their own vessels, with such unanimity and vigour, that the ministry felt it impossible ^j)^ to resist the national voice. On the 22nd March the 1813 President of the Board of Control brought forward the ministerial propositions, that the Government of India should be continued for twenty years longer in the hands of the Company, with liberty to continue to prosecute their trade, but that the whole nation should be allowed to participate in it ; that the Company should enjoy the exclusive trade to China, and that the restrictions on the resort of Europeans to the country should be relaxed so as to amount to a virtual abolition. These propositions were violently opposed by the Directors and Proprietors, and they petitioned Parliament Witnesses of ^°^ leave to bring forward witnesses to support the Direo- their claims. The first witness was the venerable *"^' Warren Hastings, then in his eightieth year Sect. IV.] OPENING OF THE TKADE TO INDIA 809 Twenty-six years before lie had been arraigned by the a.d. House of Commons at the bar of the House of Lords for 1813 high crimes and misdemeanours. He had outlived the passions and prejudices of that age, and the whole House rose as he entered and paid a spontaneous homage to his exalted character and his eminent services. But his views of Indian policy belonged to that remote period when he was laying the foundation of the empire ; he could not realise the change of circumstances in England and in India, and was opposed to all innovations. The evidence of Lord Teignmouth, of Mr. Charles Grant, of Colonel Malcolm and Colonel Munro, and indeed of all the witnesses marshalled by the India House, ran in the same groove. They maintained that the climate of India and the habits and prejudices of the natives precluded the hope of any increased consumption of British manufactures ; that the trade of India had reached its utmost limit, and that it could be conducted to advantage only through the agency of the Company ; that the free admission of Europeans would lead to colonisation, and to the oppression of the natives, and the loss of India. But all the authorities and all the evidence the Court of Directors could muster, proved of no avail. The House yielded to the voice of the nation, and opened India to the commercial enterprise of all England. Reference has been made in a previous chapter to the restrictions imposed on the Serampore missionaries by Sir George Barlow during the panic created by the The mission- Vellore mutiny, which were removed on his aryquestion. arrival by Lord Minto. But on his return from Java, without the remotest appearance of any political necessity, he was induced to adopt stringent measures against the missionary enterprise, and to order eight missionaries, the majority of whom had recently arrived, peremptorily to quit the country. The hostility of the Court of Directors to missions and to education had all the inveteracy of traditional prejudice, and it became necessary to take advantage of the Charter discussions to apply for the interposition of Parliament. The question was entrusted to Mr. Wilberforce, who, in a speech distinguished for its eloquence, entreated the House to grant permission to place the truths of Christianity before the natives of India for their voluntary acceptance. But the India House and its witnesses, with some exceptions, were as virulently opposed to this concession as to that of free trade, and 310 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. IX, reprobated the admission of missionary and mercantile agents with equal vehemence. But the voice of the country was raised with more than ordinary unanimity against the monstrous proposition that the only religion to be proscribed in India should be that of its rulers. The House was inundated with petitions from every corner, and from all classes and denominations, and the clause giving missionaries the same access to India as merchants was passed by large majorities. CHAPTEE X. SECTION I. LORD Hastings's administration — the nepaul war. m^ The Earl of Moira, subsequently created Marquis of Hastings, took the oaths and his seat in Council on the 4th October. He was of the mature age of fifty- Hastings nine, a nobleman of Norman lineage, with a tall Governor- and commanding figure, and distinguished by his patrician bearing. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and served seven years in the war of independence in America. His life had been subsequently passed in connection with important public affairs, and he brought to his high office a large fund of experience, a clear and sound judgment, and great decision of character, together with the equivocal honour of being the personal friend of the Prince Regent. In his place in Parliament he had denounced Lord Wellesley's wars and his ambitious policy of establishing British supremacy throughout India ; but this opinion was reversed as soon as he had taken a survey of the position and prospects of the Indian empire ; and before he had been many months in India he recorded his impression that " our object in India ought to be to *' render the British Government paramount in effect, if " not declaredly so . . . and to oblige the other states to " perform the two great feudatory duties of supporting " our rule with all their forces, and submitting their " mutual differences to our arbitration." Sect. I.J NEPAUL 311 Lord Hastings found Ms eastern throne no bed of roses, a.d. The non-intervention policy — which the authorities in 1813 Leadenhall street considered the perfection of state of political wisdom, and the native princes an India. obvious token of pusillanimity — had brought on a contempt of our power, and sown the seeds of new wars. The violence of Holkar had ended in insanity ; his government lost its strength, and Ameer Khan stepped in and became at once the prop of the throne and the curse of the country. The troops of Sindia had been incessantly employed in aggrandising his power by encroachments on his neigh- bours. The Peshwa had been husbanding his resources for the first opportunity of shaking off British control. The Pindaree freebooters were spreading desolation through a region 500 miles in length and 400 in breadth ; and on the northern frontier of Bengal and Behar a new power had arisen and invaded our districts, and hung like a dark cloud on the mountains of Nepaul. The Company's army, which had been subject to large reductions in a spirit of unwise economy, was found to be inadequate to the defence of our frontier, and the treasury was empty. The first and immediate difficulty of Lord Hastings arose out of the encroachments of the Nepaulese or Goorkhas. The valley of Nepaul is embosomed in the Himalaya, Description and bounded on the north by some of its loftiest of Nepaui. and most majestic peaks, and on the south by its first and lowest range. That range is skirted by a magnificent forest, from eight to ten miles in depth, which presents an unbroken series of gigantic trees; no breath of wind reaches the interior, which is littered with rank and decayed vegetation; no animal ventures into it, and no sound of a bird is heard in its recesses. An open plain, called the teraee, stretches along the south of the forest, about 500 miles in length and 20 in breadth. The soil is watered by the streams which descend from the mountains, and, when cultivated, produces the most luxuriant crops, but during the greater part of the year is as pestilential as the Pontine marshes. About the middle of the fourteenth century, various colonists of Rajpoots entered the country and subdued the aboriginal Newars, and in the course of time „. were ranged under three tribes. About ten progress of years after the battle of Plassy, Prithee Narrain, Sfa^^^'^' the chief of the tribe of Groorkhas, having sub- dued all the other chiefs, established a new dynasty, with 312 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.X A.D. Katmandhoo for its capital. His descendant, an infant, 1806 was placed on the throne in 1805, and Bheem Sen formed a council of regency under his own presidency. The impulse of conquest which the founder had given to the nation continued in undiminished vigour. An expedition was sent to Lassa, and the living type of Booddha was subject to the humiliation of paying tribute to his Hindoo conqueror. Bat the emperor of China, the secular head of Booddhism, avenged the insult by invading Nepaul and obliging the Nepaulese to send an embassy with tribute to Pekin every three years. The cabinet of Katmandhoo then pushed their conquests eastward to Sikkim, and westward to the mountainous region of the higher Sutlej, where Umur Sing, their renowned general, came in contact with the rising power of Runjeet Sing, but was recalled from the siege of Kote Kangra to the defence of his own country from the assaults of the British Grovernment. During the twenty-five years preceding the war we treat of, the Goorkhas had come down into the plains and Their en- Tisurped more than 200 British villages, and croachments the subjccts of the Company were exposed to teriito^? continual aggression along the whole line of their frontier. At length they had the presumption to seize upon the districts of Bootwul and Seoraj in Goruck- pore, which the Vizier of Oude had transferred to Lord Wellesley in 1802. Lord Minto was anxious, if possible, to avoid a resort to arms, and proposed a conference with the Nepaul ministry, which resulted in demonstrating that they had not the shadow of a right to them. Accordingly, 1813 in June, he demanded the immediate restitution of them, and intimated that, in case of refusal, the Government would be obliged to have recourse to force ; but the Nepaul cabinet distinctly refused to evacuate them. Their reply did not reach Calcutta till after the arrival of Lord Hastings, and, upon a careful examination of all the docu- ments, he deemed it indispensable to make a categorical demand that they should be surrendered within twenty- five days. The period expired without any communication from Katmandhoo, and he ordered the magistrate of Goruck- pore to expel the Goorkha officers. 1814 Lord Hastings's letter created a profound sensation at Katmandhoo, and convinced the regent that the dispute Goorkhas ^.bout these border lands was rapidly merging resolve on into a question of peace or war with the British ^"' power. A national council was convened to Bhct.lj loan from lucknow 318 discuss the question, when Umur Sing said that his life a.b. had been passed amidst the hardships of war, and he was 1^1^ not ignorant of its risks, but he deprecated a war with the British Government, and affirmed that the lands were not worth the hazard. "We have hitherto," he said, "been " hunting deer, but if we engage in this war we shall have ** to hunt tigers." But the regent and his party were bent on war, and determined to demand the surrender of the whole of the country north of the Ganges, and, as if to render hostilities inevitable, sent a detachment down to Bootwul, and put the police officer and eighteen of his men to death. The Goorkhas had thrown down the gauntlet, and Lord Hastings had no alternative but to take it up, promptly, without waiting for the result of a reference to Leadenhall Street. This defiance of the British power seemed an act of incredible temerity on the part of the Goorkhas. Their whole army did not exceed 12,000, and it was scattered over a long line of frontier, and their largest gun was only a four-pounder ; but uninterrupted success for many years had infused a feeling of confidence into their minds. Their real strength consisted in the impracticable nature of their country, and in our entire igno- rance of its localities. Lord Hastings found himself dragged into an arduous conflict with an empty exchequer. On all former occasions the Government had resorted to a loan, but this Lucknow was difficult, if not altogether impracticable, at a loan. time when their promissory notes were at a discount of nine and ten per cent., and money was worth twelve per cent, in the market. In this dilemma he cast his eye on the hoards of the Vizier, amounting to seven crores of rupees. That prince was anxious to be relieved from the imperious interference of the Resident in the affairs of his government and of his court, and Lord Hastiness had expressed a wish to afford him relief from this annoyance; on hearing, therefore, of the em- barrassment of the Government, he resolved to evince his gratitude by ofiering a donation of a crore of rupees. He died while Lord Hastings was on his way to Lucknow, where the offer was renewed by his son and successor. Lord Hastings agreed to accept it as a loan to the Com- pany, bearing interest, though he could not receive it as a gratuity ; but he gained little by the aid thus afforded him. Of the old loan at eight per cent., which the Government was endeavouring to convert into a six per cent, stock, about half a crore of rupees was still unredeemed ; and 314 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.X. the Vice-President in Council, without any intimation to the Governor- General, employed half the sum obtained at Lucknow in paying it off. This act of folly deprived Lord Hastings of the sinews of war, and would have produced a disastrous effect on the campaign if he had not submitted to the humiliation of soliciting a second crore, which was not, however, given without much reluctance. A.D. With regard to the plan of the campaign, Lord Hastings ^Sl^ considered it impolitic to confine his operations to the Plan of the simple defence of a line of frontier several campaign, hundred miles in extent, which it would be found impracticable to guard effectually against an energetic and rapacious enemy. He felt that our military reputation could be sustained only by a bold and successful assault on the strongest of the Goorkha positions. He accordingly planned four expeditions on four points : the western on the Sutlej, the eastern on the capital, and two others on intermediate points. The division under General Gillespie, who had gained a high reputation at Vellore and in Java, was the first in the field, 3,500 strong, and advanced toward the Dhoon valley; during his progress he came upon a small fort at Kalunga, held by 600 Goorkhas. Lord Hastings had warned him against any attempt to storm works which should be reduced by artillery, but, with the reckless daring of his character, he determined to carry it by assault, and as he rushed up to the gate to encourage his men who were staggered by the murderous fire of the Goorkhas, he was shot through the heart. A retreat was immediately sounded, but not before twenty officers and 240 rank and file lay killed or wounded. 1814 A month was lost in waiting for heavy ordnance from Delhi ; but after the breach was reported practicable, the Failure of ^sault was repulsed, with another loss of 680 three of the men. Three days of incessant shelling rendered the divisions. p^g^ untenable, and the brave Goorkha comman- der made his escape with only seventy survivors. The reputation of the division was not restored by General Martindell, on whom the command devolved, who allowed himself, with an army of 5,000 sepoys and 1,000 Europeans, to be held at bay by 2,300 Goorkhas. The division under General J. S. Wood, which was appointed to penetrate Nepaul through Palpa, was paralysed by similar incapacity, and an army of 4,500 British soldiers, European and native, was not found to be a match for 1,200 of the Nepaul force. The chief reliance of Lord Hastings was placed on the Sect. I.] NON-SUCCESS OF THREE ARMIES 815 division of General Marley, 8,000 strong, destined to march a.d. directly on the capital, only 100 miles from our frontier; 1815 but he surpassed the others in imbecility. Two detach- ments were sent east and west without any precautions, and were fiercely assailed by the enemy. The sepoys fled, but the officers fell fighting with their usual valour, and guns, stores, and ammunition were captured by the enemy. The wretched general made a retrograde movement, and, though reinforced by two European regiments, could not be persuaded to enter the forest ; and one morning, at early dawn, mounted his horse, and, without even delegating the command to any officer, galloped back to the canton- ments at Dinapore. General George Wood, who succeeded him, was equally devoid of spirit, and the services of the division were lost. This was the first campaign, since the Company took up arms in India, in which their troops outnumbered those of the enemy. Our non- success was owing entirely Effect of to the exceptional incompetence of the generals, these re- Lord Hastings regarded his position with ex- treme anxiety, and, in his diary, stated that if we were to be foiled in this struggle, it would be the first step to the subversion of our power. These reverses were diligently promulgated throughout India, and revived the dormant hopes of the native princes, who began to make military demonstrations. Under the auspices of the Peshwa, who sent envoys to all the courts in India, not omitting even the Pindarees, a secret treaty of mutual support was con- cluded against the British Government. The army of Sindia was organised on our frontier. Ameer Khan, with 25,000 horse and foot, took up a position within twelve marches of our territories. Runjeet Sing marched 20,000 men to the fords of the Sutlej, and 20,000 Pindarees stood ready for any opportunity of mischief. To meet this emergency. Lord Hastings ordered up the whole of the disposable force of the Madras army to the frontier of the Deccan, and raised additional regiments of infantry, en- listed irregular horse, and increased the strength of the army to 80,000. But the Company's ihhal, or good fortune, as the natives observed, was still in the ascendant. Run- jeet Sing was recalled by a threatened inroad of the Afghans. Sindia's two commanders, after long discord, attacked each other; the Pindaree leaders quarrelled among themselves ; Ameer Khan found more immediate smployment in the plunder of Joudpore, and the cloud 31 6 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X was completely dispelled by the brilliant success of Generaj OchterJony. A.D. The division of this general was appointed to dislodge 1816 the Goorkhas from the territoi-ies they had acquired on Operations ^^^ higher Sutlej, where Umur Sing was in of General command, and the ablest of the Goorkha generals ^ °"y- was pitted against the ablest of the English com- manders. The scene of operation was a wild and rugged region, presenting successive ranges of mountains rising one above another to the lofty peaks of the Himalaya, broken by deep glens and covered with thick forests. The general had formed a correct estimate of the bold character of his opponent and of the advantage he enjoyed in his position, and pursued his object by cautious but steady advances. He opened the campaign by the capture of the important fortress of Nalagurh, after a bombardment of thirty hours, with the loss of only one European soldier. During the next five months the valour of the British troops was matched by the gallantry of the Goorkhas, and the skill of British engineers was repeatedly foiled by the tact and resolution of their opponents. The service was the most arduous in which the Company's army had ever been engaged. At an elevation of more than 5,000 feet above the level of the sea, at the most inclement season of the year, amidst falls of snow often of two days continuance, the pioneers were employed in blasting rocks and opening roads for the eighteen-pounders, and day after day the men and the elephants were employed in dragging them up those alpine heights ; but the energy of the general, and the exhilarating character of the warfare, diffused a feeling of enthusiasm throughout the army. By a series of bold and skilful manoeuvres every height was at length sur- mounted and every fortress captured but that of Malown. Before General Ochterlony reached it, Lord Hastings had despatched some irregular corps raised by Colonel Gardner, an oflBcer of great merit who had been in the Mahratta service, to occupy the province of Almora. That gallant officer and his new levies speedily cleared it of the Goorkhas, and effectually cut off Umur Sing's communica- tion with the capital, and deprived him of all hope of reinforcements. The Goorkha officers entreated him to make conditions with the general, but the stern old chief spumed their advice, and they passed over to the English camp. He retired into the citadel with 200 men, but when the batteries were about to open upon it he Bbct. I.] CLOSE OF THE NEPAUL WAS 317 hesitated to sacrifice in a forlorn conflict the lives of the brave men who had nobly adhered to him to the last, and accepted the terms oflFered by his generous foe, who, in consideration of the sldll, bravery, and fidelity with which he had defended the country, allowed him to march out f^ith his arms and colours and personal property. The discomfiture of their ablest general, and the loss of their most valuable acquisition, took away from the regency all confidence in their fastnesses, and second induced them to sue for peace. Commissioners Goorkha came down to Segowlee and signed a treaty °°'°^p^^' on the 2nd December, under an engagement to deliver the ■*^'^- ratification of it within fifteen days, and a royal salute was fired in Calcutta in honour of the peace. But the ratifica- tion was never sent. Umur Sing and his son had in the meantime arrived at Katmandhoo, and successfully urged the regency to continue the war and to dispute every inch of ground. Another campaign became inevitable, and Lord Hastings had to assemble an army with all speed to strike a blow at the capital before the rains commenced. A force of 20,000 men was collected on the frontier, and placed under the command of General Ochterlony, who advanced with his usual caution and promptitude. Finding the Goorkha works in the first pass unassailable, he deter- mined to turn the flank of the enemy, and on the night of the 14th February marched in dead silence through a 1815 narrow ravine, where twenty men might have arrested a whole army. The force bivouacked for two days and nights without food or shelter, awaiting the arrival of the second detachment, and then advanced to Muckwanpore, within fifty miles of Katmandhoo, where the Goorkha army sustained a signal defeat. The regency lost all conceit of fighting ; the treaty duly ratified, was sent down in hot haste, and peace was concluded on the 2nd March on terms singularly moderate. The Goorkhas were not only the most valiant but the most humane foes we had ever encountered in India, and they also proved to be the most faithful to their engagements. Unlike other treaties with Indian princes, this of 1816 has never been infringed ; and instead of taking advantage of our embarrassments during the mutiny of 1857, they sent a large force to assist in quelling it. 31 8 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA TChap. X, SECTION II. LORD HASTINGS'S ADMINISTRATION — TRANSACTIONS WITH NATIYB PRINCES — MAHRATTA AND PINDAREE WAR. The policy of Lord Wellesley had been steadily repudiated by the Court of Directors, but its wisdom was amply Patansand vindicated by the miseiy which followed its Pindarees. abandonment, and by the desolation of Central India for ten years by the Patans and the Pindarees. Ameer Khan, the Patau, had established a regular govern- ment, but the predatory element was always predominant in it. His army was estimated at 10,000 foot and 15,000 horse, with a powerful artillery, and as it was his plan to levy contributions from princes and states, he marched about with all the appliances for the siege of towns. The object of the Pindarees was universal and indiscriminate plunder, and they swept through the country with a degree of rapidity which rendered it impossible to calculate their movements, and baffled all pursuit. On his arrival. Lord Hastings found 50,000 Patans and Pindarees in the heart of India subsisting by plunder, and extending their ravages over an area as large as England. j^.D, One of his earliest acts was to point out to the Court of 1814 Directors, in language more emphatic than that of Lord Minto, the increasing danger of this predatory tion'toThe power. He asserted that India could not prosper gourtof until the Government "became the head of a " league embracing every power in India, and " was placed in a position to direct its entire strength " against the disturbers of the pubHc peace." But this course of policy was systematically opposed by the two members of his Council. Mr. Edmonstone combined official talent of a high order with long experience, but lacked the endowments of a statesman, and clung to the retrograde policy of Sir George Barlow. Mr. Dowdeswell had all the narrowmindedness of Sir George without a tithe of his ability. In reply to Lord Hastings's represen- 1815 Nation, the Court, still clinging to the non-intervention policy, forbad him to engage " in plans of general con- " federacy or of offensive operations against the Pindarees, " either with a view to their utter extirpation, or in •• anticipation of expected danger." They enjoined him to SBCT.n.J PEOPOSED NATIVE ALLIANCES 319 undertake nothing that could embroil them, with Sindia, and to make no change in the existing system of political relations ; to maintain the course of policy pursued by Sir George Barlow, to reduce the strength of the army, and practise a rigid economy. Before this communication reached Calcutta, Lord Hast- a.d. ings, in the hope of preventing the Pindarees from crossing 1814 the Nerbudda, had entered into negotiations for a subsidiary alliance with the raja of Nagpore, native which the Court had sanctioned five or six years ^i^^^^^s. before, but the raja persisted in resisting the proposal. Lord Hastings then proposed a similar alliance with Bhopal, with the view of holding the Pindarees in check. Bhopal was a small principality in Malwa, in the valley of the Nerbudda, lying between the British territories and the head-quarters of the Pindarees. The prince was the only chief in Central India who gave any support to the expedition of General Goddard in 1778, and the testi- monials granted by him on that occasion are still carefully preserved in the archives of that noble house. In 1813, Sindia and the raja of Nagpore formed a confederacy to absorb its territories, and brought a force of 60,000 men against its renowned minister, Vizier Mahomed, which besieged the capital successively for two years. He implored the interference of the British Government, and Lord Hastings considered that in the existing circum- stances of Central India, it was of no little importance to protect a state situated like Bhopal from extinction, and the two Mahratta powers were informed that it was under 1813 the protection of the Company. The raja of Nagpore, after some hesitation, withdrew his army, but Sindia assumed a lofty tone — it was at the time of the three failures in the Nepaul war — and declared that Bhopal was one of his dependencies, with which the Government was debarred from interfering by Sir George Barlow's treaty of 1805. But the vigorous preparations made by Lord Hastings to enforce his requisition, and more especially the success of General Ochterlony, staggered him ; his two generals attacked each other under the walls of Bhopal, and the siege was raised. But the projected alliance with Bhopal fell to the ground. Bajee Rao, the Peshwa, was about this time brought into conflict with the Government, which eventually ended in his ruin. He had none of the talents for Affaire at government which had distinguished his pre- Poona. 320 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. decessors, and rested the success of his schemes on in- trigue and perfidy. He was the slave of avarice and superstition ; he had accumulated five crores of rupees in ten years, but he was lavish in his gifts to temples and brahmins, and his time was passed in constant pilgrimages from shrine to shrine. His efforts to seize on the estates of the great feudatories of the Mahratta empire, denomi- nated the " southern jageerdars," many of them of greater antiquity than his own house, had been defeated by the interposition of the Resident, and increased his disaffection. ,gj^3 About the year 1813, one Trimbukjee Danglia, who was originally in the spy department, entered his service, and by his intelligence and energy, and not less by pandering to his vices, obtained a complete ascendancy over his mind. So great was the servile devotion he manifested to his master that he assured Mr. Blphinstone, the Resident, that he was ready to kill a cow at his bidding. Towards the Enghsh Grovernment he always manifested an implacable hostility, and was incessantly urging the Peshwa to shake off their alliance and assert his position as the head of the Mahratta power. The Peshwa had claims on the Graikwar extending back for half a century, which, with interest, amounted to little Claims on short of three crores. The Gaikwar advanced theGaikwar. counter claims of scarcely less amount, and he 1814 deputed his chief minister, Gungadhur Shastree, to Poona, to adjust them ; but he would not venture into the city without the guarantee of the Resident. His reception was ungracious, and he was so completely baffled by evasions, that he determined to return to Baroda, upon which Trim- bukjee changed his tactics, and spared no pains to gain him over to the interests of his master, who promised to bestow the hand of his sister-in-law on his son. The Shastree was thus induced fco compromise the Gaikwar claims, without his concurrence or that of the Resident, for land yielding about seven lacs of rupees a year. An aus- picious day was selected by the astrologers for the nuptials, and splendid preparations made for it; but the Shastree, hearing that his master repudiated the treaty, requested that the marriage might be suspended. The Peshwa considered this an unpardonable insult, which could be expiated only with his blood. The Shastree was accordingly induced to accompany the 1816 Peshwa on his pilgrimage to Punderpore, though warned of his danger, and, soon after his arrival there, yielded Sbc3T.II.] MUKDEE of THE SHASTKEE 321 fco the importunities of Trimbukjee to pay his devotions at the shrine after dusk. On his return he j^g^gj^^ ^t*,'^ was -waylaid and assassinated. The murder of tionofthe a brahmin of the highest rank and learned in s^^^^e. the shasters, in a holy city, at a period of pilgrimage, and in the immediate precincts of the temple, filled the Mahratta community with horror. But the victim was also the minister of an ally of the Company, and had proceeded to the court at Poona under a safe conduct. The Resident took up the case with promptitude and vigour, and having traced the murder to the agency of Trumbukjee, called on the Peshwa to deliver him up. The demand was resolutely resisted, and the Peshwa began to levy troops and determined to raise his standard, although unable to obtain the promise of assistance he solicited from the other Mahratta powers ; but Mr. Elphinstone had taken the precaution of calling up troops to the capital. Bajee Rao's constitutional cowardice mastered every other feel- ing, and he surrendered his favourite on condition that his life should be spared. He was placed in confinement in the fort of Tanna, when he fully confessed the assassina- tion, but declared that he had not acted without his master's orders. Lord Hastings returned to Calcutta at the close of 1815, and placed on the records of Council an elaborate minute pointing out in stronger language than he had t ^ tt ,4. yet used the increasing danger arising from the ings' second growth of the Pindaree power, and, in order to {[(f^®*^*^" suppress it, proposing a general system of alliances under the guarantee of the Company, a revision of our relations with the native powers, and a new settlement of the Mahratta dominions. His two colleagues opposed the proposal and it was sent on to the India House with their dissent. While it was on its way to England, the necessity of some immediate effort was rendered more Imperative by their increasing audacity. The dusseva festival, when the plan of the winter campaign was usually organized, 1818 was celebrated in the autumn of 1815 at Nimar, the head- quarters of Cheetoo, the chief leader, by a larger collection of Pindarees than had been assembled on any previous occasion, and their operations were especially directed against the territories of the Company and of the Nizam. A body of 8,000 crossed the 'N'erbudda in October, and swept through his provinces as far south as the Kistna, and returned so richly laden with booty that merchants T 322 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. were invited from all quarters to purchase it. This extra- ordinary success attracted fresh crowds to their standard, and a body of 23,000 crossed the Nerbudda in February. One large division poured down on the northern Sircars, ^•^' sacked the civil station of Guntoor on the Coromandel ^^^^ coast, and for ten days plundered the adjacent villages with perfect impunity. Troops were immediately des- patched from Calcutta by sea, but the Pindarees had disappeared before their arrival, and it would have been as vain to follow them as to pursue a flight of locusts. It was found on investigation that during this raid 330 villages had been plundered, and many of them burnt ; 500 persons had been wounded ; 182 put to death, and 3, GOO sub- jected to torture, while the loss of property was estimated at twenty-five lacs of rupees. This expedition demonstrated the importance of obtain- ing the co-operation of the raja of Nagpore, through whose 1816 Subsidiary territories the Pindarees had passed, but the raja alliance with still continued to resist every proposal of a sub- Nagpore. gi^iary alliance. He died on the 22nd March, and was succeeded by his son Persajee, who was blind, palsied, and a confirmed idiot. His nephew, subsequently known as Appa Sahib, was acknowledged as regent, but was vigorously opposed by the intrigues of the court and the zenana, and threw himself upon the British Government, and offered at once to conclude the proposed alliance. A treaty was accordingly signed on the 29th May, which provided that a body of 6,000 infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and a suitable proportion of artillery, should be subsidized by the ISTagpore state, and that the raja should not contract any foreign alliances, and refer all differences with other powers to the arbitration of the Governor- General. Lord Hastings was thus enabled to place on record that in two months he had been able to effect what had been fruitlessly laboured at for twelve years, and he now considered it certain that the Pindarees would not be able again to cross the Nerbudda. A despatch was soon after received from the India House revoking the permission formerly given to contract such an alliance, but it arrived too late to do any mischief. The Court of Directors had in 1813 sanctioned the renewal of the protective treaty with Jeypore which Sir Prcposed George Barlow had torn up. Ameer Khan and aiiiancewith his frecbooters having drained Joudpore, fell Jeypore. upon this state, and laid siege to the capitaL Sect. II.] MR. CANNING'S DESPATCHES 323 The raja despatched an envoy to Mr. Metcalfe, the Resident ^•^• at Delhi, to implore the protection of the Government, and Lord Hastings, having regained his authority in Council by the accession of Mr. Seton who voted with him, resolved to avail himself of the warrant of the Court, and to conclude the alliance. Two divisions of troops, each 9,000 strong, were ordered into the field to expel the Patans from Jeypore, and to meet the hostility of Sindia or Holkar, who, having once subjected the country to plunder, considered that they had established a right over it. The four subsidiary armies of the Peshwa, the Nizam, the Gaikwar, and the raja of Nagpore were ordered forward, but the raja of Jeypore had no intention to fetter himself with any such connection, and, in the true spirit of oriental policy, was negotiating with Ameer Khan, whom he induced eventually to raise the siege by threatening to sign the treaty, and thus bring down the weight of the British armies upon him. Mr. George Canning, one of the most brilliant of English statesmen, who was appointed President of the Board 1816 of Control in June 1816, was immediately Despatches called upon to take into consideration Lord from Eng- Hastings's proposal to form a general system of ^° ' alliances with a view to the extirpation of the Pindaree power. New as he was to the Government, it is no matter of surprise that he should have been unwilling to assume the responsibility of so fundamental a change in the policy of the empire, more especially when it was opposed by the councillors in Calcutta, and by those who might be considered his constitutional advisers in Leaden- hall Street. Lord Hastings was, therefore, informed that the Court of Directors were unwilling to incur the risk of a general war for the uncertain purpose of rooting out the Pindarees, and that they would not sanction any extended military and political combinations for that purpose. They suggested that the Government might possibly enter into negotiations with some of the Pindaree leaders, or treat with the men to deliver up their chiefs. This advice kindled the indignation of Lord Hastings. The suggestion of the Court to engage one portion of the Pindaree con- federation to destroy another, he attributed to the culpable negligence of the Government of India to point out the brutal and atrocious character of these wretches. But immediately after the transmission of this despatch from the India House, Mr. Canning received information of the 324 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. A.D. irruption of the Pindarees into the Northern Sircars, and 1816 the atrocities thej had committed. His views were at once changed, and another despatch was sent under his directions, which stated : " We think it due to your Lord- " ship not to lose an instant in conveying to you an explicit " assurance of our approval of any measures you may have " authorised or undertaken, not only for repelling invasion " but for pursuing and chastising the invaders. We can " no longer abstain from a vigorous exertion of military " power in vindication of the British name and in defence " of subjects who look to us for protection. . . . Any " connection of Sindia or Holkar with the Pindarees " against us or our allies, known, though not avowed, " would place them in a state of direct hostility to us." Lord Hastings was confident that the Nagpore subsi- jgjg diary force planted on the banks of the Nerbudda would _2y . effectually prevent the Pindarees from crossing it, campaign but he was painfully disappointed. As the period of 1816-17. Qf ^]^g annual swarming approached. Colonel Walker moved up to the Nerbudda with the whole body, numbering 6,000 men, but they were found unequal to the protection of a line a hundred and fifty miles in extent. The Pindaree detachments pushed across between his posts, and a large body dashed down on the British district of Kimedy, and burnt a portion of the town of Ganjam, and but for the accidental arrival of Company's troops to quell an insurrection in Orissa, would have laid the whole province under contribution. Other bodies plundered the territories of Nagpore and Hyderabad. The expeditions of 1816-17 were the boldest they had undertaken, and the success whiph attended them gave rise to serious considera- tions. With the Nagpore subsidiary force guarding the Nerbudda, 23,000 Pindarees had crossed it. With 32,000 British troops, besides the Poona brigade and the Nizam's contingent distributed over the country, they had rushed through the peninsula and ravaged both coasts. It was felt that the cost of these defensive measures exceeded the largest calculation of the cost of a campaign to exterminate the freebooters. It was therefore unanimously resolved in Council to abandon the resolution which had been adopted to abstain from any system of offensive operations till the sanction of the home authorities could be received, and to adopt vigorous measures against them without delay. Intimation of this determination to extinguish the Pindarees was immediately conveyed to Sindia, and ho was Swrr. no TKEATY IMPOSED ON BAJEE RA.0 325 requested to cooperate in carrying it into execution, but they had agents at his court, and warm parti- g^^^j^^.g zans amongst his ministers, who endeavoured determina- to persuade him that his own security would be ^^' "' impaired if he sanctioned the extirpation of these yaluable auxiliaries, who were ready at any time to flock to his standard, and who required no pay. The agents of the Pindarees boasted that they would outdo the exploits of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, and that 50,000 of their body would carry fire and sword to Calcutta. But Sindia was not to be misled by this gasconade ; he had not forgotten Assye, the Company had recently triumphed in Nepal, they had secured the resources of N'agpore, and the Government in Calcutta was again animated with the spirit of Lord Wellesley, and he promised his co-operation. During these negotiations at Gwalior events of great a.d. importance transpired at Poona. Trimbukjee effected his ^^^^ escape from Tanna, and though the Peshwa mani- Hostility of fested unusual cordiahty towards the Resident for s^jee Rao. some time, there was the clearest evidence that he was en- gaged in correspondence with Holkar, and Sindia, and Ameer Khan, and the Pindarees, for a simultaneous rising against the Government. Under the direction of Trimbukjee, he hastened the enlistment of troops, collected draft cattle, augmented his artillery, provisioned his forts, and deposited his jewels and treasure in the strongest of them. In 1817 April, Mr. Elphinstone presented a note to him upbraiding him with the hostile movements he was abetting, and declaring that the good understanding between the Govern- ment and him was at an end. At the same time, he pe- remptorily demanded the surrender of Trimbukjee, and the delivery of three forts as seciarity, and he supported these representations by ordering up troops to Poona. The Peshwa's brave general Gokla urged a bold appeal to arms, but he had not the spirit to adopt this advice. The forts were surrendered, and a reward offered for the apprehension of Trimbukjee. On the eve of his comprehensive operations against the Pindarees, Lord Hastings deemed it necessary to exact greater securities from this perfidious prince. Mr. Elphinstone was desired to present him with pen^aity in- the draft of a treaty which required him to dismiss ^^ °" the agents of foreign princes accredited to his court, to refer all matters in dispute with them to the arbitrament of the British Government, to renounce all his 326 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.X. 4j). rights in Saugor and Bnndlecund, and, in lieu of the con- i817 tingent of 5,000 horse and 3,000 foot he was bound to furnish, to cede territory yielding twenty-four lacs a year. His ministers endeavoured to mitigate the severity of these penalties, and they affirmed that we appeared to exact a greater degree of fidelity to engagements than any native prince was able to observe. The treaty was nevertheless signed on the 13th June. When the intelligence of these arrangements and of this large addition to the Company's territories reached England, Mr. Canning remarked that this transaction sufficiently proved " the irrepressible " tendency of our Indian power to enlarge its bounds, and " to augment its preponderance, in spite of the most pe- " remptory injunctions of forbearance from home, and the " most scrupulous obedience of them in India. These " measures were considered an unwelcome though justifiable " exception to the general rule of our policy ; only the oc- " currence of these exceptions had been unfortunately too " frequent." Before this despatch had left the India House, the Peshwa was a fugitive, and his kingdom a British pro- vince. On the death of Holkar in 1811, Toolsee bye, the favourite of his harem — young, beautiful, and fascinating in her toil Hoikar's address, with great talent for business, but violent ^ Court. and vindictive, resolved to conduct the govern- 1817 ment as regent. Ameer Khan exercised a preponderating influence in the state, by means of his lieutenant and his battalions when he was absent plundering Rajpootana. He was considered the head of the Patau faction. Tantia joge, a brahmin and a merchant, accepted the office of prime minister, and was the leader of the Mahratta party. The troops of the state were frequently mutinous for pay, when districts were assigned to the commandant, who fleeced the people without mercy, and sacked open villages, and cannonaded walled towns. There was no power in the state stronger than that of the military, and the govern- ment was in a state of anarchy. It was at this period, in the autumn of 1817, that the agents of Bajee Rao arrived in the camp to promote the confederacy he was forming a^gainst the Government of India. SwjT.ni.] LORD HASTINGS'S NATIVE ALLIANCES 327 SECTION ni. LORD HASTINGS'S ADMINISTEATION — WAR WITH THE PESHWA — WITH NAGPORE — WITH HOLKAR — THE PINDAREES. The disorganisation of Central India had now reached its a.d. climax. The number of armed men who lived by violence ^^^* fell little short of 100,000, and there was no Lo,.(jHast- native potentate with the power, or even the dis- ingss new position, to restore peace and security. On the p^^^^* 8th July, Lord Hastings proceeded to the upper provinces to reduce this chaos to order. He felt that the only mode of dealing effectually with the Pindarees was to assail them in their haunts, and hunt them through the country till their organisation was completely broken up. He felt, likewise, that, to prevent the revival of such a confederacy, it was necessary to resettle Central India, to define the boundaries of each principality, and to prevent mutual encroachments by the establishment of our paramount power ; in short, to restore and complete the system of policy devised by Lord Wellesley twelve years before. But the President of the Board of Control, the Court of Directors, and his own Council, were equally opposed to any such general federation under our supremacy. In his progress up the country, he therefore communicated to the Council his intention to take upon himself the sole responsibility of deviating from the views of the home authorities, and carrying out the general system of alHances he had deter- mined to form. The resolution was executed with promptitude and vigour. The chiefs of Malwa and Rajpootana were in- formed that the neutral policy had ceased, and treaties of that the Government was prepared to admit aiuancewlth them to protective alliances. The intelligence p^^, was received with exultation throughout those provinces, and the Residency of Delhi was speedily crowded with the agents of nineteen of the princes of Central India. The first to enter into the circle of alliances was fche venerable and virtuous Zalim Sing, the regent of Kotah. Then came the youthful and accomplished nabob of Bhopal, who eagerly embraced the alliance his father had refused. The raja of Boondee, ungenerously aban- doned to the mercies of Holkar by Sir George Barlow, 328 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. was now taken again under Britisli protection. The raja of Joudpore, brought to the brink of ruin by the rapacity of the Mahrattas and Patans, eagerly accepted an offer which released him from all further anxiety. Even the proud house of Oodypore, which had never acknowledged the supremacy of Mogul or Mahratta, now submitted to the supremacy of the Company; and lastly, the raja of Jeypore, seeing every other prince bending the knee to the ruling power in India, came into the system of alliances. Within four months, Mr. Metcalfe, the Resident at Delhi, to whom the management of these negotiations was committed, concluded the treaties of alliance with all these princes upon the principle of " subordinate co-operation and ac- " knowledged supremacy." The military operations on which Lord Hastings entered 1817 "^®^® upon a larger scale even than those of Lord Welles- Extent of ^®y» ^^^ embraced the whole extent of country miutarypre- from the Kistna to the Ganges, and from Cawn- parations. p^^^ ^^ Guzerat. The armies of the three Presi- dencies were called out, and, including irregulars and the contingents of native princes, the entire force amounted to 116,000 infantry and cavalry, and 300 guns. The magni- tude of this array was out of all proportion to the simple object of exterminating bands of marauders who never stood an attack ; but Lord Hastings was not ignorant that the extinction of the Pindarees was opposed to the wishes and the interests of the chief native powers, and that the ever perfidious Peshwa was endeavouring to unite them in a confederacy against the Government ; his preparations were, therefore, intended to provide for any adverse move- ments on their part. Happily, the powers of Governor- General and Commander-in-Chief were united in his person, and all the arrangements, political and military, were regulated by the same undivided authority. The veteran soldier of sixty-five took the field in person. The plan of the campaign provided that four divisions should advance from the Deccan, under the orders of Sir Thomas Hyslop, the Madras Commander-in-Chief, and four from the north-west, and converge on the camps of the Pinda- rees. In the north it was necessary to place a check on the dubious intentions of Sindia and Ameer Khan. Sindia Treaty with ^^^ ^^ oncc agreed to the proposal to co-operate Sindia. in attacking the Pindarees, but rumours had been diffused through his army that Bajee Rao was about SBCT.ni.] SUBMISSION OF AMEER KHAN 329 to raise the national standard and assail the Company, and his troops were eager to join in the warfare ; he himself also had accepted twenty-five lacs of rupees from the a.d.^ Peshwa. On the 10th October, a note was delivered to 1815 him, stating that as he had excited the Pindarees to attack the Company's territories, and had subsequently afforded them an asylum on their return, the Governor- General considered the treaty of 1805 abrogated, and was about to enter into alliances with the chiefs of Malwa and Rajpoo- tana, which that treaty had interdicted. He was now required to manifest his sincerity by placing his troops at the disposal of the British Government, and admitting a garrison into the fortresses of Hindia and Aseergurh. To quicken his decision, Lord Hastings took the field on the 16th October, and having crossed the Jumna marched directly towards Gwalior. By ibis manoeuvre Sindia's communications with the Peshwa and the Pindarees, and even with the bulk of his own army then encamped in his southern districts, was cut ofi", and he was isolated in his capital with only 8,000 troops. He signed the treaty on the approach of Lord Hastings, and saved his kingdom from the fate which overtook the other Mahratta powers. While the camp lay in the vicinity of Gwalior it was desolated by a visitation of cholera, little, if at all, known previously in India, which reduced the strength of the force, including camp followers, to the extent of nearly 20,000 men. At the height of the disease, Lord Hastings gave instructions to his stafi'that if he himself should fall a victim to it, his body was to be silently buried in his tent, lest his death should discourage the troops, and em- bolden Sindia to attack the encampment in its prostrate condition. Ameer Khan was at this juncture scarcely less important isij a chieftain than Sindia. His army consisted of fifty-two battalions with an efficient cavalry, and a hundred Ameer and fifty guns. It was as necessary to break up ^^^n. the Patau as the Pindaree force, and Lord Hastings did not hesitate to compass that object by offering to confirm him in the sovereignty of the districts he held belonging to the Holkar state, on the condition of his disbanding his force, and surrendering his gnns at a valuation. He wavered at first, but on hearing of the extinction of the power of Bajee Rao and Appa Sahib, he accepted the proposal and became an acknowledged feudatory prince, with a territorial revenue of fifteen lacs a year. 330 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. The advance of one division from Hindostan and two from the Deccan towards the head-quarters of the Pinda- ^^' Outbreak of rees, became the signal for the explosion of the 1817 thePeshwa. plot which the Peshwa had organized among the Mahratta powers against the Company. He himself broke out on the 5th November, the raja of Nagpore on the 26th, and Holkar's army on the 16th December. After the signature of the treaty of the 5th June, he went on pil- grimage to Pundurpore, and soon after received a visit from Sir John Malcolm. The credulous general allowed himself to be so completely cajoled by the craft of the Peshwa into the belief of his cordial attachment to the British Government, that he advised him to increase the strength of his army. Under his advice, moreover. General Smith's army was allowed to quit Poona, and the cautionary fortresses were restored. Bajee Rao now redoubled his preparations for war. From his private hoards he advanced a crore to Gokla his commander, to increase his levies and to provision his forts. He likewise spared no pains to conciliate the southern jageerdars with whom he had always been at issue, and endeavoured to seduce the sepoys from their allegiance by large bribes, but without success. He even laid a plan to assassinate Mr. Elphinstone, but it was discountenanced by Gokla, He returned to Poona in the beginning of October, and it became daily more and more evident throughout the month that a conflict was inevitable. Mr. Elphinstone, therefore, fell back two miles to a more defensible position at Kirkee, and called up a European regiment from Bombay, but, even with this addition, the British force collected for his protection did not exceed 8,000, while the Mahratta army numbered 18,000. The Peshwa was confident that Sindia and Ameer Khan had already taken the field in accordance with their en- Battieof gagements, and that their example would be Kirkee. immediately followed by Holkar and the raja of Nagpore ; and on the 5th November he plunged into hosti- lities, but it was on this very day that Sindia signed the treaty which neutralized his power. Towards noon he sent an arrogant message to Mr. Elphinstone, propounding the terms on which he would consent to remain on terms of friendship with the Government. While his messenger was on the way back, the plain was covered with masses of cavalry, and a stream of soldiers issued from every avenue of the city. Mr. Elphinstone wisely advised the jSBCT.in.] BATTLE OF SEETABULDEE 331 commanding oflBcer, Colonel Burr, to take the offensive ; and that veteran, though labouring under a disease which soon after proved mortal, boldly charged into that vast host, and obtained a signal victory with the loss of only eighty-six men in killed and wounded. The battle of Kirkee was one of the most brilliant in the annals of British India, and inasmuch as it annihilated the kingdom of the Peshwas was also one of the most decisive. General Smith, hastened back to Poona ; but, although the Peshwa had been reinforced by the troops of the southern jageer- dars, he declined another engagement; and on the 17th November, leaving his camp standing, decamped south- ward with his army. Poona surrendered to the General, and thus ingloriously fell the power of the Peshwa one hundred years after it had been established by his great grandfather, Ballajee Wishwanath, Appa Sahib, the regent of Nagpore, continued on friendly terms with the Resident for several months after the conclusion of the subsidiary alliance, but on the Affairs at it*?i 1st February the imbecile raja Persajee was Nagpore. found strangled in his bed, and subsequent enquiries fixed the guilt on Appa Sahib, who immediately mounted the throne. From that time forward there was a marked change in his conduct, and he exhibited an anxiety to relieve himself from the state of dependence in which the aUiance had placed him. He entered cordially into the hostile views of the Peshwa, and bestowed a dress of honour on the Pindaree leader, Cheetoo, who visited his court to claim his aid. The Peshwa, then flying before the British troops, conferred on him the title of Commander- in-Chief of the Mahratta empire, and on the 24th November, notwithstanding the remonstrance of the Resident, he pro- ceeded to his camp to be invested with the insignia, and this was immediately followed by an attack on the Resi- dency. It was situated on two hills called the Seetabuldee, the one lower than the other, in the immediate vicinity ot the city. The force consisted of about 1,600 men, with four six-pounders. The raja's army mustered 18,000, of whom 4,000 were Arabs, the bravest soldiers in the Deccan, and thirty- six guns. Throughout the night the Mahratta artillery played on the hills, till at length a tumbril exploded, and in the confusion of the moment the Arabs charged up the smaller hill and captured the guns, and turned them upon the larger hill. The whole of the raja's army now began to close upon the encampment in all directiuTis, and to 832 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. A.D. prepare for a general assault. The ammunition at the 1817 Residency was running short; one-fourth of the little force, which included fourteen officers, was either killed or wounded, and its total annihilation appeared inevit- able, when the fortune of the day was changed by the gallantry of Captain Fitzgerald, commanding the three troops of Bengal cavalry. Contrary to the impassioned protest of his faint-hearted commander, he rushed upon the main body of the enemy's horse with irresistible fury, and captured two guns, which he turned i:pon them. The sight of this gallant exploit roused the enthusiasm of the jaded troops on the upper hill, who had been eighteen hours in- cessantly fighting, and officers and men plunged down the hill, fell upon the infantry, and chased it like a flock of sheep. Reinforcements poured into Nagpore from all quarters, and Mr. Jenkins, the Resident, dictated his own terms to Deposition of ttiG ^aja. He was required to disband his troops, Appa Sahib. suiTcnder his guns, and repair to the Residency, and acknowledge the forfeiture of his kingdom ; these terms were accepted. Lord Hastings had determined to punish the atrocious perfidy of Appa Sahib by depriving him of the throne ; but finding that Mr. Jenkins had engaged to restore his royal dignity, he agreed to uphold the engagement, and the raja resumed his authority on the 1818 8th January. But within a short time he offered the Peshwa, then flying before his pursuers, an asylum in his dominions, and prepared to join his camp himself. He was also detected in exciting the forest tribes to insurrection and impeding the surrender of his torts ; and Lord Hastings ordered him to be deposed and sent to the holy city of Benares, with an allowance of two lacs a year ; but he saved the Company's exchequer this burden by corrupting his guards on the line of march, and effecting his escape. The next of kin was placed on the throne, and the administration during his minority was placed in the hands of Mr. Jenkins, under whom the country enjoyed twelve years of unexampled prosperity. Lord Hastings had made the offer of a treaty to Tool- see bye, the regent of the Holkar state, and she had re- Conflictwith sponded to it by sending a private communication Holkar. to the Resident at Delhi, offering to place thf young prince and the state under British protection. All the substantial power of the state was, however, in the hands of the military chiefs, and as soon as it was known that the Peshwa had risen in arras they resolved to march Sect. III.] DEFEAT OF HOLKAK'S AEMY 333 dowu and join his standard. The regent and the ministers were suspected of a leaning to a British, alliance, and the officers placed the chief minister under restraint, and, on the evening of the 20th December, conveyed the bye to the banks of tbe Sipree and struck oif her head, and threw her body into the stream. The army, 20,000 strong, then marched down to join the Pesbwa, and in their progress found the British force, which was in pursuit of the Pindaree leader Cheetoo, encamped at Mehidpore, where a decisive engagement was fought on the 21st December. ^A^*- The Mahratta army was posted with great skill on the banks of the Sipree, its left defended by an angle of the stream, and its right by a deep morass, and the front pro- tected by a formidable battery of seventy guns. The main feature of the action was the rash step of crossing a difficult river by a single ferry in the face of strong entrenchments, and rushing forward to seize the guns which had silenced the light field pieces of the English army. The sepoys were mowed down by the enemy's cannon, but continued to advance with unshaken steadiness, and at length suc- ceeded in capturing the batteries, though not without the loss of 778 in killed and wounded. The movements of the day were directed by Sir John Malcolm, who was less of a general than of a diplomatist; with better strategy the same result might have been obtained with less slaughter. Holkar's entire camp, with all his guns and military stores, fell to the victors, and the power of the state was irre- coverably broken. A treaty was soon after concluded, and cessions of territory were made to the Company, to Zalim Sing of Kotah, to Ameer Khan, and to his lieutenant, which reduced the kingdom to two-thirds of its former dimensions. During the rainy season of 1817 the Pindarees were encamped to the number of 23,000 under the three leaders Cheetoo, Kureem Khan, and Wassil Mahomed, operations They were not ignorant of the measures in pro- acjainst the gress to extirpate them, and they implored aid ^" ^^^^* of the Mahratta princes, but they had enough to do to protect themselves, and the different bodies of the Pindarees were obliged to disperse as the British detachments advanced upon them. Sindia, indeed, invited Kureem Khan and Wassil Mahomed to Gwalior, but Lord Hastings imme- diately took up a position which prevented their advance. They then turned off to the west, where they were inter- cepted by General Donkin, who captured Kureem Khan's 334 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. elephants, kettle- drums, standards, and family. The two leaders burnt their tents and fled southward with about 4,000 of their best horsemen, and their followers were cut up by the British troops and the exasperated villagers whom they had subjected to plunder. The chiefs were so hotly pursued that they were constrained at length to surrender at discretion, and one of them was settled on a small estate in the province of Ghazepore ; the other was placed under surveillance, and put a period to his life by poison. The most renowned of the leaders, Cheetoo, was pursued by Sir John Malcolm ; his bivouac was repeatedly beaten up, and he wandered about for a twelvemonth with a handful of followers who gradually deserted him, and being at last separated by hunger from his son and his last companion, plunged into a jungle infested with tigers. After a diligent search his horse was discovered grazing saddled and bridled, and not far off the mangled remains of this renowned freebooter who had recently ridden forth at the head of 20,000 men. These military and political operations are equally remarkable for the rapidity with which they were executed Result of the ^^^ for the completeness of their result. In the campaign, middle of October 181 7, the Mahrattas, Pindarees, A.D. ^^^ Patans, presented an array of more than 150,000 horse 1817 and foot, and 500 cannon, prepared to try conclusions with the British Grovernment. In the course of four months this formidable armament was utterly broken up. The power of Sindia was paralysed ; the army of Holkar existed only in name ; the Peshwa was a fugitive ; the Patan force of Ameer Khan was disbanded, and the Pin- darees had disappeared ; the Mahratta commonwealth was irretrievably dissolved, and every military organisation within the Sutlej was extinguished, with the exception of that of Sindia which ceased to be formidable. The effect of the campaign, moreover, was to subjugate not only the native armies but the native mind, and to convince both princes and people that the sceptre of India was now definitely transfeiTed to a foreign power. To the chiefs who lost their independence, and with it that feeling of dignity which was sometimes the parent of royal virtues, the change was a calamity, but to the community at large it was an unquestionable blessing. General tranquillity took the place of universal violence under the guarantee of a power willing and able to maintain it. A feeling of sub- BtAntial security was diffused through Central India, and its BKCT.m.] BATTLE OF KORYaAUM 335 inhabitants sought the means of subsistence and distinction by cultivating the arts of peace and not by war and rapine. The settlement of India in 1818 was, moreover, built on so sound and solid a foundation that it has required fewer modifications than so great a political structure might have been expected to need. Having thus extinguished all opposition. Lord Hastings proclaimed the universal sovereignty of the Company throughout the continent, and declared that the Indus was to all intents and purposes the boundary of their dominion. Bajee Rao began his retreat southward on the 28th a.d. November, and on passing Satara caused the raja and his ^^17 family, the descendants of Sevajee, to be brought Battle of into his camp. Finding himself closely pursued K:orygaum. by General Smith, he turned northward towards Poena. Colonel Burr, the commandant, immediately called down to his support the detachment left at Seroor, under Captain Stanton, consisting of one battalion of infantry and 300 irregular horse. He commenced his march at eight in the evening, and reached the village of Korygaum, sixteen miles from Poena, at ten the next morning, when, to his surprise, he perceived the whole army of the Peshwa, 25,000 strong, encamped on the opposite bank of the river. The Mahratta troops were immediately sent across against this handful of soldiers exhausted by a fatiguing march through the night, and destitute both of provisions and water, but the officers and men met the shock with invincible resolution. The engagement was kept up throughout the day, and every inch of ground in the Jan. 1 village was disputed with desperate valour, but it ended ^^^^ in the discomfiture and retreat of the Mahrattas. The most remarkable feature of this brilliant engagement lay in the fact that the sepoys were without any European support except twenty-four artillery men, of whom twenty were killed and wounded. Of eight officers engaged, three were wounded and two killed ; the total loss amounted to 187. On leaving Korygaum the Peshwa again marched south- ward, always keeping ahead of his pursuers, but he was suddenly overtaken at Ashtee, and, after re- p ^ ^j preaching his general Gokla for allowing him to surrender of be surprised, quitted his palankeen and mounted the Peshwa. his horse and fled, leaving the general to cover his retreat. Stung with the reproaches of his master, and determined not to survive the day, he placed himself at the head of 836 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. 300 horse and rushed on the British cavalry, and, after receiving three pistol shots and three sabre cuts, expired on the field of honour, the last and one of the noblest of the great Mahratta commanders. The raja of Satara was rescued at Ashtee. The Peshwa, hunted out of the Deccan, moved again to the north, crossed the Taptee, and advanced to the Nerbudda, but the fords were guarded and the diflPerent divisions of the army were closing upon him, when, seeing no chance of escape, he appealed to the weakness of Sir John Malcolm, calling him "his oldest igjg " and best friend." Strange to say, he was admitted to an interview, when he so thoroughly cajoled him by his flatteries, that at a time when his fortunes were desperate and he must have surrendered at discretion, the imprudent general engaged to allow him eight lacs a year, and made other concessions equally unwise and preposterous. Lord Hastings, who had destined him an allowance of only two lacs, was not a little mortified at the prodigality of these terms, but felt himself bound in honour to ratify them. A proclamation had been previously issued announcing that the Peshwa and his family were for ever excluded from the throne. A small portion of the territory, yielding about fifteen lacs of rupees a year, was then erected into a separate principality and bestowed on the descendant of Sevajee, and the remainder was incorporated in the Com- pany's territories. The Peshwa was conducted to Bithoor, near Cawnpore, where he lived long enough to receive two crores and a half of rupees from the treasury in Calcutta. 1818 The country which had been the scene of warfare, was studded with forts which held oat for some time after the Captoreof Submission of the princes. They were garri- forts. soned in general by Arab mercenaries, whose services were valued not only for their courage and fidelity, but as a counterpoise to the native soldiery, among whom a spirit of insubordination was traditionary. The capture of the fort of Talneir was marked by the untoward circumstance of the massacre of 300 of the garrison in hot blood, owing to a misunderstanding, and by the unjust execution of the commandant, which tarnished the laurels of Sir Thomas Hislop. At length the only fort which had 1819 not submitted was Aseergurh, for the surrender of which Sindia had given an official order on the commandant, but he had private orders not to deliver it, and it was not captured till a batteiy of more than sixty guns had played on it for a fortnight. S2CT.IV.] TREATMENT OF LORD HASTINGS 337 SECTION IV. LORD Hastings's administration — home proceedings — EDUCATION THE PRESS — PALMER AND CO. Mr. Canning moved the usual vote of thanks to Lord Hastings a.d. and to the army in the House of Commons ; but he quahfied 1819 his eulogy by stating that the House and the Home pro- country were in the habit of appreciating the feedings, triumphs of our armies in India with great jealousy ; that, almost uniformly successful as our military operations had been in that part of the world, they had almost as uniformly been considered questionable in point of justice ; that the termination of a war in India, however glorious, was seldom contemplated with unmixed satisfaction, and that the increase of our territories was ascribed by sober reflec- tion and impartial philosophy to a spirit of systematic encroachment and ambition. These considerations, he said, were not necessarily applicable to the Mahratta and Pin- daree war, but the House was to understand that the vote was intended merely as a tribute to the military conduct of the campaign, and not in any sense as a sanction of the policy of the war. In the same captious spirit the Court of Directors, while duly appreciating " the " foresight, promptitude, and vigour with which Lord "Hastings had dispersed the gathering elements of a " hostile conspiracy," recorded their deep regret that any circumstances should have led to an increase of territory. Lord Hastings had lost caste at the India House, and its official communications to him were scarcely less acrimo- nious than those which had been addressed to Clive, to Warren Hastings, and to Lord Wellesley. The despatch written on receiving information of the brilliant termina- tion of the campaign was loaded with petulant and frivolous animadversions, and " not mitigated," as Lord Hastings observed, "by the slightest indication of satis- " faction at the fortunate issue of the military exertions." They censured him for disregarding their orders regarding the reduction of the army, though they had undoubted evidence that, under existing circumstances, on the eve of a great and inevitable conflict, to have carried them out would have been fatal to the interests of the empire. In anticipation of extensive military operations he had, z 338 ABKIDaMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. X. remodelled the Quarter- master- General's department, and he was censured by the Coui't for not having previously- obtained their sanction, while they pressed on him the appointment of one of their own nominees to the post, of whom Lord Hastings remarked in his correspondence, that it would be difficult to find in the whole army a field officer more signally unfit for the post. In the same spirit of antagonism, the honours so richly earned by the heroes of Kirkee, and Seetabuldee, and Korygaum, were withheld from them. The pacification and final settlement of India would have been a sufficient distinction for any administration. Encourage- ^^^ Lord Hastings established a higher claim to mentof public gratitude, by the encouragement which he was the first to give to the intellectual im- provement of the natives. The India House had hitherto acted upon the principle that any attempt to enlighten the A.D. people would create political aspirations which might 1818 endanger their power, and lead to its subversion. Lord Hastings repudiated this policy, and in one of his public addresses stated that " it would be treason against British " sentiment to imagine that it ever could be the principle " of this Government to perpetuate ignorance in order to *' secure paltry and dishonest advantages over the blindness "of the multitude." These enlightened views gave an immediate and powerful impulse to the cause of education. Lady Hastings had already set an example by establishing a school at Barrackpore Park, and compiling treatises for the scholars. Schools also sprang up in the districts around Calcutta through the agency of the missionaries, and were fostered by a liberal donation from Government. Some of the most wealthy and influential native gentlemen in the metropolis raised large subscriptions, and esta- blished the Hindoo College for the education of their children and relatives in the English language and Euro- pean science. All the effiDrts which have since been made with constantly increasing vigour, to impart knowledge to the native community, date from this period. Emboldened by this liberal policy and the success of Lord Hastings, the Serampore Missionaries, on the 31st May 1818, issued the first native newspaper, entitled the ingsand " Sumachar Durpun," or Mirror of Intelligence, the Press. rpjjjg attempt to rousc the native mind from its torpidity, by the stimulus of a public journal, created great alarm among the leading men in the Government, but Lord Sect. IV.] LIBEEALITY TOWAEDS THE PEESS 339 Hastings afforded every encouragement to it ; he manifested the same spirit of liberality towards the English Press, and, notwithstanding the violent opposition of the members of his Council, removed the censorship which had been im- posed by Lord Wellesley during the anarchy of war. In deference, however, to the despotic sensibilities of the governing class, he imposed severe restrictions on the editors regarding the subjects and the personages which were to be exempted from remark, but the exceptions soon fell into abeyance. In vindication of his policy, he a.d. stated, in reply to an address from Madras, " that he was 1818 " in the habit of considering the freedom of publication " as the natural right of his fellow subjects, to be narrowed " only by special and urgent cause assigned ;" and, further, that " it was salutary for supreme authority, even when its "intentions were most pure, to look to the control of "public opinion." This heterodox doctrine gave mortal offence at the India House, and a despatch was immediately drafted, reprobating the abolition of the censorship, and directing that it should be immediately reimposed, but the despatch was suppressed by Mr. Canning. In the year 1816 the peacefal province of Orissa became 1816 the scene of disturbances. On the acquisition of the country in 1803, a swarm of Bengalee baboos j^. . . flocked into it, and obtained possession of every ances at official post of influence, and by their knowledge Cuttack. of the mysteries of civil and fiscal legislation were enabled to take advantage of the simplicity of the people, and to deprive them of their lands. The province was also over- assessed, the zemindars were improvident, and half the estates were brought to the hammer, and bought up by the Bengalee officials in the courts, often at a nominal price. To add to the wretchedness of the province, the salt monopoly was introduced, and the cost of this necessary of life was increased sixfold in a country where the sea famished it spontaneously. Under this accumulation of misery, the people sold all they possessed, and then their wives and children, and finally took to the jungle. The country being thus ripe for revolt, one Jugbundoo, the hereditary commander of the old Hindoo dynasty, raised the standard of rebellion and collected about 3,000 men, with whom he plundered the civil station of Khoorda, and repulsed two detachments of sepoys. This success aug- mented his force, and he took possession of the town of Pooree, and burnt down the European reside aaces, but the i2 340 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. Collector escaped with his treasury to Cuttack. The triumph of the insurgents was, however, short, and they were dispersed by the troops which poured into the pro- vince. The people were assured that their grievances would be redressed if they were peaceably represented to Government, and they at once submitted to its authority. A special Commissioner was appointed to the charge of the province, the most notorious of the rapacious officials were punished, and the assessment was reduced by 40 per cent. Its tranquillity has never since been interrupted, and another proof has been afforded that, with a moderate assessment and congenial institutions, and an equitable and speedy administration of justice, few countries are more easy to govern than India, even under the sceptre of foreigners. The financial results of Lord Hastings's administration were auspicious. Notwithstanding the war of eighteen months' duration in the mountains of Nepaul, and 1822 and^tenri- *^® employment in the field of eight armies dur- toriaiin- ing the Piudarec and Mahi-atta campaign, the crease. treasury was at no period in so prosperous a con- dition as at the close of his government. The state bonds, which were at a discount of 12 per cent, on his arrival, were at 14 per cent, premium at his departure. The debt had indeed increased four crores and a half, but the cash balances in the various treasuries exceeded by five crores the amount when he landed. The permanent revenue had increased by six crores, and the permanent expenditure by four, leaving a clear surplus of two crores of rupees ; the year 1822 may therefore be considered the palmy period of Indian finance. Lord Hastings entered upon the Pindaree campaign with the confident expectation that the pacification of the continent would be effected without adding a foot to the Company's territories, but " the irre- " pressible tendency of our Indian power to enlarge its " boundary," which Mr. Canning had lamented, was fatal to this hope. The unprovoked aggression and complete overthrow of the Ma,hratta powers placed their territories at his disposal. He restored the larger portion of their dominions to Holkar and to the raja of Nagpore, but he considered that the annexation of the whole of Bajee Rao's kingdom — the territory of Satara excepted — was forced on him " by the imperious necessity of guarding against the " speedy renewal of a treachery so rooted in its nature as "to admit of no other prevention." It was annexed to Sect. IV.] THE ANNUAL INDIA BUDGET 341 the Bombay Presidency, and the management of it en- trusted to one of the ablest of the Company's statesmen, Mr. Mount Stuart Elphinstone. The utter indifference manifested by Parliament to Indian affairs throughout Lord Hastings's administration afforded a singular contrast to the active and energetic movements of the Government in India. Mr. Dundas had introduced the practice of an annual budget, that Parliament might be reminded, at least once a year, of the existence of the Indian empire. But so utterly lukewarm had Parliament become to its affairs, a.d. that Mr. Canning, the President of the Board, stated to the 1816 House that " the Indian budget was always considered a dull ^^ " and disagreeable subject, and the practice of making " budget speeches had therefore been discontinued. The " time and attention of the House was quite as much occu- "pied without throwing away a day in the discussion of a " subject which was sure to drive gentlemen away from it." During the five years of his tenure of office, the only occa- sion on which he touched on the subject of India in the House, except when moving thanks to Lord Hastings, was in reference to a bill for legalizing Scotch marriages there. Yet it was in this period of neglect that the great revolu- tion in Lord Hastings's administration was consummated, lihat twenty-eight actions were fought, and a hundred nd iwenty forts captured, and the sovereignty of Great Britain proclaimed throughout the continent of India. One of the last acts of Lord Hastings had reference to Hyderabad. Meer Alum, who had managed the affairs of the state with consummate talent for thirty years, Hyderabad died in 1808, when, after an irritating discussion and Chun- with Lord Minto, Moneer-ool-moolk, whom the ^°°^^^^- Resident described as both a coward and a fool, was appointed minister, while all the substantial power in the state was given to Chundoo Lall, a Hindoo of great ability, experience and energy. The Court of Directors interdicted all interference with the internal administration of Hydera- bad, and directed the Resident to confine his attention to the reform of the contingent of 6,000 foot and 9,000 horse, which the Nizam was obliged by the treaty of 1800 to furnish in time of war. These levies, which were a mere rabble, were converted by the strenuous exertions of the Resident into an efficient force, disciplined and commanded by officers drawn from the Company's army, with which it was soon able to vie in military spirit and qualifications. As the force was entirelv at the disposal of Chundoo Lall, 1820 342 ABKIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X. he Wis not disposed to check its profase expenditure. It was not only over- officered, but the officers were overpaid. It became a source of valuable patronage to the Resident, and, however beneficial in time of war, was, in a season of peace, little more than a magnificent job. A.D. The administration of Chundoo Lall was, with some 1809 intervals of repose, the scourge of the country for thirty- B^n Administra- ^^^ years. It was upheld by British power, tionof Chun- but not controlled by British honesty ; nothing flourished but corruption ; judicial decrees could be obtained only for money ; the land was farmed out to the highest bidder, and the farmer had the power of life and death ; the utmost farthing was wrung from the wretched peasant, hundreds of villages were deserted, and, in the absence of cultivation, food rose to famine prices. The wealth thus obtained was expended by Chundoo Lall in fortifying his position. He erected a noble palace for the Resident and fitted it up with the most costly furniture from Bond street ; he bribed the courtiers, and subsidized the zenana, and secured the favour of the Nizam by indulging his royal passion for hoarding. Mr. Metcalfe was appointed Resident in November 1820, and, on sur- veying the state of the country, resolved on a vigorous reform. Some of his political assistants, and some of the officers of the contingent were placed in charge of districts ; a lenient assessment was made, and the current of oppression checked. Security was at once established ; villages were repeopled, cultivation was resumed, and rents were col- lected without a military force. Mr. Metcalfe had not, however, been long at Hyderabad without perceiving that every prospect of improvement was Palmer endangered by the transactions of Palmer and and Co. Co. with the state. Mr. William Palmer had established a banking-house at Hyderabad in 1814, and soon after became connected with Chundoo Lall, and began to make advances to the Nizam's treasury. The express sanction of the Government of India to such transactions was required by Act of Parliament ; and, with the con- sent of the Council, and in accordance with the opinion of the Advocate-General, Lord Hastings gave his assent to them, and loans were accordingly made from time to time, but at twenty-five per cent, interest. In 1820, the firm was joined by Sir W. Rumbold, who had married a ward of Lord Hastings, whom he regarded with paternal fondness. In an evil hour, he wrote to Sir William, " The partners