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 :ALIFORHIA
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR BARTLE FRERE.
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR BARTLE FRERE 
 
 BART., G.C.B., F.R.S., Etc. 
 
 By JOHN MARTINEAU. 
 
 To evr]6es, oh to yzvvouov irAe'tffTOV /ueTexei. 
 
 Thucydides, iii. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1895.
 
 DA n 
 v.i 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 " I HAVE always felt, that of those who wrote and spoke 
 most strongly against the course I had taken in South 
 Africa, some did so in blind reliance on party leaders, and 
 all from very imperfect knowledge of facts, and I felt sure 
 that in time, though not perhaps in my time, my country- 
 men here would do me the same justice as they who live 
 in South Africa have done me from the first." 
 
 Thus Sir Bartle Frere wrote to a friend about a year 
 before his death. 
 
 To do him this justice, nothing but a plain statement of 
 facts is needed. That such a statement was not and could 
 not be made in his lifetime is due to several causes. 
 
 As regarded himself and his own treatment, he had at 
 once too much modesty and too much self-respect to urge 
 a personal grievance. And as to his policy, he could not, 
 as an official, publicly challenge the acts and conduct of the 
 governments under which he had served. Nor could he 
 appeal to documents which were protected as confidential, 
 many of which — though by no means all — are now, by 
 lapse of time, or by the death or leave of their authors or 
 their representatives, set free for publication. Members of 
 the House of Commons fourteen years ago were already 
 losing something of their ancient independence ; and 
 whenever the two great parties were, through ignorance or
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 interest, both committed to any definite policy, it was 
 becoming next to impossible for any private member to 
 obtain a hearing for the case against it. 
 
 The task, even now, of writing his life has been a very 
 difficult one. The events in which he took a leading part 
 during his official career were so momentous, so beset by 
 conflicting views on the part of the actors in them, and 
 so multifarious and diverse in their nature and locality, 
 that an unusually protracted and laborious investigation 
 was required to grasp the surrounding circumstances, and 
 to present the facts and documents in their right order and 
 relation, so that they might tell their own story with but 
 little comment. 
 
 In transcribing letters the question arose how to deal 
 with the variations which occur in the spelling of Indian 
 and other names. The obvious course was to copy the 
 spelling as it stood. But for the text it was of course 
 expedient to adopt a uniform standard ; and on the whole 
 it seemed best for the sake of consistency, and in order to 
 prevent confusion occurring from different spellings of the 
 same place, to adopt a uniform standard for both letters 
 and text, altering the former when necessary. The one 
 adopted is that generally employed by Sir Bartle Frere. 
 But he is not always consistent ; he writes, for instance, 
 indifferently, Scinde and Sind, Punjaub and Punjab, Affghan 
 and Afghan, Muscat and Maskat. Some inconsistencies 
 may still have escaped notice, and especially in the case of 
 obscure places not traceable on the map mistakes may 
 have crept in. If so, the fault is mine. 
 
 I must express my sincere thanks to the many friends of 
 Sir Bartle Frere who have given so much time and shown 
 so much patience, in personal interviews and in writing, in 
 order to assist me, and without whose help my task would 
 have been an impossible one. To give a complete list of
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 these names would exceed the appropriate limits of a 
 preface, but amongst many others, I would especially 
 mention the following : Sir Henry Acland, Admiral Adeane, 
 Mr. John Arthur and Mrs. Arthur, the late Sir George 
 Balfour, Sir George Birdvvood, Sir Frederic Goldsmid, Sir 
 Henry Green, Colonel Malcolm Green, the late Sir William 
 Mackinnon, Sir Charles Mills, Mr. John Murray, the late 
 Sir Lewis Pelly, the late Sir Herbert Sandford, Sir Gordon 
 Sprigg, and the late Rev. George Stegmann. 
 
 To Lady Frere, Miss Catherine Frere, and Miss Georgina 
 Frere my best thanks are due for continual assistance 
 rendered during the progress of the work. With untiring 
 industry, the Miss Freres have devoted the ten years since 
 Sir Bartle's death to collecting and arranging the records 
 of his life. Their systematic arrangement of his letters, 
 and of the other papers and documents, has alone enabled 
 me to grapple with a mass of material which, without such 
 aid, would have been too voluminous and miscellaneous to 
 be comprehended. 
 
 My deepest debt of gratitude of all is due to one at 
 whose suggestion I first undertook the task, whose clear 
 and delicate penmanship lightened the mechanical work, 
 whose encouragement and whose judgment — calmer than 
 my own — have helped me almost to the end, and whose 
 approval, could I have won it, I looked forward to as my 
 highest and most coveted recompense. 
 
 Park Corner, Heckfield, 
 December, 1894.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Birth — Parentage — Childhood at Clydach — School-days at 
 Bath — Haileybury — Departure for India — Malta — Egypt — 
 Red Sea — Arrival at Bombay ... ... ... ... ... i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LIFE IN THE DECCAN. 
 
 Bombay — Traditions of Mountstuart Elphinstone's rule — Frere 
 assistant to Mr. Goldsmid — Appointed Assistant Revenue 
 Commissioner — Mr. Lionel Ashburner's and Sir T. Gore 
 Browne's reminiscences — Richard Frere — Occupation of 
 Affghanistan — Death of Richard Frere ... ... ... 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ANNEXATION OF SATTARA. 
 
 Sir George Arthur Governor of Bombay — Frere appointed his 
 private secretary — His marriage — Goes to England for two 
 years — Returns to Bombay and is made Assistant Com- 
 missioner in the Customs Department — Appointed Resident 
 at Sattara —Death of the Raja— Sattara annexed — Frere 
 made Commissioner ... ... ••• ••• ... ... 4:
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIND. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The annexation of Sind — Napier and Outram— Frere made 
 Commissioner in Sind — Ali Morad— Natural features of the 
 country — Its backward condition — Kurrachee harbour — 
 Lord Dalhousie — Personal and departmental responsibility — 
 Kurrachee and Kotree railway — Roads and bridges — Speed- 
 money — Postage stamps — Dak bungalows — Kurrachee Fair 
 —Canals — Sindee language — Letters to his children ... 77 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WARDENS OF THE MARCHES. 
 
 Frere's person and character — His cold-weather tours — Sir H. 
 Green's and Sir F. Goldsmid's reminiscences — Shet Naomul 
 — John Jacob — Jacobabad — Jacob's frontier system — The 
 Sind Horse 129 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MUTINY. 
 
 On sick leave to England — Returns to Sind — Is met by news of 
 outbreak of Mutiny — His prompt action — Despatches 
 troops to Punjab — Lieutenant G. B. Tyrwhitt — The camel- 
 dawk — Native newspapers — The treaty with Dost Mahomed 
 — Question of abandoning Peshawur— Outbreaks at Hydera- 
 bad, Kurrachee, and Shikarpur ... ... 170 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER. 
 
 General exhaustion — Malcolm Green's campaign — Macauley's 
 campaign — The Khan of Kelat — Ouetta — Major H. Green's 
 expedition against the Murrees — Recovery of Major Clib- 
 born's guns — Death of Jacob ... ... ... 224 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Religious teaching in Government schools — Principles of adminis- 
 tration — Proportion and organization of native army — 
 Nuggur Parkur — Frere appointed to the Supreme Council at 
 Calcutta — Leaves Sind ... ... 255
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CALCUTTA. 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 Settles at Calcutta — Mr. Mackinnon — Indian finance — Mr. 
 James Wilson— Income-tax — Sir C. Trevelyan — Death of 
 Wilson — Sir Robert Napier — Military Finance Commission 
 — The Arms Bill — Constitution of Legislative Council ... 293 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LORD CANNING'S POLICY. 
 
 India best governed in India — The Nil Durpan incident — 
 Wuzzeeree Campaign — The annexations — The Adoption 
 Despatch — Star of India — Lord Canning leaves India — 
 Frere appointed Governor of Bombay ... ... ... 349 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 BOMBAY. 
 
 Arrival at Bombay — Cotton cultivation and transport — Road- 
 making — Friction with Calcutta Public Works Depart- 
 ment — Conference of Engineers at Poona — Death of Lord 
 Elgin — Sir John Lawrence Governor -General — Frere's 
 Minute on Frontier Policy — Relations of Lawrence and 
 Frere — Kattywar — Income-tax repealed — Minute on Local 
 Taxation ... ... ... ... ... ... 393 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE REBUILDING OF BOMBAY. 
 
 Sanitary state of Bombay — Census — The City rebuilt — Its 
 defences — The Thule — Railways — Education — Address to 
 Deccan Sirdars ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 459 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MASTERLY INACTIVITY. 
 
 The two Pensioners of the Bramshill Lodges — Relations with 
 Affghanistan — Death of Dost Mahomed — Letter to Sir John 
 Kaye — The Wahabees — Colonel Pelly in the Persian Gulf — 
 Sir W. Merewether at Aden 481
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere. From a portrait by Sir 
 
 G. Reid, P.R.S.A. ... ... ... Frontispiece 
 
 Mehemet Ali playing Billiards ... \ 
 
 Scene in the Cabin of the S.S. "Delta" \ •■■ To face 48 
 Sketches by Sir B. Frere ) 
 
 summerhouse in the palace gardens \ 
 
 Sat Manjli ... ... ... ... Bijapur „ 55 
 
 Sketches by Sir B. Frere ) 
 
 Gun on the Oopuree Brooj \ 
 The Mulook Juft ... | Bijapur ... ... „ 56 
 
 Sketches by Sir B. Frere ) 
 Map of Coast, South of Bombay ... ... „ 76 
 
 General Map of Sind ... ... ... ... „ 128 
 
 Main Bazaar, Hyderabad, from the Gateway 
 
 of the FORT. Sketch by Sir B. Frere ... ... „ 208 
 
 Wressil Lodge, Wimbledon. From a sketch by Miss 
 
 C. F. Frere ... ... ... ... ••• 223 
 
 Map of Sind, showing Affghanistan and Beloo- 
 
 chistan Boundaries ... ... ... To face 240 
 
 Government House, Parell, Bombay ... ... 394 
 
 Map of Sind and N.W. Frontier ... ... At End. 
 
 General Map of India ... ... ... ... „
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR BARTLE FRERE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 
 
 Birth — Parentage — Childhood at Clydach — School-days at Bath — 
 Haileybury— Departure for India — Malta — Egypt — Red Sea — 
 Arrival at Bombay. 
 
 Henry Bartle Edward Frere, sixth son and ninth 
 child of Edward and Mary Anne Frere, was born at 
 Clydach House, Llanelly, in the county of Brecon, on 
 March 29, 181 5. 
 
 John Frere, the earliest known ancestor of their name 
 from whom the Freres trace direct descent, was living 
 at Thurston, near Bury St. Edmunds, in 1268; since 
 which date portions of the estates at present owned by 
 the family in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex have been in 
 their continuous possession. 
 
 A branch of the family, settled at Harleston, on the 
 borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, emigrated to Barbadoes 
 in the seventeenth century. This branch, in political 
 opposition to the rest of the family, was strongly Par- 
 liamentarian, Tobias Frere being a member of Crom- 
 well's second Parliament, and secretary to the Committee 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. I. 
 
 of Sequestrations for Norfolk and the City of Norwich. 
 John Frere was acting governor of Barbadoes about 1720, 
 and Henry Frere in 1790. 
 
 The Royalism of the other branch of the family does 
 not seem to have been ardent enough to affect its fortunes; 
 for in 1656, when the Royalist cause was at its lowest, 
 John Frere purchased the manor and advowson of 
 Finningham, in the heart of Puritan Suffolk, and in the 
 following year Thwaite Hall in the same parish. Here 
 he and his descendants lived for more than a century, till 
 in 1760 Sheppard Frere bought Roydon Hall, near Diss, 
 six or seven miles distant, which has since been the 
 residence of the eldest branch of the family. Thwaite 
 Hall was pulled down soon afterwards, and nothing now 
 remains to mark its site but a half-filled moat. A broad 
 belt of cold, level, featureless clay-land, sparsely inhabited, 
 and crossed by few and unfrequented roads, surrounds the 
 little village of Finningham, which lies like an oasis in 
 the desert, with its neat timber-built seventeenth-century 
 houses, sheltered by luxuriant elms, from amongst which 
 rises the flint-built tower of a small fifteenth-century 
 church, remarkable amongst towers of that period for 
 standing without a buttress to mar its modest dignity. 
 The church is full of Frere monuments — less florid and 
 grandiose, it is pleasant to notice, than was the fashion of 
 their time — and has an air of having been preserved more 
 carefully, and by the care of the present rector, Canon 
 Frere, restored more wisely and reverently than has been 
 the fate of most churches. 
 
 At Cambridge the name of Frere has been distinguished 
 for nearly two centuries. Edward Frere, born in 1680, was 
 a Fellow of Trinity in Bentley's time, and seems to have 
 been a partisan of his in his disputes with other members 
 of the college. The name of his grandson, John Frere,
 
 1815.] PARENTAGE. 3 
 
 was bracketed with that of Paley for the place of Senior 
 Wrangler in 1763. This honour, it appears, was in those 
 days not always given impartially according to merit, and 
 Bishop Watson, who was Moderator, takes some credit to 
 himself for causing the two to be re-examined in each other's 
 presence, and finally conferring the honour on Paley as 
 being proved the best man. John Frere became an active 
 magistrate, and in 1799 was elected Tory member for 
 Norwich. He married, in 1768, Jane, daughter of Mr. John 
 Hookham, of Bedington, Surrey. There were seven sons 
 and two daughters of the marriage, the eldest of whom was 
 John Hookham Frere, poet, man of letters, politician, and 
 diplomatist, best known as envoy to the Spanish Govern- 
 ment during the early part of the Peninsular War, but 
 more distinguished, perhaps, in his literary than in his 
 political career, though few of his writings, except his 
 contributions to the Anti-Jacobin, are much read now. 
 He was a man of strong and sterling character, greatly 
 loved and respected by his brothers and sisters, and by 
 the younger generation of nephews and nieces. Frequent 
 allusions to him, and to his kindly interest in the different 
 members of the family, occur in Bartle Frere's letters — an 
 interest which was maintained unabated when he went to 
 live in Malta, where the latter years of his life were passed. 
 From him Bartle in some measure derived his early 
 political ideas, and learnt the veneration for Pitt and 
 Canning which he always retained. 
 
 Edward Frere, Hookham Frere's next brother, had been 
 married in 1800 to Mary Anne, daughter of James Greene, 
 M.P. for Arundel. They had fourteen children, of whom 
 ten survived them. At the time of the birth of their sixth 
 son, Bartle, the subject of this memoir, Edward Frere and 
 his wife were living at Clydach House, five miles from Aber- 
 gavenny. He is described as six feet three in height, strong,
 
 4 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. I. 
 
 handsome, and graceful. " I have often heard my father," 
 writes Miss Frere, " speak with admiration of his father's 
 magnificent aspect, and of his and his brothers' boyish 
 pride, when walking down a street with him, at seeing the 
 passers-by turn round to look at him." In character he 
 was brave, generous, chivalrous, and sincerely religious, 
 with a genial temper and great power of attracting others. 
 He had a retentive memory, had read much, and had 
 great powers of observation ; in his walks not a bird or 
 insect, not a plant or rock, escaped his notice. He had 
 been educated at Eton, had studied metallurgy at St. 
 Ouentin, in France, and had afterwards worked under 
 Mr. Crawshay before going to Clydach to set up as 
 an ironmaster on his own account. Possessing much 
 mechanical ability and enterprise, he seems to have been 
 the first to use iron as a material for boat-building. A 
 barge or boat of iron was built by him in 1811 to ply on 
 the canal at Clydach, all the country-side coming to see 
 it, incredulous of anything constructed of iron being 
 made to float. 
 
 His wife, Bartle's mother, was small, gentle, and quiet, 
 in her youth fond of riding and dancing. Together with 
 strong common sense, she had a very beautiful and 
 sympathetic character, and was devotedly loved by her 
 husband and children. 
 
 Their eldest daughter, Mary Anne, is said to have been 
 like her father in character, and, being several years older 
 than Bartle, had much influence over him in his childhood 
 and boyhood. Of his other brothers and sisters, his 
 favourite and inseparable companion was Richard, two 
 years younger than himself, who had the same brave, 
 guileless, amiable nature. 
 
 Bartle's Welsh nurse, Molly Cadwallader, played her 
 part in the formation of his character.
 
 i822.] CHILDHOOD. 5 
 
 "She told him stories of the giants and Pwccas that 
 haunted the hillside, and of her own Welsh ancestors ; 
 she taught him the wonderful history of ' Betty Contriver,' 
 and endless other nursery rhymes ; and many of her witty 
 sayings were quoted by him to the day of his death. 
 Molly was by no means beautiful, and always wore a 
 mobcap, and carried a crutch, having been lame from her 
 infancy. Those unaccustomed to the sight used to be 
 alarmed to see her as she went hopping down the stairs 
 at Clydach, with the reigning baby on one arm and her 
 crutch under the other ; but for any such alarm there was 
 no cause, for the ponies on her native mountains were not 
 more sure-footed. She was thoroughly trustworthy, truth- 
 ful, and reliable. 
 
 " When Bartle Frere was about three years old, riots broke 
 out among the workmen in South Wales, gangs of whom, 
 often several hundreds strong, used to traverse the country, 
 compelling those who had not already joined them to blow 
 out the furnaces and cease from work. The Clydach men, 
 who thoroughly respected and trusted Mr. Frere, and by 
 whom he was greatly beloved, would have continued to 
 work contentedly had he permitted it. This, however, he 
 would not allow [lest they should suffer for it]. . . . 
 
 " On one occasion, when my grandfather had gone out 
 to meet and reason with the invading rioters, having heard 
 they had been out for days and were half-starving, ... he 
 told them to ' go to Clydach House and ask Mrs. Frere 
 for something to eat;' which they accordingly did. Rachel 
 Davis, the nursery-maid, and bravest of the young servants, 
 was appointed to hand the contents of the two great 
 baskets of bread and cheese to the rioters, piece by piece, 
 out of the staircase window, which, being a few feet from 
 the ground, was judged a safer vantage-ground than the 
 steps to the hall door ; ' by her side stood Bartle, much 
 delighted with the novelty of the scene.' Some of the 
 men were fierce and sullen enough, but when they saw the 
 pretty little fearless child squeeze himself in between his 
 nurse and the open window to help her to hand them out 
 the viands, and show his approbation by taking a little 
 nibble at the cheese by the way, they laughed, and raising 
 a hearty cheer in his honour, went away in perfect good 
 humour. . . . 
 
 " In 1822, the family migrated to near Bath, mainly for
 
 6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. L 
 
 the purpose of procuring greater advantages for the 
 education of the children than were attainable in the 
 remote district of Clydach. . . . Adverse circumstances had 
 much straitened their income. . . . They took a little cottage, 
 called Widcombe Cottage, near Prior Park, where they 
 lived for five years. . . . Widcombe Cottage being incon- 
 veniently far from Edward VI. 's Foundation School, 
 whither Bartle and Richard Frere were to be sent as day- 
 scholars, it was quitted in 1827 for Sydenham Cottage, 
 a pretty thatched house, bounded on one side of the 
 garden by the river Avon. In 1829 Sydenham Cottage 
 was burnt down, from the thatch catching fire. The boys 
 were at morning school at the time, when the mother of 
 one of their schoolfellows called, and begging to see 
 ' Master Frere,' told him that ' his father's house was burnt 
 down, and whether any one was killed she did not know.' 
 The boys, getting leave, rushed home at once. ' I think I 
 see them now,' writes their sister Frances, ' rushing in and 
 throwing themselves into their mother's lap, who was in a 
 neighbouring house ; Bartle with some power of self- 
 control ; Richard, two years younger, and a very nervous 
 boy, sobbing violently.' . . . The family found a new 
 home in Norfolk Buildings, Bath. In 1833 they left this 
 for Bitton Rectory, a curious and interesting old house, 
 formerly the property of the Seymours and afterwards of 
 Sir Thomas Fremantle." * 
 
 Bartle Frere was twelve years old when he and his 
 brother Richard were sent as day-boarders to the Bath 
 Grammar School, a school of some reputation, numbering 
 among its most distinguished former pupils Sir Sydney 
 Smith and Sir Edward Parry. The head-master was the 
 Rev. James Pears, whom Frere afterwards described as 
 "a great scholar, a great friend of Irving and Wilberforce, 
 
 * This and subsequent extracts in this chapter are taken from an 
 obituary notice of Sir Bartle Frere written by his daughter Mary, 
 and, at the request of the Royal Historical Society, published in 
 their "Transactions." The account of his journey to India is chiefly 
 summarized from the same paper ; most of the details were furnished to 
 Miss Frere by Sir F. Horn and Captain Chambre\ Frere's own journal 
 of his journey to Kossier, which he there entrusted to his servant 
 to post from Malta, was lost, and the man was never heard of again.
 
 1827-32.] BOYHOOD. 7 
 
 and of many good and accomplished men of his way of 
 thinking in Church matters." The two brothers spent 
 their playtime less in games than in fishing and walking 
 over the country, with an occasional lift in a coach to see 
 any old church or castle, or other object of interest, till 
 they knew the whole neighbourhood thoroughly. His 
 first sight of the Queen was when the Princess Victoria 
 opened the Victoria Park at Bath. 
 
 His boyhood was evidently in every sense a happy time 
 with him. For a boy of such strong character and will, 
 he had a singularly modest, unselfish, genial, and happy 
 temper. A cousin and early companion of his says that, 
 being a delicate child, she was so accustomed to having 
 her own way that she invariably quarrelled with all her 
 other playfellows, but never with Bartle Frere. His 
 family affections were very strong, and as he lived at 
 home through his school-days, and no break in his home- 
 life occurred till he went to Haileybury, at the age of 
 seventeen, there was nothing to check their natural 
 growth, to chill their warmth, or to interfere with the 
 strong influence which they exercised on his character. 
 
 Thus he gathered in a store of happy memories and 
 unfailing sympathies which cheered and strengthened him 
 when the inevitable day of separation came, and months 
 and years had to be spent in lonely service and apart from 
 all equal companionship. And to his boyhood thus 
 passed in the society of both sexes, and of his elders as 
 well as his equals in age, in a home of such exceptional 
 brightness, intelligence, and affection, may also be attri- 
 buted in some degree his entire freedom from self-con- 
 sciousness, conceit, or shyness, and the frank simplicity 
 and courtesy of speech and manner which distinguished 
 him through life, and exercised so potent a charm on men 
 and women of all races and conditions.
 
 8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. I. 
 
 " ' Never, I believe,' said their sister, ' were there two 
 such school-boys as Bartle and Richard, before or since — 
 so boyish, and yet so thoughtful beyond their years. 
 Bartle's pet name amongst us was " the Doctor," by reason 
 of his skill in mending our dolls ; as John's was " the 
 Admiral ; " Richard's was " the Major." ' Bartle's wish 
 was to be a soldier, a missionary, a doctor, or anything 
 that would ensure his being a traveller ; but the current 
 of his plans was changed in 1832 on his being given a 
 nomination to Haileybury by Mr. Astell, M.P. for Bedford- 
 shire, and chairman of the Court of Directors." 
 
 At Haileybury he remained for a year and a half, 
 gaining medals and prizes in several departments, and 
 being 'highly distinguished' in all the other subjects 
 which he took up. On leaving, in December, 1833, he 
 was placed first in the list of students then leaving the 
 college. Having the choice of Presidencies, he chose 
 Bombay, because his brother William was already there. 
 
 " I well remember," writes his sister Frances, " the arrival 
 of Bartle and his medals. My mother was sitting at her 
 work-table when he came in, knelt on the footstool at her 
 feet, and, after kissing her, took the medals out of his 
 waistcoat pockets and put them on the table beside her. 
 I am sure he had thought most of her in working for 
 them." 
 
 His prize copy of Paley's works, given by him to his 
 mother on going to India in 1834, was inscribed by 
 Mrs. Frere as — 
 
 " The gift of her beloved son H. B. E. Frere, when he 
 left the home which he had cheered and brightened to 
 every member of it." 
 
 Small, comparatively, as Haileybury was — there were 
 generally about thirty students — it had at that time a 
 very distinguished staff of professors, who were on friendly 
 and intimate terms with the students, and moreover 
 often gathered together men and women of distinction,
 
 1832-3.] HAILEYBURY. 9 
 
 and culture, whom the latter had the privilege of 
 meeting at their houses. The sense of comradeship in 
 a common service, and the knowledge of each other's 
 character, which the Haileybury life fostered, was of 
 great value afterwards in India. It enabled each to have 
 a better knowledge of the special qualities of those with 
 whom they had to work, and to reckon beforehand on 
 whom, in time of stress, they would be able to rely. It 
 may well be doubted whether the Indian Civil Service did 
 not suffer a great loss by the abolition of the Haileybury 
 training, for which a course at a university, with its 
 bewildering choice of studies and its manifold distractions, 
 is but an indifferent substitute. 
 
 In a letter to the Guardian, nearly forty years after- 
 wards, Frere writes as follows of Dr. Jeremie : — 
 
 "June 17, 1872. 
 
 " When he was selected as one of the most brilliant and 
 learned of the junior Fellows of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, and joined the college where all the civil servants 
 of the East India Company were then educated, he found 
 himself associated with men all distinguished in their own 
 particular way and in their several lines of literature. 
 Dr. Batten shared with Jeremie the charge of the classes 
 in classics and English literature. Le Bas, with Jeremie 
 as his sub-dean, looked after the college discipline and 
 lectured in mathematics, with Smith and subsequently 
 Heaviside, both, I believe, Senior Wranglers, as his 
 colleagues. Empson, who subsequently edited the Edin- 
 burgh, occupied the chair of law which Macintosh had just 
 vacated. Malthus taught history and political economy, 
 and was succeeded, before Jeremie left the college, by 
 Jones, one of the first and ablest of Poor Law Com- 
 missioners. The professorships of Oriental languages 
 also were filled by the most distinguished working Oriental 
 scholars then in England. . . . 
 
 "When it was Jeremie's turn to preach, even aegrotats 
 would be superseded and exeats given up. He was always 
 extremely nervous. . . . His physical powers were of the
 
 10 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. I. 
 
 smallest, his voice extremely weak. . . . But as he warmed 
 to his subject, his mental energy overcame all physical 
 weakness, and every syllable was eloquent to his rapt 
 hearers. I have seen him end his sermon when there was 
 scarcely a dry eye among the students — ay, or for that 
 matter among the older professors." 
 
 To his school and to Haileybury Frere owed his know- 
 ledge of Greek and Latin, and his grounding in Oriental 
 languages. But it was at home, and from his father, 
 mother, and eldest sister, that he received the most 
 valuable part of his education. His natural powers of 
 observation were quickened and assisted by the example 
 of his father, who had considerable acquaintance with 
 natural science, and he early acquired the habit of closely 
 observing the natural features of whatever country he was 
 in, and some knowledge of botany and geology. Either 
 then or later he gained some knowledge of French and 
 Italian, though he never learnt to speak either of these 
 languages correctly. When quite a boy he acquired a 
 facility in rapid and accurate sketching. His home-letters 
 were frequently profusely illustrated with clever spirited 
 sketches of figures or landscape, and with carefully drawn 
 maps and plans. This habit he kept up to the end of 
 his life, and always had a reed pen and sketch-book in 
 his pocket ready for use. The first packet sent home 
 to his mother from Bombay contained forty sketches 
 taken at different places on his journey out. 
 
 Thus from the exceptionally happy surroundings of his 
 home he stepped forth to begin his work in the great 
 lonely world of India equipped with a more serviceable, 
 varied, and extensive stock of knowledge, and — what 
 was of still more importance — having higher ideals, and 
 a character more formed and developed, than would have 
 been probable, or even possible, had his boyhood been 
 passed under the Procrustean influences, and the too often
 
 i»34-] DEPARTURE FOR INDIA. II 
 
 perverted ambitions and hero-worship of a public school. 
 He was no longer a boy, as most Englishmen are at his 
 age, but a man. 
 
 At that time going out to India meant a four months' 
 voyage in a sailing-ship, touching at the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and perhaps also at Madeira, St. Helena, and the 
 Comoro Islands. The extinction of piracy in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and the progress of commerce and intercourse 
 along its shores and amongst its islands, was turning 
 attention to the question whether it would not be possible 
 to avoid going all round Africa by opening up the ancient 
 highway through Egypt and by the Red Sea. The chief 
 difficulty was in the navigation of the Red Sea. Not only 
 was it very dangerous from the coral reefs which stood up 
 in deep water without any warning shoal or lighthouse, 
 but, owing to the prevalence throughout the year of a wind 
 blowing almost always in the same direction, navigation 
 up the Red Sea was excessively tedious as well as 
 dangerous, ships being sometimes many months in sailing 
 from Aden to Suez. But steam would change all this, 
 and the then Governor-General of India, Lord William 
 Bentinck, proposed to send an experimental steamer from 
 India up the Red Sea to Suez, "to meet there any 
 adventurous persons coming from England, so that the 
 feasibility of the much-questioned overland route might 
 be decided." 
 
 This proposal appealed directly to Frere's aspirations 
 towards geographical exploration. He applied to the 
 Court of Directors for permission to go out to join the 
 experimental steamer ; and, after being at first refused on 
 the ground of the risk he would be running, he at length 
 obtained leave, on the understanding that he went on his 
 own responsibility, and must not expect to be searched for 
 if he disappeared.
 
 12 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. I. 
 
 He left Falmouth, therefore, in the Firefly, bound for 
 Malta, on May 3, 1834. Malta was as far on his way as 
 any steamer then went, and there he spent a month, at The 
 Pieta, the house of his uncle, Hookham Frere, of Spanish 
 and Anti-Jacobin reputation, who had made his home 
 there, and brought thither his pictures and his magnificent 
 library, and where he gathered together in increasing 
 numbers, as the Mediterranean became more and more 
 •one of the world's great highways, all the most dis- 
 tinguished men and women, English and foreign, who 
 passed that way. 
 
 Here Frere set to work to learn Arabic, having for his 
 teacher Dr. Joseph Wolff, the celebrated traveller, and 
 succeeded so far that at the end of his month's stay 
 Dr. Wolff pronounced him capable of " scolding his way 
 through Egypt." 
 
 He sailed on July 7, in the Greek brigantine Corriere, 
 for Alexandria. On the voyage he wrote to his little 
 sisters at Bitton, describing amongst other things the 
 flowers and trees at Malta. 
 
 "July 12, 1834. 
 
 "There is also that tree which bears the jujube, some- 
 thing like a whitethorn with little green flowers ; the berry 
 is about the size of a small nut. Now ask my father the 
 reason of what I am going to tell you, which, as it was 
 told me by my uncle, must be true. The fruit used always 
 to drop off his jujube trees before they were ripe, for which 
 he could find out no reason, till one day he observed the 
 trees in the garden of a Maltese lady loaded with stones, 
 and was told they were necessary to make the fruit stay 
 on the trees till it was ripe. He accordingly ordered the 
 gardener to load his trees with stones, since which time 
 the jujubes have ripened very well, and never fallen off. 
 The stones are as big as your head, and placed so as to 
 stick in the branches, or else tied on. 
 
 " Though this brig is reckoned the finest Maltese trader, 
 yet her sailing is her only good quality, for the decks are
 
 1834-] THE OVERLAND ROUTE. 1 3 
 
 so crowded that there is no room to walk about, and my 
 only way of writing- is by sitting doubled up [in] a little 
 cabin, where every now and then the ship gives a heel 
 which rolls me and my boxes, pens, ink, and paper, with 
 a great basket of bread, into a heap ; but for a short time 
 this is very amusing, so I have no cause to growl." 
 
 At Malta or at Alexandria Frere met with four others 
 on the same errand as himself — Mr. (afterwards Sir F.) 
 Horn and Mr. Chambre, of Her Majesty's 20th Foot, then 
 in India ; Mr. Patrickson, of the Madras Artillery ; and 
 Mr. Ouandborough, a midshipman in the Indian navy. 
 The five travellers agreed to travel together. They took 
 a native boat, and were towed up the canal to Cairo. 
 Here they made the acquaintance of Osman Effendi, a 
 Scotchman, who, when a private in the 68th, had been 
 wounded and taken prisoner at the capture of Alexandria. 
 To save his life he had turned Mahometan, and, having 
 been an assistant in the regimental hospital on board 
 ship, he was promoted to be " Hakim " to the Pacha, 
 and became a man of influence. He introduced the 
 travellers to Abu Effendi, in the absence of Mehemet 
 AH, away in Syria, acting Pacha of Egypt, who had been 
 educated in France, and who gave them every facility for 
 seeing the sights of Cairo, — then not so easily accessible 
 to Europeans as afterwards, — the mosques, the tombs of 
 the kings, the dancing dervishes, the court of the massacre 
 of the Mamelukes, etc. ; and, what dwelt most in Frere's 
 memory, the slave-market, consisting of two rooms in 
 which the Abyssinian slaves were crowded together ; and 
 the mad-house, or street of madmen, a terrible sight, the 
 inmates being chained naked in dens like wild beasts and 
 nearly starved. 
 
 No tidings of the steamer having been received, they 
 determined to make their way to Kossier, a port in
 
 14 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. I. 
 
 Upper Egypt, on the Red Sea, about three hundred 
 and fifty miles from Suez, where they hoped to meet 
 it, or to find some other means of getting to India. 
 Kossier is situated at the nearest point of the Red Sea 
 to the Nile, the distance of the caravan track thither 
 across the desert from the bend of the river at Kenneh 
 being rather less than a hundred miles. They therefore 
 went in a boat up the Nile, seeing Thebes and other 
 notable places by the way, although it was the hottest 
 time of year, and the daily temperature under the roof 
 of the cabin was about 112 . Reaching Kenneh in a 
 fortnight, they went some fifty miles higher up the river 
 to see Luxor and Carnac, and returned to Kenneh, where 
 they procured camels, a tent, and the necessary provisions 
 for their journey, eastwards, across the desert to Kossier. 
 They travelled by night, about fifteen miles each night, 
 the heat being greater than ever, and reached Kossier in 
 six or seven days, on August 12. 
 
 Nothing had been heard there of the expected steamer. 
 It turned out that she not only never entered the Red Sea, 
 but never got beyond Ceylon. The only way for the 
 travellers to get to India without going back to England, 
 was by some means to make their way down the Red Sea, 
 and endeavour to get a passage from Mocha to India. By 
 the help of the British Consul, an Arab, they chartered 
 a ship's long-boat, which had been in use as a fishing-boat, 
 to take them to Mocha, a distance of more than nine 
 hundred miles. The stern of the boat was decked over 
 for about seven or eight feet, and here the luggage was 
 placed under cover ; but there was no awning, and the 
 thermometer under the deck used to stand at about 
 
 115°. 
 
 Those who have experienced the heat of the Red Sea, 
 modified by all the luxurious appliances of a modern
 
 I334-I THE RED SEA. 1 5 
 
 Indian steamer, can understand what it must have been 
 like to sail down the sea in the month of August in a 
 small open boat with no awning — Frere, for one, having 
 till this year had no experience of any climate hotter than 
 an English summer. 
 
 They crossed over to the east coast, and coasted down 
 it, amongst the innumerable coral islands, reefs, and sand- 
 banks with which it is studded, generally landing to cook 
 and sleep at night. Touching at Yembo, the port of 
 Medina, they lay at anchor near a Turkish barrack, and 
 were surprised at hearing a Turkish military band play the 
 overture to "The Caliph of Bagdad." From Jiddah, the 
 port of Mecca, they sailed at sunset, and were caught in 
 a violent storm which blew them away from the land, and 
 were in considerable danger of being swamped. " The 
 sailors hung a heavy pig of lead over the bows to deaden 
 the way, took down sail and mast, and then sat down and 
 howled." By three in the morning the storm lulled, and 
 they found themselves at daybreak close to some sand- 
 banks, beyond which was a small fortified island, where 
 they remained a day to set things straight. Here several 
 Arabs came up to them, whom Frere overheard inquiring 
 in Arabic of the crew whether the property on board was 
 worth robbing. The fact of the boat having been chartered 
 by the Arab Consul at Kossier probably saved them from 
 attack. Touching at Hodeida, they reached Mocha on 
 August 31, sixteen days from Kossier, and landing the 
 following day, put up at the house of Sheik Taib, the 
 Consul and East India Company's Agent. 
 
 Here Patrickson found a vessel bound for Madras, in 
 which he took a passage. An Arab dhow, the last vessel 
 which was to sail that season for Bombay, had left that 
 morning with twenty pilgrims on board returning from 
 Mecca to Surat ; but she was still in sight, and the Consul
 
 1 6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. I. 
 
 sent after her a small boat, which succeeded in recalling 
 her. The four remaining travellers embarked in the dhow, 
 engaging the stern cabin, and laying in provisions for 
 fourteen days, which was supposed to be the limit of the 
 time likely to be required to sail the two thousand miles 
 before the monsoon to Bombay. But for some reason 
 the vessel sailed slowly, and the voyage was protracted 
 to twenty days ; the provisions ran short, and the cap- 
 tain and crew began to despair of reaching Bombay. 
 Although they had no chronometer but an old silver 
 watch, and steered by the aid of Frere's pocket-compass, 
 they must have made a good course, for at last, one night, 
 Frere, being on the look out, perceived a light which 
 proved to be that of the Bombay lighthouse. 
 
 Frere, on landing (September 23), went to his bankers 
 to get some money and to inquire the way to the house 
 of his brother William, a civil servant, who was living in 
 Bombay. But no ship from England had arrived, and 
 his story of the way he had come was scarcely believed. 
 When he went to Messrs. Forbes' he was detained in 
 conversation, while a clerk was sent to the harbour to 
 make inquiries ; and he could not for some time estab- 
 lish his identity. He next went to his brother's house ; 
 but they had not met for four years ; William Frere did 
 not recognize the tall figure and sunburnt face, and Bartle 
 had to tell him his name before he realized that he was 
 not a stranger.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LIFE IN THE DECCAN. 
 
 Bombay — Traditions of Mountstuart Elphinstone's rule — Frere 
 assistant to Mr. Goldsmid — Appointed Assistant Revenue Com- 
 missioner — Mr. Lionel Ashburner's and Sir T. Gore Browne's 
 reminiscences — Richard Frere — Occupation of Affghanistan — 
 Death of Richard Frere. 
 
 CIVILIANS on their arrival in India had to pass an exami- 
 nation in native languages before receiving an appointment. 
 Frere took up his abode with his brother William, already 
 a civil servant of some distinction in the judicial branch, 
 and worked with a moonshee. 
 
 At the end of three months he had passed his examina- 
 tion, and was ready for an appointment. Attracted by 
 the accounts he had received of the bison-shooting which 
 was to be had in Belgaum, he applied to be appointed 
 there. It was the first and last request for any appoint- 
 ment or preferment for himself which he ever made during 
 his whole career, and unfortunately it could not be granted. 
 A good opportunity occurred for learning his work under 
 Mr. Mills, a distinguished revenue officer at Poona, and 
 the Governor, Lord Clare, who took an interest in him, 
 and had shown him some kindly notice, thought he had 
 better begin there at once. Accordingly he was sent to 
 Poona, without even the " leave " which was generally 
 given at this stage ; and there, as junior supernumerary, 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 1 8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 he had charge of the gaol and treasury until the arrival, 
 a month or two afterwards, of Mr. Hart, an old Haileybury 
 colleague, and afterwards to be married to one of his 
 sisters. 
 
 In a letter written from Poona, about five months after 
 he landed, he gives a minute description of Bombay, which 
 would hardly be recognized by any one who did not know 
 the city more than twenty-five years ago. In the course 
 of it he says — 
 
 " February 4, 1835. 
 " The western part of the Esplanade towards the sea is 
 covered with tents from November to June, even permanent 
 Bombay residents often pitching tents for that time ; and 
 towards the south-western corner there are squares marked 
 off with cane fences, one of which is given to each of a 
 certain number of great people, who have the privilege of 
 building in it a temporary bungalow of boards and thatch, 
 and filling the space round the house with shrubs in pots, 
 etc., as soon after the rains as they like, but everything 
 must be cleared away by the 6th of June." 
 
 The greater part of that portion of the Bombay Presi- 
 dency, in which his lot was now cast, was of comparatively 
 recent acquisition. The country, in many parts rugged 
 and broken, presents more positions of strength, and is less 
 easily overrun by an invader than the plains of Northern 
 India. The Mahometan Empire of the Moghuls, never 
 firmly or permanently established in the Deccan, had 
 been resisted and forced back in the seventeenth century 
 by a return-wave of Hindoo powers, the Mahratta Con- 
 federacy, under Sivaji. But the Mahratta Empire, depend- 
 ing for its strength and coherence on the character of its 
 chief, was too loosely composed to have any lasting power. 
 Its nominal head was the Rajah of Sattara ; but his autho- 
 rity soon passed into the hands of the Peshwas, hereditary 
 ministers who gradually established a court at Poona,.
 
 1835] THE DECCAN. 19 
 
 which became the head-quarters of the confederacy. By 
 the end of the eighteenth century the authority of the 
 Peshwas had in its turn become little more than nominal. 
 Each of the three great Mahratta chiefs, Sindia, Holkar, 
 and the Rajah of Nagpur, depended on his own strength 
 and his own alliances, and was ready to fight for his own 
 hand. But as the name and traditional authority of the 
 Peshwa was still a power in the land, each sought to 
 bring him under their influence and to rule in his name. 
 
 It was not commercial enterprise or the desire of 
 acquiring territory that brought the English upon the 
 scene. In the last year of the eighteenth century, Lord 
 Wellesley was Governor-General, and Napoleon was in 
 Syria. At that period of his career, so it was generally 
 believed, Napoleon's ambition was to found, not a 
 European, but — to begin with, at any rate — an Asiatic 
 Empire. French influence was at that time paramount in 
 several of the native Indian states, French officers held 
 commands in their armies, and Sindia had French troops 
 in his service. Napoleon might at any time arrive and 
 put himself at their head. The immediate danger passed 
 away when he was repulsed at Acre, and afterwards 
 abandoned his army in Egypt. But it was likely enough 
 to recur ; and Lord Wellesley set before himself as his 
 first object to dominate the external relations of the 
 native states, and to exclude absolutely French and all 
 other foreign European influence from India. 
 
 An opportunity of carrying out this policy soon 
 occurred. Two of the Mahratta chiefs, Holkar and 
 Sindia, were at war, the army of the latter being united 
 with that of the Peshwa Bajee Rao. In October, 1802, 
 was fought the battle of Kirkee, close to Poona, the 
 Peshwa's capital, in which he and his ally were completely 
 defeated. He fled for his life to the coast, and escaped on
 
 20 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 board an English ship to Bassein, near Bombay. In this 
 extremity he was glad to be allowed to conclude a treaty 
 — known as the Treaty of Bassein — by which, in return for 
 restoration to his capital, and protection and support 
 against his enemies, he agreed to receive and pay a British 
 force at Poona, and to be guided in all his relations with 
 other states by the advice of a British Resident. 
 
 This arrangement was carried out, and lasted till it was 
 discovered that the Peshwa had broken faith, and was 
 plotting against the British Government. In the end he 
 had to be deposed and pensioned, and his territory 
 annexed ; and, to take his place and to conciliate the 
 Mahrattas, the Rajah of Sattara, the descendant of Sivaji 
 and feudal head of the Mahrattas, was brought from 
 obscurity and re-established at Poona under British pro- 
 tection. But the name and traditional authority of the 
 Peshwa were not to be easily effaced from native memory. 
 Forty years afterwards, Bajee Rao's adopted son, the 
 notorious Nana Sahib, founded upon it his claim to native 
 support during the mutiny. 
 
 The British Resident under whose direction these 
 changes had been effected was Mountstuart Elphinstone, 
 statesman, diplomatist, historian, scholar, and, when occa- 
 sion required, general and soldier. He had been secretary 
 to Sir Arthur Wellesley, had ridden by his side at 
 Assaye, and as a volunteer had climbed the breach at the 
 assault of the fortress of Gawilghur. It was he and his 
 lieutenants who laid the foundations of law and order in 
 this distracted land, working in patriarchal fashion, with a 
 free hand, and subjected to little or no control from 
 Calcutta or from England. He was a leader in the great 
 school of Indian statesmen, who, adopting a sympathetic 
 rather than a hostile attitude towards native institutions 
 and forms of administration, and scrupulously careful not
 
 I83SJ MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE. 21 
 
 to offend local and social susceptibilities, sought to instil 
 a new motive force into the old machinery rather than to 
 substitute models of a European pattern. 
 
 To Frere, who possessed in a high degree the quality of 
 veneration, and who was ever on the look out for men 
 to whom he could look up as guides and teachers, 
 Mountstuart Elphinstone was from the first the statesman 
 whom he set before himself as his hero and pattern. 
 Five and twenty years later, hearing of his death, he 
 wrote to Lord Elphinstone — 
 
 "February, i860. 
 " I cannot help taking the first opportunity, after I heard 
 of Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone's death, to tell you how 
 very deeply I have felt his loss. I was quite a lad when 
 my uncle, Mr. Hookham Frere, pointed him out to me as 
 the Indian statesman to be followed and imitated rather 
 than any of the noisy Indian celebrities of that day ; and 
 from the first day I went to Cutcherry, and had as my 
 first charge to pay pensions to old men who had fought 
 and laboured, some under him, some against him, but who 
 all loved and venerated him, and who all asked if I could 
 tell them where and how he was, I never heard his name 
 mentioned but in terms which made me feel proud that I 
 was a countryman of his. Since then many an idol of my 
 earlier days has been shattered, and I have changed many 
 opinions I once thought immutable, but I never found 
 him wrong, and had come to regard the wisdom of his 
 opinions with a feeling akin to that of a disciple of one of 
 the inspired sages of old." 
 
 It was on the scene and amidst the traditions of Mount- 
 stuart Elphinstone's labours that Frere began his career. 
 Life and property being now comparatively safe, the next 
 question was that of taxation. The one annual payment 
 made by the cultivators of the soil answered to rent, rates, 
 and taxes in one, and as it was based on a fixed valuation, 
 a just and moderate assessment was a matter of vital 
 importance to them. In the Bombay territory villages
 
 22 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 and districts were generally assessed at amounts supposed 
 to be based upon an estimate of one-third of the produce, 
 for which the head-men were responsible, and which they 
 collected pretty much as they pleased. The assessments 
 were often obsolete and very unfair, and large remissions 
 had to be made, especially in bad years, amounting 
 sometimes to more than half the revenue. These 
 remissions often found their way into the pockets of the 
 native functionaries, instead of relieving the ryots, and 
 the confusion of village management became so great 
 as to necessitate a complete change of system. It was 
 thought that a regular survey and assessment would 
 remedy defects, and accordingly a revenue-officer, Mr. 
 Pringle — afterwards First Civil Commissioner of Sind, in 
 succession to Sir C. Napier — undertook and prepared 
 elaborate estimates of the produce of different kinds of 
 soil, and, after allowing for expenses of cultivation, a 
 certain proportion, fifty-five per cent., of the remaining net 
 produce, was taken as the assessment. But, owing partly to 
 defects in the system, partly to dishonesty among the native 
 subordinate officials, this was not successful. In the first 
 year less than half the revenue was raised. What was 
 worse, it transpired that in the Indapore district the native 
 collectors of revenue had, under the orders of a Mamlutdar, 
 been guilty of inflicting the most horrible and almost 
 incredible tortures on the ryots, to make them pay. 
 
 The Revenue Commissioner of the Bombay Presidency 
 at this time was Mr. Williamson. When these matters 
 came under his notice, he deputed his Assistant Com- 
 missioner, Mr. Henry Goldsmid, a civilian of two or three 
 years' standing, to go to Indapore and investigate them. 
 Mr. Goldsmid required an assistant, and asked that Frere 
 might be appointed to this post. This was in June, 1835 ; 
 and though it was the beginning of the rainy season, when 

 
 1835.] ASSISTANT TO GOLDSMID. 23 
 
 travelling was almost impracticable, they began their work 
 at once. 
 
 Writing to his young brother Arthur at school, Frere 
 thus describes his manner of life : — 
 
 " Camp Dhaling, near Indapur, June 21, 1835. 
 " This is the first letter that I have written since leaving 
 Poona. The place where Goldsmid and I now are is a 
 small village on the right hand of the river Beema, about 
 eighteen miles from Indapore, which is the chief town of 
 this district. We are at present living in what is called 
 a durrumsala, which is a room, attached to a temple, for 
 travellers. I am at present sitting in a room in front of 
 the temple, of which this is a scratch. [Here is a pen-and- 
 ink sketch.] You are supposed to be looking in at the 
 Deo, or god, which is a nearly shapeless mass of stone, 
 painted red and placed in a niche in a dark little inner 
 room, the roof of which is supported by pillars. The outer 
 room, which is supported in the same way, is generally used 
 as a place for travellers to cook their dinners in, but we use 
 it as a sitting-room, and there you see Goldsmid, with a long 
 black beard, lying down and writing some report or other — 
 not, as you might suppose, from any orientally luxurious 
 habits, but because I am at present sitting on the only 
 chair. The pillars, beams, etc., are of rough wood, the roof 
 of small pieces like short laths covered with a thick coating 
 of mud ; and as it looks like rain, and there are some cracks 
 in it, a man has just been sent to put on a little more mud. 
 The room is open to the west, and through the opening 
 you may see something like scratch number two [another 
 sketch], on the left of which you see the durrumsala, in 
 which you see my father's canteen and the iron bed, then 
 a tree under which some natives are sitting, then a kind 
 of altar-like place where there are two large images, and 
 on which the people who are waiting generally sit ; close 
 to that the servants' tent, and on the right the corner of 
 our bathing tent, and in the distance the huts of the 
 villagers. To the right, though not in the picture, is 
 the Beema, a very fine river, just beginning to rise with 
 the rains. I have often looked at it with a wistful eye, 
 and wished I could take a swim in it as Richard and you 
 and I used to do in the Avon ; but it is broad and deep, and
 
 24 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 inhabited by alligators, which, though never known to 
 attack people, are by no means pleasant companions in a 
 swimming party. As there are no bridges in this part of 
 the country, the people have some difficulty in getting 
 across, when the rains begin and the fords are no longer 
 passable ; at some places they pass on a float of earthen 
 pots ; at others, about this neighbourhood especially, on 
 one made of gourds tied together, there being but very 
 little wood in this part of the country. There are a good 
 many places about Bath very like this country indeed. 
 Marlborough Downs are exactly like it, and you could not 
 have a better idea of the higher parts of the country. . . . 
 You must also remember that, instead of green hills covered 
 with clumps of wood and dotted with farmhouses as a 
 background to the plain, you have here low rocky gravelly 
 hills, the abode of boars and jackals ; and instead of cows 
 and sheep feeding on the pastures, you start deer or 
 antelopes, which bound away directly you come near them, 
 and stand to gaze at you as soon as you get to a safe 
 distance. Being rather in want of something to tell you 
 (news in this place being very scanty), I have drawn you 
 a scratch of a ryot, or farmer [here is another sketch], who 
 is now waiting about some petition he has presented ; 
 though his only clothing is the turban on his head and the 
 white cloth wrapped round his waist, he is perhaps a man 
 of some property, paying ten or twenty pounds a year to 
 Government as the rent of his land. This part of the 
 country has been very much mismanaged lately by the 
 native servants of the Company, and some of the villages 
 have been deserted. Goldsmid and I rode through one 
 yesterday in which there was hardly one house out of 
 twenty inhabited ; he has, however, already done a great 
 deal of good, and is in hopes he will be able soon to put 
 all this to rights. . . . When I left Poona, everybody was 
 in a great hurry getting their building and repairing 
 finished ; for when once the rain sets in there is no possi- 
 bility of going on building, and as one of the chief materials 
 is sun-dried brick, if your house is not very well roofed in, 
 the rain soon soaks through, and then your wall crumbles 
 away as if it were built of salt." 
 
 The special work at Indapur in which Frere assisted 
 Mr. Goldsmid lasted about four months — till October, 1835.
 
 1835.] DECCAN REVENUE SURVEY. 25. 
 
 It proved to be the beginning of a much larger work which 
 required to be done in organizing and carrying out an 
 entirely new system of collecting the revenue, based on 
 a new and careful survey ; and in order that he might 
 devote himself specially to this work, Goldsmid, who had 
 originated the scheme, was relieved of his office as Assist- 
 ant Revenue Commissioner, and made Acting Collector of 
 Indapore and subsequently of other districts. With him 
 was associated Lieutenant (afterwards Sir George) Win- 
 gate, an engineer officer, to carry out the survey. The 
 work grew under their hands, and in 1838 was organized 
 as a separate department, under the name of the " Deccan 
 Revenue Survey." To ascertain the value of the land, every 
 field was inspected separately, and the country mapped out 
 into divisions of about fifteen acres each, like squares in 
 a chessboard, and each division classified as belonging to 
 one of nine different qualities of soil. To fix the assess- 
 ment, a calculation was made of the cost of labour required 
 to cultivate each kind of soil ; and this, and a variety of 
 other circumstances, were taken into account in assessing 
 the value, which when ascertained was fixed for thirty years. 
 The Deccan Revenue survey and settlement was a 
 great success, an enormous boon to the natives, not to 
 mention the increased revenue which it produced. Its 
 success eventually led to its extension through the rest 
 of the Bombay Presidency — to Sind, to the Berars, to 
 Mysore, and to many of the native states. Twenty years 
 afterwards, just after Mr. Goldsmid's death, in January,. 
 1855, Frere writes of his old friend and first chief, and of 
 Win gate — 
 
 " How the officers employed succeeded can be known to 
 few who did not know the districts in their former state. . . . 
 Nor will those who now see them for the first time readily 
 recognize the great improvement which has taken place.
 
 26 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 Yet something may be learned if they will ask the old 
 and middle-aged how they fared and how matters were 
 managed before Goldsmid and Wingate Sahib's time, 
 before the assessment was fixed, and how they fare now. 
 And should they chance to hear, as I have heard, ten 
 years after the Sahibs had left the place, the same names 
 introduced into the doggerel lay which the Maharatta 
 housewife chants to lighten her daily task of grinding 
 grain, they would confess that there is such a thing as 
 native gratitude, and that Goldsmid had gained the 
 highest honours which a simple and uneducated race 
 could pay to their benefactors." 
 
 To the post of Assistant Revenue Commissioner, thus 
 vacated by Goldsmid, Frere was at once appointed. He 
 served under Mr. Williamson and worked with him for 
 three years. They were both hard workers, and were 
 throughout on the most cordial terms. 
 
 Henceforth his duties were not confined to a single 
 district. There was at that time only one Revenue Com- 
 missioner, and his authority extended over the whole 
 Presidency. The executive officers were under his con- 
 trol. For the six years and a half during which Frere 
 held the office of Assistant Revenue Commissioner, he 
 travelled about the country during two-thirds of the year, 
 generally on horseback, sometimes on a camel — never, as 
 was sometimes the custom elsewhere, in a dooly ; sleeping 
 in a tent or in such travellers' bungalows or huts as were 
 to be found, often without seeing an English face or 
 speaking a word of English for weeks together. It was 
 only during the rainy season that his camp broke up, and 
 he returned to a roofed dwelling — generally at Poona, 
 where for some years he had a house with his sister and 
 brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Hart. 
 
 His work consisted in overlooking the revenue work of 
 the collectors, examining into the collection, remission, 
 etc., of the revenue, and the work of the revenue survey
 
 £835-3 MR. LIONEL ASHBURNER. 27 
 
 officers also passed through his office. And besides this, 
 there was the judicial work which in those days was 
 attached to officials in his position, as representatives of 
 Government. 
 
 The following reminiscences by Mr. Lionel Ashburner, 
 of the Bombay Civil Service, of his experiences in the 
 same country, though they relate chiefly to his own work 
 as a collector — an office which Frere never held — describe 
 the mode of life in Western India at the time, and the way 
 in which the country was governed : — 
 
 "The Bombay districts are much larger than those in 
 Bengal or the north-west of India. Some of them have 
 an area of a thousand square miles, with a population of 
 about a million, and paying a revenue of forty or fifty lacs 
 of rupees. 
 
 " To several, extensive tracts of non-regulation districts 
 were attached, which were not subject to any written law. 
 They were governed by the personal influence of the col- 
 lector as political agent, who had powers of life and death. 
 
 " The executive consisted of a collector and two or three 
 assistants. They were not merely fiscal officers, but the 
 representatives of Government, and the only outward and 
 visible sign of the authority of Government that the people 
 had any cognizance of. 
 
 "The country was often in a very disturbed state, and 
 they had frequently to lead the police or troops in an 
 attack on some turbulent chief, to arrest outlaws, and to 
 take a personal part in preserving the peace of their 
 districts. Many districts were infested with tigers, and in 
 Guzerat lions were common. Not the least important of 
 a collector's duties was to exterminate wild beasts, which 
 sometimes depopulated whole villages, and by the de- 
 struction of cattle rendered cultivation impossible. The 
 long rows of tigers' skulls which to this day adorn many 
 of the district bungalows, attest how zealously this duty 
 was performed. 
 
 " Many lives, European and native, were lost in this 
 exciting sport. When elephants were not available, tigers 
 were attacked and killed on foot. The manly Rajpoots 
 and Mahrattas were always ready to join the Sahibs and
 
 28 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 to share the dangers. Instances have been known in 
 which they have killed a tiger with their swords only, 
 though sometimes at the cost of several lives. . . . Big 
 game shooting and hog-hunting were the sports of the 
 men of that period, and Sir Bartle Frere threw himself 
 into them with characteristic energy. He was in the 
 habit also of driving the jungles for bison, sambre, or 
 bears ; but if the prospects of sport were not good, he 
 would often be found sitting in the shade of some big tree, 
 surrounded by the Patells of the neighbouring villagers, 
 hearing their grievances and settling disputes on the spot, 
 which would have produced a beautiful crop of litigation 
 if allowed to go into the courts. 
 
 " It was the duty of the collector to determine the amount 
 of revenue to be paid by each village or district. . . . The 
 whole agricultural population assembled annually at the 
 camp of the collector or his assistant for what was called 
 the Jummabundy Settlement. . . . The collector had before 
 him a record of the past payment of each village or ryot 
 from the time of the Peishwa, but he was also assisted by 
 hereditary officers of position and influence, whose duty it 
 was to inquire into and report upon the condition of each 
 village or holding. They were, however, sometimes corrupt, 
 and the collector had to be careful, by personal inspection 
 of his charge, that he did not sacrifice the interests of 
 Government. The credit of a Patell in his own village 
 depended on his making a good bargain with the collector. 
 One would represent that the monsoon rains had failed, 
 that the locusts or wild hogs had destroyed the crops, or 
 the tigers the cattle ; another would complain that a 
 neighbouring village had robbed them of their water-supply; 
 and a third would boast that the Peishwa had never levied 
 a rupee of revenue from his village except at the point of 
 the sword, and that he could not without loss of honour 
 break through the long-established custom of his ancestors. 
 Many would refuse to sign the Jummabundy papers till 
 the collector had gone through the form of ordering them 
 off to prison. They would then sign under protest, and 
 boast to their friends of the fight they had had with the 
 Collector Sahib. 
 
 "The successful settlement of a district required local 
 knowledge, great patience, tact, and a fluent command of 
 the colloquial patois of the country. All these qualifications
 
 1835-8.] LIFE IN THE DECCAN. 29 
 
 Frere possessed in a high degree, and his early success 
 may be traced to their influence. He spoke the Mahratta 
 language fluently. 
 
 " Living amongst the people, joining in their field-sports, 
 and sympathizing in all their joys and sorrows, created 
 a kindly feeling towards the people of India which Sir 
 Bartle Frere retained to the last. I have frequently heard 
 him express his admiration for the sterling qualities of the 
 Mahrattas. The same kindly sentiment was, I think, 
 shared to a great extent by the whole of the official class 
 in the Presidency, and had an important effect during the 
 mutinies. 
 
 " The more cordial relations between Europeans and 
 natives in Western India is very remarkable to one who 
 has been long accustomed to the attitude of cringing 
 humility which is observed in other parts of India. I have 
 heard the remark that natives were never seen to laugh 
 except in the west of India. This is, of course, an exagge- 
 ration, but it contains a germ of truth. 
 
 " At the period of which I am writing, assistants lived 
 in their districts throughout the year, and if they could 
 not find quarters in the old Mahratta forts, they built 
 houses for themselves. Outram's house is still standing 
 at Durrangein, in Kandeish. It indicates the conditions 
 of district life at this period ; the walls of the garden are 
 loopholed for musketry, and it was capable of resisting 
 any sudden attack. Sir Bartle at one time occupied the 
 rooms in the bastion of the Fort of Burgaun in Kandeish. 
 Owing to the want of what would now be called proper 
 accommodation, much of the business of the country was 
 carried on not only in public, but in the open air, for it 
 was cooler and more convenient than a tent or any house 
 available in those days. Carpets would be laid in some 
 shady spot, the villagers would gather round, chairs would 
 be given to the more dignified, and criminals would be 
 tried coram populo. The people would often make murmurs 
 of approval or dissent, and sometimes suggestions that a 
 witness, who was evidently lying, should be sworn on the 
 cow or on some local shrine. These hints were often of 
 great value to an inexperienced assistant, who was learning 
 to be a ruler of men. I feel sure that Sir Bartle's early 
 education in the patriarchal school had an important 
 influence on his character and future career."
 
 30 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IL 
 
 Frcre writes to his cousin, Miss Judith Frere (now Mrs. 
 Merivale) — 
 
 " From Nuggur we went north-east to a place with the 
 well-omened name of the ' happy valley ; ' and a very pretty 
 place it is, though I dare say you would not think so in 
 England, but, as I think I told you in my last letter, the 
 Deccan is in general as uninteresting-looking a country as 
 can well be imagined, very like what Hungary is described 
 to be : one wide plain follows another, with now and then 
 a chain of low rocky hills crossing them — nothing like a 
 tree visible for miles round, except where the banbrel, a 
 low thorny bush, makes a cover for the wild hog, and 
 where a few gardens and trees surround the villages, which 
 are usually built in fertile hollows ; compared with such 
 places, the ' happy valley ' is certainly pretty, being shut 
 in by rather picturesque hills, covered with fields and 
 gardens, and well wooded with large and handsome mango 
 trees. . . . We then passed clown a ghaut, the road 
 through which is said to have been formed by Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley in 1804. This part of the country was once 
 reckoned the finest part of the Peishwa's Maharatta 
 dominions, but for three or four years before it fell into 
 our hands it had been the constant scene of the ravages 
 of the Pindarries, and afterwards of the Bheels and other 
 wild tribes, who had succeeded in almost completely 
 depopulating it, and though it is now recovering, yet we 
 rode for miles together over long plains of the finest rich 
 land without seeing a single human being, and when we did 
 get to a village it was often no easy matter to find out the 
 inhabited houses in the labyrinth of ruins. At Phool- 
 tamba there was a sad scene of decay, but of a different 
 sort ; the town is situated on the Godavery, next to the 
 Ganges, I believe, the most sacred stream in India, and 
 under the Maharattas was the resort of those great people 
 who, from age, misfortunes, discontent, disgrace at court, 
 or any other cause, chose to give up the world and pass the 
 remnant of their days in meditation and ablution in the 
 holy stream. There were also numbers of Brahmins living 
 in the town, as attendants on the temples, copyists of the 
 Shasters, etc., besides pilgrims and devotees of all descrip- 
 tions. When this part of the country was ravaged by 
 Holkar, about thirty-two years ago, just before he was
 
 1838.] MR. WILLIAMSON. 3 1 
 
 driven out by Sir A. Wellesley, this town was for a fort- 
 night the scene of continued violence and plunder. Those 
 of the better classes who were so unfortunate as to be 
 caught were tortured to death unless they told where their 
 money was hid ; all who could, devotees included, fled for 
 their lives, and only a few of the cultivators and shop- 
 keepers have ever returned ; the town was not, however, 
 burned, and you pass street after street of immense houses 
 still almost entire, but as silent as the grave and tenanted 
 only by jackals. We stayed here for a couple of days, and 
 during our walks and shooting expeditions saw two sights 
 quite new to me : Bheels and wild peacocks. About the 
 former I want to say a great deal to you, but I must keep 
 it for some other letter, and will at present only tell you 
 that their features are decidedly Welsh, and that they put 
 me very much in mind of the descriptions of North American 
 Indians, at least as far as their taciturnity and a rather 
 dignified slowness of manner went, though this quietude is 
 very much belied by a bead-like black eye, which glows 
 like a coal when any game gets up." 
 
 In the autumn of 1838 Mr. Williamson returned to 
 England. Frere writes to his mother a description of him, 
 which a few years later might almost have been written of 
 himself. 
 
 "October 2, 1838. 
 
 " This steamer takes home the two best friends I have in 
 the country out of my own family, Mr. Williamson and Mr. 
 George Malcolm. The former, as you know, has been my 
 constant companion for three years, living together the 
 greater part of the time, and often seeing no other European 
 for months together. . . . Since I have been working with 
 Williamson as his assistant, working himself, and making 
 me work as hard as we well could, he never once said or 
 wrote a word to let me know he was master, and any one 
 would have supposed, from his way of expressing himself 
 and bringing me forward whenever he could, that I had as 
 much to do with, and was as much interested in the success 
 of his measures as he was himself. It is true that this is 
 the best way of getting work out of people, but it is not 
 one man in five hundred who does so ; and, with respect 
 to Williamson, this was, I think, one of the many things
 
 32 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 which proceeded from real good feeling and kindness of 
 heart." 
 
 In another letter to Mrs. Merivale, he says — 
 
 "March I, 1841. 
 " I do think that after reading the political history of 
 India, from the time that our representatives here ceased 
 to be a body of almost independent and irresponsible ad- 
 venturers till now, you would come to the conclusion that, 
 after making every allowance for our being our own his- 
 torians, few portions of history of similar length and im- 
 portance would show the constantly advancing dominant 
 party in so favourable a light, where the ambition of the 
 leaders has been so little selfish, their forbearance under 
 the insults of really weak but inordinately vain and in- 
 solent neighbours so great, and their desire for the improve- 
 ment of the conquered (however mistaken the means they 
 may have adopted) so disinterested and sincere. You will 
 think me a not unprejudiced judge ; but it might, I think, 
 be shown that such a result was not improbable from pecu- 
 liarities in the English system of governing in India, which 
 have been very mischievous in many other ways (especially 
 as regards the management of our own subjects), but which, 
 as regarded our intercourse with other states, has tended to 
 prevent individuals who had the direction of affairs out 
 here from having any great personal interest in the conquest 
 of a state." 
 
 Mr. Williamson was succeeded by Mr. Vibart, a pleasant 
 companion and a good sportsman. 
 
 The following reminiscences are by the late Colonel Sir 
 Thomas Gore Browne, who shortly after marched with his 
 regiment under General England to Candahar, and served 
 through the Affghan campaign, under Nott : — 
 
 " [Frere] at that time was very young, and in appearance 
 slight, and very like what he was in later years. 
 
 " He was assistant to Mr. Vibart, the Revenue Com- 
 missioner. They had reached Surat, where I had gone 
 on a shooting tour, and Mr. Vibart invited me to join him 
 on his tour through Catteywar. 
 
 " I remember that he was a very good Oriental scholar
 
 I839-] SIR THOMAS GORE-BROWNE. . 33 
 
 even then, and used to interpret the legends which Vibart's 
 chief clerk, a Brahmin, and rather a remarkable man, used 
 to tell us in Guzerati, as we rode along before daylight in 
 the morning. He was also a fearless rider, and very good 
 at all sorts of sport, from hog-hunting to lion-shooting. 
 I remember that one day we brought four lions on our 
 cart as the result of the day's sport, to the great admiration 
 of the villagers. 
 
 " In after-years he told me that he had recounted this 
 day's sport to the Prince of Wales's party, who scarcely 
 believed him, and that he wished I, the only survivor, 
 had been present to corroborate his account. I remember 
 his prowess as a hog-hunter, and on one occasion his 
 having followed a wounded lion on foot (the elephant 
 having been unable to follow through the broken ground), 
 and my own satisfaction at finding the lair empty, and 
 only a pool of blood to show that the lion had just left. 
 
 " In spite of enjoyment of these pursuits, he was always 
 a reading man, and occupied every spare hour in 
 reading. 
 
 " We dined at sunset in Vibart's large tent, and imme- 
 diately after dinner his and our day tents were sent on to 
 the next camping-ground, under an escort of horse and 
 foot, and we retired to sleep in our bichotas [little tents], 
 which came on in like manner after we had left them. 
 Before daylight we started on horseback, and Vibart gave 
 us each two of his mounted guard (of Guzerat Irregular 
 Horse) to guide and protect us to the new camping- 
 ground. We shot whatever we could find on either side 
 of the road, and reached camp in time to wash before 
 breakfast, which was at nine o'clock. After breakfast 
 he was engaged with Vibart in giving audience to chiefs 
 and other natives, and continued so until near dinner-time, 
 unless when news was brought by the villagers of game 
 marked down, which I think the natives enjoyed as much 
 as we did." 
 
 The following extract is from a letter of an old native 
 gentleman, who was asked by Mr. Ashburner to write 
 down his recollections of Frere at this period. 
 
 " My recollection of that eminent statesman dates from 
 the time he landed in Bombay, and was appointed as an 
 VOL. i. D
 
 34 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. II. 
 
 assistant to the then Revenue Commissioner, Mr. Thomas 
 Williamson, i.e. in October, 1835. In those days there 
 was only one Revenue Commissioner, under whom there 
 was a covenanted European assistant, and a native officer 
 denominated the Dafterdar. This was Mr. Narso Laxu- 
 man, a competent officer of wide experience, and con- 
 versant with all the details of revenue matters. It was 
 from him that Sir Bartle Frere, then young in years, 
 received an insight into the practical working of the 
 revenue affairs of this Presidency. Unlike the officers of 
 the present day, young Frere was always seen sitting on 
 the carpet by the side of old Narsopant Tatia, for whom 
 he entertained the highest respect, and to whom he used 
 to call by the respectful name of ' Kakaje ' (elder uncle). 
 Whatever difficulties Sir B. Frere had, he used to ask for a 
 solution thereof unreservedly to Mr. Narsopant. He studied 
 the Mahratta language, and so great was his mastery over it 
 that he read all manuscript official papers himself, without 
 the aid of a shirastidar. He used to rise early in the morn- 
 ing, take a walk for an hour or so, and then return home, 
 after which he used to sit with his Munshi for learning Urdu 
 and Persian, and his Pandit the Guzerati and Kanarese lan- 
 guages, for a couple of hours, then he used to bathe, have 
 the morning nasta (breakfast), and go to office, where he 
 used to work till 4 or 4.30 p.m. every day. Afterwards he 
 used to go riding for purposes of recreation. 
 
 " In the office his gentle and sweet disposition was 
 highly remarkable, so much so that all the subordinates 
 appreciated it extremely. When a clerk, or karkun, or 
 peons asked him any question, Sir Bartle was ready with 
 his reply, and that too with the utmost courtesy, so rare in 
 modern official life. In the matter of promotion, he 
 always had at heart the welfare of his own subordinates, 
 whom he promoted to a higher pay and sent them to 
 other offices, and in return picked up others, and brought 
 them up in his own. So he kept every one pleased. His 
 private servants, even, were treated with the utmost con- 
 sideration and civility. 
 
 " Shikaring, or animal sport, was a fond amusement with 
 him. But when engulfed in the pressure of office work, or 
 engrossed in the study of the languages mentioned above, 
 he did not think of it. At the earnest request of friends 
 he used to go sometimes for shooting near Poona. On
 
 1839.] RICHARD FRERE. 35 
 
 one occasion he had brought a female elephant from 
 Talligaon belonging to the Senapati of the Peishwa, viz. 
 Dabhade. I remember the incident very well. Sir Bartle, 
 Captain Marriott, and myself (then employed under him) 
 took our seats in the houdah, and we started for shikar, 
 far off from Poona, in the dense forests which were then 
 infested with tigers, as the railway had not penetrated 
 through the ghauts and other thick caverns round about 
 the limits of the Deccan capital. After looking here 
 and there, our elephant discovered a ferocious full-built 
 tiger, who was lying asleep in a thicket, on which she 
 struck her trunk forcibly, when he awoke and furiously 
 sprang on her, jumping over the trunk with full speed, and 
 was about to pounce us in his jaws, so near he was, but 
 Sir Bartle Frere's presence of mind stood in good stead. 
 He at once aimed at him the pistol he had, and with one 
 shot killed the tiger on the spot. If this would have 
 missed — providentially it did not — the result would have 
 been disastrous. We three and the mahout (driver) were 
 in tremendous terror during the conflict. Our life was 
 in imminent peril. Such was the incident. . . . 
 
 " In all his itinerations he did not fail to inquire into 
 the condition of the ryots. He talked with them freely 
 in the vernacular, inquiring who they were, what profes- 
 sion they followed, what they wanted, and so on. In 
 the case of the agriculturists, he took precious good care 
 to know from them if there was any distress prevailing ; 
 and when he found any, he reported such cases to Govern- 
 ment, and afforded the necessary relief by way of Takavi 
 advances, etc., for which the people liked him much, and 
 bless his memory up to this day." 
 
 Early in 1837 Richard Frere arrived with his regiment 
 at Calcutta. A little younger than Bartle, he was his 
 favourite brother. They had been inseparable as boys 
 at school, spending their half-holidays together, keeping a 
 common purse, using the same scrap-book for their sketches 
 and composition ; and now, in these latter years, each full 
 of pride in each other's powers and accumulating honours. 
 They were nearly six years in India at the same time, yet 
 never met ; but they were in constant correspondence, and
 
 36 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 henceforward, and especially through all the critical events 
 in Afghanistan, Bartle Frere's letters home contain more 
 about his brother than about himself. 
 
 Fear of the power of Russia, and of the hostile influence 
 which Russian emissaries might exercise on the tribes 
 on the Indian frontier, was beginning to affect English 
 statesmen, and in 1838 led to intervention in Affghanistan 
 with the object of strengthening British influence there. 
 Between our frontier at that time and Affghanistan lay 
 the Punjab and Sind, large states in which we had no 
 authority or foot-hold, and which, therefore, had to be 
 overawed or conciliated before Affghanistan could even be 
 approached by a British force. Runjeet Singh, the ruler 
 of the Punjab, was an able and powerful sovereign, 
 possessing a large, well-disciplined army, officered by 
 Europeans, and was much too formidable to be made an 
 enemy of. And so a tripartite arrangement was made, 
 according to which the dominant ruler of Affghanistan, 
 Dost Mahomed, was to be deposed, and a weak rival, 
 Shah Soojah, put in his place. Shah Soojah was to 
 surrender Cashmere and Peshawur and some other places 
 hitherto under Affghan rule to the Punjab, to conciliate 
 Runjeet Singh ; and Sind was to be coerced into acqui- 
 escence by the joint action of Runjeet Singh and the 
 British, and was to pay tribute to Shah Soojah. 
 
 It was an elaborately constructed diplomatic scheme, 
 which looked well enough until the shock came and tested 
 the foundation on which it rested. From the first, Runjeet, 
 though not unfriendly, declined to allow British troops to 
 pass through his country. The whole force, therefore, had 
 to traverse the burning plains of Sind and Beloochistan, 
 and defile through the rugged, barren rocks of the Bolan 
 Pass to Quetta. Here the Bombay and Bengal contingents 
 were united under the command of Sir John Keane, and
 
 i$39-] AFFGHAN WAR.' 37 
 
 entering Afghanistan seized Candahar, stormed Ghuznee, 
 and finally occupied Cabul, the capital, and went into 
 quarters there, with comparatively little resistance. 
 
 Richard Frere was with his regiment, the 13th (Somer- 
 setshire) Light Infantry, which formed part of Sir Robert 
 Sale's brigade. Bartle writes to Miss Judith Frere — 
 
 "May 17, 1839. 
 " You may be glad to hear that Richard writes they 
 have got safe through the formidable Bolan Pass. From 
 Shirkarpur they marched to the eastern end of the pass ; 
 of this twenty-seven miles was over a desert, without a 
 shrub, bird, or sign of animal life in sight, and Richard 
 describes the silence round them as perfectly awful. The 
 pass is a narrow valley at first, between hills of clay and 
 gravel, five or six hundred feet high, and further on between 
 high limestone rocks. The bottom of the valley is the bed 
 of a torrent, covered with large boulder-stones, and these, 
 added to the necessity of crossing the stream (which was 
 still flowing, though much shrunk when compared with 
 what its bed showed it to be in the rains), in one case as 
 often as twenty times in thirteen miles, rendered the march 
 exceedingly fatiguing for all, and very difficult for the 
 artillery and baggage. They at length (I think on the 
 fourth day) found themselves clear of the pass on a small 
 plain, the hills surrounding which, and on either hand of 
 their next march, were capped with snow. The tropical 
 vegetation had quite disappeared, the ground was covered 
 with a plant like southernwood in appearance and smell, 
 and with it were growing tulips, anemones, dandelions, 
 clover, and other European plants. Cypresses, rhododen- 
 drons, and geraniums were found on the sides of the hills, 
 and they recognized many of the birds as old European 
 friends. They were to halt at Quetta or Kote, the place 
 whence his letter was dated (March 28), till joined by 
 Sir J. Keane and the advance of the Bombay army." 
 
 He writes to his mother — 
 
 " I wish you had heard the account which Mr. W , of 
 
 the Artillery, who has just returned from Cabul, gave of the 
 conduct of the 13th at the storm of Ghuznee. He said when
 
 38 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 the explosion took place, instead of waiting to hear whether 
 the gate was blown in, the whole of them rushed forward 
 as fast as they could form — though had it not been blown 
 in, their doing so exposed them to a deadly fire — and he 
 said that, without exception, he never saw a finer soldier 
 than Colonel Sale, or a more dashing corps than ' ours.' " 
 
 Two years after this time (in October, 1841), the 13th, 
 and Richard Frere with it, left Cabul with Sale's brigade, 
 to reopen communications with Jellalabad as a resting- 
 place on the way to Peshawur. They fought their way 
 thither through the mountain-passes, and occupied and 
 held it against Akbar Khan and all comers through the 
 winter and spring, being for months on short rations, short 
 of ammunition, with defences half shattered by repeated 
 shocks of earthquake, and cut off from all communication 
 with the world outside. At Cabul, before the winter set 
 in, Sir Alexander Burnes had been massacred in his house, 
 and Sir William Macnaghten (just nominated Governor 
 of Bombay) assassinated in open day and with impunity 
 by Akbar Khan, in the presence of his sirdars. 
 
 In January the fatal blow fell. The British army at 
 Cabul, surrounded in its cantonments, and unable to ob- 
 tain supplies for its subsistence, began its retreat. Within 
 a few days the whole force, four thousand soldiers and 
 twelve thousand camp-followers, lay dead on the snow in 
 the Tezeen valley. One man only escaped, and, half dead 
 with wounds and exhaustion, arrived to tell the tale to the 
 garrison of Jellalabad. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough, the new Governor-General, had 
 landed at Calcutta in February, 1841. Self-reliant and 
 energetic, but inexperienced and arbitrary as he was, it 
 was well for India that he was too far from the seat of war 
 to exercise any effectual control over the movements of 
 the generals. Pollock entered Afghanistan by the Khyber
 
 1842.] THE JELLALABAD GARRISON. 39 
 
 Pass from Peshawur, relieved and took with him the brave 
 and hard-pressed garrison of Jellalabad, and, proceeding to 
 Cabul, reached it twenty-four hours before Nott, who, by 
 a free interpretation of his orders to retire from Afghan- 
 istan, had advanced thither from Candahar. Thence the 
 two armies retired together through the Khyber Pass and 
 the Punjab to India. 
 
 Frere, now private secretary to the Governor, writes to 
 his father from Bombay : — 
 
 "May 28, 1842. 
 " This packet is a heavy one, but I am sure you and my 
 mother will think it worth more than its weight in gold. 
 The dear Major's * letters are so full and particular that 
 I cannot add anything to what he says, and abridgment 
 will only mar it. I am sure we all, here and with you, 
 shared in the gratitude to God which induced him, dear 
 fellow, to beg that you will have thanks returned in his 
 name in Bitton Church. It is not more than one would 
 have expected from him ; still there is something very 
 striking in the way in which one so sensible to the charms 
 of military glory as Richard is, gives the praise to Him to 
 whom alone it is due ; and that, too, at a time when all 
 India, from the Governor-General down to the last cadet 
 from England, are in ecstasies of admiration at the conduct 
 of the • Illustrious Garrison.' " 
 
 And to his mother — 
 
 " November 1, 1842. 
 
 " As you will be very anxious about the dear Major, I 
 enclose you the latest letter we are likely to get from him 
 this month, which I have just received. I do not think 
 the whole army can contain such another correspondent, 
 so full and so regular, even when the chance of his letters 
 arriving safe at their destination seemed the slightest. 
 It is very singular that it has happened at least five times 
 that the latest news which Government had to send home 
 was that contained in the dear Major's letters ; and on 
 two occasions it has been very important, viz. when Akbar 
 Khan closely invested jellalabad, and when the army 
 
 * Richard's family nickname.
 
 40 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. II. 
 
 under General Pollock heard of the removal of the prisoners 
 to Bamian." 
 
 Alas ! there were to be no more proud, happy letters 
 about "the Major." Bartle Frere writes to Mr. G. T. 
 Clark— 
 
 "Bombay, January i, 1843. 
 " My last letter home on the 1st of December told my 
 family that General Pollock's force had safely cleared the 
 Khyber Pass, and that Richard, with the leading brigade, 
 had started, after a short halt near Peshawur, to march 
 across the Punjab, and I had every hope that I shouid by 
 this steamer be able to tell of his safe arrival at Ferozepoor, 
 of his participation in all the hardly earned honours which 
 the Governor-General has gone there to confer on Sir 
 Robert Sale's force, and possibly of Richard's having 
 settled the day for his departure to visit us at Bombay. 
 It pleased God, however, to order it otherwise. A letter I 
 sent home by the last steamer, dated the 10th of November, 
 told me that he had been prevented from writing to many in 
 England by a fit of, as he thought, rheumatism, which gave 
 him much pain in his right side. On the 6th of December 
 I got a letter from his friend and brother-officer Mr. Sinclair, 
 telling me that on the 16th of November they had become 
 alarmed, though up to the 18th they did not despair, but 
 that on the evening of that day ' Richard sank quietly to 
 rest,' at Rawul Pindee, in the Punjab, not far from Attock. 
 You, who knew him so well, need not be told what we 
 have lost. To have had him taken from us in the midst 
 of perils which I hardly dared hope he would escape, would 
 have been a sore trial, and I cannot sufficiently thank God 
 that He enables me to say and feel, ' It is well,' though 
 my dear brother was cut off at the moment when we hoped 
 he had entirely escaped from all the dangers which for 
 more than a year past had so imminently and daily 
 threatened him." 
 
 It was a terrible loss to him. Writing years afterwards, 
 his sister, Mrs. Hart, says — 
 
 " I remember one expression he used when writing of 
 Richard's early death, about two years after it occurred :
 
 1843.] DEATH OF RICHARD FRERE. 4 1 
 
 ' Had the earth opened and swallowed me up, I could not 
 have felt more utterly alone than I did then.' " 
 
 Richard's sword always hung, and hangs still, over the 
 chimney-piece of the dining-room of Bartle's English 
 home. His grave at Rawul Pindee Bartle was not able 
 to visit till thirty-three years afterwards.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ANNEXATION OF SATTARA. 
 
 S ir George Arthur Governor of Bombay — Frere appointed his private 
 secretary — His marriage — Goes to England for two years — 
 Returns to Bombay and is made Assistant Commissioner in the 
 Customs Department — Appointed Resident at Sattara — Death of 
 the Raja — Sattara annexed — Frere made Commissioner. 
 
 THE new Governor of Bombay, sent out in 1842 to take 
 charge of the Presidency at the crisis of affairs in 
 Affghanistan, was Sir George Arthur. His career had 
 been a highly distinguished one, such as in later days, 
 when more attention is directed to events in the colonies 
 and dependencies, would have won him a larger and juster 
 share of reputation. Entering the army in 1804, he had 
 seen active service in Italy, Egypt, and Sicily. He had 
 served with his regiment in the attack on Flushing, and 
 with his single company taken prisoner three hundred men 
 and five officers, for which he was thanked in General 
 Orders, and promoted on the Field. He was afterwards 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Honduras, where he had to deal 
 with a serious revolt of the slave population, which he 
 suppressed in such a manner as to earn the gratitude of 
 the inhabitants, and at the same time the approbation of 
 such zealous friends of the negroes as Wilberforce and 
 Stephen. For more than twelve years he was Governor 
 of Van Dieman's Land ; and it is there, perhaps, that 
 his name is best remembered, though the very name of
 
 1842.] SIR GEORGE ARTHUR. 43 
 
 the colony has been changed, and the convict-system, 
 which he reduced to order and cleared of its worst abuses, 
 has long since passed away, and though the last of the 
 aborigines, for whose protection and welfare he did so 
 much, has long been dead. Returning to England in 
 1837, he was sent out the same year, at the crisis of the 
 rebellion, as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and 
 commander of the forces in Canada. After suppressing 
 the rebellion, he remained in Upper Canada till 1841, 
 when he returned home, and for a few months was un- 
 employed. Unsupported as he was by any influential 
 family connection, that he should have been selected at 
 this extreme crisis of Indian affairs for the civil and 
 military command of the Presidency nearest to where the 
 danger lay, and under so notoriously arbitrary and impul- 
 sive a chief as Lord Ellenborough, shows how fully his 
 high qualities were acknowledged by those in authority, 
 including Lord Ellenborough himself, who was most 
 anxious for his appointment. He left England for Bom- 
 bay at the end of April, 1842, accompanied by Lady 
 Arthur and his family ; and by Colonel Proctor, an able 
 and accomplished officer, as his private secretary. Going 
 on shore at Aden, while the vessel was coaling, Colonel 
 Proctor was brought back on board struck down by sun- 
 stroke, and died before the vessel reached Bombay. Thus 
 Sir George's first need on arrival was to provide himself 
 with a private secretary. 
 
 Lord Clare, whose term of office as Governor had 
 expired in 1835, had furnished him, before he left England, 
 with confidential information about some of the Govern- 
 ment officials in the Presidency, and amongst the memo- 
 randa was one * mentioning Frere in such terms of praise 
 
 * The memorandum was as follows : " H. B. E. Frere is an 
 ornament to the service ; his superior abilities are of a useful, practical
 
 44 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 that he was sent for by the Governor from Poona, and 
 after an interview offered the post, which he at once 
 accepted. 
 
 In the absence of any letters or other records concerning 
 Frere's life at this time, some reminiscences of Mr. G. T. 
 Clark, of Talygarn, an old and intimate friend, with whom 
 he frequently corresponded throughout his life, are given 
 here. Mr. Clark, since known to the world in connection 
 with the Dowlais Iron Works, and as an eminent archaeolo- 
 gist, came out to Bombay about this time at Frere's sug- 
 gestion, for there seemed to be a good opening for him 
 there as a civil engineer. He projected the Bombay and 
 Baroda Railway, which in later years was carried out, 
 though not by him, and other important public works, 
 which Sir George Arthur was anxious to see undertaken. 
 But the obstacles thrown in his way, because he was not 
 a member, civil or military, of the Indian Service, were 
 such that he could do nothing. 
 
 Mr. Clark writes of Frere — 
 
 "He was' far more than a mere secretary, though he 
 was ever careful not to obtrude his opinion, and, indeed, 
 rather given from shyness to withhold it. ... I used to 
 be much impressed by the way in which he answered 
 attacks, and how, as much by his manner as by his ability, 
 he disarmed hostility, and often converted distrust into 
 confidence. . . . His demeanour was so quiet and gentle, 
 and he listened so patiently to all that was advanced, and 
 his replies, though forcible, were so moderate in tone, that 
 men went away half thinking they had talked him over, 
 
 kind, ever devoted to worthy objects. His views are at once correct 
 and enlightened, and though he has not been many years in India, he 
 has acquired a thorough knowledge of the languages, customs, tenures, 
 manners, and resources of almost every province in the Bombay 
 Presidency. He is competent to answer any questions on the above 
 important subjects, and there is no person in the whole service who 
 could be consulted on them with more advantage or confidence, he is 
 so strictly conscientious and honourable."
 
 1842-4.] PRIVATE SECRETARY TO SIR G. ARTHUR. 45 
 
 and only perceived on reflection the full force of what he 
 had said. 
 
 " I should say that the character of his mind, though 
 very even and unprejudiced, was rather active than con- 
 templative, and eminently practical. His intellect was 
 clear and acute ; he was quick tc apprehend, but in a 
 general way slow to decide ; very industrious and pains- 
 taking, seldom in a hurry, and anxious to be quite sure he 
 understood the matter in hand before he gave an opinion 
 upon it. He was not a reserved man, nor usually reticent, 
 but if he held a secret — and as secretary he held many — no 
 one could discover from his speech or manner that there 
 was any secret to be kept. 
 
 " He had a remarkably fine temper. I have often seen 
 him vexed by the follies of others, but I never saw him 
 really angry. He was careful in his speech not to give 
 unnecessary offence, or to indulge in the sort of talk likely 
 to be misrepresented or to make mischief. I never heard 
 him speak ill of any man, not even of those he could not 
 commend, but he was rather given to notice any good 
 qualities. . . . 
 
 " He had a great deal to do with the introduction of 
 railways into India. It was a subject he took up and 
 pressed forward when he became private secretary, and he 
 and Sir George Arthur, at his suggestion, promoted in 
 every way a scheme for a short line across Salsette, which 
 eventually became absorbed into the more extensive line 
 finally executed. Also when in England on leave, after 
 his marriage, he lost no opportunity of pressing the im- 
 portance of railways upon the Indian Directors and the 
 Secretary of State for India. Few but those immediately 
 concerned were aware how much India owed to him in 
 this respect. . . . 
 
 " In those days he was a bachelor with a good income, 
 but he was always open-handed even beyond his means, 
 and the kind of man to whom a friend in difficulty naturally 
 turned, and not in vain, for aid. I remember one instance 
 which I thought highly characteristic of the man. Some 
 young officer who had been recommended to him had, as 
 he heard, got into debt. He found on inquiry it was so, 
 and the plea given was the necessity for keeping a horse. 
 Frere said nothing, but quietly made an addition to his 
 own stud, and then, sending for the youth, told him that
 
 46 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 he had a horse that he did not use, and he would be glad 
 to have him exercised daily. I forget how I heard this, 
 but certainly not from Frere himself. He always took an 
 interest in young officers and civil servants just arrived 
 in the country. They came, of course, to the Governor's 
 public breakfasts, and also, of course, saw the private 
 secretary. He always had something to say to them, and 
 helped many of them with something more than good 
 advice. 
 
 " His religious convictions were strong. He was a 
 Churchman of the old school, untroubled by doubts or 
 theological difficulties. His faith was firm and simple, 
 and though very tolerant of other opinions, and a liberal 
 donor to many societies outside the Church of England, 
 his attachment to her was affectionate. He was, I believe, 
 a man of great personal piety, living ever as under the 
 great Taskmaster's eye, and carrying his conscience into 
 every act of his life. So pure and simple was he, that I 
 doubt whether he ever did an act that he thought wrong ; 
 ' blameless and harmless ' might truly be said of him, 
 were it not that such praise might be thought to imply 
 weakness, whereas his character was a strong one, and his 
 opinions well defined and stoutly held. 
 
 "There was nothing of the ascetic in his composition. 
 He was excellent company in all societies, very strong in 
 friends, both a full and a ready man, with a great appre- 
 ciation of the ridiculous, and great enjoyment of the 
 ordinary amusements of life. He was a thorough patriot, 
 loyal to the heart's core to his Queen and country, and not 
 least to the land in which his lot was cast. He knew the 
 native character well, both its virtues and its faults. He 
 was a steady promoter of native education and of native 
 self-government so far as it could at that time be car- 
 ried. He thought Mountstuart Elphinstone's views on the 
 employment of theDeccan nobles to be sound and good, 
 and much regretted that they had not been acted on when 
 we took possession of that country. . . . 
 
 " His private character was among the most perfect that 
 I have known." 
 
 When he had been for two years private secretary, the 
 time for the long-desired visit to England drew near. A 
 civilian's furlough was due at the end of ten years, in which
 
 1844.] MARRIAGE. 47 
 
 time, before the overland route was established, was 
 included the four or five months taken up by the voyage 
 out. Year by year and month by month he had been 
 looking forward to May, 1S44, as the happy time when he 
 would return to revisit his father's home. But when the 
 time came near, the pressure of work was so great, and so 
 many civilians were on leave of absence, that he was con- 
 strained to postpone his furlough for awhile. In April, 
 1844, came the second great sorrow of his life — the 
 intelligence of his beloved father's death. 
 
 But his health was giving way. In June he had a 
 severe illness from inflammation of the liver, which left 
 him so weakened that the doctors ordered hirn off on sick 
 leave to England ; and unwilling as he was to leave Sir 
 G. Arthur at a busy and anxious time, he had no choice 
 but to go. 
 
 He was not, however, to go home alone. He had 
 become intimate with Sir George Arthur's family, and 
 was engaged to Catherine, his second (and eldest then 
 unmarried) daughter. Miss Arthur, in her father's home, 
 had already had a varied experience of life in Van 
 Dieman's Land, in Canada, in England, and in India, 
 and, accustomed to help him in his correspondence and 
 in his hospitalities, was especially well qualified by her 
 early training and associations for the duties she was 
 afterwards called upon to perform. They were married 
 October 10, 1844. 
 
 During the performance of the marriage ceremony 
 intelligence arrived of an outbreak, which led to the 
 Southern Mahratta war, and Sir George Arthur was called 
 away from the church door to preside at a council to 
 consider the necessary measures to be taken, the wedding 
 festivities being suspended for an hour or more till it was 
 over.
 
 48 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 A few days later, on November i, 1844, they sailed 
 from Bombay on their way to England. 
 
 On November 25 he writes to his mother — 
 
 " We hope to be at Malta to-morrow evening, my 
 dearest mother, and so I am getting this ready to go by 
 the Marseilles Packet, to tell you that we have got thus 
 far in safety after a very prosperous voyage. . . . We 
 reached Suez after a voyage shorter by two hours than 
 any other vessel had ever made, and landing early in the 
 morning of the 20th, lost no time in getting into the vans — 
 a curious mixture of a Mumbles car, a baker's cart, and an 
 Irish car, carrying, as a Parsee in Bombay said of his 
 carriage, ' four stouts or six thins.' We, i.e. Kate and 
 her sister and servant, Mrs. Melvill, Sir Robert Oliver, 
 and self, were all ' thins ; ' so we were stuffed in, the 
 interstices closed with pillows and carpet bags, and after 
 the four little rats of Barb horses which were intended to 
 draw us had backed, kicked, and turned round, and looked 
 in at the windows till they were tired, away we went over 
 the track, which had been cleared of stones, which here 
 bestrew the desert. The desert itself has but little shifting 
 sand. It looks very much like any part of the downs in 
 the South of England, without grass — high, bare, white 
 hills in the distance, the country near the road undulating 
 hills of hard sand, with a few ravines here and there 
 scantily sprinkled with stones, and with a few stunted 
 thorny bushes in some of the hollows. There were three 
 station-houses, with servants and provisions, and a stable 
 for changing horses at and between each — eight stages in 
 all. We left at nine in the morning, and got in about two 
 the next morning. Compared with what travelling in the 
 Egyptian desert was when I went out, the whole affair was 
 very luxurious, and, for an able-bodied man in good health, 
 not attended with any danger or discomfort. But with the 
 means now at hand the Transit Company might easily 
 make it safe and easy travelling for ladies, which it certainly 
 is not now. However, thank God, we got through without 
 accident, and arrived safe at Cairo — the first of all our 
 party, many of whom were less fortunate than we were. 
 After a vain attempt to sleep out the remainder of the 
 night, and an equally ineffectual endeavour to get clean 
 next morning, we went in the afternoon to see the Pacha's
 
 
 MEHEMET ALI, AS WE FOUND HIM PLAYING BILLIARDS WITH IBRAHIM PACHA 
 IN THE SHUBRA PALACE. 
 
 November 21, 1844. 
 
 2^>— 
 
 JWia: 
 
 
 'ft//*
 
 1844-6.] SICK LEAVE TO ENGLAND. 49 
 
 garden, at Shoubra, where, while Kate and her sister and 
 Mrs. Melvill walked in the beautiful gardens, I went in 
 with Sir Robert Oliver and Colonel Barnett, the Consul- 
 General, to try to get a glimpse of the Pacha. We found 
 him playing billiards with Ibrahim, and after seeing them 
 finish their game, went into the divan, where the old Pacha,* 
 whether from having given his son a beating, or from some 
 other cause, was in such spirits as Colonel Barnett said 
 were of late quite unusual. He talked and laughed with 
 the Colonel and Sir Robert, and all his observations and 
 questions impressed me with the idea that, whatever else 
 he might be, he was a very well-informed and shrewd old 
 gentleman for a Turk." 
 
 Frere was too much out of health to make it expedient 
 for him to return to England in the midst of winter. He 
 and Mrs. Frere, therefore, remained some time at Malta, 
 staying at the house of his uncle, John Hookham Frere. 
 Thence they travelled slowly through Italy, spending three 
 weeks at Rome, and stopping wherever they found any- 
 thing to interest them ; Frere keenly enjoying and appre- 
 ciating all that he saw, this being his first visit to Italy. 
 They travelled through Siena, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, and 
 thence through France, in a carriage — for it was before 
 the days of railways — to England, and to the old home at 
 Bitton, where, writes Lady Frere, " I can never forget the 
 joy at his return ; it was clouded only by the gaps in the 
 family circle caused by the death of the father, who had so 
 longed to see his beloved son's return, and of the two dear 
 brothers.f The whole family seemed to rest in the fact of 
 his being among them." 
 
 His health did not permit of his returning to India so 
 soon as he had intended. His leave had to be extended 
 to two years, and he did not go out again till November, 
 1846. During that time he travelled a good deal about 
 
 * Mehemet Ali. 
 
 t Richard, and his eldest brother Edward, Rector of Finningham. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 England with Mrs. Frere, visiting relations and friends, 
 and his first home at Clydach, where he found his old 
 nurse, Molly Cadwallader, still living. Bitton was his 
 head-quarters, and here,* in January, 1846, his mother 
 died, and he had the comfort of being with her to the last. 
 
 The following April, Sir George Arthur was compelled 
 by ill health to leave India and return to England. Thus, 
 when, in December, 1846, Frere returned to Bombay, his 
 appointment as private secretary had ceased. The only 
 office that at that time could be offered to him was an 
 Assistant Commissionership in the Customs Department 
 at Bombay. His friends thought he would have waited 
 till something more suitable to his standing in the service 
 fell vacant. But not wishing to remain unemployed, he 
 accepted it, and, entering on his duties at once, found his 
 work absorbing and interesting. He made inquiries as to 
 the way certain matters were managed at the Custom 
 House in London from a cousin who was engaged there, 
 and was thus able to introduce some reforms and improve- 
 ments in the Bombay Custom House. In this office he 
 remained till April, 1847, when the new Governor of 
 Bombay, Sir George Clerk, offered him the appointment 
 of Resident at Sattara, a native State in the Deccan, in 
 succession to Colonel (afterwards Sir James; Outram, who 
 was going to England. This he accepted, and at once 
 took up his residence at Sattara, which is in the midst of 
 a pleasant and interesting country, with a good climate, 
 and within easy reach of Mahabuleshwar, the hill-station 
 most resorted to in the hot months by Europeans in the 
 Bombay Presidency. 
 
 No official duties are more elastic, more susceptible of 
 indefinite expansion, than those of a Resident at an Indian 
 native court. He may, under ordinary circumstances, con- 
 fine himself, if so disposed, to keeping up a friendly inter-
 
 1847J SATTARA. 5 1 
 
 course with the reigning prince, and to adjudicating on such 
 cases as come before him judicially. But under favourable 
 circumstances a Resident may also become the adviser of 
 the court, not only in matters of external policy, which is 
 his special function, but of domestic politics also, so as to 
 become practically the Prime Minister and something more. 
 For in an Indian native State there is little private enter- 
 prise, and almost all public works and improvements 
 originate with the Government. 
 
 A more favourable field for such influence than the State 
 of Sattara presented at this time could hardly have been 
 found. It had only within a few years been rescued from 
 a condition of oppression and lawlessness. A good begin- 
 ning had been made, and a favourable impression of British 
 power, justice, and good will produced by Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone, Ovans, and Outram ; but in internal adminis- 
 tration — the organization of justice, police, and public works 
 of all kinds — much remained to be done. 
 
 The Rajah, restored to power by the English in 1818, 
 and confided in his earlier years to Captain Grant Duff's 
 tutorship, had turned out faithless ; and as he persisted in 
 intriguing against the Government, he had been, in 1839, 
 deposed and sent as a State prisoner to Benares, and his 
 brother Shaji, or Appa Sahib, placed on the throne in his 
 stead. Appa Sahib proved an intelligent and benevolent 
 ruler, who did much for the improvement of his people. 
 Though imbued with the ideas, habits, and superstitions of 
 a Hindoo, he was willing and anxious to receive advice 
 and assistance from the British Resident, and was always 
 faithful to the Government, notably so during the Southern 
 Mahratta war in 1844, when he offered a passage through 
 his territory to the British troops. There grew up at once 
 a good understanding and friendship between him and 
 Frere.
 
 52 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 How unsettled parts of the country still were may be 
 gathered from the following extract from a memorandum 
 of Frere's on the police of Sattara, written in December, 
 1847 :— 
 
 " Mixed with the Mahratta villages, but perfectly distinct 
 in locality of habitations and all their religious and social 
 habits, are large communities of Ramoosies, Mangs, and 
 other castes, whose professed mode of life in the last 
 generation was either robbery or the wages of abstinence 
 from robbery ; and who still, under the pressure of want, 
 take to plunder as their natural occupation. The number 
 of Ramoosies alone, according to the last census, was, if I 
 recollect right, between fifty and sixty thousand souls. 
 
 " Besides, there is a considerable vagabond floating 
 population of gipsy- like tribes, whose mat huts may be 
 seen outside every fourth or fifth village. . . . They have 
 all some ostensible callings . . . but all occasionally live 
 on their neighbours ; while some tribes furnish the most 
 persevering of those plunderers who habitually and sys- 
 tematically practise gang robbery." 
 
 Frere's papers of this date show how numerous and 
 varied were the matters he had to deal with. There is 
 official correspondence about various charges of murder 
 and highway robbery, and on petitions from individuals 
 alleging wrongs, private and public, the evidence being 
 very difficult to sift in the midst of a state of morality 
 where falsehood is scarcely held to be a fault. And there 
 are suggestions for the distribution of New Orleans cotton- 
 seed, for the adoption of a new model of a cotton-gin, and 
 for the introduction of an improved breed of sheep ; and 
 plans for irrigation, for sanitation, and the prevention of 
 cholera, as to which last there is a long exhaustive report, 
 going minutely into every detail of the various causes of 
 the epidemic, and of the measures to be taken for its pre- 
 vention. And there are suggestions for the preservation 
 of the ancient buildings and library at Bijapur, for the
 
 1847-50-] SATTARA. 53 
 
 making of roads, and as to the whole system of law and 
 the administration of justice throughout the State. In 
 each case the subject is dealt with in minute detail, often 
 explained by reference to its origin centuries ago, so that 
 many of the letters are complete treatises on the origin, 
 growth, present state and practicable methods of dealing 
 with the matter in question. 
 
 The late Colonel Sir Herbert Sandford, R.A., who, as 
 a young artillery officer, was intimately associated with 
 Frere during nearly all his time at Sattara, writes of the 
 life there as follows : — 
 
 "I first met Frere in August, 1847, when ordered to 
 Sattara to command the Field Battery of Bombay Native 
 Artillery, which, with a regiment of Bombay Native In- 
 fantry, formed the British garrison. I remember being 
 struck with the youthful appearance of the Resident, with 
 his very intellectual and refined expression and gentle 
 manner. As I came to know him better, I noticed also his 
 lover-like devotion to his young wife, who, both then and 
 in after years of hard work and many trials, proved herself 
 so worthy of his attachment both as wife and, I may truly 
 say, as coadjutor in his public and social duties. Frere 
 had a fascination about him which drew my heart at once, 
 and a request he soon afterwards made to me to examine 
 and report on the Rajah of Sattara's siege and Field Artil- 
 lery . . . led to the commencement of those intimate 
 terms which lasted between us for nearly forty years. In 
 the following April (1848) I was appointed Acting As- 
 sistant Resident, and I served under Frere's control till 
 his departure for Sind at the end of 1850. His unosten- 
 tatious but deep piety, his intense family affection, and his 
 warm-hearted, generous feelings towards those whom he 
 honoured with his friendship, were notable characteristics. 
 The hearty grasp of his hand at all meetings and partings 
 was but an index of Frere's kind nature. He was of a 
 most cheerful disposition, and delighted in fun. In money 
 matters, that great test of a man's character, Frere was 
 most open-handed and generous. . . . 
 
 " He was too much occupied with official duties when at
 
 54 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 Sattara to go on 'shikar' or sporting expeditions, though 
 some parts of the province in those days abounded in 
 large game ; almost the only exception to this being on 
 one morning when, by way of a break in the early office 
 work, we went to the outskirts of the city and shot a large 
 panther. . . . 
 
 " The society was small in those days, but the hospitality 
 exercised by the Resident and Mrs. Frere brought us con- 
 stantly together. The monsoon, or rainy months, from 
 June to October, was the 'season/ and the life, though a 
 happy one, would be considered but dull in the present 
 days of perpetual excitement. An early morning ride, 
 the friendly gossip round the tea-table in the verandah to 
 discuss the contents of the Bombay newspapers, usually 
 received at that hour two days old, in those days, though 
 less than two hundred miles from the Presidency capital, 
 an occasional picnic at Euteshwur, the Sattara fort, or at 
 one of the neighbouring romantic spots, frequent dinner- 
 parties and a very occasional ball, formed our social inter- 
 course. Frere also introduced evening receptions at the 
 Residency, where the Rajah, his court, and the native 
 nobility and gentry mixed with the European society. 
 Sattara being on the main road from some of the principal 
 stations to Mahabuleshwar, the sanitarium of Bombay, re- 
 ceived many passing visitors in May and October, from the 
 Governor downwards, and the advent at these seasons of 
 the venerated Bishop Carr was announced in those times 
 by a salute of thirteen guns. The bishop, who was the 
 most retiring of men, always thanked the artillery officer 
 as if he had been paying a personal compliment instead 
 of obeying orders. Divine service was at that time held at 
 Sattara in an unconsecrated building, which had thirty 
 years previously been used as a European artillery hos- 
 pital. One of Sir B. Frere's best-remembered acts for the 
 benefit of his fellow-countrymen at Sattara was his initi- 
 ating and carrying out the erection of a handsome church 
 on a prominent site, visible to all the surrounding country. 
 A good library for the use of the English residents was 
 maintained by the liberality of the Rajah, who assigned 
 certain grass lands for providing the requisite funds. . . . 
 
 " The Rajah of Sattara himself was, as Mr. Frere often 
 mentions, one of the most benevolent and enlightened 
 rulers of his time. He lent a willing' ear to the Resident's
 
 sCS^W 
 
 
 
 g
 
 S847-50.] BIJAPUR. 55 
 
 suggestions on the subjects of education, public works, 
 conservancy, etc. Sattara itself was a model city in these 
 respects, even in the Rajah's lifetime. Amongst other 
 public works was a well-made road from Sattara to the 
 frontier of the Poona Collectorate at Neera. The making 
 of this road, under the supervision of an English engineer 
 in the Rajah's employ, Mr. Smith, caused the building of 
 the first bridge in India over the sacred river Krishna, 
 which in Hindoo belief is destined ere long to supersede 
 the Ganges in sanctity. As this bridge enabled unbelievers 
 to cross the river wearing their leather defiling shoes, great 
 was the wrath of the Brahmins, who always took off their 
 sandals when using the bridge." 
 
 About a hundred and forty miles from Sattara, on a 
 fertile plain, stands the ancient city of Bijapur, with its 
 massive lava walls and innumerable mosques, palaces, and 
 tombs. One dome, built of brick, is larger than that of 
 St. Paul's, and is the largest in India. Equal in splendour 
 to Agra and Delhi, Bijapur was captured by Aurungzebe 
 two centuries ago, and since then has gradually become a 
 city of the dead. Successive Residents at Sattara, begin- 
 ning with Mountstuart Elphinstone, took an interest in its 
 preservation ; and Frere ultimately succeeded in obtaining 
 a grant of five thousand two hundred rupees from the 
 Bombay Government for repairs to the most important 
 buildings, and the rescue of a valuable library and 
 manuscripts from destruction. Sir Herbert Sandford 
 continues — 
 
 "Among other restorations was that of an arch in the 
 beautiful Ibrahim Rosa, which lies outside the lofty and 
 massive city ramparts. Aurungzebe took the Ibrahim Rosa 
 buildings for his head-quarters during the last siege of 
 Bijapur, in 1688 ; and the great gun which for two 
 centuries was the heaviest piece of ordnance in the world, 
 and even now ranks high with our largest cannon, was 
 turned on the Emperor, and now lies pointed at the broken 
 arch repaired by Frere's orders. This gun, or rather 
 howitzer, weighs forty-two tons, and is of very fine metal,
 
 56 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 ringing like a bell when struck, with much silver in the 
 alloy. It was cast at Ahmednuggur, from whose Maho- 
 medan sovereign one of the Bijapur kings wrested the 
 gun, and having conveyed it over some two hundred miles 
 of roadless country, finally mounted the immense mass on 
 a rampart sixty feet high by mechanical means of which 
 there is no record. . . . There were some curious super- 
 stitions in Bijapur respecting the effects of this gun being 
 fired, and the Hindoos were in the habit of worshipping 
 the monster, burning a light perpetually before the muzzle, 
 until this was put a stop to with some difficulty. 
 
 " When Frere took charge of Bijapur, there were some 
 ten thousand inhabitants living in the hamlets at the 
 various gateways. He gave an immediate impetus to the 
 prosperity of the ancient city, by instituting a weekly 
 market at the principal of these gateways, at which no 
 octroi was to be taken. As heavy octroi duties were then 
 being levied at all the neighbouring markets or fairs, most 
 of them being outside English limits, the effect was imme- 
 diate and great. Population rapidly increased, and a 
 very considerable trade sprung up. A railway now runs 
 through Bijapur, and the head-quarters of the Collectorate 
 of the new Zilla of Bijapur are located in the former 
 citadel." 
 
 The pressing and critical question at Sattara, which 
 for the time overshadowed all others, was that of the 
 succession. The Rajah was childless. He was the repre- 
 sentative of the old Mahratta dynasty, the descendant of 
 the great Sivaji who had founded the Mahratta power 
 more than two hundred years before. All the pride of 
 race, all the instincts which induce a man of wealth and 
 power to bequeath his inheritance to a chosen heir, were 
 present, and, in addition to this, a still stronger motive, 
 arising out of the Brahmin superstition which entails a 
 long period of purgatorial suffering on a man who dies 
 without an heir — whether natural or adopted makes no 
 difference — to perform certain obsequies at his funeral.* 
 
 * " The son," says the great Hindoo lawgiver, "delivers his father 
 from the hell called Put. There are, he tells us, different kinds of sons ;
 
 33? 
 
 Breech. 
 
 Muzzle. 
 
 GUN ON THE OOPUREE BROOJ AT BIJAPUR (IRON). 
 January 14, 1848. 
 
 THE MULOOK JUFT (il CUBITS LONG).
 
 1848.] SATTARA. 57 
 
 The treaties of 1819 and 1839 secured the sovereignty 
 of Sattara to the Rajah, "his heirs and successors." The 
 question was, Did these words, "heirs and successors," 
 imply the right to adopt, and include an adopted as 
 well as a natural heir ? If they did not, it was claimed 
 that the sovereignty reverted to the English Government. 
 It was unfortunate that that Government had to be judge 
 in its own case. 
 
 Frere writes to the Governor of Bombay, March 21, 
 1848, to inform him of the serious illness of the Rajah. 
 
 " Though I had an engagement to visit him in the after- 
 noon, he desired I might be sent for immediately. 
 
 " His Highness appeared to be suffering severe pain, and 
 was evidently in great alarm about himself. ... It was 
 long before our united efforts could restore him to any 
 degree of composure, and he then told me, in broken 
 sentences, that he felt he was most seriously ill, and had 
 many things to say to me. . . . 
 
 "He then told me that ' this was the State of Sevaji 
 
 there is the son begotten, the son given, the son by adoption, and 
 other filial varieties. It is the duty of the son to perform the funeral 
 obsequies of the father. If they be not performed, it is believed that 
 there is no resurrection to eternal bliss. The right of adoption is, 
 therefore, one of the most cherished doctrines of Hindooism. In a 
 country where polygamy is the rule, it might be supposed that the 
 necessity for adopting another man's offspring would be of rare 
 occurrence. But all theory on the subject is belied by the fact that 
 the princes and chiefs of India more frequently find themselves at the 
 close of their lives without the solace of male offspring than with it. 
 The alternative of adoption is one, therefore, to which there is frequent 
 resort ; it is a source of unspeakable comfort in life and in death ; and 
 politically it is as dear to the heart of a nation as it is personally to 
 the individual it affects. . . . 
 
 " No power on earth beyond a man's own will can prevent him 
 from adopting a son, or can render that adoption illegal if it be legally 
 performed. But to adopt a son as successor to private property is one 
 thing, to adopt an heir to titular dignities and territorial sovereignty 
 is another. Without the consent of the paramount state, no adoption 
 of the latter kind can be valid." — Kaye's " Sepoy War," quoted in the 
 Ranee of Sattara's Memorial.
 
 58 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 and Shahoo Maharajt ; that it was for the Government who 
 had so long upheld it to take such steps as it saw fit to 
 uphold it still ; ' and then, with still deeper feeling and a 
 more impressive manner, said 'that he committed to the 
 keeping of the British Resident Bulwant Rao Raj Adnega, 
 the boy he had taken under his protection,' and made the 
 child put his hands in mine." 
 
 On a subsequent visit, ten days later, Frere found the 
 Rajah worse. 
 
 "April ii, 1848. 
 " He then said he had hoped to have been able to meet 
 the Honourable Governor at Mahabuleshwar, and there to 
 have asked his advice as to the course he should pursue, 
 but that he felt he could not hope to do so now ; that he 
 trusted that the same motives which had originally induced 
 the British Government to maintain the throne of Sivaji 
 and Shahoo, would now induce them to consent to let him 
 continue the succession in the usual manner by adoption ; 
 . . . that he had always acted on the assurance that the 
 presence of the British Resident was as though the sovereign 
 was there in person ; that he did not feel assured for a day 
 what would happen to him, and he therefore trusted that 
 I would sanction or obtain the Governor's sanction to the 
 adoption." 
 
 Frere told him that a matter so important would have 
 to be referred to the Court of Directors in London ; and 
 as to the boy whom he proposed to adopt, he was a 
 foundling and a stranger ; and Frere pointed out how 
 unfit any one of low origin, out of whose dish the Rajah 
 could not eat, would be to succeed to the throne of Sivaji. 
 He at once admitted the force of this, and said that if he 
 got permission to adopt, he would select some one of the 
 family of Bhonslay, after due inquiry as to the purity of 
 his blood, the qualities of the child, and the prognostics 
 derivable from his horoscope. 
 
 Frere went at once, according to the Rajah's request, to 
 see the Governor at Mahabuleshwar. Before he had been
 
 1848.] DEATH OF THE RAJAH. 59 
 
 there two days, he received an urgent summons to return. 
 He mounted at once and rode at speed, but he was too 
 late. In his absence, feeling his end approaching, the 
 Rajah had sent for the Residency doctor, Dr. Murray, and 
 told him that, having chosen a boy of the Bhonslay 
 family, he was going to adopt him, and that he wished the 
 adoption to take place in Dr. Murray's presence. 
 
 In vain the doctor, taken by surprise, and shrinking 
 from the responsibility, begged him to await Frere's return. 
 He shook his head, and saying that no time was to be 
 lost, put pen and paper in the doctor's hands, bidding him 
 write down in English the exact translation of the words 
 he spoke in Mahratta. He then said, slowly and distinctly, 
 " I have not the slightest hope of living till the Resident's 
 arrival. I therefore now adopt this boy " — calling him into 
 the room. After a few minutes the ceremony of adoption 
 took place, in the presence of forty or fifty of the Durbar, 
 and lasted about a quarter of an hour. On its conclusion 
 the Rajah was lifted up in bed, and having had a turban 
 put on his head and a shawl thrown over him, the adopted 
 son made obeisance to him, and afterwards, at his request, 
 ate sugar out of the doctor's hand, and from the hands of 
 some half-dozen others. Taking Dr. Murray's hand, the 
 Rajah said, " You must mention to Mr. Frere all that has 
 passed, and all that I have said. Mr. Frere must arrange 
 and manage everything after my death ; from him all my 
 people are sure to receive justice and kindness." His 
 words " were now scarcely audible, and shortly afterwards 
 he expired, amid the lamentations, not only of his family 
 and attendants, but also of the numerous assemblage of 
 people who were congregated within and around the 
 precincts of the palace." * 
 
 Frere's official letter carries on the story : — 
 
 * Memorandum by Dr. Murray, April 5, 1848.
 
 60 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IIL 
 
 " It was after dark when I reached the palace ; a vast 
 crowd had assembled in the square in front of it, and the 
 whole of his Highness's retinue was assembled as for a 
 State procession ; I was received by Mama Sahib Sena- 
 puttee, his Highness's maternal uncle, one of the oldest 
 and most respected of the Sirdars, who led me to the 
 gateway, where the corpse was placed in a sitting posture, 
 dressed as in Durbar, and prepared to be carried forth. 
 
 " After the first clamorous expression of grief was 
 somewhat calmed, the boy who had been adopted was 
 brought forward. 
 
 " I told the assembled chiefs that . . . the Governor 
 had expressed his approval of the advice which I had 
 given his Highness to await the answer of Government 
 to his application for leave to adopt, and not to complicate 
 the question by proceeding to any adoption pending the 
 arrival of that answer ; . . . that what had happened was 
 now beyond remedy, but that it was out of my power to 
 recognize the act till I received the orders of Government ; 
 that in the mean time I was instructed ... to take charge 
 of the administration, and to conduct it on exactly the 
 same principles and through the same agency as during 
 his Highness's lifetime, till the decision of the Govern- 
 ment of India should arrive. 
 
 " With this they seemed perfectly satisfied, several 
 declaring that they entirely trusted to the British Govern- 
 ment, the late Rajah's best friend, and were content to 
 abide by whatever it might think best. 
 
 " They then asked leave, which I of course gave at once, 
 for the procession to move on, which gave occasion for a 
 fresh burst of grief from the crowd. The adopted son, as 
 chief mourner, preceded the corpse, carrying the fire for 
 the pile. Mama Sahib then begged me to go upstairs to 
 where the Ranees were sitting, and he led the way, followed 
 by about twenty of the principal officers of the State and 
 household. 
 
