INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE BY THE SAME AUTHOR. MADRAS IN THE OLDEN TIME, 16391748. 3 vote, sin. 8vo. Madras, 186162. EARLY TRAVELS IN INDIA. First Series, comprising Purchas's "Pil- grimage" and the "Travels of Van Linschoten. " 8vo. Calcutta, 1864. EARLY TRAVELS IN INDIA. Second Series, comprising Sir Thomas Roe's "Embassy to the Great Mogul" and Fryer's " Travels in India." 8vo. London, 1873. HISTORY OF INDIA FROM THE EARLIEST AGES. 5 vols. 8vo. Vol. I. The Maha Blmrata and the Vedic Period. Thick 8vo. Map. 1867. II. The Ramayana and the Brahmanic Period. Thick 8 vo. Map. 1869. III. Hindu, Buddhist, and Brahmanic Revival. 8vo. Map. 1874. IV. and V. Mohammedan Rule. 2 vols. 8vo. 1876 82. SHORT HISTORY OF INDIA, and of the Frontier States of Afghanistan, Nipal, and Burma. Thick*crown 8vo, with Maps and Tables. Macmillan and Co. 12s. 1880. HISTORY OF THE IMPERIAL ASSEMBLAGE AT DELHI, held on the 1st of January, 1877, to celebrate the assumption by Her Majesty Queen Victoria of the Title of Empress of India ; with Historical Sketches of India and her Princes. Royal 4to, with 13 Portraits, Map, and 17 Illustrations, chiefly by Photographs. 1877. EARLY RECORDS OF BRITISH INDIA ; a History of the English Settlements in India. 8vo. Calcutta, 1878. JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE UP THE IRRAWADDY TO MANDALAY AND BHAMO. 8vo. Rangoon, 1871. TALES FROM INDIAN HISTORY. 12mo. 1881. GEOGRAPHY OF HERODOTUS, Developed, Explained, and Illustrated from Modern Researches and Discoveries. Thick 8vo, with Maps and Plans. 1854. LIFE AND TRAVELS OF HERODOTUS. 2 vols. post 8vo. 1855. ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY OF HERODOTUS. Post 8vo. Bonn's Philological Library. 1852. ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY OF THUCYDIDES. Post 8vo. Bohn's Philological Library. 1852. INDIA UNDER BEITISH RULE FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY BY J. TALBOYS WHEELER LATE ASSISTANT-SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, FOREIGN DEPARTMENT, AND LATE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF BRITISH BURMA. AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF INDIA FROM THE EARLIEST AGES," INCLUDING THE " MAHA BHARATA "AND " RAM AY ANA," *'A SHORT HISTORY OF INDIA,' ETC.. ETC. - Honfcon MACMILLAN AND CO. 1886 The Eight of Translation and Reproduction is Eeterved. RICHARD CLAY & SONS, BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON, Bungay, Suffolk. (_(^uJu^lJ^A, TO SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN, BART., WHO OPENED THE OLD MADRAS RECORDS TO THE AUTHOR IN 1860, is PKEFACE. A HUNDRED years ago, when the lively Miss Frances Burney was weeping over the wrongs of Warren Hastings, and the learned and portly Gibbon was still lamenting that he had not entered on an Indian career, there were people in the British Isles who knew something of Indian history. They had picked up information respecting Indian affairs from the speeches of the grave Edmund Burke, the eloquent Charles James Fox, and the impassioned Eichard Brinsley Sheridan. The facts may have come second hand, and been more or less distorted by the jealous and bitter fancies of Sir Philip Francis, the reputed author of the Letters of Junius ; but facts or fables, they served to enlighten the British public on the Indian questions of the day. During the present century, the march of intellect has turned away from India, except as regards an outlet for cotton goods, a field for speculation in railways and teas, or a provision for younger sons in the "Indian civil." Within the last few years, viii PREFACE. however, there has been a change for the better. The British public has been alarmed at the fall in silver. It has been cheered by the proposal to place British-born subjects under the magisterial jurisdic- tion of Hindus and Mohammedans. It has been aroused by the prospect of a war with Russia in Central Asia ; but it has been comforted by the restoration of the fortress of Gwalior to Maharaja Sindia. Moreover, Burma is no longer confounded with Bermuda, and no one groans over the annexation of the country, or the destruction of brigandage by the new rulers. Still there is room for more know- ledge. The author, however, has before him a letter from an old friend in high position in India, who tells him plainly that the British government does not want history. Accordingly, the present work is not called a History of India, but India under British Rule. More than one British ruler in India has, however, sinned against history, and might well like to shut it up with confidential minutes and secret negotiations. Within the present century, India has been desolated by wars as cruel as those of the Heptarchy, and as unmeaning as those of the White and Red Roses. Within the present generation, it has been distracted and tortured by a military revolt, created by a scare about greased cartridges, but leading to crimes more horrible than those of the French Revolution. Yet Anglo-Indian statesmen have been known to ignore the past, and to propound schemes for India that PREFACE. ix would be too advanced for any European nation excepting Great Britain. They have blinded them- selves against history, like ostriches burying their faces in the sand. They have dealt with India, as the German philosopher dealt with the " camel/' not by the facts before them, but out of the sublime depths of their moral consciousness, stirred up by a political caucus, or a philanthropic gathering in Exeter Hall. Controversy and fault-finding are to be deprecated. But reform is only possible after a due consideration of what has been accomplished up to date by British rule in India, and of the flaws and faults in the existing constitution. It will be seen from the first chapter, that the British traders of the seventeenth century, who established factories, built fortresses, and created manufacturing towns, also attempted to introduce representative and municipal government into the East India Company's once famous city of Madras. The second chapter reveals the fact that the acquisition of Bengal in the eighteenth century was not the work of ambition, but an act of sejf : pr^servation. The third chapter shows that the peace of India could not have been maintained in any possible way except by the estab- lishment of British supremacy as the paramount power. The fourth chapter proves that the first Afghan war, needless as it turned out to be at the time, was the outcome of Eussian ambition which PREFACE. dates back to the times of Peter the Great and Nadir Shah. The story of the sepoy mutinies of 1857 occupies a considerable space in the present volume. It is not a mere