Sect. IV.] PALMER AND CO. OF HYDERABAD 343 " speculate that your being one of the firm will interest me " in the welfare of the house. It is a fair and honest con- " elusion. The amount of advantage which the countenance 1320 " of Government may bestow must be uncertain, as I " apprehend it would flow principally from the opinion the *' natives would entertain of the respect likely to be paid " by their own Grovernment to an estabhshment known to " stand well with the supreme Grovernment." This com- munication was widely circulated by Sir William, and placed the house on a firm footing at Hyderabad, and there was a constant stream of loans, at exorbitant interest, to the Nizam, and fresh assignments of territory as security for them. Mr. Metcalfe could not fail to observe that Palmer and Co. were becoming a dangerous power in the state, that the public revenues were passing into their hands, j^-j. jj-g^._ and that the government of the Nizam was caife's repre- prostrate before them. He ventured at length ^^° a^ons. to communicate his views on the subject to Lord Hastings, but found that his mind had been prepossessed, and his feelings worked on by the correspondence of the Rumbold family; and his representations were resented. Chundoo Lall had been put up by the firm to solicit the sanction of the Grovernor-General in Council to a loan of sixty lacs, for the professed object of paying up the public establishments, of repaying debts due to native brokers, and making advances to the ryots. Lord Hastings considered these to be legiti- mate objects, and gave his casting vote to the proposal. But Mr. Metcalfe learnt on his arrival that only a fraction of this loan had found its way to the Nizam's treasury ; that the sum of eight lacs was a bonus to the members of the firm, and that the remainder consisted of sums advanced, or said to have been advanced, to the Nizam's minister without the consent of the Government in Calcutta, whose sanction was thus surreptitiously obtained to these loans. This transaction was too gross to admit of any palliation, and it was severely censured both by Lord Hastings and the members of Council. By compound interest at twenty- five per cent.. Palmer and Co. swelled their demand on the Nizam to a crore of rupees, and the Government, anxious to put a peremptory stop to these transactions, determined that the whole debt should be at once discharged — with the exception of the clandestine bonus. By the dis- graceful treaty of 1768, the Madras Government had engaged to pay the Nizam an annual tribute of seven lacs 344 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. X, for the Northern Sircars, and tlie payment had been 1822 P^iictually made for half a century. It was now capitalized, and the Nizam was released from the grasp of the firm, which became insolvent within twelve months. The antipathy of the Conrt of Directors which was repeatedly manifested towards Lord Hastings by their Thanks of captious criticisms, their reluctant praise, and the India their eager censure, became more violent after he had given freedom to the press, and par- ticularly so after Sir W. Rurabold had joined the Hyder- abad firm, and they issued peremptory orders to revoke the licence which Government had given to the firm. Their despatch implied a mistrust of his motives in that transaction, and exhibited a determination to identify him with all their obnoxious proceedings. Indignant at these insinuations, and at the offensive tone of their despatches he sent in his resignation, on the ground that he had lost their confidence. They assured him that he was entirely mistaken, and voted him their thanks for " the unremitting " zeal and eminent ability with which, during a period of " nine years, he had administered the government of British " India with such high credit to himself and advantage to " the interests of the Company." The Proprietors eagerly concurred in this opinion, and desired the Directors to convey to him " the expression of their admiration, gratitude, and " applause." He embarked for England on the 1st of January, 1823. In the grand work which Lord Hastings accomplished of consolidating the British empire, and, as the natives Estimate f ^^P^^^^cd it, "bringing all India under one his adminis- " umbrella," he exhibited talent of the highest tration. order, though he may not stand on the same level of political genius with Warren Hastings or Lord Wellesley. His administration was made grateful to the inhabitants of the Mahomedan capital of India by restoring the canal which had been dry for sixty years, and giving them the blessing of pure water without a water cess. The improvement of Calcutta, devised by Lord Wellesley but which he was unable to complete in the last year of his government, was accomplished by Lord Hastings. The ventilation and the health of the town were promoted by opening a street through the centre sixty feet wide, and lay- ing out squares with reservoirs of water ; while the foreshore of the river, which was a disgraceful cesspool, was adorned with a noble embankment worthy of the " city of palaces." Sect. IV.] DEBATE AT THE INDIA HOUSE 345 No Governor-General ever laboured more assiduously iu the performance of his duty. Though approaching the age of seventy, he was at his desk at four in the morning ; and in the fervid climate of Bengal, which is now con- sidered insupportable since the means of escaping from it ha,ve been multiplied, he worked for seven years at the rate of seven and eight hours a day without a hill station to resort to, or even a sea-going steamer at his command. Within two years of his return to Europe, Mr. Douglas ^-d- Kinnaird brought forward a proposal in the Court of ^°^' Proprietors to make him a pecuniary grant be- -q^^^^q j^^ fitting the greatness of his services. It served the India to disclose the strong current of rancour which ^°'^^^- underlay the crust of official compliment embodied in the tribute of " admiration, gratitude, and applause," which that Court had recently voted. The motion was met by an amendment, calling for all the papers connected with the transactions at Hyderabad. They occupied a thousand foolscap pages, and gave rise to a debate which, having all the relish of personality, was prolonged for six days, at the end of which time, Mr. Astell, the chairman of the Court of Directors, moved as an amendment to the original motion that, " while admitting that there was no ground " for imputing corrupt motives to the late Govemor- " General, the Court of Proprietors records its approbation " of all the despatches sent out by the Court of Directors." These despatches, four in number, charged Lord Hastings, among other misdemeanours, with having lent the Com- pany's credit to the transactions at Hyderabad for the sole benefit of Messrs. Palmer and Co., with proceedings which were without a parallel in the history of the East India Company, and with assuming to elude all check and control. The approbation of these despatches was, neces- sarily, the severest condemnation which could be passed on him, but the vote was carried by a majority of 212. Thus did the East India Company dismiss the man who had raised them to the pinnacle of greatness with the verdict that he was simply "not guilty of having acted " from corrupt motives." But the Company, princely beyond all other rulers in their munificence, were not superior to the influence of vulgar prejudices, and they now added another name to the roll of illustrious men — Clive, and Warren Hastings, and Lord Wellesley — whom they rewarded with ingratitude. Lord Hastings died at Malta on the 24th August, 1827, and in the succeeding 846 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. year the India House endeavoured to make some atone- ment for the vote of censure, and placed 20,000Z. at the disposal of his family. CHAPTER XI. SECTION I. LORD AMHERST — BURMESE WAR — BHURTPORE — BARRACKPORB MUTINY. On the receipt of Lord Hastings's resignation, the post of Governor- General was accepted by Mr. Canning, the late 2ix Canning ^^^sident of the Board of Control, but, on the aovernor- cvc of embarkation, the death of Lord London- General, derry led to his appointment as foreign Secretary of State. Two candidates then appeared for this splendid office; Lord William Bentinck, who had been unjustly removed from Madras by the Court of Directors in the height of the Vellore panic, and who was pre-eminently qualified for it ; and Lord Amherst, whose claim rested on his embassy to Pekin, and the exemplary fortitude with Lord which he had borne the arrogance of the Court. ,g2*3 Amherst The preference was given to him, and he landed GenlX" at Calcutta on the 1st August. During the interregnum, the government devolved on Mr. John Adam, the senior member of Council, a meritorious Mr. Adam o^cer of Considerable ability and experience, but totally disqualified for the highest post in the empire by the strength of his local partialities and preju- dices. His brief administration of seven months is now remembered only by his persecution of the press. Mr. Buckingham had come out to Calcutta in 1818, and established the " Calcutta Journal," the ablest newspaper which had till then appeared in India. He availe(i himself of the freedom granted to the press by Lord Hastings, and commented on public measures with a degree of freedom which was considered politically dangerous. But the great offence of the journal consisted in the poignancy with which a little knot of wits in the service ridiculed the weaknesses Sect. I.] KISE OF THE BUKMESE 347 and follies of some of tlie leading members of the Govern- a.d. ment. They had been nursed in the lap of despotism, and 1823 resented the sarcasms of the press. Mr. Adam had sys- tematically opposed Lord Hastings's liberality to the press, and only waited for his departure to reverse it. Soon after taking office, therefore, he passed a stringent regu- lation which completely extinguished all freedom; and as Mr. Buckingham, instead of bending to the storm, which was too violent to last, continued to write with unmitigated severity, he was banished from the country and ruined. Lord Amherst had no sooner assumed the government than he found himself involved in hostile discussions with the Burmese, which, in the course of five Rise of the months, resulted in a declaration of war. The Burmese, ultra- Gangetic kingdom of Burmah lies to the east of Bengal, from which it is separated by hills and forests, inhabited by various tribes of barbarians. Four years 1761 after the battle of Plassy, Alompra, a man of obscure birth, but cast in the same mould as Hyder Ali and Runjeet Sing, who had began his career with a hundred followers, established a new dynasty at Ava. Aggression and con- quest became as usual the element of this new power. The province of Tenasserim was wrested from the Siamese, and the principality of Arracan, which was separated from the Company's territories only by the Teek Naaf, was annexed. More than 30,000 of its inhabitants were driven by the oppression of the Burmese officials to take refuge in the neighbouring districts of Cbittagong, where they were settled on waste lands. The Burmese authorities repeatedly demanded their extradition, but the Governor- General steadily refused to deliver them up to a Govern- ment proverbial for its cruelty. The king of Ava, exasperated by our firmness, at length sent a rescript to Lord Hastings, demanding the surrender of the whole of eastern Bengal. "Those districts," he said, "do not belong " to India — they are ours ; if you continue to retain them, " we will come and destroy your country." Lord Hastings treated the letter as a forgery, and enclosed it to the king. The course of aggression was continued without cessation, and in 1822, Maha Bundoola, the national hero, reduced 1822 the kingdom of Assam, which abutted on the Company's district of Rungpore, and then the principality of Munee- pore, at no great distance from our eastern frontier. The dynasty of Alompra had thus, in sixty years, established 348 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chaf. XI its authority over territories 800 miles in extent, stretching from the confines of Bengal to those of China. The uni- form success of every enterprise had filled the Burmese court with an overweening conceit of its strength, and the evident indisposition of the English Government to engage in war with them inspired the whole nation with a desire to try conclusions with it in the field. A.B. The immediate cause of the war was an arrogant demand 1823 made by the Burmese governor of Arracan for the sur- Originof render of the little island of Shahpooree, lying the war. ^^ ^j^^ estuary of the Teek Naaf, on which a small guard had been posted. The Grovernor- General proposed a joint commission to investigate the question of right, to which the Burmese replied by sending 1,000 men who put a portion of the feeble detachment to the sword, and hoisted the Burmese flag. Lord Amherst immediately sent a force to dislodge them, and addressed a letter to the king stating that, however desirous he might be of remaining at peace, he must resort to force if such insults were repeated. The court of Ava was now confirmed in the conviction that the English dreaded an encounter with their troops, and Malia Bundoola was despatched with a large army to Arracan, with orders to expel them from Bengal, and to send the Governor- General to Ava bound in the golden fetters which he took with him. Lord Amherst, finding that every efibrt to maintain peace only served to increase the arrogance of the Burmese, issued a declaration of war in February. The Burmese were the most contemptible enemy with 1824 whom the British arms had come in contact. Their army Arrange- was a wretched half- armed rabble, without either ments of yalour or discipline. Their weapons were simply campaign, swords and pikes of an inferior description, with a few muskets, and their chief defence lay in the admirable skill and rapidity with which they were able to construct stockades. At the commencement of the war the Government in Calcutta was profoundly ignorant of the resources, the military force, or even the topography of Burmah, and for the planning of the campaign depended on the advice of Captain Canning, who had acquired some knowledge of the country. He represented that the occupation of Rangoon, the great port of the Irrawaddy, would paralyze the Burmese authorities, and th),t pro- visions and draft cattle, as well as the means of building a flotilla to navigate the rivers, might be obtained in aban- Sect. I.] OCCUPATION OF RANGOON 349 dance. The expedition was assembled in the spacious harbour of Port Cornwallis, in the largest of the Andaman islands, and consisted of about 11,000 troops, European and native, under the command of Sir Archibald Campbell, who had served with distinction under the Duke in Spain. The fleet of transports was convoyed by three vessels of war, and by the Diana, a little steamer recently built in Calcutta, the first ever floated in eastern waters. The campaign opened inauspiciously. The defence of the frontier at Chittagong had been left to a small and inade- quate force, and a weak detachment of 300 native infantry, under Captain Noton, with some local levies, held a post on the extreme boundary, a hundred miles from the nearest support. Maha Bundoola came down upon this little band with an army estimated at more than 10,000 men. The levies fled at the first onset, the sepoys main- tained the conflict gallantly for three days with little food or rest, and were then constrained to retreat, and of the officers five were killed and three wounded. The expedition arrived ofi" Rangoon on the 12th of May, a.d. to the inexpressible surprise of the Burmese, who had never 1824 dreamt that the English, whom Bundoola had The army at been sent to expel from Bengal, wouLl venture Rangoon. to attack them iu their own territories. The only defence of the town consisted of a teak stockade, with a battery of indiff"erent guns, which was silenced by the first broadside from the Ldffey. The troops landed without opposition, but found the town deserted. The Governor had ordered the w^hole population, men, women, and children, to retire into the jungles with their provisions and cattle, and the order was implicitly obeyed. The British encampment was isolated ; all local supplies were cut ofi", all hope of advanc- ing to the capital, either by land or water, was extinguished, and Sir Archibald was obliged to confine his attention to the shelter of the troops during the rains. Within a week after the occupation of the town, they set in with extreme violence, the country around became a swamp, and malaria brought disease and death into the camp. The want of wholesome food rendered the condition of the troops still more deplorable. There was no lack of cattle around the town, which would have amply supplied their wants, but the G-overnment in Calcutta had forbidden the commander to touch them, in deference to the Boodhist prejudices of the Burmese, and the European soldiers were condemned to starvation, that the cows might live. The army became 350 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XL dependent on supplies from Calcutta, then proverbial for tlie dishonesty of its contractors ; the meat was putrescent, and the maggoty biscuits crumbled under the touch. The troops were left in this state of destitution for five months, owing to the culpable neglect of the commissariat department ; and it was only through the prompt and inde- fatigable exertions of Sir Thomas Munro, the governor of Madras, that the army was preserved from annihilation; but the unhealthiness of the climate and the want of whole- some nourishment filled the hospitals, and of a body of 11,000 scarcely 3,000 remained fit for duty. A.D. At the beginning of 1825, General Richards occupied the 1826 province of Assam without resistance. Under the advice Con uest f ^^ ^^^ Commander-in- Chief, two expeditions were Assam and also organized to enter Burmah by land, the one Aracan. from the north through Cachar and Muneepore ; the other, through Arracan, but both of them proved abor- tive. The Cachar force under Colonel Shuldham, 7,000 strong, was enabled to advance by the road which the pioneers had opened with infinite labour to a position within ninety miles of Muneepore, but the country beyond it consisted of an unbroken succession of abrupt hills clothed to the summit with impenetrable forests, and dales rendered impassable by quagmires. The rains set in early, and as it was deemed impossible to transport the stores and artillery, and the appliances of civilized warfare through these impediments, the expedition was given up. The Arracan force was still more unfortunate. The commander, Colonel Morrison, was a king's oJ0&cer of good repute, but he had a contempt for the officers of the Company's service who were acquainted with the nature of the country, and the peculiarities of Indian warfare, and rejected their advice. The army was three months marching 250 miles along the coast, and did not reach the capital of Arracan till it was too late to make any further advance. One-fourth of the force likewise fell victims to the climate, and two-thirds of the remainder were in hospitals. As an organized body, indeed, the army had ceased to exist ; and on one occasion, when a wing of a regiment was ordered on parade, only one soldier appeared to answer to his name. The king of Ava at length determined to collect the strength of his kingdom for one vigorous effort to expel Second ^^^ invaders, and Maha Bundoola was sent down 1824 campaign, with 60,000 men to Rangoon, and arrived in front of the British encampment on the 1st December. Within Sect. I.] SECOND BURMESE CAMPAIGN 351 a few hours, it was enveloped by stockades, which appeared to spring up one after another in rapid succession as if by the wand of an enchanter. But the Burmese, though skilful in fortifying their position, were unable to stand the shock of the British battalions, and, after sustaining two defeats, re- tired to Donabew, forty miles higher up the river. Sir Archibald Campbell, after having been idly encamped for nine months at Rangoon, and lost two months of the second season of operations, at length moved up towards ^ ^ the capital on the ISth February, in two columns, the one 1525 by land under his personal command ; the other by the river under Brigadier Cotton. On coming abreast of Donabew, the Brigadier found that all the resources of the Burmese engineers had been employed in strengthening the fortifications, which stretched a mile along the bank, and were garrisoned by 12,000 men and 150 guns, such as they were. In his assault on the place, he was vigorously re- pulsed, and, as he had unwisely left one of his regiments in the rear, pronounced his force unequal to the capture of the place. Sir Archibald, who was considerably in advance, felt it necessary to retrace his steps to reinforce Brigadier Cotton, and another month was thus sacrificed. On the 1st April, a shower of shells and rockets was poured down on the fortified town of Donabew, and the next morning 1825 the whole of the Burmese army was observed to be in full retreat. On the preceding night Bundoola had been killed by the bursting of a shell, and with him expired the courage and spirit of the troops. No further resistance was ofiered to the expedition, and Prome was occupied without firing a shot ; but as the rains were approaching, the campaign, which had lasted only ten weeks, during which the army had advanced 150 miles, was brought to a termination. The general proposed to stop at Prome and act on the defensive, though the extraordinary expenses of the war amounted to a lac of rupees a day ; but Lord Negotiations Amherst insisted on an immediate march to the for peace, capital as soon as the season permitted. At the same time, he urged the general to welcome any disposition the Burmese might evince for peace, and, the more effectually to secure it, associated the naval commander and Mr. Robertson, a Bengal civilian, in a commission with him, with Mr. Ross Mangles as secretary. The king, on being informed that the general was authorised to treat, sent envoys to ascertain the terms, who were informed that their master would be required to abstain from all inter- 352 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. ^_x). ference with Cachar or Assam, to recognise the indepen- 1825 dence of Munipore, to cede the provinces of Arracan and Tenasserim, to liberate all his prisoners, and pay two crores as a war indemnity. These terms the king rejected with great indignation, and a Burmese army of 40,000 men was sent down to Prome, but it was signally defeated and closely pursued. The negotiations were then resumed by the Burmese envoys, who waived every objection to the cession of territory, but withstood the pecuniary payment, on the score of poverty, with such importunity that the Commissioners were induced to curtail it by one half, and the treaty was signed on this basis on the 3rd January, and the ratification of it promised on the 18th, but it never came. The intermediate period had been employed in the fortification of Melown, opposite the British encampment. It was attacked on the 19th ; all the guns, stores, and ammunition were captured, the camp was delivered to the flames, and the army resumed its march to the capital. The king began now to tremble for his throne, and released two of his European prisoners, whom he sent to Final en- reopen the negotiations. They were informed gagement that no severer terms would be exacted in con- and peace, sequence of their perfidious conduct at Melown, but that a fourth of the indemnity must be paid down at once. While the envoys were, however, on their return to Ava, the king determined to make one last effort to avert this humiliation, though he could not muster more than 16,000 troops. Sir Archibald had only 1,300 left under his command, but of these 900 were Europeans. The Burmese force was completely routed, and fled in disorder to the capital with the news of its own disgrace, and the Enghsh army advanced to Tandaboo, within forty miles of Ava. The king lost no time in sending the two American missionaries whom he had held for two years in cruel captivity, together with two of his own ministers, to accept whatever terms the Commissioners might dictate. They brought with them the first instalment of the indemnity, as well as the European captives, and the treaty was signed 1 826 on the 24th February on the terms which had been pre- viously proposed, with the addition that a British repre- sentative should reside at the court. Thus ended the first war the Company had waged beyond the limits of India, and it was also the most expensive in which they had as yet been engaged, and the least recuperative. It absorbed thirteen crores of rupees, and the return consisted of three thinly inhabited and impoverished provinces. Sect. I.] BAERACKPOKE MUTINY 353 The Burmese war gave rise to another sepoy mutiny, a.d The native regiments from Bengal, owing to religions ob- 1824 jections to a voyage by sea were directed to march down to Aracan along the coast. The disaster at Ramoo had diffused through the army a dread of the Burmese soldiers, who were represented as magicians, and the service was regarded with great antipathy. The Bengal sepoys had been accustomed to provide from their own pay for the transport of their baggage, but the public demand for draught cattle had exhausted the supply and doubled the price. The 47th regiment at Barrackpore, one of those warned for service, presented a respectful memorial setting forth the extreme difficulty of procuring the means of conveyance. The military chiefs, instead of investigating this just and reasonable represen- tation, treated it as a token of contumacy, and the men were told that they were to expect no assistance from Government. Discontent ripened into insubordination; excited meetings were held in the cantonments ; the sepoys rose in their demands and pledged one another not to march without a supply of cattle, and also an increase of pay. The Commander-in-Chief resolved to crush the spirit of mutiny by force, and two regiments of Europeans, the Governor- General's body guard, and a detachment of horse artillery wiere marched to Barrackpore and drawn up unperceived in the vicinity of the parade ground. The 47th was paraded and, ordered to march forthwith, or to ground arms. The men stood still in a state of mute be- wilderment, resolved not to yield, but making no attempt at resistance. A volley was discharged on them by the horse artillery, when they flung down their arms with a piercing shriek, and fled in dismay. The European troops then fired on them, and the body-guard sabred the fugi- tives. The slaughter on the ground and in the line of pursuit was very severe. The ringleaders were tried by court-martial and executed, and others were sent to work on the roads in irons. A court of enquiry was held which came to the decision that " the mutiny was an ebullition " of despair at being compelled to march without the means '* of doing so." When the corps had reached a state of positive mutiny, there was no alternative but military execution, but the Commander-in-Chief incurred a heavy responsibility by treating their legitimate representations with scorn. Runjeet Sing, the Jaut chief of Bhurtporc, who had A A 354 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. baffled Lord Lake in 1805, was succeeded by bis son in Bhurtpore ^^^^ '^^ wbose deatb witbout issue tbe princi- pality devolved on bis brotber. He applied to Sir David Ocliterlony, tbe Resident at Delbi to recognise bis son, a cbild of six years, as bis successor, and be received investiture under the express orders of tbe Government. About a twelvemontb after, on tbe deatb of bis fatber, be was placed on tbe throne under tbe guardianship of his ma- ternal uncle. Before a month bad elapsed Doorjun Sal, tbe nephew of tbe deceased raja, a wild and impetuous youth, put tbe regent to deatb, placed bis cousin in confinement, and seized on tbe Grovernment. Sir David, acting on bis own responsibility, issued a proclamation calling upon all tbe Jauts to rally round their lawful sovereign, and ordered a force of 16,000 men and 100 guns into the field to support bis rights and vindicate tbe authority of the Company's Government. Lord Amherst disapproved of this proceeding and considered it imprudent while engaged in a conflict with tbe Burmese to embark in a new war, and to incur tbe risk of a second failure before Bhurtpore. A.D. A disposition had for some time existed in high quarters in 1825 Calcutta to remove tbe veteran Resident from bis post, and in tbe hope of provoking his voluntary resignation tbe views of Government commanding him to recall his pro- clamation and to countermand tbe troops were communi- cated to him in a very imperious tone. He replied with great, and perhaps undue, warmth, and having given effect to the orders of Government, tendered bis resignation. This ungenerous treatment broke bis heart. He felt him- self disgraced in tbe eyes of tbe native princes and of tbe public service, and retiring to Meerut died within two months, after an illustrious career of half a century. He was one of the brightest ornaments of tbe Company's service, equally eminent in the cabinet and in the field, a man born for high command and fitted to strengthen the power and sustain tbe dignity of Great Britain in India. While the army was assembling, Doorjun Sal mani- fested a spirit of humble submission and professed to be Proceedingvs satisfied with the regency, but as soon as tbe in comicii. troops were countermanded, be assumed a higher tone and claimed the throne for himself, and pre- vailed on the chiefs of his tribe to support bis pretensions. Tbe little success we had obtained in tbe Burmese war, bad, as on all similar occasions, afiected our prestige, and tbe latent feeling of disaffection to the rule of foreigners Sect. I.] BARRACKPORE MUTINY 355 began again to manifest itself in the native community, a.d. The cause of Doorjun Sal became popular when it was ^^25 known that he intended to enter the lists with the Company's Government. Rajpoots, Jauts, Mahrattas, Afghans, and not a few of our native subjects crowded to his standard, and an army of 25,000 men was speedily collected for the defence of the place. All the members of Council concurred in opinion that in these circumstances we were bound in honour and policy to support the cause of the youth we had invested with the purple against the usurper, but Lord Amherst still continued to hesitate. Happily Sir Charles Metcalfe arrived at Calcutta at this juncture on his way to Delhi as the successor of Sir David, and in a masterly minute pointed out that as the paramount state in India, we could not be indifferent spectators of anarchy therein without ultimately giving up the country again to the pillage and confusion from which we had rescued it ; that a vigorous exercise of our power would be likely to bring back the minds of men to a propei* tone, and that the capture of Bhurtpore, if effected in a glorious manner, would do us more honour by re- moving the hitherto unfaded impression created by oui' former failure than auy other event that could be con- ceived. Lord Amherst gracefully surrendered his opinion to that of Sir Charles, and it was resolved, if remonstrance with Doorjun failed, to resort to arms. To the astonishment of the princes of India who believed that the Burmese war had absorbed all the resources of Government, an army of 20,000 men with 100 capture of heavy ordnance and mortars suddenly sprung Bhurtpore. up in the midst of them. Throughout India it was re- membered that Bhurtpore was the only fortress which the British Government had besieged and failed to capture, and the eyes of all India were fixed upon the second siege, not perhaps, without a latent hope that it might be as unsuccess- ful as the first. The head-quarters of Lord Combermere, the Commander-in-Chief, were established before it on the 10th December. Thirty- six mortars and forty -eight pieces of heavy ordnance played upon the mud walls for many days without making any impression or creating a prac- ticable breach. A great mine was at length completed, and charged with 10,000 pounds of powder. The ex- plosion took place on the 18th January, and seemed to ^826 shake the foundations of the earth, while enormous masses of hardened earth and blocks of timber, mingled with A A 2 356 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. ^3,, heads, legs and arms, were sent flying into the air, and 1826 the sky was darkened with volumes of smoke and dust. Of the usurper's army, 6,000 were said to have fallen during the siege and the casualties on the side of the English were about 1,000. Doorjun Sal endeavoured to make his escape, but was captured and sent to join the assem- blage of disinherited princes at Benares, where he passed twenty-five years on an allowance of 500 rupees a month. The boy raja was then placed on the throne by Sir Charles Metcalfe and Lord Combermere, but the laurels of Bhurt- pore were tarnished by the rapacity of the military autho- rities. The siege was undertaken to expel a usurper, and restore the lawful prince to his rights, but the whole of the state jewels and treasure was seized by the victors to the extent of forty-eight lacs of rupees, and divided among themselves as prize-money, Lord Combermere appropriat- ing six lacs to himself. The proud walls which had bid defiance to the hero of Delhi and Laswaree were levelled with the ground. The capture of the fort produced a profound sensation, as Sir Charles Metcalfe had predicted, throughout India ; and, combined with the submission ot Burmah, dissolved the sanguine hopes of the disaffected, and restored the prestige of the Company. Lord Amherst was advanced to the dignity of an earl, not of Bhurtpore, his brightest achievement, but of Aracan, the most disas- trous of his expeditions. 1823 The financial result of his administration was calamitous, to The wealth left in the treasury by Lord Hastings was ^^2^ dissipated, the annual surplus turned into a deficit, and an addition of ten crores made to the public debt. On his arrival, and while new to the country and the community, he was led by the superior officers of Grovernment to continue those truculent pro- ceedings against the press which they had origi- nated ; but it was not long before he adopted a more generous policy, and on his departure was compli- mented by the journals in Calcutta " on the liberality and " even magnanimity with which he had tolerated the free " expression of public opinion on his own individual " measures, when he had the power to silence them with a " stroke of his pen." He embarked for England in Feb- * ruary, and Mr. Butterworth Bayley, the senior member of Council, assumed charge of the Government. Sbctt. II.] LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK 85' SECTION II. LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK'S ADMINISTRATION — MILITARY OPERATIONS — NATIVE STATES RUNJEET SING. The stigma unjustly inflicted on Lord William Bentinck's character by his abrupt removal from the Government of Madras in 1806, was at length effaced by his j^^^^ appointment to the office of Governor. General, wmiam He was sworn in at the India House in July ^®°*^"*^^- 1827, while his relative, Mr. Canning, who had promoted his nomination, was prime minister ; but his lamented ' death soon after brought into power those who had opposed his elevation, and Lord William Bentinck suspended his departure till he was assured that the new ministry did not object to his appointment ; hence he did not reach Calcutta before the 4th July, 1828. With his advent commenced a new and beneficent era in the history of the Company, marked by a bold and energetic improvement in the institutions of the state, although his administration did not open under favourable circumstances. Reduction of The Burmese war had not only saddled the allowances, treasury with an additional debt of ten crores, but created an annual deficit of a crore of rupees, and Lord William 1828 Bentinck was constrained to enter upon the unpopular duty of retrenchment. Two committees were appointed to investigate the increase of expenditure, and to suggest the means of curtaiHng it. The sweeping reductions which the Court of Directors had already made in the strength of the army, left little for the military committee to suggest, except the diminution of individual allowances, though they were in no case excessive, and, in many cases, in- adequate. The civil department afforded a more legitimate field for revision ; some offices were abolished, a few were doubled up, and the income of others was curtailed ; but the total reductions did not affect the aggregate allowances of the service to a greater extent than six per cent. It was still the best paid service in the world, in the enjoyment of an annual income of ninety lacs, which divided, as it was, among 416 officers, gave each of the members an average allowance of 20,000 rupees a year ; but even the moderate contraction of allowances suggested by the committee and adopted by Lord William Bentinck, subjected him to indignities which severely ta.xed his habitual equanimity. 858 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. Of these economical measures, none excited so much bitterness of feeling as the half batta order. Soon after The half ^^^ beginning of the century the supplementary batta order, allowance of full batta was granted to the officers when in cantonments in the lower provinces. The Court of Directors objected to the arrangement, and directed Lord Hastings, and subsequently Lord Amherst, to reduce the amount by one half, but they referred the order back to England for reconsideration, when it was repeated in a more peremptory tone. The latest despatch reached Calcutta soon after the arrival of Lord William, and in obedience to A.D. the Court's orders, he issued a notification in November, 1828 reducing the allowance one half at all stations within 400 miles of Calcutta. The order raised a flame in the army which at one time created the apprehension of a fourth European mutiny. One officer went so far as to assert that if an enemy were to make his appearance in the field, he did not believe there was a single officer who would give the order to march, or a single regiment which would obey it. The insults inflicted on the Governor- General by the officers of the army rivalled those of the civil service, and were more severe than any of his predecessors had ever experienced. Lord Combermere, the Commander-in- Chief, prevented the organisation of representative com- mittees, as in the mutiny of 1796, but he did not hesitate to pronounce the order unjust ; and the Court of Directors declared that they would have superseded him if he had not resigned the service. Lord William Bentinck also considered the order unnecessary, unjust, and impolitic, but he felt that it was beyond his power to suspend the execution of it after the Court of Directors had, for the third time, insisted upon its being carried into efi'ect, with- out assuming that the Government in Calcutta was the supreme power in the empire. The Court of Directors denounced the tone of the memorials presented to them by the officers as subversive of all military discipline, and, with the full concurrence of the Duke of Wellington, signified their determination to enforce the order at all hazards ; indeed, considering the pass at which matters had arrived, they had no other alternative. But the reduction was an egregious blunder; and it appears strange that so astute a body as the Directors should have risked the attachment and confidence of their army for a paltry saving of less than two lacs a year; and it is still more surprising that for the thirty years in which they continued Sect. II.] RENT FREE TENURES 359 to administer the Government, they had not the magna- nimity to rescind the order, even as a graceful acknowledg- ment of the services subsequently performed by the army in twenty hard-fought battles. The native princes had always been in the habit of making grants of land to individuals and to ecclesiastical establishments free from the payment of rent. Rent free Some of these religious endowments and grants tenures, to charities were held sacred by superstitious chiefs, but in numerous instances they were resumed, both in the Deccan and in Hindostan, on each succession to the throne, and sometimes during the same reign. In the confusion created by the dissolution of the Mogul power, this royal pre- rogative was usurped by the governors of provinces. On assuming the management of the revenue the Government in Calcutta announced that all grants made previous to 1765 should be deemed valid; but, as there was no register of them, the rajas, zemindars, farmers, and revenue officers, set to work to fabricate and antedate new deeds, and it was subsequently asserted that a tenth of the land revenues had thus been alienated from the state during the infancy of our Government. The revenue settlement of Lord Corn- wallis reserved the right of resuming these tenures when their validity had been investigated and disallowed. The overworked collector to whom the duty of the investigation was committed, found himself thwarted at every step by his own mercenary officers, who were in the pay of the occupants ; he became lukewarm in the work, and it was necessary either to abandon the pursuit of this lost revenue, or to adopt more effectual measures to recover it. Three weeks before the arrival of Lord William Bentinck, a regulation was passed, appointing commissioners selected from the ablest men in the service, to hear and finally to determine appeals regarding these tenures from the decisions of the collectors, who were thus stimulated into greater activity. These energetic proceedings gave great offence to those affected by them, who pleaded, and not without reason, that the difficulty of substantiating their claims had increased with the lapse of time, that many documents had disappeared by the effects of the climate and the ravages of white ants, and that lands which might have been fraudulently obtained several generations back, had since been bought bond fide at high prices. Though the holders were in no cases dispossessed, but simply required to pay rent to the state, the assessment of their A.D. 1821 360 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI lands brought great unpopularity on the Government. The legal machinery of investigation cost about eighty laca of rupees, and the increase of revenue amounted to about thirty lacs a year. The political and military events of Lord William Bentinck's administration were of minor importance com- TheCoie P^^ed with thosc of previous and subsequent insiirrec- periods, when thrones and dynasties were over- tion. thrown, and the map of India was reconstructed. The Cole Jiisurrection however, involved operations of some magnitude. The Coles, Dangars, Santals, and other tribes in the south-west of Bengal who are believed to have been the aborigines of the country, generally retained their independence, except where it had been encroached upon by Rajpoot zemindars, who endeavoured to improve their receipts by substituting a more industrious class ol cultivators for these lazy barbarians. The introduction of these men created a strong feeling of discontent, which was A.D. augmented by the insolence and rapacity of the Bengal 1832 officials who flocked into the province. In 1832, the Coles rose in large numbers, laid waste the fields of the zemin- dars, burnt down their villages, and put more than a thousand of their men to death, before it was possible to assemble troops. Armed as they were only with bows and arrows and axes, they were easily overcome, and there was much unnecessary slaughter. In the neighbouring district it became necessary to send four regiments into the field before the insurrection was trodden out. The rising was not however without benefit to the people. It induced Lord "William Bentinck to relieve them from the incubus of the Company's code and judicial institutions, and to turn the district into a non-regulation province, and place it under the especial control of a commissioner. jg3j Another insurrection occurred within fifteen miles of Government House in Calcutta. Syud Ahmed, a Mahome- insurrection ^^^ reformer and fanatic, whose name will come of Teetoo up again hereafter, collected numerous followers ^^^' in lower Bengal, and more particularly in the suburban district of Baraset. Their bigoted intolerance to those of thoir own creed, whom they deemed heterodox, and their hostility to Hindoo heretics created a feeling of general animosity, and some of the Hindoo zemindars inflicted heavy penalties on them. They appealed to the magistrates, but the dilaton'ness of judicial forms exhausted their patience ; and, under the guidance of one Tccton Bect. II.] CACHAR AND COORG 361 Meer, a Mahomedan mendicant, they proclaimed a jehad, or religious war. They defiled a temple with the blood of a cow, and forced its flesh down the throats of the brah- mins, and then proceeded to burn down villages and facto- ries, and to erect stockades. In the peaceful province of Beugal, which had not seen the smoke of an enemy's camp for more than seventy years, it was found necessary to call out two regiments of infantry and a body of horse, and some guns. Their stockade, in which they defended themselves for an hour, was captured, and the insurrection was quenched in their blood. The administration of the most pacific of Governors- General could not escape the " inevitable tendency " of the empire to enlarge its boundary, but the addition . to the Company's dominions during the adminis- of Cachar tration of Lord WilHam Bentinck was so andCoorg. insignificant as to escape observation and censure. The ^,d, chief of the little principaHty of Cachar in the hills to the 1835 north-east of Bengal was murdered in 1832, and amidst the anarchy which ensued the people implored the pro- tectorate of the British Government which Lord William Bentinck did not hesitate to extend to them. This un- noticed nook in the great empire has since acquired a commercial value by the expenditure of a crore of rupees of private capital in tea plantations, for which its position and soil are highly favourable. The principality of Coorg lies on the Malabar coast between Mysore and the sea, and comprises an area of about 1,500 square miles, no portion of which is less than 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Its chivalrous raja had defended it with so much gallantry against the overwhelming force of Tippoo as to gain the applause of Lord Cornwallis, and also of Lord Wellesley, from whom he received a splendid sword, which was preserved with pride among the heir-looms of the family. But his successor in 1820 exhibited an example of tyranny and cruelty rarely exceeded by the most atrocious of native princes. On coming to the throne he put to death all who had thwarted his views, and to prevent the possibility of being superseded directed all his kinsmen to be taken into the jungles and decapitated. He never scrupled to take the life of any who became ob- noxious to him. He likewise manifested a peculiar hatred of the British Government, and as he strictly interdicted the entry of any Englishmen into the province, his atrocities were concealed from observation. In 1832, however, his 362 ABBIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XL sister and her husband escaped for their Hves, and revealed his barbarities to the Resident in Mysore, who proceeded to his capital and endeavoured, but in vain, to bring him to reason. He addressed letters of extraordinary insolence to the governor of Madras, and even to the Governor- General, while he organized his little force to resist the British authorities. Lord William Bentinck, finding him deaf to every remonstrance, resolved to treat him as a public enemy, and issued a proclamation recounting his A..i>. cruelties, and announcing that he had ceased to reign. 1834 A force of 6,000 men entered the country in four divisions, in diflPerent directions, and after penetrating its intricate and perilous defiles, planted the British standard on the ramparts of tlie capital, Mercara, in April 1832. The country was at once annexed to the Company's territories, and has now been covered with coffee plantations by British enterprise. The political policy of Lord William Bentinck was at first regulated by that principle of non-intervention in the Non-inter- internal affairs of native states which was stiU in vention favour in Leadenhall Street. In his minute on ^ ^^' the Bhurtpore crisis, in 1826, Sir Charles Metcalfe had placed on record that " having become the paramount " power in India we were the supreme guardians of general " law, tranquillity and right." The Court of Directors lost no time in repudiating this doctrine, and laid positive and repeated injunctions on the Government of India to abstain from all interference with the native princes boyond what was necessary to secure the punctual pay- ment of their respective tributes. The Government was thus placed in the invidious position of a strong and in- exorable creditor instead of a beneficent guardian of peace. Lord William, however, frequently found it impossible to avoid interposing his imperial authority to frustrate the projects of usurpation, to repress internal anarchy, and to promote harmony between prince and people. His political policy, therefore, presents the appearance of vacillation, and is certainly the least satisfactory portion of his ad- ministration. On the construction of the kingdom of Mysore, the administration was placed in the hands of the renowned . , brahmin Poornea, the great minister of Hyder mbjovem- Ali and Tippoo, and his authority was supported ment. ]^j ^y^g invaluable assistance of some of the most experienced of the Company's officers. The country Sjbct. II. J GOVERNMENT OF MYSORE ASSUMED 363 flourished, and, in the course of ten years, a surplus of two crores was accumulated in the treasury ; but the raja, under the influence of his minions and his flatterers pro- claimed his majority, when he attained his sixteenth year, dismissed Poornea, and took the administration into his own hands. The Resident reported that he was utterly unfitted for the government by the weakness of his character and his entire subservience to the influence of favourites. The administration steadily deteriorated for twenty years ; all the accumulations of Poornea were dissipated ; the go- vernment became venal and corrupt ; the highest offices were put up to sale ; crown lands were alienated, and the subjects were crushed by new and grievous taxation. The a..d, people at length took up arms, and in 1830 one half the 183(1 kingdom was in a state of insurrection. Adventurers from all parts joined the insurgents, and the peace of the Deccan, not excepting the Company's territories, was placed in extreme jeopardy. It became necessary to send a large force into the field ; but at the same time a friendly pro- clamation was issued, inviting the people to come in peace- ably and represent their grievances to the British officers, with the assurance that they would be redressed if they were found to be real. The natives had full confidence in them, and the insurrection died out. The Governor- General then informed the raja that, i832 though tranquillity was for the present restored, he could not allow the name and the influence of the ,, -i-» 1/-I T-T-r-i-Ti Management British Government to be identified with these of Mysore acts of misrule ; and that, in order to prevent ^^^^^ ^^^'*- their recurrence, and to save the Mysore state from ruin, he deemed it necessary to place the entire administration of the country in the hands of British officers, paying over to the raja, in accordance with the terms of the treaty, about four lacs a year and a fifth of the net revenue, which, under more honest management, would be equal to about a lac and a half more. Lord William Bentinck was soon after led to believe from the report of the court of enquiry he had appointed, that the grievances had been somewhat overstated, and he proposed to retain in perpetuit}'- only a sufficient portion of the territory to meet the subsidy, and to restore the remainder to the raja, on the simple condi- tion that the Government should be at liberty to resume this portion if it appeared necessary for the public benefit. The Court of Directors, however, who had entirely ap- oroved of all his proceedings, refused to sanction this 364 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XL proposal, and asserted that the assumption of the whole country was justified by the treaty, and essential to the welfare of the people. The non-intervention policy was peculiarly unfortunate for the two Rajpoot states of Joudpore and Jeypore, Joud e where the turbulent habits of the feudal nobility rendered the interposition of a paramount power indispensable to the public tranquillity. Man Sing, the raja of Joudpore, had been deposed by his chiefs before the Pindaree war on the ground of his insanity, real or feigned, but had recovered his power if not his reason in 1821, and began to wreak his vengeance on them. They appealed to the Government in Calcutta, but without success, and then brought an army of 7,000 men against the capital. The raja appealed in his turn to Lord William Bentinck, who felt the necessity of interposing his autho- rity to prevent the kindling of war in Rajpootana, and the Resident was ordered to restore concord between the parties, which he effected with a stroke of his pen. But the insane violence of the raja broke out again ; he ^ j5 not only oppressed his subjects, but gave encouragement 834 to the robber tribes of the desert, and refused to apprehend Thugs, or to surrender malefactors. A large army was or- dered to Joudpore to bring him to reason. The Rahtores, the designation of the tribe, were accustomed to boast in their ballads of " the hundred thousand swords " with which they had supported the throne of Akbar ; but the Joudpore envoy now enquired what occasion there could be for an army when a single messenger would have been sufficient to convey the commands of the Governor- General. Every demand was at once conceded. During the minority of the raja of Jeypore, his mother acted as regent, and resigned herself to the counsels of one _ Jotaram, a banker. The hauerhty barons ex- pelled him from the post of minister, and installed one of their own body, Byree Sal ; but the regent ranee obtained the permission of Sir David Ochterlony to recall him. The nobles resented this proceeding, and a civil war appeared inevitable, when Sir 0. Metcalfe, who had succeeded Sir David, proceeded to Jeypore, and convened a general meeting of the chiefs, and gathered from their discussions that the majority of them were favourable to the queen mother, when he confirmed her authority, with leave to choose her own minister. Jotaram became again the head of the administration, but the revenues were Sect. II ] AFFAIRS OF OUBE 365 misappropriated, the troops unpaid, and the nobles pur- sued with vindictiveness. An appeal was made to Lord William Bentinck to terminate the disorders of the state by the supreme authority of the Company's Government, but he declined to interfere. Soon after the ranee died, and her death was speedily followed by that of her son, not without suspicion of poison, and the general indigna- tion against Jotaram became so intense that he retired from the capital, and levied an army. Lord William Ben- tinck had by this time quitted the Government, and his successor accepted the guardianship of the infant heir, ^..d. and despatched a political agent to the capital, who was 1835 just in time to prevent a battle between the party of the exasperated nobles and of the banker. An attempt was made to massacre the agent ; ho was attacked and wounded as he left the durbar and barely escaped with his life, but his assistant fell under the swords of the assassins. To prevent the recurrence of this anarchy, a more stringent control was established over the affairs of the court. In 1818 Lord Hastings assumed the prerogative of con- ferring the title of an independent king upon the nabob Vizier of Oude, which released him from the Affairs of necessity of doing homage to any member of the o^*^^- imperial family who happened to reside at Lucknow, even in the most indigent circumstances. The king who was seated on the throne during Lord William Bentinck' s administration, had been brought up in the zenana, and his ideas were puerile and effeminate, and his life was devoted to indulgence. The resident, Sir Herbert Maddock, repre- sented the country to be in a state of abject wretchedness ; there was no security for life and property, and scarcely a day passed in which an attack was not made on the forts of the zemindars, who seldom paid their rents without compulsion. Lord William himself travelled through the country, and saw nothing but desolation and decay. He considered that, as we protected the king from the indig- nation of his oppressed people, it was our bounden duty to protect the inhabitants from the abuses of the Government. i83J In a communication to the king in 1831, he insisted on the adoption of reforms, and distinctly assured him that if he continued to withhold them the entire management of the country would be taken out of his hands, and a sufficient annuity assigned to him for the support of his royal family and court. In anticipation of this remonstrance, the king recalled 366 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. Hakim Menhdy, whom tie Lad dismissed, and reappointed Hakim Lim prime minister. This extraordinary man, Menhdy. the son of a Persian gentleman at Shiraj, had emigrated to India in search of political employment and entered the service of Oude, in which he rapidly rose to distinction. He identified the prosperity of his adopted country with his own happiness, and devoted his splendid talents to the improvement of the administration, though thwarted at every step by the vices of his sovereign. Lord William Bentinck pronounced him one of the ablest men in India, and as a revenue administrator unsurpassed by any officer, European or native. He had gradually amassed a princely fortune, which he expended with more than princely liberality ; and there was no portion of Hindostan which had not experienced his generosity. On assuming the Government he introduced important reforms, and had the courage to retrench the profligate expenditure of the zenana, and to curtail the allowances of the parasites of the court. But he was too radical a reformer for the meridian of Oude, and as Lord William Bentinck hesitated to support his authority against the wishes of the king, who was offended, he said, because he had not spoken with sufficient respect of his mother, and A.D. had insulted the portrait of his father, he resigned his 1832 post and retired into the British territories. In refer- ence to the condition of Oude, the Court of Directors had justly remarked that, "it was the British Government " which, by a systematic suppression of all attempts at " resistance, had prolonged the misrule which became " permanent when the short-sightedness and rapacity of a " semi-barbarous Government was armed with the military " strength of a civilised onot" In reply to Lord William's representation of the miserable condition of the country, tlie Court of Directors authorized him at once to assume the government, if circumstances should appear to render it necessary. Lord William, who was on the eve of leav- ing India, communicated the substance of these instruc- 1834 tions to the king, intimating that the execution of them would be suspended in the hope of his adopting the necessary reforms. But the reforms never came, and the orders were carried into execution twenty years after. The interview of Lord William Bentinck with Runjeet Sing is one of the most remarkable events in his adminis- Progress of tration ; but, before alluding to it, it is necessaiy jjiig.*^ to continue the narrative of his progress after Sect. II.] PROGRESS OF RUNJEET SING 867 the check he received from Mr. Metcalfe in 1809. Con- quest was the one object of his Hfe, and his attention was directed solely to the improvement of his army and the accumulation of treasure, to the comparative neglect of the civil administration. At the close of the rains his army was assembled for some expedition with the regu- larity of the seasons. This incessant warfare was exactly suited to the martial character of the Sikh population, whom it furnished with congenial occupation and with the means of acquiring distinction and wealth. The prospect of glory and plunder were the two chief elements of their fidelity to their chief. He commenced the formation of battalions on the model of the Company's army, and by incessant attention to their drill, which he superintended in person, converted his raw troops into an efficient force, which he provided with an admirable artillery. After the subjugation of all the independent Sikh chief- tains in the Punjab, he entered into a convention with Putteh Khan, the vizier of Cabul, for a joint His con- expedition to Cashmere ; but the vizier antici- quests. pated his movements, and, having obtained possession of ^ j,. the province by his own unaided efforts, refused to resign 1817 any portion of it to Runjeet, who requited hira by the surreptitious seizure of Attock on the Indus, during his absence. This led to a battle, in which Futteh Khan was defeated, and the Sikh authority was permanently extended to the banks of the river. In 1818 Runjeet Sing obtained pos- session of the province of Mooltan, and taking advantage of the murder of Futteh Khan, the vizier, whose talents igis and energy had alone kept the Afghan monarchy from dissolution, seized upon Pestiawur, the capital of eastern Afghanistan, but was speedily driven from it. This dis- appointment was, however, compensated soon after by the acquisition of Cashmere, and two years later of the Derajat, 1819 a strip of territory about 300 miles in length, lying on the right bank of the Indus, and stretching down to the confines of Sinde. In March 1822, Colonels Allard and Ventura, two 1822 of the French officers of the army of Napoleon who had left Europe on the restoration of the Bourbons ^^..^ ^ and obtained employment in Persia, made their French way to Lahore and, after some hesitation, were °^^^^'^- received into the service of Runjeet Sing. The Sikh soldiery, previously distinguished by their courage, their national enthusiasm, and their religious animation, received A.D. 368 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. from these officers and from Generals Court and Avitabile, who followed them, the benefit of European tactics and discipline, and became more effective and formidable than the battalions which De Boigne had raised for Sindia, and Raymond for the Nizam. In March 1823 Runjeet Sing proceeded with an army of 23,000 men to establish his authority in Peshawur, but Battle of t^e Eusufzie highlanders proclaimed a religious 1823 ^o^s^^""*- war against the infidel Sikhs, and 6,000 of them rushed down from their mountains and completely defeated them. Fresh troops were brought up, and Run- jeet eventually remained master of the field, and sacked PeshawTir. This battle is memorable from the fact that a body of mountaineers, wild with religious enthusiasm, succeeded in baffling the efforts of four times their number of well trained and disciplined troops. The province was left in the hands of Yar Mahomed, the hostile brother of the ruler of Cabul, on condition of his paying tribnte. Four years after, the peace of the country was disturbed by Syud Ahmed, a Mahomedan fanatic, who had been a petty cavalry officer in the service of Ameer Khan, the Patau freebooter, and on the dissolution of his army, turned religious reformer, pretended to have visions from heaven, and succeeded in raising a flame of fanaticism among his co-religionists. Reference has already been made to his visit to Calcutta, from whence he proceeded to Mecca, the fountain of Mahomedan enthusiasm, and returning to India with more excited feelings, entered Afghanistan, where he proclaimed a holy war against the infidels, and raised the green flag of Islam, but was defeated by Runjeet Sing's 1830 disciplined troops, and obliged to fly. He returned in 1830, and obtained possession of the province of Peshawur. Elated with his success, he proclaimed himself Caliph, and struck coin in the name of " Ahmed the first, the Defender " of the Faith," but his assumption and his arbitrary pro- ceedings disgusted his followers, who expelled him from the province, and he was overtaken by the Sikh troops and put to death in May 1831. In 1827 Lord Amherst took up his residence at the sanitarium of Simla, which lies within 150 miles of Lahore, and Runjeet Sing embraced the opportunity of herstand sending him a complimentary mission, with a Runjeet. magnificent tent of shawls for the king of Eng- land which he presented on his return. Runjeet Sing had an extraordinaiy passion for horses, and Lord Ellen- Skct. II.] LIEUTENANT KURNES AT LAHORE 369 borougb, then President of the Board of Control, determined to present him in return for the shawl tent with a team of EngUsh dray-horses. The Indus was at the time not much better known than in the days of Alexander the Great ; and instead of despatching the cattle by the ordi- nary route through Bengal and Hindostan, Lord Ellen- borough resolved that they should be sent up the Indus, with the view of exploring the river, and, if possible, forming friendly relations with the chiefs on its banks. On the arrival of the horses at Bombay, Sir John Malcolm, the governor, selected Lieutenant — afterwards Sir Alex- ander — Burnes to conduct the mission. At the mouth of the Indus he entered the territory of Sinde, the Ameers of which had always treated the English agents with hostility ; and, as they considered his arrival an event of evil omen, subjected lum to great indignity, and twice constrained him to retire from the country. They were induced at length to grant him the means of transport, and he reached the confines of the Punjab, through which he was escorted with great pomp, and at the court was received with great courtesy. When the letter from Lord Ellenborough was presented to Runjeet Sing, a royal salute was fired from each of sixty pieces of cannon, and Lieutenant Burnes was treated with distinguished honour as long as he remained at the ]83j court. He then proceeded to Simla where Lord William Bentinck was residing, and submitted to him the result of his researches regarding the commerce, pohtics, and military resources of Sinde and the other states on the Indus. He was directed to return to Bombay through Afghanistan, Balkh, and Bokhara. The power of ilunjeet Sing had been steadily increasing for twenty years. Including the contingents of his jageer- dars, his army consisted of 80,000 men, animated ^ .,1,1 *' n J • 1 • Resources of With the success oi a dozen campaigns, and in Runjeet part disciplined and commanded by European ^"^^• officers. His artillery consisted of 376 guns and an equal number of swivels. His annual revenue was estimated at two crores and a half, and the vaults of his treasury contained ten crores. Though unable to read or write, he fully comprehended the papers in Persian, Punjabee, and Pushtoo, read to him by his able secretaries, who were in attendance upon him day and night, and to whom he dictated replies. But, though he had reached the summit of power he never arrogated the title of an independent sovereign, but was content to be considered simply as the A.D. 370 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF mDIA [Chap. XI. head of the Khalsa or Sikh commonwealth, a name regarded with a feeHng of superstitious devotion by the chiefs and soldiers. He considered it a matter of import- ance to secure for his throne and dynasty the strength which a close alliance with the British Government could not fail to impart ; and Lord William Bentinck, on his side, deemed it politic to demonstrate to the princes of India, who began to regard the progress of a native power under Runjeet Sing with hope, that a feeling of cordiality existed between the two states ; and a meeting was ac- cordingly arranged to be held at Roopur, on the banks of the Sutlej. This assembly was the most brilliant in which the repre- sentative of the Company had ever taken a part. Lord Meeting at William Bentinck, like Lord Cornwallis, was dis- Raopur. tinguished for the simplicity of his habits, and his dislike of the pageantry of power ; but he considered it important to give edat to this political meeting in the eyes of India by the grandeur of its display. He descended 1831 from Simlah to Roopur on the 22nd October, and Runjeet Sing arrived at the opposite bank of the river three days after with a magnificent court, and 10,000 of his best horse and 6,000 select infantry. The next day he crossed the river on a bridge of boats, preceded and followed by his chiefs mounted on elephants decked in gorgeous housings, while a body of 4,000 horse whom he had brought with him by way of caution, formed the wings of the procession. Presents of eveiy variety and of the most costly description had been collected by the Governor- General from all parts of India, sufficient to efface the memory of the dray-horses. Runjeet Sing scrutinized every article with the curiosity of a child, and saw it carefully packed up and delivered to his master of the jewel office. The following day the Governor- General returned the visit ; the scene was one ol extraordinary splendour ; the Sikh encampment exceeded in magnificence anything which had been seen in India since the days of Aurungzebe, and realised the highest conceptions of oriental grandeur. The frank manners of Runjeet Sing, his free enquiries and lively conversation, gave an air of ease to ceremonials which were usually stately and stifi^. He called up and paraded his favourite horses before Lord William Bentinck, and recounted their names and virtues with much anima- tion. In their company was also brought up one of the dray-horses, as if to contrast his huge and shaggy legs with their elegant limbs. A week was passed in displays, Srct. III.j' administeative refokms 371 entertainments, and reviews, recalling to mind the days of Mogul magnificence, and the parties separated with a mutual appreciation of each other's power. Runjeet Sing had long been eager to add Sinde to his dominions, and to obtain possession of Shikarpore, a com- mercial mart on the right bank of the Indus, of Treaty with such magnitude and importance that the bills of Sinde. its bankers passed current from Calcutta to Astrakhan, ^.d. Daring the meeting he sounded the secretaries on the 1832 subject of a joint expedition, hinting that, according to Lieutenant Burnes, the treasury contained twenty crores, and that the army was very feeble. But Lord William Bentinck had already deputed Colonel Pottinger to en- deavour to conclude a commercial treaty with the Ameers. They were exceedingly reluctant to form any connection at all with the Company, lest the factory should, as elsewhere, grow into a fortress. They yielded at length to the importunity of the Colonel, but in the treaty of commerce they signed caused it to be stipulated " that the contract- " ing parties should never look with an eye of covetousness " on the possessions of each other." Within eleven years Sinde was a British province. SECTION III. LORD W. bentinck' S ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS — CHARTER OF 1833 — SIR C. METCALF. The lustre of Lord William Bentinck's administration is derived from his bold and enlightened reforms, his intrepid philanthropy, and his efforts to pro- Administra- mote material progress, in which he far sur- ti^o reforms, passed all his predecessors. For thirty years the local government had been engaged, with no encouragement from England, in establishing Biitish supremacy and con- solidating the empire, and it remained to endow it with improved and beneficial institutions. No substantial effort had been made since the days of Lord Cornwallis to improve them, and they had become in a great measure effete. For the work of reformation Lord William Bentinck was particularly qualified, by the clearness of his views, his freedom from traditional prejudices, and his inflexible resolution. His administration therefore forms one of the great landmarks in the history of British India. B B 2 372 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XL The cTurent of civil justice was blocked up by tbe provincial courts, whicb Lord William Bentinck described A.D. The pro- ^s " resting places for those members of the service *83l yinciai " ^Jiq were deemed fit for no higher responsi- ^^ ' " bilities." With some exceptions, the judicial character of the judges was contemptible, while their dis- cordant judgments in appeal only served to bewilder the judges of the courts subordinate to them. With regard to criminal justice, their agency was a national grievance. The judges went on circuit to hold sessions and gaol delivery twice a year, and the accused were kept in con- finement for months before they were brought to trial, while the prosecutors and witnesses were detained through- out this period at their own expense. Under such circum- stances, it is of course no matter of surprise that the daroga who came down to institute enquiries was considered by the natives " the messenger of death," and that the conceal- ment of crime became the one object of solicitude through- out the country. Lord William earned the gratitude of the country by abolishing a class of tribunals which combined three of the worst vices of law — delay, expense, and uncertainty. The duties of the session were transferred to the judge of the district, who was to hold a gaol delivery every month. A separate Sudder, or chief court, was also established in the IsTorth-West provinces, and the natives of Delhi were no longer obliged to travel a thousand miles to Calcutta to pro- secute an appeal. A corresponding boon was also conferred on these provinces by the erection of a board of revenue at Allahabad, which placed the control of the revenue of twenty- three millions of people in the midst of them. The value of these improvements was incalculably enhanced by con- ferring on the natives the great blessing of the use of their own vernacular tongue in all the courts, civil, fiscal, and criminal, to which they were amenable, in lieu of the Persian, which had been adopted from the Mahomedans to whom it was familiar, whereas in the British courts it was foreign equally to the parties, the witnesses, and the judge. One of the greatest transactions of Lord William Bentinck' s administration was the revenue settlement of the North- West provinces. On the acquisition of settlement the latest of these provinces by Lord Wellesley, N *w P ^^ -^ ^^^» ^® promised them a permanent settlement at the end of ten years, if it was approved of by Sect. III.l SETTLEMENT IN NOIITH WEST PROVINCES 378 the Court of Directors. The Court repudiated the engage- ment, and ordered it to be limited to five years ; but so brief a term was fatal to all agricultural improvement. A landholder considered it an act of folly to lay out money in the improvement of his land when he knew that this would only serve to increase his assessment in two or three years ; and as the period of revision approached, wellswere filled up, and cultivation was neglected. An effort was made to grapple with this large question in 1822, but the celebrated regulation of that year was too complicated in its details to be worked by the limited agency at the disposal of Government, and at the end of ten years the settlement had scarcely begun. Lord William Bentinck was resolved to remove the opprobrium of this neglect from the administration, and made a tour through the provinces, discussing the question in all its bearings with the revenue officers in each district, and with the revenue board at ^ j,^ Allahabad ; and on his return to the Presidency issued the i838 regulation for the new settlement in 1833. It possessed the great merit of simplicity, and dispensed with many of the elaborate enquiries required by the former regulation. The lands were minutely surveyed and classified accord- ing to their quality, and an accurate measurement of them was placed on record, by which a prolific source of discord and litigation was cut off, and the assessment was then fixed for thirty years by the collector, after a free and friendly communication with the people on the spot. The general management of these large operations was entrusted to Mr. Robert Bird, the ablest financial officer since the days of Sir John Shore. His knowledge of the intricacies of land tenure in the North- West provinces was greater than that of any other man in the service, and he was moreover endowed with that indomitable energy and that sternness of purpose which enabled him to complete the settlement of 72,000 square miles, affecting the vital interests of twenty- three millions of people, in the course of ten years. He was allowed to select his own assistants, and the honour of having served under him was considered as conferring a distinction for life. The measure which above all others has endeared the memory of Lord William Bentinck to the natives of India, was the access he gave them to the pubHc service. Employment Their exclusion from every office except the lowest o' natives. and worst paid was the cardinal error of Lord Cornwalhs's administration. Such ostracism of a whole people, who 374 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI, A.D. had from time immemorial been accustomed to the manage- 1831 II ent of public affairs in every department, was without a parallel in history. The grandsons of the Gauls who resisted Caesar became Roman senators ; the grandsons of the Rajpoots who opposed Baber, and well-nigh nipped his enterprise in the bud at Biana, were employed by his illustrious grandson in the government of provinces and the command of armies, and shed their blood for him on the shores of the Bay of Bengal and the banks of the Oxus, and rewarded his confidence with unshaken loyalty to his throne, even when it was shaken by the treachery of his Mahomedan satraps. But wherever the Company's sove- reignty was extended, every office of the least value was bestowed exclusively on their own European and covenanted servants ; and the natives of the country, however capable, were at once excluded from all share in the government of their own country, one of the most honourable aspirations of humanity. Lord William Bentinck was deeply impressed with the viciousness of this policy, and determined " to " throw open the door of distinction to the natives, and to '' grant them a full participation in all the honours and " emoluments of the state." This liberal policy was ushered in by the regulations of 1831, which completely reconstructed the legal establishments of the Bengal Presidency, and entrusted the primary jurisdiction of all suits, of whatever character or amount, not excluding those instituted against Government, to native agency. They were subsequently introduced into all other departments, and have manifested such eagerness for state employ as, in some measure, to impair the feeling of personal indepen- dence. Another anomaly was likewise removed on this occasion. The Company and their servants, from a morbid dread of offending Hindoo prejudices, had debarred native converts from holding any office, even that of a constable. Lord William Bentinck ordained that in admitting natives to the public service, there should be no distinction of caste, creed, or nation. The most benignant and memorable act of Lord William Bentinck's administration was the abolition of suttee, Abolition of which had been practised for twenty centuries Buttee. wherever Hindooism obtained a footing. The 1806 first effort to interfere with it was made by Mr. Gieorge Udny, the member of Council, and Dr. Carey, who pre- sented an address on the subject to Lord Wellesley. He was then on the eve of leaving India, but recorded his Sect. III.J ABOLITION OF SUTTEE 375 opinion iu favour of the abolition of it. Some attempts were subsequently made to diminish the number of victims by regulating the procedure, but the Court of Directors justly observed that the practice was thereby rendered more popular, inasmuch as, by prohibiting it in some cases, the Government appeared to sanction it in all others. The question was earnestly discussed for many years by some of the most distinguished servants of the state, but they all shrunk from the proposal of interdicting the practice. In 1823 the Court of Directors sent a despatch to the Government of India, in which all the arguments against abolition were earnestly and honestly combated, and the question was referred to the decision of the local autho- rities ; but Lord Auckland found the opinions of the public officers so discordant, as to be obliged to inform the Court that he was not prepared to recommend the positive prohibition of it ; and they placed the question definitively in the hands of Lord William Bentinck on his appointment. Lord William Bentinck landed in Calcutta, feeling, as he said, " the dreadfal responsibility hanging over his head in " this world and the next, if, as the Governor- LordWiiuam " General of India, he was to consent to the Bentinck'a " continuance of this practice one moment longer, ®"^"'^'^^' " not than our security, but than the real happiness and " permanent welfare of the native population rendered "indispensable." He resolved "to come to as early a " determination as a mature consideration would allow ; " and having made that determination, to stand by it, yea " or no, and set his conscience at rest." He immediately circulated a confidential communication among more than fifty of the civil and military officers of Government, asking their opinion as to the effect which the abolition would be likely to produce in the country generally, and on the minds of the sepoys in particular. The great majority of the military officers asserted that the immediate and peremptory abolition of the practice would create no alarm among the native troops. Of the civil functionaries three- fourths advocated its positive prohibition. Fortified by these opinions, and secure of the support of the Court of ^ ^^ Directors, Lord William Bentinck, on the 4th December, 1824 1829, promulgated that celebrated regulation which declared " the practice of suttee illegal and punishable by the " criminal courts as culpable homicide." ISTot the slightest feeling of alarm or resentment was exhibited, except by a few baboos in Calcutta, encouraged by Dr. Horace Hayman 376 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI Wilson, the great orientalist, the idol of pundits and brahmins. Within a twelvemonth Lord WiUiam Bentinck was enabled to assure the Court of Directors that there never was a greater bugbear than the fear of revolt on this ground. The enlightened natives of the present day- regard it in the light of an extinct barbarism, just as we do the human sacrifices of the Druids. It was during Lord William Bentinck's administration that the first energetic measures were adopted to extirpate A.D. Suppression ^^^ Thugs, a fraternity of hereditary assassins, 1830 of Thuggee. ^/Io^q subsisted by the plunder of the victims they strangled. There were few districts without some resident thugs, but they generally quitted their homes in small bodies with the appearance of cultivators, leaving their families in the village. As they roamed through the country they attached themselves, as if by accident, to the travellers they met, and entered into free and cheerful conversation with them to obtain the information they required ; and, on reaching some sequestered spot, suddenly threw round the neck of the victim a strip of cloth or an unfolded turban, the ends of which were drawn tight till he ceased to breathe. His body was then rifled and thrown into a pit hastily dug with pickaxes which had been consecrated with religious ceremonials. The thugs were bound to secrecy by solemn oaths, and recognised each other by a slang vocabulary. They maintained a special veneration for Doorga, the tutelary goddess of vagabonds, thieves, and murderers, observed her festivals with super- stitious punctuality, and presented a portion of their plunder at her most celebrated shrines. They endeavoured to ascertain her wishes by signs and omens, and considered themselves acting under divine authority when they were favourable. They traversed the length and breadth of the country, and their victims were counted by thousands. Lord William Bentinck determined to spare no pains or expense to deliver India from this scourge, and created a special department for its suppression, which he placed under the direction of Major — afterwards Sir William — Sleeman, whose name is inseparably connected in the annals of India with this mission of humanity. He organised a comprehensive scheme of operations which embraced every province, not exempting the native states, and by means of approvers who turned king's evidence, obtained a complete clue to the movements and operations of the gangs. With the aid of an efficient staff of officers whom Sect. III.] STEAM COMMUNICATION 377 he had himsolf selected, he took the field against them in every direction, and within six years 2,000 of these garotters were apprehended and convicted, and sentenced to death or imprisonment, and the fraternity was broken up. The attention of Lord William Bentinck was directed ^.d. immediately after his arrival to the establishment of steam 183< communication on the Ganges. Under his direc- steam com. *® tion, two vessels were built in Calcutta and fitted munication. 