 " The lady was sitting wrapped in shawls, between the 
 two younger Ranees, close to the wall, and seemed quite 
 to understand all I said, but it was repeated in her ear in 
 the usual way by her dewan. In so doing I observed he 
 omitted or altered every expression which implied any 
 doubt as to the recognition of the adoption ; and painful 
 as it was, I considered it was, taking all circumstances into
 
 1848.] FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 6l 
 
 consideration, the less cruel course to recapitulate, and 
 caused to be explained to the Ranees, very distinctly, the 
 reasons which made it impossible for me to recognize the 
 act or to pledge myself to the decision of the Government 
 on the subject. . . . 
 
 "When taken ill in the morning, among other ex- 
 pedients resorted to in the hope of prolonging his 
 Highness's life, the Brahmins suggested the gift in charity 
 of his Highness's weight in silver. As he was too weak to 
 submit to the ordinary process, fifteen thousand rupees 
 were taken, as the probable weight, and given by his 
 Highness." 
 
 Sir Herbert Sandford continues the narrative : — 
 
 " Eight days after the funeral the customary presents to 
 priests were made to ensure repose to the Rajah's soul. 
 In Hindoo private life these consist in models of house- 
 hold furniture and such-like, with a few rupees given ; 
 but in the case of the Rajah one or more of every animal 
 or article in any way used by the Rajah was presented. 
 The recipient could only be a Brahmin, and as the belief 
 was that the more valuable the gift, the greater were the 
 number of the Rajah's sins which the vicarious presentee had 
 to bear, there really was considerable difficulty in finding 
 men to accept those of a more expensive character. In 
 particular, no one for some days could be found to accept 
 an elephant, till at last a very holy Brahmin who was 
 living a hermit's life, but who had a son for whose marriage 
 ceremonies he required money, was persuaded to take the 
 elephant on condition of receiving also a sum of five 
 hundred rupees. The elephant was given with a white or 
 unlucky mark on its head, and was sold by the holy man 
 to a Mahomedan. Not only were native manufactures 
 given, but also European articles, such as a gun, and an 
 English carriage and pair of horses, which latter had to 
 be accompanied by a present of three hundred rupees. 
 The ceremony took place where the Rajah's body had 
 been burnt, where also in former times the Brahmin 
 widows had been consumed with their husbands' bodies 
 — sacrifices which the late Rajah had himself abolished on 
 coming to the throne. The Resident, accompanied by 
 several officers from the camp, was seated on a special 
 platform, and it excited some of the younger military men
 
 62 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 to see valuable property, such as silver bedsteads, hand- 
 some riding horses, etc., carried off by the priests, with 
 bags of rupees as an inducement for them to do so. One 
 officer was heard to exclaim that he would take all the 
 Rajah's sins for nothing, if the carriage, horses, and guns 
 were given to him ! The ceremony closed with the pre- 
 sentation of three splendid-looking cows, whose influence 
 was in some mysterious manner to enable the Rajah's soul 
 to cross three rivers on his way to the Hindoo heaven." 
 
 Pending the final decision of the Court of Directors 
 whether the adoption would be sanctioned or refused, and 
 the province annexed, Frere was instructed to assume 
 charge, and to act as ad interim Rajah ; and the Bombay 
 Government sent off a detachment of troops to support 
 him. He, however, on hearing of it, at once took measures 
 to have them recalled before crossing the Sattara frontier, 
 as he preferred to depend on moral force alone. 
 
 Sir H. Sandford describes the official life at Sattara at 
 this time ; — 
 
 " Soon after daybreak we drove or rode to the palace, 
 in the heart of the city, and in a large hall of one of 
 these buildings found assembled the ministers of State, 
 attended by their secretaries. . . . Each minister or head 
 of department had, on large sheets of paper with wide 
 margins, precis of all letters or reports received by him. 
 The decision on each subject was written on the margin 
 and initialed by the Resident or his assistant ; and letters 
 were then prepared for the minister's seal, or Mr. Frere's 
 signature, according to their importance. 
 
 " After two or three hours of this we returned, and for 
 the rest of the day Mr. Frere worked at the Residency, in 
 the forenoon as Resident, and afterwards as Civil Judge, 
 disposing of appeals, or as Criminal Judge, trying the cases 
 prepared by me as magistrate. There were upwards of 
 three hundred untried prisoners in the gaol at the Rajah's 
 death, so that this, with the current criminal work, was of 
 itself enough for any ordinary official. The completion 
 of the trial of these prisoners brought out one of the traits 
 in Frere's character which must have been often noticed
 
 1848.] SATTARA. 63 
 
 in the larger fields he was soon called to, by the assistants 
 who had the good fortune to work under him — namely, 
 how, in making any reports to Government, he always 
 brought prominently forward the assistance he had received 
 from his staff, even when, as in my case, this was trifling 
 compared with his own share in the work. ... It may be 
 imagined what a spur to zeal and what a bond of affection 
 was created in the hearts of his assistants when their chief 
 wrote commendation, in such terms, of success which he 
 had in reality been mainly instrumental in creating. 
 
 "The work of which I have given a sketch was frequently 
 varied by visits to the three widows in the palace, who, 
 partly from their own natural anxiety, and partly as mouth- 
 pieces of the numerous dependents concerned, were con- 
 stantly urging the claims of the adopted son and the 
 necessity for a speedy decision. The greatest tact was 
 also required, in deciding many of the questions coming 
 before the Resident, to hold a neutral position, so as on 
 one hand not to give rise to false expectations that the 
 adoption would be allowed, nor on the other hand to 
 extinguish their hopes, and give openings for the work of 
 intrigue, or even for plotting against the Government, in 
 which some of their advisers, as was afterwards evident in 
 1857, had both the will and the power to involve the 
 Rajah's family. 
 
 " When the fair season set in, Mr. Frere went frequently 
 into the districts, leaving me on such occasions in charge 
 at head-quarters, and himself made all the annual revenue 
 settlements — a work which was afterwards distributed 
 among three officials. 
 
 " The Ryotwarree system was in force, involving separate 
 dealings by the revenue authorities with thousands of 
 small holders of land. As most of the land was rack- 
 rented, the full amount of rent could never be paid except 
 in very exceptional years. The Rajah's system was to give 
 but small permanent remissions, but not to exact full pay- 
 ments, leaving an immense amount of arrears due from the 
 ryots. All these arrears were afterwards wiped out, and 
 the European officers in charge of districts saw every 
 tenant and signed the cancelling memorandum in the 
 debtor's book ; but Frere, in both 1848-9 and 1849-50, him- 
 self made the settlements, so that only what had to be 
 paid was actually demanded, and gave at once remission
 
 64 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 of the balance. To settle what this remission should be 
 required an immense amount of clerical labour, and a 
 general survey of the condition of the crops, and the super- 
 vision of this work Mr. Frere transacted in addition to his 
 other constant duties." 
 
 On the question of adoption Frere writes to the 
 Governor of Bombay — 
 
 "April 12, 1848. 
 " It is right I should inform Government that very great 
 anxiety exists among all classes about the town as to the 
 future, and no act is so trifling but that I hear it has been 
 interpreted in various ways, favourable or unfavourable to 
 the continuance of the State according to the hopes or 
 fears of the party. Government will not be surprised at 
 this when it is considered that the bread of almost every 
 one in and about the city depends more or less on the 
 decision. Besides the holders of jagheers, imans, etc., who 
 may feel more or less secure according to the tenure on 
 which they hold their possessions, there are at least ten 
 thousand individuals directly supported by salaries from 
 the Court, and most of these have probably many persons 
 dependent on them for subsistence ; on the expenditure 
 of such Government servants mainly depends the trade of 
 the city, and there are few of the cultivating classes even 
 throughout the territory to whom the extinction of the 
 dynasty of Sivaji would be matter of indifference. Most 
 of those near Sattara, and all the more respectable families 
 at a distance, have some relative in some situation or other 
 in his Highness's service, and all for many miles round 
 participate more or less in the benefit of the expenditure 
 caused by the Durbar." 
 
 And in his Report to the Bombay Government he 
 says — 
 
 " September 23, 1848. 
 
 " The late Rajah having been a just and humane, a liberal 
 and a popular ruler, any supposed want of equity in the 
 appropriation of his dominions, whether by absorption into 
 the Company's dominion or by a transfer to a rival and 
 inimical party, will lack the popularity which a similar 
 measure, whatever its grounds, would always find among
 
 i8 4 8.] QUESTION OF ADOPTION. 6$ 
 
 the industrious and peaceful inhabitants of a State delivered 
 from anarchy and oppression. Moreover, as he was cele- 
 brated for his attachment and submission to the British 
 Government, the measure will not find the excuse which 
 all men make for a power ridding itself, even by means 
 they disapprove, of a troublesome or dangerous neighbour." 
 
 As an instance of the veneration in which the late Rajah's 
 memory was held, his servants, after his death, intimated 
 to Frere their wish to erect some permanent memorial to 
 him. Frere suggested the erection of a market-place with 
 stone arcades for fruit and vegetables. The subscriptions 
 came to so large a sum that not only was this carried out, 
 but there was enough in addition to make a tunnel — said 
 to be the first tunnel made in India — connecting the town 
 of Sattara with a valley from which it was separated by 
 a mountain spur : this formed a direct route to the sea 
 coast, communication having been hitherto by a circuitous 
 road. 
 
 The decision as to the adoption was long postponed, 
 and all India waited, anxious ; for it was a crucial case. 
 It was felt that the destiny, not only of Sattara and the 
 race of Sivaji, but of many another native State, in the 
 event of a like crisis occurring, hung in the balance. 
 
 The old system, by which the English Government left 
 native States independent, while exercising influence or 
 control over them by means of its Residents, had of late 
 been falling into disrepute. It had been established in 
 earlier times mainly for the purpose of maintaining peace, 
 and of spreading British influence without interfering with 
 native administration. Generally speaking, the conditions 
 were that the native ruler was to be maintained and 
 protected on his throne by the British power, in return for 
 which he was to contract no alliances and to wage no wars 
 without leave, and to listen to the advice of the Resident 
 in other matters. Where the ruler was not wholly vicious, 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 and the English Resident had force of character and tact, 
 it worked well. English ideas of justice and good govern- 
 ment prevailed under the old forms, and without wounding 
 native susceptibilities. The blot in the system was that 
 it tended to make the rulers independent of their people, 
 to leave them unlimited power over their subjects while 
 lessening their responsibility, and to deprive the oppressed 
 of the only remedy for a bad Oriental despotism, the power 
 of rising in revolt and killing or deposing their oppressors. 
 The condition of the kingdom of Oudh and of the province 
 of Nagpur were flagrant instances of misery, misrule, and 
 oppression flourishing in spite of our advice and warning, 
 but under the shadow of our protection. The English 
 power had so grown that it was now strong enough to bid 
 the grosser forms of tyranny to cease from one end of 
 India to the other. Was it not, it was said, mere criminal 
 pedantry to abstain from using that power out of an over- 
 strained respect for the hereditary rights of despots to rule 
 their people ill ? The idea was in the ascendant that the 
 true policy was annexation of the native States, as oppor- 
 tunities afforded, to the British Empire. 
 
 Others, again, who were fully alive to the dangers and 
 difficulties attendant upon an extension of frontier, were 
 anxious to annex, when a fair opportunity offered, any 
 native States that intervened between portions of our own 
 territory, so that all the country within our external frontier 
 might be consolidated under British rule. 
 
 These views had a powerful advocate in the person 
 of the newly arrived Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie. 
 His upright, honourable, and chivalrous character, and the 
 transparent integrity of his political life, raised him above 
 any suspicion of selfish or unscrupulous ambition to obtain 
 applause or credit for himself by adding to the part 
 coloured as British on the map of India. His policy, right
 
 1848.] SATTARA ANNEXED. 6j 
 
 or wrong, was founded not on expediency alone, but on a 
 conviction that it was just and right. But his training as 
 a statesman had been in England, not in India. He was 
 destitute of the experience and knowledge which can be 
 acquired only by long and intimate personal intercourse 
 and sympathy with the natives, and which was essential 
 to the formation of a right decision on a question of this 
 kind. Necessarily his opinion was formed at second hand. 
 And if a majority of those with whom the decision lay 
 were in favour of the annexation of Sattara, the minority, 
 which was opposed to it, comprised men of the highest 
 authority. Amongst others, Sir George Arthur, the late 
 Governor of Bombay ; Sir George Clerk, who was Governor 
 at the time of the Rajah's death ; and the three men of 
 all others best qualified to judge — Mountstuart Elphin- 
 stone,* who had had the chief authority in concluding the 
 treaty in question ; Mr. Grant Duff, who actually con- 
 cluded it, and Frere himself — were strongly opposed to 
 
 * Sir T. E. Colebrooke, in his life of Mountstuart Elphinstone, 
 says, " I do not remember ever to have seen Mr. Elphinstone so 
 shocked as he was at this proceeding. The treatment of the Sattara 
 sovereignty as a jageer, over which we had claims of feudal superiority, 
 he regarded as a monstrous one ; but any opinion of the injustice 
 done to this family was subordinate to the alarm which he felt at the 
 dangerous principles which were advanced, affecting every sovereign 
 State in India, and which were put forward both in India and at 
 home." 
 
 Mr. Elphinstone, in a letter on the question, says, " The succession, 
 I conceive, was an internal affair, in which the British Government 
 could not interfere, unless in a case which might affect the foreign 
 relations of the State or the general tranquillity of the country. This, 
 I conceive, was the general impression in India when I was in that 
 country. There was no native State to which the recognition of its 
 succession by the British Government was not of the highest impor- 
 tance ; but none of them, I conceive, ever imagined that that Govern- 
 ment had a right to regulate the succession as feudal lord, or had any 
 pretentions to the territory as an escheat on the failure of heirs to the 
 reigning family." — " Life of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone," by 
 Sir T. E. Colebrooke, Bart., M.P., vol. ii. pp. 390, 392.
 
 68 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 annexation. As little disposed as Lord Dalhousie to 
 allow the hereditary claims of a dynasty to override the 
 welfare of the people, they were convinced that, whatever 
 interpretation statesmen or lawyers might give to the 
 words of the treaty, annexation would be regarded, not 
 only by the Court, but by the people of Sattara, and 
 throughout India, as a breach of faith, and an act of 
 oppression exercised by the strong over the weak. Even 
 if it was the case — which was at least doubtful — that 
 Sattara would gain in material prosperity, they urged that 
 the gain would be far more than counterbalanced by the 
 shock to the feeling of loyalty to the ancient dynasty, and 
 still more by the weakening of that confidence in the 
 honour and good faith of the British Government which 
 is the corner-stone of its influence and power for good. 
 
 At length, thirteen months after the death of the Rajah, 
 a majority of the Court of Directors, after a long and 
 animated debate, decided, in accordance with Lord Dal- 
 housie's opinion, to disallow the adoption and to annex 
 the country. 
 
 Strongly as Frere felt on the matter, he was keenly alive 
 to the necessity of the decision, whatever it might be, being 
 loyally supported and carried out by the servants of the 
 Company, and so carefully did he abstain from expressing 
 any opinion which could possibly become known to the 
 people of Sattara, that even the widowed Ranee, the person 
 most concerned, did not, till twenty-five years afterwards, 
 when the question was reopened, know which way his 
 opinion inclined. Privately he writes to Mr. G. T. Clark — 
 
 " One of Sir George Clerk's last acts was to propose that 
 the adoption of a son by the late Rajah should be respected, 
 and his colleagues voted against it. Pendente lite I was 
 told to administer the Government so as to be prepared 
 for either Rajah or Company. For twelve months the
 
 I849-] FRERE'S CONCEPTION OF EMPIRE. 69 
 
 question was discussed, and finally decided against the 
 adoption. I battled hard, believing the absorption to be 
 a gross breach of the treaty made by Mr. Elphinstone ; 
 Mr. Elphinstone thought so too ; and the opinions of Sir 
 J. Malcolm, Lords Clare and Ellenborough, Sir R. Grant, 
 Sir J. Carnac, and Sir G. Arthur, were all, I believe, the 
 
 same way ; but and prevailed, and there is an 
 
 end of the House of Sivaji. It is an iniquitous business, 
 and one of these days we shall have to pay the reckoning. 
 However, everybody laughs at me for this. I hope they 
 may prove right. . . . Lord Falkland tells me he means to 
 keep me as Commissioner to drill the 1,320,000 Mahrattas 
 to regulation. Of course I shall do my best, but I well 
 know the result must be disappointing, unless the Govern- 
 ment will do many things to develop the resources of the 
 country, which I well know they will not do. Hitherto I 
 have kept the peace ; whether I can continue to do so is, 
 I think, doubtful. All this is for your private ear." 
 
 Frere's conception of the Imperial authority, of its ex- 
 tension and its bearing on native States and on races of 
 inferior civilization, is well exemplified by the position he 
 took on the question of Sattara. To Lord Dalhousie and 
 his school the ideal British Empire in India was a compact 
 territory within a ring-fence, to be extended at every just 
 and convenient opportunity, and ruled in as homogeneous 
 a manner as possible by British officials, taking their in- 
 structions, not only in important matters, but in details, 
 from the Governor-General and his secretaries at Cal- 
 cutta. Frere's ideal of empire was a pervading influence 
 rather than a system of administration — a power which, 
 though inevitably spreading, aimed at no extension of 
 the red line on the map which marked the limits of 
 British territory, and which would rather be indicated by 
 a colour gradually paling and shaded off indefinitely far 
 beyond it. Full of quick sympathetic appreciation of all 
 that was good and venerable in the habits, institutions, 
 and traditions of the various peoples and races with whom
 
 70 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 he came in contact, he shrank from imposing on them the 
 rigid forms and the dead level of a foreign and alien ad- 
 ministration, and paid scrupulous respect to native sus- 
 ceptibilities and native traditions of rank and precedence, 
 supporting and utilizing for the government of the country 
 existing institutions and the chiefs whom he found in 
 authority. But he insisted that in any territory, annexed 
 or unannexed, over which the British protectorate ex- 
 tended there must be no uncertainty whether the European 
 or the native power is the strongest. A civilized and a 
 comparatively uncivilized power cannot, he held, exist 
 peaceably side by side — as two European nations can — 
 unless the uncivilized power distinctly recognizes that it 
 is the weaker of the two, and that it must in essentials 
 conform to the civic standard of right and wrong of the 
 other. The "Pax Britannica" must be assured ; the loyal 
 and law-abiding man, white or coloured, civilized or 
 savage, must be protected, effectually, by the moral force 
 of the imperial name. 
 
 This conception of empire is the key-note of Frere's ad- 
 ministration and policy from first to last. He held to it 
 at the Sattara crisis, in dealing with the wild Beloochees 
 of the Sind frontier, in coercing the 'Arab slave-dealers 
 of the Persian Gulf and Zanzibar, in toiling, often un- 
 supported and thwarted, in the cause of peace and 
 civilization in South Africa, Its pursuit amid the turbid 
 waves of public opinion sometimes brought him honour ; 
 in the latter part of his career, alas ! misunderstanding 
 and abuse. But never was a lifelong ideal more clearly 
 perceived, more consistently, unswervingly, and loyally 
 pursued. 
 
 The decision to annex Sattara brought Frere's appoint- 
 ment of ad interim Rajah to an end. Henceforth it became 
 a British province, governed by a Commissioner. It was
 
 1849.] COMMISSIONER OF SATTARA. 7 1 
 
 natural to suppose that the choice of the first Commissioner 
 would fall upon some one who had approved the change, 
 and not upon an opponent of it. It was creditable to 
 the Bombay Government that no such consideration in- 
 fluenced it. The transfer to be effected was a delicate, if 
 not a dangerous matter, and to carry it out without dis- 
 turbance and bloodshed required firmness, tact, and know- 
 ledge of and sympathy with the feelings and traditions 
 of the Mahrattas. It was felt and acknowledged that no 
 one combined these qualifications in an equal degree with 
 Frere. 
 
 He did not hesitate for a moment to accept the post. 
 He had been unable to prevent the annexation, but he could 
 at least do his best to make it as little galling as possible. 
 There would be a continuity in his friendly personal re- 
 lations with the late Rajah's family, and also in practical 
 matters of administration, which would help to smooth 
 matters. 
 
 He was given (continues Sir H. Sandford) — 
 
 "the assistance of Mr. Coxon of the Bombay Civil 
 Service for the judicial work, and of myself and Captain 
 Nicholson, soon afterwards succeeded by Lieutenant (now 
 Lieutenant-General) Parr, for revenue, police, and magis- 
 terial duties. This was a very small staff for the intro- 
 duction of the British rule into a province as large as any 
 of the Bombay presidency collectorates, particularly when 
 so much additional work was involved connected with the 
 palace and jageerdhar ; but Frere was equal to the occasion, 
 and, not content with keeping things going, he found time 
 to initiate and partly carry out some great reforms, which 
 much improved the country in matters regarding the public 
 peace, the health of the people, and the opening out of the 
 districts for the promotion of commerce. 
 
 "Sattara, during the Rajah's reign, was much disturbed 
 by one of the old curses under Mahratta rule — the perpe- 
 tration of gang robberies. These averaged about one a 
 week, committed by armed gangs sometimes twenty in
 
 72 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 number, who occasionally attacked villages, bearing torches 
 and sounding horns in the most open manner, made for 
 the house of the richest man, often a banker, and if not 
 at once satisfied they would tear the earrings and jewels 
 from the persons of the women, and torture the owner till 
 he disclosed his treasure. Frere put this down by re- 
 forming and stirring up the police, by severe punishments 
 when any ringleaders were captured, particularly by cor- 
 poral punishment, and by reinstituting the old system of 
 watch and ward, which obliged the village police and a 
 certain number of the inhabitants to sleep at the village 
 watch-house, to go the rounds thrice during the night, and 
 to see that all suspicious characters, of whom a roll was 
 kept, either answered to their names when going the 
 rounds, or slept at the watch-house. 
 
 " The effect of these measures, which were maintained 
 after Frere left, was remarkable, and we sometimes had 
 only one or two gang robberies in the course of the year. 
 
 " An attempt, soon after the annexation, was made by 
 the Brahmins of Sattara to browbeat the Commissioner as 
 they were occasionally apt to deal with their late Hindoo 
 ruler, but they found there was a firmer will than they had 
 the least idea of beneath Frere's affable demeanour. Until 
 the Rajah's death neither a bullock nor a cow was ever per- 
 mitted to be killed in the military bazaar of Sattara, and we 
 could only obtain beef in the neighbouring town of Wace, 
 where, although the town was the greatest Brahminical 
 stronghold in the country, a Mahomedan butcher held a 
 sunnud, conferred on his ancestors by a former Mussulman 
 ruler, to kill cows — probably granted as a punishment of 
 the Brahmins for some uprising like what was threatened 
 under Frere. 
 
 " For necessary police reasons the Commissioner had 
 ordered a cow to be destroyed, and had had it removed 
 into the military bazaar, where his instructions were at 
 once carried out. The news of this order soon spread 
 through the city, and next morning a vast assemblage of 
 excited Brahmins, not aware that they were too late, even 
 if justified in remonstrating, surrounded the Residency in 
 a threatening mood. The officer commanding the troops 
 at once offered military assistance, but Mr. Frere refused, 
 and only consented to agree that if he lowered the flag, 
 then a company of infantry was to be despatched. Mean-
 
 1849-50.J ADMINISTRATION OF SATTARA. 73 
 
 while he invited the spokesmen to come on to the Residency, 
 and after they had given their names, he informed them 
 that for this attempt at intimidation they would each be 
 fined fifty rupees. He then spoke good-naturedly to the 
 people, and made jokes with them about their dinners 
 being ready, and that they should return to their homes. 
 Finally he walked into the grounds with his umbrella over 
 his head, for the day had then become very hot, and 
 quietly forced the crowd back and back for more than half 
 a mile, till he reached the entrance of the city, where they 
 dispersed. ... It was a marvellous exercise of tact and 
 personal influence which subdued these angry men, and 
 prevented what might, if otherwise managed, have been a 
 serious riot ending in bloodshed. 
 
 " The Rajah was in such dread of the Brahmins that he 
 never would sanction the execution of a murderer of that 
 caste. There was one notorious Brahmin criminal who, 
 whenever convicted and imprisoned in the Rajah's time, 
 starved himself till he seemed to be at the last gasp, and 
 then obtained his release by acting on the Rajah's fears of 
 being guilty of a Brahmin's death. This man tried the 
 same plan when imprisoned by Mr. Frere, and reduced 
 himself to a mere skeleton, without power to raise his 
 head. Frere visited him in the hospital when in this con- 
 dition, and took no notice. The Brahmin then took food 
 again, and was soon afterwards working on the public 
 works in chains, quite well and strong. 
 
 "Visitations of cholera were among the chief enemies 
 to be met, and Frere found many towns and villages with 
 every measure taken to welcome instead of repel the foe. 
 Dense walls, or rather ramparts, of prickly pear abounded, 
 often fostered round the villages to keep off the attacks of 
 robbers in old days. There were no roads or drains, and 
 much water-pollution ; the streets, particularly in Brahmin 
 quarters, were in such a condition as to defile the ground 
 and the atmosphere. Orders were given for the cutting 
 down and burning of the prickly pear, and the pecuniary 
 value of the labour voluntarily given for this purpose must 
 have been very large. The orders were gradually thoroughly 
 carried out, and in a year or two British as distinguished 
 from Jagheer villages, or those belonging to chiefs like 
 Scindia or Holkar which were not in the Sattara province, 
 could be at once recognized by the absence of prickly pear.
 
 74 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 " In order to provide funds for the village roads, wells, 
 bridges, and such like, Frere introduced municipalities, the 
 first in India. There were many petty and vexatious 
 taxes on houses and trade which, having obtained the 
 sanction of Government, he abolished, on condition that 
 the town or village retained the least objectionable, such 
 as octroi, for municipal purposes. Municipalities were 
 partly elected, partly nominated, and in the course of a 
 year or two every town and every large village had its 
 municipal fund, and showed the benefit of the works 
 thereby undertaken in comfort, convenience, cleanliness, 
 and health. 
 
 "Throughout his whole career Mr. Frere showed his states- 
 manship in no more conspicuous manner than in the pro- 
 motion of public works. Except the road already mentioned 
 to the Poonah frontier and those in Sattara itself, besides 
 one from Sattara to Mahabuleshwar, there was not a road 
 in the province. The municipalities soon had roads and 
 bridges in the towns and villages. But the great traffic 
 which even then existed between the province and the 
 coast below the Ghauts passed over mountain-paths on 
 thousands of Brinjarrie bullocks. Mr. Frere found time, 
 somehow, to draw up a scheme for great arterial roads 
 throughout the country, some of which were begun in his 
 time, but all of which, on the lines he laid down, have been 
 since carried out at great expense, but with wonderful 
 results in opening out the province to cart traffic. 
 
 " In the midst of beneficial labours like these, of which 
 the above is a mere sketch, Mr. Frere, to the gain of the 
 larger province, but to the loss of Sattara, was appointed 
 Commissioner of Sind. The grief both of natives and of 
 his European friends and staff was most evident, and 
 showed the man more than any words can describe. I 
 saw men of both nationalities in tears ; and in after-years, 
 when at the Cape of Good Hope, I again witnessed the 
 same feeling displayed by the English and Dutch, when 
 Sir Bartle was about to return home. . . . 
 
 " Though Mr. Frere left Sattara some years before the 
 mutinies, yet the events of these days proved his prescience 
 as regards the bad effects on the people of the refusal to 
 sanction the adoption of a son by the Rajah ; and also 
 showed that had it not been for the firm but conciliatory 
 manner in which Frere carried out a highly unpopular
 
 1849-50.] SATTARA. 75 
 
 measure, there would probably have been considerable 
 disturbances in 1848-9. For the wish, the men, and the 
 means were all to hand, but were controlled by his tact 
 and sagacity. The Government of Bombay wished to 
 reinforce the British garrison at Sattara on the annexation, 
 and a weaker man might have been glad to save himself 
 from responsibility by ruling with the aid of strong 
 battalions, but Frere was of a sterner and more reliant 
 nature, and his self-confidence was not misplaced." 
 
 In June 1857, a Mahratta in the Native Artillery at 
 Sattara, which was composed principally of high-caste 
 men from Oude, gave information to Sir H. Sandford of 
 an intended mutiny and outbreak. It was prevented by 
 the prompt removal of the battery to the island of Perim, 
 near Aden. The conspiracy proved to be a formidable 
 and extensive one, and (continues Sir H. Sandford) 
 
 " was gradually traced to the two palaces, containing the 
 adopted son of the ex-Rajah and last Rajah of Sattara. The 
 former was a mere tool in the hands of his adoptive mother 
 the ex-Ranee, who was a woman much resembling the 
 Ranee of Jhansi, equally bloodthirsty, determined, and 
 able. She was removed with her son to confinement near 
 Bombay, on which occasion the great quadrangle in front 
 of the palaces, where such a dramatic event took place at 
 the Rajah's death, witnessed a very different scene. While 
 still dark on a monsoon morning, I led, by the directions 
 of Mr. Rose, the magistrate, a body of troops under the 
 command of General Sir G. Malcolm, consisting of infantry, 
 cavalry, and artillery, into the city, where, just as the day 
 was breaking, we surrounded the palace of the ex-Ranee, 
 known to contain many armed retainers. The family 
 were at once despatched in carriages to Bombay, relays of 
 dragoons and horses being ready, and as the last of his 
 race was being driven through the city, two devoted 
 servants tried to accompany the carriage, bearing the 
 ' moorchubs ' or emblems of royalty. A dragoon on each 
 side of the carriage snatched these emblems from the 
 servants' hands, and threw them on to the roofs of the 
 houses which they were then passing. It was a most
 
 76 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. III. 
 
 significant token of the passing away of an old 
 dynasty. . . . 
 
 "Years afterwards I was assured by a distinguished 
 official, who had been visiting Sattara with special reference 
 to old family connections, that he found the anti-English 
 feeling stronger there than in any other part of India, and 
 this not from the people disliking our rule per se, but 
 owing to resentment at the recognition of the adoption, 
 which Frere so strongly urged, not having been made."
 
 73 Longitude East frojn 74? Greenwich- 
 
 Xorvdorv; John. Murray, Albemarle. Strut . 
 
 F.S.Weller.F.RGS.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIND. 
 
 The annexation of Sind — Napier and Outram — Frere made Com- 
 missioner in Sind — Ali Morad — Natural features of the country 
 — Its backward condition — Kurrachee harbour — Lord Dalhousie 
 — Personal and departmental responsibility — Kurrachee and 
 Kotree railway — Roads and bridges — Speed-money — Postage 
 stamps— Dak bungalows — Kurrachee Fair — Canals — Sindee lan- 
 guage — Letters to his children. 
 
 If additions to British territory in India were to be classified 
 into those which have been justly and those which have 
 been unjustly acquired, that of Sind would have to take 
 its place in the latter class. Up to the date of the Affghan 
 expedition in 1838, all attempts to make a settlement of 
 any kind in the country had met with failure and rebuff. 
 The Meers of Sind, if they were agreed about nothing 
 else, were agreed in keeping strangers out of the country. 
 But when the occupation of Affghanistan became with 
 Lord Auckland an object to which all other considerations 
 had to yield, and when the shortest and easiest way thither 
 through the Punjab was closed by the refusal of Runjeet 
 Singh to allow an army to pass through his country, Sind 
 became the only possible base of operations ; and the 
 occupation of so much of the country as was required to 
 secure the communications, especially the passage of the 
 Indus and the access to the Bolan Pass, became abso- 
 lutely necessary before the expedition could proceed. 
 It was difficult to find any justification for such an
 
 yS THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 occupation. The best that can be said is that the Meers' 
 title was not a very old or a very good one, and that their 
 government was not much better, as far as the people were 
 concerned, than licensed plunder. Anyhow, it was part of 
 the programme, and it was done. And when, a few months 
 later, the Meers, in natural anger, rose and plundered the 
 British stores at Hyderabad and drove away the Resident, 
 this was made an excuse for the imposition of the treaty 
 of February 5, 1839, which bound them to receive a 
 subsidiary British force, to contribute £30,000 a year for 
 its support, to provide facilities for the passage of troops 
 to Affghanistan, and to abolish tolls on the Indus ; and in 
 spite of Colonel Pottinger's remonstrances, Kurrachee, 
 which had been attacked and occupied during the negotia- 
 tions by a British force, was retained. 
 
 Early in 1840, Major (afterwards Sir James) Outram 
 succeeded Colonel Pottinger as political agent in Lower 
 Sind, and a year and a half later he was placed over 
 Upper Sind and Beloochistan in addition. As long as all 
 went well in Affghanistan the Meers observed the treaty, 
 but, as might be expected, when disaster came to the 
 British they were found to be plotting and intriguing. 
 The Affghan war and immediate danger over, Lord Ellen- 
 borough determined to call them sharply to account. Sir 
 Charles Napier was made General commanding in Sind, 
 and conducted the war which followed not only with great 
 military skill, but, in spite of his advanced years and frequent 
 severe bodily suffering, with fiery energy and with a clear 
 conviction that the conflict in which he was engaged 
 was a necessary and righteous one. Without defending 
 the manner in which the treaty of February, 1839, had been 
 obtained, he was convinced that it was now right and 
 necessary that it should be enforced. There could be no 
 going back to the former state of things. The Meers had
 
 1S43-] SIR CHARLES NAPIER IN SIND. 79 
 
 forfeited whatever claim they ever possessed to be reinstated 
 in their former authority by betraying each other, and 
 selfishly making the best procurable terms each for himself. 
 
 Nor had they any friends, any national party in the 
 country. "The Ameers," says Sir William Napier, Sir 
 Charles Napier's brother and biographer, " governed by 
 the sword and by no other law. The Beloochees were 
 their troops ; the Sindians and Hindoos their subjects, 
 their victims ; up to the battle of Meeanee, any Belooch 
 might kill a Sindian or Hindoo with impunity, for pleasure 
 or profit. They dealt largely in the slave-trade, and so did 
 all their feudal chiefs, both as importers and exporters." 
 They depopulated whole districts for the sake of the game. 
 They extracted money from merchants by torture ; and 
 they drove mechanics and artisans out of the country by 
 forcing them to work for starvation wages. 
 
 On the other hand, the British stations furnished an 
 asylum to oppressed multitudes, and the shadow of British 
 authority was a refuge from wrong and outrage. Hence 
 the treaty by lapse of time had " acquired by degrees that 
 secondary moral force which belongs to utility irrespective 
 of abstract justice." * 
 
 Napier's campaign opened with the battle of Meeanee, 
 which was followed by that of Hyderabad. Both were 
 won in fierce hand-to-hand conflict against odds which are 
 astonishing, even in the record of Indian battles ; for the 
 Beloochees were brave and stubborn men, who fought to 
 the death. The annexation of Sind, for which Lord Ellen- 
 borough was responsible, was the consequence, and the 
 Meers were banished from the country. 
 
 Then followed a long and angry controversy over the 
 question whether the war and the annexation were necessary 
 and justifiable. It is remarkable that the foremost and 
 * " Conquest of Scinde," by Major-General Sir W. F. P. Napier, p. 91.
 
 80 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 angriest champions on each side of the question, Napier 
 and Outram, were not unlike each other in many points of 
 character. Both were upright, fearless and chivalrous to 
 a fault, intolerant of wrong, tender to the weak, self-reliant, 
 confident and impatient of control. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General, who had 
 appointed Napier, not only supported him in everything, 
 but carried on a confidential correspondence with him on 
 all subjects of importance, without the knowledge or inter- 
 vention of the Commanders-in-Chief either at Calcutta or 
 at Bombay, or of any department of Government or of the 
 military staff. This was quite unprecedented, and caused 
 much dissatisfaction. Sind was dependent on Bombay 
 and its services for its troops, its supplies, and the greater 
 part of the officials who administered its government ; and 
 the consequences of this new departure in administration 
 would have been serious, had not Sir George Arthur, 
 instead of taking offence, set himself, with rare self-abnega- 
 tion and tact, to smooth difficulties and remove ill feeling. 
 In the controversy between Napier and Outram he carefully 
 abstained from even expressing an opinion. The annexa- 
 tion was done, and it was irrevocable, and it was every 
 one's duty to support the Government and to obey orders. 
 Frere, as private secretary to Sir George Arthur, was 
 more or less behind the scenes, and had the best 
 opportunities for observing what was going on. His 
 sympathies seem to have been on the whole with Outram, 
 the " Bayard of India," for whom he had the warmest 
 admiration, and against the annexation.* In a letter to his 
 mother, of April 4, 1843, he says incidentally — 
 
 * Afterwards, however, he inclined to a different opinion. He 
 writes, October 29, 1883, to Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, " I am bound to 
 say that subsequent experience materially altered my views, at least 
 as far as Lord Ellenborough and Sir Charles Napier were concerned. 
 They inherited from their predecessors a hopeless tangle which hardly
 
 1843J SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 8 1 
 
 " I have been much interrupted since I began this by 
 the arrival of the news from Sind of another great battle 
 on the 24th near Hyderabad. No particulars have reached 
 us but that the English were victorious. This will complete 
 the subjugation of the country ; I wish it could convince 
 me our cause was a just one." 
 
 But he fully appreciated Napier's integrity, sagacity, and 
 indomitable spirit, and bore testimony not only to his high 
 merits as a soldier, but also to the excellence in many re- 
 spects of his administration of Sind, particularly as regarded 
 his organization of police, and his clear perception of the 
 importance and urgency of several great engineering works, 
 nearly all of which were in after-years carried out. 
 
 Amongst Frere's papers is a letter about him written 
 eighteen years afterwards, sent, or intended to be sent, to 
 the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "March 18, 1869. 
 
 " Allow me to challenge the adjectives in the description 
 given of Sir Charles Napier of Sind, where your critic 
 cites the great General as an example of a ' grotesque self- 
 willed public character in high authority.' 
 
 " Self-willed he may have been, in the sense in which 
 every strong-willed original genius must more or less be 
 open to such a charge. But his self-will was always 
 subordinated to his sense of public duty, and I never 
 met a man of so much original force of character so open 
 to any sound argument, fairly put before him, which 
 appealed either to his intellect, to his moral sense of right 
 and wrong, or to his feelings. 
 
 " In the great controversy with Lord Dalhousie, Sir C. 
 Napier was perhaps wrong in form, and may have seemed 
 self-willed, but he was certainly right in substance as 
 regards many essential points. What the government of 
 India lost by this misunderstanding was not known till we 
 learnt it in 1857. 
 
 admitted of being disentangled by any subsequent peaceful measures. 
 Possibly a man like Outram or Pottinger might have made the 
 Ameers swallow the treaty without fighting, but only by making the 
 Resident in effect though not in name supreme Ameer of Sind." 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 " He had surely no single element of the 'grotesque' about 
 him, unless it could be found in the toil-worn, war-battered 
 form, which his eager fiery soul ' fretted to decay,' or in 
 the human pathos and wit which lighted up everything he 
 wrote or said. 
 
 " The order your critic cites is one of many which will 
 long live in the memory of our soldiers in India, and be 
 quoted round the mess-table, and, what is more, obeyed in 
 barracks when the formal utterances of the highest military 
 authority are forgotton. Under his command men looked 
 forward to a sight of his general orders not only as containing 
 something to be remembered and obeyed, but as a relief 
 from the monotony of camp-life, and there can be no doubt 
 that they were among the many causes which secured for 
 him the confidence of all good soldiers, and rendered him, 
 beyond any commander of our days, idolized as well as 
 trusted by his men. 
 
 " I had the best possible means of estimating his capacity 
 as a civil ruler, and I have no hesitation in placing him 
 in the foremost rank of the Indian statesmen it has been 
 my good fortune to meet. 
 
 " His police system was, at the time he introduced it, 
 far in advance of any other in India. It has been the 
 model for most of what is good in subsequent reforms of 
 the Indian police, and its performance has not yet as a 
 whole been surpassed. It was in entire accordance with 
 the views of the most experienced Indian statesmen, but 
 was elaborated in Sir Charles Napier's mind, as he once 
 told me, when he was watching the Greek coast from 
 Cephalonia, and thinking how he would manage such a 
 country of brigands if he ever got the opportunity. 
 
 " No Indian statesman of our time has had juster or 
 more enlarged views regarding public works, and if all 
 the useful, practical, and remunerative public works he 
 projected were carried out, there would be work for his 
 successor in Sind for many years to come. 
 
 " It was mainly owing to his liberal settlements of the 
 land-tax, and especially in all that related to the military 
 land-holders, that Sind remained so contented in 1857." 
 
 Sir Charles Napier gave up his command in Sind, and 
 returned to England in 1847. Under his rule military 
 possession of the province had been firmly established,.
 
 1850.] COMMISSIONER IN S1ND. 83 
 
 but the civil administration was of a somewhat rough-and- 
 ready type. It was necessary that a revenue system 
 should be introduced and organized, for under the Meers 
 there had been no system ; their practice had been simply 
 to plunder the people of as much as could be squeezed out 
 of them. It was therefore decided to appoint, not a soldier, 
 but an experienced member of the Civil Service, to succeed 
 Napier ; and the selection fell on Mr. Pringle, an able man, 
 who, after filling various offices in the revenue department, 
 had risen to the post of secretary to the Bombay Govern- 
 ment. But his experience had been gained in "Regulation " 
 districts, and the uncivilized and disorganized condition of 
 Sind required a stronger man and one less habituated to 
 routine. Towards the close of 1850 he resigned his office. 
 
 Lord Falkland, the Governor of Bombay, nominated to 
 succeed him Colonel (afterwards Sir Melvill) Melvill, then 
 military secretary to the Bombay Government. Colonel 
 Melvill accepted the post. It was admitted that, if a soldier 
 were to be appointed, no fitter man could have been found ; 
 but the Bombay Council objected to him, and the Governor- 
 General supported the objection, on the ground that it had 
 been decided that in future the appointment should be 
 held by a civilian. Lord Falkland at once yielded, and 
 nominated Frere instead. 
 
 This nomination also was vehemently opposed by Lord 
 Falkland's Council, two of whom refused to consent to the 
 appointment of so young a man — he was then thirty-five, 
 and there were about sixty senior to him in the service — 
 to what was then considered the most important commis- 
 sionership in the Presidency. Lord Falkland, however, 
 was firm. The matter was referred to England, and he 
 let it be known that unless his nomination were ratified 
 he should resign. It was confirmed, and the appointment 
 formed a precedent for allowing a free hand to the
 
 S4 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Governor of a Presidency in the choice of his Commis- 
 sioners, which has been acted on ever since. 
 
 Colonel Melvill was keenly disappointed. But he was 
 a high-minded man and a warm friend of Frere's, and 
 it was with true and generous cordiality that he and 
 Mrs. Melvill received the new Commissioner and his wife 
 as guests in their house at Bombay, accompanied them 
 to the vessel in which they sailed, and wished them God- 
 speed on their way to the scene of their future labours. 
 
 They arrived at Kurrachee early in January, 185 1, land- 
 ing in small boats dragged up through the mud to the 
 shore from the steamer, which could not get up to the 
 Mole, and rode and drove thence through the deep sand — 
 for there was nothing that could be called a road — to 
 Government House, a long one-storied building with a 
 broad verandah along its whole length, having a circular 
 plot in front in which a few shrubs grew, but the soil was 
 too sandy for a flower-garden. 
 
 On the afternoon of the same day, by a happy accident, 
 arrived the veteran Sir Charles Napier, with his son-in-law 
 and daughter, Captain William Napier and his wife. He 
 had come down the Indus from Upper India at the ter- 
 mination of his command-in-chief of the army, to which 
 he had been so hastily sent from England on the receipt 
 of the anxious news of the second Sikh war and the battle 
 of Chillianwallah nearly two years before. He stayed 
 three or four days with Frere, a welcome and honoured 
 guest. It was little more than three years since he had 
 himself ceased to govern Sind, and there was no man from 
 whose sagacity and experience the new Commissioner, on 
 the threshold of his duties, could have learnt so much 
 concerning them. And in spite of Sir Charles's often- 
 expressed dislike of Indian Civil Servants, the regard was 
 in this case reciprocal. " There was no one," he said, " so
 
 1851.] THE MEERS. 85 
 
 equal to the duties, or in whose hands he would sooner see 
 the administration of the Province of Sind." * 
 
 The province, as Frere found it, was quiet, and undis- 
 turbed by any danger of rebellion. The Meers who had 
 been conquered by Napier had been pensioned and sent 
 out of the country. So little formidable were they, and so 
 little regretted by their former subjects, that it was found 
 safe, so soon as 1853, to allow them to return and live 
 where they liked. A careful and minute reinvestigation 
 of their claims was made by Major T. R. Steuart — or 
 rather by his assistant, Captain (afterwards Sir Frederic) 
 Goldsmid, to whom he entrusted the inquiry — followed by 
 an increase of their pensions. 
 
 One only of the chief Meers, Ali Morad, Khan of 
 Kyrpur in Upper Sind, had been prudent enough to 
 take the side of the British in the war of 1843, and thus 
 saved his principality. Two years later he served with his 
 followers in alliance with Napier in the desert war against 
 the Trukkee tribes, and though he seldom brought his con- 
 tingent up to time, and the English General had to take into 
 account the possibility of his holding communications with 
 the enemy, he proved faithful throughout the campaign, and 
 was rewarded for his fidelity with lands and honours. 
 
 But before Sir Charles Napier quitted Sind, he received 
 information that Ali Morad, by a cleverly contrived forgery, 
 had obtained wrongful possession of certain districts, 
 which, as of right belonging to the insurgent Meers, should 
 
 * After Sir Charles Napier's death, in August, 1853, a public meet- 
 ing was held at Kurrachee to consider the most appropriate method 
 of testifying respect to his memory. Sir William Napier writes to 
 Frere, with reference to this meeting : " To you, sir, I owe a further 
 expression of my feelings, having read your speech upon the occasion. 
 To offer thanks would be misplaced ; it would be to thank a man for 
 having felt nobly, acted nobly, and spoken nobly. But I offer the 
 tribute of my admiration."
 
 S6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 have been confiscated and annexed as British territory. 
 A commission was appointed to try him. The evidence 
 was quite conclusive, and the report of the Commissioner 
 to this effect, confirmed by the Bombay Government and 
 by the Governor-General, was sent to England. In 
 November, 185 1, the despatch containing the decision of 
 the Court of Directors was received at Bombay. It was 
 sent on by the steamer Surat, but never reached Kurrachee, 
 the Surat having been lost on the voyage with all hands. 
 A month later the duplicate despatch was sent from 
 Bombay and received by Frere. 
 
 Four years had now elapsed since the facts which con- 
 stituted the fraud had come to light. Ali Morad was a 
 handsome man in the prime of life, with pleasing manners, 
 a keen sportsman, a good rider, and an excellent shot with 
 a rifle. Lavish and hospitable, and fond of the society of 
 Englishmen, he rarely had a hunting-party at which some 
 English officers were not present.* 
 
 Nor had the finding of the Commission arrested this 
 friendly intercourse. As an Asiatic, the Meer could not, 
 it was said, be expected to look upon fraud and forgery in 
 the same light that a European does. The times had been 
 evil ; the hands of the English Government in Sind had not, 
 in the first transactions with the Meers, been altogether 
 clean, and it might be considered that whatever faults he 
 had formerly committed had been condoned by the sub- 
 
 * On one occasion, some years previously, Captain Forbes, then 
 English Resident at his Court, invited him to a hog-hunt with spears, 
 a sport which he had never before witnessed. A fine boar was started, 
 and Forbes, who was a good rider, gave chase. The Meer galloped 
 close behind him to see the sport, but with no weapon except the short 
 sharp sword which he habitually wore at his side. Suddenly Forbes's 
 horse, going at speed, fell heavily with him. The boar, hearing the fall 
 close behind him, turned to attack the fallen man, and it might have 
 gone hard with him had not the Meer instantly slipped off his horse, 
 drawn his sword, and disabled the boar with a heavy cut on the shoulder.
 
 ■851-2.] ALI MORAD. 87 
 
 sequent acceptance and recognition of his services. There- 
 fore when it became known that the sentence of the Court 
 of Directors was that he should be degraded from the 
 rank of Prince, deprived of all lands and villages which 
 he held as such, and of the right to a salute of guns, and 
 left with only the land which he inherited from his father, 
 the intelligence caused something like a shock to the 
 English community in Sind, to many of whom the sen- 
 tence appeared unduly severe. 
 
 In anticipation of possible resistance, the Government 
 had, without consulting the Commissioner, ordered a con- 
 centration of troops on the Punjab side of the Kyrpur 
 frontier as well as on the Sind side. This movement of 
 troops was, as the event showed, quite unnecessary, and 
 was very distasteful to Frere, who liked to get his work 
 done with the least possible parade and disturbance, and 
 he took measures to stop their advance as soon as he 
 heard of their coming. Immediately on receipt of the 
 despatch, Frere set out to inform the Meer of the decision 
 of the Government in the manner least hurtful to his 
 feelings. He took with him Mr. (now General) Lester, 
 who, as Deputy-Collector of Sukkur, was the Meer's near 
 neighbour, and was intimate with him, and commissioned 
 him to prepare him for what was impending. Though 
 evidently anxious, the Meer received the intelligence with 
 dignity, complaining only of the concentration of troops 
 as an unnecessary aggravation of his disgrace — since he 
 had given no cause for supposing that he would resist the 
 English Government, to which he had always been faithful 
 — and commending his two sons to Mr. Lester's care and 
 consideration. 
 
 The following day Frere received the Meer at a small 
 durbar held in his camp near Roree. Writing thence, 
 January 19, 1852, to Lord Falkland, he says —
 
 88 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 " He heard and read his sentence with dignity, but with 
 perfect submission to the will of the British Government, 
 and, from all I hear and see, I believe him to be really 
 desirous of a speedy, a complete, and a peaceful settlement. 
 
 " He was entirely deserted by all men of influence, and 
 the only people about him who talked of resistance were, 
 I am sorry to say, some of the ladies ! One of his three- 
 wives was very warlike, and an aunt, supposed to be nearly 
 a hundred years of age, not only joined her voice to that 
 of the bellicose lady, but opened her purse, and gave the 
 Meer a large sum of money. He wisely, however, devoted 
 it to paying off some of the most pressing of his creditors, 
 and leaving his harem to talk treason to your Government 
 among themselves at Kyrpoor, he came over and en- 
 camped near this, with less than his usual retinue." 
 
 He writes again on February 9 — 
 
 " Since I reported the Meer's acquiescence in the de- 
 mands of Government, there has been, on his part, no 
 delay, nor any obstacle to a speedy settlement, except 
 what arises from his utter want of system or management, 
 his complete ignorance of all he ought to know about his 
 country, and the defects of his agents, both as regards 
 capacity and trustworthiness. I could not have believed 
 he could be reduced to a state so helpless and destitute till 
 I saw his country ; after which I hardly wondered at his 
 having no friends among his subjects. 
 
 " We have now been through about eighty miles of his 
 late country, from Roree up to the Bhawulpoor frontier. 
 Naturally it is by far the richest district in Sind, but any 
 more wretched than the present state of its inhabitants I 
 never beheld. His revenue and police were farmed to the 
 highest bidder, and all he cared about was the game. 
 Fifty rupees was the fine for killing a hog, five rupees for 
 shooting a partridge, and I really believe a man would 
 have had a better chance of his life for shooting an old 
 woman than for killing a tiger. You would suspect me of 
 great exaggeration if I were to describe the swarms of game 
 which eat up the crops wherever we have been ; but you 
 will believe that the sum-total of misery inflicted must have 
 been considerable when I confess that, anti-annexationist 
 as I am, if ever a native prince deserved to be dethroned 
 from his government, I believe Ali Morad is the man. . . .
 
 1852.] ALI MORAD. 89 
 
 But AH Morad had no intention of resting without an 
 effort to get his sentence reversed. Contrary to Frere's 
 advice, he went to England to prosecute his appeal. The 
 Court of Directors by a large majority rejected it, but 
 the Board of Control modified their decision, and pro- 
 nounced one which, without reversing Ali Morad's sen- 
 tence, held out hopes to him that if he behaved well in 
 future, it might "hereafter justify " his case being "more 
 favourably considered than hitherto." 
 
 Ali Morad, on receiving the despatch, naturally in- 
 terpreted it as meaning that he had only to behave well 
 in future to get his lost territories restored to him. Mean- 
 time some years had elapsed, the Mutiny of 1857 had 
 broken out, and Ali Morad's son, Shah Newaz, was, at his 
 father's instigation, giving practical proof of his fidelity by 
 organizing a body of men, armed with sword and match- 
 lock, which he placed at the disposal of the Government. 
 
 Ali Morad's conduct, therefore, at this critical time could 
 not have been better. How, then, was his case to be 
 " considered more favourably than hitherto " ? He was 
 in pitiable poverty ; his income had been cut down by 
 the loss of his territories to about a third of its former 
 amount, and he was vainly endeavouring to maintain 
 something of the appearances kept up in better days. But 
 to restore the forfeited lands would have been the deliberate 
 reversal of a sentence of punishment after conviction of a 
 great offence, the justice of which was not questioned. 
 Nor could anything be more prolific of evil than to 
 retransfer to a Government such as his a district in which 
 the people had accommodated themselves to English rule. 
 A pension would have met the case ; but the Meer, 
 prompted or fortified in his resolution by the advice of an 
 Irish member of Parliament, Mr. Isaac Butt, and of the 
 advocate he sent him — and for whose worse than useless
 
 90 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 services Mr. Butt called upon him to pay heavily — refused 
 to accept anything short of the restoration of the lands. 
 After various other proposals, a pension of twenty-four 
 thousand rupees a year was, at Frere's suggestion, offered 
 to his son Shah Newaz, but this also his father refused to 
 allow him to accept. 
 
 One great point with him, the right to a salute of the 
 full number of guns to which he was formerly entitled, 
 has since been restored ; but he has persisted in declining 
 any pension for himself or for his son. More than forty 
 years have passed since his sentence was pronounced ; 
 but, at past eighty years of age, he is still agitating 
 for a reversal of his sentence, and the traditional partisans 
 of Napier and of Outram still take opposite views of the 
 proportion of his guilt to his merits.* 
 
 The case of Ali Morad is typical and instructive, as an 
 instance of the confusion arising from the want — a want 
 which Frere several times pointed out — of a rightly con- 
 stituted Court of Appeal for State criminals in India, and 
 of the mischief and scandal of members of Parliament being 
 in a position to be appealed to to bring pressure to bear 
 upon the judicial decision of such cases. 
 
 In its geographical aspect, Sind may be roughly de- 
 scribed as an equilateral triangle, having the sea for its 
 base, and two almost rainless deserts bounding the other 
 two sides. It is, indeed, little more than the Delta of 
 the Indus, which flows into it at its apex. A glance at 
 the map is enough to show that it is in the shortest line 
 of communication between the Mediterranean and the 
 provinces of Northern India, and that the nearest way 
 from England, whether by Egypt and Aden, or by the still 
 shorter route, if ever it is opened, through the Euphrates 
 valley and the Persian Gulf, is by the port of Kurrachee ; 
 * Since the above was written Ali Morad has died (1894).
 
 i8Si.] SIND. 91 
 
 also that Sind is the province of India lying nearest to 
 Persia and Central Asia, and commanding the approach to 
 the Bolan Pass and the road to Candahar and Herat. 
 
 But however important from its position and capabilities, 
 it was at that time one of the most undeveloped and 
 unattractive provinces in India, shunned alike by Europeans 
 and natives from other parts. What civilization there had 
 once been, had passed away under the rule of the Meers. 
 The necessaries of life were dear. The climate in Upper 
 Sind is the hottest in India, nor are there any hills to 
 afford a refuge from the summer heats. A great part of 
 the country is every summer flooded by the waters of the 
 Indus, swollen by the melting of the snows of the Himalaya, 
 which leaves, as it retires, tracts of unhealthy swamp. 
 
 Frere writes to Lord Falkland — 
 
 " September 23, 185 1. 
 
 " I doubt whether anything but ocular demonstration 
 could give a just idea how far Sind is behind the rudest 
 parts of India in all that relates to the comforts and con- 
 veniences of life. Traces of the civilization of the time of 
 the Mogul Emperors remain only in the ruins of their 
 buildings, or in a few arts which still survive in large towns. 
 The village system which embalms a certain degree of 
 civilization in all Indian communities has been studiously 
 undermined and, as far as the rulers could do so, obliterated, 
 and, in doing this, we have even gone beyond the Meers. 
 It was only during the last few years of their dynasty that the 
 Meers began to imbibe something of the civilization which 
 had survived intestine troubles in the Punjab, Afghanistan, 
 and Persia, and which still exists in other neighbouring 
 provinces of India. But the bulk of their nobles and 
 influential subjects still remains almost as utterly uncivilized 
 as the day their ancestors left the mountains of Mekran. 
 At a few places, Hyderabad, etc., we are deceived by the 
 show of civilization which the Meers latterly adopted in 
 their buildings and mode of living ; but if we go to the 
 villages where the chiefs habitually and of choice reside, 
 we find them travelling, eating, and lodging much as their
 
 92 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 brethren do in Beloochistan, and living in all respects, save 
 the use of handsome clothes and arms, in a manner which 
 would be discomfort for a poor Mahratta Patel. . . . 
 
 " It is necessary to see and hear the natives of India living 
 in Sind in order to judge of their aversion to the country 
 and its causes. They come in great numbers, especially 
 skilled labourers, servants and artisans, and are content to 
 stay a couple of years amassing money from the enormous 
 wages, nearly double the Indian rates, paid to them ; but 
 they very rarely bring their families, and never appear to 
 settle. I have conversed with scores of them, but never 
 met one who seemed to think of making it his permanent 
 home. It was not the heat nor the distance they disliked, 
 but that it was, as they described it, an uncivilized, un- 
 improved place, difficult to get at and difficult to get away 
 from." 
 
 In a Minute written at Calcutta ten years later, Frere 
 thus describes the condition of Sind as he found it : — 
 
 " September 23, 1861. 
 " In 185 1 there was not a mile of bridged or of metalled 
 road, not a masonry bridge of any kind — in fact, not five 
 miles of any cleared road — only one set of barracks (for a 
 troop of horse artillery) of higher class than 'temporary,' 
 not a single permanent shed for an arsenal, and only one 
 masonry magazine (now abandoned) in Fort Bukkur for 
 gunpowder ; not a dock of any kind, — even the river 
 steamers went to Bombay for repairs, and in seven years 
 three of them (including the Falkland, a new vessel, the 
 largest ever sent to India) were lost or damaged beyond 
 repair at sea in the process. There was not a single dawk- 
 bungalow, serai, or durumsala, or district cutcherry ; but 
 one market-place, and not a court-house, lock-up, or 
 police-station, or office of any kind ; no church, but what 
 Sir C. Napier called ' an ecclesiastical convenience, I 
 cannot say church,' built of reeds, mats, and mud ; not 
 a schoolroom or hospital. In fact, except some temporary 
 barracks, we were merely encamped in the country. It 
 took a couple of seasons to awaken Government to the 
 deplorable want of even the most necessary public works 
 in a province which was regarded as the stepchild alike 
 of Bombay and of the Government of India."
 
 1851-2.] KURRACHEE HARBOUR. 93 
 
 The first object that engaged his attention was the port 
 of Kurrachee. He perceived at once, and insisted strongly 
 on the supreme importance of a harbour on the coast 
 of Sind, capable of containing ships of large size, and 
 easily accessible at all times of year. It was clearly the 
 first step, not only to the development and prosperity of 
 the province, but to the opening of regular communica- 
 tion by the shortest way between Europe and North- 
 western India. In an official letter, written two months 
 after his arrival, he " earnestly solicits the sanction " of 
 the Bombay Government to the expenditure of a sum of 
 fifteen hundred rupees in investigating the nature of the 
 bar at the mouth of the harbour, with a view to its 
 removal if possible. Up to that time, beyond building a 
 small lighthouse and laying down a few buoys, nothing 
 had been done since the English obtained possession of 
 Kurrachee to make the port more accessible. Whether 
 the bar was composed of rock, clay, or sand, nobody knew ; 
 and so imperfectly were the soundings on it known, and 
 so dangerous was it in popular estimation, that during the 
 three or four months of the monsoon no ship ventured to 
 cross it, and the port was closed altogether, and Sind 
 almost cut off from the rest of India ; the post from 
 Bombay having to go round by land and across the 
 flooded marshes of Cutch ; while at the most favourable 
 season troops and passengers had to land in small boats 
 at such hours as the tide allowed, it might be in the heat 
 of the day and with great discomfort, and not unfre- 
 quently there was loss of life from boats being swamped. 
 
 But the required assent to this modest proposal was 
 withheld, pending the report of " a competent geologist." 
 A competent geologist was not procurable in Sind forty 
 years ago, so Frere obtained a report from Lieutenant 
 Hopkins, of the Indian Navy, then port-officer of Kurrachee,
 
 94 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 on the depth of water on the bar at all tides and at all 
 seasons of the year. The outcome of it was that the bar 
 was hot so formidable an obstacle as had been supposed, 
 and that with due precautions there was no reason why 
 a ship of five or six hundred tons should not enter the 
 harbour at all seasons of the year, including the monsoon. 
 This report Frere transmitted to the Bombay Government, 
 suggesting " that besides taking these facts into considera- 
 tion on any renewal of the mail-packet contract, they may 
 deem the report worth sending to the Bombay Chamber 
 of Commerce and the Bombay Steam Navigation Com- 
 pany." Again and again he in vain pressed upon the 
 Bombay Government the immense importance of the 
 question. And at last, owing either to the publication of 
 this report, or from other causes, a juster estimate of the 
 danger of the bar began to be formed, and in a little more 
 than a year from its being written, on October 18, 1852, 
 Frere, with his wife by his side, stood on Manora Point, at 
 the entrance of the harbour, anxiously watching through 
 a field-glass the Duke of Argyle, an English ship laden 
 with troops, the first that ever made the voyage direct 
 from England to Sind ; and when she passed safely over 
 the bar and glided into the smooth water inside, it was 
 with an ejaculation of fervent thankfulness that he laid 
 down his field-glass and let his imagination picture all 
 that that scene implied for the future of Kurrachee, of 
 Sind, and of North-western India. 
 
 But the depth of water was not sufficient to admit ships 
 of more than about eight hundred tons. In the spring of 
 the following year, 1853, he applied to Government for a 
 pilot-boat — there being no boat available for this service 
 in rough weather — and also for a steam-dredge to deepen 
 the passage over the bar. His application was referred to 
 the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Navy, who replied
 
 1852-3.] THE HARBOUR BAR. 95 
 
 that though he had never seen the place, he was of 
 opinion that a dredge would be useless, and that a break- 
 water, to prevent a deposit of sand, was what was required. 
 In July Frere again pressed his request for an investigation 
 of the bar, pointing out that, as a mere question of present 
 expenditure, it would be desirable to save the outgoings 
 of seventy rupees a month for small boats ; and at last, 
 after a year and a half of delay, the necessary consent 
 was given. In January, 1853, the surveys were made, and, 
 as the result, Major H. Blois Turner ascertained beyond 
 question that the bar was composed of sand. Upon the 
 receipt of his report, the Bombay Government replied that 
 now the " question of operating on the bar with a view to 
 its removal must be considered completely at rest." For- 
 tunately, however, the Court of Directors in London had 
 taken up the question, and even the Bombay Government 
 could not save the bar for ever. Mr. Hardy Wells, who 
 was not exactly " a competent geologist," but a pupil of 
 Brunei's, whose merits Frere had already discovered, was 
 called on to report upon the question. After carefully 
 examining the coast-line and the rivers as well as the bar 
 and the harbour, he proposed to increase the flow of 
 river water into the harbour by diverting into it several 
 streams which flowed into the sea outside it, and thus 
 obtain a force which would counteract the action of the 
 tide in depositing sand on the bar. 
 
 Frere determined to try and expedite matters, and 
 turn the flank of Bombay obstruction, by writing direct 
 to the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, informing him 
 of the newly-discovered facts as to the bar, of the plan 
 for deepening the passage over it, and of the proposal to 
 connect Kurrachee by a railway with the Indus at Kotree, 
 where it would be in connection with the flotilla which 
 plied up the Indus to the Punjab.
 
 g6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Lord Dalhousie's answer was prompt, cordial, and en- 
 couraging : — 
 
 " December 5, 1853. 
 
 " I have read with the greatest pleasure and encourage- 
 ment your letter of November 14, and the very interesting 
 memorandum which it enclosed ; and I am sincerely obliged 
 by your having made me early acquainted with these facts. 
 
 " The accessibility of the harbour of Kurrachee during 
 the monsoon is an entire change in the geographical and 
 commercial character of the coast of Scinde, established 
 only during the last season. It will effect an equally ex- 
 tensive change in the proper internal policy of the Govern- 
 ment if further inquiry should confirm the prospect which 
 the proceedings of this season have opened. 
 
 " Without a good harbour at Kurrachee, I think you 
 would never have a really great trade by way of Scinde. 
 But with a good harbour there, I know not why it should 
 be very far behind Bombay. 
 
 " In any case, no one, I think, can doubt that a railway 
 connecting the port of Kurrachee with the main stream of 
 the Indus, whether at Kotree or at Tatta, is greatly pre- 
 ferable to any canal. . . . 
 
 " I heartily agree with you that both objects are worthy 
 of full and immediate investigation, whatever may be the 
 ultimate decision, and with you I am sanguine in expecting 
 that the result of investigation will be most encouraging. 
 
 " Nothing that I can do shall be wanting for your aid. 
 I will immediately write to Lord Falkland, mentioning 
 my interest in the subject and bespeaking his aid. I don't 
 see how this Government could write officially until it has 
 something more before it ; but that also I will try. 
 
 " I hope you will do me the favour of writing again on 
 these and kindred subjects." 
 
 Frere writes to his old friend Mr. G. T. Clark : — 
 
 " September, 1853. 
 " You would, even after all you saw of Bombay ignor- 
 ance and apathy, hardly credit the difficulty of getting 
 anything done. Lord Falkland * is well inclined, and 
 
 * Lord Falkland, always his warm friend and supporter, used to 
 call him the " importunate widow," in allusion to the persistence with 
 which he urged the needs of his province.
 
 1852-3.] KURRACHEE HARBOUR. 97 
 
 does all he can, and the Governor-General, in everything 
 that comes before him, acts like a great statesman, which 
 he undoubtedly is ; but with all that it is uphill work, 
 officials (Goldsmid always excepted) poohpoohing and 
 throwing cold water, merchants turning up their noses at 
 a commerce of which they have only a huckster's notions, 
 and dreadfully afraid, if they do believe there is any 
 chance of any trade ever coming here, that the growth of 
 a port five hundred miles from their own, and communi- 
 cating with an entirely distinct region, will ruin Bombay. 
 However, I have great faith in the power of truth, and do 
 my best to be patient." 
 
 Whatever may have been the motive power which acted 
 on the Bombay Government, works at the Kurrachee 
 harbour were begun soon after this date. But they pro- 
 ceeded so slowly and intermittently, and so little was 
 done, that the breaking out of the Mutiny in 1857 found 
 it still very inadequate to the requirements it was sud- 
 denly called on to fulfil, as the only port through which 
 troops and supplies had to be poured to save North- 
 western India. 
 
 Shortly after the Mutiny had been suppressed, in 
 February, 1859, Frere writes to Lord Stanley, then Under- 
 Secretary for India : — 
 
 " I heard by last mail from Colonel Turner that you had 
 the subject of your Kurrachee harbour improvements 
 under consideration, and that you had decided they should 
 not be delayed for want of funds. I cannot express to 
 your lordship how valuable I feel this decision will be, and 
 that a greater benefit has thus been conferred on the 
 Punjab and Sind than any one measure which has been 
 sanctioned since they came under our rule ; and I begin 
 to have hopes that what I have for years been trying to 
 impress on Government will be admitted, and that the 
 Government of India and the Punjab will become aware 
 that, for all commercial and military purposes, Kurrachee, 
 and not Calcutta, is the natural port of the Punjab. Had 
 the truth of my constant appeals on this subject been 
 earlier recognized, I feel sure we might have saved millions 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 g8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 and still have had good roads leading from the interior to 
 the nearest and most accessible sea-boards, in place of the 
 abortive attempt to cross the drainage of the country from 
 Lahore to Peshawur, on which, I am told, half a million 
 has been wasted. Nor should we have risked the tem- 
 porary loss of the Punjab when it was cut off from Calcutta 
 by the late rebellion and the road through Sind alone was 
 open. It was not till this fact became alarmingly manifest 
 that it was possible to get the Punjab people to look at all 
 in this direction. Even then they took as little as possible 
 from us, and with the worst possible grace." 
 
 The harbour works were not yet secure from interrup- 
 tion. Early in 1866, when Frere was Governor of Bombay, 
 ill luck had brought to Kurrachee, to superintend them, 
 an engineer who recorded his opinion that everything that 
 had been done or designed was wrong. Frere delivers his- 
 soul in wrath to his friend Captain Eastwick, then a 
 member of the Secretary of State's Council : — 
 
 " May 22, 1866. 
 
 " I have been more than vexed, I have been positively 
 shocked, by the orders we have received to stop the Kur- 
 rachee harbour works and shelve the whole business — 
 shocked, not only because I believe the stoppage to be a 
 most unwise measure in itself, but because it is a con- 
 spicuous instance of that capricious change of purpose and 
 policy for which our Indian Government has lately be- 
 come so notorious, which takes all confidence out of its 
 friends, and knocks all heart and zeal out of its old 
 servants. 
 
 " I hardly know where to begin in reasoning on the 
 question. I am ashamed to write to Englishmen of this- 
 nineteenth century on the general advantages of harbours,, 
 or to discuss the money value of a good harbour as com- 
 pared with a bad one, when it is the only natural port of 
 millions of our subjects. I had almost as soon begin 
 lecturing on the moral obligations of the Decalogue. 
 
 " But I cannot believe you doubt the value of a good 
 port in such a position as Kurrachee. It was almost the 
 only work on the value and necessity of which Lord Dal- 
 housie agreed with Sir Charles Napier. The plans for its
 
 1852-6.] KURRACHEE HARBOUR. 99 
 
 improvement were most carefully devised by the man who 
 was far ahead of the whole engineering profession as a 
 harbour-improver. Mr. Walker was a man whose opinion 
 decided controversies about the improvement of the Mersey 
 or the Clyde, and I can safely say that I never in my life 
 saw designs for any work on which so much care, thought, 
 and labour were bestowed by the engineer. They were 
 approved by Sir C. Wood, himself no mean judge of such 
 matters, and sanctioned by the Court of Directors. They 
 were half finished, and, as far as they had gone, had pro- 
 duced precisely the effects expected by Mr. Walker ; and 
 why are they stopped ? . . . 
 
 " The fact is, not one of those who condemn them had 
 ever studied harbour engineering, nor, with the exception 
 of Colonel Tremenheere, ever seen the works, or pretended 
 to study them on the spot." 
 
 Happily, after investigation, the Government of India 
 were satisfied that the plan for the harbour was right 
 after all, and not wrong ; and after the loss of much time 
 the works were again proceeded with. 
 
 They were fully completed only about ten years ago 
 (in 1883). An entrance channel five hundred feet wide, 
 and of sufficient depth for the largest ships to enter, has 
 been established, and wharves, tramways, railways, steam- 
 cranes, and all the appliances of a modern harbour added, 
 so that it can now claim a place among the most convenient 
 as well as among the most important in the world. 
 
 As to the projected railway from Kurrachee to Kotree, 
 a fortnight after Lord Dalhousie's letter was written, 
 Lieutenant Chapman had left Lukkee, where he had been 
 planning a road, and was sailing down the Indus in a 
 native vessel to go on with the survey. In his anxiety to 
 reach Kotree by daylight, he had ordered the vessel to 
 proceed on its way as soon as the moon rose. It had not 
 gone far when it struck against something under water, 
 probably a sunken tree, and began to fill. A boat from 
 the shore made an attempt at rescue, but the rope broke
 
 100 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 and the boat was carried astern by the current ; a second 
 attempt also failed, and then the vessel broke up or sank, 
 and Lieutenant Chapman and twenty-seven men with him 
 were drowned. The loss of this distinguished young 
 engineer officer, the pioneer of the future railway, was 
 felt as a calamity by the whole province. 
 
 Eight months afterwards a public meeting was held in 
 Kurrachee to urge upon the Government the importance 
 of beginning the railway, and a year later a meeting with 
 the same object was held at Hyderabad. There was 
 vexatious official delay. In October, 1854, Lord Dalhousie 
 writes privately to Frere — 
 
 " I have seen with great pleasure the many efforts 
 towards progress and improvement which you have been 
 making in Scinde. I should be better pleased if official 
 questions took something less than a year or two before 
 they reached this Government. It is a long road from 
 Kurrachee to Calcutta via Bombay, and certainly the 
 travelling is very slow upon it for official correspondence." 
 
 In July, 1856, for want of a harbour pilot, and by the 
 blunder of the officer in charge of the port — Frere being 
 away at the time — three ships laden with railway-plant 
 were successively interdicted from entering the harbour, 
 which they could quite easily have done, and were sent to 
 Bombay to be lightened. And again and again, owing 
 to the railway officials in charge of the works being 
 directed to take their orders from a department at Bombay 
 instead of from the Commissioner in Sind, came confusion, 
 disputes, and delay. Frere wrote a strong remonstrance 
 to Bombay, not only as to the particular matter of the 
 railway, but as to the vicious system — as he considered 
 it to be — which was growing up, of making executive 
 officers responsible to a head of a department at a distant 
 centre, instead of to the local representative of the Govern- 
 ment in the province itself.
 
 1852-9.] CENTRALIZATION. IOI 
 
 "January 15, 1858. 
 
 " The question on which I have the misfortune to differ 
 in opinion from Government lies within a very narrow 
 compass, but it is one of immense importance in every 
 department of the administration. It is simply whether 
 the Government shall be centralized by giving exclusive 
 power and responsibility to individual officers within given 
 areas, or whether the centralization shall be by departments, 
 all independent of each other, and owning no common 
 authority inferior to the Government. 
 
 " The former is the old system of Oriental and of all other 
 vigorous despotisms ; the latter is a system generally in- 
 compatible with really vigorous government of any kind, 
 and an almost constant source of complaint even in the 
 free representative governments where it originated. The 
 former built up our Indian Empire, while we maintain a 
 really efficient chain of individual authority and re- 
 sponsibility from the Governor in Council down to the 
 village Patel ; the latter paralyzes all such individual 
 authority and responsibility by departmental wires pulled 
 from the governing centre. It is a very recent introduction 
 into India that already threatens speedily to destroy the 
 whole fabric of our power. Both systems aim at central- 
 ization, but the one attains real and efficient centraliza- 
 tion as long as there is force at the centre, the other 
 becomes deranged by the slightest trial or shock ; and 
 unless in seasons of difficulty some man is bold enough to 
 break all rules, and assume at his own peril the individual 
 local authority (which the other system spontaneously 
 gives), the results are invariably disastrous." 
 
 The principle which Frere here lays down, that as a 
 captain must be master on board his own ship, so a ruler 
 of a province must have authority over and be responsible 
 for all departments within his jurisdiction, is one which he 
 will henceforth be found constantly battling for as essential 
 to all good administration. He contended for it with equal 
 zeal on his own behalf when in charge of a province, and 
 on behalf of others when he himself was on the Council 
 of the Governor-General at Calcutta, Governor of Bombay, 
 and on the Indian Council in London. To his own
 
 102 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 subordinates he extended the fullest powers and gave the 
 amplest discretion ; he claimed like treatment for himself. 
 Neither the work which he did nor the methods which 
 he pursued can be understood and appreciated unless it 
 is constantly borne in mind how his whole system of 
 administration was pervaded by this principle of confer- 
 ring on each officer a large discretion and ample freedom 
 of action within an assigned area, thereby forging a chain 
 of personal and individual responsibility ascending from 
 the lowest to the highest. 
 
 The work of the Kurrachee and Kotree Railway was not 
 actually begun till May 3, 1858, four years and a half 
 after the correspondence about it with Lord Dalhousie. 
 Even then troubles were not yet over. Frere writes to 
 Colonel Trevelyan — 
 
 "July 13, 1859. 
 
 " For some weeks I was very ill, confined to my room 
 by bronchitis. ... It was as much as I could do to keep 
 things just going and to keep down arrears. 
 
 " Then came a railway crash. The contractor had for 
 months been doing very badly — evidently short of capital 
 and deficient in system and management. We bolstered 
 him up as long as we could, and I got into some little 
 difficulty by lending him a lac of rupees on account of 
 Government, though ultimately Lord Stanley approved of 
 it. However, it was clear he could not get on much longer, 
 and one morning he sent us a telegram from Bombay to say 
 he was off to England, leaving, as we found, thirty rupees 
 here with his agent to pay wages to some eight thousand 
 starving workmen, to whom he owed 125,000 rupees, for 
 wages for two and three months unpaid. To find out what 
 was done and to pay it, to keep the work going and the 
 poor people quiet, and to take charge of the whole line, 
 were all very troublesome duties ; but the Railway Company 
 has some excellent men here, and all, thank God, has been 
 successfully accomplished, and the works are going on 
 with renewed vigour."
 
 1855.] STEAM COMMUNICATION. 103 
 
 The railway was at last opened in 1861, after Frere had 
 left Sind. 
 
 In June, 1855, an offer by the Steam Navigation 
 Company to establish a fortnightly packet service to carry 
 the mails between Bombay and Kurrachee was, by the 
 advice of the Postmaster-General, rejected by the Bombay 
 Government. Frere writes to remonstrate : — 
 
 " I fear the decision will prove a very serious discourage- 
 ment to the development of the commercial resources of 
 this port. For more than eight years after we obtained 
 the sovereignty of this province, it was taken for granted 
 that the harbour of Kurrachee was inaccessible in the 
 monsoon. . . . After much argument and correspondence, 
 a trial was made, in 1853, by the H.C.S. Queen, and it 
 was found that the only real difficulty was for the first 
 hundred and fifty miles off Bombay harbour, and that, as 
 regarded the coast of Sind and the harbour of Kurrachee, 
 there was no serious difficulty or danger of any kind to 
 steamers passing to and fro throughout the monsoon. 
 . . . The Bombay Steam Navigation Company, having 
 got out a steamer capable of performing the service, 
 offered to run her twice a month for five thousand rupees 
 per trip, which, considering the object in view, cannot, I 
 respectfully submit, be deemed unreasonable for a first 
 trial. . . . The object is not simply to convey detachments 
 of troops, or the post, though it is a great convenience and 
 boon to all concerned to get the bulk of overland mails 
 dry, legible, complete, and in good order, a day or two 
 after it is known by the electric telegraph that the mail 
 is in, instead of having to wait for many days, and then 
 get the mail, via Surat and Bhooj, by driblets, and some- 
 times soaked with water, and mashed to an illegible pulp. 
 . . . But the principal benefits to the public from a 
 steamer running during the monsoon are, first, the 
 opportunity of getting to and from Sind, the land-route 
 to which is practically closed to travellers from June to 
 October inclusive. This is often a matter of life and 
 death to invalids, and of great importance to others. 
 Secondly, the conveyance of overland parcels, books, 
 periodicals, and light goods of all sorts. This is speedily 
 becoming an extensive branch of trade between Bombay
 
 104 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 and Suez ; but it is one in which Sind and the Punjab 
 have little or no share by this route during one-third 
 of the year. The Punjab is in consequence generally 
 supplied via Calcutta." 
 
 Another point which he pressed upon the authorities 
 at Bombay was, that during the monsoon the mail 
 steamers from Aden to Bombay should go by way of 
 Kurrachee. The distance from Aden to Kurrachee is two 
 hundred miles less than from Aden to Bombay. From 
 Kurrachee to Bombay is four hundred miles. Thus the 
 Kurrachee route is two hundred miles longer than the 
 direct route from Aden to Bombay. But during the 
 four months of the monsoon, steamers cannot go by the 
 direct route to Bombay, and have to make a detour of 
 about five hundred miles to the south ; so that during 
 these four months the way by Kurrachee is actually the 
 shortest as well as the easiest passage, besides affording 
 Kurrachee the advantage of direct communication with 
 Aden. In a letter to Lord Elphinstone, the newly arrived 
 Governor of Bombay, dated March 28, 1854, he says — 
 
 " I think it right to bring to your lordship's special 
 notice a trip made by the Dzvarka, a private steamer 
 with pilgrims from Muscat to Aden, in August last. 
 
 " The Dwarka is a small iron boat of two hundred and 
 eighty-one tons, and sixty horse power. . . . She left 
 Muscat on the 17th of August, 1853, and anchored at Aden 
 on the 31st. She steamed three, four, and five knots, 
 one day doing little more than two and a half, and only 
 two days reaching six. Her course was pretty close in 
 shore. . . . 
 
 "Thus it will be seen that this small and underpowered 
 vessel, which certainly could not without great risk have 
 shown herself outside Bombay harbour during the 
 monsoon, made the voyage from Muscat to Aden without 
 accident or difficulty, at nearly the same time when one 
 of the largest and most powerful vessels, commanded by 
 one of the best officers in the Indian navy, had the utmost
 
 1S51-6J ROADS. I05 
 
 difficulty in forcing her way to Aden by the southern 
 passage. 
 
 " I have been assured on good authority that this is 
 no exceptional or accidental circumstance ; but that the 
 south-west monsoon does not blow home with any violence 
 on the Arabian coast, while there are several headlands 
 and islands under the lee of which safe shelter may be 
 found, should the usual steady and strong monsoon breeze 
 freshen, or any accident happen to the vessel or machinery 
 rendering it desirable to anchor. 
 
 " This subject appears to be one of great importance 
 to the maintenance of a regular communication between 
 Bombay and Aden during the monsoon. ... It is also 
 of very great moment to the communication with the 
 north-west frontier and the Punjab, as it would tend to 
 show that great facilities existed for keeping up a com- 
 munication with Aden via Kurrachee." 
 
 The supreme necessity for making roads in India, where 
 they do not already exist, is scarcely to be realized by 
 an Englishman who has not been there. In Western 
 Europe, not only in these latter centuries, but in all 
 historic times since the days of the Romans, it has been 
 always more or less practicable not only to travel, but 
 to convey goods of all kinds on an animal of some sort, 
 if not on wheels or in a boat, from any given place to any 
 other given place. The old Roman roads, made once for 
 always, and the many rivers with moderate currents lending 
 themselves kindly to navigation, have formed the arteries 
 of communication ; and the byways and tracks, not being 
 exposed either to a rainless climate or to long-continued 
 inundation, could be kept open with comparatively little 
 trouble. Thus throughout the Middle Ages not only was 
 trade carried on, but great buildings were constructed of 
 stone brought many miles across country or over the sea. 
 In India there are comparatively few dependable arteries 
 of communication, and from various causes there were often 
 no roads whatever from village to village. A cultivator
 
 106 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 might have a considerable distance to go from his house 
 to his land, and have no means of carrying manure to it, 
 or bringing produce from it, except on his own back. Not 
 only was he unable to get his produce to a market, but 
 the extremity of famine might prevail for want of means 
 of communication, by which supplies could be brought a 
 comparatively short distance. Frere writes of Sind : — 
 
 "At the commencement of 1851 there was not a foot 
 of made road in the whole province, with the exception 
 of the road to the entrenched camp from Hyderabad, 
 about three or four miles ; and this, being unmetalled and 
 unwatered, was only kept in tolerable order by excluding 
 from it all vehicles except gentlemen's carriages." 
 
 A steam flotilla then plied from Lahore and other 
 places in the Punjab as far down as Hyderabad — three- 
 quarters of the length of the province, and within a 
 hundred miles of Kurrachee. Below Hyderabad the river 
 spreads over the Delta in many streams, and their course 
 and depth vary so much that navigation becomes intricate 
 and dangerous. But in no part of its course through 
 Sind is the Indus always to be depended upon as a means 
 of transit. The " stream is continually shifting within 
 definite but very wide limits, so that a village is one year 
 five miles from the river, and the rest in danger of being 
 carried away." 
 
 Heavy boats have great difficulty in getting up against 
 the stream ; and three months is stated to be no unusual 
 period for a laden boat to take to reach Sukkur, a distance 
 in a straight line of less than two hundred and fifty 
 miles. In the hot weather the river is so swollen, and 
 the current runs with such tremendous force, that a boat 
 which is deeply laden or short handed cannot safely be 
 trusted to it. The Indus, therefore, does not make roads 
 less indispensable.
 
 1S51-6.] ROADS. 107 
 
 Nor does the use of camels. For — 
 
 " no one who has not witnessed it can imagine the utter 
 helplessness of a laden camel, if required to ascend a muddy 
 bank, only two or three feet in height ; and, as such banks 
 may occur, in the inundation season, half a dozen times 
 between any two villages, and any slip is likely to cause 
 the loss of the animal by injury to the hind-quarters, 
 camels in that season are seldom seen in the cultivated 
 country, and any one who has occasion to use a camel 
 commonly lightens the animal's load in crossing a wet 
 bank, and, if he can, covers any sloping muddy surface 
 with dry earth or twigs. Of course the trouble of this 
 operation is sufficient to put a practical stop to camel- 
 traffic in such localities on ordinary occasions during the 
 season in question. ... It is hardly necessary to add 
 that canals [in the absence of bridges over them] at all 
 times preclude cart-traffic, which is unknown where canals 
 are numerous or deep. That there is no other obstacle is 
 proved by the universal use of a wretched cart during the 
 dry months in all thickly peopled districts, where the 
 general level of the country is so low that few canals are 
 required, and those very shallow." 
 
 Accordingly, in the earlier years of Frere's official 
 correspondence from Sind, are to be found many applica- 
 tions by him for grants for making roads, accompanied by 
 details and estimates. Writing to Lord Falkland in April, 
 1853, he mentions that 126 miles of road were made in 
 the year 1851, at a cost of 18,525 rupees; and 207 miles 
 in 1852, at a cost of 28,298 rupees. One of these roads 
 was made over the Lukkee range of hills near Sehwan, 
 which had hitherto formed an impassable barrier on the 
 right bank of the river between Upper and Lower Sind, 
 so that to avoid it the river had to be crossed and 
 recrossed. By the construction of a carriage-road over 
 this range, forty miles in distance was saved, the Indus 
 had no longer to be crossed at all — an additional saving 
 equivalent to a journey of fifty miles — and the only 
 serious natural obstacle, not only between Shikarpur and
 
 108 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Kurrachee, but on the direct road from Central Asia over 
 the Bolan to Kurrachee, was removed.* 
 
 With reference to the roads in Upper Sind, he writes to 
 Lord Falkland : — 
 
 "April 28, 1853. 
 
 " The roads are forty feet in width, and all of those 
 constructed within the last two years generally run in 
 perfectly straight lines from village to village. 
 
 "None are metalled ; they are merely levelled and cleared 
 of the trees and bushes, which in many parts form an 
 almost impenetrable jungle. A trench at the side prevents 
 carts and cattle getting off the road, and furnishes soil for 
 filling up small irregularities. With the exception of a 
 few localities where great traffic renders a harder surface 
 desirable, such roads are as good and durable as the 
 present traffic requires. 
 
 " The bridges, of which there were a hundred and fifty- 
 nine in all, are built of burnt brick, with mud cement and 
 semicircular arches. The largest I saw was a three-arch 
 bridge, the centre arch of twenty-four feet and two side 
 arches of eight feet each, and cost about twelve hundred 
 rupees. 
 
 " All these roads and bridges have been made by such 
 artificers and workmen as could be found in Upper Sind, 
 without aid from any European, except Major Jacob, or 
 any native trained in an European office. . . . 
 
 " The country is a dead level ; in parts the view is 
 much impeded by heavy jungle and sand-hills, and no 
 really correct survey of it exists. 
 
 " In order to get the right line, the contractor on a calm 
 day had a large fire lit at the spot to be reached, and 
 keeping his eye fixed on the column of smoke, made his 
 way through the densest jungle, marking trees as he went ; 
 he thus got a straight path marked and then cleared, 
 which he afterwards widened to the necessary extent, and 
 lined out with poles and cords, and the result is a road 
 almost as direct as could be laid out by the best surveyor. 
 
 " The bridges were drawn on paper, in a manner intelli- 
 gible to the workmen, and the dimensions were given. 
 
 * Major Jacob to Frere, July 8, 1852. " Records of Scinde Irregular 
 Horse," vol. ii. p. 66.
 
 1851-6.] ROADS. 109 
 
 The contractors had never seen large bridges with semi- 
 circular arches, and at first doubted whether such arches 
 would stand ; and even now that they have built several 
 of large span, in excellent style, they are only beginning to 
 feel sure of the stability of that kind of arch as compared 
 with their own pointed arches. No particular pains were 
 found necessary to teach the workmen, except showing 
 them how, with a line to the centre, to lay the bricks of 
 the arch true, a matter to which they attend but little 
 in building their own pointed arches. 
 
 "All the work, both of bridges and roads, is done by 
 contract, and the estimates are framed by putting up the 
 work to competition. Major Jacob sends round a notice 
 and assembles persons willing to contract. He then 
 thoroughly explains the work required, showing when 
 necessary a written description or drawing of the work ; 
 when satisfied it is understood, he invites offers. The 
 lowest offer from a good workman gives the estimate ; 
 and when such estimate has been sanctioned by Govern- 
 ment, the contractor is there ready to take it up. 
 
 " No failure has yet occurred, though some of the works 
 are very heavy. The work has, as far as I have seen, been 
 well, cheaply, and quickly done. Some of the largest and 
 best contractors cannot read or write. I, of course, do not 
 mention this as a recommendation, but to show the dis- 
 advantages under which the work was undertaken, and 
 also to show how a trustworthy and competent officer, 
 who has been allowed a given sum to do a given work, 
 can, in spite of many drawbacks, make shift to get that 
 work well done, if permitted to use, as he best can, the 
 appliances he finds at hand, when he would be unable to 
 do anything if obliged to send in voluminous returns, and 
 furnish all the usual paper checks on such expenditure." 
 
 By degrees a network of bridged roads over the province 
 was completed. 
 
 " By simply bridging the canals and raising the road 
 in low lands," Frere writes,* " carts and fully laden 
 camels can be used all the year round. The extent of 
 internal communication, which may be secured at very 
 small cost, is enormous. For example, in the frontier 
 
 * Minute of August 14, 1861.
 
 IIO THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 districts, General Jacob cleared and laid out 2589 miles of 
 road between 1847 and 1859-60, and during the last seven 
 years of that period 1872 miles were raised where necessary, 
 and furnished with 786 masonry bridges, 88 of which, 
 across navigable canals, were passable by boats of the 
 largest size." 
 
 The facility and rapidity of postal communication in 
 Sind was greatly improved by the substitution, recom- 
 mended by him in an official letter in June, 185 1, of a 
 Horse and Camel Dawk for foot-runners between Hyderabad 
 and Sukkur. The result was a saving of eleven hours in 
 time, and a gain of seven pounds in the weight of the mail 
 carried in the distance of two hundred miles. 
 
 One of the causes of its success lay in the system of 
 " speed-money," introduced by Mr. Coffey, the postmaster 
 in charge of the arrangements. Every hour that a mail 
 was late was put down against the contractor ; every hour 
 gained was put down to his credit. At the end of the 
 month the balance was struck, and he was fined, or paid 
 " speed-money," as the balance might stand — so much to 
 his credit or his debit. 
 
 " Instead of timing themselves so as just to escape fine, 
 the sowars press on as fast as they can ; the relieving 
 horse is always ready saddled, and the sowar ready at the 
 post-house long before the shout of the incoming rider is 
 heard, and directly he pulls up, the bags are thrown on to the 
 fresh horse, the rider mounts, and is off without a moment's 
 unnecessary delay. This, which I have watched scores of 
 times, is very different from the usual mode of procedure, 
 where the contractor is paid well for a good average rate 
 of speed, and has little or no inducement to exceed it. . . . 
 Hence they are always devising plans to save time ; and 
 when it is physically impossible for horses to travel, I have 
 known part of the distance done by camel, part by foot- 
 runners, and part by boat, to the extent of thirty miles in 
 one line, and the whole time far from bad." * 
 
 * Frere to Riddell, May 7, 1855.
 
 1854.] POSTAGE STAMPS. Ill 
 
 Another improvement in postal arrangements, which 
 Frere introduced into Sind in 1854, was the use of postage 
 stamps. It was not till 1856 that they came into use 
 throughout India, and that the Sind postage stamp was 
 superseded by the Indian. 
 
 He writes — 
 
 "The stamp of which your note of yesterday enclosed 
 a facsimile, was the first postage stamp used in India, 
 and this is its history. The postage arrangements in Sind 
 were, as you may recollect, in 1850, very imperfect; the 
 province was poor, and did not pay its local expenses ; 
 and when we asked for more and better,; post-offices, we 
 were reminded of our poverty, and told that when the 
 Government of India could afford money to spend in Sind, 
 there were many things to be provided before post-offices 
 could be thought of. 
 
 " So, as we believed that post-offices were not luxuries, 
 we considered how we could make the most of such means 
 as we had, and our postmaster, Mr. Coffey, being a man of 
 resource, we hit upon this expedient. 
 
 " We got the stamps, of which you sent me a facsimile, 
 manufactured by De la Rue and Co., and they were issued 
 to stamp-vendors and Government officials much as they 
 are in England, and every police officer and native district 
 collector of land revenues, customs, etc., was ordered to 
 receive, and forward with his own official papers to his 
 immediate official superior, all letters bearing one of these 
 mysterious stamps of the British Government, or rather of 
 the Great Company. (The stamp, you will observe, is the 
 old E.I.C.'s modification of the broad arrow, which the 
 E.I.C. used, I believe, from the time of Charles II. 
 till the Company itself was abolished. Only the copyist 
 has omitted the E.I. , which perhaps in the stamp he copied 
 from had been obliterated.) 
 
 " Thus every Government office in Sind became a district 
 post-office for stamped letters, and the first official who 
 had a real post-office at hand sent to it all the stamped 
 letters which he and his subordinates had collected. 
 
 " The system worked very well, and of course very 
 cheaply, for we got a complete network of post-offices 
 and postal lines all over the country without expense.
 
 112 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 "I believe the success of the plan was one inducement 
 to the introduction soon after of the present system of 
 postage stamps, as our Sind experiment showed that the 
 fancied objections of natives of India to postage stamps 
 were quite groundless. You may recollect it used always 
 to be said that, ' prepayment by stamps might do very 
 well in Europe, but would never do in India.' But this 
 proved to be no more true of stamps than it has been of 
 railways and every other innovation." 
 
 Besides the want of roads, the miserable condition — or 
 more often the total absence — of any house or bungalow, 
 public or private, in which travellers could take shelter at 
 night or during the heat of the day, was a serious impedi- 
 ment to travelling. Within a few weeks after his arrival, 
 in February, 1851, Frere writes for authority to supply 
 this want. Five months later he makes two more appli- 
 cations ; more correspondence ensues, and in January, 
 1852, he returns to the charge, fortified by a long array 
 of testimony from several officials as to the number of 
 travellers, the miseries they have suffered, and the fevers 
 and serious illnesses they have contracted from this cause. 
 He thus sums them up in a remonstrance against the 
 refusal his application had met with. 
 
 "All that I have heard and seen of this, the principal 
 line of road in the province, during the few months that 
 have elapsed since I first wrote, the universal complaints 
 of travellers of all classes, professions, and presidencies, 
 instances of individual sufferings to invalids and women, 
 fevers and severe sickness, contracted by the young and 
 robust, and ending fatally, in at least one case, of a person 
 previously in good health, and which sickness would not 
 in all human probability have been incurred had the road 
 been provided with ordinary Indian accommodation for 
 travellers, all have tended to confirm my opinion that the 
 expenditure I recommended was most advisable on grounds 
 of economy no less than humanity" 
 
 In all his applications for sanction to expenditure, he
 
 1851-6.] travellers' bungalows. 113 
 
 was careful to point out it was advisable from a strictly 
 economical point of view. For he knew that much of the 
 difficulty he met with in getting his plans for improvements 
 sanctioned was due to the policy of economy, which had 
 been strongly impressed on the Bombay Government. 
 Sind, it was complained, cost more to govern than it 
 produced in revenue. 
 
 To this he replied, that Sind was a newly-annexed pro- 
 vince on the most vulnerable frontier of the empire, and 
 much of the expenditure was really for the defence of the 
 whole of India. Secondly, that the only way to increase 
 the revenue was to develop the country, that judicious ex- 
 penditure would be amply reproductive ; and besides, that 
 when roads were made, and travelling facilitated, the 
 country would be much easier and cheaper to govern. 
 
 His request for sanction for the erection of the three 
 travellers' bungalows was at last, after nearly a year's 
 delay, granted, and the expenditure of six thousand rupees 
 allowed. 
 
 Another scheme which Frere on his arrival in Sind lost 
 no time in promoting, was the establishment of Fairs at 
 Kurrachee and elsewhere in the province, to which mer- 
 chants from Afghanistan, Persia, and Central Asia might 
 bring their goods, and where, without making a sea voyage, 
 so much dreaded by Asiatics in inland countries, they 
 might meet traders from Bombay and Southern India. In 
 a letter to the Governor in Council of Bombay he says — 
 
 "August 21, 1851. 
 " The Fair is intended to be to traders between Central 
 Asia and Bombay what a ' Clearing-house ' is to bankers, 
 or an exchange or bazaar to merchants in general ; a place 
 where people who have wants which they can mutually 
 supply to each other may meet and save time, trouble, and 
 money, which would be otherwise expended by each in- 
 dividual going round to the others individually. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 "But where such meeting is arranged for the benefit of 
 two classes, it will be of no service if one only attends, and 
 unless the Bombay merchants will come with their hard- 
 ware, piece-goods, and woollens, it will be of little use for 
 the Affghan, Sindee, and Belooch traders to congregate 
 with their wools, furs, dyes, drugs, and raw produce. . . . 
 
 " The Bombay merchant may ask, ' Why should I go to 
 meet the Affghan, when the Affghan trader now comes 
 to me ?' 
 
 " I believe that if an active Bombay merchant could 
 meet the Affghan trader on the Coast of Sind, buy the 
 Affghan's wool with the piece-goods he had himself 
 brought up, and carry the wool back to Bombay, he would 
 find that after paying himself fairly for extra risk, trouble, 
 and expense, he had got his wool cheaper than if he had 
 bought it from the Affghan at the lowest price the latter 
 would accept in Bombay, because the additional journey 
 he takes himself and which he saves to the Affghan is a 
 matter of comparatively less risk, trouble, and expense to 
 him than it is to the Affghan, and, therefore, what is bare 
 compensation for it to the Affghan is comparative compen- 
 sation and extra profit to him. . . . 
 
 " With regard to the steps I would propose to take, they 
 would be all intended simply to clear away obstacles, and 
 none to force trade. Publicity as to time and place of 
 meeting, order, and good police regulation for cafilas after 
 they arrive, facilities for traders to meet and see each 
 others' goods, and whatever else may tend to save time 
 and trouble. . . . 
 
 " The case of any Fair in Upper Sind is somewhat 
 different, and I see no reason whatever why one should 
 not exist there almost contemporaneously with one at 
 Kurrachee. 
 
 " The classes of traders who will meet at the two places 
 will be in some respects different. 
 
 "At Kurrachee there will be on the one side Affghans, 
 Sindees, and Punjabee traders ; on the other, Bombay and 
 other Western Indian merchants. 
 
 " In Upper Sind there will be on the one side the mer- 
 chants of Khelat, Kandahar, the Punjab and Bawulpoor ; 
 on the other those of Rajpootana and Sind." 
 
 The scheme attracted the attention of the Board of
 
 3852.] KURRACHEE FAIR. 1 1 5 
 
 Directors in London. One of them, Sir Henry Willock, 
 who had been British Minister in Persia, and had acquired 
 a knowledge of Central Asian affairs, which gave weight to 
 his words, wrote a detailed letter to Frere, expressing 
 warm approval of the plan. 
 
 The first Fair was held at Kurrachee, in December, 1852. 
 Year by year the difficulties in the way of trade with Aff- 
 ghanistan and Central Asia were lessened or removed. 
 The danger of robbery in passing through Beloochistan 
 became a thing of the past. Roads were made, and 
 resting-places for travellers. The heavy duties levied by 
 the Khan of Kelat, the sovereign of Beloochistan, on 
 all goods passing through his territory were modified, or 
 during the fair-time suspended altogether, a subsidy being 
 given him as compensation on that and other accounts. 
 The levying of blackmail upon merchants by the wild 
 tribes under his nominal sovereignty was stopped. As 
 each December came round, crowds of merchants from 
 far and near, in all the picturesque variety of Oriental 
 costume, were to be seen encamped in gipsy tents, or 
 sheltered by buildings erected for the purpose. There 
 were Sindees in loose white drapery, with coloured sash, 
 and yellow-and-red cap, shaped like an English hat, turned 
 upside down, with the brim at the top. There were stately, 
 unkempt Beloochees, their long tangled hair mingling with 
 their beards, offering camels or ponies for sale ; and tall, 
 handsome, fair-haired Affghans, bringing horses, and fruits 
 which grow in a temperate climate, apples, and apricots, 
 and grapes ; and there were Persians with cloths, and rich 
 carpets, and dates, and with Russian chintzes, superior in 
 colour, though not in texture, to the English chintzes — so 
 that in Sind, to wear Russian chintz meant to be a well- 
 dressed man. Even from Thibet and distant China traders 
 came with the products of their country to this Fair on the
 
 Il6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IV. 
 
 flat sandy plain by the sea — the sea which most of them 
 had never seen before — where, in the background, rose the 
 newly-built European-looking houses of Kurrachee, and 
 beyond the tall masts of the ships in the harbour, cutting 
 the blue outline of the distant Hubbee hills. 
 
 The greater part of Sind is so nearly rainless that but 
 for the waters of the Indus it would be a desert. The 
 north-west monsoon penetrates no farther inland than 
 Kurrachee, and even there the annual fall of rain does 
 not exceed six or eight inches. Agriculture is entirely 
 dependent either on the annual natural overflow of the 
 Indus or on artificial irrigation from it by means of 
 canals. The bed of the Indus is at a higher level 
 generally than the surrounding country, so that little or 
 no pumping is necessary, only an elaborate network of 
 channels into which the water flows at the inundation, 
 and by which it is conducted over the country down a 
 slight but sufficient natural incline. 
 
 Under the Meers the canals were managed in a rough- 
 and-ready way by the cultivators themselves, who had no 
 scientific knowledge or skill, and none but the rudest in- 
 struments, and who, where water could not be retained to 
 show the level, or where the distance was too great for a 
 column of smoke to indicate the bearings of a spot below 
 the horizon, trusted for levels and direction mainly to the 
 instinct, which is often strong in particular individuals in 
 thinly-inhabited countries. After the English conquest the 
 state of the canals got worse instead of better, for the English 
 officials, who were made responsible for them, had neither 
 scientific nor practical knowledge or skill. To remedy this 
 state of things, Sir C. Napier organized a separate Canal 
 Department of Engineer Officers ; but wars in the Punjab 
 and elsewhere absorbed attention and delayed the neces- 
 sary works and improvements, and in 1849 tne Department
 
 1851-6.] CANALS. 117 
 
 was abolished. Frere found the responsibility for the 
 canals entrusted to the collectors and magistrates, who 
 were not only without the necessary knowledge and ex- 
 perience, but were unable even to speak the language of 
 the country. Hence the work was left to an army of 
 native Sindian officials, with the natural result that money 
 was wasted and the canals deteriorated. 
 
 Upon Frere's representation of the necessity of a new 
 system, Colonel Blois Turner, R.E., was, at his instance, 
 appointed Superintendent Engineer, and directed to assist 
 him with his advice. Under Colonel Turner's able direc- 
 tion a new department was organized, and competent 
 officials appointed ; and as they could not always be ob- 
 tained in the country itself, some were induced to come 
 from distant parts of the Presidency, from the Punjab, and 
 north-west provinces, and, in one instance, from America. 
 
 In an official letter to Lord Falkland, Frere writes * : — 
 
 "June 10, 1851. 
 
 " When I was at Khanghur Major Jacob brought to my 
 notice the immense benefit that would result to all the 
 country north of Shikarpoor, if the Begaree Canal were 
 deepened and widened so as to enable it to convey a 
 greater body of water. 
 
 " The surface of this tract of country gradually slopes 
 from the Indus, so that the water which, at the spot where 
 the canal branches off from the Indus, is many feet below 
 the surface, after running forty or fifty miles comes close to, 
 or on the surface. 
 
 " Hence the further the canal recedes from the river the 
 nearer is the water to the surface, and the greater are the 
 facilities for raising it, till at length, near the borders of 
 the desert, it may, during the height of the inundation, 
 be allowed to flow over the fields, without the expense of 
 any wheels or other contrivance for raising it. 
 
 " The soil throughout is naturally good, but, like most 
 soils in Sind, it becomes intensely salt if left untilled and 
 
 * "Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. ii. p. 2.
 
 Il8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 unirrigated, and almost all the wells in the country become 
 either perfectly salt or more or less brackish. 
 
 " Tillage and irrigation will, in the course of a few 
 seasons, almost entirely free the land from salt, with the 
 exception of occasional incurable patches ; and by as- 
 siduous use of the wells, and by turning into them the 
 water from the canals, the most brackish wells become 
 annually improved, till in the third or fourth year they 
 remain sweet all the year through. 
 
 "These facts have been repeatedly proved in all kinds 
 of situations, and under every variety of circumstance by 
 Major Jacob, since the settlement of this frontier, and 
 there cannot be a doubt that the whole of the district be- 
 tween Shikarpoor and the desert might become again, as 
 it has been in more prosperous times, a sheet of cultiva- 
 tion. There are men now living who remember it so cul- 
 tivated, and the marks of such former cultivation are 
 everywhere now visible. . . . 
 
 " It is not only in directly increased revenue that the 
 benefits of the improvement will be felt. An extended 
 and improved supply of drinking water for man and beast, 
 and better grazing of pasture will tell indirectly, but very 
 decidedly, on the prosperity of the cultivators throughout 
 the district. 
 
 " Still more decided will be the moral effect on the 
 people of the country : it will give the means of subsistence 
 to many thousands, and thereby, like every such measure, 
 strengthen our Government, more specially the reclaimed 
 tribes of the Hill Beloochees, whose colonies are all, with 
 few exceptions, on the canals fed by the Begaree, will find 
 their means of profitable cultivation greatly increased. 
 
 " Those who are under Major Jacob's immediate influence 
 have already shown an excellent spirit in this respect. I 
 have now before me, in a private letter from Major Jacob, 
 an account of some late proceedings of Jummal Khan 
 Doombkee, once a notorious plundering leader, but since 
 Sir C. Napier's Trukkee campaign, in which he was made 
 prisoner, settled near Khanghur. He last year obtained 
 a grant of land on the Sind frontier. Here he collected 
 all the idle Beloochees from his own village and from 
 Janadeyra, the Jekranee colony near Khanghur, and set 
 them to work on the old canal, which they have dug out, 
 besides making a dam about fifty yards long, and in the
 
 1851-6.] CANALS. 119 
 
 centre thirty feet high, very strong and solid, secured with 
 trunks of large trees, etc., to prevent the water of the canal 
 flowing into a hollow. This has been done entirely by 
 men who, ten years ago, would have rather starved than 
 touched a spade or hoe, and yet, when visited by Major 
 Jacob and his officers, they seemed as proud of their work 
 as they would have formerly been of a successful foray, 
 and even those officers who had encouraged them to the 
 work, could hardly have believed that it was executed by 
 Belooch robbers, putting into their works of peace, as 
 they did formerly into their plundering expedition, a far 
 greater amount of energy than the Sindee cultivators." 
 
 The plan was carried out, and the Bigarri Canal 
 enlarged at a cost of about a hundred and thirty thousand 
 rupees, the work being completed in April, 1854, when the 
 water was admitted into it from the Indus and reached 
 Jacobabad, fifty miles distant, in sixteen hours. In a 
 memorandum of March 15, 1855, Major Jacob says that the 
 new lands thus brought into cultivation amounted to 
 181,747 Beegahs ; and that one-third of this cultivated 
 annually (the other two-thirds being fallow), brought in a 
 revenue of seventy-five thousand rupees in the frontier 
 district alone, the increase on the south bank being 
 probably about half as much. New grants were being 
 continually applied for which would further increase the 
 revenue. 
 
 New branches and additions were made to the Bigarri 
 Canal at different times. In March, 1855, Frere forwards, 
 with a strong recommendation that it be acceded to, a 
 proposal of Major Jacob's to construct a canal from the 
 Indus near Kusmore, in the frontier district north of 
 Sind, and to carry it along the boundary-line between the 
 British and Kelat territory through the very heart of the 
 desert. Major Jacob estimated that by this work about 
 fifteen hundred square miles of land, then absolutely bare 
 and waste, but capable of highly productive culture, would
 
 120 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 be brought under the plough. This scheme also was 
 carried out. 
 
 Another great irrigation work was that of restoring, as a 
 permanent stream, the Eastern Narra, an old river-bed 
 about three hundred miles in length, and from two 
 hundred to thirteen hundred feet wide, which runs from 
 a few miles east of Roree in Upper Sind to the sea, in a 
 direction nearly parallel with the Indus. Hitherto it had 
 received its water at uncertain times of year by overflow 
 or soakage from the Indus, and at other times was often 
 nearly dry. A channel was now cut to connect it with the 
 Indus near Roree, and water-gates constructed by which 
 water could be introduced at will, and guided to where it 
 was wanted by a series of dams at intervals in the course 
 of the river ; and thus a great extent of country was 
 irrigated and brought into cultivation. The engineer, who 
 with great skill and patience planned and carried out this 
 great work, was Lieutenant (now General) Fife, R.E. The 
 canal was formally opened in the presence of ten thousand 
 people on May 7, 1859* General Fife writes, as to Frere's 
 part and interest in this and other works, as follows : — 
 
 " The first occasion on which I met Sir Bartle Frere was 
 at Sukkur, in the early part of 1852. I had just made a 
 preliminary examination of the Eastern Narra River, in 
 Sind, a subject in which he was deeply interested. I was 
 struck with the extraordinary quickness with which he 
 understood engineering details, and found my own interest 
 in them intensified by his remarks and suggestions. From 
 that time it was always a pleasure to converse with him on 
 engineering questions. He understood them as well as 
 any engineer with the advantage of having no professional 
 or departmental bias. 
 
 "Towards the conclusion of 1852, the plans for the 
 restoration of the Eastern Narra were completed and 
 submitted to Government. Frere left no point unnoticed 
 
 * Frere to Tyrwhitt, May 8, 1859.
 
 1851-6.] CANALS. I 21 
 
 which could possibly have influence in inducing the 
 Government to sanction the project, and it was un- 
 doubtedly owing to his strong and persistent advocacy 
 that this great work was ever carried out. For though 
 the subject had been considered by his predecessors and 
 never actually rejected, there can be no doubt, judging from 
 what had already passed, and the manner in which similar 
 questions connected with Sind had been treated, the 
 Eastern Narra would never have got beyond the region of 
 discussion. Through Frere's persevering advocacy it was 
 carried out, and many canals, large and small, were con- 
 structed in the valley, which has been changed from a 
 wilderness to an inhabitable and profitable tract of country, 
 to the benefit of many thousands of poor people who 
 previously earned a precarious livelihood by grazing 
 cattle in spots where the occasional rain caused water to 
 collect and fertilize the desert. 
 
 " I have so far only mentioned the Eastern Narra 
 because it was the first important public work which I 
 saw Mr. Frere take in hand. But his advocacy and 
 success with other irrigation works was equally great. 
 There was no sensible proposal which came before him 
 which did not excite his keenest interest, and receive his 
 warmest support. There was John Jacob's improvement 
 of the Bigarri Canal. There was Captain Ford's Canal to 
 increase the supply of water in the Gharr Canal, a work 
 whose whole cost was covered by the first year's increase 
 of revenue. There were the Fullaile new supply canals, 
 the Sukkur Canal, Jacob's Desert Canal, Sir William 
 Merewether's further enlargement of the Bigarri, and a 
 large number of smaller works too numerous to mention, 
 all of which Mr. Frere advocated with success. Indeed 
 more than advocated. It was not merely the advocacy of 
 the projects when he sent them up to Government. His 
 encouragement to the executive officers had the effect of 
 inducing every one to do his very utmost in the perform- 
 ance of his duties. . . . 
 
 " In all departments, Frere succeeded in enlisting not 
 merely the ordinary obedience or co-operation of the 
 executive officers, but their most enthusiastic efforts. It 
 was impossible to converse with him on any subject with- 
 out being struck with his broad and generous views, and 
 his far-seeing and enlightened policy. There was true
 
 122 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 charity in his every word and act, and his accessibility at 
 all times and his hospitality brought him in constant 
 contact with all classes both native and European, who 
 could not but admire the man, and feel the better them- 
 selves from having witnessed one of the most beautiful 
 traits in his character." 
 
 There was a difficulty on the threshold of good 
 administration of the Government of the country in the 
 fact that the vernacular Sindi was not a written 
 language, and had actually no alphabet or character. 
 Merchants and others who had occasion to use it in 
 correspondence employed systems more resembling cypher 
 or shorthand than an alphabetical character, of which 
 almost every large town and caste had a different and 
 peculiar form. Hence it was a difficult matter for any one 
 to learn the language. Frere lost no time in procuring 
 information as to the extent to which English officials 
 were acquainted with it. Only two English officers, he 
 found, when he first went to Sind,* could understand and 
 converse in Sindi ; one or two more could understand it 
 without being able to speak it. It was, therefore, im- 
 possible that it could as yet be employed as the official 
 language of the Courts. The usual process in all official 
 proceedings before Europeans was that the Sindi parties 
 and witnesses spoke Sindi, a Moonshee interpreted 
 between them and the European officer in Hindustani, 
 and all was written down in bastard Persian. For 
 although the great majority of the population was Maho- 
 medan, but few of the native Mahomedans were to be 
 found in our service ; the native official class were almost 
 entirely Hindoos of Punjabee origin, who were acquainted 
 with Persian, and who were in favour of Persian as the 
 official language. 
 
 * Frere to Lord Falkland, May 30, 185 1.
 
 1851-6.] THE SINDI LANGUAGE. 1 23 
 
 Obviously it was essential, for purposes of civil and 
 criminal administration, that Sindi should be the official 
 language, and should be understood and spoken by the 
 officials, native and English. And it was no less neces- 
 sary for the spread of education that there should be 
 a recognized medium of reading and writing. 
 
 A grammar and dictionary had lately been compiled by 
 Captain Stack on a system of his own, the characters 
 being selected from those in common use. This was 
 generally admitted to be the best system, and it was a 
 great assistance to have a grammar and dictionary of 
 any kind ; but unfortunately they were incomplete, and 
 Captain Stack was away in England, and not long after 
 died without completing them. Rather than lose time 
 in so pressing and important a matter, Frere suggested 
 leaving the question of the character in abeyance for the 
 present, thinking that it would probably settle itself by 
 the adoption of the one which on experience proved to 
 be the most convenient. He proposed that thenceforward 
 promotion in the Civil Service of the country should be 
 conditional on at least a colloquial knowledge of Sindi ; 
 and that there should be two grades of examination, one 
 for a colloquial knowledge only, and the other — a more 
 difficult one — for an interpreter's knowledge, including 
 reading and writing, for passing which a premium of 
 one hundred rupees should be given. He also recom- 
 mended that Government should offer to bear the expense 
 of printing any books that should be written in Sindi, 
 in any character. 
 
 Mr. (afterwards Sir Barrow) Ellis took the matter in 
 hand, and successfully completed Captain Stack's grammar 
 and dictionary, inventing characters to express sounds for 
 which there was no letter, and thus smoothed the way for 
 the acquisition of the language. But it was found that the
 
 124 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Mahomedans, who constituted about three-quarters of the 
 population, preferred to write it in the Arabic character. 
 Text-books were therefore prepared in that character also 
 and introduced into the country schools ; the native officials 
 soon learned to use it ; and before long it was found 
 practicable to issue a circular making Sindi the exclusive 
 language of record for native proceedings in all judicial 
 cases, civil as well as military. Writing in April, 1855, 
 within four years of his first report on the subject, Frere 
 was able to state that all the twenty-five European 
 officers in the three Collectorates had a more or less 
 perfect acquaintance with the language and always 
 employed it in their courts. 
 
 Connected with the question of language was the 
 establishment of schools, English and native, in which 
 Frere took a keen interest ; and this department also was 
 committed to Mr. Barrow Ellis's able superintendence. A 
 Government English school was opened at Kurrachee, in 
 1853, which was subsequently divided into two, the upper 
 one acting as a feeder to the Bombay University. And 
 native schools of various kinds were established throughout 
 the province and subsidized. 
 
 The library and museum established at Kurrachee by 
 Sir Charles Napier for encouraging scientific and anti- 
 quarian researches in Sind, which had fallen into abey- 
 ance, was revived, enlarged, and opened to the public 
 without restriction towards the end of 185 1. Means of 
 recreation is a want more felt by Europeans in a tropical 
 than it can be in a temperate climate. To take a walk for 
 exercise and refreshment, which under ordinary circum- 
 stances is an Englishman's unfailing resource, is practically 
 impossible in India. Nothing perhaps more distinctly 
 marks the difference between India and home, than the 
 abandonment of this habit, which a new-comer in vain
 
 1854.] PARTINGS. 1 25 
 
 tries to keep up. Frere wrote to the Bombay Government 
 for authority to purchase a suitable building. 
 
 At Kurrachee, as formerly at Sattara, he had found no 
 building which could be called an English Church ; and at 
 Kurrachee, as at Sattara, he did not rest till he had suc- 
 ceeded in getting one built. The architect was Captain 
 John Hill, R.E. The first stone was laid in September, 
 1852, and the church was finished and consecrated in 
 1855. Frere took a personal interest in the design and 
 in every detail of the building. Its tower, tall and square, 
 like an Italian campanile, is the first object in Kurrachee 
 visible to ships as they approach the land. The natives 
 and the strangers from the inland and from Central Asia, 
 when they looked at its solid walls, remarked that the 
 people that built it " meant to stop." 
 
 In June, 1854, had come the parting, inevitable to young 
 English families in India, when the children cannot longer 
 resist the dangers of the climate, and Mrs. Frere found it 
 necessary to take their two little daughters home to Eng- 
 land. Another reason for her return was the failing health 
 of her father, Sir G. Arthur, to whom she was devotedly 
 attached. He died in September, and Lady Arthur in the 
 following January. Frere went with his wife and children 
 as far as Alexandria, and then, after an absence of a few 
 weeks, returned to his work — with a sore heart — if one 
 may read between the lines of these letters to his little 
 girls, to whom he used to write every Sunday in turn. 
 