narrative of military revolt, but a revelation of Asiatic nature ; a lesson which every Anglo-Indian statesman must study, if he would avoid defeat or failure. The masses in the British Isles may read Biblical accounts of rebellion and massacre, or the story in Josephus of the atrocities of Herod the Great ; but very few seem to realise the fact that they are reading Asiatic history, which has no reflex in Europe, nor in any country under European rule except British India. The horrible intrigues and murders in the household of Herod ; his frantic passion for the fair Mariamne ; the malicious lies of Salome ; the assassination of Mariamne by her jealous and infuriated husband ; the alternations in the mind of Herod as regards Cleopatra, whether to accept her love or murder her ; find no parallels in European history, excepting perhaps in Turkey, or in the Kussian court of the last century. The last chapter in the present volume is devoted to the constitutional changes in the government of India, and in the local governments, since the mutinies. The author has not indulged in the hope of raising Asiatics to the level of Europeans by the premature introduction of representative government. He considers that such a scheme would for the present be as much out of place in Asia as PREFACE. xi a republic of boys for the control of schoolmasters. British India is treated as a political school for Asiatics, in which Europeans are the teachers ; and so long as that theory of government is upheld, constitutional reforms in India are practical and possible. In conclusion, the author has to express his obliga- tions to Professor Terrien de Lacouperie of the London University College, and to his own son, Owen E. Wheeler of the Leicestershire Eegiment, for revising the proofs of the present work, and for many valuable suggestions. .FULHAM, 12th May, 1886. CONTENTS. PART I. EAST INDIA COMPANY. CHAPTER I. FIRST PERIOD : FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 1600-1756. 1. India in 1600. 2. British at Surat and Masulipatam : Commercial and Social Life, 16121638. 3. Rise and Growth of Madras, 1639 1680: Portuguese and Dutch Neighbours. 4. British Rule and') Representative Government, 1686. 5. Mixed Corporation of Europeans / and Natives, 1688. 6. Slavery and the Slave Trade in India. 7. Madras, Surat, Bombay, and Hughly. 8. Collision with the Great Mogul, 1686 1700. 9. Domestic Administration, 1700 1746. 10. Wars against France in Southern India, 17461756. 11. The Black Hole at Calcutta, June 1756 Pages 139 CHAPTER II. SECOND PERIOD : BENGAL PROVINCES. 1756-1798. 1. From Calcutta to Plassy, 1757-58. 2. Nawab Rule under British Protection. 3. British Arrogance: Massacre at Patna. 4. Lord (dive's Double Government, 1765-67. 5. Warren Hastings, 1772-85: Life and Career. 6. British Rule : Treatment of Bengal Zemindars. | 7. British Collectors and Magistrates : Circuit Courts and Sudder. 8. Innovations of Parliament. 9. Collisions in Calcutta Council : Trial and Execution of Nundcomar. 10. Clashing of Supreme Court and Sudder. 11. Mahratta war : Goddard and Popham. 12. Triple ^ Alliance against the British : the Mahrattas, the Nizam, and Hyder Ali. 13. Parliamentary Interference : the Two India Bills. 14. Charges against Warren Hastings. 15. Lord Cornwallis, 1786-93: Perpetual Settlement and Judicial Reforms. 16. Sir John Shore, 1793-98 : Non- intervention Pages 40 82 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THIRD PERIOD : IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 1798-1836. 1. Lord Mornington (Marquis of Wellesley), 1798-1805: last war against Tippu, 1799. 2. Carnatic confiscated and annexed to Madras Presi- dency. 3. Wellesley's scheme of a paramount power. 4. Second Mahratta war : successes of Arthur Wellesley and Lake. 5. Disastrous war with Holkar. 6. Return to non-intervention, t-%-7. Sepoy mutiny in Madras army. 8. Lord Minto, 1807-13 : wars and alliances against France. 9. Evils of non-intervention in Rajputana : troubles in Nipal. 10. Lord Moira (Marquis of Hastings), 1813-23: war with Nipal, 1814-15. ]1. Revival of the paramount power : Pindhari and Mah- ratta wars, 1817-18. 12. Lord Amherst, 1823-28: wars with Burma and Bhurtpore. 13. Lord William Bentinck, 1828-35; abolition of Suttee. 14. Suppression of Thugs. 15. Administrative reforms. 16. North- West Provinces: Joint Village Proprietors. 17. Madras and Bombay Presidencies : Ryotwari Settlements. 18. Changes under the Charter of 1833. 19. Sir Charles Metcalfe, 1835-36. Pages 83140 CHAPTER IV. FOURTH PERIOD : RISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 1836-56. 1. Russian advance checked by Nadir Shah, 1722-38. 2. First Cabul war under Lord Auckland, 1838-42. 3. Lord Ellenborough, 1842-44 : return from Cabul and conquest of Sind. 4. War in Gwalior : reduc- tion of Sindia's army. 5. Lord Hardinge, 1845-48 : Sikh rule in the Punjab. 6. First Sikh war : Moodki, Ferozshahar, Aliwal, and Sobraon. 7. Lord Dalhousie, 1848-56 : Second Sikh war: Chillianwalla and Goojerat : annexation of the Punjab. 8. British rule : patriarchal government. 9. Second Burmese war, 1852 : annexation of Pegu. 10. Lord Dalhousie as an administrator: no roads in India. 11. Trunk road, trunk railway, telegraphs, Ganges canal. 12. Annexa- tions of Nagpore, Satara, Jhansi, and Oudh. 13. India Bill of 1853 : new competitive Civil Service. 14. New Legislative Council : Lord Macaulay and the Penal Code. 15. Departure of Lord Dalhousie, 1856. 16. Lord Canning, 1856-62: expedition to the Persian Gulf. 17. Mogul family at Delhi. 18. Condition of Oudh . . . Pages 141184 CONTENTS. xv ^ CHAPTEK V. SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 1857. 1. European soldiers and Asiatic sepoys. 2. Three British armies in India: Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. 3. Sepoy army of Bengal: Brahmans and Eajputs. 4. Enfield cartridges : general horror of pork : Hindu worship of the cow. 5. Agitation of the sepoys at Barrackpore. 6. First mutiny against the cartridges: Berhampore. 7. Second mutiny : Barrackpore. 8. Oudh : mutiny at Lucknow : suppressed. 9. Mutiny and massacre at Meerut. 10. Mohammedan revolt and massacre at Delhi : general excitement. 11. British advance from the Punjab to Delhi. 12. Siege of Delhi by Europeans, Sikhs, and Ghorkas. 13. Punjab and John Lawrence : antagonism between Sikhs and Mohammedans. 14. Sepoy plots at Lahore and Mian Mir: quashed. 15. Peshawar and frontier mountain tribes. 16. Execution of sepoy mutineers at Peshawar. 17. Brigadier John Nicholson : worshipped by a Sikh brotherhood. 18. Proposed withdrawal from Peshawar. 19. Mutiny at Sealkote : wholesale executions. 