1834 up with engines from England, and they performed the voyage from Calcutta to Allahabad, which had usually employed three months by water, in as many weeks. The enterprise was subsequently transferred to private com- panies. A still more important object with him was the abridgment of the voyage between India and England. A considerable fund had been raised in Calcutta in 1823 to promote this object, and a premium was ofiered for any steamer which should perform the voyage in seventy days. The attempt was made in the Enterprise by Captain Johnson, round the Cape, but he was ] 13 days accom- plishing it. Lord William determined to try the experi- ment through the Red Sea, and directed the Hugh Lindsay j a small steamer of 400 tons, built at Bombay, to be sent from that port to Suez, which she reached in a month. Three other voyages were performed in succession, and it was demonstrated that, with corresjionding arrangements in the Mediterranean, the voyage from Bombay to England might be completed in fifty- five days. The Court of Directors, however, raised an objection to these experi- ments, and questioned whether the end in view would be worth the expenditure, and at lengfjh prohibited any farther employment of the Hugh Lindsay in the conveyance of the mails. The subject was then brought before the House of Commons, who passed a resolution that "a regular and " expeditious communication by steam between England " and India was an object of national importance." The Hugh Lindsay was again put in requisition, but the Court of Directors were lukewarm, and the enterprise was performed in a perfunctory manner, and fell into abeyance. It was reserved for the Peninsular and Oriental Company to carry to a successful issue the large views of Lord William Bentinck, and, with the aid of the Suez Canal, to bring India within three weeks' distance of England. The course of education received a fresh impulse, as well as a more useful direction, from the efforts Edacation— of Lord William Bentinck. The Parliamentary OriPntaiiam. 378 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XL vote of ten lacs of rupees for "the revival and promo- " tion of literature, and the encouragement of learned " natives," was interpreted in Leadenhall Street and in Calcutta to apply to the revival of native literature, to which it was exclusively applied. Mr. Adam distinguished his brief tenure of office by appointing a Committee of A..D. public instruction to suggest measures for the better ^ ^^^ education of the people in useful knowledge, and the arts and sciences of the West. This movement was strength- ened by a despatch from the Court of Directors, drawn up by Mr. James Mill, the historian of India, who had ob- tained an important position at the India House, and exercised a beneficial influence on its counsels. The edu- cation department in Calcutta was under the control of Dr. Horace Wilson, the great champion of Oriental literature and institutions, and the Court was requested to sanction the appropriation of funds from the Parliamentary grant to improve the Hindoo college at Benares and the Maho- medan college in Calcutta, and also to establish a Hindoo college at the Presidency. In reply to this request, the Court, at the suggestion of Mr. Mill, stated that, " in pro- " posing to establish seminaries for the purpose of teaching " mere Hindoo and mere Mahomedan literature, the " Government bound itself to teach a great deal of what " was frivolous, not a little of what was purely mischiev- '* ous, and a small remainder indeed in which utility was " in any way concerned. The great end of Government " should be, not to teach Hindoo or Mahomedan learning, " but useful learning." But Orientalism was still in the ascendent in Calcutta, and with some trifling exceptions to save appearances, the funds continued to be appropriated to the studies which the Court had condemned. J 833 Meanwhile a predilection for an English education was gaining ground in and around the metropolis, and the Predomi- demand for it was pressed with increased earnest- nance of ness on the education board. The board was divided into two hostile and irreconcilable parties — the Orientalists and the Anglicists — the one anxious to devote the education funds to the study of the Shastres and the Koran, the other, to the object of unfolding the stores of European science to the natives through the English language ; and it became necessary to appeal to the Government. It happened that Mr. Macaulay was not only a member of the Supreme Council, but also president of the board, and he denounced with irresistible force the con- Sbct.III.] the medical COLLEaE 379 tinued promotion of Orientalism as tending, not to support the cause of truth, but to delay the death of error. " We " are at present," he said, " a board for printing books ' which give artificial encouragement to absurd history, " absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, and absurd theo- '* 1^^-" "^^^ question was brought to an issue on the 7th March, 1835, by the resolution passed by Lord William Bentinck, in which he most cordially concurred, that " the great object of the British Government ought to be " the promotion of European literature and science among " the natives of India ; and that the funds appropriated j^'gg " to education would be best employed on EngHsh educa- " tion alone." The cause of English education triumphed, and the language and literature of England have become almost as familiar to the upper ten thousand in our Indian empire as the language of Rome was to the same class within the circle of her empire. The last and crowning act of Lord William Bentinck's 1836 administration was the establishment of the medical college to supersede native quackery, and to give The medical a complete education to native students in every coUege. branch of medical science, through the medium of English treatises and English lectures. The most eminent medical officers in the service were placed in the professor's chairs ; a library and a museum were created ; and every appliance necessary to place it on the same footing of efficiency as a European college was supplied with a liberal hand. Sage men of reputed wisdom predicted the failure of the experiment, inasmuch as contact with a dead body had been considered by the Hindoos a mortal pollution for twenty centuries ; but their predictions have proved visionary ; the Hindoo students resorted freely to the dissecting-room, and handled the scalpel with European indiffijrence ; and the college has proved an incalculable blessing to the country. The students have even crossed the " black water," and visited England to complete their studies, and have successfully competed with their European rivals. With two trifling exceptions. Lord William Bentinck's administration was a reign of peace, and it produced the usual result on the finances. He found a deficit Financial of a crore, and he left a surplus of a crore and a results. half, which his successor wasted in the Afghan war, as his predecessor had squandered the surplus left by Lord Hast- ings on the Burmese war. He embarked for England in March 1836, having held the government for nearly eight 1828 to 380 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI g"g' years. His administration marks the most memorable (.Q period in the improvement of India between the days of 835 Lord Oomwallis and Lord Dalhousie. He repudiated the stagnant poHcy of the Government, and introduced an enlightened and a progressive spirit into every department of the state, the impulse of which still continues in vigorous operation. He infused new blood into the sluggish veins of the public institutions, and imparted life and animation to them. The originality of his plans of improvement was not less remarkable than the boldness with which they were executed. He earned the gratitude of the natives by opening to them an honourable career in the government of their own country, and the applause of Christendom by the moral courage he displayed in putting down suttees. The native and the European community vied with each other in commemorating the blessings of his reign, and in raising a subscription for the erection of his statue in Calcutta. It was enriched by an inscription from the pen of Mr. Macaulay : — " This statue is erected to William Cavendish " Bentinck, who, during seven years, ruled India with *' eminent prudence, integrity, and benevolence ; who, " placed at the head of a great empire, never laid aside the *' simplicity and moderation of a private citizen ; who " infused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British free- " dom ; who never forgot that the end of government is " the welfare of the governed ; who abolished cruel rites ; " who effaced humiliating distinctions ; who allowed liberty " to the expression of public opinion; whose constant study " it was to elevate the moral and intellectual character of " the Government committed to his charge. This monu- " ment was erected by men who, differing from each other *' in race, in manners, in language, and in religion, cherish " with equal veneration and gratitude the memory of his " wise, upright, and paternal administration." On his return to England, Lord William Bentinck was elected member for Glasgow, the only retired Governor- General who ever sat in the House of Commons ; and, with the ex- ception of Warren Hastings, he was also the only Governor- General on whom no title of distinction was bestowed by the Crown. The period for which the commercial and political privi- leges of the Company had been granted expired in 1833, The charter ^nd it fell to Mr. Charles Grant, the President o/ of 1888. the Board of Control, to introduce the question of the new charter to the notice of the House. The two Sect. III.] THE CHARTER OF 1833 381 salient points which demanded its attention were those a.d. which referred to the continuance of the monopoly of the 1833 trade to China and to the government of India. It was found impossible to resist the demands of the merchants and manufacturers for a participation in the commerce of China, and it was thrown open to the country, and the commercial character of the Company ceased altogether, after it had continued for 234 years. The government of India was left in their hands for a further period of twenty years. Several minor, but not unimportant, arrangements were also made in reference to the policy of the Govern- ment in India. A fourth Presidency was created to embrace the North-West provinces. The power of legislation was now, for the first time, conferred on the Government, to embrace the whole empire, including all persons — British, foreign, or native — all places, and all things, as well as all courts, whether created by local authority or established by royal charter, but with certain necessary reservations touching the royal prerogative and the privileges of Par- liament. A fourth member was also added to the Supreme Council who was to be an English jurist of reputation ; and the office was dignified by the genius of Mr. Macaulay. It was moreover enacted that no native of India, nor any native-born subject of his Majesty, should be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment, by reason of his religion, place of birth, descent, or colour. Another clause, which sanctioned the purchase of land by Europeans and their free settlement in India, was opposed to the deep-seated sentiments of the India House, and was not carried without considerable opposition. In communicating the arrangements of the charter to the Governments in India, the Court of Directors expressed their determination to strain every nerve "to Effect of the '* accomplish the just and benevolent intentions ciiarter. *' of their country in delegating to them the legislative as " well as the executive administration of the weightiest, " the most important, and the most interesting of its " transmarine possessions." They invited the full and cordial co-operation of their officers abroad in the discharge of these heavy responsibilities. Released from the manage- ment of a large mercantile concern, and the disturbing influences inseparably connected with it, they were enabled to devote their energies exclusively to their great poHtical trust. Their minds acquired a higher tone, and it may be affirmed without the risk of controversy, that, with the 382 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XI. exception of an occasional ebullition of traditional prejudice — the old cobwebs of the India House — the principles and measures which they inculcated on their servants in India during the remaining, twenty-five years of their rule were m.arked by a character of wisdom, moderation, and bene- ficence, of which no other example can be found in the history of conquered dependencies. On the arrival of Lord WilHam Bentinck's resignation, the Court of Directors ofiered the post to Mr. Mount- Gover- ^tuart Elphinstone, but the state of his health A.D. nor-Generai- obliged him to decHne it. They then proceeded 1 835 swp in dis- ^Q p^gg ^ resolution that, " adverting to the public " character and services of Sir Charles Metcalfe " — who succeeded temporarily to the office as the senior member of Council — " it would be inexpedient at present " to make any other arrangement for supplying the place " of Grovemor- General." But the ministry refused to con- firm their choice, and took their stand upon the dictum of Mr. Canning, when President of the Board of Control, that "the case could hardly be conceived in which it would " be expedient that the highest office in the Government " of India should be filled otherwise than from England, " and that this main link between the system of the Indian *' and the British Government ought, for the advantage " of both, to be invariably maintained." The Court of Directors remonstrated with great warmth against the adoption of a principle which involved the wholesale ex- clusion of their servants from the highest prize in their service. Soon after, the Whigs gave place to a Tory cabinet, and Lord EUenborough, the new President of the Board of Control, ofiered the post a second time to Mr. Elphinstone, who he knew must decline it, and then nominated Lord Heytesbury, a diplomatist of European reputation, to the office. No sooner, however, had he been sworn in at the India House, and received the accustomed allowance for his outfit, and the usual valedictory banquet at the London Tavern, than the Whigs returned to power and immediately cancelled the appointment. The Tory Government which succeeded to power in 1807, had re- frained from interfering with the appointment of Lord Minto by their Whig predecessors, though he had not left the shores of England ; but the Whig Government of 1837 had not the grace to follow the example. The Court of Directors earnestly protested against a proceeding which made the vital interests of the British empire in India Sect. III.] THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS 383 subservient to the claims of political partisansliip in Eng- land ; but Lord Auckland, tbe Whig First Lord of the Admiralty, was nevertheless sent out to Calcutta. The Charter Act created a fourth Presidency at Agra, and the eminent services of Sir Charles Metcalfe were re- warded by the grant of the first appointment, and sir chariea by the still more dignified position of provisional ^^tcaife. Governor- General. He had not, however, been long at Agra before he was obliged to return to Calcutta, and assume the government on the departure of Lord William Bentinck. He occupied the office for a twelvemonth, and distinguished his administration by the legal establishment of the liberty of the press. The truculent law passed by Mr. Adam in 1823, which still continued on the statute- book, had been enforced on one or two occasions to the ruin of the printers, but the odium of these arbitrary pro- ceedings was found to damage the character of Government During the latter period of Lord Amherst's govern- ment the press was practically free. Lord William Bentinck avowed his invincible aversion to any political restrictions, and, moreover, had a profound contempt for the animadversions of the press ; but the freedom it thus enjoyed was only by sufferance. Sir Charles Metcalfe felt that it was no longer possible to stop there. Parliament ^gsg had recently granted Europeans liberty to purchase land and to make settlements in India, and Government lost the power of deporting those who rendered themselves obnoxious by their pens ; Europeans, moreover, expected to enjoy the privilege they possessed in other British possessions of giving expression to their opinions. Sir Charles Metcalfe had always been a warm advocate of the freedom of the press, and, availing himself of the legislative power recently conferred on the Government, he lost no time in passing an Act repealing all the regulations by which it had been gagged, and making it legally free. The Act was received with feelings of enthusiasm by the European community in India, and by the native gentry most distinguished in society, and a subscription was raised to commemorate the event by erecting a noble hall which bears his name. In the meantime an important change was made in the position of the Agra Presidency, which had been conferred on Sir Charles. In deference to the earnest j^p^yg^-io^ wishes of the Court of Directors, it was reduced of the to the subordinate position of a lieutenant- ^J^^' governorship. Sir Charles naturally felt a re- A.D. 384 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XL pugnance to descend to the inferior state of a lieutenant of the Governor- General after having himself occupied that supreme post, and he determined to retire from the service; but the chairman of the Court of Directors appealed to his patriotic feelings to retain the office on its reduced scale, and still to give the Company the benefit of his highly valued services. He was decorated with the grand cross of the Bath, and a third time nominated provisional Governor- General. He yielded to these solicitations, and to the importunities of Lord Auckland, and proceeded to Agra , but was not destined to remain there long. Soon after his arrival he heard that the press law had exas- perated the India House, and created a complete revul- sion of feeling regarding him and his claims. The Court of Directors regarded the freedom of the press with the same antipathy they had formerly felt to freedom of trade, and they took an early opportunity of manifesting their displeasure. The Government of Madras fell vacant, and Sir Charles naturally expected that, after the sacrifice he had made, it would have been conferred on him ; but the Court of Directors would not condescend so much as to include his name among the candidates. There was a unanimous acknowledgment at the India House of his pre- eminent qualifications for it, but it was candidly avowed that his late proceeding regarding the press had cancelled every claim on their consideration. To Mr. Melville, the secretary at the India House, he wrote that reports were in circulation of his having incurred the displeasure of the Court of Directors and lost the governorship of Madras in consequence of the press law. If that misfortune had befallen him, it was his earnest entreaty that they would intimate their pleasure that he might retire from their service. After keeping the letter for four months, the Court sent a curt and discourteous reply, on the receipt of )837' which he immediately sent in his resignation, and his con- nection with the East India Company was brought to a termination by treatment similar to that which had been inflicted on some of the greatest of his predecessors. But the services which the Company thought fit to discard were fully appreciated by the ministry, and he was succes- sively entrusted with the government of two of the most important colonies of the Crown. A.D. Skct. I.] LORD AUCKLAND'S ADMINISTRATION 385 CHAPTEE XII. SECTION L LORD AUCKLAND — COMMENCEMENT OF THE AFGHAN WAR. Lord Auckland was sworn in as Go vernor- General on the ^•^• 20th March. At the valedictory entertainment given him ^^ by the Court of Directors he assured them that 3^0^.^^^,]^. " he looked with exultation at the opportunity land " now afforded him of doing good to his ^Z^^^' " fellow- creatures, of promoting education, and " extending the blessings of good government to the " millions in India." Seldom have expectations been so signally disappointed ; his melancholy administration is comprised in one disastrous transaction, the Afghan war, the origin of which may be dated in July, 1837, and the catastrophe in which it closed occurred in January, 1841. To form a correct idea of this momentous transaction, it is necessary to trace the convergence of events in Afghanistan and the Punjab, in Persia and Russia, to the period when this ill-starred expedition was undertaken. Shah Soojah, the exiled monarch of Cabul and the British pensioner at Loodiana, made a second effort to re- cover his throne in 1833. He crossed the Indus shah without the least opposition, and in January de- Soojah. ^gg^ feated the Ameers of Sinde at Shikarpore, and constrained them to make him an immediate payment of five lacs of rupees. On his advance to Candahar he was met by Dost Mahomed and completely routed, when he retraced his steps to his old retreat and pension at Loodiana. While the troops of the Dost were engaged in repelling him, Runjeet Sing made an irruption across the Indus and took possession of the province of Peshawur. At this juncture a wild and predatory tribe on the right bank of the river made repeated inroads into the Hazara district which Runjeet j^^^-ggt Sing had also subjugated ; and as they were traced, sing's whether with or without reason, to the instiga- g^^ °° tion of the Ameers of Sinde, the Punjab army took possession of two of their forts, and both parties stood 00 386 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. XII ready for a conflict which would doubtless have ended in the discomfiture of the Ameers and the extension of Runjeet Sing's authority throughout the course of the Indus down to the sea, which it was the determination of the Govern- ment of India to prevent. It; was with difficulty Colonel Pottinger restrained the rulers of Sinde from rushing into war ; and Captain Wade, our representative with Runjeet Sing, was obliged to allude forcibly to the risk he must incur if he pursued designs which were opposed by the British Government. On the other hand his gallant and ambitious officers importuned him to resist at all hazards the restric- tions thus imperiously placed on the extension of his terri- tories ; but he shook his venerable beard, and asked where were now the 200,000 Mahratta swords which had once bade defiance to the Company. He bowed to the majesty of British power, and at once relinquished the expedition to Sinde. A.D. The loss of Peshawur rankled in the bosom of Dost 1835 Mahomed, and he assumed the character of a ghazee, or champion of the faith, and proclaimed a religious homed at war against the infidel Sikhs. The Mahomedan Peshawnr. -^orld in Central Asia was immediately in com- motion, and from the regions of the Hindoo Coosh, from the wilds of Turkestan, and the farthest recesses of the mountains thousands poured down to join the standard of the Prophet. The spirit of Runjeet Sing appeared to quail before this host of infuriated fanatics; and, while he advanced with his army to the defence of Peshawur, he sent one • Harland, an American adventurer, ostensibly on a mission to Dost Mahomed, but in reality to sow dissensions in the Afghan camp ; and so successful was he in planting a feel- ing of jealousy of the growing power of the Dost among his brothers, that one of them abru])tly withdrew with 10,000 men. The encampment was thrown into a state of inextricable confusion and dismay. " At break of day," as Harland reported, " not a vestige of the Afghan camp wa? " to be seen, where, six hours before, 50,000 men and " 10,000 horse were rife with the tumult of wild emotion." Dost Mahomed retired ^^^th deep chagrin to Cabul. 1R36 On hearing of Lord Auckland's arrival in Calcutta, the Dost sent him a complimentary letter, and, in allusion to his unhappy relations with Runjeet Sing, asked of the him " to communicate whatever might suggest Dost. :i jtself to his mind for the settlement of the " affairs of the country." Lord Auckland retunied a Sect. I.J PROGKESS OF RUSSIA IN THE EAST 387 friendly reply, and stated his intention to send a gentleman to Cabul shortly " to discuss questions of commerce ;" but, with regard to the Sikh quarrel, said, " My friend, you are " aware that it is not the practice of the British Government " to interfere with the affairs of other independent states." Despairing of any assistance from the British Government ^ j, the Dost, at the beginning of 1837, applied to the king of igsi Persia, as to the "King of Islam," to relieve him from the " misery caused by the detestable tribe of Sikhs." Im- patient to wipe out the disgrace he had sustained, he sent his son Akbar Khan with a large army into the province of Peshawur, and the Sikhs were completely defeated. Rein- forcements were pushed forward from the Punjab with a degree of promptitude and speed which has seldom been ex- ceeded, and the Afghans were in their turn obliged to with- draw to Cabul. It was at this critical juncture that Captain Burnes, Lord Auckland's envoy, made his appearance to discourse of trade and manufactures. The Russians, Hke the Romans, have systematically devoted their energies to the extension of their power and dominion, and for more than a century have pro- ^ . secuted schemes of aggrandisement in Europe and Russia in Asia without intermission or failure. After hav- ^^^ ^^®*" ing succeeded in bringing the Khirgis Cossacks to sub- ordination, they took up their position on the Jaxartes in 1830, and gradually advanced eastward with a steady pace, fixing their grasp on Central Asia more firmly at every step. On that river they erected a chain of forts extending from its estuary in lake Ural to fort Vemoe, 700 miles eastward. Meanwhile the ambitious diplomatists of Russia had been pushing her influence in Persia, and through Persia up to Afghanistan. On the death of the king Futteh Ali, who had always been favourable to an English alliance, he was succeeded by his grandson Mahomed Shah, who threw himself into the arms of Russia. Since the first mission of Captain Malcolm, the British Govern- ment had expended more than a crore of rupees in em- bassies and subsidies to Persia in order to acquire a pre- dominant influence at the court, which might serve as a bulwark to the empire of India. The ministry had now the mortification of finding this labour and expenditure thrown away, and the British influence at Teheran completely superseded by that of Russia. The monarchs of Persia had long coveted the possession of Herat, the key of Western Afghanistan, and Mahomed c c 2 388 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII Shah had resolved on a second expedition to it. The ruler. Negotiations Shah Kamran, had made repeated inroads into at Herat. ^j^^ Persian territory, and, according to official A.D. report, had kidnapped 12,000 of the subjects of Persia and 1837 sold thera into slavery. Mr. M'Neill, the British minister at the court of Teheran, asserted that the expedition to Herat v^as fully justified by the atrocities of its ruler, but that, in the present state of the relations of Russia with Persia, the entry of a Persian army into Afghanistan would be tantamount to the advance of Russian influence to the threshold of India, which would not fail to disturb the tranquillity of the empire. He used every argument to dissuade the Shah from the expedition, while on the other hand the Russian minister at the court encouraged him to persevere, and offered him every kind of assistance. The ministry in London presented a remonstrance on the subject at St. Petersburg, and the emperor replied that Count Simonich, his envoy, had exceeded his instructions ; but he was not recalled, and his proceedings were so com- pletely in accordance with the national feeling that the *' Moscow Gazette " threatened that the next treaty with England should be dictated in Calcutta. The Shah set out for Herat in the month of July with 50,000 troops and fifty pieces of cannon, exulting in the ^^^^ The Herat prospect of Overthrowing the Sikhs and following expedition, ^he course of Nadir Shah to Delhi. The expedition was considered as betokening the triumph of Russian over British influence in Persia, and created a profound sensa- tion not only throughout Central Asia, but also in India, where the native princes began to speculate on the humili- ation of the Company. The Mahomedans looked for the advent of a countless host of the faithful, backed by 200,000 " Russ." Exaggerated reports of great move- ments in Central Asia, the cradle of Indian revolutions for eight centuries, were spread far and wide, and in the re- mote Deccan people began to bury their money and jewels in the ground. During this commotion Lord Auckland left Calcutta and proceeded to Simla. The north-west provinces were at Lord Auck- ^^® time visited with a desolating famine, which land's move- was Calculated to have swept away 500,000 of ^'^^ ^' its inhabitants, and Lord Auckland, whose camp of 20,000 men served to aggravate the calamity, was en- treated to retrace his steps to Calcutta. If he had lis- tened to this advice and returned to the seat of Govern- Sbct. I.] CAPTAIN BUENES AT CABUL 389 menfc, and had tliiis been brouglifc under the wliolesome influence of the members of Council, the Company would have been spared the horrors of the Afghan war, but he resolved to continue his progress. At Simla his cabinet council consisted of Mr. Macnaghten, the foreign secretary, Mr. Colvin, his private secretary, and Mr. Torrens, a young civilian of great parts and great impetuosity ; but they were all mc^n of much greater strength of character and resolution than Lord Auckland, and the war is to be attri- buted to their influence. The home Government, seeing in every direction the indication of a restless and aggressive spirit on the part of Russia and her agents directed against the security of the British empire in India, had instructed the Government to adopt vigorous measures for its protec- tion ; and Mr. M'Neill, the minister in Persia, strongly ad- vised Lord Auckland to raise up a barrier in Afghanistan by subsidising and strengthening Dost Mahomed. It was at this period of fermentation that Captain a.d. Burnes appeared at Cabul. In the East, the importance of l^^' a mission is measured by the value of the presents ; captain and the magnificence of the gifts of Mr. Mount- ^"™?^ ** Stuart Elphinstone in 1808 was not forgotten. When, therefore, Captain Burnes opened his treasury, con- sisting of a pistol and telescope for the Dost, and some pins and needles for the zenana, he and his embassy sunk at once into contempt. He found the influence of Persia para- mount in Afghanistan. The Dost's brothers, the rulers of Candahar, were negotiating an alliance ofiensive and defen- sive with the Shah, and an envoy had arrived at their court to complete the treaty, together with an ambassador with robes and presents for the Dost. The passionate de- sire of his heart was the recovery of Peshawur, and he assured Captain Burnes that if he were permitted to hope for any assistance from the British Government, he would break ofi" all intercourse with Persia, and send back the plenipotentiary from Candahar. But Lord Auckland had a morbid dread of giving ofience to Runjeet Sing, and re- fused to listen to any proposal regarding Peshawur. Yet the Sikh ruler had offered to restore it to Dost Mahomed if he would pay tribute for it ; and the Dost was prepared to hold it as a fief, sending the customary presents to Lahore ; and there can be no doubt that if the cabinet Council at Simla had boldly met the question, and entrusted the settlement of it to Captain Burnes at Cabul, and to Cap- tain Wade at Lahore, it would have been brought to an 390 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. early and satisfactory issue, and the Dost would have been secured as an ally ; but from first to last a spirit of infa- tuation pervaded the Afghan policy of the Government. Captain Bumes had threatened the Candahar chiefs with the severe displeasure of the British Government if they persisted in cultivating the Persian alliance, and they dis- missed the envoy without the usual ceremonies, on the assur- ance of Captain Burnes that he would protect them from the displeasure of the Persians, and, if necessary, subsidise their troops. Lord Auckland severely reprimanded him for having exceeded his instructions, and directed him to inform the rulers that he had held out expectations which his Government declined to sanction; and they lost no. time in completing the treaty with Persia, which was rati- fied by the Russian minister at Teheran, who engaged to defend Candahar from every attack. The proposal of Captain Burnes was, however, highly approved of by the ministry in London. After the receipt of Lord Auckland's unfavourable reply in 1836, Dost Mahomed despatched an envoy to solicit the The Russian emperor of Russia to protect him from the Sikhs, envoy. Captain Yiktevitch was thereupon sent to Cabul with rich presents, and an autograph from the emperor, the authenticity of which has been questioned, but never A D. disproved. He arrived in Cabul on the 19th December, 1837 and the Dost immediately visited Captain Bumes, and as- sured him that he desired no connection except with the English Government, and was ready to dismiss the Russian envoy summarily if any hopes were held out to him from Simla. Captain Burnes, on the one hand, dissuaded him from so imprudent a step, and, on the other, urged on Lord Auckland the importance of immediate and decided action in this neck-to-neck struggle between Russia and England at Cabul ; but Lord Auckland replied that he must waive all hope of Peshawur, and be content with whatever arrangement Runjeet Sing might think fit to make. The Dost then stated that he should consider him- self safe if the province were placed jointly in his hands and those of his brother, who governed it on behalf of Runjeet Sing ; and Captain Burnes again importuned Lord Auckland to give a favourable hearing to his representations, assuring him that the Afghan ruler was so anxious to culti- vate the friendship of England that the Russian envoy had not been acknowledged up to that time. This hope, how- ever, was finally quenched by the letter which the cabinofc Sbct. II.] EXPEDITION TO AFGHANISTAN 391 of secretaries at Simla persuaded the Governor- General to address to Dost Mahomed. It was not only supercilious, but arrogant ; every sentence in it was calculated to kindle a flame of indignation in the breast of the Afghan nobility, and Captain Burnes's mission became hopeless. In the last resort, the Dost addressed a conciliatory letter to the Governor- General, imploring him, in language border- ing on humihty, to remedy the grievances of the Retirement Afghans, and give them a little encouragement ; of Captain but he turned a deaf ear to every overture, and "^"^^* continued to require that he should reject the alluring offers made by Russia and Persia, while he himself offered nothing in return but good offices to prevent the farther encroachment of the Sikhs. It could scarcely have been unknown at Simla that Runjeet Sing had no more idea of marching to Cabul than to Pekin, and that the mere mention of the Kliyber pass, as General Avitabile ^.d. affirmed, gave the Sikh soldiers the colic. When the last 1838 ray of hope vanished, the Russian envoy was conducted with great parade through the streets, and received at the durbar with much distinction. Captain Burnes returned to Simla, and found a strong feeling of animosity against the Dost in Lord Auckland's advisers, who were irritated to perceive that, instead of meekly submitting to their dicta- tion, he was sitting at the gate of India hesitating whether to accept their terms or the offers of their opponents, and it was resolved to march across the Indus and depose him, and to reinstate Shah Soojah on the throne. It was at first contemplated that an expedition should be organised to conduct him to Cabul, and that the British Government should contribute all the necessary funds, as well as a body of officers to discipline and command his troops, and a representative to accompany him. But it was soon appa- rent that, unless the Government of India engaged in the war as principals, it must end in a deplorable failure. It was accordingly determined to send a large British army into the unexplored regions of Central Asia, where all con- voys of provisions, stores, and ammunition must traverse the states of doubtful allies, and thread long and dangerous mountain defiles, beset with wild and plundering tribes, to oblige the Persians to raise the siege of Herat, to drive Dost Mahomed from Afghanistan, and to place Shah Soojah in his seat. A tripartite treaty was negotiated and concluded by Mr. Macnaghten between the Government of India, Shah Soojah, and Runjeet Sing, who engaged to 392 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII contribute the aid of a body of troops on condition that the Shah should confirm his right to the possessions he had acquired beyond the Indus, and divide with him whatever sums he might be able to extort from the Ameers of Sinde. The expedition was undertaken chiefly under the advice of Mr. Colvin, though Sir John Hobhouse, the President of the Board of Control, subsequently claimed to share the responsibility of it, inasmuch as his letter, authorising it on the part of the ministry, crossed the letter from Simla an- nouncing that it had been commanded. With the exception of the ministerial circle in Downing Street and the secre- taries at Simla this preposterous enterprise was universally condemned. Mr. Elphinstone stated that " if 27,000 men " could be sent through the Bolan Pass to Candahar, and " we could feed them, we might take Cabul and set up " Shah Soojah ; but it was hopeless to maintain him in a " poor, cold, strong, and remote country, among a turbulent " people like the Afghans." Lord William Bentinck con- sidered the project an act of incredible folly. Lord Welles- ley regarded " this wild expedition, 800 miles from our *' frontier and our resources, into one of the most difficult " countries of the world, a land of rocks and deserts, of " sands, and ice, and snow, as an act of infatuation." The Duke, with prophetic sagacity, affirmed that " the conse- "quence of once crossing the Indus to settle a Govern- " ment in Afghanistan would be a perennial march into the " country." An attempt was made to justify the expedition ^ jj in a manifesto dated at Simla the 1st October, one 1838 of the most remarkable documents in the Company's archives, unique for its unscrupulous misstatements and its audacious assertions. A single instance will suffice to stamp its character : it affirmed that the orders for assem- bling the army were issued in concurrence with the Supreme Council, whereas the Council, when required to place the proclamation on record, remonstrated on the consum- mation of a policy of such grave importance without their having had any opportunity of expressing their opinion on it. The immediate object was said to be to succour the besieged garrison of Herat, and to that memorable siege we now turn. The province of Herat, the acquisition of which had for many years been the one object of desire to the sovereigns The siege of of Persia, is the only route through which a large Herat. and well equipped army can advance from the north-west towards India, and is considered the gate of Sect. I.] SIEGE OF HERAT 393 Afghanistan on the west, as Cabul is on the east. All the materials for the equipment and maintenance of an army are to be found in great abundance, and the fertility of the soil has given it the title of the granary of Central Asia. The king, Kamran, was one of the worst specimens of an Oriental despot and voluptuary, and his minister, Yar Mahomed, though not devoid of courage and abilities, was justly described as " the greatest scoundrel in Afghanis- "tan." The king of Persia sat down before it on the 23rd November; the fortifications were crumbling away, 13*37' and the town might have been carried by a vigorous assault on the first day. Its successful defence was owing to the exertions of one man. A few days before the com- mencement of the siege, a young officer of the Bombay Artillery, Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger, who had been sent to make researches in Central Asia, entered the town in the garb of a syud, or descendant of Mahomed, and resolved to remain and take part in the approaching struggle. His services were readily accepted by the king and the vizier, and the natural ascendancy of genius speedily gave him the chief direction of operations. The garrison was ani- mated with a spirit of great resolution, and under his inspiration baffled all the assaults of the Persians for five months, though assisted by a regiment of Russians, who were styled deserters to save appearances. Mr. M'Neill, the English minister at Teheran, joined the Persian camp on the 6th April, and, finding both parties inclined to accept 1838 his mediation, proceeded into the city to negotiate with Shah Kamran, and there was every prospect of an early accommodation ; but, during his absence, the Russian minister who followed him from the capital in all haste had reached the Shah's encampment, and urged the continu- ance of the siege, and advanced funds for the support of the army. The aspect of affairs was immediately changed ; the Shah gave a cold reception to the British minister on his return from the city, rejected the amicable arrange- ment he had made, and announced his resolution to renew the siege ; and Mr. M'JSTeill retired to the Turkish frontier. The 24th June was fixed for a general assault. The works were attacked under the personal direction of Count Simonich, the Russian minister, and his engineer The siege officers at five points ; the assailants were re- raised, pulsed from four of them, but at the fifth a practical breach was made jn the defences, and the courage of the Heratees began to fail. Tar Mahomed withdrew from the carnage ; 394 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. A.D. but Pottinger dragged him back to the breach, and urged 1838 Qj^ ^}jg defence with such irresistible energy that the Persians, when on the point of gaining the city, recoiled and fled, leaving 1,700 in killed and wounded. The siege was then turned into a blockade, and the inhabitants suffered the extremity of want. Meanwhile, two steamers were sent by the Government of India to occupy the island of Karrack, and they were magnified by rumour into a portentous squadron. Mr. M'Neill took advantage of the consternation created by this movement to send Colonel Stoddart to the Persian camp to assure the king that, if he did not relinquish his design, he would bring on himself the hostility of the British Government who had already sent an armament into the Persian Gulf. The king wanted only a decent pretext to raise the siege, which had cost him dear, and replied that to secure its friendship he was prepared to abandon it. He broke up his encamp- ment on the 9th September, and retired with the loss of half his army and much treasure, and with the disgrace of having failed in an expedition which had been the talk of Central Asia for nine months. This memorable de- fence of Herat against 40,000 Persians aided by European engineers, stands side by side with the siege of Arcot, aud reflects no little renown on the Anglo-Saxon youth by whose genius it was achieved, though he had never seen service, and possessed no knowledge of the art of war except what he had derived from books. The grand projects of Persia and Russia which had for two years agitated the public mind from the Caspian Sea to Cape Comorin were now quenched. The In the dangers which menaced the British possessions expedition, jj^ India wore at once dispelled. Russia was nowhere in Central Asia, and it was expected that the expedition to Cabul would be relinquished; but the in- fatuated Government at Simla determined to persevere. 1838 On the 9 th November it was announced that, while the raising of the siege of Herat was a just cause for congra- tulation, the Government would still continue to prose- cute the expedition with vigour. Of the reasons assigned, one was that the treaty with Bunjeet Sing and with Shah Soojah bound us in honour to proceed with it ; but, in the convention with the ruler of the Punjab there was no allusion to the march of a British army across the Indus, and the exiled monarch was particularly anxious to avoid the unpopularity of being carried to Rbct. n.] THE ARMY OF THE INDUS 396 Cabul on the shoulders of infidels. AH he wanted was the Company's gold to enable him to secure the swords of the mercenary Afghans. SECTION II. LORD AUCKLAND S ADMINISTRATION- -THE AFGHAN WAR SUE- RENDER OF THE DOST. The army of the Indus, as it was designated, was assem- ^•^• bled in November at Ferozepore, where there was a grand meeting between the Governor- General and the Meeting of lion of the Punjab, then tottering on the brink S'^^^^^ of the grave, but still exhibiting in his coun- the Gover- t«nance the calmness of design, while his single nor-Gencrai, eye was still lighted up with the fire of enterprise. There were showy pageants, and gay doings, and the manoeuvres of mimic warfare. As the army was no longer destined for Herat, its strength was reduced ; and the Commander- in-Chief, who had consented to assume the command when it was to march into Central Asia, declined to head a diminished force simply to place Shah Soojah in the seat of a better man. The Bengal column started from Ferozepore on the 10th December 9,500 strong, with 30,000 camels and 38,000 camp followers. The force raised for Shah Soojah, and called his army, though commanded by Company's officers and paid from the Company's treasury, consisted of 6,000 men. The Bombay troops under Sir John Keane numbered 5,600, and the whole force amounted to 21,000. The political charge of the expedition was entrusted to Mr. Macnaghten, and he was styled the envoy. The direct route to Cabul lay through the Punjab ; but Rimjeet Sing, whom Lord Auckland styled our " ancient and faithful ally," declined to grant a passage through his dominions to a body of more than 50,000 men, and it became necessary to take a circuitous route of 1,000 miles down the Indus, and then across it up to Candahar and Cabul. This devious course had an eye also to the determination which had been formed to lay the Ameers of Sinde under contribution. The province had formerly been coercion of a dependency of Cabul, and had paid tribute theAmeen w^henever the Afghan sovereign was able to °^^^^^ 396 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Cuap. XII ^.D. enforce it. No revenue, however, had been paid for more 1839 than forty years, and the Ameers were to all intents and purposes independent ; but they were now required to give twenty-five lacs of arrears to a sovereign who had been an exile for thirty years. Colonel Pottinger, the Resident, presented the demand, but was confounded by the produc- tion of two releases in full from all further claims of every description which Shah Soojah had written in two Korans and signed and sealed five years before, when he exacted three lacs of rupees of them ; Lord Auckland, however, said that he did not consider it incumbent on him to enter into any investigation of this plea, and Mr. Macnaghten affirmed that, rather than allow the grand enterprise they were engaged in to be impeded by the opposition of the Ameers, it would be better to let 20,000 Punjab troops loose on their capital. It was likewise resolved to impose a sub- sidiary treaty on them for which they were required to pay three lacs a year ; and, as they demurred to these demands, Mr. Macnaghten directed Colonel Pottinger to inform them that " neither the ready power to crush and " annihilate them nor the will to call it into action were "wanting, if it appeared necessary." Sir John Keane marched up with the Bombay army to the vicinity of Hyderabad, and the Bengal column was sent down to co-operate with him. Awed by these demonstrations, the Ameers submitted to necessity, signed the treaty, and sent in the first instalment. The sepoys, notwithstanding their religious prejudices, crossed the Indus without hesitation, and planted the flag Advance of of England on its right bank ; but the disas- thearmy. ters of the army commenced as soon as it was across. The Bengal column pushed on in advance through the arid desert, 140 miles in length, of Cutch Gun- dava, which furnished little water and not a blade of grass. The camels died by hundreds, and the mortality among the draft cattle, on which the subsistence of the army depended, was portentous. After traversing thi? sterile waste the troops were six days getting through thfe terrific defiles of the Bolan Pass, where a small band might have brought the expedition to a deadlock. The flint stones lamed the camels; fatigue and the want of pasture disabled the artillery horses ; the mountain paths were strewed with tents, equipages, and stores ; and the rivulet which flowed at the bottom of the ravines was tainted with the carcases of animals. Emerging from this Sect. II.] CAPTURE OF GHUZNI 397 pass the army entered the beautiful valley of Shawl ; but the provisions found there were scanty, and starvation stared the army in the face. On the 6th April the Bombay a.d. column and Shah Soojah's army joined the Bengal force at 1839 Qwetta, and Sir John Keane assumed the chief command. The troops were half mutinous for want of food, the loaf of the European soldier was diminished in weight, the native troops were reduced to a pound of flour and the camp followers to half that quantity, and the army was obliged to push on to Candahar. In the intervening space lay the Khojuk pass, scarcely less formidable than the Bolan, though of more limited extent. The batteries and field-pieces were dragged up and lowered down its tre- mendous precipices by the European soldiers, pressed by hunger, parched with thirst, and consumed by incessant fatigue. As Shah Soojah approached Candahar, the Barukzie chiefs, the brothers of the Dost, betrayed by their own officers who had been corrupted, fled to the west, and he entered the city on the 25th April. The army, stiU on reduced rations, was obliged to remain inactive at Candahar for ten weeks to await the ripening of the crops. At a distance of 230 miles from the Capture of city and 90 from Cabul lay the renowned fortress G^^^^zni. of Ghuzni, from which Mahmood had marched eight centuries before to plant the standard of the crescent on the plains of India. Dost Mahomed's son, Hyder Khan, had been sent to strengthen the garrison and the fortifi- cations and to provision the fort for six months. The parapet which rose sixty or seventy feet perpendicular above the plain, combined with the wet ditch, presented an insurmountable obstacle to any attack by mining or escalade. Sir John Keane had imprudently left his siege guns behind at Candahar, and the collapse of the expedition appeared inevitable. Happily, one of the gates had not been built up, and Captain Thomson, the chief engineer, convinced the Commander-in-Chief that the only mode of attack which presented any chance of success was that of blowing up the gate and forcing his way into the fortress. Under his direction, therefore, 900 lbs. of powder were packed up in bags and conveyed on a tempestuous night to the spot. The powder exploded ; the barricade was shivered, and great masses of masonry and wood came toppling down. Colonel Dennie and the 13th Light Infantry rushed in with the storming party, and, after a fearfal struggle over the debris^ 398 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII the English ensign was floating at daybreak over the proud citadel of Ghuzni. The fall of Ghuzni, which left the road to Cabul open, bewildered Dost Mahomed, and he called his officers Arrival at together, and with the Koran in his hand Cabul. implored them to make one bold stand like brave men and true believers. "You have eaten my salt," he said, "for thirteen years; grant me one request. " Stand by the brother of Futteh Khan while he makes " one last charge on these infidel dogs ; he will fall; then " make your own terms with Shah Soojah." But there was neither spirit nor fidelity in them ; and the Dost, seeing the struggle hopeless, parked his guns at Urgundeh and turned with a few followers to the region of the Hindoo Coosh, Captain Outram and nine other officers, animated by the ardent spirit of adventure, started in pursuit of him with a body of cavalry, and gave him no rest for six days and nights ; but they were impeded at every step by the treacherous chief Hajee Khan, who accompanied them with several hundred Afghan horse, and on reaching Bameean they found that the Dost had passed beyond the limits of A.D, Afghanistan. On the 7th August Shah Soojah, resplendent 1839 with jewels, was conducted with martial pomp through the city of Cabul to the Bala Hissar, the palace in the citadel ; but there was no enthusiasm. The inhabitants came to their thresholds to gaze not so much at the Shah as at the infidel soldiers parading their streets, on whom they poured a shower of maledictions. Three weeks later the Shah was joined by his son Timur, who had advanced on the direct route through the Punjab and Peshawur, with 4,000 raw recruits, paid by the Company, and under the direction of Colonel Wade. This expedition was accom- panied by a contingent of 6,000 of Runjeet Sing's soldiers, to whom any movement into Afghanistan was odious, and they were repeatedly engaged in flagrant mutiny. As the force entered the Khyber, the Afreedies prepared, as usual, to oppose its progress; but Colonel Wade crowned the heights and turned their flanks, and by this masterly movement these terrible defiles were opened, probably for the first time, by steel instead of gold. The object of the expedition — that of substituting a friendly for a hostile power in Afghanistan — was now ac- complished, and the period had arrived when, ac- of the cording to the Simla manifesto, the British troop? army. were to be withdrawn. Within a fortnight after Sbct. n.] DEATH OF RUNJEET SING 399 the entrance of Shah Soojah, however, Lord An ckl and placed on record that " to leave him without the support of a " British army would be followed by his expulsion, which " would reflect disgrace on Government and become a " source of danger." It was determined, therefore, to leave a force of 10,000 men to maintain him on his throne ; and, as the Duke had predicted, our difiiculties began as soon as our military success was complete. General Will- shire, who commanded the Bombay army, was instructed on his return to inflict a severe chastisement on Mehrab ^..d. Khan, the ruler of Belochistan, for having withheld supplies 1839 as the army advanced through his country; but as our troops had wantonly desolated the country in their march, and he had none to give, the proceeding was unjust and vin- dictive. The Belochees fought valiantly for their country and their chief; but the capital, Khelat, was stormed, and the Khan fell valiantly in its defence with eight of his prin- cipal officers. The expedition was as fertile in honours as it was bari^en in military achievements. It was a ministerial measure, condemned by the general voice of society in England and in India, and it was deemed politic to give as much eclat as possible to the first success. Lord Auckland was created an earl ; Sir John Keane, who had done less than nothing, a baron with an annuity of 2,000Z. Mr. Macnaghten, Colonel Pottinger, and General Willshire received baronetcies, and Colonel Wade a knighthood ; but Captain Thomson, who had saved the expedition from an ignominious and fatal failure by blowing up the gate of Ghuzni, obtained nothing but a brevet majority and the lowest order of the Bath ; and he abandoned the service. Runjeet Sing died as the expedition was leaving Canda- har, on the 27th June, at the age of fifty-seven, the victim 1839 of excesses in which he had long been accus- Death of tomed to indulge. He possessed the same ere- Runjeet ative genius as Sevajee and Hyder AH. The ^"^' edifice of Sikh greatness was exclusively his work, and he would doubtless have established a great empire in Hindo- stan if he had not been hemmed in by the Company's power. He succeeded to the leadership of a single tribe in the Punjab, Avhen it was distracted with the contests of a dozen chieftains, and to the command of a body of matchlock horsemen. He bequeathed to his successor a great kingdom enriched with the spoils of its neighbours, together with an army 80,000 strong, with 300 pieces of 400 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. cannon, superior in discipline, in equipment, and in valour to any force ever before assembled under a native chief. He bad the Oriental passion for boarding, and left twelve crores of rupees in bis treasury, of whicb be bestowed balf a crore on the poor ; the Koh-i-noor, which now adorns the diadem of England, he bequeathed to Jugernatb. He was the only man in bis country favourable to the English alliance, and during the expedition to Oabul placed the re- sources of his country at the disposal of the Government. The hostility of his ministers and officers broke out soon after his death, and so greatly augmented the perils of our position in Afghanistan, that Sir William Macnaghten urged Lord Auckland " to curb the Sings," as the Sikh chiefs were called, " and to macadamise the Punjab, and " annex Peshawar to the dominions of Shah Soojah." A.D. Soon after the occupation of Cabul, the Russophobia 1840 wbich distracted Sir William Macnaghten, Sir Alexander Russian Bumcs, and other British officers in Afghanistan apSnst^^*^ rose to fever heat, on the announcement that a Khiva. great Russian expedition was about to proceed to KJiiva, the celebrated Elharism of early Mohamedan his- tory. This country lies to the south of the sea of Aral on the banks of the Oxus, but, with the exception of the oasis of Merv, is a continuous waste, unrelieved by moun- tains, rivers, lakes, or forests, and with scarcely more than a million of inhabitants. For balf a century the rulers had been in the habit of committing depredations on Russian caravans, attacking Russian posts, and kidnapping Russian subjects whom they held in slavery. The emperor determined on a military expedition to fulfil " the im- " perial obligation of protecting the lives and liberties of his " subjects ; " but there was likewise a second motive. In his Simla manifesto Lord Auckland had stated that the object of the expedition was also " to give the name and just in- " fluence of the British Government its proper footing " among the nations of Central Asia." The ambitious spirit of Sir William Macnaghten was disposed to carry out this policy to an extent wbich startled even bis own Government. He sent a military force beyond Bameean to depose an Oosbek chief and instal another, and alarm was spread through Turkestan. Major Todd, who had been sent as the representative of the Governor- General to Herat, was strengthening its fortifications, and had despatched one of his assistants to Khiva to ofier the Khan the boon of British friendship. The envoy exceeded his instruc- 8bct. U.] RUSSIAN EXPEDITION TO KHIVA 401 tions, and proposed an alliance, offensive and defensive, which Lord Auckland immediately disavowed. A mission was also sent to Bokhara. These simultaneous movements, military and diplomatic, aroused the jealousy of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, who resented any intrusion of the English Govern- unssianex- ment into the politics of Central Asia, and the petition to emperor ordered the Khiva expedition to ad- ' jq^'q vance without any delay, five months earlier than was originally intended. The manifesto which announced its despatch, after enumerating the injuries the Russians had sustained from the Elhivans, adopted the language of Lord Auckland's proclamation, and stated that the expedition was also intended " to strengthen in that part of Asia the 'lawful influence to which Russia had a right." The Russian journals afl&rmed without any disguise that the object of it was " to establish the strong influence of Russia " in Klhiva, Bokhara, and Kokand, and to prevent the in- *' fluence of the East India Company from taking root in " Central Asia." The two European nations destined to divide the predominant power in Asia between them, were at this time jealous of each other's progress, and were re- sorting to the fatal expedient of fitting out expeditions to counteract it. " If we go on at this rate," said Baron Brunow to Lord Palmerston, "the Cossack and the Sepoy " will soon cross bayonets on the Oxus." The Russian ex- pedition proved a total failure. It moved from Orenburg in November on a march of 1,000 miles in the depth of winter, when the snow lay several feet deep on the ground, and not a blade of grass was to be found, and the general was obliged to retrace his steps after the loss of half his army. Subsequently Major Todd despatched Captain Shakespear to Elhiva, who prevailed on the Khan to de- liver up 400 Russian slaves, whom he conducted to Oren- burg, but his interference was considered intrusive. After the determination was formed to retain a British army in Afghanistan, the most important of all questions was the encampment of the troops at the capital. The Bala The Bala Hissar of Cabul stood on a hill, and ^^^^sar. completely commanded the city. It afibrded accommodation for 5,000 troops, and, if well provisioned and supplied with military stores, could be held by 1,000 men against what- ever force or skill the Afghans could bring against it. It was the key of Cabul, and the security of our position de- pended on our occupation of it. The Shah insisted on D D A.D. 1840 402 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. excluding the soldiers from it, that the privacy of his zenana might not be disturbed, and in an evil hour the envoy, ctmtrary to his own better judgment, yielded to his importunity and the garrison was turned into cantonments in the plain, erected in the most exposed position that could be thought of. The whole of the Afghan policy from first to last was a tissue of folly, but the crowning act of insanity was the resignation of the Bala Hissar to the Shah's hundred and fifty women. The conviction daily became more confirmed, that he had no hold on the attachment of his subjects, and that it was the infidel aid on which he rested for support that was the chief element of his unpopularity. Its presence was regarded like a visitation of the plague. Many of the political officers were men of high honour and conciliatory manners, but there were others whose haughty and arrogant bearing created disgust, and whose unblushing licentiousness, which invaded the honour of the noblest families, raised a feel- ing of burning indignation. During the twenty-seven months of our occupation, the Government was a Govern- ment of sentry-boxes, sustained only by the sbeen of British bayonets. The country was garrisoned, not go- verned, and we were reposing on a smouldering volcano. Within a few weeks of the occupation of Cabul, the high- landers in the Khyber massacred a large detachment of troops and carried off their baggage. The whole province of Belochistan rose in revolt and deposed the chief whom General Willshire had imposed on the people, and General Nott was obliged to march down from Candahar to restore our authority. But the chief cause of anxiety was con- nected with the movements of Dost Mahomed. After his flight from Cabul, ho accepted the hospitality of the Ameer of Bokhara, " the Commander of the Faithful," Movements ^^* ^^® most atrocious tyrant in Central Asia, who of Dost soon after subjected him to a grievous cap- * °™ * tivity. Meanwhile his brother, Jubber Khan, after wandering from place to place with the females of his family, placed them under the protection of the British Government. The confidence thus shown in our honour and generosity by a. people proverbial for perfidy, was no ordi- nary tribute to our national character. The Dost, having at length made his escape from Bokhara, approached Cabul and found himself at the head of 6,000 or 7,000 Oosbeks, with whom he resolved to cross the Hindoo Coosh, raise the war cry of the Prophet, and, gathering strength from the un- Bect. n.J SURRENDER OF DOST MAHOMED 403 popularity of Shah Soojah and his supporters, inarch in triumph to Cabul. But Brigadier Dennie encountered him with a mere handful of troops, and obtained a decisive victory over the host of Oosbeks. After this defeat Dost Mahomed moved into the Kohistan, or highlands north of Cabul, and the chiefs who had recently sworn fidelity to the Shah on the Koran, at once espoused his cause, but Sir Robert Sale attacked him with great success. He flitted about the hills for two or three weeks, and then came down into the Nijrow district in the vicinity of the capital, which was immediately thrown into a state of general ferment. The English officials were filled with ^.^ consternation, and guns were mounted in all haste on the 1840 citadel. On the 2nd November, Sir Robert Sale, who had been incessantly in pursuit of him, came upon him in the valley of Purwandurra ; the heights were bristling with an armed population, but the Dost had only 200 horsemen with him. The 2nd Cavalry galloped down upon him, and he resolved to meet the charge manfully. Raising himself in his stirrups and uncovering his head, he called upon his troops, in the name of God and the Prophet, to aid him in driving " the accursed infidels " from the land. The cavalry troopers fled from the field like a flock of sheep, the European officers fought with the spirit of heroes, till three were killed and two wounded. Sir Alexander Burnes, who was on the field, sent a hasty note to the envoy to assure him that there was nothing left but to fall back on Cabul, and concentrate our force for its defence. The note was delivered to him the next afternoon as he was taking a ride, when to his surprise. Dost Mahomed suddenly pre- sented himself, and dismounting, gave up his sword and claimed his protection. He had felt, he said " even in the " moment of victory that it would be impossible to con- " tinuo the contest, and having met his foes in the open field " and discomfited them he could claim their consideration " without indignity." The Dost rode together with the envoy into the cantonment, where his frank manners and dignified bearing in the hour of adversity created a strong feeling of sympathy and admiration, which was in no small degree heightened by contempt for the puppet in the Bala Hissar, He was sent on to Calcutta, where he was treated by Lord Auckland with the greatest respect and considera- tion, and two lacs of rupees a year v/ere assigned for his support. D D 2 404 ABRIDOMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII SECTION III. LORD Auckland's administration — the Afghan war — de- STRUCTION OF THE ARMY. A.D. Major Todd had been sent by Sir William Macnaghten to 1840 jjerat to maintain the influence of the British Government and to improve the fortifications. Money was sent in great profusion from Cabul, but Yar Mahomed, the vizier, took great offence at the efforts made by the Major to suppress the execrable traffic in slaves, the curse of Central Asia, in which he himself was deeply implicated, and he offered to place the whole country under the control of the king of Persia. Incensed at this act of ingratitude and perfidy. Sir William Macnaghten urged the immediate annexation of the province to the dominions of Shah Soojah, but Lord Auckland was disposed to condone the conduct of the minister, and the supply of guns, muskets, ammunition, and money was renewed with such prodigality as to alarm the financial authorities in Calcutta. But this lavish expendi- ture only led to more audacious intrigues, and Yar Mahomed endeavoured to concert a plan with the Persian governor of Meshed for the invasion of Candahar. This renewed act of treachery exhausted Major Todd's patience, and he with- held the monthly subsidy till the orders of the Governor- General could be received. The minister then rose in his demands, and on the 8th February insisted peremptorily on the payment of two lacs for the discharge of his personal debts, and a further advance for the improvement of the fortifications, and an increase of the monthly stipend, or the immediate departure of Major Todd. The Major at 1841 once withdrew the embassy to the great mortification of Lord Auckland, who dismissed him from his political employ and remanded him to his regiment. The political charge of the province of Candahar was entrusted to Major Rawlinson, and the military command 1840 o ,^T .^ to General Nott, an officer of sound judgment GeneralNott i.j-'^i, i. -rr '> ^ and Major and great decision or character. He was prompt Rawlinson. ^j^^j succcssful in dealing with the revolts which were continually cropping up around him, but the freedom of his remarks was displeasing to Lord Auckland and to Sir William Macnaghten, and he was, unfortunately, re- fufled the promotion which he expected on Sir Willoughby Sect. III.] NOTT AND RAWLINSON AT CANDAHAR 405 Cotton's retirement from the command at Cabul, and which, if it had been granted to him, wonld, in all proba- bility, have averted the tremendous catastrophe of the ensuing November. The Dooranees who occupied the province lying between Candahar and Herat, and who were of Shah Soojah's own tribe, had hailed with delight the restora- tion of their own prince to the throne, but when their expectation of sharing the sweets of power was disap- pointed by the employment of European oflBcers, they manifested a more rancorous hostility to him than any other tribe. Their chief, Akbar Khan, assembled 6,000 men on the banks of the Helmund in July, in six divisions, with a priest at the head of each and a banner inscribed " We "have been trusting in God ; may He guard and guide us." He was vigorously attacked by Colonel Woodbum, and defeated ; the confederacy was broken up, and all the chiefs made their submission with the exception of Akram Khan, whose indomitable spirit resisted every overture. In other countides he might have been considered a patriot ; in Afghanistan he was regarded as a traitor. His feelings were well expressed in the Afghan remark, " We are con- " tent with blood, but shall never be content with a master." His retreat was betrayed for a bribe by one of his own tribe, and he was blown away from a gun by express orders from Cabul. The province lying to the north-east of Candahar was a.d. inhabited by the Ghiljies, a fine muscular race, expert in 1841 the use of military weapons, and able to bring The Eastern 40,000 men into the field, but characterised by Gbiijies. an intense ferocity of disposition. They were as jealous of their own independence as they were eager to conquer that of others. In time past they had carried their victorious arms to the capital of Persia, and exhibited their prowess on many a battle-field of India ; nor had they ever bowed the neck to the rulers of Cabul or Candahar. Sir William had prevailed on them for an annual subsidy to abstain from infesting the highways and levying black mail, but their deep-rooted antipathy to the intruding foreigners became daily more apparent, and it was deemed necessary to strengthen the fortifications of Klhelat-i-Ghiljie, a fortress lying in the heart of their territory. They determined to oppose this measure and advanced in great force to defeat it, when they were encountered by Colonel Wymer, who inflicted a signal defeat on them, after an obstinate conflict of five hours continued beyond sunset. Every emeute had 406 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. now been put down, and Sir William Macnaghten was beginning to congratulate himself on the termination of all his difficulties, but Major Rawlinson assured him that the whole country was pervaded by a spirit of implacable hostility towards us, and that there would be a general outburst on the first favourable opportunity. That opportunity was not far distant. The expense of garrisoning Afghanistan was beginning to tell on the _, . finances of India. The army of occupation fell to hold little short of 25,000 men, and the annual Afghanis- charge was computed at a crore and a half of rupees. All the treasure accumulated by Lord William Bentinck had been exhausted, the treasury was drained and the Court of Directors were filled with alarm. At the close of 18-40 they communicated their views to the Government at Simla, and stated that as it was evident the restored monarchy could not be maintained without a large force, it was necessary to make a large addition to the army ; but they should advise the entire abandonment of the country, with a frank avowal of the complete failure of our object. The circumstances of the period appeared to be more favourable to retirement than they had ever been. The Persian court was on the most friendly terms with us ; the Russian expedition to Khiva had totally failed ; Dost Mahomed and his family were state prisoners with us, and the revolt in Belochistan was completely quelled. Sir William Macnaghten had, moreover, stated that the noses of the Dooranee chiefs " had been brought " to the grindstone, and that Afghanistan was as quiet as " an Indian district, and its tranquillity was marvellous." Nothing could be more reasonable and politic than this advice, but the question of withdrawal was unfortunately left to the judgment of the Government of India — that is, 1841 *o *^® decision of those who had advised the war, and they declared that to deprive the Shah of British support would be an act of " unparalleled political atrocity." There was no difficulty in persuading Lord Auckland that our troops ought not to be withdrawn before the authority of the Shah had been completely consolidated ; whereas it was pal- pable to everyone but the envoy that his authority could never be sufficiently established while the " accursed in- " fidels," as we were universally termed, continued to garrison the country. It was therefore determined to re- main in Afghanistan, to make no increase to the army, but to reduce the expenditure, and to open a new loan. Sect. III.] FIRST INDICATIONS OF THE OUTBREAK 407 The retrenchraents were to be made by reducing the a.d. stipends of the chiefs, and, by that fatality which seemed to 1841 attend every measure connected with this un- j^etrench- fortunate expedition, those which ought to have mcntand come last were taken up first. The eastern Ghiljies '^^°^*^' were the first to be summoned to Cabul, when they were in- formed that the exigencies of the State rendered the reduction of their allowances indispensable. The subsidies paid by us had been paid from time immemorial by every ruler of Afghanistan, and were regarded by the highlandors as a patrimonial inheritance. They were magnanimously indifferent to the politics of Afghanistan, and cared not who ruled as long as their franchise was not invaded. The stipends now reduced had, moreover, been guaranteed to them when we took possession of the country, and they had performed their part of the contract with exemplary fidelity. They had not allowed a finger to be raised against our posts, or couriers, or weak detachments, and convoys of every description had passed through their terrific defiles, the strongest mountain barriers in the world, without interruption. They received the announcement of the reduction in the beginning of October without any remonstrance, made their salaam to the envoy, and, return- ing to their fastnesses, plundered a caravan and blocked up the passes. The 35th Native Infantry, commanded by Colonel Monteith, which was under orders to return to India, was directed by the envoy to proceed " to the passes "and chastise these rascals, and open the road to India;" but he was attacked during the night and lost the greater portion of his baggage. Sir Robert Sale, commanding the brigade returning to India, who was directed to support the 35th, was vigorously assailed in the Khoord Cabul pass, and on reaching Tezeen, ordered a detachment against the fort of the Ghiljie leader, the capture of which would have in- flicted a severe blow on the insurrection, but the wily chiefs contrived to cozen the political agent, and he was drawn into a treaty which conceded nearly all they desired. Their stipends were restored, and 10,000 rupees paid down, but the revolt, instead of being nipped in the bud, was strengthened by this display of weakness. While professing submission, they sent emissaries to raise the tribes in ad- vance, and Sir Robert Sale was obliged to fight every inch of his way to Gundamuk, and on his arrival there, found his communication with the capital closed, and the whole •sountry in a blaze of rebellion. 408 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII Sir William Macnagliten had been rewarded for his services in Afghanistan with the governorship of Bombay, Murder of 8.nd had arranged to leave Cabnl in the beginning Barnes. of November. Throughout the previous month, while the surface of society presented the appearance of an unruffled calm, a general confederacy, which embraced every chief of every tribe, had been organised for our ex- pulsion. The envoy was warned by the most intelligent and experienced officers — Sir Alexander Burnes excepted — of the storm which was gathering, but he persuaded him- self that the country was in a state of unprecedented repose, and that the rising of the Ghiljies was a local emeute. On the evening of the 1st November, Sir Alexander visited A.D. him to congratulate him on leaving the country in a state 1841 of such tranquillity. At that same hour, some of the con- federates were assembled in a house in the city to arrange the plan of the insurrection, and at dawn on the 2nd No- vember, the insurgents surrounded Sir Alexander's house in the city with loud yells. He instantly despatched a messenger to Sir William Macnaghten in the cantonments for aid, and harangued the mob from his balcony, offering large sums for his own and his brother's life, but they were thirsting for his blood. He was more obnoxious to the Afghan chiefs than any of the other British officers, some of whom had gained their esteem by their genial disposi- tion and their high moral character. He was decoyed into his garden by a treacherous Cashmerian, and hacked to pieces, together with his brother. The insurgents then proceeded to assault the neighbouring house to which Captain Johnston, the paymaster of Shah Soojah's force, had been unwisely allowed to transfer his treasure, and plundered it of nearly two lacs of rupees, and burnt down the houses of the other officers. The mob did not originally consist of more than a hundred men, but the rich booty which had been obtained speedily augmented their number, and the whole city was soon in a state of wild commotion. The confederate chiefs had so little expecta- tion of success, that they had their horses saddled for flight on the first appearance of British troops. They subsequently acknowledged that the slightest exhibition of energy at the commencement would have put down the insurrection at once ; but no effort was made. General Elphinstone who commanded the troops, was a gallant old Queen's officer, but utterly disqualified for this important and dangerous post by his bodily infirmities, and Sect. III.] MASSACRE OF BURNES 409 not less by his mental weakness and want of decision. On the retirement of Sir Willoughby Cotton, the Com- General mander-in-Chief, Sir Jasper NicoUs, had recom- I'lphin- mended Sir W. Nott as his successor, but he had, as we have said, incurred the displeasure of the Governor- ^g^j Greneral by the freedom of his remarks on the perils of our position, and General Elphinstone was importuned to accept the appointment, though his tremulous and gouty hand- writing gave the clearest evidence that he was wholly unfit to be placed in the command of an army in a country ripe for revolt. It is therefore impossible to exonerate Lord Auckland from a large share of the responsibility of the overwhelming calamity which ensued, and which is to be attributed solely to the incompetency of the officer whom he had selected. The envoy made light of the emeute, and said it would speedily subside, and the General was too happy to be spared the necessity of exertion not to acquiesce in this opinion. It was decided, however, that Brigadier Shelton's brigade, which was en- camped on the heights of Sea Sung, should be ordered to the Bala Hissar, and that assistance should be sent, if possible, to Sir Alexander Bumes. No effort was made by either the political or military authorities to rescue him, though it might have been efiected with perfect ease by a direct route only a mile and a half long, free from every impediment. At a crisis when moments were of inestimable value, hours were wasted in discussion with the Shah re- garding the admission of Brigadier Shelton's force into the Bala Hissar, and when it was settled, he did nothing but cover the retreat of Colonel Campbell and a regiment of the Shah's Hindostanees, who had been sent to the rescue of Sir Alexander, but were driven back. On the evening of this first day of disaster General Elphinstone, instead of forming a vigorous plan of opera- tions for the morrow, wrote to the envoy, " We j^g^gj-j^^. ^f " must see what the morning brings, and think the envoy "what can be done." Nothing, however, was a^d general. done except a feeble attempt to penetrate the city with an inadequate force three hours after midday, but it was driven back by the thousands of armed men whom the success of the rising had brought into the city. Within thirty hours of the outbreak Sir William Macnaghten began to despond — as well he might — and despatched letters to General Nott and General Sale desiring them to come up immediately to his relief. The fatal error of having 410 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. A.D. given up the Bala Hissar and planted the cantonment 1841 in low ground on the plain, was now fiilly revealed. The ramparts were so contemptible that a pony might scale them, and they were so completely commanded by the neighbouring hills and forts that the troops could not move out without being exposed to a heavy fire. The commissariat stores, moreover, on which the existence of the army depended, instead of being lodged within the cantonment were deposited in a small fort, 400 yards distant, and guarded by eighty men. The supine general, instead of making a vigorous effort to secure them, allowed the enemy to undermine the fort ; and the officer in charge of it, seeing no effort made to support him, was obliged to evacuate it, and men and officers looked over the walls of the cantonment with burning indignation, while a rabble of Afghans was employed unchecked, like a swarm of ants, in carrying off the provisions on which their hope of sus- taining life depended. General Sale received Sir William's order to return to Cabul at Gundamuk, but it was determined at a council Generals 0^ ^^r that the force was in so crippled a state, Sale and and the intervening passes so completely blocked up by the insurgents, that any such attempt would result in its complete destruction, and it was de- termined therefore to push on to Jellalabad. General Nott at Candahar argued that his troops could riot reach Cabul under five or six weeks ; that beyond Ghuzni they would have to fight every inch of the way, and to wade through the snow, and would eventually arrive in such a condition as to be of little, if any, service. Three regiments were, nevertheless, despatched, but they returned on the first appearance of snow. Extraordinary efforts were now made at Cabul to obtain provisions from the neighbouring vil- lages, and four days after the rising General Elphinstone informed the envoy that they had got temporarily, and he hoped permanently, over this difficulty, and, with 5,000 troops under his command, said, " Our case is not yet de- " sperate ; but it must be borne in mind that it goes very " fast." Sir William, seeing the bonour and safety of the force in such keeping, felt himself constrained to open ne- gotiations with the insurgent chiefs, and, through the moonshee, Mohun Lall, made them an offer of two, three, or even five lacs of rupees ; but, as might have been expected, this fresh token of our weakness only served to increase their arrogance. Tbo utter incompetence of the general was hurrying the Sect. III.] INCOMPETENCE OF THE GENERALS 411 garrison to destruction, but there appeared some faint hope a.d. of deliverance if Brigadier Shelton, who had re- Brigadier 1841 mained in the Bala Hissar since the 2nd No- sheiton. vember, were associated with him in the command. He was an officer of great energy, distinguished for his courage and iron nerve, and his arrival on the 9th November raised the drooping spirits of the garrison. But it was soon apparent that his insupportable temper neutralised all his military qualifications. He might have secured the salva- tion of the force if he had cordially co-operated with the general, but the state of things was only rendered more desperate by the discord which his perversity created. There was yet one course which would have rescued the army from all its perils — an immediate retreat to the impregnable position of the Bala Hissar. Shah Soojah did not cease to urge this movement — which was equally lidvocated by the envoy and the general — but Brigadier Shelton pertinaciously resisted it on grounds positively absurd, and on his memory rests the ignominy of having sealed the doom of 15,000 human beings. There is little interest in dwelling on the long and melancholy catalogue of errors which followed close on each other, disgusting the officers, demoralising Lastengage- the men, and hastening the ruin of the force. On "lent. the 23rd November, the Afghans took up a position on the Behmaroo hills, which enabled them to inflict serious injury on the cantonment, and, at the earnest entreaty of the envoy, Brigadier Shelton went out with a considerable force to dislodge them. The chief who commanded their cavalry was killed, and the whole body was seized with a panic, and fled in disorder to the city. The envoy was standing by the side of the general on the ramparts, and importuned him to hasten out a sufficient force to improve the opportunity, but he languidly replied that it was a wild scheme. The enemy had time to recover their confidence and rushed back with redoubled fury, when the whole battalion of English soldiers abandoned the field and took to flight. The fugitives and pursuers were so mingled in the race that the Afghans might with perfect ease have captured the cantonments, but the chiefs drew off their men in the moment of victory. This defeat concluded all military operations ; the disasters of these three weeks were justly attributed to the jealousies and the mismanagement of the two commanders, and all hope for the futare was at an end ; the army was demoralised, and a feeling of gloom and dismay pervaded the encampment. 