 " Manora [near Kurrachee], October 29, 1854. 
 " Sunday morning, and I must have a talk with one of 
 my pets, and it is Katey's turn. What shall we talk about ? 
 Well, you are too far off for me to get an answer to-day, 
 so you must tell me what you want to hear when next you 
 write, and in the mean time I will tell you what I have 
 been doing this morning. I was sleeping in the room
 
 126 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 where mamma and I used to sleep, and having no little 
 girls to awake me, I told Peewo the peon to call me, and 
 he came and said, ' Sahib, get up, it's six o'clock,' and I 
 saw the sun was just going to rise behind the Clifton cliffs. 
 So I got up and dressed, and went out, and it was a beau- 
 tiful, clear, and very calm and cool morning, and I thought 
 ' how the little girls would have enjoyed a morning like 
 this.' Everything in the distance was very clear, the hills 
 towards Muggur Peer, and the town, and our house, and 
 the new church, and the school, and the fishing village, 
 where Ali Booda lives ; and the reason that it was so clear 
 was that a fresh north-east wind was blowing off the land 
 and blew away all the smoke and fog and sea-mist ; but 
 as it blew off the shore on to the sea, the sea was very 
 smooth ; and there was a river steamer taking advantage 
 of the smooth water to go by sea to the mouth of the 
 Indus, and so escape the creeks which we came through 
 with Mr. MacNeil. As she passed under the rocks, where 
 our house stands, I could hear the man with the lead 
 calling out as they used to do in the river, ' Char baam,' 
 ' Taree char baam : ' ' four fathoms, four fathoms and 
 a half Then I went to look at mamma's favourite 
 caper, which grows just at the edge of the cliff beyond 
 the kitchen — there were some beautiful flowers on it, 
 smelling very sweet, and I took one and sent it in to 
 May's friend, General Ashburnham, who was not well 
 enough to come out, and is as fond of flowers as ever. 
 Then I went and walked round the cliff, and on the 
 sheltered side I found a very pretty little hawk, and a 
 large white-headed fishing eagle, who both flew away when 
 they saw me. In a sheltered nook were three boats, fishing 
 so close that I could see the fish they pulled up nearly as 
 fast as they threw in their lines. After that I met Colonel 
 Turner, and a young officer, Mr. Hicks, whose father was 
 once a Colonel at Sattara, and a great friend of May's 
 friends, Dr. and Mrs. Murray. He went with some of his 
 soldiers to fight against some rebels who were in a hill 
 fort, and one of them fired off a cannon at him as he was 
 standing below with a spy-glass in his hand looking at the 
 lort, and the ball struck his leg and cut it off, and a few 
 hours after poor Colonel Hicks died ; so now this young 
 friend of Colonel Turner's has got no father. All this hap- 
 pened before we went to Sattara and before you were born."
 
 1854J LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN. 127 
 
 The following is a story which he wrote down and sent 
 home to one of his children — 
 
 "When the young Khan of Kelat reached Jacobabad, 
 the gardener was ordered to send him some English vege- 
 tables — fine cauliflowers, peas, beetroot, etc. In the even- 
 ing Major Green asked 'whether they had been received, 
 and how they were liked ? ' Old Nusservolla, the Khan's 
 master of the ceremonies, assured him that the Khan 
 greatly admired them ; ' but,' he added, ' your flowers are 
 very different from ours ; yours are very large, but not so 
 sweet-scented or finely coloured as ours are, and as for 
 some of them, we could see very little beauty in them.' 
 Green found out that it was supposed the nicely-arranged 
 baskets were meant as ornaments. He explained they 
 were to be eaten, and next day asked how they were liked. 
 Nusservolla said His Highness tasted some of every kind, 
 and was much pleased ; ' but,' said the old man, ' they are 
 not so good as our Kelat apples, and pears, and grapes.' 
 ' How did you cook them ? ' asked Green. ' Oh, we never 
 cooked them, we ate them as they were sent, all beautifully 
 arranged in baskets.' They had eaten them all raw. Green 
 sent his own cook over, and you will be glad to hear 
 that His Highness highly approves of boiled peas and 
 cauliflowers ; but some of his court think them better 
 uncooked." 
 
 Here is another letter to his little daughter, dateless, 
 but probably written some time in 1855, as it refers to his 
 son, who had been born in England in October, 1854, and 
 whom he had never seen — 
 
 " I want you to send me some of your drawings. The 
 other day when I was over at Manora the sea was very 
 rough, and at night when I went to bed the sea made a 
 very loud and continued roaring, and I thought to myself, 
 What does the roaring say ? But I could not make any 
 meaning out of it. So I wrote some lines for little Bartle, 
 which you can give him when he can understand them — 
 and you must tell me whether you think he will like them. 
 I thought, people send messages by electric telegraph 
 through the air, why should not the sea help us in the 
 same way ? Perhaps now, while it's midnight here, my
 
 128 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IV. 
 
 pets are enjoying the sunset, and picking- up shells on the 
 shore of the same sea somewhere at Brighton, and thinking 
 of papa at Manora. Perhaps mamma is teaching little 
 Bartle to walk on the sands, or threatening to toss him 
 into the water to go and look for papa in Sind. Now if, 
 instead of that continued roar without any meaning, the 
 sea would only tell me what he sees on the shore at 
 Brighton, what very pleasant dreams I should have ! And 
 while I was so thinking I fell asleep, as you will see by 
 some of the lines, which are rather drowsy." 
 
 About four years later, after he had been to England on 
 sick-leave, and at the end of less than a year had returned 
 to India, alone, he writes from Kurrachee, to his old friend 
 Mr. G. T. Clark— 
 
 "August 7, 1859. 
 
 " You would not reproach me with not writing to you 
 before I left England if you had ever had to pack your 
 overland trunks, leaving your wife and little ones behind 
 you, and feeling that however you might prosper, you 
 could never see those same children again — that even if 
 you returned in a very few years, they would be so altered 
 that you would have to guess their names, and to discover, 
 as in a stranger, tempers and dispositions with forming 
 which you have had nothing to do. 
 
 " You know what the first uprooting from home is in 
 youth, but the wrench then is a trifle to what it is when 
 you are yourself the head of the home. You may satisfy 
 your reason that it is on the whole the best thing for the 
 poor children themselves ; but if every cadet knew what 
 it would be after he was married and had turned forty, I 
 fear Her Majesty would get few Indian recruits, and I 
 would defy even your ready pen to write many letters that 
 could be put off."
 
 w
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WARDENS OF THE MARCHES. 
 
 Frere's person and character — His cold-weather tours — Sir H. 
 Green's and Sir F. Goldsmid's reminiscences — Shet Naomul — 
 John Jacob — Jacobabad — Jacob's frontier system — The Sind 
 Horse. 
 
 Frere's routine official work, as Commissioner in Sind, 
 was heavy. On his arrival there, and for many months 
 afterwards, owing to a recent reduction in the number of 
 assistants assigned to the Commissioner, he was " labouring 
 to the very utmost of his physical powers," as he years 
 afterwards told Lord Falkland, " merely to keep down the 
 current work of his office." And with all the many and 
 various schemes and projects for the improvement of the 
 province, such as those which have been indicated, the 
 current work of his office formed but a small part of the 
 task which occupied him. Yet in addition to these matters 
 there was nothing bearing, however remotely, on the welfare 
 of the province, nothing which he met with of scientific or 
 historic, or artistic value, in which he was too busy to be 
 interested. Nor were his attention and interest confined 
 to India. In the opening-up of new countries in Asia and 
 in Africa, and in geographical exploration everywhere, he 
 at all times took the keenest interest. And of the course 
 of events in England he was a close observer. The variety 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 of the subjects in which he was interested seemed to 
 refresh him by affording a frequent change of ideas, and 
 to enable him to get through a great mass of work with 
 but little of what is generally understood by relaxation 
 or repose. 
 
 He was then in full physical vigour. Six feet in height, 
 he was strong and active, but slender, and well-propor- 
 tioned. His face, youthful-looking for his age, was thin, 
 with clearly-cut regular features, aquiline nose, and light- 
 brown hair. A moustache shaded his mouth, which was 
 full of expression. His eyes were hazel, deeply-set under 
 dark eyebrows, and very keen and steadfast in their gaze. 
 He had a clear soft voice, and spoke slowly and deliber- 
 ately. But the great charm of his presence lay in the 
 expression of his open countenance and sweet and ready 
 smile, in the frank and dignified simplicity, and the in- 
 variable kindliness and courtesy of his manner, in his 
 absolute self-forgetfulness and ready sympathy. 
 
 His press of work did not prevent his being easily 
 accessible to all comers, European or native. Naturally 
 tolerant and genial, the companionship of men and women 
 of all sorts and conditions, and still more of children, was 
 always a relaxation and a pleasure to him. With a good 
 memory for faces as well as for facts, he never forgot any- 
 body, and all that he had in his mind was at his fingers' 
 ends, ready for use, so that he always quite simply and 
 naturally said the right thing to the right person. He 
 would, with genuine pleasure, make his way across a 
 crowded room to claim acquaintance with a man or woman 
 whom perhaps he had not seen since he or she was a little 
 child, but whose face he recognized. To look up old 
 friends and greet acquaintances, however slight, was his first 
 thought on arriving at a fresh place, no matter how short 
 his stay, or what other objects of attraction there might be.
 
 1851-6.] LIFE AS COMMISSIONER IN SIND. 131 
 
 It rarely happened to him, for a single day, to be without 
 some guest in his house ; or to take a drive without giving 
 some one a seat in his carriage. Unselfish, and devoid of 
 self-consciousness to a degree rare with Englishmen, he 
 was continually doing small acts of kindness. The minor 
 annoyances of life never in the least affected his equa- 
 nimity. Without being a teller of good stories or a sayer 
 of witty things, and without having humour, he had a keen 
 sense and enjoyment of fun, and a strong and ever-present 
 inclination to see the amusing side of people and things, 
 which added to the charm of his society. 
 
 Once when he went to England, Mrs. Frere went to meet 
 him at the station, taking a servant, whom she told to help 
 her to find him when the train came in. The man asked 
 how he was to recognize Mr. Frere. " Look for a tall gentle- 
 man helping somebody," she said. The description was 
 sufficient. He was found helping an old lady out of the 
 carriage. 
 
 Before he had been four months in Sind he had visited, 
 with the exception of Nuggur Parkur, every district in it. 
 Every year, during his stay, he made what was called a 
 " cold-weather tour," a journey through some considerable 
 part of the province, in the course of which he made the 
 acquaintance of every person in office, native and European, 
 and became personally known in every town and village in 
 the country. They were called " cold-weather tours " by 
 comparison, but sometimes in the tents with which he 
 travelled the thermometer stood at 120 . The modes of 
 travelling were various, generally on horseback or camel- 
 back, sometimes in river-boats. On most of the easier 
 journeys Mrs. Frere and even his children accom- 
 panied him in carriages, tonjons, or palkees. The daily 
 distance travelled depended on where good camping- 
 ground was to be found, and on other circumstances. The
 
 132 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 Collector, or Assistant-Collector of the district he was 
 passing through would join the camp as his guest. The 
 day would be spent in inspecting roads, bridges, canals, 
 or whatever might require attention, or in receiving 
 Belooch or Sindian chiefs, and inspecting their villages. 
 The more important business over, he would find time 
 to visit ancient buildings and any features of anti- 
 quarian interest, and inspect local manufactures, and 
 such artistic work as was still to be found, the Hydera- 
 bad enamelling in silver and gold, the Sind embroidery, 
 and carpets, and ancient tile-work of Tatta and Halla, 
 he carved woodwork, the Cutch silver and stone- 
 work. He took pains to revive and encourage these old 
 arts ; specimens were sent by him to the Great Exhi- 
 bition of 185 1 ; and in later years, when he was 
 Governor of Bombay, he did much to revive the pottery 
 and tile-work. 
 
 On these "cold-weather tours," he would often take 
 young lately-arrived officers or civilians with him from 
 place to place, and thus become intimate with them, and 
 find out what sort of work they were fit for. At each 
 halting place he gathered the local officials together to his 
 hospitable tent, and his coming was looked forward to by 
 them not only on account of the encouragement and 
 assistance they would receive in their work, but also as a 
 rare social pleasure. 
 
 Sind being an unpopular province, the officials whom he 
 found there were not, most of them, men of great experience 
 or distinction. There was, when he arrived, but one 
 member of the covenanted service in all the province. 
 But he found good raw material in the young officers of 
 the army who were employed there, and his insight into 
 character and discernment of how the qualities of each 
 man could be turned to the best account in the public
 
 1851-6.] COLD-WEATHER TOURS. 133 
 
 service, his minute knowledge of the details of their several 
 duties, his tact and sympathy and hearty appreciation of 
 good work, won from them zealous and faithful service in 
 their different spheres of action, and gradually trained and 
 drew round him a band of able, energetic, and attached 
 fellow-workers whose several careers, both when under 
 him and afterwards, he watched with constant and friendly 
 interest. He was ever ready with advice and assistance 
 when it was asked for, and many a local officer's report 
 to Government was suggested, or even sketched out by 
 him. But, true to his cardinal principle of promoting 
 personal and individual responsibility, he would seldom 
 give hard and fast instructions, but would leave a wide 
 discretion for contingencies, thus training his officers to 
 court rather than to avoid responsibility. 
 
 Only when there was flagrant and inexcusable neglect 
 or misconduct did he inflict serious rebuke. But if the 
 rebuke did come, it could be scathing. Very rarely — so 
 rarely that few know that it ever happened — were the 
 gentle deliberate voice and quiet smile overshadowed by 
 a dark cloud whence was discharged a long rolling thunder- 
 clap of indignant rebuke — the more startling and impressive 
 from its contrast to the almost invariable calm — which 
 showed that there was a latent capacity for strong anger, 
 of which those who were disposed to trifle with him would 
 have to take account, and which proved, too, that his 
 habitual calmness was that of a strongly controlled, not of 
 a frigid or apathetic nature. Yet even then — so strict was 
 the judgment that he passed upon himself — if on reflection 
 he adjudged himself guilty of having exceeded by a hair's 
 breadth what the occasion called for, he would frankly 
 express to the man he had found fault with his regret for 
 any words which might have been too condemnatory or 
 too severe.
 
 134 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 General Sir Henry Green, to be often mentioned later 
 on, writes as follows : — 
 
 " If Frere's subordinates were successful in the perform- 
 ance of their work, it was mainly owing to the confidence 
 they felt in the knowledge that he would support them 
 under almost any conditions. Himself fearless of re- 
 sponsibility, he succeeded in instilling the same feeling 
 into the minds of those to whom he entrusted difficult 
 duties to perform. They felt that should they in carry- 
 ing out his views commit an error of judgment, part- 
 icularly if it was in the execution of a bold policy, 
 that the error would not only be treated with the 
 greatest leniency by him, but there would be no fear ot 
 their being made a scape-goat ; he would himself accept 
 the consequences of the error and remedy it to the best ot 
 his ability. 
 
 " In those days frontier soldiers were thrown into sudden 
 and difficult emergencies, and luckily for them, and for 
 those whom they served, they were far away from any 
 telegraph-wire ; they could not, did they wish it, escape 
 responsibility, and ask, ' What am I to do ? ' but they had 
 to act, and, feeling certain that if they did so with boldness 
 and good sense they would be supported, they, as a rule, 
 came out well under sometimes very difficult circumstances ; 
 and it was thus a school of frontier soldiers was formed 
 unequalled in any other country. In this I include the 
 whole Indian frontier, for although Sind and the Punjab 
 might differ in their administrative systems, still the men 
 each turned out proved themselves when called upon equal 
 to any emergency." 
 
 General Sir Frederic Goldsmid, at that time Deputy- 
 Collector at Shikarpur, writes as follows of his former 
 chief : — 
 
 " One great feature which I have always admired in 
 Sir Bartle Frere — and which I have never recognized so 
 eminently in any other high official with whom I have 
 been associated — is his genuine knowledge of Jiis subject. In 
 Sind he could have performed the duty ol almost any one
 
 1S51-6.] SIR FREDERIC GOLDSMID. 1 35 
 
 of his subordinates, and performed it well ; so that during 
 his periodical inspection of the province, his advice and 
 criticism carried, as it were, double weight. There was 
 no nudging of a fellow-labourer, or undercurrent of self- 
 exoneration possible to relieve the listener from the 
 charge of shortcoming where detected. On the other 
 hand, the glad expression of approval was an invariable 
 incentive to renewed exertion. While his high states- 
 manship was patent to the world at large through his 
 many writings, his respect for details could only be judged 
 and appreciated by his personal staff and employes of 
 lesser position. 
 
 " His personal activity and energy were unflagging ; and 
 his courage and calmness in emergency would have 
 become the most distinguished of soldiers. The despatch 
 of every available regiment or detachment from Sind at 
 the critical period of the mutiny, was an act in keeping 
 with his principles ; and the result justified his confidence 
 in the good faith of the police and people of the province 
 over which he presided. 
 
 " Sir Bartle was a charming companion, whose conversa- 
 tion was both instructive without pedantry, and attractive 
 without display. Not to speak of his own literary powers, 
 which were considerable, he had a keen appreciation of 
 literature generally, and possessed a refined and cultivated 
 taste for Art. He had, moreover, a strong sense of the 
 ludicrous ; his perception and enjoyment of a story or joke 
 were thorough ; and it was quite delightful to see him 
 relax from his official occupations to join in cheery sur- 
 roundings. . . . 
 
 " Those natives who really knew Sir Bartle Frere, and 
 had ready access to him — and no chief was more reason- 
 ably accessible to his people — were undoubtedly attached 
 to him from affection as well as from fear or duty. In 
 stating this, I think it only right to add that I cannot but 
 feel sceptical as regards the reputation of many distinguished 
 Anglo-Indian celebrities in this respect." 
 
 Of the leading natives at Kurrachee, the one with whom 
 Frere was in most frequent and friendly communication 
 was Shet Naomul, a merchant, who, from the first appear- 
 ance of the English in Sind, had made up his mind that
 
 136 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 their power was destined to prevail, and had attached him- 
 self to their cause with unwavering fidelity through all the 
 vicissitudes of the Affghan war and the Conquest of Sind. 
 When Sir John Keane's force landed at Kurrachee in 
 1838, on its way to Affghanistan, and when Pottinger, 
 Outram, and Jacob were engaged in keeping open the 
 communications in the perilous times that followed, he 
 rendered valuable assistance, in recompense for which he 
 received rewards and honours. Sir Charles Napier, 
 apparently, did not much like him, and Naomul, resenting 
 this, speaks of Napier as tyrannical and oppressive, but 
 " simple-minded, pure-hearted, and a religious gentleman." 
 Probably he may have thought Naomul, as most English- 
 men perhaps would have done, self-important and tiresome. 
 Frere, however, at once saw his merits and his value, and 
 treated him with kindness and consideration. Naomul 
 had agents or correspondents all over Northern India and 
 in Affghanistan and Persia, from whom he received 
 information as to native opinion which he used to com- 
 municate to Frere. He gave him correct and valuable 
 intelligence as to Persian and Affghan intrigues, and as to 
 native doings and opinions, which, after the mutiny broke 
 out, was so valued by him that he gave orders that Naomul 
 was never to be refused admittance, day or night, 
 when he came to see him. In his old age, shortly before 
 his death, Naomul wrote his autobiography, from which 
 the following, relating to the establishment of municipal 
 government in the towns — always a great point with 
 Frere — is an extract : — 
 
 " Be it known that I visited the Commissioner and his 
 assistants twice or thrice every week, and communicated 
 to Sir Bartle Frere the different news that I received 
 during the week, and which, according to my practice, I 
 previously wrote out in arranged order on a separate piece 
 of paper.
 
 1851-6.] SHET NAOMUL. 137 
 
 " Once upon an occasion I and Sir B. Frere were con- 
 versing alone when he told me that whenever he visited 
 the old town he found it in the dirtiest state possible, the 
 place smelt badly, and he wished to introduce the 
 municipal system for the cleanliness and improvement of 
 the town. The City of Ahmedabad in Guzerat, he said, 
 looked once as dirty and unclean ; but the Government 
 having, in consultation with the people, introduced the 
 municipal system and levied a tax of one anna and six 
 pies after one cwt. of ghee, the city had benefited much by 
 the care and action of the municipality and was greatly 
 changed in appearance. If a similar thing, he said, could 
 be done here, and a ghee-tax of one and a half annas per 
 cwt. could be levied for municipal purposes, he hoped it 
 will greatly help to improve the town. I thereupon 
 informed him that it would be done as he desired, and I 
 would ask the townspeople to agree to it. On coming 
 home I assembled the people together and had them to 
 agree to the Commissioner's proposals. Such was the 
 beginning of the municipal corporation of Kurrachee. My- 
 self, Captain Preedy, the collector of Kurrachee, and Mr. 
 John Macleod, the late collector of customs, formed the 
 first managing members of that body. We daily, in the 
 morning, went out on horseback to inspect the town, and 
 to arrange for its cleanliness. 
 
 " After a month or two, when I went to wait upon the 
 Commissioner as usual, he jokingly told me that I had got 
 the people to consent to a tax on ghee for municipal 
 purpose ; but ghee without sugar cannot be indulged in 
 longer. Thereupon I consented to a sugar rate at four 
 annas per cwt., and the townspeople agreed to it. Time 
 flowed on, and a couple of months had only elasped, when, 
 going one day to Sir Bartle Frere, I heard that ghee and 
 sugar without grain of some kind did not taste so well. 
 A grain rate to the extent of one pice per candy was 
 accordingly proposed and agreed to. The municipal 
 corporation thereafter began to command importance and 
 influence, and a general and managing committee were 
 appointed and a municipal office opened. 
 
 " In course of time a municipal tax on Europe goods, 
 such as wines, liquors, etc., was levied, and the municipal 
 revenue continued to increase from year to year. ... A 
 well-laid system of roads, the metalling and watering
 
 138 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 thereof, lighting the main roads and streets, the cleanliness 
 of the town, and the appointment of the police, were all 
 carefully attended to. 
 
 " In the same manner municipalities were opened 
 gradually in various other towns in Sind, to the great 
 comfort of the people. And these towns, like to many 
 trees in the desert dried up for want of water and nourish- 
 ment, began to wear a cheerful and pleasing aspect as a 
 consequence of the care bestowed on them by their 
 municipal bodies. . . . 
 
 " Sir Bartle's kind temper and judicious patience has 
 won him universal respect and admiration. Every 
 petitioner, whether high or low, received a patient hearing ; 
 and where he perceived that people out of their ignorance 
 of law did not understand things, he would show them 
 that there was actually no grievance where they imagined 
 one. ... It is a common saying in Sind that there never 
 came such a ' Sahib-lok ' here before, and none such has 
 come since." 
 
 Of all the able and distinguished officers who served 
 under Frere in Sind, the one whose name deserves to be 
 widest known, and whose brilliant genius and conduct 
 gave most colour to his administration, was John Jacob. 
 Three and a half years older than Frere, the son of a 
 Somersetshire clergyman, and educated at Addiscombe 
 he entered the Bombay Artillery, and was sent in 1839 to 
 join the newly raised regiment of Sind Irregular Horse, 
 whose duty it was to protect the communication with the 
 Affghan expedition by the Bolan Pass, and to keep the 
 Belooch tribes in check. At the end of 1 841, though still 
 only a lieutenant, he had succeeded to the command of 
 the regiment. This was the time of the English disasters 
 in Affghanistan, which encouraged the hostile tribes in 
 their resistance ; and in many a desperate hand to hand 
 fight with the fierce Beloochees, Jacob had practical 
 experience in the work of a cavalry soldier. Afterwards, 
 in the battles of Meeanee and Hyderabad, and a year later
 
 1851-6.] JOHN JACOB. 139 
 
 in Napier's Trukkee campaign, the regiment led by Jacob 
 was conspicuous for its good service. In 1846, a second 
 regiment of Sind Horse was raised, but so completely 
 had Jacob identified himself with the force, and so 
 unwilling was he to let any part of it pass from under 
 his immediate command, that, at his special request, and 
 by a very unusual arrangement, he was made commandant 
 of both regiments. 
 
 In person, Jacob was somewhat under the middle height, 
 wiry, and of great strength and power of enduring fatigue. 
 His complexion was dark, his head and most of his face 
 covered with a mass of long dark hair, so thick that, trust- 
 ing to its protection, he would often rashly expose his head 
 uncovered to an Indian sun. Hardy and frugal almost to 
 asceticism, he had a contempt for all the appliances for 
 mitigating heat, which to most Europeans are necessaries 
 of life in such a climate as that of Upper Sind. Engineer, 
 artilleryman, cavalry leader, and rifleman, he had a 
 complete practical acquaintance, gained in hard service, 
 with every branch of his profession, such as perhaps no 
 living man then possessed. A bolder and a finer soldier 
 never lived ; yet he hated fighting and wars, and had no 
 desire for military distinction. His ambition as a frontier 
 officer was not to gain credit in waging successful 
 campaigns, but to bid wars and fighting cease. He had 
 a great genius and capacity for mechanical construction. 
 The Engineer, the Instrument-maker, the Clock-maker, 
 and the Gunsmith each looked up to him as a master 
 in their craft. Whilst English soldiers in the Crimea 
 were making tardy acquaintance with their newly acquired 
 Minie rifles, with which eight hundred and nine hundred 
 yards were practically unattainable ranges, Jacob and his 
 officers were making hits on the target at distances up 
 to three thousand yards with a rifle manufactured from
 
 140 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 a design of his own invention ; or igniting combustibles 
 a mile off with explosive bullets. He had read much, and 
 retained what he read. Scott was one of his favourite 
 writers ; and as he rode at the head of his regiment on a 
 march over the silent desert, he would repeat aloud Canto 
 after Canto of his poems, a hesitation which impeded 
 his speech in conversation disappearing entirely in recita- 
 tion. But his chief favourite was Carlyle, whose picture 
 of Cromwell and his troopers had so taken hold of his 
 imagination, and harmonized so well with his ideal of 
 soldierly and civic virtue, that the Ironsides became the 
 model which he had constantly before his mind in training 
 his regiments for the work they had to do. Writing to 
 Frere in 1853, with reference to a proposal to add a regi- 
 ment of silidar infantry to his force, he says — 
 
 " I must have no courts martial or articles of war. I 
 want no lawyers among my men, neither do I wish to 
 govern them by force or by fear. I will have ' sober God- 
 fearing men in my troops,' as said old Cromwell, and will 
 govern them by appealing to their higher, not to their 
 basest attributes. Actual crimes can be dealt with by me 
 and my lieutenants as civil magistrates. All else must 
 be left entirely to my discretion." 
 
 Endowed with an indomitable will, yet kind-hearted, 
 simple-minded, and pre-eminently chivalrous, he was 
 withal a righteous man of pure life and with a strong clear 
 sense of justice and duty, and a contempt for anything 
 approaching to meanness or duplicity. Somewhat rough 
 and aggressive in manner, he had seen little or nothing of 
 English society, and was little inclined to it, mainly 
 perhaps owing to the hesitation in his speech, and he 
 was not generally a favourite except amongst those who 
 knew him intimately. But for the young English officers 
 whom he gathered round him and chose for his lieutenants,
 
 1851-6.] JOHN JACOB. 141 
 
 and trained with kindly patience for the work which he 
 had in hand, he, and the life he led with them, had a rare 
 and abiding fascination. They served him to the end of 
 his life with a love and devotion which had no limit, and 
 carried on his work after his death, till, one after another, 
 they were driven away by ill-health, in a climate and a 
 country, to escape from which had hitherto been the one 
 desire of every officer who had been sent there.* 
 
 His native officers and troopers soon got to know that 
 under all circumstances they were sure of a patient hearing 
 and of unswerving inflexible justice. This was the new 
 experience which fascinated them. They knew, too, that 
 their conduct was watched, and their services appreciated, 
 and they cheerfully submitted to a strict discipline, with 
 which no caste prejudice or religious scruple was allowed 
 to interfere, and served with absolute loyalty under the 
 most trying circumstances. 
 
 The reputation and popularity of the force was such, 
 and admission into its ranks so sought for, that there were 
 many applicants for every vacancy. To be turned out of 
 the regiment was so severe a punishment that scarcely 
 any other was needed to maintain discipline. The 
 candidates for admission were often relatives of men 
 already in the force ; and, in the difficulty of choosing 
 
 * Though habitually reserved, Jacob could unbend at times, and 
 rather liked a practical joke. On one occasion he sent a horse to meet 
 a friend who was coming to stay with him at Jacobabad, to bring him 
 the last ten miles. The horse sent was one named " the Collector," 
 and was seventeen hands high, a veritable giant among the small 
 horses of the country. The friend, a light weight, as he mounted, 
 asked the syce if the horse had any peculiarities. " He will only run 
 away, 51 was the reply. And no sooner was he in the saddle than " the 
 Collector" did run away, at full speed, over rough and smooth, to 
 within a mile of his destination, where, meeting Jacob, who had ridden 
 out to see what would happen, he stopped. Fortunately his rider 
 was a good horseman, and, though rather hot, was in no way dis- 
 composed by his nine-mile gallop.
 
 142 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 between equal claims and merits, they were set to ride 
 a race on bare-backed horses, and the vacancy given to the 
 winner. The recruit had to find a trooper in the regiment 
 to be his surety, and to be responsible for him ; and 
 this suretyship was no mere form, for it might happen 
 that if the recruit disgraced himself and was turned out, 
 the surety would have to go too. Among the native 
 officers — and there were only four English officers, besides 
 Jacob, in the two regiments — were men of rank, wealth, 
 and consideration. 
 
 At first Jacob had admitted into the ranks Beloochees 
 and Affghans, races noted for fierce courage ; but 
 afterwards he refused to enlist them, for he had found 
 them — 
 
 " absolutely faithless and untrustworthy, and never to be 
 depended upon in war ; and quarrelsome, unruly, and 
 murderous in quarters in peace. And both are given. to 
 the most detestable vices which lead to all manner of evil. 
 Whatever may be thought of these people by those who 
 do not know them well, it is certain that the Mussulmans 
 of Hindustan are altogether superior beings in every way 
 to the Affghans and Beloochees, and are incalculably better 
 adapted by nature to make good soldiers." * 
 
 The pay of a Suwar, or private, was thirty rupees a 
 month, out of which he provided himself with everything 
 — horse, arms, accoutrements, saddle, clothing, food, forage, 
 and transport. Except for a horse killed in action, he 
 received no extra allowance whatever, under any circum- 
 stances ; but when supplies were not otherwise procurable 
 he was provided with rations, paying for them on the same 
 terms as the men of the regular army. Each man, officer 
 or private, had at all times, and in all places, to be provided 
 
 * Major Jacob to the Major of Brigade, Upper Scinde, December 
 14, 1853. "Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. ii. p. 145.
 
 185 1—6.] THE SIND HORSE. 143 
 
 with transport for whatever he wanted to take with him 
 on the march. The men kept camels, ponies, or mules as 
 they pleased, and the animals being their own property, 
 they never injured them by overloading or ill-treatment. 
 Their means of transport being limited, they could not 
 carry too much. Wheel-carriages were never allowed. 
 Transport animals were always ready, sufficient in quantity 
 and quality to carry the men's bedding, cooking apparatus, 
 tents for such as chose to carry them, and three days' food 
 for man and horse when necessary. Within an hour after 
 the order to march had been given and the trumpet 
 sounded, five hundred men would be ready to cross the 
 desert, prepared in every way for a week's absence ; and 
 twelve hours was quite enough warning to enable the 
 whole corps to commenee a march of any length.* 
 
 Their arms and accoutrements were of the very best, 
 and in every detail the patterns had been carefully selected 
 by Jacob. The dress was a dark green coat reaching 
 about four inches below the knee, and made of strong 
 English broadcloth ; the pantaloon of the same material 
 with a broad red stripe, and high jack boots of English 
 
 * " Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. i. p. 184, and vol. ii. p. 87. 
 A staff officer once arrived while Jacob and his officers happened to 
 be at tiffin, with an order for the force to march at once. " After tiffin," 
 was all the response Jacob vouchsafed. After a while the A.D.C. 
 ventured to remind him that the order was to march at once. "After 
 tiffin," was again the reply. Luncheon over, Jacob ordered the Assembly 
 to sound ; and, in a few minutes, to the astonishment of the A.D.C, 
 they were on the march. 
 
 About noon, on September 25, 1848, orders were received to march 
 with five hundred sabres to join an officer who had been compelled 
 to raise the siege of Mooltan. They marched at daybreak, on the 
 26th, and by October 3 had crossed the Indus, eighty miles distant, 
 in boats. 
 
 Jacob so instilled his enthusiasm into those serving under him, that 
 the regimental medical officer (Dr. S. M. Pelly) became an excellent 
 cavalry soldier, and when the other officers were absent across the 
 border, was frequently left in charge of the station.
 
 144 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. ICh. V. 
 
 leather. In winter they wore a sheep-skin jacket reaching 
 below the knees, the woolly side inwards. Their swords, 
 originally straight ones, had been exchanged for sabres 
 two feet ten inches long, broad at the end, sharp and 
 slightly curved, so as to act by edge and not by point, for 
 Jacob had once, in a personal encounter, when going at 
 speed, run an enemy through the body, and found that in 
 such a case the sword will almost inevitably either break, 
 or unhorse its owner before it can be withdrawn. The 
 men had a double-barrelled carbine * slung by a hook on 
 the right side, the native officers a brace of double-barrelled 
 pistols. Each man carried his horse's ropes, pegs, etc., two 
 or three days' provision for man and horse, and also a 
 small water mussock, containing about two gallons of 
 water and carried under the horse's body, and which it 
 in no way incommoded. On an average they rode fifteen 
 stone.f 
 
 The English officers generally wore a coat of thick cloth, 
 to protect them from the sun, and on their heads, for the 
 same reason, polished steel helmets with a red turban. 
 Thus dressed they did not fear exposure to any heat, 
 which they declared was as little or less formidable to 
 them than to the natives. 
 
 The north-west frontier of Sind stretches for nearly two 
 hundred miles along an almost rainless desert plain. On 
 the other side of the boundary is Beloochistan, where such 
 districts as have water, and are capable of cultivation, or 
 of supporting herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, were in- 
 habited by tribes owing allegiance, which at that time was 
 little more than nominal, to the Khan of Kelat. Beyond 
 
 * Probably some only of the men had akz^/^-barrelled carbines at 
 this time. 
 
 t Report of Brigadier Smeed, " Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," 
 vol. ii. p. 229.
 
 1851-6.] THE SIND FRONTIER. I45 
 
 the plain, hidden in the almost inaccessible recesses of the 
 mountains, were more Beloochee tribes, the most consider- 
 able of whom were the Murrees, Doombkees, and Boogtees. 
 Their wealth consisted of cattle, sheep, and horses, the 
 business of their lives was fighting, and their highest 
 ambition a successful raid. Ever since the Affghan invasion 
 there had been intermittent fighting with them. In 1845 
 Sir Charles Napier with great difficulty conducted an 
 expedition into the heart of the Trukkee mountain country 
 and succeeded in forcing a portion of the Doombkee and 
 Jekranee tribes to surrender, and in inducing them to 
 settle on land which he gave them at Janadeyra, just 
 within the boundary of Sind. But this only made matters 
 worse. From their new country the settlers made 
 plundering expeditions against their old neighbours over 
 the frontier. The latter retaliated. Murder and robbery 
 everywhere prevailed. The British troops were shut up in 
 forts, and did nothing to protect the people. The people 
 themselves were encouraged to carry arms and to wage 
 a retaliatory war. The district along the border was left 
 uncultivated, the canals became useless for want of clearing 
 out, and peaceable people left the country. In December, 
 1846, the Boogtees assembled fifteen hundred armed men, 
 marched into Sind, passing the British outposts who failed 
 to attack them, to within fifteen miles of Shikarpur, the 
 capital of Upper Sind, and remained twenty-four hours in 
 British territory, securing every head of cattle in the country 
 round, and returning to their hills, about seventy-five miles 
 distant, with all their booty — some fifteen thousand head 
 of cattle. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Jacob had been appointed 
 
 to the command of the frontier, and a regiment of the 
 
 Sind Horse ordered up with all speed. On arrival he 
 
 found desolation and terror prevailing. The cavalry 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 regiment at Kanghur was locked up in the fort. No one 
 could go in safety from place to place without a strong 
 escort. Not one of the new settlers had attempted any 
 peaceful labour, or had ever put his hand to an agri- 
 cultural implement. 
 
 At Kanghur, where there was no village or bazaar, and 
 but four or five wretched huts, he fixed the head-quarters 
 of his regiment, and thither, by degrees, his troopers 
 brought their families to settle. Distant about twenty-five 
 miles from Shikarpur, it was on the edge of a flat rainless 
 desert, or where rain fell at rare intervals only to breed 
 fever. This desert was a hard dry plain, entirely without 
 vegetation, and about four thousand square miles in extent. 
 In the hot season it is intensely heated, and the air passing 
 over it, already deprived of its moisture during its passage 
 over the arid country of Beloochistan and the Persian 
 frontier, becomes like a flame. During fully six months, 
 without a day's respite, the fierce summer heat lasts, for 
 the monsoon, with its storms and showers, does not reach 
 Upper Sind. It is a land so scorched by the sun that on 
 one occasion, during a march of a few hours, out of a 
 detachment of four hundred men and horses, a hundred 
 and sixteen horses died from sunstroke, a fine Arab on 
 which the Adjutant, Malcolm Green, was riding, being the 
 first to drop. In June, 1839, the thermometer in the 
 hospital-shed at Shikarpur was standing daily at from 
 130 to 140 , once reaching 143 . The nights were so 
 oppressive — the mercury frequently not going lower than 
 94 — that the English officers sleeping on the house-top 
 would pour buckets of water over their beds before lying 
 down upon them, so as to snatch a few hours of sleep in 
 the coolness of the evaporation ; or if living in tents they 
 would scoop out the earth and make a mud bath to sleep 
 in. Dust storms occurred frequently at all seasons of the
 
 1851-6.] THE SIND FRONTIER. 147 
 
 year, changing the light of midday to an intensity of dark- 
 ness to which no ordinary night ever approaches, and 
 which lasted occasionally for one, two, or more hours. 
 These dust storms were sometimes accompanied by blasts 
 of the simoon, a poisonous wind destructive to vegetable 
 and animal life, so that men would drop dead instantane- 
 ously, or survive only as paralytics. In winter it is so cold 
 that the Murree and the Kelat hill countries, almost in 
 sight of Kanghur, are covered with snow. In these hills 
 there are frequent earthquakes, one of which crushed three 
 hundred and forty men, with their cattle, in a cave. 
 
 At this dismal spot on the edge of the desert, without 
 wife or child, kith or kin, Jacob took up his abode, and 
 without a thought of winning honour or reward in this 
 world or the next, gave up his heart to his regiments, and 
 to the work he had taken in hand. With him lived and 
 worked his lieutenants, Malcolm, Merewether, Henry and 
 Malcolm Green, Macauley, and others, men like-minded 
 with him, whom he had himself selected, and who, entering 
 into the spirit which animated him, led pure and arduous 
 lives, carried out his orders, and seconded his efforts with 
 unremitting energy and entire devotion. He never took 
 leave or furlough, and for nine years from this time, 
 making some seventeen years from his first coming to 
 Sind, he scarcely left the district. Nor were his lieu- 
 tenants less assiduous. For seven years Malcolm Green 
 did not leave the regiment for a single day. Jacob could 
 not spare the time to be away, and also, as he once told 
 Frere, he had no money to spend on leave and amuse- 
 ment. For every shilling of his pay, as well as of his 
 private fortune, was spent on his regiment, and on the 
 new town on the edge of the desert which was growing 
 up under his eye, a dwelling-place and a market for 
 his men and their families, and which contained amongst
 
 I48 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 other things, a laboratory, engineers' and carpenters' 
 workshops, and a large and valuable library for the use of 
 his officers. In the course of seven years, Jacobabad, on 
 the site of the half-dozen huts of Kanghur, grew into a 
 town of eleven thousand inhabitants. It was no longer on 
 the edge of the desert, but shaded by trees in the midst of 
 a cultivated plain, reclaimed and fertilized by the water 
 which canals, engineered by Jacob, had brought fifty miles 
 from the stream of the Indus. 
 
 When Frere came to Sind, in 185 1, a great change for 
 the better in the peacefulness and security of Upper Sind 
 had been effected. He writes to Lord Falkland : — 
 
 " June 10, 1851. 
 
 " Of late years the frontier tribes have ravaged and 
 desolated the country up to the gates of Shikarpoor. The 
 few inhabitants that remained were almost as lawless as 
 their neighbours, and lived more by retaliatory plunder 
 than by honest labour. 
 
 " Since Major Jacob took charge of the frontier this 
 state of things has completely changed. He has rigidly 
 enforced the disarming of all within our frontier, and has 
 put down the practice of forays beyond our frontier, whilst 
 the posts of Sind Irregular Horse form a perfect cordon of 
 protection to all within them against aggressions from 
 without. . . . Single unarmed travellers seemed now as 
 safe as elsewhere in Sind, and the general sense of perfect 
 security was shown by the improving state of the villages, 
 and the fact that the people now trust themselves, their 
 cattle, and grain-yards, day and night, out in the open 
 fields, instead of keeping, as was so lately their invariable 
 custom, under the shelter of their village walls. 
 
 "All were loud in proclaiming their gratitude for the 
 present perfect peace and security assured to them by 
 Major Jacob's arrangements." 
 
 And in March, 1855, he writes— 
 
 " I have just returned from that most wonderful place 
 Jacobabad. Yesterday morning I went with Jacob nine
 
 1S47-57-] JACOB AND THE FRONTIER. 149 
 
 miles into what, four years ago, was real desert, on the 
 Minotee road, without a tree, a blade of grass, or a drop of 
 water, within miles. All is now jowarree stubble, and 
 from the top of a surveying tower, as far as the eye could 
 reach to the north, we could see the fields extended, the 
 cultivators and cattle about the fields not appearing to 
 dream of the possibility of plunderers attacking them. 
 His canals this year surpass anything I have seen." 
 
 To see how this change was brought about, it is neces- 
 sary to go back to January, 1847, when Jacob assumed 
 the command of the frontier. 
 
 The key to his Frontier-system was the simple principle 
 of justice, that when a raid has been made, the actual 
 robbers alone, and not their fellow-tribesmen, should bear 
 the blame and the punishment. This was to be carried 
 out along a frontier of a hundred and eighty-five miles, in 
 the midst of a population accustomed to look to robbery 
 as their chief means of subsistence. It was Jacob's genius 
 that conceived the idea that such an apparently Quixotic 
 enterprise was possible. 
 
 It had to be done in the first instance mainly by 
 constant patrolling. On assuming the command — 
 
 " Jacob at once ordered all idea of defensive operations 
 to be abandoned ; every detachment was posted in the 
 open plain, without any defensive works whatever ; patrols 
 were sent in every direction in which it was thought an 
 enemy might appear, and these parties crossed and met 
 so often that support was almost certain to be at hand if 
 wanted. The parties were sent to distances of forty 
 miles into and beyond the desert, and along the frontier 
 line." * 
 
 Whenever any plunderers were met with, the troopers 
 fell upon them at once, charging without hesitation any 
 number, however superior, and with such invariable success, 
 
 * " Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. ii. p. 218.
 
 I 50 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 that the robbers soon ceased to make attempts on British 
 territory, though still plundering Cutchee. 
 
 During the first year, 1847, when there was but one 
 regiment, seven hundred strong, of Sind Horse, on the 
 frontier, the labour was excessive. They had literally to 
 lie down to rest with boots and swords on for many 
 months together. So perfect was their discipline, that 
 though well-planned attempts at surprise were made, 
 never, during the twelve years that Jacob held the frontier, 
 was any outpost of the Sind Horse cut up.* The soldiers, 
 who never took so much as a bundle of forage without 
 paying for it, came to be looked upon and treated as 
 friends by the country folks, and " the moral power of 
 their kindly bearing spread far and wide through the 
 country, and effected what no mere force could have done." 
 
 " Meanwhile Major Jacob had discovered that not only 
 the Boordees and Muzzarees, who were always inveterate 
 marauders, but the Belooch settlers in Janadeyra, now 
 British subjects, had been all along systematically carrying 
 on plundering excursions on a considerable scale. . . . 
 
 " The horses of these Jekranees and Doombkees had 
 been taken from them a year before by order of Sir C. 
 Napier and sold by auction, but Major Jacob found that 
 the sale had been fictitious, and that the former owners 
 still retained shares in their horses. For it is the custom 
 of the country that a horse, or rather mare (for they ride 
 only the latter), very seldom belongs to one man only, 
 and sometimes the property in one mare is shared between 
 as many as twenty men. 
 
 " Thus when these horses were supposed to have been 
 finally disposed of, only certain shares in them had been 
 sold ; the animals were kept by various Zemeendars f all 
 over the country, and when any foray from Scinde was 
 agreed upon, the horses were ready for their old masters. 
 The men left Janadeyra by ones and twos, went for their 
 horses and then proceeded to the appointed rendezvous. 
 
 * Frere to Lord Elphinstone, October 15, 1858. 
 t A Zemeendar was a farmer or owner of land.
 
 I847-54-] THE BELOOCHE TRIBES. 15 1 
 
 " After the foray into the hills, or elsewhere, the booty 
 obtained was shared at some place beyond the British 
 boundary, the plunderers dispersed, replaced the horses 
 with the Zemeendars, and returned one by one to their 
 homes. 
 
 "The existence of these proceedings had never been 
 suspected until pointed out by Major Jacob, and then at 
 first they were thought impossible, till a party of the 
 Irregular Horse surrounded and surprised a body of the 
 plunderers just returned from the foray. 
 
 "Concealment was no longer possible, and Major Jacob 
 now obtained permission to disarm every man in the 
 country not being a government servant, which was at 
 once done. 
 
 " At the same time Major Jacob set five hundred of the 
 Jekranees to work, to clear the Noorwal Canal. The men 
 were very awkward at first, but were strong, energetic, 
 cheerful, and good natured ; they soon became used to the 
 tools, and were then able to do a better day's work, and 
 of course to earn more pay than the ordinary Sindee 
 labourers. The men seemed proud of this, and the experi- 
 ment was perfectly successful. 
 
 " Soon afterwards the Belooche settlers took to manual 
 labour in their own fields, with spirit and even pride. 
 From that time they were really conquered and reformed. 
 They are now (1854) the most hard-working, industrious, 
 well-behaved, cheerful set of men in all Scinde. Their 
 numbers amount to about two thousand adult males, but 
 for three years past not a man of them has been convicted, 
 or even accused, of any crime whatever, great or small ; 
 yet seven or eight years ago they were the terror of the 
 country, murderers and robbers to a man. 
 
 " Good roads have been made all over the country, 
 means of irrigation have been multiplied fourfold, and 
 everywhere on the border life and activity with perfect 
 safety exists, where formerly all was desert, solitude, or 
 murderous violence ; not an armed man is now seen 
 except the soldiers and police, and person and property 
 are everywhere protected." * 
 
 One tribe only, after Jacob had taken command of the 
 frontier, ventured on a marauding expedition in force. 
 * " Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. ii. pp. 218-220.
 
 152 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 At the end of September, 1847, seven hundred Boogtees 
 from the hills entered the plains to plunder. Lieutenant 
 Merewether, Jacob's second in command, and command- 
 ing the outpost of Shapoor, started immediately with a 
 hundred and thirty-three troopers in pursuit, and came 
 upon them posted in rough ground, and prepared to 
 sustain his attack. As his squadron moved rapidly along 
 their front to cut them off from the jungle, the Boogtees, 
 thinking he feared to meddle with them, left their vantage 
 ground to attack him. Merewether, instantly changing 
 front to the left, as accurately as if on a parade ground, 
 charged with his troopers and crashed through and through 
 them. For two hours the sharp sword-blades, and with 
 greater effect the carbines of the troopers, did their terrible 
 work ; the Boogtees, their formation broken, but shoulder- 
 ing closely together, defended themselves, crouching 
 beneath their shields and cutting with their sharp swords 
 at the bridles of the troopers' horses to render them 
 unmanageable. Brave and unflinching to the last, they 
 refused repeated offers of quarter. At length, when five 
 hundred and sixty of their dead and wounded lay upon 
 the plain, the remnant of a hundred and twenty survivors 
 surrendered, two only out of the whole number escaping 
 to tell the tale of death at their home in the hills.* 
 
 It was a terrible lesson to the wild tribes, and no such 
 raid in force was ever again attempted by them. From 
 that time Jacob had to deal with depredators only in small 
 gangs or singly, and could bring them to justice as ordinary 
 highway robbers, acting on their own private account, and 
 reflecting no guilt on the tribe to which they happened to 
 belong. The population within the frontier were prohibited 
 from going about armed, though they might keep their 
 arms at home. All persons crossing the frontier from the 
 "Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. i. p. 112.
 
 1850.] A FRONTIER CHASE. 153 
 
 other side had their arms taken away, for which a receipt 
 was given ; and the arms were restored when they went 
 back again. On the intelligence of robbers being seen, the 
 troopers, always in readiness, were slipped upon them like 
 greyhounds from the leash ; and they did not stop till 
 they had literally ridden them down. The following 
 account of one of these encounters will give an idea of the 
 spirit which animated them. In December, 1850 (it is 
 Major Jacob who writes) — 
 
 " A party of Murree and Boogtee plunderers carried off 
 a number of camels from the jungle, north of Gubbur, near 
 Kundkote. Immediately on the information reaching 
 Kundkote, the officer in command of the detachment 
 there, Jemadar Doorgah Singh, proceeded in pursuit, with 
 a Duffedar * and fifteen men of the Scinde Horse and four 
 of the Belooche guides. 
 
 " The Jemadar having found the tracks of the robbers, 
 followed them at a rapid gallop till he came in sight of 
 the marauders, about fifteen in number, who, abandoning 
 the camels, which they had pricked on thus far at speed, 
 continued their flight. 
 
 " The Jemadar had now proceeded some thirty miles at 
 a gallop, and at such speed that already seven horses of 
 his party had fallen dead, he having himself ridden two 
 horses to death ; but not contented with recovering the 
 stolen camels, he now mounted a third horse, and deter- 
 mined to continue the pursuit ; accordingly he kept on 
 with the remains of his party, till he had arrived far within 
 the hills beyond Hyran ; the enemy now again appeared, 
 with numbers augmented by a fresh party of horsemen 
 and forty or fifty men on foot, while Jemadar Doorgah 
 Singh had then with him but two suwars of the Scinde 
 Irregular Horse, and one of the Belooche guides, the 
 horses of all the rest having failed long before. The guide 
 entreated the Jemadar to give up the pursuit and return, 
 as the enemy were very numerous, while he had no men 
 with him, and the ground was such that even fresh horses 
 could hardly move among the rocks and ravines. Doorgah 
 Singh replied that if the guide was afraid he might retire ; 
 
 * A Duffedar is a non-commissioned officer.
 
 154 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 but that for himself he should be ashamed to show his 
 face to me [Major Jacob] if, after coming in sight of the 
 robbers, he should retire without killing some of them. 
 
 " He then, with his two suwars, and followed by the 
 Belooche guide, went headlong at the enemy. The latter 
 perceiving that their four assailants were entirely unsup- 
 ported, surrounded them in overwhelming numbers, pulled 
 the Jemadar and his two suwars from their horses and 
 literally cut them in pieces, though not till they had 
 disabled and killed some fifteen of the mountaineers. 
 
 " The Belooche guide alone contrived to escape, very 
 severely wounded (as also was his mare), and was with the 
 dismounted men and others of the party who had been 
 left behind by the Jemadar, and with the recovered camels, 
 brought back by parties from the other posts, who had 
 also proceeded in pursuit of the robbers, and who not long 
 after arrived." * 
 
 If the Beloochee does not possess, in addition to his 
 courage, the soldierly quality of being susceptible of 
 discipline, he has in a high degree that of chivalry. Round 
 Doorgah Singh's wrist, when his body was recovered, was 
 found tied a red worsted thread. The red thread is a 
 high distinction, conferred, like a posthumous Victoria 
 Cross, for distinguished personal courage. But in bestow- 
 ing it the Beloochee makes no distinction between friends 
 and enemies, and confers it with generous impartiality on 
 a dead comrade or a fallen foe. 
 
 In providing for the pacification of the border popula- 
 tion, Frere and Jacob had early recognized that to make 
 the work permanent it was necessary to do more than 
 guard the frontier and overawe the inhabitants of the 
 country immediately contiguous to it. They aimed at 
 making all Beloochistan a peaceful and well-governed 
 country, friendly to English influence. Matters were not 
 promising to begin with. During the progress of the 
 expedition through Beloochistan to Affghanistan in 1838, 
 
 * " Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. i. p. 325.
 
 1838-51.] KELAT. 155 
 
 Burnes and Macnaghten had lent a too credulous ear to 
 one Mahomed Hussan, a clever, plausible scoundrel, who 
 by treachery and murder had raised himself to be Wuzzeer, 
 or chief Minister of Mehrab, Khan of Kelat. This man, 
 while secretly stirring up the tribes to attack and plunder 
 the English convoys, and actually sending his own servants 
 to waylay and rob Burnes, persuaded the latter that he 
 was the friend of the English, and that it was the Khan 
 who was guilty of the misdeeds. At the same time he 
 persuaded the Khan that the English were determined on 
 his ruin. So completely were Burnes and Macnaghten 
 deceived by Hussan as to the Khan's doings and inten- 
 tions, that orders were given to Sir T. Wiltshire's division, 
 on its return from Afghanistan to India, to turn aside 
 from Quetta and attack Kelat. The place was taken by 
 storm in November, 1839, Mehrab Khan was killed, and 
 the town given up to plunder, Mahomed Hussan sur- 
 rendering to the British. Shah Newaz, a distant cousin 
 of Mehrab, was made Khan in his place. A more unfortu- 
 nate and unjustifiable act of aggression could scarcely 
 have been committed. Two years later some reparation 
 was made, and under a treaty concluded by Outram, Nus- 
 seer, the young son of Mehrab, was restored to his father's 
 principality. But Mahomed Hussan's influence still re- 
 mained paramount at Kelat. In March, 185 1, he paid 
 Jacob a visit of a fortnight at Jacobabad, and by his frank 
 manners and cleverness, imposed upon Jacob as com- 
 pletely as he had deceived Burnes and Macnaghten. It 
 was not till the following year, when he again had an 
 interview with Jacob, that his real object appeared, which 
 was to obtain the countenance of the British Government 
 to his usurpation of the Khanate. When this became 
 clear, Jacob told him in very plain language that he was 
 a traitor and a scoundrel ; and the next day he departed.
 
 1 56 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 Being at last found out, he became desperate, intrigued 
 with the Murree tribe and assisted them to plunder, and 
 did all that he could to stir up strife. All this Jacob 
 explained to the Khan, who was with difficulty convinced 
 of the truth, so completely had he been hoodwinked by 
 his Wuzzeer. But, being of a good disposition, and not 
 wanting in ability, he roused himself and endeavoured to 
 take the work of Government upon himself. Mahomed 
 Hussan was removed from office and placed in arrest. 
 
 To strengthen the Khan's hands, and confirm him in 
 his good intentions, Frere, in February, 1854, at Jacob's 
 particular desire, had an interview with him at Jacobabad ; 
 an interview which was a first step in a course of policy 
 of far-reaching importance. A good impression was made 
 on the Khan, and he and his Sirdars returned well pleased 
 from the conference. Henceforward it will be seen that 
 it was Frere's constant endeavour, as the first and most 
 effectual means both of securing peace on the frontier and 
 also of protecting India from hostile influence and possible 
 invasion by more distant powers, to encourage intercourse 
 across the border, and to promote friendly relations with 
 native states outside the frontier and independent, but 
 subject to British influence, and guided as by a silken 
 thread through the personal influence and ascendency of 
 British officers. It was a policy which seldom met with 
 encouragement from the Government of India, and was 
 afterwards abandoned, but he lived to see it accepted 
 and adopted. The Khan was so impoverished that he 
 could not maintain a sufficient force to uphold his autho- 
 rity, and keep the peace between the wild tribes that 
 were supposed to be subject to him. It may have been 
 felt, too, that some reparation, however tardy, was due to 
 him for the way in which his father had been treated. 
 Therefore, Frere and Jacob obtained permission to con-
 
 1854.] TREATY WITH KELAT. 1 57 
 
 elude a treaty with him three months later (May 14, 1854), 
 by which the British Government engaged to pay to him, 
 his heirs and successors, an annual subsidy of fifty 
 thousand rupees, in return for which he engaged to enter 
 into no negotiation with other states without the consent 
 of the British Government, to put down robbery in his 
 territories, to limit the duty levied on merchandize passing 
 through his country to six rupees per camel load, and — 
 what was the most important proviso of all — to permit 
 British troops to occupy such positions in his territory as 
 they might find advisable. 
 
 This treaty secured and made permanent the friendly 
 relations which for some time past had subsisted with the 
 Khan. Already there was willing extradition by him of 
 robbers taking refuge in Kelat territory. He had an agent 
 residing at Jacobabad, and whenever a robber was believed 
 to have taken refuge across the Kelat border, orders were 
 sent to all village and other authorities to aid the Sind 
 Horse in the pursuit and capture. 
 
 Three months after this treaty was made, in August, 
 1854, Major Jacob reports that — 
 
 "The notorious border robber, Sunjur Rind, the last 
 remaining at large, and the most persevering of the out- 
 laws who formerly infested the Scinde frontier, came in 
 three days ago, and surrendered to the Wukkeel of the 
 Khan of Kelat. . . . 
 
 " He has, during the last two years, frequently written 
 to me to beg to be allowed to come in and receive pardon 
 for his crimes ; but the man's murders, robberies, and 
 crimes generally had been so enormous that I returned no 
 other answer than that I should certainly catch and hang 
 him some day. 
 
 " Sunjur then went to Islam Khan, the Boogtee chief, 
 and begged him to intercede with me for him, which he 
 did, receiving the same reply as before, with the addition 
 that if the Boogtees harboured such criminals they would 
 be considered as guilty also.
 
 158 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 "The Boogtecs then informed Sunjur that if he came to 
 live with them they would send him prisoner to me. 
 
 " He then went to the Murrees ; but these people, greatly 
 alarmed at our late arrangements with Kelat, and anxious 
 to avoid giving offence, threatened to imprison Sunjur 
 also ; whereupon, in despair, the man came in and sur- 
 rendered as above mentioned. 
 
 " The man is of a diabolical nature, and totally irre- 
 claimable ; but, as he voluntarily surrendered, I have 
 recommended the Kelat authorities not to execute him, 
 but to keep him prisoner for life." * 
 
 And he writes to Frere, September 18, 1854 : — 
 
 "I am convinced that great and excellent results will 
 ensue from the new arrangements with Kelat ; the whole 
 country will, I firmly believe, become well ordered and 
 civilized. The Khan is most earnestly endeavouring to 
 carry out my advice, he now looks after everything him- 
 self, and tells everybody that he is now only just 
 beginning to live" 
 
 Another circumstance arising out of these friendly re- 
 lations with Kelat, which probably passed unnoticed at 
 the time, but which was, perhaps, the first step in an 
 important course of policy, much debated later on, was 
 the following : — 
 
 One evening in February, 1854, Jacob gave an order 
 to one of his Lieutenants, Malcolm Green, to take a 
 Duffedar's party of ten men and set out next morning for 
 Quetta, a march of some two hundred miles, "just to see 
 what the place looked like." Quetta is the last town in 
 Beloochistan on the road from Upper Sind to Candahar, 
 which is the main route between India and Central Asia. 
 It stands on high table land between the Bolan Pass and 
 the Affghan frontier, commanding the approach to the 
 Bolan from the north, in an angle of Beloochistan, which 
 
 * " Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. ii p. 189.
 
 1854.] QUETTA. 159 
 
 runs up into Afghanistan. Thus it is a point of vantage, 
 looking into the latter country both in front and in flank. 
 And it is the nearest place in India to Candahar, from 
 which it is distant less than two hundred miles. These 
 were the days when the Crimean War was impending, and 
 Indian statesmen had seriously to consider the possibility, 
 not of an actual invasion of India by Russian forces, but 
 of Persia or Affghanistan being stirred up by Russian 
 emissaries to give trouble. Both Frere and Jacob had too 
 good an eye for country to be long in perceiving that 
 Quetta was the gate of India on the highway thither from 
 Candahar, and therefore a place of immense political and 
 military importance. 
 
 No Englishman, as far as was known, had been there 
 since the end of the Affghan expedition, eleven years 
 before. The English had not, as we have seen, left a 
 sweet savour behind them in that part of the country as 
 they retired through it ; and it might have been supposed 
 to be a matter of no little risk for a party of ten soldiers 
 to proceed thither. Such, however, did not prove to be 
 the case. The good name acquired by the Sind Horse 
 among the country folk must have reached even there ; 
 for the little party marched quietly and unmolested 
 through the Bolan Pass to the high table land, where they 
 found the pools coated with ice, and, after a short stay at 
 Quetta, returned by way of Kelat, meeting with a friendly 
 reception there from the Khan. 
 
 Thus much, then, had been gained already as regards the 
 line of defence of India against an invader from Central 
 Asia, that Beloochistan, the buffer between the two on the 
 north-west, had in these few years been converted, for the 
 time at least, from a hostile into a comparatively friendly 
 country. 
 
 Frere, on coming to Sind, had at once set himself to
 
 l6o THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. V. 
 
 study, and soon estimated and appreciated Jacob's 
 character and work. 
 
 " Jacob is doing more good than any ten men I 
 know," he writes to Outram. To which Outram replied : — 
 
 " How gratified I am by your appreciation of John 
 Jacob, who is indeed a wonderful man and an invaluable 
 public servant, and especially well calculated for controlling 
 and taming the wild tribes on our frontier. I only wish he 
 had charge of the entire border from the sea to Attock." 
 
 And Frere writes to Lord Falkland : — 
 
 " I have sent in a letter regarding the expenditure for 
 this year on the canals in the frontier districts. It will 
 probably occur to you to ask whether the plan has been 
 submitted to Turner and approved by him. And it there- 
 fore appears to me that it will be as well to mention be- 
 forehand my reasons for not referring Jacob's plans to 
 any one. He and Turner are excellent friends, and have a 
 sincere respect each for the talents of the other, but they 
 work in entirely different ways. Turner, in a cautious, 
 regular manner, observing all forms and regulations of the 
 service, which to Jacob appear only as so many fetters. 
 Turner does not like to act till he is able to record reasons 
 which would show all the reasonable world that he acts 
 rightly. Jacob will not willingly defer acting after he has 
 satisfied himself what is right to be done ; and he has an 
 aversion (not, I think, an unreasonable or exaggerated 
 one) to the delay necessary to make assurance doubly 
 sure. Of course if I asked Turner's advice I must take 
 it. If I take it, and call for more elaborate details, 
 plans, estimates, etc., Jacob is, of course, disgusted. With 
 ordinary men, this would, of course, not matter. But 
 Jacob is not an ordinary man, he is a very first-rate 
 engineer, and never fails to succeed in all he undertakes. 
 I hope, therefore, you will not think me inconsistent in 
 exempting his plans from that criticism and supervision 
 to which everything else in the canal department in the 
 province is necessarily subject, and without which any 
 man, less highly qualified than Jacob is, would surely go 
 wrong. 
 
 " Perhaps I might have explained my reasons more
 
 1854] JACOB AND FRERE. l6l 
 
 briefly by saying that Jacob is quite competent to get on 
 alone, and that he is one of those men who do not get on 
 at all well unless you let them alone." 
 
 Jacob fully reciprocated Frere's appreciation and friend- 
 ship. They were admirably fitted for working together. 
 Jacob's work on the frontier and his great engineering 
 schemes had Frere's constant and active co-operation, and 
 he smoothed their way with the Government by his advo- 
 cacy and tact. Jacob was inclined to listen to his counsel 
 and accept his suggestions with more deference than 
 he had ever shown to any one else. Frere encouraged him 
 to take his own course, and to hunt his hounds in his own 
 way. Comparatively independent as he was, and possess- 
 ing, by an unusual combination, which Frere took pains to 
 secure to him, military, civil, and political jurisdiction, so 
 as to be sole master within his own district, there were 
 still, of course, matters as to which he had to obtain the 
 sanction of Government, and to take orders from the 
 military authorities. He needed, for instance, money for 
 his canals and other works of improvement. It chafed him 
 that the assent to his plans for reclaiming the desert 
 should be postponed because a clerk in a Government 
 office at Bombay had found a mistake in the arithmetic of 
 his estimates. Nor was he pleased when a new regulation 
 compelled his lieutenants to pass an examination in a 
 native language, which, for ordinary useful and colloquial 
 purposes, they probably knew better than their examiner. 
 Outside his own special affairs he sometimes wrote letters 
 to the London Press, criticizing and exposing what he 
 considered to be maladministration and mismanagement 
 of the army in India and at home, one of which letters 
 brought down a severe reprimand upon his head. With 
 Frere he corresponded frequently and familiarly, and 
 many of these letters are extant. It seems to have been 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 a relief to him thus to deliver his soul, knowing that what 
 he wrote would be sure to meet with appreciation and 
 sympathy if not with entire agreement, and that hasty 
 or exaggerated expressions of indignation would go no 
 further, and get him into no trouble. But for this friend- 
 ship and this convenient safety-valve to his feelings, he 
 might have poured his complaints into a less sympathetic 
 ear, and with inconvenient results ; and the threat that he 
 once indulged in of throwing up his commission in disgust, 
 and turning civil engineer, might have been carried out to 
 the irreparable loss of the service. His tone to Frere is 
 not only full of friendliness, but also of unvarying respect 
 and even deference. " Non omnia possumus omnes ; few 
 men have your concentrativeness and firmness of brain," 
 he says in one letter, which means much from a man who 
 was quite above paying empty compliments to any one, 
 and least of all to a superior. 
 
 Jacob's chief and constantly recurring complaint was 
 that the Punjab authorities, in their dealings with the 
 border tribes, followed a system which was the very oppo- 
 site of his, and that thus his work of pacification was 
 hindered and counteracted.* 
 
 * On this subject Sir George Clerk some years afterwards, when 
 Governor of Bombay, writes to Frere at Calcutta : — 
 
 "June 26, 1861. 
 "I often ask myself, how is it that among items of extravagant ex- 
 penditure in the Punjab, you have that constantly recurring un- 
 limited one arising from the forays of our troops over the border? I 
 know something of the tribes all along, and no one can say that 
 Afreedees, Yosufzarees, and such up there, are a bit worse or more 
 wild than Murrees, Brahooes and Belooches down here. But here, as 
 you know, that is, on the frontier under the mountains, not a mouse 
 stirs without Merewether's permission — and aloft, in the midst of the 
 fastnesses of the wild tribes, I fancy there is now no fighting without 
 Green's sanction. Hence it seems to me that before long it may fall 
 to this Government to undertake to save you three-quarters of a
 
 1S54.] EVILS OF RETALIATION. 163 
 
 In an official despatch to Frere, he says : — 
 
 "February 27, 1854. 
 
 " Much good must, it seems to me, be accomplished 
 among these wild but not unintelligent people, by our 
 resolutely setting our faces against all private war what- 
 ever, whether against our friends or enemies. 
 
 " It seems right that I should bring to your notice that 
 very great evil is caused by the contrary practice close to 
 us in the Punjab districts. Muzzarees, Boogtees, etc., 
 have been there permitted or even encouraged to retaliate 
 on the hill plunderers, a proceeding fraught with terrible 
 and increasing ill consequences. 
 
 " The principle of totally putting a stop to private war- 
 fare on this frontier, where it once existed to such terrible 
 extent, having been attended with such excellent effects, 
 it seems matter of regret that it should not be acted on in 
 the districts in such close contact with us as that part of 
 the Punjab, south of Mittenhote, where the same tribes 
 exist on both sides of the border in both provinces ; and 
 the people and even the families being the same, the in- 
 fluence of proceedings in one district must be more or less 
 felt in the other." 
 
 For writing this despatch Jacob was severely taken to 
 task by the Government. Frere warmly took up his de- 
 fence. " Major Jacob," he says, 
 
 " shared my own doubts as to whether the members of 
 the Punjab Government were aware of the extent to 
 which the system of permitting or encouraging our own 
 subjects to retaliate on the border plunderers was carried, 
 or of the manner in which it worked. . . . 
 
 " Had I imagined that his remarks implied any criticism 
 on a policy adopted or approved by the Supreme Govern- 
 ment in a neighbouring province, I should consider myself 
 more culpable for forwarding than Major Jacob for writing 
 them. ... 
 
 million per annum, which is now wasted in cockering up the so-called 
 'Punjab System.' " 
 
 Sir George Clerk's testimony on this question is the more valuable, 
 inasmuch as he was in the Bengal service, and had held office in the 
 North-West Provinces.
 
 1 64 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 " I will only further express a hope that Major Jacob 
 maybe relieved from any of the displeasure of the Supreme 
 Government, or that if his explanation be not deemed 
 perfectly satisfactory, I may be permitted to bear my fair 
 share of the blame for forwarding remarks which are con- 
 sidered open to such serious censure." 
 
 In the mean time a " Punjab Report " had been printed 
 and published, which had gone out of its way to dis- 
 parage the work done by the Sind Horse in comparison 
 with the labours of other frontier troops. This was 
 too much for Jacob. He wrote an official despatch to 
 Frere, complaining of the " Punjab Report " as being 
 " founded on imperfect information, incorrect in fact, and 
 unjust as to conclusion," and claiming "the protection of 
 the head of the province " [i.e. the Commissioner in Sind] 
 "from these injurious remarks." He then, at Frere's 
 request, wrote and sent in a memorandum describing and 
 contrasting the two systems. The gist of his description 
 of the Sind system is as follows : Entirely offensive 
 measures on the part of the troops ; no defensive works 
 allowed, existing ones destroyed or abandoned. No dis- 
 tinction made between British subjects and others in cases 
 of robbery and murder. The plea of blood-feud or retali- 
 ation considered as an aggravation rather than as a miti- 
 gation of guilt, inasmuch as it implies malice aforethought. 
 No private person allowed to bear arms without leave. 
 Predatory tribes considered as mere criminal, disreputable 
 persons as long as they persist in their misdeeds, with 
 whom it is disgraceful for respectable persons to have any 
 dealings. Every soldier employed, on the other hand, to 
 have the feeling instilled into him that he was altogether 
 of a superior nature to the robber, whom he was to con- 
 sider not as an enemy but as a malefactor. Perfect in- 
 formation to be obtained of all movements or intended
 
 1851-6.] SIND FRONTIER SYSTEM. l6$ 
 
 movements of plundering tribes. Strict justice, and an 
 endeavour to excite men's better natures. 
 
 Another essential feature in the Sind frontier system 
 was that all authority, civil, political, and military, was 
 concentrated in the Frontier Commandant, who was thus 
 enabled to act on the instant, as circumstances might 
 require, without consulting any one. In a memorandum 
 written for Lord Northbrook in 1876, Frere thus describes 
 the difference in this respect between the two systems : — 
 
 "In Sind the Frontier Commandant commanded all 
 troops on the frontier, whether local or belonging to the 
 regular army. In his military capacity he was responsible 
 to no one but the Commander-in-Chief and Government. 
 He was also sole Political Agent, and superintendent of 
 police, chief magistrate, judge, and engineer, fiscal officer, 
 and canal officer of a strip of territory of various width 
 from ten to fifty miles on the frontier of Cutchee. He had 
 assistants to aid him in the several departments, but he 
 had no superior except the Commissioner, who ruled the 
 whole province, through whom he corresponded with 
 Government. 
 
 " In the Punjab there has always been much greater 
 division of power and responsibility. The civil and mili- 
 tary officials are kept separate and independent, the nearest 
 authority common to both being in some cases the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor of the Punjab, but more often the 
 Viceroy. The military authority again is divided. The 
 troops of the regular army are under one Brigadier, 
 responsible to the Commander-in-Chief. The Punjab 
 troops holding all outposts are under a separate Brigadier, 
 only partially responsible to the Commander-in-Chief. 
 The engineers for public works are in four divisions, the 
 police in two, all independent of each other and of the 
 Commissioners." 
 
 Upon other points of difference the memorandum states 
 that :— 
 
 " In Sind it was a cardinal rule to attempt no disinte- 
 gration of the Khan of Kelat's sovereignty, whether
 
 1 66 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 nominal or real, over the Belooch tribes, but rather by 
 every means in our power to uphold his authority. Chiefs, 
 or complaints against chiefs, were referred to the Khan. 
 Every effort was made to enable or induce the Khan to 
 give redress when needed, and to keep his people in 
 order. . . . 
 
 " The Punjab policy was ' divide et impera ; ' deal 
 separately with each tribe and each section of a tribe ; 
 avoid, as far as possible, recognizing any authority of the 
 Amir of Cabul over the frontier tribes — keep them as 
 buffers between him and our frontiers. . . ." 
 
 In Sind the Commandant was charged to use his troops 
 for the protection of life and property, not only in our own 
 territory, but in that of our ally " within our reach." This 
 phrase was defined in a military sense. He was to allow 
 nothing to go unnoticed within reach of our outposts if 
 the evil threatened to involve our people. Active inter- 
 ference beyond the frontier by using our troops was, 
 however, only permitted in case of overt acts of outrage 
 by armed men, such as no local police could cope with, 
 cattle lifting by armed bands, and the like. Prisoners 
 made in this case were handed over to the Khan for 
 disposal. 
 
 In the Punjab the troops were on no account to cross 
 the frontier without express instructions from Govern- 
 ment ; and we were to hold ourselves absolutely irre- 
 sponsible for the good or bad conduct of the tribes over 
 the frontier as long as they did not cross it. 
 
 In Sind, in following an enemy across the border the 
 ordinary rules of civilized warfare were to be strictly 
 observed : unresisting or unarmed men were to be pro- 
 tected ; no plunder was permitted, or wanton destruction 
 of houses, trees, crops, or other property. The actual 
 culprits, not the culprits' clansmen, were punished. 
 
 In the Punjab, when an expedition across the border 
 was sanctioned, the object was to strike terror. For some
 
 1855.] PUNJAB FRONTIER SYSTEM. 167 
 
 years prisoners were rarely taken, and quarter rarely given 
 to armed men. Houses, trees, crops, etc., were destroyed. 
 The fault of the individual was visited on the tribe. 
 
 In January, 1855, Frere wrote to Sir John Lawrence, 
 then Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, begging him to 
 reconsider his policy of permitting British subjects on the 
 frontier, not in the service of Government, to bear arms 
 without a license. After recapitulating the facts, he says : — 
 
 " I trust you will not think me intrusive in thus stating 
 the results of the system in this province. . . . The system 
 has been now enforced for some years under such a 
 variety of circumstances and agencies, that there can, I 
 think, be little doubt of its practical effect : it is observed 
 along the whole frontier, from Mekran, round by Kelat, 
 the Punjab, and Rajpootana, to Guzerat and Cutch ; and 
 unless Guzerat, where an opposite system has been in 
 force, be much changed within the last few years, the good 
 effect of the prohibition to carry arms is nowhere more 
 marked than in contrast with one of the oldest provinces 
 of our Presidency. 
 
 " I trust you will further excuse my pointing out that 
 the Punjab officers on the frontier above Kusmore hardly 
 appear to recognize the fact that the Boogtee country 
 adjoining the British territory is part of the territory of 
 the Khan of Kelat. Any separate treating with inferior 
 chiefs must of course tend to weaken the authority of the 
 sovereign ; and I need not point out that this must in 
 time weaken our hold on the country, and diminish our 
 means of obtaining redress when we wish to obtain it 
 through his Highness." * 
 
 This remonstrance seems to have produced some effect 
 and to have brought about orders for a partial disarmament 
 on the Punjab border. But neither Sir John Lawrence 
 nor any other of the high functionaries in India seems to 
 have recognized and appreciated the fact that Jacob's 
 genius and persistence, supported and encouraged by 
 Frere, had in their own province solved a problem which 
 * "Records of Scinde Irregular Horse," vol. ii. p. 244.
 
 1 68 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. V. 
 
 Englishmen, not only in India, but in South Africa, 
 Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, had hitherto failed 
 to solve — the problem how to contrive that contact 
 between the civilized race and the predatory or savage 
 tribes should bring about not hatred, bloodshed, and 
 extermination, but peace, civilization, and mutual benefit. 
 
 A saying is attributed to a late Roman Catholic divine, 
 speaking at a time when Italy was making her first 
 struggles for a share in the civilization of nineteenth 
 century Europe, that it would be a better deed to save 
 the soul of the meanest Neapolitan beggar than to 
 cover Italy with railways from end to end. If any- 
 thing could make it clear that the antithesis is a 
 false and misleading one, a glance at the condition, 
 physical and moral, of the people of Sind at this time 
 would surely do so. Frere held as strongly as any man 
 could that to "save souls," in any real sense, is the first 
 and paramount duty, the highest and best ambition con- 
 ceivable. No man was less likely to fall into the error 
 of supposing that godliness, virtue, and happiness are 
 coincident and co-extensive with civilization and physical 
 comfort. But he knew and saw and realized, as we at 
 home cannot realize, that a large proportion of the 
 population of India, and an immense majority of the 
 people of Sind at the time of his going there, had till 
 recently been living in mere slavery, oppressed, robbed, 
 and ill-treated by careless or brutal tyrants ; that they 
 were, not occasionally, but habitually, in want of sufficient 
 food ; that they were sunk in the grossest and vilest 
 superstition ; and that these and other kindred miseries 
 made them, as starved, wronged, tortured men inevitably 
 will be, murderers, infanticides, thieves, and liars. He 
 knew that before their souls could rise from such sins as 
 these, the heavy load must be lightened which crushed
 
 1851-6.] WHAT WAS DONE FOR SIND. 1 69 
 
 their bodies, and made escape from sheer wretchedness the 
 one absorbing object of their lives. 
 
 And if the British officer and the native trooper and the 
 Civil Judge brought peace and security to the weak, and 
 converted the murderer and robber into a harmless and 
 industrious peasant ; if the engineer and his workmen 
 cleansed foul cities, and poured water over arid plains, 
 turning a desert into a garden, bringing health to the 
 fever-stricken and food to the hungry ; if, where shifting 
 sands had been washed to and fro by the shallow tide, 
 great ships now sailed proudly in, bearing from across 
 the " black water " the wealth, the civilization, the morality, 
 for good or bad, of Western Europe, till half-savage men, 
 by thousands, turned their swords into ploughshares and 
 their spears into pruning-hooks ; — if this was done, and 
 if Frere's was the guiding mind and faithful spirit which 
 prompted and directed and achieved it, then it is claimed 
 for him and for his memory, and for the noble band of 
 fellow-workers whom he loved so well, that in the work 
 of " saving souls " — if, indeed, it be permitted to speak of 
 this as in any sense a work for man to aid in — theirs was 
 not a worse but the more excellent part.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MUTINY. 
 
 On sick leave to England — Returns to Sind — Is met by news of 
 outbreak of Mutiny — -His prompt action — Despatches troops to 
 Punjab — Lieutenant G. B. Tyrwhitt — The camel-dawk — Native 
 newspapers — The treaty with Dost Mahomed — Question of 
 abandoning Peshawur — Outbreaks at Hyderabad, Kurrachee, 
 and Shikarpur. 
 
 ABOUT a year and a half after his wife and family had 
 gone home, Frere's health failed. He was obliged to 
 take sick leave, and sailed for England early in 1856. 
 
 Jacob was left Acting-Commissioner in Sind, as Frere 
 had requested, during his absence ; but in April, 1857, he 
 was given the command of the Cavalry in the Persian 
 expedition, and Barrow Ellis took his place. 
 
 Frere remained in England nearly a year. Sind and 
 its wants were constantly in his mind all the time. He 
 was sending out designs and plans to Colonel Turner for 
 bridges, taking measures for the improvement of the breed 
 of sheep in Upper Sind, urging the India Directors to 
 push on the works for the Sind Railway, speaking at the 
 Sind Railway meeting, and so on. He was invited to a 
 quarterly dinner of the India Directors — one of the last 
 ever held — and treated as one who had earned distinction. 
 
 It was in this year that he took a lease of Wressil 
 Lodge, which he afterwards bought, a house looking over
 
 1857.] SICK LEAVE TO ENGLAND. 171 
 
 Wimbledon Common, which henceforth became his home 
 in England for the rest of his life. After spending the 
 summer chiefly in visiting friends and relations in different 
 parts of the country, he settled there in the autumn with 
 his family, taking to live with them his wife's two 
 unmarried sisters. 
 
 Those six autumn and winter months still live in the 
 memory of those of his children who were old enough to 
 remember them, as a time of blissful companionship with 
 him. There were the games in the snow, the first play 
 (Midsummer Night's Dream), the toys brought from London, 
 the books — generally not children's books, but such as 
 would be valued in after-years — always well-bound. And 
 there were the first lessons in drawing — a great point with 
 him in his children's education — and the legends and fairy 
 stories, which he expanded so as to extend them over 
 many days in the telling ; and there were the more serious 
 talks. He never talked dozvn to a child, yet was always 
 on the happiest and easiest terms even with the youngest. 
 Though always occupied, he was never in a hurry. The 
 old nurse recalls his putting up some Raphael engravings, 
 which he had given the children, with hammer and nails 
 on the morning he was starting to return to India, as 
 quietly as if he had nothing else to do or to think of. 
 
 In March, 1857, he set out on his return, leaving Mrs. 
 Frere and his family in England, and reached Bombay 
 early in May. Taking with him his brother-in-law, Mr. 
 John Arthur, of the Bombay Civil Service, who was to 
 act as his Revenue Assistant during the absence of 
 Mr. Shaw Stewart, who was away on leave in England 
 and did not rejoin him till some months afterwards, he 
 left Bombay for Kurrachee, and landed there on May 
 18, after a dangerous and protracted passage, owing to 
 the ill-manned, leaky, and unwholesomely dirty condition
 
 172 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 of the vessel, the effects of which he felt for some time 
 afterwards. 
 
 On his way from the landing-place to Government 
 House he was met by a trooper with a note from Mr. 
 Gibbs, his Judicial Assistant, enclosing a letter just 
 received by Mr. Neville Warren, the Sind Railway 
 Company's engineer, from Mr. Brunton, the Chief 
 Engineer of the Punjab railway. It was dated Lahore, 
 May 13, and ran as follows : — 
 
 "We are in a fearful state of anxiety here. At Delhi 
 the whole of the Indian troops are in mutiny ; they 
 have killed every Christian in the place ; at other 
 places the troops show the same dissatisfaction and 
 are turning out. Here there is expected a rumpus. At 
 this moment all the troops are turned out for parade 
 at Mean Meer, and it is intended to disarm the native 
 troops. We have only seven hundred English and a 
 few artillery. — Ten o'clock. All arms are out of the 
 hands of the natives. They were taken by surprise, and 
 left them, after having piled arms, at the order ' right 
 about,' seeing at sixty yards the 81st Regiment loaded 
 with ball, and ten guns pointing towards them loaded with 
 grape. All men are to meet at Sir John Lawrence's 
 office with all the arms they can muster. We are afraid 
 what we may hear from Umritsur, where they have no 
 English troops." 
 
 For five months past there had been indications of 
 the coming storm in Bengal. There had been gross in- 
 subordination in several regiments, and disturbances about 
 the greased cartridges. But mutinies of single regiments 
 had occurred not infrequently before in India, without 
 leading to serious results, and few men, especially in the 
 Bengal presidency where they occurred, considered these 
 manifestations of disaffection as having deeper roots than 
 in mere local and passing grievances. 
 
 Frere saw matters in a different light. He knew some- 
 thing of the condition of the Bengal army. He had fore-
 
 1857.] OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 173 
 
 seen great danger from the policy of annexation and 
 centralization which Lord Dalhousie had promoted. Ten 
 years before, as we have seen, he had apprehended the 
 possibility of grave consequences from the annexation of 
 Sattara. He had doubted the justice and wisdom of the 
 annexation of Sind. Still less did he approve of the high- 
 handed proceedings in respect of Cashmere, of the Emperor 
 of Delhi, of the Ranee of Jhansi, of the ex-Peishwa. At- 
 taching great importance to dealing tenderly and in a 
 conservative spirit with native customs and institutions, he 
 saw grave danger in the hard uniformity and indifference 
 to local feeling, of which the land-system of the North-West 
 Provinces and the harsh treatment and degradation of the 
 native landed aristocracy of the Punjab were instances ; 
 nor did he share the prevalent belief in the contented 
 disposition of the natives as a result of such government. 
 
 What he thought on these matters may be gathered 
 from the following extracts from some letters written in 
 1865 to Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Kaye, criticizing his 
 " Sepoy War " : — 
 
 "August 20, 1865. 
 " In your account of the Indian estimate of Lord Dal- 
 housie, you have, I think, been led into the very natural 
 mistake of accepting the estimate formed of him in the 
 Bengal Presidency for the estimate of all India. You 
 have correctly described him as he appeared to the great 
 majority of leaders of opinion in the civil and military 
 services of the vast Bengal Presidency, from Peshawur to 
 Singapoor ; but a very different opinion of him prevailed 
 throughout the other half of India, including the Bombay 
 and Madras Presidencies, where every justice was done to 
 his vast ability as an administrator, but where there was 
 a very extensive and profound distrust of him as a states- 
 man. . . . His farewell Minute was admired, in what you 
 will perhaps call these benighted regions, rather for its 
 magnificent composition than for any other quality as a 
 State Paper. There was a very widespread feeling that
 
 174 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 all was not so smooth as it seemed outside in 1856, and 
 the explosion of '57 did not affect men in Madras and 
 Bombay with the same surprise which you have so graphi- 
 cally described in Bengal." * 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " July 22, 1865. 
 
 "When you say that there is no blame to be recorded 
 against the Governor-General for the conduct of his final 
 dispute with Napier, do you not take rather a limited and 
 official view of their differences ? No doubt, technically 
 and officially the Governor-General was right and the 
 Commander-in-Chief wrong — there could be no question 
 as to which the Ministry at home was bound to support 
 — but will not history blame the statesman who refused to 
 be warned by such a soldier as Napier ? — who, as far as we 
 can judge, shut his eyes to the danger Napier had clearly 
 pointed out, and was content to entrust the task from 
 
 which Napier retired to such incompetent hands as , 
 
 and who left the empire which he had governed for so 
 many years with the sincere conviction, as testified in his 
 
 * Sir James Outram, then in command of the expedition to Persia, 
 had written thence, on April 27, to Lord Elphinstone : " The mutinous 
 spirit so extensively displayed in the Bengal army is a very serious 
 matter, and is the consequence of the faulty system of its organization, 
 so different from that of Bombay, where such insubordination is 
 scarcely possible ; for with us the intermediate tie between the Euro- 
 pean officers and the men — i.e. the native officers — is a loyal, efficient 
 body, selected for their superior ability, and gratefully attached to 
 their officers in consequence. Their superior ability naturally exercises 
 a wholesome influence over the men, among whom no mutinous spirit 
 could be engendered without their knowledge, and the exertion of their 
 influence to counteract it, whereas the seniority system of the Bengal 
 army supplies neither able nor influential native officers — old imbeciles 
 merely, possessing no control over the men, and owing no gratitude 
 to their officers, or to the Government, for a position which is merely 
 the result of seniority in the service. 
 
 " I pointed this out to Lord Dalhousie once, who told me he had 
 seriously considered the matter, and had consulted some of the highest 
 officers of the Bengal army, who, one and all, deprecated any attempt 
 to change the system, as a dangerous innovation. Whatever the 
 danger, it should be incurred, the change being gradually introduced ; 
 for as at present constituted, the Bengal army never can be depended 
 on." (" Life of Outram," by Sir F. Goldsmid, vol. vi. p. 5.)
 
 ISS7-] WHAT CAUSED THE MUTINY. 175 
 
 famous parting Minute, that the dangers against which 
 Napier, Jacob, and Henry Lawrence had been warning him 
 had no existence ? . . . 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " July 30. 
 
 "John Jacob went to the root of the matter in his pub- 
 lished criticisms, and left the rulers of India no room to 
 say that the truth had not been preached to them. . . . 
 Lord Dalhousie's censure of John Jacob's published criti- 
 cisms was a model in its way, quite sufficient to annihilate 
 an ordinary man, but in proportion to its official effective- 
 ness is the damage it must inflict on the reputation for 
 statesmanship of him who could thus devote his skill to 
 muzzle his watch-dogs." 
 
 As for the heads of the Bengal native army — 
 
 " Poor John Jacob," he wrote, two years after this time 
 (August 7, 1859) and after Jacob's death, to Mr. G. T. 
 Clark, " who knew them well, had long before pointed out 
 the utter rottenness of their whole system, and the want 
 of discipline, manliness, and truth, which characterized all 
 our dealings with the Bengal native army. He had been 
 vilified in every possible way for his pains, officially 
 silenced by Lord Dalhousie and the Calcutta philosophers, 
 so far as it is possible to gag such a man, and few, but 
 those who knew him personally, thoroughly believed him. 
 Still there were many of his intimate friends besides myself 
 who saw he spoke only the truth, and were prepared for 
 the worst." 
 
 " Is it not strange," Frere writes to Lord Elphinstone 
 three weeks after the outbreak (June 7, 1857), "that a man 
 like Sir John Lawrence should believe the new cartridges 
 were the real cause of the outbreak, or anything more than 
 the occasion for the outbreak of a feeling caused by a long 
 period of mismanagement ? " * 
 
 * It is a significant commentary on the belief that the greased 
 cartridges were the prime and sole cause of the Mutiny that Captain 
 Macauley, during his campaign in Rajpootana in command of a 
 Belooch regiment in July, 1858, found some of the greased cartridges 
 in the possession of, and being used by the rebels. He says : "In 
 one of the houses which had been occupied by the rebels. I found,
 
 1/6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 Thus it was that the report of the outbreak, of which 
 there had been no sort of anticipation when he left Bom- 
 bay, found Frere more prepared to credit it and to realize 
 its full import, than perhaps any other leading man at that 
 time in India. And his frame of mind was such that when, 
 within a few minutes of his landing, after a year's absence, 
 he received Mr. Brunton's letter, he did not, as most men 
 would have done in such circumstances — seeing that it did 
 not come from Meerut or Delhi, and that the worst part 
 of the intelligence it contained was second-hand — doubt 
 its accuracy, or wait for confirmation of it, or account 
 the disturbance as a local matter, nine hundred miles off, 
 which did not concern him and his government in Sind ; 
 
 amongst other things, three of the identical cartridges, the issue of 
 which was made the plea for mutinying ; others of these were also 
 found by some of the ist Bombay Light Cavalry (Lancers), who 
 brought them to Lieutenant Stack, their troop officer ; and on the line 
 of march next afternoon this officer, showing them to me, asked me if 
 I knew to what regiment they belonged. On telling him they were the 
 greased cartridges, he gave them to the Soobedar of his troop, a 
 Brahmin, who not only took and carefully examined them, but put one 
 in his cap-pouch to show in the lines to the men of his troop." 
 
 Colonel Malleson, in his " History of the Indian Mutiny" (vol. iii. 
 p. 470), thus sums up the question : "After an exhaustive argument, 
 Sir J. Lawrence arrived at the conclusion that the Mutiny was due to 
 the greased cartridges, and to the greased cartridges only. The public 
 applauded a result so beautiful in its simplicity, so easy of compre- 
 hension ; . . . with them it remains still the unanswerable reason for 
 the Mutiny of the Indian army. . . . Before a greased cartridge had 
 been issued the chupatties had been circulated by thousands in many 
 rural districts. . . . 
 
 " The real cause of the Mutiny may be expressed in a condensed form 
 in two words — bad faith. It was bad faith to our Sepoys, which made 
 their minds prone to suspicion ; it was our policy of annexation ; of re- 
 fusing to Hindu chiefs the permission to adopt — with them a necessary 
 religious rite ; of suddenly bringing a whole people under the operation 
 of complex rules to which they were unaccustomed, as in Oudh, in the 
 Sagar and Narbadd territory, and in Bandahhand ; and our breaches 
 of customs, more sacred to the natives than laws, which roused the 
 large landowners and the rural population against the British rule."
 
 IS57-] THE PERIL REALIZED. 177 
 
 but as he read the letter, he comprehended at a glance 
 the full gravity of the situation, and took action without 
 an hour's delay — action for the rescue of India, as in ex- 
 tremity of peril, not merely for the protection of his own 
 province. 
 
 Having sent on the letter by an express to Lord 
 Elphinstone at Bombay, he forwarded a copy of it, by 
 the same steamer which had just brought him to Kurra- 
 chee, to Outram and Jacob on the shores of the Persian 
 Gulf, where they had just brought the Persian expedition 
 to a successful end, writing at the same time to urge upon 
 them the need of bringing back the troops to India as fast 
 as possible. Another copy he sent to Captain Raikes, the 
 Acting Political Agent in Kutch, the nearest native state 
 on the south-east border of Sind, who had charge of the 
 postal lines of communication there, telling him to do 
 everything necessary at whatever cost to keep them open, 
 and that he (Frere) would be responsible. 
 
 To Jacob he wrote : — 
 
 "May iS, 1857. 
 
 " I was greeted on my arrival here to-day by the news 
 •contained in the enclosed. 
 
 " It is of very grave import — and as regards Lahore can 
 hardly be much exaggerated. I send it for your own and 
 Outram's perusal, as this fulfilment of what you have so 
 often and so long ago predicted would one day occur, may 
 materially affect his plans as to sending back Europeans 
 to India. All here well. I am thoroughly knocked up 
 by nearly five days of the filthiest and worst-manned 
 steamer ever provided for me. Take care to have her 
 well cleaned ere you send any sick by her, else they will 
 be stifled in their beds by the smell." 
 
 To Outram he wrote the next day — official intelli- 
 gence of the outbreak having in the mean time reached 
 him : — 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 " May 19, 1857. 
 " The enclosed copy of a letter from Mr. Macleod, the 
 Financial Commissioner in the Punjab, will show you 
 that the report of the state of affairs there, as given in 
 Mr. Brunton's letter, of which I sent Jacob a copy yester- 
 day, was by no means exaggerated. I daily expect a call [for 
 help] from Sind. You know how limited our means are at 
 present, and you will see from the enclosed that every man 
 who can be spared from the Persian Gulf will find enough 
 to do in the North-West before the year is out. If you 
 have an opportunity of sending me a letter direct, will 
 you let me know if there is any chance of your sending 
 any, and what men, back to Kurrachee. Of the river 
 steamers, which are the article in which we are just now 
 most deficient, there is little chance of your being able to 
 spare any till the monsoon is over, but you will be able 
 to judge of this better than we can. I have no time for 
 congratulations on your many successes, nor to say how 
 much I wish you were out of the heat and malaria in 
 Persia and among us again in India, where, verily, we can 
 just now ill spare men like you and your General of 
 Cavalry. God keep you both." 
 
 Outram received Frere's first letter and enclosure at 
 Bagdad, and forwarded it at once to Lord Stratford de 
 Redcliffe, the British Ambassador at Constantinople, with 
 a request that he would move the Porte to allow regiments 
 from Malta to pass through Egypt. He hoped that his 
 letter would reach Constantinople before the regular over- 
 land mail, and that in any case no time would be lost in 
 sending out reinforcements overland, if possible.* Lord 
 
 * Frere to Sir J. Lawrence, June 29, 1857. Mrs. Frere, moved by 
 his letters to do so and in deepest anxiety, kept urging Sir George 
 Clerk, then at the Board of Control, to press the sending of troops 
 overland. At last, but not till September, she got a note from him to 
 say, " Your persistency has conquered : a detachment of troops is to 
 go overland. They are to start in plain clothes, and have their 
 muskets packed in boxes." About two hundred men of the 57th 
 Regiment were sent from Malta through Egypt ; the plain clothes 
 were to avoid hurting the susceptibilities of the French. Frere 
 attached great importance to troops being sent overland, however few
 
 I857-] AVAILABLE STRENGTH. 179 
 
 Stratford de Redcliffe did obtain the Porte's permission, 
 which, had it been acted upon at once, would have enabled 
 reinforcements to reach India in August, at latest. 
 
 Perceiving the peril in which the Punjab was placed, 
 and that the position of the mutineers at Delhi and the 
 stress of danger elsewhere would probably prevent any 
 reinforcements being sent thither from Bengal and Calcutta, 
 he, within a couple of hours of landing, sought an interview 
 with the General commanding the troops in Sind, and 
 urged him at once to send some European soldiers up the 
 Indus to Mooltan, to reinforce Sir John Lawrence and 
 to secure the safety of that station, so important as being 
 the key of the communication of the Punjab with Sind ; 
 for he foresaw that not only would no European troops 
 be able to be spared from Bengal, but also that the Indus 
 valley would become the only channel of communication 
 between the Punjab and the rest of India by which 
 assistance could be sent, and without which it would be 
 absolutely isolated. His conjecture was soon confirmed. 
 On June 3rd Lord Canning telegraphed to Sir John 
 Lawrence, in answer to his application for reinforcements : 
 " I can give you no assistance with Europeans in the 
 Punjab. You are better off for Europeans than any other 
 part of India, and you must do your best with what you 
 have got." 
 
 Owing to the drain for the Persian war the number of 
 troops in Sind, frontier-province as it was, was already 
 much smaller than usual. Sir Charles Napier used to 
 require a force of fourteen thousand there, about one-third 
 of them Europeans. There were now in the province four 
 
 in number ; not only because every man was urgently needed, but 
 because of the effect on the native mind of the evidence that troops 
 could be so sent, and at such short notice. Had more troops been 
 sent that way, and sooner, it would, he thought, have made a great 
 difference.
 
 l80 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 Bombay native infantry regiments, a Belooch battalion, 
 and two batteries of Native Artillery, one at Shikarpore, 
 the other at Hyderabad, and on the frontier at Jacobabad 
 one regiment (eight hundred sabres) of Sind Horse, and 
 the 6th Irregular Bengal Cavalry (five hundred and fifty 
 sabres). Of European soldiers there were in all Sind only 
 the ist European Fusiliers and the depot of the 2nd 
 Europeans (about three hundred strong). 
 
 It was a grave matter at such a time to diminish a force 
 already too weak, and the General commanding in Sind 
 at first was inclined to hesitate. But Frere, taking all 
 responsibility upon himself, prevailed on him to comply 
 with his request, and arrange to send off at once to 
 Mooltan the Belooch battalion and a wing of the ist 
 European Fusiliers. In so doing he anticipated a request 
 from Lord Elphinstone, which arrived a few days later, 
 that he would do this. The Beloochees, who were already 
 on their way to Hyderabad, at once marched on to Roree, 
 to be transported the rest of the way by steamer up the 
 Indus. On the 25th two steamers came down the river to 
 Kurrachee, on which the detachment of five hundred and 
 fifty men of the ist Europeans were to be embarked. It 
 had been intended to send six hundred and fifty men, 
 but this would have entailed overcrowding on board, which 
 in the fierce summer heat of Upper Sind, through which 
 they would pass, would have probably caused sickness 
 and loss of life. 
 
 It was a grievous disappointment and annoyance to 
 Frere, on his return to Sind, to find that the Indus flotilla, 
 on the importance and efficient maintenance of which he 
 had so repeatedly and emphatically insisted, was now, in 
 the hour of trial, not immediately or fully available. The 
 materials of four fine large steamers and four river-flats 
 had been sent out from England to Sind in the previous
 
 1857.] THE INDUS FLOTILLA. l8l 
 
 November or December, and everything ought to have 
 been ready to put them together there. The builder, Mr. 
 Laird, had protested against their being put together any- 
 where but on or near the river where they were to be used, 
 because, when built at Bombay, the steamers had always 
 been strained and injured, and on two occasions were lost 
 on their way up ; and the Court of Directors, accordingly, 
 had ordered that thenceforth they should be put together 
 in Sind. Nevertheless the Bombay dockyard authorities 
 insisted on their being taken to Bombay instead of straight 
 to Kurrachee ; and up to April nothing was done. Jacob 
 (Frere writes, September 2, 1857) "thought the whole 
 flotilla contrary to the laws of nature, and was for abolish- 
 ing it root and branch, so he took no interest in the 
 matter, which is one of the few points in which I do not 
 agree with him." When Barrow Ellis succeeded Jacob as 
 Acting Commissioner, he found the steamers, which had 
 been at last sent on with no workmen to put them together, 
 in sections, rusting on the beach, and at once set to work 
 with such men as he had, and asked for a six months' 
 sanction for the employment of the additional artificers 
 that were required. Thus when Frere arrived on May 18 
 the new vessels were hardly begun to be put together, and 
 the only really serviceable old vessels were with the Persian 
 expedition on the Euphrates. 
 
 On May 28 he writes to Lord Elphinstone from 
 Kurrachee — 
 
 " I went to see the first detachment of the Fusiliers on 
 board the Nimrod and Jhelum this morning. They were 
 to start at II a.m., and the Satellite, with a hundred 
 and thirty more, will, I hope, be off to-morrow, making 
 but three hundred and thirty in all, I am sorry to say, 
 instead of five hundred and fifty, as I anticipated ; but 
 almost at the last moment the General changed his mind 
 about the flats, wished to leave them behind, and said
 
 1 82 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 that if they went it would be five days before the detach- 
 ment could start. Captain Daniell * agreed with me that 
 it would have been better to have sent the flats, but as it 
 was quite clear that if I urged the point there would be 
 several days' delay, and I thought that three hundred and 
 thirty men at once were better than five hundred and fifty 
 a week or ten days later, I let him arrange in his own way. 
 He had applied for the services of Captain Dansey, who 
 was employed in the Civil Department, and I acceded the 
 more willingly, because Captain Dansey has the reputation 
 of being a very zealous and energetic officer, and I thought 
 that the command of the first detachment might require 
 some judgment and decision, should anything unusual 
 occur at Mooltan or on the way up, and I suggested to 
 him to leave the arrangements as much as possible to 
 Captain Dansey. He thought 'it would be entirely a 
 military operation.' I willingly consented, anxious only 
 to get the men off; and he then got alarmed at the 
 responsibility — said it was ' a very delicate operation, 
 partly military and partly political,' and sent Captain 
 Dansey over to me for ' instructions,' to return to him for 
 ' final instructions.' I said I could give none but to get 
 up to Bukkur as fast as he could, and there look out for 
 orders from Sir John Lawrence or his nearest representa- 
 tive, and to take care of himself and steamers. 
 
 " As I make a point of troubling the General as little as 
 possible with official letters, the correspondence which is 
 forwarded to-day to Government will give but a very faint 
 idea of the trouble of getting off these two hundred men, 
 and but for his changes of plans they might have been off 
 on Tuesday morning at latest. 
 
 " I suggested to him to ask for Field Establishment and 
 Field Batta for the Beloochees, and for riding-camels, to 
 help them on with as little fatigue as possible. This he 
 has done, and I have sanctioned the Establishment and 
 camels as necessary to speedy and easy marching in antici- 
 pation of your lordship's approval. 
 
 " The Fusiliers seemed very comfortable and in the 
 highest spirits. 
 
 " The Beloochees were to leave Hyderabad to-day ; 
 Colonel Farquhar says they are highly flattered at being 
 employed." 
 
 * Of the Indus Flotilla.
 
 I857-] REINFORCEMENTS TO THE PUNJAB. 183 
 
 On June 5, he writes — 
 
 " The Europeans continue to go off very slowly. On 
 every occasion several days elapse after the steamers are 
 reported ready, before the men are on board." 
 
 And on June 14 — 
 
 " The two first steamers with two hundred men under 
 Captain Dansey passed the Bukkur Rapids in safety on 
 the 10th. This was a great load off my mind, for, owing 
 to the mistake of the Flotilla officer at Mooltan in sending 
 down the steamer which Captain Daniell meant to keep 
 above the Pass and the delays in embarking here, it was 
 quite possible they might have found the Rapids at Bukkur 
 impassable ; but the river fortunately fell suddenly for two 
 or three days, and by great exertion the steamers were 
 warped through. I hope they will be at Mooltan by the 
 17th. The Beloochees will be at Sukkur by the 21st, and 
 I have asked the General to give Colonel Farquhar dis- 
 cretionary power to halt there or push on according to the 
 state of affairs on the Frontier and at Shikarpoor. I 
 purpose to continue the upward movement of the Fusiliers 
 as fast as we can. The Conqueror is in such bad order 
 that I ordered Captain Daniell to let her land forty men 
 whom the Satellite could not take at Hyderabad, and 
 then return here, when, after repairs, she will be able to 
 run between this and Hyderabad, and save some time in 
 the upward transport of the rest of the regiment when we 
 are able to get the other steamers. We could get the 
 Indus, capable of carrying a whole regiment, ready in a 
 few weeks, if Sir H. Leeke would only send us up a few 
 riveters. By the two last steamers he sent up a score of 
 engineer apprentices, a class of men of which but two or 
 three were required and who knew nothing of riveting, 
 and only one or two riveters — the sort of workmen he 
 knows we want most urgently. I am told any number 
 might be got if he promoted good second-class men 
 to first-class and so on. His conduct at a moment 
 like this really seems to me unpardonable. Captain 
 Daniell is doing the greater part of the work with men 
 taught up here, but it takes a long while to teach a 
 man."
 
 1 84 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VL 
 
 Again, on the following day, he writes — 
 
 " Sir H. Leeke writes to order Captain Daniell down to 
 give evidence before the Supreme Court, but this would 
 be nearly tantamount to stopping all that is doing in the 
 Flotilla, and I have therefore been obliged to interpose and 
 direct him to remain at his post. Sir Henry also ordered 
 him to send down the Victoria directly the Lady Canning 
 arrived ; but the latter arrived in such a state that it will 
 be many days ere it will be safe to let her tow in vessels ; 
 and with so many transports expected, it would be most 
 dangerous to part with the Victoria, and I have therefore 
 been compelled to order her to remain. I trust your Lord- 
 ship will approve of all this. It would save infinite trouble 
 if Sir H. would send orders through the Commissioner. 
 At a time like this he can never tell what is happening so 
 many hundred miles off." 
 
 Again, June 26 — 
 
 " I have written officially strongly recommending a piece 
 of decentralization (or I suppose one ought to say centri- 
 fugalization), without which I am confident the Indus 
 Flotilla must remain in its present wretchedly inefficient 
 state. Your Lordship must think me afflicted with a 
 monomania on the subject, but I assure you the cases 
 regarding which I trouble you form but a very small 
 portion of what I hear, but am unable to bring forward. I 
 am quite hopeless of ever seeing matters mend unless the 
 Flotilla be put under the direct control of the Government, 
 and the Commander-in-Chief (of Indian Navy) allowed to 
 interfere no more than he does with a steamer for the 
 China Station. 
 
 " I would not wish for better officers than Captains 
 Ethersey and Daniell, but I have seen matters get gradu- 
 ally worse ever since Admiral Lushington left, and I can 
 only attribute it to that constant interference which, I can 
 assure your Lordship, I have never seen exercised in any 
 single instance save to the detriment of the public service. 
 I could not have remained silent so long but that I was 
 deterred by a feeling that, notwithstanding the warm 
 interest your Lordship and Lord Falkland took in the 
 matter and the support you always gave me, any plan for 
 improving our river Flotilla or Marine met with an amount
 
 I857-] OFFICIAL PEDANTRY. 1 85 
 
 of cold water at Bombay, quite sufficient to drown a 
 landsman like myself. 
 
 " But I could stand it no longer when I saw what our 
 countrymen did and are doing up country, — heard their 
 applications for help, and remembered that with a dis- 
 posable force and excellent troops eager for employment, 
 and a navigable river, and all the elements of a powerful 
 steam Flotilla, we are sending tributes of two hundred 
 men at a time in steamers which ought not to be 
 allowed to run, to help men who are marching twenty- 
 five miles a day, for weeks together, in a Punjab May 
 and June." 
 
 Frere, at this critical time, in his correspondence with 
 Lord Elphinstone, speaks with plainness and sometimes 
 even with severity of some of the officials with whom 
 he had to work. It was no time for standing on ceremony. 
 Ever since he first came to Sind, he had had frequently 
 to contend with the obstructiveness or supineness of some 
 of the Bombay departments ; and though he eventually 
 succeeded in getting most of his plans for the development 
 of the country sanctioned, yet it was at the cost of long 
 delay in carrying them out, the evil consequences of which 
 were now becoming sufficiently apparent. In the hour of 
 extreme peril, official obstructiveness and a pedantic 
 adherence to hard and fast regulations, persisted in in the 
 face of unprecedented circumstances and new dangers 
 occurring from day to day, could hardly fail to be fatal to 
 the very existence of the Empire. 
 
 Fortunately his chief, Lord Elphinstone, the Governor 
 of Bombay, though of quiet, retiring disposition, was a man 
 of great sagacity, ability, and strength of will, whose high 
 merit, not fully recognized by the Press or the Public in 
 England, was well known to the Home Government, by 
 whom he had been nominated as Lord Canning's successor 
 in case of any accident befalling him. Lord Elphinstone 
 fully appreciated Frere's powers and merits and the value
 
 1 86 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 of having him as "the guardian of his left flank," and 
 again and again interposed authoritatively in his favour 
 in his contests with various departments. Throughout 
 this period Frere was in almost daily correspondence with 
 him on all that was passing around them, and was en- 
 couraged by the assurance that he would receive from him 
 unfailing sympathy and support. 
 
 Ever since he had been Commissioner in Sind, he had 
 been enforcing the paramount geographical importance of 
 Kurrachee as the natural harbour, and of Sind and the 
 Indus valley as the natural channel of communication 
 between North Western India and England. And now 
 that Bengal was in revolt, cutting off all direct communica- 
 tion between the North-West Provinces and Calcutta, 
 Kurrachee had inevitably become the mouth, and the 
 Indus valley the throat, through which alone the Punjab 
 could be reinforced with troops and fed with supplies, or 
 could even speak with Calcutta or England. Clearly 
 therefore Lower Sind was the true base of operations, and 
 should have had a vigorous general officer, with ample 
 powers to act on his own responsibility, or with sufficient 
 force of character to act independently of orders as the 
 changing necessities of the hour demanded. It was folly 
 to suppose that there could be prompt and vigorous action 
 if orders — often, when they came, conflicting orders — were 
 to be awaited from Bombay, five hundred miles distant, 
 and from which the post sometimes did not arrive for five 
 days together. 
 
 Frere, in a letter to Mr. G. T. Clark, written two years 
 afterwards, describes the General commanding in Sind as — 
 
 "August 7, 1859. 
 
 " A fine specimen of a gentlemanly and well-educated 
 Light Cavalry officer, a perfect picture on horseback, and 
 excellent at the head of his regiment, but not more fond
 
 i8S7-] THE MILITARY SITUATION. 187 
 
 of innovation than the Senior U.S. Club generally are, and 
 not so young as he was twenty-three years before, when I 
 found him at Poona, Colonel of the 4th Dragoons. How- 
 ever, a braver old gentleman never drew a sabre, and 
 nothing could be better than the spirit with which he 
 agreed to all the suggestions for diminishing his already 
 weak force when the want of men elsewhere was 
 urgent." 
 
 But the General had not the ability or elasticity to 
 enable him to cope with an emergency which transcended 
 all experience. When he should have been directing and 
 acting, he was waiting for instructions or seeking advice ; 
 and Frere found himself, against his own inclinations, 
 suggesting, advising, remonstrating, and practically direct- 
 ing the disposition and movement of troops, and concerting 
 measures of detail for the safety of Sind and the succour 
 of threatened places outside it, as though he were himself 
 the Commander of the troops. Needless to say, this was 
 done with the utmost tact, delicacy, and consideration, and 
 the two men were from first to last on cordial and intimate 
 terms. But the fact remained that it was to Frere that all 
 turned for instructions and protection, as the one strong 
 and prescient man in the province who knew his own mind, 
 was prepared for all emergencies, and held the threads of 
 Government, military as well as civil, in his own hands. 
 
 Whether it was owing to his finding himself in this 
 position, or only to the natural bent of his mind to soldier- 
 ing and strategy, he found time so early as June 6, and 
 long before the Mutiny had developed to its full extent, to 
 write a long and elaborate minute on the military position 
 of India with reference to the Mutiny. Treating the 
 Bengal army as practically gone, he assumed that a regular 
 campaign would be necessary for the reconquest of Bengal 
 and the North- West, and indicated the bases of operations 
 where troops should be concentrated and the lines by
 
 1 88 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 which they should advance. He urged that in the quiet 
 parts of India, instead of waiting inactive, listening to, and 
 perhaps being demoralized by the news of disasters in 
 Bengal, the troops should be organized with a view to 
 commencing the campaign as soon as the summer heats 
 were over. Urging the impossibility of ultimately relying 
 on English soldiers alone for holding the country, he 
 recommended the raising of additional companies to 
 increase some of the native regiments ; and he pointed out 
 in detail the essential difference between the regulations of 
 the Bengal, and those of the Bombay army, which had 
 contributed to produce such different results. It was a 
 remarkable document, which said in plain language that 
 which required to be said, and what no soldier in authority 
 could be found to say. 
 
 It will be remembered that at the outbreak of the 
 Mutiny in May there was no European artillery in the 
 province. At Kurrachee there were a few guns, but not 
 a single gunner or waggon. On the return of the Artil- 
 lery from Persia Frere had sent it all away to other 
 parts of India, except one troop of Horse Artillery, 
 which remained at Kurrachee. He now suggested taking 
 about ninety volunteers from the depot of the 2nd Euro- 
 pean Regiment to be trained as artillerymen to form a 
 battery. This plan was taken in hand and carried out by 
 Colonel Hutt with spirit, and in a short time an efficient 
 battery was in course of being formed. On August 15, 
 Frere had to represent that the Commander-in-Chief at 
 Bombay had peremptorily ordered these artillery volun- 
 teers out of the province without so much as informing 
 him of the order, and leaving the General no discretion. 
 His remonstrance produced the desired effect, and a strong 
 letter was written by the Bombay Government to the 
 Adjutant-General insisting that the Commissioner should
 
 1857.] LIEUT. G. B. TYRWHITT. 1 89 
 
 be allowed a discretionary power to suspend orders for the 
 withdrawal of troops from Sind. 
 
 Another matter of vital importance that occupied his 
 attention as soon as he heard of the interruption of direct 
 communication between the Punjab and Calcutta, was the 
 opening of a line of communication, shorter than the way 
 by Kurrachee and Bombay, the only one now remaining 
 open. He found that it would be best to re-open the route 
 via Oomercote, Joudpur, and Nusserabad to Agra, which, 
 before the annexation of the Punjab, was the usual line of 
 postal communication between Sind and Calcutta, but 
 which had been discontinued for the last five or six years. 
 He also determined to endeavour to connect this route at 
 Joudpur with a branch to Bhawalpur and Mooltan, so as 
 to obviate the necessity of Punjab letters passing through 
 Sind, and to give them a shorter line of communication 
 with Agra and Calcutta. It was no easy matter ; there 
 was the desert to cross and it was the hot season of the 
 year ; but there was an officer holding a command in that 
 part of Sind whence the dawk would have to start to cross 
 the desert, who, he knew, would do it if any one could.* 
 
 Lieutenant George Booth Tyrvvhitt, of the 5th Bombay 
 Light Infantry, was one of those men whose redundant 
 animal spirits and superabundant energy are apt in quiet 
 times and in civilized society to bring them into trouble 
 oftener than to lead them to success, and are only appre- 
 ciated in times of danger and distress. As a boy he 
 had run away to sea and served as a common sailor, and 
 when afterwards he obtained a commission in the Bombay 
 army, and subsequently was given the appointment of 
 Deputy Collector of Mirpur and Oomercote on the eastern 
 district of Sind next the Great Desert, he still retained his 
 sailor-like appearance and frank boyish manner, wearing 
 * Frere to Lord Elphinstone, June 19, 1857.
 
 190 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 rings in his ears, and ever ready for an adventure or a 
 practical joke.* A favourite, and always on cordial and 
 intimate terms with the natives in his district, he knew 
 exactly where and from whom to purchase camels and all 
 that he needed, with the least possible delay. On June 19, 
 a month after his arrival at Kurrachee, Frere writes to 
 Lord Elphinstone that in spite of the great heat and every 
 other obstacle opposed to Europeans travelling at that 
 season of the year, Tyrwhitt, assisted by two inspectors, 
 had by great local influence been enabled to carry the 
 line through to Balmeer, "and the line is complete, I hope, 
 ere this, to Joudpur." On receipt of the news that the 
 Mutiny had broken out at Nusseerabad, and that Ajmere 
 was threatened, instructions were given by Frere to connect 
 the line with Deesa, as an additional security. Letters 
 went from Balmeer to Hyderabad at the rate of eight 
 miles an hour, which for desert travelling was very good. 
 
 This line remained open throughout the Mutiny year, 
 and to estimate its value and the time saved in the trans- 
 mission of intelligence between the Punjab and the seat of 
 Government at Calcutta, it is only necessary to remember 
 that but for its existence, a despatch from Mooltan or 
 Peshawur to Calcutta would have had to go the whole way 
 round by Lower Sind and Bombay. 
 
 This was only one among many of Tyrwhitt's achieve- 
 ments. Later on, at the cost of great labour and personal 
 risk, he succeeded in bringing away a number of ladies 
 and sick officers from Joudpur to Sind, across the great 
 desert, in the hottest season of the year, and through a 
 
 * On one occasion he telegraphed from Hyderabad to several of 
 his friends at Kurrachee, about a hundred miles distant, " Poor 
 Tyrwhitt dead ; come at once." Some of them went and found him 
 prepared, not to be buried, but to entertain them at dinner. He had 
 merely worded the invitation in the way best calculated to sec ure, their 
 attendance.
 
 I8S7.] CAMEL-DAWK. 191 
 
 very disturbed part of Rajputana, when all other routes 
 were closed by the insurgents. 
 
 The Indus flotilla, as has been shown, was in May 
 hardly sufficient for the task of carrying even a few 
 soldiers up the river from Kurrachee to Mooltan. In June 
 and July troops were arriving from the Persian Gulf, and 
 more were expected. Every available steamer would be 
 wanted for conveying them ; the ordnance and other stores 
 could not be taken in addition, and already they were 
 beginning to accumulate at Kurrachee, which threatened 
 to become a second Balaklava. Of English rifle-bullets 
 alone there were forty-five tons awaiting transmission, and 
 about thirty-five tons of other stores ; while in the Punjab, 
 hospital supplies and clothing were greatly needed, and 
 such was the scarcity of ammunition there that the con- 
 duct and success of the siege of Delhi was being seriously 
 endangered by it. 
 