20. Siege and storm of Delhi, September 1857 : peace in the North-West. Pages 185231 CHAPTER VI. SEPOY REVOLT : NORTH WEST, CAWNPORE, LUCKNOW. 1857-58. 1. Bengal and Lord Canning : General Neill's advance from Calcutta. 2. Sacred city of Benares : Hindu population overawed. 3. Fortress at Allahabad : treachery and massacre. 4. Cawnpore : extreme peril. 5. Story of Nana Sahib. 6. European refuge in the barracks. 7. Nana Sahib at Cawnpore : aspirations after Hindu sovereignty : delusion of General Wheeler. 8. Mutiny and treachery : barracks beleaguered by Nana Sahib. 9. First massacre at Cawnpore : massacre at Jhansi. 10. Advance of General Havelock. 11. Second massacre of women and children : the well. 12. Lucknow and Sir Henry Lawrence : May and June. 13. Siege of British Residency at Lucknow : July to Sep- tember : death of Sir Henry Lawrence. 14 Havelock's advance and retreat. 15. Advance of Havelock and Outram. 16. Relief of Luck- now. 17. Sir Colin Campbell's advance : deliverance of the garrison. 18. Mutiny of the Gwalior contingent: defeated. 19. End of the mutiny and rebellion : causes Pages 232 274 xvi CONTENTS. PART II. BRITISH CROWN. CHAPTER THE LAST. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 1858-1886. 1. Awakening of the British nation. 2. Government Education in India : Toleration. 3. British Rule after the Mutiny : Legislative Council of 1854 and Executive Council : Wrongs of Non-Official Europeans. 4. Mr. James Wilson and his Income-Tax. 5. New Legislative Council of 1861-62. 6. New High Court : proposed District Courts. 7. Lord Canning leaves India. 8. Lord Elgin, 1862-63. 9. Sir John Lawrence, 1864-69 : Governments of Madras and Bombay : Migrations to Simla : Foreign Affairs. 10. Lord Lawrence leaves India. 11. Lord Mayo, 1869-72. 12. Lord Northbrook, 1872-76: Royal visits to India. 13. Lord Lytton, 1876-80 : Empress Proclaimed. 14. Second Afghan War. 15. Political and Judicial Schools. 16. Constitution of British India : proposed Reforms Pages 275 302 INDEX Pages 303312 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. PAET I. EAST INDIA COMPANY. CHAPTEE I. FIRST PERIOD : FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 16001756. 1. India in 1600. 2. British at Surat and Masulipatam : Commercial and Social Life, 16121638. 3. Rise and Growth of Madras, 1639 1680 : Portuguese and Dutch Neighbours. 4. British Rule and Representative Government, 1686. 5. Mixed Corporation of Europeans and Natives, 1688. 6. Slavery and the Slave Trade in India. 7. Madras, Surat, Bombay, and Hughly. 8. Collision with the Great Mogul, 1686 1700. 9. Domestic Administration, 1700 1746. 10. Wars against France in Southern India, 1746 1756. 11. The Black Hole at Calcutta, June, 1756. THE rise of British rule in India is a problem CHAP. r. in history. A single association of British traders RisTof established factories which grew into fortresses, and B ^ h governed native towns which became the capitals of a British empire. The march of events is without a parallel in the annals of the world. In 1600 the East India Company obtained from Queen Elizabeth a charter of exclusive rights to trade in the Eastern seas. In 1612 it established its first factory at Surat. In 1639 it began to build a fortified factory at Madras, B cVc^l/f llic^i /INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. i. whilst a Hindu population of weavers and other manufacturers grew up by its side. Before the beginning of the eighteenth century, before Queen Anne ascended the throne of Great Britain, the British settlements at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta had each a fortress and a town. How Hindu and Mohammedan populations were ruled by British traders will be told in the present chapter. How the British traders acquired provinces and established an empire belongs to the after chapters. NORTHERN ! In 1600 the whole of Northern India was under thfSreat ^ e dominion of a Mohammedan sovereign, known as Mogul t ne G rea t Mogul. His revenues and armies were the marvel of Europe. His empire extended from the mountains of Cashmere to the Bay of Bengal, from the slopes of the Himalayas to the table-land of the Deccan. It covered large Hindu populations and many Hindu principalities, for throughout this vast area the Great Mogul was sovereign lord of all, the emperor, the Padishah. SOUTHERN South of the Mogul empire was the Deccan or Moham- " south." The country was a terra incognita to Sultans Europeans. The interior had been conquered by Mo- namme( ^ an invaders from the north, and distributed into kingdoms under Sultans, who formed a barrier against the Moguls. East and west were hills and jungles stretching to the sea, mostly held by Hindu Eajas who were hostile alike to the Sultans and the Great Mogul. Mohammedan rule, however, had never as yet extended further south than the river Kistna. The whole region from the Kistna to Cape Comorin sometimes known as the " Peninsula " was under the dominion of Hindu Rajas. FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 3 The western coast of the Deccan and Peninsula CHAP. i. was dotted with Portuguese fortresses, mounted w T ith Portu- 0"11GS6 cannon and garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers. The fortresses. Portuguese had made their way to India round the Cape of Good Hope about the end of the fifteenth century, and for a hundred years had been building factories in the territories of Hindu Kajas, and con- verting them into fortresses. Nothing of the kind would have been allowed by the Great Mogul, or by the Sultans of the Deccan, but the Portuguese had persuaded the Hindu Rajas that they would help and protect them, and the Rajas never saw the danger until the fortresses were bristling with cannon and opposition was useless. The Portuguese capital was seated on the island of Goa, about half-way between Surat and Comorin, and w^as a centre of the Catholic religion as well as of Portuguese trade. 