412 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII SECTIOlSr IV. LORD Auckland's administration — the Afghan war — anni- hilation OF THE AEMT. k.T). The day after the disaster of the 28rd November, Shah '^'^^ Soojah again entreated the envoy to retire to the Bala His- Negotia- sar, and he pressed it with increasing impor- tions. tnnity on the mihtary chiefs, but they persisted in rejecting the proposal, and the general, moreover, informed him in an official communication that it was no longer possible to maintain our position in the country. Sir Wil- liam was therefore constrained to submit to the ignominy of holding a conference with the Afghan chiefs, but, finding us reduced to extremity, they haughtily demanded that the whole army should surrender at discretion with its arms and ammunition, and the negotiation was necessarily broken ojQf. A week after, Akbar Khan, the ablest of Dost Mahomed's sons, a young soldier of great energy, but of a fiery and impetuous temper, arrived in Cabul and was at once accepted as the leader of the national confederacy. He was not slow to perceive that it was only necessary to cut ofi" its supplies to extinguish the British force, and he immediately threatened with death all who should venture to furnish any pro"visions. The envoy, seeing the destruction of the force inevitable, renewed his entreaty to withdraw to the Bala Hissar, but the general again refused his concurrence. He then proposed that they should endeavour to obtain provisions from the country by their swords, but the imbecile commander replied that the only alternative now left was to obtain a safe conduct out of the country. Starvation now stared the garrison in the face. On the 11th December, there was food left only for the day's con- j sumption of the fightinsr men, and the envoy was nth Decern- obliged to make another effort to negotiate, and ^^* found himself constrained to submit to whatever terms the Afghans chose to dictate. They were sufficiently humiliating ; the troops at JeUalabad, Candahar, Cabul, and Ghuzni were to evacuate the country, receiving every assistance of carriage and provisions; Dost Mahomed and his family were to be liberated ; Shah Soojah was to be at liberty to r(;main on a pension, or to retire with the Sect. IV.] VIOLATIONS OF THE TREATY 413 British force ; tlie army was to quit Cabul within three a.d, days, and in the meantime to receive ample supplies of 1841 provisions, and four officers were to be given up as hostages. This is the most disgraceful transaction in the annals of British India. In extenuation of it, the envoy placed on record, that " we had been fighting forty days against " superior numbers, under the most disadvantageous cir- " cumstances, with deplorable loss of life, and in a day or " two must have perished of hunger. The terms I secured *' were the best obtaiuable, and the destruction of 15,000 " human beings would little have benefited our country." But the position of the unhappy envoy is described still more accurately by Kaye in his classic history of the war in Afghanistan : " Environed and hemmed in by difficulties " and dangers, overwhelmed with responsibilities there was " none to share — the lives of 15,000 resting on his decision " — the honour of his country at stake — with a perfidious " enemy at his back, he was driven to negotiate by the " imbecihty of his companions." The entire responsibility of this humiliating convention rests on General Elphinstone and Brigadier Shelton, than whom it would not have been easy to discover two men more disqualified for the posts they occupied, the one by bodily infirmity and consti- tutional imbecility, the other by almost incredible perversity of disposition. The brilliant success of Sir Robert Sale at Jellalabad shows how easily the position of the army of Cabul might have been rectified with the superior means and appliances at command, if it had been under an able commander. It never, however, was the intention of the Afghans to fulfil the treaty, or to permit any European to escape. The Bala Hissar was evacuated on the 13th by the few violation of troops in it ; the forts around the cantonment were ^'^^ treaty. surrendered, and Akbar Khan received letters to the com- mandants at Jellalabad and other military stations ordering them to retire. The chiefs, moreover, were allowed to go into the magazines and help themselves to whatever stores they liked, while officers and men looked on in silent in- dignation. But the supplies furnished were so scanty as scarcely to appease hunger, and Akbar Khan and his chiefs not only continued to withhold supplies of carriage and provisions for the march, but rose in their demands, and insisted on the delivery of all the stores and ammuni- tion of every description, and the surrender of all the Qiarried families as additional hostages. In these cir- 414 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. j,.i>. cnmstances, Sir William directed his moonshee to open 1841 negotiations with other tribes, and inform them that if any portion of the Afghans declared to the Shah that they wished him to remain, he would break with the faithless Barukzies, the tribe of Akbar. It was at this critical juncture, when bewildered by the appalling crisis which was approaching, that Sir William Macnaghten received an unexpected message from Akbar, with a fresh proposal that the British force should remain till the spring ; that Shah Soojah should retain the title of king, and that Akbar Klian should be appointed vizier, receiving from the British Government an immediate payment of thirty lacs, and an annual allowance of four lacs. In an evil hour for his reputation and safety, the envoy accepted these pro- posals in writing, and agreed to attend a meeting which was appointed for the next day. General Elphinstone described the proposal as a plot, and endeavoured to dissuade the envoy from proceeding to the ABsassina- Conference, but he replied in a hurried tone, " Let tion of the " me alone for that. Dansr^^rous thouerh it be — if GQVOV • o o " it succeeds, it is worth all risk. I had rather *' suffer a hundred deaths than live the last six weeks over " again." At noon on the 23rd December he proceeded with three officers and about sixteen of his body-guard to the fatal meeting, 600 yards from the cantonment, where Akbar Khan had spread some horse cloths on the snow on the slope of the hill. They were no sooner seated than the officers were seized and placed each one on the saddle of an Afghan horseman and hurried off to the city. One of them fell off and was hacked to pieces ; the envoy was shot dead by Akbar Khan, and the ghazees, or fanatics, rushed in and mutilated his body. Thus perished Sir WilHam Macnaghten, the victim of an unwise and unjust policy, but as noble and brave an officer as ever fell in the service of his country. Throughout seven weeks of unparalleled difficulties, he ex- hibited a spirit of courage and constancy of which there is not another example in the annals of the Company. He was the only civilian at Cabul, and one of the truest-hearted soldiers in the garrison. He had served several years in the Madras army, and there can be little doubt that if he could have assumed the command of the force it would have escaped the doom that befell it. No effort was made from the cantonment to avenge the murder of the envoy, or even to recover his manged re- Sbct. IV.] DISASTROUS RETREAT OF THE ARJVTY 415 mains, which were dragged in triumph through the city. a.d. All eyes were now turned on Major Pottinger, 1841 who had come in wounded from Chareekar at pJJ^ the beginning of the iusurrection, and had remained ever since unnoticed in the cantonment. He assumed the political post of envoy and called a council of war to consider the new terms on which the Afghan chiefs now agreed to grant the army a safe-conduct to Peshawur. They differed from those to which Sir William had given his consent only in the demand of larger gratuities to themselves. The hero of Herat recoiled from these humiliating concessions, and urged the officers to reject them Avith scorn and defiance. His energy might yet have saved the army, but the council would not fight, and the new treaty was accepted with- out a word of remonstrance. The confederate chiefs, as might have been expected, increased their demands, and required that all the coin and the spare muskets and every gun save six should be surrendered, and that all the married officers and their families should be left in the country. But letters were received at the same time from Jellalabad and Peshawur stating that reinforcements were on their way, and imploring the garrison to hold out. Dissensions were also reported among the Afghan chiefs, and the major seized the occasion of this gleam of sunshine to conjure the commanders to make one bold and prompt effort either to occupy the Bala Hissar, or to cut their way to Jellalabad ; but Brigadier Shelton, the evil genius of the cantonment, declared that both courses were equally impracticable. The treaty was therefore completed, and small arms, guns, and waggons were given up amidst the indignant exclamations of the garrison. The ratification of the treaty by the seals of eighteen chiefs was received on the 4th January. It was dictated in a spirit of arrogance, and received in a spirit of humility, and violated without a blush. On the 6th January,1842, the army, still 4,500 strong, with 1842 11,000 camp followers, began its ominous retreat. As the snow lay ankle-deep on the ground, its salvation ^^^ ^ depended on the rapidity of its movements. If of the it had crossed the Cabul river before noon, and *™y- pushed on with promptitude, it might have escaped the dangers before it ; but, through the mismanagement of the general the rear-guard did not leave the gate before the shades of night came on. The Afghan fanatics then rushed in and set the cantonments on fire, and lighted up this first night of horrors with the blaze. In the morning the spirit 416 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. Xn. A.D. of discipline began to wane, and the force was no longer a 1842 retreating army, but a panic-stricken and disorganised rabble. Safety was to be found only in speed, but by the unaccountable folly of the military authorities the troops were halted the second night at Bootkhak. The crowd of men, women, and children, horses and camels, lying on the snow in wild confusion, without food or fuel, or shelter, presented a spectacle of unexampled misery, Akbar Khan now made his appearance, and demanded fresh hostages for the protection, as he said, of the force as far as Tezeen, and they were surrendered. Between Bootkhak and Tezeen lay the terrific gorge of the Khoord Cabul, five miles in length, so narrow that the rays of the sun seldom pene- trated its recesses. At the bottom of it ran an impetuous torrent, which the road crossed and recrossed twenty- eight times, and it was through this tremendous defile that the dis- ordered mass of human beings pressed on with one madden- ing desire, to escape destruction. But the Ghiljies poured an incessant fire upon the crowd from every height with their unerring weapons that carried death to the distance of 800 yards, and 3,000 perished fi'om their fire and the intensity of the cold. It was in this scene of carnage that delicate English ladies, some with infants in their arms, had to run the gauntlet of Afghan bullets amidst a heavy fall of snow. Akbar Khan again appeared in the morning and offered a supply of provisions, and advised the general to halt. Extinction The wholc force exclaimed against this insane of the army, proposal, but the general was deaf to all entrea- ties, and the perishing troops were constrained to sit down idle for a whole day in the snow. Akbar made an ofier to take charge of the ladies and children, and convey them to Peshawur. They had scarcely tasted food since leaving Cabul ; they were inadequately clad, and could obtain no shelter from the snow. Major Pottinger, who was Akbar's prisoner, felt that it would be impossible for them to sur- vive these hardships, and, in accordance with his advice. Lady Macnaghten, Lady Sale, and nine other ladies, with fifteen children, and eight officers, were sent to Akbar's camp and rescued from destruction. On the morning of the 10th, the remainder of the army resumed its march, but, before evening, the greater number of the sepoys had disappeared. Panic-stricken and benumbed with cold, they were slaughtered like sheep by the remorseless Ghiljies, and a narrow defile between two hills was choked up with the dying and the dead ; 450 European soldiers and a con- Sbct. IV.l DESTRUCTION OF THE ARMY 417 siderable body of officers yet remained, but the enemy took a.d, post on every salient point, blocked up every pass, and 184J dealt death among their ranks. On approaching Jugdulluk a confer-jnce was held with Akbar, who continued to hang upon their rear, and he offered to supply them with provi- sions, on condition that General Elphinstone, Brigadier Shelton, and another officer, should be transferred to him as hostages for the surrender of Jellalabad. But this con- cession brought no respite from the ferocity of the Ghiljies, in whom the thirst for blood had overcome even the love of money, which was freely offered them. Akbar, having obtained possession of the persons of the ladies and the principal officers, abandoned the remnant of the army to their vengeance. At Jugdulluk, twelve of the bravest of the officers met theii- doom ; and here the Cabul army may be said to have ceased to exist. Twenty officers and forty- five European soldiers contrived to reach Gundamuk, but they gradually dropped under the weapons of their foes, with the exception of one officer, Dr. Brydon, who was descried from the ramparts of Jellalabad, on the 13th January, slowly wending his way to the fort, wounded and exhausted, on his jaded pony, the sole survivor, with the exception of 120 in captivity, of 15,000 men. The entire annihilation of this army was the severest blow which had been inflicted on the British power in India. Yet so strongly had its authority become -^^^^^^^ ^j consolidated that it did not produce any of those the cataa- immediate demonstrations of hostility at the na- ^°^^^' tive courts, or any such fermentation in native society, as were visible on the destruction of Colonel Monson's force in 1804, or the failure in the Nepaul campaign of 1814, or even the sluggish progress of the army in Burmah in 1825. Lord Auckland, although overwhelmed by the magnitude of the calamity, was induced to issue a procla- mation that " the Governor- General regarded the partial "reverse which had overtaken a body of British troops "in a country removed by distance and difficulties of " season from the possibility of succour, as a new occa- " sion for displaying the vigour and stability of British " power, and the admirable spirit and vigour of the Britiwsh " Indian array." But after this spasm of energy he relapsed into a spirit of dejection, and, instead of considering how most effectually to restore our military superiority, the sole basis of our power in India, was prepared to leave it with- out vindication, and considered only how ho could withdraw E £ 418 ABKTDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII. 4,i>. General Sale from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Com- 1842 mander-in- chief was equally devoid of spirit ; but Mr. — ^now Sir George — Clerk, the political agent in the Punjab, on hearing of the siege of the cantonment, hurried on the brigade which had been appointed to relieve the regiments returning from Afghanistan, but they were placed under the command of Colonel Wyld, and sent without cavalry or cannon. He crept through the Punjab at a slothful pace, and was thirty-five days in reaching Peshawur, whereas one of Runjeet Sing's European officers had accomplished the distance with his army in twelve days. The sepoys were eager to advance to the rescue of their fellow soldiers, but he lingered there until they were thoroughly demoralised by intercourse with the Sikh auxiliaries whom Runjeet Sing's successor had sent to co- operate with them, and who, on reaching Jumrood, and looking into the pass, turned round and marched back to Peshawur. Colonel Wyld then entered the pass without them, but the frail guns the Sikhs had lent him broke down on the first discharge ; the sepoys lost heart, and allowed themselves to be ignominiously chased back, leaving their artillery in the hands of the Afreedies. Lord Auckland was reluctant to send on a second brigade to relieve the army besieged in Cabul, but Mr. General Clcrk's energy overcame all objections, and a Pollock. force of 3,000 men, including a corps of Euro- peans, crossed the Sutlej on the 4th January. It was happily under the command of General Pollock, an old artillery officer, who had campaigned with Lord Lake, and fought at Bhurtpore, in Nepaul, and in Burmah, and whose sagacity, caution, and decision of character eminently qualified him for the arduous task before him. The entire destraction of the Cabul force was announced on the 22nd January, and Mr. Clerk met the Commander-in-chief, Sir Jasper Nicolls, to discuss the measures necessary to meet the crisis. Sir Jasper stated that the only object now to be pursued was to withdraw Sir Robert Sale's force safely to India ; but Mr. Clerk, in a spirit more worthy of a Briton, maintained that the natioral reputation and the safety of the empire imperatively required that the garrison at Jellalabad should be reinforced to march simultaneously with the Candahar force to the capital, and inflict a signal retribution on the Afghans on the scene of our late disgrace, and then ^vithdraw from Afghanistan with dignity and undiminished renown. The energy of this appeal could Sect. IV.] LOED ELLENBOROUGH 419 not be resisted, and a third brigade was ordered to be held in readiness to join General Pollock ; but Lord Auckland's last communication informed him that '* his sole business " was to secure the safe return of our people and troops " detained beyond the Indus." The arrival of Lord Ellenborough in Calcutta on the a.d. 28th February brought Lord Auckland's disastrous ad- ^^*' ministration to a close. He wrote a benevolent ciose of minute on education, and he endeavoured to pro- f°^f.^*'^" mote the interests of science^ for which he had a ministra-' natural turn ; but his rule was comprised in a ^°^' single series of transactions — the conquest, the occupation, and the loss of Afghanistan. His administration com- menced with a surplus revenue of a crore and a half, and it closed with a deficit of two crores, and a large addition to the debt. The Tories contributed one inefficient Governor- General in Lord Amherst, and the Whigs another in Lord Auckland. The one wasted thirteen crores in the Burmese war ; the other squandered an equal sum in the Afghan expedition. CHAPTEE XIII. SECTION I. LORD ellenborough' S ADMINISTRATION — ADVANCE OF IHE ARMY ON CABgL. Lord Ellenborough, who now assumed the charge of the Government, was a statesman of high repute, and an elo- quent speaker, and had for several years taken a Lord EUen- special interest in the affairs of India, more par- borough, ticularly during the discussion on the last charter. Like Lord Wellesley and Lord Minto, he had served an appren- ticeship at the Board of Control, where he had acquired an ample knowledge of the principles and policy of the Indian administration. He was known to possess great energy and decision of character, and the community in India augured a happy relief from the weak and vf.jcillating policy of his predecessor. General Pollock arrived at Peshawur on the 5th February, K K 2 120 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. A.Ti. and found the four regiments in a state of complete insnb- 1842 ordination. Many of the sepojs had deserted their co- General Pol ^^^^^j ^^^ meetings were nightly held to encourage lock's (id- each other in the determination not to enter the vance. Khyber Pass. Efforts were also made to de- bauch the regiments which the general had brought with him, but he put down these machinations with promptitude and energy. The officers manifested scarcely less reluct ance to encounter the danger of the passes. Sir Robert Sale was importuning the general to hasten to his relief, but he felt that, with a force so completely demoralised, he could not advance without the certain risk of fail- ure. Obliged as he was to wait for reinforcements, he devoted the months of February and March to the task of restoring the discipline, recovering the health, and reviving the confidence of his troops, which was strength- ened in no small degree by the arrival of a regiment of dragoons and some horse artillery. Raja Golab Sing also came up and took the command of the Sikh con- tingent, and the masterly arrangements and resolute bear- ing of General Pollock at length overcame the dread with which the Sikhs regarded the Khyber, and secured the active co-operation of the raja. The Khyberees demanded an exor- bitant sum for a passage through their defiles, and proceeded to block up the entrance of the pass with stones and branches of trees, while they covered the mountains on either side with their troops ; but the plan adopted by General Pollock, of crowning the heights baffled all their efforts. At three in the morning of the 6th April the troops moved out of the camp in perfect silence and climbed up the rugged crags with great enthusiasm, and the dawn revealed their pre- sence to the thunderstruck Afghans on the summit of their own hills. After a sharp conflict, they were seen to fly precipitately in every direction ; the defence of the pass was abandoned, and it was opened to the long string of bag- gage which, including the military stores and the provisions for General Sale's force, extended two miles. No further obstacle was offered to the progress of the ai my, which reached Jcllalabad on the 15th April. Sir Robert Sale, reached JeJlalabad on the 13th November, with provisions for only two days. The fortifications were General Side i^ a statc of complete dilapidation, and there were atJeiiaiabad. paths over the ramparts into the country. Imme- diately beyond the walls lay ruined forts and mosques, which afforded cover for assailants at the distance of only twenty or thirty yards, and the inhabitants, both in the Sect. I.] DEFENCE OF JELLALABAD 421 town and country, were animated with feelings of bitter a.t>. hostility. The day after the arrival of the force, 5,000 of 1841 the armed population of the neighbourhood advanced with yells and imprecations to the walls, but were completely dis- persed by Colonel Monteath. Captain Broadfoot, an officer of indomitable energy and fertile resources, who had ac- companied the brigade with his sappers and miners, was appointed garrison engineer, and commenced the task of clearing and strengthening the fortifications. The whole of the 13th Foot was turned into a working party, a spirit of zeal and emulation was diffused through the garrison, and an indefensible mass of ruins was, in a short time, converted into a fortress, proof against anything but siege 1842 artillery. On the 9th January a horseman rode up to the gate with the order to evacuate Jellalabad which General Elphinstone had written under compulsion. The officers replied that as Akbar Khan had sent a proclamation to the chiefs in the valley to destroy the force, they would await farther communications fr-om the general at Cabul. At tbe close of January a letter was received from Shah Soojah, as the ostensible head of the Afghan Government, demanding the evacuation of the town. At a council of war, the general and the political agent proposed to comply with the request, and the latter supported his advice to evacuate the place and return to Peshawur by the assertion that the Government of India had evidently abandoned the garrison to its fate, and that it was impossible for them to hold out much longer ; to which Captain Broadfoot nobly replied, that even if their own Government had deserted them, they owed it to their country to uphold its honour at this crisis, and it was a daty from v^hich nothing could absolve them. The majority of the council, however, agreed to adopt the views of the political agent, but with the understanding that if the next communication from the Shah and the chiefs at Cabul was equivocal, they should be at liberty to take their own course. The answer was clogged with requisitions which were deemed inadmissible ; Captain Broadfoot reiterated his objection to a capitulation ; the officers had recovered the tone of their minds, and a recent foray had supplied the garrison with 900 head of cattle ; and, contrary to the advice of the general and the political agent, the majority voted against the renewal of negotiations. On the 18th February a succession of earthquakes de- stroyed in a few hours the labours of three months. The parapets were prostrated, the bastions seriously injured, 422 ABRIDGMENT OF THE BISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.XIIL and one of the gates was reduced to a heap of ruins. The damage was, however, repaired with such quak^. promptitude as to lead the Afghans to declare that the earthquake could not have been felt there. Soon after, Akbar Khan, who had been detained at Cabul by differences with the chiefs, arrived in the valley to take possession of the town, in accordance with the order of evacuation he had extorted from the British authorities at Cabul ; but he found that the defences had been completed, and a store of provisions laid in ; that he had not to deal with men like Elphinstone and Shelton, but with officers and men buoyant with animation and confidence. On the 11th March he advanced to the attack of the town, but the whole garrison sallied forth, and he was ignominiously driven from the field. He resolved, therefore, to turn the siege into a blockade, in the hope of starving the garrison into submission, as he had done at Cabul ; and its situation began to be critical : the cattle were perishing for want of fodder ; the men were on reduced rations of salt meat ; the officers were on short commons ; and the ammunition was running low. Akbar had been gradually drawing his camp nearer to the town, and it was now pitched within two miles of it. The general at length yielded to the impor- tunity of Captain Havelock and his brother officers to relieve the force from its perilous position by a bold attack on the encampment of the enemy. The plan of the engagement provided that a simultaneous attack should be made in three columns, and that his army should be driven into the river, which was then an impetuous torrent. By some mistake, one column had to bear the brunt of the assault made by Akbar's splendid cavalry; but in the course of an hour he was driven from every point, and pursued to the river with the entire loss of his stores and equip- ment, and his camp was delivered up to the flames. He disappeared from the scene, and the neighbouring chiefs hastened to make their submission and to pour in provisions. General Pollock, on his arrival a week after, found the garrison, which had achieved its own deliverance, in exuberant spirits and robust health. One such day at Cabul would have saved the anny. Immediately after the outbreak at Cabul the chiefs des- patched emissaries to raise western Afghanistan, and General Nott concentrated his force at Candahar, but the t^^ *** spirit of disaffection was irresistible. The Jaun- baz, the Shah's cavalry, as well as the chiefs of Sect. I.] AFFAIES AT CANDAHAE 423 his own tribe, threw off the mask and openly joined the a.d. insurgents, and even his own son placed himself at their 1842 head. After many weeks of preparation they moved down to attack Candahar, but were completely discomfited iu an engagement which did not last more than twenty minutes. At length Mirza Ahmed, the ablest man in the country, and who had enjoyed the entire confidence of Major Raw- linson, went over to the hostile camp, and gave strength and organisation to the confederacy. The insurgents continued to hover round the city, and it was considered necessary to break up their camp. General Nott accordingly marched out on the 10th March, and was inveigled to a distance from the city, when Mirza Ahmed and the Shah's own son advanced at sunset to the Herat gate, where their emissaries had been employed for some hours in heaping up brushwood saturated with oil. As soon as it blazed up, the ghazees, or fanatics, maddened with drugs, rushed forward with hideous yells and imprecations. Amidst this scene of wild confusion, which was rendered more appalling by the dark- ness. Majors Rawlinson and Lane defended the gate with the greatest energy for five hours. Towards midnight the fury of the assailants was exhausted, and they retired, and Candahar was saved. This brilliant success was counterbalanced by disasters. Ghuzni, after having stood a siege of four months, was sur- rendered to the Afghans, though under a different commander it might easily have been held till the garrison was relieved. General England, moreover, was advancing up to Candahar from the south with a convoy of provisions, ammunition, and money, and had reached Hykulzye when a body of 500 of his troops was suddenly assailed by a party of the enemy, who sprang up from behind a breastwork, four feet high, erected on a slight eleva- tion, and a considerable number were killed. They recoiled at first from the shock, but soon recovered themselves, and were eager to be led on ; but the panic-stricken general retreated in dismay to Qwetta, and actually began to throvs^ up entrenchments. On the 15th March Lord Ellenborough issued a procla- mation, signed by himself and all the members of Council, stating that the course now to be pursued must have reference " to the establishment of our borough'T' " military reputation by the infliction of some prociama- " signal and decisive blow on the Afghans which " may make it appear to them and to our subjects and 424 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. A.D. " allies that we have the power of inflicting punishment 1842 '' upon those who commit atrocities, and that we withdraw " ultimatelj from Afghanistan, not from any deficiency of " means to maintain our position, but because we are satis- " fied that the king we have set up has not, as we were " erroneously led to imagine, the support of the nation." These noble sentiments were welcomed with exultation throughout India, but after a brief residence in Calcutta, he left the Council board and proceeded to the north-west ; and, on hearing of the loss of Ghuzni and the repulse of General England and his precipitate retreat to Qwefcta, announced to the Commander-in-Chief his determination to withdraw the troops from Candahar and Jellalabad at the earliest practicable period. He questioned whether " it would be " justifiable to put our troops forward for no other object " than that of avenging our losses and re-establishing our " military character in all its original brilliancy." General Nott was therefore directed to retire from Candahar after blowing up the gateways and demolishing the fortifications, and General Pollock was ordered to return to the provinces, except under certain contingencies. To this communication General Pollock replied that the withdrawal of the force at the present time would neces- sarily be construed into a defeat, and compromise Generaig ^'^^ character as a powerful nation in Asia, and Pollock and produce the most disastrous effect. The release of the prisoners was also, he said, an object not to be repudiated ; but the want of cattle would effectually prevent his immediate retirement, and he might possibly be detained several months. By this dexterous suggestion he was enabled to evade the injunction to retire at once, and to wait the chance of another and more auspicious change in the versatile mind of Lord Ellenborough. General Nott and Major Rawlinson had, with no small difficulty, succeeded in maintaining anything like subordination in the province amidst the seething elements of revolt and anarchy, and any suspicion of retirement would have raised the whole country and rendered it impossible to obtain cattle or provisions without the employment of force. But General Nott replied promptly that the evacuation of the province should be effected in the best manner circum- stances would admit, and thus gained a season of respite. The order for the immediate evacuation of Afghanistan excited a burst of indignation throughout India. It was nniveraally felt that to retire before our honour had becD Sect I.] PEEMISSION TO ADVANCE TO CABUL 425 vindicated, or the prisoners rescued, would inflict a deeper a.u. stigma on the national character than the capitu- 1843 lation at Cabul, which might be considered one borough'T' of the chances of war. With all the contempt change of Lord Ellenborough professed for public opinion, ^ ^^' he could scarcely be indifferent to this unanimous ex- pression of feeling, and he changed his mind again. On the 4th July, General Nott was assured, in an official com- munication, that the resolution of the Governor- General to withdraw the troops remained without alteration. On the same day, Lord Ellenborough wrote himself to the general, suggesting that it might possibly be feasible for him to withdraw from Afghanistan by advancing to Ghuzni and Cabul over the scenes of our late disasters ; that this would have a grand effect upon the minds of our soldiers, of our allies, of our enemies in Asia, and of our own countrymen, and of foreign nations in Europe. It was an object of just ambition, but the risk was unquestionably great. A copy of this letter was sent to General Pollock, with the sugges- tion that he might possibly feel disposed to advance to Cabul and co-operate with General Nott. Both officers were too happy to obtain permission to move up to the capital and retrieve our honour, to think for a moment of the responsibility thus thrust upon them, and which the Governor- General, as the head of the state, should have had the courage to take on himself. After the retreat of the army from Cabul, Shah Soojah was acknowledged as king, and allowed to reside in the Bala Hissar, but the insurgent chiefs engrossed all the power of the state. He sent repeated mes- ^*^^i*^- sages to Jellalabad declaring his unalterable attachment to the British Government, and asking for nothing but money, although he had contrived to save twenty lacs of rupees out of the sums lavished on him since he left Loodiana. To the Afghan chiefs he protested his constant fidelity to the national cause, and they desired him to demonstrate his sincerity by placing himself at the head of the army about to proceed to Jellalabad to expel General Sale. It was rumoured that he would be murdered or blinded by the Barukzies if he quitted the Bala Hissar, and he exacted an oath for his safety on the Koran, and descended from the citadel on the 5th April decked in all the insignia of royalty. He was shot dead on the road, and his body was rifled of the costly jewels he always carried about his person, and thrown into a ditch. It was rescued by his son, and 426 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap XIII. A.D. interred with royal honours. Dissensions then broke out 1842 among the different chiefs, which ended in the complete ascendancy of Akbar Khan. Of the British officers who were taken over as hostages, the greater number were entrusted to Zeman Shah, the The hostages Only Afghan chief who never wavered in his at- and captives, tachment to the English during these scenes of perfidy. On the murder of Shah Soojah, he was con- strained to transfer them to the high priest of Cabul, who sold them to Akbar Khan for 4,000 rupees. The captives, on being made over to him during the retreat, were con- ducted through the recent scenes of slaughter, amidst the mangled corpses which emitted the sickening smell of death, to a fort at Tezeen, and then over mountain paths, all but impassable, to Budeeabad, forty miles from Jellala- bad, and were enabled to correspond with their friends in that town and to receive books and journals. On the ap- proach of General Pollock they were conducted back for safety to Tezeen, where Greneral Elphinstone sunk into the grave, a noble and brave soldier, endeared to all around hira for his urbanity, but utterly unqualified for the arduous post which Lord Auckland had thrust upon him. On the 22nd May the captives were conveyed to a fort three miles from Cabul, where they enjoyed comparative freedom and comfort, and were permitted to interchange visits with their friends in the Bala Hissar. Meanwhile, Akbar Khan deputed one of the officers whom he held in captivity to Greneral Pollock to propose the release of the prisoners on condition of his quitting the country without marching on the capital, threatening, in case of a refusal, to send them on to Turkestan and distribute them among the Oosbek chiefs. The proposal was peremptorily refused. The permission to march on Cabul was received with a shout of exultation at Jellalabad, but it was not before the Advance of "^i^^^^ of August that General Pollock was able General to learn with certainty that General Nott had Pollock. actually turned his face towards the capital. On the 20th of that month, 8,000 men, animated with a feeling of the highest enthusiasm, marched out of Jellalabad. At Jugdulluk the Ghiljies again appeared under the ablest of their chiefs, and with the flower of their tribes ; but they no longer had a dispirited and fugitive soldiery to deal with, and in the battle which ensued the victory over them was in every way complete. The rout of the Ghiljies and the bold advance of General Pollock spread dismay at Cabul, Shcp. I.] RECAPTUEE OF CABUL 427 and Akbar Khan, having put his threat in execution and a.d. sent the prisoners into Turkestan, moved down with all the 1842 chiefs and their levies to make one last effort to protect Cabul from the avenging foe. The two armies met in the valley of Tezeen, which had been the scene of a great mas- sacre in January, and every height again bristled with matchlocks. The sepoy vied with his European comrade in driving the enemy from crag to crag, and dispersing them like a flock of sheep. Akbar fled from the field, leav- ing his troops to shift for themselves, and the British ensign was hoisted on the Bala Hissar on the 15th September. General Nott evacuated Candahar on the 7th August. Owing to the admirable discipline maintained by the military and poHtical chiefs, there had been no licentious- ^^^^nce ness on the part of the soldiery or officers to from Can- irritate the inhabitants, and they crowded around ^^^^^' them and embraced them as they quitted the town. The army encountered no opposition of any moment on the route. The fortifications of Ghuzni were blown up, and the woodwork set on fire ; and the flames of this ancient and renowned citadel, the cradle of Mahomedan power, lighted up the sky throughout the night. In it were deposited the gates of sandal wood of which Mahmood had despoiled the temple of Somnath eight centuries before, and Lord EUenborough resolved to attach to his administration what he considered the merit of having restored them to India. General Nott was also instructed to biding away from the tomb of Mahmood " his club, which hung over it, and which, " together with the gates, would be the just trophies of his "successful march." The army reached Cabul the day after the arrival of General Pollock. The first attention of General Pollock on his arrival was directed to the recovery of the prisoners whom Akbar Klhan, on the 25th August, had hurried over the j^^^^ ^^ barren wastes and steep ascents of the Hindoo the pri- Coosh, many thousand feet above the level of ^°"®"- the sea to Bameean, where they arrived on the 3rd Sep- tember. Sir Richmond Shakespear, his military secretary, was therefore despatched after them with 600 horsemen. They were under the charge of Saleh Mahomed, who had been a native commandant in a local Afghan regiment, but deserted it in the previous year. On the 11th Septem- ber, he called Captain Johnson, Captain George Lawrence, and Major Pottinger aside, and produced a letter from 428 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIH A.D. Akbar Khan, directing him to convey the prisoners to the 1842 higher regions of the Hindoo Coosh, and deliver them to the Oosbek chief of Khooloom. At the same time, he exhibited a letter from Mohiin lall, the moonshee in the service of the late envoy at Cabul, promising him, on the part of General Pollock, a gratuity of 20,000 inipees and an annuity of 12,000 i-upees if he would restore the captives. " I know nothing," he said, " of General Pollock, " but if you three gentlemen will swear to me by your " Saviour to make the offer good, I will deliver you over " to your own people." The proposal was received with rapture, and the officers and ladies united in making them- selves responsible by a deed for the funds. Major Pottinger, by common consent, assumed the direction of their movements, and the hero of Herat was _ again in his element. He deposed the hostile of Major govemor of Bameean, hoisted another flag, and Pottmger. jg^j^]^ under contribution a caravan of Lohanee merchants passing through the country. He secured the Afghan escort consisting of 250 men by the promise of four months pay on reaching Cabul. He issued proclamations to the neighbouring chiefs to come in and make their obeisance, and granted them remissions of revenue. To prepare for a siege he repaired the fortifications, dug wells, and laid in a supply of provisions. On the 15th September a horseman galloped in with the cheering intelligence that Akbar Khan had been completely defeated, that the Afghan force was annihilated, and that General Pollock was in full march to Cabul. Major Pottinger and his fellow prisoners determined to return to Cabul without any delay. They bid adieu to the fort on the IGth, and slept that night on the bare rock, unconscious of fatigue or suffering. The next afternoon Sir Richmond Shakespear and his squadron was in the midst of them, and the anxieties of eight months were at an end. Two days after, the camp at Cabul was ringing with acclamations as the captives entered it, many of them wrapped in sheep skins. Never since the establish- ment of British power in India had so intense a feeling of anxiety pervaded the community as the fate of the prisoners excited, and the thrill of delight which vibrated throughout the country on the announcement of their safety may be more easily conceived than described. The scattered remnant of the Afghan army was assembling in the Kohistan, the highlands of Cabul, under Ameenoolla, the most inveterate of our enemies, and it was deemed Sect. I.] LORD ELLENBOROUaH'S PROCL.AJVIATION 429 necessary to break up the gathering. A force was despatched a.d. against Istaliff, the chief town, which was con- ,. 1842 sidered the virgin fortress of Afghanistan, but it ^ "^ * was captured with little loss. Chareekar, where the Goorkha regiment had been slaughtered, as well as several other towns which had taken a prominent part in the insurrection, were also destroyed. The object of the expedition had now been accomplished ; Afghanistan had been reconquered, our prisoners recovered, and our military reputation restored to its former brilliancy ; but it was considered necessary to leave some lasting mark of retribution on the capital. The great bazaar, where the mutilated corpse of the envoy had been exposed to the insults of the mob — the noblest building of its kind in Central Asia — was accordingly undermined and blown up. Notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the officers to guard the gates, the soldiers rushed in from the camps of both generals, and for several days the city was subjected to the wild and licentious passions of men maddened by a remembrance of the indignities heaped on their murdered fellow-countrymen. The English colours were hauled down from the Bala Hissar on the 12th October, and the two armies turned their backs on Afghan- istan. The family of Shah Soojah returned with the army to their former retreat at Loodiana. Greneral Pollock halted at Jellalabad to blow up the fortifications, and the whole army at length reached the banks of the Sutlej. Lord Ellenborough received intelligence of the re-occu- pation of Cabul while residing at Simla in the house in which Lord Auckland had penned the declara- ^ , ^ ,' n n T n i i • t I^o^d Ellen- tion oi war tour years before, and he issued a borough's proclamation announcing the tennination of it. £2^™*" To give a dramatic effect to the proceeding, it was dated on the same day of the month with Lord Auck- land's manifesto, though it was not issued till ten days later. It was universally censured for the unseemly reflections cast upon the preceding Governor-General. " Disasters," Lord Ellenborough said, " unparalleled in their extent, " except by the errors in which they originated, have in " one short campaign been avenged on every scene of past " misfortune." " The combined army of England and " India," he proceeded to say, " superior in equipment, in " discipline, and in valour, and in the officers by whom it " is commanded, to any force that can be opposed to it " in Asia, will stand in unassailable strength on its own '* soil, and for ever, under the blessing of I'rovidence, 430 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII A.D. " preserve the glorious empire it has won in secnritT and 1842 « honour." Lord Ellenborough had been in such a state of excitement ever since he assumed the government, that these inflated expressions excited little surprise, and. the public only regretted that, with all his fine talents, he had so little ballast. The proclamation of the Gates appeared next, but it was ridiculed as a servile imitation of Bonaparte's pro- clamation of the Pyramids. "My friends and brethren," said the Governor- General in his address to the princes of India, " our victorious army bears the gates of the temple " of Somnath in triumph from Afghanistan, and the de- " spoiled tomb of Mahmood looks on the ruins of Ghuzni. " The insult of 800 years is avenged. To you, princes and " chiefs of Sirhind, of Rajwara, of Malwa, and of Guzerat, " I shall commit this glorious trophy of successful warfare. " You will yourselves, with all honour, transmit the gates " of sandal wood to the restored temple of Somnath." This quixotic address was designated by the Duke of Wellington a song of triumph, but by the community in India, native as well as European, it was considered the triumph of folly. The gates, which had been under the charge of General ITott, were placed on a waggon, covered with costly trappings, and brought in the train of the Gov- ernor-General to Agra. As the encampment moved on, hundreds of Hindoos prostrated themselves before the wag- gon, and made poojah, and presented offerings to it as to a deity. But the gates never,moved beyond Agra, where they were consigned to a lumber room in the fort. Lord Ellenborough had assembled a large army at Eerozepore, partly to overawe the Sikhs, and partly to get up a grand ovation, and there " at the foot of the bridge of Meetinff at " the Sutlej," aniidst hundreds of elephants, which Ferozepore. he had Collected to do honour to the returning heroes, and which had been painted and decorated under his own immediate eye, he welcomed General Pollock with the captives, and General Nott with the gates. The oflBcers were feasted in magnificent tents, decorated with flags bearing the names of their several victories, and the sepoys were regaled, as the Governor- General's notification ran, with their " favourite metoys," or sweetmeats. Including the regiments returning from Afghanistan, the camp at Ferozepore numbered 40,000 troops— an imposing and judicious display of military power after our recent disasters beyond the Indus. The Afghan prisoners in our hands Shct. I.] AFFAIES OF SINDE 481 were liberated. On taking leave of Dost Mahomed, Lord a.d. Ellenborough had the curiosity to enquire his opinion of us ^842 after all he had seen in India. " I have been struck," he rephed, " with the magnitude of your resources and your *' power, your armies, your ships, your arsenals ; but what I *' cannot understand is why the rulers of so vast and flourish- •' ing an empire should have gone across the Indus to " deprive me of my poor and barren countiy." The surprise expressed by the Dost was equally shared by the community in England and in India ; and here the curtain drops on the dark tragedy of Afghanistan. On the 1st October Lord Ellenborough announced in his Simla proclamation that "the Government of India, con- " tent with the limits which nature appears to Q^j^^^g^ ^f " have assigned to its empire, would devote all its the Ameers " efforts to the re-establishment and maintenance °* ^^^^^' " of peace," and he ordered a medal to be struck with the motto " Pax Asiae restituta." Within six months be issued another proclamation, annexing the kingdom of Sinde to the Company's dominions. That country was divided into three principalities — upper, middle and lower Sinde, go- verned respectively by the Ameers, who were independent of each other. They had meekly submitted to the humilia- tion of the treaties enforced on them by Sir William Macnaghten in 1839, and, during the three years of the occupation of Afghanistan, their conduct had been marked by exemplary good faith. They permitted the free passage of our troops and stores, and supplied the steamers with fuel. After the Cabul force was annihilated, they still con- tinued to famish supplies and carriage, and it was solely by means of the 3,000 camels provided by them thai General Nott was enabled to move on Cabul. Some of the chiefs, however, were emboldened by our reverses to manifest a spirit of hostility, and Major Outram, the Resi- dent, brought charges against them, and advised a revision of the treaties. Lord Ellenborough replied that he was determined to inflict signal chastisement on any chief or Ameer who had exhibited hostile designs against us during the late events on a presumption of our weakness, but there must, he said, be the clearest proof of their faithless- ness. Sir Charles Napier arrived in Sinde on the 9th Septem- ber, invested with full diplomatic and military power. He was a soldier of distinguished reputation, and of gij. charlea extraordinary energ}^, but he came to his post Napier. 432 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap.XIIL A.D. with a violent prejudice against the Ameers. The investi- 1812 gation of the charges of disloyalty was referred to him bj the Governor- General with the distinct injunction that he should not proceed against them without the most com- plete proof of their guilt. AH the charges, except three, were at once dismissed, and the question of their delin- quency turned upon the authenticity of a letter, which the best scholars in India said was exceedingly doubtful, but which Sir Charles, who was totally ignorant of the lan- guage, pronounced to be genuine, without calling on the Ameers for any explanation. The treaties of 1839, he affirmed, had been violated. Major Outram had submitted to Lord Ellenborongh, together with the charges he brought against some of the The new chiefs, the draft of a new treaty intended to treaties. substitute a cession of territory for the annual tribute, and to punish the disloyal Ameers by transferring a portion of their lands to the nabob of Bhawulpore. The treaty was received from the Governor- General by Sir Charles ISTapier on the 12th November, when Major Outram discovered that it prescribed the confiscation of more terri- tory than had been originally intended, and deprived the Ameers of the cherished prerogative of coining money. He attributed this alteration to inadvertence, and requested Sir Charles to bring the subject to the notice of Lord EUenborough. He thought fit, however, to detain the docu- ment ten weeks, and when it arrived at length with the Governor- General's instruction that the error should be rectified, the Ameers had been irretrievably ruined. Lord EUenborough had distinctly ordered Sir Charles Napier not to act on the treaty till the Ameers had accepted and rati- fied it ; but before they were allowed to discuss it, he sequestered the whole of the lands stated in the first and incorrect treaty, which belonged to the Beloch chiefs, the feudatories of the Ameers, and they were at once deprived of the means of subsistence. These violent and unjustifiable proceedings were prompt- ed by the consummate villany of Ali Morad. The office of AJi Morad's ^^^^ ^^.s the highest dignity in Upper Sinde, perfidy. and the turban was the symbol of it. It had long been enjoyed by Meer Roostum, then in his eighty-fifth year, who was venerated alike by the chiefs and the people and the British officers. The succession to this honour belonged by the usage of the country to his brother Ali Morad, but ho was anxiou."=^ to bestow it on hia Sect. I.J VILLANY OF ALI MOEAD 433 own son. To make sure of the turban Ali Morad insinu- a.d. ated himself, on the one hand, into the confidence of Sir 1842 Charles N^apier and succeeded in poisoning his mind against Meer Roostum, and on the other, endeavoured to drive Meer Roostum into some overt act of hostility towards the British Government. Under his sinister influence, three haughty and menacing messages were sent by Sir Charles to the Meer, and when he sought an interview to afford an explanation, it was refused him and he was ordered to repair to his brother's fortress at Deejee. Soon after his arrival there, Ali Morad transmitted to Sir Charles a letter from his brother, stating that he had of his owr. free will resigned the turban, and his army, his forts and his country to him. Sir Charles was not withoat suspicion that the cession had been obtained by force or fraud, and he informed Ali Morad that it was his intention to see his brother in person on the subject. To prevent this interview, which would have been fatal to his scheme, he awoke his brother at midnight, and urged him to fly, as the English general was coming the next morning to apprehend him. The bewildered old chief rode off in haste to the camp of his relatives twelve miles distant, and Sir Charles immediately issued a proclamation to the Ameers and people of Sindo charging Meer Roostum with having insulted and defied the British Government, and announc- ing that he was resolved to maintain Ali Morad as the chieftain of the Talpoora family. Meer Roostum immedi- ately sent his minister to assure Sir Charles that he had been placed under restraint by Ali Morad, that his seal was affixed to the deed by force, and that he had been prompted by him to fly. To this communication Sir Charles sent an arrogant reply. Soon after, he started on an expedition to Emamgurh in the desert, because it was considered the " Gibraltar of Upper Sinde," and he was de- termined to show the chiefs that " neither their deserts nor " their negotiations could intercept the progress of the " British army." The army traversed the desert for four days amidst great hardships, and finding the fort eva- cuated, blew it up with the powder contained in it. The Duke of Wellington pronounced it a great military exploit, but as Meer Mahomed, to whom the fort belonged, had never given any cause of offence to the British Government it was an act of wanton aggression. After having confiscated the lands in Upper Sinde and deprived Meer Roostum of his power and dignity, Sir 434 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII Charles Napier ordered the Ameers of Upper and Lower Conference ^^^^^ *^ meet Major Outram at Khyrpore, to with the discuss and sign the treaty, but as some of them Ameers. ^jj^ j^q^ attend, the conference was transferred to Hyderabad. Two days after, the agents of the Ameers of Lower Sinde arrived in the camp with their masters' seals, which they were authorised to affix to the treaty ; and there would have been a peaceful solution of all differ- ences if they had been permitted to do so. Sir Charles, however, refused them permission to execute the deed, and ordered them back to Hyderabad, and thas brought the combustible materials of the upper and lower divisions of the country together in that city, ^jj At the conference, the Ameers denied that they had in- 1843 fringed the treaty of 1839, and they repudiated the corres- Conference pondence on which they had been condemned, at Hydera- and which they were not permitted to see. On ^^^' the 12th February, they affixed their seals to the treaty, but assured the Major that the Beloche troops assembled at the capital were exasperated at the sight of the chiefs of Upper Sinde whom Sir Charles had deprived of their lands, and more especially of the venerable Meer Koostum, whom he had deposed, and that it was impossible to answer for their conduct. The confusion was increased by the approach of Sir Charles Napier and his army. As the Major was leaving the fort after the signature of the treaty, ho was surrounded by a crowd of citizens and soldiers who poured curses on the British name, and he would have fallen a victim to popular fury, if the Ameers had not personally guarded him to the Residency. The next day a deputation from the Ameei-s waited on him, and stated that the Beloche troops were wrought up to such a state of desperation that they had ceased to be amenable to authority. For two days they continued to entreat him to retire from the Residency to a position of greater safety, but, with more chivalry than discretion, he refused to move. On tjie morning of the 15th February, three days after the signature of the treaties, masses of infantry came down on the Residency house, and Major Outram, after a gallant defence of three hours, withdrew to the armed steamer anchored in the river at the distance of 500 yards. An appeal to arms now became inevitable. Tlie Beloche troops flocked to the ca])ital in augmented numbers when Tho battle i^ ^^^ found that Sir Charles Napier j)ersisted in QlMeeanco. advancing upon it after the treaty had been Bbct.i.] battle of MEEANEE 435 signed. On the morning of the 17th February he came in a.d. front of the Beloche army which was posted at Meeanee, six 1848 miles from Hyderabad, about 20,000 in number, while his own force did not exceed 2,700. The Beloches disputed every inch of ground, and, after fighting for three hours with desperate valour, retired gradually from the contest, leaving their camp and their artillery in the hands of the victor. Braver men never rushed on death, and never on any Indian battle-field had the gallantry of British troops and the generalship of a British commander been more conspicuous. No quarter was asked or given, and the loss of the enemy in killed and wounded was computed at 5,000, while on the side of the English the number did not exceed 257, of whom, however, nineteen were officers. A fresh body of 10,000 Beloche soldiers arrived the next day, and a similar number was hovering about in the neighbourhood, but the voluntary submission of the Ameers and the suiTender of the fort, relieved Sir Charles from all anxiety. He entered Hyderabad on the 20th, and obtained possession of the accumulated treasures of the Talpoora dynasty, which, as usual, were at once distributed among the troops as prize-money. Lord Ellenborough on hearing of the victory of Meanee issued a proclamation, annexing Sinde, " fertile as Egypt," to the Company's dominions. The gallant Shere Mahomed collected together the scattered bands of Beloches to make another effort for the independence of his country. Sir Charles Napier, who had received reinforcements which raised his army to 6,000, found the Ameer encamped with 20,000 men at Duppa. The field was gallantly contested on both sides, but the victory was as complete as tliat of Meeanee, and the subjuga- tion of the country was consummated. The triumphs of the army in Sinde were contrasted with the pusillanimity exhibited at Cabul and created a feeling of just exultation in India, but it was damped by the conviction that the war was altogether indefen- sible. The elaborate vindication which Lord ^Ellenborough drew up of it only served to expose the weakness of his cause. His error lay in the overweening confidence he placed in Sir Charles Napier, who was always more under the influence of excitement than of reason, and who with- held much information which he was bound in honour to give. Sir John Hobhouse, the President of the Board of Control, justly observed that the conquest of Sinde would never have taken place if the Governor- General had been 436 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XII in full possession of the real facts, and cognisant of Ali Morad's perfidy. But even before Sir Charles knew any- thing of that caitiff he wrote, " We only want a pretext to " coerce the Ameers . . . the more powerful Government " will at no distant period swallow up the weaker;" and he subsequently remarked, " We have no right to seize Sinde, " yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, and " humane piece of rascality it will be." The rascality is more obvious than the advantage, except to the captors, to whom it brought a rich harvest of prize-money, of which seven lacs fell to the share of Sir Cbarles Napier. On the finances of India it inflicted a loss of two crores and a half of rupees, in the course of fifteen years. SECTIOlSr II. LORD ELLErBOROUGH's ADMINISTRATION — WAR WITH SINDIA — HIS RECALL. A.D. The annexation of Sinde brought its own retribution. It 1 843 led to a relaxation of the bonds of discipline and loyalty of the native army, and afforded a premonition of native regi- that climax of mutiny which thirteen years after ments. swept away the whole army. Sinde having be- come a British province, the sepoys ceased to be entitled to the extra allowance granted to them when on foreign service in an enemy's country, but they could see no reason why their pay should be curtailed because they had added a new kingdom to the dominions of their masters. In A.D. February, the 34th Native Infantry refused to march to 1844 Sinde without the same allowance which had been granted to troops proceeding beyond the Indus. The 7th Bengal Cavalry and some Bengal artillery followed the example, and were marched back. The 60th and 4th, ordered in their stead to the ^frontier, refused (o embark on the boats at Ferozepore, and the 64th mutinied at Loodiana, at Mood- kee, and at Shikarpore. On none of these occasions was the authority of the state vindicated, or the spirit of disci- pline maintained. Finding it impossible to garrison Sinde with a Bengal force, the Government turned to the Madras army, and a regiment was sent to Bombay : but when the men found that the usual extra allowance was not to be granted, they also went into mutiny. The province was Sect. 11.] TRANSACTIONS AT THE GWALIOR 437 then made over to the Bombay Presidency, and satisfactory arrangements were made with regard to the pay of the sepoys. The next event in the course of Lord Ellenborough's a.d. administration had reference to the affairs of Gwahor. 1843 Dowlut Rao Sindia died in 1827, and his widow Affairs of Baeza bye adopted Junkojee, who died in 1843 Gwaiior. without issue. In 1838 he had taken for his second wife Tara bye, who was thirteen years of age at the time of his death, when she adopted a boy of eight years, bestowing on him the title of Gyajee. The Gwahor cabinet was anxious that the government should remain with the existing ministry, but Lord EUenborough, considering the extreme youth of the raja and his adoptive mother, deemed it prudent that the management of public affairs should be entrusted to a single individual. Of the two candidates who were presented to him he chose for regent the Mama Sahib, the uncle of the late raja, while the young queen and an in- fluential party at court preferred Dada Khasjee, the here- ditary chamberlain ; and, finding their wishes disappointed, set every engine to work to thwart the measures of the regent and to embarrass the administration. To strengthen his authority, the regent betrothed the young raja to his own niece. The palace confederacy assured the queen that this alliance would undermine her influence, and ten days after the nuptials she informed the Resident that she had deter- mined to dismiss the regent from her ser^nce. The Resident earnestly remonstrated with her on the folly of this proceed- ing, but she turned a deaf ear to his expostulations, and expelled him the country. The degradation of the minister who had been nominated and supported by the Governor- General placed the state in a position of antagonism to the British Government, and the Resident was instructed to retire from the court. The great source of disquietude at Gwaiior, however, was the state of the army, about 30,000 infantry, and 10,000 cavalry, not composed of Mahratta soldiers, but state of recruited chiefly from the martial population of t^e army. Rajpootana, Oude, and other provinces, and commanded by officers of European descent. It was out of proportion to the necessities of the state, or to its revenues, of which it absorbed more than two-thirds. The ministers had made re- peated efforts to reduce the number, but the troops would not permit a single corps to be disbanded. They were, moreover, always in arrears, which 'increased their arrogance. The 438 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OE INDIA [Chap. XIII. A.D. state had lost all control of the army. One regiment had 1843 recently committed great excesses in Malwa, and upon a strong remonstrance from the Resident the commandant had been summoned to appear at Gwalior alone, but he brought his whole corps with him, and overawed the court. Lord Ellenborough had pressed on the regent the indispen- sable necessity of dealing vigorously with the spirit of re- bellion, but without any result. On the expulsion of the regent the ranee assumed the ostensible management of affairs, and held durbars daily, Confusion at though Only thirteen years of age, but all real QwaUor. power was in the hands of the Dada, who had se- cured the influence of the zenana by lavish gifts of land and money. He was obnoxious to the most influential nobles, who formed an opposition party, and he could not venture to move about without the protection of a guard ; to the British Government he manifested particular hos- tility, and expelled from office all who were favourable to it. The army, which was concentrated at the capital, was courted by both parties, and became more overbearing than ever, and the confusion in the state was rapidly approach- ing a crisis. The ranee importuned the Resident to return to the court, but he informed her that until the Dada, the source of these complications, was removed from the public councils, there could be no restoration of friendly relations. This communication was received by the Dada, but with- held from her. Lord Ellenborough considered this a serious offence, and insisted on his being delivered up to the custody of the Resident, to which the ranee refused her consent. Three of the most influential of the chiefs, how- ever, gained over one of the brigades, besieged the palace for three days and obtained possession of the person of the Dada, but he contrived to make his escape, and resumed the management of affairs, and began to make preparation to resist any adverse movement of the British Government. On the 1st November, Lord Ellenborough recorded a masterly minute on the state of affairs at Gwalior. After Lord BUen- referring to our position in India as the para- borough's mount and controlling power, and to the re- minute, sponsibihties connected with it, he passed in review the transactions of the year at Gwalior. The expul- sion of the regent nominated with our concurrence, and the elevation of his rival, were an affront of the gravest cha- racter. An army of 40,000 men, with a numerous artillery, Sect. II.] MILITARY OPEKATIONS— GWALIOR 439 lay within a few marches of the capital of the North- West a.d. Provinces, under the management of one who had obtained 1843 his post, and could only maintain it, in despite of the British Government. The events which had recently occurred at Lahore would not permit acquiescence in a policy suited only to a state of tranquillity. Within three marches of the Sutlej, there was an army of 70,000 men, confident in its own strength, proud of its various successes over its neighbours, desirous of war and plunder, and under no discipline or control. We were bound to take every pre- caution against its hostility, and no precaution appeared more necessary than that of rendering our rear and our communications secure, by the establishment of a friendly Government at Gwalior. Lord Ellenborough continued for two months to press the surrender of the Dada on the ranee, but still without success. He arrived at Agra on the 11th December, and finding that he had not left Gwalior, wrote to the ranee that he could neither permit the exist- ence of an unfriendly Government in the territories of Sindia, nor permit it to remain without a Government able and willing to preserve the relations of amity with its neighbours. He had therefore ordered the British armies to advance, and would not arrest their progress until he had full security for the future tranquillity of the common frontier. Sir Hugh Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, was directed to commence his march to Gwalior, and the Dada was im- mediately sent in to the encampment of the Resi- Qom^imica. dent at Dholpore with a letter from the ranee, tionswith requesting that, as the wishes of the Governor- ^w*^^**^- General had been complied with, the advance of the army might be countermanded. In his reply, Lord Ellenborough repeated his former remarks on the necessity of a strong Government at Gwalior to control its own subjects, and he required that the Gwalior army, which was to all intents and purposes master of the state it professed to serve, should be reduced, and the strength of the British contin- gent increased. The Cabinet, finding that the British army continued to move down to the Chumbul, the boundary of the two States, sent a deputation of the most influential chiefs to request that the ranee and the prince should be allowed to wait on the Governor- General in his present encampment. Lord Ellenborough replied that he could not wait their arrival, but they represented withgreater importunity that the house of Sindia would be for ever disgraced, if, contrary to all precedent, the Governor- 440 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. A.D. General should cross the frontier before the head of the 1843 State had waited on him on British territory. As Lord Ellenborough continued inflexible, it was arranged that the meeting should take place twenty-three miles from the capital. The troops, however, would not permit the royal family to quit it, but marched out of Gwalior with accla- mation, and informed the Resident that they were going to drive the English back across the Chumbul. After waiting in vain for two days at Hingona for the royal party. Lord Ellenborough directed Sir JSugh Gough Battle of *^ advance to Gwalior. Sindia's army had taken Maharaj- up a strong position at Chounda, and Sir Hugh's ^^'^' arrangements were directed to this point ; but during the night seven battalions with twenty guns of heavy calibre moved on unobserved to Maharajpore, and entrenched themselves, with their fonnidable batteries in front. The Commander-in-Chief and his staff considered the enemy a contemptible rabble, ready to fly on the first shot. The Adjutant- General said he should not have oc- casion for anything but a horse-whip. The march was described as a military promenade, and the Governor- General and the ladies of the chief officers were in the field on elephants. There had been no reconnaissance, and the enemy's change of position was not known. The troops advanced gaily to Maharajpore, where it was intended to breakfast, when a volley from the masked batteries gave the first intimation of their position. Sir Hugh was re- quired to change his dispositions in haste, and the battle was justly characterised by the Governor- General as one in which everybody and everything was out of place. The British force numbered 12,000, that of the Mahrattas about 14,000, The siege train had been unaccountably left behind on the surrender of the Dada, and the light field pieces of the army were quickly silenced by the heavy ord- nance of the enemy, and the troops were, according to the usual tactics of Sir Hugh, launched on the batteries, which were served with desperation as long as a gunner was left. Dec. The victory was at length achieved by the irresistible 29. gallantry of our soldiers, of whom 1,000 fell killed and wounded. On the same day, another battle was fought at Punniar, of minor importance, which likewise ended in a victory. These victories placed the kingdom of Sindia at the dis- posal of the Governor-General, but he left it entire, and simply curtailed its independence. The young ranee was Sect. II.] RECALL OF LORD ELLENBOROUGH 441 deposed from tlie office of regent, and consigned to oblivion on an allowance of three lacs a year, and the ^ administration was committed to a council of regency, who were required to act implicitly on the advice of the Resident. The turbulent army of the state was reduced to 9,000, and allowed only thirty-two guns. The British contingent was raised to 10,000, and became, in fact, a complete and compact little army of all arms, com- manded by the officers of the Company, composed of high- caste brahmins and Rajpoots, men of athletic frames and high courage, and also of boundless presumption, as the Government found to its cost during the mutiny. Lord Ellen borough returned to Calcutta in March, and on the 15th June, India was astounded by the news that ^g^^ the Court of Directors had revoked his appoint- -^^^i of ment. His correspondence with the India House Lord Eiien- had been marked by the absence of that deference ^o^o^s^- to the Directors which was due to their high position in the empire, and it too much resembled his communications to them when he was dictator at the Board of Control ; his proceedings had too often exhibited a contumacious disdain of their authority. He treated the civil service with un- disguised contempt, and concentrated his sympathies on the army. He had contracted a fondness for military glory, and his administration presented only a succession of battles. The vagary of the Gates proclamation had exposed the Government of India to the ridicule of England and the contempt of Europe, and destroyed all confidence in the sobriety and soundness of his judgment. He appeared to the Directors to be without any definite principles of action, and they were in constant dread of the new embarrassments in which his eccentricities might involve them. They ceased to consider the empire safe in his hands ; and in the teeth of ministerial remonstrances, more especially from the Duke, determined to exercise the power of recall which they had refused to renounce at the renewal of the charter. His removal was resented by the army he had caressed, with expressions bordering on disloyalty. The com- munity in general, while duly appreciating his many noble qualities, the total absence of nepotism, the patriotic distribution of his patronage, his indefatigable industry, and his singular energy, still regarded the resolution of the Court of Directors as an act of unquestionable wisdom. He embarked for England on the 1st August, and the Sikh war was postponed for twelve months. 442 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. Lord Ellenborough's attention was so completely absorbed in war and politics as to leave him little leisure or inclina- improve- *^°^ ^^^ ^^® moral, intellectual, or material im- mentsinhis provcment of the country, but there were some tton.'"