 The only other available means of transport was by 
 camels — a very tedious process, occupying from five to six 
 weeks, according to circumstances. It occurred to Frere 
 that the time required for the journey might be reduced 
 to less than a. fortnight by the establishment of a camel- 
 dawk, so that it might be performed continuously by relays 
 of camels, without stoppages. The organization and 
 management of the camel-train was entrusted to Colonel 
 Hutt, a most energetic officer, whose intimate knowledge 
 of the Belooch and Brahoe tribes enabled him to collect 
 some of the chiefs together, and conclude a contract with 
 one of them, Morad Khan, a respectable Pathan of Kur- 
 rachee, for the supply of camels. They began with about 
 five hundred, and a dawk was laid at intervals of twenty- 
 five or thirty miles, with about twenty camels at each 
 stage, which were soon increased to sixty. Each camel 
 was to carry a load of three hundred and twenty pounds,
 
 192 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 making at first a despatch of about three tons of stores at 
 intervals of three days. The camels would return at 
 leisure, grazing as they went, so as to be ready to start 
 fresh on getting back to their stations. The time occupied 
 in the journey of five hundred miles seldom exceeded ten 
 days. The camels were also available for use in carrying 
 soldiers in detachments of forty at a time, though they 
 were only once so used, viz. in conveying the 7th Dragoon 
 Guards to Hyderabad. The train was so successful and so 
 much needed that in a few months the number of camels 
 at work was increased to nearly ten thousand, by which 
 large supplies were sent up to assist the siege of Delhi. 
 
 So honestly and well did the camel owners and drivers 
 do their work, that though there was only their word for 
 the performance of their contract, not the value of a bale- 
 lashing was ever lost. " On one occasion a barrel of am- 
 munition," writes Sir George Hutt, " was missing, and for a 
 long time could not be traced ; at last, as the river fell, it 
 was found in the mud. A Brahoe immediately started on 
 a camel, and never stopped till he brought it to me at 
 Kurrachee. He rushed into my tent at a very early hour : 
 ' There is your barrel ! ' he exclaimed, and he almost threw 
 it on my bed." 
 
 On July 26 Frere received a letter from Lord Elphin- 
 stone, desiring him to send to Bombay for service in the 
 Deccan a wing of the 2nd European Regiment, if it could 
 possibly be spared. This would leave, besides ninety re- 
 cruits and the same number transferred to the artillery, 
 only a hundred and thirty-nine effective European bayonets 
 for the whole of Sind ! 
 
 He did not hesitate. He wrote to Sir J. Lawrence the 
 same day, and remarking that " when troops were needed 
 in the citadel the outworks must get on as best they can 
 with reduced numbers," he says : —
 
 1857-] REINFORCEMENTS TO THE DECCAN. 193 
 
 " I had rather have sent it (the wing of the 2nd Euro- 
 peans) to you for many reasons, of which I will only 
 mention the selfish one that they would have passed 
 through the province, and before they were all out we 
 might have hoped for the news, at least, of overland rein- 
 forcements. However, I cannot say they cannot be spared, 
 though a weak wing of a sickly regiment is a small force 
 of Europeans for this whole province ; but we are quiet, 
 and I hope may continue so ; and when every part of the 
 Empire is so pressed, we must take our share of the risks, 
 and if any danger arises, meet it as best we may." * 
 
 Of the tranquillity and absence of disaffection amongst 
 the country population of Sind he felt assured. Better 
 governed and more prosperous beyond all comparison 
 than they had ever been before, they had no violated tra- 
 ditions, no unwelcome administrative innovations to com- 
 plain of, and had every reason to be contented. As to the 
 population of the towns, it was difficult to tell what their 
 disposition was. 
 
 "July 22, 1857. 
 " Of course, in the most contented Mohamedan popula- 
 tion," he writes to Lord Elphinstone, " a fanatical outbreak 
 is never impossible, but I see no reason to apprehend one 
 here. . . . Moreover, the Mohamedans here, both Beloochees 
 and Sindees, are a manly race, far superior to the town 
 population in the Deccan and Guzerat. . . . Information was 
 given me that Sher Mohamed, the ex-Ameer of Meerpoor 
 (Sir C. Napier's ' Lion '), and another old chief had been 
 sounded as to what they would do if the Mutiny extended 
 to Bombay. They replied that no Belooch had any ob- 
 jection to a good stand-up fight, but the deeds of the 
 
 * The wing of the second Europeans landed near Goa, two com- 
 panies strong, about a hundred men, twice as many as Lord Elphin- 
 stone had ventured to hope could be spared him. They marched up 
 over the Ghat to Poona, and reinforcing General Le Grand Jacob's 
 force at Kolapore, enabled him to check and finally to suppress the 
 insurrection there. In a letter of a disaffected native, subsequently in- 
 tercepted, the writer stated that he had stationed himself so as to 
 count all the soldiers as they passed, and that he had counted two 
 thousand! 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VI. 
 
 mutineers were worse than those of traitors. To murder 
 women and children was the act of the sinners of Sodom 
 and Gomorrah." 
 
 The Police, the best legacy Frere had received from 
 Napier, were thoroughly efficient and trustworthy, and 
 were well able to cope with any criminal outbreak that 
 might occur. At his suggestion two regiments, called 
 Beloochees, though in fact the men were nearly all Sin- 
 dees, were being raised and trained to act as an auxiliary 
 and semi-military force of Police. Applications to be 
 enrolled in it were numerous, and the service seemed likely 
 to be popular.* 
 
 The Bombay native regiments, Frere felt confident, were 
 at the outbreak of the Mutiny faithful and reliable, and as 
 yet untainted with disaffection. A few days after his 
 return a petition had been presented to him, signed by a 
 clergyman and nineteen others, stating that they had been 
 given to understand that the native troops there were ripe 
 for revolt, and asking that they might have arms served 
 out to them for defence. He replied, assuring them that 
 the troops were loyal and that there was no present danger 
 — he himself having no guard to his house except the usual 
 Sepoy sentry ; — and the petitioners were satisfied with his 
 assurances. He " abstained from calling for volunteers or 
 appointing places of rendezvous or refuge, from a convic- 
 tion that, situated as we are at this station, such measures 
 only embarrass the military and promote panic without 
 affording much real security." 
 
 He writes to Lord Elphinstone : — 
 
 " September 26, 1857. 
 " The station stretches in an irregular area of four or 
 five miles, along the whole extent of which the dwellings 
 
 * Mr. Frere to Lord Elphinstone, August 22, 1857.
 
 1857.] ALARMISTS AT KURRACHEE. 195 
 
 of European inhabitants are scattered, seldom at any- 
 great distance from the bazaars. 
 
 " Very early in the present crisis I found that many of 
 the places, such as the jail, the police lines, etc., which I 
 should have considered most secure, were regarded with 
 indefinite terror by the alarmists. It was out of the 
 question to provide European guards to separate places of 
 refuge for persons at a distance from the small force of 
 Europeans in the barracks, and no single spot would 
 answer the requirements of all parts of the station. No 
 one could say from what quarter they apprehended dis- 
 turbance, and it seemed to me that the general safety, in 
 case of any disturbance, required that the small European 
 force should give as few detachments and guards as 
 possible, and should be kept compact and free to move 
 rapidly in any direction, and prepared to sweep the wide 
 straight roads of the camp, where unarmed persons rushing 
 to distant places of refuge would only impede the action 
 of troops, and perhaps meet their own destruction. 
 
 " So as regards volunteer guards, almost every man here 
 has business to attend to during the day, and a family to 
 take care of at night. To arm, drill, and employ such men 
 in guarding the camp would, as a general rule, only take 
 them from their regular work, promote panic, and hamper 
 the military with ill-disciplined allies, who, in the event of 
 their services being really required at any particular point, 
 would find themselves drawn by even stronger calls to stay 
 at home and defend a helpless household. 
 
 " In reply, therefore, to numerous applications on this 
 subject, I have generally advised applicants to keep in 
 their own houses, and calm, by reason, religion, and 
 example, the fears of their own families, to provide such 
 arms as they could use, and in case of disturbance to 
 defend their houses till the aid which could not be long in 
 coming should arrive." 
 
 " Here all is very quiet," he writes on August 29, 
 " though there is a vague alarm about the Mohurrum ; and 
 it is dangerous to go near the houses of Parsees and 
 English clerks, I hear, after dark, for the inmates are 
 armed to the teeth, and apt to explode like a box of 
 rockets. The Bohras have made arrangements to flee to 
 the houses of European sergeants in camp in case of alarm. 
 It does not look like intended rebellion on their part.
 
 I96 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VI. 
 
 The common people about the bazaar, if anything, more 
 than usually civil and good-humoured." 
 
 Amongst the alarmists were some of the English news- 
 paper editors. The false statements that got into the 
 newspapers did so much harm that Frere expostulated 
 with them, and warned them of the mischief they were 
 doing. They had frightened not only the public, but each 
 other, and at last came and asked Frere what could be 
 done for safety. He replied in his usual way that he did 
 not share their fears, but if they felt insecure, he had a 
 bungalow at Kimaree, where he thought they would be 
 perfectly safe, which he would be glad to put at their 
 disposal. 
 
 On the question of the Native press, which at this time 
 of extreme peril and excitement was a very difficult one, 
 Frere writes as follows to Lord Elphinstone, June 10 : — 
 
 " I have the honour to enclose a memorandum with 
 which Mr. Gibbs, Assistant Commissioner, has favoured 
 me, of a conversation with Shet Naomul, a native merchant 
 of Kurrachee, for many years favourably known to Govern- 
 ment on account of his great intelligence, his extensive 
 influence and connections throughout the countries of our 
 western frontier, and his tried attachment to the British 
 Government. 
 
 " His opinions on the subject of the Native press seem to 
 me deserving of attention, backed as they are by extracts 
 from an Hindustani paper published at Madras, which 
 show how mischievous the articles in native newspapers 
 often are, and how widely they circulate. 
 
 " The extracts and translations by Major Goldsmid * 
 will enable your lordship in Council to form a judgment on 
 this point. 
 
 " No. 1 seems clearly meant to produce an impression 
 that the Government had attempted to defile their Sepoys 
 by flour mixed with hogs' bones, though the insinuation is 
 very cautiously worded. 
 
 * Frere had all Sind native newspapers read, and the principal 
 articles translated by Major Goldsmid.
 
 1857.] THE NATIVE PRESS. 107 
 
 "No. 2 is a very mischievous perversion of an Indian 
 debate in Parliament, which in quieter times might be 
 amusing. 
 
 " No. 3 is perhaps the most important, as it is evidence 
 of the effort which has for some time past been made to 
 place the Shah of Persia in the position, as regards Maho- 
 medans in general, formerly held by the Sultan of Turkey. 
 Your lordship is aware that some of the most influential 
 learned Mahomedans in India are Sheeahs, and that the 
 liberal measures lately adopted by the Sultan, and his 
 manifest reliance on the aid of Christian Powers, have been 
 triumphantly appealed to by the Sheeahs as proofs of the 
 Sultan's heterodoxy. . . . 
 
 "It is the ignorance of the authors and readers of such 
 articles which really gives them their dangerous character, 
 as well as forms the difficulty in dealing with them, for 
 it is not easy to prevent or punish the publication, in a 
 native newspaper, of what may be a verbatim translation 
 of a very harmless criticism in an English publication. 
 
 " A poem in a Persian paper was lately brought to my 
 notice as of very mischievous tendency, and as it described 
 the signs preceding the Day of Judgment in language 
 strikingly applicable to the present time and place, it was 
 doubtless calculated to unsettle and excite men's minds, 
 and prepare them for some sudden disturbance, but it read 
 so like a free translation of a sermon by a popular English 
 preacher on the same subject, as to render it rather 
 puzzling to know what to do with it. 
 
 " I believe the best plan would be to have all periodical 
 productions of the Native press regularly read by trust- 
 worthy persons, with instructions to bring to notice any 
 objectionable passages, whereupon any measures which 
 might appear necessary might be taken regarding them. 
 At any time like the present, when productions like those 
 enclosed would be calculated to do real harm, the ordinary 
 courts would punish anything treasonable with exemplary 
 severity, and public opinion would fully bear them out in 
 so doing. 
 
 " I have taken measures which will, I hope, prevent the 
 publication of any mischievous articles in this province." 
 
 On the same subject he writes to Sir John Lawrence a 
 month later (July 9) : —
 
 I9S THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 " I fear the Press Law will hamper the Governor-General 
 
 as much as 's appointment, and that he will, ere long, 
 
 have reason to regret that he consented to either. A 
 Calcutta jury would have hanged a Persian editor on very- 
 slight evidence of seditious purpose, and till the old law 
 had been enforced and found insufficient, it seems a mis- 
 take to enact new ones calculated, as this Press Act is, to 
 rouse a nest of hornets just at the time it was most neces- 
 sary that the acts of Government should have every 
 support from the public here and at home. Private letters 
 and gossiping idlers spread more false and mischievous 
 reports than the newspapers, as far as my observation 
 goes. Your system of telling the exact truth through the 
 Press, on all that it concerns the public to know, seems to 
 me the true plan of preventing needless alarm. As the 
 Act is now law, I mention my opinion in confidence to you." 
 
 On July 16 Frere addressed the following circular letter 
 to the district officers, enclosing a proclamation which 
 they were empowered to publish or withhold, at their dis- 
 cretion, according to the circumstances : — 
 
 " It has been suggested to me on various occasions to 
 issue some proclamation or public notice relative to the 
 mutinies in the Bengal army. I have hitherto abstained 
 from complying with such suggestions, from a conviction 
 that notifications often do more harm than good, by un- 
 settling people's minds and creating a panic. 
 
 " As, however, it appears certain that emissaries have 
 been despatched in this direction with a view to disturb 
 the public peace, and that alarming rumours have been 
 put in circulation in various parts of the province, I have 
 drawn up a proclamation, of which an English translation 
 is enclosed. 
 
 " Where the people know little and care less for what 
 has occurred, any public notification on the subject would 
 be not only superfluous but mischievous, by creating 
 alarm. But where exaggerated reports have been current, 
 or where emissaries are likely to appear, the proclamation 
 may do good, by showing the people that Government is 
 aware of the danger and prepared to meet it. 
 
 " Much more can be done by district officers in their 
 personal intercourse with the natives than by any pro-
 
 1857.] THE FOUR TERRIBLE MONTHS. 199 
 
 clamation. A plain statement of the real facts of the 
 case will generally prove less alarming than the native 
 reports in circulation ; and almost every one you converse 
 with will be able to call to mind instances within his 
 knowledge, when the danger which threatened our rule 
 was much greater, and was nevertheless met by the 
 British Government with signal success. 
 
 " Probably few natives really doubt the sincere intention 
 of the British Government to rule them for their own 
 good and to secure them perfect toleration and the fruits 
 of their own labour. It may not, however, be amiss occa- 
 sionally to remind Jagheerdars that they hold their estates 
 on service tenure, and that no service is more imperative 
 than that of assisting Government to check disaffection 
 and apprehend traitors." 
 
 In reading these cheerful and confident letters in depre- 
 cation of undue alarm, one needs to be reminded that 
 they were written in the four terrible summer months 
 when the Mutiny was spreading almost unchecked ; when 
 some, even of the most stout-hearted, doubted if the 
 English power would prove strong enough to crush it ; 
 when calamities more and greater than often occur in a 
 generation were crowded into a few months ; when defeat 
 might involve the slaughter, not of armed men only, but 
 of women and children ; and when the danger was not in 
 front or at a distance, but all around, and rumbling as it 
 were beneath the very ground men stood on. As the 
 intermittent weekly or daily express brought its story of 
 bloodshed and horror, its tale of slain comrades and 
 relations, the wonder is, not that there was here and there 
 mistaken and exaggerated alarm or shaken confidence, 
 but that men's nerves and physical and mental powers 
 stood the strain so well. 
 
 Frere by his own demeanour was setting an example 
 well calculated to inspire confidence and dispel panic. He 
 carried on as nearly as he could the ordinary routine of 
 daily life, but he had not even time, such was the pressure,
 
 200 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VI. 
 
 for the morning ride at sunrise — an almost invariable custom 
 in India in the hot weather. The Punjab post generally 
 arrived an hour or two after midnight ; and for months 
 he never had a night's rest unbroken by the arrival of 
 expresses, often three or four times in a night, requiring 
 immediate attention. But such was his nerve and calm- 
 ness of mind that he would fall asleep again, almost in an 
 instant, and waste no time in lying awake. With all 
 the burden of responsibility and of administrative work, 
 civil, military, and political, that rested on his shoulders ; 
 with all his powers of body and mind worked and strained 
 to the utmost, he maintained the same unruffled temper 
 and courtesy, the same unvarying cheerfulness ; there was 
 the same gentle, deliberate voice and quiet smile, the same 
 deep and constant faith in the presence and over-ruling 
 government of God. " I always prepare," he said, in a 
 letter to his wife in England, " to the best of my power, 
 and then make up my mind by the blessing of God we 
 shall succeed. And I have found it so hitherto." 
 
 At the end of August, when matters were about at the 
 worst, he writes as follows, to his sister Mrs. Hart, as to 
 whether Mrs. Frere should come out to him or not : — 
 
 " I must tell you why I do not tell Katie to remain in 
 England. As far as she is concerned, I think she will 
 suffer less from anxiety and alarm when out here than 
 at home, with those terrible intervals of suspense between 
 the mails. By November we must be having mir innings 
 and rolling back the tide of rebellion, and if anything 
 delays us she will soon hear enough to prevent her coming. 
 
 " On other than personal grounds I think it very impor- 
 tant not to defer her coming, for the alarm and feeling of 
 insecurity among our own people seem to me among the 
 great difficulties we have to contend with ; and to live as if 
 we fully intended to remain here and to go on as before, 
 seems to me an important duty. I have told her exactly 
 how matters stand, and have such confidence in her judg-
 
 1857.] DOST MAHOMED. 201 
 
 ment that I propose leaving the course she will pursue to 
 her, assured that if she defers her journey it will be from 
 very good reasons, and if she comes out, that public good 
 will attend her being allowed to follow the dictates of her 
 own feelings, insomuch as the prospect of her coming and 
 her arrival will help to maintain confidence and allay 
 alarm, which is as difficult and important a part of my 
 duty as any. You know I have never from the first 
 thought it more than possible that the evil might be 
 checked, and warned Government two months ago that if 
 the thing was to be done in one campaign, they must 
 begin at once and not lose a day. I own the extent of 
 blundering in various quarters has been more than I 
 bargained for, and the amount of preparation in England 
 less, but by October they will be thoroughly roused at 
 home, and if they do not put forth the whole power of the 
 nation to recover their lost ground, why, we may shut up 
 at once." 
 
 Serious illness amongst her children detained Mrs. Frere 
 in England as she was preparing to return to India. She 
 did not go till a year later. 
 
 Relying as he did on an attitude of calm confidence as 
 of transcendent importance, it was with consternation that 
 Frere heard of a proposal, — urged in the teeth of Colonel 
 Herbert Edwardes's strenuous protest, — that should the 
 stress of circumstances continue, Peshawur should be 
 voluntarily ceded to the Affghans to conciliate their 
 good-will. 
 
 Dost Mahomed, deposed with such unfortunate con- 
 sequences by the British expedition in 1839, and reinstated 
 at the conclusion of the war, was still the ruler of Affghan- 
 istan. During the Sikh War he had sent a contingent of 
 cavalry to aid the Sikhs, but it had been signally routed 
 by a very much smaller force of the Sind Horse at the 
 battle of Goojerat, and chased to the entrance of the 
 Khyber. Thenceforward Dost Mahomed, convinced that 
 the British power was destined to prevail, sought our
 
 202 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 alliance. Overtures were made by him to Herbert 
 Edwardes, the Commissioner of Peshawur, in 1854. By 
 the latter's perseverance and persistency, and in spite of 
 Sir J. Lawrence's reiterated expression of opinion that 
 a treaty with Dost Mahomed was impossible, or, if possible, 
 useless, or worse than useless, a treaty was made with him 
 in 1855. This was followed by still closer relations and 
 a second treaty, negotiated by Edwardes, which Lawrence, 
 still unconvinced, ratified on January 26, 1857, an< ^ m 
 virtue of which Dost Mahomed was to receive a lakh of 
 rupees a month during the continuance of the Persian 
 War, and which was subsequently continued to him four- 
 teen months longer — to September 30, 1858. 
 
 Four months later the Mutiny broke out. Thirsting to 
 take vengeance for past defeats and to recover Peshawur 
 which had once been under their sway, the Affghan 
 warriors were eager to attack the British, and make 
 common cause with the mutineers. Nothing but the 
 personal power of Dost Mahomed, and his determination 
 loyally to maintain the treaty, could have prevented an 
 Affghan invasion at the crisis of the Mutiny, which must 
 have driven the British from the Punjab, and probably 
 also from the Bengal Presidency. Of all Edwardes's great 
 services to India, the conclusion of this treaty was the 
 most important. But from Lawrence he never obtained 
 the credit he deserved for it.* 
 
 Though differing from him on many important points, 
 Frere fully appreciated the high merit and great services 
 to India of Lawrence, to assist whom in taking Delhi 
 and preserving the Punjab he was now straining every 
 nerve, and denuding his own province of European troops. 
 Six months after this time he wrote to Lord Elphin- 
 stone — 
 
 * See Macmillaifs Magazine, February, 1891.
 
 1857.] PESHAWUR TO BE HELD. 203 
 
 " I was very glad to see the honors conferred on Sir 
 J. Lawrence, but they hardly seem to me to be adequate 
 to the service he has rendered, which I rate more highly 
 every day I see more of the sort of demoralization which 
 had pervaded the officers as well as men of that army." 
 
 And to Mr. Mangles : 
 
 " By almost superhuman energy and ability Sir J. 
 Lawrence has kept the Punjab quiet — at least free from 
 formidable revolt." 
 
 Therefore his dismay was the greater when he heard of 
 Lawrence's proposal to cede, in certain eventualities, 
 Peshawur and the adjacent territory to the Affghans. 
 The proposal reached Frere on its way to Lord Canning. 
 He wrote immediately to Lawrence : — 
 
 "June 29, 1857. 
 " I must say I should be for holding Peshawur at all 
 hazards. We may hope for some reinforcements in 
 August, and very large ones in September and October, 
 and even if they had to re-enact Jellalabad at Peshawur, 
 it would be better than risking the demoralizing effect of 
 a contrary course." 
 
 And again two days later he writes : — 
 
 " I trust that no extremity will induce you to abandon 
 Peshawur. While you hold it, with Lahore and Mooltan, 
 you are, in the opinion of every native chief, Lord of the 
 Punjab, even if you command nothing beyond the reach 
 of your guns. The voluntary evacuation of any of the 
 three would have a very bad moral effect everywhere out 
 of the Punjab, and I should hardly think the troops which 
 you would thus be enabled to withdraw to the east of the 
 Indus would be more than a counterpoise for the additional 
 disorder which would follow in the Punjab itself, and 
 which will be kept down as long as you continue to hold 
 Peshawur. I may be wrong, but I should regard the loss 
 of Peshawur by mutiny or rebellion as a much smaller 
 calamity. Natives always make allowances in such cases,
 
 204 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 and their opinion of our power would be less shocked than 
 by a voluntary evacuation. 
 
 " Would it be any assistance to you if we could garrison 
 Mooltan from this ? I think we could manage it if we got 
 even a small portion of our Persian force back — and they 
 may be daily looked for." 
 
 To Lord Elphinstone he writes, July 2 : — 
 
 " I enclose a copy letter from Sir J. Lawrence. You 
 will, I think, be sorry to see him still meditating the 
 evacuation of Peshawur as a measure to be adopted in 
 extremis, should Delhi not fall. I enclose an extract from 
 my reply, written in great haste to save post. I think it 
 would be sounder policy to draw in every outpost and 
 stand a siege in Peshawur, Mooltan, and Lahore. While 
 he holds these three posts he will find no difficulty in 
 recovering the rest of the Punjab when reinforcements 
 arrive three or four months hence ; but it is impossible to 
 foresee the end of the evils which may result from such a 
 confession of our weakness as a voluntary abandonment of 
 the gate of India. I think he must have underestimated 
 our chances of reinforcement, and if so, good may result 
 from the details I gave him of possible aid from England. 
 I have asked him if he would wish us to occupy Mooltan. 
 We could do it even now, if we had a good officer to com- 
 mand, and could get but one more Native Infantry Regi- 
 ment from the Gulf. But managing native troops in these 
 days is just like riding a troublesome horse — easy to a man 
 who knows how to do it and has nerve, but not to be 
 done by a man who requires to be told how to sit and hold 
 the reins, and who lacks confidence in himself or his steed." 
 
 Lord Canning decided against surrendering Peshawur 
 in any event. Although no direct communication on the 
 question passed between Frere and him, it is believed that 
 the former's strongly expressed opinion being passed on 
 to him by Lord Elphinstone had much to do with his 
 decision, and it was a great support to Herbert Edwardes 
 and those who agreed with him. Long afterwards Frere 
 was asked if he had ever doubted during the Mutiny about
 
 1857.] SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION. 205 
 
 the final result of the struggle. He said, " Never, except 
 once, and that was when it was proposed to abandon 
 Peshawur." * 
 
 At the first outbreak, in May, Frere had, as we have 
 seen, expressed his confidence both in the tranquillity of 
 Sind and in the fidelity of the Bombay Native Regiments. 
 But the plague could not be stayed in its course even 
 where the conditions were so little favourable to it and 
 the precautions so wisely and carefully taken. Ever since 
 the middle of May the rebel standard had been flying 
 triumphantly at Delhi. Thither for four long, anxious, 
 dreadful months were turned all eyes and ears in every 
 town and hamlet from end to end of India. Was it true, 
 as had been foretold, or was it false that the English 
 Raj was hastening to its end ? As long as the ancient 
 city of the Moguls defied all the efforts of the British 
 power and the mutinous Sepoys successfully resisted our 
 arms, the opinion that that power was doomed strengthened 
 and spread swiftly and silently amongst the great army of 
 waverers, who, in all Oriental races, accustomed to sudden 
 changes of dynasty and subversions of authority, are 
 ever watching the signs of the times, that they may take 
 part with the strongest and be found on the winning side. 
 Religious fanatics, emissaries from Delhi, from Persia, 
 from Affghanistan ; agents of Nana Sahib, and of many 
 another intriguing native, swarmed through the country, 
 appealing each to his particular race or sect ; letters from 
 
 * " When the good news began to come in from Delhi, one of the 
 great Sikh Sirdars, on being exultingly informed of it, paid little 
 attention, but asked significantly, 'What news from Peshawur?' 
 ' Excellent ; all quiet there,' answered his informant ; ' but why do you 
 always ask so anxiously about Peshawur?' The Sikh hesitated, and 
 taking his scarf, began rolling it from the corner. ' See,' he said, ' if 
 Peshawur goes, the whole Punjab will be rolled up in rebellion like 
 this.' '"—Macmillari's Magazine, February, 1891.
 
 206 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VI. 
 
 the mutineers in Delhi, in Oude, and elsewhere, some 
 enigmatically, some plainly worded, came by the post to 
 their relations and friends in the Native Regiments in Sind, 
 calling on them to make common cause with them. And 
 within Sind, at Jacobabad on the frontier, was a Bengal 
 Regiment, the 6th Irregular Cavalry, which the Bengal 
 Government dared not recall, and which, teeming with 
 disaffection, was only kept from open mutiny by the 
 single regiment of Sind Horse, commanded in Jacob's 
 absence by Merewether, who, silent and unflinching, had 
 the task of guarding them added to the now more than 
 ever responsible duty of watching the frontier. 
 
 Gradually it came to the knowledge of the officers that 
 some of the Bombay native regiments in Sind were no 
 longer free from the taint. None could say how far it 
 would spread, and Frere, pretty well assured that an out- 
 break of some sort would occur before long, confronted the 
 situation with a European force for the whole province, 
 numbering — sick men and recruits included — less than five 
 hundred British bayonets, and of effectives less than three 
 hundred and fifty.* 
 
 Jacob's return from Persia with the other regiment of 
 Sind Horse had been eagerly looked for, and it was a keen 
 disappointment to find that when at last they did reach 
 Kurrachee, it was only to touch there on the way to 
 Bombay. Merewether, who had been more uneasy about 
 the 6th Bengal Cavalry than he chose to confess, even to 
 himself, had written on hearing of the arrival of the Sind 
 Horse to beg they might be sent up as speedily as 
 possible by squadrons or even by troops ; and he spoke 
 more freely than he had before done of the 6th Bengal 
 Cavalry. Their disorderly habits and bad example were 
 doing much harm. When the Punjab authorities were 
 * Frere to Lawrence.
 
 1857.] MEREWETHER. 207 
 
 asked if they wanted the 6th back again, they always 
 declined ; and so bad was their reputation in their own 
 army that their comparatively tolerable conduct on the 
 Sind frontier was a constant theme of remark. Under 
 these circumstances, Frere, while sending on the bulk of 
 the regiment of Sind Horse to Bombay, detained a 
 detachment, which, including some sick and unfit for 
 service, amounted to a hundred or a hundred and ten 
 men. These he decided to send on immediately to 
 their head-quarters at Jacobabad. He writes to Lord 
 Elphinstone : — 
 
 "August 20, 1857. 
 
 " It will add to the number of Captain Merewether's own 
 men on whom he can depend, and as the number of the 
 body returning from Persia will not be diminished by re- 
 port as they go through the Hills, their return will probably 
 have more effect than their actual number warrants, and 
 even a few returning to give an account of the absentees 
 to the families, etc., at Jacobabad will be satisfactory to all 
 parties. 
 
 " I was rather struck with the manner of the old Ris- 
 saldar when he asked me the reason of their going to the 
 Deccan. He seemed satisfied with what he was told, but 
 his first impression seemed to me to have been that there 
 must be some reason beyond what he had heard. 
 
 " I have of late observed among many of the Sepoys 
 when talking to them, an expression, not perhaps of dis- 
 trust, but of puzzle as to what the Government meant to 
 do ; and it occurred to me that the effect would, in every 
 way, be good if a small detachment went back to Jacob- 
 abad, carrying news as eye-witnesses of doings in Persia, 
 and able to assure the wives, families, and comrades at 
 Jacobabad that we have neither eaten the rest of the 2nd 
 Regiment, nor inveigled them beyond sea for any sinister 
 purpose. 
 
 " You can have no idea of the absurd stories circulated 
 here and probably in every station, not only as to the in- 
 tention of some unknown body of natives against us, but 
 of ours against the native community — an indiscriminate 
 massacre in revenge for the Cawnpore atrocities is to be
 
 208 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 one of our mildest measures. It is not merely ladies and 
 their ayahs and half-caste clerks who are answerable for 
 this mischievous nonsense, but many men and officers who 
 ought to know better, though usually the responsibility of 
 originating the story is so divided that it is not possible to 
 get hold of any one who can be made an example of. 
 
 " I hope the postal restrictions on native correspondence 
 will be lightened as much as possible, for the distrust and 
 alarm is much aggravated by want of intelligence as to 
 what is going on. I had told the Inspecting Post-master 
 here to desire his deputies to take the local authorities into 
 their councils before acting on the instructions they had 
 received. But on further inquiry I found the mischief 
 was already done, and it was better to let him and them 
 alone. These deputy post-masters, here at all events, are 
 people utterly unfitted, by their condition and education, 
 to discharge properly so confidential and delicate a duty 
 as that of opening and passing an opinion on the in- 
 nocuous or treasonable character of the whole correspon- 
 dence of the native troops, and the whole arrangement 
 seems to me one of the many mischievous results of 
 emancipating the post-office from the authority of the 
 local government and their representatives." 
 
 The plan of the mutineers in Sind, so far as they had 
 any definite plan, seems to have been to seize the fort 
 at Hyderabad, and make it a rallying place like Delhi ; 
 then to cause simultaneous outbreaks at Kurrachee, 
 Shikarpur, Jacobabad, and Mooltan in the Lower Punjab. 
 The premature discovery of disaffection at each place 
 disconcerted the whole scheme. 
 
 The first alarm was at Hyderabad. On the evening of 
 September 8, a native Soobedar-Major of Artillery in- 
 formed his Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Battiscombe, 
 that the men had been holding secret meetings and hatch- 
 ing treason. Battiscombe reported this to Brigadier Morris, 
 and the report having been confirmed, the following even- 
 ing the guns were taken possession of by the Europeans, 
 the police, and a hundred picked men of the 13th Native
 
 
 
 
 
 xehx 
 
 i 
 
 Hi I 
 
 MAIN BAZAAR, HYDERABAD, FROM THE GATEWAY OF THE FORT. 
 March 23, 1851.
 
 1857-] MUTINOUS ARTILLERY AT HYDERABAD. 209 
 
 Infantry, and taken into the fort. The ladies also were 
 moved into the fort, and though the station remained 
 quiet, it was suspected that the 13th Native Infantry were 
 disaffected. 
 
 Frere, when the news came, perceived that the situation 
 was critical. Colonel Hutt was roused at two in the morn- 
 ing by finding Frere sitting at the foot of his bed, come to 
 arrange with him for the despatch of sixty of the newly 
 enrolled artillerymen under Lieutenant Harris, and fifty- 
 five of the 1st Fusiliers, to Hyderabad, when the tide served 
 in the morning. Hutt went off at once to prepare for their 
 embarkation at a place three or four miles off, whence they 
 sailed the next day. Almost their first duty on arrival at 
 Hyderabad was to assist at the execution of the mutineers 
 who had been tried and found guilty. Opposite them was 
 drawn up the suspected 13th Native Infantry, and to the 
 last moment there was a doubt whether the latter would 
 not take the opportunity of firing into them instead of 
 guarding the execution. All, however, passed off quietly. 
 Hyderabad was saved, and the guns of the disarmed 
 Native Artillery were handed over to the European Artillery 
 Volunteers.* 
 
 Some time in the second week in September Frere had 
 moved his sleeping quarters, for the sake of the refresh- 
 ment of the sea-breeze, to his bungalow at Clifton, about 
 two miles, or ten minutes' gallop over the sand, from Kur- 
 rachee. With him were staying Captain Goldsmid and 
 Mr. John Arthur. On the night of the 13th, or rather 
 early on the 14th — the same night that the assault on Delhi 
 began — at about two in the morning the sound of a 
 horse galloping up to the bungalow was heard, and 
 Captain Bob Johnstone entered Frere's sleeping-room, 
 
 * This volunteer artillery was afterwards incorporated in the regular 
 artillery. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 2IO THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 making in a loud voice some trivial remark, and then in 
 a low voice adding, "the 21st Regiment has mutinied." 
 Arthur and Goldsmid were roused in the same way to 
 avoid spreading panic among the servants — a useless pre- 
 caution, for native servants generally knew what was hap- 
 pening at least as soon as their masters. He had come 
 to tell them that about eleven o'clock in the evening two 
 native officers of the 21st Native Infantry had informed 
 Major MacGregor, commanding the regiment, that a 
 Havildar had been to them, and, after asking how long 
 they would wait to be blown away from guns as was now 
 done in Hindostan, informed them that the whole regiment 
 was prepared to rise at two o'clock that morning. One man, 
 he said, was to be sent to rouse the 14th Native Infantry, 
 and another to secure the co-operation of the Mahomedans 
 in the town, from both of which quarters they expected aid. 
 They were to murder the Europeans and any native officers 
 who opposed them, and then set off to Delhi with their 
 arms and treasure. This information was subsequently 
 confirmed by an orderly Havildar, and it was clear from 
 its purport that an attempt would be made at the time 
 specified to raise a mutiny in the regiment* 
 
 Frere, Goldsmid, and Arthur hastened across the sand 
 to where the carriage, which had been ordered out, met 
 them. On the way Frere stopped at a bungalow hard 
 by occupied by some ladies and a child. Asking to 
 see one of them, Mrs. Merewether, wife of the officer left 
 in command of the Sind Horse, whom he knew to be 
 possessed of courage and nerve, he told her what 
 had happened, adding that the ladies and children had 
 had the mess-house of the 2nd European Regiment 
 assigned them to take refuge in. As it was possible, 
 however, that they might meet mutineers on the way 
 * Frere to Lord Elphinstone, September 14, 1857.
 
 1857.] MUTINOUS SEPOYS AT KURRACHEE. 211 
 
 thither, she decided by his advice to stay where she was, 
 placing her two Belooch horsemen, and also two other 
 sentinels, in the direction of the camp, to give notice of 
 any one coming up the road. In case of the worst, he 
 told her where there was a boat in a creek a quarter of a 
 mile off, by which they might escape across the harbour to 
 Manora Point. 
 
 They then drove on to the camp, listening, as they went, 
 to a sound which came from the direction of the native 
 quarter, like the hum of a hive of bees disturbed. 
 
 When they reached the parade-ground the danger was 
 already over. Major Macgregor's first impulse, half 
 broken-hearted as he was at the stain on the honour 
 of his regiment, had been to go straight to his men and 
 address them ; but the Subadar told him plainly that to 
 do so would only produce an outbreak at once, and he 
 therefore immediately went to give information to the 
 Brigadier, warning the 2nd Europeans and Artillery on 
 his way. 
 
 The Arsenal bell had rung at a quarter to twelve, and 
 in seven minutes from the warning the Artillery turned 
 out with six six-pounders and two nine-pounders, harnessed 
 and ready. The four companies of the 2nd Europeans 
 fell in without sound of bugle, and after placing a guard 
 over the treasury, followed, about two hundred strong, 
 close behind the Artillery. Captain Leith, of the 14th 
 Native Infantry, when he was told what was happening, 
 went at once to his regiment, and before they could turn 
 out, he heard, but could not see in the darkness, the 
 Artillery going by. As they arrived at the parade-ground 
 of the 2 1 st, the Europeans wheeled into line, with the 
 guns half on each flank and loaded with grape. The 
 14th Native Infantry fell in almost at the same time ; 
 by an unfortunate mistake, which might have had serious
 
 212 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 consequences, they were ordered to do so without arms, 
 an error which was, however, set right soon afterwards. 
 As the Europeans formed line the assembly was sounded 
 for the 2 ist to fall in, which they did, slowly and reluct- 
 antly. They were then ordered to pile arms and move 
 fifty yards to the flank, and had no choice but to obey. 
 The Europeans and Artillery then changed front to the 
 flank, so as to interpose between the 21st and their arms, 
 and the danger was over.* 
 
 On calling the roll and examining the arms, twenty-one 
 men were found to be missing, and thirteen muskets of 
 those present were loaded. Of the absent men the majority 
 had taken their arms with them. One recruit of only a 
 few days' standing afterwards appeared and stated that he 
 had absented himself through fear when he heard the 
 assembly sound at such an unusual hour ; and six men 
 had subsequently gone away. 
 
 Frere and his companions had in the mean time arrived 
 on the scene. Before the disarmed men were dismissed 
 from parade, the General, with Frere and Goldsmid by his 
 side, addressed them — Goldsmid interpreting, and Frere, in 
 great measure, judging by internal evidence, prompting 
 his speech — and told them that the disarming was a pre- 
 caution caused by the misconduct of a few, and that when 
 the bad men had been weeded out and brought to justice, 
 he hoped to be able again to place in the regiment that 
 confidence which was due to their former good conduct. 
 
 The ladies and children and non-combatants had at the 
 first alarm quietly assembled in the mess-house of the 2nd 
 Europeans, which consisted of a large room and two or 
 
 * In the Bombay army the men kept their muskets and a certain 
 quantity of ammunition in their own possession. This made disarm- 
 ing them more critical and difficult than in the Bengal army, where 
 the arms were kept in small armouries on the parade-ground.
 
 1857.] MUTINEERS TAKEN. 213 
 
 three small ones. There were upwards of seventy children. 
 The heat was stifling. Some of the ladies were crying, 
 some in hysterics, some, amongst whom was the General's 
 daughter, doing all they could to help and encourage the 
 rest. One lady, just arrived from Bengal, frightened the 
 others by seating herself in the middle of the room with 
 her two native servants, Oude men, with muskets and 
 bayonets over their shoulders, who, as she was told, would 
 probably join the mutineers if there were a rising. They 
 were kept informed by messengers of what was passing, 
 and when the disarming was over returned to their several 
 homes. 
 
 Frere visited the lines of the 14th Native Infantry, where 
 he found all quiet, and by six o'clock, just after sunrise, 
 had returned to Government House to the labours of the 
 day. So quietly had the night's work been done that 
 many in Kurrachee slept through it, and awoke in the 
 morning unaware that anything unusual had occurred 
 in the cantonment. 
 
 It was not known in which direction the mutineers had 
 fled. Orders were sent out to watch the ferries, and 
 parties of mounted police were despatched two and two 
 along every road, with instructions to put the country 
 people on the alert, and, if they found any trace, to leave 
 one man to follow it up, while the other went for as- 
 sistance. Intelligence was soon brought of several of 
 them having been seen. Nine of them, on their way to 
 join the Jam of Beyla, were found at nightfall posted 
 among some rocks on a hill. Watches were set during 
 the night except on one road, by which, as was expected, 
 they stole away. When day dawned their tracks were 
 followed \ they were caught off their guard among some 
 thick jungle and were all secured uninjured. Another 
 party of eight was discovered in the western hills about
 
 214 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 fifty miles from Kurrachee, and taking up a good position 
 defended themselves with desperate courage for the greater 
 part of the day, till they were all killed or overpowered. 
 Before a week had passed after the outbreak, out of the 
 thirty-one mutineers only four remained to be accounted 
 for. Three had been killed and twenty-four captured. 
 The country people seem to have aided the police, other- 
 wise the captures could not have been made so quickly 
 and so easily. 
 
 Frere was especially careful that there should be no 
 unseemly haste, no departure from the ordinary course of 
 procedure in bringing the mutineers to justice. Before 
 their trial had taken place he noticed a scaffold being 
 made for their execution. He immediately sought an 
 interview with the General, by whose orders it had been 
 erected. " I think we have made a mistake there," he 
 said, pointing to it, and characteristically softening the 
 remonstrance by assuming a share in the blame ; " the 
 mutineers have not been tried yet." The General did not 
 see it in this light : the mutineers were caught red-handed ; 
 they were sure to be found guilty, and why delay ? Frere 
 gently persisted, and at last, gaining a half assent, 
 promptly took his leave, and in a very short time the 
 scaffold had disappeared, and was not re-erected till a 
 verdict had been found and sentence pronounced in due 
 form. 
 
 " Up to this point," Frere writes to Lord Elphinstone, 
 " the only thing of importance on which I found the 
 General would not adopt my suggestion was in the con- 
 stitution of the Courts. I earnestly pressed on him that 
 he should leave the cases to be tried by native officers. 
 I felt strongly assured that they would not, as a body, 
 wish or dare to shrink from their duty. He had it always 
 in his power to order a revision of any inadequate sentence, 
 and the separation of classes and suspicion implied by
 
 1857.] NATIVE COURTS-MARTIAL. 21 5 
 
 putting on European officers could not but have a bad 
 effect. However, the officers about him were generally of 
 an opposite opinion. After the first execution I urged the 
 subject again on his attention, and he consented to try 
 a Native Court. As I anticipated, they were even more 
 prompt, and as severe as the European Court." 
 
 And there was this great additional advantage in 
 a Court of native officers, that the facts proved at the trial, 
 instead of remaining a mystery, became known to the 
 troops through their own officers, and in many ways the 
 effects were most beneficial. The mutineers, with one or 
 two exceptions, were executed, hanged, or blown from 
 guns, in the evening after their trial. They confessed their 
 guilt and made no attempt to brave it out. One of them 
 called out to his comrades at the last moment, admitting 
 the justice of his sentence. 
 
 There being no cavalry at Kurrachee, and the mounted 
 police being most of them detached in parties, pursuing 
 the mutineers, Frere, as a temporary expedient, sanctioned 
 the enrolment of a small force of mounted patrols, com- 
 posed of any persons not employed in active military duty 
 who might volunteer. At the same time he accepted an 
 offer of Mr. Dalzell to guard the treasury with a body of 
 Naval Voluntesrs. Some armed French seamen from two 
 ships in the harbour also offered their services, but as no 
 more volunteers were required they were declined with 
 thanks. The oatrol was disbanded at the end of about 
 a month. 
 
 At Shikarpir, in Upper Sind, the condition of affairs 
 was even more critical. It became known that the Oude 
 men in the Nitive Artillery were disaffected. There was 
 not a European soldier within two hundred miles. On the 
 north was the Punjab, ripe for insurrection. Merewether 
 guarded the rorth-west frontier with a single regiment of
 
 2l6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 the Sind Horse, which had to watch also the 6th Bengal 
 Cavalry. 
 
 Early in September the Mahomedan festival of the 
 Mohurrum was at hand.* Three years before, Jacob had 
 issued a Station Order prohibiting all Taboots, etc., as 
 unmilitary, and for two years there were no Mohurrum 
 drummings, Fukkeers,or Taboots allowed. Merewether saw 
 some preparations making by the 6th Bengal Cavalry, and 
 without inquiry or discussion simply called the Kotwal's 
 attention to the order. Some men of the 6th went to an 
 old Rissaldar of the Sind Horse and asked, "What kind 
 of an order was this, prohibiting Mohurrum processions?" 
 The Rissaldar replied, " It was the order, and in his opinion 
 a very good one, but at any rate it was the order and 
 must be obeyed." And it was obeyed without a murmur. 
 
 As early as the month of June, Merewether obtained 
 information that two petty Belooch chiefs, Dil Moorad 
 and Durryah Khan, were intriguing with the troops with 
 a view to an outbreak. Dil Moorad had fled from Sind 
 in 1844, and joined the robbers in Cutchee. He was taken 
 in 1845, and Sir C. Napier intended to have hanged him, 
 but his life was spared. In 1847 he was, for a short time, 
 in Government service, under Jacob, as a guide, with a few 
 of his horsemen, but being found to be in correspondence 
 with the enemy he was dismissed. He was notorious as 
 an inveterate intriguer, prompting others to mischief while 
 keeping himself in the background. This man and 
 Durryah Khan were found to be holding consultations at 
 the latter's residence, at Janadeyra, within the Sind frontier, 
 at which it was proposed that they should by and stir up 
 the other Belooch tribes to join against the Government. 
 At this time, however, it happened that Dil Moorad was 
 in arrears in his payment of Revenue, and not meeting the 
 * Frere to Lawrence.
 
 1857.] CONSPIRACY IN UPPER SIND. 217 
 
 demand made on him was arrested and placed under 
 surveillance. This upset their plans for a time, but 
 towards the end of August, Durryah Khan recommenced 
 his intrigues, and went round among the different tribes 
 to induce them to join with him. On his return he 
 assembled his own immediate followers in the sand hills 
 under the pretence of consulting about matters of cultiva- 
 tion, to communicate what he considered the success of 
 his tour, and to propose the immediate carrying out of his 
 scheme, which was to go secretly to Jacobabad, or close 
 to it, on the night before the 20th of September, and on 
 the 2 1st to go to the Durbar and kill the Sahibs. He 
 came accordingly to rjacobabad on the afternoon of the 
 20th, when, Merewether having through his native officers 
 information of all this, he was apprehended and lodged 
 in gaol ; Dil Moorad was placed in irons at the same 
 time. 
 
 That the attempts, if any were made, on the fidelity of 
 the troops at Jacobabad had failed was evident from the 
 fact of the unresisted arrest of the chief conspirator only 
 a few hours before the time fixed on for the outbreak, in 
 which he had told his partisans that the troops were ready 
 to join. Probably, however, this was an invention of his to 
 encourage the wavering. Such an occurrence in those 
 times was an ordinary one enough thus far. What is 
 remarkable about it is that for many days before the 
 arrest, as many as five hundred persons, chiefly of the 
 Sind Horse, were aware that some plot was suspected by 
 their officers, having been specially ordered to be in readi- 
 ness day and night for various services ; yet not one man 
 of the whole number ever attempted to warn the con- 
 spirators that their designs were known. These troops, 
 be it remembered, were to a great extent composed of 
 Mahomedans from the Delhi provinces and Hindostan —
 
 2l8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 the very people of whom it was confidently and almost 
 universally asserted at that time, that they could not by 
 any system of discipline be kept to their allegiance if 
 exposed to temptation. 
 
 The arrest of the two conspirators came just in time. 
 On the evening of the following day intelligence was given 
 by the police spies, of a meeting of a Subadar and a 
 Havildar, and some men of the 16th Native Infantry and 
 Native Artillery at Shikarpur, at which seditious language 
 had been used. Three or four of them were arrested. 
 Three days later, about midnight on the 24th, the town 
 was awakened by the discharge of artillery. Some of the 
 Golundaze (Native Artillery) had mutinied, had seized 
 four guns, and were firing them loaded with grape among 
 the barracks and gun sheds. It was a pitch-dark night, so 
 dark that it was impossible to distinguish a waggon from 
 a gun, or to get any clear idea of what was going on. 
 The 16th Native Infantry, the remainder of the Native 
 Artillery, and the police under Captain Montgomery, 
 turned out and opened fire upon the mutineers ; but so 
 impossible was it to see anything, that the firing actually 
 went on at close quarters for two hours without any 
 casualty on the side of the troops, though the gun-sheds 
 were completely riddled ; and only three of the mutineers 
 were killed or wounded. The troops and police at length 
 made a rush and retook the guns. The mutineers escaped 
 in the darkness. It appeared afterwards that the latter 
 were only eleven in number. Their conduct is to be 
 explained only on the supposition that they hoped in the 
 noise and confusion to be joined by others, as they pro- 
 bably would have been but for the arrests which had been 
 made a few days before. The guns, they knew, would be 
 heard at Jacobabad, twenty-five miles distant ; and had 
 Durryah Khan's plot to murder the European officers
 
 1857-1 MUTINY CRUSHED IN SIND. 219 
 
 succeeded they may have hoped that the men would join 
 them. 
 
 Frere writes to Sir J. Lawrence : — 
 
 " October 17, 1857. 
 
 "The Subadar of the 16th Native Infantry, who was 
 evidently the ringleader, said, before he was executed, that 
 if he had had two days' more time he would have made 
 the world hear of his exploits ; and his accomplice the 
 chief of the Jekranees spoke before his arrest of a great 
 insurrection which had broken out at Lahore and Mooltan. 
 They were arrested just before the news of the stoppage of 
 the Mooltan Dak arrived, and the attempted mutiny of the 
 Golundaze was timed so as to have come off just as the 
 news would have arrived. 
 
 " Few, if any, but Oude men have been implicated in any 
 of our Sind mutinies, and many of the mutineers before they 
 were executed said that none of the other castes or classes 
 in their regiments were privy to their designs. . . ." 
 
 Frere was jealous for the reputation of the Bombay 
 native army. He refused to condemn a whole regiment 
 because some of its men had misbehaved or mutinied. 
 About a month after the Kurrachee alarm he writes to 
 Lord Elphinstone : — 
 
 "The trials of the mutineer Sepoys of the 21st Regiment 
 at this place have been for some time over, and I have 
 been hoping that something would be done to terminate 
 the present anomalous position of the regiment ; but the 
 General seems disinclined to do anything further without 
 orders from head-quarters. When they may come and 
 what may be their character it is impossible to say 
 Meantime the disarmed Golundaze company from Hydera- 
 bad will be here in a few days|and will be soon followed 
 by one from Shikarpur. I need not give my reasons for 
 thinking it most undesirable to keep soldiers in this con- 
 dition disarmed, humiliated, idle, and uncertain what we 
 mean to do with them, and will not therefore apologize for 
 offering my views on the subject. 
 
 " I find officers generally disappointed that they cannot
 
 220 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 get to the bottom of the plot, and distrustful of their men 
 because they cannot learn all about it. But I doubt 
 whether, here at all events, there was any plot to fathom, 
 or anything more than a knowledge of a tolerably prevalent 
 discontent and suspicion among the Purdesees and con- 
 sequent disaffection. Some of the more designing thought 
 the whole body was more ripe for mischief than the event 
 proved them to be, and got up a very commonplace 
 scheme for mutiny, robbery, and murder, after which they 
 would have been guided by circumstances. Had they 
 succeeded at first, no doubt hundreds of waverers would 
 have joined them. But a plot, such as Mazzini and his 
 friends would call a plot, we have no evidence of, and I 
 think it is waste of time to seek for one. 
 
 " I by no means disbelieve that the discontent itself had 
 a deeper origin and was fanned by abler agents — some 
 certainly from Tehran, and perhaps from further north 
 and west, — but I doubt if we have got any of the grand 
 conspirators among us here, where the whole lot seem to 
 me very commonplace traitors and ruffians. Even the 
 Shikarpur Subadar was little better, though he had got a 
 very respectable conspiracy with the chief of the border 
 tribes, and their move was doubtless connected with the 
 rising in the Punjab above Mooltan. 
 
 " I mention all this because I fear that, in their hopes of 
 fathoming some deep-laid scheme, of whose existence we 
 have no present evidence, the Commander-in-Chief and his 
 advisers will delay dealing with the clear facts of the case 
 as they stand, and keep good soldiers watching disarmed 
 men who, according to the treatment they get, may be 
 made good or bad soldiers of, but who will not improve by 
 being kept as they are." 
 
 It turned out, unfortunately, that Frere was too 
 sanguine about the state of the 21st. Ultimately it had to 
 be disbanded, and the regiment ceased to exist. 
 
 With regard to the disaffected 6th Bengal Irregulars, 
 he writes, six months later — 
 
 " March 25, 1858. 
 " I believe General Jacob would not, and I am sure I 
 would not, object for a moment to their being disbanded,
 
 1857J DISARMED SEPOYS. 221 
 
 their arms and horses being taken at a valuation. In their 
 present state I believe them to be very useless, and liable 
 to become dangerous, but, unless to disband them at once, 
 I think that their being disarmed and dismounted only- 
 renders them more troublesome and more liable to be 
 induced to misbehave. I am sure it is hardly possible to 
 put men in a worse position than the idle, disarmed 
 regiments, conscious that they deserve punishment, certain 
 that we mean to punish them, and prepared in their 
 suspense to believe the worst regarding our intentions. 
 Then, all our friends and foes alike look on them as a 
 very serious source of weakness and anxiety, and in truth 
 they are so. 
 
 " I would deal with them at once in one of two ways — 
 
 i. " Either tell them that their services were no longer 
 required, pay up, and discharge them, taking their horses 
 and arms at a valuation, and giving each man sufficient to 
 carry him home. There are many and obvious objections 
 to this course now that they have been so long kept from 
 any overt act of mutiny, and I should therefore prefer the 
 second course, viz. 
 
 2. " Direct General Jacob to take them in hand to 
 reorganize them entirely on the plan of his own Sind 
 Horse. Give him entire power to remand the European 
 officers to their regiments and to select others, and to dis- 
 charge any number of the men and native officers he may 
 think fit. The reformed regiment would cost, like the Sind 
 Horse, rupees 29,600, in place of rupees 23,200, per 
 mensem, but it would be much more than twice as 
 efficient. 
 
 " It would take a long time to explain the difference 
 between the two systems, as it would in the case of 
 comparison between the first Napoleon's Italian Legion 
 and a brigade of King Bomba's ; but the difference is quite 
 as great." 
 
 The murders and other horrors of the Mutiny had so 
 engrossed the attention of people in England, that they 
 scarcely realized the extent of the less dramatic sufferings 
 of the survivors who had in so many cases been suddenly 
 reduced from affluence to destitution by the loss or de- 
 struction of all they possessed. A relief fund was set on
 
 222 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VI. 
 
 foot in India, which Frere did his best to assist. He 
 writes (July 25) to the Bishop of Bombay : — 
 
 " As to the sort of cases which it was proposed to 
 relieve, we believed that within the limits of the North- 
 western Provinces, very few Christian families would be 
 found who are not more or less in want of aid. A very 
 large proportion have lost house and property, and possess 
 nothing but the clothes on their backs. There are many 
 widows and orphans, who by the death of husband or 
 father have lost the means of livelihood. Planters and 
 tradesmen have lost their estates and shops, and all out of 
 Government employ are left for the time destitute. Even 
 those in the Government service, though secure from star- 
 vation, are in great distress. Treasuries have been 
 plundered, and pay and remittances are now, and must 
 continue for some time, not so regular as in ordinary times. 
 Banks are closed and powerless to effect remittances 
 while the country is disturbed, and families, separated from 
 the husband or father who draws pay, are badly off for the 
 money to meet daily expenses. 
 
 " The distressed seem divisible into two classes — those 
 whose wants are merely temporary, and those who are 
 permanently destitute. 
 
 " To many of the former loans will be very acceptable. 
 Many hope to have the means of repaying, who for two or 
 three months will be in great distress for ready money. . . . 
 
 " But the number who will suffer from utter loss of all 
 means of subsistence and cannot be expected to repay will 
 be very large. . . . To ascertain the wants to be relieved 
 and to decide how and what relief is to be given, are 
 points which we must in the first instance leave to people 
 on the spot. Committees seem to have been appointed 
 at Lahore and all other stations where there are competent 
 persons permanently resident, and our committee proposes 
 to send them small sums to relieve the most urgent and 
 pressing wants of the destitute by loan or gift, as they may 
 think best. . . . 
 
 " I meant also to ask you whether you do not think that 
 some public religious service or notice of our present 
 position is called for in addition to the Prayer in time of 
 War and Tumult? If it had no other visible effect, I 
 cannot but think that it might allay the panic so dis-
 
 i§57.] 
 
 DISTRESS AMONG EUROPEANS. 
 
 223 
 
 graceful to us in every way which seems to prevail in 
 every place." 
 
 When Frere started on his cold weather tour late in the 
 autumn of 1857, he left directions for Government House 
 to be placed at the disposal of any European ladies or 
 invalids who might be coming down from up the country 
 and passing through Kurrachee. His carriages and horses, 
 also, were left for their use. Many a feeble invalid and 
 desolate widow homeward bound, often impoverished or 
 ruined, was glad of such a resting-place, and his house 
 was occupied all the time he was away. To be able to 
 offer such hospitality was then, as always, especially 
 congenial to him, and then, as always, it made heavy 
 calls upon his purse. To him high office was never a 
 source of wealth. 
 
 WRESSEL LODGE, WIMBLEDON.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER. 
 
 General exhaustion — Malcolm Green's campaign — Macauley's cam- 
 paign — The Khan of Kelat — Quetta — Major H. Green's expedi- 
 tion against the Murrees — Recovery of Major Clibborn's guns — 
 Death of Jacob. 
 
 When September was over, not only in Sind, but all over 
 India, men began to breathe more freely. Delhi had at 
 last fallen. The garrison at Lucknow, though not yet 
 delivered, had been reinforced. The summer heat, which 
 in the burning plains had been so terrible an addition 
 to the toils and sufferings of the campaign, was now 
 nearly over, and the approaching cool season would give 
 the Europeans their opportunity. Troops were coming in 
 fast from England, though not faster than they were 
 needed, for there was much hard fighting to be done for 
 many a month to come. The great strain, mental and 
 bodily, which men had undergone had left them wearied 
 and exhausted, if not demoralized, now that the extremity 
 of danger and the consequent excitement were passing 
 away ; and out of this exhaustion arose a disposition to 
 shirk the trouble of administering strict, painstaking justice, 
 and to lean sometimes to vindictiveness towards the 
 natives, sometimes — though less often — to an indolently 
 tolerant attitude towards flagrant evildoers. 
 Frere writes to Lord Elphinstone —
 
 1857.] GENERAL EXHAUSTION. 225 
 
 "August 29, 1857. 
 
 " I see many symptoms that unless our European troops 
 are kept together in large bodies, well officered, and under 
 strict discipline, they will become disorderly rabble, to an 
 extent seriously to impede the pacification of the country. 
 
 " I fear and others, and many of our bravest officers, 
 
 have much to answer for for their indiscriminate severity. If 
 officers and gentlemen cannot control their feelings, we can 
 hardly expect the common soldiers to curb theirs, and all 
 discipline will become loose. I allude to the butchery in 
 cold blood of captives, with little, if any, inquiry except as 
 to their being Purbeas, and without an attempt to dis- 
 criminate between men who have fled in vain terror with 
 the herd, and the ringleaders and armed murderers." 
 
 With equal emphasis he deprecated leniency to proved 
 mutiny. After the outbreak at Shikarpur he wrote to the 
 General, calling his attention to the serious consequences 
 which might arise from a delay which had occurred in 
 dealing with men of the 16th Native Infantry, who were 
 imprisoned at Shikarpur and Larkhana on a charge of 
 attempting to induce the police to mutiny. The charge 
 against them, he pointed out, was a very serious one. 
 They should be tried without delay, and, if acquitted, set 
 at liberty ; if found guilty, punished. There had been a 
 suggestion that they should be treated with leniency as 
 a mark of approbation of the late good conduct of the 
 regiment to which they belonged. But leniency, he insists, 
 would in this case be quite misplaced. The good soldiers 
 of their regiment would be glad to have unworthy 
 members removed from their ranks, and would regard any 
 indulgence shown to them as an insult to the corps. 
 
 To Colonel Phayre he writes : — 
 
 "November 12, 1857. 
 "All is at present quiet in the Punjab, but the sort of 
 exhaustion which has followed their immense efforts to 
 feed the Delhi army with reliable soldiers, and to keep 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 down their own mutinous Hindostanees, may be guessed 
 from the length of time it has taken to put down the petty 
 rebellion in the Barre Doab, though the rebels be^an with- 
 out arms, and every man who could be prudently spared 
 from Mooltan and Lahore was sent. I have always 
 thought we neglected the Punjab too much, and we may 
 thank Sir John's iron rule that by God's blessing the 
 province has been saved from greater disorders. 
 
 "As for our Europeans in Upper Hindostan, the late 
 army of Delhi, every letter which I see (and a good many 
 are sent me, one way or another) speaks of its utter 
 exhaustion and seriously demoralized condition. They 
 have gone through as much as human flesh and blood will 
 stand, and are only less worn out than the crowds of 
 villains they have been beating every third day for months 
 past. You must give them rest and fill their places with 
 [fresh] troops, otherwise you will get a severe check when 
 you least expect it, simply because they come across some 
 fresh enemies who have not yet been thrashed and hold 
 out a little better than usual." 
 
 To Lord Elphinstone he writes, when on his tour up the 
 country, from " camp near Larkhana : " — 
 
 " November 23, 1857. 
 
 " Matters seem quieting down in Kelat. The Jam * of 
 Beila professes to be very penitent for his late misconduct. 
 I have pointed out to his messengers that when the Khan 
 pardons him I will listen to his excuses, and he declares 
 himself [anxious] to do all in his power to make up 
 matters with his sovereign. 
 
 " Sir John Lawrence told me what he had written to 
 you on the subject of assembling a force in Sind. I fear 
 he is not quite free from the general Bengal dislike to owe 
 anything to the Bombay army. It is to me as clear as the 
 day that fresh European troops lose half their value 
 unless you have regular native troops to brigade with 
 them, and that you may with perfect safety send a force 
 of which two-thirds are Bombay native troops anywhere, 
 if you do not send them under Bengal officers or politicals, 
 but that they should be only sent by whole brigades. 
 
 * A Chief of consideration in Beloochistan, on the Persian border.
 
 I857-] A LULL IN THE STORM. 227 
 
 One such brigade, two of our Sind Native Infantry 
 regiments, with about five hundred European Infantry 
 and a troop of Horse Artillery, would, it seems to me, 
 have been invaluable in either the Punjab or Rajpootana. 
 But I suppose he knows his wants best. 
 
 " I think our coming out here has done much good. 
 The people seem everywhere very sincerely glad to see 
 us. But there is no doubt late events in Hindostan have 
 made what the French call a ' profound impression,' even 
 at this distance, and things constantly occur which make 
 me think that one of Lord Ellenborough's proclamations 
 declaring the direct sovereignty of Queen Victoria as 
 Empress of Hindostan would be by no means an empty 
 or useless ceremony." 
 
 And again — 
 
 " Camp Nowshera, in Upper Sind, February 22, 1858. 
 
 " The ' lull ' to which I alluded is the present pause in 
 the storm which has swept over all Upper India, and which 
 does not yet seem to me spent. . . . 
 
 " My mistrust is not by any means confined to this 
 frontier. In Hindostan the mutineers are defeated and 
 for the time being effectually cowed, and the Governor- 
 General may have a plan for its future government with 
 something less expensive than Sir Colin's army of 
 Europeans as a police-force ; but we have seen and heard 
 nothing of it ; and knowing what a ferocious wild beast 
 can be made out of a native, when fairly worried and 
 alarmed, I would gladly see an end of the dragooning 
 system there, before we have troubles elsewhere. 
 
 "It is, however, in the Punjab that there seems to me 
 least security for permanent quiet. I never thought the 
 'loyalty' of the Seikhs was much more than thirst for 
 fighting and plunder, and for revenge against the Hindo- 
 stanees. The misunderstanding about the Delhi prize- 
 money was very unfortunate, but the worst feature, to my 
 mind, is the apparent determination of all the Bengal 
 officers who are admirers of the Seikhs, to repeat in their 
 treatment of them exactly the same errors which ruined 
 their old army — to fancy everything depends on the raw 
 material, and to undervalue the effect of the Englishman's 
 brains and workmanship. . . .
 
 228 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 " It is not any reverse I dread, but a constant succession of 
 expensive petty wars, which will keep up irritation, injure 
 our character for irresistible power, and increase debt, and 
 make it most difficult to concentrate thirty thousand 
 Europeans on the Indus, where they may any day be 
 wanted. 
 
 " Then there are many chances in Europe which may 
 any day turn out against us. 
 
 " The Emperor Napoleon's death or a dozen other things 
 might give us a Provisional Government in France, wicked 
 enough to pick a quarrel with us just to employ their army 
 and keep themselves in power. This would seriously 
 interfere with our recruiting troops overland, etc. So 
 might a threat, even, of a breach with the Americans. And 
 how should we feel if we were quite certain, as we might 
 be made any day to feel, that it would be next to impossible 
 to send us out ten thousand additional Europeans in less 
 than six months ? 
 
 " But it seems to me to this we are tending — to a state 
 which will make the security of India always depend on 
 the ability of the Horse Guards to send us more European 
 troops. . . . 
 
 " But I have got far from this frontier. There are more 
 than the usual chances of disturbance across the border, 
 and our force in Sind, exclusive of troops passing through, 
 has never been so small. When I proposed to reduce it 
 so low, it was in the confident belief that the ist Regiment 
 of Sind Horse would have been back ere this, and that 
 within a month after their return there would have been 
 to all appearance three regiments of Sind Horse on the 
 frontier. I also hoped that if the Government of India 
 did not allow Jacob to raise two regiments of Sillidar 
 Infantry they would long ago have intimated their refusal, 
 so that we might have asked for Native Infantry from 
 other quarters. I need hardly tell your lordship that 
 from April to October Europeans are, for real work in the 
 field in Upper Sind, nearly useless. It is as much as we 
 can hope to do to keep them alive and efficient in barracks ; 
 nor are Regular Native troops much better, unless very 
 expensive field establishments are always kept up. I feel 
 confident, therefore, that for efficiency and economy 
 combined nothing could be better than General Jacob's 
 plan. I never knew him fail in anything of the kind, and
 
 1S57.] NEED FOR NATIVE TROOPS. 229 
 
 if he succeeds he will show the way to a large saving in 
 some very expensive departments. 
 
 " As for the arms of such Sillidar Infantry — if the orders 
 of the Home Government are very imperative — the men 
 might be armed with ordinary fusees, pending a reference 
 to England ; but it seems to me that the arguments against 
 giving them rifles are equally valid against [giving them] 
 anything but staves and stones. 
 
 "But the proposed Frontier Force is to hold a post 
 quite different from any police or local corps intended to 
 preserve the peace of the interior. They are to be on the 
 frontier at a place and at a season where Europeans 
 cannot be permanently posted, and they may have to 
 meet well-armed men. Some months ago I sent you 
 Major Lumsden's account of Goolam Hyder's Candahar 
 Rifles, who were, in Major L.'s opinion, quite equal 
 in armament, skill, and drill to any corps in our service. 
 Against such men our troops must be armed with something 
 better than an old-pattern musket. 
 
 "Moreover, our great Indian difficulty is financial ; and 
 if by giving a man a good rifle you can make him equal to 
 two men with bad muskets, it is clearly the more economical 
 course to give him the rifle. Arm him as you will, he can 
 never be a match for a European similarly armed and 
 trained, so that there need be no fear of our creating a 
 native army which we cannot keep in order, unless we 
 repeat our late errors. 
 
 " But if a Frontier Field Force is quite out of the 
 question, we must have something in its place, and even 
 three regiments of Native Infantry will hardly be a fair 
 equivalent. 
 
 "At present everything here depends on personal in- 
 fluence, and though I would rely much on such power as 
 Jacob, Green, and Merewether have over the people up 
 here, I do not like to see everything depend on the heads 
 of three or four men longer than is necessary. 
 
 " This letter has run to such a length that I will only 
 say once more that I trust your lordship will order back 
 the 1st Regiment of Sind Horse, and if possible get us 
 permission to raise two regiments of Sillidar Infantry, and 
 that, if not, other provision may be made to secure the 
 peace of the frontier, for which Sir Charles Napier used to 
 require fourteen thousand men ; for he always maintained
 
 230 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 that his army was for the frontier defence and not for 
 Sind. 
 
 "Ina letter I have just received from Captain Malcolm 
 Green, after alluding to the difficulty of getting good recruits, 
 he says : ' There is no doubt service under the British 
 Government is now at a discount, and a very long time 
 will elapse before the feeling of confidence is restored. 
 Every native of India seems now to feel that if aid had 
 not arrived from England we should have been driven out 
 of the country. In fact, till the Queen is proclaimed 
 Sovereign of India there will be no peace. At present 
 every one appears to be doubtful as to who has a right to 
 call himself the real possessor of the throne of India, and 
 unless this state of things is altered there will soon be 
 another row.' 
 
 " This is from Rajpootana ; and from the other side his 
 brother Major H. Green describes just the same feeling of 
 uncertainty and insecurity at Kelat. It is this feeling 
 which leads natives to all sorts of foolish and abortive 
 attempts at insurrection, long after the time when they 
 might have been successful has passed. It is not that they 
 are disloyal, but that, for lack of accurate information on 
 matters which they never care about except in times of 
 excitement, they fancy the Government is breaking up, 
 and that it is every one for himself. It was so to a great 
 extent in the Deccan during the Affghan War. There 
 were numerous abortive risings, though there was very 
 little real disloyalty. Just as in France, if you could make 
 the public functionaries believe that there had been a 
 successful Revolution, you might get them to swear fidelity 
 to Henry V., or a Red Republic, or anything else, though 
 well content if left alone to draw their salaries under Louis 
 Napoleon." 
 
 On this point it will be remembered that though the 
 Queen's sovereignty over the territory of the East India 
 Company was proclaimed in 1858, the title of Empress of 
 India, which was needed to satisfy the requirements 
 above described, was not assumed till more than eighteen 
 years afterwards. Even then so little was the matter 
 understood in England, that when the proposal was made
 
 1857J CAMPAIGN OF SIND HORSE. 231 
 
 it was received there, even by those who should have 
 known better, with astonishment or with derision, as 
 though it were a piece of meaningless vanity and 
 ostentation. 
 
 The regiment of Sind Horse which had been on its 
 return from Persia sent on to Bombay, was despatched 
 thence to the southern Mahratta country. In November 
 the detachments were collected at Poona and were 
 ordered to march to Upper Sind, under the command 
 of Major Malcolm Green. Lord Elphinstone sent for 
 Malcolm Green and told him that the route he was to 
 take would be left entirely to his own discretion ; and that 
 as some of the Native States through which the regiment 
 would have to pass were understood to be in a disturbed 
 condition, he was to do as much good as he could on the 
 road. They marched, accordingly, after being inspected 
 by Sir Hugh Rose, then in command of the Central 
 Indian Field Force, who expressed his great satisfaction 
 at their efficiency. On January 9, 1858, Malcolm Green 
 received a despatch from Sir George Lawrence, asking 
 him to co-operate with the Nusserabad Field Force, 
 which he joined accordingly on the 19th, and remained 
 with it during the siege and capture of Ahwah. On 
 February 3 the regiment resumed its march, but on the 
 nth, meeting with Major-General Roberts's Rajpootana 
 Field Force, a detachment of two hundred sabres was at his 
 request left to aid him in the operations which led to the 
 capture of Kotah and the pursuit of the rebels, the rest 
 of the regiment going on by way of the Jodhpur and 
 Jeysulmeer deserts to Jacobabad. This detachment re- 
 sumed its march on April 16, reached the Sutlej a few 
 miles below Ferozepur, and marching down the left bank 
 of that river to Roree on the Indus, joined head-quarters 
 at Jacobabad on July 6, thus completing a march, including
 
 232 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 the distance passed over in the pursuit of the enemy, 
 of two thousand four hundred miles since it left Poona, 
 and being in as good fighting condition as when it started. 
 
 In many of the notoriously disaffected towns and 
 districts through which they passed were the birthplaces 
 of the troopers and the homes of their relatives ; yet so 
 sure was Malcolm Green of their fidelity, that he con- 
 stantly gave them leave of absence to revisit their old 
 friends and old haunts, and not one ever failed to report 
 himself at the expiration of his leave. The men's letters, 
 instead of being opened and read, as was the general 
 practice with native regiments during the Mutiny, were 
 delivered to them unopened, and frequently the men 
 would hand over to an officer letters inciting them to 
 mutiny, and they would be read aloud in derision in the 
 orderly room by his order.* 
 
 The squadron of Sind Horse were not the only Sind 
 soldiers who served with the Rajpootana Field Force. 
 Early in February, 1858, Frere had received a request 
 
 * Jacob's horsemen were at this time armed with double-barrelled 
 carbines in place of the single-barrelled ones which they had had 
 before. The substitution did not take place all at once, but had been 
 carried out gradually, the men having to purchase the new arm, and 
 being permitted to sell the old one. Unfortunately when the old 
 single-barrelled carbines were disposed of the regimental stamp on 
 them was not, as it should have been, erased. Hence when some 
 mutineers were taken with carbines with the Sind Horse stamp upon 
 them in their hands, they were erroneously supposed to be Sind 
 horsemen, or else to have been surreptitiously supplied with arms 
 by men of that corps. Fortunately Jacob was able to prove con- 
 clusively that not a single trooper in his corps was absent or un- 
 accounted for at the time. If any additional security had been wanting 
 for the fidelity of the Sind Horse, it might have been found in the 
 fact that whereas most of the Bengal Irregular Regiments were in 
 debt to their bankers, the Sind Horse, under Jacob's careful manage- 
 ment, had a sum of no less than thirty thousand pounds, the property 
 of the men, to their credit at the bank. Had a man mutinied or 
 deserted he would have, of course, forfeited his deposit.
 
 i»57] MACAULEY'S BELOOCH HORSE. 233 
 
 from Sir George Lawrence to send him some cavalry. 
 It was impossible at that time to spare the one regiment 
 from the frontier, but, instead, Frere and Jacob arranged 
 to raise and despatch a body of Border Belooch Horse. 
 Lieutenant (now Colonel) Macauley was entrusted with 
 the task. Taking as a nucleus a Russuldar, four Jema- 
 dars, and a hundred and twenty-five Sowars of the 
 guides attached to the Sind Horse, he quickly obtained 
 recruits. On February 12 this hastily assembled force of 
 wild borderers made their first day's march of twenty-six 
 miles to Shikarpur, and the next day went on twenty- 
 four miles to Sukkur, and crossed the Indus to Roree, 
 where their numbers increased to five hundred and five, 
 of all ranks. After halting a week to collect supplies, 
 Macauley led them across the desert and reached Nusse- 
 rabad, four hundred and eighty miles distant, in twenty- 
 six days. They took part in the campaign under General 
 Roberts, and during the siege of Kotah were employed in 
 picket, patrol, and other duties. No matter what work 
 was allotted to them, it was, after their own fashion, per- 
 formed steadily and well. All through the intense heat 
 of June, and through, what tried the Belooch more, the 
 monsoon rains, of which they had had no experience 
 in their own country, the pursuit of the rebels was 
 carried on. Macauley was invested with supreme powers 
 over his men — powers rarely granted, — and the very ex- 
 istence and coherence of the force depended on his single 
 personal control and authority. Had anything happened 
 to him, " it is impossible to guess," he says, " what mischief 
 some of these wild Borderers would have perpetrated ; 
 none but those who have been in my position can under- 
 stand what it is to work five hundred such wild creatures. 
 I was out the greater part of every day and often all 
 night throughout the hot season and monsoon, and had to
 
 234 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 visit all my pickets twice during the night ; I may say I 
 lived in my saddle." 
 
 When the rebels evacuated Rajpootana there was no 
 more fighting to be done, and Macauley, not caring to 
 trust his wild men on detached duty in time of peace, 
 returned to Jacobabad in September and disbanded them. 
 They had been absent eight months and fourteen days, in 
 the course of which time they had marched two thousand 
 five hundred and twenty-three miles. 
 
 Few statesmen, probably, even in India, at this time 
 realized how important an element in the struggle was 
 the attitude of the frontier tribes of Affghanistan and 
 Beloochistan, and how much depended on whether they 
 were friendly or hostile. The Affghans were eager to pour 
 their soldiers into the Punjab and join the insurgents. 
 Nothing but the strong hand, determined will, and un- 
 shaken fidelity of Dost Mahomed restrained them ; and 
 false reports of his death were constantly in circulation. 
 Persia had long been hostile. She had been put forward 
 as a catspaw by Russia from time to time, and both Russia 
 and Persia were smarting under recent defeat. A Persian 
 proclamation inciting to insurrection had been found at 
 Delhi just before the outbreak ; and though the great 
 majority of the Mahomedans in India are Sunnis, who 
 look to the Sultan of Turkey as their spiritual head, and 
 regard the Shah as a schismatic, the insurgents were dis- 
 posed, for the time being, to sink their religious animosities 
 and to unite against the English power under the banner 
 of the Shah. 
 
 Persian emissaries were busy in Beloochistan. In July, 
 1857, the Khan of Kelat, who under Jacob's and Frere's 
 influence had developed into a just and competent ruler, 
 friendly to the British, had died suddenly. The death of 
 his old minister, Moolla Ahmed, followed soon after. It
 
 1857.] THE KHAN OF KELAT. 235. 
 
 seemed as if the fruit of five years' labour and pains had 
 vanished just at the critical time, for he was succeeded 
 by a youth of indifferent character and little ability, a 
 prey to the influence of any one who could get his 
 ear for the moment. Macauley went immediately with- 
 out any escort to Kelat for a few days, which was as 
 long as he could then be spared. On his return from 
 Persia, Major H. Green went there as Resident, with a few 
 Sind Horse troopers for his escort, to try and keep the 
 new Khan straight, and baffle the influence of Persian and 
 rebel emissaries ; and there he remained month after 
 month, going about unarmed and alone, and carrying, as 
 he well knew, his life in his hand from day to day. 
 
 The Khan was in the hands of one Gungaram, a crafty 
 old Hindoo, who was afterwards discovered to be impli- 
 cated in a plot to depose him and put the Jam of Beila in 
 his place. Gungaram was so obnoxious to the Belooch 
 chiefs that an outbreak seemed to be imminent. 
 
 Frere writes to Lord Elphinstone : — 
 
 " December 16, 1857. 
 " At his first interview with Green the Khan was ill at 
 ease. Every prominence was given to the obnoxious 
 Minister, and he . . . seemed at first inclined to keep the 
 chiefs away from any personal or unreserved intercourse 
 with Major Green, and to place him in much the same 
 position as the Candahar Mission, isolated from the people 
 and the Sirdars, and in communication with no one but 
 the Ruler. But Green gave them all to understand that 
 that was not at all the style in which he meant to live, and 
 the attempt was abandoned. The effects seem to have been 
 good as regards all parties. The Khan has taken a great 
 fancy to the new envoy, and seems inclined to look to him 
 as his best friend and adviser. The chiefs have frankly 
 stated their wishes, which are reasonable and proper, and 
 compliance with which will strengthen the Khan's position, 
 and make him happier as well as more safe. They have 
 named several old and influential Sirdars, who have the
 
 236 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 confidence of all parties, and who they think would make 
 good advisers of the young Khan, and Green seems to 
 think the Khan will be glad to comply, that Gungaram, 
 finding we will not support him in his rapacious and 
 unpopular proceedings, will return to his former post, as 
 Naib of a district and to the charge of his accounts, and 
 that everything else will be settled to the satisfaction of 
 all parties." 
 
 Three months later Frere gives the following summary 
 of Major Green's work : — 
 
 "March 13, 1858. 
 
 " He has carried out the expulsion of Gungaram, the 
 Hindoo Wuzzeer, a man hostile to and disliked by the 
 chiefs, and who, had he remained, would have produced 
 either a civil war or a rupture with us — probably both. . . . 
 
 " He has managed to unite all the chiefs near Kelat 
 with the Khan, and to get the young man well married to 
 the daughter of one of the most influential and respectable 
 of them, and by paying the annual subsidy two months 
 before it was due, he has avoided a financial difficulty. 
 
 " In short, without using force or even threats, he has 
 laid the foundation of a respectable and stable govern- 
 ment, which, if he gets time to consolidate, will not only 
 reduce all Beloochistan to its former quiet and good order, 
 but form a most useful barrier to Persian or Affghan in- 
 trigue and encroachment, and a most valuable outpost 
 should we be threatened in that quarter." 
 
 The following somewhat fragmentary extracts are given 
 here as showing Frere's opinion as to the vital importance 
 of establishing friendly relations and keeping a sharp 
 look-out in the direction of Affghanistan and Persia, and 
 of the great value of Ouetta as an outpost to that end. 
 
 He writes to Lord Elphinstone : — 
 
 " March 25, 1858. 
 " With regard to the plan of occupying Ouetta, I believe 
 it originated with Ferrier, the French traveller, but I have 
 not his book at hand to refer to. Now that Green has re- 
 covered our hold over the Khan, perhaps the best thing we
 
 1858.] QUETTA. 237 
 
 can do is to leave him and General Jacob alone, merely 
 putting it into their power to secure Quetta, should it be 
 threatened by any external foe. This they can easily do if 
 General Jacob has such a force at his disposal as shall 
 enable him always to support Major Green in case of 
 need. As long as he is on good terms with the Khan and 
 his chiefs he has the resources of the country, such as they 
 are, at his disposal. But I feel convinced it will be a fatal 
 day for us, if either the place passes into other hands, or 
 we cease to be paramount at Kelat. In either case you 
 will need a very large force in Upper Sind, and all will be 
 even then insecure. 
 
 " The value of Quetta is probably quite as well known 
 at Paris and St. Petersburg as here ; and the Brahoees and 
 Affghans are always discussing it. My immediate appre- 
 hension is, not that we may see a Russian General above 
 the Bolan, but simply that if we go to sleep and neglect to 
 secure Quetta, we may any day — when Dost Mahomed 
 dies, or the next triennial Affghan revolution comes round 
 — hear that Quetta has been seized by some adventurer, 
 who may or may not be a friend of ours, but who will 
 certainly make the best, for his own profit, of his prize. 
 
 " We must either interfere in force, or keep up such a 
 force in the vile climate of Upper Sind, as shall avert all 
 risks of our new neighbour plundering Cutchee and 
 menacing Shikarpur and the Indus. 
 
 "This is no chimera. I sent to Government last summer 
 a letter from Azad Khan to his old guest, the Khan's 
 stepmother, urging her to induce the Kelat Sirdars, over 
 whom she has great influence, to break with the English, 
 and offering his own services in any national move of the 
 kind. These people do not lightly or thoughtlessly make 
 or receive such offers. It might be any day renewed, and 
 a trifle might lead to its acceptance. In which case, unless 
 you advanced to shut the door and secure the key, you 
 would not be secure with even a strong brigade in Upper 
 Sind." 
 
 Two days later he writes to Jacob : — 
 
 " I have heard from Lord Elphinstone. He is, I think, 
 becoming a convert to the necessity of occupying Quetta, 
 but he still seems to consider our hands are too full for it 
 just now. This seems to me as though a man, with a deep
 
 238 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 and rapid river in his front, were to abstain from seizing 
 the only bridge across it till the enemy on the other side 
 ceased to threaten him. However, I hope he will see the 
 thing ere long as of something more than possible im- 
 portance." 
 
 And to Sir George Clerk : — 
 
 "April 3, 1858. 
 " To-day I got an answer to Major Merewether's report 
 for 1856 for frontier affairs, which was sent last February 
 twelvemonth to Calcutta. During the heat of the Persian 
 war Merewether had pressed the occupation of Quetta, and 
 they now say they have had so much to do in India that 
 they do not consider it expedient 'to pass a judgment on 
 the isolated question of the formation of a cantonment at 
 Quetta.' " 
 
 To Lord Elphinstone he writes : — 
 
 "March 30, 1858. 
 
 " You will probably have heard direct that the Herat 
 mission left, on its return to Tehran, on the 1st inst. 
 Major Lumsden infers from this that his mission will also 
 be allowed to return to India. If so, I trust your lordship 
 will urge on the Governor-General the necessity of keeping 
 Major Green at Kelat, and allowing him to communicate 
 freely with whoever may be Sirdar at Candahar. 
 
 " I do not know what results have been secured in return 
 for our subsidy to Dost Mahomed, but I am very sure 
 we shall soon rue the day when we leave ourselves without 
 eyes or ears to learn what goes on above the passes. You 
 could not have a better man than Major Green, for he is 
 very averse to meddle, and will not overdo the thing. . . . 
 
 " Two months more will probably find many of the more 
 active and enterprising of the rebels and mutineers seeking 
 an asylum in Affghanistan, where as drill-masters they 
 will be welcome guests of every petty chief who hopes to 
 do something for himself in the coming scramble, which 
 all foresee will follow Dost Mahomed's death. Even the 
 Hindoos, if sepoys, will be welcomed. It is only the 
 Afreedis who forcibly convert their Hindoo guests. These 
 men will go burning with vengeance, and not ill-informed 
 as to our weak points and as to the best means of doing
 
 1858.] THE FRONTIER. 239 
 
 us mischief, and even the most abortive invasion or rising 
 will be a serious nuisance, if it happens when your fresh 
 English troops have been harassed by a campaign pro- 
 tracted into the hot weather, and are beginning to sicken 
 of dysentery and other reactionary diseases in the hastily 
 constructed barracks on the hot plains of Hindostan. 
 
 " I do earnestly trust, therefore, that you will give 
 General Jacob carte blanclie to do his best on his burning 
 frontier, where there can be no doubt that your permanent 
 garrison must be native, and must be as efficient as you 
 can make it. It is not a place where Eurasian volunteers, 
 or English troops, or Goorkhas, or any of the proposed 
 alternatives for our Native army can live, or by any possi- 
 bility be tried, and therefore I trust there will be no delay 
 while such nostrums are being discussed." 
 
 To Major Merewether, then on leave in England, Frere 
 writes : — 
 
 "October 1, 1858. 
 
 " The Punjab is uneasy. The system of physical force, 
 repression, and bribery of the Sikhs cannot last for ever, 
 and Sir J. Lawrence's successor will find himself on no 
 bed of roses. Here we are doing what we can with small 
 thanks and little aid from any one at Bombay or Lahore 
 to improve communication with Mooltan, the real key of 
 the Punjab. Jacob is forming what will be a very powerful 
 force in front of the Bolan, and I have enough to do to 
 keep the peace between him and the solemn gentlemen on 
 high chairs at desks in various departments. But he will 
 be the bulwark of this frontier if time and life be granted 
 him." 
 
 Instructions from Government put an end for the 
 present to any project for occupying Ouetta. 
 
 Upon the question of English and Russian influence 
 in Affghanistan, he writes to Sir George Clerk : — 
 
 "April 17, 1S59. 
 
 " I did not meet a Candahar horse-dealer or Shikarpur 
 
 merchant who did not at once broach the subject of the 
 
 Russian Mission, which had evidently created a great stir 
 
 in Affghanistan. What is most wanted up there seems to
 
 240 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VII. 
 
 me to be that we should lay clown to ourselves and tell 
 our agents on the frontier and elsewhere what our policy, 
 if we have one, is to be. It may be very convenient to say 
 we will be guided by circumstances ; but that is not the 
 sort of policy that wins friends and deters enemies ; we 
 cannot pretend that it will be a matter of indifference to 
 us what happens when Dost Mahomed dies — whether the 
 best Affghan takes the reins, or a puppet in Russian, 
 French, or Persian leading-strings. As a matter of fact 
 Affghan politics cannot be matter of indifference to us, 
 and I cannot see why we should not honestly say so, to 
 both Affghans and Russians — tell them we do not want 
 to interfere more than we can help, but that we mean to 
 see and hear all we can, and not to allow other people to 
 meddle more than we do ourselves ; and deal openly with 
 the Russians, giving them credit for being actuated by no 
 worse motives than we are ourselves, viz. a natural interest 
 in the affairs of such near neighbours." 
 
 And to Major H. Green he writes : — 
 
 "April 23, 1859. 
 " My policy would be to tell the people ' we mean to 
 see and hear all that goes on, and to leave you as much 
 freedom to manage your own affairs as possible, but not 
 to allow other Foreign Powers to meddle more than we do 
 ourselves. The Russians are as much concerned in these 
 matters as we, are, and we shall always be willing to 
 discuss them with accredited Russian agents ; but the 
 Russians must disavow all secret and irresponsible agents. 
 We shall not interfere with the people of Afghanistan in 
 their choice of a Ruler ; we shall deal with him, when 
 chosen, as we find him — and not pass over any slight or 
 want of attention to our interest and wishes.' I cannot see 
 why we should deal with them on any other terms." 
 
 More than a year after he had left Sind, Frere writes 
 to Lord Canning : — 
 
 " December 1, i860. 
 
 " I do not look on the Russian advance into Central 
 Asia as any evil, and I know a time must come when the 
 limit of our legitimate influence will touch the limits of
 
 «S5S.] BOOGTEE RAID. 24 1 
 
 theirs. This maybe done in peace, and I think the sooner 
 the better. But I should like it to be, if possible, far from 
 our own frontier, and that we should meantime, by ex- 
 tending our common and honourable influence, unite our 
 neighbours as closely as possible to us in interest and 
 feeling. This is one of my great reasons for wishing to 
 make the most of facilities for commerce in Kurrachee 
 and the Indus, and for highly valuing such work as Major 
 Green's, taking every care that he does not commit us 
 to any advance in force." 
 
 But to return to the autumn of 1858. On September 
 28, Frere was writing to Lord Elphinstone : — 
 
 " I have just received from General Jacob an account of 
 a raid by the Boogtees into the Murree country, which 
 shows what these men are up to if they did not know that 
 it was unsafe to meddle with us. While the Murrees were 
 occupied by a threat of attack from the Khetranees, Islam 
 Khan and Moorteza Khan, the two principal chiefs, with 
 the elite of the Boogtees, made a descent on Mundahee, a 
 place seventy or eighty miles north-west of Kahun, where, 
 as being remote from danger, the Murrees had collected 
 their cattle. The Murrees were quite surprised, fifty or 
 sixty were slain, and the Boogtees,* with the loss of only 
 five wounded, ' lifted ' a greater booty than had ever been 
 taken in the hills before. A patrol of the Sind Horse met 
 them at Shapoor and counted eight thousand sheep, eight 
 hundred cows and oxen, four hundred she camels, thirty 
 horses and mares, and eighty asses. 
 
 In forwarding Jacob's account, Frere writes : — 
 
 " October 15, 1858. 
 
 " It is obvious that the old Border spirit has by no 
 means died out. In daring, skilful arrangement and enter- 
 prise the foray described is quite equal to any of those, 
 the memory of which survives among the legends of the 
 frontier tribes, or of which we occasionally hear on other 
 portions of the border. 
 
 " It is well to bear this in mind, because, since the 
 
 * The Boogtees, it will be remembered, were the tribe so severely 
 defeated by Major Merewether in 1847. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VII. 
 
 arrangements on this frontier were first left in General 
 Jacob's hands, the success of his measures has been so- 
 complete that it is frequently ascribed to some difference 
 in the character of the tribes with which he has to deal ; 
 and because, since 1847, there has been no single instance 
 of a really successful raid, great or small, within the line of 
 General Jacob's frontier outposts, it is difficult to persuade 
 persons at a distance that the tribes on this part of the 
 border are still really as formidable as they were before 
 that period, or as any of their fellow tribes on any part of 
 the north-western frontier of India. But no one can have 
 any doubt upon this point who considers what the same 
 energy and skill which directed the present enterprise 
 might have effected if, instead of wresting such a booty 
 from the rocky fastnesses of the Murree Hills, the Boogtees 
 had ventured to sweep the flat plains and open defenceless 
 towns of Sind. 
 
 " Secondly, it is well to consider what a commentary a 
 successful enterprise like this furnishes on the opinion of 
 those who deem that no serious danger can be apprehended 
 from our neighbours beyond this frontier. 
 
 " We ought never to forget that the real weakness of 
 these tribes consists in their want of union and combination, 
 and that one combining and directing mind, who could 
 give them a common object and induce them to unite 
 till it was attained, might render them very formid- 
 able." . . . 
 
 The Murrees were the most insubordinate and amongst 
 the most powerful of the tribes owing nominal allegiance 
 to the Khan of Kelat. Robbers by profession and 
 almost by necessity — for their country did not grow 
 sufficient corn for their sustenance, and when their stores 
 of food were exhausted, a plundering raid was the only 
 available means of replenishing them — they used to boast 
 that of all the clans with which the English had come in 
 contact during the occupation of Affghanistan, they alone 
 had never submitted or been fairly defeated. Thrice in 
 the year 1840 they destroyed, almost to a man, detach- 
 ments of British troops, one of which, under Major
 
 '858.] THE MURREES. 243 
 
 Clibborn, lost three guns, which had never been re- 
 covered — to Jacob, as an old artilleryman, a sore subject. 
 Sir Charles Napier, in his Hill Campaign, did not 
 penetrate into their fastnesses ; and they were constantly 
 extending the range of their plundering parties, till Jacob 
 took command of the Sind frontier in 1847, and put an 
 effectual stop to their depredations in that direction. 
 Henceforth, therefore, on the western side they confined 
 themselves to periodical plundering in the Khan's territory 
 of Cutchee and the Bolan Pass, which they rendered at 
 times impassable to any but large Kaffilas ; and thither 
 Jacob could not follow them, for he was prevented by 
 strict orders from doing more than was necessary to 
 protect the frontier. On their eastern boundary was the 
 Punjab, and on this side their raids were more frequent 
 and formidable. Frere and Jacob, as has been already 
 mentioned, protested against the Punjab authorities making 
 retaliatory expeditions against the tribes owing allegiance 
 to the Khan of Kelat, instead of seeking redress from him 
 as their suzerain ; and the Punjab authorities consequently 
 asked that if they were not to be allowed to protect them- 
 selves from the Murrees after their own fashion, the Sind 
 authorities should take the necessary measures after theirs. 
 
 The legitimate way of bringing them to order was by 
 the authority and armed interposition of the Khan him- 
 self. Jacob and Major Green had often talked over and 
 planned out such an expedition, and Major Green, now 
 political agent with the Khan, was making preparations 
 for carrying it out. 
 
 The relation of the Belooch and Brahoe chiefs to the 
 Khan of Kelat resembled that of the German barons of 
 the Middle Ages to the Emperor. Each tribe held its 
 territory on condition of furnishing the Khan with a 
 quota of armed men in war time, to be commanded and
 
 244 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 fed by him. Their allegiance was at best little more 
 than nominal, and their power of cohesion was further 
 weakened by the reigning Khan having secretly sown 
 discord among them with the object of strengthening 
 his power. 
 
 Amongst the most important of the chiefs whom Major 
 Green was endeavouring to bring to join the Khan's force 
 was the Jam of Beila. His territory was on the borders 
 of Persia, with which Power he was known to have 
 been, during the Mutiny, constantly intriguing against his 
 suzerain the Khan and against the English. In respect of 
 this chief, Frere writes encouragingly, but inculcating 
 caution to Major Green : — 
 
 "October 16, 1858. 
 
 " I sent on your letter to the Jam, with one from myself, 
 of which a copy will reach you through the General, and 
 I trust they will have the effect of making him join you 
 at Koydar, or wherever you may be when he gets your 
 letter, and placing himself entirely in your hands. It will 
 be the best thing he can do, and I think if he can screw 
 up his courage to meet you, you will soon get over him 
 the same influence you have acquired over the other chiefs. 
 
 " I never believed him to be an injured innocent, nor do 
 I think he laid much claim to that character. He was, I 
 suppose, like all the rest of the chiefs, on the look-out for 
 something to his own advantage, and if he had been 
 forced into the Musnud, killing a few scores in hot or cold 
 blood as the case might be, I do not suppose he or any of 
 the others would have declined the honour from con- 
 scientious scruples. 
 
 " But one must not expect too much from these men. 
 Loyalty, in otir sense of the word, is hardly to be expected 
 among them any more than among the Scotch or English 
 nobles of the early feudal times, and for the same reason, 
 viz. that every man has some sort of connection by blood 
 or marriage with the reigning house, and can get up some 
 sort of claim to reign himself, if he is strong enough. 
 Soldiers, not lawyers, elect and support the sovereign, and 
 a stout arm and wise head are better charters than a
 
 1858.] THE JAM OF BEILA. 245 
 
 pedigree proving you the rightful heir. Fidelity to certain 
 persons and families all these people have who are 
 accustomed to consider themselves as vassals and servants ; 
 but that can hardly be felt towards the present Khan 
 whose escutcheon is not quite without blot, nor does he 
 command personal respect or regard. You, and you alone, 
 have saved him ; and in saving him, have saved the peace 
 of all that country, and of much of our own too. But do 
 not expect too much from these people, nor set them down 
 as villains because they waver in their allegiance to their 
 Khan or to us, when they think us going down hill. 
 Success is one of their tests of right, and as long as we are 
 visibly able to command them, they will obey us, and no 
 longer. It is because they feel that the moral power of 
 you and your small escort is greater than that of a host of 
 plunderers and murderers that they obey you so willingly. 
 But take care you do not overstrain your power by exact- 
 ing too much. 
 
 "This Jam has been a good neighbour to us down here, 
 and whatever schemes of ambition he may have entertained 
 to the prejudice of a Power of which his father never heard 
 probably, he has always acted as we have a right to 
 expect : catches and gives up fugitives and thieves, and 
 prevents his own people from molesting ours. We must 
 deal with him according to his acts, not according to any 
 foolish dreams which may have entered his head. . . . 
 
 " If the Khan wishes to distinguish himself by reducing 
 to order a refractory vassal, let him try his hand on 
 Osmeid Alia Choota, who is nearer to him and as bad a 
 neighbour to us as the Jam is a good one — always evad- 
 ing help to our police, and harbouring criminals. I do 
 not want him to carry fire and sword into Osmeid Alla's 
 villages. He and his people are not worse than the 
 Elliotts, Armstrongs, Maxwells, and Johnstones of a 
 hundred and fifty years ago ; and in less than that time, if 
 we go on patiently, as Jacob and you have been doing 
 hitherto, we shall make the Chootas, please God, into 
 respectable people, like the Elliotts & Co. of these days 
 (Porter Brewers, perhaps, to H.M.'s Forces in Sind) ; but 
 we must not drive them too fast. . . . 
 
 "We must remember that the act transferring India 
 to the direct government of the Crown has materially 
 changed our powers. Before, we could, if we saw good
 
 246 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 cause, have marched our army to Candahar or Herat, and 
 trusted to the Court approving. Now any employment 
 of our Indian army beyond our own frontier (except to 
 repel invasion) without the sanction of Parliament is 
 strictly forbidden. No doubt it will be done some day, 
 but the attempt, without the strongest reasons, will be 
 checked, and if we bring on ourselves any check of the 
 kind, it may extend to the growth of the bulwark which 
 Jacob is slowly but surely building against external 
 aggression, and which, as the only defence of the kind we 
 have, I would not willingly see interrupted. 
 
 " I am afraid you will never read all this yarn unless I 
 get a certificate from some credible person that it is good 
 for you ; so I shall send it to Jacob and ask him to read 
 it, and, if approved, to add such a certificate as Professor 
 Hollo way gets." 
 
 So he writes to Jacob as follows : — 
 
 "October 22, 1858. 
 
 " What will you think of me ? Not give me quite up, I 
 hope. The enclosed is a letter to Green in answer to one 
 of his about the Jam. Please read and, if you approve, 
 say a word in support. I am a little afraid that Green, in 
 his honest zeal for a united and powerful Khanate, will go 
 on too fast, and try forcibly to convert the somewhat 
 vague and nominal allegiance of the Jam into the position 
 of vassal, bound to ' come when he is called and do what 
 he is bid ; ' in fact, that he will try to do what MacNaughten 
 wanted done twenty years ago. 
 
 " I hope the Jam will go to him, for I am sure if Green 
 were a week with even Azaard Khan himself, the chief 
 would be his humble servant ; but till they know and feel 
 by personal observation the power of his honest, right- 
 minded character, it is useless to drive them The Khan 
 they can never respect, but as Green consolidates some- 
 thing like a powerful Government at Kelat, they will 
 respect and lean to him, as the chiefs now with him do. 
 But it seems to me a mistake to suppose that these men 
 are specifically different from the rest. Of course there is 
 great difference of individual character, but the main 
 difference of all seems to me to be that the one set see and 
 know Green personally and the others do not."
 
 1858.] MAJOR GREEN AT KELAT. 247 
 
 Major Green's answer is not extant, and its purport can 
 only be gathered from Frere's reply to it : — 
 
 "November 20, 1858. 
 
 " I hope you are better for the broadside you fired into 
 me in yours of the 4th, just received, for I assure you it 
 nearly took away my breath. However, as Jacob says, 
 pitch into me, if it does you good, for I know it is all 
 meant for the good of the nation. But do not suppose 
 I ever imagined you were going about the country a la 
 political. I know you could not do it, if you tried, and if 
 any one tried to make you do it, you would, I know, either 
 die under the operation or slay the operator outright. 
 
 "Just read my letter again, if you have got it, and you 
 will see that what I said — certainly what I meant to say — 
 was that any attempt to force all these chiefs to obey the 
 Khan as they would have obeyed his brother Nusseer 
 Khan or their father, would end in the policy which you 
 and I equally abhor and detest. 
 
 "All that a just and manly course of action can do to 
 create a firm and united Government in Beloochistan, you 
 have done and are doing. . . . 
 
 " Do not for a moment suppose that I do not feel as 
 much as you or any other man living, the evil of shut- 
 ting our eyes to the only true policy and adopting the 
 timid course, which, as you justly say, is in the end the 
 most aggressive. Publicly and privately I have used what 
 weight my opinion has, to support the views you and Jacob 
 have propounded, confident that they are not only just and 
 right in themselves, but the only way to avoid being driven 
 forward against our will and our interest. 
 
 " But we are in a minority of half a dozen against the 
 world. It is useless fretting. The only thing is to wait 
 patiently and prepare, as well as we can, for the storm 
 which will come, and which will, for the first time, satisfy 
 the world that the half dozen though in the minority were 
 not knaves or fools, nor any way in error as to what must 
 happen. 
 
 " The only fault I have ever found with you is that you 
 do not seem satisfied with your own work ; that you seem 
 impatient and anxious to be doing more, when I see you 
 have done and are doing more than I believed possible, 
 and that you are rapidly working a great revolution, and
 
 248 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIL 
 
 converting one of our posts of danger into an outwork of 
 commanding strength. 
 
 " If I gave you any other impression than this you must 
 forgive me, for, believe me, that was what I meant, and 
 few things could vex me more than [for you] to think I 
 had any feeling but one of the highest admiration for 
 all you have done with so much courage and self- 
 devotion. 
 
 "If still wroth, fire a second broadside at me, but in 
 any case believe me ever your sincere and affectionate 
 friend." 
 
 Frere, as usual, was doing all he could to help and 
 support Major Green, while leaving him a free hand. He 
 
 writes to him : — 
 
 " December 23, 1858. 
 
 " I have sent to Government your official letter of 
 the 20th, relative to the Khan's expedition against the 
 Murrees. 
 
 " Do not consider me an old woman for reminding you 
 that you have now duties even higher than that of showing 
 H.H. and his paladins how to scale a hill crowned by Murree 
 matchlockmen. You know I always admit that there are 
 times when a General may properly pick up a firelock and 
 use it, but it is not his usual duty. Your duty is now to 
 direct others, and my only misgiving is that your love of 
 danger and adventure may lead you to expose yourself, 
 not only more than is necessary, but more than is justifi- 
 able in a man who is to be the brain, and not the hands 
 and feet, of frontier enterprise." 
 
 At length, by January 21, 1859, and in spite of the 
 occurrence of a calamity which might well have deterred 
 him, Major Green had assembled at Bagh in Cutchee, at 
 the foot of the hills, a force which it was impossible to 
 count, but which may have been about four thousand 
 horse and four thousand foot, together with his own escort 
 of a single squadron of Sind Horse under his brother, 
 Captain Malcolm Green. Robbers by profession, and
 
 iSsS.J EXPEDITION AGAINST MURREES. 249 
 
 without any cohesion or discipline, the tribes of which 
 the force was composed were not unlikely, on the smallest 
 provocation, to attack one another instead of the enemy. 
 The only bond that held them together and controlled 
 them was Green's personal authority. Many of the men 
 had never seen a European before, yet such was the 
 ascendency that he exercised over them, that his mere 
 presence was sufficient to stop any quarrel which arose. 
 And though the Jam of Beila was soon discovered to be 
 in treacherous communication with the enemy, Major Green 
 succeeded in keeping the force together for nearly two 
 months, and conducted it into the heart of the Murree 
 country, nearly a hundred miles beyond the farthest point 
 reached by Sir Charles Napier in his Hill Campaign, 
 through defiles and over mountain tracks of almost un- 
 exampled difficulty, never before traversed by a European. 
 The column on the march was about ten miles in length. 
 In going along a valley it would spread out for a battue, 
 driving before it and hunting down all the game, so that 
 nothing could escape. Yet at one place, when encamped 
 for days close to unprotected corn-fields, these semi- 
 savages paid such respect to Major Green's injunctions 
 that not a blade of the crop was touched. 
 
 Against a force under such control, the Murrees, who 
 mustered about two thousand fighting men, could make no 
 effectual stand. Kahun and the other chief places were 
 occupied one after the other and the forts destroyed, and 
 the Murrees professed their willingness to submit to the 
 authority of the Khan, and give hostages for their future 
 good conduct. "This was accomplished," Frere writes to 
 Lord Elphinstone, " without any mishap or distress to the 
 forces which he [Green] led, without indiscriminate 
 massacre, plunder, or destruction, or barbarity, or severity, 
 beyond what is justified among civilized nations [and]
 
 250 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VII. 
 
 absolutely necessary to compel the submission of the rebel 
 tribes to their lawful ruler." 
 
 " I felt proud of my countryman," he writes to Sir G. 
 Clerk (April 17, 1859), " when I saw the thorough confidence 
 and trust which all the Kelat people reposed in him, not 
 excepting the Khan, who, however bluntly Green might 
 speak, seemed always to feel that he had no better or 
 truer friend in the world. I really believe that if Green 
 could stay there a few years, Kelat would become as 
 quiet and prosperous as any part of India." 
 
 Frere, in forwarding Major Green's despatch, says : — 
 
 " The army had between two and three thousand camels, 
 and other baggage animals in proportion. Beyond the loss 
 of a few which fell over precipices and were dashed to 
 pieces, Major Green assured me that he did not believe 
 that a dozen camels were lost or left behind, though the 
 defiles were worse than any he had ever seen in India or 
 Europe, in the Balkan, the skirts of the Caucasus, or 
 Armenia. A march of equal length in the plains of India 
 would have cost more animals, and our enormous and in- 
 calculable losses in the passes of Affghanistan have been 
 almost equalled in later campaigns nearer home. To what 
 is the difference attributable ? Major Green is right in at- 
 tributing it simply to the fact that in the Brahoe force every 
 man understood the animal he used for his baggage, had 
 a personal interest in its preservation, and took care that 
 it was properly fed and not overloaded. 
 
 " The carriage of a twelve-pounder brass howitzer eighty 
 miles on the back of a single camel over the worst possible 
 paths, at the rate of fourteen miles a day, is a feat which 
 has been probably rarely attempted, and was certainly 
 never before undertaken as an ordinary job for ordinary 
 hire by a common Brahoe Jutt. No two animals, Major 
 Green assures me, could be less alike in their capacity 
 and power of endurance than the camel in the keeping 
 of his native breeder and the same animal under the 
 charge of a European commissariat conductor, fed with 
 unnatural food, and loaded and tended by a Mahratta 
 horsekeeper. 
 
 " I have often ventured to express my opinion that we 
 have enormously overrated the value of the difficult country
 
 i8s8.] LOST GUNS RECOVERED. 25 I 
 
 to the west of the Indus as a defence to India against any 
 army of Central Asian tribes directed by European intelli- 
 gence and energy. Major Green has arrived at the same 
 conclusion, of the justice of which the present expedition 
 affords a fresh proof and matter for much serious re- 
 flection." 
 
 The three guns which had fallen into the hands of the 
 Murrees, when Major Clibborn's force was destroyed at the 
 head of the Nuffoosk Pass, in 1840, had been taken to 
 Kahun, a few miles from the scene of the fight. There 
 Green found one of them, mounted on a bastion of the 
 fort. The carriage of another was found in the fort, and 
 the gun itself at the bottom of a newly made grave in a 
 burial ground outside. One of them had the mark of 
 a sabre cut across the breech — evidence of the close 
 hand-to-hand fight which had raged round them when 
 they were taken. The third gun had been thrown down 
 a precipitous ravine and could not be found. The two 
 recovered guns, twelve-pound brass howitzers, were slung 
 each on a camel and taken eighty miles to Jacobabad. 
 
 But at Jacobabad there was no General Jacob to receive 
 them. 
 
 When Outram, on hearing of the outbreak of the Mutiny, 
 hastened back to India from Persia with all his European 
 troops, Jacob had remained with the native portion of the 
 force to watch over the carrying out of the treaty. Much 
 as he was wanted in India, he was compelled to yield to 
 the request of the British Minister in Persia that he would 
 remain some time longer, and in September sent Captain 
 Pelly to Bombay to report to Lord Elphinstone. He had 
 been selected for the command of the Central Indian 
 army,* and when at last he was able to leave Persia he 
 
 * Apparently at Frere's suggestion. See a letter from Frere to 
 Mansfield of March 9, 1863.
 
 252 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VII. 
 
 went on to Bombay, under the idea that he would have to 
 take up the command. The occasion, however, did not 
 admit of delay, and Lord Elphinstone, unable to wait for 
 him, had given the command to Sir Hugh Rose. Pelly 
 went on board the ship in which Jacob was, as soon as it 
 came into the harbour of Bombay, with a note to that 
 effect from Lord Elphinstone. He found him reading in 
 the cabin. To most soldiers the loss of so important a 
 command would have been a bitter disappointment. 
 Jacob read the note with unconcern and went on reading 
 his book. He returned with perfect contentment to his 
 old head-quarters at Jacobabad. 
 
 There he found enough, and more than enough, to do. 
 
 Frere writes fourteen months later to Lord Elphin- 
 stone : — 
 
 " December 15, 1858. 
 
 " He had been for some time less capable of the un- 
 ceasing mental exertion to which he had been for many 
 years accustomed, while the pressure of work on him was 
 much increased. He had to carry on all his old duty and 
 to form three new regiments, one of cavalry and two of 
 infantry, the latter to be raised on a novel principle and 
 armed with a new weapon. He had none of his old lieu- 
 tenants to help him, and had to teach his own ideas to 
 young officers. . . . Unwilling to decline any share of the 
 labour thus falling on him, or to seek aid from others 
 in bearing it, he began to find his strength unequal to 
 the task, and for the first time in his life, probably early 
 in last hot weather, he must have felt that the bodily 
 machinery which had so long borne all the burden his 
 unceasing mental activity threw on it, was showing 
 symptoms of being overtasked. 
 
 Pelly had just reached Kurrachee, after leave in England, 
 and suspecting from the tone of a letter received from 
 Jacob that something was wrong, hastened to join him. 
 
 " Pelly found him alone in the districts far from medical
 
 1858.] DEATH OF JACOB. 253 
 
 aid. He had then been for some nights quite sleepless, 
 and subject to violent fits of bleeding at the nose, and 
 total prostration of strength. In the intervals of compara- 
 tively less exhaustion he made vigorous efforts to resume 
 his work, and for some days steadily refused to go into 
 Jacobabad. Nor did Pelly get him there till nature fairly 
 refused to rally and he felt that he must give in." * 
 
 For seven nights he never closed his eyes, yet con- 
 tinued to do his work. He was just able to ride the 
 stages into Jacobabad, and, though with evident difficulty, 
 greeted the native officers who turned out to meet him, 
 as usual, on his return. After this he became rapidly 
 weaker. 
 
 Major Green was at this time in the midst of his prepa- 
 rations for the Khan's expedition against the Murrees. 
 On arriving on December 4 at Gundava from Kelat, 
 he heard of Jacob's illness, and starting at noon rode 
 eighty miles to Jacobabad the same day. Jacob, as 
 he came into his room, took him by the hand, saying, 
 " Thank God, you have come ! all will now go right." 
 Next day there was a slight rally, but in the evening he 
 became unconscious and was evidently dying. Green 
 summoned into the adjoining room the senior native 
 officers of his regiment, the Resident of the Khan, and the 
 Belooch chiefs who happened to be in the station, and, 
 when at midnight the end was near, he brought them 
 all in. 
 
 "When his state became known, some of the leading 
 Belooch begged that 'if possible he might be moved to die 
 and be buried among his fathers in his own land, and that 
 his seal might be sent out to them, which all would obey.' 
 From the time that it was known that his state was hope- 
 less till he was buried, they showed how they felt for him 
 as for a father. In accordance with his often-repeated 
 wish there was no military or other display at his funeral 
 
 * Frere to Lord Elphinstone, December 15, 1858.
 
 254 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VII. 
 
 (the ceremony of firing volleys over the grave being dis- 
 pensed with), but not a soul who could attend of the 
 thousands living in and around Jacobabad was absent. 
 His own stout soldiers and the wild Belooch borderers 
 were alike unmanned as they carried him to his grave, and 
 none of his older officers could trust themselves to read 
 the Funeral Service, which was read by Captain King. 
 
 " The Belooch say that they are glad now that, as his 
 time is come, he did remain among them and is buried 
 there, as his spirit will now be always with them. . . . 
 
 " In a will dated a few months back, he left all he pos- 
 sessed to Merewether, as his senior lieutenant." 
 
 Major Green, in his despatch describing the expedition 
 against the Murrees, says : — 
 
 "The death of General Jacob added much to the diffi- 
 culties of the undertaking. For fifteen years he had ruled 
 these people ; his name only was known, feared, and re- 
 spected as no other ever had been, or ever will be ; the 
 enormous influence he exercised over these barbarians was 
 even unknown to himself, nor could I have believed that 
 any one man could, unseen, exert such influence, unless 
 eighteen months of the most intimate personal acquaint- 
 ance with all these border tribes, from Mekran to the 
 furthest recesses of the Mari hills, had rendered the fact 
 beyond doubt." 
 
 Thus lived and died at his post in the wilderness, care- 
 less of fame or ease, this great soldier genius, whose pre- 
 sence in life, and whose name after death, were a symbol 
 and a message of peace, order, and goodwill from the 
 great Queen in the West to the wild warrior shepherds of 
 her Indian Frontier.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Religious teaching in Government schools — Principles of administra- 
 tion — Proportion and organization of native army — Nuggur Parkur 
 — Frere appointed to the Supreme Council at Calcutta — Leaves 
 Sind. 
 
 The destructive force of the Mutiny had shaken to its 
 foundations the whole fabric of English Government in 
 India. Stunned and dazed by the magnitude of the 
 calamity, by the spectacle of a great army suddenly dis- 
 solved or in armed mutiny, and bewildered by the chaos 
 of anarchy which, in a vast tract of country, had superseded 
 all law and government, men began to question whether 
 the principles on which they had been working had not 
 been wholly in fault, and were groping in the dark for a 
 truer and juster foundation on which to begin the work of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 A great convulsion reveals the hidden strata that 
 underlie the surface ; and it was seen that the first 
 question on which all others rest was that of religion. 
 We were a Christian nation, it was truly said, bound 
 as a first duty to be true to our religion. If we were 
 not true to it, God would surely punish us. And in some 
 way or other, doubtless, this very Mutiny had been a 
 punishment, a judgment on us for doing wrong. But 
 how ? Wherein had we as a nation and as a Government
 
 256 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 gone astray, and been unfaithful to our principles ? What 
 attitude ought our countrymen as Christians, and our 
 Government as a Christian Government, to maintain to- 
 wards the overwhelming multitudes belonging to other 
 religions ? 
 
 It was at this point that opinions diverged, according to 
 the different conceptions of what Christianity is, and what 
 it inculcates. The Directors' Minute of 1854, on the 
 question of the attitude of Government to Christianity and 
 the native religions, which had received the deliberate 
 approval of men of strong religious feeling in England as 
 well as in India, had been hitherto generally considered as 
 conclusive and final. But it was now challenged as an 
 unworthy concession to expediency. It was urged that 
 faithful allegiance to Christianity involved a condemna- 
 tion of all other religions as being absolutely and funda- 
 mentally false, and to be extirpated by all lawful means. 
 
 Those who thought thus, maintained that Govern- 
 ment had failed in its duty, and had, doubtless, brought a 
 judgment and a punishment from above, by its slackness 
 in upholding the one true religion and in condemning all 
 others as false ; and that the only limit to its efforts to gain 
 converts should be a manifest impossibility, as shown 
 by circumstances. The 'successful vindication of our 
 authority after the Mutiny should be made, they said, 
 the occasion of a more or less combative and hostile 
 attitude towards other religions ; we should henceforward 
 give an official support to Christianity, and enter upon a 
 proselytizing policy in support of it, as far as it was 
 possible to do so without using force or fraud. 
 
 These extreme views found an ardent exponent in 
 Colonel Herbert Edwardes, whose great ability, distin- 
 guished services, and high, unblemished character gave 
 prominence and importance to all that he wrote. He
 
 1858.] GOVERNMENT AND CHRISTIANITY. 257 
 
 issued a memorandum on "the elimination of all un- 
 christian principles from the Government of India." 
 Among the " unchristian elements " in our policy, to 
 which he objected, were the exclusion of the Bible and of 
 Christian teaching from Government schools, the endow- 
 ment of native religions from the revenue, the recognition 
 of caste, the observance of native holidays in the public 
 offices, the administration of Hindu and Mahomedan 
 law, Hindu and Mahomedan processions, and the con- 
 nection of Government with the opium trade. 
 
 Sir John Lawrence had, in theory at least, a good deal 
 of sympathy with Edwardes's views. But his bent was 
 too severely practical to allow him to be led into ad- 
 vocating a course of conduct which, though perhaps 
 logically arising out of his religious theory, was dangerous 
 or impossible in practice. He wrote a long memorandum, 
 expressing agreement on some points with Edwardes, but 
 on the whole combating his views. 
 
 Frere differed from both of them. His theory contained 
 nothing with which it was difficult for his practice to 
 harmonize. 
 
 First, an instance of his practice. 
 
 In March, 1858, a Mahomedan presented a petition to 
 him complaining of an inscription posted up by Mr. Gell, 
 a chaplain, on the wall of the shop of Mr. Matchett, a 
 missionary, in the main bazaar at Hydrabad, and contain- 
 ing, as he stated, a gratuitous insult to all Mahomedans. 
 The placard was sent for, and was found to contain the 
 assertion — for which it proffered a proof — that Mahomet 
 was no true prophet. Frere wrote a civil letter to Mr. Gell, 
 saying that he did not question the truth of the inscription, 
 but objected to it — as he would to a denunciation of the 
 Pope placarded in Limerick, or to abuse of Calvinism in 
 Edinburgh — because it was likely to be understood by 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 Mahomedans as an intentional insult, and to lead to a 
 breach of the peace, for which he, as chief magistrate, was 
 responsible ; and he therefore requested that it might be 
 immediately removed. 
 