1 2. British merchants in the service of the East British India Company would gladly have traded on the same tr surat. at sea-board, which was known as the coast of Malabar, but they were shut out by the Portuguese fortresses. Accordingly they sailed further northward, and tried to get a footing in the Mogul port of Surat. This port was a centre of the Mohammedan religion and an emporium of Mogul trade. It was the starting- point for all pilgrims going to Mecca, and the point to which they returned when their pilgrimage was over. It was the rendezvous of Mogul merchants who despatched ships to the Persian Gulf and Red 1 The island of Goa, and the fortress of Diu in Guzerat, were nominally within Mohammedan dominion, but they were really independent and were held by force of arms. B 2- 4 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAR i. Sea, and sent goods overland to the great capitals of the Mogul empire Agra, Delhi, and Lahore. British At Surat, however, the British were thwarted by Portu- e the Portuguese. The Nawab of Surat was told that guese. ne Brjftjgh W ere pirates. The merchants of Surat were threatened with the capture of their ships if they had any dealings with the British. Fighting was the only way of meeting the difficulty. Accordingly the British attacked a Portuguese fleet outside the bar of Surat, The news of battle and the roar of cannon brought the Nawab, the merchants, and half the population of Surat to the sea- shore. The British sunk or burnt several Portuguese ships until the residue of the fleet steered back to Goa. The Moguls were fascinated by the victory. They saw that the British had not only superior strength on their side, but Allah and kismet. The Nawab of Surat feasted the conquerors in his tents on the sands, and the Surat merchants eagerly bought British cargoes and supplied Indian commodities to the brave men who had beaten the Portuguese. British In 1612 the British set up a factory at Surat in a at a surat, large Indian house, with warehouses and offices below 12< and chambers and refection-rooms above. It was a London establishment transferred to a Mohammedan seaport. The British merchants, factors, and writers lodged and boarded together like members of one family. Native brokers or banyans were employed to buy cotton goods, silks, indigo, and other Indian commodities ; whilst public auctions were held in the factory for the sale of British broadcloths, glass and cutlery, especially sword-blades, and also for the sale of lead, copper, quicksilver, and other European commodities. The spirit of enterprise was as busy FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 5 amongst the British as in after years. One factor CHAP. i. urged the Company to send ships up the river Indus and open up a trade with Central Asia ; whilst another tried to persuade the Great Mogul to lay down leaden pipes from the river Jumna to the city of Aj mere, a distance of more than two hundred miles, in order to convey drinking-water to the imperial palace in the heart of Eajputana. In those early days no British ladies were allowed Factory to reside in India. If a servant of the Company happened to be married he was obliged to leave his wife in England. The " English House," as it was called, was thus a bachelor establishment, without ladies, but not without Surat punch or Persian wine. An English chaplain read prayers every morning and evening, and preached two sermons on Sundays. An English surgeon attended the sick factors, and the Mogul authorities and other grandees often applied for his services, and thus enabled him to promote the Company's interests on more than one important occasion. The chief of the factory was known as the President, but all business was transacted by the President with the help of four or five senior mer- chants, who met twice a week in council. This management of affairs by a President in Council has survived the lapse of nearly three centuries. To this day the government of presidencies and the vice- royalty of India are in each case carried on by a President in Council. Within a few years the " English House " at Surat Foreign was well known to all European sea-captains and voyagers. Not only British travellers, but Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen, were heartily welcomed by the honest factors at Surat. All were impressed with 6 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. the order and regularity of the establishment, in which decorum and discipline were as strictly main- tained as in Leadenhall Street or the Cheape. But when working hours were over the grave men of business proved to be convivial Britons of the old- fashioned type, and on Friday evenings especially, all the married men met together to drink the health of their absent wives to the detriment of their own. Foreign guests who could not speak the English tongue were in no want of amusement. In 1638 a young gentleman from Holsteiri, named Mandelslo, spent some months in the " English House," and passed the time very pleasantly, visiting the ships at anchor outside the bar of the river Tapty, and hearing the latest news of Europe from sea-captains versed in many languages, or wandering down the row of banyans' shops, which often contained as much wealth, hidden under dirt and squalor, as the houses of London merchants and goldsmiths. On Sundays, after sermon, the factors carried off their guest to their gardens outside Surat, where they all shot at butts, and were regaled with fruit and conserves. British The European gentlemen at Surat were always Moguls, polite to Mohammedan grandees, and were generally politely treated in return, excepting perhaps at the custom-house. British sailors and ill-mannered Englishmen would, however, occasionally show a contempt for Asiatics, which the President could , not always restrain. British interlopers on the high seas set the Company's charter at defiance, and carried on a lawless trade, plundering the Moham- medan pilgrim ships and ill-treating the passengers. The Mogul authorities insisted that the Company's FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 7 servants were to blame, and would listen to no CHAP. i. explanation, but sent large bodies of Mogul soldiery to environ the " English House," and stop all trade, cutting off all food and water, until a sufficient fine or ransom had been paid. About 1620 the East India Company established Trade on another factory at Masulipatam, on the eastern side coast!" of India. The Hindus along the coast of Coromandel were famous for painting muslins and calicoes, and there was a growing demand for such goods amongst the eastern islands, whilst valuable cargoes of nutmegs and other spices could be obtained in exchange. But Masulipatam was seated in Mohammedan territory. A Sultan of the Deccan, reigning at Golconda, had extended his dominion eastward to the coast of Coromandel, and established the port of Masulipatam for the importation of horses from the Persian Gulf. The traders at the British factory were there- fore cramped and worried by the Mohammedan authorities, and yearned to effect a settlement on the territories of some Hindu Raja further south, where they could fortify a factory and mount it with British cannon without the interference of local authorities. 