^*^*' measures which deserve notice. It was during his administration that the police of the lower provinces was rendered more efficient by the establishment of the office of deputy magistrate, to which men of every class, creed, and caste were eligible ; and also by an im- provement of the pay of darogas, who held the comfort of the great body of the people in their hands. It was also under his government that state lotteries, which had become a proHfic source of demoralisation, were abolished. To him also belongs the merit of having, under the advice of Mr. Wilberforce Bird, passed an Act for the total and immediate extinction of slavery. SECTION III. LORD HARDINGE*S ADMINISTRATION — THE PUNJAB — THE SIKH WAR. A.D. On the recall of Lord EUenborough, the Ministry and the 1844 Court of Directors concurred in nominating his relative. Sir Lord Henry — subsequently Lord — Hardinge, to succeed Hardinge. Jiim. He had entered the army at an early age, and served in the Peninsula under the Duke of Wellington, and acquired a high reputation, more especially at the battle of Albuera, the success of which was ascribed to his skill and gallantry, and procured him from a great historical authority the commendation of being " the young soldier " with the eye of a general, and the soul of a hero." At Waterloo he was disabled by a severe wound. On his return to England he entered Parliament and was twice Secretary at War, and once Secretary for Ireland, and in these positions acquired much experience in the management of public affairs. It was his military qualifications, however, which recommended him for the government of India at a time when the right bank of the Sutlej was bristling with hostile bayonets and the Sikh army had ceased to be amenable to the control of the state. ^ He was of the same mature age — sixty — as the Marquis of Hastings, and he entered upon his duties, as he said at the valedictory banquet, Sect. III.] REVOLUTIONS IN THE PUNJAB 448 with an earnest desire to establish his fame as the friend of peace, and not by means of conquest or the exhibition of military skill. But as in the case of his two predecessors, Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings, these pacific intentions were destined to a speedy disappointment, and the most memorable events of his administration consist of the four battles fought within the period of fifty-four days. From the period of his arrival the attention of Sir Henry Hardinge was anxiously fixed upon the storm then gather- ing in the Punjab, where the death of Runjeet jj^e^^oj^^ons Singhadbeenfollowed by unexampled anarchy and in the a.i». bloodshed. He was succeeded in July, 1839, by ^°^J'^^- 188^ his imbecile son Kliurruk Sing, whose young and gallant son Nao Nihal Sing, equal to his grandfather in talent and energy, managed the affairs of the State, but was obliged to share his authority with Dhyan Sing, the minister, a member of the Jummoo, or Dogra family, then one of the most influential in the Punjab. Golab Sing, the head of the house, was originally a running footman, who had attracted the notice of Runjeet Sing, and rapidly rose in his favour, and was endowed with the district of Jummoo. He was a Rajpoot and not a Sikh, and this circumstance, combined with the extraordinary power to which the family had risen, rendered them an object of envy and hatred. Khurruk Sing died prematurely of excess, and Nao Nihal his son, after performing his funeral obsequies, was killed by the falling of a covered gateway as he was returning to the city. Shore Sing, the reputed son of Runjeet Sing, having gained over a portion of the army, marched to Lahore and seized on the government on the 14th January. Army of the 1841 He was shrewd and frank, but the slave of Punjab, sensuality, and the vassal of the Jummoo family, whom he was unable either to shake off* or to control. He rewarded the troops who had been the instruments of his elevation with an increase of pay, which served to sharpen their avarice and to increase their arrogance, and they proceeded to wreak their vengeance on all who were obnoxious to them. Shere Sing had made a request for British support, and so little idea had the Government of India of the strength of the Khalsa army that a force of 10,000 men was held in readiness to march to Lahore, to exterminate it. On receiving notice of this wild proposal, he simply drew his finger across his throat to signify the fate which would await him. If this force had crossed the Sutlej, the whole Khalsa army 444 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIIL would have risen as one man, and hurled back the inva- sion. That army, with the exception of a few Mahomedans, consisted of a compact body of martial Sikhs, united by the strongest national and religious sympathies, proud of their past achievements, and haughty in the consciousness of their own superiority. When the iron sceptre of Runjeet Sing was removed, these Prastorian bands speedily became masters of the Punjab. The soldiers were individually obedient to their own officers, though they did occasionally tie the commandant up to a gun ; but as a body their move- ments were regulated, not by the will of the sovereign or of the minister, but by the dictation of the army committees or 'punchesj the Council of Five, who consulted nothing but the interests of the troops. Those who bestowed on them the greatest largesses were most sure of their support. ^•»' The year 1843 was marked by those convulsions to which *^ Lord Ellenborough alluded in his minute of the 1st Novem- Murderof her, when he dwelt on the necessity of securing Shero Sing. Qur rear by reducing the equally insubordinate army of Gwalior. The minister Dhyan Sing, finding his power on the wane, persuaded Shore Sing to recall Ajeet Sing, the head of one of the most powerful clans, whom he had banished. On his restoration to office, he invited Shere Sing to inspect some new levies which he had raised, and shot him dead on the parade. Ajeet Sing then assassinated Dhyan Sing, when his youthful son Heera Sing called on the soldiers to revenge these foul murders, and they pro- ceeded to the citadel and put Ajeet Sing to death. Duleep Sing, then five years of age, the son of Runjeet Sing by the ranee Jhindun, was brought from the zenana and installed maharaja by Heera Sing, who took the post of minister, and attached the troops to his interest by an addition of two rupees and a half to their monthly pay. From this time, the army may be considered absolute master of the state. The position of Heera Sing was unstable and perilous in the extreme. One of his uncles marched down to Lahore, Murder of from Jummoo to supplant him, but was defeated Heera Sing, and slain. The.Klialsa army, wliich supported his power, was also the great source of danger, which he endeavoured to lessen by distributing the regiments and raising levies in the highlands, but the pu7iches would not permit a single corps to leave the capital without their concurrence. The success of his administration was due fiBCTT. III.] INSUBOEDINATION OF THE KHALSA 445 chiefly to the genius of his tutor, the pundit Jalla, the priest of the Jummoo family, who was considered a man of such extraordinary ability that if he could have controlled the troops he might have established a dynasty of Peshwas at Lahore, but before his position was consolidated he endeavoured to reduce the power of Golab Sing, who suc- ceeded Dhyan Sing as the ruler of Jummoo ; he also se- questered the estates of some of the chiefs, and, more particularly, offended the ranee Jhindun and her brother by his supercilious deportment. She appealed to the army, a.d. and Heera Sing and the pundit were obliged to fly, but ^^'^^ were overtaken and killed, and their heads brought in triumph to Lahore. On the dissolution of the Government of Heera Sing the management of affairs fell into the hands of Jowaher Sing, the brother of the ranee, and of her favourite paramour, Lall Sing, a brahmin, who had nothing to recommend him but his comely person. The soldiers received a fresh augmentation of pay, and became so in- subordinate that it appeared necessary to find some employ- ment for them to prevent the total overthrow of the Govern- ment. They were therefore instigated to march to Jummoo and fleece raja Golab Sing, whom they brought down to Lahore and from whom they wrung more than a crore of rupees. To keep them from mischief at the capital they were then recommended to attack Moolraj, who had been allowed to succeed his father in the government of Mooltan, and from him they extorted eighteen lacs. Soon after, Peshora Sing, another of the sons of Runjeet, raised the standard of revolt, but was defeated and basely murdered by Jowaher Sing. He had always been popular with the people and the army, and the contempt which was felt for the wretched de- bauchee who occupied the post of minister was turned into indignation by this atroci^, and he was led out into the plain of Meean Meer and executed. After the loss of her brother, the ranee sat daily in durbar, and in the beginning of November appointed Lall Sing minister, and Tej Sing commander-in-chief. But the army, which had within the year humbled the two great feudatories of Jummoo and Mooltan, was now the sole power in the state. The anarchy which reigned in the Punjab constrained 1845 the Government of India to make energetic preparations for the defence of the frontier. The cantonment at Ferozepore on the Sutlej which was inade- onthefron-^ ^uately garrisoned had been reinforced by Lord ^^^^' Ellenborough, but Sir Henry Hardinge found that the 446 ABRIDaMENT OE THE HISTORY OF mDIA [Chap. Xni force assembled there, tliougli amounting to 17,000 men, was not sufficient for its defence, still less for extensive operations if they should be forced upon us. He therefore gradually massed 40,000 men on the frontier, and in the stations below it, so imperceptibly as to attract no atten- tion in our own provinces ; and he likewise brought up from Sinde to Ferozepore the fifty- six large boats which Lord Ellenborough had wisely constructed to serve as a pontoon. It has been surmised that it was the assemblage of this large force on and near the frontier which roused the suspicions of the Klialsa army, and led them to anticipate our designs by the invasion of our territories. But since our dis- comfiture in Afghanistan had lowered our prestige, that army had twice marched down to the banks of the Sutlej and threatened to cross it. Considering, moreover, the distracted state of the Punjab Government, with the most efficient army ever collected under the banner of any native State, flushed with its past successes and panting for new triumphs, and utterly beyond control, the Governor- General would have been Avithout excuse if he had not made the most ample preparations to meet a crisis which might turn up any day. The invasion was the work of the ranee — justly termed by Sir Henry Hardinge the Messalina of the north— and of Lall Sing and Tej Sing. They felt that the only chance of maintaining their authority in the Punjab was to involve the army in a conflict with the British Government ; and it was they who launched the Sikh battalions on our provinces for their own security, and endeavoured to avert the plunder of Lahore by sending them across the Sutlej to plunder Delhi and Benares. On the 17th November, the order was issued to cross the Sutlej. Major Broadfoot, the political agent on the A D Th Sikh frontier, urged the most prompt and energetic 1845 nrmy cross mcasurcs of defence, but Sir Henry Hardinge, tho Sutlej. g^^ii clinging to the hope of peace, directed him to send another remonstrance to the durbar, the only reply to which, however, was an order to commence the march without any further delay. Animated by a feeling of national and religious enthusiasm, 60,000 Khalsa soldiers, with 40,000 well-armed camp followers, and 150 guns of large calibre, crossed the Sutlej in four days, and by tlie 16th December, were encamped within a short distance of the fort of Ferozepore, which was held by Sir John Littler, one of the oldest and best officers in the service, with about 1C,000 men and 21 guns. On tho 11th December, preparations Sect. III.] BATTLE OF MOODKEE 447 had been made for a grand ball in the state tents of the a.d, Commander-in-Chief at Umballa, when information was 1844 received that the whole Sikh army had marched down to the Sutlej and was on the eve of crossing it. The ball was abandoned, and the night passed in preparing to march to the relief of Sir John Littler, who was enveloped by a force six times the number of his own. Hours were now in- valuable, and the troops, heavily accoutred, performed a march never before attempted in India, of 150 miles in six days, through heavy sands, the most formidable of all roads, with little time to cook their food, and scarcely an hour for repose. On the 13th the Governor- General issued a declaration of war, and confiscated the districts belonging to the Sikh crown south of the Sutlej. The day after the Sikh army had crossed the river, a large portion of it pushed on to Eerozeshuhur and iDCgan to construct en- trenchments of the most substantial character, leaving Tej Sing to watch the movements of Sir John Littler. Ijall Sing's scouts brought him information that the Governor- General and the Commander-in-Chief were ad- vancing with only a slender force, and he pushed Battle of on with 20,000 men and 22 guns to Moodkec, Moodkee. where he awaited their arrival under cover of the jungle. On the 18th December, the army had performed a fatiguing 1345 march of twenty-one miles over an arid plain ; the troops were sufiering severely from thirst ; they had not broken their fast since the preceding night, and were preparing for a meal, when a cloud of dust rose up in front, and the roar of cannon announced the approach of Lall Sing's army. Sir Hugh Go ugh was taken by surprise, as at Maharaj- pore ; and then came the first conflict between the sepoy of Hindostan and the Khalsa battalions of the Punjab, and the superiority of the Sikh, whom a high political authority had declared to be "a rabble demoralised by the absence of " every principle of subordination, and by its wretched " violence," became at once indisputable. One of our regi- ments turned round and sought the rear, and it was with difficulty the Commander-in-Chief and his stafi" could drag it to the front. Even a European corps was for a time staggered by the precision and rapidity of the enemy's fire, and in the confusion of the hour, one regiment fired into another; but victory declared on our side, though not without the loss of 900 in killed and wounded. For sixty years it had been the practice of the home authorities to unite the office of Commander-in-Chief with that of Governor-Gene- 448 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. ral, when he happened to be a military man, as in the case of Lord Oornwallis, Lord Hastings, and Lord William Ben- tinck. It was unfortunately omitted in the case of Sir Henry Hardinge, but after the miserable tactics exhibited at Moodkee, he placed his services at the disposal of Sir Hugh Gough, and magnanimously took the post of second in command, and thus restored in some degree the confi- dence of the troops. A.D. The army halted two days at Moodkee to take repose and 1845 bury the dead, and was reinforced by the arrival of two Battle of European and two native regiments, brought up Feroze- by forced marches, through the indefatigable ex- shuhur. ertions of Sir Henry Hardinge. It started for the entrenched camp of the Sikhs at Ferozeshuhur on the morning of the 21st December, without provisions or tents. Sir John Littler was directed to join it at the computed hour of its arrival, and he moved out early in the morning, and evaded the notice of Tej Sing by leaving his camp pitched, his bazaar flags flying, and his cavalry pickets standing, and reached the main bcdy with 5,500 men and 22 guns a few moments before noon. The Sikh entrenchment was in the form of a parallelogram, a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, with the village of Ferozeshuhur in the centre. The number of troops within it, commanded by Lall Sing, was estimated at 35,000, with 100 guns and 250 camel swivels. The batteries were mounted, not with ordinary field artillery, but with heavy siege guns, placed in position ; the day was the shortest in the year, and with such an enemy to deal with as the Sikhs had proved them- selves to be at Moodkee, every moment was of inestimable value ; but three hours were strangely frittered away after Sir John Littler's arrival, and it was nearly four in the afternoon before the first shot was fired. Sir Charles Napier in his comments on the strategy of the day remarks that the attack should have been made on the two sides which were not protected by the tremendous gans immove- ably fixed, but Sir Hugh Gough resolved to follow his usual practice of charging at once right up to the muzzle of the guns and carrying the batteries by " cold steel." He took the command of the right. Sir Henry Hardinge of the contre, and Sir John Littler of the left. It fell to Sir John to assault the strongest section of the enemy's position^ where they had gathered the strength of their heaviest guns. His own field pieces were found to bo of little, if any use, and his troops advanced gallantly up to the bat- Sect, III.] BATTLE OF FEROZESHUHUR 449 fceries, but were at once arrested by the overwlielining fire a.d. of the enemy. The 62nd Foot, mowed down by grape and 1845 ronnd shot, was checked, and retired beaten, but not, in the ^^ -^^ eye of candour, dishonoured. The other divisions en- countered an equally terrific resistance. To borrow the language of the historian of the Sikhs, " guns were dis- " mounted, and the ammunition blown into the air ; " squadrons were checked in mid career ; battalion after " battalion was hurled back with shattered ranks ; and it " was not till after sunset that portions of the enemy's " position were finally carried. Darkness and the obstinacy " of the conflict threw the English into confusion ; men of " all regiments and all ranks were mixed together. " Generals were doubtful of the fact, or the extent of their " own success, and colonels knew not what had become of " the regiments they commanded, or of the army of which " they formed a part." The Governor- General had five aides-de-camp killed and four wounded. He himself passed the night in moving from regiment to regiment, endeavour- ing to sustain the spirits and to revive the ardour of the men, and, instead of retiring to Ferozepore as he was advised to do, determined to renew the engagement the next morning, although there was only one weak division for the work which had baffled the whole army. At day- dawn he and the Commander-in-Chief collected the scat- tered soldiers of General Gilbert's division, attacked the batteries in reverse, and captured them after a feeble resis- tance. In the Sikh encampment during the night there had been stormy counsels and bitter recriminations ; the military chest had likewise been plundered, and, through the cowardice or the treachery of the commander, the legions who had defended this Roman encampment with Roman courage were in fall flight to the Sutlej. The British line halted as soon as it had cleared the works, and the two commanders were received with acclamation as they rode along the ranks. The cheers had scarcely died out when a cloud of dust announced the approach of a new enemy. This was Tej Sing, who, finding that Sir John Littler had eluded his vigilance, marched down to Feroze- shuhur on the morning of the 22nd, with 20,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and seventy guns. He found that the en- trenchment was lost, and the Sikh army in full retreat to the river, and after a brief cannonade, which at once dis- mounted our feeble artillery, withdrew to the Sutlej. He did not know that the British array, or what remained o 450 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII A.D. of it, was drooping from hunger, not having tasted food foi 1845 thirty-six hours, and wholly without ammunition, and that, if vigorously attacked, the most brilliant courage could not have saved it from utter destruction. The British empire in India was again saved by a miracle. Our loss was 2,415 killed and wounded, including 103 officers. The battle of Ferozeshuhur was the most severe and critical the British army had ever fought in India. !N^ever before had we en- countered so resolute and so skilful an enemy ; but it was the defect of our tactics and the deficiency of our ammuni- tion, quite as much as the courage of the Sikhs, which for a time gave a character of equality to the struggle. The tide of invasion had now been stemmed, and of the 60,000 Khalsa soldiers who had poured down on the Battle of Company's territories twelve days before, not one Aiiiwai. remained in arms on the left bank of the Sutlej. But the two engagements had cost the army a fifth of its numbers and exhausted its ammunition, and it became neces- sary to bring up a large supply of stores as well as siege guns from the nearest depdt, which was at Delhi, 200 miles distant. The army was thus condemned to a season of inactivity, which the Sikhs attributed to timidity or to weakness, and Runjoor Sing crossed the river in force, and threatened the station of Loodiana. Sir Harry Smith was sent to cover it, but owing to his own obstinacy, he received a serious check at Buddewal which gave no little con- fidence to the Sikh commander ; and it became necessary to make a vigorous efi'ort to clear the left bank of the Sutlej of the enemy, and prevent an attack on the long convoy ^^*° coming up from Delhi. General Smith's force was there- fore raised to 11,000, and the two forces met at Aliwal, on the banks of the river. The hill men who defended it were speedily put to flight, but the Khalsa soldiers, men of true Sikh blood and mettle, stood their ground with un- flinching courage, and it was not before their ranks had been thrice pierced by Colonel Cureton's cavalry, that they retreated to the river, in which many found a watery grave, leaving sixty -seven guns as trophies in the hands of the victors. This serious reverse disheartened the cabinet at Lahore. Lall Sing, the prime minister, was deposed for his incapacity, and Golab Sing was invited from Jummoo to open negotiations with Sir Henry Hardinge. He was informed that the Governor- General was prepared to acknowledge a Sikh sovereignty at Lahore, but not till the Khalsa army had been entirely disbanded. Golab Sing Shot. III.] BATTLE OF SOBRAON 451 informed him that it was impossible to control the move- a.d. ment of the troops, who continued to domineer over the 184( public authorities, and the negotiation was broken off. While the Commander-in-Ohief was awaiting the arrival of the train from Delhi, the Sikhs were transporting their forces across the Sutlej at the Hurrekee ford, Battle of where they erected one of the strongest works Sobraon. against which troops had ever been led in India. It con- sisted of a series of semicircular entrenchments, with the river for their base, the outer line being two miles and a half in circumference, surrounded by a deep ditch. The ram- parts were defended by sixty-seven pieces of heavy ordnance and 35,000 Khalsa soldiers. A bridge of boats united the entrenchment with the encampment across the river, where heavy guns had also been planted to sweep the left bank. The long train of ordnance and stores coming up from Delhi marched into the camp on the 8th February, and raised the drooping spirits of the men. Greneral Smith's troops also joined the army, and increased its strength to 15,000, of whom 5,000 were Europeans. The heavy ordnance was planted on commanding positions opposite the enemy's en- trenchments, and opened upon them at seven in the morning of the 10th February. The Sikhs answered flash for flash from their powerful artillery, and at nine it was found that the cannonade had made no impression on their position ; the ammunition, moreover', began to fall short, and, after having waited seven weeks for these guus, it was discovered that they were of little avail, and that the issue of the con- flict must be left to the arbitrament of musketry and the bayonet. The attack was made in three divisions on three points, by Generals Dick, Gilbert, and Smith. Sir Robert Dick's division was the first to move up to the attack, and, charging home with the bayonet, cleared the ditch and mounted the rampart. The Sikhs perceiving that this was to be the principal point of attack, slackened the defence of the entrenchments elsewhere, and concentrated their guns on it. Fresh regiments were sent up to reinforce General Dick, but they were staggered and checked by the deadly fire of the Sikhs. The other two divisions were therefore ordered to make a simultaneous attack, which the enemy no sooner perceived than they immediately re- turned to the posts they had quitted, and from every foot of the entrenchment poured a withering fire of grape, round shot, and musketry. The most remarkable occurrence of the day was the charge of General Gilbert's division on the o o 2 452 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII A.D. centre ; his troops were repeatedly driven back, but their 1846 indomitable courage mastered the entrenchment, though not without the loss of 689 killed and wounded. The Sikh defences were at length pierced in all three directions. Tej Sing was among the first to fly, and either by accident or design, broke down the bridge after he had crossed it. The Khalsa soldiers, pressed on three sides into a confused mass, still continued to dispute every inch of ground till they were forced to the bridge, and, preferring death to surrender, plunged wildly into the stream, which had risen during the night and flooded the ford, and they perished by hundreds in their attempt to cross. The confusion, dismay, and carnage were such as had not been seen in India since the battle of Paniput. The loss on the side of the Sikhs was computed at 8,000, and the whole of their encampment, with all their artillery, standards, and stores fell to the victors. The loss on our side was 2,383 in killed and wounded, but the victory was complete. The con- querors, as they beheld the trenches filled with the bodies of their iron-hearted defenders, and the fords of the Sutlej choked up with thousands of corpses, and the river itself exhibiting in every direction the wreck of a great army, did not fail to pay a tribute of admiration to the gallantry and devotedness of the noble Khalsa legions. Major Abbot had been employed day and night in con- structing a bridge of the boats which Sir Henry Hardinge had brought up from Sinde to Ferozepore, and enteraSe it was Completed the night before the battle. Sir Punjab. Henry had been actively engaged in the field at Sobraon, and was severely injured by a fall from his horse, but as soon as the victory was assured, he rode twenty- six miles to Ferozepore to hasten the passage of the troops, and that night six regiments bivouacked in the Punjab. Three days after the action, the whole force, which, includ- ing camp followers, fell little short of 100,000 men, and 68,000 animals and forty pieces of artillery, crossed the river without a single casualty. On the line of march to the capital, a deputation from the Sikh cabinet, with Golab Sing at their head, waited on the Governor- General, but they were received as the representatives of an offending Government and their complimentary presents were declined. Soon after, the maharaja Dhuleep Sing came into the camp, and was dismissed with honour. On the 20th the citadel of Lahore was occupied by a British garrison, and the army was encamped on the plain of Meeanmeer. SBCT.m.] SETTLEMENT OF THE PUNJAB 453 The issue of the war had placed the Punjab at the dis- a.d. posal of the Grovernor-Greneral, and he might have annexed 184€ it to the Company's dominions, but he did not consider it prudent to encumber the Government n^r^^g with the charge of a new kingdom. The morale arrange- of the army, moreover, was low, the season of ™^° heat and prostration was approaching, and the four battles had reduced his European strength to 3,000 men, while the remnant of the Sikh army still mustered 14,000, with forty pieces of cannon. He determined, therefore, to punish tho Sikh nation for its wanton aggression without suppressing its political independence, and he simply deprived it of the possessions held south of the Sutlej and the province of Jullunder across it. The state was required to make good the expenses of the campaign, computed at a crore and a half of rupees, but the profligacy of the ministers and the rapacity of the soldiery had reduced the twelve crores left by Runjeet Sing to half a crore. Sir Henry Hardinge determined, therefore, to take over the province of Cashmere in lieu of the remaining crore, and Golab Sing, the powerful raja of Jummoo, stepped forward and offered to pay this sum on being constituted the independent monarch of Cashmere and Jummoo. The two provinces were, in fact, sold to him, but he merely received an indefeasible title to that which was already in his possession, and which we were not in a position to deprive him of. The settlement of the Punjab was embodied in the treaty of the 9th March, which provided that the Khalsa army should be disbanded, that the military force of gg^-^-igj^g^^ the state should be limited to 20,000 infantry of the and 12,000 cavalry, and that all the guns which P'^^^^- had been pointed against British troops should be given up. Although the war had terminated in the total defeat of the Khalsa army and the dismemberment of the Punjab, the fact of our triumph was doubted in the native community, more especially as it was unwelcome. The natives had looked with a feeling of complacency on the growth of the new kingdom in the Punjab, the cradle of Hindooism, as the germ of a power destined to restore Hindoo supremacy throughout India, Sir Henry Hardinge considered it im- portant to remove this feeling of incredulity, and to demon- strate that the power of Runjeet Sing was completely prostrated. A grand procession was accordingly formed of the 250 guns obtained from the Sikhs, which was conducted from Lahore to Calcutta with every demonstration of 454 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. i.D. military pomp. It was received at the stations and canton- 1846 ments by the public fanctionaries with all honour, and its arrival in Calcutta was celebrated by a magnificent cere- monial. In England, the thanks of Parliament were moved to Sir Henry Hardinge, Sir Hugh Gough, and their brave companions by Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Welling- ton, in speeches which enhanced their value in no small degree. Peerages were bestowed on the Governor- General and the Commander-in-Chief, and a baronetcy on the victor of Aliwal. To all the troops engaged in the campaign Lord Hardinge granted twelve months' full batta, vrithout waiting for permission from home. At the earnest entreaty of the durbar, Lord Hardinge consented to leave a British force for the protection of the maharaja and the new government, but only to ran^ements ^^® ®^^ ^^ ^^^® J®^^ 5 ^^^^ Major Henry Lawrence, in the of the Bengal Artillery, was selected as the """"^ ' representative of the Government at the Lahore court. Lall Sing, the paramour of the ranee, was ap- pointed prime minister. He was a man of low extraction, without any capacity for civil or military affairs, and his ad- ministration, which was both venal and oppressive, rendered him odious to the chiefs and the people. His treachery to the British government soon brought his career to a close. Cashmere had been made over to the raja Golab Sing, but the governor. Sheik Imam-ood-deen, at first hesitated, and then refused to surrender it. Major Lawrence considered it indispensable to extingniish the first spark of resistance, and at the risk of being blocked up by the snows of winter^ marched with the utmost promptitude with a large force, consisting of 10,000 of the Sikh army which we had recently conquered, an,d a small detachment of British troops. The refractory chief was reduced to submission, and, in his own defence, produced a written order from LalJ Sing to obstruct the transfer. A mixed commission of European officers and Sikh chieftains assembled to investi- gate the charge of treachery, which was fully substantiated, and, in spite of the tears of the janee, he was banished from the Punjab and consigned to oblivion on a pension. At the close of the year, the Sikh cabinet and the most influential nobles assured Lord Hardinge that the withdrawal of the British force woald inevitably lead to the resuscitation of the Elhalsa army, and he yielded with great reluctance to their importunity. A new treaty was drawn up to which fifty-two chiefs affij:ed their seals, which provided that a dKCT. III.] REDUCTION OF THE ARMY 465 council of regency, consisting of eight chiefs, should be con- a.d. stituted to act under the control and guidance of the 184(1 Resident, that the various forts and cantonments should be garrisoned by British troops, for whose maintenance a sum of twenty- two lacs of rupees a year should be appropriated, and that the arrangement should continue for eight years during the minority of Dhuleep Sing. The government of the Punjab was virtually vested in Major Lawrence, an officer of artillery. For eight years the government in India had been inces- santly engaged in war, or in preparations for it, and the armies of the three Presidencies had been aug- Redaction of mented to the extent of 120,000 men. The pres- the army. sure on the finances of the empire had been proportionately severe, and at the close of the Sikh war the expenditure was found to exceed the revenue by a crore and a half of rupees. In the course of the preceding twenty-six months, the three remaining independent armies — ^those of Gwalior, Sinde, and the Punjab— numbering 120,000 soldiers, had been extinguished, and their artillery, consisting of 600 pieces of cannon, had been transferred to our own arsenals. There was no longer any native military organisation in any province to oppose us, and the time appeared to have arrived when the strength of our own armies could be reduced without danger. Happily Lord Hardinge's long military experience both in the field and, as secretary-at- war, in the cabinet, enabled him to carry out this measure without in any degree impairing our military strength. Leav- ing the number of officers, European and native, without diminution, he curtailed the rank and file of the army by 50,000 men, and disbanded the police battalions, but he carefully avoided any mutilation of individual allowances. These arrangements resulted in a saving of a crore and a half a year, and the revenues of the two Sikh provinces which he had annexed left him a small surplus. Notwith- standing these material reductions, the security of the north-west frontier, the only point of danger, was more eflfectually provided for than ever, by allotting to Meerut and the stations above it 54,000 men and 120 guns. Equal wisdom and foresight were manifested in his arrange- ments for the peace of the Punjab. He did not expect that a country teeming with disbanded soldiers, the bravest and most haughty in India, who had revelled for seven years in military license, would be as free from disturbance as a district in Bengal. To provide for the prompt repression 456 ABRIDaiVEENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIII. A.D of any insurrectionary movement, he organised three mov- 1846 able brigades, complete in carriage and equipment, con- j^g sisting of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, to be held in readiness at Lahore, Jullunder, and Ferozepore to take the field at the shortest notice on the first appearance of an outbreak. Lord Hardinge's attention during the forty- two months of his administration had been chiefly occupied in reducing other mea- ^^® Khalsa armament, the construction of the surea ofi m. Punjab administration, and the reorganisation of provement. ^j^^ army ; but he found leisure to attend to the social and material improvement of the country. At the suggestion of Lord Auckland, the Court of Directors had given their sanction to the construction of the great Ganges Canal. The work was suspended under the pressure of war by Lord EUenborough, but was resumed and pushed on with energy by his successor. It was duiing his in- cumbency that the memorable resolution was passed which held out the prospect of employment in the public service to the successful students in the Government educational institutions, and which thus gave the state the benefit of the talent it had assisted to develope. Education was as much a party question in India as in England, and this liberal measure, which was not universally approved, was not fully carried out for some years ; but the merit of it belongs to Lord Hardinge's administration, and he was recompensed by a grateful address on the subject from the most influential native gentlemen in Calcutta. He gave a powerful impulse at an important crisis to the plan of Indian railways, then struggling into existence, which Lord EUenborough had pronounced to be "all moonshine ;" he prohibited Sunday labour in the public establishments, and gave our Hindoo and Mahomedan subjects a proof of our respect for the principles of our creed. Lord "William Bentinck had abolished suttees throughout the Company's dominions, but they were still perpetrated in the native states, and on the death of the raja of Mundee, a principality in the vicinity of the Governor-General's residence at Simla, no fewer tlian twelve of his widows were burnt on the funeral pile. Lord Hardinge used all the influence of our paramount authority to induce the independent native chiefs to abolish the practice, and before his departure he had the satisfaction of receiving written assurances from twenty-four native princes and princesses that they were making strenuous efforts to meet his wishes ; and a suttee is now as much Sect. III.] LOED DALBOUSIE'S ADMINISTEATION 457 oat of vogue on the continent of India as a duel is in England. The distribution of his patronage was regulated by an exclusive regard to the public interests, and he was as free from the suspicion of nepotism as Lord Ellen- borough. He secured the confidence of the community in India by his sterling sense, and by the rare combination of a kind and conciliatory disposition with decision of character and vigour of discipline. He left Calcutta on the 15th March, 1848, with the avowed conviction that it would not be necessary to fire another shot in India for seven years ; yet so impossible is it to forecast the future in that hot-bed of revolutions, that before a twelvemonth had passed, the Punjab had revolted, and had been re-conquered, and con- verted into a British province. CHAPTEE XrV. SECTION I. LOED DALHOUSTE'S ADMINISTRATION — SECOND SIKH WAE. Lord Dalhousie landed at Calcutta and took his seat in a.d. council on the 19th January. He was in his thirty-sixth 1848 year, — the youngest of governors general. He LordDai- had occupied a seat in the House of Commons housie. before he succeeded to the family title, and in Sir Robert Peel's last cabinet enjoyed the post of president of the Board of Trade at the most busy period of its existence, when it was flooded with railway schemes. He entered upon the government of India without any of that acquain- tance with its institutions and policy which Lord Wellesley, Lord Minto, and Lord William Bentinck had brought with them, but his natural genius soon caught the spirit, and mastered the details of the administration. The period of his rule, which extended to eight years, was crowded with transactions which will long continue to afiect the happiness of the vast population of the empire, and may be con- sidered one of the most memorable in its history. Waiving the chronological order of events, we shall distribute them under the three sections of military operations, annexations, and social and material improvements. 458 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. Within four months of his arrival, the note of war was J 848 again sounded in the Punjab. A small cloud appeared on Mooiraj and ^^^ horizon over Mooltan, which in the course of Mooitan. g{x months overspread the country and brought on a conflict as arduous as that of 1845. Major — after- wards Sir Henry — Lawrence was constrained to visit England for the restoration of his health, and was succeeded by a civilian. Sir Frederic Currie, who was unhappily placed in circumstances which required the experience and the authoritative counsels of a mihtary man, and the absence of which culminated in a general war. Mooiraj took possession of the province of Mooltan, on the death of his father the governor in 1844, but his subordination to the authorities at Lahore was little more than nominal. Lall Sing, the principal minister, knowing that a large treasure had been accumulated by his father, demanded a crore of rupees as a nuzzer, or succession fine. It was compromised for a fifth of the sum, the payment of which, however, he contrived to evade until the establishment of a strong government at Lahore by Lord Hardin ge, when it was adjusted, and he offered to resign the government, on the ground that it was intended to introduce new fiscal regulations, which were unpalatable to him. The durbar took him at his word, and sent Klhan Sing to take over the government, and Sir Frederick selected Mr. Agnew, a civilian, and Lieutenant Anderson to accom- pany him, with an escort of about 350 Sikhs and a few guns. The party reached Mooltan on the 18th March. The next morning Mooiraj waited on them to discuss the terms of his resignation, and asked for a general deed of Murder of acquittance, but Mr. Agnew insisted on the the officers, production of all the accounts of the pre- vious six years. After much recrimination, Mooiraj yielded to the demand, but he felt that he had been dis- honoured in the eyes of his people, and he left the confer- ence with a scowl on his brow. On the 20th the two officers proceeded to inspect the various establishments which were to be transferred to the new governor, but as they were leaving the fort they were struck down by assassins, and conveyed by their attendants to a fortified temple in the vicinity of the town in which they had taken up their residence. They defended it manfully until their Sikh escort proved treacherous, when the howling savages ruflhed in and hacked them to pieces, and presented their heads to Mooiraj who, instead of affording them any Sbot.I.J outbreak AT MOOLTAN 459 assistance when they were attacked, had galloped off to a.h. his country residence. The next day he placed himself at 1*^48 the head of the insurrection and issued a proclamation summoning all the inhabitants of the province to rise and wage a religious war against the feringees, as the Christian foreigners were contemptuously termed. The emergency had now arisen for which Lord Hardinge had made pro- vision by his movable columns, and there can be no doubt that if Major Lawrence had been the Resident at Lahore he would have marched down with promptitude and nipped the revolt in the bud, as he had extinguished the insur- rection of Imam-ood-deen two years before in Cashmere. Sir Frederick, on hearing of the attack on the officers, or- dered a large force to be prepared to proceed forthwith to Mooltan, but countermanded it when he learnt that they had been murdered, and referred the matter to the con- sideration of the Commander-in-Chief, who resolved to postpone all operations until he could take the field in person in the cold season. The Resident and the Commander-in-Chief had scarcely ceased to bandy arguments when Lieutenant — the late Sir Herbert — Edwavdes, a young officer employed Lieutenant in the revenue settlement of the district of Bunnoo, Edwardes. across the Indus, animated with the spirit of Clive, deter- mined to take the initiative in crushing the revolt. Without waiting for instr-uctions from Lahore, he crossed the Indus with 1,200 infantry, 350 horsemen, and two guns ; but having intercepted a letter, from which he learned that his men had agreed to sell his head and their services to Mool- raj for 24,000 rupees, recrossed the river and raised other recruits free from the infection of treachery — "bold villains," he said, " ready to risk their own throats and cut those of " anyone else." He was soon after joined by a regiment of Musulmans, under Colonel Cortland, and by the troops of the raja oi' Bhawulpore, and fought an engagement with Moolraj and 8,000 Sikh troops at Kineyree on the 18th June, and defeated him. He importuned the Resident to support him, and preparations were made to despatch an adequate force, but Lord Gough again interposed his authority, because the season was not favourable, and the siege train had not moved from Cawnpore. Ten days after. Lieutenant Edwardes, who had received a reinforcement of 4,000 men, under Imam-ood-deen, whose fidelity however was doubtful, again attacked Moolraj at Suddoosain, but although his army now consisted of 11,000 Sikh soldiers, supported by 460 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV, A.D. eleven guns, he was completely defeated, and souglit sheltei 1848 with his fugitive troops within the walls of the capital. Sir Frederick Currie now determined to lose no time in foL lowing up the successes of Lieutenant Edwardes, and took Despatch of °^ himself the responsibility of ordering Gene- Generai ral Whish to proceed with 7,000 men and a bat- ^^^^' tering train to Mooltan, and to this movement Lord Gough offered no opposition. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Edwardes was joined by a Sikh force, under Shere Sing, which the Lahore durbar had despatched, ostensibly to co- operate against Moolraj, but, in reality, to support him, and it was no secret at Lahore that they were thoroughly disaffected. The distance between Lahore and Mooltan is only 220 miles, but though General Whish had the conveni- ence of water communication, he was thirty-nine days reaching his destination. During this procrastination Moolraj augmented his force and improved the defences of the fort, which was one of the strongest in the country. The battering train reached Mooltan on the 3rd September, but within a week after the batteries opened all operations were brought to a close. Shere Sing, who had joined General Whish's camp in conjunction with Lieutenant Edwardes, yielded to the importunity of his officers and men, and went over to the enemy with 6,000 troops on the 14th September. The general was obliged to relinquish the siege, and retire to a safe position in the vicinity of the town, adapted for the receipt of reinforcements, and there he threw up entrenchments, and was, in fact, besieged in his turn. Shere Sing immediately issued a proclamation, an- nouncing a religious war, " under the auspices of the holy " Gooroo," against "the cruel feringees,^^ and called upon all those who eat the salt of the maharaja to come forward and destroy them. During these proceedings events transpired at Lahore and elsewhere which disclosed the mine upon which we Spread of the had been sitting. It was discovered that the revolt. maharanee, a woman of great ambition and inde- fatigable intrigue, had for some time been engaged at Cabul and Candahar, in Cashmere and in Rajpootana, in plotting against the British government, and that all the members of the Lahore cabinet, with the exception of two, were confederated with her. Sir Frederick Currie had by a skilful manoeuvre obtained possession of her person, and transferred her to the Resident at Benares, the warder of the disinherited princes and princesses of India. The spirit Sucr.I.J GENERAL REVOLT IN THE PUNJAB 461 of revolt now began more openly to develope itself. Chutter a.d. Sing, the father of Shere Sing, the governor of the province 1848 of Hazara, on the left bank of the Indus, threw oflPthe mask, and " devoted his head," as he said, " to God, and his arms to " the Khalsa." He opened a negotiation with Dost Mahomed and offered him the province of Peshawur on condition of his joining the crusade against the English. The proposition was too tempting to be resisted, and he readily agreed to join the insurgents with his contingent. Peshawur, which Chutter Sing thus sold to the Afghans, was under the political charge of Major — now Sir George — Lawrence, and was garrisoned by 8,000 Sikh troops, upon whose fidelity little dependence could be placed when the whole atmosphere of the Punjab was charged with treason. Owing to the influence the Major had obtained over them, they steadily resisted the importunities of Chutter Sing, but at length yielded to the seductions of Sultan Mahomed, the brother of Dost Mahomed, and the personification of Afghan perfidy. He was under the greatest obligations to Sir Henry Lawrence, who had released him from gaol at Lahore and restored his jageer. Under his instigation the troops assailed and sacked the Residency, and Major Lawrence and other English officers retired under the escort provided by him with the most solemn assurances of protection, but no sooner were they in his power than he sold them to Chutter Sing. The whole of the Punjab was now in a state of revolt ; the veterans of Runjeet Sing, scattered throughout the country, were burning with impatience to meet the British bat- talions once more in the field, and recover their lost honour and restore the glory of their beloved Khalsa. The paltry outbreak at Mooltan, fostered by delay, had grown into a portentous war, and Lord Dalhousie had now to encounter the bravest soldiers in India, animated by a spirit of patriotic enthusiasm, but he was fally equal to the occasion. Through the great exertions of Sir George Clerk, the governor of Bombay, a body of 7,000 men was after much delay sent up the Indus to reinforce General Whish, and an addition was made of 17,000 to the strength of the Bengal regiments. On the 10th October, Lord Dalhousie proceeded to the scene of operations after having, at a fare- well entertainment given him at Barrackpore, said, in the course of his speech, " Unwarned by precedent, uninflu- " enced by example, the Sikh nation has called for war, and, " on my word, sir, they shall have it with a vengeance." 462 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. Aj). Shere Sing was received with great mistrust by Moolraj, 1848 i(Yho wished him to desert the encampment of General Shere Sing ^^^ish, but not to encumber him with his troops and the and his requisitions. Twenty-five days after his grand army, ^g^^i^^ j^^ j^f^ Mooltan and marched towards Lahore with 5,000 men, whose number was increased at every stage by the old soldiers of the Khalsa, and he had the audacity to burn a bridge of boats on the Ravee, the flames of which were visible from the cantonments. Lahore had been unaccountably left in a defenceless state for weeks after it was known that Shere Sing and his father were in the field with 15,000 troops, and he might have obtained possession of it if this fact had been known to him ; but he moved on to Ramnuggur, on the Chenab. The grand army was at length assembled at Ferozepore early in November, and Lord Gough assumed command of it on thf 16th. It consisted of four British and eleven native regi- ments of infantry, three noble regiments of British horse, with five regiments of native cavalry, and five corps of irregular horse. It was weak in infantry, but unusually strong in artillery. Lord Gough opened the campaign on the 22nd by marching down to Ramnuggur, where the main body of Shere Sing was encamped on the right bank, with his front protected by batteries mounting iwenty-eight guns. He had boats on the river and the command of a ford, and had pushed a detachment across the river, which was at once driven back, when he opened an irresistible fire from his batteries planted on the high ground on the opposite bank, and the order was given to retire. One gun and two waggons, however, could not be extricated from the sand ; but instead of spiking the one and blowing up the others, time was lost in endeavouring to rescue them. Several thousands of the enemy then rushed across the ford, while the batteries played on the British retiring force. Here the operations of the day should have terminated, but the Commander-in-Chief gave permission to Colonel Havelock, in command of the 14th Dragoons, an officer of Penin- sular renown, to charge the Sikhs in the dry sandy bed of a river two miles wide ; and in this contemptible cavalry skirmish his own life and that of the gallant Colonel Cure ton were sacrificed. Any attempt to assail the position of Shere Sing in front would have been an act of infatuation, and Sir Joseph Battle of sa- Thackwell was therefore despatched, with 8,000 dooUapore. jiorse, foot, and artillery, on the 1st December, to Skct. I.] SADOOLLAPORE — CHILLIANWALLA 463 WuZeerabad, thirty miles higher up the river, which he a.d. crossed the next day, and marched down twelve miles to- 1848 wards Sherc Sing's encampment. That general, on hearing of this movement, at once withdrew his army from Ram- nuggnr, leaving Lord Gough to waste powder and shot on an empty entrenchment. The two forces met at Sadoollapore, where, after sustaining for two hours the incessant fire of the enemy without returning a shot till they were fully within range, General Thack well's artillery opened on them with great effect, and their cannon began to slacken and then ceased. There remained only an hour of daylight, and, with the example of Moodkee and Ferozeshuhur before him, he wisely determined to postpone the attack till the morning. Under cover of the night Shore Sing retired with his tents, guns, and ammunition, and when General Thackwell put his army in motion in the morning to pursue him, he was already beyond reach. He retired from Sadoollapore with his artillery still entire, and the spirit of his troops unbroken, and took up a position of singular strength on the Jhelura, with his rear resting on that stream, his main body posted in I'avines strengthened by field works, and his front covered by a broad and dense I'ungle. For six weeks our army remained inactive between the Chenab and the Jhelum, and, in the opinion of the first military authorities of the day, it would have done well to continue in this attitude till the capture of Mooltan hstd brought up to its aid the large division of troops engaged in the siege. This course was eventually taken, and brought the war to a glorious termination ; but inter- mediately occurred the disastrous engagement of Chillian- walla. On the 12th January the army advanced twelve miles to 1843 Dinjee, and on the following day to Chillianwalla, when it became evident that the Sikhs had quitted their chiiiian- strong entrenchments on the heights of Russool, '^^iia. and were ready to combat without the usual support of their bulwarks. Lord Gough had determined to defer the assault till a careful reconnaissance had been made the next day, and directions were given to mark out the ground for an encampment, when a few shots from some field-pieces the Sikhs had pushed forward dropped upon him. The spirit of defiance and antagonism at once overcame his sober judgment, and he issued orders for immediate action. The Sikhs began the engagement by a continuous peal of fire from a jungle so thick that nothing was offered as a mark for 464 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. the British artillery but the flash and smoke of the enemy's 1849 guns. This cannonade lasted an hour or an hour and a half, according to different reports, and it was three in the afternoon with only an hour or two of daylight left, when the divisions were ordered to advance. Of the two brigades of the infantry division of General Campbell — subsequently Lord Clyde — that of General Pennycuick was subject to a fearftil repulse. The 24th Foot, which formed a portion of it, composed chiefly of young soldiers, advanced with such ardour that Shere Sing, to whom they were opposed, was on the point of retiring when he perceived them rushing breathless and panting, as he described it, like dogs in a chase, upon his guns. He poured a shower of grape into them, and, while shattered by its deadly effect, they were torn to pieces by a musketry fire from Sikh troops masked by a screen of jungle. The whole brigade was thrown into a state of confusion, and the most desperate efforts of the officers were of no avail to restore order. The colours of the regiment fell into the hands of the enemy, but not until 23 officers and 459 non-commissioned officers and men had been killed and wounded. General Campbell, who had been victorious in his front, came rapidly to the rescue, and snatched the victory from the Sikhs. General Gilbert's division suc- ceeded by the most heroic efforts in putting the Sikhs to flight, but pursuit in a forest, where the men could not see twenty yards before them, was impossible. While they halted to collect their wounded, a body of Sikhs, who had turned their flank unperceived, opened fire on them, and they were rescued from destruction only by the field battery of Major Dawes. The struggle was terrific, and, to use the language of an eye-witness, it seemed as if the very air teemed with balls and bullets. The adventures of the cavalry were most disastrous and humiliating. Lord Gough had brought four regiments into Movements ^he first line, and they were thus opposed to an of cavalry, unapproachable artillery fire, and to entangle- ments in the recesses of the forest. The troops of artillery at- tached to the brigade were planted in the rear, and could not open fire from a single gun. The brigade was commanded by a superannuated general, who could not mount his horse without assistance, and who was irascible and wedded to ancient notions of cavalry manoeuvres. As the line ad- vanced it was broken up by clumps of trees and brushwood into numerous series of small sections doubled behind each Sect. I.] BATTLE OF CHILLIANWALLA 465 other. In this state a small body of Sikh horsemen, intoxi- a.d. cated with drugs, rushed on the centre in a mass, and 18^8 caused a sensation of terror among the native cavalry which nothing could counteract. Just at this crisis some one in the 14th Dragoons uttered the words " Threes about ! " The regiment at once turned to the rear and moved off in con- fusion, and as the Sikh horse pressed on, it galloped head- long in disgraceful panic through the cannon and waggons posted in the rear. The Sikh horse entered the line of artillery with the dragoons and captured four guns. The shades of evening put an end to the conflict. The troops were half dead vdth fatigue and parched with thirst, but no water could be procured except at Chillianwalla, two miles distant, to which the Commander-in-Chief was obliged to withdraw the force. During the night, parties of Sikh troops and of the armed peasantry traversed the forest which had been the scene of combat, mutilating the slain and murdering the wounded, and rifling both. All the guns which had been secured during the engagement were carried off, with the exception of twelve, which had been brought into the camp. Such was the battle of Chillianwalla, the nearest approxi- mation to a defeat of any of our great conflicts in India. The Sikh army was not overthrown, but retired Results of to another position three miles from the field, t^e battle. Four British guns were captured, the colours of three regi- ments were lost, the reputation of the British cavalry deplorably tarnished, while the character of Sikh prowess was proportionately elevated. The number of killed and wounded, including eighty-nine officers, was 2,446. The Governor- General officially pronounced it a victory, and it was announced by salutes at all the Presidencies; but he was anticipated by Shore Sing, who fired a salute the same evening in honour of his triumph. By the community in India it was considered a great and lamentable calamity. The intelligence of the combat was received in England with a feeling of indignation and alarm. British standards had been lost ; British cannon had been captured ; British cavalry had fled before the enemy, and a British regiment had been annihilated. These disasters were traced, and justly, to the wretched tactics of Lord Gough, and he was recalled, with the full approval of the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Charles Napier was sent out to supersede him. H B 466 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. SECTION II. LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION — SECOND SIKH WAR — ADMINISTRATION OF THE PUNJAB THE BURMESE WAR — - THE SANTALC. The conflict at Chillianwalla had so seriously crippled the infantry as to constrain Lord Gough to await the capture Siege of ^^ Mooltan and the arrival of General Whish's Mooitan. force before he undertook any further operations. At Mooltan the advantages gained by the spirited exertions of Lieutenant Edwardes had been lost by the defection of Shere Sing. Moolraj regained possession of the province and of its resources, and was enabled to provision the fort and to improve its fortifications. General Whish, who had retired to a fortified position in the neighbourhood, was doomed to three months of inaction by the dilatoriness of the Bombay military authorities in forwarding reinforce- A.D. ments. The Bombay troops on their arrival raised his army •8*^ to 17,000, with sixty four heavy guns, and he recommenced the siege on the 27th December. After clearing the suburbs, which was not effected without the loss of 300 men and seven- teen officers, the batteries opened on the town, and for five days and nights the discharge from howitzers, cannon, and mortars never ceased. On the third day the fury of the combatants was for a few moments arrested by the explosion of a magazine in the town containing 400,000 lbs. of gun- powder, which shook the earth for miles and darkened the sky with smoke. After a brief pause the firing was re- newed, the Bombay and Bengal artillery vying with each other and the enemy vying with both. On the 2nd January the city was stormed, and presented a melancholy picture of desolation ; the buildings had crumbled under the storm of shot and shell, which had never been suspended for 120 hours, and the streets were strewed with the dead and dying. Moolraj continued to hold the citadel with about 3,000 troops for another fortnight, and he and his brave soldiers sustained the most terrific fire of ordnance, direct and vertical, which had ever been discharged in India within the same narrow limits. At length, when every roof but one had been demolished, and the incessant I8i9 volleys became insupportable, the valiant chief surrendered at discretion, and on the 22nd January rode into the English camp, his chiefs and soldiers prostrating themselves before him in passionate devotion as he passed* Sect. II. J BATTvLE OF GUZEEAT 467 After the battle of Ohillianwalla the Sikli and British a.d. troops lay encamped within a few miles of each other for 1849 twenty-five days ; the one at Kussool and the other at ChilHanwalla. On the 6th February mfnts^of the Shere Sing evaded Lord Gough and marched battle of unperceived round the British entrenchments, and established his headquarters at Guzerat. The last brigade of General Whish's army having joined Lord Gough on the 20th February, the army moved up to that town. General Cheape, of the Bengal engineers, who had directed the siege of Mooltan with that professional skill and per- sonal energy to which its success is to be attributed, joined the camp a week before the battle and assumed charge of the engineering department. With unwearied industry he applied himself to the duty of obtaining the most accurate information of the position of the enemy, the absence of which had produced the lamentable results of Maharajpore, Moodkee, and Ohillianwalla. The army of Shere Sing, estimated at 50,000 men, with sixty pieces of cannon, was posted in front of the walled town of Guzerat, with the left supported on a streamlet, while the right was protected by the deep dry bed of the Dwara. Between them was a space of about three miles with two villages, loopholed and filled with troops. In all Lord Gough's battles he had trusted more to the bayonet than to his cannon, and the carnage had been severe. In the present case the principle was reversed. On the day preceding the engagement it was determined by the able engineer officers with the force that the artillery, in which no army in India had been so strong, should be brought into full play, and that the charge of the infantry should be reserved till the consistency of the Sikh army had been broken by the guns. The infantry divisions and brigades advanced in parallel lines with eighty- four pieces of cannon in front, and the cavalry on the flanks. The army, invigorated by The battle of rest and food, broke ground at half past seven. Guzerat. The morning was clear and cloudless, and the sun shone brightly on the extended lines of bayonets and sabres. The Sikhs, ever ready with their batteries, opened them at a long range. The British infantry was halted beyond their reach, and the artillery pushed boldly to the front and com- menced a cannonade, of which the oldest and most ex- perienced soldiers had never witnessed a parallel for mag- nificence and efiect. The Sikhs fired with great rapidity, but it was manifest that neither human fortitude nor the H u 2 468 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. best materials could withstand the storm which for two 1849 hours and a half beat on their devoted artillery ; not a single musket was discharged before the fire of their for- midable line had been subdued. The infantry then deployed and commenced a steady advance supported by their field batteries. The Sikhs fought with desperation, but the two villages were at length carried by the ardent courage of the British troops, and the whole Sikh line gave way and was pursued round the town by all the brigades of infantry. The cavalry, which had hitherto been kept in reserve, was then let loose, and onward they rushed, riding over and trampling down the flying and scattered infantry of the Sikhs, and converting the discomfited enemy into a shape- less mass of fugitives. It was not till half-past four, after they had advanced fifteen miles beyond Guzerat, that the cavalry drew rein, and by that time the army of Shere Sing was a wreck, deprived of its camp, its standards, and fifty- three pieces of cannon. The battle of Guzerat was one of the noblest achievements of the British army in India, and as it was gained by the judicious use of the arm in which the force had a preponderating power, it has justly been designated the " battle of the guns." The happy contrivance by which the Commander-in-Chief was re- strained from interfering with the order of battle, and hurling the infantry, as usual, on the enemy's batteries, is well known. The day after the battle Sir Walter Gilbert left the camp with 12,000 infantry, cavalry, and horse artillery, and it of P^i'sued the relic of the Sikh army, now reduced the Sikhs to about 16,000 men, along the great high road andAfghans. q£ ^^^ Indus, with such rapidity as to allow them no breathing time, and they sent Major George Lawrence, who had been their prisoner since he left Peshawur, to make terms with the general. On the 12th March Shere Sing and Chutter Sing delivered up their swords to him at the celebrated monument of Manikyla, once considered a trophy of Alexander the Great ; thirty-five subordinate chiefs laid their swords at his feet, and the Khalsa soldiers advanced one by one, and, after clasping theii* weapons, cast them upon the growing pile with a heavy sigh. It only remained to dispose of the Afghans whom Dost Mahomed had sent to co-operate with the Sikhs. The veteran Gilbert followed them across the Indus, with the buoyancy of youth, and chased them up to the portals of the Khyber, and, as the natives sarcastically remarked, "those who had Shot. II.] ANNEXATION OF THE PUNJAB 469 " rode down the hills like lions ran back into them like a.d. " dogs." 1848 The battle of Guzerat decided the fate of the Punjab and finally quenched the hopes of the Khalsa soldiers. It was no ordinary distinction for that noble army to ^j^ng^ation have met the conquerors of India successively at of the Moodkee, at Ferozeshuhur, at Aliwal, at Sob- ^^J**'- raon, at Chillianwalla, and at Guzerat ; but after six such conflicts they resigned themselves with a feeling of proud submission to the power which had proved stronger than themselves, and there has never since been the slightest attempt at disturbance. The Punjab was now, by the in- defeasible right of a double conquest, after unprovoked aggression, at the disposal of the British Government, and as there was not time for any reference to the Court of Directors, Lord Dalhousie annexed it to the Company's dominions, in a proclamation which stated that, '• as the only " sure mode of protecting the Government of India from " the perpetual recurrence of unprovoked and wasting wars, " he was compelled to resolve on the entire subjugation of a " people whom their own government had long been unable " to control, whom no punishment could deter from violence, " and no acts of friendship could conciliate to peace." On the 29th of March the yonthfnl maharaja Duleep Sing took his seat for the last time on the throne of his father, and in the presence of the high British functionaries and the nobles of his court, heard Lord Dalhousie's proclama- tion read, and then affixed his initials to the deed which transferred the kingdom of the five waters to the Company, and secured to himself an annuity of five lacs a year. The British colours were hoisted on the ramparts, and a royal salute announced the fulfilment of Runjeet Sing's prediction that " the Punjab also would become red," — in allusion to the colour which distinguishes the British pos- sessions on the map of India. The jageers of the leaders of the rebellion were confiscated, and they retired into oblivion on small stipends. Moolraj, after a fair trial before a special court, was sentenced to imprisonment for life, but died within a short time. Lord Dalhousie was elevated to the dignity of a Marquis, the fourth marquisate bestowed on the Governors- General who had enlarged the Company's territories. The reproach of Chillianwalla was forgotten in the triumph of Guzerat, and Lord Gough received a step in the peerage. Lord Dalhousie, having thus annexed the Punjab to the 470 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. Company's dominions, was determined to spare no pains to *^*^ Administra- ^^^^^^ ^ur government a real blessing to the I8fi4 **^°°**^^^ population. A noble field was presented for the Panjab. construction of an administration free from the errors committed in other provinces in the infancy of our rule, and it was not neglected. A board was constituted Avith ample powers, at the head of which was placed Sir Henry Lawrence, one of the Company's great statesmen, a fit successor of Ochterlony, and Munro, and Elphinstone, and Metcalfe. With him was associated his brother Mr. John Lawrence, who was subsequently rewarded with the Governor- Generalship, and Mr. Robert Montgomery. A more efficient board it would have been difficult to con- struct even in India. The administration was formed on a new system, and entrusted to fifty-six officers, half of whom were military men and the other half civilians, the flower of the service, men of mature experience, or of noble as- pirations for distinction. The system of government was well suited by its simplicity and vigour to the requirements of the country. For the voluminous regulations which lay like an incubus on the older provinces, a clear and concise manual adapted to the habits of a people who courted justice but dreaded law, was compiled by Mr. Montgomery, and comprised in a few sheets of foolscap. The north-west boundary of the empire was now re- moved to the mountain range beyond the Indus, inhabited by tribes of highlanders, whose vocation, from tribes and time immemorial, had been to levy black mail. To ment^*^ protect the lowlanders from their raids, a chain of fortifications was established on the line, fully provisioned, and connected with each other by a series of roads. Nine regiments were especially raised for duty on these marches. Within six months of the conquest Lord Dalhousie disarmed the Punjab, and 120,000 weapons of every variety of form and character were surrendered. A military police, consisting of six regiments of foot and twenty-seven troops of horse, was organised. The ancient institution of the village watch, paid by the people and acting under local magnates, was revived in a more efficient form. As the result of these admirable arrangements, it was reported within three years that no province in India was more free from crime than the Punjab. The vital question of the laud assessment, on which the happiness, and, to a great extent, the loyalty, of the people in the East depends, was dealt with in a spirit of wisdom 1864 Sect. II.] IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PUNJAB 471 and liberality, and the egregious blunders committed in the a.d. older provinces were carefully avoided. The set- 184S tlement was formed on a minute and accurate ^^^^^nue. to investigation ; the land-tax was reduced in amount, and leases were granted, which in some cases extended to thirty years. The security of tenure and the moderation of the rent gave such encouragement to agriculture that more than 30,000 of the Khalsa soldiers exchanged the sword for the plough. Lord Dalhousie was likewise resolved to avoid the boundless irritation inflicted on the Gangetic provinces for half a century by dallying with the question of rent-free tenures ; every case was carefully examined and satisfactorily and finally disposed of. The duties on the transit of merchandise from district to district and town to town — the great impediments of trade — were swept away, and the loss was compensated by the scientific selection of new taxes, four of which yielded a larger return than forty-eight of Runjeet Sing's clumsy imposts. The Board of Administration likewise put down the sale of children, which was all but universal, and thus ex- tinguished domestic slavery. Dacoity was rife when the Punjab came into our possession, but dacoity,' and the Board took the field against the criminals *^'^&g^- with that exceptional energy for which the administration of this province has always been distinguished, and in the course of five years the country was more free from the crime than Bengal after eighty-five years of our rule. The thugs who had resorted to the Punjab, when driven out of Hindostan and the Deccan by Colonel Sleeman, were extirpated. Active measures were likewise adopted to eradicate the practice of female infanticide. Lord Dalhousie did not consider the conquest of the Punjab complete till it was intersected with military roads, and in the course of five years 2,200 miles were Roads and either completed or imder construction. Of these canals. the most important was that which united Lahore wdth Peshawur, a distance of 275 miles. It passed over more than 100 great bridges and 450 of smaller dimensions, and it penetrated six mountain chains ; all these obstacles were overcome by Colonel J^fapier, since created Lord Napier of Magdala, to whose skill and energy the Punjab was indebted for those material improvements which gave it the appearance of a Roman province. Lord Dalhousie, moreover, considered that "of all works of improvement " which could be applied to an Indian province, works of tc 1854 472 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. D. " irrigation were the happiest in their effects on the physi- 1849 " cal condition of the people," and he directed all the canals excavated by former rulers, Mahommedan and Sikh, to be repaired, and others to be constructed with a liberal hand. The greatest of Colonel Napier's works of irrigation was the Baree Daoab canal, which with its branches extended to the length of 465 miles, equal, if not superior to, the longest European canal. Lord Dalhousie made the laoou the more acceptable to the people by refusing to levy any water-rate, as he considered that the state was fully repaid by the increase of cnltivation. The government established in the Punjab was emphati- cally Lord Dalhousie' s own creation. The administrative Result of ^^^ executive talent employed iu the improve- these ment of it had never been equalled in any other measures. province, but it was his genius which gave ani- mation to the whole system. He traversed the country in every direction, and placed himself in constant and un- restrained communication with the public functionaries, who were thus enabled to prosecute their labours without oflBcial encumbrances. The administration embodied the maturity of our experience in the science of Eastern govern- ment, and rendered the Punjab the model province of India. By these wise and beneficent measures the nation which had recently been the great object of political anxiety became one of the chief elements of our strength. The brave soldiers who had shaken our power to its foundation at Ferozeshuhur and Chillianwalla enlisted under our banners, assisted in reconquering Delhi from the rebel sepoys, marched up the Irrawaddy to fight the Burmese, and aided in planting the English colours on the battle- ments of Pekin. There was peace for three years after the conquest of the Punjab, and then came the unexpected and unwelcome The second ^^^ ^^*^ *^® Burmese, who had been at peace Burmese with US for twenty-six years. In September the ^^''- European merchants at Rangoon transmitted a memorial to the Government of India, complaining of various acts of oppression, sometimes accompanied with torture, which had been inflicted on them by the Burmese authorities, and stating that, unless they could obtain pro- tection, they must quit the country and sacrifice their property. The Council in Calcutta — Lord Dalhousie being up the country — came to the conclusion that British subjects were entitled to British protection. Commodore Lambert, 1851 Sect. II.] SECOND BURMESE WAR 473 commanding H.M. sMp " Fox," who had recently arrived in Calcutta, was sent to Rangoon to investigate the com- plaints, and if they were substantiated, to forward a communication from the Government of India to the king demanding redress. The Ava cabinet replied that the offending governor should be removed, and that due enquiry should be made into the complaints of the merchants. The governor, however, left Rangoon with ostentatious parade, and his successor treated the British representative with studied insolence, and refused to appoint any day for an official audience. Captain Fishbourne therefore sent to a.d. inform him that the deputation from the Government of 1852 India would wait on him at midday on the 6th January. He proceeded at the appointed time with his suite to Government House, but they were not permitted to enter it and were detained in the sun by the menials who declared that the governor was asleep and must not be dis- turbed, whereas he was all the time looking at them through the Venetian windows, and enjoying their mortification. After waiting a quarter of an hour Captain Fishbourne re- turned and reported the treatment he had received to the Commodore. The mission had been entrusted to one of Cromwell's ambassadors, " a sixty- four gun frigate, which " spoke all languages and never took a refusal." The Commodore immediately proceeded down the river to establish a blockade, as he had been instructed to do, taking away with him a merchant vessel belonging to the king. On his way down a heavy fire was opened on him from the stockades below Rangoon on both sides the river, which the guns of the " Fox " demolished in a few minutes. Lord Dalhousie was at the time in the north-west pro- vinces, and apprehending from the aspect of the negotia- tion that the Government was drifting into a pj-Qgeedin war, hastened down to prevent it, and it was only of Lord till the third application for redress had been dalhousie. treated with contempt that he came to the determination to seek it by force of arms. " The Government of India," he said in his minute, " cannot consistently with its own " safety appear for one day in an attitude of inferiority, or " hope to maintain peace and submission among the num- *' berless princes and people embraced within the vast " circuit of the empire, if for one day it give countenance " to a doubt of the absolute superiority of its arms and of *' its continued resolution to maintain it." The Commander- in-Chief was in Sinde, and Lord Dalhousie was oblisred to 474 AliRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. 4.D. become his own war minister, and he astonished India by 1852 the singular genius he displayed for military organisation. The task before him was one of no ordinary difficulty. It was the 10th February before the declaration of war was issued and the preparations for the campaign commenced, and it was of vital importance that Rangoon should be occupied before the rains came on in the beginning of May. He had two expeditions to despatch, one from Bengal and the other from Madras ; the steamers were lying in the harbour of Bombay, and there was no telegraph ; but his forethought anticipated, and his energy supplied, every requirement. He superintended every arrangement himself, and his aides-de-camp were incessantly employed in Calcutta in moving about from place to place to ensure promptitude and efficiency in every branch of preparation. The Tenas- serim provinces were drained of cattle and provisions ; bakehouses were erected on the coast, and steamers sta- tioned to convey bread and meat to the camp. The frame- work of houses was constructed at Moulmein to afford shelter to the troops when the monsoon set in, and a con- valescent depot was established at Amherst, thirty miles below Rangoon. The land army amounted to 5,800 men, under the com- mand of General G-odwin, who had served in the first The expedi- Burmese war, and it was strengthened by nine- tionary teen steamers carrying 159 guns and manned by force. 2,200 sailors and marines. On the arrival of the force in the Rangoon river, a flag of truce was sent up by a steamer to receive the reply of the king to the latest letter of the Governor- General, but it was fired upon, and the last hope of a peaceful solution of the difficulty vanished. The whole force took up a position in front of Rangoon on the 11th April. The great pagoda, the key of the enemy's position, had been fortified with great skill, and it was do- fended with more gallantry than the Burmese had exhibited in the former war ; but nothing could withstand the fiery valour of our soldiers, and the British colours were planted on that noble temple after a short struggle. This was the first, and almost the only military operation of the cam- paign. The Burmese army was dispersed, and the people returned to their houses and resumed their occupations. The town was well supplied with provisions, and carpenters from Pegu hastened to erect the wooden houses. The health of the camp was little afiected by the season ; the river was crowded with shipping, and the port became a busy mart Sbct. III.] ANIsEXATION OF PEGU 475 of commerce. But althougli General Godwin had a mag- a.u. nificent flotilla of steamers, and the complete command of 1^62 the river, nothing could induce him to advance to Prorae, and Lord Dalhousie was obliged to proceed to Rangoon in person, and insist on his moving up to occupy that im- portant position ; it was captured with the loss of only one man. The king refused to hold any communication with Lord Dalhousie, and he had now to consider the course he was to pursue. The inhabitants of Pegu were Annexation impatient to be released from the iron yoke of °^ ^^s"* the Burmese, who had treated them with more than ordi- nary cruelty since they were conquered. They entreated to be taken under British protection, and Lord Dalhousie determined at once to accede to their wishes and to annex the province. In his minute on the subject he said, " In " the earliest stage of the present dispute I avowed my " opinion that conquest in Burmah would be a calamity " second only to the calamity of war ; but I have been " drawn most reluctantly to the conclusion that no measure " will adequately meet the object which, in my judgment, " it is absolutely necessary to secure — the establishment of " our security now and its maintenance hereafter — except " the seizure and occupation of a portion of the territories " of the Burmah kingdom." The Court of Directors and the Ministry concurred in this opinion, and on the 20th December a proclamation was issued declaring that Pegu was henceforth to be considered a portion of the British dominions. No province has ever gained so much in so short a period by annexation. The export and import traffic has increased from a few lacs to nine crores ; the people are happy and contented, and would consider a change of masters the greatest of calamities. The first Burmese war had entailed an expenditure of thirteen crores ; the second cost a little over one crore. SECTION III. LORD DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTRATION — ANNEXATIONS. The confiscation of the Punjab and Pegu, like the annexa- tions made during fifty years to the dominions of the Company from the territories of Mysore, Sindia, Annexation N"agpore, Holkar, and the Peshwa, followed the policy. 476 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. fortune of war, and were tlie natural consequence of un- 1848 provoked hostilities ; but the absorption of Satara, Nag- pore, and Jhansi was based on the failure of heirs, and the assumed prerogative of the paramount power in India. They constitute what has been termed the " annexation " policy " of Lord Dalhousie, which has been compared to " the acts of brigands counting out their spoil in a wood, " rather than the acts of British statesmanship," and he has been stigmatised as *'the worst and basest of rulers." To trace this policy to its origin, it is to be observed that, seven years before his arrival, the Governor- General and Council in 1841 recorded their unanimous opinion that " our policy should be to persevere in the one clear and " direct course of abandoning no just or honourable acces- " sion of territory or revenue while all existing claims of *' right are scrupulously respected." Lord Dalhousie, soon after assuming the government, recorded his entire con- currence in the views of his predecessors, and said that " we were bound not to put aside or neglect such rightful " opportunities of acquiring territory or revenue as may " from time to time present themselves, by the failure of all " heirs of every description whatever, or from the failure of *' heirs natural ; but wherever a shadow of doubt can be " shown the claim should be at once abandoned." The principality of Satara, the first to which this prin- ciple was applied, was created by Lord Hastings in favour of the descendant of Sevajee on the absorption of the Peshwa's dominions in 1819, and endowed with a revenue of fifteen lacs a year. The raja died on the 5th ^pril, 1848, without issue. He had repeatedly applied to the Resident for permission to adopt an heir, but had been informed that it was not in his power to grant it. Two hours before his death, a boy, previously unknown to him, was brought in by hap-hazard ; the ceremony of adoption was performed with the usual rites, and a royal salute was fired. The adopted lad succeeded, as a matter of course, to the personal property of the raja, but the question arose whether he could succeed to the sovereignty without the sanction of the British Government. Sir George Clerk, the governor of Bombay, while admitting that the consent of the paramount power was required by custom, main- tained that the Government could not object to it without injustice. His successor, Lord Falkland, concurred with the other members of government in taking an opposite view of the case. Mr. Willoughby, the ablest member of Skct. III.] ANNEXATION OF SATAEA AND NAGPOEE 477 the Council, affirmed that the confirmation of the para- a.d. mount authority in India was essential to the validity of 1848 an adoption, according to custom so ancient and so uni- versal as to have all the efiect of law, and he would not allow states which, like Satara, had lapsed to us, to be per- petuated by adoption. These conflicting opinions were submitted to Lord Dalhousie, and after a diligent examina- tion of precedents and documents, he recorded his entire agreement with Mr. Willoughby's vie wo, both on the general principle and on the policy to be adopted in this particular instance. The question was then referred to the decision of the Court of Directors, together with all the minutes recorded at Bombay and Calcutta. The Court, with the concurrence of the Board of Control, communi- cated for the guidance of the Government of India the principle on which they were to act : " 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 . . . and the general " interests committed to our charge are best consulted by " withholding it." About five years later a similar case turned up at Nagpore. 