 This request, after a protest, was complied with, but 
 Mr. Gell considered that a great principle was at stake, and 
 that the success of missionary effort would be imperilled if he 
 were not allowed to attack the Mahomedan religion in his 
 own way. A long controversy followed. The Church and 
 the missionaries had not a better friend than Frere in India. 
 At Sattara and in Sind he had always been foremost in 
 the work of building and endowing churches ; and during 
 his journeyings through the remoter parts of the country, 
 he had caused services to be held on Sundays in places 
 where they had seldom or never been held before. But 
 this did not deter Mr. Gell and Mr. Matchett not only 
 from complaining of his action to the Bombay Govern- 
 ment, but also from stirring up the Bombay Press and, 
 finally, one of the great English religious societies against 
 him, in defence of their principle of liberty to attack the 
 tenets of other religions. 
 
 Of the controversy, it is enough to say that the Govern- 
 ment supported Frere's action, and that subsequently Mr. 
 Gell frankly admitted that he had been wrong. He 
 afterwards became a firm supporter of Frere, and a warm 
 friendship existed between them. The following letters 
 will show what Frere thought was the right attitude for 
 Government to adopt towards the propagation of Chris- 
 tianity in India. 
 
 He writes to Lord Stanley, then Under-Secretary of 
 State for India : — 
 
 " December 19, 1858. 
 " I do not like to let another mail leave without an 
 expression of my hope that nothing may occur to induce
 
 1858.] GOVERNMENT AND CHRISTIANITY. 259 
 
 the Government to depart from the principles you have 
 laid down for our guidance, with regard to the relations of 
 Government servants to missionary operations, and that 
 the principles which appear to be advocated by Colonel 
 Edwardes will never be adopted by the Government of 
 India, even to the modified extent to which they are 
 supported by Sir J. Lawrence in his despatch published in 
 the Times of October 28. 
 
 " It is not merely that I feel assured that Sir J. L.'s 
 plan, if adopted, would convince the natives generally that 
 we meant to use our temporal power for their conversion, 
 and that when once such a conviction became general, no 
 armies you could send to India could retain it as an 
 appendage to the British Empire. If the thing to be 
 done were clearly right, I would not regard the con- 
 sequences. 
 
 " But I feel convinced that the course proposed is not 
 right — that as Christians we are not justified in using the 
 temporal power of Government to enforce particular forms 
 of religious belief, even when that belief is Christianity. I 
 can see no logical difference between the course proposed 
 by Sir J. L. and that followed by religious persecutors 
 from the Inquisition down to later examples in France, 
 Italy, and Norway, and I am convinced that, once fairly 
 embarked in the Crusade, you will find no practical stop to 
 the use of temporal coercion for religious purposes, unless 
 the check be applied either by our own religious differences 
 among ourselves, or by the active opposition of a general 
 rebellion. 
 
 " In any case I feel convinced that Christianity must 
 suffer. I have been since the day I came into the country 
 an active supporter of missions as far as my private means 
 allowed, because I felt convinced that the conversion of 
 the natives to Christianity was the greatest blessing our 
 rule could confer on them, and, as far as human reason 
 could see, one of the great objects for which our rule was 
 permitted. I can testify from personal observation that 
 the change already wrought by missionary enterprise in 
 India is far greater and more rapid than could reasonably 
 be expected from the means used, or than either the 
 missionaries or their opponents believe, and my chief 
 objection to the course indicated in the propositions of 
 Colonel Edwardes and Sir J. Lawrence, arises from the
 
 260 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 conviction that this progress will be interrupted if, abandon- 
 ing our own principles as we understand and would wish 
 them applied among ourselves, we rely on the temporal 
 power of Government to influence the natives in matters 
 of belief. Disguise it as we may, this is what Govern- 
 ment Bible classes come to, and setting aside all practical 
 difficulties and risks of temporal danger, I cannot see how 
 we can, as Christians, defend in India a course which in 
 England we should condemn as ineffectual for the 
 promotion of true religion, even if it were not denounced 
 as impious to attempt it. 
 
 On the same subject he writes to Lord Goderich : — 
 
 "January 4, 1859. 
 " If India were converted the gain would be cheaply 
 purchased by the loss of our Empire in India. But I 
 cannot see how we can hope for such a result as a large 
 number of real converts, if we violate the very first 
 principles of Christian toleration. Sir J. Lawrence seems 
 to me to start in error by considering ' What can we safely 
 force the native to submit to ? ' instead of ' What have we, 
 as the power placed over them by God, a right to expect 
 them to submit to ? ' It is all very well to say that we 
 know ourselves to be right, and that we cannot be wrong 
 in using our power to enforce our own conscientious con- 
 victions. So said the Inquisition and all religious per- 
 secutors from the days of Saul of Tarsus down to our own. 
 But there can be no safe rule of guidance for a Christian 
 Government different from that of a Christian individual — 
 to do as we would be done by. And what Colonel 
 Edwardes and Sir J. Lawrence would do is just what we 
 would ourselves resist to the death if attempted on us or 
 our children — not by Hindoos or Moslems, but by a 
 Roman Catholic or Greek autocrat. 
 
 " I hold entirely with the principles which guided the 
 late Sir Robert Grant in this matter, and I have in vain 
 sought for some of his minutes and letters on the subject, 
 which have for the past twenty years been our rule on this 
 side of India, and which are very different from what seems 
 to have been the practice elsewhere in India. 
 
 " Sir Robert Grant was a far more zealous and efficient 
 promoter of missions than any one I have seen in high 
 office out here, and one of the most popular among natives
 
 I859-] GOVERNMENT AND CHRISTIAN TEACHING. 26l 
 
 of every creed and class — a result I always attributed to 
 the thoroughly Christian and tolerant spirit which shone 
 out in every act and word. . . . 
 
 " As regards the points of difference between Sir John 
 Lawrence and Mr. Arnold, I entirely hold with the views 
 of the latter as I gather them from Sir J ohn's letter. . . . 
 
 " If we strictly adhere to our Christian principles, I 
 firmly believe that the glory of bringing India within 
 Christ's fold may yet be ours ere many more generations 
 have passed away. 
 
 " I have written in great haste and amid much inter- 
 ruption, wishing all the time I had been able to enter more 
 fully into this most important subject." 
 
 He writes again to Lord Goderich : — 
 
 " January 5, 1859. 
 
 " In my hurried letter yesterday ... I forgot to say 
 what it seems to me it is our duty to do. 
 
 " First, as to education. It seems to me an enormous 
 error to lay it down as any part of the duty of any 
 conceivable Government of India, English or Russian, 
 Moslem or Hindoo, in this year 1859, or even in this 
 century, to educate its subjects generally. You have no 
 money, you have no plan, nor are your great parties agreed 
 as to any possible plan for such an undertaking, which no 
 other great Government in the world has ever attempted 
 with success. 
 
 " But you can and you ought to assist the people to 
 educate themselves, and as far as they require and will 
 accept your help, so far to the very limited extent allowed 
 by an empty exchequer you are bound as a Government to 
 help them. It has always seemed to me that the Court of 
 Directors, in their despatch on education, sanctioning grants- 
 in-aid, laid down very nearly, if not exactly, the right and 
 only practicable course for our Government in this matter. 
 The policy directed in that despatch was never fairly 
 worked, and I do not think we could now do better than 
 go back to it. Divide the whole sum you can annually 
 spare for the purpose, so much for each province, and let 
 each do its best with the means so allowed, according to 
 the principles laid down in the despatch, with a few rules 
 added to ensure the first grant being made to the most 
 urgent need.
 
 262 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch, VIII. 
 
 " I believe with Lord Ellenborough that the most urgent 
 need would often be found to exist among the higher 
 classes, and I would not take poverty as the only test of 
 need. I would also let the experiment of Government 
 education in its strictest sense be tried among Bheels, 
 coolies, and other races, where the good effected must 
 be great, and where absolutely no objection to it can 
 be urged. There are hundreds of thousands of such 
 people in India, and when you have really succeeded with 
 them, you can try the more difficult task of educating 
 people who already know what education means, and have 
 their own ideas as to what they want in the way of 
 education. 
 
 " With regard to missions, I hold that all that is 
 required from Government is to leave them alone, and I 
 look on any Government enterprise or support as in the 
 last degree mischievous. 
 
 " Let the Government of this world keep the peace and 
 do justice and mercy to the best of its power, and rule the 
 people so that peace and plenty may prevail through the 
 land, but let not Government presume to dictate to any 
 of the meanest of its subjects what he shall believe, or, 
 however indirectly, to bribe or coerce him into any 
 particular form of belief. . . . 
 
 " I do not mean, however, that Government should be 
 indifferent or idle in matters relating to religion. First 
 let us set our own house in order, and remove the reproach 
 universally and most truly cast against us by all native 
 opponents — ' You spend thousands of pounds to convert 
 one low caste Hindoo, but you do not move a finger to 
 prevent your soldiers and sailors being examples of the 
 grossest vices in every bazaar they frequent. You leave 
 the poor Christians of all classes and creeds wholly uncared 
 for, while a Mahomedan who changes his religion is sure 
 to make his fortune.' Let us first, by our barrack arrange- 
 ments and sailors' homes, make our soldiers and sailors 
 as decent and well-conducted in externals as possible, 
 and give them the same opportunities in the way of 
 pastoral aid as the poor in a well-ordered community in 
 Europe. Let us give similar benefits to the thousands of 
 poor Christians who, as clerks, cooks, and in other capa- 
 cities, are found in great numbers in every station, and 
 who are now almost universally and totally neglected.
 
 1S59.J BIBLE TEACHING. 263 
 
 " This is little apparently to ask, but it would require 
 the services of many hundred clergymen — Episcopalian, 
 Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic — to enable Government 
 to do its duty in this respect to its own servants. 
 
 " I never met any earnest or thoughtful missionary, or 
 religious Christian of any kind who had the means of 
 knowing, who did not allow that Government might by 
 such means effect more than armies of missionaries could, 
 humanly speaking, hope to effect in centuries, as long as 
 the great body of professing Christians in the country are 
 a visible and practical refutation of half the arguments the 
 missionary urges on his native opponent." 
 
 In an undated fragment, Frere writes : — 
 
 " I think the note of Principal Ray expresses more 
 clearly and concisely than anything I could write the con- 
 clusions at which I have arrived as to the extent to which 
 Government may and ought to comply with the demand 
 that Bible-classes should be permitted in connection with 
 Government schools, viz. that permission should be given 
 to every teacher in a Government school who wishes to 
 teach a private class to volunteers, elsewhere than in the 
 Government school-room. . . . 
 
 " But it is to be observed, first, that this permission is 
 already virtually accorded. At all events, it never, as far 
 as I know, has been, or can be denied to any who choose 
 to assume it. And, secondly, that it does not meet the 
 wishes of those who have taken the most active part in 
 bringing this question forward. . . . 
 
 " I trust you will not press on the Government of India, 
 nor authorize if it is proposed to you, any official sanction 
 of the employment of Government teachers in expounding 
 the Bible to their scholars. . . . 
 
 "Your Government teachers in this country may be 
 divided into three classes : 
 
 1. "A few men to whom any religious-minded Christian 
 who agreed with them on devotional points would gladly 
 entrust the education of his own children. How many are 
 there of this class ? And how many of them to whom a 
 moderate but sincere High or Low Churchman, or Presby- 
 terian, or Roman Catholic, would conscientiously give 
 permission to teach religion to their own scholars ?
 
 264 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 2. " There is a much larger number of nominal Christians, 
 who do not entirely disbelieve Christ, but who will teach 
 what they are told to teach — much or little Christianity, 
 of any particular complexion which may be ordered — 
 High or Low, Calvinistic or Roman Catholic. Will their 
 teaching do any real good ? Just at present, rightly or 
 wrongly, they will believe that it will be for their own 
 good to teach as much as they can with a leaning to 
 Calvinism, and to show as much result as possible in the 
 shape of applicants for further information and missionary 
 teaching. 
 
 " What will be the religious results of such men's teach- 
 ing ? What would they be in England or Ireland ? 
 What must they be among a people subtle and naturally 
 inclined to dissemble, and who are but too prone to let 
 the end sanctify the means, in advancing their worldly 
 interests ? 
 
 3. " But the largest class of all are men who do not 
 profess to believe Christianity — some, baptized Christians, 
 but sceptics ; many more, professed Hindoos, Mahomedans, 
 and other unbaptized unbelievers in Christianity. Can 
 any sincere Christian contemplate the enforced reading 
 and exposition of the Bible to Hindoo and Mahomedan 
 boys, by men of this class, without a shudder ? It may be 
 said it is not enforced, but voluntary ; but if they know, as 
 they will certainly presume, that their promotion in the 
 department depends on their making a show of teaching, 
 many of them will make such a show, and their misrepre- 
 sentations, whether honest or dishonest, must do more harm 
 than good. A scoffing, sceptical teaching of the Bible by 
 such men must be many times worse than no teaching at 
 all. 
 
 " But take the next case — an honest and competent 
 teaching by a man who believes and is capable of teaching 
 Christianity. Have we any right to make such teaching 
 a part of the system in Government schools ? 
 
 " It may be said, it is no part of the system, it is simply 
 permitted. 
 
 "But I maintain what is expressly permitted and 
 encouraged by the Government is a part of the Govern- 
 ment system. 
 
 " How would it be in Ireland if a Government with an 
 Orange Lord-Lieutenant were to permit the Protestant
 
 1858.] THE END OF THE COMPANY. 265 
 
 teachers in Government colleges to use their lecture-rooms 
 for religious lectures to their R. C. pupils out of college 
 hours ! Would any one believe in the really voluntary 
 character of teaching or learning ? " 
 
 The rule of the old East India Company was drawing 
 to an end. A Government Bill, assented to in its general 
 principle by the Opposition, had been introduced into 
 Parliament, transferring its possessions and authority to 
 the Crown. The systems and methods of Government in 
 India were in the melting pot, destined to take new forms 
 and shapes, and statesmen and others in England who 
 were likely to have a hand in the work were seeking for 
 information and guidance as to the principles on which 
 the new foundations should be laid. The following letters, 
 written in such intervals as he could snatch in the pressure 
 of his work, give Frere's views and convictions on some of 
 the leading questions involved in the work of recon- 
 struction. 
 
 He writes to Lord Goderich : — 
 
 "June 15, 1858. 
 " Your questions embrace a wide range. Of the causes 
 of the Mutiny, you will find those which affected the army 
 well set forth in the writings of General John Jacob, and 
 if you do not quote the opinions as kis y nor make special 
 reference to Bengal, you will find most men of real ex- 
 perience even in the Bengal army agree with him, but 
 such men are fewer than you might suppose, and length 
 of service is no test of experience. We tried to centralize 
 the management of an army dispersed in peace over a 
 country half as large as Europe, the greater part of the 
 army being never seen for years together by any one in 
 real military authority. Our centralization was not by 
 officers, but by departments, and was a purely paper 
 system. We carefully destroyed all individual authority, 
 till it is really no exaggeration to say that, except the 
 adjutant of his regiment and the Adjutant-General of the 
 army, there was no single officer, from the Commander-in-
 
 266 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 Chief downwards, whose good or bad opinion was of any 
 consequence to the individual sepoy, in pay, promotion, or 
 anything else affecting his material well-being. For many 
 years past the Bengal army has been practically an army 
 without officers, and but for the innate, tractable character 
 of the material, would have mutinied long ago, as any 
 mercenary army will when they think they have the 
 power to do as they please. The remedy seems to me a 
 most simple one. I do not say easy, for it is impossible 
 to calculate the power of prejudice. Abandon the idea of 
 assimilation to any single pattern. . . . Require personal 
 knowledge and inspection of his charge from every officer, 
 whatever his grade, and you would very soon have an 
 army far better than you have lost. The material you 
 have is the best in India, and you need not go out of 
 India to seek better, for it is excellent. It is our treatment 
 of it which has spoilt it. You would require fewer officers, 
 and could afford to pay them well. Such a system is that 
 advocated by General Jacob. It is the best I have ever 
 seen or heard of in theory or practice. But I do not say 
 it is the only good one, and I would discard the idea of 
 any single system applicable to all India. Every province 
 half as large as France and every army of twenty thou- 
 sand men ought to be allowed to differ widely in details 
 of system from other provinces and armies. Yet we tried 
 to enforce exact uniformity throughout an army of 150,000 
 men. Of course such uniformity can, from the nature of 
 things, only be apparent. You must already have seen 
 the mistake of supposing that we can hold India by 
 European troops alone, and you will soon, if I am not 
 mistaken, see the error of all plans for foreign merce- 
 naries — Malay, African, etc. I do not think we have 
 lost the art of governing India mainly by native agency, 
 and you may rest assured you cannot long govern two 
 hundred millions by any other. 
 
 " Our mistakes in Civil Government have been of much 
 the same character as those we have made in military 
 affairs, ending in the destruction of all individual and 
 local authority and responsibility. Our form of govern- 
 ment must necessarily be despotic ; a good, vigorous 
 despotism, in which the risks of tyranny and arbitrary 
 oppression are minimized, is one in which the despot is 
 accessible — that is, when every man sees, knows, and can
 
 1858.] RIGHT AND WRONG CENTRALIZATION. 267 
 
 appeal to his own despot, to some one who can, if he 
 please, redress his grievance by some act of individual 
 power, in which all affairs of merely local import are 
 managed locally, and where usage or common law rules 
 in most things. Our system has been the reverse of all 
 this, at least in what are called our Regulation Provinces. 
 A native in a distant district can hardly find any man who 
 can do him any good by an act of power. We have en- 
 veloped ourselves in rules and regulations till we have left 
 ourselves no power of individual action. We have guarded 
 ourselves against doing evil till we have left no power of 
 doing good. Usage, custom, and common sense go for 
 nothing against a circular or rule of some distant court. 
 Our legislature is away in a corner at Calcutta, composed 
 of a few elderly Government functionaries, inaccessible to 
 public opinion, and necessarily unacquainted with four- 
 fifths of the country for which they legislate. And then 
 we wonder that their laws are not better than the crude 
 edicts, which in former days each province framed for 
 itself. One of the worst consequences of the absence of 
 local legal authority is that unscrupulous men usurp 
 unlegal authority, and this is one great cause of the 
 misconduct charged against our native officials. They 
 would be far less tyrannical if they had more legal 
 power and greater responsibility to their immediate 
 superiors. 
 
 " Here again the remedy is very simple, though not 
 easy, for it is opposed, not only to existing habits and 
 prejudices, but to all our English ideas of government, 
 though singularly enough not to our habits of business 
 and modes of managing great private and commercial 
 affairs. Centralize by individuals, not by departments. 
 Throughout your whole machine of government, from the 
 head of the village up through heads of districts and 
 provinces, up to the Governor-General, let every official 
 be a real ruler in all things to those below him, and let 
 him be really ruled by the functionary above him. The 
 changes you will have to make will not be really so many 
 as you may imagine. It will be simply a general return 
 to a mode of government once very common and still 
 existent in many provinces. You may have heard of the 
 excellent administration of Nagpoor under Sir Richard 
 Jenkins, or of Sattara under Captain Grant Duff. The
 
 268 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 great secret of their success was that they were men well 
 selected, and ruled on the plan I have described. . . . 
 
 " I think you might avoid all difficulty about patronage 
 if you will adhere to the Company's rule, which was to 
 keep jealously in England the right of selecting the raw 
 material for your officials, and leave entirely to the Govern- 
 ments in India the power of selection and promotion after 
 they are once appointed. The former rule excludes broken- 
 down dandies and insolvents, who now so often take refuge 
 in a Government Colonial appointment. The latter prevents 
 much jobbing which can hurt the public service. Provided 
 the lads who go out as future officers or civil servants are 
 not meanly born or basely bred, it is really of very little 
 consequence whether they are selected by Directors or by 
 a Minister. Of course, the better the birth and the breed- 
 ing, the greater chance of turning out the lad a credit to 
 his country and a blessing to India. But the qualifications 
 you most want are found more or less invariably in all 
 classes above those whose connections and pursuits are 
 really sordid and debasing. It is, as far as India is con- 
 cerned, a matter of very little moment whether the boy 
 is sent out selected by competitive examination, or as an 
 act of private favour, or in return for votes at an election. 
 But it is of great importance to India that his career in 
 India should depend entirely on the character he makes 
 for himself after he comes out, and that it should not be 
 affected by the home interest of his connections. I think 
 we have made a great mistake in making intellectual power 
 the sole passport to the Civil Service. Our superiority over 
 the natives is less intellectual than moral, and your best 
 Indian rulers, like your best public men everywhere, are 
 not always those who would send in the best papers at an 
 examination for a degree. Of course the higher the 
 intellect and the better the education, the more useful the 
 public servant, if he has the necessary moral qualities also. 
 But what you want in India is a high-spirited, kind-hearted, 
 active-minded, modest, conscientious English youth. And 
 it is really of more moment to the natives that he should 
 be good in the cricket-field and on horseback, popular 
 with servants and the poor, and the champion of bullied 
 fags ; that he should have a mother who taught him to say 
 his prayers, and sisters who helped her to give him love 
 and reverence for womankind and respect for weakness,
 
 1858.] THE INDIAN SERVICE. 269 
 
 than that he should be fit to take a double-first at 
 Oxford. 
 
 " I have written at intervals a very disjointed letter, and 
 have not touched on half the topics indicated by you, and 
 not even the most momentous question of all : How are 
 we to restore the mutual confidence and good feeling 
 between races now in so many provinces bitterly incensed 
 against each other ? It can hardly be done by rule ; and 
 our doctrinaire philosophers, who are answerable for half 
 the mischief which has happened, will only make matters 
 worse. But much may be done by personal power and 
 influence, if you trust good men. God forbid I should 
 palliate the atrocities which have been committed so 
 widely throughout the revolted provinces ! but the question 
 which occurs to me, and which none of our violent declaimers 
 can answer, is, What so changed the conduct of men, who 
 for so many generations treated us as if we had been 
 tabooed as a sacred rather than as an alien race ? It 
 is, I fear, true that we are hated in many a wide province ; 
 but why? It is not usual for even the worst of men to 
 hate those who they really believe wish them well. 
 
 "You may say, What are the tests for securing good 
 recruits for the Indian Service ? How would I ascertain 
 the moral qualities ? I reply that they are generally 
 found in four out of five lads taken from the middle or 
 upper classes at random, and perhaps more generally in 
 lads taken at random than in lads selected for intellectual 
 proficiency. You must not suppose I undervalue in- 
 tellectual acquirement, but it is a fact that some of our 
 most useless and unpopular men among the natives are 
 the very men whose intellectual powers are of a very 
 superior order, their unpopularity proceeding from their 
 conceit and the ruthless manner in which they follow out 
 a favourite theory when they get the power. You must 
 recollect that our despots here rise by their place in the 
 calendar, not as in Turkey or in France, where a man who 
 would rise to power must, among other things, exert his 
 power of pleasing. You find your doctrinaire philosophers 
 in London ride a hobby to death. But in London they 
 are kept in order by checks and opposition in a thousand 
 forms. Imagine how the same men would ride their 
 hobbies, when invested with despotic power, over a million 
 or two of Indian peasants. It is such men who upset
 
 2JO THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 native tenures, turn native society topsy-turvy, and with 
 the best intentions drive a whole people to mad revolt, 
 when [whereas] General Sleeman, who wrote very in- 
 different English and had little notion of science, art, or 
 literature, was worshipped simply on account of his kindly 
 nature and the sympathy which the people knew he felt 
 for them." 
 
 The Court of Directors issued a despatch, dated Novem- 
 ber 25, 1857, as to the reorganization of the Indian army, 
 in reference to which a list of questions was framed and 
 sent round to various officials for their replies. The heads 
 of inquiry were classed as — 
 
 1. The recruiting and composition of corps. 
 
 2. The military code and rules of discipline. 
 
 3. Organization, promotion, and rewards. 
 
 4. European officers. 
 
 Frere answered them fully, and also wrote a letter to 
 Colonel Durand, who was in charge of the inquiry. 
 Several persons having asked for copies of his answers, 
 he had them printed in a pamphlet of a hundred and 
 sixty pages. Sending some copies of this pamphlet to Sir 
 George Clerk, then in England, he says : — 
 
 "January 16, 1859. 
 
 " I would be very glad to know how far you agree with 
 what I have said. It is quite certain that we cannot keep 
 up our present military expenditure, and I am quite sure 
 that it is not needed, if we would but govern instead of 
 dragooning the people. If you could send us a few of the 
 Malcolms, Metcalfes, and Elphinstones, and come back 
 yourself, I would engage to reduce the military estimates 
 to little more than those of 1838. 
 
 " It seems to me utterly impossible that our present 
 system of holding the country with European detach- 
 ments scattered over it can be persevered in, without the 
 destruction of all discipline, and an aggravation of the 
 feeling of general distrust, which makes Englishmen as 
 well as natives suppose that a detachment of Europeans 
 is necessary at almost every station. . . .
 
 i859-] BRITISH AND ASIATIC SOLDIERS. 2J\ 
 
 " If we would avoid the necessity which obliged England 
 to cast off her American colonies, we must continue to 
 govern our own Indian provinces hereafter, as we have 
 generally done heretofore, through the respect and with 
 the consent of the natives, and to trust for the general 
 maintenance of internal peace to our police. A conviction 
 of our superior military power is one necessary element of 
 real respect ; but such respect derives its greatest strength 
 from a belief in our superior wisdom, justice, and modera- 
 tion, and is something very different from the simple con- 
 viction of our superior brute force, on which it is now so 
 much the fashion to recommend reliance. . . . 
 
 " It is, I believe, a fashionable theory that railways, 
 electric telegraphs, and similar appliances render it easier 
 for a Central Government to control its distant subordi- 
 nates, and safer to exercise that power. So far from this 
 being the case, they seem to me to render it necessary to 
 concede formally greater power to officers at a distance, 
 and to impose heavier responsibilities, because the facility 
 of reference holds out a temptation to refer instead of 
 acting, which did not exist before. On the other hand, 
 the facilities of communication greatly diminish the danger 
 of entrusting despotic powers to men at a distance, owing 
 to the greater publicity which such facilities ensure and 
 the increased ease with which aggrieved parties can seek 
 redress at the hands of the Central Government. 
 
 " The English soldier comes of races habituated to self- 
 government, and you can only get good recruits, in large 
 numbers, by letting them see that, however ill-paid and 
 undesirable the service is in some respects, the soldier has 
 still rights of his own. The non-military classes in Eng- 
 land would not, with their eyes open, tolerate payment for 
 an army of their own countrymen, ruled on purely despotic 
 principles ; the Articles of War give to the engagement 
 between the soldier and the State some semblance of a 
 voluntary compact. . . . 
 
 " Asiatic soldiers, on the other hand, come of races 
 habituated to despotic government, and in the dealings of 
 a State with its servants and subjects, they understand 
 and can appreciate no other. The grant of rights which 
 they can enforce against their Sovereign and employer 
 simply puzzles them, and a Code, like the Articles of War, 
 and Army Regulations, by giving rise to vague notions of
 
 272 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 some ill-understood rights, which some unknown authority 
 is apparently suspected of wishing to subvert, creates a 
 vague feeling of suspicion and discontent. Natives much 
 prefer serving under a master whose wishes and temper, 
 once understood, are to them a law and rule of conduct, 
 of which they know the exact provisions and obligations. 
 An Englishman asks, ' What are my rights and duties ? ' 
 The Asiatic guesses what they will be by the answer to 
 his question, which is always, ' Who is my master ? ' And 
 with all the intricacies and divided responsibilities of our 
 present system, this is a question to which he can rarely 
 get a clear and decided answer. In some respects his 
 Adjutant or Commanding Officer, the Brigadier or Adjutant- 
 General, the Commander-in-Chief or Governor in Council, 
 are all more or less his masters ; but he can never clearly 
 understand the exact relation of each authority to the 
 other, still less can he find the one master whose will to 
 him is law, for he still perceives behind the Government 
 itself some power which prevents the Government from 
 being absolutely despotic. 
 
 " That the natives infinitely prefer the individual des- 
 potism is clear from the preference they always show for 
 it, when the two forms of subordination are presented to 
 their choice. Service in an Irregular Corps is always pre- 
 ferred to a Regular one ; and no one can deal long with 
 natives without finding that they prefer serving a man 
 they know and can trust, and that they will rely on his 
 arbitrary will, rather than get the most binding charter 
 of rights that was ever written on paper by a man whom 
 they do not know. 
 
 " In all that General Jacob has written and published 
 on this subject I most fully agree. Rules and laws of 
 some kind there must be, but they should be confined to 
 a definition of ' Who is to be obeyed ? ' The authority 
 of the immediate commanding officer should be made 
 supreme over all natives who are placed under his orders, 
 to the extent of dismissing them from the service ; and he 
 should be held strictly responsible to the commanding 
 officer, up to the commander-in-chief, for the mode in 
 which the authority so given is exercised. But the re- 
 sponsibility should be always retrospective in the shape 
 of praise or blame for what is done, and should never 
 involve the necessity for previous sanction. . . .
 
 1858.J OFFICERS FOR NATIVE TROOPS. 273 
 
 " I entirely concur in what has been recorded by many 
 eminent authorities, and especially by General Jacob, as 
 to the absolute necessity, if we would keep India, that we 
 should allow none but educated European gentlemen, in 
 feeling and principles, and, if possible, by birth and 
 station, to have any immediate connection as officers with 
 our native army. . . . 
 
 " As far as my observation goes, I should say the 
 intervention of the native officers between the European 
 officers and their men greatly added to, if it be not 
 essential to, the full influence of good European officers. 
 I cannot see how the legitimate influence of the European 
 officer could be communicated to the men generally without 
 the intervention of the native officers. . . . 
 
 " In all the cases — three in number — in Sind, which 
 came under my personal observation, the native officers 
 gave information of the disaffection of their men. In each 
 case the information was given in time to prevent a suc- 
 cessful rising. ... In the Sind Horse, under great and 
 continued temptation, the native officers behaved with 
 exemplary fidelity as well as intelligence. No mutiny 
 took place where they were quartered, but they aided to 
 obtain information of an intended rising of the frontier 
 tribes, and to arrest the ringleaders exactly as European 
 officers with the same opportunities might have done. . . . 
 
 " Native officers should be continued very much as at 
 present, but they should be differently treated. The 
 number of European officers with a native corps should be 
 diminished ; they should be all selected men. The work 
 of officers of companies should all be done by the native 
 officers. . . . 
 
 " Our best native officers and soldiers do not serve 
 simply for pay, but for distinction, and would not enter 
 at all if debarred promotion to posts of influence and 
 honour. 
 
 " Native soldiers are absolutely necessary to the efficiency 
 of a European force, in hot weather, and for services which 
 are better performed by natives than by Europeans. 
 What further proportion of the cheaper and more accessible 
 native element may you add to your army without impair- 
 ing its efficiency for general military service ? 
 
 "Judging from late experience, it is difficult to provide 
 efficiently for all the duties of a large army in the field 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 TIIE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 during a protracted campaign in India without nearly as 
 many native as European troops. One half may therefore 
 be taken as the minimum proportion which native troops 
 should bear to Europeans, and which it would be desirable 
 to have even if the difference in cost and difficulty of pro- 
 viding Europeans were not greater than that of providing 
 natives. . . . Three to one is about the ratio which I 
 should consider natives should bear to Europeans in 
 order to give us the most efficient army which could be 
 kept up for any given sum. A larger proportion of 
 Europeans would give more than you require of the most 
 costly element in your army ; a smaller one might reduce 
 too low the element which is most formidable in a general 
 action. 
 
 " But the proportion would vary in the different arms. 
 In the artillery, the backbone of the army, the advantage 
 of having Europeans, great utility of individual muscular 
 power, and many other reasons, comparatively greater, and 
 the drawbacks fewer than in other arms ; and therefore, 
 in the artillery, Europeans should so far preponderate that 
 there should always be at least sufficient to work every 
 gun ; save in very rare, exceptional cases where (as on the 
 Sind frontier) it is altogether impossible to keep Europeans 
 permanently stationed. In the cavalry the advantages of 
 employing Europeans are at a minimum, and a very 
 small proportion of them will suffice : one of the principal 
 reasons being that European dragoons can never, in this 
 country, dispense with their grass-cutters and other 
 followers who are necessarily on foot, and thus Europeans, 
 as cavalry, lose much of the superior celerity and independ- 
 ence and other natural advantages of cavalry as compared 
 with infantry ; and the advantage of employing the more 
 costly European for such service is much lessened. . . . 
 
 " I cannot but think that any attempt to assimilate the 
 Indian armies to each other, beyond those points in which 
 similarity is of practical importance in the field, must 
 hasten the deterioration of the whole body. The course I 
 would in preference most strongly recommend is the 
 direct reverse of assimilation and amalgamation. The 
 unwieldy size of our Bengal Native army was no doubt 
 one element of its ruin, by precluding any officer, but 
 more especially the Commander-in-Chief, with his five 
 years' tenure of office, from gaining even a general know-
 
 1858.] DIVERSITIES IN NATIVE TROOPS. 275 
 
 ledge of the whole body. It seems to me that our Indian 
 forces should be re-divided into at least four, if not more, 
 armies, so as to admit of a really active Commander-in- 
 Chief gaining a general knowledge of the whole body 
 under his command ; and the utmost latitude in organiza- 
 tion should be allowed to local authorities within the 
 limits imposed, by a due regard for the finances of the 
 Empire. . . . 
 
 " It is doubtless desirable that the rates of pay for 
 similar arms should be, in some respects, similar ; yet this 
 must be subject to many local variations. . . . The best 
 military races in India, who will serve for seven rupees in 
 the valley of the Ganges, or at the Nizam's Hydrabad, 
 will not voluntarily take service in Sind on ten rupees ; 
 and the irregular cavalry soldier who finds twenty rupees 
 enough for himself and his horse in one part of India, 
 would starve on thirty rupees in another. . . . 
 
 " The diversities of national character in our Indian 
 army are at least as great as among the nations of 
 Europe ; and the Oude or Seikh sepoy, the Affreedee and 
 the Goorkha, have each their favourite mode of fighting ; 
 and some of them must act to disadvantage, if all are 
 compelled to adopt any one uniform mode of formation. 
 
 " It must be borne in mind that the whole army of the 
 Indus is essentially a frontier army, facing, in close 
 proximity, warlike and aggressive nations, who have twice 
 successfully invaded India since we first gained territorial 
 footing on the Continent, and who boast themselves 
 prepared to repeat the attempt whenever it suits them, 
 while they are daily becoming more subject to those 
 military and political influences which affect the great 
 family of European nations. Whatever we may think of 
 its possibility or its chance of success, an invasion of India 
 is a common topic of conversation in every assemblage of 
 chiefs between Tabriz and Peshawur, the day-dream of 
 more than one Sovereign Prince, and a subject of more or 
 less thought and reflection to every one who aspires to be 
 a successful soldier. There can be no doubt of the grave 
 results which must follow any advance of our armies 
 beyond our present frontier. But if we would avoid 
 inviting aggression or combinations which may force us 
 to advance in self-defence, we must be better prepared 
 than we have been during the last ten years, and our
 
 276 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VIII. 
 
 frontier army must not only be in numbers sufficient to 
 render attack hopeless, but it must always be ready for the 
 field. If we would preserve peace, every corps and every 
 station west of the Indus should be permanently on a 
 footing prepared for immediate war." 
 
 All this time, while statesmen and administrators were 
 planning and reconstructing, the danger was far from 
 being over ; there was widespread disorder and demorali- 
 zation, and hard fighting was going on intermittently all 
 over Northern India. So late as June, 1858, Sir John 
 Lawrence writes to Lord Stanley, that the condition of 
 things was worse than it had yet been since the fall of 
 Delhi, nine months before. The mutineers, defeated and 
 dispersed, had spread themselves over the country, 
 coercing the natives into rebellion as they found oppor- 
 tunity, and accustoming them to a condition of plunder 
 and rapine, while the Europeans became exasperated into 
 an attitude of bitter race-hatred, which too often dis- 
 inclined them to be just, reasonable, or merciful, or to 
 exercise discrimination between mutineers or murderers, 
 and those who had been coerced into joining their ranks, 
 thus banding together the innocent and the guilty in 
 rebellion. The want of reliable native troops, especially 
 in the hot weather, was greatly felt throughout Bengal, for 
 the Europeans could not act efficiently without their 
 co-operation, and could not move rapidly enough to follow 
 up their successes. 
 
 Frere writes : — 
 
 "I have just read in the Lahore Chronicle of the 18th, 
 an account of proceedings at Allahabad, so circum- 
 stantial that one can hardly doubt its general accuracy; 
 but the state of demoralization and disorder it reveals is 
 quite astounding. It is extracted from the Englishman, 
 and as the Punjab Government exercises a strict surveil- 
 lance over the Press, and ' does not allow alarming news to
 
 «859J NUGGUR PARKUR. 277 
 
 be disseminated,' one wonders what can be the character 
 of what is suppressed. The men seem to have been guilty 
 of every kind of mutinous and disorderly conduct short of 
 shooting at their officers (they did fire with ball-cartridge 
 into their compounds and over their houses) and plunder- 
 ing the station. Yet it is spoken of as if it were less 
 extraordinary than an election riot, or a collision between 
 marines and dockyard men at Portsmouth. 
 
 " It seems to me that however wise and firm the 
 conduct of Government may be in the final settlement of 
 this question, the mischief is done if such conduct go 
 unpunished." 
 
 East of Kurrachee, in the south-east corner of Sind, 
 and lying between Rajpootana and the sea, is the district 
 of Nuggur Parkur. Remote, and distant from any 
 important line of communication, it had been hitherto in 
 a backward, unimproved condition, and afforded ample 
 scope for the energies of Tyrwhitt, its Deputy-Collector, 
 the officer who had distinguished himself at the outbreak 
 of the Mutiny by re-establishing the line of communication 
 between the Punjab and Agra. In a letter to Sir George 
 Clerk, Frere describes what was going on there. This 
 description and that of the subsequent outbreak illustrate 
 Frere's administration in a peaceful and in a troubled 
 time.* 
 
 " February 1, 1859. 
 
 " I have time for a very few lines, but do not like to miss 
 an opportunity of telling you how pleased I have been 
 with these districts which are young Tyrwhitt's charge. 
 It is four years since I was last through them, and he was 
 just setting to work with little to guide him but a good 
 heart, sound sense, and great energy, which he has turned 
 
 * In giving the following description, it is not meant to distinguish 
 the administration of Nuggur Parkur as of exceptional excellence 
 among districts in Sind managed by such a band of able and 
 laborious workers as Goldsmid, Currey, Ellis, Marston, Ford, 
 Steuart and others, but rather to give an instance of Frere's power 
 of developing qualities in men in whom they had not previously been 
 displayed.
 
 278 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 more to road clearing, building, and more especially to 
 canal digging and land settlement than to the present 
 fashionable occupations of hanging and village burning. 
 Not but that he had to use the sword of justice, too, at 
 starting, for the people were wild and half savage, and 
 used to live by cattle lifting nearly as much as by labour, 
 and you may recollect his chase after Ruthensing Soda, a 
 cateran who had rebelled under Sir Charles, been bought 
 off and pensioned, and who shot the first Kardar of 
 Tyrwhitt's who tried to introduce something like security 
 and good government into the desert. But having fairly 
 run Ruthensing down and shown the border thieves that 
 he could ride farther and faster than they could, Tyrwhitt 
 saw that penury and insecurity of life and property were 
 at the root of the evil. I have not yet in the course of 
 this tour seen his desert districts, but he seems to have 
 carried out admirably a plan I sketched for him four years 
 ago for giving the people a light and fixed assessment, 
 just the simple sort of system they have under a good 
 Thakoor of their own, with plenty of wells and tanks where 
 they can be made, work in the camel-police for those who 
 would otherwise steal, and employment and bread for all. 
 The result is that crime has almost disappeared, and he 
 levies a revenue such as the Meers never dreamed of. I can 
 see how well he has managed these Thurr people by the 
 influence he has beyond his own border. He gets all he 
 wants from the Judhpoor and the Jessulmere Durbar with 
 evident good will, and the Thakoors, who are in a state of 
 chronic rebellion against the Maharajah of Jessulmere and 
 who refuse to listen to the Governor-General's agent, write 
 to Tyrwhitt to apologize when they ' by mistake ' plunder 
 his people in the Judhpoor territory, and offer to submit all 
 their differences to his arbitration. He is quite altering 
 the appearance of the Sind districts of Meerpoor Proper 
 west of the Thurr, which get no water but from the river. 
 Strong as the language was which I used, to describe our 
 neglect of canals in the early years of our rule, it was short 
 of the truth, and no district had suffered more than these. 
 Meerpoor, when I saw it in 185 1, was twenty-five miles 
 within a howling wilderness, and I saw no living soul nor 
 sign of cultivation in a sixteen mile ride from Alyartha 
 Tanda. Now there are fields the whole way, and the people 
 everywhere rejoicing in the abundance of water, the simple
 
 i859-] OUTBREAK OF REVOLT. 279 
 
 fixed cash assessments, and the absence of meddling and 
 dragooning. . . . There is little, in fact, which might not be 
 found under a very benevolent, just, liberal, and energetic 
 native ruler, and all classes seem equally happy. From 
 old Shere Mohammed down to the old Belooch woman 
 who would come out of her hut with a light for his 
 pipe or a bowl of milk, and to ask the Hoozoor, ' if he 
 could not let her old man have his wheel a rupee or two 
 lower. It was such hard work, and he was an old soldier 
 and not used to labour.' I wish you could see the old 
 Meer. He is by far the finest of the lot, very proud, and 
 as haughty as when he ruled in Meerpoor, but looking 
 ten years younger than when I saw him here, just after 
 his return from Sind four or five years ago, and so 
 evidently pleased with the way Tyrwhitt treats him and 
 his sons and all the old Belooch Sirdars. In all this the 
 Government revenue has not suffered. 
 
 " The districts yielded, when made over to Tyrwhitt, 
 135,000 rupees, and the people were the most wretched, 
 poverty-stricken set to be found in Sind. This year he 
 has collected 450,000 rupees, and I would not wish for a 
 happier and more contented people, nor would it be possible 
 to have less crime. Government sometimes think I have 
 been extravagant in my views of canal works, but do not 
 results like these justify the expenditure even as a fiscal 
 measure? Tyrwhitt has had much unprofitable desert 
 added to his districts since he began, but the main cause 
 of the increase of the revenue is his canal digging and 
 light assessment, and he is far from the limit even now. 
 I fully expect as cultivation extends, the collection will 
 rise to seven lacs. . . ." 
 
 Some two months after this letter was written came a 
 rude interruption to the scene of peaceful progress. The 
 contagion of revolt had reached the district. The news 
 came, like a bolt out of the blue, that the telegraph wires 
 had been cut, the officials killed or driven away, and the 
 treasury plundered. 
 
 No sufficient cause for the outbreak could be assigned, 
 nor was there any knowing how far it might spread ; and, 
 what made it more serious, the insurgents had chosen a
 
 280 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 time of year, the beginning of the hot season, when the 
 greater part of the district, the Runn of Cutch, was liable 
 any day to be covered three or four feet deep with water 
 from the summer overflow of the Indus, and the rest of 
 the district was exposed to a fierce heat and drought which 
 made military operations in it by regular troops impracti- 
 cable. 
 
 To Tyrwhitt, much dejected at this unlooked-for dis- 
 turbance, Frere wrote : — 
 
 "April 22, 1859. 
 " You must not let this affair vex you. It was not in 
 your power to have prevented it, and I know you will set 
 matters to rights quicker than any one else would under 
 such circumstances ; so make your mind easy on that 
 score. It seems to me one of those things which God 
 sometimes sends to bring us to our senses, when we are 
 beginning to be very self-confident and to forget our 
 dependence on Him, and we shall all be better for the 
 lesson. I had begun to feel over-secure, but rely on it 
 the thought of blaming you never entered my head. Now 
 there are a few things you must remember. 1st. There are 
 no fresh Tyrwhitts in store to serve out when the original 
 one is worn to rags — so please take care of him ; don't 
 expose him more than you can help, nor put him to do 
 work which others can do as well, or which will bear 
 delay. This is frightfully hot weather in your part of the 
 world, and no mortal man can stand the work you try to 
 do, so do please try to take things a little quietly. 2nd. If 
 we hear matters are not settled at once I will send you a 
 larger force. We could send troops very quickly by 
 Mandavie Bhaaj, but you could get them still more quickly 
 from Deesa. There is a troop of horse artillery now 
 about leaving Deesa, which ought to be available. I have 
 told the brigadier you are likely to call on him. 3rd. I 
 have ordered Pirie to go on to take command of the 
 Hyderabad police with Johnstone. You will find him an 
 excellent ally, if anything is to be done. 4th. If the people 
 take to the Sardra valley, be very careful how you 
 manage the assault ; an attack at either end of the defile 
 would be a very desperate undertaking if they are
 
 1S59.] HOW TO SUPPRESS IT. 28 1 
 
 determined to defend themselves to the last, and you 
 would have to go very cautiously to avoid ambuscades. 
 There are paths to the tops of the hills from the walls of 
 the defile, and if you once crowned them, the people below 
 must surrender or be destroyed ; probably the best way 
 would be, if you had men enough, to close the two open- 
 ings — that towards Casbe, as well as that towards Nuggur — 
 and then send parties over the hills, and not to attempt an 
 advance at either end till you know that the heights are 
 in possession of your men. Water would be your chief 
 difficulty, as I fear there is none in the hill outside the 
 gorge. But I trust you will not be obliged to use force. 
 The greater part of the insurgents must be blind followers 
 of some few knaves, and no good can be gained by destroy- 
 ing them. You may rely on any promise of pardon you 
 may make being observed, and no one will ever say you 
 have been too lenient. Any leaders or instigators of the 
 multitude must, of course, take the consequence of their 
 misdeeds ; but this I leave entirely to you, and I hope you 
 will take special care to let them all know, whether 
 they submit or resist, that any women and children of even 
 the very worst of them will be taken care of and sent to 
 their own relations in safety. Otherwise, unless assured of 
 good treatment for their families, we may have them slay- 
 ing their women Rajpoot fashion, before they are attacked, 
 to prevent their falling into our hands. All petty prisoners 
 you can try and sentence at once, but the leaders and 
 capital offenders had better be committed for trial by 
 Downe. The Bengal Acts for summary jurisdiction in such 
 cases do not extend to Sind. For all but the leaders, and 
 for those who were merely lukewarm and disaffected, but 
 not actively criminal, a few years at Kurrachee would be a 
 good punishment. They will go back with sounder ideas of 
 our power and their own importance than they have now. 
 " I have full trust in your judgment and humanity as 
 well as in your zeal and courage, and you may rely on my 
 supporting you to the utmost. The fact that all the 
 suspected leaders are Sodas looks as if there were some 
 grievance of the class of which we have as yet heard 
 nothing. But if any one can find it out I know you will. 
 God be with you and guide you." 
 
 In order to put down the outbreak with as little delay
 
 282 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. VIII. 
 
 and as little resistance as possible, Frere caused three 
 columns, comprising troops of all three arms, to advance 
 simultaneously, one from Hydrabad, a second from Deesa, 
 and a third from Kurrachee, sent by sea to Mandavie. 
 The command was given to Colonel Evans, by whose 
 prompt and judicious action the town of Nuggur was 
 recaptured and the insurgents dispersed or taken. Frere 
 was able to report the complete success of the operations 
 and the suppression of disturbances more than two 
 hundred miles from the camp whence the force marched, 
 before time enough had elapsed for an answer to be 
 received from the Bombay Government to his report of 
 the outbreak. 
 
 Some of the officers employed under Colonel Evans 
 had come from outside Sind, and were therefore un- 
 acquainted with Frere's manner of dealing with insurgents. 
 He therefore writes to Colonel Evans : — 
 
 " May 4, 1859. 
 " It may be well to impress on all officers with you that 
 you are not dealing with mutineers but with rebels, or it 
 may be with foreign enemies, but either as rebels or 
 enemies entitled to a fair trial. You will be best able to 
 judge whether any departure from the ordinary forms of 
 procedure is necessary ; but unless the necessity is very 
 urgent, I should strongly recommend your making over all 
 prisoners to Captain Lambert, with instructions to try and 
 dispose of them in the usual way. But in any case every 
 officer under you should understand that he is not at 
 liberty to hang any one he may think deserving, as some 
 of them seem inclined to do." 
 
 He writes again to Colonel Evans : — 
 
 "May 15. 
 
 " Always supposing that Akhajee was not a leader or 
 instigator, and did not approve of what had been done, 
 I should be inclined to let him off cheaply. Born before 
 the Talpoors got Sind and when the Ranas were really 
 independent robber chieftains, reared as a Desert Thakoor
 
 I&59-] SIR JOHN LAWRENCE. 283 
 
 who looked on a raid to Cutch or Guzerat as his natural, 
 rightful mode of subsistence, he had the sense to submit 
 from the first to Roberts, and has since honestly done his 
 best to reconcile the old and new order of things. In a 
 sudden disturbance like this, if he speedily separates him- 
 self from the leaders and gives in, I would not be very 
 extreme to mark whether he attended the rebel Rana's 
 Durbar, provided he told his old masters he was a fool, 
 and had made a mistake in rising. It is hardly in human 
 nature for an old servant like him to do more, and we 
 should be well off if all did as much. Tyrwhitt and his 
 people will be very naturally angry with him for not doing 
 more, but till we have some evidence of an organized plot 
 and conspiracy, I should not condemn the old man for not 
 telling us." 
 
 To Lord Elphinstone he writes, May 5 : — 
 
 " I fear there can be no doubt that the people of 
 Parkur had substantial grounds of complaint, but, as far 
 as can be seen from such of their statements as have 
 reached me, not more than falls to the lot of people in 
 every remote district, and is usually treasured up till they 
 get an opportunity to complain. Such an opportunity 
 they knew they would have had in a few weeks more or 
 less, when Lieutenant Tyrwhitt came among them ; and 
 any very pressing grievance would, no doubt, have led 
 to some of them starting for his camp, or to Bhooj, or to 
 Kurrachee, to complain. But the events of the last two 
 years had unsettled their minds, and they no doubt 
 intended to repeat the experiment they tried under the 
 Meers, when they shot an obnoxious Kardar. 
 
 "The true remedy is, I am sure, to bring the district 
 out of its present isolation, and enable us to get at the 
 people and the people at us, better than they can do at 
 present." 
 
 Sir John Lawrence, worn out with his great and arduous 
 labours, was at length able, at the end of February, 1859, 
 to leave his post in the Punjab to his successor and to 
 start for England. His way lay down the Indus through 
 Sind, and Frere expected him to go to Kurrachee, where
 
 284 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 he and Lady Frere were preparing to receive him with 
 due honour. He met him accordingly in Upper Sind, 
 and travelled two days in his company down the river. 
 But Lawrence was too weary and ill, and too anxious 
 to get home, to pause in his journey or go out of his way, 
 and so went straight from the mouth of the Indus to 
 Bombay, without going to Kurrachee. 
 
 Referring to what he had seen of him during these two 
 days, Frere says, writing to Lord Elphinstone : — 
 
 "March 10, 1859. 
 " You will have seen Sir John Lawrence and heard all 
 and much more than I could have told you of what I 
 heard from him. My general impression was that his 
 difficulties, from the paralysis of the action of a Supreme 
 Government and of the military system generally, were 
 far greater than I had imagined, and that the present 
 condition of everything to the North and North-West was, 
 and is still, far worse and still more demoralized than I 
 had believed possible. I used to think it a great mistake 
 that Sind had not been united to the Punjab and placed 
 under the direct control of the Supreme Government, 
 but what I heard from Sir John has quite altered my 
 opinion, and I fancy that with [in spite of] all the 
 advantages of being appendages of Calcutta, your 
 dominions are half a century in advance of either the 
 North- West or the Punjab." 
 
 Frere had never re-visited England except once on 
 sick leave, and now that the great danger is over, his 
 thoughts turn homeward. 
 
 " March 30. 
 " I have seen the revenue here rise from twenty-three 
 to forty-three lacs in eight years," he writes to Lord 
 Elphinstone. "And if your Lordship stays in India as 
 long as I hope you will, you may certainly see the revenue 
 of Sind three-quarters of a crore, and perhaps more. . . . 
 I am not likely to see it, for I earned my pension last 
 month, and now ride at single anchor."
 
 I859-] RECOGNITION OF FRERE'S SERVICES. 285 
 
 And to Mr. H. Danby Seymour he writes : — 
 
 "March 17. 
 
 "The first instalment of Mr. Walker's plan for im- 
 proving the harbour of Kurrachee has been sanctioned, 
 and is to be put in hand at once, and it will be wanted 
 to accommodate the rapidly increasing trade. Here are 
 some of the figures. The value of the whole seaborne trade 
 was, in 1853-4, 88,51,000 rupees; in 1857-8, 215,92,000, 
 being an increase of some thirty-six per cent, per annum. 
 It will this year be probably two and three-quarter 
 millions, which is close on the value of the whole trade 
 of Madras, and the stream is only beginning to flow. 
 The first square-rigged sailing ship entered the harbour 
 in 185 1 : there were fourteen in 1852-53 ; fifty-seven in 
 1857-58 ; and there will be at least seventy-five this year, 
 twenty-seven of which will have taken full cargoes for 
 Europe. This is exclusive of Government transports. 
 I think these facts are a sufficient answer to those who 
 call me a visionary, and who talk of my reckless 
 expenditure, or proposed expenditure, of public money." 
 
 His services during the Mutiny in India were com- 
 paratively little known to the general public in England ; 
 for the very reason which was strongest evidence of his high 
 merit, namely, that while a fierce struggle was raging on 
 its borders, his own province was almost undisturbed, and 
 nothing of such startling interest as to attract general 
 notice had occurred in it. But by Lord Elphinstone and 
 at the India Office at home, the importance of the work he 
 had done, not only in keeping his own province quiet 
 and in guarding his frontier, but in doing this while at the 
 same time sending nearly all his European troops to Delhi, 
 to the Punjab, and to the Deccan, was fully appreciated.* 
 
 * Mr. (now Sir Richard) Temple, secretary to the Chief Com- 
 missioner of the Punjab, writes to the secretary of the Bombay 
 Government, extracting a paragraph from a letter to the secretary to 
 the Government of India, which runs as follows: — 
 
 "May 28, 1858. 
 " The Chief Commissioner (Sir John Lawrence) could not allow 
 his notice of the officers who have distinguished themselves to be
 
 286 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 On each of the two occasions — in January, 1858, and in 
 April, 1859 — when the thanks of Parliament were given 
 to the Civil Service and the army in India, his name was 
 specially mentioned ; and on the second occasion he 
 received the honour of a Knight Commandership of the 
 Bath. 
 
 To Major Merewether, in response to his congratulations, 
 he writes : — 
 
 " May 27, 1859. 
 
 " Many thanks for your kind letter, which only expresses 
 what I knew you would feel. But you do not feel what I 
 do very strongly, that but for you and the Sind Horse, 
 if any of us had lived to get honours, they would have 
 been for the reconquest of the country, not for its preserva- 
 tion in peace and for helping those beyond our border. 
 One of the few points in which I did not agree with our 
 dear friend Jacob was in rating — I trust not too highly — 
 such rewards as among honourable objects of ambition. 
 But I shall ever regard mine as a trust given, not to me 
 personally, but as the head and representative of many 
 noble and brave men who all did their duty so gloriously. 
 
 " There was no part of Lord Stanley's speech which I 
 read with half the pleasure I derived from what he said of 
 our dear friend." 
 
 Some time early in the summer of 1859, Frere heard 
 incidentally that Lord Stanley, on Lord Canning's 
 recommendation, was about to appoint him a Member of 
 the Supreme Council at Calcutta. Owing to a change of 
 
 closed without mention being made of the great obligations under 
 which he lies to Mr. H. B. E. Frere, the Commissioner of Sind. 
 From first to last, from the commencement of the Mutiny to the 
 final triumph, that officer has rendered assistance to the Punjab 
 administration, just as if he had been one of its own Commissioners. 
 It was owing to his indefatigable exertions that the 1st Bombay 
 Fusiliers arrived at Mooltan so soon as they did. He despatched the 
 1st and then the 2nd Belooch Battalion from Sind to succour the 
 Punjab. The Chief Commissioner believes that probably there is no 
 civil officer in India who, for eminent exertions, deserves better of his 
 Government than Mr. H. B. E. Frere."
 
 iSS9.] APPOINTED TO SUPREME COUNCIL. 287 
 
 Ministry in June, Lord Stanley being succeeded at the 
 India Office by Sir Charles Wood, nothing was for some 
 time definitely settled. Subsequently Sir Charles Wood 
 wrote to Lord Canning that he intended to make the ap- 
 pointment. Still there was some uncertainty owing to 
 the number of retirements and of places which had to be 
 filled up. It was not till the beginning of September that 
 he received a letter from Sir Charles Wood to say that 
 next day he was going to nominate him. 
 
 Lord Elphinstone was very unwilling to lose Frere from 
 Sind. He afterwards told Lady Frere that he and Lord 
 Canning had been fighting over which should have him, 
 " but Canning, you see, has got his way." 
 
 Towards the end of September he got a letter from 
 Lord Canning, telling him that his appointment had been 
 received, and wishing him to go to Calcutta as soon as he 
 could. 
 
 In a letter to Lord Elphinstone, he says — 
 
 " October 9. 
 
 " I am writing among many interruptions consequent on 
 our departure, rather sooner than was expected. I need 
 not tell you how very mixed is one's feeling on such an 
 occasion. But I think my wife's feeling is nearly un- 
 mitigated regret at leaving so many kind friends and a 
 place where we felt of some use, and going some thousand 
 miles farther from our children, but I hope it will not at 
 any rate retard our chance of ultimately rejoining them. 
 
 Writing to Sir Charles Wood a month later, in the 
 interests of his successor, whoever he might be, he says — 
 
 "November 11, 1859. 
 " I have urged on Lord Elphinstone as strongly as I 
 could the impolicy of reducing the salaries of the Com- 
 missioners in Sind, and I believe he fully agrees with me. 
 Owing to the position of the place it is, as I found by 
 experience, quite impossible for the chief civil officer and
 
 288 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 representative of Government to do his duty, either to 
 Government or Society, and to save out of the salary 
 heretofore allowed — as he might and ought to do out of a 
 very much inferior appointment here in Bombay. . . . 
 
 " I am convinced there is no worse economy than 
 underpaying your officers in charge of frontier and 
 insulated provinces like Sind. It is a serious financial 
 mistake to pay any of the superior officers of Government 
 so low as to make it difficult to save a decent competence 
 before they are quite worn out, and for a warden of the 
 marches to have to consider whether a guest more or less 
 will make a serious difference in his household expenditure, 
 may make the difference between success or failure in 
 important public affairs. One of the most sagacious men 
 in India once said to me, speaking of Sir William 
 Macnaughten's avoidance of society, ' I often used to 
 think a few dozen of champagne might have averted the 
 Cabool disaster,' and what constitutional shyness did for 
 Sir William, is often done by parsimonious living in our 
 Indian stations. We have little expression of public 
 opinion, hardly any originating with the better-informed 
 class of public servants, and the man in high official 
 position who shuts himself out from hearing what his 
 English fellow-servants say and think in society is sure, 
 sooner or later, to go wrong. I think I could trace some 
 of the worst and most dangerous blunders of late years to 
 the recluse habits of some of our leading men, who ought 
 to have known every pulsation of feeling among Europeans 
 as well as natives ; and whatever may be said of the old 
 lavish style of Indian expenditure, it certainly left our 
 officers no excuse for a parsimony which Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone, Malcolm, or Metcalfe would have held in- 
 compatible with successful administration. I would not 
 have inflicted this dissertation on you, but having left 
 Sind I feel free to speak on a subject which I am satisfied 
 is of vital importance to my successor, and it may make 
 all the difference between his taking a pride and pleasure 
 in his work, and his being anxious to quit it as a very 
 laborious and ill-paid office, which I am convinced it will 
 be if the threatened reduction in the salary is carried out." 
 
 When it was known at Kurrachee that Sir Bartle was 
 to leave Sind, a public meeting was held, to propose
 
 1859.] HIS STEWARDSHIP IN SIND. 289 
 
 the presentation of an address, expressive of public 
 feeling on his approaching departure. All races and 
 classes joined in expressing their love and respect for his 
 character and their sense of the benefits which under his 
 wise and fostering rule of nearly nine years had been con- 
 ferred on the province. The address was signed by more 
 than five thousand persons in Kurrachee, and by as many 
 more from other parts of Sind. 
 
 In replying, Frere disclaimed any originality in his 
 principles and methods, which were those of Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone and Malcolm, of Outram, Pottinger, and 
 Clerk, and after paying a warm tribute to Napier and 
 Jacob, he said : — 
 
 " In the other branches of administration to which you 
 specially allude, if I have been successful it has been by 
 exposing to the utmost of my power the centralizing 
 fashion which has of late years been so common, and 
 which I have always considered to be one great cause of 
 our late disasters. 
 
 " I believe you have not exaggerated what has been 
 done in many of the departments which you specify, but 
 I feel convinced that however earnestly and ably I might 
 have laboured, the results would have been comparatively 
 insignificant had I acted on any other principle than that 
 of giving to every workman the freest scope and best aid 
 I could, to do in his own way that work which God put 
 into his heart to attempt ; it is this which, in almost every 
 district, has enabled our officers, with very limited means, 
 to crowd into a few years such a vast amount of improve- 
 ment in roads, canals, railways, steamers, and other results 
 and marks of civilization. 
 
 " I have endeavoured to pursue the same policy in all 
 matters affecting commerce, regarding Government inter- 
 ference and Government imposts as in themselves serious 
 evils, and believing it to be the appropriate function of 
 Government simply to protect all men in the enjoyment 
 of their rights and possessions as long as they do not in- 
 terfere with the rights or possessions of others, and to 
 remove all obstacles, natural or artificial, to such enjoy- 
 
 VOL. 1. U
 
 290 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 ment ; it has been my study not to develope commerce 
 and industry, but to leave commerce and industry free to 
 develope themselves." 
 
 Independently of the above, an address was presented 
 to Frere by the native community of Kurrachee. After 
 enumerating the benefits Sind had received from his rule, 
 it says : — 
 
 " Perhaps you cannot at present fully know the extent 
 to which your good qualities, your knowledge of the secret 
 of gaining the hearts of the natives of India, and of 
 governing them by the sole power of justice and love, 
 have endeared you to the people of this province, and 
 made you popular alike among all classes of the country, 
 natives as well as Europeans, countrymen as well as 
 foreigners. But had your route lain through the province, 
 instead of by sea, we are sure you would have found every 
 step of your way crowded by a sorrowing populace. From 
 the aristocracy of the land down to the humblest fisher- 
 man, every soul would have deserted their pleasure and 
 their daily labour, and flocked round you to give vent to 
 the outpourings of their hearts. You would have met 
 with none but weeping and sorrowing faces on the sudden 
 parting with their deservedly beloved and revered ruler. 
 But you are saved such an affecting scene. We, however, 
 are sure that you will yet hear of their grief on learning 
 that their benefactor, whose ever-smiling face annually 
 brightened every villager's homestead with a visit from 
 Kurrachee up to Kusmore, and from Thur up to the remotest 
 corner of the Hill regions, has suddenly left them, with but 
 a slender hope of ever seeing him again. . . . 
 
 " We would say in conclusion, that if Her Majesty's 
 Government want to select from among the Indian states- 
 men one who possesses the key of the secret of touching 
 and winning the hearts of men of different creeds and 
 castes of which the native society of this country is com- 
 posed, by the power of love and not of fear, they should 
 look to you, and to you alone. You have appreciated and 
 illustrated the ' Power of Love ' to its fullest extent in 
 your administration of this province. There are volumes 
 in those three words, and your rule here has proved that
 
 iSS9] FAREWELL. 2pl 
 
 you had thoroughly mastered them, feeling as you do that 
 * we have all of us one human heart.' " 
 
 Frere, in his reply, alludes to the immunity from 
 disturbance which Sind had enjoyed during the past 
 two troubled years, ascribing, mainly to the loyalty of 
 the inhabitants and the efficiency of the police, the fact — 
 
 " That we went about our ordinary avocations in peace 
 and quietness, and that though attempts were repeatedly 
 made in different places to excite insurrection, no public 
 office was ever closed for a single day, our ordinary com- 
 mercial dealings were never interrupted, and no com- 
 munity was kept for more than a part of a single night 
 out of their beds, in consequence of any of the abortive 
 attempts at insurrection." 
 
 On the morning of one of the last days of October, Sir 
 Bartle and Lady Frere left Government House for the last 
 time. There was not a man in the length and breadth of 
 Sind, it was said, to whom his face or voice was not 
 familiar ; and all Kurrachee, European and native, had 
 turned out to line the road by which he was to pass to the 
 harbour. The soft October sun shone upon crowded ranks 
 of people in every variety of bright-coloured costume, on 
 intent faces, and on a forest of outstretched hands, seeking 
 in simple Eastern fashion to touch if it were only a fold of 
 the coat of him who, during ten years of peace and plenty, 
 such as they had never known before, had been their ruler 
 and their friend. Through the native town the train 
 moved at foot's pace to the Napier Mole of the harbour — 
 the first passenger-train that had gone that way. Here 
 some mishap occurred at the facing-points — a truck went 
 off the rails — and carriages had to be procured to take 
 them the remaining mile and a half to the head of the 
 pier, which was decorated for the occasion. A boat was 
 waiting to row them to the steamer, into which Frere,
 
 292 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. VIII. 
 
 with difficulty releasing himself from his friends, was the 
 last to enter. The strains of " God save the Queen," the 
 boom of fifteen guns from the fort, and the cheers of the 
 crowd of comrades and of friends, in whose moved faces 
 and moistened eyes congratulation struggled vainly with 
 regret, carried to him across the widening water a last 
 farewell from Sind.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CALCUTTA. 
 
 Settles at Calcutta — Mr. Mackinnon — Indian finance — Mr. James 
 Wilson — Income-tax — Sir C. Trevelyan — Death of Wilson — Sir 
 Robert Napier — Military Finance Commission — The Arms Bill — 
 Constitution of Legislative Council. 
 
 The vessel that took Sir Bartle and Lady Frere from Kur- 
 rachee was the Fevoze, belonging to the Indian navy. One 
 of those petty local outbreaks, which were still happening 
 from time to time — sparks fanned into flame by the per- 
 vading spirit of unrest — had recently occurred at a place 
 on the coast of Kattywar, some two hundred miles south- 
 east of Kurrachee, and the insurgent Waghers had occu- 
 pied a small fort at Dwarka, which was being invested by 
 some troops. The ammunition running short, a fresh 
 supply had been sent for, which the Feroze had taken on 
 board to leave on her way down the coast. She reached 
 Dwarka and landed the boxes of ammunition at the very 
 time that a bombardment from the sea and an assault by 
 land of the fort was going on, which Sir Bartle and Lady 
 Frere were able to watch from the deck of the vessel, the 
 shots from the fort occasionally passing through the rig- 
 ging or striking the water near. After taking in several 
 wounded men, the Feroze proceeded on her way to 
 Bombay. 
 
 There they were detained for more than three weeks,
 
 294 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IX. 
 
 waiting for their vessel to go on to Calcutta. The 
 delay gave him the opportunity of intercourse with Lord 
 Elphinstone, and of making himself acquainted with the 
 opinions of leading men at Bombay. Thence they went 
 on to Galle, then the port of junction where the mail 
 steamers from Suez, Calcutta, Bombay, China, and Aus- 
 tralia met, and where they had a few days to wait. 
 In a long letter to one of his daughters at home, he 
 describes the beauties and antiquities and interesting- 
 features of Galle, a place so familiar to travellers in those 
 days — the spider canoes, or catamarans, used as surf-boats 
 for landing passengers from the steamers in the roadstead, 
 made out of a hollowed tree, and balanced, so as to be in- 
 capable of upsetting, by a beam floating on the water 
 attached to it by stiff rods six or eight feet long ; the 
 costume of the Cingalese men, a black silk jacket and 
 petticoat, and with hair drawn back into a knot at the back 
 of the head, " like a respectable Portuguese of Bombay 
 masquerading as a woman;" the old Dutch gateway; 
 the Court House, with a cock and the date 1603 over it ; 
 the narrow streets, where two carriages could not pass ; 
 and the well-known road to Wakwallah, a few miles inland, 
 the perfection of tropical scenery. The letter is inter- 
 spersed with spirited illustrations, and five different kinds 
 of palms are noted and each accurately sketched — 
 
 " Besides scores of other trees, of which I could recognize 
 but few, but all most luxuriant, and with a greater variety 
 of form and foliage than in any Indian scenery I know. 
 As we ascended we had the most lovely peeps down the 
 sides of the hill — sometimes into little dells — quite over- 
 shadowed by the thick trees, with neat little cottages 
 under them, swarming with children. At other times we 
 got more distant views of the hills in the interior, or of 
 the seashore and bay, with its deep blue sea and white 
 breakers. At the top we found a very neat bungalow, as
 
 1859] GALLE. 295 
 
 we should call it in India, a house with only a ground 
 floor — wide verandahs projecting far out, so as to throw 
 as much shade as possible without excluding the breeze — 
 rooms floored with real Dutch tiles, and furnished with old 
 Dutch carved ebony couches, chairs, or cabinets, elaborate 
 enough to drive a carved furniture-fancier crazy, and a 
 pretty garden in terraces round all, between the house and 
 the edge of the hill, with beautiful peeps of distant scenery 
 beyond. 
 
 " For the first time in my life I saw India as it appeared 
 to my imagination thirty years ago, and I again implicitly 
 believed in the scenery of 'Paul and Virginia' and the 
 ' Indian Cottage,' after a quarter of a century of scepticism 
 and disappointment." 
 
 They spent three days at Guindy, near Madras, as the 
 guests of Sir Charles Trevelyan the Governor, and reached 
 Calcutta December 21. 
 
 Frere writes to Lord Ripon : — 
 
 " December 21. 
 
 " We have been here but a few days, only time enough 
 to see that the city is far more metropolitan in appearance 
 than either Madras or Bombay, and the European popula- 
 tion far larger and more varied ; but I am sadly disappointed 
 in the natives, though what I have seen of them explains much 
 which was before inexplicable in the conduct of Europeans 
 during the Mutiny and their sentiments since. I think it 
 a very serious evil that so large and influential a section 
 of the rulers of India should obtain their first, often their 
 only knowledge of the natives of India from a race which 
 seems to me both physically and mentally inferior to any 
 of the more civilized races of Northern and Western India. 
 On this account, and for many other reasons, I am glad 
 that Mr. Wilson has gone up to join the Governor-General's 
 camp, and will get as far as Lahore before he turns his face 
 in this direction." 
 
 At Calcutta he took a house, No. 31, Chowringhee Road, 
 in a fine range of buildings facing the Maidan Park, or 
 Plain, the Hyde Park of Calcutta, outside the city. Here 
 he would be seen at sunrise riding " Beejapore," a fine
 
 296 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 Arab he had taken from Satara to Sind, and brought on 
 to Calcutta, over the fine galloping ground, or round the 
 race-course, or in the shady roads of the suburbs on the 
 two sides of the Maidan facing the country. The day 
 would be spent in his study or in attending the Executive 
 or Legislative Council ; and late in the afternoon, if not 
 too busy, he would be out riding or driving again. The 
 evenings he rarely had to himself. Work after nightfall in 
 an Indian climate is fatal to health, and to be avoided if 
 possible ; and he entered freely into society. 
 
 He was the first Bombay civilian who had ever been ap- 
 pointed to the Supreme Council ; hitherto its members had 
 always been taken from the Bengal service, and the Cal- 
 cutta civilians were not at first inclined to be cordial towards 
 a stranger from another Presidency ; but his tact, kindli- 
 ness, and courtesy, his readiness to mix in general society 
 and make himself acquainted with current opinion, and the 
 liberality with which he maintained the high standard of 
 Indian hospitality, soon overcame prejudice and made him 
 generally popular. 
 
 Nor was his hospitality confined to the official world. 
 At Calcutta, more than at Bombay, and than elsewhere in 
 India, the Civil servants had hitherto been socially a class 
 apart, having little intercourse with non-official Europeans, 
 and none at all with natives. But Sir Bartle and Lady 
 Frere had a welcome for all classes and races, and tact to 
 offer it in such a way as to offend no prejudices. Lady 
 Frere visited the native ladies, as she had been accus- 
 tomed to do in Sind, in Satara, and formerly in Bombay ; 
 and the native merchants, and native princes and rajahs 
 who came to Calcutta were often entertained at their house. 
 Friends would look in, uninvited, to breakfast ; and once 
 a week Frere had a public breakfast to which any person 
 who wished to see him on any business could come. Any
 
 iS6o-2.] SIR WILLIAM MACKINNON. 297 
 
 one arriving from England or from some other part of 
 India, any one who had information or experience to im- 
 part, or a cause to advocate — artists, missionaries, soldiers, 
 merchants, men of science, and above all, travellers — found 
 in him an attentive and sympathetic listener. The non- 
 official Europeans, whose only way of making their wants 
 and grievances known had hitherto been by articles in the 
 Press — often virulent and abusive in proportion to their 
 powerlessness to produce any effect — found Frere always 
 ready to give them a courteous and attentive hearing. 
 
 It was thus that about two years after this time he first 
 met Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Mackinnon, who became 
 for the rest of his life one of his warmest friends. 
 
 Mackinnon had gone out to India from Glasgow a few 
 years previously, a young man, and with slender means, to 
 take up a business in partnership with a friend who had 
 preceded him to India. After a time they had come to 
 own two steamers of six hundred tons each, trading from 
 Calcutta to Burmah ; more steamers were acquired, and the 
 concern became the "Burmah Steam Navigation Company." 
 Mackinnon had larger schemes in view, for which he needed 
 a Government subsidy ; but Calcutta officials in those days 
 were not very accessible to the outside mercantile world, 
 and it was not till early in 1862, shortly before Frere left 
 Calcutta, that a friend took him to one of Frere's semi- 
 public breakfasts, and he was able to get a hearing from 
 some one who could help him. He proposed, if a subsidy 
 were granted to him, to establish a line of coasting steamers, 
 calling at all ports of the coast from Calcutta round to 
 Kurrachee. Frere, with his quick eye for a man of mettle, 
 gave him and his proposal a cordial reception. " You are 
 the man I have been looking for for years," he said to him ; 
 and he took him to Lord Canning, who gave favourable 
 attention to his scheme. But the consent of the Bombay
 
 298 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 Government was also necessary, and this Mackinnon 
 was unable to obtain till Frere went to Bombay as 
 Governor in April, 1863. There he was the first person with 
 whom Frere had an interview after being sworn in, and 
 the result was that the subsidy was soon after granted. 
 The " Burmah Steam Navigation Company " became the 
 " British India Company ; " and in time the steamers ex- 
 tended their trips to the Persian Gulf, to the East African 
 Coast, to England, and to Australia. When Frere's mission 
 went to Zanzibar in 1872-3, Mackinnon maintained for 
 several months, with great advantage to the Mission, and 
 at a great expense to himself, a fortnightly postal service to 
 Zanzibar. The British India Company has now a fleet of 
 eighty-eight steamers, some of them of from four to six 
 thousand tons. In case of need it could, and would, at a 
 week's notice, collect steamers enough at Calcutta, Madras, 
 or Bombay to convey thirty thousand troops to any port 
 required — an addition to the defensive strength of - the 
 Empire which it is difficult to adequately estimate. This 
 great company took its first impulse — so said Sir William 
 Mackinnon — from the encouragement given by Frere to 
 a young and unknown man at his breakfast-table in 
 Chowringhee Road. 
 
 The office to which Frere had been appointed was 
 Member of the Supreme Council of India, that is, of the 
 Cabinet of the Governor-General. 
 
 The question of finance, of how to make both ends 
 meet, was the absorbing problem of the day. From 
 1853-4 to 1856-7 there had been a deficit every year. 
 Then came the Mutiny, when, in the struggle for exist- 
 ence, the expenditure was uncontrolled and lavish. The 
 deficit for 1857-8 was eight millions sterling; that for 
 1858-9, fourteen millions; and the estimated deficit for 
 1859-60 was upwards of ten millions. Unless matters
 
 iS6o.j FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 299 
 
 could be mended, bankruptcy must follow, or India would 
 have to be retained at such a cost to the mother-country 
 as she could hardly be expected to submit to. Compara- 
 tively little increase could be made to taxation ; for India 
 is, or was then, a country of few rich men and many 
 poor. If the balance of income and expenditure was to 
 be restored, it must be mainly by a reduction of ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 In February, 1859, nearly a year before he went to 
 Calcutta, Frere had written to Mr. H. Danby Seymour : — 
 
 " My few spare minutes have been given to answering 
 Colonel Durand's questions on the re-organization of the 
 army, of which I ordered a copy to be sent to you. They 
 were mostly written in July and August, but every week 
 since has convinced me more strongly of the fact that the 
 question is essentially a financial one, and that unless it is 
 so viewed and disposed of, we shall lose India, not from any 
 incapacity to hold it, but from finding it too costly and 
 troublesome a possession to be worth keeping. You or 
 men who know India are not likely to think so, but numbers 
 of the tax-paying classes would, if they found Indian de- 
 ficiencies disturbing the Stock Exchange. Out here there 
 seems no one connected with the Supreme Government 
 who has any definite plan of finance, and from Lord Dal- 
 housie's conversion of the Five per cents, to the present 
 moment nothing could be more unworthy of a great 
 Government than the haphazard way in which we have 
 drifted in finance. . . . 
 
 " It is the total apparent want of plan and method, of 
 any defined object, the general trusting to what may turn 
 up, and the sort of demoralization consequent thereon, that 
 are, to my mind, symptoms of evil omen, even now when 
 every one is saying that our troubles are over. (We) are, in 
 some respects, less likely to govern India as we ought than 
 before our late terrible lesson." 
 
 On the threshold of any financial reform was the im- 
 possibility of obtaining reliable information as to what the
 
 300 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IX. 
 
 expenditure really amounted to in the different provinces, 
 and on what the money was spent. 
 Frere writes to Sir C. Wood : — 
 
 " May 3, i860. 
 
 " There is nothing in hand relating to either military or 
 police ; no information you get on either subject is com- 
 plete ; all that appears wildest and most exaggerated in 
 Sir Charles Napier's later diatribes on these subjects is 
 strictly and literally true. Lord Ellenborough will tell you 
 how he found matters in both departments when he was 
 here, and they are far worse now — the worst feature of all 
 being the incapacity of most of the official men here to 
 discover or admit that all is not perfection. I could not 
 give you a better instance than the one before you in the 
 discussion between Sir C. Trevelyan and Lord Elphinstone 
 on the one hand, and Mr. Wilson on the other, as to the 
 cost of the army and police for this year now ending, and 
 the amount of reduction which can be relied on as in 
 progress for 1860-61. The difference between the two 
 results is not a few thousand rupees, but millions sterling, 
 and this, not on a question of calculation, but of fact, such 
 as you would learn from the War or Home Offices in a few 
 hours to within a few thousand pounds. The discussion 
 has been going on for weeks, and it is still difficult to 
 prove conclusively who is right : I am convinced that Mr. 
 Wilson is, and feel assured that if he has erred, it is in 
 under-estimating the charges. But when you see the time 
 and trouble required to prove a fact which ought to be 
 clear from turning over a few leaves of a ledger, you may 
 imagine the difficulty of getting materials for framing 
 schemes of altered organization and reduced expendi- 
 ture. . . . 
 
 "You will naturally ask, what is to be done? I should 
 say, in the first place, leave much more to the Governor- 
 General to do and give him more aid to do it. . . . The 
 Commander-in-Chief must be in reality a ' Commander-in- 
 Chief in India,' and not, as Sir Charles Napier truly called 
 him, • only a gigantic Adjutant-General.' Let him cease 
 to be troubled with the petty details of this vast and 
 heterogeneous Bengal army ; make over to a Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Forces in each Lieutenant Government the 
 same duties which a Commander of Forces in Bombay or
 
 i860.] COST OF INDIAN ARMY. 3OI 
 
 Madras could exercise ; and let each Lieutenant-Governor 
 have the same sort of control over the movement and 
 disposition of the troops that the Governors of Bombay 
 and Madras have. Since General Outram has been ill 
 I have had the military work passing through my hands, 
 and I certainly have never had to do with so chaotic a 
 department. Less than one-third of the work is of an 
 imperial character, such as ought to occupy the time and 
 attention of a Governor-General or his Council ; the rest is 
 such as, in any other country, would go to the Adjutant or 
 Quartermaster-General, to a Brigadier, or some of it even 
 to an inferior officer. Mixed as it is with the really 
 important work, it effectually prevents the latter being 
 done, and hence so many subjects of great importance are 
 unavoidably postponed or slurred over." 
 
 The military expenditure in India had been, in round 
 numbers — 
 
 Sterling. 
 For 1856-7 ... ... 11^ millions. 
 
 1857-8 ... ... i 5^ millions. 
 
 1858-9 ... ... 21 millions. 
 
 1859-60 ... ... I7| millions. 
 
 1 860-1 ... (estimate) 15^ millions. 
 
 Thus, though it had already been much reduced, it was 
 still 3| millions more than before the Mutiny. 
 
 The increase of expenditure was not by any means solely 
 in the Military Department. The total increase, Civil and 
 Military, as compared with the year before the Mutiny, 
 was iitj millions, and was made up thus — 
 
 Sterling. 
 Military in India ... ... 3,784,415 
 
 Other than Military in India ... 3,942,846 
 Home charges of all kinds ... 3,817,738 
 
 11,544,999 
 But, except in the important item of police, there was no
 
 302 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IX. 
 
 prospect of being able to make any material reduction in 
 the Civil charges ; it was even doubtful if they could be 
 kept from increasing. 
 
 It was therefore only in the Military Department, and 
 In the cognate department of police, that any material 
 reduction could be looked for. And it appeared also that 
 even if the military expenditure could be brought to as 
 low a point as before the Mutiny, there would still be a 
 deficit of more than six millions, unless the revenue could 
 by some means be increased. 
 
 In view of the serious financial difficulty, the Home 
 Government had sent out, as " legal " member of the 
 Supreme Council, not, as usual, a barrister, but a financier, 
 the Right Honourable James Wilson, who had gained a 
 high reputation for skill in finance by the ability of 
 his articles in the Economist, of which he was editor, 
 and by his good work while holding office, successively, 
 at the Board of Control, the Treasury, and the Board of 
 Trade. 
 
 When Frere arrived at Calcutta, Wilson had gone up 
 the country with Lord Canning. Shortly after his return, 
 on February 18, he laid before the Council his estimates 
 and his proposals, the most important and novel of which 
 was the imposition of an income-tax throughout India for 
 five years. All incomes above £50 were to pay four per 
 cent., those between .£50 and .£20, two per cent, those 
 under that amount being exempt. There was also to be 
 an annual license-tax of ten rupees on wholesale, and four 
 rupees on retail trades, and one rupee on artisans. 
 
 There could be no doubt that to impose an income-tax 
 at such a time was a serious and even hazardous experi- 
 ment. All the many objections which had rendered the 
 carrying out of such a measure difficult and unpopular in 
 England applied with greater force to India, where, instead
 
 i860.] INCOME-TAX. 303 
 
 of a loyal and homogeneous population with an organized 
 and reliable staff of officials,, there was a heterogeneous 
 aggregation of men, with, for the most part, little or no 
 sentiment of loyalty to the Government, and, in Northern 
 India, not yet returned to their normal condition of 
 acquiescence in submission to the ruling powers from 
 which they had been aroused by the Mutiny. Frere 
 himself had been inclined to think that the balance of 
 expenditure and income might be re-established by the 
 natural increase of revenue and by a reduction of ex- 
 penditure, such as could be effected by better administra- 
 tion, a better system of local audit, and by the cutting 
 down of needless and wasteful expenditure which he knew 
 to be going on, and which if inquired into would come to 
 light. But he knew also that the waste and abnormal 
 expenditure was not entirely owing to the Mutiny, but 
 was of older growth, and was due to causes which would 
 take, not months, but years to change and reform, and 
 that in the mean time some such source of additional 
 revenue as an income-tax, however perilous, was a 
 necessity. 
 
 The proposal to impose an income-tax did not in 
 general meet with a favourable reception from Indian 
 officials. A suggestion had been made that, instead of 
 levying an income-tax, revenue should be raised by the 
 imposition of local octroi and transit duties, which it was 
 said would be productive, and would excite little opposi- 
 tion. To this Frere replied in a Minute : — 
 
 " February 17, i860. 
 " The course (proposed) is, in every respect, retrograde. 
 All these various and very incongruous modes of collecting 
 money are revivals of abolished native modes of taxation, 
 condemned long ago, not by speculative theorists, but by 
 all our wisest and most experienced practical adminis- 
 trators, on the very solid ground, that for every rupee they
 
 304 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 brought into the Treasury, they kept out two which would 
 otherwise flow in by some legitimate channel ; that such 
 taxes strangled trade and industry, and that their pro- 
 ductiveness was an exact measure of the indirect mischief 
 they did. 
 
 " Their abolition on these grounds has been generally 
 the first measure with which our rule in a lapsed Native 
 State commenced. It has always been the one mea- 
 sure most popular with all classes, save the great 
 capitalists. . . . 
 
 " I should have much preferred, if it were possible, 
 to have so far reduced our current general expenditure 
 that it could be met by our ordinary revenue, and that the 
 large sums which ought to be raised and spent on objects 
 more or less local (roads, canals, education, and many 
 others), should have been provided by local taxation, 
 locally arranged, by local bodies, acting on general 
 principles laid down by the general legislative body of 
 India, and in distinct and perfect subordination to the 
 general Government of India. 
 
 " I am sanguine that in time such economy as I have 
 described may be enforced, but that time cannot now be 
 allowed. Our wants are urgent, and owing, as it seems to 
 me, to the erroneous mode in which for twenty-five years 
 we have attempted to centralize, we cannot now enforce 
 economy as rapidly as a really strong centralized Govern- 
 ment would, and as our need requires. 
 
 " Nor can we, by a stroke of the pen, resuscitate that 
 spirit of local and municipal administration which is never 
 entirely extinguished in an Indian community, but which 
 for years past so many of our measures have tended to 
 check and paralyze, and which must be in vigorous exist- 
 ence before any extensive plan of local administration of 
 local affairs can be organized. 
 
 "Situated as we are, a general system of direct taxation, 
 such as our Right Honourable Colleague will, I understand, 
 propose, seems to me the only really effectual measure 
 which can be desired. I am not blind to the risks and 
 objections which beset any such measure ; I look upon 
 them as truly formidable ; but I see no escape. The 
 alternative is nothing less than absolute and early ruin, if 
 peace continues — ruin still more rapid should the strain of 
 war come upon us."
 
 i860.] OPPOSITION TO INCOME-TAX. 305 
 
 The most serious opposition to the income-tax proposals 
 came from Madras. The Governor, Sir Charles Trevelyan, 
 not content with recording his objections and those of his 
 Council in a Minute for the consideration of the Governor- 
 General and Supreme Council, took the unprecedented, 
 and for a man of his official experience, the inexcusable 
 step of sending a copy of the Minute — in spite of the 
 protest of the two Civil Members of his Council — to the 
 Press, for publication. Thus, in the face of all India, 
 European and native, he proclaimed himself, at a critical 
 time and on a vital question of policy, to be in marked 
 opposition to the Governor-General and his Council. Little 
 progress could be made with the Budget proposals till the 
 question was referred home. 
 
 Frere writes to Trevelyan : — 
 
 "April 9, i860. 
 
 " I cannot tell you what a source of sincere regret it has 
 been to me ever since we received your letter regarding the 
 financial schemes brought forward by Mr. Wilson, to find 
 myself in any way opposed to you. Not only because I 
 had hoped that occasions would rarely arise on which we 
 should differ, but because I cannot help fearing that the 
 course you have taken will interfere very seriously with 
 the emancipation of the Government of Madras and Bom- 
 bay from that interference by the Government of India, 
 which you, I know, think quite as mischievous as I do. 
 You have taken the battle on a question of finance and 
 army organization — two of the three classes of questions 
 which, it seems to me, must always be left to the Govern- 
 ment of India, external politics being the third. . . . What 
 new taxes are to be imposed is a question on which pro- 
 bably no two men would exactly agree, and much must, it 
 seems to me, be conceded by all of us to whoever is to 
 bear the responsibility of setting our finances to rights, 
 and as we cannot all of us be Chancellors of the Indian 
 Exchequer, we must do our best to aid him who is. Were 
 we all in Parliament, if the Opposition had the best of it, 
 they would, of course, change places with the Ministry 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 and try their hands at finance ; but even if that could be 
 done in our case, how would you as Governor-General 
 prevent the new Governor of Madras from making a 
 similar stand against your scheme ? I greatly fear that 
 whatever the Secretary of State and people at home may 
 think of your arguments, they will begin to doubt how the 
 Government of India can be carried on while such opposi- 
 tion on a financial question is possible." 
 
 To the objections relied upon in the " Letter from the 
 Madras Government on the Income and License Tax 
 Bill," that Mr. Wilson's scheme " was entirely on the 
 English model," that "the taxes he proposes are utterly 
 unsuited to India," and that " his plan embraces the intro- 
 duction into India of direct taxation " (as if it were a 
 novelty), Frere replied in a letter to Sir C. Wood : — 
 
 "April 23, i860. 
 " There is no part of Mr. Wilson's plans that might not 
 have had a place under a different name in any scheme 
 of Akbar's — no single tax which is not at this present 
 moment levied by almost any independent Native State 
 when in difficulties ; and if you look at the various sug- 
 gestions of those men who know the natives best, you will 
 find that they, with scarcely an exception, recommend one 
 or more taxes identical in principle with the three proposed 
 taxes, but not either so simple or complete. The scheme, 
 as a whole, is, it is true, a financial revolution, and like all 
 revolutions a thing to be avoided, if possible. . . . But it 
 is not a revolution from Indian to English finance, as they 
 who object to it assert ; it is rather a return to modes of 
 taxation, once universal in India, and even now existing 
 in every unaltered Native State, and which we only gave 
 up in our own provinces within the last twenty-five years, 
 the main alteration being that the new taxes are uniform 
 and simple in their incidence, and free from the arbitrary 
 exemptions and anomalies of every kind, which made it 
 difficult to reform the old taxes without abolishing them. 
 If you refer to the proceedings of Government about 1834 
 and '36, when the Mohlurfa and other direct taxes were 
 abolished in Bengal and Bombay, you will find that many 
 of the most experienced men then advocated their reform
 
 i860.] SIR GEORGE CLERK. 307 
 
 rather than their abolition, and it was the difficulty of any- 
 real reform, joined to the then flourishing state of our 
 finances, which led the Government of India to abandon 
 all the multiform direct taxes, which were more or less 
 income-taxes and taxes on trades and professions, and 
 which were nearly as ancient and universal as the land- 
 tax. I doubt whether you could consult a single native 
 prime minister of any native sovereign who would not 
 recommend something of the kind as his native panacea 
 for our financial difficulties." 
 
 Sir Charles Wood, on the matter being referred home, 
 at once recalled Sir C. Trevelyan. Sir Henry Ward took 
 his place at Madras, and after Ward's death, a few months 
 later, Sir William Denison succeeded. 
 
 From Bombay also, Lord Elphinstone, to Frere's regret, 
 for he greatly valued his opinion, wrote a Minute, express- 
 ing disapproval of the income-tax. He felt convinced 
 that had Lord Elphinstone had a complete statement of 
 the financial position before him, he would have come to 
 a different conclusion ; but there was no time for dis- 
 cussion with him, for in the spring of i860 he went home, 
 and was succeeded by Sir George Clerk. 
 
 Sir George Clerk had done good work, and held high 
 offices in India, including, in 1847-8, that of Governor of 
 Bombay for about a year ; and had lately been at the 
 Board of Control and at the India Office, under Lord 
 Stanley and Sir Charles Wood. He was an intimate 
 friend of Frere's, wrote frequently and confidentially to 
 him, and being a racy and vigorous writer — occasionally, 
 perhaps, tempted into using exaggerated language — as 
 well as an able and energetic administrator, their corre- 
 spondence shows unreservedly the thoughts of each on the 
 questions of the day, on which they were generally in 
 accord.* 
 
 * Frere, writing in 1849, speaks of him as "a liberal, enlightened.
 
 308 THE LIFE OF SIR IIARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 Frerc writes to him : — 
 
 " May 9, i860. 
 
 " Mr. Wilson has been again very carefully over his cal- 
 culations, and finds that Lord Elphinstone is nearly four 
 millions out in his Indian calculations alone. . . . 
 
 " I much wish that Lord Elphinstone had taken for 
 granted the correctness of Mr. Wilson's estimate of the 
 deficiency to be provided for, for without the materials 
 which he has in the offices here, and the time and attention 
 he can devote to them, it is impossible to frame a better — 
 and in no single minute particular has he yet been found 
 in error. By next year, no doubt, there will be the 
 materials for framing such estimates as you have in Eng- 
 land. At present it can be done only very roughly — 
 errors are continually coming to light, but, unfortunately, 
 they are all on the wrong side, and make the deficit worse 
 than was expected. . . . 
 
 " Everybody has lost confidence in Government and in 
 every one else, and Mr. Wilson's plain statement of his 
 difficulties, and the plan he proposed for getting out of 
 them, were the first gleam of light that the non-official 
 public here had seen for many a day. There was a visible 
 return of confidence, and all was going on well, till Sir 
 C. Trevelyan's Minute appeared, and this gave to those 
 who dislike the new taxes — always, of course, a numerous 
 body — just the sort of encouragement they wanted. 
 
 " There are, of course, many details in Mr. W.'s plan 
 which I should have liked to have seen otherwise arranged, 
 . . . and in many things a little less haste would have been 
 better speed ; but as a whole, I hardly think he had an 
 alternative ; and if he is now thwarted or defeated, I do not 
 see what his successor can do ; further reduction — I mean 
 beyond the point allowed for by Mr. Wilson — seems to me 
 impossible without dictatorial powers given to the Governor- 
 General (and then they must be given to a man who can 
 and will use them), or without opening a fresh loan, which 
 is only another road to ultimate ruin. . . . 
 
 far-sighted statesman, with great determination in carrying his own 
 measures, and great skill in managing men ; detested by the jobbing, 
 jog-trot office men in Bombay ; not liked nor supported, as he should 
 have been, by men who ought to have known better, but universally 
 regretted by all whose opinion was worth having."
 
 iS6a] MR. JAMES WILSON. 309 
 
 " Nothing can be better than Lord Canning's own 
 intentions, as far as I can judge, but Dalhousie principles 
 are still in the ascendant with B. and the rest of them. 
 As for Bengal, the longer I stay, the more I am amazed at 
 the wonderful patience of all classes. To me it has the 
 appearance of anarchy in everything but that the Govern- 
 ment revenue is still paid, and judging from Western 
 experience I should have expected that last sign of 
 obedience to Government to disappear two months ago. 
 But to all one says, the Government officers reply with a 
 smile of contemptuous pity, and no man of influence seems 
 to realize the risks they are running except William Grey, 
 who is a first-rate man in every way, save that he has no 
 
 Mofussil experience. shuts himself up and is almost 
 
 inaccessible, lies in bed till late in the day, and sits up 
 at night splitting hairs, after his old fashion. It is a great 
 pity, for he has the abilities of five Lord Chancellors, but 
 (is) fossilized by long residence here, and by the worship 
 of the little clique about Calcutta. Here and elsewhere all 
 the great questions about the army, police, and the courts 
 are in abeyance, drifting till some strong hand takes the 
 helm. 
 
 " As far as I am myself concerned, I do not dislike the 
 place, or the work, though there is just now about four times 
 as much as mortal man could do properly, owing to Outram 
 being away, the Civil Council one short, and Mr. Wilson 
 able to do little but his own Financial Department, which is 
 a Herculean labour in itself, if he is to set it right in five 
 years ; but I feel much like the fly on the coach-wheel, 
 with little real power to direct the team. Daily do I wish 
 we had you here. But if you cannot take the whole thing 
 into your own hands, you will, I hope, at least stop Bombay 
 from following the example of Madras. . . . 
 
 " I believe if we could only get our finances in order all 
 would come right, and therefore, though on many points of 
 minor detail I might take a different view from Mr. Wilson, 
 I support his general measure with all my might. His 
 defeat seems to me equivalent to leaving the whole thing 
 to Parliament and the Council of India, — in other words, 
 to ruin, — for until ruin overtakes them they are not likely 
 to see that you can have but one real Government for 
 India, and that that Government can only safely be in 
 India."
 
 310 THE LIFE OF SIR EARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IX. 
 
 Nor did Sir George Clerk like the idea of an income- 
 tax. He writes to Frere from Bombay — 
 
 "May 17. 
 
 "Why on earth could not Mr. Wilson have let India 
 bide still awhile ? With what I know about enormous 
 waste in North- West Provinces and Punjab, no one will 
 persuade me we might not have made healthy progress in 
 finance and have prepared the people to go with us two 
 years hence in almost any form of new taxation, provided 
 they were first consulted, and allozved time to deliberate 
 about it." 
 
 As to Sir G. Clerk's opinion, Frere writes to Lord 
 Canning : — 
 
 "June 11, i860. 
 
 "You must, I think, draw a distinction between what he 
 would wish to do, if circumstances were other than they are, 
 and what he would propose to do under existing circum- 
 stances. I do not think he sees any escape from the necessity 
 which we all lament, or that if he were now in your Council 
 he would give his voice against the proposed measures, or 
 their immediate introduction in October next 
 
 " There are some men — Sir G. Clerk himself is an admir- 
 able specimen of the class — who might be dropped into 
 any native community and would rule it, as Englishmen 
 should always rule a weaker race, with little need of 
 English troops ; but such men are always rare ; and since 
 the proceedings connected with the Affghan War debased 
 so many of the then rising generation of political officers, 
 they have been in proportion rarer than before. Meantime 
 our dominions have extended with marvellous rapidity, 
 and the Government has had to employ many men who 
 have no capacity for any but the French or Cossack style 
 of dealing with natives — a style the inherent evils of which 
 are sometimes mitigated by English good nature, some- 
 times aggravated by doctrinaire conceit, but which always 
 requires an enormous visible preponderance of physical 
 force to back it. . . ." 
 
 Whether he liked them or not, Sir G. Clerk loyally 
 accepted the income-tax proposals and did his best to
 
 i860.] INCOME-TAX PASSED. 311 
 
 make them work smoothly, while he gave his mind to the 
 still more important matter of retrenchment. 
 To Mr. Barrow Ellis, Frere writes : — 
 
 "July 31, i860. 
 "First as to your accusation that I have become a 
 wretched Qui Hi * Centralizer, . . . forgetful of his old 
 principles and old presidency. Be it known to you that 
 I do not intend to plead to any charge in the Revenue or 
 Financial Department, everything connected with which 
 goes to Mr. Wilson, and I see and hear nothing of it, unless 
 he asks my opinion, or the matter comes before Council, 
 neither of which, generally, happens till it is rather late for 
 advice to be of use. We are excellent friends, and he 
 always expresses himself as valuing my opinion very 
 highly on all matters, and I often recognize bits of my 
 own suggestions in his propositions. I urged at the outset 
 of the income-tax that he should refer to the Govern- 
 ments of Madras and Bombay for their solution of the 
 financial difficulty, and ask them what they thought of his 
 suggestions ; very possibly this would not have stopped 
 or prevented the Trevelyan row, but it would have saved 
 heartburning and time, and made the measure a better 
 one. On various occasions since, I have counselled a 
 similar course, with but rare success, for he has a great 
 idea that to treat India as containing numerous different 
 nations is as great a mistake as to dissolve the Union or 
 
 restore the Heptarchy, and friend rather encourages 
 
 this idea, and is apt to argue that you may do what you 
 please in India, if you only do it with a high hand ; so the 
 upshot of it all is, that having more, much more than I can 
 do, of my own, I leave my Right Honorable Colleague to 
 do his work his own way, only always telling him when 
 I think he is going wrong, if I know it before it is done, 
 which is not often, and remonstrating even afterwards, if 
 I see the papers, which is not always. I think this will 
 dispose of most of your accusations, at least all connected 
 with customs accounts and establishments. I must say 
 that when a matter is discussed in time, it is difficult to 
 meet with a more clear-headed, sensible, reasonable, and 
 liberal man than Wilson is. . . ." 
 
 * Bengalee.
 
 312 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 Wilson's Budget passed the Legislative Council, and 
 the Income-tax Bill became law. It was his last public 
 work. The Indian climate, to a man who goes there late 
 in life and works hard, is too often fatal. He died after 
 a few days' illness, during which Frere was frequently 
 with him, early in August. 
 
 Frere writes to Major F. Marriott : — 
 
 "August ii, i860. 
 
 " It was a very sad sight that funeral of Wilson's. 
 Twelve days before he had been talking to my wife about 
 his plans for going away to the Neilgerries when his Bills 
 were all passed, and we went to see him the day before he 
 was taken ill. He sent us many messages, asking my wife 
 to take care of his unmarried daughter, if the married one 
 left, and desired that I would take up and carry through 
 his unfinished measures. I felt this proof of his confidence 
 the more, because he knew that in the manner of carrying 
 out many measures, and in some of the measures them- 
 selves, I did not entirely agree with him. No ancient Stoic 
 or modern Red Indian could have met death more com- 
 posedly, or made more calm preparation for carrying on 
 the various schemes he left incomplete." 
 
 Frere had now, therefore, in addition to his own depart- 
 ment, to take up and carry on the whole of the financial 
 work, as well as the military finance — which last employ- 
 ment enabled him to look after the " Military Finance 
 Commission," which, " since Wilson's death, had got into 
 a good deal of hot water," and to keep things together till 
 Wilson's successor, Mr. Laing, arrived six months after- 
 wards. 
 
 He writes to General Cotton (January 8, 1861), apolo- 
 gizing for an unanswered letter : — 
 
 " I hope Forbes will have told you how I have been 
 worked since poor Wilson died and Outram left ; and now 
 I look forward to Laing's arrival, and to the appointment 
 of some good man to succeed Outram, much as a ship- 
 wrecked sailor watches the sail that may save his life.
 
 i860.] WANT OF GOOD ACCOUNTS. 3*3 
 
 Even then we shall be trying to work a first-rate man-of- 
 war with the crew of a coasting collier." 
 
 To Sir Charles Wood he writes : — 
 
 "November 23, i860. 
 
 " I trust we are not to take the diatribes of the Times as 
 an index of the general feeling in England as to the mode 
 in which the Government of India has acted in financial 
 matters since Mr. Wilson's death. There is no single diffi- 
 culty which has arisen for which any one now here is fairly 
 responsible, but they are all attributed to Lord Canning 
 and his Indian advisers. 
 
 " I would not have alluded to this had it not been con- 
 nected with one of the great popular mistakes regarding 
 Indian finance. It is generally believed that Indian in- 
 solvency is only to be averted by some miracle of financial 
 statesmanship, such as would save Austria or Turkey. 
 This is a dangerous error, first, because it leads the public 
 to expect novel and striking plans, instead of being content 
 with what is homely, obvious, and comparatively easy of 
 attainment ; and secondly, because it sets your financiers 
 to search for such striking novelties instead of being con- 
 tent to work hard at more useful drudgery. . . . You 
 simply want good accounts, and steady, good manage- 
 ment in a hundred small details to extricate you from all 
 embarrassments. Our real defect in India, hitherto, has 
 been want of power in any one man, not to make great 
 alterations, but to supervise and get into order a number 
 of branches and departments which have heretofore been 
 nearly independent. . . . 
 
 " All this Wilson would have done and much more, but I 
 was struck in the last letter he wrote to you, and which 
 Lord Canning showed me, with the number of plans which 
 he had in hand, and which would have taken him twenty 
 years to work out. He had described most of them more 
 or less in conversation, but I never observed the hopeless- 
 ness of any one mortal executing them till they were com- 
 pressed into that single letter — most of them, as you know, 
 were merely in embryo ; — but no one out of India can con- 
 ceive what a task it is to work out any one such plan, and 
 many of them, though excellent in themselves, were not at 
 all necessary to bring your finances into a condition of 
 solvency."
 
 314 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 How much there was to be done, how difficult it still 
 was to get reliable accounts, and to detect the various 
 channels through which the public money was running 
 to waste, the following letters, written nearly a year later, 
 serve to indicate. 
 
 Frere writes, May 8, 1861, to Sir G. Clerk: — 
 
 " It seems incredible, but it is a fact that we started this 
 time last year in the belief that the police of India must 
 cost near twenty lacs (.£200,000). No one could tell 
 exactly, but from the best accounts forthcoming here it 
 seemed certain it would not be less.* Bruce was certain 
 it was more, and after a year's digging it is clear that four 
 crores (i.e. four hundred lacs, or ,£4,000,000) is nearer the 
 mark, though two and a half are all that as yet figure in the 
 estimates. Bengal was supposed to be above twenty, and 
 certainly under twenty-five lacs, and it is clear now that 
 forty would be about the mark. 
 
 " You will wonder how it is possible for such things to 
 be in doubt — but so it is. Our accounts, till Wilson came, 
 were utterly worthless and are only now beginning to 
 improve. It is really at the bottom of all our financial 
 difficulties. We have no accounts at all trustworthy, and 
 it will take two or three years' hard work to provide them. 
 Had I not come here and seen it with my own eyes, the 
 utter rottenness of the whole system of accounts would 
 have been quite incredible. Lord Ellenborough tried to 
 improve matters, and ordered something very like the 
 present Budget system, but as soon as his back was turned 
 Dorin and Co. got back to their old ways. 
 
 " Bruce is doing excellent work, but the jealousy of any- 
 thing from a Bombay or Madras source seriously impedes 
 progress. It would be ludicrous, were it not something 
 worse, to see the way in which, between the Military and 
 Police Commissions, whole corps are discovered which no 
 one ever knew of before, but which had been concealed 
 under some head of Political or Judicial charges. . . ." t 
 
 * Colonel Herbert Bruce was Inspector-General of Police and was 
 engaged in overhauling the expenditure of that Department, and 
 reforming the system of Police throughout India and Burmah, in a 
 great part of which work Mr. R. Temple was his coadjutor. 
 
 t Colonel Bruce writes to Frere, August 5, 1861 — " Of this I am sure,
 
 i860.] WASTE OF PUBLIC MONEY. 3 1 5 
 
 To this Sir G. Clerk replied : — 
 
 "May 20, 1 86 1. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for the useful figures and 
 remarks that Colonel Bruce has been good enough to send. 
 I made some discoveries here, too. of dark levies, so dark 
 that no one but their Commanding Officer knew of their 
 existence, or how paid ! However, it was all a drop in the 
 ocean, compared, I imagine, with what has gone on these 
 last ten years in the Punjab and the North-West 
 Provinces, and at double pace since the rebellion. I have 
 at length got to the bottom of all here, excepting, by-the- 
 bye, a party of Sowars, discovered only last week ; but they 
 never had been a charge, having not yet seen a dumree of 
 pay — thats a comfort. But I suppose they must get 
 something here. Intermediately, I presume, they have 
 lived on loot." 
 
 The absence of an intelligible system of audit of 
 accounts throughout India, especially in those parts that 
 had been disorganized by the Mutiny, and the difficulty of 
 ascertaining what proportion of expenditure ought to be 
 set down as local, and what as Imperial, gave rise to 
 optimistic and erroneous views on the part of the local 
 Governments as to the proportion of revenue to expendi- 
 ture in each particular province. In order to check, if 
 possible, these fallacious ideas, the Supreme Government 
 passed a financial resolution, one of the chief objects of 
 which was to call the attention of the Governments of 
 the larger provinces to the fact that " Imperial expenses 
 were much larger than is generally supposed, and that 
 a province may have a surplus after paying its local Civil 
 expenses, and yet fail to contribute anything like its 
 quota towards the Imperial expenses which admit of no 
 
 viz. that the Police of all India was not costing much, if anything, 
 under four crores on May 1, i860, which is the date fixed for all our 
 returns, and I am equally certain that it can be done much more 
 efficiently under the new system for less than one half."
 
 3l6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 localization." The Punjab was mentioned as being 
 amongst the worst offenders, and the greatest drain on 
 the Imperial finances. To this the Punjab Government, 
 which held a long-cherished belief that the exact contrary 
 was the case, and that they were contributing a handsome 
 surplus to the Imperial Treasury, replied, altogether 
 repudiating the imputation. The Supreme Government 
 rejoined in a Minute written by Frere, which showed 
 conclusively that of the enormous military and quasi- 
 military expenditure which was going on there, a much 
 larger proportion was expended for purely local purposes 
 than the Punjab Government charged itself with, while 
 a much smaller proportion was required for the Imperial 
 purpose of frontier defence than they had taken credit for. 
 There were at that time three distinct military bodies 
 in the Punjab, under separate commanders : the regular 
 army, the local army and frontier force under the direct 
 control of the Lieutenant-Governor, and the military 
 police, which had no military functions, but was simply 
 a native local force. The total annual expenditure on 
 these forces exceeded a million and a half sterling. At 
 Peshawur there were more than 9,000 soldiers, of whom 
 5,264 were Europeans. How excessive this force was for 
 any frontier or Imperial object may be estimated by the 
 fact, that the entire army, which twenty years before 
 had conquered Affghanistan and held it for three 
 years, numbered 13,500, of whom less than 3,300 were 
 Europeans.* 
 
 " February 25, 1862. 
 " When Montgomery t was here," Frere writes to Sir 
 G. Clerk, " we went over the calculation. He with the aid 
 of Temple and Davies (his very able secretary) could not 
 
 * Minute by Frere, January 14, 1862. 
 t Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab.
 
 i860.] LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA. 317 
 
 get the absolute deficit, after deducting every item which 
 even he could call an Imperial charge, below thirty or forty 
 lacs (£300,000 or £400,000), but he could not say how the 
 deficit could be got rid of. . . . But it is uphill work. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 These Punjabees work the Press, and work the Indian 
 Council, and men still think the Punjab a mine of 
 wealth." 
 
 General Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier 
 of Magdala) had, on his return from the Chinese War 
 in 1861, succeeded Outram as Military Member of the 
 Supreme Council, and thus become one of Frere's 
 colleagues at Calcutta. Between him and Frere there 
 had existed from the first mutual liking and respect, 
 soon ripening into cordial friendship, which helped 
 forward the heavy work of army reform, in which both 
 were so keenly interested. Five years later, when the 
 course of service had brought them together again, and 
 Napier was Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, Frere writes 
 of him as being " as charming a combination of the 
 Royal Engineers and a knight of the Round Table as it is 
 possible to imagine." 
 
 Napier describes his relations with Frere at Calcutta as 
 follows : — 
 
 " My first acquaintance with Sir Bartle Frere was when 
 I was fitting out and embarking the Bengal troops for the 
 campaign in China in i860. 
 
 " Sir James Outram was the President of the Council 
 and Sir Bartle Frere a member. Sir James Outram, fresh 
 from the exigencies of war, knew well how injurious would 
 be the application of regulations adapted for peace 
 measures to the wants of a military force under newly 
 developed conditions, and in the application of his ex- 
 perience he was cordially supported by his colleague Sir 
 Bartle Frere, who took an intense interest in, and a 
 masterly view of, the wants of the troops, and the necessity
 
 318 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 of delivering them on the field of their work in the most 
 perfect condition possible. 
 
 " Instead of having to fight for everything under the 
 harrow of regulations never intended for such occasions, 
 all official red-tape obstructions were brushed aside. 
 Liberal outfits for European and native troops, with fore- 
 sight for all contingencies, were at once sanctioned ; all 
 just pay arrangements settled with liberal facility. The 
 transports, in spite of the resistance of the Superintendent 
 of Marine, and of their captains, were made healthy by 
 proper ventilation and sanitation. Officialism vainly tried 
 to interfere. Though the power to influence these matters 
 rested with Sir James Outram, such a colleague as Sir 
 Bartle Frere, whose courteous persistence put aside all 
 controversy, was very valuable. Under such auspices I 
 was enabled to deliver the Bengal portion of the troops in 
 China in excellent condition and fit for immediate service 
 after a three months' voyage. 
 
 " I again came in communication with Sir Bartle Frere 
 when I joined the Council of the Governor-General in 
 1861. 
 
 " His courteous bearing and cordial kindness made my 
 entry into a new and very responsible office, at a very 
 difficult time, comparatively easy. His wise and temperate 
 advice was ever ready. 
 
 " The first military business was to reduce the war es- 
 tablishment of the Mutiny years to a peace footing. 
 
 " Sir Bartle Frere pointed out how necessary it was to 
 effect this work ourselves instead of waiting until some 
 Special Commission might be sent from England to do 
 with a rough hand what we could do with more con- 
 sideration. . . . 
 
 " As Military Member of Council in all matters relating 
 to my department, I felt the value of the friendship of one 
 who had so wide an experience and so comprehensive a 
 grasp of public affairs both in England and Europe as Sir 
 Bartle Frere." 
 
 The " Military Finance Commission " already referred to 
 had been appointed early in 1859. It consisted of three 
 members, one from each Presidency, and was charged with 
 the all-important and gigantic task of investigating the
 
 i862.j MILITARY FINANCE COMMISSION. 319 
 
 military expenditure throughout India, and reporting on 
 the best means of reducing it. Colonel (afterwards Sir 
 George) J Balfour was appointed from Madras, Colonel 
 Jamieson from Bombay, and Colonel Mure from Bengal. 
 The last two had to leave India from ill-health or other 
 causes before the completion of the work, and the chief 
 burden of it, during a period of more than three years, fell 
 on Colonel Balfour. Experienced, persevering, and de- 
 termined, he was eminently fitted for the laborious and 
 difficult work, and in the statistical calculations incident to 
 it he was materially assisted by his wife, a daughter of 
 the financial reformer Joseph Hume, who possessed the 
 family capacity for dealing with figures. The questions 
 with which the Commission had to deal involved a re- 
 duction, not of thousands, but of millions sterling — if the 
 finances were to be made to balance ; — and the Indian 
 Budget each year had to be framed with reference to its 
 investigations and conclusions. 
 
 In a Minute dated March 11, 1862, Frere wrote: — 
 
 " I consider the possibility of preserving the present 
 financial equilibrium of income and expenditure depends 
 mainly — I believe it might with truth be said, entirely — on 
 the maintenance of the Military Finance Department, or 
 of a department similarly constituted, as a separate de- 
 partment, in free and confidential communication with the 
 Governor-General in Council — qualified to submit sound 
 professional opinions on every ordinary branch of military 
 expenditure ; free to express those opinions, and bound to 
 do so on all questions which are likely to affect, directly or 
 prospectively, the aggregate of that outlay." 
 
 As regarded the Bombay Presidency, Frere was often 
 able to smooth the way of the Commission and assist 
 it by his local knowledge and by his reputation for fairness 
 and sound judgment on military matters. He wrote 
 several letters in this and the following year to old friends
 
 320 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cii. IX. 
 
 in Sind and elsewhere to endeavour to reconcile them to 
 the inevitable ; it was a sore point when the question 
 of a reduction in the Sind Horse was raised. Cutting 
 down expenses and disbanding regiments was a weary 
 and thankless task, rousing opposition and discontent 
 wherever the smart of the pruning-knife was felt. Military 
 officials everywhere were, as was natural, inclined to be 
 hostile. Even in the Military Secretary's Depart- 
 ment at Calcutta, where there was less excuse for 
 it, there was sometimes a disinclination to assist the 
 Commission or to work cordially with it, so that Frere's 
 good offices were occasionally required to make peace. 
 At last matters went so far that Balfour, considering 
 himself aggrieved beyond bearing by the tone and purport 
 of a letter addressed to him by the Military Secretary, 
 sent in his resignation. The occurrence was due partly 
 to a mistake, partly to faults on both sides. Frere 
 immediately set himself heart and soul to unravel the 
 threads of the misunderstanding and to heal the breach. 
 A correspondence between Balfour, Napier, and himself 
 followed, in which he speaks of Balfour's resignation as 
 a public misfortune, and, in earnest words appealing to 
 him to " speak frankly and freely " to Napier as " to an 
 old Addiscombe comrade," begs him to withdraw it. 
 He was at last successful. It will be enough to quote the 
 brief entries in his private diary to show what pains he 
 took to avert the catastrophe. 
 
 "Jan. list, 1862. — Balfour and Napier. On returning, 
 found B.'s note resigning, on a snub from the Military 
 Department. 
 
 "Feb. 1st. — Saw Balfour before breakfast. Determined 
 to resign. Spoke to Lord Canning. B. saw him after, 
 and they had a long and not very satisfactory discussion. 
 B. positive to resign. Told him he was very foolish and 
 wrong.
 
 1862.] SIR GEORGE BALFOUR. 321 
 
 " Feb. 2nd. — To Bruce and Napier early about Balfour. 
 Wrote to N., who was ill in bed, and saw him evening. 
 All a mistake about the censure to B. N. agreed to 
 write a conciliatory letter to, and see B. Wrote to B. 
 
 "Feb. 3rd. — To see Balfour early." 
 
 Colonel Jamieson, one of the three Commissioners, 
 writes to Frere : — 
 
 "March 18, 1862. 
 
 " Balfour's energy has done wonders, and India owes 
 him much for the present satisfactory state of Finance. 
 
 "To your kind and constant support to Balfour and to 
 myself the success of the Finance Commission is to be 
 attributed. Balfour always acknowledges this and feels 
 your kindness most gratefully. I will to my last day 
 retain towards you the same feelings of gratitude by 
 which I was actuated when I left Calcutta." 
 
 Towards the end of April, 1862, Colonel Balfour left 
 
 for England. The value and importance of his work on 
 
 the Finance Commission had obtained full recognition. 
 
 Lord Canning, Frere, Napier, Laing, and Beadon, each 
 
 wrote a minute expressing their high appreciation of his 
 
 services, in which Lord Elgin expressed his concurrence. 
 
 In sending a copy to Frere, Balfour thus touchingly refers 
 
 to his difference with Napier. 
 
 "May 19, 1862. 
 
 " I cannot allow this last opportunity to pass without 
 writing to say how gratefully I bear in mind the noble 
 and unvarying support I have received from you, and to 
 acknowledge the fact that I owe to your encouragement 
 and countenance the openings I have had of being useful 
 to Government. I enclose two copies of the Minutes 
 thanking me for my services, and I confess that you have 
 always judged wisely in urging me to do my duty, trusting 
 to the efforts being fully appreciated ; and I feel assured 
 that you will be pleased to learn that, as I failed to see 
 Sir R. Napier owing to his absence at Barrackpore, I 
 wrote to express my regret that I should have thought 
 hardly of him, and have allowed myself to entertain 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 thoughts so much opposed to the noble sentiments he had 
 recorded in my favour. I mentioned that I had requested 
 Colonel Browne to wait on him frequently, and as there 
 were now few questions likely to create differences, and 
 as Colonel B. was of a more conciliatory disposition, I 
 trusted that the public service would be better carried on 
 during my absence. ..." * 
 
 This was not the only occasion on which Frere played 
 the part of peacemaker between men high in office at 
 Calcutta. 
 