3. In 1639 a British merchant named Day bought ^British a strip of territory on the Coromandel coast, about 300 miles to the south of Masulipatam. It was within the dominions of a Hindu Raja, and was 1639t about six miles long and one mile inland. It in- cluded a small island, which faced the sea and was defended on the land side by a river. Mr. Day agreed to pay the Raja a rent of 5001. a year in native coin known as pagodas, and the transaction 8 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. i. was duly engraved on a plate of gold. A factory of brick was built upon the island, and mounted with cannon, and called Fort St. George. The Eaja was perfectly content. He was too glad to get a rent of 500^. a year to raise any difficulty as regards fortifications or cannon. Fort This factory was the germ of the city of Madras, ami G Biack on ^ ne coas t of Coromandel. Weavers, washers, Town, painters, and hosts of other Hindu artisans, flocked to the spot and etigerly entered the service of the British, and began to set up their looms and to weave, wash, and paint their cotton goods in the open air beneath the trees. Villages of little huts of mud and bamboo soon grew up on the sandy soil to the north of the island and factory. Each avocation formed a caste, which generally had its own quarters and its own head-man. In this manner a Hindu settlement grew up by the side of Fort St. George and was known as Black Town ; and the whole locality, including Fort St. George and Black Town, was called Madras, and was the first territory ac- quired by the East India Company in India. Despotic The transition of the British traders from a factory under Mohammedan control to an independent settlement of their own must have been a grateful change. The President and Council at Fort St. George were de facto rulers of the whole settlement, native as well as European, with all the powers of despotic princes and with no interference from without. They acted as a supreme court of judica- ture for Englishmen in all cases civil and criminal ; no Englishman, however, could be condemned to death unless convicted of piracy, which was regarded as the most heinous of crimes. On all other capital FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 9 charges the Englishman was sent to England for CHAP, i. trial. 1 Four miles to the south of Fort St. George was Portu . the Portuguese town of St. Thome ; but the Portu- gl ^ e tc a guese were now friends with the English. Their neigh- power was being overshadowed by that of the Dutch, who had founded a town and fortress at Pulicat, nearly thirty miles to the northward of Fort St. George. The Dutch settlements in India were the outcome Dutch of the hostility of Spain. For centuries the Dutch indL. had been the carriers of Europe, from the Medi- terranean to the Baltic. In the period which preceded the sixteenth century they had bought Indian commodities at Genoa, Naples and Venice. 1 The authorities for the present chapter, which deals with the rise and early development of British rule in India, are some- what numerous. The most important are the Government records at Madras, in which the weekly transactions of the Governor and Council are entered at full length in a series known as " Consultations." Every year a copy of the " Consul- tations" was sent to the Court of Directors, together with a summary of the affairs of the year as a " General Letter ; " and every year a " General Letter" was received from the Court of Directors, reviewing the " Consultations," and conveying in- structions and orders thereon. The Madras records have been closely investigated by the author from 1670 to 1748; and printed extracts were published at Madras in 1860-62, in three volumes small quarto, under the title of Madras in the Olden Time. To them may be added Bruce's Annals of the East India Company ; Sir Thomas Roe's Journal of a Mission to the Great Mogul in 1616-18; and the travels of Pietro della Yalle, Ta vernier, Thevenot and Fryer ; as well as Orme's History of Hindustan, Stewart's History of Bengal, Faria y Souza's History of Portuguese Asia, and Shaw's Predecessors of the High Court at Madras. Further authorities will be found cited in the author's History of India from the Earliest Ages, and in his Early Records of British India. 10 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. After the Portuguese established a trade in India, the Dutch went every year to Lisboo to buy Indian commodities for the European markets. In 1580 they threw off the yoke of Spain, and founded the United Provinces. That same year Spain and Portu- gal were formed into one kingdom under Philip II. In an evil hour for Portuguese interests in India, Philip thought to punish the Dutch by shutting them out of Lisbon. The Dutch revenged themselves by sailing round the Cape and buying what they wanted in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. In 1600 they built a factory in Java, which grew into the city of Batavia. In 1610 they built a square fort on the Pulicat Lake, which grew into the town of Pulicat and threatened to become the capital of Dutch ascendency in India. Right and The Indian quarter at Madras was almost entirely Hindu. Scarcely a Mohammedan took up his abode within the Company's bounds. Accordingly one of the earliest acts of the President and Council was to divide the streets of Black Town into those of the right and left hand. All over Southern India, the lower castes of Hindus are divided into Right and Left Hands, and yet no one can account for the distinction, or satisfactorily define the respective rights of each Hand. The so-called Hands are, however, intensely jealous of each other. For generations each Hand in the towns of Southern India has had its own streets and its own pagoda. At Madras, if one Hand passed in religious procession along the streets of the other Hand, or if the members of one Hand chanted Hindu hymns or mantras before the pagoda of the other, a fray would break out in Black Town, which FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 1 L could only be suppressed by British soldiers, and CHAP. i. then would be followed by a strike of weavers or painters, or the flight of all the members of one Hand to the Portuguese settlement at St. Thome. These conflicts, which more than once brought the settle- ment to the brink of ruin, reached a climax in Governor Pitt's time, as will appear hereafter. Meanwhile, the country round about Madras was Moham- in a state of turmoil. The Mohammedan army of the invasion. Sultan of Golconda was advancing against the Hindu Rajas of the south, and formed a camp in the neighbourhood. The Raja who had sold the territory to the East India Company fled away to the interior, and was never heard of more. The Mohammedan army captured the Portuguese town of St. Thome, dismantled the walls of the fortress, and carried off the cannon to Golconda ; and they would