1853 it has been already stated that, in consequence of the treacherous attack of Appa Sahib on the Resi- dency in 1817, the kingdom was forfeited, but Lord Hastings generously restored it to the royal family. The raja, who was childless, repeatedly resisted the earnest advice of the Resident to adopt a son, and died in 1853 without any heir or successor, lineal, collateral, or adopted. Lord Dalhousie recorded an elaborate minute on the subject, remarking, " We have not now to decide any question which " turns on the right of a paramount power to refuse con- " firmation to an adoption by an inferior. The raja has " died, and deliberately abstained from adopting an Leir. " The state of Nagpore, conferred on the raja and his heirs " in 1818 by the British Government, has reverted to it on " the death of the raja without an heir. The Government " is wholly unfettered to decide as it may think fit ; " and he came to the conclusion that " the gratuitous alienation " of the state of Nagpore in favour of a Mahratta youth was " called for by no obligation of justice or equity, and was " forbidden by every consideration of sound policy." The Court of Directors signified their entire concurrence in the annexation, and stated as the ground of their decision that Nagpore was a principality granted after conquest by the 478 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV favour of the British Government to the late raja on here- ditary tenure. He had left no heir of his body ; there was no male heir who by family or hereditary right could claim to succeed him ; he had adopted no son ; there was not in existence any person descended in the male line from the founder of the dynasty, and they had no doubt of their right to resume the grant. A.D. The principality of Jhansi in Bundlecund was held by a 1854 cliief as a tributary of the Peshwa, whose rights in the ^^ . province were ceded to the Company in 1817, and Lord Hastings, to reward him for his fidelity, declared the fief to be hereditary in his family. He died in 1835, after having adopted a son, but Sir Charles Met- calfe, then governor of Agra, declared that in the case of chiefs who merely held lands or enjoyed revenues under grants such as are issued by sovereigns to subjects, the power which made the grant had a right to resume it on failure of heirs male. He therefore refused to acknowledge any right to bequeath the sovereignty by adoption, and bestowed it on a descendant of the first chief. He died in 1853, having adopted a son on his death-bed, and his widow, a woman of high spirit and great talent, demanded the succession for the lad. Colonel Low, one of the members of Council who had opposed the annexation of Nagpore, recorded in his minute " the native rulers of Jhansi were " never sovereigns; they were only subjects of a sovereign, " first of the Peshwa, and latterly of the Company ; the " Government of India has now a full right to annex the " lands of Jhansi to the British dominions." Lord Dalhousie stated that, as the last raja had left no heir of his body, and there was no male heir of any chief or raja who had raled the principality for half a century, the right of the British Government to refuse to acknowledge the present adoption was unquestionable. The Court of Directors took the same view of the case, and Jhansi was incorporated in their territories. During the mutiny the ranee took a fearful revenge by putting eighty-three Europeans, men, women, and children, to death in cold blood. To these three cases of annexation, that of Oudc has been added to swell the condemnation pronounced on Lord Dalhousie's proceedings, though it was effected contrary to his advice, by the direct orders of the Cabinet and the Court of Directors. On these questions we leave the reader to form his own judgment from the facts which we have thus placed before him. It was during the administration of Lord Dalhousie, and Sbct.iii.1 nabobs of the caenatic 479 with his fall concurrence, that the dignity and privileges a.d. of the nabob of the Camatic were suppressed by Nabobs of ^^^^ the Government of Madras. The Carnatic was theCamatic. annexed to the Company's territories in 1801 by Lord Wellesley, who allotted a sum of about seven lacs of rupees a year for the support of the nabob and his household ; but he distinctly excluded all allusion to heirs and succes- sors. It was a personal settlement with a mediatized prince ; the nabob enjoyed a titular dignity, received royal salutes, and was placed above law. Two nabobs in succession had left heirs at their death in 1819 and 1825, and the Grovern- ment had allowed them to succeed to the title and the advantages attached to it. The last nabob died childless in 1853, and his uncle, Azim Jah, claimed the dignity and immunities and allowances attached to the nabobship. Lord Harris, the governor of Madras, pointed out in an elaborate minute that the Grovernment was not bound to recognise a hereditary succession to this dignity, even of direct heirs, still less of those who were only collateral. He objected to the perpetuation of the nabobship, because it was prejudicial to the public interests that there should exist a separate authority in the town not amenable to law, which, combined with the vicious habits of the palace, en- couraged the accumulation of an idle and dissolute popula- tion in the capital of the Presidency. The nabob's palace was mortgaged, and his debts amounted to half a crore of rupees. Lord Harris proposed that the annuities of the Arcot family should cease, that the Government should undertake to settle its debts and make a moderate allow- ance to the uncle. Lord Dalhousie fully concurred in these views, and the Court of Directors asserted that the rights of the family were restricted to the prince who signed the treaty in 1801. The vexatious question of the Hyderabad contingent was 1863 brought to a satisfactory conclusion by the tact and resolu- tion of Lord Dalhousie and the firmness and -me Nizam judgment of Colonel Low, the Resident at the andBerar. Nizam's court. The origin of this force has been explained in a former chapter. It was over-officered and over-paid, and formed a severe tax on the revenues of the state, but the Nizam would not hear of its being reduced. Its allow- ances had repeatedly fallen into arrears, when it became necessary for the Resident to make advances from his treasury, which the Nizam acknowledged as a debt bearing interest. The territory of Hyderabad was sufficiently pro- 480 ABRIDGEMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. ductive to provide for all the demands of the administration, 1853 but it was impossible to prevail on the Nizam to attend to business ; his debts amounted to three crores, and the ex- orbitant interest he was obliged to pay, combined with the cost of a horde of 40,000 foreign mercenaries he persisted in maintaining, devoured his resources. The Nizam had from time to time made some payments towards the Uquida- tion of the debt incurred for the contingent, but by 1853 it had again accumulated to half a crore of rupees. Lord Dalhousie's patience was exhausted by four years of evasion, and he determined to bring the question to an issue. He proposed the draft of a treaty placing the contingent on a definite and permanent footing, providing for its punctual payment, and effecting an equitable settlement of arrears by the transfer of territory yielding about thirty-six lacs a year, which was less than the annual claim on the Nizam by about six lacs. By this arrangement he was relieved from a debt of half a crore ; but, however beneficial it might be to his interests, he manifested a strong reluctance to agree to it, and it was only on the importunity of his ministers, and more particularly through the influence of a favourite valet whom the ministers had bribed, that he was induced to give his consent to it. The districts which he ceded were those in West Berar, which Lord Wellesley had generously given his ancestor for the very equivocal assist- ance he had rendered in the war with the Mahrattas in 1803. SECTION lY. LORD dalhousie's ADMINISTRATION — DUDE — SOCIAL AND MATERIAL IMPROVEMENTS. No province in India had suffered the affliction of misrule for so long a period as Oude, and it was to be traced to the . presence of the British army, which effectually misrule in protected the ruler from the indignation of his ^^^^' subjects. The expostulations of Warren Hastings, of Lord Cornwallis, of Sir John Shore, and of Lord Hastings had been totally unheeded. In 1831 Lord William Bentinck assured the king, that unless prompt measures were adopted to reform abuses and to give the people the benefit of good government, the Company would assume the administration, and reduce him to the same condition as the nabob of Sect. IV.] CONDITION OF OUDE 481 Moorshedabad. This remonstrance produced a slight re- formation, but it was transient. Twelve years after Lord Hardinge visited Lucknow and earnestly renewed the remonstrance, assuring the king that, unless these reforma- tions were carried out within two years, the government of the whole country would be taken out of his hauls. Colonel Sleeman, who was soon after appointed Resident, a.d. was desired to make a tour through the country and ascer- ^^^^ tain whether any reform had been made in the ^^^ ^^^ administration. His report presented a dark sieeman's record of crime and misery. The king main- ''^p^'^- tained a superfluous army of 70,000 men, who received scanty and uncertain pay, and were driven to prey upon the people. Their foraging parties indiscriminately plun- dered the villagers of provisions, and brought away the roofs and doors of the houses for fuel. It was impossible to conceive a greater curse to a country than such a body of disorganised and licentious soldiery. There were 246 forts or strongholds in the country, with 4!76 guns, held by the higher class of landholders, chiefly Rajpoots. They had converted large tracts of the most fertile land into jungle, which became the haunts of lawless characters, who levied heavy imposts on all traders and travellers. Within sixteen miles of the capital one landholder had thus turned thirty miles of rich land into jungle, and erected four forti- fications within the circle. The king, immured in his palace, was invisible except to his women, musicians, and bufibons. The favourite fiddler had been appointed chief justice ; the chief singer was de facto king. Every officer on his appointment was required to pay heavy douceurs to the king, to the heir- apparent, to the minister, in fact, to whomever was supposed to have interest at court, and he reimbursed himself by extortions from the people. Colonel Sleeman — who was an impassioned foe to annex- ation — stated in his report that, notwithstanding his earnest desire to maintain the throne of Oude in its in- tegrity, fifty years of experience had destroyed every hope that the king would carry out a system of administration calculated to secure life and property and to promote the happiness of the people. "He did not think that, with a " due regard to its own character as the paramount power *' in India, and the particular obligations by which it was *' bound by solemn treaties to the suffering people of this " distracted country, the Government could any longer *' forbear to take over the administration," in perpetuity : 1 1 482 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. making suitable provision for the dignity and comfort of 1865 the king. General Outram, who was equally desirous of maintaining, if possible, the few remaining states in India, was appointed Resident by Lord Dalhousie, and directed to make a thorough inquiry into the condition of the people. He stated that, not only was there no improvement, but no prospect of any, and that the duty imposed on the Grovem- ment by treaty could no longer admit of its honestly in- dulging the reluctance hitherto felt of having recourse to the decisive measure of assuming the administration. He asserted that it was at the cost of 5,000,000 people, for whom we were bound to secure good government, that we were upholding the sovereign power of this effete and in- capable dynasty. Lord Dalhousie drew up a comprehensive minute on the subject, in which he analysed the evidence which had been given during a long series of years of the gross Lord^Dal ^nd inveterate abuse of power in Oude, and the ^uae and opinions which had been recorded, without excep- tion, of our obligation to afford relief to the people. Were it not for the presence of our troops, he said, the people would long since have worked their own deliverance ; inaction on our part could no longer be justi- fied. But, he added, the rulers of Oude, however unfaithful to the trust conferred on them, have yet ever been faithful and true in their allegiance to the British power, and they have aided us as best they could in the hour of our utmost need. Justice and gratitude require that, in ameliorating the lot of the people, we should lower the dignity and authority of the sovereign as little as possible. The prospects of the people may be improved without resorting to so extreme a measure as the annexation of the territory and the abolition of the throne. " I do not therefore advise that Oude be " declared a British province." He proposed that the king should retain the sovereignty, that he should vest the whole of the civil and military administration in the hands of the Company, and receive an annual stipend for the support of his honour and dignity. Of the members of Council, Mr. — now Sir Barnes — Peacock coincided with Lord Dalhousie ; Mr. — now Sir John — Grant, and governor of Jamaica, recommended the incorporation of Oude with the British territories ; and General Low, who had opposed the annexa- tion of Nagpore, and who had, moreover, been E/Csident at Lucknow, asserted that the disorders in the country were of such long standing, and so inveterate, that there was no Sec)'. IV.] ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS 483 mode of maintaining a jnsfc government but by placing the jl.d. whole of its territory exclusively and permanently under the * 865 direct management of the East India Company. Lord Dalhousie transmitted all these minutes, together with the reports of Colonel Sleeman and General Outram, to the Court of Directors, with whom, and with Annexation the Ministry, rested the decision of this great ofOude. question. After earnest deliberation for two months, they came to the determination to overrule the advice of Lord Dalhousie, and to adopt what he had endeavoured to dis- suade them from — the annexation of the territory and the abolition of the throne ; and thus ended the sovereignty of 1866 the king of Oude, on whom an annuity of twelve lacs of rupees a year was settled. Lord Dalhousie's administration was rendered not less memorable by his administrative reforms and by material progress than by its political results. There was Administra- no branch of the public service which his keen eye tivereforma. did not penetrate, and into which he did not introduce im- provements, the value of which has been gracefully acknow- ledged even by his enemies. He had an insuperable aversion to what he described as the cumbersome and obstructive agency of boards, and he abolished tbem as far as possible, and invigorated each department by unity of control and responsibility. Though a civilian, there was no portion of the public service in which his reforms were more radical and more beneficial than the army. He abolished the 1850 military board, and placed the multifarious duties which had been thrust upon it, and which it was never able to perform with efficiency, under the charge of single officers of large experience. The board had been weighted with the superintendence of all public works, and in no division had its failure been more palpable. Lord Dalhousie organised a public works department, with a separate secretary, not only to the Government of India, but to each 18M Presidency. The responsibility of management was vested in a chief engineer, assisted by a body of executive officers and subordinates. To secure the uninterrupted progress of public works, which had previously been prosecuted by spasmodic effi)rts, a schedule of those which were to be executed during each year was to be submitted to Govern- ment at the commencement of it. The revenues of India were increased during Lord Dalhousie's administration from twenty-six to thirty crores. II 'A 484 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. i.D. The wars in which the Government of India had been en- ^^^^ Reven es E^S^^ ^^^^ little intermission for ten years, had ^ ' absorbed thirty crores, and entailed an annual deficit, which, however, ceased with the cause of it, and there was for a time the bright gleam of a surplus, but it was extinguished two years after by the mutiny. During the period of eight years now under review, the commerce of Bombay was developed to an extraordinary degree, and that of Calcutta was doubled, while the coast- ing trade was liberated from every obstruction, and ren- dered more safe by the erection of lighthouses along the coast. 1863 The importance of conferring on the comparatively poor population of India the boon of cheap and uni- form postage which had long been enjoyed in England, had been frequently discussed in a perfunctory manner. Lord Dalhousie took up the question with his accustomed energy, and transmitted to Leadenhall Street the proposal of establishing a uniform rate of half an anna, or three-farthings, for every letter of a defined weight, irrespective of distance, though in some cases it even ex- ceeded two thousand miles. The Court gave the same ready and liberal sanction to this plan as they had, indeed done to all his other great schemes of improvement. He likewise procured a redaction of the rate of postage between England and India, and took a national pride in an arrangement which he said " would enable the Scotch " recruit at Peshawur to write to his mother at John " O'Groat's house for sixpence." The Ganges Canal was commenced long before Lord Dalhousie's arrival, but it was advancing at so sluggish a The Ganges pace, that the sum expended on it from the begin- Canai. ning had not exceeded seventeen lacs of rupees. He pressed it forward with unabated ardour, allowing no financial pressure and no exigencies of war to interrupt its progress ; and the sum appropriated to it in six years exceeded a crore and a half of rupees. The main stream 1854 was opened by Mr. Colvin, the lieutenant-governor of Agra, in March 1854. This gigantic undertaking which was designed and completed by the late Sir Proby Cautley, stands among the noblest efforts of civilisation. It nearly equals the aggregate length of all the lines of the four greatest canals of France, and is five times longer than all the main lines in Lombardy. The system of railroads which is working a greater and more beneficial change in the social, political, and com- Skct. IV.] RAILROADS 485 mercial interests of India than has been known at any former period, is due to the exertions of Lord Dalhousie. The first railway was projected by Sir Macdonald Stephenson in 1843, and received great en- couragement from Mr. Wilberforce Bird, when oflBLciating as governor- general, and subsequently from Lord Hardinge, but the commercial disasters of 1846 and 1847, and the reluctance of English capitalists to embark in an unexplored field of enterprise in India, baffled the undertaking. The indefatigable zeal of Sir Macdonald succeeded at length in forming the East India Railway Company, and Sir a.d. James Hogg, a member of the Court of Directors, prevailed 1848 on his colleagues, though not without great difficulty, to guarantee a rate of interest sufficient to raise the capital. Two short and experimental lines at Calcutta and at Bombay were sanctioned, but as numerous applications for similar concessions poured in upon the India House, the Court had the wisdom to refer them to the consideration of Lord Dalhousie, with the intimation of their wish " that *' India should, without unnecessary loss of time, possess *' the immense advantage of a regular and well-devised " system of railway communications." The question could not have been placed in the hands of one better qualified to do justice to it. He had presided at the Board of Trade for several years during the Lo^d most active period of railway enterprise, and Daiiiouaie's had become complete master of the principles °^^"" and details of railway economy. To this pre-eminent ad- vantage he added large and comprehensive views of policy. In the elaborate minute he transmitted to the Directors on the 20th April, 1853, which became the basis of the rail- i863 way system of India, he expressed his hope that the limited section of experimental line hitherto sanctioned would no longer form the standard for railway works in India. A glance at the map, he said, would suffice to show how im- measurable would be the political advantages of a system of internal communication by which intelligence of every event should be transmitted to the Government at a speed fivefold its present rate, and enable the Government to bring the main bulk of its military strength to bear upon any given point in as many days as it now requires months. The commercial and social advantages of the rail were beyond all calculation. " A system of railways judiciously " selected and formed would surely and rapidly give rise in " this empire to the same encouragement of enterprise, the " same multiplication of produce, the same discovery of 486 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. A.D. " latent forces, and the same increase of national wealth that 1863 " have marked the introduction of improved and extended " communications in the various kingdoms of the Western "world. With the aid of a railway carried up to the " Indus, the risk involved in the extension of our "frontier to a distance of 1,500 miles from the capital " would be infinitely diminished. Peshawur would, in fact, " be reached in less time and with greater facility than " Moorshedabad, though only seventy miles distant from " Calcutta, in the days of CHve." He then proceeded to lay down a system of railways for the whole continent which should connect the Presidencies with each other and form the great trunk lines. He advocated the construc- tion of the lines by public companies, sustained by a State guarantee and controlled, directly but not vexatiously, by the Government of the country, acting in the interests of the public on the principle for which he had contended, though in vain, when at the Board of Trade. 1862 Another boon conferred on India by Lord Dalhousie was the electric telegraph, created by the enterprising The Electric Spirit of Mr. — now Sir William — O'Shaugh- Teiegraph. nessy. After a series of experiments he succeeded in laying down a line from Calcutta to the sea at Kedgeree, which, by expediting the communication of intelligence, was found to be of eminent service during the Burmese war, when hours were invaluable. Lord Dalhousie lost no time in sending Mr. O'Shaughnessy to England with a letter to the Court of Directors, stating that the success of this experiment had added intensity to his desire to bring the various sections of the empire into communication with each other by telegraphic wires, and he made it his earnest personal solicitation that they would authorise the imme- diate construction of them. "Everything," he added, " moves faster nowadays all the world over, except the " transaction of Indian business." Happily Sir James Hogg occupied the chair at the India House, and he took the same interest in the promotion of the telegraph as he had done of the rail. The proposal was carried through the various official stages with such promptitude that, within a week of the arrival of Lord Dalhousie's communication, the despatch sanctioning the establishment of the telegraph was on its way to India. The wires have now been spread over the country, and have fully answered the hopes of the Governor- Genei-al, by increasing the security of the empire, and augmenting the facilities for governing it ten- Skct. IV.] LOED DALHOUSIE'S ADMINISTKATION 487 fold. Even his most ambitious expectations have been rea- lised by the progress of science. " It may yet be hoped," he wrote, " that the system of electric telegraphs in India *' may one day be linked with those which envelope Europe " and which already seek to stretch across the Atlantic." Not only is the Government of India in daily communica- tion with the home authorities, but on a recent occasion a complimentary message from the Governor- General at Simla to the President of the United States reached Wash- ington and was acknowledged in three hours. It cannot, however, but be considered a fortunate, not to say a provi- dential, circumstance that the submarine telegraph was not in existence before the conquest of India had been com- pleted, and Peshawur had become the frontier station of the empire. Considering the inveterate repugnance of the Court of Directors and of the Board of Control to any increase of territory whatever, it is manifest that, if such facilities of communication had existed at a more early period, there would have been no Indian empire to govern. Lord Dalhousie embarked for England on the 6th a.d. March, 1856. The population of the metropohs, moved by 1856 a feelinff of admiration of the ffreat ruler who had ^ • - Cliarsct6r of enlarged, consolidated, and improved the empire, Lord Dai- crowded the plain to testify their regret at his ^JnfgtraS^n departure. Eight years of incessant toil had ex- hausted his constitution, and, after a lingering illness of four years, he sank into the grave, on the 19th December, 1860, at the premature age of forty-eight. His adminis- tration forms one of the most important eras in the history of British India. His plans were always broad and com- prehensive, and bore the stamp of solid improvement, and not of mere sensational innovation. With a clear intellect and a sound and independent judgment, he combined great firmness of purpose and decision of character. If he exacted the rigid performance of duty from those under him, he set them the example by his own intense application to pubhc business, to which, by a noble devotion, he sacri- ficed leisure, ease, comfort, and even health. Every question that came before him was investigated with patience and diligence, and with a scrupulous desire .to arrive at a right decision. He marshalled with great im- partiality all the arguments on both sides of any subject, and adduced weighty reasons whatever the decision he formed, the soundness of which was rarely questioned by his colleagues or the public. Among the governors-general 488 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XIV. he stands on the same pedestal with Warren Hastings and Lord Wellesley, and his pubhc character, Hke theirs, has had to pass through the ordeal of obloquy. It was twenty-seven years after the House of Commons had impeached Warren Hastings that the members rose in a body to pay sponta- neous homage to his merits as he entered their chamber in 1813. It was thirty years before the Court of Directors, who had treated Lord Wellesley as a criminal, assured him that he " had been animated by an ardent zeal to promote " the welfare of India, and to uphold the interests and " honour of the British empire, and that they looked back " to the eventful and brilliant period of his government " with feelings common to their countrymen." Lord Dal- housie's acquittal may perhaps be longer delayed, but it is not the less certain. The only indictment against him is his annexation policy, as it is called, which was hastily pro- nounced to have been the cause of the mutiny ; and it was inevitable that the feelings of indignation which its atro- cities created should be in some measure transferred to the individual who was charged with having occasioned it. The great merits of his administration cannot, therefore, be fully appreciated till the voice of posterity has removed this reproach from it. A.D. The Charter of 1833 expired in 1853, and a strenuous 1863 effort was made to wrest the government of India from the The Charter East India Company, but the Whig Ministry de- ofi853. termined to continue it in their hands, not, however, as formerly, for any definite period, but until Parliament should otherwise ordain. The India Bill was introduced by Sir Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control, in a lucid speech of five hours ; which, considering that he came into office only five months before, a stranger to Indian affairs, exhibited no ordinary talent, and held out the prospect of an enlightened and vigorous ad- ministration, which was subsequently reahsed to the fullest extent. The chief modifications were three. The number of the Court of Directors was reduced from thirty to eigh- teen, and the elimination was effected by a most ingenious process of balloting, devised by the secretary. Sir James Melvill. Of the reduced number a certain proportion was to bo nominated by the Crown. Under the old system, many of the most eminent of the public servants in India were excluded from the Direction on their return to Eng- land, owing to their invincible repugnance to a laborious and humiliating course of canvassing ; but the Minister was now Sbct. IV.l THE CHAETEE OF 1853 489 enabled at ODce to avail himself of their invaluable assist- a.d ance. The government of Bengal and Behar, moreover, 1863 was entrusted to a separate Lieutenant-governor. The administration of these provinces, containing a population of more than fifty millions, and contributing one -third of the revenues of the empire, had down to this period been imposed on the Governor-general , and, whenever he was absent, which was genei'aliy one-half his time, it devolved on the senior member of Council, who sometimes happened to be a military officer rewarded for services in the field, and, in one instance, for reforming the Madras Commis- sariat. Under this anomalous system there had been no fewer than ten governors and deputy-governors of Bengal in the course of eleven years. Throughout this period of perpetual change and inevitable weakness the post of secretary was occupied by Mr. — now Sir Frederick — Halliday, and it was owing to his great local knowledge and experience, and to his sound judgment and diligence, that the administration exhibited any degree of energy or con- sistency. His eminent services were rewarded by the first appointment to the. Lieutenant-governorship. By a third provision of the Charter, the patronage of the Civil Service was withdrawn from the Court of Directors to make way for the principle of unreserved competition. CHAPTEE XV. SECTION L LORD canning's administration — THE MUTINY MEERUT — DELHI — THE PUNJAB. Lord Dalhousie was succeeded by Lord Canning, the i856 thirteenth and last of the Governors-general of the East India Company, and the first viceroy of the LordCan- Queen. His father, George Canning, was ap- ninggover. pointed governor-general in 1822, but did not "^^'^^'^^ embark. He himself had sat in the House of Lords for twenty years, and filled several offices of state, and had thus acquired a good store of official experience. At the vale- dictory banquet given to him by the Court of Directors 490 ABKIDaMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. XV he uttered these memorable expressions : — " I wish for a " peaceful time of office ; but I cannot forget that in the sky " of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise no larger " than a man's hand, but which, growing larger and larger, "may at last threaten to burst, and overwhelm us with "ruin." The succeeding nari'ative will show how pro- phetic this enunciation proved to be. His administration was marked by a series of events of unexampled magnitude — the mutiny and extinction of an army of 150,000 sepoys, — the wholesale massacre of Europeans, men, women and children — the loss and recovery of the North -West pro- vinces — the dissolution of the East India Company, and the annexation of the empire of India to the Crown. A.D. Lord Canning landed in Calcutta on the last day of 1866 February 1856, and for a fortnight enjoyed the benefit of intercourse with Lord Dalhousie, who believed of^disaffec^ that India was in a state of profound tranquillity, tion.— oude. ^g ^]^g year wore on, however, the elements of disquietude, though not of immediate danger, began to make their appearance. The deposed king of Oude was allowed to take up his residence in the suburbs of Calcutta, and his emissaries were actively employed in diffusing a feel- ing of hostility to the British Grovernment in and around the metropolis. The chief commissionership of Oude had un- fortunately been given to a civilian, Mr. Coverley Jackson, who was utterly unfit for such a post. Instead of labour- ing to reconcile the chiefs and people to a foreign rule, as Outram and Sleeman would have laboured to do, his time was passed in unseemly squabbles with his subordinates, and in sowing the dragon's teeth of rebellion among the proud aristocracy of the country by a wanton and disas- trous interference with the tenures of their estates. In the old Mahomedan capital of India, in which the royal family had been injudiciously permitted to keep up a Discontent mimic court, the proceedings of Government at Delhi. arouscd a strong feeling of animosity. Contrary to the advice of some of the venerable members of the Court of Directors, the Board of Control had determined to remove the family from Delhi ; and, on the death of the king Bahadoor Shah, to discontinue the royal title and immunities. From a feeling of deference to the strong re- monstrances of the Directors who had opposed this measure. Lord Dalhousie had postponed taking action upon it, and it was left to the consideration of Lord Canning, who at once adopted the conclusion that the palace of Bbct. I.] DISCONTENT AT DELHI 491 Delhi, which, waa a mile in circnmfereiice and the citadel of a.d. a fortified town, and which was urgently required for mili- 1866 tary purposes, should be in the hands of the Government of the country. A communication to this effect was made to the king, who was likewise informed that his son Mahomed Korash would be recognised as his successor, but without the title of king. His young and favourite wife, Zeenut Mehal, was anxious to secure the succession for her own son, and resented his exclusion, and not less the loss of the regal dignity and privileges of the family. She set every engine at work to create a hostile excitement against the British Government in the Mahomedan community, not only of Hindostan, but also of the Deccan, and extended her intrigues to Persia, then at war with England. Rumours were at the same time disseminated that Lord Canning had arrived with orders from the Queen of England to enforce the profession of Christianity on the natives of India. There was likewise a prophecy abroad at the time that the Company's raj, or rule, was to last only a hundred years, and 1857 was the centenary of Plassy. This prediction was industriously propagated, and tended, as in other cases, to promote its own fulfilment, by creating an impression that the fate of the British Government was subject to the inevitable law of destiny. There can be little doubt that towards the close of 1856 the public mind had become unsettled, and that a vague apprehension of some portentous event was generally difiused through the community. The native soldiery of India, whether under their native princes or under our own flag, had never been exempt from a spirit of insubordination, Sindia, Holkar, and The native the other Mahratta rulers had been repeatedly a.rmy. subject to coercion by their mutinous soldiers. Runjeet Sing declared that he dreaded his own victorious troops more than he feared his enemies. In the Company's army, from the first mutiny in 1764 at Buxar to the latest in 1850 at Shikarpore, there had been a constant succession of out- breaks more or less formidable. In 1856 there were two especial causes of annoyance calculated to disquiet the minds of men whom we had been accustomed to pamper. More than forty thousand of the sepoys were recruited from Oude, and with the view of attaching them to our service, they had enjoyed the privilege of having their lawsuits decided before otherr, on the production of a rescript from their com- manding officers. This exclusive privilege, which gave 492 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTOBY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. them importance in their native villages, was lost on the 1866 annexation of the country, and it created a feeling of dis- content. Moreover, only six of the Bengal regiments were enlisted for foreign service, and in 1856 Government pro- mulgated an order that in future the services of no recruit would be accepted who did not engage to embark when required. The order was as reasonable as it was necessary, but it produced a deep feeling of dissatisfaction in every regiment. The Company's military service was considered both an honourable and an hereditary profession ; but under the new rule the sons and nephews of the high -caste sepoys who were waiting for vacancies must either forego the service altogether, or defile their caste by crossing the " black water." It is questionable, however, whether the disaffection ex- cited by the two royal families of Oude and Delhi, or even The greased ^^^ discontent of the sepoys, would have culmi- cartridges. nated in the revolt of the whole army, and the barbarities which accompanied it, but for the unexpected incident of the greased cartridges, which proved a god-send to the enemies of Government. It had been determined to supersede the old infantry musket by an improved descrip- tion of fire-arm with a grooved bore, which could not be loaded without lubricating the cartridge. Dumdum, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, was one of the schools of mus- ketry for instruction in the use of the Enfield rifle. Early 1857 in January 1857 a low-caste man employed in the magazine meeting a brahmin sepoy, asked him for a drink of water from his brass water-flask, and was refused on the ground of his caste; upon which he remarked that "high caste and " low caste would soon be on an equality, as cartridges *' smeared with beef fat and hog's lard were being made up " at the magazine which all the sepoys would be compelled *' to use." The alarm spread like wild fire among the sepoys at Dumdum and through the four regiments at Barrackpore. The emissaries of the king of Oude in- dustriously circulated a report that, in prosecution of a long cherished design, the Government, under special instruc- tions from England, had caused the cartridges to be greased with ingredients which would defile both Hindoos and Mahoraedans, as a preliminary to their forcible conversion to Christianity. A frantic feehng of terror arid indignation spread through the regiments, which was evinced by the incendiary fires which from night to night destroyed the officers' bungalows and tlie public buildings. As soon as the excitement created by the rumour of the SBrt-. I.] PAUCITY OF EUEOPEAN TROOPS 493 greased cartridges became known to the Government in a.d. Calcutta active measures were taken to allay it. _, , 1867 mi 1 - 1 1 1 T 1 n 11 EnaeavouTS Telegraphic messages were despatched to all the to aiiay stations up the country to issue the cartridges excitement. free from grease. At Barrackpore the sepoys were assured by General Hearsay, who had acquired great influence over them, that there was no cause for alarm, that the Govern- ment never had any design on their caste, that no greased cartridges had been issued, and that they might lubricate their own cartridges with bees' wax. But they were beyond the reach of reason, and it was found impossible to dis- abuse them. When it was demonstrated to them that there was no grease in the cartridges, they affirmed that the paper itself which had a glossy appearance, was polluted. The public post was laden with their letters, and in a few days every regiment throughout Hindostan was in- fected with the same feeling of alarm and passion. The little cloud was " growing larger and larger," and threa- tening to " burst and overwhelm the Government with ruin." At the time when the peril of the empire was thus in the extreme, the usual means of confronting it were wanting. India had been in a great measure p -^ j stripped of the European force which was now European urgently required to control an infatuated and in- *^oops- furiate native army. Regiment after regiment had been withdrawn from the country in spite of the remonstrances of Lord Dalhousie, who was constrained at length to in- form Lord Palmerston that he could not be responsible for the safety of the empire if any more European troops were withdrawn ; yet four more were sent to Persia after he had retired from the country. Instead of the safe proportion of one European to three native regiments, which the tra- dition of half a century had established, there was at this time, little more than a single regiment to ten native corps between Calcutta, and Agra. Lord Lawrence indeed affirmed that, " if there had been 5,000 more Europeans, it " is certain that the mutiny would not have happened ; " but the natives thought the country was quite denuded '* of troops." When the crisis appeared imminent Lord Canning sent round to Rangoon for the 84th, and, on its arrival, ventured to bring down and disband the 19th, which had mutinied at Berhampore. The month of April passed with little disturbance, but in great disquietude. It afterwards transpired that a general conspiracy had been organised throughout the 494 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. sepoy army, for the simultaneous revolt of every regiment 1867 at every station in Hindostan, on the evening mSiyat of the last Sunday in May, at the hour of Meerut. church sorvice, when all the Europeans were to be massacred without regard to sex or age ; but an unexpected transaction at Meerut led to a premature outbreak. It was the largest and most important military station in the North- West provinces, and also the head-quarters of the artillery, and any movement in it was sure to exercise a powerful influence at other stations. There the ordnance department had been employed in making up the greased cartridges under the eyes of the sepoys. The general ex- ' citement which pervaded the cantonment and the sur- rounding country was constantly fomented by fresh and more alarming rumours. It was asserted that the flour in the bazaars had been mixed up with ground bones, and that even the salt had been polluted. No lie was too absurd to be believed. It was manifest that the enemies of Government had taken advantage of the existing agitation to inflame the minds of the sepoys, and to convulse the country. Foremost among these conspirators in the North- West was Doondhoo Punt, commonly known as Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the ex-Peshwa Bajee Rao, who, during his residence at Bithoor, had received through his annuity an aggregate sum of two crores and a half of rupees, the greater portion of which he had bequeathed to the Nana. He had the effrontery to demand a continuance of the pension of eight lacs of rupees a year, which was necessarily refused him, and he vowed vengeance on the Government, and during the early part of the year was found travelling about in Oude and other districts sowing the seeds of revolt. The troopers of the 3rd Cavalry at Meerut, chiefly Mahomedans, were the first to break out into open mutiny. The 8rd It was explained to them on parade that they Cavalry. "wrere not required to bite the cartridges, but simply to pinch off" the end ; but of the ninety men to whom the cartridges were off'ered on the 24th April, eighty-fiv^ refused to touch them, and were ordered to be brought to a court-martial. The court was composed of fifteen native officers of artillery, cavalry, and infantry, and by the vote of fourteen the troopers were found guilty of disobedience of orders, and sentenced to hard labour for ten years. On the morning of the 9th May, in the presence of their fellow- soldiers drawn np on parade, their uniform was stripped Sect. I.J OUTBREAK AT MEERUT IOTH MAY 495 off their backs, and shackles affixed to their ankles. Some a.d. of them were the flower of the regiment, and had served 186? the state in many campaigns, and they implored the general to have mercy on them, and not subject them to so ignominious a doom. To the feeling of alarm for their caste in the minds of the sepoys was now added a feeling of burning wrath as they saw their comrades marched off to gaol like the meanest felons. The whole transaction exhibited a spirit of incomprehensible infatuation on the part of the military authorities of the station as well as of the commander-in-chief. The next day, Sunday, the 10th May, as the Europeans were proceeding to church in the evening, the native troops broke out. The troopers of the 3rd Cavalry hast- The outburst ened to the gaol, which was guarded only by gtheioth sepoys, and liberated their companions. The in- *^' fantry and the cavalry, the Hindoos and the Mahomedans, made common cause, and massacred all the Europeans without distinction of age or sex whom they could find. Half a century before Colonel Gillespie, with a regiment of dragoons and some galloper guns, had at once quelled the Vellore mutiny and saved the Deccan. The European force at Meerut consisted of a battalion of riflemen, a regiment of dragoons, and a large force of European artillery ; and the exercise of similar promptitude would have saved Meerut at once, and checked the principle of revolt in its infancy. But the commander of the division, General Hewitt, was a superannuated officer, inert and imbecile, of unwieldy bulk, and the last man who ought to have been entrusted with the charge of so important a station at such a crisis. The night was passed in bui'ning down the residences of the officers and Europeans, and the massacre of the Christians, without any attempt to check it. The women and children who sought refage in the gardens were tracked out and shot amidst the yells of the mutineers. " The sweepings " of the gaols and the scum of the bazaars, all the rogues " and ruffians of Meerut and the robber-tribes of the " neighbouring villages, were let loose, plundering and " destroying wherever an English bungalow was to be " gutted and burnt." In the morning it was found that the mutineers had started on the road to Delhi. Had the carabineers and the horse artillery been instantly despatched after Atrocities at them, they might have reached the city, only ^®^- forty miles distant, in time to save the lives of the Euio- 496 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. peans there, and to hold the mutiny in check, even if they 1857 had not overtaken and cut up the mntinous regiments on the route ; but the wretched Hewitt simply sent hia cavalry out to reconnoitre. The 3rd Cavalry was speedily followed by the infantry, and being joined by the 38th, on duty in the city, began the work of destruction and murder. The commissioner, the chaplain and his daughter, and the European officers in the city were massacred. The Delhi bank was gutted and all its inmates slaughtered. The magazine, the largest in the North- West, with its vast supplies of gunpowder, was defended by only nine Euro- pean officers and a few treacherous natives. The mutineers applied scaling ladders to the walls, and were streaming over them, when Lieut. Willoughby applied the torch to the train he had laid, and blew it up to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy, and with it hundreds of the mutineers. None of these brave officers expected to sur- vive the explosion, and the sacrifice of their own lives in the service of their country was an act of distinguished hero- ism ; but four of them happily sui'vived the catastrophe. The city was now completely in the hands of the in- surgents. The Europeans who had taken refuge at the main guard were shot down by volleys from the tion of the 38th. The cantonment which was immediately ^^^* beyond the walls contained two sepoy regiments, who rose upon the officers, set fire to their houses, and turned the guns upon them. Some of them and their wives succeeded in making their escape, and many a tale is re- corded of the heroic bearing of deHcate ladies, some of them with children in their arms, as, under the burning sun of May, they sought refuge in the jungles or waded through streams with scanty clothing and Httle food. Meanwhile the European and East India women and children in the city, about fifty in number, were seized, and after five days of barbarous treatment, taken into a court- yard of the palace, when a rope was thrown round them to prevent their escape, and they were one and all murdered. Not a European was now left in Delhi. The sepoys then proceeded to ofier the sovereignty to the king, which he formally accepted. An old silver throne was brought into the hall of audience, on which he took his seat, under a salute of twenty- one guns, and received public homage, and began to issue royal mandates. The wire flashed down to Calcutta the portentous intel- ligence of the mutmy at Meerut, the loss of Delhi, and the SiscT. IJ ENERGY OF OFFICERS IN THE PUNJAB 497 establisliinent of a Mogul dynasty. Lord Canning immedi- a.d. ately sent to Madras, to Ceylon, and to Bombay for ^^^g^^g^^ 1^^' every available European regiment. A steamer of Lord can- was despatched to intercept Lord Elgin on his ^"^^' mission to China, and entreat him to forward to Calcutta the European force which accompanied him, and orders were issued to despatch the troops returning from the Persian expedition to Calcutta as fast as they arrived. The telegraph gave immediate notice of the crisis at Meerut to the officers in the Punjab. The number of European troops in the province was about 10,000, and of Sikhs 13,000, but they were outnumbered in the by the Hindostanee sepoys, all ripe for revolt, ^"^i^^* The strength of the Punjab consisted, however, not so much in the large collection of European soldiers, as in the body of able men in charge of the government. It was con- sidered Lord Dalhousie's "pet province," and he had drained the older provinces of their best officers to enrich its establishments. Never since the introduction of British power into India had so large a number of statesmen and generals of the first order been collected together in the administration of any province. At the head of this galaxy of talent stood Sir John Lawrence, a tower of strength, with a genius for military organization, although a civilian, second only to Lord Wellesley and Lord Dalhousie ; while among the foremost of his assistants were Robert Mont- gomery, Donald Macleod, Herbert Edwardes, Neville Cham- berlain, and above all John Nicholson. But it is not easy to select any names without doing injustice to other dis- tinguished men, civil and military, whose zeal, devotion, and energy achieved the success of which their country is justly proud. For the detail of their exploits the reader is referred to Kaye's standard " History of the Sepoy War." Cut off from all communication with the Government of India in the capital, they were constrained to act on their own judgment and responsibility ; and when the vigour of their proceedings is contrasted with the official feebleness too visible in Calcutta, this isolation cannot but be con- sidered a fortunate circumstance. In the cantonment of Lahore there were three regiments of native infantry and one of cavalry waiting only for the post to bring them information of the hostile movement at Meerut to follow the example. They amof at were counterpoised by only one European regi- ^^^°^^- ment and two troops of European horse-artillery. Sir John K E 498 ABRIDaMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. Lawrence was absent at E-awul Pindee, recruiting his 1857 health, and Mr. Robert Montgomery was at the head of affairs at the station when intelligence was received by- wire on the 11th May of the revolt at Meerut, and on the 12th that Delhi was in the hands of the rebels, and it was resolved to deprive the regiments of their arms the very next morning. A ball had been fixed for the night of the 12th, and it was deemed advisable not to abandon it, lest a feeling of suspicion should be created in the minds of the sepoys. The officers moved from the ball-room to the parade, where the unsuspecting troops were drawn up as on ordinary occasions. The European regiments and the guns were suddenly wheeled into a commanding position, and the disaffected regiments, seeing that any attempt at resistance must be fatal to them, obeyed the order to pile arms, and Lahore was saved by the energy of Mr. Mont- gomery and Brigadier Corbett and Colonel Renney. In the same spirit of promptitude the important fortress of Govindgurh which commanded Umritsir, the ecclesiastical ^ ^. capital of the Punjab, was secured. The srreat at other magazines of Ferozepore and Phillour, were in stations. 2j]j.Q manner saved from the mutineers, though not without difficulty. In the valley of Peshawur, across the Indus, there were about 2,000 European troops, and four times that number of native sepoys. The possession of it was considered essential to the security of the Punjab ; and the officers in charge of it, Edwardes, Sydney Cotton, Chamberlain, and Nicholson, were equal to any emergency. At the first council which they held, Colonel Edwardes de- clared that " whatever gave rise to the mutiny, it had " settled down into a struggle for empire under Mahomedan "guidance, with the Mogul capital for its centre," and it was resolved to form a movable column of reliable troops, under a competent commander, to act wherever there was danger. On the 22nd, the four regiments of native infantry stationed there were taken by surprise as they were on the point of mutiny, and disarmed. This master stroke of policy produced a magical effect on the people and chiefs in the valley, which was enhanced soon after when a number of the fugitives of the mutinous 55th, which had been dis- persed and cut up by Colonel Nicholson, were blown away from the guns on the Peshawur parade. At other stations, however, there was not the same prudence and success. Brigadier Johnson, another imbecile like Hewitt, allowed Loodiana to be plundered, and three regiments from JuUun- Skct. I.] SEPOYS DISAEMED IN THE PUNJAB 499 der and Phillonr to escape with their arms to Delhi. The a.d. 14!th at Jhelum was foimd to be ready for revolt, and a 1867 force was sent by Sir John Lawrence to disarm them, but the commandant disobeyed his instructions, and a fierce engagement ensued, in which the sepoys had the advantage and made their escape. The news of this transaction em.- boldened the disaffected regiments at Sealkote to rise on their officers, and, as usual, they threw open the gaol, plundered the treasury, gutted the houses of the European inhabitants, and marched on to Delhi, but retribution was not far off. Colonel Nicholson who had taken the command of the movable column, after having by his energy and skill disarmed three more regiments, marched with the utmost speed on the insurgents regardless of the insuffer- able heat, and completely routed them. All their baggage, and their ammunition, together with the spoils of Sealkote, fell into his hands and they fled, leaving 400 dead and wounded on the field. These energetic measures gave security for the time to the Punjab. Within a month of the outbreak at Meerut there was scarcely a regiment between the Sutlej and Allahabad which had not revolted. The sepoys gravitated to Delhi ^^^ ^^ ^ as the seat of the new government, and the re- abandon capture of it became the more urgent as it became ^^^*^"^' more arduous. Sir John and his associates directed their whole attention to the despatch of men and materials to the siege, but, with the means at his disposal and the local demands on them, the task appeared so difficult that he proposed to place Peshawur and the province lying beyond the Indus in the hands of Dost Mahomed, and thus obtain the valuable services of the European troops stationed there. The measure was strenuously opposed by Colonel Edwardes and his gallant companions, and referred to Lord Canning on the 10th June. His reply, " hold on at " Peshawur to the last," was dated the 15th July, but so completely had the communication between the Punjab and Calcutta been cut off that it was despatched by a steamer to Lord Harris at Madras to be telegraphed to Lord Elphin- stone at Bombay, and sent on by him as best he could. CK 2 500 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. SECTION II. LORD canning's ADMINISTRATION — THE MUTINY — LUCKNOW — CAWNPORE — ALLAHABAD. A.D. The post of Resident at Lucknow had been accepted by the 1867 great Sir Henry Lawrence in March 1857. The measures Events at ^f his predecessor had fatally alienated the landed Lucknow. aristocracy, who were found to possess greater influence over the people than had been supposed, and whose opposition was therefore the more formidable. The city was filled with thousands of the starving soldiers and retainers of the old court seething with disloyalty, while the whole country was pervaded by the families of the 40,000 sepoys who were in a state of mutiny. There were nine native regiments of infantry and cavalry in the capital and its environs, containing about 7,000 men, and only 700 Europeans to hold them in check. The 7th cavalry was in a state of violent excitement, and had invited the 48th native infantry to join them in murdering their officers. On the 3rd May, on a bright moonlight night. Sir Henry Lawrence moved down unexpectedly with his Europeans to their lines, when they threw down their arms and fled. He then distributed his small force in such positions as to overawe the city and the native regiments, and laid in a store of provisions in a stronghold called the Mutchie Bhawan. On the night of the 30th May, however, five of the regiments broke out, and set fire to the cantonments and murdered their officers, in some cases with exceptional treachery. This became the signal for a general revolt of revolt at all the stations throughout the country, the army. ^^^ -^j ^^^ middle of June every regiment in the province, as well as every police battalion, was in a state of mutiny. Sir Henry still held command of the city and the neighbourhood, but on the last day of the month he marched out to Chinhut to meet several thousand mutineers who were marching on it, when his native gunners cut the traces of their horses, threw the guns into a ditch, and rode away, and his little force was constrained to retreat with the loss of a sixth of its number, and, what was more disas- trous, of the reputation which had hitherto held the city in awe. After this reverse he was obliged to contract his lines of defence within the Residency grounds. On the Sect. II.] PERILS OF THE CAWNPORE GARRISON 501 4th of July he expired of a wound he received from a shell a.d. which burst into his room two days before, and ^g^thof ^^^' the state was deprived, at its greatest need, of the sir Henry invaluable services of one of the most illustrious ^*^^"°«' of its servants, beloved by the natives for his genial benevolence, and by his brother officers for his pre-eminent talent. On his death the command devolved on Brigadier Inglis, and he continued to sustain a close siege with un- jBlinching energy for twelve weeks till he was relieved by Outram and Havelock. The large and important station of Cawnpore was garri- soned by three regiments of native infantry and one of cavalry under the command of General Wheeler, g^^^ ^^ ^^^ but unhappily he had only 200 European soldiers. Cawnpore With a mutinous feeling around him in every ^^"■^^<'"- quarter, the month of May was passed in fear and anxiety, and he entrenched a spot about 200 yards square, and stored it with provisions sufficient to last 1,000 men for a month. Doondhoo Punt, the Nana Sahib, living at Bithoor, had been assiduous in fomenting the spirit of re- bellion among the regiments, and on the 5th June they rose in mutiny, and after courteously dismissing their officers, plundered the treasury, opened the gaols, and marched off to Delhi. The Nana, whose object was to raise a Mahratta throne for himself and not to revive a Mogul dynasty, hastened after them and prevailed on them to return and clear the entrenchment of the feringees. The whole of the European population was crowded into the enclosure ; the revolted sepoys laid close siege to it, and planted eleven guns of large calibre against it, which poured in an incessant shower of shot and shell. The miseries of the besieged have seldom, if ever, been exceeded in the history of the world, and the dauntless courage and the spirit of endurance they displayed have perhaps never been surpassed. The 23rd of June, the anniversary of Plassy, the day fixed by the prophets for the extinction of the Company's raj, was here, as elsewhere, marked by extraordinary exertions which, however, ended in so signal a defeat that the sepoys begged permission to remove their dead. Three weeks had now elapsed since the investment of this slender fortification, and still this heroic band con- tinued to repel every assault, and to inflict an almost incredible amount of slaughter on the state of the insurgents, but their guns were becoming un- garrison. serviceable, their ammunition was running low, and starv* 602 ABRIDOMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. vation was staring them in the face ; a stray dog was 1867 turned into soup, an old horse was considered a delicacy, and the well was nearly exhausted. It was impossible for human nature to hold out much longer, and General Wheeler at length agreed to the offer of the Nana to supply them with provisions and conveyances to Allahabad, on condition of his surrendering the entrenchment together with the guns and treasure. Little did the General dream that the incarnate fiend to whom he was entrusting his charge had on the 4th June massacred 130 men, women, and children who had escaped from the mutineers at Futtygurh in boats, and had been induced to land at Cawn- pore. On the morning of the 27th June, the remnant of the garrison, together with the women and children, moved down, some on foot and some in vehicles, to the river which they found lined with the ferocious sepoys ; and there was perpetrated one of the most diabolical acts of treachery and murder that the darkest page of human annals records. No sooner had they embarked in the boats than Tantia Topee, acting for the Nana, took his seat on a platform, Massacre at ^^ Ordered the massacre to commence. On the the ghaut, sound of a bugle a murderous fire of grape shot and musketry was opened on the boats from both sides of the river ; the thatch of many of them was ignited by hot cinders, and the sick, the wounded, and the helpless women were burnt to death. The stronger women, many with children in their arms, took to the river, and were shot down one by one, or sabred by the troopers who dashed into the stream. A number of both sexes escaped to the shore, and the Nana issued his orders that not a man should be allowed to live, but that the women and children should be taken to the house which he occupied. There they were added to the captives he had previously made, and huddled together in one small room, fed on the coarsest food, sub- jected to every indignity, and taken out in couples to grind com for his household. Of the entire garrison and the male European population of Cawnpore only four suc- ceeded in making their escape in a boat which drifted down the river, and, after many hair-breadth escapes, were taken under the protection of a loyal Oude zemindar. On the 1st July the Nana was publicly proclaimed Peshwa with the ceremonies usual on such occasions. He then took his seat on the throne under a royal salute, and at night the town was brilh'antly illuminated. But his triumph was Sect. II.] COLONEL NEILL AT 33ENAKES 503 of short duration ; tlie avenging sword of Havelock was a.d. advancing to extinguish his career. 1867 The perilous condition of the garrisons of Lucknow and Cawnpore was the chief cause of anxiety to Lord Canning, and as the British troops entered the Hooghly ^^^^^ they were pushed forward daily in such detach- ncUI at ments as the scanty means of conveyance at his ^^'^^■^^s. command would allow. Benares, the head-quarters of Hindooism, and always the most turbulent city in Hindos- tan, was likewise a source of disquietude, as the only European troops in the cantonment consisted of thirty gunners opposed to 2,000 native sepoys. It was owing to the cool courage and composure, and the skilful dispositions of Mr. Henry Tucker, the commissioner, and his associates, that an insurrectionary movement was warded off while small reinforcements came up from Dinapore. The first driblet from Calcutta, consisting of sixty Madras Fusileers under their gallant commander Colonel NeiU arrived at Benares, then under the command of Brigadier Ponsonby, on the 4th June, and raised the European force to 250. Immediately before the arrival of the Colonel, the native regiment at Azimgurh, sixty miles distant, had mutinied, and obtained possession of seven lacs of rupees. The 37th at Benares was prepared to follow the example, and it was resolved in haste to disarm it, but the afiair was grossly mis- managed, and presented a melancholy contrast to the masterly movements at Lahore and Peshawur, where the regiments were deprived of their arms without the loss of a single life. The sepoys fired upon the Europeans ; Captain Olpherts's battery mowed down the sepoys and they fled towards the city. The work, however, was complete, though with an unnecessary sacrifice of life, and all further apprehension at Benares ceased. Colonel NeiU, after having made a terrific example of all who were suspected of disafiection, and placed Colonel Gordon in command, moved up with all speed to Allahabad to save the fort, one of the largest and '^^^*^*^^^' most important in the North West Provinces, which had been, unaccountably, left without a European garrison, and was at this time defended only by sixty invalids from Chunar, and by a portion of Brazier's Sikh corps. The 6th Native Infantry had offered to march to Delhi and fight the mutineers, and was drawn up on parade on the 6th June to receive the thanks of Lord Canning for its loyalty. The men sent up three cheers, and the European 504 ABKIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV A.D. and native officers shook hands with each other. That ^^^^ Massacre of Same night, as the officers were seated at their the officers, jness, the perfidious sepoys rushed in and put them to death. In the number of the slain were eight un- posted boy ensigns, fresh from Addiscombe, who had recently joined the regiment, and found a bloody grave on the threshold of their career. The prisoners in the gaol were then let loose, the houses of the Europeans pillaged and burnt, and the Europeans, men, women, and children, out- side the fort butchered with every aggravation of cruelty. The telegraphic wires were cut, the rails torn up, and the engines, of which the sepoys had a superstitious dread, battered with cannon. The doors of the treasury, con- taining thirty lacs of rupees, were thrown open, and each sepoy is said to have carried off three or four bags of a thousand rupees each. The town with all its wealth was given up to plunder, and the king of Delhi proclaimed. The fort had been besieged for four days, when it was happily re- lieved by the arrival on the 11th of Colonel Neill, who had been directed by a telegram from Lord Canning to take the command at Allahabad. The handful of Europeans he brought with him was augmented by other detachments in succession, and he was soon enabled to re-establish the authority of Government in the city and surrounding districts, and to inflict a fearful retribution on the wretches who had been revelling in plunder and bloodshed, of which jj^.^^ the gibbets in every direction bore ample testimony. Eenaud'g On the last day of June he sent on a detachment column. ^Q succour Cawnpore, consisting of 400 Euro- peans, 300 Sikhs, 100 irregular cavalry; and two guns, under Major Renaud, who was ordered to inflict summary vengeance on all who were in any degree suspected of dis- loyalty, and who marched on for three days, leaving behind him traces of retribution in desolated villages and corpses dangling from the branches of trees. Colonel Havelock, the adjutant- general of the army, who had been the second in command in the Persian expedition, returned to Bengal on the conclusion of peace Haveiock'B by way of Madras, and came up to Calcutta in progress. ^-^^ g^^^ steamer with Sir Patrick Grant, the Commander-iu- Chief at Madras, who succeeded provision- ally to the chief command in India on the death of General Anson. On the voyage Havelock had mapped out a plan of operations, and recommended the formation of a movable column, to proceed upwards from the lower provinces to Sect. II.] HAVELOCK'S VICTOEIOUS CAREER 505 the scenes of revolt. This column was placed under his a.d- command as Brigadier-General, with orders, after sup- 1857 pressing disorders at Allahabad, to lose no time in pro- ceeding to the support of Sir Hugh Wheeler at Cawnpore, and Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow. He reached Alla- habad on the 30th June, and soon after received unequivocal evidence that Cawnpore had fallen, and that the Nana was marching down with a large force and many guns on Allahabad. He clearly foresaw that if Major Renaud's little band had come in contact with the rebel sepoys, not a soul could have survived to tell the tale ; and, contrary to the remonstrances of Colouel Neill, he ordered the Major to halt. Havelock could only muster 1,000 Europeans, 130 of Brazier's Sikhs, 18 volunteer cavalry, and 6 guns which he had improvised, and with this force he hasted to the support of E/cnaud, and overtook him at Futtehpore, and there he commenced his victorious career. The enemy, 4,000 strong, rushed down upon his army, but was soon seen to fly in dismay, leaving eleven guns with the victors. This was the first check the mutinous sepoys had received below Delhi, and it produced a most salutary impression. Three days after he again defeated them at Onao, and without a halt hastened on to the Pandoo river, where he again routed them, and was enabled to save the bridge, which they were prepariDg to blow up, and the loss of which would have fatally crippled his movements. The Nana's brother, who was in the field, galloped back in haste to Cawnpore, and gave him the alarming intelligence that the British commander had forced the bridge, and was in full march on the town. The monster determined to avenge himself on the helpless women and children, two hundred in number, who had been crowded together for many days in three narrow rooms. Among the captives there were four or five men, and they were brought out and despatched under the eyes of the Nana. A party of sepoys was then told off, and they poured volley after volley on the helpless victims through the Venetian windows, but as the work of death did not proceed fast enough, Mahomedan butchers and other ruffians were sent in with swords and knives and other weapons to hack them to pieces. There the bodies lay through the night, and the next morning the dead and the dying were brought out, together with children alive and almost unhurt, and tossed indiscriminately into an adjoining well. After this act of unparalleled villany, the Nana marched 506 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A,D, out of Cawnpore with about 5,000 men to dispute Have- ^^^^ Battle of lock's advance. The sepoys fought with the Cawnpore. valour of desperation ; but the admirable strategy of the commander, and the indomitable courage of the British soldiers, more especially the 73rd Highlanders, gave him a brilliant victory. The next morning the troops marched into Cawnpore, when the sight of the well choked with human victims told them that they were too late, but it inspired them with an unquenchable resolution to avenge this foul massacre. The rebel sepoys blew up the magazine and dispersed. The Nana fled to Bithoor, and then es- caped with his females across the Ganges into Oude, when his palace was despoiled and destroyed. Meanwhile Colonel Neill had arrived at Cawnpore with the recruits which Lord Canning had been pushing up, and Havelock confided the protection of the town Stances to *o him, and moved on to the relief of Lucknow. *Jie^efof The task before him was one of no ordinary diflB.culty. The whole of Oude was in revolt ; the landed aristocracy was universally opposed to us, and an army of sepoys whom we had taught to fight was ready to dispute every inch of ground, while Havelock' s force did not exceed 1,400 men. By the 25th July his troops had crossed the river by a bridge which had been erected under every disadvantage, and on the 29th he came up with the enemy at Aong, 12,000 in number, and thoroughly defeated them, capturing fifteen guns. He then pushed on to Busseerut-gunge, a walled village, from which the sepoys were driven with the loss of more guns, but as he had lost 150 men by cholera, wounds, and sunstroke, he was obliged to fall back to Munglewar. The sick and wounded were sent to Cawnpore and reinforcements were received from thence, which raised his force to 1,300, and on the 4th August he advanced a second time to Busseerut-gunge, now held by 20,000 Sepoys, whom he again defeated with heavy slaughter. But the cholera broke out afresh in his camp and his position became critical. A body of 4,000 sepoys had collected at Bithoor and threatened Colonel Neill ; the famous Gwalior contingent, the finest native force in India, complete in every arm, had broken out into mutiny, and was said to have arrived at Culpee on the banks of the Jumna, forty-five miles from Cawnpore. The three native regiments at Dinapore had at length mutinied, and were reported to be advancing into Oude, and he felt that to move on to Lucknow with his slender force would not only Sbct. II.] RELIEF OF LUCKNOW 607 risk its destruction, but also the loss of Cawnpore and a.d. of the whole of the Dcoab. He determined wisely, to 1867 return to Cawnpore and await the arrival of reinforcements; but on reaching Munglewar he was informed by his scouts that a large force of the enemy was advancing against him which would not only have interrupted the passage of the river, but enabled them to report that they had chased him out of the country. He therefore turned back and inflicted a crushihg defeat on them, and then crossed the river with- out molestation. On the 16th August he attacked the en- campment of the rebels at Bithoor and put them to flight ; and then the heroes of ten successful fights within five weeks rested on their oars, till they were reinforced from Calcutta. Through the month of August fresh troops poured into Calcutta by sea, and were rapidly drafted to Allahabad and Cawnpore. Sir James Outram, on his return from Relief of the Persian expedition, had arrived in Calcutta ^^"cknow. and was nominated chief commissioner in Oude, and ap- pointed to the command of the Dinapore and Cawnpore divisions. Captain Peel had formed a naval brigade of 600 men from the sailors of his own frigate, the * Shannon,' and of vessels in Calcutta, and the blue-jackets were for the first time sent into the interior of India. Sir James Outram reached Cawnpore with 1,400 men on the 16th September, and with the chivalrous generosity of his character deter- mined to leave to Havelock the honour of accomplishing the relief of Lucknow, for which he had so nobly toiled, and to accompany him as a volunteer. Since the death of Sir Henry Lawrence, Brigadier Inglis had been incessantly engaged in repelling the assaults of the enemy, but the force at the Residency was now reduced to 350 Europeans, and 300 natives, whose loyalty was beginning to waver under the fatigues and the casualties of the siege. The brigadier in- formed Havelock that it was not possible for him to hold out much longer, and it became necessary to push on with- out delay. The relieving force, consisting of 2,500 men, nearly all British, met with little impediment till it reached the Alum-baug in the vicinity of Lucknow, which was mastered on the 23rd September. On the morning of the 25th the bugles sounded the advance into Lucknow, and the army, instead of advancing through two miles of streets of loophold houses filled with sepoys, skirted the city canal, till it reached the Kaiser-baug, a royal palace strongly forti- fied and garrisoned, and here the most severe struggle of 508 ABEIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. the day occurred. The troops had been fighting without 1 867 intermission since the morning, and the shades of evening were coming on, but under the impression that the garrison was in extremity, Havelock deemed it advisable to penetrate to the Residency that night, and pushed on through streets where, as he said, every house formed a fortress. The toils of the day, however, were forgotten when the garrison sent up a shout of gratulation as they entered the gate and brought the anxieties of three months to a close. The loss in killed, wounded and missing was very severe, amount- ing to 464, among whom, to the great regret of the army, was numbered Colonel Neill, who fell in the arms of victory before he had enjoyed the opportunity of adding to his richly- deserved renown as a gallant soldier, the higher reputation of a general. SECTION m. LORD canning's ADMINISTRATION — THE MUTINY — DELHI LUCKNOW — CENTRAL INDIA. To TURN now to the siege and recovery of Delhi. General Anson, the Commander- in Chief, was at Simla when intelli- The siege of genco of the mutiny at Meerut and the occupation Delhi. of Delhi by the insurgent troops reached him, and he immediately ordered the three European regiments in the hills to proceed to Umballa, where he joined them, but was seized with cholera and expired on the 27th May. The command of the column then devolved on Sir Harry Barnard and he proceeded towards Delhi. In obedience to the reiterated orders of General Anson, General Hewitt had at length sent a detachment from Meerut to join it, and the united force met the rebels posted on the Hindun and twice defeated them, and a week after encountered them at Budlee-ka-serai, about six miles from Delhi, and obtained a still more complete victory, capturing all their guns, stores, and baggage. The army then took up a command- ing position on the ridge overlooking Delhi, the site of the old encampment. The fortifications of the city had been greatly improved and strengthened, and it was now held by a large force of well- trained soldiers, fighting with a halter round their necks, who had the command of an almost un- limited supply of guns and military stores from our own arsenal. The impossibility of wresting from them a city Sect. III.] STEaE OF DELHI 509 seven miles in circumference by the weak force under a.d. General Barnard was self-evident, and it was suggested to 1867 relinquish the siege for the present and employ the Euro- pean force assembled before it in protecting other stations, and restoring the authority of Government ; but Lord Canning would not listen to the proposal. He felt that Delhi had become the rallying point of revolt, the capital of a Mogul dynasty, and that it was impossible to restore confidence in our power while it continued in the hands of the enemy. The retirement of the army would, in his opinion, give an irresistible impulse to the spirit of rebellion, and render its suppression all but impossible. On the 5th July Sir Harry Barnard was carried off by cholera, and the command devolved on General Wilson. The British force was established on the ridge on p^gj^jQ^ ^^ the 10th June, but during the fourteen succeed- the forces ing weeks, though Delhi was considered to be in ** ^^^^* a state of siege, it was in reality the cantonment which was besieged by the enemy. The force was too weak in men and guns to do more than defend its own position, and for every shot fired from our batteries the sepoys responded four-fold. Few days passed without an assault on the cantonment, and that on the 23rd June, the anniversary of Plassy, was marked by extraordinary vigour, as the day fixed for the dissolution of the Company's raj ; but in this, as in every other encounter but one — and they numbered more than thirty — the sepoys were driven back into the city with ignominy. Their loss was indeed always heavier than that of the British force, but their numbers were con- stantly swelled by the accession of fresh reciments of rebels which gravitated to Delhi as to the common centre of the revolt, while the reinforcements from the Punjab were, for a time, few aud far between. While, moreover, they had no lack of guns and stores, the ammunition in the British camp required to be husbanded with great care. Meanwhile, Sir John Lawrence was actively engaged in raising additional regiments of Sikhs, who were loyal to the core. There was an old Khalsa prophecy that j^gj^f^y^jg they should one day enjoy the plunder of Delhi, ments from and they now hailed with passionate ardour the *^® Punjab, prospect of realising it, and enlisted under our banner by thousands. The disbandment of the regiments and the extinction of the Sealkote mutineers by Brigadier Nicholson, enabled Sir John to redouble his efforts to reinforce General Wilson. !N"othing could exceed the skill and energy with 510 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.T>. whicli he organised and despatched the detachments in sue- 1867 cession. It was at length found possible to dispense with the services of the Brigadier's movable column, 2,500 strong, in the Punjab, and it was sent down to Delhi and reached the cantonment on the 14th August, and imparted fresh courage to the exhausted troops. The Brigadier had pre- ceded it by a week, and was welcomed in the camp with a feeling of homage as if he had been the very god of war. The great siege train, which occupied a line of thirteen miles, was wending its way from Ferozepore, and the revolted Assault and ^©©i^iich brigade, always considered the flower capture of of the scpoy army, which was now in Delhi, was ^^^^" sent out with eighteen guns to intercept it, as it was feebly guarded by the last detachment which Sir John could spare. Brigadier Nicholson marched out to encounter this force, and obtained a complete victory. The train entered the camp on the 3rd September, and the erection of batteries within breaching distance was pushed on with vigour. For a week fifty guns and mortars poured an in- cessant stream of shot and shell upon the walls and bastions, and on the 13th the breaches were reported practicable. At three on the morning of the 14th the assault was delivered on four points. Brigadier Nicholson, who led the attack, drove the enemy before him, but, to the infinite regret of the whole army was mortally wounded in the arms of victory. The other columns, with one exception, were equally successful, but the resistance of the enemy was desperate, and the operations of this the first day entailed a loss in killed and wounded of sixty-six officers and 1,104 men. The troops had made a lodgment within the walls, but the sepoys continued to dispute every inch of ground, and it was six days before all the important and defensible posts within the vast circle of the city were captured. For several days an uninterrupted fire had been kept up on the well-fortified palace. On the 20th the gates were blown up and the troops rushed into it, but the king had fled to the tomb of Humayoon, a few miles to the south of the city. The next day Captain Hodson proceeded to the tomb and dragged him, together with his favourite wife, who had been one of the chief instruments in stirring up the revolt, and her son, to the palace, where they were lodged as pri- soners. The following day he went in search of the two sons and the grandson of the king, and as an attempt was about to be made to rescue them shot them dead oq the spot with his own hand. Several months after the kir>g was Sect. III.J CAPTURE OF DELHI— THE KING BANISHED 511 tried by a military commission in the imperial palace and a.d. found guilty of having ordered the murder of forty-nine 1867 Christians at Delhi, of having waged war upon the English Government, and urged the people by proclamation to sub- vert it. Lord Canning determined to spare his life, but sentenced him to be transported to Burmah ; and thus ended the royal house of Baber three hundri^d and thirty- tvro years after he had ascended the Mogul throne. The total number of killed and wounded dui'ing the siege was 3,537, a heavy return of casualties, but ihe re- duction of the city broke the neck of the rebellion, j^egyi^of ^^jg Oude and Rohilcund were still in revolt ; the capture of Gwalior contingent, 10,000 strong, was still in •'^®^^^- open arms, and Central India was in possession of the mutineers, but so completely had the revolt been identified with the possession of the ancient capital that the capture of it satisfied the country that the star of Britain was again in the ascendant, and that the final extinction of the mutiny was only a question of time. All the machinations in the Punjab, which the protraction of the siege had fostered, were dispelled. The rebel army was deprived of its orga- nization by the loss of its citadel, while the British Govern- ment was daily gaining strength by the arrival of the regi- ments brought by sea. The liberation of the force engaged in the siege of Delhi likewise proved the salvation of the neighbouring city of Agra. It was attacked by the Neemuch and other mutineers on the 6th July, but owing to the in- competence of Brigadier Polwhele, the European troops sent against them were foiled, and retreated to the fort, where for nearly three months between 5,000 and 6,000 people of all rank, ages, and colours were shut up. At the beginning of October a large body of rebels came down and threatened it, when the young Brigadier Greathead, who had been sent from Delhi to clear the Dooab of the mutineers with his flying column, received an express from the fort, and after a forced march of forty miles in twenty-eight hours, drove oJ0F the enemy, with the loss of their guns, stores, camp and 500 in killed and wounded. The garrison of Lucknow had been relieved by Outram and Havelock, but their force was too weak to escort the women and children to Cawnpore, still less to re- . cover a city garrisoned by a large rebel army campbeU's with an abundance of military stores. The Resi- ltSJJ *° dency was again in a state of close blockade but well supplied with provisions and able to await the arrival 512 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. of reinforcements with little risk or inconvenience. The 1857 attention of the enemy was chiefly devoted to the construc- tion of mines, which they carried on to an extent which Sir James Outram affirmed had no parallel in modem war- fare. Sir Colin Campbell, who had been appointed Com- mander-in-Chief in succession to General Anson, hastened to Cawnpore with the reinforcements which had reached Calcutta, accompanied by Captain Peel of the " Shannon." He started on the 9th November with a body of 5,000 men and 30 guns, and on the 14th advanced against the enemy's entrenchments, but so determined was the opposition he encountered at the various strong positions they had forti- fied, that he was three days forcing his way to the Resi- dency. The Secunder-baug, indeed, a large enclosure, was breached and stormed by the Highlanders, when every soul within it perished and 2,000 bodies were carried out and buried. By the masterly arrangements of Sir Colin the relieved garrison, together with the women and children, were withdrawn with such skill as not to attract the at- tention and the assaults of the enemy, but Havelock, worn out with toil and exposure, was attacked by diarrhoea and sunk under the disease, a Christian hero and general of the highest stamp. General Outram was left at the Alum-baug with a suffi- cient force to keep open the communication with Cawnpore and to maintain our footing in Oude, and Sir General Colin Campbell hastened back to Cawnpore, the Windham. defence of which had been entrusted to General "Windham, with more than 2,000 men, and was just in time to save him from a fatal calamity. The Gwalior con- tiugent, which had finally broken into open mutiny in the middle of October, crossed the Jumna and marched down, 20,000 strong, to Cawnpore to join the Nana. General Windham moved out to meet them, without suspecting their numbers, and was at first successful, but his force was handled without any skill, and, finding himself out- flanked by the enemy, he retreated in hot haste to the entrench- ment, with the loss of his equipage. The sepoys obtained possession of the town, and for two days he had to sustain an unequal contest with a body of the ablest of the mutineers ten times his own number, flushed with recent success, animated by the presence of the Nana, and commanded by Tantia Topee, the only native general created by the mutiny. General Windham must have sufiiered the fate of General Wheeler, if he had not received timely succour by the Sect. III.] CAMPAIGN IN CENTRAL INDIA 513 arrival of Sir Colin, who reached the Ganges in time to a.d. save the bridge of boats, the destruction of which would 1858 have been irreparable. After having safely despatched the sick and the wounded, the women and the children to Alla- habad, he marched out against the rebel force, now swelled to 25,000 men with 40 guns. Captain Peel's sailors, hand- ling their 24-pounders like playthings, did fearful execution, and the skilful dispositions of Sir Colin, and the valour of his troops, inflicted a crushing defeat on the rebels, who were pursued for fourteen miles and loss of all their guns — the arm in which they were strongest. The total loss on the side of the British army amounted only to 99. We turn now to the pursuit of the rebels in Central India. While the task of extinguishing the mutiny at Delhi fell to Sir John Lawrence, and that of re- covering Cawnpore and Lucknow to Lord Can- ceSrai^ ning, the work of stamping ont the revolt in i'^^^^*- Central India was undertaken by the Madras and Bombay Presidencies. A column of Madras troops was assembled at Nagpore and moved on to Jubbulpore, and a Bombay column advanced to Kotah. They constituted the Central India Field Force, and comprised about 6,000 troops, of whom 2,500 were Europeans. General Stuart, command- ing one brigade, proceeded to relieve !Mhow, which had been besieged since the commencement of the mutiny, and then captured Dhar, and defeated a body of 5,000 mutineers at Mundisore. Having thus cleared the southern districts of the rebels, he advanced to Indore. There Sir Hugh Rose, on the 15th December, assumed the command of the whole force, and started for Sehore, where he inflicted summary vengeance on the insurgents, and moved on to Saugor, and reHeved a body of Europeans who had been cooped up for several months. On the 21st March he pro- ceeded to Jhansi, the little principality in Bundlecund which Lord Dalhousie had annexed five years before, as stated in a former chapter. The ranee, a woman of extraordinary energy but of un- matched vindictiveness, took advantage of the mutiny to re- cover the independence of her principality and to capture of satiate her revenge. The sepoys stationed there Jiiansi. rose in mutiny on the 4fch June and assailed the Europeans, who took refuge in the fort, but were induced to surrender upon a promise of protection made under the most solemn oaths ; but the whole body, seventy-five in number, were immediately bound together, the men in one row, and theii TiL 514 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. wives and children in another, and butchered nnder the 1858 immediate direction of the ranee. She assembled 10,000 men for the defence of the town, which was surrounded by a wall of solid masonry from six to twelve feet thick and from eighteen to thirty feet in height. After Sir Hugh had invested it for nine days, a body of 20,000 men, including that portion of the Gwalior contingent which had escaped from the sword of Sir Colin at Cawnpore, advanced under the command of Tantia Topee to the relief of the ranee. Without slackening fire on the town. Sir Hugh moved out to meet them on the 1st April with 1,200 men, of whom only 500 were British, and drove them in dismay across the Betwa, which gives its name to the engagement, with the loss of 1,500 men and all their guns. The assault on the town was renewed with redoubled vigour ; every street was fiercely contested ; no quarter was asked or given ; and the palace was stormed and sacked. The ranee, after making her last stand in the fort, fled to Calpee, the head-quarters of the Gwalior contingent, and Captnre of ^he rallying point of the mutineers west of the Calpee. Jumna, where they had established foundries for casting cannon, and collected military stores of every description. Sir Hugh advanced towards it, when the martial ranee who took her share in the command, riding in male attire at the head of her own body guard, came out with Tantia Topee and 20,000 men to meet him at Koonch, but they were signally defeated. The general then marched on to Golowlee within five miles of Calpee where he was again attacked by the entire force of the enemy, but was again victorious and became master of Calpee, with the vast military stores the rebels had accumulated from the plunder of various cantonments. He considered the revolt in Central India extinguished by the capture of their cita- del, and resolved to break up the army, which was pros- trated by insupportable heat, and issued a valedictory order to the troops, congratulating them on " having " marched more than 1,000 miles and taken more than 100 " guns, on having forced their way through mountain " passes and intricate jungles and over rivers, and cap- " tured the strongest forts, and beat the enemy, no matter " what the odds, wherever they had met him, without a " single check, and restored peace and order to the *' country." Bnt there was still work for his exhausted troops. Nothing appeared more remarkable during the course of Sect. III.] THE MUTINEEES CAPTURE GWALIOR 515 this revolt than the rapidity with which the insurgent a.d. sepoys rallied after a defeat, and presented a „ ^ ^ 185fc 1 I? -jii mi.