 In Lord Canning's time it had not yet become the 
 custom for the Governor-General or the Members of his 
 Council to go to the Hills in the hot weather. The press 
 of official work was too great, and railway communication 
 not yet sufficiently developed. During Frere's stay at 
 Calcutta, he was never able to go up the country except 
 once, at the end of 1861, when he went to attend Lord 
 Canning's Durbars at Agra and elsewhere. The following 
 letter to his third little daughter describes a trip of a few 
 miles up the Hooghly. 
 
 '•'November n, i860. 
 
 " I think you will be amused with an account of a trip 
 I made with Lord Canning when we were staying at 
 
 * More than five years afterwards, Frere, then in London, wrote to 
 Sir Stafford Northcote : 
 
 " General Balfour deserved the lion's share of the credit for the 
 great reduction in Military expenditure, which enabled Wilson and 
 Laing to balance income and expenditure. Such service, of course, 
 did not make him popular anywhere, and when all in high office who 
 had seen his work were dead or departed from Calcutta, he came 
 home, and, I imagine, was not received as he should have been after 
 such services. What occurred between him and Lord Halifax I 
 never exactly knew, and have not had time to inquire ; but he was 
 deeply hurt, and declared he would never set foot in the old India 
 Office again. 
 
 " I hope his vow does not hold valid as regards the new building ; 
 for he is quite the most valuable man of his class I know, and able 
 to render most excellent sendee in an unpopular and uninviting 
 department. ..."
 
 i860.] TRIP UP THE HOOGHLY. 323 
 
 Barrackpore some weeks ago." (Here follows a descrip- 
 tion of the chief localities of Calcutta, and a beautifully 
 drawn map of the Hooghly, showing the position of 
 Calcutta and of all the chief places for thirty miles up 
 the river.) 
 
 "We started very early from the Governor-General's 
 house, and drove through the station and up the river 
 to Phulta Ghaut, near Ishapoor, where we were to embark, 
 but the steamer was not then come, so we waited, 
 watching the fishermen and making sketches for half an 
 hour, and then embarked on board the Governor-General's 
 ' Flat,' as it is called — a sort of floating house with two 
 sitting-rooms, sleeping cabins, drawing-rooms, etc., with 
 a deck above as a promenade, under an awning. This was 
 towed by a steamer, and away we went up the river, 
 taking what is called the ' small breakfast ' — tea and bread- 
 and-butter — as we went. The river is here a very fine one, 
 much larger than any you have ever seen, and crowded 
 with boats, large and small, the big ones carrying on 
 a great trade with all Bengal, the smaller fishing. The 
 banks are low but lined with the most luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion and thick groves of large trees, with a swarming 
 population in huts, interspersed here and there with brick 
 houses, and occasionally the palace of some great native 
 proprietor or European planter ; a few temples and 
 numerous ghauts, or flights of steps leading down to the 
 water, occur every few hundred yards along the bank. 
 Budrashahur would be a very large brick town in Europe 
 and is the great centre of the Bengal salt trade. Fleets 
 of salt boats lined the banks, and the only remarkable 
 buildings were salt warehouses. Then we came to 
 Chandernagore, the only remnant of French empire in 
 Bengal — a pretty, neat town, with well-kept esplanade 
 along the bank of the river, a neat Governor's house, 
 public offices, etc., all as became a dependency of la belle 
 France. There are two or three large hotels too, rather 
 apt to be occupied by people who wish to escape their 
 creditors in Calcutta, for M. M. Hayes, the polite and 
 well-informed Governor, though he rules over a territory 
 about the size of an English parish, keeps up all the 
 rights and privileges of French territory, and under 
 the tricolor, which waves over his Government House, 
 no English sheriff's officer can serve his writ on any
 
 324 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 unfortunate debtor. Zouaves, or men dressed like them, 
 were on sentry at the various public offices, and there was 
 a great running to hoist the flag when they saw ours 
 and recognized the Governor-General's barge, and it was 
 duly dipped as a salute as we passed. Beyond this we 
 came to Chinsura, where was formerly the Dutch factory, 
 and it has as evident marks of being a Dutch town as 
 Chandernagore of being French. We visited a queer 
 little church which . . . retains little of its Dutch origin 
 but its general shape, a bit or two of wooden carving, 
 and some funeral achievements of old Dutch Mynheers, 
 whose arms are all duly painted, with their names at full 
 length. . . . Then to the Imamharra, a great Mahometan 
 seminary just outside the town. . . . You enter by a fine 
 gateway into a large court or quadrangle with a very fine 
 mosque at one end, kitchens and refectory on one side, 
 and the lecture-rooms and students' cells all round the 
 rest of the quadrangle. He took us over his own rooms — 
 not quite so well furnished and comfortable as a Fellow's 
 of Trinity, but very neat and scholarlike, with plenty of 
 books, but all Persian or Arabic, for this is a great 
 stronghold of Islamism. There are trim little gardens 
 behind the cells and in the quadrangle, and beautiful 
 views up and down the river from the top of the mosque. 
 The old gentleman with his Calendar's cap and crutch- 
 headed staff, introducing his scholars and their tutors in 
 the courtyard, might all have just dropped from Bagdad. 
 The next place we visited, about a mile on, looked like 
 a bit of Portugal. It is a fine old Portuguese church, 
 between two and three hundred years old, with a little, 
 old Portuguese priest in surplice and skull-cap, and 
 attended by his quire and a dozen or two of his congre- 
 gation, looking quite as antiquated and as little like India 
 as his church. He took us over his little parsonage — a 
 comfortable house, connected with the church by a 
 cloister. His sitting-room was evidently intended only 
 for distinguished visitors, for no one could sit in it on 
 account of the number of ornaments of every kind with 
 which it was crowded, the gifts, he told us, of his people, 
 and which he did not know how to dispose of — busts and 
 figures of all kinds : Queen Victoria, Cupids, French 
 shepherds and shepherdesses, dogs, stags, etc., in plaster, 
 marble, china, and bronze ; shells, bead-work, crochet, and
 
 i36i.] LORD CANNING. 325 
 
 worsted ; samplers, prints of all kinds, the Duke of 
 Wellington and Pope Pius IX., the Prodigal Son's 
 progress under the guise of Spanish costumes of the 
 eighteenth century, the Church's Sacraments of about the 
 same time, and various other prints of every kind. At 
 last he got a chair for the Governor-General and Lady 
 Canning, and produced his deeds and charters, some of 
 them granted by the old Emperors of Delhi a hundred 
 and fifty years ago. He was greatly delighted at the 
 first visit of a Governor-General since Lord William 
 Bentinck's time. 
 
 " I have nothing to tell you of our return voyage, 
 except that we saw eleven elephants bathing at one 
 place, some of them lying down in the water and being 
 scrubbed." 
 
 To Mr. Bourchier, Frere writes : — 
 
 " October 6, 1861. 
 
 " We often wish ourselves anywhere on your downs or 
 among your lanes, and think that if we could only have 
 our children with us, a quiet turnpike on a not too noisy 
 road would be a good exchange for our house in Chow- 
 ringhee. We should care less for the separation if we felt 
 we were doing the children much good by staying here, 
 but what with reduced pay and greatly increased expense 
 of living, income-tax, and the accident that, almost 
 immediately after I came here, the removal of Ricketts 
 and Outram left me senior Member of Council, with no 
 additional salary, which my predecessors had formerly, 
 to cover the increased expenditure when the Governor- 
 General was absent, we have given up all hopes of ever 
 being anything but a copper imitation of the ancient 
 golden Nabob. However, I shall not have earned my 
 pension for another year, so there is no necessity for any 
 immediate decision, and the longer one lives out here the 
 more one feels the folly of forming plans long in advance. 
 Meantime the work is absorbing, and as long as Lord 
 Canning remains, it is a great pleasure to be able to aid, 
 however slightly, in carrying out the only policy worthy 
 of England which has been formally acknowledged by the 
 Indian Government since Lord W. Bentinck's time. Off 
 and on ever since we came here the work of the five 
 Members of the Executive Council has had to be done
 
 326 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 sometimes by three or even by two, and has been very 
 hard and not at all satisfactory, owing to the impossibility 
 of really looking after any one Department. But the 
 difficulties have been reduced as far as possible by Lord 
 Canning, who has always dealt with me quite in the way 
 my uncle * would have wished, and I sometimes think 
 that if he could see how we worked he would not be 
 displeased at the kind of work I have been able to do for 
 the son of his old friend. It has, at any rate, been honest 
 support, for Lord Canning's policy and objects have 
 always been worthy of his father's son, and such as any 
 man might be proud of aiding ; and had he been better 
 supported by those about him in 1857-8, he would have 
 escaped much of the unmerited obloquy to which he has 
 been exposed, and the true value of his services to India 
 and to England would have been sooner appreciated." 
 
 Mr. Laing had arrived to take Wilson's place early in 
 January, 1861, but his health also soon failed, and within 
 five months he had set out on his return to England 
 on sick leave. Frere writes to Lord Canning : — 
 
 "June n, 1861. 
 
 " I must say I quite agree with him (Laing) that it is 
 useless to attempt importing another Financial Minister 
 from England. You know I do not undervalue the 
 labours of either poor Wilson or Laing, but the net result 
 is not worth the cost. In reductions you are where your 
 own Military Finance Commission (appointed two years 
 before any English Financier was appointed) would have 
 brought you, at least as soon, by simply working on as 
 it began. In Civil reductions and Police reform the work 
 done has been by Indian impulse as well as by Indian 
 machinery, and if the Finance Minister has given valuable 
 support and aid, you would certainly have got on 
 faster and better without any other interference from 
 England. 
 
 " In taxation, what Wilson did Laing has condemned. 
 
 " In all, that relates to management of Loans, Budget 
 and Audit and general organization and management, 
 we have been great gainers through Wilson's and Laing's 
 
 * Hookham Frere. See chap. 1.
 
 I86i.] WILSON'S AND LAING ? S WORK. 327 
 
 labours. But at what cost ? Will the loss of Wilson and 
 Ward, Laing's breakdown, the damage of Trevelyan's 
 official repute and the interruption to his usefulness, the 
 increased acerbity of local jealousies, the consequent delay 
 and loss of time in effecting real reforms — will these be 
 balanced by what we have gained ? and is what we have 
 gained equal to what we might have had, if what you 
 began early in 1859 had gone on undisturbed by external 
 interference ? 
 
 " I really believe it is not. The great advantage we 
 have derived from Wilson and Laing has been the sort of 
 authority with which they came out, and which enabled 
 them easily to overcome obstacles which might otherwise 
 have been serious ; but this advantage cuts both ways and 
 makes their errors, in proportion, of graver moment. 
 
 " Nor, as Laing shows, are you likely now to command 
 even this advantage of authority for any good purpose. 
 Whoever comes will feel he has, like a Roman Consul, to 
 make his name famous in a single year, or at most two or 
 three, and will not be content honestly to carry out his 
 predecessor's policy. An active man, even if of the first 
 class, will probably be actively mischievous, and a second 
 or third-class man, whether active or passive, will be far 
 worse than useless. 
 
 " I quite concur in what Mr. Laing says of the character 
 of our real want, and I like his proposed organization better 
 than what I once talked of to you — a plan for getting out, 
 not a Minister of Finance, but simply a Minister of 
 Account." 
 
 Amongst other duties which fell to his share, Frere 
 generally had the task of piloting the Government measures 
 through the Legislative Council ; and small though the 
 Council was — there were only twelve members, of whom 
 frequently not more than five or six were present — there 
 were sometimes animated debates. To what length 
 these debates were carried, may be gathered from 
 the fact that the printed Report of them for i860 runs 
 to over fourteen hundred pages. 
 
 The struggles of the Mutiny had left behind a legacy
 
 328 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 of bitter race hatred and suspicion. The Europeans, 
 particularly the non-official and mercantile community 
 of Calcutta, were greatly incensed with the native popu- 
 lation, and angry with Lord Canning for his firm modera- 
 tion in dealing with them. Some measures affecting 
 the relations between Europeans and natives came before 
 the Council, which gave rise to the expression of a strong 
 feeling of antagonism to the latter. It was unfortunate 
 that the usual exponent of this feeling was the highest 
 judicial officer in India — the Chief Justice, Sir Barnes 
 Peacock. 
 
 The law passed in 1857 to restrict the bearing and 
 selling of arms expired early in i860, and to take its place 
 a new Arms Bill was introduced. Frere had not seen it 
 before it was brought in. In its original form, however, he 
 had no particular objection to it. Writing to Mr. Barrow 
 Ellis, he says — 
 
 "August 6, i860. 
 
 " It was then all that was really needed — a law to limit 
 trade in arms and ammunition, and to prevent people from 
 carrying arms without a license or permit — our Sind law, 
 in fact. The alterations made in it were no children of 
 mine. I do not approve of any general attempt to take 
 away arms from the people, for I believe it will be made 
 everywhere, but especially in the North-West and Punjab, 
 an instrument of frightful oppression, and be quite ineffectual, 
 except to make rebels. I hold the power to subject a 
 district to domiciliary searches for arms, such as go on in 
 the North- West, to be quite as much an imperial power as 
 that of making peace and war, and would limit it accord- 
 ingly to the Supreme Government. . . . The Bill as it 
 stands is a vile Bill, and should not have passed in its 
 present shape if I had got hold of it earlier." 
 
 During its progress the Chief Justice had moved and 
 pressed an amendment for the exemption of Europeans, 
 Americans, and Eurasians from its restrictions, although
 
 186a] THE ARMS BILL. 329 
 
 in 1857 he had as Member of Council concurred in reject- 
 ing a proposal for their exemption, and his Minute was on 
 record. Such a race distinction was especially distasteful 
 to Frere. Patriotic to a fault as he was, and profoundly 
 convinced that Englishmen were capable of holding their 
 own against all comers without any adventitious aid, it 
 was alike offensive to his sense of justice and galling to 
 his pride in his countrymen that such a distinction should 
 be made. In the course of his speech in opposition to the 
 exemption he said — 
 
 " He could not answer for other Members, but judging 
 from his own experience, he confessed he was frequently 
 reminded by his own feelings that we come of a very 
 irascible race, prone to get angry and to be guilty of assault 
 and battery to an extent unusual amongst other races. 
 There was no denying this fact, which every one knew : no 
 race in the world knew better how to use such weapons as 
 Nature gave them, or were better able to defend themselves 
 under the greatest disadvantages. It was difficult therefore 
 to find any section of the community for whose exemption 
 as a class from any such police regulation fewer good 
 reasons could be shown. . . . But there was a stronger 
 reason. Such class exemptions, unjust to all, were most 
 injurious to the exempted class. . . . We were never tired 
 of inculcating this on nations in which slavery prevailed. 
 We were convinced of it ourselves, and were, as we flattered 
 ourselves, fast persuading other nations to agree with us. . . . 
 The Government was most anxious to do all in its power 
 to promote the settlement in this country of as many 
 Europeans as could make a fair livelihood in it, convinced 
 that they would add greatly to the strength of the Govern- 
 ment and to the resources of the country. The way to 
 encourage them was not by making special exemptions in 
 their favour, but by improving our administration, so that 
 we could reasonably expect them to live under the same 
 laws as their fellow-subjects." 
 
 He spoke with deep feeling and conviction, and with 
 even more than his usual force. Not only did his opinion
 
 330 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 prevail — the Chief Justice not getting a single vote in 
 support of his amendment, — but the speech produced a 
 profound impression outside the Council, and was taken 
 as an indication of a changed and more friendly dispo- 
 sition in the Legislative Council towards the native 
 population.* 
 
 Though Lord Stanley was the first Secretary of State 
 for India after the demise of the old Company, he quitted 
 office so soon afterwards that it was to Sir Charles Wood, 
 who succeeded him in June, 1859, that the chief work of 
 reconstruction fell. Amongst Frere's papers of this time 
 are letters from Sir C. Wood by almost every mail on 
 fundamental questions of administration. They are freely 
 quoted here as the best way of elucidating the points at 
 issue and Frere's views upon them. 
 
 Sir Charles Wood writes : — 
 
 "September 2, i860. 
 " I congratulate you on having got through the Income- 
 Tax and Arms Bill. I have been shocked at the language 
 of the Judges on the latter Bill. I am afraid that the 
 antagonist feeling of race is becoming a source of formidable 
 danger. I hardly see how the country is to be administered 
 unless a good and kindly feeling towards the natives is 
 entertained by our official servants. I should like to 
 
 * On the subject of disarming the native population, Sir George 
 Clerk writes : — 
 
 "June 17, i860. 
 " I was conversing yesterday with a man of much intelligence who 
 has been in active magisterial employment at Peshawur. . . . He 
 informed me that they had not attempted to disarm the Peshawurees. 
 ' Why not ? ' ' Oh ! they were too well armed and too many for us.' 
 If anything could add to the sense I have always entertained of the 
 puerility of the attempt to disarm India, it would be the avowal that 
 we can only partially disarm ; and we leave the arms in the hands of 
 those who have the resolution to resist, instead of the cash to buy off 
 the surrender."
 
 l86i.] DEBATES IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. 33 1 
 
 express my opinion of the language of and 
 
 but I am afraid it would not be decent. I am clearly 
 against the Judges having seats in the Legislative Council 
 on the footing on which it now stands." 
 
 *s 
 
 Another episode in debate is described in the following 
 letter to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 "April 21, 1S61. 
 
 "We had yesterday another and a very striking instance 
 of the evils of our present system of having Judges as 
 leading members of our legislative body. We were dis- 
 cussing a Bill introduced at the instance of the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the North-West Provinces, to protect, from the 
 ordinary action of Courts of Law, grants of land given by 
 Government for special State services, and to place them 
 in the same position as money allowances have long been 
 by law. After the discussion had, as I thought, closed, 
 Sir Barnes Peacock got up, and after stating his objections 
 to a few points of detail, said that one main ground of 
 doubt was his fear, lest by passing the Bill, the Council 
 should acknowledge the power of the Governor-General in 
 Council to alienate land by making such grants of it, that 
 he doubted whether any such power existed. He then 
 went in detail into the question of the power of the Govern- 
 ment of India to alienate land under each Charter Act, 
 expressed his belief that no such power now existed, and 
 wound up by saying he had not time to look thoroughy 
 into the question, or to pronounce a decided opinion, and 
 did not mean to vote against the second reading of the 
 Bill, reserving to himself the power to express and act on 
 his opinion at a future stage. . . . 
 
 " Whatever may have been the meaning of the framers 
 of the Act, or the legal interpretation of the words now, 
 there can be but one opinion of the extreme inconvenience 
 and practical mischief which must result when a Chief 
 Justice gets up, and without taking time to master the 
 case, or make up his own opinion, throws out doubts of 
 this kind and lends the weight of his authority to call in 
 question the validity of acts which in Oude and many 
 other parts of the country form the sole foundation of all 
 title to landed property. Even in Bengal the value of the 
 property affected by this dictum of Sir B. Peacock is very
 
 332 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 great, and there are no means of effectually solving the 
 doubt, save by a decision of some competent Court of Law 
 — that is, if the opinion so wantonly thrown out carries 
 with the public the weight which, from his high and well- 
 deserved character as a lawyer, it ought to carry." 
 
 To this Sir Charles Wood replies — 
 
 "June 9, 1861. 
 " I am utterly shocked by Sir B. Peacock's proceedings. 
 The declaration about the titles to land is the most un- 
 justifiable thing a man ever did. That he should have 
 thrown out such a doubt seems to me to be monstrous, 
 and if anything could be added to make the course worse, 
 it is his own confession that he had not had time fully to 
 consider it." 
 
 Another circumstance illustrating the anomalous position 
 of the Council occurred in December, i860. 
 
 The Mysore Princes, members of the family of Tippoo 
 Saib, who had fallen at the storming of Seringapatam in 
 1799, had had large revenues assigned them under the 
 treaty which followed. These revenues, by their supposed 
 complicity in the Vellore Mutiny of 1806, they were held to 
 have forfeited ; but nevertheless, and in spite of the dis- 
 reputable course of life pursued by several of them, they 
 were still considered to have certain undefined claims on 
 the Government. Sir Charles Wood settled the matter by 
 assigning them ^"34,000 a year for their lives, together with 
 a sum for purchasing houses. 
 
 Frere, concurring with Lord Canning's opinion, wrote 
 a Minute deprecating the proposed arrangement as "a fatal 
 gift tending to increase in each generation the number of 
 unworthy recipients, and to diminish the proportion of 
 those members of the family who will bear a trace of their 
 brave and energetic ancestry." He also pointed out that, 
 to take up such questions, except at the instance of the 
 Viceroy, would have the effect of dangerously weakening
 
 1 86a] THE MYSORE GRANT. 333 
 
 his authority, and lead to the inference that justice was not 
 to be obtained in India itself. 
 
 The Home Government, however, held to their opinion 
 and the proposed arrangement was decided on. In 
 December the amount of the grant leaked out, and a storm 
 of indignation arose at Calcutta. Coming at a time when 
 strenuous efforts at retrenchment were being made, and 
 new taxes being imposed, the new settlement was 
 denounced almost unanimously by the Europeans as lavish 
 and excessive, and a petition against it signed by nearly 
 all the leading merchants and professional men. The 
 Chief Justice moved an address in the Legislative 
 Council, asking for the production of Papers and the 
 correspondence with the Home Government on the 
 subject. It was in vain that Frere, who in Lord Canning's 
 absence was acting President of the Council, pointed out 
 that whatever the merits of the case, the Council had 
 nothing to do with it, and that the only effect of producing 
 Papers would be to raise a debate on a subject which the 
 Council had no authority to entertain. The Chief Justice 
 persisted, and the debate was adjourned for a week. Lord 
 Canning was up the country, but in the interval Frere 
 was able to obtain his view of the question. It was a 
 great satisfaction to him to find that he entirely approved 
 of the course he had taken. 
 
 Lord Canning writes : — 
 
 " December 12, i860. 
 
 " I had seen in the newspapers the Petition which was 
 presented to the Legislative Council on Saturday, and 
 I was expecting a breeze. . . . 
 
 "It is now clear that the battle of the Legislative Council 
 must be fought out. The other side are committed to it ; 
 and there is no escaping a full, open, public discussion of 
 the question. 
 
 " The claims of the existing Council to a larger scope
 
 334 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 of responsibility and authority is a more difficult part of 
 the question than the outside demands for a more numerous 
 and independent Council. 
 
 "But the whole must be fought in England, not in India, 
 and our study should, in my opinion, be to keep out of the 
 fray as much as possible. Irritation amongst our respective 
 champions at home will do us little harm, but any increase 
 of soreness between the Government and the Patriots in 
 India is greatly to be avoided. 
 
 " If Peacock should carry a motion of which the gist 
 should be a request for Papers on the Mysore Grant, I 
 would answer it by a message declining, very civilly, to 
 give the Papers, on the ground that the interest of the 
 public service forbids it — indicating, gently but clearly, 
 the right of the Governor-General so to decline — and 
 adding that the request would be made known to the 
 Secretary of State. This will transfer the contest to 
 London ; — and to do this quietly, and with as little ex- 
 asperation here as possible, is what we should now aim at." 
 
 The Chief Justice pressed his motion to a division, and 
 the numbers being four to four, carried it by his casting 
 vote as Chairman. Frere, in studiously courteous terms, 
 declined to give the Papers. 
 
 Sir Charles Wood, in answer to a letter of Frere's 
 giving a detailed account of the debate, approves the 
 refusal of the Papers, and says — 
 
 " The truth is that the Legislative Council has assumed, 
 gradually perhaps, a position that does not belong to 
 it. . . . From 1833 to 1853 the Executive Council of the 
 Governor-General legislated, with the addition of an 
 English barrister, to give some legal shape and form to 
 their ordinances and laws. Would anybody have dreamt 
 of the Council with this member addressing the Council 
 without this member for papers ?".... 
 
 Already, before Frere went to Calcutta, it was generally 
 felt that the Legislative Council, as then constituted, did 
 not work well, and recent experience had strengthened 
 the conviction that a change in its constitution must be
 
 i860.] CONSTITUTION OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. 335 
 
 made. It had originated in 1833 as an enlargement, for 
 legislative purposes, of the Governor-General's Executive 
 Council, all the members of which were ex-officio members 
 of it. The enlargement was effected by the addition of a 
 legal member nominated by the Home Government — the 
 first of whom was Macaulay — whose presence was made 
 necessary to the passing of any law affecting British India ; 
 and subsequently, in 1853, when Sir Charles Wood was 
 President of the Board of Control, by the addition of 
 a member of the Civil Service from each Presidency 
 and Lieutenant-Governorship, and of two of the Judges 
 of the Supreme Court. At this stage, Lord Dalhousie 
 gave it a character never intended by Sir C. Wood, 
 by making its debates public, and thereby inviting 
 public comment. Thus, from being an offshoot of the 
 Cabinet, it had gradually assumed many of the functions 
 of a little Parliament. 
 
 As early as the previous March, before he had been 
 three months in Calcutta, Frere had sent in a Minute on 
 the changes which he deemed necessary in its constitution 
 and functions. It was necessary either to go backwards 
 and restrict it to its original functions, or forwards, so as 
 to develop its representative character. Frere advocated 
 on all accounts the latter course ; and, moreover, public 
 opinion, both in England and India, would, he contended, 
 render it impossible to lessen the independence of the 
 Council, or to do away with the publicity which had been 
 given to its debates ; it was necessary, therefore, boldly 
 to face the second alternative, and to endeavour to make 
 it as far as possible a representative body. But in any 
 case, he insisted it was necessary to take out of its control 
 all local matters, the management of which should be com- 
 mitted to a local Council in each Presidency and Lieu- 
 tenant-Governorship.
 
 $$6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 Sir Charles Wood writes to Frere : — 
 
 "February 18, 1861. 
 
 "Whatever notions may now prevail, nobody at that 
 time (1853) — and I myself introduced the Bill — ever 
 dreamt of a debating body with open doors and even 
 quasi-independence. Lord Dalhousie began wrong, and I 
 am afraid that everything since has tended in the same 
 direction. He, I believe, generally presided and kept 
 things straight. This, I believe, is not the practice, and 
 everything has gone in the direction of fostering the 
 notion of their being an independent legislative body. 
 It is all wrong and very unfortunate, because there is 
 always a sympathy here for independent deliberation. 
 
 " I am writing for Lord Canning's views on the matter, 
 but I confess I am very uneasy as to the future bodies to 
 be constituted in India. Representative bodies, in any 
 real sense, you cannot have, and I do not think that any 
 external element will really do good. It may satisfy the 
 English at Calcutta to have an English merchant or 
 English planter in the Council, but I am by no means 
 sure that it would improve the legislation ; and you 
 cannot put natives in who are in any sense the expo- 
 nents of active opinion, or who could take any part in 
 the deliberations." 
 
 It was with doubts and misgivings such as he expressed 
 in the foregoing and subsequent letters that Sir Charles 
 Wood brought in and passed the Bill of 1861 to amend 
 the Legislative Council of India. Frere's reply to one of 
 these letters is inserted at some length, as it expresses the 
 views that he had long been urging, and which he again 
 pressed with the hope that the Bill might not fall short 
 of what was needed. 
 
 "April 10, 1861. 
 
 " You may rely on it that no one is a safe adviser on 
 this subject unless he is a very far-seeing statesman who 
 looks below the surface, or has seen India within the last 
 two years. No mere Indian experience of five years ago 
 is worth much as a guide on this particular question, and 
 it is of little use now inquiring what were the intentions
 
 i86i.] GENERAL DISCONTENT. 337 
 
 of Parliament when the Council was first constituted. 
 You have declared that the Council alone has power to 
 make laws. Lord Dalhousie gave the Council the form of 
 a deliberative assembly, and the Mutiny of 1857 rendered 
 it necessary to impose new taxes. The result may make 
 the government of India more difficult than before, but 
 whatever the result, I believe it to be impossible to recede, 
 and I see the gravest danger to make legislation more 
 autocratic, or more secret, or to raise taxes without the 
 kind of discussions which now precede legislation. But I 
 would go farther than saying it is impossible to recede. 
 Looking at the very altered condition of India within the 
 last five years, I am convinced that it is not desirable, even 
 if it were possible, and that had you not enlarged the 
 Council and had not Lord Dalhousie opened its sittings to 
 the public, and the necessity for taxation drawn general 
 attention to its proceedings, our difficulties now would 
 have been far greater than they are. 
 
 "You can have little idea how much India is altered ; 
 but if you consider that in these five years we have 
 changed from an aggressive and advancing power to a 
 stationary one ; that the sympathy which Englishmen, 
 whether long resident or fresh to India, felt for the natives 
 has changed to a general feeling of repugnance if not of 
 antipathy ; that instead of a general feeling of content 
 with their Indian lot and an inclination to live in India, 
 to think of India, and consider things in an Indian rather 
 than an English point of view, the English here are, 
 almost generally, openly discontented, disinclined to re- 
 main here, or to care for India, and disposed to look at 
 things in any but an Indian light ; that all this feeling is 
 inevitably reciprocated by the natives ; that our debt and 
 our unavoidable expenses have greatly increased, and that 
 not only increased taxation, but great reduction of expen- 
 diture are necessary ; that this produces more or less dis- 
 content in every class both of Europeans and of natives, 
 and that every day increases the intimacy and frequency 
 of intercourse between this country and the people who 
 are seething around you in Europe, inquiring, intriguing, 
 money-getting, revolutionizing ; — think of all this, and you 
 will have some notion of how different the task of govern- 
 ing is, from what it was when Lord Dalhousie landed 
 here. 
 
 vol. 1. z
 
 338 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 " How Lord Canning got on with the old machinery is 
 to me an unaccountable marvel, but no human ability 
 could get on with it much longer, and with a Governor- 
 General of less judgment and calm courage you might any 
 day have some terrible disaster. 
 
 " You will perhaps say this is not a case for enlarging 
 the Legislature, or making it less official in its compo- 
 sition ; and if there were any means for law-making in the 
 several divisions of the Empire ; if they could get on, as 
 the Punjab does, without anything which lawyers consider 
 a legal code, I should say, wait for quieter times without 
 making any change. But since 1833 you have concen- 
 trated all law-making with most other functions here in 
 Calcutta, and the machinery is ridiculously inadequate, in 
 every way, to the task it has to perform. After twenty- 
 eight years there is not a department of administration in 
 which the concentration is real and perfect ; even in 
 finance and military affairs, it will take a year or two more 
 of well-directed labour to effect real centralization, and 
 they are the only great branches of administration in 
 which I believe it is possible. But laws of some kind you 
 must have, and it is in legislation that the inadequacy and 
 incapacity of the present machinery is most clearly and 
 frequently apparent. 
 
 " You cannot do much to remedy this by enlarging the 
 existing body. It would still be most imperfect if it were 
 five times as strong in numbers of well-selected men, and 
 I much doubt if any one body you could devise would be 
 able to shape the laws wanted for so many and such dis- 
 similar races, and nations, and interests. 
 
 " The utmost you can hope to do is to assist the Viceroy 
 with some sort of senate, which shall advise him in framing 
 laws which can be of general application {e.g. such as relate 
 to post-office, customs, etc.), and in confirming or annulling 
 laws shaped by those who have had local experience and 
 knowledge of local wants and wishes. 
 
 " To ascertain and to put into shape those wants and 
 wishes you require local bodies, and I am sure the time is 
 passed when it would be possible to constitute such bodies 
 exclusively from among the servants of Government. 
 
 " Here, again, you must not be misled by those who 
 recollect India only when the traditions of ancient exclu- 
 siveness still leavened the whole community in India.
 
 i86i.] NON-OFFICIAL EUROPEANS. 339 
 
 Increasing trade, accelerated communication, and thirty- 
 three millions of English capital invested in railways, 
 made and owned by unofficial people, have rendered the 
 servants of Government less able than ever to decide what 
 even their own countrymen want or wish for and will have, 
 if it is to be got by perseverance in asking here or in 
 England. 
 
 " Unless, then, you give us non-official Europeans in these 
 local legislative bodies, you must be prepared to legislate 
 in Westminster on every subject which touches that class. 
 They will not rest content with our official legislation out 
 here, and whether our official-made laws are bad or good, 
 you will have to debate them over and over again in 
 London. 
 
 " Then if you admit non-official Europeans you must 
 also admit, in at least equal proportion, natives, who in 
 intelligence and education are their equals, and who have 
 a far greater stake in the country. None but the best of 
 your officials, men who cannot be spared from the adminis- 
 tration of distant provinces, will give you as good an idea 
 of native views and wishes as a very ordinary native 
 gentleman or merchant will ; and your legislative bodies 
 will make fatal mistakes unless they have some native 
 members to aid them. . . . 
 
 " You say ' representative bodies in any real sense we 
 cannot have,' but this is only true of representative bodies 
 responsible to those whom they represent, which is not the 
 sort of representation I mean. The members must be 
 selected by the Government, but if well selected, they must 
 represent the great interests of the country as well or 
 better than if elected by popular suffrage. You doubt 
 ' whether any external element will really do good.' I can 
 only say I doubt whether you can possibly get on much 
 longer without it. It is certainly possible even now for a 
 considerate, far-sighted, judicious man of some experience 
 in Indian affairs to ascertain and anticipate the wants and 
 wishes of those under his charge ; he will learn from repre- 
 sentative men and bodies, such as Punchaits and Chambers 
 of Commerce, what is thought of his measures or what is 
 wanted, and shape his course accordingly ; but you do not 
 often meet with men with the tact and knowledge neces- 
 sary to do this effectually. I can remember very few, 
 perhaps only one — the late Sir Robert Grant, who was new
 
 340 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IX. 
 
 to the country and did it effectually, excluding men who, 
 like Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone or Sir George Clerk, 
 from past Indian experience and knowledge of mankind 
 know more of most great interests under their charge than 
 any one man of each interest could tell them. Then you 
 must recollect that if this process of feeling the people's 
 pulse is resorted to regularly and habitually, it is only 
 doing in a circuitous, imperfect fashion what local legis- 
 latures would do directly and perfectly, while there is less 
 responsibility on any one for the result, and it carries 
 much less weight. I often see opinions of Sir George 
 Clerk's, which I know to be not only sound in themselves, 
 but the expression of the general opinion of the best- 
 informed and most interested parties in Bombay, set aside 
 and pooh-poohed by the sages here in a manner which 
 would be impossible if it were embodied in a vote of a 
 legislative body in Bombay. 
 
 " Men of great experience in the working of Colonial 
 Councils, like Sir W. Denison or Sir H. Ward, are often 
 averse to introduce Legislative Councils where they do not 
 exist, from a feeling like that of our Generals towards 
 Times' correspondents in their camps — they are always an 
 additional trouble, and may be a serious embarrassment if 
 inclined for mischief. But the question is, Can you exclude 
 them or do without them? Lord Raglan had perhaps 
 good cause for wishing Mr. Russell out of the Crimea, but 
 he was only one feature, though an essential and indis- 
 pensable one, of the system which enabled you in the 
 second year of the war to be stronger than in the first, and 
 to be ready to renew the contest when France and Russia 
 were equally exhausted. The days are gone when you 
 could govern India without much caring what the Euro- 
 peans and Europeanized community say or think of your 
 measures, and unless you have some barometer and safety- 
 valve combined in the shape of a deliberative Council, I 
 believe you will be always liable to very unlooked-for and 
 dangerous explosions. 
 
 " Some men who advocate such bodies at the great 
 Presidency towns would not have them at places like 
 Rangoon or Lahore. No doubt autocratic government 
 and legislation is, for the present, more possible at such 
 places ; but not, I think, less dangerous in the long run ; 
 nor can you, without some device like a local Legislative
 
 i86i.] THE COUNCILS ACT. 34I 
 
 Council, give to your pro-consuls in such provinces the 
 real power they ought to possess. Aided by such a 
 Council, you may as safely leave men like Sir R. Mont- 
 gomery * or Colonel Phayre f as independent of all control 
 in local matters and legislation as Sir George Clerk at 
 Bombay, or Sir W. Denison at Madras ; without it, all 
 their acts are open to question, and, if Sir Barnes Peacock's 
 law is correct, are utterly illegal. At best it is only their 
 individual character, their distance, and the check which a 
 considerate Governor-General imposes on the energies of 
 his secretariat, which prevent a constant and most mis- 
 chievous interference. I would remedy this by letting 
 each head of a great administration organize the best 
 Legislative Council that he can devise, and give to its 
 enactments, approved by the Governor-General, with 
 the advice of his senate, the force of law in all local 
 matters. 
 
 " These are some of the reasons which make me anxious 
 to see Lord Canning's plans sanctioned by Parliament, 
 and perhaps carried further even than he contemplated in 
 1859. I believe it would contribute, more than anything 
 we could do, to unite governors and governed, both Euro- 
 pean and native ; to restore a healthy tone to the Ad- 
 ministration ; to turn the thoughts of the discontented 
 from Imperial measures, which they can neither understand 
 nor amend, to local wants which they can supply ; and 
 above all, to strengthen the Executive in every pro- 
 vince, and thereby strengthen the Imperial Government 
 also. . . ." 
 
 Frere's opinion and that of Lord Canning prevailed. 
 The Bill, though not in all details such as Frere approved, 
 was drawn and became law on the lines suggested by 
 them. Under its provisions two members of the Legis- 
 lative Council were nominated by the Crown ; and the 
 Governor-General was given power to summon to it, 
 besides the existing members, not less than six nor more 
 than twelve additional members, of whom one-half at least 
 were not to be officials under Government. The Judges 
 
 * Lieut.-Governor of the Punjab. t Commissioner in Burmah.
 
 342 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 no longer had seats on it. That the Executive power 
 might be strengthened, a new and extraordinary power 
 was conferred on the Governor-General of making and 
 promulgating ordinances, in cases of emergency, on his 
 own responsibility. Councils more or less similarly 
 constituted were provided for Bombay, Madras, and 
 Bengal, with powers of legislation in local matters. On 
 questions affecting the whole Empire of India these local 
 legislatures might enter only with the previous sanction of 
 the Governor-General. Finally — and this was the newest 
 feature of all — the additional Members of the Legislative 
 Council of India, as well as of the local Councils, might be 
 either Europeans or natives. 
 
 A native gentleman was appointed to the Council at 
 Madras, and at Bombay Sir George Clerk selected for 
 this honour no less than four natives. 
 
 When Frere was with Lord Canning at Allahabad at 
 the beginning of November, 1861, and the appointment of 
 the new Members of the Legislative Council of India 
 was pending, the Maharajah of Puttiala, anticipating that 
 he himself might be nominated, came to see Frere and ask 
 him about it. In Frere's diary is the following entry : — 
 
 " Memo, of remarks of the Raja of Puttiala, November 
 r, 1861. Enquiry as to the mode of doing business in the 
 Legislative Council — how the members sit, speak, and 
 discuss matters ; difficulty of language — of managing his 
 own State if always away. 
 
 (" Answer. Sessions brief — power of resignation.) 
 
 " Of decision off-hand without consultation with skilled 
 and experienced persons — difficulty of a single native in 
 such a Council — he will have to bear the unpopularity of 
 all measures not acceptable to natives. 
 
 (" Ans. He will also share the popularity of good ones, 
 and will have many to share both popularity and un- 
 popularity with him.) 
 
 " Of what class will his colleagues be ? Division of
 
 i86i.] NATIVES ON THE COUNCILS. 343 
 
 business — military, civil administration — Finance — a ruler 
 or legislator should know all branches, but some are quite 
 ignorant of any but Finance. The mistakes they make in 
 military and administrative matters : e.g. Raja of Burdwan. 
 
 (" Ans. Parliament, Cabinet, Durbar — various kinds of 
 fitness, but all eminent.) 
 
 " Can you tell me who are likely men ? 
 
 ("Ans. I believe none yet fixed, but sure to be men of 
 mark and eminence, with whom it will be an honour to be 
 associated.) 
 
 " Is the Raja of Burdwan likely ? It is not pride makes 
 me ask, but that such men really know nothing of the 
 management of State affairs. 
 
 (" Ans. What are tho sort of people who do know ?) 
 
 " Nawab of Raunpore. But we (chiefs like Puttiala) 
 know little of our fellows. I hope to go to Benares if H. 
 E. would speak to me after I have been there. I should 
 be better able to speak, for I would inquire characters ; 
 but the G. G. sees and knows all. . . ." 
 
 The entry in the diary for January 29, 1862, is : — 
 
 " Legislative Council Debate. First occasion when 
 Native Members of Council spoke. . . . Dinkur Row, 
 Deonarain, and Maharajah of Puttiala on Inam Bill for 
 preventing alienation of lands granted for services." 
 
 And to Pelly, he writes : — 
 
 " February 18, 1862. 
 
 " The Councils have met under the new Act. There is 
 the germ of much good, accompanied by much dross. 
 But I am glad to see natives and non-officials sit and vote, 
 and to save the principle of publicity — sorely endangered 
 by the want of judgment shown by the Judges." 
 
 But Sir Charles Wood's misgivings as to the probable 
 effect of the Act were not to be easily dispelled. 
 
 He writes to Frere : — 
 
 "August 17, 1861. 
 
 " The Councils Act, which really alters the constitution 
 of the Government of India, is by far the most important 
 of the measures which I have introduced.
 
 344 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 " It is framed upon Lord Canning's despatches, and will, 
 I hope, meet your views and answer your expectations. 
 
 " It is undeniable that it is a great experiment and I 
 can only hope for its working well. That everything is 
 changing in India is obvious enough, and that the 
 old autocratic Government cannot stand unmodified is 
 indisputable. 
 
 " But I confess that I cannot look forward without 
 some apprehension to the phase which obviously the 
 English population looks forward to, and which your 
 letter indicates, namely, something approaching to Colonial 
 self-government. 
 
 " I am as much as anybody can be for the self-govern- 
 ment of a Colony of British settlers. They can manage 
 their own affairs, and if they misgovern themselves they 
 suffer and will learn to mend their ways. But such a form 
 of government seems to me singularly unsuited to India. 
 The worst of all governments is a popular government of 
 one race over another. It is notorious that the treatment 
 of slaves is best in despotic, worst in free countries. The 
 Spanish Code is by far the most humane, the American 
 the worst in the world. 
 
 "You know that in the Mutiny the Governor-General 
 was unpopular with the English because he would not go 
 their length against the natives ; and I have heard of 
 language being held at Calcutta which would have 
 shocked an American slave-driver. Do you think a jury 
 of indigo-planters would convict a planter or acquit a 
 ryot ? And how would they legislate for matters pending 
 between them ? . . . 
 
 " In India the Government is really the protector of the 
 natives and their representative, if you will consider the 
 Government representative, and if the Government has 
 nine-tenths of the assembly — it might do. But I am 
 by no means comfortable at the prospect of English 
 settlers legislating for Indian dependents. ... I suspect 
 the control of the Home Government and its support 
 to the Government in India will become more necessary 
 as the popular element gains strength. 
 
 "The future Government of India is a problem of the 
 most serious import, utterly unexampled in history, and 
 one of which it seems to me very difficult to foresee the 
 progress.
 
 i86i.] A COLONIAL POLICY. 345 
 
 " Forgive me this long story, but your letter raises all 
 these considerations very forcibly to my mind." 
 
 Upon the points thus raised by Sir C. Wood, and 
 repeated by him in a letter to Lord Canning, in which 
 he deprecates a " Colonial policy " towards the natives, 
 Frere wrote a Minute, from which the following are 
 extracts : — 
 
 "October 2, 1861. 
 
 " Certainly nothing was further from my thoughts than 
 to advocate what is commonly known as ' Colonial policy ' 
 towards the natives ; by this I understand a policy which 
 puts all real power into the hands of European officials 
 and European colonists, and treats the natives as at best 
 in statu pupillari, to be ruled, taught, and perhaps petted, 
 but to be excluded from all real power or influence on the 
 measures of Government, and to be governed, not with 
 reference to their own reason and sense of right or wrong, 
 but according to our latest English notions of what is best 
 for them. 
 
 " These principles, be it remembered, under one disguise 
 or another, are nearly as common among our present race 
 of officials as among the non-official class. The two classes 
 differ as to the division of power between officials and 
 non-officials. But as between Englishmen and natives 
 they are generally agreed, and the crack Collector or Com- 
 missioner is often as little inclined as the most rabid 
 member of the Landowners' Association to let a native 
 landholder with an estate of .£10,000 a year, which has 
 been two hundred years in his family, have a voice in 
 deciding how his property shall descend or be divided, 
 or how his own children shall be educated, and the 
 civilian would probably be less inclined than the non- 
 official to give the landowner any share of administrative 
 power. 
 
 " There is, no doubt, a large and, I trust, an increasing 
 school of officials who hold with Warren Hastings and 
 Cornwallis, Wellesley, Malcolm, and Mountstuart Elphin- 
 stone, rather than with Lord Dalhousie and Mr. Thomson 
 and the later school of resumption and annexation ; but 
 they are still in a minority, and the latter school have it
 
 346 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. IX. 
 
 all their own way in the Secretary of State's Council, 
 where, since Sir George Clerk left, there has been hardly 
 any zealous representative of the other school. Here, in 
 India, Madras and Bombay officials generally hold more 
 or less the opinions of Malcolm, Munro and the Elphin- 
 stones, while a majority of the older servants in Bengal, 
 the North-West, and the Punjab belong to the school 
 of levelling, resumption, and annexation, which, till the 
 Mutiny, was paramount, and they have among them some of 
 the best and ablest, most energetic and most conscientiously 
 fanatical in religion and political economy of our working 
 men. They are also from their position generally more 
 influential with the Government of India. Many of them 
 are sincerely anxious for the improvement of the natives, 
 provided it be effected in their own — the European — 
 fashion ; but not one of them I ever met has a particle of 
 real sympathy with any native who does not belong to the 
 small Anglicised class, or would allow the natives at large 
 any voice in the decision of the question how the natives 
 can be best governed or improved. . . . 
 
 " Except in Lower Bengal, where the conditions of the 
 case are quite exceptional, I believe it will be found that 
 the English non-official settler is closely identified in 
 interests and feelings with the native landowner or mer- 
 chant. This is always the case where there is a really 
 strong and even-handed administration of the law to all, 
 white or black. 
 
 " It seems to me very important to bear these facts in 
 mind. Otherwise we shall make the dangerous mistake 
 of believing that in the prominent representatives of the 
 present fashion of Indian official opinions, we have some 
 check on the " Colonial policy " towards the natives, as 
 it has been above defined ; and it would, I believe, be an 
 equal mistake to suppose that, with the exception of a 
 limited but rather noisy section in Bengal and at the 
 Presidency towns, the non-official European class has, as 
 a body, any sympathy with that policy, or any antagonism 
 to native rights, as Elphinstone and Metcalfe would have 
 defined them. However that may be, Sir C. Wood cannot 
 condemn more strongly than 1 do what is called the 
 " Colonial policy " — the policy of governing India merely 
 for English interests and according to merely English 
 ideas ; nor can he feel more convinced of its danger ; and
 
 i86i.] REPRESENTATION OF PROPERTY AND INFLUENCE. 347 
 
 I most cordially concur in the belief that the policy which 
 Lord Canning has pursued from 1857 up to the present 
 date, was not only the main cause of our escaping from 
 a war of races, following the Mutiny, but that it is the 
 only policy by which we can hope to retain India. 
 
 " The only ' Colonial ' feature which, as far as I recollect, 
 I ever wished to see introduced into our form of govern- 
 ment, was in the relations between our Home and the 
 Indian Government. It seems to me a fatal mistake to 
 attempt to govern India in London. The Court of Direc- 
 tors did so in theory, but in practice, till very lately, great 
 latitude of independent action was allowed in all important 
 matters, and more was often assumed by the local govern- 
 ment by virtue of their distance, and the difficulty of 
 enforcing previous reference for orders to England. We 
 are now, however, carrying out in practice the theory of 
 the Court of Directors, and attempting to govern India 
 much as in former times we attempted to govern the 
 Colonies by a Secretary of State in London, with deputies 
 in the Colonies, who look to him for orders instead of 
 acting for themselves, subject to his criticism after the 
 act. 
 
 "We shall probably produce the same results as we 
 did in the Colonies, i.e. chronic disaffection leading to 
 incessant agitation, making our Indian possessions, like 
 our Colonies, sources of anxiety rather than of strength, 
 and sometimes, as in the case of America, losing them 
 altogether. 
 
 " The proper remedy seems the same which was applied 
 with so much success to our Colonial system, viz. that 
 the Secretary of State should cease to endeavour to govern 
 India himself; that he should give India the best govern- 
 ment he can, with such mixture of absolutism or repre- 
 sentation as he thinks best, and leave it alone, contenting 
 himself with acting as the representative and colleague 
 of the Viceroy in the Cabinet and Parliament, and as the 
 exponent of the Viceroy's measure to the English Parlia- 
 ment and people. . . . 
 
 " I believe some sort of representation of property, 
 influence, and intelligence is essential to safety. But 
 let the despotism be as absolute as can be conceived, it 
 would still be better exercised on the spot than if the 
 ruling powers resided in London. The more absolute
 
 348 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. IX. 
 
 the form of government, the greater the danger of ex- 
 cluding all sensible checks and all channels of indirect 
 information. These are few and precarious in the most 
 vigilant and intelligent despotism. They must be all 
 but absolutely wanting in a despotism separated by half 
 the globe from the nearest point of the country governed, 
 and the difficulties of governing must be enormously 
 increased."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LORD CANNING'S POLICY. 
 
 India best governed in India — The Nil Durpan incident — Wuzzeree 
 Campaign — The annexations — The Adoption Despatch — Star of 
 India — Lord Canning leaves India — Frere appointed Governor of 
 Bombay. 
 
 The power of legislating on local matters conferred 
 by the Indian Legislative Councils Act, and accorded 
 to the different centres in India, would, Frere considered, 
 have another important and beneficial result. Many- 
 local questions could and would in future be decided 
 without reference to Calcutta, and there would be, in con- 
 sequence, henceforth, not only less delay, but less chance 
 of antagonism between the rulers of distant provinces and 
 the Supreme Government, and fewer occasions for reference 
 to England. Interference by the Home Government in 
 matters of administrative detail he always especially 
 deprecated. Throughout the discussion of the question 
 as to the constitution of the Government of India he 
 strongly insisted on the principle that India must be 
 governed in India and not in England. 
 
 In this Lord Canning entirely agreed with him. The 
 following correspondence explains and illustrates his 
 opinion. 
 
 Frere writes to Sir Charles Wood : —
 
 350 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 " May 15, i860. 
 
 " Mr. Wilson showed me, confidentially, the reports of 
 the Committees of Council on the constitution of the 
 Government of India, and on the relations between the 
 Government and those of the subordinate Presidencies. I 
 must confess that neither document struck me as going to 
 the root of the matter, or as likely to form a useful guide 
 as to the course to be pursued. 
 
 " The evils of the present system, regarding which all 
 parties seem agreed, are briefly : — 
 
 " 1. The Governor-General is overtaxed with work. It is 
 an utter impossibility in the quietest times and with the 
 greatest ability for him to do justice to it. 
 
 " 2. The general legislation of the Empire is ill done and 
 local legislation is hardly attempted. 
 
 " 3. Consequently the subordinate provinces are dis- 
 contented and ill-governed and the administration every- 
 where is enfeebled. 
 
 " It seems to me that the remedies proposed by your 
 Committee will, many of them, add to the Governor- 
 General's work and seriously diminish his power to do 
 it. They will moreover tend to draw more power to 
 England, and this raises the question which must be 
 decided before all others — where and in whose hands 
 is the active administrative government of India to 
 rest? 
 
 " When last you considered this question in Parliament, 
 all seemed agreed that India must be governed in India. 
 The best available statesman must be secured as Governor- 
 General ; he must have the best men as his advisers ; and 
 he must have the largest possible powers, being responsible 
 to England for the mode in which he exercised his high 
 trust. 
 
 " But our practice ever since has been the exact opposite 
 to these principles. The Indian Government refers, and 
 the English Government exacts more reference than ever, 
 and now, under pretence of increasing the Governor- 
 General's powers, your Indian Council proposes to cut 
 down his Councillors into Secretaries, and to make other 
 changes which render it inevitable that the Governor- 
 General shall in future take no important step, without 
 knowing that it will be approved by a majority of the 
 Indian Council at home.
 
 i860.] GOVERN INDIA IN INDIA. 351 
 
 " Now, if you are going to reverse the policy last agreed 
 on in Parliament and to govern India in England, let it be 
 done effectually — abolish the whole fabric of the Supreme 
 Government, and deal with India as the Colonial Office 
 deals with its Colonies.* 
 
 "You will not then long retain India. My conviction on 
 this point rests, not on any distrust of an English Minister 
 and House of Commons, but on the impossibility of their 
 giving due attention to the element of time ; and in Indian 
 administration, as in war, time is everything ; even Napoleon 
 could not have conducted a campaign from St. Helena, and 
 it will be quite as impossible to administer India from 
 London. 
 
 " Steamers and electric telegraphs only increase the 
 difficulty. You cannot argue by telegraph, but the rapidity 
 with which you send news, begets an habitual impatience 
 of delay, and these facilities of communication only make 
 it more necessary that the Governor-General should act 
 and decide at once. If you compel him, as your Indian 
 Council's plan will, always to refer to you for instructions, 
 his decisions may always escape reversal, but they will 
 always be too late. 
 
 " I must confess, were I re-arranging the machinery of 
 Indian Government, I should advocate a course the exact 
 opposite of that suggested by your Committee of Council. 
 I should select from the Council as many under-secretaries 
 as you require and dispense with the rest, retaining only 
 sufficient to enable the Secretary of State to act as the 
 Indian Minister in the Imperial Cabinet, and to deal with 
 Indian questions in Parliament — tasks ample for any 
 mortal man, without attempting the impossible task of 
 conducting, as de facto Governor-General, the detail 
 administration of India. 
 
 "Why should you deal with the Governor-General of 
 India differently from the Governor of New South Wales? 
 The one is necessarily an autocrat, the other the head of a 
 representative Government. But the reasons which induce 
 you to abstain from interference in detail — to be content 
 with general instructions, to leave him to do his best, and to 
 judge him by results — are much stronger in the case of the 
 
 * That is, its Crown Colonies. The chief Australian Colonies, one of 
 which is referred to at the end of this letter, had responsible Govern- 
 ments of their own.
 
 352 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 Viceroy of India than in dealing with a Governor-General 
 of Canada or New South Wales." 
 
 He writes again to Sir Charles Wood on the same 
 
 subject : — 
 
 "August 8, i860. 
 " Seeing all that I do daily and hourly in the course of 
 the current business of Government, I should not be 
 justified in concealing from you my impression that the 
 Governor-General's difficulties are greatly increased by the 
 very peculiar constitution, or rather the peculiar course of 
 action of the Home Government of India. It is quite 
 impossible to say what subjects will be taken up, to what 
 extent orders will be passed on them at the instance of 
 your Council. This uncertainty paralyzes action on all 
 matters which are likely to be taken up, and often thwarts 
 the best-considered measures of this Government, under- 
 taken in the belief that your Council would not interfere. I 
 need not go farther for an example than last mail. Mr. 
 Wilson had shown by figures, what we already knew as a 
 general fact, that, next to the army, the police are the 
 branch of the service, the reformation of which was most 
 important to our finances. On the necessity for reform 
 we were all agreed, and we set about it in earnest, the 
 Governor-General having led the way, some months ago, 
 in his admirable letters to the Governments of the Punjab 
 and North-West Provinces, of which you have had copies. 
 I had not — nor, I think, had Lord Canning — seen Mr. 
 Wilson's printed Minute on an Indian constabulary, when 
 Mr. Wilson sent it to you, and there was much in it to which 
 we should have demurred if we had seen it, and which 
 Mr. Wilson would, I am sure, have modified on a fuller 
 discussion of the matter. This discussion was in progress, 
 and we were agreed on principles, and seeing our way to 
 useful action, both in reducing the cost and increasing the 
 efficiency of our various bodies of police, when we hear 
 that a despatch may be expected embodying the views of 
 your Council on the subject and prescribing a course of 
 action which may or may not accord with the views held 
 by the Governor-General and his advisers, or with what 
 has been already done in the matter. Of course the 
 immediate consequence is more or less to impede any 
 action, and when we get the despatch we may find it
 
 i860.] THE EXECUTIVE IN INDIA. 353 
 
 necessary to retrace our steps or to make further reference to 
 you ; and the least evil which will result must be delay, 
 both in reducing expense and in getting rid of the costly 
 incubus which is, in every point of view, such a drag 
 upon us. 
 
 " This would be a very serious evil, however sound 
 might be the views embodied in the despatch ; but if 
 those views are, as I understand them to be in the main, 
 those of Sir J. Lawrence, the result must be still more 
 disastrous. He adheres, I am told, mainly to his Punjab 
 police in the very features in which it differs from the 
 model proposed by Sir Henry Lawrence and in which 
 Sir R. Montgomery and his best officers now find it faulty, 
 and we must either go back to this system, just as it has 
 been condemned by the Punjab, and give up the effort to 
 reduce cost, or act in opposition to the declared views 
 of your Council, or, what is almost as great an evil, 
 suspend all action while we discuss the oft-debated 
 question afresh. . . . 
 
 " I feel certain you will pardon the freedom with which 
 I write ; but not a mail arrives without some fresh proof 
 of the evil resulting from the misapplied energy of the 
 Council of India, originating measures and usurping the 
 functions of the Executive Government of India, and that 
 not on any one principle, but in a manner so uncertain as 
 to render it difficult to say when they will or will not act. 
 
 " I feel this more especially in this matter of police, 
 because, as I have often mentioned before, I think we 
 have no time to lose in setting our house in order, 
 whether we look to your horizon in Europe or to ours 
 in Asia." 
 
 To which Sir Charles Wood replied : — 
 
 "September 17, i860. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your letter, but you 
 must forgive me for saying that I am a little surprised at 
 what you say. Now, do not suppose that I wish you to 
 do otherwise than write to me fully, frankly, and freely 
 on all subjects, not excluding your views as to myself and 
 Council. Except upon the subject of the police, I do not 
 know in what case we can be said to have interfered with 
 the functions of the Government of India. I shall write 
 to you as freely as you have written to me, and shall 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A
 
 354 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 expect as free a rejoinder ; and shall be very much 
 obliged to you to point out where you think our inter- 
 ference has been unwise. It may prevent our committing 
 a fault again. 
 
 " To return, however, to the police. ... I appointed a 
 Committee of my Council, one member from each presi- 
 dency, and on their report a despatch has been framed. 
 It was considered by every Member of Council who took 
 an interest in the matter, and has gone with their 
 unanimous concurrence. 
 
 " We saw no sign of action on your part except an 
 increase in, as we thought, a bad shape — battalions of 
 foot and horse, more like troops than police. In Madras 
 we saw a police being formed which the Madras Members 
 of Council thought inadequate, and undoubtedly we had 
 Sir J. Lawrence's strong opinion of the tried qualities 
 of the Punjab police. Now, I must beg you to re- 
 member that there is a greater variety of knowledge of 
 different parts of India on my Council than at Calcutta. 
 It seemed high time that something should be done, and 
 we thought that we should be giving you assistance by 
 bringing together all that we could as to the police of 
 India. . . . 
 
 " The Council may have been wrong, but unless the 
 concentrated knowledge of all India which exists in the 
 Council is to be brought to bear upon such questions, I 
 really do not know of what use the Council is. . . . 
 
 " I have endeavoured to explain to you our reasons for 
 what we have done as to the police ; but I shall be obliged 
 to you to explain more fully what you mean by the 
 Council ' interfering with the functions, or usurping the 
 functions of the Government of India, not on any one 
 principle, etc' . . . 
 
 " Doing anything of this kind is far from my in- 
 tentions, and equally so, I am sure, from that of the 
 Council, nor am I conscious in what way we can be said 
 to have done so. 
 
 " Pray, however, let me know in what way you think 
 we have done so. 
 
 " At all events, it is advisable that we should understand 
 each other. We may decide to interfere or avoid it, but we 
 shall not be in our proper relative positions unless we under- 
 stand clearly what we are and what we are not to do."
 
 i860.] THE COUNCIL AT HOME. 355 
 
 Frcre's answer was as follows : — 
 
 " October 22, i860. 
 
 " I received by the Bombay Mail your letter of 
 September 17, and rather fear from its tenor that you 
 thought I had written too strongly on the interference of 
 your Council, especially in the matter of police. But on 
 careful reflection I cannot think I overstated anything, and 
 as every day confirms the view I then expressed, I avail 
 myself of your kind injunction to state my views freely 
 and without reserve, trusting that whatever you may 
 think of the opinions you will believe them to be sincere, 
 and expressed only in accordance with the strong con- 
 viction of what my duty to the public service requires. 
 
 " First, as to police. I am sanguine that the public 
 despatches you will have received shortly after you wrote, 
 will have convinced you that the Governor-General and 
 his Council had not forgotten the subject nor omitted to 
 act as vigorously as circumstances allow in reducing the 
 enormous police and semi-military charges. You will 
 have seen that while on his tour the Governor-General 
 took up the question as affecting Oude, the North-West 
 Provinces, and the Punjab, in which reduction was more 
 necessary and most easy ; that he pointed out clearly 
 how reduction was to be made, and what should be its 
 extent, and there really remained nothing for the Govern- 
 ment of India to do but to keep these Governments to the 
 path marked out and to aid them in the unpopular and 
 disagreeable work of reduction. 
 
 "The Police Commission, whose first report you will have 
 received, will, I trust, give valuable assistance in both 
 ways. With their plan before them, no man can say he 
 does not know how to reduce or what to substitute for the 
 existing system, and the new police will be more efficient 
 than any of the old police bodies, while it will cost much 
 less than the double police, half of it a civil police and 
 half a civil army, which is eating us up in the Punjab 
 and North-West Provinces, and has begun to do so in 
 Bengal. This latter point you will see more clearly when 
 you get the result of the Commission's financial inquiry. 
 I need hardly observe you have never yet seen the real 
 cost of the double police, because a part of the expense is 
 always looked on as a set-off against reductions in the 
 regular army, which, however, very rarely follow. Now
 
 356 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 this double system is really what the police despatch 
 authorizes. It is true you insist on reductions, and a few 
 men will be reduced here and there, but it is the double 
 system which is the true cause of expense, and till that is 
 altered any large reduction is hopeless. At present the 
 Punjab and North-West Provinces have a police very 
 much in accordance with the views set out in your 
 despatch — stronger perhaps than you would approve — but 
 the reduction need not be large, and cannot approach to 
 what Lord Canning ordered peremptorily and on the 
 soundest grounds in April, and which, I trust, the Police 
 Commission will aid him to carry out. I feel certain you 
 will have approved the course the Governor-General took 
 in deciding to go on with the plan he had sketched out 
 before he knew we were to have a plan from home ; but 
 the despatch has very much increased the difficulty of 
 reform and retrenchment. . . . 
 
 " This brings me to your question whether there is not a 
 greater variety of knowledge of different parts of India in 
 the Home Council than in Calcutta, and whether it does 
 not possess the best concentrated Indian experience. 
 
 " To this I must with all respect answer in the negative. 
 As regards police the subject is comparatively a new one 
 in India. I doubt if there is much of value on record 
 more than ten or fifteen years old. Even now there are 
 really very few men who have studied the subject in a 
 manner to entitle their opinion to weight ; fewer still who 
 have studied it at all in connection with finance. I can 
 hardly think of one who has so studied it and is now in 
 England, save Sir C Trevelyan ; but, apart from police, I 
 cannot, with all due respect, admit that the Home Council 
 is the best, or even at all an adequate, representative of the 
 best Indian experience. I have the highest respect for 
 many of the members, and some of them are confessedly 
 among our foremost men, but the Governor-General has, 
 if not in Calcutta, certainly within his reach in India, a far 
 greater amount of Indian experience on every subject, and, 
 what is even of higher importance, the experience is of 
 later years. It is this which, especially since the Mutinies, 
 renders Indian experience in India so much more valuable 
 than Indian experience of men in England, some of whom 
 have not seen this country for many years. India is 
 changing even faster than England, and nothing can be
 
 i860.] USE OF THE COUNCIL. 357 
 
 more misleading than mere Indian experience of ten years 
 back. I do not now speak of statesmen, but simply 'of our 
 first-class public servants. The wisdom of such men as 
 Mountstuart Elphinstone is never obsolete. Nor, I feel 
 confident, will you for a moment suppose that what I have 
 said applies to the remarks or instructions of the Secretary 
 of State himself. Nothing could be more valuable, and, I 
 should think, more necessary to the Governor-General 
 than the fullest expression of the Secretary of State's own 
 views ; but, in consulting Indian experiences, my view is 
 that the Secretary of State would be better guided by 
 what the Governor-General collects in India, than by men 
 who had seen no more of India than many men still in this 
 country, and whose experience, however great at the time, 
 is now sure to be obsolete. 
 
 " You ask, if the Council are not to be consulted in such 
 matter, of what use are they ? I must frankly admit that 
 I cannot answer this question, for I have always looked on 
 such a Council as a most useless encumbrance to any 
 statesman charged with the duties of Secretary of State 
 for India. As under-secretaries, to aid him by their local 
 knowledge of the several departments and provinces in 
 which they have served, a moderate number of them would 
 be most useful, but in their present number and with their 
 present anomalous functions, it seems to me they can only 
 prove a bad imitation of the Court of Directors ; that 
 they must mislead and do active mischief by preventing 
 the two English statesmen who are charged with the des- 
 tinies of India from properly dividing the great work they 
 have in hand — the one to rule India as Viceroy, collecting 
 and acting on the best Indian experience we can gather, 
 the other to connect the vast machine of Indian Govern- 
 ment with the Government and people of England. A 
 similar division is now recognized between the duties of 
 the Colonial Office and Colonial Governments. The Indian 
 Council seem to me in danger of leading to a state of 
 things similar to that which existed some years ago when 
 the Colonial Office endeavoured to carry on in detail the 
 Government of all the Colonies of England, and very 
 nearly lost them in the attempt." 
 
 In sending a copy of this correspondence to Lord 
 Canning, he says —
 
 358 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 " I fear the truth may not be acceptable to Sir Charles 
 Wood, but . . . holding [the] opinion [I do], I hardly think 
 I should have been justified in not expressing it when 
 occasion offered. The evil threatening seems to me a 
 mortal one, and I have devoted a life-time to India to 
 little purpose if I were to be silent from a wish to speak 
 only smooth things, and I trust you will think I am right." 
 
 To this Lord Canning replied : — 
 
 " October 24, i860. 
 
 " I return the letters to and from Sir Charles Wood. I am 
 very glad indeed that you have defended your first position 
 so firmly and conclusively. I do not think that a word 
 too much is said, in letter or in spirit. Indeed, I rather 
 wish you had instanced one or two more cases of ill-judged 
 intervention. They are not hard to seek [find]. 
 
 " I told Sir Charles Wood that I would write to him on 
 the subject of his letter to you, by next mail ; and I shall 
 feel bound to re-echo what you have said. 
 
 " There is no fear of his taking anything amiss that is 
 openly outspoken. He is himself hasty and snappish, 
 but very fair, and much too thick-skinned to be resentful 
 of anything that we are likely to write. ..." 
 
 Writing to Lord de Grey seven or eight months 
 afterwards, Frere makes the same complaint : — 
 
 "June 9, 1861. 
 " I wish I could agree with you in your treatment of 
 us in the matter of the Contract Bill. It is just one of 
 those measures which ruinously impair the authority of the 
 Governor-General. Had the despatch laid down general 
 principles and said, ' It is only a Bill framed in accordance 
 with these views which I can approve,' we should have 
 had no ground for complaint, and your object would have 
 been secured. Still better would it have been to have 
 done the same in an unofficial letter to the Governor- 
 General and so put him on his guard. Best of all, in my 
 humble opinion, to have waited till you saw what shape 
 the measure would take when it left the hands of the 
 Governor-General and his Council, warning us, if you 
 thought it necessary, not to pass such a measure without
 
 i86i.] HAMPERING THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 359 
 
 the ordinary three months' consideration between the 
 second and third readings. . . . 
 
 "As it is, you have allowed a section of the community 
 here (with whose views, remember, I agree in the main), 
 in concert with a few members of the House of Commons, 
 to dictate to the Governor-General. If this is often done, 
 a timid Governor-General will refer every measure to you 
 beforehand, and will do nothing till you have considered 
 the measure in the India House, and committed your- 
 selves to support him, while a headstrong and self-willed 
 Governor-General will be always resorting to expedients 
 to commit himself and you, if possible, before there can 
 be time for remonstrance. Both are most mischievous 
 results. 
 
 " Please remember I have no objection to your behead- 
 ing a Governor-General and his Council too, if they do 
 wrong or omit to do right ; but hold the sword over us 
 like men, and don't keep us in leading-strings like 
 children. . . . 
 
 " You have no idea the trouble you cause us in the 
 present irritated and divided state of public feeling out 
 here, to prevent explosions in and out of the Legislative 
 Council, which, however impotent in themselves, seriously 
 embarrass us. I hope this has been avoided in the 
 present case ; but it has cost time and trouble, which I 
 greatly grudge, as they might have been more usefully 
 employed. 
 
 " But it is the principle of interfering with the Governor- 
 General, except in the way of criticism by punishment or 
 praise, as the case may be, after he has acted, to which 
 I object, as leading to your governing India in West- 
 minster instead of in India. I do not say ' Calcutta,' 
 for it is, I think, the worst place in India for the seat of 
 Supreme Government — a place where no man can do a 
 good day's work for more than nine months in the year, 
 and which costs you in one year four such men as Wilson, 
 Outram, Barnes, and Laing, all of whom in any other 
 part of India might at this day, humanly speaking, have 
 been still at work." 
 
 The chief object of the " Contract-Bill," referred to in 
 the above letter, was to endeavour to settle the differences 
 between the Indigo planters of Lower Bengal and the
 
 360 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. X. 
 
 Ryots. Nowhere was the antipathy between Europeans 
 and natives so bitter and so dangerous. A Commission, 
 of which Mr. W. S. Seton Karr, Secretary to the 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, was President, had been 
 appointed in the previous year to inquire into the griev- 
 ances complained of.* The general purport of their report 
 was, that the Ryots had been systematically oppressed, 
 that indigo was a crop which it was not profitable to 
 them to cultivate, and that without coercion they would 
 hardly grow it at all. The irritable state of public feeling 
 on the subject at this time was shown by the following 
 incident. 
 
 A certain Bengalee play, reflecting the native feeling 
 against the Indigo planters, was translated into English 
 and printed, apparently merely as a literary curiosity, by 
 Mr. Long, a missionary, who was in the habit of trans- 
 lating native literature for the Government, and by Mr. 
 Seton Karr. Mr. Seton Karr sent several copies to his 
 friends, and unfortunately they were inadvertently enclosed 
 in wrappers marked " On Public Service," as though the 
 translation were intended to be circulated officially, and 
 many of the leading journals had copies. The play was 
 a sort of satire on the planter-class — " very much the kind 
 of melodrama which would have delighted a Surrey-side 
 audience twenty years ago," Frere writes, "substituting 
 Indigo-planters for bloated aristocrats, or Jesuits, or the 
 Italian Count who does the horrible in the English melo- 
 drama." 
 
 * The question arose whether a breach of contract by Ryots to sow 
 indigo should be punishable by fine and imprisonment. Mr. Seton 
 Karr and two of the Commissioners said No. The two other 
 Commissioners said Yes. The Lieutenant-Governor (Mr. Peter 
 Grant) sided with Mr. Seton Karr. The Government of India took 
 the opposite side. Sir Charles Wood said that he should veto a Bill 
 with such a provision. So it was dropped.
 
 i86i.] INDIGO-PLANTERS AND RYOTS. 361 
 
 Amongst the Europeans a storm of fury arose against 
 the authors and publishers of the translation. The 
 planters combined to prosecute for libel, first the printer, 
 and then Mr. Long. The trial of the latter was disgrace- 
 fully conducted. He was ill-defended ; and the Judge 
 summed up in the most outrageously partial terms and 
 with indecent violence of manner and expression. Sentence 
 was reserved for the full Court. The proceedings before 
 the full Court were not much more fair. Eventually Long 
 was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and to pay a 
 fine of a thousand rupees. The Chief Justice made no 
 secret of his opinion that a still more severe sentence 
 should have been passed. 
 
 " I must say [writes Frere] it has been rather a shock 
 to all my notions. I had much sympathy with the 
 planters, which has been pretty well corrected by their 
 un-English hatred of free discussion, and vindictive 
 alliance with the Press to punish a man for a libel not 
 half as bad as the Press publishes daily on Government, 
 and to punish him by a form of trial which does not 
 admit of his pleading the truth or meeting the charge 
 fairly. 
 
 " But one does not expect much from Press or planters, 
 
 and the sight of English Judges behaving as and 
 
 have done, throws everything else into the shade." 
 
 The planters were determined to proceed to institute a 
 prosecution against Mr. Seton Karr. It was announced 
 that in that event the Chief Justice intended to try the 
 case, though in the usual routine it would have come 
 before a puisne Judge, and it seemed likely that he would 
 be convicted and sentenced to a much longer term of 
 imprisonment than Mr. Long. Matters were getting so 
 serious — it even seemed probable that a conflict between 
 the Executive and the Judicial Bench might occur — that 
 the Government took the matter into its own hand, and
 
 362 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [C11. X. 
 
 Lord Canning published a Minute, in which censure was 
 bestowed, amongst others, on Mr. Seton Karr.* By this 
 step the more moderate planters were conciliated, and 
 prevailed upon the others to drop the idea of prosecution. 
 Had the prosecution of Mr. Seton Karr succeeded, the 
 violent party among the planters had proposed to proceed 
 against the Lieutenant-Governor himself, whom they 
 fancied they could implicate in the matter ; but nothing 
 more was now heard of this. 
 
 Sir Charles Wood thought — and Frere quite agreed with 
 him — that too much had been made of the matter. He 
 writes, in answer to a detailed account from Frere of the 
 whole business : — 
 
 "January 17, 1862. 
 
 " All that I thought of Lord Canning's Minute was that 
 it was too severe [on Mr. Seton Karr]. Nobody here 
 considers the publication as a libel, and Lord Stanley 
 said to me the other day it would go hard with Charles 
 Dickens for such a publication as ' Hard Times ' if he 
 were to be tried by Sir B. Peacock and a Calcutta jury. 
 The only defence which a learned member of my Council 
 can suggest is that the law of libel is not the same in 
 England and India — which it ought to be." 
 
 Upon the old question of frontier-policy Frere had 
 occasion again to express his opinion. 
 
 In the spring of i860 took place one of the periodical 
 
 expeditions against one of the marauding border tribes of 
 
 the Punjab. The recurrence of this border warfare was, 
 
 as we have seen, always a sore point with Frere. Upon 
 
 receiving the official Report, he wrote the following 
 
 Minute : — 
 
 * Frere to Sir Charles Wood, December 4, 1861, and to Lord de 
 Grey, September 9, 1861. Mr. Seton Karr was soon afterwards, on 
 the nomination of Lord Canning, made a puisne Judge of the High 
 Court of Justice at Calcutta, and was subsequently Foreign Secretary 
 to the Government of India under Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo.
 
 i860.] A BORDER EXPEDITION. 363 
 
 "May 22, i860. 
 
 " I trust I may not be misunderstood as in any way 
 undervaluing the great military skill with which this 
 expedition has been conducted, if I express my doubts 
 whether any permanent good is likely to result from a 
 system of laying waste the country and destroying crops 
 in the fashion described in this Report. 
 
 " I do not doubt that some effect is produced by every 
 such exhibition of our power, but I believe it to be such an 
 effect as Edward I. may have produced in Scotland or the 
 French in Algeria, sufficient to enforce submission for a 
 time, but certain to leave behind a feeling of bitter 
 hostility, such as ages of good government will hardly 
 eradicate. 
 
 "It is true that there has been in this present expedition 
 some attempt to discriminate between the guilty and the 
 unoffending. 
 
 " The Lieutenant-Governor applauds the discriminating 
 forbearance shown, and trusts that, conjoined with the 
 merited punishment inflicted on the guilty, ' it may lead 
 the Wuzzeerees to recognize the equal justice which 
 dictated the resolutions of the British Government' 
 
 " But what was this discriminating forbearance ? It 
 must be remembered that we were making war on a tribe 
 which does not acknowledge our sovereignty. The Wuz- 
 zeerees, if robbers and murderers, were not rebels or 
 mutineers. 
 
 " The commander, in describing the operations, says, 
 ' we found large sheets of cultivation, so large indeed that 
 we were unable to destroy them all ; we therefore selected 
 that that belonged to tribes that are notoriously mis- 
 chievous, hoping that the distinction thus drawn might 
 make the true object of our expedition more marked.' 
 
 " Whether a distinction made in consequence of inability 
 to destroy more was likely to be very accurate or well 
 observed, may be doubted, but probably among the Wuz- 
 zeerees, as among all other plundering tribes on that 
 frontier, there are always two classes — the class that lives 
 by plunder and the class that lives by cultivation or on 
 the produce of its flocks and herds. Many individuals 
 doubtless do a little in both ways, but as a general rule 
 the border riders do not plough, nor do the plough- 
 men habitually plunder. Now, what is the effect of
 
 364 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [C11. X. 
 
 destroying the cultivation of a tribe in the wholesale 
 manner here described ? Simply to unite the whole tribe, 
 non-plunderers as well as plunderers, against us — and 
 this result is clearly shown in this paper. . . . 
 
 " We are told that the cultivation of the mischievous 
 Nana Khail tribe was destroyed and trampled down by 
 the troops when we could eat no more ; and again, ' In the 
 course of the fortnight we have been in the hills, a very 
 large amount of crops has been eaten up and destroyed ; 
 a great deal was done in this way on the Shuboor side, 
 and we have completely lapped up the whole cultivation 
 in the valley between Kundval and Shinghee.' The 
 Commissioner then calculates the damage at twelve 
 hundred rupees per diem to the Wuzzeerees, ' who depend 
 entirely on it,' and can only replace it as food by impor- 
 tation. How this imported food is to be paid for, when 
 their villages have been burnt and their cattle driven off, 
 is not explained, but he estimates, on good authority, that 
 the damage done was equal to eight years of successful 
 plundering. 
 
 " Having thus treated all, bad and good, alike, is it to 
 be wondered at that the Commissioner found the Mahsoods 
 thoroughly united and able to keep their counsels quiet ; 
 that he could get no information either from members of 
 the tribe or from spies sent among them ; and that as a 
 consequence Colonel Lumsden's camp was surprised and 
 only saved from destruction by the determined gallantry 
 of his soldiers ? 
 
 " What can these people think of us ? Bad as they 
 may be themselves, do we give them any cause for 
 thinking better of us, or for believing that we war in a 
 more generous or chivalrous fashion ? Is it to be won- 
 dered at that when offered the privilege of taking away 
 their slain, they did not trust us ? I do not find mention 
 of a single prisoner throughout these proceedings. 
 Surely some must have been taken among the wounded. 
 
 " I say nothing of higher motives, but I must confess to 
 a feeling which I am not anxious to define very accurately 
 when I read of such proceedings being successful ' under 
 the guidance of Providence/ and that ' it will not be in 
 the power (with God's blessing) of the whole tribe to 
 arrest ' the march of the force. But I do very deeply 
 regret that brave and excellent men should delude them-
 
 i860.] THE WUZZEEREES. 365 
 
 selves into the belief that even as mere matters of policy- 
 such proceedings can ever be successful. It is, I know, a 
 fashionable doctrine that this is the only way to treat 
 people like the frontier tribes ; but knowing, as I do, that 
 by a different treatment — a treatment more in unison with 
 our own religion and laws and customs of warfare — they 
 can be brought not only to respect us, but to have an 
 almost superstitious veneration for brave and generous 
 gentlemen like Colonels Chamberlain and Lumsden, I 
 cannot but lament a policy which induces such officers to 
 act, as I am confident they must have acted, contrary to 
 their own natural feelings and principles, and which 
 persuades them that expediency requires recourse to 
 measures which their own instinct tells them are wrong." 
 
 In the press of other work requiring immediate atten- 
 tion, this Minute seems to have passed without notice for 
 nearly six months. In a letter to Frere, Lord Canning 
 writes : — 
 
 "November 8, i860. 
 
 " Here is a very interesting paper which I have left too 
 long — Brigadier-General Chamberlain's account of his 
 expedition against the Mahsood Wuzzeerees. 
 
 " I know that you have much to say against the policy 
 which prescribes these expeditions, therefore I have not 
 as yet written any note upon this paper, in order that if 
 the policy question be raised, I may write on the two 
 points — (1) policy, and (2) Chamberlain's individual execu- 
 tion of the work — at once. 
 
 " Upon the latter point I think there can be no doubt 
 that the greatest credit and praise is due to him and to 
 those under his command, in any case. 
 
 " Upon the former it appears to me that the measures 
 which have been carried out do not, although they were 
 on a large scale, exhibit a strong case against the policy, 
 because the provocations from the Mahsood Wuzzeerees 
 have been unusually great, and their strength and in- 
 accessible position and character are such as to make 
 gentle measures more than usually hopeless, and because 
 pains have been taken to make the punishment dis- 
 criminating, in a roughish way. But on this you will 
 perhaps differ from me. The weakness of this case is
 
 366 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 that after a difficult and successful (in its immediate 
 objects) expedition, we find the Mahsoods firing into our 
 rear-guard up to the last moment. But I am by no means 
 sure that this as an indication of failure is not much more 
 apparent than real. . . . 
 
 " The fuller report which we now have, shows that more 
 trouble was taken to make punishment discriminating 
 than would be gathered from the imperfect one." 
 
 To this Frere wrote a long and exhaustive reply, from 
 which the following are extracts : — 
 
 "November 15, i860. 
 
 " Of Chamberlain's share in the business and of the 
 whole expedition as a military operation, it is impossible, 
 I think, to speak too highly. . . . 
 
 " Nor, as a part of the general frontier policy of the 
 Punjab, do I find fault with General Chamberlain's own 
 proceedings as narrated by himself. It is clear that he felt 
 that indiscriminate destruction in these expeditions was 
 one of the weak and indefensible points of the usual 
 system, and he did his best to make a distinction between 
 the property of the innocent and the guilty — perhaps the 
 line was as clearly drawn as is possible in an operation on 
 such a scale ; at any rate, it would not be just to find fault 
 with him if, in this, which, as far as I know, is the first 
 attempt of the kind, he did not carry out his just and 
 merciful purpose as completely as he would have wished. 
 
 "But his whole proceedings show the unsoundness of 
 the canons laid down with such assumption of authority in 
 the Punjab Report of 1856, which Chamberlain very in- 
 consistently quotes at the end of his Report. Sir J. Law- 
 rence, speaking through Temple, declares it to be impossible 
 to make distinction between guilt and innocence in this 
 frontier warfare ; according to him, all are equally worthy 
 of punishment, and should be all treated as you would the 
 various branches of an enemy's army. 
 
 " General Chamberlain's practice shows that it is possible 
 to make such distinctions even among the members of the 
 most generally guilty and united tribe of the whole frontier, 
 and that it is not only possible but that all the expected 
 results follow. He spared the crops and villages of the 
 Ahmedzye Wuzzeerees as soon as he marched into their
 
 iS6o.] THE INNOCENT SUFFER WITH THE GUILTY. 367 
 
 country. They at once understood the distinction made, 
 received his force as friends and furnished supplies. . . . 
 
 "Taken as a whole, this expedition does not raise the 
 question of the general frontier policy of the Punjab 
 Government, because the Wuzzeerees are, as Chamberlain 
 points out, exceptional in their unity of action, and claim 
 to be independent, which renders it possible to treat them 
 as a distinct power, neither subject to Cabool nor Lahore, 
 to be treated, therefore, not as robbers and rebels against 
 us or our ally, but as a hostile nation and independent 
 power. 
 
 "Against such a tribe I would, of course, defer hostilities 
 as long as possible, and try every other possible expedient 
 to make them good neighbours, but if they obstinately 
 hold out and continue to make constant aggressions, rob- 
 bing and murdering in our territory, and refusing to punish 
 or give up offenders, there is nothing for it but an appeal 
 to force of arms — they must be taught that their courage 
 and difficult country are no sufficient protection to them 
 in evil-doing, and that as they acknowledge no superior 
 government to which we can appeal, we have the power to 
 punish them as a distinct people and government for not 
 doing their duty to their neighbours. . . . 
 
 " Surely our language should be, ' we will never rest till 
 that malefactor — the individual offender — is caught and 
 punished ; all who harbour or aid him shall be punished 
 too, but no innocent man shall suffer for him.' 
 
 " The constant reply to this from the Punjab officers is, 
 that it is impossible to enforce such a demand. I do not 
 believe in such an impossibility. General Chamberlain's 
 Report shows it does not exist. I do not say we should 
 organize such an expedition to punish every murder, but I 
 am convinced it would be better to go to any expense to 
 secure the individual malefactor, rather than to be content 
 with easy redress from the community. 
 
 " In this Wuzzeeree Campaign I find no specific demand 
 for specific malefactors to be given up. It may have been 
 made, but I cannot trace it ; and if it was omitted, it 
 remains doubtful whether the tribe would have acted as 
 they did under a threat of general tribal humiliation and 
 punishment. It is quite possible that the result might 
 have been different had the Mahsood chiefs, when they 
 came to General Chamberlain's camp, been furnished with
 
 368 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 a list of men to be given up. It is certain that had such a 
 list been made known to the tribe, the malefactors named 
 would have shared the odium of the subsequent house and 
 crop-burning, and the owners of the property destroyed 
 would have been more guarded in future in making 
 common cause with thieves and murderers. . . . 
 
 " It is the Punjab fashion to say that the Northern 
 tribes are more powerful and warlike, the country more 
 difficult, and the people more bigoted. I have never seen 
 the slightest ground for this assertion. Our armies, when 
 they went up by the Bolan and down by the Kyber, found 
 no such difference. The Beloochees may be more true 
 and honest, but they are just as brave and barbarous — 
 quite as bigoted and impatient of foreign control as the 
 Affghans. 
 
 " It is little use my publicly urging these views, but I do 
 not scruple to place them before your Lordship, knowing 
 that you have faith in the power of such principles, and 
 that you do not believe in the possibility of a principle 
 being true in one place and false in another. I feel sure 
 that from you they would find acceptance with men like 
 Sir R. Montgomery, Chamberlain, and many more in that 
 quarter — men as just and merciful as any in the world, 
 blinded though they may be for the time by the apparent 
 success of an unsound policy, and bound by a mistaken 
 feeling of honour and consistency to uphold in public 
 writing what in their hearts they detest and condemn. 
 Opportunities will not be wanting of telling them what you 
 think, and, without any sudden or even perceptible change, 
 you may greatly accelerate the change which I see taking 
 place in their practice, though they still adhere to the 
 erroneous formularies of bygone Punjab Reports. . . ." 
 
 To Major H. Green he writes on the same subject : — 
 
 "July 2, i860. 
 
 "From all I have seen since I came here, I am quite con- 
 vinced that if you two and Merewether were moved North 
 and left to your own devices, we should in three years have 
 every tribe from the Indus to Guzni and Cabool, and pro- 
 bably the old Dost himself, wanting us to call them our 
 subjects, and ready to do whatever we ask them. Rely on 
 it, all this will appear some day as clear to others as it 
 does to you and me. But we must have patience."
 
 i860.] ANGLO-INDIANS AT HOME. 369 
 
 Lord Canning and his advisers were loyally supported 
 by the Home Government during this difficult time. On 
 occasions when they considered they had cause for complaint 
 they said so, plainly enough, as has been mentioned. But 
 from public opinion and the press in England they got little 
 encouragement. The English people, at that time gene- 
 rally ignorant and indifferent about events outside Europe, 
 had been roused to keen but temporary interest in India 
 by the outbreak of the Mutiny, and by the peril and 
 heroism of their fellow-countrymen. But the interest had 
 waned with the danger. If India was known to be in 
 difficulties the Mutiny was set down as the ultimate and 
 sufficient cause ; and the Mutiny was supposed to have 
 been an unfortunate accident, which was nobody's fault, 
 and which no wisdom could have foreseen or averted. 
 
 Nor, it must be confessed, did the Anglo-Indians then 
 in England, whose careers had justly gained them promi- 
 nence and respectful admiration, contribute much to the 
 general enlightenment. Speaking at Glasgow in Sep- 
 tember, i860, Sir John Lawrence repudiated the supposi- 
 tion that Lord Dalhousie's annexations had had any 
 material effect in stirring up hostility to English rule, and 
 attributed the Mutiny to the insufficiency of the number 
 of European troops in India at the time, and to the 
 ignorance and superstition of the native troops in objecting 
 to the greased cartridges ; he recommended as a remedy 
 to teach Christianity in Government schools, and thereby 
 gradually eliminate superstition. 
 
 Colonel Herbert Edwardes went a step further in search 
 of causes for the Mutiny. He made a speech at the Church 
 Missionary Society's Meeting in London, in May, 1860, as 
 to which Frere writes to Lord Canning : — 
 
 "June 14, i860. 
 
 " Colonel Edwardes' speech is worth reading, if only as 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B
 
 370 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 an instance of the sort of half-truths which tell on such 
 occasions. But it is melancholy to see a man like him 
 labouring to prove that indisposition to mutiny was a conse- 
 quence of [there being] a few Christian sepoys in the Madras 
 army, and leaving his hearers to infer that had there been 
 as many in the Bengal army it would not have mutinied. 
 One may question whether religion is served by his theory 
 of special providences favouring the Punjab ; but one feels 
 something stronger than regret to find him claiming a 
 peculiarly Christian character for the Punjab administration, 
 when one remembers the frightful stories of regiments 
 ' accounted for,' wholesale, under the orders of these very 
 men, and a frontier policy defended as just and necessary, 
 which he would be the very first to condemn if carried out 
 by a French or Russian border-warden." 
 
 To men who, like Canning and Frere and Clerk, were 
 spending all their strength in tearing up the roots of mis- 
 government and neglect, and in striving to amend what was 
 wrong, it was not encouraging to hear that their country- 
 men at home were being told, on what seemed good 
 authority, that there was nothing of consequence to mend 
 — nothing at any rate which they would be likely to set 
 right. It was probably after reading the Glasgow speech 
 that Canning wrote in a postscript to a letter to Frere : — 
 
 " November i, i860. 
 " Really Sir John Lawrence ought to be shut up, and 
 Edwardes have his head shaved. The latter is exactly 
 what Mahomet would have been if born at Clapham instead 
 of Mecca." 
 
 Frere had strongly disapproved of Lord Dalhousie's 
 wholesale annexations from the time when, as has been 
 related, he opposed that of Sattara, which was the first of 
 the series ; * and it was with deep satisfaction that he found 
 
 * Pasted into Frere's diary for 1S61 is a newspaper cutting, part of 
 which runs thus : — 
 
 " The acquisitions of territory made by Lord Dalhousie on one 
 pretext or another were as follows : —
 
 i86o.] 
 
 LORD DALHOUSIE'S ANNEXATIONS. 
 
 371 
 
 himself in agreement with Lord Canning on the question, 
 and able to give him hearty support in initiating a change 
 
 (By Conquest.) 
 
 1849. The Punjab 
 1852. Pegu 
 
 (Seized for Misconduct 
 
 1850. Part of Sikkim 
 
 1852. Sind (Ali Morad) .. 
 
 1853. Country of Tularam Sonaputtee 
 1856. Oude 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 •• 73,534 
 20,000 
 
 or Misrule.) 
 
 1,670 
 
 5,412 
 
 2,160 
 
 23,738 
 
 (Alleged Failure of Heirs. 
 
 1848, Sattara 
 
 1849. Jitpore 
 
 10,222 
 
 165 
 
 4,693 
 
 30 
 
 2,306 
 
 80,000 
 
 2,532 
 
 1849. Sumbulpore 
 
 1850. Baghat 
 1852. Odeypore 
 1854. Nagpore 
 
 1854. Jhansi 
 
 1855. Bhoodawal Candeish 
 
 1856. Tanjore 
 
 " In addition to the above figures, Lord Dalhousie's Government 
 recommended the Court of Directors to escheat the following princi- 
 palities : — 
 
 (Alleged Failure of Heirs.) 
 
 1852. Kerowlee (Rajpootana) . . . . . . 1,800 
 
 1855. Adjyghur (Boondela) . . . . . . 340 
 
 1856. Inchalmeranjee . . . . . . . . 800 
 
 " The Court of Directors forbade the annexation in the case of 
 Kerowlee, and a succession by adoption was permitted." 
 
 Sir George Clerk, writing to Frere on this subject, says : — 
 
 "May 17, 1S60. 
 
 " Government writers in the Friend of India have already cost us 
 forty millions sterling (at least that was my estimate given when the 
 rebellion burst forth, and I see now little reason to modify it), and if 
 great care is not taken there may be another very long bill incurred in 
 a similar way. 
 
 "You know how warmly the gentlemen of the essay-writing school 
 in the Punjab and Calcutta . . . welcomed the fiat of the god of their 
 idolatry at Serampore : ' You must wipe out and have done with the
 
 372 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 of policy in reference to the adoption of heirs by native 
 Princes. 
 
 He writes to Sir George Clerk — 
 
 " June 14, i860. 
 
 " I hope you approve of Lord Canning's letters about 
 adoptions generally. ... I had no idea till he came down 
 that he held such opinions, and think it a great pity that 
 the fact is not more known. He seems to me to be some- 
 times overscrupulous in doing anything which can look 
 like a reflection on his predecessor, and but for this feeling 
 he would, I think, have done much more to correct the 
 mistakes of the last fifteen years. . . ." 
 
 In Frere's view the principles laid down in Lord 
 Canning's famous " Adoption Despatch " constituted a 
 change from an unjust to a just policy, and an altered atti- 
 tude of the British Government in the face of all native 
 India from that of an aggressive into a protecting Power. 
 In a letter to Lord Canning, he says — 
 
 " I think your Lordship and every one with you and 
 belonging to you ought to pass a very happy Christmas, 
 if happiness can be reflected ; for I am sure your noble 
 Adoption-Despatch will be read with joy in every Durbar 
 in India, and in many a village far enough from Durbars, 
 as a charter of a more generous policy than we have 
 ever yet publicly avowed." 
 
 His Minute on the subject is too long to be transcribed 
 at length. The following extracts will suffice to indicate 
 its tenor : — 
 
 " The statement as to the extent of doubt and mistrust 
 existing in the minds of native rulers and of all connected 
 
 rotten system of Princelings, Rajalings, and Taloukdarlings, and 
 having so coloured all the map of India red, civilization and Chris- 
 tianity will make rapid progress.' 
 
 " I do not grudge the cost of this lesson in money a bit ; but oh ! 
 the deplorable cost in the blood of innocent women and children, and, 
 with rare exceptions, inoffensive missionaries. . . ."
 
 i860.] LORD CANNING'S ADOPTION DESPATCH. 373 
 
 with them, on the subject of the future fate of their families 
 and states, is, I sincerely believe, much within the truth. 
 The present condition of the question discussed in the 
 despatch has deeply impressed all parties affected by it 
 with the belief, not only that any want of direct heirs 
 male would involve risk of the absorption of their State, 
 but that there was a strong and consistent desire on the 
 part of the Home Government to overrule any arguments 
 which might be adduced by local officers or Government 
 in favour of the continuance of a native State. It could 
 hardly be otherwise, seeing how prevalent this belief has 
 been of late years among all European officers who are 
 interested in such matters. I have repeatedly heard it 
 expressed in so many words, by natives, but I was never 
 more struck by it than when lately at Bombay I was 
 visited by many of the native gentlemen I had known 
 formerly in the Deccan. To every inquiry after any 
 native Chief, the answer generally referred more or less to 
 his prospect of leaving direct heirs, with an intimation, 
 where such prospect was remote, that the speaker con- 
 sidered the State as doomed. Once, when I expressed 
 regret at some statement of the mismanagement of a petty 
 State, the reply was, ' What can you expect ? The young 
 Chief has no children. It is not likely he will be allowed 
 to adopt. So every one scrambles for what he can get 
 while there is anything to be had.' 
 
 " It is impossible to exaggerate the evil of this state of 
 .uncertainty. Even the most intelligent Ministers of the 
 states that have best reason to be assured of our goodwill, 
 feel most keenly that we have no fixed policy regarding 
 them ; that their fate depends greatly on the character of 
 the British Agent at their Court, and that a harsh or indolent 
 Political Agent may turn the scale against generations of 
 loyalty and good service. . . . 
 
 " Nothing could be more blighting to every good and 
 loyal feeling than such a state of doubt as to our intentions. 
 It would be less pernicious if those concerned could depend 
 on a full inquiry into their claims, whenever the question 
 of succession might arise, but I know of no case in which 
 the parties more immediately interested have been told 
 to state their case fully so that Government might form a 
 judicial opinion on its merits. It has, in every case of the 
 details of which I know anything, been left entirely to the
 
 374 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 Resident or Political Agent to state his own impression of 
 the rights of both parties, one of which was to be 
 subsequently judge of the case, and the other party, the 
 family dispossessed, never directly knew till it was too 
 late, till the decision of the home authorities was pro- 
 nounced, on what grounds their claims had been dis- 
 allowed. . . . 
 
 " I feel certain that there never was a time when the 
 effect of the measures suggested by His Excellency the 
 Governor-General would be so great as at present, when it 
 would be regarded as a perfectly spontaneous act of royal 
 favour, calculated to remove the cloud of doubt and distrust 
 which has of late years hung over all our dealings with 
 native states, to give practical effect to the gracious 
 promises conveyed in Her Majesty's Proclamation, and to 
 bind to us and our interests a class which we have of late 
 years done much to alienate, and of whose value to a 
 sound and healthy condition of the Empire we could not 
 have stronger proof than the last three years have 
 afforded. . . . 
 
 " But there should be no delay ; the opportunity now 
 offered is never likely to recur, when the gift will have all 
 the grace of a free concession, and when it will be recog- 
 nized as a part of the same vigorous and generous policy 
 which crushed rebellion and mutiny, and granted a general 
 amnesty to vanquished rebels. 
 
 " And what is the price to be paid by us for this measure ? 
 I sincerely believe it will cost us nothing, not merely 
 because an honest and generous policy must be in the 
 long run the best, but because I see none of these states 
 absorbed by refusing permission to adopt which add as 
 much to our resources as if we had treated them in the 
 manner advocated by His Excellency the Governor- 
 General on this despatch. 
 
 " Sattara was supposed to be an extreme case in which 
 the fiscal value of the escheat did not admit of question, 
 but I question if it will be found to have added much to 
 our revenue, after defraying the cost of European troops 
 and European barracks, never needed till the country 
 was annexed. Certainly the surplus is nothing like what 
 would have been gladly and easily paid by the late 
 dynasty as a fine or tribute, in consideration of being left 
 as before in charge of a district which is now a per-
 
 i860.] NATIVE SUSCEPTIBILITIES. 375 
 
 petual source of misgiving and uneasiness to all connected 
 with it. 
 
 "There are other escheats like Jhansi, the memory of 
 which we would gladly wipe out at the price of the best 
 province which ever lapsed for want of heirs. 
 
 " This question can, in fact, never be looked on as a fiscal 
 question, for there can be no doubt that a province, large 
 or small, is managed much more cheaply by a native ruler 
 than by Judges, Magistrates, and Collectors, or even by 
 Commissioners and Deputy-Commissioners. Which is the 
 better form of Government for the people is a question 
 which will be discussed as long as foreigners rule India. 
 But it is abundantly evident that in our provinces now 
 under direct Government management, we have as much 
 to do as we can do properly for generations to come, and 
 ages must elapse before we can say we have done our 
 work so thoroughly in our own provinces that we are in 
 duty to our subjects bound to undertake the direct admi- 
 nistration of Native States. . . ." 
 
 The Adoption-Despatch granted, in Frere's view, no 
 more than was strictly just. And it was also consonant with 
 the characteristic chivalry which made him tender of the 
 dignity of native princes no longer able to oppose force to 
 the British power, and with the conviction that it was only 
 by respecting native susceptibilities and social traditions 
 that it was possible to govern India. Lord Canning was 
 entirely in accord with him in this feeling, and it showed 
 itself in many details of administration. 
 
 When in Sind, Frere had taken especial care of the 
 captive or pensioned Meers, and of the education of their 
 sons ; and Sir G. Clerk, writing to Frere, speaks of " the 
 admirable good sense with which they have met your 
 endeavours to train them for undertaking public duties." 
 
 Writing to Sir G. Clerk, he says : — 
 
 " November 27, i860. 
 " I am very glad you are going to relax the leading- 
 strings in which the Raja of Kolapoor has so long been
 
 3J6 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 kept ; but it will be only half done unless you can impress 
 your own views on some of the Politicals down in the 
 southern Mahratta country. You would be much amused 
 at the surprise of some of the gentlemen here at the 
 success of Lord Canning's experiment in giving judicial 
 powers to selected Sirdars in the Punjab, and Talookdars 
 in Oude. . . . Lord Canning will, I think, do all he can to 
 extend the system. Here there is not a Raja or planter, 
 however wealthy or influential, who can legally fine a man 
 an anna, or exercise the commonest powers of a Deccan 
 Patel. Illegally they, of course, kidnap and murder ; but 
 legal power they have none ; and as a consequence there 
 is not a soul who does possess any legal power in Lower 
 Bengal except, perhaps, the Governor-General and Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, and a Judge or two, who possesses a 
 stake of ,£20,000 property in the country, and probably not 
 one of them has ,£1000 in land. This cannot be a healthy 
 state of things, and I believe that all the men of property 
 — European and native — here would feel very differently 
 towards Government if they had only the same powers 
 as Justices of the Peace, etc., as you give to such men in 
 Bombay ; and I hope ere long to get something of the sort 
 tried here." 
 
 In a Minute on " Honorary Magistrates," Frere gives the 
 following instance of the advantage of having them : — 
 
 "December 12, i860. 
 " In Sind, when the railway commenced, we had an 
 influx of non-official Europeans of all classes. When dis- 
 putes and assaults occurred between them and the natives, 
 the higher railway employes were apt to think that the 
 official magistrates and Justices of the Peace were biased 
 against the Europeans of the railway. The impression 
 was evidently sincere, though, as far as I could see, un- 
 founded ; but it was evident that the feeling was getting 
 every day stronger and increasing in bitterness. The 
 agent and chief engineer of the railway company were 
 gentlemen of the highest character and respectability, and 
 I got them and a couple of the leading European merchants 
 put on the Commission of the Peace, and begged that they 
 would exercise their powers and take a seat on the Bench 
 and a share in the proceedings whenever they could,
 
 i860.] UNPAID MAGISTRATES. 377 
 
 especially when any of their own men were brought up 
 for trial. I do not know that they have ever sat on such 
 a case, but the result I anticipated was attained — they 
 felt that they were trusted, and that they had substantial 
 proof of the desire of the Government to ensure fair play 
 to their men. I heard no more complaints of the bias of 
 the magistrates against the railway Europeans, and I 
 believe that the good effects were felt in every class of the 
 non-official community." 
 
 It was a recognition of the same principles which led to 
 the creation of the Order of Knighthood of the " Star of 
 India " — a decoration to be conferred alike on Europeans 
 and natives of distinguished rank or merit. 
 
 "June 26, 1861. 
 
 " It is a symbol of a policy [Frere writes to Lord Canning] 
 often acted on, I believe, without being expressed, some- 
 times without being distinctly thought of even, and even 
 then the cause of much of our success in India, but never 
 till lately formally and with authority announced. I am 
 certain you will look back on your share in its creation 
 with the same sort of satisfaction as on the Adoption- 
 Despatch and the other cognate acts of your administration, 
 which will continue to bear fruit long after our conquests 
 are mere matters of history. 
 
 " I still hope that before you leave India you will see 
 your way to admitting the cadets of such native Princes 
 as are fit to be enrolled in the Order to take their places 
 habitually in the Court of St. James's, perhaps serving the 
 Queen in some way which would entitle them to their 
 spurs on other grounds than their hereditary rank." 
 
 The creation of the Order had originally been suggested 
 by the Queen, and she and the Prince Consort took an active 
 interest in its establishment and details.* Lord Canning 
 was its first Grand Master. The magnificent spectacles of 
 the Durbars which he held at Allahabad and Benares, for 
 conferring the decoration, seemed to mark the hour of 
 
 * The Prince Consort is represented in the mausoleum at Frogmore 
 wearing the insignia of the Order.
 
 3?8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 his triumph over the prejudice, calumny, and opposition 
 through which he had toiled on patiently, in the fear not 
 of man but of God, in as terrible a trial as ever tested the 
 faith and strained the powers of an English statesman. 
 
 The following are extracts from Frere's letter to Sir 
 Charles Wood, describing, at length, the scenes at Allahabad, 
 Benares, and Lucknow. 
 
 "November 6, 1861. 
 
 " The first and most important ceremony was the 
 investiture of the Knights of the Star of India on the 1st. 
 You will learn all the details of the ceremonial from the 
 despatches. What struck me was the very different way 
 in which it seemed to affect each chief, though the result 
 in all was satisfactory, and I think exactly what could be 
 wished. Sindia, like most Maharattas, is rather suspicious, 
 and was at first inclined to be unmannerly,* but it was 
 curious to see how much he thawed, and he went away in 
 the best of humours. Though self-willed, violent in temper 
 and fickle, with other faults of his race, he has some very 
 good qualities, and appeared to me really anxious to do 
 and be all that was wished by Lord Canning, for whom he 
 seems to have a great personal admiration and respect. 
 We had several long and unreserved talks when he found 
 I could converse with him in Maharatta, which is not 
 spoken in Hindoostan, and I was much struck with his 
 good sense and quickness. At parting he went out of his 
 way to assure me with great apparent earnestness how 
 much he was gratified by the favour he had received from 
 the Queen, and at the mode in which it had been conveyed 
 to him by Lord Canning, and how earnestly he hoped to 
 govern as Lord Canning wished. This desire to meet 
 Lord Canning's wishes appears, indeed, a ruling principle 
 
 * Sindia's demands were so unreasonable, and his temper so bad, 
 that Frere seems to have spent a good part of a day between Lord 
 Canning's tent and his. Being able to speak Mahratta, Frere could 
 converse freely with him, and finally succeeded in bringing him to a 
 better frame of mind. Sindia had remained faithful during the Mutiny ; 
 but at one time he had wavered. " I have hot coals in my stomach," 
 he had said to Dinkur Row, his Minister. "Then take care to keep 
 them there," was the reply.
 
 i86i.] THE STAR OF INDIA. 379 
 
 with him, and showing itself, as his very able Dewan Dinkur 
 Row told me, sometimes in a way rather inconvenient to 
 the older fashioned among his courtiers and Ministers. 
 There is evidently much good in him, and I should say 
 that few of the recipients of the honour here or elsewhere 
 were more deeply and usefully impressed by the ceremony 
 than Sindia. . . . The Begum of Bopal is a really charming 
 old lady, full of wit and repartee as well as of shrewd and 
 sensible remark. I saw her under great advantages at 
 informal interviews, when Colonel Durand, who was an old 
 friend of hers, introduced me to her and the other three 
 generations of her house — her old and rather bitter and 
 bigoted, but very voluble mother, her daughter (who 
 alone of the party retains the "purdah" or screen, which 
 is dispensed with when a lady reaches a certain age and 
 has to look after public business), and her little arch and 
 very mischievous grand-daughter, a child of five years 
 old. The Begum cross-questioned us closely on the 
 subject of female knights, and was evidently greatly 
 pleased by the interest her honours excited among our 
 own ladies. She wound up her questions with, ' Well, I 
 think any one may say I am in luck to get a star without 
 going to heaven for it.' 
 
 " Her reply, when Lord Canning invested her, will not, I 
 suppose, appear in the official report. She said : ' It was 
 impossible to express sufficient gratitude for such great 
 honours bestowed on one who had done so little to deserve 
 them. It was the wont of great sovereigns so to honour 
 their sincere and loyal well-wishers, and many others had 
 so distinguished eminent men who had served them faith- 
 fully. But it was reserved for the Queen of England to 
 distinguish her own (the Begum's) sex by conferring such 
 an honour on a loyal woman.' 
 
 "Sindia, who has an unfortunate impediment in his 
 speech, received his honours in silence. Pattiala, briefly, 
 and in very becoming terms, expressed his gratitude and 
 sense of the honour, and nothing could be better than the 
 effect when the little lady, with the utmost self-possession, 
 in a very clear and distinct voice, and in very elegant Oordoo, 
 broke the silence which followed Lord Canning's address, 
 spoken in that deep, clear, and emphatic tone of his, which 
 seems peculiarly suited for such occasions. . . . 
 
 "The ceremonial was very magnificent, and no experience
 
 380 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 of ordinary Indian camp life among Indian native poten- 
 tates, can give any adequate idea of the extent, order, 
 and magnificence of such a camp as the Governor-General's. 
 
 " But the most remarkable result, in my opinion, was the 
 degree to which the Chiefs and their followers seemed to 
 understand the sort of fellowship with our men of rank and 
 eminence, which is one great feature of an Order of 
 Knighthood. There was, of course, a great gathering of 
 European officers and ladies from all the neighbouring 
 provinces, and they generally seemed to feel correctly the 
 object of the ceremony, and in many ways gave natural 
 expression to their feelings. This was to be expected, 
 but I had not hoped it would have been so well understood 
 as it was on the other side by the Chiefs and their courtiers. 
 This was notably the case with the Begum, partly perhaps 
 owing to the smaller size of her principality, to her quicker 
 woman's perception, and to her seeing ladies as well as 
 gentlemen, when they called to pay their respects ; but it 
 was more or less marked in all. 
 
 " At Lucknow I observed a very marked improvement 
 in the appearance of the Talookdars. The deputation of 
 them which came to Calcutta some time ago were certainly 
 not fair specimens of the race ; they were shabbily dressed, 
 and the impression they left was one rather of disappoint- 
 ment ; but it would be difficult to find a finer body of men 
 than the hundred and fifty or two hundred who assembled 
 to meet Lord Canning and present the address on the 
 subject of infanticide ; — generally handsome, well-dressed 
 men, with many marks of great intelligence and energy 
 about them ; thoroughly well pleased with themselves and 
 with their government, and possessed with a feeling of 
 communion with us and our objects, of which I have seen 
 little evidence since I came round to Calcutta. As Mr. 
 Yule, himself a Bengal civilian, remarked, when looking at 
 them assembled, it was grievous to think what an amount 
 of valuable material for administration, in men possessed 
 of so much property, local influence, and intelligence, we 
 have for years systematically neglected and thrust from us. 
 Every one spoke well of the results of the experiment 
 made in entrusting the Talookdars with a share in the 
 administration. I am convinced that it is the greatest 
 and most urgently needed of all improvements on this 
 side of India, and I cannot imagine how society and the
 
 i86i.] THE INVESTITURE. 38 1 
 
 administration have kept together so long without it. 
 Nothing strikes a man from Madras or Bombay so much 
 as the entire exclusion from all power and all share in the 
 administration, of all native and non-official property, rank, 
 local influence, and intelligence. To me it goes far to 
 explain the rebellion which followed on the Mutiny, and I 
 feel assured that unless the example set in Oude be 
 followed elsewhere, our tenure of the country must remain 
 extremely precarious. I think Mr. Yule feels this, and I 
 only wish there were a few more men of his great expe- 
 rience, sound judgment, and natural sagacity, to make a 
 beginning elsewhere. At present very few of the older 
 civilians in Bengal or the North-West are advocates for 
 the Oude system, possibly because they have difficulty in 
 imagining anything so unlike the unnatural system to 
 which they are used ; but there is a marked change in the 
 tone of all who have had the means of comparing the two 
 systems." 
 
 "Calcutta, November 17. 
 
 " I am rather pressed for time to describe the Benares 
 meeting, to my mind, in some respects, the most remarkable 
 of all. The assembly was a very striking one, thoroughly 
 Hindoo, and thoroughly unlike anything to be seen in the 
 Presidency towns. Except in Rajpootana, it would be 
 impossible to see anything more characteristic. But I did 
 not understand its full significance till afterwards, when I 
 was going over the city under the guidance of a very 
 intelligent young Brahmin, a man of considerable local 
 property and influence, and well educated in English as well 
 as Sanscrit. He did not volunteer his remarks, nor were 
 they addressed to me, but to my companion Colonel Bruce, 
 who happened to ask whether the ceremony had gone off as 
 they wished, and whether the Governor-General's reply had 
 given satisfaction. After saying it had, the Brahmin 
 observed — 
 
 " 'It is a remarkable fact that till to-day no Governor- 
 General, as far as I can learn, has, ever since Warren 
 Hastings was here, received such an address from the 
 people of Benares.' 
 
 " Colonel Bruce asked, ' What particularly induced the 
 people of Benares so to distinguish Lord Canning? He 
 had never been much at Benares nor connected with it.'
 
 382 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 " The man replied, ' There is a very prevalent feeling 
 among us all who are Hindoos that he has done more 
 than any Governor-General to secure us our rights and to 
 restore that confidence in the British Government which 
 has been much shaken of late years.' In reply to further 
 questions he specified, not only the sanction of the right of 
 adoption, but the general tenor of Lord Canning's policy, 
 and added, ' I hardly think that English officers in general 
 are aware how much the character of Government suffered, 
 of late years, in the estimation of the less well-informed 
 classes, and of the extent to which even the better informed 
 had got alarmed and were prepared to believe that they 
 might any day be deprived of their property and rights.' 
 Pressed for instances, he said that he was himself an 
 admirer of Lord Dalhousie, and thought that no one could 
 justly find fault with the annexation of the Punjab or 
 conquest of Pegu, but that the annexations of Nagpoor 
 and of Oude were not justifiable with any reference to 
 treaty obligations, and were universally considered by the 
 natives as indicating our intention to aggrandize the 
 Government without any regard to either abstract justice 
 or covenanted faith. 
 
 " ' But,' he added, ' what struck us most with Lord 
 Canning, and went further than anything to reassure us 
 and win our confidence, was that, while the Government 
 was in danger and we at least thought the hold of the 
 country very precarious, he said not a word, he made no 
 promises and held out no hopes. But when the rebellion 
 was fairly extinguished and the country under his heel, 
 then he did what he thought just and right, and even the 
 most bigoted and prejudiced are inclined to believe the 
 Government in earnest and to trust its assurances.' 
 
 " In different ways and under different forms I had 
 heard all this a dozen times before, but it never seemed 
 to me more striking or instructive than after the meeting 
 at Benares." 
 
 Alas ! close upon these trumpet-notes of rejoicing and 
 hopes of returning peace, there fell suddenly on Lord 
 Canning the crushing stroke of a heavy calamity. Lady 
 Canning was attacked by fever, of which, after little more 
 than a week's illness, she died.
 
 i86i.] LADY CANNING. 383 
 
 Frere writes to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 " November 18, 1861. 
 
 " He [Lord Canning] seemed to forebode the result even 
 before the physicians were alarmed, and I have never 
 seen him so much moved as he was when he learnt the 
 real character of her disorder. When told that little hope 
 remained he was literally struck down by the blow, and, 
 knowing his power of self-control, I shall be very anxious 
 for the effect of the strain on him. 
 
 " I believe no man could be associated with him in 
 public life as intimately as you have been, without feeling 
 the warmest personal regard for him and a deep interest 
 in all that concerns him ; and no one could be even 
 slightly acquainted with her and fail to be struck by her 
 peculiarly noble and perfect character. You who, I believe, 
 knew her well, can understand that in India, wherever 
 she was personally known, her loss will be regarded as 
 a public calamity. She is, I believe, most justly looked 
 on as one of the few who, through good or evil report, 
 cheered him on in a course of singular difficulty when 
 everything seemed against us, and when he so nobly 
 maintained the national character, almost as much endan- 
 gered in success as in disaster. Now that his countrymen 
 are beginning to do him justice, they feel what they owe 
 to her who was so much to him in the hour of great peril, 
 and they even who know her not as one of the noblest 
 and best of women, do her reverence as one to whom 
 England owes a deep debt of gratitude. . . ." 
 
 Lady Canning had been one of the Ladies-in-waiting to 
 the Queen, by whom she was much beloved. Frere feared 
 lest the news of her death, coming without any previous 
 intimation of her illness, should be a painfully sudden 
 shock to the Queen, saddened as she already was by the 
 recent death of the Duchess of Kent. He, therefore, on 
 his own responsibility, at once telegraphed an order to 
 Bombay to despatch a special steamer to convey the news 
 of her illness, so that it might reach England some time 
 before the intelligence of its fatal termination. 
 
 Dissatisfied, in many respects, as Frere had been before
 
 384 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 coming to Calcutta with much of the administration of 
 the Supreme Government, he had then no prepossessions 
 in favour of Lord Canning as an administrator, greatly as 
 he had admired his firmness and moderation in the midst 
 of the peril and angry passions of the Mutiny. But once 
 on his Council, he was not long in perceiving and appre- 
 ciating his high merit, and realizing the great difficulties 
 he had to contend with in the prejudices and opposition 
 of most of those by whom he was surrounded, and through 
 whom he had to work. When he mentions Lord Canning 
 in his letters, his expressions become gradually more and 
 more cordial, more full of admiration and respect. 
 
 Thus he writes to Sir G. Clerk : — 
 
 " May 26, i860. 
 
 " I like very much what I have seen of Lord Canning, 
 and only wonder that he has been so unlucky and is so 
 little popular. He is generally so right and high-minded 
 in all his principles and intentions, that it vexes me to 
 hear him continually run down here by the people who 
 still, almost to a man, worship Lord Dalhousie and his 
 buccaneering policy." 
 
 And again — 
 
 " October 17, i860. 
 
 " Lord Canning is quite at one with you as to the 
 treatment of natives, high and low. He is almost the 
 only man I see or hear of on this side who thoroughly 
 agrees with you on such matters. I mean men in high 
 station. Many of them are inclined enough to patronize 
 native Chiefs, etc., under their own immediate orders, but 
 the idea of being liberal and courteous to all without 
 patronizing seems seldom to occur to them." 
 
 To Mr. G. T. Clark he writes : — 
 
 "June 19, 1861. 
 " I have been very agreeably surprised in Lord Canning. 
 He is by far the ablest and most liberal man I know in 
 India, and one of the most judicious and best-informed —
 
 I862.J LORD CANNING. 385 
 
 scrupulous, if such a thing is possible, to a fault, and very- 
 courageous. If his nature were a little more sympathizing 
 and genial he would be perfect as a Viceroy. As it is, 
 he would be one of the best and most successful Governors- 
 General if he had better instruments to work with. But 
 till I came round here, I had no notion of the extent of 
 his difficulties in that respect, and I often wonder how he 
 kept things together at all." 
 