have treated Fort St. George in like fashion, had not the British stoutly resisted, and quieted the Sultan by engaging to pay him the rent which they had pre- viously paid to the Raja. About 1670, or some thirty years after the Troubles foundation of Madras, the state of affairs was com- Dutch and plicated by Charles II.'s unholy alliance with France against the Dutch. A French fleet attacked St. Thome and drove out the Mohammedans. A Dutch fleet from Puiicat recaptured St. Thome, drove out the French, and restored the place to the Sultan of Golconda. The British settlement was in sore peril ; but in 1674 there was peace between Great Britain and Holland, and the danger was over. These troubles brought many strangers to Madras, increase of and the population, white and black, was largely increased. Many Portuguese families from St. 12 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. i. Thome took refuge in Madras, and added to the strength of the European settlement, known as White Town, by building houses under the protec- tion of the factory guns. The British factors and soldiers of the garrison married the daughters of the Portuguese, much to the horror of the English chaplain of Fort St. George, as the marriages were accompanied by numerous conversions of bride- grooms to the Catholic faith. At the same time wealthy Hindu traders and bankers began to build substantial houses in Blaek Town for the sake of British protection. Many invested their money in trading voyages ; some acted as brokers or banyans for the supply of Indian commodities to the Company's servants ; others bought European goods at the public auctions, and supplied the native dealers up country. Fort 4. Within forty years of the building of the S i6?o86 e ' British factory, Madras was the pride and glory of the East India Company. Fort St. George, or White Town, was a European city in miniature. The primitive factory in the centre was replaced by a stately mansion with a dome, which was known as the Governor's House, but included a town-hall, a council-chamber, and sundry offices. It was seated in an open square, having a strong wall along each of its four sides, guards' houses, and bastions at each corner mounted with cannon. Outside the fortifica- tion were little streets, paved with pebbles, containing about fifty European houses. There was also a Protestant church for the English inhabitants, and a Catholic chapel for the Portuguese residents. The whole of White Town was environed by an outer FACTORIES, FOBTRESSES, TOWNS. 13 wall, sufficiently fortified to keep off an Indian army. CHAP. i. None but Britons, or Europeans under British pro- tection, were permitted to reside in White Town. The garrison consisted of two companies of European soldiers, and a large number of native guards, who were known as peons. At this time the population of the native town was Hindu estimated at 300,000 souls, but was probably half *^ that number, and an attempt was made to intro- By 1 * 18 * 1 duce something like a representative government. Whenever the Governor and Council desired to know the wishes of the people generally, or to act with their consent, they summoned the head-men of castes, and consulted them accordingly. Justice, however, was administered by two English gentlemen, who sat twice a week in Black Town in a building known as the Choultiy. The Justices of the Choultry tried all offences and disputes amongst the Hindus, and fined, flogged, or imprisoned at discretion. The old English punishments of the stocks, the pillory, and the gallows were also in full force in Black Town, but no Hindu was executed without the confirmation of the Governor and Council. The Justices of the Choultry were bound by no code of laws ; they were simply instructed by the Directors of the Company in England to decide all cases, civil and criminal, accord- ing to " equity and good conscience," guided by English law and their own experiences of Hindu customs and usages. 1 A Hindu superintendent of police was appointed under the title of " Pedda 1 The Mofussil Courts, and the High Court in Appeals from the Mofussil Courts, are still required to decide, according to "equity and good conscience." See the "High Court amended Charters " granted in 1866. 14 INDIA UNDER BRITISH BULK. CHAP. i. Naik," or "elder chief;" and he was bound to main tain a certain number of constables known as peons, and keep the peace of the town. He was expected to prevent theft and burglary, and either to recover stolen property, or to pay the value to the owner. In return, the Pedda Naik was allowed to cultivate a few fields rent free, and to levy a small octroi duty, or toll, on articles of Hindu consumption. Protection The main difficulty at Madras was to keep the of Hindus. J peace between the European soldiers of the garrison and the Hindu population^ Any European soldier who remained outside the Fort at night time was set publicly in the stocks for a whole day. Any European who attempted to get over the Fort walls, was im- prisoned in irons for one entire month, and kept on rice and water. Any soldier who threatened to strike a Hindu was whipped. Any European who took an article out of a shop or bazaar, under pretence of buying it at his own price, was sentenced to pay treble the value to the party aggrieved. Question Another difficulty was to keep the streets of Black taxation. Town clean, and wholesome. The Governor and Council summoned the heads of castes, and proposed to levy a small tax on every house. The heads assented to the measure, but offered to carry out the work themselves, and to raise the necessary funds in the same way that they levied contributions from their respective castes for defraying the cost of public festivals. All this, however, was a blind on their part to delude the British Governor and Council. Nothing was done by the heads of castes, no money was collected, and the streets were dirtier than ever. Meanwhile Madras was threatened by the Sultan of Golconda, and the Directors in England instructed the FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 15 Governor and Council at Madras to build a wall round CHAP. i. Black Town, and meet the cost by levying a small Contu- ground-rent from each householder. In this case no heads of difficulty was anticipated. The Hindus might ignore the importance of sanitation, but they could scarcely refuse to contribute towards the defence of their lives and property, to say nothing of their wives and families. The heads of castes, however, raised strong objections, but found that the Governor was bent on carrying out the orders of the Court of Directors. The heads of castes were told that the rents must be paid, and that those