-m Capture of new and more rormidable array, i antia Topee, Gwaiior by after his defeat at Koonch, proceeded to Gwaiior t^e rebels. to organise a conspiracy against Sindia. The troops driven from Calpee hastened to join him, and within a week a force of 18,000 mutineers was embodied in the cantonment at the capital. Sindia' s able minister, Dinkur Rao, advised him to await the arrival of the troops which were marching down from Agra, but his ardent spirit led him to attack them with his household troops, about 8,000 in number, who either joined the rebels or withdrew from the field, and on the 1st of June he fled to Agra. The rebels then took possession of the capital, and supplied themselves with stores and ammunition from the royal arsenal, and, with the far-famed Gwaiior artillery, plundered the treasury of half a crore of rupees, distributed six months' pay to each sepoy, and then proclaimed Nana Sahib, Peshwa. Sir Hugh, on receiving intelligence of this astounding event, resumed the command he had laid down, and hastened on to Gwaiior without a moment's delay, Recovery of though the heat was 130° in the shade ; and on Gwaiior. the morning of the 16th June, though the troops were ex- hausted with marching all night, attacked the sepoys at once, and chased them with heavy loss from the canton- ment. The next day. Brigadier's Smith's column came up from the westward, driving the rebels before him, and it was in his last charge that the valiant ranee, who had taken a share in every engagement since she left Jhansi, was killed by a hussar who was ignorant of her sex. On the 18th, the whole of the enemy's entrenchments and positions were stormed and fifty guns captured, and they sought refage in flight; but a compact body of 6,000 with a splendid field artillery retired in good order from the field, when Brigadier Napier hastened after them with 600 cavalry and six field guns, and, dashing into the midst of their ranks, put them to utter rout. With this brilliant action the campaign was brought to a close, and Sindia remounted his throne amidst the acclamations of his subjects. L L 2 516 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTOKY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. SECTION IV. LORD canning's ADMINISTRATION — THE MUTINY EXTINGUISHED. A.D. During these operations, which completely crnshed the 1868 miitiny in Central India, Sir Colin Campbell was employed ab ^^ extinguishing it on the east of the Jumna, cleared of His first object was to clear the Dooab, lying be- rebeis. tween that river and the Granges. Towards the end of November, Colonel Seaton left Delhi with a movable column and marched downwards, while General Walpole moved upwards. The sepoys were beaten in every en- counter, and the power of the nabob of Futtyghur, who had assumed independence early in the mutiny, was annihilated. By the end of December the authority of the Company was re-established throughout these districts, and Sir Colin Campbell found himself at the head of 10,000 troops at Futtygurh. The mutiny was now confined to the two provinces of Rohilcund and Oude, but Sir Colin, whose movements would have been more successful and satis- factory if they had been less tardy, wasted two months idly in this neighbourhood. Meanwhile, General Franks was organising a force at Benares, which eventually amounted to 6,000 men, to clear March into ^^^ lowcr portion of Oudc of the rebel bands, and Oude. in his triumphant progress defeated them at every stage. Jung Bahadoor, the regent, but in reality the ruler, of Nepaul, marched down with a body of 9,000 hardy Goorkhas to assist the British Government in the reconquest of Oude, and on two occasions defeated the insurgents with great slaughter. Sir James Outram, who had been left in command at the Alum-baug, had been twice assailed by the rebel army and population of Lucknow, and had dispersed them though six times his number. At length, on the last day of February, Sir Colin Campbell saw his force, consisting of 18,277 horse, foot, and artillery, Europeans and Sikhs, across the Gunges, and on the 5th March was encamped at the Dilkoosha outside the fortifications of the city, where he was joined by the array of General Franks and Jung Bahadoor. The siege opened on the 6th. The defence was the most obstinate our arms had ever encountered in India, not ex- cepting even that of Delhi. The rebels were animated by Sect. IV.] EECONQUEST OF OUDE 517 the presence of the begnm of Onde, a woman of indomitable a.d energy, who had been the soul of the insurrection and had 1858 prevailed on the chiefs and sepoys to recognise her son as king. During the time lost at Futtygurh, the mutineers had availed themselves of the opportunity of improving the defences of the city, and the extraordinary industry dis- played by them had seldom been equalled, and never sur- passed, in India. Every outlet had been covered with a work, and barricades and loopholed parapets had been constructed in every direction. The various buildings formed a range of massive palaces and walled courts of vast extent, and they had been fortified with great skill. It was not till after ten days of incessant fighting that the recovery of the city was complete ; but by some mismanagement on the part of one of the British commanders, Sir Colin was deprived of the full fruit of victory by the escape of the greater part of the mutineers, together with their leaders. The number of killed and wounded throughout the siege did not exceed 900. It was impossible to restrain the vic- torious soldiers from the rich plunder of the city, of which, however, the largest share fell to the Goorkhas, who returned to Nepanl with some thousand cartloads of spoil. On the capture of Lucknow, Lord Canning, on the 31st of March, directed Sir James Outram, the chief commis- sioner, to issue a proclamation confiscating the confiscation proprietary right of every estate in Oude, with of the land the exception of six zemindarees. Sir James ^'^o^'^®- earnestly remonstrated against the injustice, as well as the impoHcy, of a measure which confounded the innocent with the guilty, and could not fail to retard the peaceful settlement of the kingdom. The proclamation was re- pudiated in England by a spiteful and sarcastic despatch from Lord EUenborough, then President of the Board of Control, but Lord Canning was, in the meanwhile, induced to mitigate the severity of the order, and to entrust large discretionary powers to Mr. — now Sir Robert — Mont- gomery, the successor of Sir James Outram, who had been raised to Council. He concluded a fresh settlement with the Talookdars, the proudest aristocracy in India, upon a moderate rental, and gave them the advantage of a new and Parhamentary title to their estates, and, moreover, endeavoured to attach them to the interests of the Grovern- ment by appointing them honorary magistrates. Bareilly the capital of Rohilcund was held by Khan Bahadoor Khan, a descendant of Hafiz Ruhmut, of the days 518 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. of Hastings, who had proclaimed his independence in the ^^^^ Operations early stages of the mutiny, and put two judges in Rohii- to death under the mimic forms of European jus- ^^^^' tice. In the town were collected the begum of Oude, the Nana, Prince Feroze, and the other chiefs and rebels who had escaped from Lucknow, and three columns were sent against it. One column, 6,000 strong, with light and heavy artillery under Brigadier Walpole came upon a petty fortification, fifty miles from Lucknow, consisting of nothing but a high loop-holed wall and a ditch, held by about 400 men. Instead of shelling them out, the com- mander, contrary to the express injunctions of Sir Colin Campbell, determined to carry it by assault, but the assail- ants were driven back with the loss of 100 men, among whom was Brigadier the Hon. Adrian Hope, " the most "gallant and best beloved soldier in the army," the idol of his own Highlanders, who invoked malisons on the Com- mander. By the beginning of May, the columns under the personal command of Sir Colin closed upon Bareilly, which was speedily captured with all its stores and ammunition ; but the prize was again lost ; the rebel chiefs, with the bulk of their armed followers, made their escape. They were followed up by Sir Hope Grant, and a body of 16,000 posted in a jungle at Nabob-gunge was attacked and de- feated, but the indefatigable begum rallied her forces anew on the Gogra, where she was again assailed and routed. She was hunted from post to post down to the Raptee, where, although hemmed in on every side, she m.ade her escape across the river, together with the remaining leaders and their followers, and got away safe into the Nepaul territory. Jung Bahadoor did not refuse permission to Lord Canning to pursue the fugitives, and thousands perished under British weapons and from the malaria of the teraee. The mutiny was virtually at an end, though in some districts bands of rebels continued for several months to maintain a show of resistance. The Nana and his brother died in the jungles of Nepaul during 1859 ; the begum found a peaceful asylum at Katmandhoo ; Prince Feroze made his way through Oude and joined Tantia Topee in Central India, where he was moving about with the remainder of his troops and a large amount of treasure, baffling the various columns which were in pursuit of him. He was at length betrayed by his most trusty companion, and was seized on the 7th April while asleep in the jungle, and tried and executed at Sepree. With the exception of the ranee of Sect. IV.] CAUSE OF THE MUTINY 519 Jhansi and the begum of Oude, he was the only great leader a.d. whom the rebellion produced, and the extraordinary energy 1859 and valour he displayed might have entitled him to a more lenient penalty ; but, for the monster who had taken his seat on a stage and directed the diabolic massacre at the ghaut of Cawiipore, there could be no compassion. On the 8th July 1859, peace was proclaimed by Lord Canning throughout India ; and on the 12th October he made a royal progress through the provinces, receiving the homage of chiefs and nobles. On the 3rd November he held a dur- bar at Oawnpore, with a display of magnificence well suited to captivate the native mind, and to demonstrate the resto- ration of British power. All the loyal chiefs were collected at that brilliant assembly, and as the representative of the Queen who had assumed the sovereignty of India, he deco- rated them with dresses of honour and titles of distinction. The mutiny has been attributed by different writers to a variety of causes — to the annexations during Lord Dal- housie's administration; to the rapid introduction cause of the of improvements, such as the rail and the tele- mutiny. graph, which bewildered the native mind ; to the spread of English education and European science, which were undermining Hindooism and disquieting the orthodox ; and to a national revolt against British authority. On the other hand. Sir John Lawrence asserted, "The mutiny had " its origin in the army itself ; it is not attributable to any " external or antecedent conspiracy whatever, although it " was taken advantage of by disaffected persons to compass " their own ends; the approximate cause was the cartridge " affair, and nothing else." But we live too near this stu- pendous event, and the excitement it created is as yet too fervid, to admit of a calm judgment of its origin, which must be left to the unruffled determination of posterity when it has ceased to be a party question. To assist that decision, it may be remarked that the conduct of the people, even in the most disturbed districts in the north-west, was eminently neutral. The agricultural, the mercantile, and the industrial population, made no demonstration in favour of the revolt. There was no insurrection where there were no sepoys ; the Sikhs, and more particularly the rajas in the Cis Sutlej states, rendered the most essential service in quelling the insurrection ; the princes in Rajpootana were perfectly loyal ; Sindia, Holkar, the begum of Bhopal, and the nabob of Rampoora, sided with the British Government ; the Nepaul cabinet sent down 9,000 troops to its aid. In 520 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTOEY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. the sontli, the Gaikwar, the inhabitants of the annexed 1868 provinces of Satara and Nagpore, the Nizam and his great minister Salar Jung, the great Mahratta feudatories and the nobles of Mysore, were faithful in their allegiance to the British Government. These princes do not appear to have ever entertained a doubt of its triumph even when, before the reduction of Delhi and Lucknow, its fortunes appeared desperate. They were not ignorant that for twenty-five centuries from the period of the great war celebrated in the Muhabharut downwards, India had been the constant theatre of revolutions, and the insurrection which now threatened the existence of the British Govern- ment appeared to come in the usual order of events. The confusion, moreover, which ensued on the temporary eclipse of its authority, in the rapid rise of various aspirants for power in Hindostan — the king of Delhi, the Nana, the begum of Oude, the nabob of Futtygurh, the nabob of Bareilly, who would have proceeded to fall upon each other and revive the anarchy of former days when the British power was extinct, rendered these princes the more anxious to maintain it as the guardian of peace and order. The mutiny was the death-warrant of the East India Company. England was astounded by the announcement Extincti n ^^ ^ revolt which threatened the dissolution of of the East the empire, and of the atrocious massacres which India Com- accompanied it. The responsibility of the out- break was at once cast on the Company, though for more than seventy years no political or administrative measure had been executed without the full concurrence of the Ministry. During this period the President of the Board of Control had carried more weight in the government of India than the Chairman of the Court of Directors ; but the one was before the public, the other behind the scenes. The argument on which the Court of Directors had endea- voured, half a century before, to justify the precipitate dis- missal of Lord William Bentinck after the Vellore mutiny, was now applied with fatal effect to themselves on the occasion of a larger mutiny — *' As the misfortunes which " happened under your ad ministration placed your fate under *' the government of public events and opinions which the ** Court could not control, so it was not in their power to " alter the effect of them." In December 1857 Lord Palmerston informed the Court of Directors that a Bill for placing India under the direct authority of the Crown would sliortly be laid before Parliament. Mr. John Stuari Sect. IV.] EXTINCTION OF THE E. I. COMPANY 521 Mill was instructed by the Directors to draw up a petition to a.d. Parliament pleading their services, denying that the mutiny 1858 was owing to their mismanagement, and deprecating so fundamental a change in the government while the mutiny was still raging. It was one of the ablest state papers in the language, but nothing could withstand the popular outcry. Mr. Baring, on presenting the petition to the House of Commons, moved as an amendment to Lord Pal- merston's Bill, that " it is not at present expedient to legis- " late for the government of India," but it was rejected by 318 to 173, whereas the continuance of the government of India in the hands of the Company was voted without a division only five years before. While Lord Palmerston's Bill was passing through Parliament, the Conservatives came into power, and it fell to the lot of Lord Stanley to carry through the Bill which extinguished the Company. On the 1st September 1858, the Court of Directors met for the last time in their council chamber in Leadenhall Street, and, as their last act of administration, gracefully voted an annuity of 2000Z. a year to Sir John Lawrence, who had been the instrument of saving the empire now transferred to the Crown. The East India Company was incorporated by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1600, but its political existence is to be dated only from the battle of Plassy in 1757, character and closed, after the lapse of a hundred years, of the Com- with the revolt of the army. During this cen- ^^"^' tury it created an empire greater than that of Borne, and at the period of its dissolution transferred the government of 150,000,000 of subjects to its sovereign. There is no record in history of so brilliant a career, nor is there any instance of power so extensive and so rapidly acquired, with so few causes of regret on the score of political mo- rality. Notwithstanding its errors and its shortcomings, it may be safely affirmed that no foreign dependency has ever been administered in a spirit of higher energy, or greater benevolence, or by a longer succession of great men. But its mission was accomplished, and the anomaly of continuing the government of so vast a domain with such an agency was daily becoming more obvious; and even without the crisis of the mutiny, the termination of its trust could not have been far distant. On the 1st November 1858, the Queen's proclamation, translated into the various languages of India, was pro- mulgated throughout the continent with every demonstra- 522 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. tion of official pomp. It announced that Her Majesty had '^^^ The Queen's ^^ length assumed the government of India, 1 rociama- which had hitherto been conducted by her trus- *^°"* tees, the Honourable the East India Company ; that all treaties, dignities, rights and usages should be faithfully upheld, that the public service should be open to all her subjects without distinction of caste or creed, and that while the G-overnment was a Christian Government no one should be molested or benefitted on account of his religion. The proclamation was cordially welcomed by the princes and people of India. The ikbal, or good fortune, of the Company to which they had paid homage for a century expired with the muiiny which ex- posed its weakness. Its name was associated with one of the greatest calamities which had befallen India. British authority had been re-established by the armaments sent by the Queen, and it was expedient that she should assume the sceptre of India. The introduction of an entirely new policy after such a convulsion was eminently calcu- lated to tranquillize and reassure the public mind. The natives of India, moreover, have from the earliest ages paid deference to the principle of royalty, and a feeling of pride and satisfaction was diffused through the country in being considered the subjects of a sovereign, and not of a farmer, in which light the Company was now viewed. SECTION V. EPITOME OF EVENTS SUBSEQUENT TO 1858. The century occupied in the conquest of India termi- nated with the suppression of the mutiny and the annexa- tion of the empire to the Crown of Grreat Britain. The record of subsequent events belongs to a new epoch in the history of British India, upon which it is not advisable to enter in the remainder of the space necessarily prescribed for this compendium, and we therefore bring it to a close with a brief reference to the chief transactions of the period extending to the death of Lord Mayo. 1869 At the renewal of the charter in 1853, the Supreme Council, which had been invested with the power of im- perial legislation, was enlarged by the addition of one member from each Presidency and lieutenant-governorship, and two of the judges of the Supreme Court. A more A.D. Sect. V.J EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 523 important alteration was made upon the transfer of the government to the Crown ; the two judges of the Supreme Court were excluded, and the Governor- General was in- structed to summon additional members, not exceeding twelve, to the Council when engaged in making laws. One 5alf the number was to consist of non-official members, who might be either Europeans or natives, and the natives thus for the first time obtained a voice in the deliberations of the state. The earliest members of Council were the raja of Putteala, the raja Dinkur Rao, and the raja of Benares, all of whom had been exemplary in their allegiance to the Government during the mutiny. Similar Councils were attached to the Governments of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, with the same admixture of the native element. The suppression of the mutiny was mainly due to the .^g.g assistance derived from the annexation of the Punjab, but the full value of this reservoir of soldiers of exemplary courage, and untainted with the high-caste prejudices of the sepoys, was not fully developed till the war in China came on. The merit of having ventured to enlist their services only three years after they had shaken the empire at Ferozeshuhur belongs to Lord Dalhousie, who called down a regiment from the Punjab to supply the place of the sepoy regiment which had refused to embark for Ran- goon. The example was fc^lowed by Lord Canning, and a large contingent of Punjabee troops was sent on the expedi- tion to China, who assisted in planting the British standard on the battlements of Pekin. The transfer of the establishments of the East India 1859 Company to the Crown carried with it the transfer of their European troops, in number about 24,000. But though this made no change in the position or prospects of the men, they protested against being handed over from one service to another without being allowed a voice in the matter, and a feeling of dissatisfaction was manifested by a large number, and a spirit of insubordination in one corps. Lord Canning offered their discharge and a passage to England to all who objected to the exchange. The soldiers felt no objection to the royal service, but they looked for a small bounty, similar to that which the royal troops were ac- customed to receive when, upon the expiration of their time, they enlisted into other regiments. The expectation was perfectly reasonable, but it was imperiously and in- judiciously denied them, and 10,000 demanded their dis- charge. The state was thus not only subjected to a heavier 624 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. payment for their passage than the small bounty would have amounted to, but lost the invaluable services of a body of seasoned and veteran European soldiers. Contrary, moreover, to the advice of some of the most eminent Indian statesmen, it was resolved to abolish the local European army, the value of which had been insisted on by Lord Comwallis and by all his successors. The Indian navy, as it was termed, a small squadron of armed schooners belong- ing to the Company, and which was employed in maintain- ing the police of the Indian seas, was at the same time abolished, and the duty entrusted exclusively to the royal navy. A.D. During the year 1859 the indigo districts in Bengal were 1859 disturbed by the refasal of the ryots to cultivate indigo for the planters. The cultivation had never been remunera- tive, but they were bound to it by advance"^ forced on them, and by contracts to which they were often obliged to affix their mark without knowing their contents. Having once received advances, they found they could never be released from the planter's books. The lieutenant-governor of Bengal, on his return from Dacca, was assailed by thousands of men and women, who lined the banks for a whole day's journey, crying to him for justice. To meet the difficulty, the Government passed an Act, inflicting a penalty for a breach of the contracts of the year, and appointing a commission to investigate the complaints of the ryots. They were fally substantiated, and Sir Charles "Wood refused to sanction the proposal which had been made to consider the non-performance of a civil contract by a ryot the ground of a criminal prosecution. 1860 The mutiny had augmented the debt by fifty crores, and the annual expenditure, owing to the increase of the mili- tary charges, had risen from thirty- three to fifty crores, while the annual deficit amounted to ten crores. The financial department had always been the weakest point of the Government. India had produced eminent statesmen, and diplomatists, and generals, and administrators, but not one Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir Charles Wood resolved to supply this deficiency by adding a financial member to the Executive Council, and selected for this post Mr. James Wilson, one of the secretaries of the treasury in London, who had an especial genius for finance. He revised the customs on scientific principles, and laid on an income-tax for five years as an exceptional impost to meet the charges ent-ailed by the mutiny, and he imposed a license Sbct. VJ epitome of SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 625 duty ; at the same time he remodelled the currency, and withdrew the privilege of issuing bank notes which had been granted in their charters to the banks of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, and established a State paper cur- rency. By the taxes thus imposed, and the retrenchments which were effected, the deficit was extinguished in less than three years. Mr. Wilson's career was unhappily cut short by death before his financial reforms were completed. Mr. Macaulay had drawn up a penal code in 1837, which ^.d. was bandied about for twenty years from one commission I860 to another, and, having at length received its final modifica- tion, became law in 1860. At the same time, the Legisla- tive Council passed an admirable code of civil and criminal procedure, which substituted simplicity and expedition for the complicated and tardy forms of pleading, which had previously impeded the course of justice. Lord Elphin- stone, the governor of Bombay, who had rendered great service to the state during the insurrection, by repressing every hostile tendency at that Presidency, and by organis- ing the force which quelled the mutiny in Central India, returned to England in this year with his constitution seriously impaired by the labours and anxieties of his post, and sunk into a premature grave. The Nizam who had remained firm in his loyalty to 1860 Grovernment during the mutiny was rewarded with honours, and with the more substantial boon of three of the pro- vinces which he had assigned to meet the payment of the contingent and to satisfy other obligations, as well as with the remission of the balance of his debt to the extent of half a crore of rupees. The principality of Shorapore, which had been confiscated for the treason of the raja, was likewise transferred to him. The whole machinery of judicature was remodelled 1861 throughout the country during the latter period of Lord Canning's administration. The Supreme and Sudder Courts were amalgamated, and a High Court established at each Presidency, consisting partly of English barristers, and partly of the Company's judges. A native lawyer of eminence was likewise placed on the bench, with no little honour to himself and great gratification to the country ; and thus was the baneful ostracism of Lord Comwallis abolished by the admission of natives to the distinction of making and administering the law, upon a footing of per- fect equality with Europeans. At the same time Small Cau^e Courts, with a simple procedure, were established in 526 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV the provinces, and the recovery of small debts and demands rendered more easy. A..D. The death of Lady Canning hastened the departure of 1862 Lord Canning, whose health had been greatly affected by six years of unexampled care and toil. He embarked in March 1862, but did not survive his arrival in England more than three months. His administration forms the most memorable period in the history of British India. No go- vernor-general ever had to pass through a season of such profound anxiety, or to encounter so momentous a crisis. If he was slow and dilatory in his movements in circum- stances in which Lord Dalhousie's foresight, promptitude, and energy would have been invaluable, yet he never lost heart or confidence, and his equanimity in the most ap- palling circumstances has never been exceeded and rarely equalled. 1863 Lord Elgin, who had brought affairs in China to a suc- cessfal issue, was appointed to succeed him, and reached Calcutta on the 12th March, but died at Dhurmsala, in the Himalayas, on the 20th November in the ensuing year. His brief tenure of office afforded no opportunity for the display of his talents. It was, however, marked by a Ma- homedan conspiracy against the British Government, fo- mented by Wahabee fanatics, which burst forth at Sitana, across the Indus, on the Afghan frontier. A large force, under the command of Brigadier Chamberlain, consisting of two European and six native regiments, was pushed forward into the fastnesses in which the whole army of Akbar had been exterminated two centuries before ; but it was not only held in check but vigorously assailed by the irrecon- cilable highlanders. The Brigadier was disabled by wounds, and the position, of the army became so critical that the Council in Calcutta, contrary to the remonstrance of the Commander-in-Chief, was on the point of withdrawing the troops from what appeared to them a bootless warfare in the mountains, a step which would have brought all the wild tribes down upon the Punjab. Happily Sir W. Deni- son, the governor of Madras, arrived in Calcutta at this juncture to officiate as governor-general, and ordered the campaign to be prosecuted with vigour, and it was brought to a satisfactory close by the end of 1863. 1864 The Ministry in England were filled with alarm at the prospect of a new Mahomedan outburst, and of the risk associated with it, and they at once offered the governor- generalship to the man to whom the salvation of the empire during the mutiny was mainly due, and who was, moreoverj Skct. v.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 527 personally acquainted with the condition of that tiirhnlent frontier. Sir John Lawrence arrived in Calcutta on the 12th January 1864, and found the '* Umbeyla campaign," as it was called, terminated. Four years after, there was another of the chronic outbreaks of these untameable barbarians, but it was at once suppressed by the timely march of a brigade. The civil war in America interrupted the supply of cotton ^^ with which the looms of England had been fed, and it ^ became necessary to look to India for a substitute. The price accordingly rose to a rare amount, and the exports increased two and three hundred per cent., but as they greatly exceeded the imports from England, the article was paid for in coin. During the continuance of the American war the imports of the precious metals into India amounted to more than seventy-five crores of rupees and poured riches into the lap of the cultivators, such as neither they nor their ancestors had ever dreamt of. The influx of wealth was poetically described by the metaphor that the ryots made the tyres of their cart-wheels of silver. The unexpected increase of prosperity at Bombay arising i866 from the export of cotton, created a perfect mania of specu- lation. The most preposterous schemes were brought forward, and met with ready acceptance, and the shares of the companies rose fifteen and twenty-fold. The Bank of Bombay lent itself to these wild projects without scruple, and when the bubble burst was driven into the bank- ruptcy Court, the first bank associated with Government which had ever been subject to such disgrace. Sir John Lawrence found the Government of Bengal 1864 involved in disputes with the wild tribes of Bootan. On the conquest of Assam, the tract of cultivated land lying at the foot of the hills, called the Dooars, was annexed, but a trifling annuity was paid to the chief by way of compen- sation and to keep the tribes quiet, but it did not restrain them from making inroads into the plains, plundering the villages, and kidnapping its inhabitants. The subsidy was accordingly withheld, and the inroads were multiplied, and the Hon. Ashley Eden was sent as an envoy to the Bootan capital by the Government of Bengal. It was an imprudent act, and met with its reward. Mr. Eden was subject to every indignity from the barbarians, and signed an igno- minious treaty under compulsion, resigning the Dooars to the chief. The consequence was a declaration of war ; the foe was contemptible, yeb one fort was retaken ; the country was unhealthy, and the force was found to be inadequate. 528 ABRIDOMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. X\. A second campaign was undertaken the next year, with a larger force, and though the troops suffered to a fearful extent from the climate, the Bootanees were obliged to succumb. The treaty made with them, however, assigned them an annuity of 25,000 rupees for the Dooars. The A.D. whole transaction, from first to last, was unfortunate, and 1865 proved that the existing Government of Bengal was equally as incompetent in war as in diplomacy. 1866 The year 1866 was marked by a desolating famine in Orissa. The total failure of the rains in the preceding year had given a premonition of its approach, but the Govern- ment of Bengal took no precautionary measure, and con- tinued indifferent until the visitation arrived, and it was too late in the season to send succour by sea. The calamity was mitigated by the exertions of Lord Harris, the governor of Madras, but the number of victims was moderately esti- mated at three quarters of a million, and the event has left a deep stain on the reputation of the Bengal authorities. 1865 One of the most important legislative measures of Sir John Lawrence's administration had reference to the tenancy question in the Punjab and in Oude. He was anxious to protect the rights of the hereditary cultivators against the encroachments of the landholders, whether zemindars or talookdars. A great outcry was raised against the Acts which were of his creation, as being calcu- lated to unsettle the engagements which had been made with the talookdars, and to revive disaffection. It was found, on enquiry, that the ryots in Oude for whose benefit the Government had incurred the greatest risk, had joined their old talookdars during the mutiny, in spite of the oppression under which they had groaned, and that there was in fact no class to whom the term of hereditary culti- vators could be apphed. The question was discussed with great earnestness, and no little acrimony, and it was silenced rather than settled by Sir Charles Wood's despatch, desiring the local authorities " to take especial care, with- " out sacrificing the just rights of others, to maintain the " talookdars of Oude in that position of consideration and " dignity which Lord Canning's Government contemplated "conferring on them." 1867 The affairs of Mysore were brought to an issue during the administration of Sir John Lawrence. Lord William Bentinck, as already stated, was constrained, by the insuf- ferable misrule of the raja to assume the government of the country, and grant the raja a suitable pension. The Sbct. v.] epitome of subsequent events 529 administratiou was placed in the hands of General Cubbon, one of the Company's great statesmen, under whom Mysore reached a state of unexampled prosperity. The raja petitioned Lord Hardinge to restore the government to him. The question was referred to General Cubbon, who reported that every improvement which had been made had en- countered the strenuous opposition of the raja, and that the transfer of the government to him would be fatal to the prosperity of the people ; the request was therefore declined. A similar application was made to Lord Dalhousie, to Lord Canning, to Lord Elgin, and to Sir John Lawrence, and it was emphatically refused. Sir Charles "Wood upheld the decision of the five Governors-General. Tha raja then proceeded to adopt a son, and demanded that he should be acknowledged the heir to the throne. In the creation of the principality in 1801, Lord Wellesley had expressly ex- cluded all reference to heirs and successors, and limited the enjoyment of the crown to the raja, on whom he had bestowed it as a personal gift. But in 1867, the Conserva- tive Secretary of State for India reversed the decisions of all the public authorities in India, and recognised the adopted son as tbe future heir of the throne, to whom the administra- tion of the country is to be consigned on his coming of age.* Dost Mahomed, who had faithfully maintained his en- ^„ gagements with the British Government, died in 1863, and i868 a struggle for the crown immediately commenced in his family. His son, Shere Ali, whom he had nominated his successor, mounted the throne and was soon driven from it, bufc at length succeeded in recovering it. During these intestine struggles. Sir John Lawrence maintained a strict neutrahty, and avoided any interference in the contests, which were desolating the country. His policy was by some applauded as masterly inactivity, and it might possibly for a time have been a prudent course, but the rapid development of events in Central Asia, and the pro- gress of Russian influence have rendered the maintenance of it impracticable. Sir John's administration was marked by great attention to works of irrigation, and immediately before the expira- tion of his term of office he drew up a minute detailing those which had been completed and planned for all the Presidencies. These works would have required an expendi- ture of many crores of rupees, but as the finances exhibited an annual deficit, the complete canalization of India was, necessarily postponed to a more auspicious period. * He does not attain his majority until Febiaiary 1881.. M M 530 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. A.D. Sir John Lawrence on his return to England was re 1868 warded for his pre-eminent services to India by his eleva- tion to the peerage. Lord Mayo was appointed his successor, and landed in India in the beginning of 1868 ; and one of his first acts was to modify Sir John Lawrence's policy of non-interfer- ence in the affairs of Afghanistan. The Ameer Shere Ali was invited to an interview, and, on the 29th March, was received with great distinction and pomp at Umballa, when not only was his position as the ruler of the nation recognised, but he was gratified with a subsidy of twelve lacs a -year, and a supply of arms. Lord Mayo rendered himself popular with the native chiefs by his graciousness, and with the European community by his princely hospi- tality. The most noted feature of his administration was the projection of a system of railways, embracing 10,000 miles, to be constructed by the State, and not by the agency of guaranteed companies. He fell by the dagger of an as- sassin, in January 1872, at Port Blair, on the Andamans, to which he was paying an ofiicial visit. 1872 On the death of Lord Mayo, Lord Napier, the Governor of Madras, succeeded by law to the supreme adminis- tration, until the appointmant, early in 1872, of Lord Northbrook. The new Viceroy possessed a large official experience, having been Under-Secretary in various de- partments at home, and his qualities as a statesman were soon tested by the alarming progress of Russia in Central Asia. To a demand by the Khivans for assistance. Lord Northbrook replied that, where just claims were made by a great European power like Russia, a less civilized nation was bound to comply with them, and that he could not guarantee any aid from England, As the Russian Government had specifically stated that their only object was the redress of grievances, and that there was no intention on their part to retain any Khivan territory, it was difficult to see why England should interfere. 1873 The threatened expedition against Khiva took place in the spring of 1873, and resulted in the complete success of the Russians. Their army, under General Kauffmann, marched almost unmolested through the country, and occupied the capital without serious resistance. The Khan surren- dered, and agreed to all the demands which were forced upon him by the Russian General, including a complete sub- mission to the Czar's authority, which virtually deprived him of independence. After this fresh advance, an agree Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 531 ment was concluded between the English and Russian Governments, that the latter should abstain from interference with the boundaries of Afghanistan as fixed by England ; and subsequent events showed the wisdom of this arrange- ment. In India itself the dread of famine caused great anxiety. The failure of the autumn rains in Bengal and Behar had so materially injured the rice crops, that scarcity was imminent unless precautionary measures were taken. Determined to avoid the miseries of Orissa in 1866, Sir George Campbell, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, an active and vigorous administrator, had purchased large quantities of grain, and organized relief works in anticipation of the impending dearth ; while in all his efforts to surmount the difficulties he foresaw, he received the approval and support of the Viceroy and home authorities. The year 1874 opened with gloomy prospects, and the a.d. distress soon assumed large proportions. Not only the late 1874 crop of 1873, but the April crop which followed, proved failures, and the Government found it necessary to supply far larger quantities of rice than they had calculated upon, and to face transport difficulties which impeded the distribu- tion of food. All obstacles were, however, overcome by Sir Richard Temple, the successor of Sir George Campbell, who displayed rare administrative ability, and, by his energy and the skilful use of the means at his disposal, battled with the famine till the plentiful rains in June put an end to all anxiety, and enabled those who had been relieved by Gov- ernment during the scarcity, to return to their occupations. Some idea may be gathered of the gigantic nature of the task of conveying food to the famine districts, when it was found to require 100,000 carts and 200,000 bullocks to carry the grain from the railway to the depots; and in addition to these, 2000 camels and 9000 horses were needed to take sup- plies into the more inaccessible parts of the interior ; while over 2300 boats and 10 steamers transported the grain by water, on the Ganges and other rivers. Lord Northbrook, moreover, determined to utilize the public distress by em- ploying the sufferers on two great public works — the exten- sion of the Soane Irrigation Canal, and the construction of the Noithern Bengal Railway. The number of people engaged in these and local relief works when the distress was at its height, was estimated at 1,770,000 ; and the cost to the Government of the relief operations alone, was nearly £7,000,000. 532 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. 3CV. In Afghanistan affairs had assumed an unsatisfactory position. The Ameer, Shere Ali, having banished his eldest son, Yakoob Khan, induced him to return to Cabul, and then imprisoned him. The ostensible cause of this act of treachery was the report that Yakoob was intriguing for the surrender of Herat to Persia; the real reason was the desire of the Ameer to secure the succession for a younger and favourite son, Abdullah. This son died before the question was settled, and by the recent accession of Yakoob to the throne vacated by his father, it would appear that he had retained his hereditary position, in spite of the deceit practised on him. A.T5. The corrupt and vicious administration of Mulhar Rao, ^^'* the Gaikwar of Baroda, had repeatedly called forth the remonstrances of those in authority, and the hesitation of the Government to recognise a son he afl&rmed to be legitimate, had increased his irritation against them. Colonel Phayre was the British Resident at Baroda, and while these disputes were at their height, an attempt was undoubtedly made to take his life by poison. It was alleged that this act was instigated by the Gaikwar, and a 1875 Royal Commission was therefore formed to inquire into the matter. This Commission was composed of three native princes — the Maharajahs of Gwalior and Jeypore, and Rajah Sir Dinkur Rao — and three English officials — Sir Richard Couch, the President, Sir Richard Meade, and Mr Philip Melville. Although the proceeding was simply an inquiry for the information of Government, it was conducted in the same manner as an English trial, and the Gaikwar was de- fended by an advocate — Mr Serjeant Ballantine — specially sent out from London on his behalf. In the result the Court was divided in opinion, the native princes expressing doubts as to the guilt of the accused, the English entertain- ing none. The practical decision, therefore, rested with the Viceroy, who, with the sanction of the home authorities, declared the Gaikwar to have forfeited his throne, — though the measure was afterwards stated to be more an act of political necessity than a judicial sentence. A young prince of the Kandeish branch was chosen to succeed him, and edu- cated for his post by one of the most able of native states- men under British supervision ; but no alterations have been made in any of the existing treaty arrangements. The Governor of Madras, Lord Hobart, died on the 27th April 1875. He was an able and conscientious administrator, who did much to promote the welfare and prosperity of the Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 533 community, and initiated during his tenure of office the con- struction of an artificial harbour for Madras, and a scheme for draining the town. He was succeeded by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. An event of national importance — the visit of the Prince a.d. of Wales to India — took place towards the close of this year. 1875 Leaving England on the 11th October, the Prince, after stopping a few days at Athens, proceeded to Cairo, where he invested the Viceroy's eldest son, Prince Tewfik, with the Order of the Star of India, and landed at Bombay on the 8th November. The reception that greeted him was most enthusiastic ; and throughout his tour everything tended to show the gratification of the natives at the royal visit. At Madras, where he was magnificently entertained by the Governor, he exchanged visits with the Maharajahs of the Presidency ; and on New-Year's Day 1876, he presided over 1876 an investiture of the Star of India, which was held at Cal- cutta on a sumptuous scale. He then proceeded up the country, entered Delhi in state, through five miles of soldiery, and received an address from the native municipality of that ancient capital of Hindostan. Opportunities were afforded him of studying the native principalities, by his visits to Nepaul, to the Maharajahs of Puttiala and of Gwalior, and to Holkar at Indore; and when he embarked at Bombay, on the 13th March, he expressed, in a letter to Lord Northbrook, the sincere pleasure as well as instruction which he had derived from his first visit to India. Some difficulties had meanwhile arisen between the Viceroy and the Secretary of State. The Government of India passed, on the 5th August 1875, an edict known as the Tariff Act. It revised the whole system of customs in India, and abol- ished export duties, but confirmed the import tax on manu- factured cotton goods, and imposed an additional tax on raw cotton of the finer sort. Lord Salisbury at once not only expressed his dissent from, and desired the repeal of, these two provisions of the Act, but he also strongly censured the Indian authorities for passing so important a measure with- out reference to the Home Government. Lord Northbrook defended his position with skill and dignity, and on his retirement from office, on the 4th January 1875, his services were rewarded with an earldom. His successor. Lord Lytton, although he had distinguished himself in literature and diplo- macy, had not hitherto held any important administrative trust. The obnoxious cotton duties were repealed by degrees ; but; on the other hand, the new Viceroy adopted a concilia- 534 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. tory tone towards the natives of India, and endeavoured to diffuse the same through Anglo-Indian society. A.D. A year had not elapsed since the Prince of Wales's visit to ^877 Delhi, when it again became the scene of a grand ceremonial. Parliament having decided that her Majesty the Queen should assume the imperial title of Empress of India, an assemblage of native chiefs and princes took place at Delhi on the Ist January 1877, when the new dignity was proclaimed by the Viceroy, amidst the most enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty. The presence of so many native and British officials afforded an opportunity of holding a conference on the important legisla- tive and fiscal matters which pressed at this time; while many concessions were made, rewards for past services granted, and pensions augmented. One most important act was the release of some 16,000 prisoners, whose cases had been care- fully inquired into by Sir Edward Bayley ; and to him must be attributed the beneficial influence this salutary measure exercised upon the minds of the natives of India. Still, this splendid ceremony did not produce the entire political effect that might have been expected. Men's minds were too full of the prospects of the famine, which threatened to devastate the presidencies of Bombay and Madras, and even to penetrate into some of the neighbouring states. These fears were only too soon fulfilled : the rainfall of the previous year had more or less failed, while the spring and summer rains of 1877 were poor and irregular, and the dearth could no longer be averted. But Indian authorities had grown wise by sad experience, and the means previously used in Bengal to distribute supplies, and organize relief works, were everywhere adopted. In spite of all efforts, how- ever, it was afterwards stated in the House of Commons that no less than 1,350,000 lives had been lost; and it was not until autumn was well advanced that the officials in the famine districts ceased to require help. England had liberally as- sisted their efforts by sending them nearly half a million of money ; and the generous and noble manner in which she took up the cause of her impoverished subjects in Asia, did much to unite the two nations, and to frustrate any evils arising from supposed Russian designs. In view, however, of the terrible frequency of famines in India, the Finance Minister, Sir John Strachey, brought forward a proposal, advocating an additional tax, the proceeds of which were to be set aside to form a sinking fund for future emergen- cies ; and the measure in due course received the sanction of Government. Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 535 Jung Bahadoor, the virtual sovereign of Nepaul, whose ser- vices during the Mutiny are elsewhere noticed (see p. 516), died this year. Although he strictly excluded Europeans from his territory, he invariably maintained an amicable policy towards the Indian Government, and the loss of so steady a friend on the frontier was severely felt. The tribes on our north-west boundary, always turbulent, now showed signs of aggression, and it was evident that strong measures were required to repress them, one of them, the Jowakis, having, within the short space of a week, made no less than four incursions into British territory. In their last expedition, they attacked a body of the 22d Regi- ment, and killed and wounded some of the soldiers. A small field-force, however, was sent against them, which soon put down all resistance, and quiet was again restored along the border. In April 1878 the Government received orders from home a.d. to despatch a force of 7000 native soldiers to Malta. Such 1878 an event as the employment of sepoys in Europe was with- out precedent in our annals; but the disturbed state of afiairs in the East, which originally caused the movement, becoming by diplomatic arrangements more tranquil, the troops were recalled after a few months' absence. Our relations with Cabul had meanwhile become most precarious. The Ameer, Shere Ali, was offended by our occupation of Quettah ; this, and various other alleged griev- ances, caused the failure of a conference at Peshawur between his agent and our representative, Sir Louis Pelly, and were doubtless among the motives which induced him to receive a Russian embassy at Cabul. A counter- embassy, under General Chamberlain, was promptly despatched by Lord Lytton; but on the 21st September 1878, it was turned back at AH Musjid, the first Afghan fortress in the Khyber Pass, by the commandant, who, acting under orders from Shere Ali, refused to allow the Mission to proceed. A native envoy, Gholam Hassan Khan, who had previously been sent to sound the Ameer on the subject of the embassy, returned with an unsatisfactory answer; and the Viceroy thereupon despatched an ultimatum to Shere Ali, with the assurance that hostilities would be commenced, if he did not accede to the English demands before the 20 th November. An evasive reply was received, and war was at once declared. General Sir Samuel Browne was directed to move upon the capital with a large body of troops by the Khyber Pass. His forces advanced on the 21st November, but their march was 536 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. checked at Ali Musjid. The capture, however, of that im- portant fortress, and the evacuation of Jellalabad by the Afghans, followed in quick succession ; and our troops soon afterwards encamped outside the town for the winter, with- out encountering any serious opposition. General Roberts, who commanded the 2d brigade, ad- vanced into Afghanistan by the Khurum Valley, and met with a sharp resistance at the Peiwar Pass, the occupation of which the enemy valiantly but unsuccessfully opposed ; while General Stewart — in charge of the other battalion — after an unprecedented march of nearly 400 miles over most difficult country, joined the forces of General Biddulph at Takht-i-pul, the junction of the Khojak and Gwaja passes ; and, with the exception of a slight encounter with the native cavalry outside Candahar, they took possession of that city unmolested. Desultory fighting followed in the neighbour- hood, as well as in the Khost Valley, with General Roberts. The hill-tribes also were unceasingly active ; but a further advance of the army into the country was not deemed necessary. At the first approach of the British troops, Shere Ali had fled from Cabul to Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh, where he en- deavoured to obtain assistance against us; but his death A.D. there on 21st February 1879 prevented his schemes from 1879 being carried out, and closed his checkered career. His son, Yakoob Khan, succeeded in making good his title to the throne, and was acknowledged by the Indian Govern- ment ; but he at first refused to negotiate with them, until threatened with an advance of the army on Cabul. He then agreed to meet our emissary. Major Cavagnari, at Gan- damuk, half-way to the capital, where, after some diplomatic delays, a treaty of peace, offensive and defensive, was con- cluded on the 25th May 1879, one of the principal articles of which was the permanent residence of an English Minister at Cabul. Major Cavagnari, who had been knighted for his services in the late campaign, was appointed our Envoy — a post which he was eminently fitted to fill, from his long experience and great tact in dealing with the half-civilized nations on our north-west frontier. But he and his mission had hardly entered Cabul, when Yakoob Khan warned him that his life was in danger ; to which he replied, " that if he were killed, there were many more in India ready to act as his suc- cessors." A few weeks, however, passed quietly, and con- fidence seemed to be fairly established, when the massacre o£ Shot. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 537 the gallant Cavagnari and his brave associates, and the burning of the Embassy on the 3d of September, rudely destroyed all hopes of peace. The Afghans had a third time broken faith with us, and avenged their wrongs, fancied or real, on our representatives ; and a British army once more advanced, burning with indignation, to exact retribution for the murder of their countrymen. General, now Sir Frederick, Roberts lost no time in marching on Cabul, which he occupied on October 12th, after a struggle at Char-Asiab. Yakoob Khan, who had previously fled to the British camp, was declared to have forfeited the throne, and made a prisoner of State; and it was announced that the future government of the country would be decided after the advice of the Sirdars had been taken, and order restored. A fresh rising of some of the hill-tribes and mutinous soldiers in November caused great alarm, which was increased by the cessation of communications with General Roberts, and he was compelled to evacuate his post and establish his troops at Sherpur, a high cantonment outside and commanding the capital. But he succeeded in holding his own, in spite of the failure of General Massy to keep open the communica- tions with Ghuzni. General Gough advanced to support him, and the close of the year saw the British again in victorious possession of Cabul. The masses of insurgents who had endeavoured to hem in and annihilate the troops at Sherpur, were dispersed at the beginning of 1880. Peace being thus restored for a time, a grand durbar was held by General, afterwards Lord, Roberts at Cabul, to inaugurate the policy of reconciliation. Wali Mohammed, a half-brother of Shere Ali, was appointed military governor of the capital, in the hope that he would ultimately be able to assume the whole authority. But it soon appeared that there was still a strong feeling in favour of the deposed Ameer, Yakoob Khan, whose restoration the Imperial Govern- ment was resolved not to permit. As there was no intention to annex any part of Upper Afghanistan, the English were anxious to open negotiations for the evacuation, and to make over the government of the country to any claimant who could show a valid title to the throne, and prove himself strong enough to coerce the Afghans into submission. The two prominent candidates were Ayoob Kiian, son of Shere Ali, at Herat, and Abdul Rahman, his nephew and former rival, who had long been a Russian pensioner in Turkistan. Meanwhile, although the cost of occupation was heavy, the English troops continued to hold the country, and in March 538 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. 1880, Mr, afterwards Sir Lepel Griffin was sent to Cabul to take over the political authority from General Roberts. He was empowered to propose that Afghanistan should be divided into provinces, under separate independent native rulers. The first step in this direction was taken by declar- ing Shere Ali, a cousin of the former Ameer, ruler of the kingdom of Candahar, with the assistance of a British Resident and a contingent of British troops. Disaffection having been shown by the Bengal soldiers in Candahar at their long absence from India, a force from Bombay was sent to relieve them, and the Bengal column, under the command of General Stewart, marched back to India by way of Ghuzni and Cabul. At Ahmed Khel, 23 miles from Ghuzni, a determined stand was made against them by 16,000 of the insurgents. Our troops, though ably handled, were only 6000 strong, and the Afghans fought with a stubborn valour never hitherto displayed ; but they were successfully opposed, and finally repulsed. The attack having failed, the enemy fled precipitately, leaving a large number of dead on the field, and the British force entered Ghuzni the next day without further opposition. In April 1880, a change of Ministry took place in Eng- land, and resulted in a corresponding change in our Afghan policy. Lord Lytton resigned, and was succeeded by Lord Ripon, with Lord Hartington at the India Office. The intention of the Imperial Government had hitherto been to establish our supremacy at Candahar, to occupy that city, for a time at least, with British troops, and to connect it by a railway with India. The evacuation of the rest of Afghanistan was to be carried out as soon as, but not until, a strong and friendly native government had been established. In the policy now adopted our withdrawal was made the main object, to which the condition of the country after our departure was subordinated. The decision as to the retention or abandonment of Candahar was left by the Home Government to the Indian authorities ; but the expenses of the war were already so serious that there was certainly a distinct tendency of opinion towards our withdrawal from Candahar also. During this period of hesitation Abdul Rahman left his seclusion in Turkistan, and advanced with an armed force to Balkh, aided it was said by Russian promises and gold. In default of any other ruler with whom to treat on the approaching evacuation by the British troops, communi- cations were opened with him, and the offer made that Sect V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 539 he should take over the authority in Northern Afghanistan. After some delay, caused partly by the reservation from his jurisdiction of Candahar and the districts assigned to England by the Treaty of Gandamak, the Khurram, Pishin, and Sibi Valleys, he was formally proclaimed Ameer of Northern Afghanistan by Mr Griffin on the 22d July. The Imperial Government undertook to give him every assist- ance, to furnish him with money, and to put him in posses- sion of all the fortifications, on condition that he prevented any molestation of the British troops during their retreat. A fresh disturbance now threatened to impede our with- drawal from the country. Ayoob Khan, since his establish- ment at Herat, on the flight of Shere Ali, had been in- cessantly intriguing against the English, and in June he advanced towards Candahar with a large body of troops. For a time it appeared doubtful whether his demonstration were against the British troops under General Primrose, or Shere Ali, the Wall as he was called. General Bur- roughs, in concert with the Wall's troops, was despatched to guard the passage of the Helmund, but the Afghan army mutinied and deserted to Ayoob, and General Burroughs, in pursuit of the rebels, crossed the river. Retiring to Khushk-i-Nakhud, about 45 miles from Candahar, he took up a position near the village of Maiwand, intended to cover both Candahar and Ghuzni. Unfortunately he was ignorant of the real strength of the enemy, and on the 27th July he found himself confronted by the whole of Ayoob's army, estimated at about 20,000 men. A battle ensued, in which the British troops were defeated, and forced to retreat in disorder to Candahar; and had not General Primrose, on the first news of the disaster, sent out a party of troops to bring in the fugitives, few would have reached Candahar in safety. A young artillery officer, Lieutenant Maclaine, fell into the hands of the enemy, and was afterwards barbarously murdered. On the news of the British reverse, the whole country rose, and the troops had to fight their way back. Communication with Quetta was cut oflf, and the British force at Candahar was practically isolated. After some delay Ayoob Khan ad- vanced, and on the 8th August opened the siege. Upon the news of the defeat at Maiwand, the evacuation at Cabul was suspended. General Roberts, at the head of most of the effective troops, started at once to raise the siege of Candahar. General Stewart retired two days later, by way of Jellalabad, with the remainder of the 540 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA FChap. XV. army, and all the camp-followers and baggage, after making over the government of Cabul to Abdul Kahman. Contrary to general expectation, the retreat of the bulk of the English army was effected without dilB&culty, and the whole force reached India in safety. General Roberts's celebrated march on Candahar was one of the most striking events of the war. The picked troops under him consisted of 2800 Europeans, 7000 natives, and 8000 camp-followers. The distance between Cabul and Candahar, 318 miles, was covered in twenty-three days, including two halts at Ghuzni and Khelat-i-Ghilzai. The troops started on the 9th August, and reached Candahar on the 31st ; and not- withstanding the disturbed state of the country, the march was completed without a contest. The siege of Candahar had already been abandoned on the 23d, on the news of the British advance, and Ayoob, after an ineffectual attempt to open negotiations with General Roberts, retired to the village of Pir Paimal, which he strongly fortified. On the 1st September our artillery opened fire on the enemy's position, and soon after the whole of the British force, including the Candahar garrison, 4500 strong, were drawn out for the attack. The fighting was severe, the enemy contesting every inch of ground with obstinate courage, but they were finally dislodged, and completely routed. The whole force was broken up and scattered, Ayoob fled to Herat, and the movement in his favour was crushed. The war being thus at an end, the question of the aban- donment or retention of Candahar, which had been in abeyance, was again brought forward. It was finally decided, by an order from the Home Government to Lord Ripon to withdraw on the earliest opportunity. The country was still in a disturbed condition. The Wali's government had been overthrown by Ayoob Khan, who had himself suffered too severe a defeat to attempt to assert his claims again. It was difficult, under these circumstances, to place the authority relinquished by the English in other hands, but it was eventually secured by Abdul Rahman. During the course of the following year the British troops were withdrawn from the Khurram Valley and Khyber Pass, and the railway already partly constructed towards Quetta was stopped. Candahar and the surrounding country were evacuated in April 1881, and the fortified posts made over to Abdul Rahman. One serious result of the war was the heavy strain in- volved on the finances of the country. Unfortunately a Sect. V.J EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 541 grave deficit was discovered in the military estimates. The Financial Member of Council, Sir J. Strachey had, when presenting his Budget, shown a considerable surplus for the three years ending 1880-81. The existence of this surplus was questioned, and closer inquiry by Lord Eipon's Govern- ment elicited the fact that the war expenditure had been much underestimated, and that, instead of a balance on the right side, there was a large deficit to be covered. The discrepancy arose from the practice in military accounts of showing no item of expenditure, until it had been duly audited. Thus the Treasury disbursements and the Budget statements were at variance, and instead of an account being presented of all sums paid by the Treasury for military purposes, only the classified and audited expenditure was shown. The error was not discovered until after the publi- cation of the Budget, and caused much financial discussion. Sir J. Strachey resigned, and his successor, Major, afterwards Sir Evelyn, Baring, succeeded in reorganising the finances, and restoring public confidence. Much discontent, however, was felt in India at saddling the country with the heavy cost of the war, and eventually a contribution towards military expenses was made by the Home Government. To return to events in India during the Afghan war. On the 31st December 1879, the East Indian Bail way ceased to be an independent body. The English Government, by virtue of an Act of Parliament, took it into their own hands, this being the first instance of the exercise of the Imperial powers to purchase Indian railways. The question of admitting natives of India to the higher administrative posts of Government had attracted attention since 1867. The appointments to the Indian Civil Service being made in London, it was argued, with some justice, that this system did not give a fair chance to natives. In July 1879 it was therefore enacted, that natives might be appointed to the covenanted Civil Service by the Government in India, in the proportion of one -fifth the number of European civilians. The measure was favorably received, but the agitation continued through the year 1880. On the frontier the usual raids had been increased by the depredations of the Nagas, a tribe on the Assam border. In 1879 they laid siege to Kohima, the headquarters of our political agent ; and the place was only relieved with much difficulty, after great exertions. Desultory fighting continued for the next two years, and the Nagas were not finally conquered till after the Afghan war. It was also found 542 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV necessary, on the conclusion of peace, to chastise the Waziris. a frontier tribe who had given much trouble during the war. Five out of the six ringleaders were seized, the other was shortly after surrendered, and no further difficulty was ex- perienced from the hostile dispositions of the mountaineers. The year 1881 was marked by the first Imperial census ever taken for the whole of India, except ISTepaul and Cash- mere. The population was returned at 254 millions, of whom more than 204 millions were direct subjects of the British Crown. In Upper Burmah difficulties had already arisen from the vicious character of the young King Theebaw. On his accession to the throne he murdered eighty-six of his rela- tions, and soon after gave himself up to almost continual drinking. Anxious to continue our friendly relations with the country, the Imperial Government adopted a firm tone, insisted on the removal of trade grievances, and a proper treatment of our envoy; but no representations availed to effect an improvement in the state of the country. Upper Burmah soon became a scene of anarchy and misgovern- ment, owing to the fierce and uncertain temper of the king. Trade with India was hampered by the vexatious monopolies he had established, and negotiations for a commercial treaty were undertaken at Simla,. but proved abortive. Emboldened by the departure of the British army, Ayoob Khan again collected troops at Herat, and, though greatly hindered by want of money and dissensions among his followers, advanced once more towards Candahar. His troops were at first defeated on several occasions by the Ameer's governor; but when Ayoob marched in person to the Helmund he succeeded, on the anniversary of his victory at Maiwand, in defeating the Ameer's forces, and again occupied Candahar. Putting himself at the head of a fresh army, Abdul Rahman marched rapidly against him. On the 20th September the two forces met outside the walls of Candahar, and Ayoob was once more totally overthrown, and forced to take refuge in Persia. This victory over his rival consolidated the power of the new Ameer. Abdu) Rahman proved himself a firm though despotic ruler, and gradually established his authority over the whole country, including the outlying provinces of Candahar and Herat. Although the allegiance of the new Governor of Herat, his nephew, Abdul Kudus, was at first doubtful, the Ameer contrived eventually to attach him firmly to his interests. The country, however, was still disturbed by the rival pre- Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 543 tensions of Ayoob Khan on one side of the frontier, and Yakoob Khan and his son, Musa Jan, on the other. The appointment of a native envoy to represent Imperial inter- ests at the court of Cabul, Mohammed Afzul Khan, enabled the British authorities to obtain better information of the progress of events. The administration of Lord Ripon was signalized by the inauguration of the new policy of decentralization or " self- help," by which much of the power hitherto exercised by the head Government was transferred to the local authorities. A network of corporations was gradually formed to admin- ister the local funds, and to decide questions relating to education, public works, and other matters. For the most part the scheme was received with enthusiasm, especially that portion which related to the raising and expenditure of local funds. The subject of education received special attention, and a Commission was appointed, under the presidency of Sir W. Hunter, to assist the Government in collecting information. During the year 1882 the declared insanity of the Eajah of Kolapur rendered it necessary to place the government in the hands of a regent, under the supervision of the British authorities. On the death of the king, a son adopted by his widow was allowed to succeed him. A memorable incident of the year was the despatch of an Indian contingent, under the command of Sir H. M'Pherson, to take part in Lord Wolseley's expedition to Egypt. The force consisted of one British and six native regiments, besides artillery, &c., and was highly commended by Lord Wolseley for efficiency and excellent discipline. On their return to Bombay, the troops were accorded a splendid reception. In February 1883, the native State of Hyderabad and the Imperial Government sustained a great loss by the death of Sir Salar Jung, who for many years had ably administered the country during the minority of the young Nizam. He was replaced by a Council of Regency, and in 1884, the young Nizam having attained his majority, he was installed in the government by the Viceroy. During the course of the year H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught arrived in India as Divisional Commander at Meerut, with the reversion to the post of Bombay Commander-in-Chief, to which he afterwards succeeded. But the most noticeable event of the year was the intro- duction by Mr Courtenay Ilbert, Legislative Member of Council, of a bill known as the Ilbert Bill, which created 544 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. much agitation. It had for its object to invest native .magistrates in the interior of the country with judicial powers over European British subjects. Up to this period none but Europeans could be appointed justices of the peace outside the Presidency towns. Natives, although admitted to the covenanted Civil Service, and therefore possessing in many cases, by virtue of their office, high judicial functions, were not allowed to exercise jurisdiction over Europeans. In the opinion of the Supreme Government the time had now arrived " to remove from the code " (of Criminal Procedure) " at once and completely every judicial disquali- fication based merely on race distinctions." The anomaly of the situation lay in the fact that native magistrates in the Presidency towns had hitherto had authority to try Europeans, which they lost on removal to higher posts in the country districts. The acquiescence of Europeans in the system was attributed to the influence of the English press in these towns, and the presence of the High Courts of Justice. It was now proposed to extend this jurisdiction to covenanted civilians, either district magistrates or sessions judges, to members of the native Civil Service, and assist- ant commissioners in non-regulation provinces. The measure specially affected the Bengal European population and the planters, who were scattered over the outlying districts, but it aroused the most violent opposition in non- official classes throughout the country. A counter - agitation was set on foot among the educated natives, and produced a deplorable outbreak of race feeling and animosity, such as had not been excited since the Mutiny of 1857. To diminish the agitation, the opinions of the Indian local governments were taken. These were on the whole unfavorable, and no proposed modifications appeared to allay the hostility the measure had originally provoked. Under these circumstances the Government were compelled to withdraw the bill. Border raids on the North-West Frontier were of continual occurrence, specially in the Zhob valley, but they were effec- tively repressed by the able frontier Commissioner, Sir Robert Sandeman. In the Public Works Department an important feature was the completion of the bridge over the Indus at Attock. The steady progress of Russia eastwards in Asia had for some time aroused the serious attention of the Imperial authorities. In 1881 the Panslavist General Skobeloff, one of the most ardent opposers of England, captured the strong position of Geok Tepe in Turkistan. The apprehensions Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 545 caused in India by this movement were somewhat allayed by his death in 1882, but Russia still continued her advance towards the Sarakhs Oasis, on the borders of Persia and Afghanistan. Each step of her conquests in Central Asia was marked by the construction of a railway. It had al- ready been completed to Kizil-Arvat, 144 miles east of the Caspian, but the whole line to Herat, 520 miles, had been surveyed. In the beginning of 1884 the Russians occupied the important district of Merv. By a secret treaty with Persia, they also obtained possession of Sarakhs, and the Russian outposts were pushed forwards from the north and east towards Herat. The Ameer placed a strong garrison in Penjdeh, where Russian troops had already appeared, although the district was known to be within the Afghan frontier. From Merv, which was immediately used as a basis of operations, a road towards Herat was planned, and a scheme was submitted to the Russian Government for the future invasion of India. A similar project had been drawn up by General Skobeloff in 1877. The Government of Persia was notoriously weak, and that country was agitated by continual disturbances, said to be fomented by Russian agents. To