 Sir George Clerk wrote afterwards to Frere : — 
 
 "September8, 1862. 
 " I admired Lord Canning because you, who saw him 
 near, saw so many estimable qualities in him, and I regard 
 your judgment as most sound. My estimate of him as a 
 Governor-General is that first his views were wrong, but 
 latterly right. I doubt whether any one but you and I — 
 and Lord Stanley — well know the course of his conversion. 
 He shines brightly (not in abilities, but in honourable and 
 discreet government) in comparison with his predecessor, 
 who was wrong from first to last." 
 
 Some of those * who, being in contact with Lord Canning 
 at Calcutta, had better opportunities of observing him than 
 Sir George Clerk, had noticed a gradual change in him 
 from the time Frere became one of his advisers. Not 
 only was Frere's character and society attractive to him ; 
 not only had his arguments and opinions great weight 
 with him, but his more genial manners and greater 
 tolerance of other men's foibles were constantly and 
 successfully exercised in endeavouring to establish more 
 cordial relations between the Governor-General and his 
 subordinates, and still more with the non-official Calcutta 
 Europeans, some of whom had not long before petitioned 
 for his recall. He had become, it was said, another man. 
 
 With the beginning of the year 1862 the time for Lord 
 Canning's leaving India drew near. Frere's private letters 
 
 * Notably Sir George Balfour, to whom Lord Canning once said of 
 Frere, " No man ever had a better adviser." 
 
 VOL. I. 2 C
 
 386 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 show that he, too, was looking wistfully towards home and 
 England. He had spoken on the subject of his taking 
 furlough to Lord Canning, when up the country with him 
 in November. Then came Lady Canning's death, and he 
 had to promise him that he would not leave him. And 
 now that Lord Canning was going, he was wanted to assist 
 his successor, Lord Elgin, on his taking up the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 He writes to Sir G. Clerk : — 
 
 " March 12, 1862. 
 
 " I felt very thankful that my own health stands pretty 
 well, and that I have some useful work before me here. 
 
 " It is not such as I like, for it is little a man can do in 
 this Council. All one's strength goes in preventing others 
 doing harm, and in getting a few men here and there — 
 such as Yule in Oude — room and liberty to work free 
 from the endless pedantic meddling of the old stagers 
 here. While alone with Lord Canning, I helped forward 
 many a good work he took heartily in hand ; but then the 
 labour was very great — too great to last. Owing to paucity 
 of hands with a full Council, more than half my time goes 
 in stopping mischief or removing obstacles thrown in the 
 way which never ought to have been put there, and little 
 time is left for doing anything actively useful. 
 
 " I used often to long to ask for Nagpoor, or Mysore, or 
 anything where I could work and see what came of the 
 work. . . . 
 
 " The guns have fired to tell us to go and meet Lord 
 Elgin. Lord Canning will probably leave in the Feroze on 
 Monday. I only hope we may find half as much to respect 
 in Lord Elgin. He has been much overworked of late, 
 and is looking very worn. . . ." 
 
 The entry in his Diary for March 18 is as follows : — 
 
 " To see Lord Canning at 3 p.m. He was at Barrack- 
 pore by her grave alone. Spoke of many things in hand : 
 police, land-tax redemption, etc. Told me my fault was 
 trying to reform too much at once and too radically. 
 Very kind in all he said — would write often and expect 
 only one letter for three. Much affected at parting. A
 
 1862.] LORD CANNING'S DEPARTURE. 387 
 
 large meeting in the great room to say good-bye, and at 
 the Prinsep's Ghaut. He left about six. [Here is pasted 
 in a slip of paper marked, ' The last label of the last box 
 received from Lord Canning. 18, 3, 62.'] " 
 
 In his home also he was now left lonely. All his 
 children were in England. Lady Frere's sister, Miss 
 Georgina Arthur, who had made her home with them, was 
 now married. And Lady Frere had suffered so much 
 from the Calcutta climate that, under peremptory doctor's 
 orders, her passage had been taken for England, and she 
 sailed from Calcutta within a few days of Lord Canning's 
 departure. 
 
 Lord Canning writes to Frere from Galle : — 
 
 "March 25, 1862. 
 
 "We anchored here at sunset yesterday. ... I have 
 been thinking much of you being now left alone. I hope 
 that as Lady Frere has done your bidding in leaving you, 
 so sorely against her own wish, you will honestly repay 
 her by breaking away the moment that Goodeve — or, still 
 more, your own feelings — tells you that you ought to do 
 so. The wear and tear of the Council has become such as 
 it never was before — e.g. Low, Ricketts, Wilson, Beadon, 
 Laing, Outram, all fairly prostrated in my time, — and it is 
 absurd and wrong to hold the six months' absence which 
 is claimed by a Member of Council to be an indulgence 
 to be taken only at the last gasp. I shall speak to Sir 
 Charles Wood strongly in this sense. ... If you go to 
 Bombay I shall have no fear . . . but stewing on in 
 Calcutta is quite another thing. . . . 
 
 " I have found here a letter from my sister [Lady Clanri- 
 carde], speaking in the most grateful terms of your great 
 kindness in sending her some translations from native 
 newspapers. It is very good and friendly of you, my dear 
 Sir Bartle. God bless you ! " 
 
 But Frere was not long to outstay his chief at Calcutta. 
 Sir G. Clerk had been compelled by ill-health to resign his 
 post at Bombay, and a letter from Sir Charles Wood was
 
 388 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 on its way, telling him that he had been appointed Clerk's 
 successor, without the usual preliminary inquiry whether 
 he was willing. Sir Charles Wood's letter is character- 
 istically frank. 
 
 " March 3, 1862. 
 
 " I have had under consideration for some time whether 
 I should recommend you for the Government of Bombay. 
 I was aware of Lord Canning's opinion of your fitness for 
 the place, but I had great doubts from two or three 
 reasons : first, there is an objection to sending a man to 
 supersede his seniors in his own presidency, as it is pretty 
 sure to create difficulties for him in his administration ; 
 next, that in your case this was aggravated by your own 
 brother being one of them, and that he also was in Council ; 
 and lastly, I did not wish to deprive the new Governor- 
 General, so soon after his arrival, of the benefit of your 
 advice and assistance. 
 
 " I have failed, however, in obtaining the services of one 
 or two men whom I considered fit for the place ; and this 
 being so, I have come to the conclusion that the advan- 
 tages of appointing you outweigh the objections — and I 
 have recommended you to the Queen, who has approved 
 your appointment, and your commission to take up the 
 government, on Clerk's coming away, goes out by this 
 mail. . . . 
 
 " I have written to you quite frankly what were my diffi- 
 culties in appointing you, and you will see that they in no 
 respect affected your own fitness for the office. Indeed, I 
 do not think that any one whom I could have appointed 
 would have united so many of the qualities required at 
 present as you do. I therefore feel quite confident as to 
 your career at Bombay. You have witnessed and taken 
 part in Lord Canning's recent policy, which Sir George 
 Clerk most highly approved and pursued. You are sensible 
 of the necessity of the reductions which Clerk has made, 
 and I can look to you with confidence to pursue the 
 same policy which has been recently pursued, and from 
 which I look for much and marked benefit to our Indian 
 subjects." 
 
 Frere at once accepted. He writes to Lord Canning :—
 
 i862.] APPOINTMENT TO BOMBAY. 389 
 
 "April 3, 1862. 
 
 " You can easily imagine how delighted my wife was. 
 She heard the news at Madras and telegraphed to say she 
 felt so much better, she was sure the change to Bombay 
 would be sufficient ; then for leave to land, and then that she 
 had landed, and the steamer had gone on, before I sent her 
 Goodeve's not very dubious assent, on condition that she 
 promised to go to England next year." 
 
 Lord Canning writes from Aden on his way home : — 
 
 " I have barely time for one line, but it must be written. 
 I have just seen in the Overland Mail your appointment 
 at Bombay, and in a succeeding one that of Morehead as 
 your successor. There can then be no doubt that justice 
 has been done, notwithstanding ' Friends in Council.' 
 
 " I do not know when I have read anything with such 
 unmixed pleasure. It has given me a fillip, and a new 
 start in the interest for India, which I take away with me. 
 God grant you health and strength to do your work in 
 your own noble spirit ! " 
 
 And again from Alexandria : — 
 
 "We sail for Malta this morning, after having passed the 
 whole of yesterday here. I have seen the Pacha, and 
 thanked him heartily for his good services to us in 1857. 
 Outram is here. He has death in his face, and yet is said 
 to be looking better than a fortnight ago. . . . 
 
 " I have found letters from Sir Charles Wood announcing 
 your appointment, and replying to a letter of mine, in 
 which I took exception (rather ungratefully) to the passage 
 in his despatch upon the Lucknow and Benares meetings, 
 in which he spoke of the feeling as ' conciliatory.' I hate 
 the word, and I said so — and that I wished he had used the 
 true and more complete epithet 'just.' His answer is 
 curious. The gist of it being that he does not object to 
 the criticism, but that he could not have carried the word 
 'just' on his Council. 
 
 " I did not say half what was in my mind when I wrote 
 from Aden. I do hope that now that you have got the 
 chief burden to bear on your own shoulders, you will take 
 more care of yourself, and not run risks from overwork. 
 It will be inexcusable if, with the help of Poonah and
 
 390 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 Mahableshwur, you do not so husband yourself as to be 
 able to work out your full time of usefulness. 
 
 " I wish Lady Frere had overtaken me (as she threatened 
 to do). I should so like to congratulate her." 
 
 Frere, writing from Bombay, replied : — 
 
 May 12, 1862. 
 
 " I am not surprised at Sir Charles Wood's difficulty in 
 getting his Council to agree to call your policy 'just,' and 
 that they preferred to call it ' conciliatory.' With some 
 of them, I fear, the latter is the better word, and there are 
 few who would agree with you that it is faint praise unless 
 coupled with the former. Sir George Clerk will be able 
 to tell you of many cases here in which he was unable to 
 do all he would have done, because he could only say 
 it was just. 
 
 " I hope better times are coming ; but Sir Charles Wood 
 must be on his guard to prevent a reaction against your 
 policy, which it will take years to put out of danger. 
 
 " I found here many details of a conspiracy which began, 
 I think, to be unravelled before you left. It is an evident 
 offshoot of the discontent which lost its chosen leaders in 
 the Nana, Tantya Topee, etc., and which still smoulders 
 in Central India and the Mahratta country. From all 
 I can learn, any spark, such as a war in Europe or with 
 America, would have been followed by a number of con- 
 certed but separate insurrections in all parts of India 
 between the Vindya Mountains and the Towchundra. It 
 was clearly checked and discredited about the time of 
 your Allahabad and Oude Durbars, and by the admission 
 of natives to the Legislative Council, the relaxation of 
 direct taxation, and, above all, by the general expression 
 of native feeling at your departure, that you had tried 
 to govern justly, and that in so doing you had given 
 expression to the fixed intention of the English Crown, 
 and to what is likely to be for some time the declared 
 and honestly intended policy of the English Government 
 and nation. I will try and get together the scattered 
 evidence on which my conviction rests, as soon as the 
 inquiries which are still in progress are complete ; but 
 I found Colonel Wallace, at Baroda, had come inde- 
 pendently to the same result, and I hear much from old 
 Mahratta acquaintances who came down to see me, and
 
 1862.] DEATH OF LORD CANNING. 391 
 
 all tell the same tale — high-handed proceedings of every 
 kind and grasping spoliation up to 1857, — their wild 
 hopes that we were to be shaken off, in which so many- 
 joined, that it became an act of loyalty in any native of 
 influence to be prudent and wait events. You may thank 
 Lord Elphinstone that he thoroughly entered into your 
 wishes and policy, and that there was here so little to 
 regret in what was done in the heat of action. Since 
 1858-59 the tide has set steadily the other way, and in 
 a few years, if we go on in the same course, we may rely 
 on something stronger than English bayonets to secure 
 the neutrality of the people when next we are in trouble. 
 But there is much yet to be done and a vast amount of 
 English prejudice to overcome, as well as of native dis- 
 satisfaction and sense of wrong to eradicate." 
 
 Lord Canning's letter, to which this letter is an answer, 
 was the last he ever wrote to Frere, and is so labelled 
 in Frere's handwriting. He had not " husbanded " him- 
 self. In less than six months after he had left Calcutta 
 his name was added to the bright roll of statesmen who, 
 leaving English homes of ease and comfort for the ser- 
 vice of the Queen in India, have spent their best years in 
 unremitting and exhausting toil, and met a premature 
 death in middle-age ere they could wear the honours 
 they had won. 
 
 Frere felt Lord Canning's death as a great personal 
 loss. He also felt it deeply as depriving India of the 
 benefit of a good and wise influence at the India Office, 
 which might have had much effect in modifying and 
 shaping its policy. 
 
 As the members of Lord Canning's Council — Outram, 
 Wilson, Laing — had, one by one, died or gone home in 
 broken health, Frere had, before the end of his first year, 
 found himself the senior, and, finally, the only Civil 
 member of the Council. By degrees he had become, as 
 has been described, Lord Canning's chief adviser; their
 
 392 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. X. 
 
 intimacy had borne fruit, for, though of such different 
 manner of life and demeanour, they were on essential 
 questions like-minded. As measure after measure was 
 passed, and point after point gained which he had long 
 and earnestly contended for, Frere gave the credit to Lord 
 Canning, his Chief, as he had formerly given the credit 
 of the work they did together to Jacob, his lieutenant. 
 There is no need now, even if it were possible, to appor- 
 tion it between them ; no need to do more than mark the 
 harmony with which the two traced the lines of a better 
 system of administration, and struck the key-note of a 
 changed and juster policy, under which India, casting 
 behind her the angry memories of the Mutiny, entered upon 
 a period during which, for the first time in her history, her 
 two hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, differing as 
 widely as it is possible to differ in race, religion, civili- 
 zation and manners, and steeped in traditions of bitter 
 hostility, have lived for more than a generation, and are 
 living still, protected alike from foreign invasion and civil 
 conflict, in security and at peace.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 BOMBAY. 
 
 Arrival at Bombay — Cotton cultivation and transport — Road-making 
 — Friction with Calcutta Public Works Department — Conference 
 of Engineers at Poona — Death of Lord Elgin — Sir John Law- 
 rence Governor-General — Frere's Minute on Frontier Policy — 
 Relations of Lawrence and Frere — Kattywar — Income-tax re- 
 pealed — Minute on Local Taxation. 
 
 FRERE'S time was so fully taken up in public business 
 with Lord Elgin during his last days at Calcutta that he 
 had little leisure for leave-taking. The Parsee community 
 presented him with an address of congratulation on his 
 new appointment, which bore testimony to his influence 
 in bringing about improved relations between the European 
 and native communities. The Civil servants and leading 
 people wished to give him a farewell dinner ; but the 
 Governorship of Bombay being a high prize, and one 
 rarely conferred on a member of the India Civil Service, 
 he conceived that his appointment to it might have 
 raised some feelings of disappointment in the minds of his 
 seniors in the service, and especially of the distinguished 
 civilian who was then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, to 
 whom expectation at Calcutta had assigned the post, which 
 made it the more courteous and considerate course to 
 decline any public demonstration of satisfaction at his 
 appointment.
 
 394 
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 Sir George Clerk was anxious for him to reach 
 Bombay before he himself left for England, that he might 
 see him and hand over the reins of Government to him 
 without an interregnum. He left Calcutta by the mail 
 steamer on April 9, and joined Lady Frere at Madras on the 
 13th. Thence they went by railway across the Peninsula 
 to Beypore on the west coast, a railway only just com- 
 pleted, their train being the first that had crossed India 
 from sea to sea. From Beypore H.M.S. Auckland took 
 them to Bombay, where they landed on the 22nd. Sir 
 George Clerk was ill at Poona, and thither Frere went on 
 
 GOVERNMENT HOUSE, PARELL, BOMBAY. 
 
 the same night to join him, arriving there at five in the 
 morning, and travelling back with him next day to 
 Bombay. The following day Sir George Clerk sailed for 
 England, Frere seeing him off and returning to be sworn 
 in at the Town Hall. 
 
 It was a great satisfaction to him to succeed a man 
 with whom on public matters he was so thoroughly in 
 accord. " It is, as you know," he says in a letter to 
 Outram, " no easy task to succeed such a man ; but it is 
 a comfort to find all that one's predecessor did so just,
 
 1862.] ARRIVAL AT BOMBAY. 395 
 
 wise, and generous, that there is nothing to regret or wish 
 altered in what has been done of late years." 
 
 Taking office at such short notice, Frere had his staff 
 appointments to fill up, and many household matters to 
 attend to without delay. And a serious loss had just be- 
 fallen him. When he left Calcutta, all his movable goods 
 were packed and put on board the Turon — a French sailing 
 vessel bound for Bombay. The ship was stranded and 
 lost on the James and Mary sandbank in the Hooghly, 
 and scarcely anything was saved. Amongst the lost 
 things were thirty-two cases of books and papers — a 
 valuable library, which he had been carefully collecting all 
 his life — collections of coins, antiquities, curiosities, and 
 hunting trophies, and many letters, memoranda, and other 
 papers, the loss of which was irreparable. Nor did 
 he obtain the usual sum of ,£2500 allowed to a new 
 Governor of a Presidency for expenses of outfit ; for by a 
 rule, for which it is not easy to see the reason, this allow- 
 ance is not made if the government is taken up by an 
 official already in India, who does not come from England. 
 
 He was received in his old Presidency with a pro- 
 longed jubilant shout of acclamation from Europeans and 
 natives — officials and non-officials, — his old Sind colleagues 
 leading the chorus. Overworked and wearied as he was, 
 such a welcome could not fail to give him fresh hope and 
 vigour ; and refreshed by the change from the depressing 
 climate of Calcutta to the drier and less enervating air of 
 Western India, he abandoned for five more years all 
 thoughts of rest and home, and applied himself at once to 
 his new work. 
 
 His work indeed was already more than begun, and 
 his plans of action more than half formed. In many 
 districts of the Presidency he was familiar with almost 
 every village, hill, and stream. Travelling, generally
 
 396 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 alone, as he had done in the early years of his service, day 
 after day, and week after week, through districts unde- 
 veloped and sometimes in abject poverty through failure 
 of crops, his mind had acquired the habit of contriving, 
 elaborating, and storing up in his memory for possible 
 future use, plans for public works to meet the wants of 
 each locality. 
 
 The Bombay Council consisted of three members be- 
 sides the Governor, one of them being the Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Bombay Presidency, who, though his duties 
 were chiefly confined to military matters, assisted in the 
 discussion of most of the important questions which came 
 before Council. Of the two civil members, one took the 
 revenue and finance, and the other the judicial and other 
 kindred departments, the Governor himself taking one or 
 two departments under his own more especial direction 
 (in Frere's case the Political, Military, and Public Works). 
 According to its importance, the business of each depart- 
 ment was disposed of by its head, or by him and the 
 Governor, or by both civil members and the Governor, 
 or, in case of difference of opinion, by the whole Council. 
 In general, each transacted the business of his de- 
 partment with the Governor separately, and only when 
 they differed was the other member called in. The 
 routine business was done by the secretaries to the 
 departments, the chief of which were the Finance, Judicial, 
 and Public Works secretaries ; and it was these secretaries 
 who communicated, as occasion required, with the corre- 
 sponding departments of the Government of India at 
 Calcutta or Simla. Matters of importance came before 
 the Governor and the whole Council and were discussed 
 at their meetings, which ordinarily took place weekly, and 
 were minuted upon by him. 
 
 Under the Act of 1862, a Legislative Council for
 
 1862.] ADMINISTRATION. 397 
 
 Bombay had been created, similar to that of Calcutta, 
 being made up of the Executive Council with eight 
 members added to it. These eight members were nomi- 
 nated by the Governor, some being official, some non- 
 official, and some natives. 
 
 The Legislative Council met for the first time under 
 his Presidency at Poona on July 15, 1862. It sat once a 
 week, sometimes oftener, till the middle of October ; 
 then met again at Bombay in December and sat till 
 April. Bills when passed by it had to be ratified by the 
 Governor-General in Council and by the Secretary of State 
 in England. 
 
 The Bombay Presidency comprises a vast territory, and 
 at that time sent its officers as far as Zanzibar, Aden, and 
 the shores of the Persian Gulf. Time and space made it 
 impossible for Frere to establish the same close personal 
 relations with every Civil servant under his authority, as 
 he had done in Sind. But many were former colleagues 
 and old friends, and there was the same spirit, the 
 same accessibility and sympathy, the same intimate 
 knowledge of details and appreciation of good work. 
 He gave public breakfasts once or twice a week, at 
 which any civilian, or any one else with an introduction, 
 could speak with him. And for those at a distance — 
 when the trouble or perplexity exceeded what written 
 counsel could dispel — there was always an invitation to 
 come and stay a week with him at Bombay, and talk it 
 over. 
 
 The first important matter Frere had to take in hand 
 was that of the production of cotton. 
 
 When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, and 
 a blockade of the ports of the Southern States followed, 
 it became evident that the supply of cotton from thence 
 would cease. Little cotton, comparatively, came to
 
 39§ THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XL 
 
 England from any other country at that time, and it 
 seemed as if the manufacture on which the livelihood 
 of hundreds of thousands in Lancashire depended would 
 be stopped altogether for an indefinite time. India had 
 for some years been exporting to England a relatively 
 insignificant quantity, mostly of inferior staple and quality, 
 amounting for the year 1858 to the value of about four 
 millions sterling. Could this small yield be improved and 
 increased so as to come near to meeting the want ? 
 
 To Frere it was no new subject. Long before, in Sind, 
 he had turned his attention to the introduction of finer 
 kinds of cotton, and to the improvement of the methods 
 of growing and cleaning it. In February, 1861, he had 
 written a memorandum on the subject for Lord Canning 
 — to be used as a resolution, or as a letter to the local 
 governments — pointing out what the local authorities 
 should do, and what they should avoid doing. 
 
 They must not, he says, take upon themselves the cul- 
 tivation, for they would, by so doing, discourage the 
 private cultivator and capitalist ; nor must they directly, 
 or indirectly, enforce its cultivation on landowners or 
 labourers. But, indirectly, Government might give much 
 useful encouragement by publishing information and 
 statistics as to the supply and price of cotton ; and by 
 sending competent officers, who might be accompanied by 
 members of the mercantile community, to examine and 
 report upon the best means of communication between 
 each cotton-growing district and the nearest port ; and 
 especially by facilitating communication and improving 
 roads, and making, where there were no roads, tracks 
 practicable for country bullock-carts going at a rate of from 
 two and a half to three miles an hour ; for it was the 
 difficulty and cost of conveying the cotton to the coast 
 which mainly prevented any great increase in its cultivation.
 
 i86 2 .] COTTON. 399 
 
 He had written to his friend Mr. Bourchier : — 
 
 "October 6, 1861. 
 " Cotton has always been a special hobby of mine, and 
 when first a check in the American supply was threatened, 
 I found Lord Canning fully alive to the importance of the 
 question as affecting India, and despite the sneers of some 
 of the old Indians, he adopted measures, the wisdom of 
 which is now admitted by all parties here and in England, 
 I think. The capacity of India to supply cotton is 
 absolutely unlimited ; but while America could supply all 
 you wanted much cheaper, India was only looked to in 
 years of occasional scarcity. India, therefore, grew grain 
 and other crops, for which there was a steady demand. 
 But if the demand for cotton continues, there can be no 
 doubt we can supply all you want. There is no denying 
 we have been backward in improving our roads and river 
 navigation ; but I trust we have turned over a new leaf in 
 this respect also, and that England will henceforth have 
 no reason to reproach us with neglect of her interests in 
 this particular." 
 
 A small import duty on cotton goods coming to India 
 was levied for purposes of revenue, and the Manchester 
 cotton spinners became alarmed, lest, in addition to their 
 other troubles, a competition by Indian manufacturers 
 might be fostered thereby, which would interfere with their 
 trade to India. 
 
 In answer to a letter from Lord Elgin,* asking for 
 information about this, Frere writes : — 
 
 "July 1, 1862. 
 
 " I see Manchester is agitating stoutly to get off the 
 remaining 5 and 5J per cent, import duty ; but its entire 
 omission would do them no good. If mills can live, and 
 spinning-jennies and power-looms work at a profit in 
 Bombay, with only 5 per cent, duty on English goods, 
 what chance will the English goods have against a factory 
 in the Nerbudda districts, in sight of both coal and cotton 
 fields, and with food and labour so much cheaper than in 
 Bombay? The difference in cost of production will be 
 
 * Lord Elgin to Sir B. Frere, May 24, 1862.
 
 400 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 more than 5 per cent, and the establishment of the 
 factories is certain to follow the railway now in course of 
 construction. 
 
 " But, as I think I once told you, I am convinced the 
 growth of cotton factories in India is the very best thing 
 which could happen for Manchester. It is doubtful 
 whether India can ever compete with Manchester in the 
 finer kinds of goods — those in which the cost of the raw 
 material is a small element — compared with the cost of 
 spinning and weaving it. But it is certain that on the 
 spot machinery will beat the spinning-wheel and hand- 
 loom, and that for a long time to come the Indian mills 
 will find their most profitable work in superseding the 
 native hand-made goods. 
 
 " But for steam-driven machinery of any kind, you 
 require better cotton, cleaner and more carefully picked 
 than any now used for hand-made goods ; and the first 
 effect of an extension of mills in India will be an improve- 
 ment in the quality of the cotton used for local purposes 
 and by India manufacturers. 
 
 " This is just what Manchester wants. At present the 
 vast quantities of cotton locally consumed in India are 
 useless for English purposes, for the cheap, ill-cleaned 
 cotton, which satisfies the Indian spinster and hand-loom 
 weavers, is almost unworkable by English steam-driven 
 machinery. 
 
 " But once improve the general quality of Indian cotton, 
 so as to make it workable by such machinery, and you 
 create a vast supply which is always in reserve for, and at 
 the command of, the long purse of the English manufacturer. 
 If the cotton exists and is to be purchased, he will get it 
 in time of American scarcity ; at other times he does not 
 want it. The great evil is, not that cotton is dear, but 
 that it is not procurable. England derives little help from 
 India, because Indian cotton is not grown and prepared 
 for machine-driven mills, and is useless to any but the 
 hand-weaver. Supersede the hand-loom by the factory, 
 and you will at once improve the quality of the cotton, 
 and you will make it of a kind which England will con- 
 tinue to use when other kinds fail. . . . 
 
 " Dinkur Row's proposal was far more sensible than that 
 of the Manchester agitators for a repeal of our import 
 duties. He said, keep the import duties on, and put an
 
 i862.] NEED OF ROADS. 401 
 
 excise on the Indian factory produce, then tax at equiva- 
 lent rates all sales of hand-made cloth. This cloth tax is, 
 or rather was, one of the most universal and profitable 
 indirect Indian taxes, and I believe Dinkur Row was quite 
 right in saying that it would enable you to give up every 
 direct tax except the large incomes." 
 
 Casting about for every possible means of improving 
 the communications with the cotton districts, Frere noticed 
 that in the country through which lines of railway ran, 
 the roads leading to the stations on the line had been 
 so worn with the unusual traffic as to become nearly im- 
 passable, and in such a condition from the passage of draft 
 animals over them as to become, in wet weather, quag- 
 mires which were absolutely pestilential.* Such a matter 
 in a European country would be set right by local 
 authorities, but in India it depended upon the chance of 
 its falling under the notice of some official, and Frere 
 found it necessary, by a paper sent round to the consulting 
 engineer of the railway department, to call attention to the 
 clauses in the railway contracts, which bind the railways to 
 provide roads from their stations to the nearest town or 
 made road. " Above the Ghauts," he says, " there is rarely 
 any visible road to any station, and, except at Poona, I 
 have not seen a single road at any station from Tanna to 
 
 * Mr. Shaw Stewart, the then Collector of Dharwar, writes : " I 
 write from here while the senses of smell and sight are still suffering 
 acutely from the dreadful state of the approaches to the stations at 
 Kandalia and Campoolie, to ask your authority to speak to Scott and 
 Malcolm on the subject. About two or three hundred yards of road 
 approaching either of these stations is absolutely half knee-deep in 
 the most offensive and malarious black mud. ... It is disgraceful to 
 our Public Works Department, most unhealthy to the wretched 
 people, European and native, who have to live in the neighbourhood, 
 and most offensive to all railway passengers." He goes on to suggest 
 that the roads in question should be made good at once, leaving the 
 question of cost to be adjusted afterwards between the Public Works 
 Department and the Railway Company. 
 
 VOL. I. 2D
 
 402 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XL 
 
 Sholapur which was not a discredit and blemish to the 
 great work with which it ought to communicate." 
 
 To Sir Charles Trevelyan, then just returned from 
 England to take charge of the Finance Department in the 
 Supreme Council at Calcutta, he writes — 
 
 "January 28, 1863. 
 
 " You desire my views as to what should be done if you 
 have a surplus of one million. I should say ' make roads 
 and canals.' And if you have two or three millions I 
 should still say ' make roads and canals,' and this, not 
 only because they will in a thousand ways tend to increase 
 your resources, but because they will, if well designed and 
 executed, wipe out the greater part of fifty millions of 
 debt, for till you make your railways pay, the expendi- 
 ture on them is so much addition to your debt. 
 
 " At present your railways are like the Great Eastern, 
 with nothing but canoes and catamarans to load and 
 unload her. We are doing well in this Presidency as 
 regards traffic on all open lines, but I see everywhere that 
 it can be increased, perhaps doubled, by a good network 
 of roads affording the necessary complement to the great 
 carrying engine already provided. 
 
 "After roads and canals, I should say pay your Courts 
 of Justice better, and give a much larger assignment to 
 education. I am thoroughly ashamed of the parsimony 
 with which our education grant is doled out, and with the 
 consequent delay in giving effect to the great despatch 
 of 1854. 
 
 " I would not for the present either pay off debt or 
 remit taxation." 
 
 But all his intentions and plans were rudely checked by 
 a sudden order from Calcutta, alluded to in the following 
 letter to Sir George Clerk : — 
 
 " February 12, 1863. 
 
 " At Calcutta we seem getting back to the good old 
 days when the secretaries led the Governor-General as 
 they pleased. I only hope Trevelyan will do something 
 to keep us out of the old groove, but unfortunately it is 
 just the groove into which a man of his turn of mind is 
 peculiarly apt to slip himself without knowing it.
 
 1 862.] PROGRESS CHECKED. 403 
 
 "Just before he came out we were preparing a budget 
 of Public Works, considerably in excess of last year's — 
 nothing very new or extravagant, but barracks, roads, and 
 canals, long since approved and sanctioned and urgently 
 wanted — when a telegram comes desiring us to cut down 
 our military works to two lacs less than last year, and our 
 general Public Works Budget to ten lacs less. This seemed 
 so absurd, with an overflowing treasury, that I thought the 
 telegram was a mistake. But the letter came and showed 
 us that Madras was even worse off, being reduced twelve 
 lacs. Bengal, North- West Provinces, and Punjab only six 
 lacs, while the Central Provinces (Nagpore, etc.), Oude, 
 Burmah, and the minor administrations under the Govern- 
 ment of India, have between them an increase of six lacs. 
 It is the old story. We have remonstrated publicly, and I 
 have written privately to Trevelyan and Lord Elgin, 
 urging the folly of stopping all useful and necessary works 
 just when we ought to be doubling our expenditure on 
 them. I can conceive nothing else that could possibly be 
 done so sure to unite all classes in abusing the Govern- 
 ment of India, and to leave it no friends even in this 
 country but the Secretaries and their creatures. John 
 Bright himself could not have planned things better to 
 show the justice of his own views. 
 
 " Unless our remonstrances are successful, almost every 
 cotton road and every barrack now making must stop on 
 April 30th, and no new ones can be commenced, and this 
 with cash balances three millions over the safe working- 
 mark and an increasing revenue." 
 
 He writes on the same subject to Sir Charles Wood — 
 
 "January 27, 1863. 
 " I trust there will be no check to road-making through 
 our own Public Works Department. We have been dis- 
 mayed by an order from the Government of India to 
 restrict our Budget of Public Works expenditure for next 
 year, 1863-64, to a sum ten lacs less than the very inade- 
 quate assignment for the current year. I send you a copy 
 of our letter submitting our Budget, and pointing out what 
 works must be stopped or lie over if the limitation is 
 insisted on. You will see that it amounts practically to a 
 stoppage of all our outlay on new roads and works of
 
 404 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 irrigation almost as complete as during the crisis of 
 1857-59, and a very serious curtailment of expenditure on 
 all the most useful works in progress, and this too at a 
 time when everything seems most favourable for a vigorous 
 prosecution of public works of every kind, the balances 
 higher than they have ever been, the revenue steadily 
 expanding, public credit good, trade flourishing, and the 
 people better contented than they have been for many a 
 year. I was at first in hopes that it was merely a measure 
 of precaution to enable Sir C. Trevelyan to have a large 
 margin for future liberality, but from a letter I got from 
 him on his way out, he speaks of ' the demand for public 
 works within the year being limited not only by our avail- 
 able means, but also by a due consideration of the increased 
 cost of labour and materials, and by the degree to which 
 it may be advisable to divert our limited stock of labour 
 from active immediate production to provide the machinery 
 of future increased production in the shape of Public 
 Works.' As regards available means, they were surely 
 never greater than they are just now ; labour and materials 
 are dearer than formerly, but much cheaper than they are 
 likely to be hereafter, for prices are steadily rising, and are 
 likely to rise, so that every day's delay must enhance the 
 cost of any given work. Our stock of labour is limited 
 more by the want of roads and means of communication 
 than by anything else. It is ample for all the public 
 works we could undertake, if you gave us a million more 
 to spend, without throwing out of cultivation a single field. 
 Of this you could not have a better proof than the fact 
 that the muster of labourers on the Bhore Ghaut railway 
 works has sometimes risen to forty-five thousand men, and 
 the outlay in wages to thirty thousand pounds a month on 
 a line fourteen miles long, without any visible effect on 
 the cultivation except to increase the demand for land in 
 all parts of the country whence the labour was drawn. 
 The reason is obvious. The Indian labourer is not usually 
 an Indian navvy. He is an agricultural labourer, who 
 tills his fields at the appointed season, and works on a 
 railway work when he would otherwise be idle. His rail- 
 way earnings are clear gain, and are devoted to a very 
 great extent, as soon as earned, to 'active immediate' 
 agricultural 'production.' I have verified this fact in a 
 variety of ways, by inquiry from many labourers as well as
 
 •863.] NORTH CANARA. 4° 5 
 
 from the engineers and contractors ; and it is still more 
 the case in the construction of common roads, where the 
 class of provincial labourers in earthwork is less numerous 
 than on our railways. So far, then, from expenditure on 
 Public Works curtailing agricultural production, the reverse 
 is the case. 
 
 " All this I will urge both on Sir Charles and on Lord 
 Elgin, and trust they may see the matter in the light in 
 which it appears to me. But I mention it to you at 
 once, for it seems to me that the curtailment of our 
 Public Works expenditure may cause much embarrass- 
 ment in a variety of ways. It is quite impossible that 
 India should fulfil all the expectations formed of her 
 cotton-producing powers, and, if the cotton famine con- 
 tinues, every expectant of cotton from India will attribute 
 his disappointment to Government. As long as we are 
 doing our best to give roads, etc., we have an answer to 
 the most serious of the popular complaints ; but such 
 a curtailment of our Public Works assessments as is 
 threatened, and the consequent stoppage of works in 
 progress which are visibly necessary to our cotton export 
 trade, will give a ground of complaint which it will not 
 be easy to meet, and which may do more harm than the 
 postponement of the works in itself. " 
 
 Frere spent some weeks or months of each year in 
 visiting outlying portions of the Presidency. Early in 
 February, 1863, he went through the district of North 
 Canara, which lies on the coast immediately south of 
 Goa, in order to see for himself what could be done 
 towards developing it, with a special view to the pro- 
 duction of cotton. He writes to Lord Elgin from 
 Coompta, a town on the coast some five hundred miles 
 
 south of Bombay. 
 
 ''February 20, 1863. 
 
 " I came to these parts to see what was going on in 
 this province, which was transferred from Madras to 
 Bombay last year. 
 
 " This place is the great outlet of the cotton grown in 
 Dharwar and the neighbouring districts of Bellary and 
 Mysore. It is a most thriving place, and the people say
 
 406 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 they shipped last year cotton to the value of three million 
 sterling, besides other produce. 
 
 " But it is merely a roadstead for coasting craft. There 
 is a small creek where the cotton is put into small boats 
 and sent across a dangerous bar to native coasting craft 
 lying at anchor in the roadstead, or aground on the beach. 
 These take it to Bombay ; but even these small craft have 
 no shelter, and are forced to put to sea and scud for the 
 nearest headland when it comes on to blow. Moreover, 
 the port is separated from the mainland by a wide estuary, 
 across which the cotton has to be ferried. . . . 
 
 " I doubt if you have in all your dominions a province 
 which will so immediately respond to expenditure on 
 roads as North Canara would. It is opposite one of the 
 only three depressions which break the barriers of the 
 Western Ghauts, and it has a naturally good port (Seda- 
 shegur), which the other two depressions have not. 
 
 " It has a magnificent back country, embracing, in 
 Dharwar and Mysore, our best cotton, coffee, and betel- 
 nut districts, with forests of the finest timber, and a rich 
 and very civilized coast population. It only wants roads. 
 The Madras Government lined out some admirable ones, 
 and roughly opened a few, which are already covered 
 with traffic to an extent which the road-makers could 
 never have expected, so much does it exceed the road's 
 capacity for bearing traffic. We are doing our best to 
 supply deficiencies, but all must come to a stop within 
 two months from the ist May next, unless you relent and 
 give us more money for our public works. 
 
 " In the belief that the finances would justify your 
 giving us more money for public works, and that, having 
 it to give, you would be sure to give it, we had been 
 preparing for a greatly increased expenditure on roads 
 and works of irrigation. I am certain we could most 
 economically and to the best advantage lay out in this 
 presidency half a crore * more than we have this year ; 
 and you may imagine our disappointment at finding that 
 you intended next season to cut us down ten lacs below 
 this year's most inefficient assignment. . . . 
 
 " I gave Sir C. Trevelyan a few of the reasons why I 
 think there is no case for reducing taxation. The fact 
 is that the late enormous importations of bullion have so 
 
 * A crore is a million sterling;-.
 
 1863.] SEDASHEGUR. 407 
 
 raised prices that neither landowners nor cultivators, 
 artisans nor traders, feel taxation as they did three years 
 ago ; and there is no class which will really thank us for 
 remitting taxes except that with fixed incomes, which is 
 a very small one. On the other hand, it is impossible to 
 exaggerate the want of common roads, or the evils it 
 produces. It is the great cause of the comparative non- 
 productiveness of your railway expenditure, which forces 
 into bolder relief the barbarous modes of travelling every- 
 where off the solitary grand trunk road. ... I found it 
 required a whole day to land at the capital of the district 
 (Honore), owing to the want of such a pier as every 
 herring fisher's village has in England ; and that when 
 at the capital, and wanting to go twelve miles to this 
 place, one of our great cotton ports, another day's delay 
 was needed to make preparations, not for a Nabob's 
 progress, but for simple locomotion by any means other 
 than walking. The choice lay between landing a horse 
 and posting bearers to carry me in a muncheel, either 
 of which operations required a whole day. I expected to 
 have ridden through a desert, and was surprised to find 
 a country very much resembling, but richer, if possible, 
 and better populated than, that between Galle and 
 Colombo. The sole obstacles to cart-traffic, along a road 
 which was studded with large, scattered villages, were two 
 rivers, either of them capable of being bridged for three 
 thousand pounds, but which at present forced me to 
 unsaddle and tow my horse after me in a canoe. It is 
 for want of these bridges that at Honore the only wheel 
 carriage was the native judge's palkee carriage, drawn by 
 two ancient bullocks ; and that no one in these parts 
 seems ever to quit his own immediate neighbourhood, 
 unless by sea or on foot or in a muncheel, and that they 
 are so old-fashioned, that when we want their cotton or 
 coffee or pepper we can find nothing they want in return 
 from us except our money or bullion, though they 
 evidently would, if the country were more accessible, take 
 a vast amount of our manufactures." 
 
 From Coompta Frere went to Beitcul, whence he made 
 a thorough investigation of the port and neighbourhood 
 of Sedashegur — a natural harbour, to which the attention 
 of several Manchester merchants had been already drawn.
 
 408 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 Sir William Denison had visited it from Madras before 
 it had been transferred to Bombay, and since its transfer 
 in April, 1862, Government had been pushing on the 
 work of making it available by connecting it by roads 
 over the Ghaut with the cotton-growing country in the 
 interior. Complaint had been made in Parliament, and 
 a claim for damages instituted against the Government 
 by the Manchester Cotton Company, on the ground that 
 there had been culpable delay, and that an undertaking 
 to complete certain roads and landing-places had not 
 been fulfilled. Frere wrote from Beitcul to Sir Charles 
 Wood a minute and detailed description of the position 
 and features of the harbour and the country near it, and 
 of the progress and condition of the roads that were being 
 made. The harbour itself, he found, required little doing 
 to it, except the addition of a pier and a wharf wall. The 
 great want was that of cart-roads to the interior. One had 
 been opened, but, owing to a severe visitation of fever, 
 which had incapacitated or scared away the labourers, 
 was incomplete. 
 
 He writes to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 " February 22, 1863. 
 
 "Almost every man we met had been, or was, when we 
 saw him, fever stricken ; and from the miserable, emaciated 
 figures, and enlarged spleens of some of the poor wretches, 
 I can well believe the tale we were told of its ravages 
 among the wild, ill-fed, and ill-clothed people of these 
 forest tracts. It spares no one, and though it yields 
 easily to treatment, and is seldom fatal to those who 
 clothe and live well, is constantly recurring, and seems to 
 strike terror into every class, especially the workmen, who 
 generally abscond after a few days' stay, and cannot now 
 be got to engage at all on the Ghaut works. 
 
 "Such visitations appear to recur periodically at intervals 
 of fifty or sixty years, and we therefore hope this, which 
 has now been on the increase for three years, may abate. 
 But Dr. Leith's conclusions are entirely negative. It is
 
 1863.] FEVER. 4<->9 
 
 not apparently of atmospheric origin, nor dependent on 
 race, food, water, or mode of living, save that the poorest 
 and weakest suffer most. . . . 
 
 " I had a meeting yesterday, at which all the local 
 European agencies of Bombay nouses and the Manchester 
 Cotton Company were represented by five or six gentle- 
 men from all parts of the world — Manchester, Glasgow, 
 Germany, and Australia. The Government engineers, 
 Revenue officers, Surveyors, and Foresters, and all Govern- 
 ment officials were present, and we discussed everything 
 relating to the place and province, came to a better mutual 
 understanding on many points, and removed some griev- 
 ances, real or imaginary, so that I hope things will go on 
 more smoothly in future. The mercantile men ended by 
 declaring they had nothing to suggest or complain of, and, 
 with the exception of an early completion of the Arbyle 
 Ghaut road, nothing to wish for which we could do for 
 them, so I trust you will find their employers in somewhat 
 better humour hereafter. . . ." 
 
 Sir Charles Wood supported Frere in his remonstrance 
 against anything being withheld of the amount originally 
 destined for expenditure on public works. He writes : — 
 
 " March 18, 1863. 
 " I have written very strongly to Trevelyan by the last 
 two or three mails, and I repeat my views by the present 
 mail. I agree with you, and I am very glad to have seen 
 the copy of your letter to him. I have told him that I 
 entirely approve of what you have said to him. I devoutly 
 trust that my letters will have arrived in time to prevent 
 their committing so grievous a mistake as reducing the 
 assignment for public works in 1863-4." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 "April, 1863. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you for your long and 
 interesting letter from Sedashegur. ... It is melancholy to 
 read your accounts of the fever, which my Manchester 
 friends say that we have got up for the occasion, in order 
 to justify our shortcomings. This is a specimen of their 
 candour. However, nobody much credits what they say.
 
 4IO THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 . . . Trevelyan has sent me a good deal of correspondence. 
 He has got into a strange notion of a surplus which he 
 thinks may be inconvenient, forgetting that a larger appro- 
 priation for public works — the very thing that we all want 
 — will make this fancied surplus disappear, whatever it may 
 be for 1863-4. • • • I cannot conceive what has been 
 running in his head, for we had talked it all over before he 
 went from home, and I thought that he had understood 
 my views and wishes completely." 
 
 Lord Elgin supported Frere's views as to expenditure. 
 In answer to Frere's letter from Coompta, he says : — 
 
 " March 11, 1863. 
 
 " I entirely agree as to the inexpediency of applying 
 our surplus, if we have any, to the reduction of taxation. 
 I expressed my views on this head very strongly to Sir 
 C. Trevelyan before I left Calcutta, and I hope that my 
 arguments were not without some effect on his mind." 
 
 The Government of India seems at this time to have 
 been so impressed with the expediency of showing a 
 favourable balance as the result of each year's finance — 
 because it would give confidence to English capitalists and 
 tempt capital to India — that it failed to realize that the 
 supply of the crying need of stricken Lancashire and the 
 protection of Indian districts from the risk of famine were 
 obligations paramount to that of producing a showy budget. 
 However, on this occasion, whether convinced by Frere, 
 or under Sir Charles Wood's or Lord Elgin's pressure, it 
 gave way, and the money for the works was supplied. 
 It was an inexpressible relief to Frere. " It has done 
 more," he says, in reply to the letter announcing the 
 decision, " than the climate up here (Mahableshwur) to set 
 me on my legs again." 
 
 Another impediment to the introduction and use of 
 cotton from India, which Frere set himself to remove, was 
 the serious adulteration to which it was liable before
 
 1863.] ADULTERATION OF COTTON. 4II 
 
 it was shipped from Bombay. Cotton of inferior staple 
 was put in to fill up, and there was tampering with it when 
 it was pressed, and during its transport overland. But the 
 worst pilfering was done by the native sailors — sons or 
 grandsons of men whose trade had been piracy — in the 
 small coasting vessels which carried it along the coast to 
 Bombay. These men used to cut open the bales, pilfer the 
 cotton, put in stones and dirt to make the weight right, and 
 then sew them up again. 
 
 A measure to prevent or punish these frauds was 
 introduced into and passed by the Legislative Council. 
 Frere would not make it a Government Bill, because he 
 preferred that the responsibility and credit for it should 
 rest on the mercantile community, and it was therefore 
 introduced by a merchant member ; but he warmly 
 supported it, and no doubt originally suggested, and had 
 a chief hand in formulating it. Under its provisions a 
 staff of inspectors and special police was appointed to 
 watch over the cotton in its various stages of transit. The 
 presses were licensed, and each had its stamp, so as to 
 facilitate the tracing of fraud. It was made penal to 
 bring adulterated cotton to be pressed. A small fee was 
 charged for licensing presses and for stamping, which 
 sufficed to cover all expenses of inspection and special 
 police, and to make the machinery of the Act self-support- 
 ing. It came into force on the 1st of January, 1864, and 
 had a very beneficial effect on the quality of the cotton 
 exported ; though as the Act applied only to the Bombay 
 Presidency, some of the cotton which came down the 
 Indus from the Punjab, to be shipped at Kurrachee, was 
 only partially protected by it. 
 
 In order to remove, as far as possible, all red tape 
 friction and jealousy between heads of departments and 
 the executive engineers of the different districts, and to
 
 412 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 reduce to a minimum the weary waste of time and energy 
 spent upon correspondence and report writing, Frere 
 invited them all to meet in a conference at Poona. The 
 freest discussion was allowed, and all were on equal terms; 
 the highest official had to listen to the most searching 
 criticism of his methods and plans ; the humblest man 
 could obtain a hearing for his pet scheme, or his tale of 
 delay or neglect. Sharp things were sometimes said ; but 
 Frere's tact and courtesy, and his acknowledged competence 
 and good judgment on engineering questions, sufficed to 
 maintain harmony and good feeling throughout the 
 protracted discussions. The Conference was a great 
 success, and it was repeated annually during his term 
 of office. 
 
 Writing about it to Lord Elgin, Frere says : — 
 
 " October 10, 1863. 
 
 " We ordered all the principal Revenue and Public 
 Works officers to meet the Council, and by oral discussion, 
 continued from day to day for some weeks, did more 
 actual work, and came to a clearer understanding of the 
 actual position and relative duties of all connected with 
 public works, than has been effected by the written 
 correspondence of many years past. 
 
 " Much indirect good was done by the full discussions 
 and explanations which these meetings permitted ; old 
 feuds between different departments were explained away 
 and reconciled ; the good, hard-working men who too 
 often get soured by isolation and compulsory idleness 
 were encouraged ; mistakes, where any existed, were 
 explained and cleared up, and we often got most valuable 
 information on points on which Government was in error. 
 The very few idlers who exist in the Public Works Depart- 
 ment were exposed, and one or two were deservedly 
 shelved. 
 
 " We found that we could not reduce the numbers or 
 cost of the superior grades of superintending or executive 
 engineers. But we found that the establishments we have 
 got, though a minimum for the smallest possible expendi-
 
 1863.] CONFERENCE OF ENGINEERS. 413 
 
 ture, could all of them undertake more work within the 
 limits of their own charges than had been previously- 
 assigned to them. If each executive engineer were work- 
 ing full power, the whole body could undertake to build 
 barracks, and make roads and canals, costing altogether 
 more than half a million sterling in excess of the assign- 
 ments you had already sanctioned, with an addition of 
 subordinate establishment of less than one per cent, on 
 the sum to be expended." 
 
 To Sir Charles Wood, Frere writes of the Conference : — 
 
 "August 8, 1863. 
 " The time will not have been wasted even should the 
 result be confined to correcting the feeling which I find 
 prevails very generally among some of our best and most 
 zealous revenue, as well as public works officers, that the 
 Government here and in Calcutta are combined with your 
 Council to stop all public improvement, and to reduce our 
 public servants to mere machines. No one who has not 
 seen it, in our remote stations, can have an idea how 
 deeply such errors rust into the minds of zealous public 
 officers secluded from all intercourse beyond the society of 
 their own station, nor how quickly these errors rub off 
 in the course of a few days of personal intercourse with 
 other officers of Government above and below them at a 
 large station like Poona and Bombay." 
 
 Prominent among the questions discussed was what 
 public works were most urgent, and how and at what 
 expense they could be carried out. Thus one imme- 
 diate practical result of the Conference was that the 
 Government became possessed of the best obtainable 
 collection of engineering opinion in the Presidency, on 
 which to found their plans and estimates for the coming 
 year. 
 
 General Fife, R.E., writing his reminiscences of these 
 Conferences, relates how — 
 
 " On one occasion, Colonel , an officer in political 
 
 employ, ventured to read a short paper in which he said
 
 414 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XL 
 
 that public roads could be constructed for about one-fifth 
 of what they cost under the engineers. Sir Bartle had, in 
 
 calling upon Colonel to read his paper, led us to 
 
 suppose that he was inclined to agree with him. A storm 
 
 arose. Some flagrant oversights on Colonel 's part 
 
 were pointed out, but as the paper had been drawn up 
 with some care, at any rate, and the engineers had no 
 warning of the attack that would be made upon them, 
 their rejoinders were not at once so conclusive as they 
 might have been. Subsequently several, including myself, 
 placed our ideas on paper, with, I am afraid, not a little 
 acrimony, and the papers were duly laid before the 
 Governor and might have drawn forth some rather severe 
 remarks from him ; but he took all in the most kindly 
 way. 
 
 " Public works received a great stimulus by the Con- 
 ferences. As in Sind, every one was electrified by the 
 sympathetic interest which Sir Bartle displayed, and never 
 before were the engineers so actively employed." 
 
 Upon the subject of irrigation, Frere writes to Sir 
 
 Charles Wood : — 
 
 "April 10, 1863. 
 
 " Last monsoon the rains failed us in the Deccan and 
 Candeish, and we had to spend several lakhs of rupees in 
 affording relief by famine works, etc. They are provinces 
 in which irrigation pays well, and where, from the small 
 Ryotwar tenancies, it must be done by Government. I 
 inquired how much we had spent on new irrigational 
 works within the last ten years, and found it was about 
 ,£7000, positively not more than .£700 a year in a country 
 larger than Scotland. There were at the time more than 
 two hundred schemes for irrigational works, some of them 
 on a very large scale, in the records of our Public Works 
 Department and awaiting execution. Inquiring the reason 
 of this extraordinary state of things, I was assured that 
 the utility of such works was so great, and the facilities so 
 obvious, that zealous officers were perpetually sending up 
 plans, but that, partly owing to the want of money, and 
 the constant changes in the department, few or none of 
 any size were ever undertaken. The great obstacle to 
 really doing anything was the want of a separate set of
 
 1863.] IRRIGATION. 415 
 
 officers to undertake works of this kind, and the impossi- 
 bility of combining them with the ordinary duties of an 
 executive engineer, such as road-making and barrack- 
 building and repairs. 
 
 " Captain Fife, who had devoted twelve years to irriga- 
 tional works in Sind, and had executed a great project of 
 Colonel Baker's with great ability and success, happened 
 to come out from England at the time, and I set him to 
 work, not to start new schemes, but to revise some of 
 the two hundred we had on hand, and to select the most 
 promising and profitable for execution. All this was duly 
 reported to the Government of India, and I did not 
 suppose there would be two opinions as to the almost 
 self-evident necessity for what we proposed. Captain 
 Fife spent several months in travelling and had a large 
 stock of well-considered and most paying schemes to begin 
 with next season, when a letter from Colonel Strachey 
 comes, many months after we had reported our plans for 
 approval, upsetting, with a few sarcastic remarks, all we 
 had done, and directing Captain Fife to refund all the 
 salary he had drawn. I have no doubt all will be rectified 
 as soon as I can explain to Lord Elgin and get him to 
 look into it and form his own opinions." 
 
 Ultimately this was rectified, and after much waste of 
 time and writing, Captain Fife was confirmed in his 
 appointment. 
 
 It is sometimes asserted that famines in India are more 
 frequent than formerly. The contrary is the fact. Until 
 comparatively recent times, a province might, owing to 
 a failure of the usual rainfall, be desolated by famine and 
 a million or two of people starved to death without any 
 one more than a few hundred miles off knowing any- 
 thing about it. Frere was once asked by one of his 
 children why he was perpetually thinking and talking 
 of irrigation. " If you had seen men's bones as I have," 
 he answered, "lying unburied by the roadside, and on 
 entering a village had found it untenanted by a living 
 person, you would understand why."
 
 416 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 In a rainless country like Upper Sind regular irrigation 
 is at all times essential to cultivation, and where there is 
 no irrigation there can be no permanent population. But 
 in the Deccan cultivation was, in ordinary years, carried on 
 by means of water supplied from small tanks, filled in the 
 rainy season. This uncertain supply necessarily failed in 
 exceptionally dry years, for the average rainfall is only about 
 twenty-five inches, and falls in four months of the year. 
 Periodical famines were the result. On the mountain 
 range of the Western Ghauts, running parallel to the coast, 
 there is in the driest years a very heavy rainfall, whence 
 in the rainy season the rivers bring down a great volume 
 of water. Frere, after much consultation with Colonel 
 Fife, determined to carry out the idea originally suggested 
 by Sir Arthur Cotton, of storing the water of the river 
 Moola, which flows by Poona, by means of a great lake. To 
 make this lake, a huge dam of solid masonry, about a mile 
 long and nearly a hundred feet high at the deepest part, was 
 constructed at a point ten miles from Poona up the valley. 
 By means of this dam was formed a sheet of water — named 
 after its constructor Lake Fife — twelve miles long and at 
 its broadest part a mile and a half wide. There was no fear 
 of its not being filled every season, for at the head of the 
 valley, in the mountains, there is a rainfall of two hundred 
 inches a year. By this work, which with the canals cost 
 about half a million, and was seven or eight years in con- 
 struction, the town of Poona, and the cantonments, and 
 about eighty-six thousand acres of land were supplied 
 with water. 
 
 This, which was only one among many schemes for 
 irrigation projected and commenced at that time, needed 
 all Frere's support, and that of his successor, Sir Seymour 
 Fitzgerald, to get it carried out, otherwise it would have 
 been shelved for an indefinite time. Afterward irrigation
 
 1863.] CENTRALIZATION. 417 
 
 works for the Deccan became more general, and the 
 department expanded from a nucleus of three or four 
 officers till it possessed a large staff. By the year 1884, 
 so much progress had been made that it was estimated 
 that the area of cultivation actually protected from famine 
 was as much as a million and a half acres — a result the 
 more remarkable owing to the extreme roughness of 
 the country, which in some places makes it impossible to 
 irrigate. 
 
 It soon appeared that the incident of the sudden 
 check to the supplies by the Government of India at the 
 beginning of the year was not to be exceptional, but was 
 to be followed by a series of similar difficulties and delays. 
 
 A traditional jealousy of old standing existed between 
 the departments of the Government of India at Calcutta 
 and those of the Bombay Government. The Bombay 
 Governor and his Council are appointed directly by the 
 Crown ; they were naturally tenacious of such indepen- 
 dence of action as they were entitled to exercise, and 
 chafed at being interfered with in matters of detail by the 
 officials at Calcutta. The Calcutta Secretaries, on their 
 side, were not likely to lose sight of the fact that their 
 departments were those of the Supreme Government. 
 
 Before the days of railways and telegraphs, distance 
 made it practically impossible to govern Bombay from 
 Calcutta, and in matters of pressing importance the 
 Bombay Government acted first, and asked for sanction 
 afterwards. But during Lord Dalhousie's rule a change 
 had taken place. His policy tended to restrain the 
 independent action of the Presidencies and to gather the 
 threads of all departments of administration, even to 
 the smallest details, into the hands of the Government 
 of India, and under his own personal supervision as 
 Governor-General. Opinions are still divided as to 
 
 VOL. I. 2 E
 
 41 8 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 whether the result was a brilliant success or a disastrous 
 failure. But however that might be, one consequence of 
 the increased centralization was that the work of the 
 Government of India grew to be so great that no one 
 man could any longer superintend it. The departments 
 at Calcutta became more and more independent, each 
 Secretary administering his own with less and less consul- 
 tation with his colleagues or control by the Governor- 
 General, who often knew little of what was being done 
 till he was appealed to to put an end to friction or to 
 settle a dispute. 
 
 The Secretary to the Public Works Department of the 
 Government of India at this time was Colonel R. Strachey, 
 an able man, with a considerable reputation. Unfortu- 
 nately, he had fallen into the fatal mistake, too common 
 at that time amongst Indian officials, of assuming that 
 experience gained in one province was equally applicable 
 and a sufficient guide to the circumstances and require- 
 ments of another, and of imagining that his official position 
 imposed upon him the duty of stopping or postponing all 
 undertakings, however highly recommended, as to the 
 nature and expediency of which he had not himself the 
 local knowledge to enable him to form a correct judgment. 
 His mistake was aggravated by the adoption of a style 
 and method of expressing himself in his letters which was 
 very unfortunate. The Bombay Government was not even 
 left to reform and organize its own Public Works Depart- 
 ment in its own way, but was ordered to make it conform 
 to the Calcutta Secretary's notions of what was best. 
 Frere, anxious if possible to avoid friction, did not appeal, 
 as he well might have done, to Lord Elgin, but yielded 
 the point. Nor did he on his own account resent the 
 tone of the official letters, which he did not permit for a 
 moment to trouble the even surface of his courteous
 
 1863.] CONDITION OF BARRACKS. 419 
 
 temper. But it was otherwise with his Secretaries and 
 lieutenants. 
 
 Matters reached a crisis when, early in September, 1863, 
 the Bombay Government sent in a supplementary estimate 
 of what would be required for expenditure on public works 
 during the ensuing financial year. Based on the result of 
 the deliberations of the Poona Public Works Conference, it 
 had been prepared with more than ordinary care, and was 
 sent in in conformity with the request of the Government 
 of India. The answer from the Public Works Department 
 at Calcutta, was a fiat refusal to consider it* 
 
 Frere thereupon wrote to Lord Elgin, explaining in 
 detail the circumstances connected with the estimate, and 
 the treatment it had received from the Calcutta Public 
 Works Department. The three most prominent items of 
 expenditure were for cotton-roads, barracks, and irrigation. 
 
 Of the want of roads enough has been said. As to the 
 urgency of the need for new barracks and for irrigation, 
 Frere writes as follows to Lord Elgin : — 
 
 "October 10, 1863. 
 " Sir William Mansfield completed during last season 
 a personal examination of all our great permanent Euro- 
 pean stations. The state of things he found and reported 
 was briefly this : Three men are habitually quartered in 
 shelter designed for two ; more than half the quarters 
 were never designed as permanent barracks ; half the 
 permanent barracks are of a design and construction now 
 exploded and condemned ; men are frequently living in 
 
 * This answer contained the following paragraph : — 
 " It is quite impossible for the Governor-General to make any 
 satisfactory selection from the long list of works submitted, so as to 
 reduce the estimated outlay to the sanctioned amount, complicated 
 as the present demand is by large additional requirements for repairs 
 and establishments. His Excellency, therefore, instructs me to state 
 that no orders can be given on the communication now under reply, 
 but that, when proposals are made in conformity with the instructions 
 of the Government of India before given, they will receive attention.''
 
 420 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 buildings long since condemned as insecure and unfit for 
 habitation (one of these has fallen since Sir William saw 
 it last year ; the men have been removed from another and 
 sent into tents). Fully half the hospitals are defective, or 
 unsuitable, and there is a general want of proper sanitary 
 arrangements.* 
 
 " Altogether, he showed half a million sterling was 
 wanted to house your European troops, not luxuriously, 
 but according to the ordinary and admitted requirements 
 of life in India. 
 
 "So with irrigation. The country was starving and 
 prices higher than at Delhi during the late famine, because 
 Government, the great landowner hereabouts, has done 
 nothing for forty years to make the supply of food equal 
 to the rapidly increasing demands for it. Nothing kept 
 us from the most serious scarcity but the enormous demand 
 for unskilled labour, caused by railway-making and the 
 development of trade in Bombay, giving all labourers who 
 can travel such wages as enabled them to bear the high 
 price of food, the food being brought from a great distance, 
 
 * Sir W. Mansfield's memoranda, when on a tour of inspection, 
 contain the following description of some invalid barracks which 
 he visited : — 
 
 " The barracks which, I understand, were originally intended to 
 last two years, are of the very worst temporary description. They 
 are simply sheds supported on poles, the walls being filled in with 
 lath and plaster. They are raised about three feet, and have large 
 double weather verandahs. The floors are of rammed earth cow- 
 dunged. 
 
 " If we recollect that about a hundred and fifty inches of rain fall 
 during the monsoon; that during that season damp fogs prevail in all 
 hills when rain is not actually falling, and these floors so constructed 
 are constantly absorbent of moisture, we may form to ourselves some 
 idea of the dampness of these wretched buildings for six months of 
 the year, and of the carelessness, amounting to cruelty, in leaving 
 them in such a state, while our military invalids are ordered into 
 them. 
 
 " How is it possible to expect that change of air or scene can 
 possibly avail to restore the health of the invalids, if we wantonly 
 expose them to such evil influence ? I confess I was shocked when 
 I saw the barracks, the more especially when the executive engineer 
 who accompanied me reminded me of the fact that the discussion 
 about rebuilding sites, unhealthiness, etc., had lasted for ten years."
 
 1863.] PUBLIC WORKS BUDGET. 42 1 
 
 when it might be produced at our doors if we invested 
 money at from ten to twenty-five per cent, in irrigational 
 works, which would return to our farmers cent, per cent, 
 on their enhanced outlay." 
 
 He wrote a short letter, summing up the matter, to Sir 
 C. Trevelyan : — 
 
 "October 12, 1863. 
 
 " I must beg your early and particular attention to our 
 correspondence with Colonel Strachey regarding our supple- 
 mentary Public Works Budget, sent in with a long explana- 
 tory letter. He answers by a flat refusal to consider our 
 letter. 
 
 " I have written at length privately to Lord Elgin, for 
 it seems to me absolute insanity to hold our hands just 
 now in spending any money we can spare on cotton-roads, 
 railway feeders, barracks, and works of irrigation. 
 
 " We fully believed that, in acting as we did, we were 
 only doing our best to carry out the views of Lord Elgin's 
 Government as explained by you in your speech of April 
 3rd.* We were more than ever convinced we were right 
 when Sir Charles Wood quoted your words on the subject 
 of Public Works assignments with so much approbation 
 in the House of Commons, and when we read his despatch 
 on the Report of the Royal Sanitary Commission ; as 
 regards military works, we had a positive invitation to 
 submit plans for immediate sanction, as late as June 1st, 
 from the Government of India. 
 
 "But I cannot believe we have in any way misunder- 
 stood you, or that any one but Colonel Strachey would say 
 that with money in the Treasury, with means organized for 
 spending it most economically, with a cotton famine in 
 
 * In that speech Sir C. Trevelyan said : " This Government [i.e. 
 the Government of India] desires it may be clearly understood that 
 any funds that can be expended with advantage on cotton-roads, or 
 works of irrigation or navigation, or on any other useful works, will 
 be granted during the ensuing year. There will be no difficulty as 
 far as money is concerned, the only limit will be the impossibility in 
 particular cases in getting value for outlay." 
 
 On July 23rd, Sir Charles Wood, in laying the India Budget before 
 the House of Commons, emoted these words, and added, " I can assure 
 the House that, for some years past, there has been no check whatso- 
 ever as far as money goes."
 
 422 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 Lancashire and a food famine impending in the Deccan, 
 with a possibility not remote of the Americans going to 
 war with France or with us, and still further curtailing the 
 cotton supply, with all the materials for a serious attack 
 in Parliament about all these questions, about guaranteed 
 Railway mismanagement or deficient barrack accom- 
 modation, — with all this in prospect during the next six 
 months that we should say, ' We will not make these roads 
 for cotton or grain, nor these works for irrigation, nor 
 railway feeders, nor barracks, for the next eighteen months, 
 because a Budget rule, which we have made and remade 
 half a dozen times and which we constantly violate, would 
 be violated once more.' 
 
 " For all the essentials of the Budget system the 
 supplement we submitted is far better and more care- 
 fully prepared, and more in order than any we have ever 
 sent. 
 
 " As for the style of the snubbing, it brought over the 
 most valuable (to me) of my colleagues with a formal 
 tender of his resignation, and I only appeased him by 
 a very confident assurance that it could not have been 
 sanctioned by Lord Elgin. He was perfectly in earnest, 
 and his loss would be a serious one to me." * 
 
 * Frere, quite indifferent to official arrogance when directed against 
 himself, was especially careful to check any manifestation of it to 
 others on the part of officials under his authority. He writes on one 
 occasion to the Chief Secretary of the Bombay Government : — 
 
 " March 24, 1863. 
 
 " I do not like to put on record any censure of your excellent Deputy 
 Secretary, but I wish you would instruct him to be more careful in the 
 terms of the letters to the High Court. 
 
 " His letter of March 1 1 is very curt and dictatorial, and not at all 
 in the tone which even the mildest of Chief Justices would like to 
 receive from the most despotic of paternal Governments. 
 
 " It ought never to have gone, however worded, without my seeing 
 it. I have often begged that every letter differing from or censuring 
 any high official should be sent to me before it goes. And this is 
 specially necessary when the High Court is to be told that we cannot 
 do what they want. This kind of snubbing does nothing but irritate 
 and make correspondence. 
 
 " I hope you will keep W from falling into this snare of young 
 
 Secretariat officers."
 
 1863.] FRICTION WITH CALCUTTA. 423 
 
 To Colonel Strachey himself he writes in terms of grave 
 but friendly remonstrance :— 
 
 "October 12, 1863. 
 
 " Your letter of September 25 has brought matters to 
 a crisis with our Government, and I have been compelled 
 to lay the matter before Lord Elgin, privately as well as 
 publicly, in terms I would gladly have avoided. 
 
 "Rely on it, my dear Strachey, you cannot be both 
 Superintending Engineer of every work in India, and also 
 Secretary in the Public Works Department to the Govern- 
 ment of India. You may very easily ensure that not a work 
 is commenced throughout India till you have been satisfied 
 as to the minutest detail of plan and estimate. But you 
 will find this will end in the paralysis of the Public Works 
 Department. You wish to ensure a maximum of work 
 and efficiency and a minimum of expense. The means 
 you adopt will ensure the reverse. All our money will go 
 in establishments and designs and writing ; the work done 
 will be a minimum. 
 
 " I cannot admit that for four-fifths of the work you 
 have any advantage over provincial engineers. There are 
 many great engineering problems, in solving which you 
 have an immense advantage over us, and are more likely 
 to be right. But in the humdrum work of roads and 
 bridges — plain earth-work and masonry — the only problem 
 is how to get as much as possible for the money, and the 
 more you check and correspond, the less is done. A wise 
 imperial Public Works Department would do absolutely 
 nothing in such matters, but give all the money it could 
 spare to the local Governments and judge by results 
 whether it had been well spent." 
 
 The correspondence in the mean time had gone home 
 to Sir Charles Wood. He writes, not knowing of Lord 
 Elgin's illness, to Frere : — 
 
 "November 16, 1863. 
 
 " I am very sorry, indeed, for the disagreement with the 
 Government of India on the Public Works matter. 
 Nothing can be more uncourteous, to say the least of it, 
 than Strachey's letter, and you are quite right to remonstrate 
 with Lord Elgin. But something or other has gone wrong
 
 424 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 about the expenditure on public works. I authorized, 
 more than a year ago, expenditure on useful reproductive 
 works not exceeding ^3,000,000. They said they could 
 not spend it. I urged them to do something. Then they 
 proposed barracks. I said, ' No, do your barracks out of 
 revenue, and don't be in a hurry, for the Sanitary Com- 
 mission here are afraid of your getting wrong in the mode 
 of construction. Spend money from cash balances, i.e. 
 beyond your surplus in reproductive works.' Then 
 Trevelyan says, ' I can provide for all we can spend 
 advantageously out of surplus revenue ; ' and so convinced 
 are the Government of India of this, that they reduce 
 taxation, and then Trevelyan begs me to pay off debt, as 
 it is a shame to keep money idle for which we are paying 
 interest. I do this, and then out comes a minute from 
 Lord Elgin, saying that I had ordered £ 3,000,000 on 
 public works, and he rather reproaches me for changing 
 my mind. I only changed in consequence of what they 
 said, and in compliance with their request. They have, 
 in fact, money enough for both purposes, and for all that 
 they can do. I shall have paid off the dissentient debenture- 
 holders on my creating a new 5 per cent, stock ; and there 
 will be somewhat more than ^3,000,000 to spend upon any 
 useful purposes. I mention this to you, that you may 
 know what has passed in case there should be anything 
 in Lord Elgin's letter to you as if I had checked expendi- 
 ture. I hope that his answer will put all straight." 
 
 The remonstrance never reached Lord Elgin. In 
 November he was travelling by a mountain pass over one 
 of the spurs of the Himalaya, when he was seized by 
 illness and could not proceed. He died on November 
 20th, a little more than a year and a half after his arrival 
 in India. 
 
 A recent Punjab frontier disturbance at Umbeyla, 
 which bad assumed a serious aspect from a British force 
 having been surprised and two guns taken, was then 
 attracting attention, and seemed likely, apart from other 
 evils which it was causing, to cost much money and cause 
 a curtailment in the supplies which were so much needed
 
 1S63.] DEATH OF LORD ELGIN. 425 
 
 for other purposes. Not knowing, in this sudden and 
 unexpected vacancy, who would be sent out to replace 
 Lord Elgin, Frere thought it was an opportunity which 
 ought not to be missed of calling the attention of the new 
 Viceroy, whoever he might be, to the old question whether 
 these unfortunate chronic disturbances on the frontier were 
 not the direct result of a vicious policy. He therefore 
 wrote to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 " November 28, 1863. 
 
 " Colonel Durand tells me that he has urged on you the 
 necessity of directing Lord Elgin's successor to proceed 
 to the Punjab as soon as he can. This is no doubt very 
 sound advice, though winter will probably have put a stop 
 to active warfare on the frontier before the new Governor- 
 General can arrive, and his first wish and duty will pro- 
 bably be to consider with Sir Charles Trevelyan how his 
 finances stand. 
 
 " But I trust you will also impress on him the necessity 
 for forming his own judgment on the general question of 
 the Punjab Frontier Policy, and for judging for himself 
 as to what sound policy requires, without giving undue 
 weight to mere length of residence and experience in 
 India, or even in the Punjab itself. I am very unwilling 
 to speak dogmatically on the subject, for my official 
 knowledge of what has lately been passing is very im- 
 perfect, and I have always had the misfortune to differ 
 from some of the highest and most able Punjab officers, 
 from Sir John Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery, 
 Sir Robert Napier and Mr. Temple. But the question 
 is so important, that a Governor-General can hardly hear 
 it too fully discussed, and when I see our difficulties on 
 that frontier taking the exact form always foretold by Sir 
 George Clerk, by General John Jacob, by Sir Charles 
 Napier, Lord Clyde, Sir W. Mansfield, and others, who 
 were not blind to the peculiar features of that frontier, the 
 event seems to me to afford strong ground for doubting 
 the soundness of a system which I never heard defended 
 on principle or by any arguments, other than those founded 
 on some supposed peculiarity of circumstance such as it 
 is argued must justify departure from principle. As for
 
 426 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XL 
 
 any arguments derived from the supposed success of the 
 Punjab frontier policy, you can judge of their value by 
 the present state of affairs up there, and by the undisguised 
 alarm with which it is regarded even by some of the best- 
 informed men in the Punjab itself. 
 
 " You have now got Sir George Clerk at home, and I 
 trust that the new Governor-General will hear and care- 
 fully weigh his views on this question. . . . 
 
 " As far as we can judge, General Chamberlain has made 
 no mistake in carrying out the plan laid down for him, 
 and has done his best with the large force under his com- 
 mand, and the real blame must rest on the system, which 
 creates many heads, political and fiscal as well as military, 
 which deals with these tribes on principles different from 
 those observed in dealing with regular governments, and 
 which thus imperfectly secures their respect and confidence. 
 
 "All this is rank heresy in the Punjab, and in other 
 quarters too, I fear. But if, as is undoubtedly the case just 
 now, a single check in an expedition like this makes your 
 Indian Chancellor of the Exchequer nervous for his sur- 
 plus, and creates such panic in Northern India that your 
 Government of India and Commander-in-Chief would 
 think it a most inopportune time to send our surplus force 
 to England or Canada, it is clearly desirable that a new 
 Viceroy should weigh well whether experienced statesmen, 
 like Sir George Clerk, and old soldiers, like Sir C. Napier 
 and Lord Clyde, were altogether wrong in the view they 
 took of the Punjab frontier system." 
 
 Writing (Nov. 29, 1863) to Colonel Herbert Bruce, then 
 Inspector-General of Police, a valued friend with whom he 
 had become intimate when at Calcutta, Frere mentions that 
 he had written strongly to Sir Charles Wood, pointing out 
 this Punjab frontier policy as one of the very important 
 questions for his new Governor-General to consider and 
 form his own opinion upon without being bound to follow 
 in the Punjab track, but that he had little expectation of 
 its doing any good ; that in England there was always a 
 constituted authority on such questions, and that Sir John 
 Lawrence was then that authority. Even if he were not
 
 1863-4.] MINUTE ON FRONTIER POLICY. 427 
 
 sent out as Lord Elgin's successor, the India Office and the 
 new Governor-General would probably be entirely guided 
 by his views and advice on the matter. 
 
 " However, magna est Veritas, and one of these days they 
 will find out the truth, and your views will be acted on, 
 but not while Lawrence has anything to say to it. 
 
 "I hear nothing from anyone but Sir H. Rose. He 
 sent me an account of the affair of November 20th, in 
 which Chamberlain was wounded. It arrived just in time, 
 to go home and prevent a newspaper version of ' General 
 Chamberlain killed ; forty thousand men will be required 
 to re-establish our position.' This latter part was actually 
 in type as an extra to go home by the mail. So much for 
 the Punjab system of ' keeping these things quiet.' " 
 
 Frere followed up his letter to Sir Charles Wood by 
 writing and sending him a Minute, in which he repeated 
 shortly the old arguments and principles he had so often, 
 in concert with John Jacob, and afterwards at Calcutta, 
 sought to enforce, in the hope that it might be read and 
 considered by the new Viceroy, whoever he might be, 
 before he left England. But before the Minute could 
 arrive, Sir John Lawrence had been appointed Governor- 
 General, and had already sailed. Frere, on hearing this, 
 writes to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 " January 1, 1864. 
 " Everything will be in readiness for Sir J. Lawrence 
 going up to the Punjab at once. His firm will, clear 
 sense, and great experience will do good wherever he goes, 
 and I sincerely trust you will hear of everything quieting 
 down in and around the Punjab. Much will depend, as 
 to the permanence of the quiet, on whether he looks at 
 questions up there in the light in which you or any English 
 statesman would view them, or as, with few exceptions, 
 our Punjab men do. ... I will tell Sir J. Lawrence, as 
 frankly as I have told you, my views on the subject and 
 the important bearing of the question on the finances, and 
 having done so, whether we agree or not, you may rely on
 
 428 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 my loyally supporting him to the best of my power as 
 long as I remain in India." 
 
 Frere, finding that Sir John Lawrence had left England 
 without having seen the Minute, sent a copy of it to meet 
 him at Galle, enclosed in the following letter : — 
 
 "January 7, 1864. 
 
 " This will hardly be in time to welcome you to India, 
 but you will, I trust, be assured that no one in India is 
 more sincerely desirous than I am that health, strength, 
 and wisdom may be granted to you to enable you to 
 discharge efficiently the great task which is before you. 
 
 " I believe you will find your greatest difficulty, for the 
 present at all events, in that part of India with which you 
 are best acquainted, and I should hesitate in offering my 
 opinions unasked, if I thought you could possibly have 
 seen, as clearly as those in India, during the last three or 
 four years, the growth of feelings and opinions which seem 
 to me to threaten serious and speedy mischief unless some 
 corrective can be applied to them. 
 
 " I have stated my views very fully in the enclosed 
 Minute. It was written when I supposed you would have 
 dealt with it in London, instead of in Calcutta. I should 
 not have materially altered its substance had I known you 
 were coming out as Governor-General, but I might in that 
 case have deferred their expression till you were able to 
 consider our position on the spot." 
 
 And to Sir Charles Wood he writes — 
 
 "January 13, 1864. 
 
 " I have sent Sir John Lawrence a copy of the Minute 
 I sent you on our frontier policy. When I wrote it I 
 expected him to have criticized it with you in London, 
 and I do not now expect him to express concurrence in 
 its views. But I trust when he looks at the question by 
 the light of his English experience of what we say of our 
 neighbours in Europe when they invade and shoot and 
 burn villages to ' make an impression ' on savage or in- 
 subordinate borderers, he will feel that a change is neces- 
 sary in the Punjab policy, and I trust he may be able to 
 effect it."
 
 1863-4.] STANDARD PLANS. 429 
 
 Upon the vexed question of the control of the details 
 of Bombay Public Works by the Calcutta Secretary, Sir 
 Charles Wood writes — 
 
 "January 4, 1864. 
 "It is hardly worth while going into the discussion on 
 the Public Works question, as I talked it all over with Sir 
 John Lawrence before he went, and he is not at all dis- 
 posed to strain the control of the Government of India 
 over the expenditure of the other presidencies. I agree 
 with you that in all minor matters, such as ordinary roads 
 and such like, the control of the Supreme Government is 
 merely financial, i.e. we can allow you so many lacs for 
 them. When I say merely financial, I mean that they 
 must not go into the mode of execution. But financial con- 
 trol may and ought to mean more in works of importance ; 
 that is to say, that the Government of India, before it 
 sanctions beginning a work, like a large annicut, for 
 instance, which may cost a quarter of a million, has a right 
 and ought to be satisfied that the estimate is a probable 
 estimate. 
 
 "As to barracks, the sanitary people here don't think 
 any place safe unless they have seen it. They say that 
 the best constructed barracks are deficient in some very 
 essential particulars, and therefore all plans for new 
 barracks, or for extensive alterations in old barracks, are 
 to come home to be criticized and amended." 
 
 Frere was prepared for this check to the building of new 
 barracks. He had written to Trevelyan : — 
 
 "November 24, 1863. 
 
 " I hear that all barrack building is to be suspended 
 till Colonels S and C have decided on ' standard- 
 plans ' for barracks all over India. 
 
 " If this is the case, rely on it their time will be wasted 
 and your money misspent. Of all crotchets, this ' standard- 
 plan ' crotchet is the most runaway of hobbies. Of course 
 the barracks can be built according to the ' standard,' but 
 they must be at best necessarily unsuitable in a ratio 
 varying as the distance of the site where they are built, 
 from the spot where the standard plan-maker learnt his 
 notions of comfort.
 
 430 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 " Had this ' standard-plan ' fashion been in vogue ten 
 years ago, you would have had the huge barrack for a 
 hundred and two hundred men stereotyped. Even now, 
 the science of how to house a thousand Europeans in 
 India, with least injury to their health, is quite in its 
 infancy, and the experiments necessary to teach us can 
 only be postponed by this ' standard-plan ' drawing. 
 
 " The antidote to the evil lies in the fact, always over- 
 looked by those who advocate such attempts at enforced 
 uniformity, that you cannot reduce English engineers to 
 blind copying machines, and that each man, as he rises in 
 the department, revenges himself for so many years of 
 compulsory building, according to his predecessor's 
 standard, by setting up a new ' standard ' of his own. The 
 ' standard ' is altered by each successive head of the 
 department, and common sense thus tardily has something 
 to say in deciding what is to be built. 
 
 " But the mischief done meantime is incalculable. So 
 I hope you will set your face against the system. Let us 
 all try who can do best for our soldiers with the money 
 you can give us. Let us compare notes, and learn by 
 each other's success or failures, and then, in ten years 
 more, you may be able to tell how soldiers should be 
 housed in each province. But the ' standard ' set up by 
 experience for one province, will always differ more or less 
 from the ' standard ' of its neighbours." 
 
 As to the incorrectness of estimates, which Sir Charles 
 Wood said required to be checked by the Supreme 
 Government, Frere says, in a letter to him : — 
 
 "July 22, 1864. 
 " I am far from defending Indian Public Works esti- 
 mates in general. I know that they are too often very 
 vague and inaccurate guides as to what is proposed or 
 probable in the way of cost. But my argument is that 
 the further you remove the authority which is to examine 
 into their correctness or sufficiency, the less chance have 
 you of real accuracy. If the officer making the estimate 
 knows that it is to be dealt with promptly and practically, 
 with a view to immediate execution, by some authority 
 near at hand, he is careful to make it as careful and
 
 1864.] FINANCIAL CONTROL. 43 1 
 
 accurate as possible. But if he knows it is to be sent to 
 the other side of India, and to be there delayed and 
 criticized not on its real merits, but according to some 
 paper pattern of perfection, he inevitably becomes careless. 
 I frequently elicit, sometimes in so many words, but oftener 
 in substance, that an officer 'supposed the estimate was 
 only wanted to send to Calcutta,' ' was sure the execution 
 would be so long delayed that fresh designs would be 
 called for,' as excuses for carelessness in framing estimates, 
 and I have found men in superior situations, who ought 
 to know better, excusing themselves for letting estimates 
 pass imperfectly revised, by saying they knew it would 
 all be pulled to pieces when it reached the Government of 
 India. 
 
 " The root of the evil is the incongruous character of 
 the functions attempted by the Government of India — 
 to direct details in some of the minor administrations, and 
 to lay down principles for the larger Governments. — No 
 man can at one moment criticize the arches of a bridge 
 in Coorg or Oude, and the next moment remember that it 
 is the general direction of the road from Madras to 
 Bombay, and not the details of execution, which he has to 
 discuss with the Madras and Bombay Governments. 
 
 " The result is a great show of accuracy on paper, but 
 utter paralysis of executive power, besides much irritation 
 and want of due subordination to the Government of 
 India, which is the more vexatious when we are very 
 cordially desirous to obey, and to aid the Governor-General 
 in any object he may have in view." 
 
 " Financial control," it was clear, might be made to 
 include or exclude almost any sort of control, according 
 to the fancy of the controller. It soon became evident 
 that the Calcutta Government considered itself by no 
 means precluded from " going into the mode of execution " 
 of matters which could not be said to be specially important. 
 The question of financial control in matters of detail was 
 raised by the following incident. 
 
 In March, Dhuleep Singh, the deposed ruler of the 
 Punjab, arrived at Bombay on his way back to England,
 
 432 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 after visiting India to attend his mother's funeral, and was 
 received as a guest at Government House. Before leaving 
 he had considerable expenses to meet, and finding that he 
 was £2000 short, asked Frere if the Government would lend 
 it to him. For many reasons it was expedient that it 
 should not be withheld ; and there was no risk of loss, as 
 Dhuleep Singh enjoyed a large pension from Government. 
 Frere complied, but not knowing how the disbursement, 
 not being provided for under any established head of 
 Budget expenditure, would be received at Calcutta, he 
 wrote at once to Lawrence to say what he had done : — 
 
 "April 4, 1864. 
 
 " I thought you would wish me to do this, if only to 
 facilitate his return to Europe, and to prevent the necessity 
 for his borrowing here in the bazaar. 
 
 " So I have ordered 20,000 rupees to be advanced to 
 him. 
 
 " If you approve of my doing so, I must beg you to 
 let the Financial Department know, so as to prevent their 
 telegraphing to lock the Treasury. 
 
 " When I was lately in Guzerat, I found that we had 
 repeated at Surat and Ahmedabad the error for which we 
 are now paying so dearly here in Bombay and elsewhere. 
 We had made no provision for the land needed for 
 approaches, etc., near our railway stations till after the 
 railway was opened, and the land was rising rapidly in 
 value. 
 
 " I found the Municipal Commissioners prepared to 
 relieve Government of the greater part of their respon- 
 sibility, provided Government could aid them to buy the 
 land at once. To do this they asked for an advance of 
 money, for which they would pay Government interest. 
 
 " So I gave them an advance, and thereby saved, as I 
 thought, for Government, some three or four lacs of 
 rupees. 
 
 " But without inquiry as to what I had done, or why, 
 we get a telegram from E. Lushington, and a letter from 
 Mr. Peachey, saying that you had peremptorily forbidden 
 the advance.
 
 1864.] FINANCIAL CONTROL. 433 
 
 " I know Mr. Peachey to be an excellent man and a 
 good accountant, and had he been with me at Surat and 
 Ahmedabad, he would no doubt have satisfied you and 
 Trevelyan that what I had done was a certain saving of 
 several lacs of rupees, which will now fall on Government 
 as an inevitable charge, partly railway and partly Public 
 Works. 
 
 " All this we have explained in proper official detail. 
 
 " But this obliges me to trouble you about this small 
 affair of the Maharajah's advance. For I do not want 
 him, if he goes to the Treasury on the strength of my 
 promise, to find the door shut by a telegram from Calcutta 
 conveying an order from you." 
 
 Sir John Lawrence's answer was as follows : — 
 
 " April 14, 1864. 
 
 "You will have received my telegram regarding the 
 advance to the Maharajah. 
 
 " As regards the other matters touched on in your letter, 
 Trevelyan strongly objects, as indeed do the other Members 
 of Council, to your using Government money in the 
 manner you describe, especially without authority first 
 obtained. What they say is that if you can do it in one 
 case, you can do it in another. If you can advance one 
 lakh of rupees, you may advance twenty ; and that, in 
 short, there can be no financial control under such a 
 system. Now, I think there is a great deal of force in 
 what is said. I think that in most cases time would 
 admit of a previous reference, and when it did, such a 
 reference would greatly facilitate business in the long run, 
 and of course, in emergent cases, you could telegraph. In 
 the case of the Maharajah, I would not authorize the 
 advance until I had asked Trevelyan's consent. . . . 
 
 "We are now barely able, as you know, to make the 
 income balance the expenditure. New demands are every 
 day coming upon us, and if we are to meet them we must 
 economize as far as practicable, and this we cannot do if 
 we let the control of the finances pass out of our hands. 
 You may depend upon my helping you, whenever I can do 
 so consistently with my duty." 
 
 Frere's reply was as follows : — 
 
 VOL I. 2 F
 
 434 THE LIFE 0F SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XI. 
 
 "May II, 1864. 
 
 " From some expressions in your letter of April 14, I 
 am not sure that you are aware how much the restrictions 
 now put on us are in excess of what has been usual 
 hitherto. 
 
 "Formerly, as you know, up to i860, the Government 
 of India was content with a somewhat irregular and im- 
 perfect assertion of its legitimate power of control over 
 the finances of the Madras and Bombay Governments. 
 Its action was vexatious to those Governments without 
 being effective. The Budget system was to remedy all 
 this, to give the Government of India an effective and 
 regular power of control, while it allowed the local Govern- 
 ments greater liberty of action within certain defined 
 limits. 
 
 " The old customary restrictions on the creation of new 
 appointments, on the alteration of salary, etc., were re- 
 asserted. The several branches of service were defined 
 and classified under fixed heads, for each of which 
 a sum was fixed in the Budget. Within that sum the 
 local Governments were to be allowed more than their old 
 liberty of action, provided they created no new offices, 
 altered no fixed rates of salary, did not exceed the whole 
 sum allowed for each head of service, and made no transfer 
 from one head of service to another without the leave of 
 the Government of India. 
 
 " All this has in practice been altered within the last 
 two years, and we are now strictly tied down to the exact 
 details entered in the Budget without the slightest power 
 to vary them without your previous sanction. 
 
 " What used to be required was your subsequent ap- 
 proval and sanction ; the practical difference is immense. 
 
 " It is not easy to make my meaning clear without an 
 example. I will take that of the advance you lately dis- 
 allowed for purchase of land for roads and railway ap- 
 proaches at Surat. I made much local and personal 
 inquiry on the spot from officers in every department, and 
 I clearly saw that an immediate advance of a lakh of 
 rupees would purchase land which must sooner or later be 
 bought by Government for various public purposes — railway 
 approaches and great trunk-roads, landing piers, etc., and 
 which land, if not bought then at once, would in a few 
 months rise enormously in value. . . . Under the system
 
 1864.] FINANCIAL CONTROL. 435 
 
 heretofore in force the advance would have been made at 
 once. It would have stood at my personal risk, till I was 
 relieved by my colleagues in the Government approving 
 of what had been done by me individually, when away 
 from them. Then, if there were savings under the same 
 head, say ' purchase of land,' at the end of the year, the 
 advance might have been cleared by a simple order of the 
 Bombay Government, otherwise it would have been neces- 
 sary to satisfy you and to get your sanction to the extra 
 charge by showing that it was an ultimately profitable or 
 necessary purchase. 
 
 " But under your late orders, not a shilling can be ad- 
 vanced on any account, no matter what the urgency of the 
 case. You do not treat us as a merchant treats his agents, 
 advancing money and honouring bills on the assurance 
 that when the agent's explanation comes it will be found 
 that all has been done for the good of the firm. You stop 
 by telegram every payment of which, as in this case, you 
 hear accidentally, for which you have not given previous 
 orders. 
 
 " You say the practice we followed is objectionable ; that 
 if we are allowed to advance a lakh we may advance 
 twenty, and that there would be an end of all financial 
 control. 
 
 " This depends on the understanding between the parties 
 and the degree of confidence reposed in the agent. No 
 power to do good can be given without conceding the 
 power to do mischief. 
 
 " But has the power been so abused in times past when 
 it was unquestioned ? Was the Empire worse when you 
 and Lord Elphinstone and Lord Harris incurred expenses, 
 which had not only never been previously sanctioned by 
 the Government of India, but which you were for months 
 unable to report or explain ? 
 
 "You will say these are extreme cases, not likely to 
 recur. But I maintain that there is always in India some 
 need for public servants acting without orders, on the 
 assurance that, when their superiors hear their reasons, 
 their acts will be approved and confirmed ; and I hold that 
 when you have extinguished that feeling of mutual con- 
 fidence between superior 'and subordinate authorities, and 
 made public men as timid here of acting without orders 
 as they are in England, you will have removed one great
 
 436 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. LCh. XL 
 
 safeguard of our Indian Empire. It does not take long so 
 to bridle a body of public servants as to paralyze their 
 power of acting without orders. 
 
 "But, you will say, why not, in the case of the Surat 
 advance, at all events, report your reasons and ask for 
 previous sanction ? 
 
 " If you would trust our judgment and discretion this 
 would be easy. We need not have written more than I 
 have written above ; but the Government of India always 
 insist on reasons and explanations at least as full as those 
 we require from our subordinates. 
 
 " Your Secretaries treat an opinion on which our Com- 
 missioners, Secretaries, and Councillors concur, just as if it 
 came from Oude or Singapoor, if anything more critically, 
 requiring the same proof that we require from a Collector 
 or Commissioner. This costs time, and saving of time is 
 the great object. 
 
 " I could not give a better example than one which 
 greatly influenced me at Surat. It had just occurred in 
 Bombay. 
 
 " Owing to delay in fixing the railway termini and their 
 approaches in Bombay, we shall have to pay at least a 
 quarter of a million sterling more for land than need have 
 been paid had we been more provident when the railway 
 works began. The case I now allude to is only one out of 
 many. Nearly a year ago we fixed as nearly as possible 
 a portion of the Baroda line close to the town, but it was 
 not possible to fix it exactly ; roads were to be diverted, 
 crossings to be made, whether level or by bridging was a 
 subject of controversy, and the exact curve of the line de- 
 pended on surveys and reclamation schemes which would 
 take months to mature. A small property was to be 
 crossed ; the owner wanted twenty-five thousand rupees 
 for it, the Collector valued it at twenty-two thousand. 
 Had we been acting as prudent private parties, we should 
 have given twenty-five thousand rupees, all the owner 
 asked, taken what we required for our railway and road 
 diversions, and as the event proved, have sold the rest, 
 which we did not require, for twice what we gave for the 
 whole. The Collector proposed so to buy the whole, but 
 was overruled according to official routine. After some 
 months, roads, curves and crossings, etc., are all settled 
 in regular form. We are able to tell the owner the
 
 1864.] FINANCIAL CONTROL. 437 
 
 exact strip of his property we require ; he insists on an 
 enhanced price ; we go to arbitration, and have to pay him 
 more than double his original demand for a portion of his 
 property, leaving the remainder greatly enhanced in value. 
 
 " With a dozen such cases before me in Bombay, I pro- 
 posed to save you from similar results at Surat and 
 Ahmedabad. What I did, would, four years ago, have 
 passed as a matter of course, and you would have said, 
 the Governor did well to take so much personal trouble 
 and responsibility in order to save ultimate charge to the 
 State. If it turned out as he expected you would have 
 praised him. But in any case, whatever the result, you 
 would have supported him. I do not think you would find 
 that real economy is promoted when you discourage the 
 practice of a Government, with such an elaborate apparatus 
 of advisers and councillors as we have here, from acting on 
 its own responsibility and trusting to its finally satisfying 
 you that it has acted well. 
 
 " I know you have personally no jealousy of the action 
 of the local Government, and you would give us all possible 
 liberty. But it is otherwise with most of those about you. 
 The abler and better they are, the less, generally, do they 
 believe in the possibility of anything being perfect unless 
 they themselves direct every detail. They can see no 
 urgency in my Surat case, simply because what I saw and 
 heard on the spot they cannot see and hear, and it never 
 occurs to them to rely on my convictions without calling 
 on me to state all that actuated me before I was convinced. 
 Two or three years hence they will be indignant at having 
 to pay heavily for the same land, but they will then have 
 forgotten that had I been allowed to do so, I could have 
 got it for nothing. 
 
 " They would equally have doubted the necessity for 
 much of your expenditure in 1857 which had not their 
 previous sanction, and, had the Budget system then existed, 
 would probably have stopped by telegram Sir Henry Law- 
 rence's outlay to provision the Residency because ' it was 
 not provided for in the Budget, and there was nothing in the 
 Financial Department to satisfy them of the necessity.' It 
 may not come in our time, but sooner or later this present 
 system of insisting on previous proof satisfactory to all 
 departments at Calcutta or Simla before a rupee is ex- 
 pended, of allowing nothing to be spent at the risk and on
 
 438 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 the responsibility of a local Government, in the belief that 
 they will ultimately give good reasons for what they have 
 done, must bear evil fruit. The habit of never treating 
 them otherwise than as they treat their Collectors, of never 
 saying ' though there is nothing to satisfy the forms of the 
 secretariat, still we will trust a Government composed 
 of so many old and experienced servants, at least till we 
 have heard them,' must soon destroy the race of Indian 
 officials who would venture to act on their own responsi- 
 bility without previous orders." 
 
 To all this Lawrence only answered, civilly enough, to 
 the effect that Budget rules were Budget rules, and must 
 be adhered to. 
 
 The management of the Electric Telegraph throughout 
 India suffered from similar causes, due to over-centralization 
 and jealousy of local control. It was notoriously execrable. 
 The messages were inaccurate, delayed in delivery, and 
 the clerks were said to take bribes to deliver them to the 
 wrong persons. Instead of being profitable, it was a loss 
 to the revenue of something like a quarter of a million 
 
 a year. Frere says of it, in 1862 — 
 
 " October 27. 
 " It has never outgrown the mistakes of its first organiza- 
 tion, when it was a nest of jobbery under men who in very 
 rare cases were gentlemen. They were responsible to no 
 one but the superintendent. . . . No single mortal man 
 can control such a department so scattered over all India, 
 if he concentrates the immediate authority over individuals 
 in his own hands. He must work through local officers 
 armed with authority to inquire and to reward and to 
 punish all the rank and file of the department, who should 
 feel that they are responsible to those who see and know 
 how each officer works." 
 
 And in reply to Sir Charles Wood's complaints, he can 
 only write — 
 
 "JulyS, 1864. 
 
 " You desire me to look after the telegraph, but except 
 between Kurrachee and Bussora we have nothing' whatever
 
 1864.] TELEGRAPHS. 439 
 
 to do with the telegraphic administration and are most 
 peremptorily forbidden by the Government of India to 
 interfere in any way with the management. Everything 
 is centralized through the Director-General at Calcutta. 
 . . . Some months before Sir John Lawrence came out 
 things had become so bad in the Telegraphic Department 
 that we went up to the Government of India with 
 complaints from merchants and others, and proposed a 
 Commission of Inquiry into the management of the depart- 
 ment ; but this was refused, with a strong exhortation to 
 mind our own business." 
 
 Such being the evils complained of, the head of the tele- 
 graphic department at Calcutta met them as follows : A 
 watch was set to detect any messages of a private character 
 sent officially at the public expense. Six or eight cases, 
 involving altogether a sum of fourteen or fifteen rupees, 
 were made a matter of complaint against Bombay 
 officials. In one of them, a young Civil servant applied 
 to know if he could have leave to Europe, as his father 
 had an illness which threatened his life. The answer 
 Frere's private secretary sent was : " His Excellency says 
 you may have the leave you apply for, if Mr. Mansfield 
 approves. The Governor is most sorry to hear of your 
 father's illness." The last sentence of the message was 
 made the subject of a formal complaint as being unofficial, 
 and therefore liable to be paid for. In another case 
 Colonel Marriott, the Military Secretary to the Bombay 
 Government, received a message from an officer asking for 
 leave and requesting an answer by telegraph, for which he 
 offered to pay. Colonel Marriott telegraphed the answer, 
 at a cost of two rupees, ten annas ; but " believing that it 
 was his duty to act with a certain discretional courtesy 
 on the part of the Government," did not charge the re- 
 cipient with it, but sent it officially. This heinous act drew 
 down upon him the following reprimand from one of the
 
 440 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XL 
 
 Secretaries to the Supreme Government : " His Excellency 
 in Council regrets to observe that a public servant in so 
 high and responsible a position should apparently fail to 
 see that when an officer, to whom is entrusted the duty 
 of sending messages on the service of Government and of 
 paying for such messages out of the public revenue, uses 
 the authority of his position to send a private message at 
 the public charge, he is, in fact, guilty of a breach of trust." 
 With reference to this censure on Colonel Marriott, 
 Frere writes some time afterwards to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 "January 28, 1866. 
 " In the telegraph matter . . . Mr. Maine, who was with 
 me when the discussion was forced on me, seemed to 
 doubt whether Sir John Lawrence was aware of the 
 childish system on which the Home Office at Calcutta was 
 acting in its telegraphic criticisms, and I hoped, when the 
 matter came before the Governor-General, he would do 
 justice to Colonel Marriott, one of the most scrupulous 
 and conscientious officers in his army, who had been 
 accused of a ' breach of faith ' [trust] ... I am sure you 
 will agree with me when you see the paper, that if Colonel 
 Marriott deserved the censure passed on him, he must be 
 unworthy to hold the Queen's commission. I feel it the 
 more, because I saw him sorely tried in the share mania 
 a year ago, and he was one of the very few who was never 
 for a moment blinded as to what was becoming in an 
 English public officer of trust. I believe a more sensi- 
 tively honourable man could not be found in your Indian 
 service." 
 
 The relations between the Calcutta and Bombay Govern- 
 ment officials did not improve. Frere had again to com- 
 plain of the tone of the letters from the Calcutta Public 
 Works Department ; and there were counter-complaints 
 against the Bombay Public Works Department, the then 
 head of which, though a very able man, had the reputation 
 in his own Presidency of being somewhat arbitrary and 
 despotic.
 
 1864.] INTERFERENCE IN DETAILS. 44I 
 
 He writes to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 "September 8, 1864. 
 
 " You see most of our important correspondence with 
 the Government of India, but you do not see the constant 
 worrying interference in details, which keeps all local 
 officers and departments in a state of chronic irritation 
 and rebellious feeling towards the Government of India, 
 nor can you see a tithe of the labour it costs me to 
 keep our correspondence within the bounds of the 
 respect due to the authority of the Viceroy and his 
 Council. My colleagues share the irritation, but do 
 not feel the responsibility, which rests on me alone in 
 this respect. 
 
 " Sir John Lawrence has been good enough to allow me 
 to communicate freely direct with him on all matters, and 
 I have freely availed myself of his permission. But I can 
 see that he regards me as the zealous but rather expensively 
 inclined Commissioner of a district, with a number of 
 deputies who, like the Commissioner, are a little inclined 
 sometimes to run wild. That we are dealing here with a 
 state of things of which nothing to be seen in the Punjab 
 or Bengal could give him a notion, and that after thirty 
 or thirty-five years in India we do not need more control 
 than to have general principles laid down for our guidance 
 never seems to occur to him. 
 
 " To show you that I have done my best to keep clear of 
 unpleasant discussions with the Government of India on 
 such matters, I enclose a copy of a long demi-official letter 
 I wrote to him on this subject, some months ago, and a 
 copy of his answer. 
 
 " You will see that nothing could be personally more 
 cordial than the spirit of the answer, but it leaves us just 
 in the same state of pupilage as before. . . . 
 
 " However, you may rest assured that in future we will 
 keep well within the bounds marked out for us, and you 
 will not blame us if the Government administration stag- 
 nates while everything else in the Presidency is advancing. 
 
 " I send you copies of my correspondence with Sir J. 
 Lawrence, not in a controversial spirit, but that you may 
 be satisfied I have done my best to convince him of what 
 seems to me a grave error in administration ; and you may 
 rest assured that, having stated my opinion, no exertion 
 shall be wanting on my part to give the utmost effect to
 
 442 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XL 
 
 the system which he prefers, repressive and enfeebling as 
 I believe it must prove in its results." * 
 
 Lawrence's labours in India had made him — in consti- 
 tution, though he was not in years — an old man. He had 
 
 * Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, Frere's successor in the Governorship of 
 Bombay, had to complain of similar treatment on the part of the 
 Government of India. Writing to Frere shortly after taking up his 
 Government, he says — 
 
 "July 8, 1867. 
 
 " I have once or twice written to Northcote as to the vexatious 
 interference with this Government by the Government of India. . . . 
 Lately the interference in petty trifles has become so extraordinary 
 that it would seem as if they wanted to see how far they can go 
 without remonstrance, or as if they wanted to pick a quarrel. A 
 petty work of about four hundred pounds at Ahmedabad is disallowed, 
 pending explanations. The explanations are given, and three months 
 after, a despatch comes to say that the Governor-General in Council 
 thinks the sum seemed too high, and calling for detailed plans and 
 specifications, with a schedule of prices, etc. ! The same week comes 
 a peremptory order disallowing less than twenty pounds for the 
 shelter of Ellis and Mansfield's guard, which the Members of Council 
 have had ever since the Council have come to Poona. But the worst 
 case of interference is with reference to an excess on the estimate for 
 the Poona Engineering College. After explanations given, they allow 
 the excess, but require us to send them the name of the officer who 
 sent in the insufficient estimate, ' in order that he may be made 
 responsible for having misled the Government? Now this strikes at 
 the root of all discipline. If an officer fails in his duty, it surely is 
 for us, and not for the Government of India, to find fault. In this 
 particular instance the engineer was in no way to blame ; but the 
 effect can only be pernicious if a public servant is taught to look — not 
 to his own superior, but to some other authority, who may condemn 
 or support him, as the case may be, contrary to the opinion of the 
 Government in whose service he is. This is so objectionable an 
 interference that I have drafted a remonstrance against it, and will 
 write also privately to Sir John Lawrence about it. I cannot bring 
 myself to believe that he knows one half of the despatches that reach 
 us of this nature in his name." 
 
 Again (August 8), he writes — 
 
 " The Government of India do not make my work more agreeable. 
 They are more encroaching and uncourteous every day. I have been 
 obliged to remonstrate more than once."
 
 1864-6.] LAWRENCE AND FRERE. 443 
 
 returned half unwillingly as Viceroy, and had afterwards 
 made it a condition of his remaining that he should spend 
 half of each year at Simla. For him the Punjab and 
 North- West Provinces, the scenes of his early career, out- 
 weighed in interest all the rest of India. The remarkable 
 development of Bombay, which in wealth, enterprise, and 
 population, was fast outstripping Calcutta, failed to engage 
 his attention and interest ; and he turned a deaf ear to 
 Frere's often-repeated entreaty that he would come and 
 stay with him at Bombay or Poona, and see for himself 
 all that was going on, and what needed to be done.* 
 Always a hard worker, he continued so to the end ; but 
 it was impossible for him personally to undertake the 
 direction of more than one department — that of Foreign 
 affairs, — and Frere found that he had to deal with the 
 heads of departments at Calcutta separately, and that 
 Lawrence, if appealed to, would almost always support 
 them without really going into the question for himself, or 
 even giving reasons. 
 
 Between Lawrence and Frere there was not the least 
 symptom of personal hostility. Not a single expression 
 can be found in any one of the letters which passed 
 between them in the smallest degree wanting in courtesy. 
 Each had too high a respect for the other, too genuine 
 an appreciation of the services rendered in the great 
 days of the Mutiny for anything of the kind to occur. 
 
 "Personally," Frere writes (June 3, 1866) to his old 
 
 * Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, writing to Frere (February, 1868), says, 
 with reference to the construction of a railway terminus at Bombay : — 
 
 " Of course the great difficulty will now be with the Government 
 of India. In the first place, any great scheme for the improvement 
 and advantage of Bombay would meet with an ungracious reception ; 
 but besides, except Sir W. Mansfield, there was not a single member 
 of the Supreme Government who had ever been in Bombay, or knew 
 what they were talking about.."
 
 444 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 chief, Lord Falkland, "Sir J. Lawrence is, I believe, as 
 civil to me as to any one under him who does not belong 
 to the Punjab, or to the county of Derry, or to Exeter 
 Hall." " Nothing can be kinder," he writes to Captain 
 Eastwick, " than Sir John is, and our personal relations are 
 most cordial ; and I feel sure you will hear nothing of any 
 disagreeable discussions between the Government of India 
 
 and Bombay when and are gone. But I do 
 
 not expect that their departure will alter the centralizing 
 policy, which seems to me the great cause of our diffi- 
 culties." " Sir John still speaks of the excellence of your 
 Government, especially as regards the natives," writes Sir 
 Richard Temple to Frere from Bareilly (December 3, 1866), 
 when the latter was about to return to England, "and was 
 lamenting the loss which Western India will sustain by 
 your departure." 
 
 But it was an unfortunate fate which subordinated 
 Frere to a Viceroy who had set himself to follow the lines 
 of the centralizing policy of Lord Dalhousie which, in 
 Frere's opinion, had so nearly lost us India. And it was 
 a sore trial to him, with his ardent temperament, his varied 
 and profound knowledge of India, his quick perception 
 of facts and prescient forecast of events, to be checked and 
 thwarted at every turn by a system and a Government 
 which departed from its Gallio-like attitude towards the 
 Bombay Presidency, only to allow and encourage heads 
 of departments at Calcutta or Simla to paralyze by a 
 stroke of the pen all spontaneous action, however neces- 
 sary and beneficial, in countries they had never seen, and 
 as to matters the details of which they were of neces- 
 sity absolutely ignorant ; or, as in the case of the removal 
 of the lieutenant-colonel in command of the 15th Native 
 Infantry from his regiment, to strike at the very roots of 
 the discipline of the army by revising a decision of the
 
 1865.] RUMOURS OF FRERE'S RESIGNATION. 445 
 
 Commander-in-Chief without any reference to the Bombay 
 
 Government. It was hard for him to rest content with 
 
 accomplishing what seemed to his eager spirit so little, 
 
 when, but for such obstruction, so much more and better 
 
 work might have been done. 
 
 "February 14, 1865. 
 
 " I often feel sick and weary," he confesses to Sir G. 
 Clerk, " of the whole business, and but for the feeling of 
 a sentry on duty, would gladly look out for a turnpike- 
 gate of my own in Gloucestershire, where, with my 
 children, I could rub on in quiet for the rest of my days." 
 
 There were rumours, which were mentioned in Parlia- 
 ment, of his resignation, owing to the way in which he 
 had been treated. But he was not the man to let personal 
 annoyance or disappointment influence him in such a 
 matter. As long as he thought he could do good service 
 he would remain at his post. Alluding to this rumour in 
 a letter to Sir Charles Wood, he says — 
 
 "August 1, 1865. 
 
 " I need not remind you that some months ago my 
 relations with the Government of India, here in India, 
 were not on a pleasant footing, and I began to doubt 
 whether they were such as were convenient or advan- 
 tageous to the public service, and whether it would not 
 be better that I should retire and make room for some 
 one whom the Government of India might be disposed to 
 treat with more fairness, if not cordiality. 
 
 " But I felt that you must be the best judge of this, and 
 that you would tell me frankly if you thought the public 
 service would benefit by my retirement. . . . 
 
 " And whatever may have been my feelings towards the 
 Government of India in this country, I can safely say that 
 nothing has ever occurred to make my feelings towards 
 yourself other than those of the highest respect officially, 
 and of a grateful personal sense of unvarying kindness 
 and consideration." 
 
 The majority of the Indian Council in London were
 
 446 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XL 
 
 men who had belonged to the Bengal service, and on 
 questions arising between officials of different Presidencies 
 their natural bias would be for the traditions of their own. 
 And besides this, there was a traditional idea in the 
 governing body of India that, other things being equal 
 Bombay and Madras must give the first place to Bengal. 
 Sir George Clerk writes to Frere from the India Office : — 
 
 "July 16, 1864. 
 " I was very glad to read in one of your late notes to 
 me that you do not care what the Punjabees say against 
 your views of administration in general, and border policy 
 in particular. I did not suppose you would care, but 
 others thought it would shut you up, though hoping other- 
 wise. ... If you think you are sometimes being snubbed 
 from this, it is not snubbing you, but snubbing Bombay. 
 It would be just the same were Lord Wodehouse Governor 
 there. With two other Bombay representatives, or even 
 one staunch one, I could hold my own ; but Perry is the 
 only one who is so ; the others are vacillating. . . ." 
 
 Sir Charles Wood had, indeed, a difficult task to per- 
 form in judging between the widely divergent opinions on 
 so many points of two men of such reputation and powers 
 as Lawrence and Frere. There is something almost 
 pathetic in the candour with which he confesses his con- 
 version to Frere's views, as to the need to govern India in 
 India and not from England, and speaks of his difficulties 
 in language nearly identical with that used by Frere in his 
 correspondence with him five years before. Referring to 
 the progress of electric telegraph construction, Sir Charles 
 
 Wood says — 
 
 "April 17, 1865. 
 
 " I am afraid that it will lead to more references home, 
 to more interference from home, to shrinking from respon- 
 sibility in India, and to meddling from home — all which 
 things will not improve the administration of affairs in 
 India. Upon the whole, the Government of India can 
 manage Indian matters better than the Government at
 
 1865J SIR CHARLES WOOD CONVINCED. 447 
 
 home. There are certain great questions on which the 
 authority of the Home Government is necessary and 
 useful to preserve an even tenor of conduct ; but in all 
 minor matters, the less we meddle, the better. One of 
 the evils of the old Indians in my Council is their dis- 
 position to interfere in smaller matters, such as they had 
 been used to deal with when in India. It is, perhaps, 
 inevitable, and they could not have the knowledge of 
 India, which is so useful, without the practical knowledge 
 of the working of the system in detail ; but I have always 
 to check this disposition, and am sometimes told that 
 unless we do this sort of thing, we might as well abdicate. 
 On the whole, the system works reasonably well, and when 
 one considers what an anomaly our Indian Empire is, we 
 have reason to be grateful for any machinery for managing 
 it which works reasonably well. There will also, I fear, 
 be a temptation to more parliamentary interference, and 
 that will always be, not for Indian, but for home or 
 personal objects." 
 
 The knowledge possessed by Members of the Council, 
 when founded solely on experience, was apt to be out of 
 date. An instance of this occurred in the case of Katty- 
 war. 
 
 Kinloch Forbes, when Acting Resident there in i860, 
 had drawn attention to the urgent need of reform. 
 Frere found the province in a condition which made him 
 describe it as " the blot on the administration of this part 
 of India." "Justice was not administered; life and pro- 
 perty were unsafe ; private warfare was carried on ; and 
 crimes, indicative of a lawless and disorganized state of 
 society, flourished as they did sixty years before." There 
 were some four hundred independent sovereigns. By the 
 law of the country, estates were divided equally among the 
 sons ; and the confusion was the greater because, owing 
 to the lawless state of the country, the people had to live 
 for protection in towns or large villages, so that a chief's 
 inheritance often consisted of a small portion of a town
 
 448 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 or large village. As each nominally exercised independent 
 jurisdiction, sometimes amounting to powers of life and 
 death, there was hopeless confusion. The Resident, whom 
 Frere found there, though a good man in his way, was 
 unequal to the task of grappling with such a state 
 of things. To replace him, Major Keatinge, a distin- 
 guished officer of the Bombay Artillery, who had won his 
 Victoria Cross when in Sir Hugh Rose's Central Indian 
 Force, was selected — much to his own surprise, for he did 
 not know that Frere knew anything about him. — He had 
 a long and troublesome task, and his difficulties were 
 aggravated by the opposition of a Member of the Indian 
 Council at the India Office, whose opinion carried weight 
 because he had been Resident at Kattywar a quarter 
 of a century before, and who could not be persuaded that 
 anything needed amendment. Keatinge — as did Pelly 
 and others of Frere's lieutenants, who had specially 
 difficult work on hand — came once or twice every year 
 to stay at Government House and tell his story, and to be 
 cheered by the hearty encouragement and help which was 
 always bestowed in generous measure. 
 
 Frere writes to Keatinge : — 
 
 "November 15, 1864. 
 
 " As to the general questions regarding Kattywar, we 
 may be defeated, over and over again, by prejudice and 
 bigotry ; but we have right and truth on our side, and if 
 we hold on steadily we must win in the long run. You 
 have seen too much of public life to suppose that reforms 
 such as you have j initiated are ever carried per saltum, and 
 you have already made too much progress to be dis- 
 couraged. We must ply the India Office with facts, and 
 in time they must give in." . . . 
 
 And to Sir Robert Napier he writes — 
 
 " December 14, 1864. 
 " You will wonder, when you read all we have on record, 
 why the whole population are not outlaws ; but I believe
 
 1S65.] KATTYWAR. 449 
 
 Keatinge is on the road to set matters to rights, if the 
 Indian Council would let him." 
 
 To Sir Charles Wood he wrote— 
 
 "January 27, 1865. 
 
 " Major Keatinge would mend matters by and through 
 the chiefs, with the most scrupulous regard for all their 
 rights of property, and for every privilege which a chief 
 can, in the nature of things, long retain in the presence of 
 a great centralized imperial power like ours. He would 
 rid you of the dangerous and anomalous feature of more 
 than four hundred independent sovereigns in a single 
 province, . and would leave you, in their place, a strong, 
 well-instructed, and contented aristocracy, such as we so 
 grievously miss in most parts of India. 
 
 " I have always held it to be our duty and our best 
 policy to uphold and strengthen and use such a body, 
 wherever we can find it. But this, as you know, has not, 
 of late years, save during Lord Canning's time, been the 
 usual policy of the Government of India ; and I much 
 doubt whether the objects you have in view will meet as 
 hearty sympathy on the other side of India as on 
 this." . . .• 
 
 Frere wished to have a chief British Resident at Baroda, 
 with authority over the Residents of the five surrounding 
 States, of which Kattywar was one. But this he could 
 not obtain. On the main points of his reforms, however, 
 
 * This, it appears, was a policy in which Sir Charles Wood con- 
 curred. He had written to Frere with reference to Lord Canning's 
 Adoption policy : — 
 
 " August 1, 1S62. 
 
 " I am quite convinced that the policy of suppressing or suffering 
 to go to ruin all the aristocracy and gentry of India is a mistake. 
 The dead level of nothing between our officers and the people is an 
 unnatural state of society ; and surely it must be better in any 
 country, especially in India, where the paucity of our numbers is so 
 glaring, to endeavour to work with, improve as far as you can, but 
 conciliate to our rule the existing state of society. We must be 
 stronger with the natural chiefs and leaders of the people attached to 
 us, than in leaving the people open to the persuasion and seduction 
 of upstart leaders." 
 
 VOL. I. 2 G
 
 450 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 he eventually got his way. The independent chiefs were 
 divided into seven ranks or classes, each with clearly 
 defined jurisdiction, civil and criminal, from which there 
 was, as a rule, no appeal, except on the presumption of 
 mal-administration. The authority of the British Political 
 Agents and assistants was made magisterial and direct, 
 instead of, as hitherto, merely diplomatic. The whole 
 system was controlled by the Political Agent. Major 
 Keatinge's government and the reforms he instituted 
 were eminently successful. The improvement in the con- 
 dition of Kattywar dates from the administrative system 
 introduced by him. 
 
 Another act of Frere's Government, which, strange to say, 
 called down censure from Sir Charles Wood, was the issue 
 of Enfield rifles to a Bombay Native Infantry Rifle 
 Regiment. Sir Charles Wood sums up his view of the 
 matter by saying — 
 
 "September 12, 1864. 
 " Whether, then, I look at the exercise of your own 
 discretion, or the regard which you ought to pay to what 
 might be wise elsewhere in India, and the possible opinion 
 of the Government of India, or, lastly, to the deference 
 which you are bound to have for the orders of the Home 
 Government, I am sorry to say that you are equally 
 wrong ; and when in one and the same case you sin in 
 all these three respects, I cannot see any justification for 
 you." 
 