who refused to pay must be prepared to sell their houses and leave the British settlement. At this threat they all promised to pay, but secretly prepared for a general uprising. Suddenly, one Sunday morning, the 3rd of January, Hindu 1686, it was known in Fort St. George that the Hindu i686. ' population of Black Town were rebelling in Asiatic fashion. Under the orders of the heads of castes, the Hindu servants of the Company had thrown up their duties, bazaar dealers had shut up their shops, and provisions and grain were kept out of the town. The Governor in Fort St. George sent a detachment of the British garrison to guard the entrances to Black Town and suppress the tumult. Proclamation was made by beat of drum that unless the heads submitted before sunset, their houses would be pulled down on the following morning, the sites sold by auction, and the rebels and their families banished for ever. Hindus who failed to return to their duties would be discharged from the Company's service ; dealers who kept their shops closed would be heavily fined and all their goods confiscated. These peremptory orders had the desired effect. The heads of castes seemed to be 1G INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. completely cowed. Before sunset they appeared at the Fort and begged pardon for their rebellion, and were told to put an end to the tumult in Black Town. whole- Next morning the heads of castes returned to the despotism. Fort an d presented a petition, begging to be relieved from the payment of the ground-rent. Each man was asked in turn whether he would leave the town, and each in turn said that he would submit, and then the whole body declared with one voice that they would not pay the tax. Proclamation was at once made by beat of drum that the orders of Sunday would be immediately put in execution. The Hindus bent to the storm. They saw that they were at the mercy of their British rulers. The shops were opened, provisions were brought into the town, and all the artisans and servants of the Company returned to their duties. The ground-rents were collected without demur, and later on the scavenger-tax was raised without difficulty. Mayor, 5. When the news of these disturbances reached and ' England, the Directors in Leadenhall Street, or rather ' their once celebrated chairman, the great Sir Josiah Child, devised a scheme for rendering municipal taxation acceptable to the native population. A charter was obtained from James II. for founding a corporation in Madras, consisting of a mayor, twelve aldermen, and sixty burgesses ; but it was suggested by the Court of Directors that the heads of Hindu castes, as well as Britons, might be appointed aldermen and burgesses, and it was hoped that the corporation would be willing to tax themselves and the inhabitants generally, for keeping the town clean, improving the public health, building a guild-hall FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 17 and hospitals, and establishing schools for teaching ''HAP. i. the English tongue to Hindus, Mohammedans, and other Indian children. Before the Governor and Council at Madras could offer a single suggestion, they received instructions cut and dried. The mayor and three senior aldermen were always to be cove- nanted British servants of the East India Company, and they alone were to be Justices of the Peace. The remaining nine might belong to any nationality, and included Portuguese, Hindu, and Jewish merchants having dealings with the Company at Madras. Thirty burgesses were named in the charter, but they were all Englishmen ; and the remainder were to include the heads of all the castes, so as to induce the whole of the Hindu inhabitants to contribute cheerfully to the public works already specified. The mayor and aldermen were to wear red silk gowns, and the burgesses white silk gowns, and maces were to be carried before the mayor. In a word, all the para- phernalia of an English municipality in the seven- teenth century were sent to Madras to be adopted by the new corporation. The new municipality was inaugurated with much Corpora- pomp and ceremony in 1688, the year of the glorious festivities. Kevolution. The Governor of Madras was outside the corporation, but the mayor and three senior aldermen were members of council. On Saturday, the 29th of September, 1688, the Governor received the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses in the council- chamber at Fort St. George. The members of the new corporation then took the oaths and sat down to a corporation dinner ; and after a while they all marched to the town-hall in their several robes, with the maces before the mayor. Nothing, however, is c 18 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. i. said about the heads of castes, and nothing more about the burgesses. Failure of The mayor and aldermen were to be a Court of im ^ie lpa Eecord, with power to try all causes, criminal and civil, in a summary way, according to " equity and good conscience," and such laws and orders as might be made by the Company. The corporation were authorised to levy taxes for building a guild-hall, a public jail, and a school- house for teaching English, arithmetic, and merchants' accounts to Indian chil- dren, and for payment of the necessary salaries. Hence- forth, two aldermen sat as justices of the Choultry ; but the corporation raised no tax and founded no institution, and eventually died out from sheer want of vitality. slavery 6. All this while the slave trade was an institution Hindu in Madras, and indeed, throughout Southern India. rule * In most of the Hindu kingdoms of the Peninsula, the farm-labourers were slaves or serfs attached to the soil ; they were probably aboriginal populations who had been reduced to slavery by their conquerors. Prisoners of war, male and female, were also com- pelled to serve the conquerors as domestic servants, and treated as slaves of the family. Moham When Turks and Afghans introduced Mohammedan slavery, rule, slavery was recognised, but Hindu slaves might raise their condition by embracing Islam, and the converts might become important personages in the household, and marry female members of the family. The favourites of a grandee or Sultan might even marry a daughter, and rise to the rank of steward of the household or minister of state, like Joseph in the court of the Pharaohs. FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 19 When the Moguls established their dominion over CHAP. i. o Northern India there was a change for the better. It Mogul was a fundamental law of the Moguls that no twns. subject should be enslaved, but only captives taken in war. This law was still enforced when the Moguls became Mohammedans, for they always looked upon the slavery of subjects with horror, whatever might be their race or religion. Foreign slaves, male and female, provided they were not Mohammedans, were sold by private dealers, or in the public bazaar. 