counteract these various encroachments a joint Anglo-Russian Frontier Commission was appointed to mark the Afghan boundary towards the north. The command of the English Commission was given to Sir Peter Lumsden, who proceeded to Afghanistan by way of Teheran ; the Indian section, under Colonel, afterwards Sir, Joseph Ridg- way, started from Quetta, and both divisions met near the northern frontier in the neighbourhood of Penjdeh. No Russian Commission was forthcoming to meet them, nor did the latter appear until the end of the following year. The delay arose from the desire of the Russians to settle the boundary question diplomatically in London, instead of on the spot ; and for this purpose M. Lessar, a well-known Russian politician, was despatched to conduct the negotiations for the demarcation of the Afghan frontier with the English Cabinet. Meanwhile the Russians vigorously pushed forward the fortifications of Merv and Sarakhs, and extended their rail- way to Askabad, and their telegraphic communications con- necting the two divisions of the Central Asian army. While the British members of the Commission were awaiting the result of the negotiations in London, the Russian military authorities continued to mass troops at Askabad and Sarakhs, and finally advanced into Afghan territory. Under the NN 546 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. direction of Colonel AlikanoflF, the Russianised Moham- medan Governor of Merv, they occupied the Zulfikar Pass on the Heri Rud, and Pul-i-Khisti on the Khush, within a few furlongs of the Afghan lines. A conflict now became inevitable. A force of 2000 men was marched to Ak Tepe, within the boundary, and on the 29th March 1885 the Russian commander, General Komaroflf, sent an ultimatum to the Afghans ordering them to withdraw, although they claimed to be within their own territory. Upon their refusal an action was fought on the 30th March, in which the Afghans were totally defeated, and the Russians announced the annexation of Penjdeh. For this act General Komaroff and the chief of his staff received swords of honour from the Tzar. The Penjdeh incident and the seizure of the Zulfikar Pass created great excitement in India and England. Active preparations for war were at once made, and Sir Peter Lumsden was ordered back to England, leaving Colonel Ridgway in command of the Commission. Under the supervision of English ojQficers the fortifications and garrison of Herat were greatly strengthened, and the Ameer received supplies of money and ammunition from the Indian Govern- ment. The warlike attitude of England, and the firmness with which the Ameer prepared to resist the invasion of his territories, caused the Russian authorities to assume a more pacific tone. The negotiations for the delimitation of the Afghan frontier were renewed, and it was announced that the two Imperial Governments were in substantial agree- ment upon the boundary-line. The actual negotiations were practically concluded in London, but in November a Russian Commissioner, Colonel Kiihlberg, was deputed to meet Sir J. Ridgway, who had remained on the frontier, and to settle minor difficulties on the spot. The Zulfikar Pass was restored to the Afghans, and they were left in possession of Maruchak, but the Russians retained the district of Penjdeh. The labours of the Commission were not concluded till November 1886. Difficulties in defining the boundary arose from the Russian claim to the head waters of the canals and rivers fertilising the frontier districts. These pretensions were resisted by the Afghans, who endeavoured, in most cases successfully, to establish the river boundaries of the Murghab and Oxus ; but the Russians were able to secure a continuous chain of habitable outposts. In spite of incessant delays and occasional obstructions, the main objects of the expedition were attained, and the Commissioners, on Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 547 their return to India, received the thanks of the Governor- General in Council. In December 1884 Lord Eipon resigned, and was suc- ceeded by Lord DuflFerin. Before the development of these untoward events on the frontier a meeting had been arranged, and took place in April 1885, between Abdul Rahman and the new Viceroy. The Ameer obtained substantial support in arms and ammunition, to resist the Russian aggressions, and his annual subsidy of £120,000 a-year was confirmed. On his return to Cabul he publicly announced his alliance with the British Government. The most notable occurrence of the year 1885 was the annexation of Upper Burmah to the British dominions in India. The misgovernment of King Theebaw had reached a crisis, and to it were added financial difficulties of a serious kind. To free himself from these the king advanced a claim upon the Bombay and Burmah Trading Company for a large sum of money. The company appealed to the Chief Commissioner of British Burmah, but a remonstrance from him was ineffectual, and the king is said to have ordered the arrest of all the employes of the company within Burmese territory. The Viceroy despatched an ultimatum, requiring an explanation of this hostile conduct towards British sub- jects, but no reply was vouchsafed. On the 14th November, therefore, a British force under General Prendergast, with Colonel Sladen as political officer, crossed the frontier, and advanced into the country up the Irawaddy. A slight resistance was offered at one or two fortified posts, but not sufficient to delay the advance of the English flotilla, and on the 27th November the British troops anchored off Ava. King Theebaw surrendered, and General Prendergast entered Mandalay in triumph, and took possession of the defences of the capital. The king and his family were immediately sent to Rangoon, and thence to Madras, and a proclamation was issued for the general disarmament of the country. This measure was afterwards found to be ill advised. Every district immediately swarmed with the disbanded soldiers of the Burmese army. A general outbreak of dacoity was the result, and the authorities found more difficulty in coping with these disturbances than in the first conquest of the country. The annexation to the British Empire of King Theebaw's dominions was formally notified by a procla- mation issued on the 1st January 1886, by the Viceroy in Council. Upper Burmah continued for a considerable time in a 548 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. disturbed state. At the beginning of this year there were three pretenders to the throne, each exercising a nominal authority over certain districts. Several British officers were killed by the bands of dacoits who infested the prov- inces, and an incessant desultory warfare was waged against them. The difficult nature of the country, the dense forests with which it was covered, and the unhealthy climate, ren- dered these operations a long and arduous task. At one time 30,000 regular troops were under arms, and it was found necessary to establish large garrisons in several of the chief towns. One of the important political acts of this year was the restoration, by Lord Dufferin, to Sindia of the fortress of Gwalior, which the British had held since the Mutiny. The continued fall in the value of the rupee began seriously to affect the Budget, in spite of the skill and judgment with which the finances were administered by Sir Evelyn Baring. A bill was brought in and passed to meet the deficiency by direct taxation, — a measure which touched specially the in- comes of the rich. During the last few years, while the trade and commercial prosperity of the country have steadily increased, the financial prospects have been persistently overcast by the depreciation of silver. Since 1885 its value has, with one transient exception in 1890, continually declined, and there are no indications at present that the farthest limit has been reached. It is to this lowering of the money standard, and to the expensive frontier defence works necessitated by the Russian advance, that the em- barrassed state of the finances of India must of late years be attributed. In the following year a Commission of inquiry recommended financial reforms producing a saving of a million and a quarter sterling. But it was found difficult to reduce one of the chief items of expenditure, the Public Works Department, which has for its chief object the welfare of the country. The amount expended on railways is regulated, not only by the return of in- terest on capital, but by the advantage of opening out the country, and preventing famine, by improving the means of communication. The year 1887 was marked by peaceful progress. One of the chief sources of disquietude in Afghanistan was removed by the surrender of Ayoob Khan to the British. Our hold over the country was strengthened by the resumption of the railway works to Quetta, from whence it is proposed to ex- tend them to within 100 miles of Candahar. The Jubilee of Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 549 the Queen's accession was celebrated on the 16th February, and called forth extraordinary manifestations of loyalty and devotion to the throne. Lord Dufferin ably presided over the festivities commemorating the occasion, and several native princes, including Sindia, afterwards came to Eng- land, to be present at the celebration of the same event in June. At the beginning of the year the "National Con- gress," a meeting of native delegates from different parts of India, held its first meeting in Calcutta, and was attended by 350 representatives. The subjects discussed were mostly political, but at a later meeting in Madras social reforms were also considered. In Burmah there was a marked im- provement in the condition of the country since it had come under British rule, owing to the vigorous measures adopted for the suppression of dacoity. Trade revived, roads to open up the different districts were made, the construction of which afforded occupation to many of the restless spirits among the population, and the railway towards Mandalay was pushed on vigorously. Steps were also taken to establish communications with the little known Shan States, lying to the east of Burmah, with the object of bringing them event- ually under a British protectorate. The year 1888 was signalized in Afghanistan by the defeat and overthrow at Tashkargan of the Ameer's cousin, Ishak Khan, who had attempted to seize the government of the province over which he had been appointed deputy. In this and other campaigns Abdul Eahman showed himself a strong and skilful ruler, able to maintain his authority against all who ventured to dispute it. He has gradually consolidated his power, and made himself undisputed master of Afghan- istan as far as Badakhshan. Disputes had long been in progress between the Imperial Government and the secluded country of Tibet, respecting the territory of Sikkim. The dominions of the Rajah of Sikkim lay partly in Tibet, partly in British India, but the Tibetans laid claim to the sovereignty of the whole, and took possession of passes which were undoubtedly on British ground. In March 1888 an Imperial force advanced into the country to comi^el the cession of Lingtu, on the British side of the Himalayas, which the Tibetans had seized. The Eng- lish took up a strong position at Gnatong, from which the enemy found it impossible to dislodge them. Finally they drove the Tibetans down the valley, and pursued them to Chumbi, the residence of the Eajah. Negotiations to adjust the dispute were entered into with China, the acknowledged 550 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. suzerain of the Lamas of Tibet. Throughout the following year, however, the Tibetans refused to relinquish their shadowy claims to Sikkim, which the British Government were equally resolved not to recognize, and our troops con- tinued to occupy the country, A treaty was finally concluded with China, in which the British supremacy was acknow- ledged. A smaller expedition to the Black Mountains, to punish the numerous depredations of the border tribes, and to avenge the murder of two British ofiicers, was also com- pletely successful, and the turbulent mountaineers were re- duced to complete submission. The National Congress of 1888 was held at Allahabad, and included about 1200 dele- gates. At the end of the year Lord Dufferin resigned, amid universal expressions of regret. His administration was dis- tinguished by the settlement of the Anglo-Eussian difficulty, the definition of the Afghan frontier, and the improvement of our relations with Afghanistan, which he had succeeded in converting into a strong and friendly power. On the eastern side of the Empire Upper Burmah had been annexed. In his labours for the welfare of India the Viceroy was seconded by Lady Dufferin, who established a fund in 1885 to provide medical aid for the women of India, and to obtain the services of qualified female doctors, specially for ladies of the upper classes, who were prevented by caste restrictions from seeking ordinary medical aid. In recognition of his distinguished services Lord Dufferin was created Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, on his retirement. He was succeeded by Lord Lansdowne. On the Burmese frontier it was found necessary, in the winter of 1889-90, to organize two expeditions to the Chin- Lushai country, a comparatively barbarous district, on the borders of India and Burmah. During the military opera- tions the country was surveyed, and it was hoped that the march of the British troops would not only put an end to the incessant depredations of these turbulent tribes, but enable roads to be constructed, and open up the province. In the latter object the expeditions were successful, but probably some time will elapse before the warlike mountain- eers are reduced to subjection. In April 1889 the misgovernment of the Maharajah of Cashmere became so intolerable that he abdicated voluntarily. The functions of government were entrusted to a Council of Regency, headed by his brother, and controlled by the British Sect, V.J EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 551 Resident. In this year also the railway on the North-West Frontier, the construction of which had been suspended for a time on the retirement of the British in 1881, was completed at a cost of about 13^ crores of rupees. A line from Pishin through Dera Ismail Khan to Lahore was surveyed in 1890; and the Khojak Tunnel, 12,600 feet long, the cost of which was estimated at half a million sterling, was finished. The frontier defences were also vigorously pushed on, though they were not completed for several years. They include a strongly intrenched position covering the railway terminus, in front of Quetta, where an arsenal has been established; fortified intrenchments at Attock and Rawul Pindi, at the mouth of the Khyber Pass; and an inner line of defence, comprising fortifications at Sukkur, Multan, Ferozepore, Shershah, and Bahawulpur. The great harbours on the coast, Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, and Rangoon, have also been fortified. In pursuance of the same plan of defence, the armies of the native feudatory states have been organized on a more efficient footing, under British supervision. The Indian Congress at Bombay was visited this year by Mr Bradlaugh, the member for Northampton, but interest in it had begun to decline, and in the following year the num- ber of delegates fell from 2000 to 1400. The year 1890 was marked by the visit to India of H.R.H. the late Duke of Clarence, who received a cordial and magnificent reception from all classes ; and by the resignation of the Duke of Con- naught as Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army. He was succeeded by Sir G. Greaves. In the beginning of 1891 it was found necessary to under- take another punitive expedition to the Black Mountains, where the tribes had again begun to give trouble. It was brilliantly carried out under General, afterwards Sir, W. Lockhart. During the spring the different tribes were effec- tually coerced into submission, and by the end of the year the combination against British authority had completely collapsed. Alarm was again excited by the movements of the Russians. A body of Russian troops marched into what is known as the " Pamir district," and Chitral, to the north-east of Afghanistan, and advanced into British Indian and Afghan territory. Two English officers, who were on duty in that part of the country, fell in separately with the Russian force under Colonel Yanoff. One was placed tem- porarily under arrest, and both were escorted by the Russian soldiers out of what their commander styled *' newly acquired 652 ABRIDGMENT OF THE HISTORY OF INDIA [Chap. XV. Russian territory." The Chinese were also compelled by the Russians to withdraw from the Alichur Pamir, over which they claimed the right of sovereignty. It was the first time that Russian troops had been seen south of the Hindu-Koosh range. A disturbance which led to the gravest consequences arose in the small protected State of Manipur, on the borders of Assam and Burmah. In 1890 the Maharajah of Manipur abdicated, and was succeeded by one of his four brothers. The Imperial Government were dissatisfied with the conduct of the new ruler, or the "Jubraj," as he was called, and determined to depose and banish him, Mr Quinton, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, was sent in March 1891, with a body of about 500 native troops, to announce his deposi- tion to the Jubraj, and to arrest him. It was intended to make him prisoner at a durbar held by Mr Quinton the day after his arrival. Some delay occurred in carrying out these plans, the suspicions of the Jubraj were aroused, and he ex- cused himself from the durbar. As he persistently refused to appear, a body of 250 troops were sent to seize him in his palace. They encountered a strenuous opposition from the Jubraj 's army of 6000 men, and during the fight in the streets one of the officers. Lieutenant Brackenbury, was mortally wounded. Notwithstanding the heavy fire with which they were received, the British succeeded in occupying the palace, but the Jubraj had already escaped. Under pre- tence of a parley, Mr Quinton, Mr Grimwood the Resident, Colonel Skene, in command of the troops, and three other British officers, were persuaded to go to the palace without a military escort, and were all barbarously murdered. The Jubraj 's troops now attacked the Residency, to which the small British force, under the command of Captains Butcher and Boileau, had withdrawn. After sustaining a fire of some hours, it was considered impossible to hold the place longer, and the troops, with Mrs Grimwood, the wife of the late Resident, succeeded in effecting their retreat into British territory. Three weeks later a rescue force captured Mani- pur, and took the leaders of the revolt prisoners. The Jubraj and the general who had ordered the massacre of the British officers were put to death, the others were transported for life, and the administration of the State was placed in the hands of an English Resident, until the majority of the newly chosen Rajah, a child belonging to a former royal house. A gallant attempt to relieve Manipur had been made by Lieu- Sect. V.] EPITOME OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS 553 tenant Grant, who with a handful of men threw himself into the fort of Thobal, and held it for some days against 600 Manipuris. For this service he received the Victoria Cross and his majority. In consequence of the inquiry into their conduct during the rebellion at Manipur, Captain Butcher and Captain Boileau resigned their commissions. The Imperial census taken this year showed that the population of the British dominions in India had increased by twenty-two millions. E. M. D. March 27, 1893. INDEX A DAM, Mr., Governor-General ad in- ■^ t&rim, extinguishes the liberty of the press. 347 Adil Shahee dynasty established at Bee- japore, 43 Adisoor, king of Bengal, introduces Brah- mins from Cunouge, 14 Afghan expedition, its progress through the Bolan Pass, its privations, 396. Capture of Ghuzni, 397. It reaches Cabul; flight of Dost Mahomed, 398. Honours to the victors, 399. The army retained, 401. Bala Hissar given up; vicious position of the cantonments, 402. General Nott and Major Rawlin- son at Candahar. 404. The Eastern Ghiljies ; the VV'estern Ghiljies, 405. Court of Directors advise retirement; Lord Auckland determines to remain, and retrench expenditure, 406. Ghil- jies revolt and block up the passes, 407. General revolt in Cabul, 408. Retreat and extinction of the army, 410, 411 Afghanistan, Sir John Lawrence's policy, 529. Lord Mayo's policy, 530 Ahmednugur, the kingdom established, 43. Its capture by Akbar's generals, 60. The kingdom extinguished, 70 Ahmed Shah Abdalee, his first invasion of India; second and third invasions, 133. Gives Delhi up to plunder, 134. His fourth invasion ; defeats Sindia and Holkar, 135. Defeats the great Mah- ratta force at Paniput, 136. Turns liis back on India, 137 ^kbar.his birth at Amercote, 48. Mounts the throne, 50. Defeats Hemu at Pani- put; shakes off the influence of Byram, 51. Insubordination of his generals, 52. They are eventually crushed, and his authority fully established ; matri- monial alliances with Rajpoot prin- cesses, 53. Conquers Guzerat, 54. In- vasion, conquest, loss and recovery of Bengal, 55. Conquest of Orissa and of Cashmere, 56. Of Sinde, and recon- quest of Candahar; his army annihi- lated in the Khyber, 57. He invades the Deccan, 59. Last four years of his life, 60. His death and character, 6L His institutions ; his revenue settle- ment ; splendour of his court, 62 Akbar Khan arrives at Cabul, and takes command of the insurrection, 412. De- feated at Jellalabad, 422. And at Te- zeen, 427 Albuquerque, viceroy of Portuguese India; founds Goa; extends his power over 12,000 miles of sea-coast ; is super- seded and dies, 110 Alexander the Great enters the Punjab ; defeats Porus, 9. Obliged to turn back from the Beyas ; his death, 10 Ali Gohur, son of the emperor, comes down on Patna; retires on the ap- proach of Clive, 153. Becomes em peror under the title of Shah Alum and again marches on Patna; defeated by Captain Knox, 155 Ali Morad of Sinde, his infamous conduct, 433 Ali Merdan, makes over Candahar to the Moguls ; his celebrated canal, 70 Aliverdy Khan, supplants Serefraj at court; defeats him and becomes Soo- badar of Bengal, 145. Long contests with the Mahrattas, to whom he at length cedes Orissa, and agrees to pay chout, 146. His death, 146 Alla-ood-deen, of the Ghiljie dynasty, in- vades the Deccan; puts his uncle to death, 30. Overruns the Deccan, 31. Miserable close of his life ; last of his conquests, 32 Alliwal, victory gained by General Smith, 450 Almeyda burns Dabul ; defeats the Egyp- tian and Guzeratee fleet, 109 Almora, conquered by Colonel Gardner, 316 Aluptugeen establishes the kingdom of Ghuzni, 19 Ameer Khan, head of the Patans in Central India; joins Holkar and plun- ders the country, 260. Is repulsed from Nagpore, 297. Confirmed in his acqui- sitions and breaks up his army, 329 Ameers of Sinde, their severe and unjust 556 INDEX AMH treatment by Lord Auckland, 396. By Sir Charles Napier, 433. Deprived of their kingdom, 435 Imherst, Lord, Governor-General, 346. Engages in the Burmese war, 348. Leaves the finances in a deplorable condition, 356 Andhra dynasty, IS Annexation, the principle of, laid down by the Court of Directors, 477 Anson, General, Commander-in-Chief, dies of cholera, 508 Appa Sahib, regent of Nagpore, 322. Signs a subsidiary treaty, 322. lAlurders the raja, and mounts the throne, 331. Breaks out, and attacks the Residency, and is defeated, 332. Is deposed, 832 Arracan, conquered from the Burmese, 350 Aryans, their origin and progress, 3 Asoka, extent of his dominions; his edicts. 11. Establishes the religion of Booddha ; his death, 12 Assam, conquered from the Burmese, 350 Auckland, Lord, Governor-General, 885. His secretaries, 889. Embarks in the Afghan expedition, 391. It is uni- versally reprobated ; his manifesto, 392. Meeting with Runjeet Sing, 395. His prostration of mind on its failure, 417 Aurungzebe deposes his father and mounts the throne, 74. Puts his brothers to death, 75. Defeated in the Khyber, 83. Persecutes the Hindoos, 84. His conflicts with the Rajpoots, 85. Proceeds to the Deccan with a magnifi- cent army, 87. Defeated in the Concan ; extinguishes the kingdom of Beejapore, 88. And of Golconda, 89. Perpetually harassed by the Mahrattas; his plans to baffle them, 92. Obliged to treat with them; retires in disgrace from the Deccan ; his death and character, 93 Aylah bye, her exemplary administration. "DABER, his Hncestry,44. His early vicis- '*-' situdes, 46. His expeditions across the Indus, 46. Defeats the Emperor Ibrahim at Paiiiput, and establishes the Mogul dynasty, 45. Defeats the Rajpoots; his death and character, 46 Bajee Rao, the first Peshwa; conflicts with the Nizam, 100. Levies contribu- tions on Malwa, 100. His demands on the Emperor ; marches to the gates of Delhi, 102. Defeats the Nizam, 103 Bajee Rao, the last Peshwa; hisperfidious character, 262. Is defeated by Holkar, and flies to Bassein, 262. Executes the treaty of Bassein, 262. Infatuated with his favourite Trimbukjee, .S20. Connives at the murder of Gungadhur Shastree, 320. Surrenders Trimbukjee, wlio escapes from confinement, 321. Bajoe Rao prepares for hostilities, 325. Oblig78. Establishes the Medical College, 379. Character of his administration, 380. Mr. Macaulay's epitaph, 380 Berar, becomes independent, 44. Absorbed by Ahmednugur, 57. Conquered by Lord AVellesley, and partly made over to the Nizam, 270. Taken over for the Nizam's debt, 480 Bhoje raj, 24 Bhurtpore, besieged by Lord Lake, who fails, 274. Doorjun Sal seizes it, and it is captured by Lord Combermere, 356. Disgraceful scenes of plunder by the Commander-in-Chief and others, 356 Burnes, Lieutenant, afterwards Sir Alex- ander, conducts the cart-horses to Run- jeet Sing, 369. His mission to Cabul, 389. Advises that Dost Mahomed be subsi- dized ; Lord Auckland refuses it ; the Russian envoy received, and Burnes re- tires, 391. He is murdered at Cabul, 408 Bird, Mr. R. M., completes the revenue settlement of the N. W. provinces, 373 Black Hole tragedy, 148 Bonaparte lands in Egypt, 244 Booddhism established by Asoka, 11. Its prevalence in the seventh century, 13 Booddha, his birth ; his creed ; his death, 8 Bootan war, 527 Boughton, Mr., cures the emperor's dau- ghter, and obtains privileges for the Company, 139 Braithwaite, Colonel, his memorable com- bat with Hyder. 198 Bullabhi dynasty in Surat, 15 Burmese, the rise of the, and the progress of their conquests, 347. Demand the cession of eastern Bengal, 347. imme- diate cause of the first war, 348. Ar- rangement of the campaign ; disaster at Ramoo, 349. Rangoon captured ; suffer- ings of the army, 350. Assam and Arracan conquered, 350. Second campaign abortive, 351. Third campaign pushed with vigour, and ends in peace, with a large cession of territory, and a crore of rupees, 352. The second war ; the cause of it, 472. Easy capture of Rangoon, 474. Pegu annexed, 475. Comparative cost of the two, 475 Bussy,makes Salabut Jung Soobadar of the Deccan, 126. Defeats the Mahrattas, 126. Obtains the Northern Sircars, 127 ; the Soobadar dismisses him and attacks hini; he regains liis authority, 128. And be- comes supreme arbiter in the Deccan,129. Recalled by Laliy and his power extin- guislied, 129. Returns to India; his services to Tippoo rendered useless by the pea<;o, 202 CHtT /^ABUL. Mr, Mountstuart Elphinstone'a ^ embassy, 293. Lieutenant Burnes's mission, 389. Occupied by a British army, 398. The revolt and siege of the cantonment, 408. The garrison in a state of starvation, 414. The envoy en- veigled and murdered, 414. Evacuated by tlie army, which perishes in the passes, 417. Reoccupied by the army of retribution, 427. The great bazaar blown up, 429. The army retires, 429 ('achar annexed, 361 Calcutta founded by Job Charnock, 141. Surrounded by the Mahratta Ditch, 146. Captured by Suraj-ood-dowlah, 147. Re- covered by Clive, 149 Calicut, the first Indian port visited by Europeans, 107 Campbell, Sir Colin, (afterwards Lord Clyde) relieves Sir James Outram at Lucknow, 512. He captures the town, 517 Canals in the Punjab constructed by General Napier, 472. Sir John Law- rence's minute on canals, 529 Canning, Mr. George, President of the Board of Control, refuses and then grants permission to root out the Pindarees, 32.i. Moves thanks to Lord Hastings, 337 Canning, Lord, Governor-General, 489. Memorable character of his administra- tion, 490 ; his energetic movements on the outbreak of the mutiny, 497. His Oude proclamation, 517. Becomes the first Viceroy, 522. His retirement and death, 526 Carnatic, struggles for the nabobship, 129 ; Mahomed Ali, Soobadar ; his misrule, 165. Its deplorable condition, 250. Lord "Wellesley mediatizes the nabob, and pensions the family, 251. The title, and privileges of the nabob extinguished, 479 Cashmere conquered by Akbar and be- comes his summer residence, 56. Trans- ferred for a crore of rupees by LordHar- dinge to Golab Sing, 453 Central India desolated for twelve years by the abandonment of Lord Wellesley's policy, 318. Lord Hastings reverts to that policy and restores peace, 327 Chalukya dynasty in the Deccan, 16 Chand Sultana of Ahmednugur, the favou- rite heroine of the Deccan, 59. Her de- fence of Ahmednugur ; her tragic death, 60 Cheyt Sing, raja of Benares ; Hastings's demands on him; fille.^ the raja for evad- ing them, 207; posts a guard at his palace which is murdered by the populace. Has- tings's extreme danger ; he escapes to Chunar, 208. The raja collects an army and is defeated, 208 Ohillianwalla, battle of, 464 Chittore,raja of,rejects all Mogul alliances ; encourages Akbar's enemies, 63. Hia capital captured, 53 Chola dynasty in the Deccan, 16 Cholera, first outbreak in 1817, 329 Chundra-gooptu, king of Mugudu, encoun- 558 INDEX cu ters Seleucus and makes a treaty with him, 10 Clive, Lieutenant, (afterwards Lord) his parentage, and early career at Madras, 122. Memorable defence of Arcot, 123. Captures Geriah near Bombay, 149. Returns to Madras ; proceeds with Ad- miral Watson to Bengal, and recap- tures Calcutta, 149. Defeats the nabob at Dumdum, 150. Concludes a treaty with him, 150. Captures Chandernagore, 150. Joins the confederacy against the nabob, 151. Defeats him at Plassy, 151. Makes Meer Jaffier nabob, 152. His part in the deceit practised on Omichuud, 151. Defeats the Dutch army at Chin- surah, 154. Returns to England, 154. Appointed Governor of Bengal, 160. Finds the whole service corrupt, and enforces the covenants, 161. Mediatizes the nabob of Moorshedabad ; restores Oude to the nabob ; settles Corah and Allahabad on the emperor, together with 26 lacs of rupees, 161. Acquires the De- wanee, 161. Puts down the mutiny of the European officers, 163. Returns to England; his disgraceful treatment; dies by his own hand, 164 Cole insurrection, 360 College of Fort William, established on a grand scale by Lord Wellesley ; reduced by the Court of Directors, 257 Confederacy of the Peshwa, the Nizam, the raja of Nagpore and Hyder Ali against the Company, 189 Coorg, misconduct of the raja; the country conquered and annexed, 362 Coote, Colonel, (afterwards Sir Eyre) de- feats Lally at Wandewash. 131. Captures Pondicherry, 132. Appointed to Council in Calcutta; goes to Madras and defeats Hyder thrice, 197. His death, 202 Oornwallis, Lord, Governor-General, as well as Commander-in-Chief, 216. His economical reforms; he raises the scale of allowances and purifies the services, 217. His revenue reforms, 225. His Perma- nent Settlement determined on by Mr. Pitt, an egregious blunder, 227. Re- models the whole judicial system ; reor- ganizes the civil and criminal courts,227. His Code, 228. Excludes natives from the public service, 229. Determines to meet Tippoo in the field, 219. Forms al- liances with the Peshwa and the Nizam, 220. Conducts the second campaign against Tippoo in person ; obliged to re- tire in sight of Seringapatam for want of provisions, 221. Grand preparations for the third campaign, 222. Marches to Seringapatam, and makes a night attack on Tippoo's defences, 223. Tippoo sues for peace, which is granted on severe terras, 223 Cotton, influx of wealth from the export of, 627 Currency, the issue of notes from the banks of the three Presidencies discon- tinued. A State issue of bank notes, 526 Ounouge; its magniflcence; conquered DTJM by Mahmood of Ghuzni, 21. Despoiled by Mahomed Ghory, 26 Cuttack, ceded to the Mahrattas, 146 Conquered from them by Lord Welles- ley, 269. Disturbances created by op- pressive landlords and oppressive laws, 339. Tranquillity restored by justice, 340. Desolating famine of 1866, 528 "TkALHOUSIE, Lord, Govern or- General, ^' 457. Outbreak at Mooltan, 458. Pro- ceeds to the north-west, 461. After the victory of Guzerat annexes the Punjab, 469. His excellent arrangements for its government, 470. Drawn into a war with Burmah, 473. His admirable orga- nisation of the expedition, 474. Pro- ceeds in person to Rangoon to quicken General Godwin, 475. Annexes Pegu, 475. Annexes Satara, 476. And Nag- pore, 477. And Jhansi, 478. Sanctions the extinction of the royal title and pri- vileges of the nabob of the Carnatic, 479. Settles all difficulties with the Nizam, 480. Ordered from home to incorporate Oude, 483, His administrative reforms ; cheap and uniform postage, 484. The Granges Canal, 484. Railroads, and his great minute, 485. The electric tele- graph, 487. Character of his adminis- tration, 487. His premature death, 487 Darius, his conquests in India, 9 Deccan, its early history, 15. First inva- sion by the Mahomedans, 30. The greater part subdued by them, 32. Lost to the Crown of Delhi, 36. Rise of the Bahrainee kingdom, 42. its greatest minister Mahomed Gawan, 4!}. It is broken up and five kingdoms estab- blished, 43. Incessant wars between them, 41. Completely conquered by Aurungzebe, succeeded by universal anarchy, 89. Peace and tranquillity res- tored by Lord Wellesley, 247 Delhi, the Hindoo king of, 20. Becomes the Mahomedan capital, 27. Captured and plundered by Timur, 37. The new city, built by Shah Jehan, 74. Plun- dered by Nadir Shah, 105. Amount of booty carried away, 106. Plundered by the Abdalee, 134. Lord Lake enters it, 268. Besieged by Holkar, defended b^ Colonel Ochterlony, 273. Occupied by the insurgent sepoys, 496. Protracted siege and capture of it, 510 Dewanee of the three Soobahs granted to Clive by the emperor, 161 Doondhoo Punt, the Nana Sahib, leads the revolt at Cawnpore, 501. Chased out of India, and dies in Nepal, 518 Dost Mahomed, Lord Auckland dethrones him, 398. He flies to Bokhara, 398. Returns to Afghanistan and defeats English troops, and surrenders, 403. Restored to liberty, 431. Joins the Sikhs, 461. His army chased out of the Punjab, 468 Dumas, Governor of Pondicherry, en- larges French power ; creates a sepoy INDEX 559 DTTP army ; baffles the Mahratta general, and is created a nabob, 113 Dupleix, his great genius; builds up Chaudernagore ; governor of Pondi- clierry ; assumes oriental state, 114. His vast ambition ; espouses the cause of Cliunda Sahib, and makes him nabob of the Carnatic. 118. Receives Mozuffer Jung with great pomp, 119. He is at the height of his glory, 122. Superseded by his Company, and returns to Paris, 125. His disgraceful treatment and end, 125. pAST INDIA COMPANY incorporated by Queen Elizabeth ; their first enter- g rises, 138. Their establishments at [adras, Bombay, and Bengal, 139. They make war on the emperor, and are obliged to retire, 140. All their establishments in Bengal abandoned, 141. They are invited back and build Calcutta, and fortify it, 142. A rival Company established in London, its disastrous results, 142. The two Com- Eanies united, 14Ji. Send an embassy to lellii, and obtain privileges wliich are nullified by Moorshed Kooly Khan, 144. Loss of Calcutta, and their estab- lishments extinguished in Bengal, 147. Regain their power, and make a nabob of their own, 152. Acquire the Dewa- nee, 161. Gross abuses of their Govern- ment and interference of Parliament, 173. The Regulating Act. 174. Placed under the Board of Control, 213. Char- ter of 1793, 233. Charter of 1813, and loss of their Indian monopoly, 309. Charter of 1833 and loss of China trade ; exist only as a political agency, 380. Charter of 1863 ; its modifications, 488. Their power and possessions trans- ferred to the Crown, 520; their local army extinguished, as well as their navy, 524 Edwardes, Lt., raises a force and defeats Moolraj, 460. His great energy and services during the mutiny, 498 Electric telegraph established, 486 Elgin, Lord, Governor-General ; his death, 526 EUenborough, Lord, Governor-General, 419. His first proclamation, 423. His subsequent vacillations; recalls the troops from Afghanistan and then orders them to advance, 425. His jubi- lant proclamation, 429. His eccentric proclamation of the gates, 430. As- sembles a large army at Ferozepore, 431. Annexes Sinde, 435. Is present at the battle of Maharajpore, 440. The muti- nous army of Gwalior extinguished, 440. He is recalled; character of his admin- istration, 441 Elphinstone, General, in command at Cabul ; his utter incompetence results in the ruin of the army, 409 Elphinstone, Mr. Mount Stuart, his em- bassy to Cabul, 293. Twice oflered the Govemor-Gteneralship and decline b it 382 England, (General, repulsed at Hykulzy^ 423 "PEROKSHEBE, emperor, in bondage to -•- the Syuds; grants privileges to the Compmy, 144. Disallows the concession made to the Mahrattas by one of the Syuds, who marches to Delhi and murders him, 98 Ferozeshuhur, the battle of, 448 Fox's India Bill ; its provisions ; rejected by the House of Lords, 212 Francis, Mr., his violent opposition to Mr. Hastings, 178. The duel, 181 Franks, General, conquers the southern portion of Oude, 516 French, the, arrive in India ; found Pondi- cherry, 112. War with the English, 114. Become supreme in the Carnatic, 121. And at Hyderabad, 129. Lose Chauder- nagore, and all power in Bengal, 150. Pondicherry captured and their power in the Deccan extinguished, 132 Fullerton, Col., his successful expedition frustrated by the Madras Council, 203 (:^HAZEE-OOD-DEEN blinds the em- ^ peror and deposes him, 134 Ghiliie dynasty, 30 Gholam Kadir plunders Delhi and blinds the emperor; captured by Sindia and hacked to pieces, 230 Ghore dynasty, 23 Ghuzni becomes independent, 19. Pil- laged by Alla-ood-deen, 24. Extinction of the dynasty, 24. Taken by the English, 397. The fortifications blown up, 427 Jillei Gillespie, General, quells the Vellore mutiny, 286. Captures Fort Cornells, 303. Killed at Kalunga, 314 Goddard, General, his expedition across the Continent, 187. His treaty with the Gaikwar, 187. Captures Ahmeda- bad, chases Sindia and Holkar, 188. His unsuccessful expedition to Poena, 189 Golconda, becomes an independent king- dom, 34. Absorbs the Hindoo state of Telingana, 57. The celebrated minister Meer Joomla, 71. The capital taken by treachery, 89. The dynasty extin- guished, 89 Gough, Sir Hujih, (afterwards Lore Gough), defeats the Mahrattas at Maha raj pore, 440. Battles of Moodkee, 447 And Ferozeshuhur, 448. Engagement at Ramnuggur, 462. Battle of Chillian- walia ; he is recalled, 465. Victory at Guzerat, 467 Gour, destruction of the city, 56 Guzerat, becomes an independent king- dom, 39. Occupied by Humayoon; annexed to the empire by Akbar, 40 Guntoor Sircar, proceedini^s of the Madras Council regarding it, 193 Ihe 660 INDEX OWA Nizam surrenders it to Lord Corn- wallis, 218. Plundered by the Pindarees, 322 Gwalior, taken by Captain Popham, 188. Advance of Sir Hugh Gough to it in 18^, 439. Occupied by Tantia Topee and recovered by Sir Hugh Rose, 515 pjALP BATTA order enforced by Lord ^ W. Bentinck, 358 HalHday, Sir Frederick, secretary to the Government of Bengal ; its first Lieu- tenant-Governor, 489 Hamilton, Mr., the surgeon, cures the em- peror and obtains privileges for the Company, 144 Hardinge, Sir Henry, Governor-General ; his antecedents, 442. Fights four battles with the Sikhs, 453. Restores the Punjab, 453. Raised to the peerage, 454. Disposes of Cashmere to Golab Sing, 453. Reduces the army, 455. His movable brigades, 456. His civil im- provements, 456 Harris, General, his Mysore campaign, 246 Hastings, "Warren, his early career; ap- pointed member of Council at Madras; Governor of Bengal, 175. His vigorous reforms, 176. Engages in the Rohilla war, 176. Sells Corah and Allahabad to the nabob of Oude, 176. Appointed Governor-General, and bullied by his colleagues, 177. The case of Nunkoo- mar, 179. His energetic conduct on the destruction of Baillie's detachment, 196. Fights a duel with Mr. Francis, 181. His harsh conduct towards Cheyt Sing; he escapes to Chunar, 208. Con- sents to the plunder of the Begums, 209. Returns to England, 210. His recep- tion, 210. His impeachment; his ac- quittal ; the ruin of his finances, 211. His character, 211 Hastings, Lord, Governor-General: his antecedents, 310. Forced into a war with the Nepaulese ; obtains two loans from the nabob of Oude, 313. Subsidiary treaty with Nagpore, 322. Takes the field against the Pindarees; their com- Slete destruction, 334, War with the lahrattas, 328. Grand result of the Mahratta and Pindaree war, 834. His alliances with the native princes in Hindostan, 327 Ungracious thanks of Parliament, 337. Hostility of the Directors to him, 337. His encourage- ment of education, 338. His liberality to the press, 339. Affairs of Palmer and Co. at Hyderabad, 342. Financial pros- gerity, and territorial increase during is administration. 340. His unfortunate association with Palmer and Co. at Hyderabad, 343. Condemned by the India House, 345. "Ungrateful return for his services, 345 Havel ock. General, sent to command the movable column at Allahabad; his numerical force, 604. Defeats the muti- HTD neers at Futtehpore, at Onao, at Pandoo- nuddee, and at Cawnpore, 505. Crosses the Ganges to relieve Lucknow ; beats the enemy at Aong; falls back to Munglewar, 506. Again advances into Oude; defeats the sepoys, and returns to Cawnpore ; advances to Lucknow a third time with Sir James Outram, and relieves the besieged garrison, 507. Dies at Lucknow, 512 Herat, description of the country, 393. The city besieged by the king of Persia; defended by Lt. Pottinger; the siege raised, 394. Major Todd, envoy ; obliged to withdraw the mission, 404 Heytsbury, Lord, sworn in as Governor- General ; the appointment cancelled, 382 High courts established, 525 Hindoo College established, 338 Hindoostan, its boundaries, 1. Its state on the invasion of Mahomed Ghory, 24. And on the invasion of Baber, 45 Holkar, rise of the family, 101. Mulhar Rao, defeated by the Abdalee, 135. Sustains a crushing defeat by Sindia's army, 261. Admirable administration of Aylah bye, 260 Holkar Jeswunt Rao, his proceedings, 260. Joined by Ameer Khan and plunders Malwa, 261. Defeats Sindia's army, 261. Is defeated by Sindia's general, 261, Marches to Poena, and beats the Peshwa and Sindia, and occupies Poona, 262. His wild proceedings and insolent de- mands, 27 1 . Lord Wellesley declares war against him, 272. He compels Colonel Monson to retreat. 273. Besieges Delhi and obliged to retire, 273. Plunders the Dooab, 273. Defeated at Deeg, 274. Chased by Lord Lake into the Punjab, and sues for peace ; disreputable treaty made by Sir George Barlow, 282. He Slunders the Punjab, Jeypore and oondee, 283. State of affairs at Indore, 1811-17, 326. The army marches down to join the Peshwa, and is defeated at Mehidpore ; treaty of peace, 333 Holland, Governor of Madras; his gross misconduct ; deserts his post, 219 Hope, Brigadier, the Hon. Adrian, killed, 518 Hnmayoon, Emperor ; cedes the Trans- Indus provinces to his brother ; defeats Bahadoor Shah of Guzerat, 47. Is defeated and expelled from India by Shere Shah, 48. His wanderings and adventures, 48. Recrosses the Indus; recovers his throne, and dies, 50 Hyderabad, the contingent, 341. Mal- administration of Chundoo Lall, 342, Palmer and Co. make advances, and become a power in the State, 342. Their debt paid off, 344. Districts assigned for the pay of the contingent, 480 Hyder Ali, his rise and progress; his Ignorance of letters; his first distinction; deposes the raja of Mysore, and takes possession of the government, 166. I Acquires rich booty at Bednore, 167 INDEX 561 Joins til J Nizam against the English ; is tlefeated by Colonel Smith, 170. Recovers his losses, and dictates peace under the walls of Madras, 171. Defeated at Mil- gota by the Mahrattas ; besieged five weeks; makes peace with them, and cedes much territory, 172. Joins the confede- racy against the English, 194. Bursts on the Carnatic, 195. Annihilates Colonel Baillie's force, 196. Thrice defeated by Sir Eyre Coote, 197. His death, 201 TBRAHIM, Adil Shah; his magnificent ■*- buildings at Beejapore, 89 Ibrahim of Jounpore, the extraordinary number and magnificence of his edifices, 38 Imad Shahee dynasty established atBerar, 44 Impey, Sir Elijah, appointed chief of the Sudder Court, 207. Great advantages of his service, 207 India, its boundaries, divisions, area and population ; early history and chrono- logy, 1, 2. Its aborigines, 3. The period of its greatest literary eminence, 13. Its state at the period of Mahomed Ghory, 24. Of Baber's invasions, 46. Of Nadir Shah's irruption.l 05. Of Lord Wellesley's advent, 239. On the arrival of Lord Hastings, 311 Indigo disturbances, 524 IstalifiF captured, 429 JAVA strengthened by Napoleon, 302. " Conquered by Lord Minto, 303 Jehander Shah, killed by Ferokshere, 96 Jehangeer succeeds Akbar on the throne ; his cruelty, 63. His marriage with Noor Jehan ; her character and influ- ence, 64. Failure of his expeditions to the Deccan, 65. Extinguishes Oody- pore, 65. Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to his court, 65. Is seized by his general Mohabet ; rescued by Noor Jehan and dies, 68 Jehan Lodi, revolts in the Deccan; his death, 69 Jellalabad, fortified by General Sale, 420. Visited with a succession of earthquakes, 421. Relieved by General Pollock, 422 Jenghis Khan desolates Central Asia, 28 Jeypore, Ameer Khan invades it ; inter- vention of the Governor-General; the raja refuses a subsidiary alliance, 323. And accepts it, 328 Jhansi annexed by Lord Dalhousie, 478. The ranee recovers it during the mutiny; she massacres the Europeans, 513. Her martial character and her death, 515 Jounpore, an independent kingdom ; Ibrahim its greatest monarch ; extinc- tion of the kingdom. 38 TTAFOOR MALIK, the general of Alla- -'^ ood-deen, conquers Warungul and the Carnatic, 31. Ravages the Deccan ; his infamous conduct and death, 32 Kala-pahar, a converted Hindoo, conquers Orissa, and persecutes the Hindoos, 56 Kesari dynasty in Orissa, 17 Khiva, a Russian army sent against it, and obliged to retire, 401 Khyberees, annihilate Akbar's army, 57 Kolapore, a Jlahratta principality, the rival of Satara, sinks into insignificance, 101 Kooroos, their struggles with the Pan- doos, 5 Kootub-ood-deen Eibuck establishes the slave dynasty ; makes Delhi his capital, 27 Kootub Shahee dynasty established at Golconda, 44 Korygaum, battle of, 335 T ABOURDONNAIS, his improvements -'-' at the Mauritius; arrives at Pondi- cherry with a fleet ; indecisive action with the English, 115. Captures Madras; his dissensions with Dupleix, 1 ' 6. Returns to Paris ; thrown into the Eastile and dies, 116 Lake, General (afterwards Lord) , captures Allygurh, 267. Beats Sindia before I at Laswaree, 269. Capti: Deeg ; besieges Bhurtpore and fails, 274. lyg' Jlhi Pursues Holkar into the Punjab, 281 Lall Sing, paramour of the ranee, prime minister at Lahore, 445. Deposed for treachery and banished, 454 Lally, governor of Pondicherry, 130. Cap- tures St. David, loO. Assails Tanjore and retires, 130. Lays siege to Madras and fails, 131. Recalls Bussy, 129. De- feated by Colonel Coote at Wandewash, 131. Besieged in Pondicherry, and obliged to surrender; returns to Paris; tried and beheaded, 132 Lawrence, Major Stringer, engaged two years in the siege of Trichinopoly ; obliges the French to surrender, 123. Defends Madras, 131 Lawrence, Sir Henry, resident at Lahore, 455. Puts down opposition at Cash- mere, 454. Commisioner in Oude, un- able to stem the revolt, 500. Disaster at Chinhut, 500. Killed by the bursting of a shell, 501 Lawrence, Sir John (afterwards Lord Lawrence), head of the Lahore admini- stration, 497. His extraordinary energy during the mutiny, 499. Enlists Sikh regiments for the siege of Delhi, 509. His opinion of the mutiny, 519. Ap- pointed Governor-General, 527. His policy in the contest in Afghanistan, 529. His minute on canals, 529 Littler, Sir John, his position at Loodiana and Ferozeshuhur, 448 Lodi dynasty seated on the Delhi throne, 38. Ibrahim, the last of the princes, alienates his nobles who invite Baber. 39 O O 662 INDEX TV/TACARTNEY, Lord, governor of Ma- ■^"- dras, 198. Contrary to his instruc- tions negotiates with Tippoo, 204. Re- fused the Governor-Generalsliip, 215 Macaulay, Mr., his inscription on the statue of Lord W'ilHam Bentinck, 380. He gives a I'atal blow to orientahsm, 378. His penal code, 525 Macnaughten, Mr. W. (afterwards Sir WiUiam), envoy with Shah Soojah, 395. His treaty with the Afghans, 412. In- veigled by Akbar Khan and murdered, 414 Macpherson, Sir John, Governor-General ad interim ; his economical reforms, 215 Madras, its foundation, its growth, 139. Captured by Labourdonnais, 116. Re- stored at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 117. Besieged by Lally without success, 130. The governor Mr. Palk's disgrace- ful treaty with the Nizam, 169. Drawn into a war with Hyder which is mis- managed, when he dictates peace, 171. Demoralised by dealing in the nabob's debts, 213. War witli Hyder, 194. A desolating famine, 200. Disresputable treaty with Tippoo, 204. Mutiny of European officers, i97 Maharajpore, l)aitlo of, 440 Mahmood of Ghuzni, invades India ; con- ducts twelve expeditions ; his expedition to Mooltan, to Nagarcote, to Thanesur, 20. To Cunouge.and Somnath,21. His death and character, 22 Mahomed, his birth ; establishes his creed in Arabia, 18 Mahomedanism, its rapid conquests, 18 Mahomed Ali, nabob of the Carnatic; his cause espoused by the Madras authori- ties, 124. Urges the spoliation of Tan- jore, 165. His debts the source of de- moralisation at Madras ; the shameless proceedings connected with them, 213. Paid off without enquiry by Mr. Dun- das, 214 Mahomed Ghory, founder of Mahomedan greatness in India, 24. Demolishes Hindoo power in Hindostan, 26. His death and character, 27 Maliomed Shah of Guzerat, his brilliant reign of forty years, ;}9. Creates a navy, his conflicts with the Portuguese, 40 Mahomed Shah, emperor of Delhi, defeated by Nadir Shah, but restored to the throne, 105. His death, 133 Mahrattas, description of the country; their rise and progress, 76. Their military power, 77. Their greatness created by Sevajee, 77. Only a vestige of their em- pire left in 1689, 91. The regent Ram- raj retires to Tanjore;new system of exactions, 91, Comparison of their armies with those of the Mogul, 92. They baffle and pursue Aurungzebe, 93. Discord among them ; the rival houses of Satara and Kolapore, 94. They invade Bengal, and obtain the cession of Orissa, 146. They march to the Indus, 134. Obtain large cessions of territory from ilie Nizam; they are at the zenith of their power, 135. Totally defeated at Paniput, 137. Renew their expeditiont to Hindostan, and plunder the RajpootB the Jauts, and the Rohillas, 172. Re- called to Poona, 173. Defeated by the English under Colonel Keating, 183. Con- clude the treaty of Poorundur with Col. Upton, 184. Bombay Council send an expedition to Poona, which fails; con- vention of ^^ urgaum, 186. Treaty of Sal- bye, 190. Defeat the Nizam at Kurdla, 235. Join Lord Cornwallis in the war with Tippoo, 220. Treaty of Bassein,263. War with the English ; Sindia and the Nagpore raja totally defeated ; large por- tions of their dominions annexed, 270. War with the English in 1817, 328. Their power completely annihilated, 835. Mahratta ditch at Calcutta, 146 Malik Amber the great statesman and general of Ahmednugur, 65. His death, 69 Malwa, kingdom of, established by Dilawur Khan, 86. Brilliant reign of Mahomed Ghiljie; ecct-ntricities of his son, 41. Annexed to Guzerat, 41. Conquered by tiie Mahrattas and divided between Sindia and Holkar, 101 Martin, M.,the earliest of French colonists; his extraordinary energy, 112 Mauritius, the, occupied by the French, 112. Great depredations of its privateers, 301. Captuied by Lord Minto, 301 Mayo, Lord, Governor-General, his Afghan policy, 530. His state railways; his popularity, and tragic death, 530 Medows, Gen., his abortive campaign in Mysore, 220 Meer Cossim, created nabob of Bengal, his vigorous administration, makes Monghyr his capital ; creates an army, 156. Disputes about the transit duties with the Council ; tlieir base conduct, » 157. They declare war with him ; he is defeated and flies, after massacring all his European prisoners, 158 Meer JafBer, made nabob, 152. Is deposed, 156. Made nabob a second time; his death, 159 Meer Joomla's expedition to Assam ; its failure, his death, 70 Meerun, son of iMeer Jaflier, puts Suraj- ood-dowlah to death, 152 Metcalfe, Mr. (subsequently Sir Charles), his successful mission to Lahore. 293 His minute respecting Bhurtpore, 366. Nominated Governor-General by the Court of Directors, rejected by the Min- istry, 382. First Governor of Agra, 383 Officiating Governor-General,establishe» the liberty of the press, which is dis- pleasing to the Directors, and he resigrs the service, 381. Governor of Canada and Jamaica, 384 Mysore, a principality created for the old dynasty by Lord Wellesley, 248. The in- corrigible conduct of the raja creates a revolt: quelled by British troops, 363, Lord W. Bentinck takes over the adniir INDEX 563 nistration, 368. It is restored to his adopted son, 529 Minto, Lord, Governor-General, his ante- cedents, 288. He extinguishes anarchy in Bundlecund. 290. Arrests the pro- gress of Runjeet Sing, 293. Sends an embassy to Cabul,293. And to Persia, 294. Interferes for tlie protection of the raja of Nagpore, 296. Proceeds to Madras on the mutiny of the European officers, 299. Captures Bourbon and the Mauritius, 301. Puts down piracy in the Arabian seas, 300. Accompanies the expedition to Java, which is conquered, 303. His earnest representation to the Court for the suppression of the Findarees, 306. He is superseded ; merits of his administration, 307 Mogul dynasty, established by Baber, 44 Montgomery, Mr. Robert, member of the board of administration, 470. Disarms the mutinous sepoys at Lahore, 498 Moodkee, battle of, 447 Mooltan, Moolraj, succeeds his father as governor, 458. Murders two English officers and revolts, 458. Defeated by Lieutenant Edwardes, 459. Shut up in Mooltan and besieged by General Whish, 460. Joined by Shere Sing and the siege raised, 460. General Whish, reinforced, renews the siege; brave de- fence by Moolraj ; capture of the city, 466. Moolraj condemned to imprison- ment and dies, 469 Monson, Colonel, his disastrous retreat, 273 Moorshed Kooly Khan, appointed sooba- dar of Bengal. Pounds the city of Moorshedabad ; encourages native trade and discourages that of the Company, 143. His prosperous administration, and death, 145 Mutiny of the European officers, the first, in 176?, 163. The second, in 1795, 236. The third, hi 1810, 298 Mutiny of the sepoys in 1764, 159. At Vellore, 285- Of the 47th at Barrack- pore, 853. Of the native regiments in 1843-44, 436. Of the 38th in 1852, 523 Mutiny of 1857, the last and greatest ; the greased cartridges the immediate cause of it, fill the sepoys with terror and in- dignation, 492. They reject all expla- nation ; every regiment in Hindostan filled with a hostile feeling, 493. The paucity of European troops furnishes the opportunity, 493. The 84th Queen's brought round from Rangoon, and the 19th disarmed, 493. Outbreak of the regiments at Meerut, 10th May ; massacre of Europeans, 495. Disgraceful supine- ness of General Hewitt in coujmand, 495. The mutineers proceed, unpursued, to Delhi ; the regiments there fraternise with them, and massacre the Euro- peans, and set up a Mogul throne, 496. Sepoys disarmed at Lahore, and at other stations in the Punjab. 498. Revolt of all the regiments between the Sutlej and Allahabad, 499. Revolt of the regi- n-ents in Oude, 500 The Residency besieged for twelve weeks, 501. Re- volt of the regiments at Cawnpore, 501. The entrenchment invested for three weeks ; the Genera! surrenders ; massa- cre of the Europeans at the ghaut, 502. General Havelock repeatedly beats the sepoys and retakes Cawnpore; atro- cious murder of the women and children by the Nana, 505. General Havelock twice endeavours to march to the relief of Lucknow, but is unable, 506. He and Sir James Outram advance again with success, 507. The siege of Delhi protracted for three months, and the city captured after six days' fighting, 510. Sir James Outram and Havelock are besieged in Lucknow, 511. Relieved by Sir Colin Campbell, 512. Campaign against the sepoys in Central India, 613. Relief of Dhar and Saugor, 513. Capture of Jhansi, 513. Escape of the ranee, 514. Battle of Koonch, 514. Capture of Calpee, 514. Total defeat of the rebels, 514. They reassemble at Gwalior ; flight of Sindia, 515. The rebels defeated, and the mutiny quenched in Central India, 515. Confiscation and restoration of the land in Oude, 517. Operations in Rohilcund, 518. Peace proclaimed, 519. Cause of the mutiny, 520 Mugudu, the kingdom established, 10. its grandeur, 11 Muhabharut, the, its legend, 4 Munoo, his code, 7 Muttra, its magnificent temples plundered by Mahmood o: Ghuzni, 21 Mysore, the throne usurped by Hyder Ali, 166. Bequeathed to his son, 201. Con- quered and partitioned by Lord Welles- ley, 248. A portion given to the old family as a personal boon, 248. Mis- conduct of the raja and assumption of the government by Lord W. Bentinck, 362. The raja adopts a son, who is acknowledged as his heir, 529 "^ADIR SHAH, his antecedents ; invades -^^ Afghanistan ; overruns the Punjab ; captures and plunders Delhi, and re- tires with thirty-two crores of rupees, 105 Nagpore, the raja gains Orissa, 146. Con- federates with Sindia against the Com- pany, 263. Defeated at Argaum, 269. Signs the treaty of Deogaum, and cedes Orissa and Berar, 270. Appa Sahib, raja, 822. Attacks the Residency, and is defeated, 332. The kingdom restored, 832. Annexed on the total failure of heirs, 477 Nana Purnavese, the Mahratta Machia- velli, his extraordinary genius, 236. His death, and its consequences, 259 Nana Sahib (Doondhoo Punt), foments the spirit of revolt, 501. Massacres all the Europeans, men, women, and children, 564 INDEX NAP 602. Defeated at Cawnpore, 50C. Chased into Nepaul and dies, 518 Napier, Brigadier, his improvements in the Punjab, 471. His brilliant charge of the rebels, 515 Napier, Sir Charles, receives the supreme control in Sinde, 431. His violent pro- ceedings, 432. Captures Emamgurh, 433. Defeats the Beloches at Meeanee, and Duppa, 435 Napoleon lands in Egypt, 244. Sends a large armament to India on the Peace of Amiens, 253 Natives excluded from office by Lord Cornwallis, 228. Admitted by Lord William Bentinck, 373 Nazir Jung, soobadar of the Deccan, marches to the Carnatic, 120. His cause espoused by the English, 121. He is defeated by Bussy and killed by the nabob of Cuddapa, 121 Neill, Colonel, his gallant conduct at Benares, 503. Saves the fort of Allahabad, 504. Marches with Outram and Havelock to Lucknow, and killed, 508 Nepaul, description of it, 311. Rise and progress of the Goorkhas, 311. Their extensive conquests, 312. Encroachment on British territory, 312. Lord Minto fails to effect a settlement, 312. They resolve on war, 313. Plan of the cam- paign; failure of three divisions, 314. General Ochterlony's masterly tactics ; obliges the court to sue for peace; a treaty concluded but not ratified, 317. Second campaign; General Ochterlony beats the Nepaulese, and a treaty is con- cluded, 317. Jung Bahadoor marches with an army to put down the mutineers, 616 Nicholson, Brigadier, arrives with his movable column before Delhi; the homage paid to his genius and valour ; leads the assault and is killed, 510 Nizam-ool-moolk (Cheen Killich Khan) viceroy of the Deccan 96. Leaves Delhi in disgust, and becomes independent at Hyderabad, 99. Entreated by the emperor to save the empire from the Mahrattas, but is defeated by them, 103. Nizam Ali, his son, assassinates his brother Salabut Jung, and ascends the throne of Hyderabad, 165. Makes a treaty with the Madras Council in 1766, 166. Joins Hyder in attacking the English, and is repeatedly defeated, 168. Makes another treaty, 169. Promotes a confederacy against the English ; neutralized by Mr. Hastings, 193. Joins Lord Cornwallis in the war with Tippoo, 220 ; and obtains territory, 222. Totally defeated by the Mahrattas at Kurdla, 235. Dismisses his French force, 243. Joins Lord Wellesley in the war with Tippoo, 246. Cedes the territory he acquired in the two wars, 249. Disputes about the pay of the contingent settled by Lord Dalhousie, 480 Noor Jehan, her origin, married to Jehan- geer; her magnificent court, 64. Hei hostility to Mohabet, who seizes the emperor, whom she rescues, 67. Loses her power on the death of Jehangeer, 68 Northern Sircars granted to Bussy, 127, Granted to the Company by the em- peror, 165. Madras Council agree to pay tribute for them to the Nizam, 166 Nott, General, his conflicts at Candahar, 405. Advances to Cabul ; brings away the sandal- wood gates and Mahmood's mace from Ghuzni and blows up the fortifications, 427 Nunkoomar's charges against Hastings; accused of forgery by a native, tried, convicted, and hung, 180 fiCHTERLONY, Colonel (afterwards ^^ Sir David), his defence of Delhi, 273. His successful campaign in Nepaul, 316. His second campaign terminates in peace, S17. His orders to assemble an army to resist Doorjun Sal of Bhurt- pore countermanded, and he dies of a broken heart, 3.'>4 Oodypore, throne filled by Rana Sanga, 41. Its independence virtually extin- guished. 65. Orissa, its early history, 16. Booddhist for seven centuries ; Hindoo dynasties of the Kesaris, and Gunga-buiigsa, 55. Conquered by the king of Bengal and annexed to the empire, 56. Ceded to the Mahrattas, 146. Annexed to the Company's dominions, 270. Desolating famine, 628 Oude, Saadut Ali, soobadar of, 99. He invades Behar, and is totally defeated, 160. His kingdom restored by Clive, 161. Corah and Allahabad bestowed on the emperor, 161. Urges the war with the Rohillas, 176. Obliged to cede Benares to the Company, 178. Visits Hastings at Chunar, and obtains per- mission to plunder the Begums, 209. Vizier Ali appointed nabob; deposed for his illegitimacy and vices, 238. Lord Wellesley takes half the territory to pay for the defence of the other half, 255. Lord Hastings gives the nabob a royal title, 365. Wretched state of the country in Lord William Bentinck's time; he threatens to take over the government, 366. Chronic misrule; remonstrances of successive Governor-Generals, 480. Colonel Sleeman's report, 481. General Outram's report, 482. Lord Dalhousie's minute, 482. Home authorities order the annexation of it, 483 Outram (afterwards Sir James) pursues Dost Mahomed, 398. His proceedings in Sinde, 434. Arrives at Cawnpore with reinforcements, 607. Cedes the command to Havelock ; relieves the garrison of Lucknow, 507. Is blockaded ; relieved by Sir Colin Campbell, 512 INDEX 565 pACHECO'S defence of C!ochin, first de- -•■ monstrates the superiority of Euro- pean over native troops, 109 i^andya dynasty, in the Deccan, 16 Paniput, Baber's victory, 45. Akbar's vic- tory, 51. The Abdalee's victory, 137 Peel, Captain, of the Shannon ; his naval brigade, 507 Persia, embassy sent by Lord "Wellesley, 252. And by the Crown, 29i. And by Lord Miiito, 295 Peshwa, the authority of the, established by Ballajee Wisliwanath, 97. Extin- guished by Lord Hastinj^s, 330 Pigot, Lord, Governor of Madras, placed in confinement by the Council ; decision of the Court of Directors ; his death, 192 Pindarees, their origin ; their leaders. 304. Their system of plunder, 305. First inroad into the British districts, 306 ; Lord Minto's representations to the Court, 306. Lord Hastings's repeated representations, 318. Thoir expedition in 1815, 322. In 1816, 324. Lord Hastings takes the field, and exterminates them , 334 Pitt's India bill, its provisions, 213 Pondicherry founded, captured by the Dutch, restored at the peace, 112, Be- sieged by Admiral Boscawen without success, 117. Captured in 1761 by Coote and demolished, 132. Captured in 1779, 194. Captured in 1793, 229. Pollock, General, forces the Khyber pass and reaches Jellalabad, 420. Evades Lord EUenborough's orders to retire 424. Defeats AkV)ar Khan, at Tezeen ; occupies Cabul, 427 Portuguese, double the Cape, 106. Vas- co de Gama discovers India at Calicut, 107. Second expedition under Cabral ; third expedition under Vasco, 108. Al- meyda defeats the Egyptian and Guze- rattee squadrons, 109. Albuquerque Viceroy, founds Goa, establishes Portu- guese authority over 12,000 miles of sea coast ; superseded and dies, 110. The Portuguese occupy Ceylon, and Macao in China, 110. They are established in Bengal, 111. Resist the whole Mahome- dan power of the Deccan, 111. They shrink into insignificance, 111 Pottinger, Lieut, afterwards Major, his de- fence of Herat, 393. Envoy at Cabul, on the assassination of Sir W. Macnaghten, makes a new treaty. 415. Delivered up as a hostage, 416. His I'liergy at Ba- meean, 428 Press, liberty of, destroyed by Mr. Adam, 346. Its condition under Lord Am- herst and Lord W. Bentinck, 383. Its freedom legalised by Sir C. Metcalfe, 383 Procession of the captured Sikh guns, 453 Punjab ; Jeypal, king of, defeated by Su- buktugeen, 19. Consolidated under Runieet Sing, 290. Revolutions on his death, 443. The array becomes all powerful, 444. And murders the prime minister, and plunders Golab Sing, and Moolraj, 445. Ranee Jhindun regent, launches the army on the British terri- tories, 446. The four engagements, 451. Sir Henry Hardinpe enters it, and con- fiscates the Cis Sutlej province and Jul- lunder, and alienates Cashmere. 453. Treaty of 9th March, 184H, and of De- cern ber, 454. Revolts in ' 848, 460. Con - quered a second time and annexed, 469. Admirable administration under I^ord Dalhousie ; suppression of slavery, da- coity and thuggee, 471. Roads, canals, and other improvements, 471. Loyalty during the mutiny ; contributes to the suppression of it, 609 ■RAILWAYS, projected by Sir Mac- -•-^ donald Stephenson ; encouraged by Lord Hardinge, 485. Organised by Lord Dalhousie ; his memorable minute. 486. State railways projected by Lord Mayo, 530 Raipootana, desolated by Holkar and Ameer Khan, and invokes British pro- tection, 284. Which is granted by Lord Hastings, 327 Rajpoots, their early struggles with the Mahomedans, 41. Defeated by Baber, 46. Join Akbar, and fight for' him, 63. Their struggles with Anrungzebe, 85 Ramayun, the epic, its legends, 6 Ramu, his birth and exploits, his expe- dition to Lunka or Ceylon, 7 Rana Sanga, raja of Oodypore ; his exten- sive power, and his army, 41. Defeated by Baber, 46 Ravunu, the sovereign of Lunka slain by Ramu, 7 Red Sea, expedition to, 253 Rent free tenures, their origin and cha- racter, 359. Resumption completed by Lord William Bentinck, 359 Roe, Sir Thomas.envoy to the Mogul court 05 Rose, Sir Hugh, his carapaisrn during the mutiny in Central India, 513 Runjeet Sing, consolidates his power in the Punjab, 290. Makes inroads into Sirhind; Mr. Metcalfe obliges him to re- tire, 292. He signs the treaty of Umritsir. 293. Annexes Cashmere, Mooltan, and the Derajat, 367. French oflUcers disci- pline his army, 368. He is defeated at Noushera, 368. Sends a present of a shawl tent to the Queen of England ; re- ceives a present of dray horses in return, 369. His power and resources in 1830, 369. Meeting with Lord William Ben- tinck at Roopur, 370. Seizes Peshawur, 385. His designs on Sinde defeated, 386. Signs the tripartite treaty, 391. His death and character, 399 Q AMBAJEE, son of Sevajee, succeeds him, *^ his worthless character; barb»rously murdered by Aurungzebe, 90 Satara, a portion of the Peshwa's territory 566 INDEX SKR granted to the family of Sevajee, St-O. On the failure of heirs, it is annexed to the Company's territories, 477 Seeta, the wife of Ramii, carried off by Ravunu, recovered by her husband, 7 Seetabuldee, battle of, 332 Seraj-ood-dowlah, soobadar of Bengal, sacks Calcutta, 147. Defeated by Colonel Olive at Dumdum, 150. His intolerable oppressions; conspiracy against him, 150. Is defeated at Plassy and (lies; is brought back and murdered by Meerun, 152 Serampore Missionaries, their labours in- terdicted on account of the Vellore mutiny, 288 Serefraj Khan, soobadar of Bengal, sup- planted by Aliverdy Khan, 145 Seringapatam captured, 246 Bepoys,their clironicinsubordination ; cause of disaffection in 1856, 491 Sevajee, founder of Mahratta greatness; ; his birth and early exploits, 78. His conquests, and strength of his army, at the age of 35 ; ravages the Mogul territories, 80. Plunders Surat, 81. Strikes the coin in his own name; he creates a fleet ; signs the convention of Poorundur, 81. Origin of the chout, 82. Proceeds to the emperor's court; is be- leaguered, and escapes, 82. Revises his institutions, 82. Proclaims his inde- pendence and is crowned, 85. His expe- dition to the south and his fanaticism, 86. His death and character, 87 Shah Al am, emperor, as Ali Gohur, endea- vours to recover Bengal, is defeated by Colonel Calliaud, 154. Cedes the Dewa- nee to the Company, 161. Blinded by Gholam Khadir, 2:J0. Rescued from misery by Lord Lake, 268 Shahiee, the father of Sevajee, his origin and progress; obtains the jageers of Poona and other districts ; his exf)edi- tion to the south, where he acquires jageers, 77 Shah Jehan, the valiant son of Jehangeer, 65. He revolts and is defeated ; recon- ciled to his father, 66. And ascends the throne, 69. His extravagant expendi- ture, 69. Commences war in the Deccan, 69. Extinguishes the kingdom of Ahraednugur ; subjects Beejapore to tribute ; recovers Candahar, 70. Un- successful expedition to Balkh ; loses an army in the Afghan passes ; loses Can- dahar, 71. His four sons and their characters, 72. His serious illness, 72. Struggles for tlie throne, 73. His re- covery, but too late; Aurungzebe enters the capital and deposes him, 7+. Sur- vives the deposition six years ; his char- acter, his magnificence; the peacock throne; his admirable administration, and immense wealth, 74 Shao, chief of the Mahrattas, 96 Shelton, Brigadier, his abominable temper, and its deplorable effects, 411 Bhere Shah, establishes the Soor dynasty, 47. Defeats the king of Bengal ; defeats Humayoon at Cunouge, and mounta the SIM throne of Delhi, 48. His cruelty vi Raiseen; captures Chittore; killed at Callinger ; his character, and extraordi^ nary genius, 49 Shere Sing, deserts to Moolraj, 460. Pro- claims war against the English, 460. Fights General Thackwell at Sadoolla- pore, 462. Fights Lord Gough at Chil- iianwallah, 465. Defeated at Guzerat, 467 Shore, Sir John, opposes the Permanent Settlement, 227. Becomes Governor- General, 233. His feeble policy in the affairs of the Nizam, 234. He quails before the second mutiny of the Euro- pean officers, and is superseded, 237. His courage in dealing with the affairs of Oude, 288. Created a peer on his return to England, 239 Sikhs, their origin, a religious sect, and political commonwealth ; their spiritual guides ; driven back by Bahadoor Shah to their hills, 95 Sinde, subjugated by the Mahomedans, 18. Submits to the emperor A kbar, 57. Treaty with Lord William Bentinck, 371. The Ameers coerced by Lord Auckland, 396. Treated unjustly by Sir Charles Napier, 432. Defeated at Meeanee, 435. Sinde annexed by Lord Ellenborough ; remarks on the transac- tion, 435 Sindia, rise of the family, 101. Mahda- jee, totally defeated by Colonel Camac, 188. Makes peace with Hastings, 190. Negotiates the treaty ofSall)ye which increases his consequence, 100. Becomes minister and commander-in-chief of the emperor, and obtains possession of the Dooab, 229. Plunders the Rajpoots ; defeated by them ; defeats them, 230. I)e Boigne organises a great Sepoy nrmy, 231. Sindia proceeds to Poona, becomes all powerful with the young Peshwa, 231. De Boigne defeats Hol- kar ; death of Sindia, 232 Sindia, Dowlut Rao, defeated by Holkar ; defeats Holkar, 261. Joins the Peshwa, and defeated by Holkar at Poona, 262. Joins the raja of Nagpore against the English, 264'. Ahraednugur captured by General Wellesley ; battle of Assye 26fi. General Lake captures Allygurh, 267. Beats Sindia's troops at Laswaree, and at Delhi, 268. Reduced to extre- mities, he signs tlie treaty of Sirjee Anjengaum, 270. His hostile attitude on the failure of the siege of Bhurtpore, 275. Resolves, in conjunction with Nagpore, to absorb Bhopal ; Lord Has- tings prevents it, 319. Agrees to assist in rooting out the Pindarees, 325. New treaty forced on hiui by Lord Hastings, 329. Dies in 1827, 437. State of the Cabinet in 18 13 ; the army domineer over the Government, 437. Lord Ellen- borough insists on its disbandment 439. Battles of Maliarajpore and Pun- niar, 440. New treaty, 441. The 5th Sindia obliged to fly from (^walior INDEX 567 SLA during the mutiuy ; restored to his throne, 515 Slave dynasty, its establishment, 27. Its extinction, 30 Sleeman Major, suppresses the Tliugs, 376. Reports on the state of Oude, 481 Sobraon, battle of, 451 Somnath, its raag;nificent temple de- spoiled by Mahmood of Ghuzni, 22 Soojah, Shah Jelian's second son, viceroy of Bengal ; his struggles for the tlirone, is defeated ; flies to Arracan and is put to death, 73 Stuart General, at Madras, his dilatory conduct on the death of Hyder, 201. At length marches to Cuddalore; is baffled by the genius of Bussy, 202. Rescued from peril by the peace be- tween Prance and England ; put under arrest at Madras, 202 Subuktugeen, ruler of Ghuzni, attacked by Jeypal and di feats him, 19 Suffrein, the great French admiral, fights four battles with the English; all in- decisive, 199 Sumachar Durpun, the first native printed newspaper, 3o8 Supreme Court; its establishment, its encroachments on the Government, which is paralysed, 206. Interposition of Parliament, 206. Amalgamated with the Sudder Court, 525 Syud Ahmed, a Mahomedan fanatic, ob- tains possession of Peshawar, but is expelled, ms Syuds, dynasty of the, 37 T'AJ MEHAL, built by Shah Jehan as a -*- mausoleum for his queen, 74 Tallikotta, great battle of; destroys Hin- doo power in the Deccan, 59 Tanjore, the principality founded by Shahjee, 77. Besieged by Lally, but the siege raised, 130. First interference of the Madras authorities, 118. At the in- stance of Mahomed Ali they fleece the raja and depose him; the Court of Directors restore him, 191 Ta I itia Topee superi ntends the massacre of the Europeans at Ca\vnpore,502. Mai'ches to relieve Jhansi ; defeated by Sir Hugh Rose, 514. Takes possession of Gwalior, 515. Is chased, captured, and executed, 519 Teetoo Meer's insurrection near Calcutta, 361 Telingana, Hindoo kingdom in the Dec- can, 16 Thackwell, General, fights Shore Sing at Sadoollapore, 463 Timur, or Tamerlane, invades India, 36. Defeats the emperor; lets his soldiery loose on Delhi for five days ; proclaims himself emperor and recrosses the Indus, 37 Tippoo, plunders the garden-houses of the Madras gentry, 169. He invests Mangalore, and captures it after a siega of nine months, 203. Attacks the lines of the raja of Travancore, an ally of the English, 219. Lord Cornwallis aeclares war; first campaign abortive, 220. Second campaign fails, 221. The third successful, and Tippoo resigns half his territory and pays three crores, 223. His hostility to the English ; the Mau- ritius proclamation, 240. Lord Welles- ley takes the field against him; he makes a stand at Malavelly, 246. Is be- sieged at Seringapatam ; the town cap- tured; Tippoo killed, and his dynasty extinguished, 246 Toder Mull, raja, Akbar's great finance minister, 62 Toghluk Ghazee, founds the Toghluk dynasty, 33 bghluk Ma Toghluk Mahomed, his accomplishments; his military skill; his insane eccen- tricities, 33. Extends his power beyond all previous princes, SH. Sends an army to China which perishes; en- deavours to remove the capital to Dowlutabad, 34. His caprices create in- surrections ; Bingal revolts ; the whole of the Deccan revolts, 35. The dynasty decays, and four independent kingdoms established, 35 Toghluk Feroze, extraordinary number of his edifices, 35 TTGNI KOOLS, the allegory of the, 12 ^ Umbeyla campaign , 526 Y^DUS, the, S " Vellore mutiny, its cause, 286 Vikrum-adityu.his grandeur ; his patronage of literature, 13 WELLESLEY, Lord, Governor-General, *^ 239. Condition of iTidia, 239. Tip- poo's hostile proclamation, 240. Resolves to coerce him ; orders the Madras army into the field ; its weakness, 241. He breaks up the policy of isolation ; nego- tiates with the Nizam, 242. Extinguishes the French force at Hyderabad, 24;?. Seringapatam captured, and Hyder's dynasty extinguished, 246. Mediatizes the nabob of the Carnatic, 251. Sends an expedition to Egypt, 253. Takes over half the Oude territory, 255. Concludes the treaty of Bassein with the Peshwa, 262. Encourages private trade, 257. Es- tablishes the college of Fort William, 256. Censured by the Directors, resigns, 258. Is asked to remain another year; consequences of this request, 259. War with Sindia, and the raja of Nagpore, 263. War with Holkar, 272. Alarm at home, 276. He is superseded, 276. Character of his administration, 277. Condemned 568 INDEX WEL by the Court of Proprietors, 278. The censure reversed thirty years after, 278 Wellesley, General, pursues Dhondia "Waug, 249. Captures Ahmednugur, 266. Beats Sindia at Assye, 266. And the raja of Nagpore at Argaum, 269 Windham, General, his disaster at Cawn- pore extricated by Sir Colin Campbell, 512 Wilson, Mr. James, financial member of Council, 624. His financial measures, 524 Wilson, Brigadier, captures Delhi, 610 ADDENDA. Abdul Rahman proclaimed Ameer of Northern Afghanistan, 539. Total over- throw of Ayoob Khan by, at Candahar, 642. His character as a ruler, 542, 549. Annual subsidy granted to, 547. Publicly announces his alliance with the British Government, 547 Afghan Boundary Commission, appoint- ment of, 645. Success of their negotia- tions, 646 Afghanistan, agreement as to boundaries of, between England and Russia, 531. Unsettled state of, 532. Russian em- bassy received at Cabul, 535. English embassy turned back, 535. Ultimatum despatched, and war declared against, 535. Capture of Ali Musjid, Jellalabad, and Candahar, 536. Two candidates for the throne of, 537 Ahmed Khel, the battle of, defeat of the Afghans at, 538 Ayoob Khan, at the battle of Maiwand, 639. Lays siege to Candahar, 539. The siege abandoned, 540. Total rout of his forces at Pir Paimal, 540. Defeats the Ameer's forces, and again occupies Can- dahar, 642. Totally overthrown by Abdul Rahman, 542. His surrender to tlie Biitish, 548 Baroda, corrupt administration of Gaik- war of, 532. Attempts to poison British Resident, 532. He is deposed, 532 Bengal and Behar, threatened famine in 1874, 531 Black Mountains, punitive expeditions to, 650, 551 Bombay, famine in 1877, and great loss of life, 634. Generous efforts in England, 534 Bradlaugh, Mr, at the Indian Congress at Bombay, 551 Browne, General Sir Samuel, captures Ali Musjid, 536 Buckingham and Chandos, Duke of, ap- pointed Governor of Madras, 533 Bunnah, Upper, difficulties in, with King Theebaw, 542. Disturbed state of, 547-8. Improved condition of, under British rule, 549 Burroughs, General, at the battle of Mai- wand, 639 Cabul, grand durbar held by General Roberts at, 637. Wall Mohammed ap- pointed military governor of, 537 Campbell, Sir George, Lieutenant-Gover- nor of Bengal, his precautionary meas- ures against threatened famine in Ben- gal and Behar, 631. Receives the ap- proval of Viceroy and Home Govern- ment, 631 Candahar, the kingdom of, Shere Ali de- clared ruler of, 538. Disaffection of the Bengal soldiers in, 638. Intentions of the Imperial Government regarding, 638. Ayoob Khan advances with a large body of troops towards, 539. After the battle of Maiwand, the British troops forced to retreat in disorder to, 539. Besieged by Ayoob Khan, 539. General Roberts starts to raise the siege of, 539. His celebrated march on, 540. The town and surrounding country evacuated, 540. Again occupied by Ayoob Khan, 542. Cashmere, Maharajah of, abdication of the, 550 Cavagnari, Major, concludes a treaty with Yakoob Khan, 536. Is knighted, 536. His murder, along with the members of the embassy, 637 Chin-Lushai country, the, military opera- tions in, 550 Clarence, the late Duke of, his visit to India, 551 Congress, the National, first meeting of, held in Calcutta, 549 Connaught, the Duke of, his resignation as Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army, 651 Dutferin, Lady, service rendered by, in behalf of the women of India, 550 Dufferin, Lord, succeeds Lord Ripon as "Viceroy, 547. Subsidises Abdul Rah- man, 547. His resignation, 550. Im- portant results of his administration, 650. Created Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, 650 East Indian Railway purchased by Govern- ment, 541 Empress of India, assumption of title of, by her Majesty the Queen, 634. Pro- claimed at Dellii on 1st January 1877, 534. Release of 16,000 prisoners, 534 Gwalior, the fortress of, restored to Sindia, 548 Harbours, fortification of, 651 Hobart, Lord, Goveuior of Madras, his able administration, 632. His death in 1875, 632 INDEX 569 ILB nbert Bill, the, nature of, 544. Outbreak of race feeling and animosity caused by, 544. The bill withdrawn, 544 India, Imperial census of 1881, 542. Of 1891, 553 Indian Civil Service, the enactment that a certain proportion of natives might be appointed to, 541 Indian railways taken over by English Government, 587 Jowakis, expedition against the, 535 Jung Bahadoor of Nepaul, his death, 535 Jung, Sir Salar, death of, 543 Khiva, Russian expedition in 1873 against, 530. Surrender of the Khan, and sub- mission to the Czar, 530 Lytton, Lord, Governor - General, 533. Cotton duties gradually repealed, 533 Madras, famine in, 1877, with great loss of life, 534. Liberal assistance from Eng- land towards relief, 534 Maiwand, the battle of, 539 Manipur, the State of, disturbance in, 552. Mui-der of British officers in, 552. Cap- ture and punishment of the leaders, 552 Mulhar Rao, Gaikwar of Baroda, corrupt administration of, fi32. Attempts to poison the British Resident, 532. De- posed after trial by a commission, 532 Nagas, the tribe of, depredations com- mitted by, and final subjugation of, 541 Napier, Lord, Governor of Madras, suc- ceeds by law to Lord Mayo, as Governor- General, 530 Native soldiers sent to Malta, 535 Northbrook, Lord, appointed Governor- General in 1872, 530. His qualities as a statesman, 530. Declines to assist the Khivans against Russia, 530. Employs sufferers by the famine on public works, 631. Difi'erences with the Secretary of State as to the Tariff Act, 533. Censured by Lord Salisbury, 533. Retirement from office, 533. Rewarded with an earldom, 533 Penjdeh, annexation of, by Russia, and its results, 546 Queen's Jubilee, the, celebration of, 549 Railways, construction of, 551 Ripon, Lord, succeeds Lord Lytton as Viceroy, 538. His judicious reforms, 543. His resignation, 547 Roberts, General, occupies Peiwar Pass, 536. Captures Cabul, 537. Evacuates the city and occupies Sherpur, 537. His celebrated march on Candahar, 540 ZT7L Rupee, fall in the value of, 548 Russia and England, agreement between, as to boundaries of Afghanistan, 531 Russians, the, continued advance of, to- wards the borders of Persia and Afghan- istan, 545. Their advance into Afghan territory, 545. Defeat of the Afghans by, at Ak Tepe, and annexation of Penj- deh, 546. Advance of, into British Indian and Afghan territory, 551 Shere Ali Khan, Ameer of Afghanistan, banishes his eldest son, 532. Receives a Russian embassy at Cabul, 535. Declines to receive an English embassy, 535. War declared against him, 535. His flight from Cabul, and death at Balkh, 536 Stewart, General, captures Candahar, 536 Strachey, Sir John, Finance Minister, pro- poses a tax for emergencies of famine, 534. His blundered Budget, 541 Temple, Sir Richard, his successful meas- ures to counteract the famine in 1874, 531. Gigantic nature of the transport employed, 531 Theebaw, king of Upper Burmah, hia vicious character, 542. His treatment of British subjects, 547. A force sent against him, to which he surrenders, 547. His dominions annexed to the British Empire, 547 Tibet, dispute between the Imperial Gov- ernment and, respecting Sikkim, 549. British assert their rights by force, 549. By treaty with China, British supremacy acknowledged, 560 Wales, Prince of, visits India in 1875, 533. Visits Maharajahs of Madras, 533. Presides over investiture of Star of India at Calcutta, 533. Enters Delhi in state, 533. Visits Nepaul, the Maharajahs of Puttiala and Gwalior, and Holkar at In- dore, 533. 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