 Still stronger expressions of censure, though expressed 
 in a kindly tone, followed. 
 
 The facts were these : — 
 
 The 4th Native Infantry was a regiment armed with 
 old-fashioned Brunswick two-grooved rifles. Many of 
 them were worn out, and at the suggestion of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, Sir W. Mansfield, instead of getting out 
 a fresh supply of the obsolete weapons, Enfields, of which
 
 i86 4 .] BRUNSWICK OR ENFIELD RIFLES. 451 
 
 there were plenty in store, were issued, and thus an 
 exceptional and inconvenient pattern was got rid of. 
 As to the issue being indiscreet, on the ground that the 
 use of the cartridges might offend caste prejudice and be 
 made the occasion of mutiny, the supposition was absurd. 
 The Enfield cartridges were now not made of the objection- 
 able grease, and when used were now not bitten but torn 
 open. As to paying "regard to what might be wise elsewhere 
 in India," Frere pointed out that hitherto it had been the 
 practice for each Presidency to arm its army independently 
 of the other Presidencies, Lastly, as to the order of the 
 Board of Directors, in 1857, prohibiting the use of the 
 Enfield cartridges, it was a prohibition referring to an 
 exceptional crisis and to a different cartridge to be used 
 in a different way, and could not reasonably be supposed 
 to be valid and applicable for all time. As a matter of 
 fact, so far from being dangerous, it was of the utmost 
 importance to the good feeling of the native regiments 
 that they should not be armed with inferior weapons, 
 which would prevent their fighting on equal terms side by 
 side with the English regiments. Already, in the last 
 frontier fighting about Umbeyla, our difficulties had been 
 aggravated by the inability of the native regiments, 
 armed only with smooth-bores, to take their share of the 
 fighting. The men armed with old muskets knew per- 
 fectly well that they were handicapped and could not 
 stand against inferior troops with better arms ; and 
 they were getting demoralized and discontented in con- 
 sequence. It was the exact opposite of the spirit and 
 system by which Jacob gave his men the best arms he 
 could procure, and by making them feel that they were 
 trusted, did so much to secure their fidelity. 
 
 Never surely was a change more expedient. Sir Charles 
 Wood, however, adhered to his opinion that Frere was
 
 452 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 wrong and unregardful of orders. But he mentioned 
 in a subsequent letter — what was by itself an almost 
 sufficient justification of the issue of the Enfields — 
 that he had since discovered that there was already a 
 Bombay Native Infantry Regiment armed with Enfields. 
 It had been so armed by Jacob early in 1857, at the very 
 time of the cartridge disturbances in Bengal ; so that, 
 after all, what had been done, so far from being a perilous 
 experiment, was not an innovation at all. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1865, the prosperity of the 
 trading classes and cultivators, the great rise of prices and 
 in the cost of labour, and the consequent need of raising 
 the salaries of public servants, and also the call for increased 
 expenditure on necessary public works, all pointed to the 
 expediency of increasing, rather than diminishing taxa- 
 tion. Therefore when Sir Charles Trevelyan, in his Budget 
 statement in April, 1865, proposed the discontinuance of 
 the Income-tax, and in its place the imposition of export 
 duties and a loan for public works, the announcement 
 was received with general surprise. Sir John Lawrence, 
 who had been strongly opposed to the Income-tax when 
 it was first introduced, had by this time come round to 
 approving of it ; and now he was the only one of the 
 members of his Council in favour of retaining it* He 
 might, indeed, have overruled his Council ; but this he would 
 not do. 
 
 Frere writes to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 "April 10, 1865. 
 " I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read that the 
 Income-tax was to be allowed to lapse, and that we were 
 to substitute for it borrowing and taxes on exports. I had 
 very recently heard from Sir J. Lawrence himself that he 
 did not see how we were to do without the Income-tax, 
 and one way or another this view of the case had been 
 
 * Lawrence to Frere, April 15, 1865.
 
 1865.] INCOME-TAX DROPPED. 453 
 
 made generally known as the conclusion at which the 
 Government of India had arrived, and it had been 
 acquiesced in by the public. The press everywhere 
 assumed that at least another year of Income-tax was 
 inevitable — some approved, some excused, but, as far as 
 I can learn, none wholly condemned what all were ready 
 to accept as a matter of necessity. Here in Bombay the 
 tone of the native press was quite remarkable. In many 
 native papers the Income-tax was defended on the obvious 
 ground that it was a wise and just tax, sparing the poor 
 and falling mainly on the rich, who pay taxes very 
 inadequately in any other shape. This tone was the more 
 remarkable, because the native press is almost exclusively 
 the organ of the prosperous and educated natives, and we 
 have nothing answering to your democratic press in 
 Europe. 
 
 " That I was not mistaken in my impression of the 
 views of the Government of India up to a very late date, 
 I gather from the surprise which Sir Hugh Rose expressed 
 when he heard on landing here that the Income-tax had 
 been given up. The measure had evidently been decided 
 on since he left Calcutta. 
 
 " Neither Sir C. Trevelyan's printed Financial State- 
 ment, nor the debate, nor any reflection on our financial 
 position, had enabled me to discover any worthy reason for 
 this act of financial suicide." 
 
 Sir Charles Wood expressed himself even more strongly 
 about the Budget. He writes to Frere, May 17, 1865 : — 
 
 "The Budget is as bad as can be. Lawrence stood 
 alone in support of maintaining the Income-tax, which 
 would have been the right thing ; and was, I think, equally 
 right in refusing to agree to shifting the load from the 
 shoulders of the rich to those of the poor, by raising the 
 salt-tax. The export duties are as foolish as anything 
 can be, and the loan is worse. Heaven help us from such 
 selfish and short-sighted statesmanship ! " 
 
 Sir Charles Wood disallowed the export duties, but it 
 was impossible for him to save the Income-tax. Trevelyan 
 shortly afterwards returned to England, leaving a heavy
 
 454 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XI. 
 
 deficit as the result of a policy of cutting down expenditure, 
 when and where it was especially necessary and likely to 
 be reproductive, and of remitting taxation at a time when 
 it was more easily borne than ever before. 
 
 Sir C. Trevelyan was succeeded by Mr. Massey, who 
 produced his first Budget in March, 1866. In order to 
 get rid of the deficit, the Budget contained a suggestion 
 to transfer to local funds certain charges which had hitherto 
 been borne by the Government of India, those, namely, for 
 education, police, district jails, public works, and mainten- 
 ance of roads and bridges. To meet these charges a 
 certain discretion in the method of taxation was to be 
 allowed to local administrations, but the taxes recommended 
 were a licence-tax of trades and professions, house-tax, 
 octroi duties, and succession duty on lands paying no 
 revenue. This drew from Frere a minute on local taxation 
 (November 15, 1866), and on the financial condition of India 
 generally. In the course of it, he points out that though 
 he would welcome a proposal to hand over to the local 
 Governments certain taxes, together with a corresponding 
 liability to meet local charges, as Wilson and Laing had 
 proposed, it was quite another thing if the liability trans- 
 ferred was to be heavier than the corresponding tax had 
 hitherto been, and would in fact involve a breach of faith 
 with the tax-payer. 
 
 As regarded the four taxes suggested by Mr. Massey, 
 Frere expressed approval of all except the octroi duties. 
 
 "To these I must express a very strong objection. 
 They are generally popular with the larger traders, as 
 favouring monopoly and keeping down petty trade ; with 
 men of property, who do not much feel them . . . and 
 with officials who find them productive and easy of collect- 
 ing, and do not see the mischief they do. But they are 
 oppressive to the poor, especially to the small trader, and 
 form a serious check to the natural growth of commerce.
 
 1866.] LOCAL TAXATION. 455 
 
 They are better than no source of public income at all, 
 and this, I believe, is the best that can be said of them." 
 
 He goes on to say that to supply the urgent need of 
 money for repairing roads in the Presidency, tolls had 
 been imposed wherever the nature of the country permitted, 
 by which more than seven lakhs (.£72,000) had been 
 raised in a year. Tolls, however, had been resorted to, 
 not because he thought this the best mode of providing 
 for road-mending, but as the only means to which sanction 
 could be obtained. He would prefer a cart or wheel-tax, 
 leaving tolls to be levied on made roads over mountain 
 passes or on bridges. The one-anna cess, originally 
 suggested by Sir George Wingate and Colonel Davidson, 
 had also been resorted to, which was paid with the land- 
 tax at the rate of one anna for every rupee of Govern- 
 ment land revenue, to form a local fund for making and 
 repairing roads, and for maintaining primary schools. 
 There was some doubt as to its being compatible with the 
 terms on which the cultivators in some districts held 
 their land, and therefore it had not been generally intro- 
 duced, but as it was, it brought in thirteen lakhs in the 
 Presidency, and would bring in more as the old settlements 
 fell in. 
 
 The army expenditure could not, he considered, be put 
 at less than sixteen millions out of a total expenditure of 
 forty-six, without including the cost of barrack improve- 
 ments, and he thought the existing condition of the army 
 very unsatisfactory, many portions being obviously and 
 notoriously inefficient. 
 
 Upon the question of the revenue from opium, he 
 says : — 
 
 " Under this head we spend one and three-quarter 
 millions to obtain from opium a revenue of six and three-
 
 456 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XL 
 
 quarter millions sterling. Every year's observation con- 
 firms me in the belief, which I have often before expressed, 
 that the disregard of all sound maxims of political economy, 
 which is shown by our maintenance of the Government 
 monopoly and manufacture in Bengal, joined to our neglect 
 of the plainest dictates of prudence in keeping up the 
 present price of Malwa opium-passes in Western India, 
 must rapidly ensure the decline and final extinction of 
 this branch of revenue. . . . 
 
 " We have in India two opposite systems of taxing 
 opium — one the fee or passport system, in force in Western 
 India, which is not at variance with the laws of political 
 economy, and which promises to afford the largest possible 
 revenue for the longest possible time, provided we do not 
 stimulate production in other countries by pitching the 
 tax or passports too high. It involves little expenditure 
 for establishment, and is not obnoxious to the moral 
 objections which are urged against the system of Govern- 
 ment manufacture in Bengal. 
 
 " The other system in force in Bengal is not only 
 obnoxious to all the objections, economical or moral, which 
 do not apply to the Western mode of taxation, but is 
 certain, sooner or later, to be ruined by the often-proved 
 impossibility of conducting any manufacture by Govern- 
 ment monopoly on such sound commercial principles as 
 to compete with commercial success in a free, foreign 
 market which has other sources of supply. 
 
 " Second in the list" (the Minute continues), " as regards 
 the extent of the charge, come Public Works, the large 
 aggregate amount of which is a frequent source of con- 
 gratulation, when we speak of the good deeds of the 
 Indian Government, while the comparative smallness of 
 the result, when looked at in detail, is the theme of almost 
 universal complaint and disappointment. . , . 
 
 "A fixed sum should be assigned annually to each 
 Administration, and the local Government should be left 
 to spend this sum to the best advantage, with no further 
 condition than, perhaps, a stipulation that a certain pro- 
 portion should be devoted to certain great heads of really 
 Imperial importance ; such, for instance, as military 
 shelter or defence. Each Administration should state 
 annually, as soon as possible after the close of the working 
 season, what it had done with its assignment, how many
 
 1866.] LOCAL ADMINISTRATION. 457 
 
 miles of road had been made, and where and what per- 
 manent buildings had been erected ; but as to all details, 
 the Government of India should take it for granted that 
 the professional advisers and executive officers of the local 
 governments are competent to decide every ordinary point 
 regarding common roads, buildings, and other works ; 
 and the Government of India should content itself with 
 the assurance that if something might be gained in point 
 of ultimate perfection by sending the plans many hundreds 
 or thousands of miles to be revised by officers under the 
 Government of India, much more would assuredly be lost 
 in delays and in a diminution of the work ultimately 
 done. 
 
 "At present all the preliminary details regarding any 
 costly work, however simple, are gone over twice, or 
 oftener, and the expenditure on the establishments neces- 
 sary for this repeated examination of details must be 
 something enormous. In place of these establishments, 
 the Government of India should employ the best officers 
 in every department as travelling inspectors to report, in 
 the first instance, to the local governments, and ulti- 
 mately to the Government of India, on the comparative 
 merits of every kind of public work in every part of the 
 Empire. 
 
 " Every province has some peculiar excellence of its 
 own — the barracks of one, the roads, the bridges, the 
 anicuts, the canals, the architecture, the masonry of others, 
 are the best of their kind in India ; and a frequent per- 
 sonal inspection and criticism of all by selected officers, 
 who did not confine their observations to one province, 
 but who saw and personally examined all they discussed, 
 would speedily do more to raise the general standard of 
 public works, and to ensure better results for the expendi- 
 ture, than ages of paper-sifting by accomplished clerks in 
 a central office. 
 
 " I would, once for all, disclaim anything like a personal 
 application of the opinions I have ventured to submit. 
 I know no more accomplished or high-minded body of 
 public servants than are to be found in the Indian Public 
 Works officers. The Government of India has, as it 
 ought to have, under its immediate orders some of the 
 ablest and best, and, speaking generally, no faulty system 
 was ever worked with greater consideration and courtesy,
 
 458 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cir. XI. 
 
 or with a more single eye to the good of the public ser- 
 vice. But the system is radically bad, and can be no 
 more redeemed by an exemplary body of officials than 
 that which has just centralized Austria into political 
 paralysis. Let us remember that Bengal is larger and 
 more populous than either France or the old Austrian 
 Empire, and probably not poorer than Austria ; that 
 Madras is much bigger and twice as populous as European 
 Turkey ; and that probably the most ardent centralizer 
 in a French bureau would shrink from any proposal to 
 manage the roads and bridges of the Ottoman Empire 
 from Paris as a centre, though that would be a light task 
 compared with what is now attempted in India."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE REBUILDING OF BOMBAY. 
 
 Sanitary state of Bombay — Census — The City rebuilt — Its defences 
 — The Thide — Railways — Education — Address to Deccan 
 Sirdars. 
 
 THE filth of an Indian city is, or was at that time, not 
 to be imagined by any one with an experience limited 
 to Western Europe, much less to be described here. The 
 old town of Bombay was ill-built, ill-drained, or rather 
 not drained at all, very dirty, and very unhealthy. Land 
 for building was urgently required by the rapidly increas- 
 ing population, and space for more airy streets and 
 houses. 
 
 There had never yet been any census taken of any large 
 city in India, and the populations could be only very 
 roughly estimated. As a preliminary to extensive drain- 
 ing and building operations for the improvement of the 
 sanitary condition of Bombay, it was expedient to ascertain 
 what the population really was. A Bill for taking the 
 census passed the Bombay Council in April, 1863. In 
 August Lord Elgin's assent was given, and it was under- 
 stood to have become law. In December, therefore, a 
 notification was put forth at Bombay that the census 
 would be taken on February 2, 1864. Forms were 
 arranged, enumerators drilled, and the people generally
 
 460 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 prepared to aid, and not to resist or be alarmed. A 
 week before the day fixed, when all was ready, without 
 any previous hint of disapproval, a telegraphic message 
 was received from England that the Act had been dis- 
 allowed by the India Office, no reasons being given. To 
 have suspended the work at the last moment without 
 explanation would have caused misunderstanding, and 
 perhaps alarm and danger. So, after consultation with 
 the Commissioner of Police, and with the natives who 
 had assisted in the arrangements, Frere determined to 
 proceed with the census without the aid of the Act, as a 
 voluntary enumeration. His decision was not approved 
 by the India Office, but the result was a complete 
 success. "I feel sure," he writes to Sir Charles Wood, 
 " when you have the result before you, with Dr. Leith's 
 report on the sanitary condition of the more densely 
 populated quarters, you will say I did right to get the 
 best census we could without waiting for a compulsory 
 Act." 
 
 " I admit that you make out a fair case on the census," 
 Sir Charles Wood replies (May 17) ; " my Councillors were 
 all against it, and I had not an opinion sufficiently strong 
 to warrant me in differing." 
 
 Frere was a keen and ardent sanitary reformer, abreast 
 of all the latest knowledge on the subject. He had 
 obtained a report on the condition of the city from Dr. 
 Leith, President of the Bombay Sanitary Commission ; and 
 he called to his assistance Dr. Hewlett, then recently 
 returned from England, where he had been making a 
 special study of sanitation. 
 
 He would often take his daily ride, sometimes accom- 
 panied by Dr. Hewlett, through the purlieus of the native 
 quarter, to examine its condition for himself. It happened 
 that he had noticed a house which had been raised at
 
 1863-6.] OLD BOMBAY. 46 1 
 
 different times to an unusual height. One day, seeing that 
 a sixth or a seventh story was being added to it, he asked 
 the owner, a native, whether he had a very large or increas- 
 ing family to need so unusual an addition to his house. 
 The man answered, " No, he had had several children, but 
 they had been all very feeble and sickly. He had added 
 a story to his house from time to time, as his means 
 permitted, hoping that by living higher up, where the air 
 was purer and the breeze fresher, their lives might have 
 been saved. But one after another they had sickened and 
 died — all but one. He was building this new and highest 
 story as the last hope to save the last child that was left 
 to him." 
 
 The Europeans were even more straitened for house- 
 room than the natives. The quarter of the city chiefly 
 inhabited by them was enclosed by the ramparts of the old 
 fort, and could not be enlarged till they were removed. 
 House-rent had gone up to an extravagant price. An 
 English surgeon writes, " The house I am now in, with 
 another of the same size, were bought by my present 
 landlord in 1848 for forty thousand rupees. They are now 
 being sold together for six hundred thousand rupees, or 
 fifteen times as much. This is no speculative purchase, 
 but a bona fide operation." Nor was it possible for 
 Europeans to migrate to any less expensive quarter. The 
 peculiarities and habits of the natives of an Indian city 
 make it impossible for Englishmen to live in their streets. 
 It is not a question of pride or fashion ; the dwellings 
 are altogether unfitted for Europeans. On the other hand, 
 the rich natives had begun to buy up houses hitherto 
 occupied by Englishmen, so that there was now no exclu- 
 sively European quarter.* 
 
 * Colonel Marriott to the Secretary to the Government of India, 
 January 21, 1865.
 
 462 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 A considerable amount of space was obtained by clear- 
 ing away obsolete fortifications and useless public build- 
 ings and factories, and laying out the ground afresh, using 
 part of it for new public buildings and for recreation 
 ground, and selling the rest as sites for building. The 
 principal Government properties offered for sale were — 
 
 The gunpowder and gun-carriage factories, both very 
 large in extent, with an excellent harbour-frontage, but in 
 localities now utterly unsuited to their purpose. 
 
 The old European General Hospital, which was in too 
 confined a space and unhealthy. 
 
 The old ramparts of Bombay. These were useless for 
 defence, and occupied a great space between the two 
 busiest portions of the town. The high walls interfered 
 with the circulation of air, and the ditches contained 
 stagnant water. They were accordingly levelled, and part 
 of the space laid out in roads, open spaces, and sites for 
 public buildings. A considerable area remained, which 
 was sold under conditions arranged so as to secure the 
 interests of the public, and for a sum which was sufficient 
 to cover the whole expense of the work done. 
 
 Many were the plans propounded and discussed for the 
 drainage of Bombay. As far as the surface water was 
 concerned, it was eventually thoroughly done. But it 
 was ultimately found to be impossible, owing to difficulties 
 of level, the set of the tide, and other causes, to construct 
 a system of sewers and house drainage, and it was there- 
 fore necessary to organize a complete and elaborate system 
 of house-to-house scavenging. 
 
 By Frere's strenuous efforts the Bombay Municipal Act 
 was passed in 1865 to provide for the management of 
 these and other kindred matters. It was a carefully 
 considered and comprehensive measure — the first of the 
 kind passed in India. It provided for the appointment
 
 1665.J NEW BOMBAY. 463 
 
 of a Municipal Commissioner for a term of three years, 
 in whom was vested the entire executive power, and of 
 an executive engineer, a consulting officer of health, and a 
 controller of municipal accounts. These officers were paid 
 by and under the financial control of the bench of justices, 
 to whom they reported at their meetings four times a year. 
 The Commissioner was empowered to enact bye-laws, 
 subject to confirmation — first by the justices, and secondly 
 by the Governor in Council. 
 
 How high an importance Frere attached to the pro- 
 motion of the health and cleanliness, and the improvement 
 of the private dwellings and public buildings of Bombay, 
 and how near these things were to his heart, may be 
 gathered from the following passage in a letter to Colonel 
 Merewether, then commanding at Aden, and justly valued 
 by Frere as one of the ablest and most distinguished 
 officers in all India. 
 
 " February 15, 1865. 
 
 " I sometimes wish I had you here, to act as Lord Mayor 
 of this town. Did it ever occur to you as a task as glorious, 
 and quite as difficult, as conquering Cabul? I only ask 
 to learn your views, and not because I am able now, or 
 feel sure I shall be able hereafter, to offer it. But I should 
 like to know how you would view the offer, if made." 
 
 Mr. Arthur Crawfurd was the first Municipal Commis- 
 sioner, and Dr. Hewlett the first Officer of Health. Their 
 work was carefully designed, planned, and executed. An 
 immense improvement in the health of the city was 
 effected, and became apparent by the diminution, ultimately, 
 in the death-rate from thirty-five to twenty-three per 
 thousand.* Twelve new public buildings were designed and 
 
 * Miss Nightingale writes to Frere some years afterwards : — 
 
 "November 13, 1869. 
 " Bombay has had a lower death-rate on the last two years than 
 London— the healthiest city in Europe. This is entirely your doing.
 
 464 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 most of them begun during Frere's term of office, the twelfth 
 being completed only in 1891. Rarely has a municipality 
 had a greater opportunity. Seldom have there occurred 
 financial delays and difficulties more formidable than those 
 which it had to encounter in the first years of its existence. 
 And never, perhaps, as those testify who saw the old city 
 and have also seen the new one, has a transformation 
 — spreading though it did over a quarter of a century 
 from its commencement to its completion — been more 
 magnificently successful.* 
 
 The old fortifications of Bombay had long been useless 
 and were now demolished, but as yet they had not been 
 replaced by new ones ; and the long range of modern guns 
 and changed conditions of naval warfare, made it necessary 
 to look to the defence of this the greatest and most 
 exposed of the sea- port towns of India. 
 
 Frere writes to Lord Cranborne, the new Secretary for 
 India : — 
 
 "October 2, 1866. 
 "The American man-of-war Shenandoah has arrived in 
 Bombay, bringing the first intelligence we have received of 
 an American vessel of that class being in these seas, and 
 reminding us rather vividly of the fact that she might have 
 dropped upon us quite as unexpectedly in time of war as 
 of peace ; that we have nothing to meet her nearer than 
 
 If we do not take care Bombay will outstrip us in the sanitary race. 
 People will be ordered for the benefit of their health to Bombay or to 
 Calcutta, which is already healthier than Liverpool or Manchester." 
 
 * As these pages are being written, a letter comes to Lady Frere, 
 from the wife of a Member of Council at Bombay, dated April 13, 
 1892, which contains the following : — 
 
 " We can never forget the time when you and Sir Bartle were here, 
 or Sir Bartle's great kindness during the time my husband was serving 
 under him, a time which we often think of and look back to as one of 
 the happiest periods in our Indian life. Everywhere around us now 
 in Bombay we see proofs of Sir Bartle's wisdom and forethought, and 
 even yet all his plans for the improvement of the city are only in 
 process of development."
 
 1S64.] BOMBAY DEFENCES. 465 
 
 Trincomalee, a thousand miles distant and not in tele- 
 graphic communication with us. Depressed as commerce 
 still is in Bombay, a vessel like this could in twenty-four 
 hours extort a ransom of many millions sterling. The 
 American Consul or any man in business in Bombay 
 could tell the captain that the mint and the bank alone 
 could yield him three or four millions in silver, and the 
 captain could have no difficulty in dropping a shell into 
 either building as a hint to hasten payment. . . . 
 
 "When the question comes before you, I am confident 
 you will not allow the fortification and defence of vital 
 points like Bombay, to be left to the chances of a surplus 
 in a local fund. But no land defences will suffice without 
 powerful floating defences, and I do not see how they are 
 to be maintained in this or other harbours without a local 
 Indian Navy. 
 
 " I would not restore the old Indian Navy, which had 
 incurable vices of constitution, nor attempt to improve the 
 present Bombay marine, which will never be more than a 
 costly and not very efficient transport service. 
 
 " But I would borrow from the Royal Navy a selected 
 Port Captain and pay him well, with local rank as a Com- 
 modore for five years, and give him command of all local 
 transports, harbour defence, and Government Dockyard 
 services, and give him officers and men from the Royal 
 Naval Volunteers, serving for five years at a time, with a 
 suitable increase of pay and pension so as to make the 
 service popular. . . ." 
 
 Early in 1864 Captain Sherard Osborne had reached 
 Bombay with four gun-boats, with which he had been 
 putting down piracy in the China seas. The operations were 
 at an end, and three of the vessels with their stores were 
 made over to the Government ; the fourth, the Thule, was 
 advertised for sale by Captain Osborne's agent Mr. Cruick- 
 shank, as a " yacht." She was unarmed, but very fast, and 
 capable of being converted into a second and a more formid- 
 able Alabama. Frere at once stopped the sale, and on 
 February 28 wrote to Sir Charles Wood to say he had done 
 so, and suggested that the Government should buy her. Sir 
 
 VOL. I. 2 H
 
 466 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 Charles Wood's reply is interesting, as showing what the 
 English Government's opinion on this question, afterwards 
 so much debated, then was. 
 
 "April 4, 1864. 
 
 " I brought the question of the gun-boats before the 
 Government, and I can now give you directions to some 
 extent. 
 
 " You were quite right to take charge of the gun-boat's 
 stores, etc. That is a clear case. 
 
 " With regard to the Thule, which you describe as a 
 yacht, and not fitted for an armament, you have, I am 
 afraid, gone beyond legal measures. I do not at all blame 
 you for having stopped the sale ; but you had in fact no 
 right to do so. Therefore you had better let Mr. Cruick- 
 shank sell her as he pleases ; but you must take good care 
 that she is not fitted for war purposes in your territory. 
 You should, I think, warn Mr. Cruickshank that nothing 
 of this kind can be permitted. We have, I am inclined to 
 think, pushed our practice here beyond the law. The 
 decision has so far been against us in the Alexandra 
 case, and I do not much believe that we shall succeed in 
 convicting even the rams. I have no doubt of their being 
 intended for the Confederates, but I suspect that we shall 
 not be able to prove it on legal evidence. So mind what 
 you do, and have the best legal advice before you take 
 any step. I should think that a warning from you to any 
 purchaser would probably be effectual in stopping any 
 proceeding which would be contrary to law." 
 
 Frere replied — 
 
 " April 28, 1864. 
 
 " I have been over the TJiule. She is called a yacht ; but 
 yachting in China, with Malays and Manilla men as crew, 
 and in waters where pirates are quite as plentiful as fisher- 
 men, is not a very peaceful occupation, and the Thule could 
 certainly be equipped outside our harbour so as to make 
 her a very formidable rover. A man calling himself ' Cap- 
 tain Lowe, Agent for the Southern States,' has lately been 
 here, offering to buy any of the four vessels, arid to pay 
 ready money for them. 
 
 " I at first thought of letting her be sold to any respectable 
 local firm which would give security that she should not
 
 1864.] THE THULE. 467 
 
 fall into the hands of either of the belligerents ; but I found 
 that respectable firms were shy of buying a vessel the exact 
 ownership of which seems a little mysterious. ... So I 
 thought it only safe, in order to avoid all risks of American 
 remonstrance, to take charge of her with the other vessels. 
 
 " She is exactly the kind of vessel to station in the 
 Persian Gulf or at Zanzibar or Aden, at the disposal of the 
 Resident. The Admiralty steadily refuse permission to their 
 vessels to remain at Aden, or in the Red Sea, or Persian 
 Gulf, except during the cool months, and it is absolutely 
 necessary that the Resident should have a despatch-boat at 
 his disposal. The Thule is admirably adapted for such 
 service, and would be worked much more cheaply than our 
 old vessels of the Indian Navy." 
 
 It was fortunate, as the issue of the Alabama case 
 showed, that Frere's suggestion was adopted, and the Thule 
 purchased by Government. She was afterwards given as a 
 present to the Sultan of Zanzibar, who, Livingstone writes, 
 was greatly pleased with her. 
 
 About the same time the question was raised whether the 
 Indian Army could not be still further reduced, and troops 
 spared, if necessary, for service elsewhere. Frere gave his 
 opinion that the Native Army — and in this Lawrence 
 agreed with him— was already quite as much reduced as 
 it ought to be. The Bombay Native Army numbered, in 
 1848, 35,049; in 1856, 28,620; and at that time, though 
 the territory of the Presidency was larger, 20,872. The 
 Bombay Government Despatch states that — 
 
 "April 21, 1864. 
 " Barely two-thirds of the Native (Bombay) Army has as 
 much as four nights in bed at a time of profound peace 
 when there are no troops in the field. With only two 
 regiments of native troops on foreign service in China, we 
 are left without any reserve of Native Infantry immediately 
 available, or any means of giving rest to regiments which, 
 from sickness or other cause, may have become disabled." 
 
 But with his habitual confidence in native troops, when
 
 468 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 well disciplined and commanded, he suggested the reduction 
 of the European troops in the Presidency by one Infantry 
 and one Cavalry regiment, and by three batteries of 
 Artillery. 
 
 The pushing on of railways was the most important 
 thing of all, he considered, for strengthening our military 
 position in India, as well as on all other accounts. Over 
 and over again in his letters to the Government of India 
 and to the Secretary of State, he urges the extreme im- 
 portance of completing the railway connection between the 
 Punjab and the sea at Kurrachee by continuing the rail- 
 way from Kotree to Mooltan. Apart from the great com- 
 mercial benefits it would confer, being by eight hundred 
 miles the nearest route to the sea for twenty millions of 
 people, it was the one thing wanted to assist the defence 
 of the North-West Frontier on its whole line, by making 
 it easily accessible to troops from Kurrachee. "The 
 Russian advance on Bokhara causes great excitement even 
 at this distance," he writes, in 1866, to Captain Eastwick. 
 " Why do you delay to connect Mooltan and Kotree, and 
 Guzerat and Delhi by railway? If anything happens to 
 us, the verdict of history will befelo de se." And he writes 
 
 to Lord John Hay : — 
 
 " May 3, 1866. 
 " There are no two measures so important in a military, 
 political, or commercial point of view as the completion of 
 the railway lines up the valley of the Indus, and from 
 Guzerat to Delhi. There are existing guaranteed Railway 
 Companies ready to make both, by extending their own 
 completed lines onwards from Kotree in Sind to Mooltan, 
 and from Baroda in Guzerat to Neemuch and Delhi, but 
 the Government of India refuses to let the Companies 
 make the surveys, a work which, properly done, will take 
 two or three quiet seasons ; and the Secretary of State's 
 Council supports the refusal, and, after two ineffectual re- 
 monstrances, a third peremptory order has come to us to 
 recall survey parties actually in the field."
 
 1864-6.] RAILWAYS. 469 
 
 To Lord Cranborne he writes as to the railway from 
 Kurrachee to Kotree, and the need to extend it along the 
 valley of the Indus : — 
 
 " The present line has cost quite double the original 
 estimate, and one of the arguments against any extension 
 is the presumed high cost of any addition. I therefore took 
 particular pains to ascertain the causes of the high cost of 
 the existing line, and feel convinced that it is mainly due 
 to bad engineering as regards both the lining out and the 
 designs for the bridges, etc., across the drainage, and to 
 reckless extravagance, if not worse, in the execution. As 
 far as I could learn, two-fifths of the actual expenditure 
 would have been ample, even at present enhanced prices, 
 on good designs and a well-laid-out line. All concerned, 
 Government officials as well as all the railway people in 
 Sind and in England, must have their share of the blame, 
 and I traced many mistakes and omissions to my own 
 time when the work began ; some of those concerned will, 
 it may be hoped, be more honest and all wiser and more 
 experienced next time. 
 
 " One main cause of all the mischief has been the hurry 
 in which everything was done at the last, under pressure of 
 the Mutiny, and my great objection to the repressive policy 
 of the Government of India, refusing leave to survey and 
 inquire in anticipation of a concession of a line, is that I 
 am confident the Indus valley and many other lines will 
 be hurriedly ordered some day, under panic at hearing 
 that a Russian envoy has arrived at Cabool, or a French or 
 American squadron in the Persian Gulf." 
 
 Public works and education were the two matters Frere 
 meant chiefly to press — so he told his private secretary, 
 Mr. John Arthur — when he took up the Government of 
 Bombay. If with the former he had to encounter storms 
 and to make way against a head-wind, with the latter he 
 was in comparatively smooth water ; for he was not at 
 every step impeded by the need of obtaining the sanction 
 of the Government of India. Nor was it necessary to 
 make new departures so much as to accelerate progress on 
 the lines already laid down.
 
 470 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 These were the years, preceding the settlement of 1870, 
 during which the question of the extent to which religious 
 teaching was to form an integral part of national education 
 was being hotly contested in England. The waves of the 
 controversy did not fail to reach the shores of India ; 
 and it was sought to impugn the principle of the Educa- 
 tion Despatch of 1854, which laid down neutrality in 
 matters of religion as the attitude to be observed by the 
 Government. 
 
 In the spring of 1864 a deputation from the Church 
 Missionary Society came to Sir Charles Wood to complain 
 of the course taken by the Bombay Government as to 
 religious teaching in schools.* And subsequently Sir 
 Charles Wood suggested that sanction should be given to 
 Government schoolmasters ' giving instruction in the Bible 
 or Christian religion at other times than school hours.' f 
 
 To this Frere replied — 
 
 " September 27, 1864. 
 " I trust you will let all who are most responsible for the 
 peace as well as for the education of the country, be heard 
 before you formally give any orders on the subject of 
 Government schoolmasters giving instruction to their 
 pupils in Christianity out of school hours. I know nothing 
 in this Presidency to prevent any sincere inquirer learning 
 all he can desire to know on the subject of Christianity 
 from any Government schoolmaster who is willing to in- 
 form him. But it would be difficult to frame any order on 
 the subject, which should not be taken as an incentive to 
 mix up Missionary teaching with Government education, 
 which would, I am sure, be most disastrous for both, but 
 especially to true Missionary work, for I am convinced 
 that any general suspicion that we were to enter on an 
 Orange policy in India would not only be quite as dan- 
 gerous as in Ireland, but quite as ineffectual towards any 
 result of true conversion." 
 
 * Sir Charles Wood, to Sir B. Frere, June 17, 1864. 
 t Same to same, September 1, 1864.
 
 1864.] EDUCATION. 471 
 
 On the same subject, with reference to a complaint 
 made against an official in the Education Department, he 
 writes : — 
 
 "July 22, 1864. 
 
 " I am sanguine that you will have little trouble in the 
 Education Department from the Missionaries in this 
 Presidency, unless they are urged on by ' Parent Societies ' 
 and gentlemen travelling as ' deputations from Parent 
 Societies,' who, in cases of this kind, are very apt to play 
 the firebrand. 
 
 " Our difficulties have been of the same sort as those 
 Government meets with in Ireland, and the faults found 
 with us are very like what you hear charged there. But 
 little fault is found by our own Missionaries on the spot. 
 They seem to me to be doing much more in their own way 
 among the natives than either their friends or their enemies 
 suppose ; often, I am certain, much more than they are 
 themselves aware of. And their success is, I am sure, 
 partly owing to the really fair and impartial course pur- 
 sued by this Government on all questions of religion and 
 education, and to the confidence and absence of bitter 
 feeling among the natives which this course has inspired." 
 
 Anxious as he was lest the teaching of Christianity 
 should be endangered by its being taken up by Govern- 
 ment officials, he did his utmost to encourage it in the 
 hands of the Missionaries, and of the colleges and schools 
 of the different religious bodies, and to foster their efforts 
 to teach not only their native members, but Europeans of 
 the lower class, the neglect of whom and of whose children 
 at that time brought so much discredit on English Chris- 
 tianity in India. 
 
 The following passage occurs in a pencil note of his for 
 a speech at a meeting of the Free Kirk General Assembly's 
 Institute : — 
 
 "You, as independent religious communities, do that 
 which Government cannot properly or safely attempt to 
 do — you render it impossible for any native of India to
 
 472 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 say to us as a nation that 'you teach us everything but 
 that which the great teachers among yourselves believe to 
 be the most important of all knowledge.' This can be 
 said by no one within reach of this institution." 
 
 The following letter to the Rev. Charles Merivale gives 
 his impression of the extent to which Christianity was 
 spreading and influencing the natives of India at that 
 time : — 
 
 " February 7, 1865. 
 
 " I have to thank you very much for a copy of your 
 admirable sketch of the conversion of the Roman Empire, 
 one of the very few books I have met with which I wished 
 expanded to any number of times its present size without 
 any alteration in the relative proportions of its several 
 parts. 
 
 "The subject has a special interest for us just now in 
 India, where the various forms of Indian belief are under- 
 going the same process which you so well describe ; but it 
 seems to me that in our modern case the process is going 
 on much more rapidly than of old — for I do not suppose 
 that any one generation of Romans ever witnessed such 
 extensive and important changes of belief in the mass of 
 the people as I have witnessed during my thirty years in 
 India. I think this is only what might be expected from 
 the superior temporal advantages of the proselytizing 
 nations of modern days. Of the fact I think there can be 
 no doubt, though it is at variance with the generally 
 received opinions regarding the results of modern Mission- 
 ary effort. 
 
 " I send you a Maharatti newspaper, in which you will 
 find an article on ' Sinceritism,' as the writer calls it, 
 which expresses what is, I think, the general form of belief 
 among our young educated natives. You will see it is 
 Deism with a strong tinge of Christianity, and a code of 
 morals almost entirely Christian, and approaching much 
 more closely to Christian teaching in many most important 
 points than some of the modern fashionable European 
 creeds. The men who think with the writer have no 
 sympathy with the old Hindooism, and so far from being 
 hostile to Christianity, are very apt to receive it when 
 their hearts are touched by any of the various accidents
 
 I86 4 .J SCHOOL OF ART. 473 
 
 which show them the very unsatisfactory character of such 
 half-way houses as ' Sinceritism.' " 
 
 Frere sought to give the fullest possible effect to the 
 principle of Government grants-in-aid, originally laid 
 down in the Despatch of 1854, and freely sanctioned 
 Government assistance being given to educational estab- 
 lishments of all denominations which could show they were 
 doing good work. By these means a great impetus was 
 given to primary instruction. But the great impulse 
 given to education under his rule at Bombay — education 
 in the widest sense of the word, of men and women, 
 as well as of boys and girls — was due to his personal 
 encouragement more than to any legislation promoted 
 by him. It was owing mainly to his influence that 
 so much of the overflow of wealth which came into the 
 possession of the Bombay native merchants during the 
 American Civil War was applied to the building and 
 endowment of schools, colleges, museums, and other insti- 
 tutions, instead of being squandered in idle luxury and 
 display. Keeping himself well informed of all that was 
 going on in England in politics, literature, science, and art, 
 he was competent to give good counsel on all educational 
 matters. 
 
 He encouraged the growth of the School of Art at 
 Bombay, and also took a keen interest in the preservation 
 of the ancient arts — such as textile and pottery work in 
 Sind — and in Indian antiquities, starting a committee 
 which made a study of the ancient buildings of Western 
 India. 
 
 In fostering art in India — where there exists so much 
 manual dexterity and delicacy of workmanship — the pro- 
 blem is to get beyond the reiteration and reproduction of 
 old forms and patterns, and to introduce new life and new
 
 474 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 ideas which may grow and develop. Writing to Mr. E. J. 
 Howard, Director of Public Instruction, Frere makes the 
 following suggestion : — 
 
 "January 3, 1864. 
 " The only way in which, as far as I can at present see, 
 imported artists could come out to teach usefully would be 
 by coming out to execute some specified commission, 
 teaching native pupils the while, as Vandyke taught whilst 
 painting for Charles I. and his Court. Rustunjee might 
 say, ' I will give a sum of money to any artist you select to 
 come out and paint for me family portraits and oil pictures 
 on historical subjects, and frescoes for my new house,' with 
 liberty to take home and exhibit what is portable, and with 
 a promise to teach what he could to whom he could. If 
 an enthusiast with any teaching mania in him, he would 
 soon find pupils. If not, he would still, in the course of 
 executing his commissions, give many an intelligent youth 
 a basis and hints which might end in the wish to be an 
 artist. It would be something that our Parsee youths 
 should see practically that pictures are painted, and not 
 woven or stamped. If nothing else came of it, Rustunjee 
 would get his pictures for his money." 
 
 He jhad a deep sense of the importance of female 
 education and did all he could to encourage it. 
 
 In a letter to a Parsee gentleman, Mr. Manockjee 
 Cursetjee, he offers suggestions in respect of his intention 
 to start a school for native girls : — 
 
 "July 27, 1863. 
 
 " Your success will much depend on keeping it as a 
 movement among yourselves for your own improvement, 
 managed and supported by those for whose welfare it is 
 designed. 
 
 "Don't call it an 'Institute.' How would 'Alexandra 
 Native Ladies' School ' do? 
 
 " I would avoid a European ladies' committee. Ask 
 ladies to visit without responsibility or authority, and by 
 all means give the Miss Manockjees and any ladies, if you 
 can find any similarly accomplished, the fullest power to 
 visit and suggest ; but let no one manage save the mistress 
 — she should be educationally supreme.
 
 1864.] EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 475 
 
 " Financially, let all be in the hands of native gentlemen — 
 yourself and others who feel with you. 
 
 " All will depend on your choice of a mistress. Put it 
 in the hands of a man like F. D. Maurice, who from the 
 Ladies' College could doubtless send a lady devoted to the 
 work for the work's sake. She should be allowed to choose 
 a companion lady as her second in command, and should 
 be quite supreme. 
 
 " I write in great haste. May God be with you, and 
 help and direct you aright ! " 
 
 With Miss Mary Carpenter, best known for her work in 
 connection with Reformatories, who visited Bombay, he 
 had much communication as to Native Girls' Schools, and 
 also upon Prison Discipline. Writing to him after his 
 return to England, she says : — 
 
 "March 10, 1868. 
 
 " I value your personal appreciation of my work more 
 than anything which could be expressed on a very large 
 sheet of official paper. I must not, however, be ungrateful 
 for official help, since that which you gave me at Bombay 
 was the means of doing what I did in India respecting 
 Prison Discipline." 
 
 He would look in, without previous intimation of his 
 coming, with an apology for intruding, and asking as a 
 favour for information, upon unpretending private schools 
 or orphanages, cheering lonely workers — it might be men 
 or women, far from home and friends, who had little 
 pleasure left but in their work, by his bright presence and 
 warm sympathy. It was thus that he came to know 
 and to befriend Miss Prescott, who had devoted her life 
 and her slender means to the education of a number ot 
 friendless girls, chiefly native or Eurasian. 
 
 He was always ready to take his part at the meetings 
 of the Council of the Bombay University, of which he was 
 Chancellor, or on a speech-day of a college or school. 
 Not naturally fluent, with a slow and deliberate articulation,
 
 476 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XII. 
 
 and cautious of dropping a word that could be misunder- 
 stood, or could not be fully substantiated, he would begin 
 his speech so slowly as almost to threaten tediousness ; 
 but as he went on, his vigorous grasp of his subject 
 — always carefully thought out and arranged beforehand, 
 as the pencil notes in his handwriting testify — his wide 
 and accurate knowledge, his incisive, well-chosen words, 
 his high thoughts and the deep conviction expressed in 
 the tones of his clear, silvery voice, and in the play of 
 his open countenance, moved his hearers, not to noisy 
 plaudits, but to a fixed and sympathetic attention, and left 
 upon them a deep and lasting impression. 
 
 At a Durbar of the Deccan chiefs and Sirdars held at 
 Poona, on September 4, 1865, he addressed them, as usual, 
 in their native Marathi language. His speech is so clear 
 and simple an expression, as far as it goes, of the spirit 
 and ideas which inspired his government of the natives, 
 that it is inserted here almost entire. 
 
 " Chiefs and Sirdars, — I am glad to welcome you to 
 Poona ; to hear from you of the welfare of yourselves, of 
 your families and your ryots. . . . 
 
 " Among other topics, there is much which I should be 
 glad to say on the subject of Education. 
 
 " By ' education ' I do not mean mere reading and 
 writing. Without these elementary means of acquiring 
 knowledge, there can be no perfect education ; but much 
 may be learnt from travel, from seeing other countries, and 
 conversing with men of wide experience and more know- 
 ledge than can be met with at any one place. There is 
 much to be learnt in a visit to Bombay or Poona, Ahmeda- 
 bad or Benares, or in any distant city or country. 
 
 " I know that the expense of travelling with a great 
 retinue is a serious obstacle to such journeys, and I wish 
 you would imitate the excellent example of His Highness 
 Maharaja Scindia and His Highness Maharaja Holkar, 
 who had visited many countries with no larger retinue than 
 was absolutely necessary for seeing with advantage all
 
 1865.] THE DECCAN SIRDARS. 477 
 
 that was worthy of a visit. I would gladly write more 
 than can be said orally on this subject of Education. But 
 I find from the reports of Political officers that a very 
 large proportion of the Maratha Sirdars are unable to 
 read and write their own language, and there are very few 
 indeed who know the language of the English Govern- 
 ment and of our gracious Sovereign, sufficiently well to 
 understand what I might say or write to them in my own 
 tongue. . . . 
 
 " I would earnestly beg you to consider whether this is 
 creditable to yourselves, or consistent with your duty to 
 yourselves, to your families, or to your subjects. 
 
 " To yourselves, because without such knowledge you 
 cannot efficiently fill the high station to which you were 
 born ; you cannot fulfil your duty nor deserve the respect 
 of your people, nor the sympathy of your Government. 
 You know that it is the earnest desire of her Majesty the 
 Queen and of the Government of India, to maintain the 
 class of nobles to which you belong with undiminished 
 hereditary property and influence, and to see them act as 
 leaders of the people in the moral and physical advance- 
 ment which it is the eminent desire of the British nation 
 to encourage in this country. But this is simply im- 
 possible if you neglect all opportunities of learning. 
 
 " I would ask you if one of the princes, the sons of 
 Queen Victoria, came amongst us, how many of you would 
 be able to converse with his Royal Highness in his own 
 language ? How many of you can read the laws of the 
 country in the language in which they are enacted ? or 
 the correspondence of our Government regarding yourselves 
 and your own rights ? Nay, more, how many of you could 
 tell a traveller, even if he spoke your own language, any- 
 thing of the history or geography, or of the politics of any 
 part of your own country beyond the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of your own territory ? 
 
 " The Government of England has of late years decreed 
 that an active share in the government of this country 
 shall be given to the people of this country as far as 
 they are worthy of it. You have good reason to know 
 that this is no mere figure of speech. For we have done 
 our best to promote worthy men among the native com- 
 munity to the highest seats in our Council, and to the 
 Bench of our great Courts of Justice. We would gladly
 
 478 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XII. 
 
 select for such officers, men illustrious for their birth and 
 descent, and influential from their rank and family posi- 
 tion. How is it, then, that we have been able to find 
 among the Sirdars of the Deccan, so few who possess such 
 a knowledge even of their own people and their own 
 public affairs, as to be fitted for such a trust ? There are 
 honourable exceptions sufficient to show how easy it would 
 be for you to avail yourselves of this great opportunity. . . . 
 " I know well that there is no natural impediment to 
 prevent the majority of the Sirdars of the Deccan from 
 being fit to take part in the government of the country if 
 they would but make use of the advantages of education 
 which are within their reach. There was a time when a 
 Deccan Sirdar could afford to neglect these things. When, 
 if he attended his Prince at Court or in war, he could leave 
 to hireling subalterns and scribes all active concern in 
 drilling his troops, in collecting his revenues, and in ad- 
 ministering justice to his retainers. But the times when it 
 was possible so to delegate all his most important duties 
 are gone ; you must all feel assured they can never return. 
 You must know that it is owing to this habit of delegating 
 important duties to others, and to the consequent incapacity 
 of discharging them in person, the opportunity of having 
 such duties to perform has passed away from so many. 
 A powerful nation now protects each and all of you in 
 the enjoyment of your property and rights. It is not 
 possible now for a man with a few more retainers, or with 
 better equipment than your own, or even for any one who 
 wields the whole power of Government, unjustly to deprive 
 the weakest of you of his rightful possessions. But there 
 is one enemy against which even the powerful English 
 Government cannot protect you, and that enemy you will 
 find among yourselves. Everything in this world must 
 either grow or decay, and you and your families can be no 
 exception to this great law of nature. Two roads are now 
 before you. By following one of these roads, it is in the 
 power of every one of you to improve his own estate, to 
 make his ryots contented and happy, to make himself 
 respected by high and low, by his own countrymen as well 
 as by the English Government, and to take a large share 
 in the administration and improvement of the country — 
 a greater share when measured by its capacity for doing 
 good than any minister of former sovereigns could boast.
 
 1S65.] THE SIRDARS' WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. 479 
 
 All this power you may command by simply availing your- 
 selves of those advantages of education and position which 
 are within the reach of you all. But there is also a second 
 road, and, by neglecting those advantages I have mentioned, 
 it is also within your power to become in each generation 
 smaller and less important men than your forefathers 
 were ; to see your lands and revenues slip from your grasp, 
 or remain yours only in name ; to see your power and 
 influence usurped by others ; to live unhonoured and die 
 unlamented. If this be your lot, do not blame the Govern- 
 ment under which you live, or any blind Fate, for be 
 assured it is entirely your own fault for neglecting the 
 great opportunities before you. I have spoken plainly and 
 truthfully to you as became an old friend, whose life has 
 been spent in the public service of this country, who 
 earnestly desires your welfare, who may not again have 
 an opportunity of speaking to you." 
 
 He had, however, one more opportunity. A year later 
 he met the chiefs and Sirdars at a farewell Durbar, at which 
 they presented his portrait to the Poona Town Hall. 
 Amongst other topics, he pressed upon them the import- 
 ance of the education and influence of their women. 
 
 "As you all know, the actual performance of a young 
 chief rarely comes up to the wishes of his ministers and 
 real friends, and the reason of this, as you also well know, 
 is the almost entire absence of any education among the 
 mothers and wives of the Sirdar's class. 
 
 " There are, I know, honourable exceptions, which are 
 yearly becoming more numerous ; but, as a body, you are 
 well aware that the ladies of Sirdars are secluded — not 
 according to your own ancient Hindoo usage, but accord- 
 ing to a comparatively modern fashion, derived from the 
 Mahomedans ; and thus there is hardly a Sirdar's mother 
 or wife who can do more than read or write, and but few 
 who can even do that. 
 
 "A poor man's poverty may often force him to learn 
 and to improve himself, but the son of a great or rich man 
 has little chance of learning if his mother be ignorant or 
 insensible to the value of education ; and this is the reason 
 why I would urge on you most strongly the education of
 
 480 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XII. 
 
 your wives and daughters, not only for the same reasons 
 which apply to all female education, but as a matter of 
 paramount importance to your order. 
 
 " There are many among you sufficiently well-informed 
 to press forcibly on your less enlightened brethren a truth 
 naturally distasteful to an unlettered military aristocracy. 
 You can tell them how among the nations which now bear 
 rule in every part of the earth, there is no instance of a 
 class of nobles retaining its position without being superior 
 in intelligence and education to the mass of the people, 
 nor any instance of an educated nobility, the ladies of 
 which are allowed to remain uneducated. Few men who 
 have not been in Europe or America can fully estimate the 
 influence which educated women possess in these con- 
 tinents. But you are all more or less aware of the great 
 influence which many noble ladies, besides her Majesty 
 the Queen, possess in England ; and by these and many 
 examples, you may satisfy your untravelled or unlettered 
 fellow-Sirdars that they need not fear the influence of 
 ladies educated as are the wives and mothers of our 
 statesmen and soldiers."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MASTERLY INACTIVITY. 
 
 The two Pensioners of the Bramshill Lodges — Relations with Afghan- 
 istan — Death of Dost Mahomed — Letter to Sir John Kaye — The 
 Wahabees— Colonel Pelly in the Persian Gulf— Sir W. Mere- 
 wether at Aden. 
 
 On a Hampshire heath, one on each side of the entrance 
 to a venerable park, and remote from any other habita- 
 tions, stand two lodges, each tenanted by an old pensioner. 
 A Crimean General, living in the neighbourhood, with a 
 kindly feeling for old soldiers, had made the acquaintance 
 of one of them, and used to leave his newspaper for him 
 to read. One day the other pensioner presented himself 
 and asked if he too might have a paper. The General 
 suggested that the same paper might be passed on from 
 one to the other ; but the man seeming dissatisfied, he 
 asked if they were on bad terms. " No, Sir William," 
 was the answer, " we never had a difference ; but living so 
 near each other, and having no other neighbours, we avoid 
 communicating or speaking for fear we should happen to 
 fall out ! " 
 
 The attitude of these two old soldiers towards each 
 other is an exact parallel of that which, for a quarter of a 
 century since the first Affghan War, had been pronounced 
 by the dominant majority of the leading men in India to 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I
 
 482 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XIII. 
 
 be the right one to maintain towards their neighbours 
 on the northern and north-western frontier. It sprang 
 originally from a reaction against the policy of Lord 
 Auckland's unfortunate intervention in Affghanistan in 
 1838, which had brought such fatal consequences. Accord- 
 ing to this school of Indian statesmanship, the ideal British 
 empire in India should have a sharply defined boundary, 
 enclosing annexed territory, within which the Government 
 should be administered with the utmost attainable uni- 
 formity, and with the countries beyond which all inter- 
 course was to be as much restricted as possible. An 
 imaginary frontier-wall was to separate British territory 
 from that of the outer barbarian, the Highlander or Central 
 Asiatic, in whose friendships, quarrels, commerce, and 
 behaviour generally we were to abstain as far as possible 
 from taking part or concerning ourselves. 
 
 In an article in the EdinburgJi Revieiv * on Sir John 
 Lawrence's foreign policy, known to be written by a 
 prominent member of his Government, these views were 
 advocated, and his foreign policy summed up and ex- 
 pressed by the words "masterly inactivity." The phrase 
 was taken up by Lawrence's followers, and afterwards 
 adopted, as far as it was understood, as an article of faith 
 by the Liberal party in England. It was only natural 
 that Sir Charles Wood's leaning should be in the same 
 direction — that a Secretary of State for India, already 
 overwhelmed and bewildered by the vast extent of his 
 responsibilities, should be inclined to catch at any plausible 
 generality, such as the " fickleness and faithlessness of 
 most Orientals," f as a reason for checking the natural 
 extension of British influence, in the illusory hope that 
 to do so would diminish or prevent the increase of the 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, January, 1867. 
 
 t Sir Charles Wood to Sir B. Frere, April 18, 1S63.
 
 1865.] DOST MAHOMED. 483 
 
 difficulties and responsibilities and expense of Indian 
 Government. 
 
 Frere was by nature and creed incapable of accepting as 
 proved a general and sweeping indictment for faithlessness 
 and incapacity for friendship against any people or race on 
 earth. He recoiled instinctively from a doctrine which im- 
 plied and accepted a permanent attitude of suspicion and 
 estrangement ; it was diametrically opposed to his social, 
 religious, and political faith. To proffer friendly offices, 
 public or private, whenever need and occasion called for 
 them, was the daily habit and occupation of his life ; and 
 his intense belief in the power for good of British influence 
 and authority and civilization, led him to repudiate any 
 attempt to assign hard and fast limits to their scope and 
 exercise. His experience in Sind had convinced him that 
 in dealing with frontier tribes there was in the long run 
 no middle course between friendship and hostility. He 
 and Jacob and Edwardes had proved that an alliance with 
 them could be a real defence and a tower of strength in 
 time of peril. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. J. W. Kaye, on the subject of his then 
 recently published history, Frere writes : — 
 
 "August 20, 1865. 
 
 " The mistakes made by the Government of India in 
 dealing with Dost Mahomed are still bearing bitter fruits ; 
 they are still persisted in in our dealings with his suc- 
 cessors, and will yet work us woe in India. 
 
 " I believe the first advance of any kind made by the 
 Affghans towards friendly intercourse with us subsequent 
 to the annexation of the Punjab, was when one of the 
 Candahar Sirdars asked for a safe conduct through Sind 
 on his way to Mecca. I was then Commissioner in Sind, 
 and John Jacob referred to me, inquiring what answer 
 should he send? I applied through Lord Elphinstone 
 for instructions from the Governor-General, pointing out 
 the valuable opening thus afforded for a renewal of
 
 484 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 neighbourly relations with the Affghans, and desiring Jacob, 
 if the Sirdar appeared on the frontier before an answer 
 arrived from Calcutta, to receive the Sirdar as he would 
 any other gentleman of rank, and to tell him that all 
 strangers were free to pass through Sind, or any other 
 portion of British India, as long as they complied with 
 the laws. 
 
 " This gave great offence to Lord Dalhousie ; he asked 
 if I had forgotten the misbehaviour of Dost Mahomed 
 during the Punjab War, recounted at length his grounds 
 of quarrel with the Dost, and directed that if the Sirdar 
 made his appearance he should be detained, pending 
 further orders. Luckily for us all, the Sirdar delayed his 
 visit ; and I had time to reply, pointing out that Candahar 
 and Cabul were in effect at that time separate, if not 
 hostile powers ; that none of our causes of quarrel with 
 the Dost ought in fairness to affect our relations with his 
 brothers ; and I dwelt on the inconveniences of our then 
 condition of estrangement from our Affghan neighbours, 
 and on the value of a good neighbourly understanding 
 with them. Lord Dalhousie replied he had no doubt I 
 meant well, but he adhered to the opinions he had already 
 expressed. However, not long after, he authorized a 
 different policy toward the old Ameer ; but neither in the 
 Dost's time, nor subsequently, have our dealings with the 
 Affghans been such as the laws of really good neighbour- 
 hood would dictate, and you may rely on it, that we shall 
 at no distant period pay heavily for our selfish and short- 
 sighted policy." . . . 
 
 Towards the close of i860 Captain Pelly arrived at 
 Calcutta, having come from Teheran in Persia by way of 
 Herat, Furrah, Kandahar, and Kelat, at that time a most 
 perilous journey, and which he performed, without assuming 
 any disguise, in his British uniform. He brought very im- 
 portant information, which, in Frere's opinion, proved it 
 to be practicable to enter into closer relations with Aflf- 
 ghanistan, and he hoped Pelly would have been sent on a 
 mission thither with that object. But Lord Canning did 
 not, Frere thought, give Pelly the credit he deserved for 
 his enterprise, nor did he desire to employ him in the
 
 1S63.] THE DOST AND HERAT. 485 
 
 matter. It was one of the few occasions on which Lord 
 Canning's action, or inaction, was a matter of lasting 
 regret to Frere. 
 
 Again, early in 1863, when war was impending between 
 Dost Mahomed and his son-in-law Sultan Jan, supported 
 by Persia, and the Dost was preparing for the siege of 
 Herat, Frere thought mediation might have been offered 
 with a fair chance of success. 
 
 He writes to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 " March 12, 1863. 
 " I quite agree with you about Herat as far as relates to 
 the question of active interference, but I think we might 
 have prevented some trouble to ourselves and much to our 
 neighbours had we early in the day added the weight of 
 our advice to the opinion of the Dost's sons and old 
 servants and dissuaded him from the expedition. No one 
 but the old man himself wanted to undertake it, for all 
 thought it must hasten his end, and all who were waiting 
 for the scramble, consequent on his death, felt they should 
 be at a disadvantage if it occurred while he was away at 
 Herat. A strong remonstrance from our Vakeel, backing 
 the reluctance of his own people to see him committed to 
 the siege, would any time before he passed Furrah have 
 probably turned the scale. It is quite true that everything 
 in Affghanistan is so unstable as to make it most unwise to 
 meddle by any active interference ; but this seems to me 
 only to increase the necessity for a wise and temperate 
 exercise of the influence which our proximity and immense 
 power give to our advice and wishes. So exercised, the 
 moral weight of the opinions expressed by the Governor- 
 General of India would be very great ; if, as they generally 
 would be, conservative in their tendency, it would soon be 
 felt that the man who quietly kept and enjoyed what he 
 had got was the friend of the British, and that he who dis- 
 turbed the public peace was their enemy. This is, I think, 
 one of the few practical antidotes to the general insecurity 
 and instability of everything Afifghan, and not, I think, by 
 any means a weak one, for every year of quiet would add 
 to its power, till by degrees something like regular rules of 
 succession and public right took the place of the present
 
 486 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 reign of force. This is every way a matter of importance 
 to us, for on the quiet of Affghanistan depend, in some 
 degree, the peace, and in a greater degree the commerce of 
 its neighbours, including Sind and the Punjab. You need 
 not fear that the utmost freedom in expressing our opinions 
 will either weaken their effect or involve us in any more 
 active interference. I am convinced that the reverse is the 
 case, and that as long as our principles were simply and 
 honestly conservative, to keep things as they are, without 
 trying to pull down one man or set up another, we might 
 exercise a very great influence on the Affghans, with the 
 best results to them and to us, and be much more secure 
 against temptation to interfere actively than we can ever 
 be while we affect a reserve and indifference which the 
 Affghans do not believe to be real, and are sure to mis- 
 interpret. I would not now trouble you with all this, but 
 similar occasions are always recurring, and I have always 
 felt that we threw away great advantages and incurred 
 great dangers by our reserve in dealing with the Affghans, 
 and I pointed this out at great length to Lord Canning 
 when Sir H. Rawlinson sent Colonel Pelly to Herat, and 
 afforded an opportunity for putting the relations between 
 Herat and the Dost on a footing which would have pre- 
 vented this expedition." 
 
 He writes again to Sir Charles Wood : — 
 
 "May 22, 1863. 
 
 " With all my great respect for Sir J. Lawrence's opinion, 
 I cannot agree with him about Herat. I advocate, as 
 strongly as he does, ' absolute non-interference, unless we 
 have reasons for doing so of our own.' But it seems to me 
 we have such reasons in the present case — for at least 
 offering advice and mediation, which is all I proposed. I 
 would attempt no arrangements or engagements of any 
 kind. I would simply give the weight of our influence and 
 advice to the cause of peace, which seems clearly the best 
 for Affghans and Persians, as well as indirectly for us. A 
 continuation of hostilities can only serve the purposes of 
 those powers who wish to see Persia and Affghanistan 
 weakened, which is certainly not our interest. 
 
 " I would say to Persia, ' you have behaved very badly 
 in this matter. You brought on hostilities by meddling 
 and intriguing at Herat ; you have no sort of claim on us
 
 1863] DEATH OF DOST MAHOMED. 487 
 
 for our good offices, still, we will not refuse them, and as 
 far as advising the Dost goes, for what seems to us his 
 good, as well as yours, we will do so, and thus give you a 
 fresh proof of the falsehood of the charge against us, that 
 for our own selfish purposes we stir up strife and seek to 
 make you weaken each other.' 
 
 "To the Dost I would hold just the same language as 
 his old advisers and family have from the first held to him, 
 and which is, in fact, the language of Affghan common 
 sense. ' All this fighting with Herat is patricidal warfare. 
 Victory or defeat will be equally disastrous to your family 
 and nation. Sultan Jan is your son-in-law ; his children are 
 your grandchildren ; he has been severely punished, and is 
 now willing to submit and to hold Herat as your gift ; accept 
 his submission and pardon him.' 
 
 " All accounts agree that Sultan Jan would make any 
 nominal formal submission which would save the Dost's 
 honour and induce him to retire, leaving Sultan Jan in 
 possession. The expedition has always been unpopular 
 with all classes, and has been forced on by the old man's 
 obstinacy, against the advice of all, even that of sons who 
 hope to succeed him, and dread Sultan Jan as a formidable 
 future rival. For they know the Dost may die any day, 
 and that their own chances of succeeding him will be 
 materially lessened by absence from Cabul or Candahar, 
 which may, in such case, be seized by some one on the 
 spot. 
 
 " I cannot think that we should stand badly if he neg- 
 lected our advice. If he did so and failed to take Herat, 
 his failure must strengthen our influence. If he succeeded 
 we should be no worse off than all his sons and most trusted 
 influential Sirdars, who have held the same language to him 
 ever since he passed Furrah." . . . 
 
 A few days after this was written, Dost Mahomed took 
 Herat by storm ; and within a fortnight afterwards, on 
 June 9th, 1863, he died. He left sixteen sons, no less than 
 twelve of whom aspired to rule the whole or a part of their 
 father's territory. Shere Ali had been named by the Dost 
 as his successor, to the exclusion of his elder brothers 
 Afzul and Azim Khan, and he was at first acknowledged by 
 all the brothers Ameer of Afghanistan, and was recognized
 
 488 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 as such by the British Government. But by the next spring 
 Afzul and Azim were in revolt. For two years righting 
 went on with more or less intermission between the brothers, 
 till in May, 1866, Shere Ali sustained a heavy defeat near 
 Ghuznee. A report reached Calcutta that he had fled for 
 refuge to Kelat, and Lawrence wrote to Malcolm Green 
 as to the reception to be accorded to him. But the Kelat 
 in question proved to be Kelat-y-Ghilzai in Affghanistan, 
 not Kelat in Beloochistan. Shere Ali had no intention of 
 quitting the country and giving up the game. 
 
 Frere writes to Lawrence three years after Dost 
 Mahomed's death, on the same subject : — 
 
 "June 15, 1866. 
 
 " I am very glad you have allowed Malcolm Green to 
 write to you. He is one of the stoutest-hearted, soundest- 
 judging men I know, and thoroughly reliable in every 
 way. . . . 
 
 " I wish I could agree with you that it is ' of very little 
 importance to us who is ruler of Cabul and Candahar.' I 
 confess that to me it seems a very vital question, and I 
 would spare no pains to be on the best of terms with him, 
 whoever he may be. I quite agree with you that we ought 
 not to interfere in any way. But I hold it quite possible 
 to have very intimate relations with such neighbours as the 
 Affghans, and yet to give them the fullest assurance that 
 we do not intend to meddle in any way in their affairs. 
 Why should that which is perfectly easy in our dealings 
 with France and with every European power be impossible 
 with the Affghans ? I mean, that they should feel we take 
 the liveliest interest in their affairs, while they are assured 
 that nothing can be further from our intentions than inter- 
 fering in their domestic affairs, or attempting to influence 
 their home politics." . . . 
 
 But Lawrence did not agree. He answers — 
 
 "June 28, 1866. 
 
 " When I expressed an indifference as to who might rule 
 in Cabul or Candahar, I intended to convey my impression 
 that such rulers could not be relied on by us ; and that they
 
 I866.J RUSSIAN ADVANCE. 489 
 
 would not be really friendly towards us ; and that they 
 would, in the event of temptation, fall away from us, what- 
 ever might be their engagements to the contrary. No 
 doubt it would be very desirable that the case was other- 
 wise. I do not myself see how a truly friendly feeling can 
 be established between the Affghans and the English 
 Government in India, when we bear in mind the character 
 of these people and the history of our connection with them 
 during the last thirty years. So long also as we keep them 
 out of Cashmeer and Peshawur, they will be ready to join 
 any combination against us which may give promise of 
 success." 
 
 To Sir George Clerk, Frere writes — 
 
 ' ; September 8, 1866. 
 
 " Naomull writes to me from Kurrachee that there is 
 great excitement all along the border in consequence of 
 the unsettled state of Affghanistan, and the Russian 
 advances towards Bokhara. He says that Afzul Khan and 
 Shere AH Khan will soon again try for the mastery, and 
 whichever is worsted will certainly call in Russian aid. 
 Meantime Shah Nawaz, the son of Sultan Jan, the late 
 ruler of Herat, has been sent thither by Afzul Khan to try 
 and regain it, and whether he succeeds or fails, he is likely 
 to seek Persian aid, which stood his father in good 
 stead. . . . 
 
 " I have also had two visits and a long letter from old 
 Agha Khan (the Pir of the Khojahs), sure signs of stormy 
 times to the North-West, for I never hear from or see him 
 when all is quiet. He confirms all Naomull's news, and is 
 equally urgent that we should interpose, though after a 
 very different fashion from Naomull's. 
 
 " There is no danger of Lawrence interfering, but I see 
 great risk of the present abortive efforts to appear uncon- 
 cerned when our neighbour's house is on fire leading to 
 some ill-judged, hasty action hereafter, and I wish that, 
 instead of being forced to keep aloof and appear indifferent, 
 our frontier officers were allowed to treat the Affghans 
 with the same spirit of neighbourly frankness with which 
 Jacob and his lieutenants have so entirely won the con- 
 fidence of the Beloochees and Brahooes." 
 
 And to Lord Granborne : —
 
 490 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XIII. 
 
 " November 28, 1866. 
 " If we had really good military communications 
 throughout India, and an outpost at Quetta, we might 
 safely leave events to develop themselves. As it is, I fear 
 we shall find, at no distant date, that the Sibylline leaves 
 have been burning faster than we supposed, and that we 
 shall have to do hurriedly and at vast cost, and therefore 
 imperfectly, what we may now do leisurely and well." 
 
 And again to Lord Cranborne : — 
 
 "February 12, 1867. 
 
 " Sir Robert Napier has returned from Sind, greatly 
 pleased with all he saw, and satisfied, I think, as to the 
 soundness of our frontier system. He went with a camp 
 of two thousand men over all the scene of his great name- 
 sake's mountain campaign, some sixty miles beyond our 
 frontier, and was everywhere welcomed as a friend. 
 
 " I believe that the Government of India and the Punjab 
 frontier officers no longer doubt that the tribes of the Sind 
 frontier can be brought to permit and even like such visits 
 from English officers, nor do they doubt that it would be 
 well if the Affghans would do the same. But they are 
 profoundly convinced that there are natural impediments 
 on the Affghan frontier which do not exist elsewhere, or 
 that human nature changes where the Sind frontier ends, 
 and continues changed as far as the Punjab frontier 
 extends. 
 
 " We have just had a reply from the Government of 
 India to a letter we wrote on the subject of Quetta, 
 couched in terms so peremptory, and almost prohibitory 
 of discussion, that I felt further argument was almost pre- 
 cluded. I regretted it the more, because this is the second 
 opportunity we have lately lost of putting our relations 
 with the Affghans on a more neighbourly footing, without 
 risk to ourselves, and with a good prospect of restoring 
 peace and good government to them." 
 
 Seven years after this time, in 1874, occurred one of the 
 periodical panics about the advance of Russia in Central 
 Asia, in the direction of India, which drew from Frere, 
 then a Member of the Indian Council, a statement of his 
 views on Frontier Policy, expressed in a letter to Sir John
 
 1874.] LETTER TO SIR JOHN KAYE. 49 1 
 
 Kaye, Secretary to the Political Department of the India 
 Office. 
 
 This letter was printed for confidential circulation 
 amongst the Members of the Indian Council, upon whom 
 it seems to have made a considerable impression at the 
 time ; but it was not made public till October, 1878, when, 
 to the surprise of Frere, who was then in South Africa, it 
 was printed nearly at length in the Times, and was most 
 incorrectly taken as recommending the course of action 
 which was then being carried out by Lord Lytton in 
 Affghanistan. Though not written till long after he had 
 left Bombay, it sums up and explains Frere's policy on the 
 question when Governor there, and is therefore summarized 
 and extracted here. 
 
 "Official politicians in India," the letter said (June 12, 
 1874), "seem now at last seriously alarmed, and there is 
 much risk that, like all men, when they at last perceive a 
 danger they have long been unable to recognize, they may 
 rush in the wrong direction." Opinions had been expressed 
 that a boundary must be named in Central Asia beyond 
 which any advance by Russia must be made a casus belli. 
 
 To do this, Frere pointed out, would be impracticable. 
 The Russians were impelled to advance by causes similar 
 to those which had impelled the British advance from 
 Calcutta to Peshawur. Their conquests in Central Asia, 
 like ours in India 3 had on the whole been a benefit to the 
 populations of the countries annexed. 
 
 Nevertheless the danger was, or might become at any 
 time, very serious to the safety of India. 
 
 " Some of our greatest acquisitions were made in our 
 own generation by men who came out sincerely determined 
 to avoid extension of boundary, but the course of conquest 
 was never stayed till we got to the barriers of the mountain 
 regions which surround India on the landside. All this
 
 492 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XIII. 
 
 was in spite of the most constant and positive orders from 
 home, and the most sincere wish on the part of men at the 
 head of affairs in India to obey these orders. 
 
 " It is the same with Russia, with this difference, that 
 instead of public opinion at home being, as was the case in 
 England, strongly and sincerely pronounced against further 
 extension of territory, there are in Russia, as I need not 
 tell you, two opposite political parties. Neither of them 
 objects, on any moral ground, to extensions of territory ; 
 but one of them, including the Emperor himself and some 
 of the best and most able financiers and enlightened 
 politicians, is strongly opposed to further extension in 
 Asia, on grounds of expediency. The great mercantile 
 party of protectionists, many of the Russianized Germans, 
 who are more Russian than the Russians, most of the 
 military and the ultra-national politicians, on the other 
 hand, are enthusiastic supporters of further schemes of 
 conquest, and this party is by far the more popular and 
 powerful. 
 
 " But the Russians have one source of impulse which 
 moves them more powerfully than it does us, though we 
 too feel something of it. I mean the religious crusading 
 element. . . . To a modern religious Russian the prospect 
 of a war with a Mahommedan or an idolatrous prince has 
 the same aspect and excites the same feeling as a crusade 
 did among religious Englishmen in the Middle Ages. I 
 only mention this because I think it is one of the forces 
 impelling Russia onwards, of which we take less account 
 as a political force than it deserves. It is in many ways a 
 great source of strength to her. So is the declared policy 
 of the Russian Government to put down slavery where - 
 ever her influence extends, such slavery, I mean, as that 
 prevalent among the Turcomans and throughout Central 
 Asia. Contrast our feelings, or the feelings of intelligent 
 Americans, when they heard that the slave-markets in 
 Khiva and Bokhara were abolished, with what you and I 
 felt when we ineffectually ground our teeth as we read of 
 what poor Stoddart and Conolly were suffering, and we 
 may have some faint idea of the national credit, the sense 
 of duty performed, and the impulse to do more, which 
 patriotic Russians feel when they consider what they are 
 doing in Asia. . . . 
 
 " The result of all this is that Russia will go on, whether
 
 1874-J A BARRIER TO RUSSIA. 493 
 
 her Government wish it or not, till something stops her ; 
 and what will stop her ? Nothing that I can see except 
 an impassable barrier, such as we found in the mountain 
 chain of the Himalayas, or a political barrier, such as 
 finding herself on a frontier which she cannot pass without 
 fighting an equally powerful nation on the other side, and 
 where that powerful nation is civilized like herself and able 
 and willing to give her honest hearing and reasonable 
 redress with regard to all frontier discussions and to require 
 equal justice from her. . . . 
 
 " What, then, is the barrier which I would propose to 
 raise to Russia's advance towards India ? . . . 
 
 " Our policy hitherto has been not only stationary and 
 nominally — though I think very imperfectly — defensive ; 
 it has also been purely negative. We are ready enough 
 to say what we will not do, but all efforts by any of the 
 other Asiatic powers concerned have hitherto failed to 
 elicit from the Government, either here or in India, any 
 declaration of what it will do under any given or con- 
 ceivable combination of circumstances. This peculiarity 
 in our policy will at once explain to any one who knows 
 Orientals, or, in fact, to any one who knows mankind in 
 general, the inherent weakness of our policy as compared 
 with that of the Russians. . . . Orientals generally mis- 
 understand our present inaction. They suspect some 
 deep design, some secret understanding with Russia. If 
 it is once understood that nothing will move us till the 
 Russians appear on our frontier, we shall certainly hasten 
 that even by a great many years. . . . 
 
 " What, then, ought to be the character of our action ? 
 
 " Nothing, I believe, will be effectual to resist Russian 
 progress towards India till we have British officers 
 stationed on the Indian side of a well-defined frontier, 
 exercising an effective control over the politics of the 
 semi-civilized races on our side of such a border, and in 
 constant frank diplomatic communication with Russian 
 officers on the other side. 
 
 " But how is this to be effected without annexation 
 or protectorate almost equivalent to annexation and sup- 
 ported by force ? 
 
 " We must carry much further, and make more generally 
 understood, the liberal, frank, and independent policy 
 inaugurated by Lord Mayo. . . .
 
 494 TIIE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 "We must not attempt to impose on the Ameer with any 
 profession of disinterested regard for his welfare ; we must 
 let him see that we fully appreciate the danger which 
 threatens ourselves as well as him by the Russian advance, 
 and that we intend to stop all occasion for such advance 
 in his direction, by assisting him so to govern Affghanistan 
 that he shall give Russia no pretence for interference. . . . 
 
 " The views held on these subjects by most of our 
 Punjab frontier officers are much sounder now than they 
 were twenty years, or even ten years ago. 
 
 " But nothing can make up for the loss of such a noble 
 school of frontier officers as John Jacob founded, and which 
 the Government of India so persistently discouraged and 
 ultimately abolished. . . . 
 
 " The active measures which seem to me essential for 
 our present purpose are, first, to place an advanced post of 
 our frontier army in the Khan of Kelat's territory at 
 Quetta, sufficiently strong to prevent the place being 
 carried till reinforcements can arrive from the Indus, 
 between which and Quetta the communication should be 
 improved, as far and as fast as practicable, to the foot 
 of the Bolan, and throughout that pass. This would 
 establish above the passes, and in the territory of a power 
 bound by treaty to act in subordinate co-operation with us, 
 an advanced post in an excellent position for watching 
 Southern Affghanistan, and acting, if necessary, on the 
 flank of whatever might threaten India from the Khyber 
 Pass and Cabul. These measures require no diplomacy 
 nor consultation with any other Power except the Khan of 
 Kelat, and we have treaties and engagements with him 
 which give us all the power we can require. A detach- 
 ment from Jacobabad has frequently passed the summer 
 in Quetta, and nothing more is necessary than to strengthen 
 and provision such a post, and make it capable of per- 
 manent occupation. 
 
 " The railway for a hundred and fifty miles, from tha 
 Indus to the Bolan, would run over a level plain very 
 similar to that over which, in Northern Bengal, a railway 
 has just been made at the rate of a mile a day. Thence 
 to Quetta the road may be easily and cheaply improved 
 by keeping parties of pioneers at work on it, remembering 
 that nothing more than a practicable road for artillery is 
 needed.
 
 I874-J QUETTA. 495 
 
 " Secondly, well selected English agents should be 
 placed at Cabul, Herat, and Candahar. I still retain my 
 old predilection for military officers for such service ; but 
 they should be picked men, with good training in the 
 scientific branches of their profession, hardy, active, and 
 good linguists, and, above all, men of good temper and 
 disposition, calculated to secure the confidence of the 
 chiefs they have to deal with. Their policy must be 
 strictly laid out for them ; it must be one of entire absti- 
 nence from all meddling with the internal government of 
 the country, of watchful vigilance as regards all that goes 
 on, and actuated by a sincere desire to support the ruler 
 of the country, actively and efficiently, as long as he main- 
 tained friendly relations with us, and dealt frankly and in 
 a friendly spirit with the English Government regarding all 
 matters of foreign policy. 
 
 " This need not be a costly proceeding, if we are careful 
 to avoid the mistake of subsidizing the prince, so as to 
 make him rely more on our treasury than on his own thrift 
 and good management. 
 
 " But what if the Ameer should object to follow our 
 advice ? If the matter did not affect his foreign relations, 
 he might be left to follow his own inclinations, but if it 
 affected such a question as his relations with other powers 
 than ourselves, I would give him clearly to understand 
 that he must not count on our support unless he followed 
 our advice. I would not break with him save in the last 
 extremity, and after all hope of continuing friendly rela- 
 tions had disappeared ; but I would clear for action, and 
 give him unequivocally to understand that we held ourselves 
 free to act as might seem best for our own interests, which 
 were to give foreign powers no good ground for inter- 
 ference with him or us. 
 
 " If, as we are told, the Ameer already evinces dislike 
 and distrust towards our government, we cannot too soon 
 come to a clear understanding with him as to whether he 
 means peace and effectual alliance or the reverse. If 
 peace, then I would let no small obstacle hinder our placing 
 a British officer, not necessarily in the capital, but in a 
 position to judge for himself, arid to report to us all that 
 goes on at Cabul. . . . 
 
 " In considering this Central Asian question, it never 
 seems to me that, either those who are for active measures
 
 49^ THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 on our north-west frontier, or their opponents the advocates 
 of ' masterly inactivity,' fairly appreciate the real character 
 of the danger to be guarded against, or the respective 
 kinds of strength of the parties concerned. 
 
 " What is our danger in India from Russian advance- 
 ment? People talk of a Russian invasion of India. If 
 this means an expedition, like the expeditions to Khiva 
 and Bokhara, formally prepared by the Russian Govern- 
 ment with Russian forces, and marching from the Russian 
 frontier to attack us, the danger is perhaps a remote one. 
 No Russian statesman in his senses would, as matters now 
 stand, dream of attempting such a thing for a long time to 
 come. ... So far I quite agree with the ' masterly inac- 
 tivity ' advocates, and I have no doubt whatever of the 
 entire sincerity of all Russian statesmen and soldiers of 
 judgment when they disclaim any idea of such an invasion 
 of India for their own generation. But the danger I 
 apprehend is not of this kind. . . . 
 
 " If we suppose Affghanistan only so far Russianized that 
 Russian travellers freely move about the country, that 
 Russian officers and men, not necessarily in the pay of the 
 Russian Government, but deserters, possibly, or vagabonds 
 from Russia, drill the Ameer's troops, cast his cannon, 
 coin his rupees, and physic him and his subjects, what 
 would be the effect in India ? Can any man in his senses, 
 who knows anything of India, doubt that the effect now, and 
 for many years to come, must be to disquiet every one in 
 India except that great majority of the cultivators who will 
 go on cultivating without talking politics till the crack of 
 doom ? Every Englishman, from the Governor-General 
 downwards, will be disquieted ; they will feel that a great 
 foreign power has almost as much to say to the proceedings 
 of all the troublesome classes as the Viceroy and his 
 English officials. Every prince and chief will see in the 
 Russians a possible alternative claimant for empire in 
 India, all the disaffected, dangerous, and criminal classes 
 will be on the qui vive, ready to stir at a moment's notice, 
 and all the millions who still have some martial spirit left 
 will furbish their swords, and believe that another era of 
 fighting and fair contest for martial renown and plunder 
 is at hand. All these elements may be stirred into strife 
 any moment by a Russian proclamation issued at Cabul, 
 or even by a false report of one, for it is not necessary
 
 I874-] RUSSIA AND AFFGHANISTAN. 497 
 
 that the report should be true to set some of these restless 
 elements in motion. 
 
 " Now this danger, to be reasonably apprehended from 
 a Russian Minister established at Cabul, and Russian 
 subjects quietly permeating Afghanistan, is a danger 
 which is never many weeks removed from the present 
 time. I have no doubt that the good feeling of the 
 existing Government in Russia would prevent their taking 
 any steps towards it if we seriously remonstrated with 
 them at the present moment ; but we must recollect that 
 the more material part of such a step may be taken at any 
 moment by a daring Russian frontier commander who 
 chooses to run the risk of formal disavowal and recall, and 
 that once taken, the step would be, or might be said by the 
 Russians to be, irrevocable. . . . 
 
 " This, it seems to me, would be the case if a Russian 
 Minister were established either formally or informally at 
 Cabul, and friendly relations prevailed between Russians 
 and Affghans, while we are in the present state of apparent 
 peace in Europe. But how would it be, if we were engaged 
 in any discussions such as have occupied our diplo- 
 matists during the last ten years, about Danish or Cuban 
 questions, or Luxemburg questions, or Spanish or Swiss 
 or Italian questions, in which Russia wished us either to 
 support her actively, or in which she desired to neutralize 
 our voice against her ? She would then only have to 
 instruct her Minister at Cabul to show his teeth, to hold 
 language insulting or offensive to us, and to get the Ameer 
 to make ostentatious preparations for war. If, subsequently, 
 peace were patched up in Europe, the Minister might be 
 recalled in satisfaction of our remonstrances, but, mean- 
 time, what would be the effect on India ? Should we be 
 able to withdraw a single regiment or gun? Should we 
 not be probably called on to increase our Indian army, 
 and get ready for war ? All this, remember, may be done 
 without our actually breaking with Russia. 
 
 " But the case would be far more serious if matters went 
 a little further. I have never seen any difficulty in a 
 Russian agent impelling upon us in India hordes of 
 Asiatic barbarians, more or less disciplined by renegade 
 Russian and Indian soldiers, many of them deserters from 
 our own army, followed by a vast train of undisciplined 
 marauders, such as followed Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah 
 
 VOL. I. 2 K
 
 498 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Cn. XIII. 
 
 almost within living memory. When people doubt the 
 possibility of such a move, and talk of want of commis- 
 sariat, etc., they speak in entire ignorance of the mode in 
 which an Asiatic marauder, or even a regularly paid 
 soldier of an Asiatic power, habitually travels. Of course 
 such a force would be met as soon as it appeared in India, 
 and we may hope it would be defeated, if not annihilated. 
 But what will take place in the mean time ? How much 
 expense will be incurred in repelling them ? How many 
 outbreaks will occur in India itself? And who can tell 
 what will happen when once the rolling-stone is put in 
 motion ? And all this, it seems to me, may be done 
 without Russia committing herself to a clear casus belli, or 
 being in any way actively unfriendly. . . . 
 . "You will naturally ask what is the remedy I propose 
 for this state of things, and I will briefly state the principle 
 on which I would proceed. First of all, I would endeavour 
 to meet the danger, as far as possible, from our own frontier, 
 without placing any hostile power between us and our 
 Indian base. Some of these measures I have already 
 described. They involve the establishment of a perfect 
 Intelligence Department of European officers in Afghan- 
 istan, and, if possible, a preponderating influence there, but 
 I would not attempt the subjugation of the country nor 
 its military occupation, because I believe that we can 
 effectually keep out all rivals by supporting a national 
 Government. Hence, I would not attempt to hold Herat 
 by a force of our own troops, at least not until we had 
 tried the effect of such measures as Todd and Pottinger 
 and Rawlinson proved could be so effectual in like cases. 
 I would not attempt to enforce union of the Affghan States 
 under a single ruler ; I would not oppose such union if the 
 ruler seemed capable of effecting it ; I would give him the 
 best advice I could on the subject, but avoid committing 
 myself to support an unpopular or imbecile candidate for 
 united Affghan Empire. I believe if we dealt candidly 
 and frankly with the Affghans, as Metcalfe and Clark dealt 
 with the Sikhs, we might maintain supreme influence among 
 them as long as we can command a succession of such men. 
 But you must trust them largely, and remember that their 
 expenditure cannot be conducted like that of an overseer of 
 a Union Workhouse under a vigilant Board of Guardians." * 
 
 * With the letter Frere printed and confidentially circulated — leaving
 
 1874-3 INDIA AND EASTERN AFRICA. 499 
 
 Lawrence wrote a Memorandum in reply to this letter, 
 maintaining and defending his foreign policy, in the course 
 of which he says — 
 
 " Though I quite admit that the approach of Russia 
 towards our Indian possessions is fraught with future 
 trouble and danger, I do not see that we can do much 
 more than watch events for the present, and be guided by 
 circumstances as they arise. . . . 
 
 " The occupation of Quetta seems to me to be an unwise 
 step, both in a political and military point of view." 
 
 In another quarter also, the question was now arising 
 whether the British Empire was to maintain an attitude 
 of " masterly inactivity," or to execute its mission and 
 accept its responsibilities outside as well as within its own 
 borders. 
 
 At least as long ago as the days of Solomon ships were 
 sailing and trade being carried on between Eastern Africa 
 and South Western Asia. The breath of the steady trade- 
 winds, the conformation of the East African coast, indented 
 with frequent harbours, and the fertility of the land, un- 
 broken by deserts, down to the shore, render the voyage 
 
 out the parts personal to himself— a letter from Sir Henry Green, 
 in the course of which he said — 
 
 " October 26, 1874. 
 "Your Paper ought to be printed in gold letters, framed, and placed 
 opposite the chair of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the Foreign 
 Office, and at each change of Government the Foreign Secretary for 
 the time being should be compelled to copy it until he knew it by 
 heart. More than this, the whole nation should know it. We should 
 then possess a real Foreign Policy in Central Asian questions, and 
 there would be 110 fear of war with Russia. She would know our 
 Policy, and shape hers accordingly. Russia does not want war any 
 more than we do, but we are both drifting towards one to the delight 
 of the uncivilized world. Every Mahomedan, who is longing for an 
 opportunity to raise the standard of his creed and deluge some of 
 the fairest parts of the world with blood, is praying to see two of 
 the most powerful Christian nations tearing each other to pieces." . . .
 
 500 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 easy and commerce lucrative. In the autumn the sailors 
 have but to spread their broad lateen sails to the north- 
 east monsoon to be driven, faster than a European square- 
 rigged ship, or than any but the fastest steamers can 
 follow, to the African coast. There they have only to 
 wait till the summer season brings the south-west monsoon, 
 to be wafted back with equal ease and swiftness to the 
 shores of Arabia, the Persian Gulf, or Western India. 
 
 For two centuries the Portuguese were the ruling maritime 
 power, alike on the coasts of India, as far north as Muscat 
 on the Persian Gulf, where the walls of their cathedral are 
 still standing, and on the East Coast of Africa in its whole 
 extent. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, their 
 supremacy was contested by the ships of the Imam of 
 Muscat, chief of the Arab tribes of Oman, the name given 
 to an undefined region in the south-east corner of Arabia 
 and on the west shore of the Persian Gulf. The power of 
 the degenerate Portuguese gradually gave way before the 
 Arabs of Oman, who exercised a sort of organized and 
 disciplined piracy, mitigated by certain rules and customs 
 which deprived it in popular estimation of its disreputable 
 and lawless character ; and trade was carried on with 
 comparative safety by merchant ships under their license 
 and protection. 
 
 As the English power became paramount in India, the 
 safety of the seas became a matter of concern to the Indian 
 Government. The Bombay Marine was established, which 
 afterwards developed into the Indian Navy. In 1798 a 
 treaty was made with the ruler of Oman by the East 
 India Company, and in 1800 an English Resident was 
 established at Muscat. 
 
 About this time part of Arabia was overrun by the 
 Wahabees, a fanatical sect, of whose religious and political 
 creed it is enough to say that it legalized the indiscriminate
 
 1804-1S56.] SEYYID SAID. 501 
 
 plunder and thraldom of all people, Muslim as well as 
 unbelievers, beyond its own pale. The Wahabees were a 
 constant source of irritation and danger to the Omani ; 
 with such fanatics there could be no permanent truce, 
 and though, later on, their capital, Nejd, was taken and 
 occupied by Ibrahim Pasha with his Egyptian army, the 
 sect still spread and made itself formidable. 
 
 In 1804 began the reign of Seyyid Said, commonly 
 called — though he laid no claim to the title — Imam or 
 Sultan of Muscat and Zanzibar. Throughout his long 
 reign till his death in 1856, he was the faithful ally of the 
 English. Several operations were conducted by the Indian 
 fleet, conjointly with him, for repelling the Wahabees and 
 for suppressing the independent piratical tribes of the 
 Persian Gulf and destroying their strongholds, operations 
 which so far succeeded that, in 1820, the chiefs of all the 
 maritime tribes were constrained to sign a treaty, binding 
 them to a perpetual maritime truce, and to accept the 
 arbitration of the British Agent in the Gulf in case of 
 intertribal disputes. From 1829 to 1844 the Seyyid lived 
 chiefly at Zanzibar, and gradually occupied, sometimes 
 with the assistance of the English, almost every consider- 
 able sea-port and all the islands off the coast from near 
 Brava, north, to Cape Delgado, south, of Zanzibar, about 
 twelve degrees of latitude. He had a considerable fleet 
 of ships, fairly manned, and armed after the English 
 fashion. One of them he. sent as a present to King William 
 the Fourth, which was placed on the Navy list as H.M.S. 
 Imam — a serviceable teak-built frigate. The trade on the 
 coast increased and flourished. Zanzibar grew into an 
 important place. Indian merchants were followed thither 
 by English, Germans, French, and Americans. Foreign 
 consuls of each nationality were established, each of whom 
 contrived to obtain for his countrymen a treaty with a
 
 5<D2 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 " most favoured nation " clause, which added to the 
 difficulties of raising revenue. 
 
 In Said's absence at Zanzibar, troubles had arisen in 
 Arabia ; the Persians as well as the Wahabees were 
 threatening his territory of Oman ; the Indian Govern- 
 ment, it is to be feared, was vacillating in its attitude 
 towards him ; and his later years brought him disappoint- 
 ment and misfortune. In 1856 he was forced to conclude 
 a humiliating treaty with Persia, shortly after which he 
 died, leaving behind him a reputation as a wise and able 
 ruler, and classed by his countrymen in the same rank 
 with Runjeet Sing, Dost Mohammed, and Mohammed Ali. 
 
 He left fifteen sons, of whom the eldest, Thouaini, suc- 
 ceeded him at Muscat, and the fourth, Majid, at Zanzibar. 
 These two were each prepared to claim and fight for the 
 undivided inheritance of sovereignty, but referred their 
 dispute to Lord Canning, who deputed Sir W. Coghlan, 
 the Resident at Aden, and Dr. Badger, the great Arabic 
 scholar, to report. The award confirmed the division as 
 it stood, and directed Majid, as having the richer territory, 
 to pay forty thousand dollars annually to Thouaini. The 
 compromise was accepted. 
 
 But in a few years difficulties began to arise at Zanzibar. 
 The payments to Thouaini were not made. The slave- 
 trade was increasing, which the Sultan of Zanzibar was 
 bound by treaty to put down. The treaty did not inter- 
 fere with slavery as an established institution in the 
 country, and slaves might be conveyed from port to port 
 within the territory ; but this was taken advantage of to 
 convey slaves in large numbers to the Red Sea and 
 Persian Gulf — a traffic which the British cruisers could do 
 but little to impede. 
 
 Matters were in this state when, early in 1861, Pelly 
 reached Calcutta after his perilous journey from Persia
 
 i86i.] SIR LEWIS PELLY. 503 
 
 through Afghanistan. Frere, finding that Lord Canning 
 had no employment for him, wrote to Sir George Clerk at 
 Bombay on his behalf. Clerk telegraphed back offering 
 him a sort of roving commission as Political Agent on the 
 East Coast of Africa. Pelly immediately accepted, went 
 to Zanzibar, where he obtained Majid's assent to all that 
 was asked of him, and then sailed down the coast, visiting 
 the different ports and gathering information. In Sep- 
 tember the Semiramis, the ship in which he was, was 
 shipwrecked on Johanna, one of the Comoro islands, and 
 he was detained a month there till he could get a vessel 
 to take him away to Zanzibar. 
 
 Frank, straightforward, ardent, fond of adventure, and 
 fearless, Pelly was ready for any service, the more novel 
 and hazardous the better. His shrewdness, tact, and 
 ready wit generally carried him safely and successfully 
 through the various dangers and difficulties he had to 
 encounter. From the time that he first served under 
 Frere in Sind, the latter had treated him with cordiality 
 and affection, and had done his best to obtain suitable 
 employment for him. Pelly returned Frere's kindness 
 by entire devotion. Writing to Lady Frere some years 
 after his death, he says — 
 
 " You say truly that I loved Sir Bartle, and that I 
 always felt, when I had the privilege — as I often had — of 
 being received under his and your roof, that I was at home, 
 and with those in whose good will and noble encourage- 
 ment I had full and implicit confidence. Had I been his 
 son I could not have loved and respected him more than 
 I did, and all possible considerations have been as nothing 
 to me compared with the pleasure I felt in being admitted 
 to his personal friendship. I often ponder all he was to 
 me, and his loss is irreparable — so gentle, so sweet, so 
 considerate, so tender to one's faults, and so bold and firm 
 in support when one tried to serve him honestly and 
 fearlessly."
 
 504 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 Frere, shortly after his appointment as Governor of 
 Bombay, writes to Pelly : — 
 
 "May 17, 1862. 
 
 "It seems to me that we may have the cares and 
 responsibilities, if not the other attributes of a great 
 empire, half African, half Arabian, thrust on us, whether 
 we will or no, and I often wish I knew whether anything, 
 and what, occurred to you as better to be done than the 
 just waiting-on-Providence policy which we have hitherto 
 followed in South East Africa. 
 
 " All seems just now to hang on this great slavery 
 question which you have brought forward in a way which 
 must, I think, command attention and bear good fruit. . . . 
 
 " Now, I want you, my dear Pelly, to tell me, as your 
 old friend, and not as Governor in Council, how you feel 
 you can best apply your abilities to do good in your 
 generation ? It seems to me that you have a very mag- 
 nificent future of usefulness open to you in East Africa, if 
 your situation were put on its proper footing, and I might 
 be able, and would gladly do what I can, to support you 
 in that direction. But if your heart turns towards the 
 tamer routine of Indian official life, the opportunity may 
 not be wanting of showing how I value what you have 
 done, and how highly I estimate what you can do." 
 
 Pelly returned to Bombay in November, 1862. As to 
 the slave-trade, his opinion, founded on what he had seen, 
 was that it was not to be suppressed all at once, or by 
 forcible means solely, or even mainly. The captures which 
 had been made by the English cruisers had of late been 
 comparatively few, and had not had altogether a good 
 effect. Some of them had been really illegal and contrary 
 to treaty, owing to the difficulty of determining the true 
 destination of the boats captured, and had to a certain 
 extent created an impression of overbearing conduct on 
 our part, rather than of disinterested intentions towards 
 the slaves. Slavery Pelly believed to be a social evil 
 indigenous to the country, which could be eradicated only 
 by degrees, by establishing free-labour settlements and
 
 1865-6.] THE PERSIAN GULF. 505 
 
 by encouraging commerce, which would gradually lead the 
 old piratical trading spirit into other channels and bring 
 outside influences to bear upon the ideas and manners of 
 the inhabitants. 
 
 These views coincided generally with Frere's,* and also 
 with those of Dr. Livingstone, f who had stayed some time 
 with Frere at Bombay, in 1864 and 1865, and who after- 
 wards from time to time wrote to him from Africa. 
 
 Pelly did not stay long at Bombay. He was sent out 
 by Frere as locum tenens for the British Resident in the 
 Persian Gulf, who was on furlough. But he needed change 
 of climate, and after a time went home to England. He 
 returned in October, 1865, and the British Resident having 
 retired, he was appointed in his place. 
 
 The Seyyid Thouaini had none of his father's energy. 
 The Wahabees were encroaching on the Muscat sea-board, 
 and were carrying on an active importation of slaves for 
 sale in Arabia and Persia. They had sacked two Muscat 
 towns, and besides plundering many, had murdered one 
 or two of the peaceable Hindoo traders who carried on 
 most of the commerce of those seas, and many of whom 
 were British subjects.^ Thouaini was miserably inert ; 
 but at length, urged by his own subjects and by Pelly's 
 remonstrances, he took the field. He released from prison 
 Toorkee, an able but somewhat troublesome brother, and 
 set him at the head of his troops. An English ship was 
 
 * Frere to Sir Charles Wood, June 23, 1863. 
 
 t Livingstone arrived at Bombay in 1864, having come across from 
 Zanzibar with a native crew in a small lake steamer. Thence he 
 returned to England, and the following year revisited Bombay to 
 make preparations for his last great journey. He took with him to 
 Africa some negro lads from the Church Missionary's establishment 
 for rescued slaves at Nassick, some of whom, in 1873, brought his body 
 all the way from Ujiji to England. 
 
 % Frere to Lord De Grey, March 13, 1866.
 
 506 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 to aid him by sea, and he was to have help to equip his 
 neglected fleet. 
 
 In the Gulf there was only one English warship, the High- 
 flyer, Captain Pasley, and the Resident's steam yacht, the 
 Berenice. In accordance with instructions from Colonel 
 Pelly, Captain Pasley commenced hostilities against 
 Damaun, a Wahabee town on the coast. The water was 
 too shallow to admit of the heavy boats approaching 
 within twelve hundred yards of the shore ; but without 
 taking the precaution of reconnoitring the fort the crews 
 of two light cutters went on to the assault. After wading 
 three hundred yards through the mud, they carried the 
 lower story with a rush, only to find gates and walls, 
 manned by numerous marksmen, opposed to them. To 
 scale these was impossible, and they had to retire with 
 a loss of two killed and an officer and two men wounded. 
 The Highflyer then returned to Muscat, where Pelly joined 
 her in the Berenice, and after destroying the forts of Soor, 
 south of Muscat, the Highflyer sailed to Bombay, and 
 the Berenice up the Gulf to Cape Mussendon. 
 
 That same day (February 13, 1866), as Seyyid Thouaini 
 was resting at Sohar, a town on the coast a little way 
 north of Muscat, his son Salem came stealthily in and shot 
 him, or caused him to be shot, through the head as he 
 slept. 
 
 Hearing a rumour of what had happened, Pelly went 
 immediately to Sohar in the Berenice. Salem came to 
 meet him and try to deceive him as to the cause of his 
 father's death. But Pelly had ascertained the truth, and 
 peremptorily demanded the release of Toorkee, the 
 murdered ruler's brother, whom Salem had shut up in a 
 dungeon. Toorkee was released and came on board the 
 Berenice for safety, shivering and trembling, with nothing 
 on but his shirt. The Berenice then went on to Muscat,
 
 1866.] SALEM THE PARRICIDE. S°7 
 
 where all was in confusion, and Pelly, having no force on 
 the spot to back him, sailed away to await instructions, 
 and soon afterwards returned to Bombay. 
 
 A parricide usurper in alliance with Wahabee robbers 
 and slave-traders was not an ally to be desired, especially 
 when his co-operation was wanted for promoting commerce 
 and putting down the slave-traffic, and Frere and Pelly 
 hoped that our Government would have had nothing to say 
 to him. But the Government of India confined itself to 
 finding fault with Pelly for everything he had done, and 
 would give him no intelligible or definite instructions for 
 his future guidance. Frere, on the contrary, thought he 
 had behaved exceedingly well, and wrote to Lawrence in 
 his defence. 
 
 "March 23, 1866. 
 
 "The repulse at Damaun was certainly very annoying, 
 and the loss of the four brave fellows killed a very 
 lamentable and, it may be said, a very useless expenditure 
 of valuable life. But in apportioning the blame, I think 
 we should consider that the season for naval operations 
 was drawing to a close, that the Admiralty peremptorily 
 forbids the retention of ships in the gulf after the hot 
 weather sets in, and that if the navy was to do anything 
 it was necessary to do it quickly. 
 
 " Of course if Colonel Pelly had been on board the 
 information would have been better, the reconnoitring 
 more complete, and the attack would probably have 
 succeeded with possibly no loss ; but is Colonel Pelly to 
 blame for not going with the HigJiflyei' ? 
 
 " I certainly think not. He could not be in two places 
 at once, and he was much more wanted at Muscat and 
 with the Sultan than up the gulf. The naval operations 
 were merely auxiliary, the main object was to rouse the 
 Sultan to use his own very ample forces by land to repel 
 the Wahabee aggression. This Colonel Pelly could not 
 do unless he kept close to the Sultan. He did stay close 
 to him and did rouse him, and would have made him do 
 for himself all that was needed had not his parricide son 
 cut him off by a crime which no one could foresee, and
 
 508 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 which was so improbable in itself that the poor Sultan 
 when warned by a faithful slave refused to believe it 
 possible. 
 
 " Colonel Pelly is, I believe, the first Resident who ever 
 stirred from Bushire except on a holiday trip. He has 
 done his best by personal activity and exertion to make 
 up for the want of a more numerous agency, and has 
 almost literally carried his life in his hand in visiting not 
 only all the shores of the gulf, but in his most perilous 
 journey to Riadh, and this year in his trip through 
 Oman. . . . 
 
 " In sending his native agent with the Highflyer, Colonel 
 Pelly did the utmost he could, and that at great personal 
 inconvenience and considerable risk to himself ; he advised 
 Captain Pasley to go via Bahrein, where he would have 
 got any pilots and information he could require, and had 
 he done this and reconnoitred with ordinary caution, he 
 would either not have attacked the fort at all, or ensured 
 its capture and destruction with little risk of loss. 
 
 " Do I, then, blame Captain Pasley and his officers for 
 their rashness ? I should be very sorry to do anything of 
 the kind. Of course what they did was very rash, but so 
 are all stormings and boardings and cuttings out. It is 
 owing to such rashness, joined to other great qualities, that 
 our navy is what it is. We should have thought them 
 very fine fellows if they had succeeded, and I trust the 
 Admiralty will not think the worse of them for having 
 honourably failed in an enterprise so desperate that few 
 but British troops would have attempted it, and in which 
 none could have been defeated with so little disgrace." 
 
 In another letter, Frere suggested that Colonel Pelly 
 should go and see Sir J. Lawrence at Simla. 
 
 "April 13, 1866. 
 
 " There is so much which it is difficult to write, and 
 so easy to understand by oral discussion, that I believe an 
 hour's conversation with him would save you many hours' 
 reading and writing ; and it is so much easier to instruct 
 and obey a man you have seen, that I feel sure it would 
 be every way advantageous if you could see him." 
 
 Lawrence writes in reply : —
 
 i866.] THE QUEEN'S PEACE IN THE PERSIAN GULF. 509 
 
 "April 21, 1866. 
 
 " I would not ask Colonel Pelly to come up to Simla, 
 more particularly at such an inclement season of the year. 
 If necessary he might come across on my return to 
 Calcutta. I do not, however, desire to arrange myself for 
 the policy to be adopted in the Persian Gulf. I would 
 prefer that all that was done was carried by or through 
 your Government. What that policy is will mainly 
 depend, no doubt, on the views of the authorities at home. 
 If I have any influence on that policy, I should advise 
 that we interfere as little as may be practicable in the 
 affairs of the Arab tribes on the sea-board, and of course 
 still less with those of the tribes in the interior of the 
 country. I would be slow to take up the cause of natives 
 of India, or their descendants who call themselves British 
 subjects, for injuries received in the country, and where I 
 did so, I would confine the interference, as a rule, to 
 remonstrance. Unless we act in this way, we shall make 
 enemies and not friends of these Arab tribes, and our 
 interference will be misrepresented, misunderstood, and, 
 when opportunity offers, will be resented also. 
 
 " I would confine our labours, as a rule, to the suppres- 
 sion of piracy on the high seas. This seems to me quite 
 as much as we can undertake with any advantage." 
 
 Thus Frere could get no definite instructions for himself 
 or for Pelly, verbal or written, beyond general advice to 
 be inactive. 
 
 He writes, in answer to Lawrence : — 
 
 " April 29. 
 
 " With the advantage of your own letters before me, an 
 advantage which Colonel Pelly does not possess, I can 
 understand clearly enough your own views. But you must 
 forgive me for saying that it will be impossible to carry 
 them out without a total reversal of our policy of the last 
 half century in these parts. 
 
 " The policy of non-interference which you describe 
 might have been a very convenient one two generations 
 ago, as it would have been in China or Japan, in Turkey 
 or Egypt. 
 
 " But for the last forty-five years at least, our policy from 
 Bahrein to Rasel Had has been one of active interference
 
 5IO THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 and avowed assumption of the duty and responsibility 
 of protecting general commerce. Trade has greatly in- 
 creased, not less, I believe, than fourfold in forty years. 
 It has been generally under the British flag and carried on 
 by men who claimed protection as British subjects, and 
 received it from the Resident, who had always an efficient 
 squadron at his command, and used it very freely to 
 enforce his demands. 
 
 " This system has been popular even with the Arabs 
 themselves. They begin to find commerce profitable, and 
 though you cannot convert pirates into merchants in one 
 generation, much is being done to reclaim them. They 
 look with dread, so Salem's own envoys tell me, to being 
 cast off by us, and if we abdicate the position of general 
 arbiters and active preservers of the peace which we have 
 occupied so long, I have no doubt some other naval 
 power, probably the French, will be invited or will invite 
 themselves and will step in. . . . 
 
 "As for remonstrance with the Arabs, I need hardly 
 remind you that it will be effective in exact proportion to 
 their estimate of our power and intention to use it in 
 enforcing our remonstrances. 
 
 " In acting as he did at Soor and Khatiff, Colonel Pelly 
 did exactly, I believe, what his predecessors had been in 
 the habit of doing under similar circumstances. We have 
 sent you copies, I believe, of every letter we sent him. The 
 position is one in which a very large discretion must 
 always, I think, be entrusted to the Political Agent, and 
 when it is impossible to refer for orders and he acts for the 
 best, great allowance should, I think, be made for him, 
 even if all does not turn out as he expected." 
 
 The French were more nearly gaining a footing in the 
 Persian Gulf than the Government of India dreamt of. 
 Colonel Merewether, who was on his way home on leave, 
 writes to Frere from Alexandria : — 
 
 " May 26, 1866. 
 
 " I met Palgrave * at Suez and had about an hour's 
 most interesting talk with him. He told me in confidence, 
 what I may communicate to you in the same way, that 
 
 * Gifford Palgrave, the traveller and orientalist.
 
 IS66.J KEEPING WITHIN OUR SHELL. 5 1 1 
 
 the main object of the journey he was sent upon by 
 Napoleon, was to report on the position and proceedings 
 of the English in the Persian Gulf, and to recommend a 
 place for a French settlement there. He had presents for, 
 and authority to close a bargain with, the Imaum, if he had 
 the opportunity — but his wreck and the absence of the 
 Imaum from Muscat when he was there, prevented his 
 doing anything. . . ." 
 
 Pelly went back to the gulf with orders from Calcutta to 
 recognize the parricide Salem, and to do the best he could 
 with him and the Wahabee Chief. The confident and 
 determined attitude he maintained was successful. Frere 
 writes to Captain Eastwick : — 
 
 "May 12, 1866. 
 
 " Pelly writes that the Wahabees have given in on all 
 points and ' paid the money.' I suppose he means the 
 compensation for the British subjects murdered and plun- 
 dered by the Wahabees in one of their raids on a Muscat 
 port. I hope this will satisfy Sir John Lawrence that our 
 protectorate over British subjects in those parts is not such 
 an empty form as he has supposed. But I fear it will not 
 be easy to remove from Pelly's mind the very unpleasant 
 impression that he was judged by the Government of 
 India after the event, and that they would have thrown 
 him over, had anything gone wrong, without reference to 
 his deserts or to anything but success." 
 
 And to Lord John Hay he writes : — 
 
 "May 3, 1866. 
 
 " Up to the present time the orders of the Government 
 of India are enough to puzzle any plain man — like nothing 
 I ever read save Punch's caricature of the orders of the 
 Admiral in the Baltic. The fact is I doubt whether the 
 Government of India has at present any foreign policy 
 beyond a sort of resolve to "keep within our shell," as 
 they call it, and not to incur risk or expense for anything 
 which may happen beyond the jurisdiction of our High 
 Courts. This is a tempting sort of policy and looks safe 
 and cheap, but it is not easy to carry out where we have 
 treaties, and other obligations and responsibilities as strong
 
 512 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 as treaties, incurred by men of old time who knew what 
 honour and empire meant ; and one of these days we shall 
 reap bitter fruit from our present selfish and timid way of 
 dealing with all our independent neighbours." 
 
 Included, like the Persian Gulf and Zanzibar, within the 
 jurisdiction and authority of the Bombay Government was 
 Aden, the key of the Red Sea and of the ocean high- 
 way from Europe to India, China, Australia, and the East 
 Coast of Africa. There also the question arose of activity 
 or inactivity, of an advancing or receding British influence. 
 
 Sir W. Coghlan, who commanded there when Frere 
 went to Bombay, wrote thence, early in 1863, that Sheebur 
 and Maculla, two places on the opposite coast, were two 
 of the greatest slave depots, and that at that time there 
 were two thousand slaves at the latter place, and many 
 also at the former, ready for despatch to the Red Sea and 
 Persian Gulf. He went on to say that he had succeeded 
 beyond his expectations in obtaining treaties binding the 
 chiefs of those places to stop the traffic, which he hoped 
 the Government would provide him with the means of 
 enforcing, if necessary. Coghlan's command ended in 
 1S63. He was succeeded by Colonel (afterwards Sir 
 William) Merewether. 
 
 Merewether, already mentioned as a worthy disciple 
 of Jacob's school, had succeeded him in the command 
 of the Sind frontier at his death in 1858. "It was 
 solely owing to his excellent judgment and power of 
 command," Frere writes, " that he was so little heard of 
 in 1857-58. He maintained order and cheerful obedience 
 where inferior men would have let matters come to a 
 crisis, and perhaps have earned great repute in dealing 
 with it." Frere, on going to Bombay, at once offered him 
 the post of military secretary to Government. Mere- 
 wether, thinking only of the duty entrusted to him and
 
 1862-5.] ADEN. 513 
 
 not of his own advancement, answered gratefully that he 
 felt he could not be spared from the frontier ; that if he 
 went, others would go too, as opportunity offered, and that 
 the charge — laborious and shunned save by enthusiasts — 
 would fall into weak hands, and Jacob's work be undone. 
 But a few days' reflection convinced him that he had been 
 wrong to consider himself indispensable, that Henry and 
 Malcolm Green, Macauley and others were ready and 
 competent to carry on the work, and he telegraphed to 
 Frere, " I was wrong to show difficulties. Have now made 
 all arrangements, and am ready to start." 
 
 He had not been at head-quarters much more than a 
 year, when he was appointed by Frere to Aden. 
 
 Aden is a poor Arab town lying treeless and waterless 
 at the foot of the bare red cliffs of a mountain scorched 
 by the unclouded rays of the sun from year's end to year's 
 end, where scarcely a blade of grass, much less of corn, can 
 find heart to grow. The British occupants had been ordered 
 to keep within the narrow strip of land around it which 
 had been proclaimed British territory, and to have no 
 friendships or enmities with the Arab tribes who fought and 
 plundered outside. Food had to come from a distance, 
 and if the supplies by sea were delayed, as they sometimes 
 were, it rose to famine prices, and the garrison could not 
 get enough to eat ; for the roads from the interior were 
 infested by robbers, who intercepted the produce which 
 would otherwise have found a profitable market there. 
 The state of matters resembled on a smaller scale that on 
 the Sind frontier, as Jacob had found it. But the Arab 
 tribes were far less formidable than the Beloochees, and 
 the country within a short distance of Aden more easily 
 susceptible of profitable cultivation than the Sind desert ; 
 and Merewether sought to apply a similar remedy. 
 
 He requested to be allowed to raise a force of a hundred 
 
 vol. 1. 2 L
 
 514 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 horsemen, equipped and trained like the Sind horse ; but 
 this was refused. He then suggested — a plan for which 
 he confessed he had no liking — subsidizing the Sultan of 
 Lahej, who belonged to a friendly tribe through whose 
 territory the roads passed, and paying him to protect the 
 kafilahs as they passed through his territory. 
 
 Frere, though full of sympathy with his object, writes a 
 word of caution. Comparing Aden to Gibraltar, he says — 
 
 " February 15, 1865. 
 " We do not need Gibraltar to establish an influence in 
 Spain, and the possession of much interest or respon- 
 sibility, still more the actual possession of territorial 
 sovereignty on the mainland of Spain, would be a serious 
 source of weakness. Now, if we once begin as arbiters, 
 it will be very difficult to avoid having sovereignty, or at 
 least a protectorate quite as onerous, thrust on us at Aden. 
 We ought to be respected and feared at Aden, but if we 
 once quit it to interfere by force of arms, save in the most 
 selfish manner, and for purely selfish purposes — e.g. to 
 secure our supplies of grain, fowls, and forage — we cannot 
 help being drawn on to protest, to arbitrate, and to rule ; 
 a very glorious result, perhaps, but one not at all con- 
 templated by our rulers, and not one which we are likely 
 to be allowed to follow up. To begin, and then to be 
 called back, leaving those who have trusted us in the lurch, 
 is every way evil." 
 
 But matters grew worse. The Foodthelee tribe plundered 
 vessels belonging to British subjects, and robbed kafilahs 
 bringing supplies into Aden within a mile of the barrier 
 gate. Merewether again applied for leave to raise a 
 cavalry force, and, though supported by the opinion of 
 Sir W. Coghlan, then in England, it was again refused ; 
 but Sir Charles Wood authorized "a raid to punish a 
 thief," and Merewether prepared, not very hopefully, to 
 do the best he could with his infantry. He succeeded 
 beyond his expectation. The tribe was taken by surprise, 
 and suffered so much loss — more than a hundred being
 
 1865-7.] SIR WILLIAM MEREWETHER. 5 1 5 
 
 killed — that they were disposed to pay the indemnity 
 demanded, and to give security for better behaviour in 
 future. The good effect produced was instantaneous. 
 Merewether writes — 
 
 " December 31, 1865. 
 
 " The people in Aden are delighted at the prospect of 
 future security, which will follow on the punishment of 
 these Foodthelees. One of the Parsee merchants, to show 
 his delight, wished to send a present of soda water and 
 lemonade to the soldiers out here. He despatched it on 
 a couple of camels, without asking for any guard, and it 
 reached our camp safely last night, thirty-five miles from 
 Aden. Formerly nothing could go two miles from the 
 barrier gate without a guard. Give me the hundred horse- 
 men, and the new state of affairs will become vigorous, 
 and be perpetuated without undue interference on our part." 
 
 But the absence of cavalry marred the complete success 
 of the expedition. The tribe was quite willing to do all 
 that was asked, but the old chief, Ahmed bin Abdulla, who 
 could have been caught if there had been fifty horsemen 
 present, escaped to the hills and would not come in. In 
 three or four months he was found to be plundering again, 
 and a second expedition became necessary. The force 
 consisted only of the 109th Europeans. The native regi- 
 ment, being armed with smooth-bore muskets, Merewether 
 did not venture to bring to the front, though otherwise 
 he would have been glad of them. The old chief still kept 
 out of the way, though he had no longer much power for 
 mischief. A year later, in the spring of 1867, Merewether's 
 request for a small cavalry force was at last granted, just 
 as he was leaving to take up the Commissionership of 
 Sind, to which he had been appointed. In answer to her 
 congratulations, he writes to Lady Frere : — 
 
 ''June 19, 1867. 
 
 " The Foodthelees have formally and unconditionally 
 surrendered. On the second friendly visit they received
 
 516 THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 an electric shock all round, and had sparks taken out of 
 their noses to completely ratify their reception into civilized 
 society. This — the surrender, not the shocking — is a very 
 satisfactory conclusion to the little expedition into the 
 Foodthelee country in 1865-66. It is Frontier all over 
 again, and poor Jacob would, I am sure, have approved. 
 When the troop now raising at Jacobabad has arrived, the 
 country will, I hope, be settled for very many years to 
 come. Their lines will be outside the fortifications on 
 British territory, to show the Arabs we don't care a straw 
 for them, and are in earnest when it is said there must be 
 peace in the land." 
 
 END OF VOL. 1. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
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