1 Unfortunately, the Portuguese and other nations of Portu- Europe had not as yet awakened to the iniquity of slavery and the slave trade. During the Portuguese wars in Africa, Moors and Negroes were carried off as prisoners of war and sold as slaves in Lisbon. In India the Portuguese established depots for the purchase of slaves. At Goa female slaves were to be found in every Portuguese household, and some- times were sent into the streets to sell sweetmeats and confectionary, and earn money for their masters in other ways. For many years large numbers of Hindu slaves were brought from Bengal. The Portuguese had been permitted to build a factory at Hughly, on the river 1 This was notoriously the case at Surat, where female slaves might be purchased by Europeans. There was a Dutch factory at Surat of the same stamp as the British factory, and its married inmates were in like manner forbidden to bring their wives from Holland. But when the Dutch got possession of Java, they offered grants of land to married Dutchmen, and, according to Pietro della Valle, there was a sudden change in domestic arrange- ments. Dutch bachelors were in such a hurry to go to Java, that they married Armenian Christians, or went off to the bazaar and bought female slaves and baptised them and married them without loss of time. c 2 20 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. i. Hughly, about 120 miles from the sea. During an interval of civil war they fortified this settle- ment and landed numerous cannon, whilst a native town grew up in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the scum of Goa and other Portuguese towns, chiefly military deserters and apostate monks, had estab- lished themselves on the islands near the mouths of the Ganges, built a fleet of galleys, and led the lives of pirates, brigands, and kidnappers. These men were the pest of the Sunderbunds. They scoured the waterways of the delta of the Ganges, carried off whole villages into slavery, and especially delighted in capturing marriage processions, with the bride and bridegroom and all their kinsfolk and acquaintance in the bravery of silks and jewels. The Portuguese at Hughly were base enough to deal with these villains, to buy the poor wretches who had been kidnapped, and to ship them to Goa, where they were sold as slaves at the daily auctions on the Exchange, together with other commodities from all parts of the world. The rascally kidnappers at the mouths of the Ganges, and the pious traders at Hughly, alike quieted their consciences by baptising their victims, and boasting of having saved their souls from hell. Vengeance Such a state of things aroused the Great Mogul Great to take action. The very existence of a Portuguese ' ogu ' fortress and cannon within his dominions had given mortal offence, and this unholy slave trade sealed the fate of the Portuguese at Hughly. The settlement was environed by a Mogul army. There was a rush of ladies and children to the shipping, but the river was low and the vessels ran aground. There was absolutely no way of escape ; all provisions were cut FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 21 off, and the Portuguese were starved into surrender. CHAP. i. Five or six hundred prisoners, many of noble birth, were sent to Agra. Some saved their lives by turning Mohammedans ; others, mostly priests, perished as martyrs ; the choicest of the lads and maidens were sent to the palace of the Great MoguL and the remainder were distributed amongst the mansions of the Mohammedan grandees, For gene- rations afterwards the doom of the Portuguese at Hughly was likened to the Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews. Hughly was captured in 1632. Seven years later Slave trade the British built their factory at Madras, on the coast a of Coromandel. At every Portuguese settlement in Southern India the slave trade was still in full swing, for the sway of the Great Mogul had only been extended over the northern part of the Deccan, and was as yet far away from the Peninsula. Accordingly the British traders at Madras connived at the expor- tation of slaves by sea. Some restraints, however, were placed upon kidnapping by insisting on the registration of every slave bought or sold in Madras, together with the names of the seller and purchaser, in order that the information might be given in the event of any inquiry by kinsfolk or acquaintance, and also that a fee might be levied on the registration of every slave. In 1688 the British rulers of Madras abolished Great the slave trade by public proclamation. The Great conquers Mogul, the once famous Aurangzeb, was engaged in conquering the Sultans of the Deccan. Unlike his predecessors, Aurangzeb was a bigoted Sunni, or a zealous believer in the four Caliphs who succeeded Mohammed. The Sultans of the Deccan were Shiahs 22 INDIA UNDER, BRITISH RULE. . i. who damned the first three Caliphs as usurpers, and swore that Ali, and All only, the son-in-law of the Prophet, the husband of Fatima and the father of Hassan and Hosein, was the rightful successor of Mohammed. Under such circumstances Aurangzeb was impelled by pious zeal for the interest of the Sunni religion to conquer and slay the heretic Sultans of the Deccan and annex their dominions to the Mogul empire. He next prepared to march his army further south into the Peninsula, with the view of conquering the Hindu Eajas and compelling their idolatrous subjects to accept the religion of the Koran. stoppage The British at Madras were greatly alarmed at the 2a^ e threatened approach of the Great Mogul. They trade. were naturally afraid of sharing the fate of the Por- tuguese at Hughly. Accordingly they abolished the slave trade by proclamation, and sent numerous petitions to Aurangzeb, tendering their submission to the Great Mogul, praising his imperial majesty to the skies, imploring his protection as though he had been another Cyrus or Darius, and engaging to pay the old rent of 5001. per annum in pagodas. Matters were finally arranged, but it is grievous to add that the pious Aurangzeb was not so careful of the welfare of the Hindus as his liberal and tolerant predecessors. He preferred the laws of Mohammed to those of his Mogul ancestor, Chenghiz Khan ; and within a few years the slave trade at Madras was as brisk as ever. British 7. The Mogul conquest of the Sultans of the l< Deccan drove many Mohammedans to settle at Madras- The British traders protected the lives and property of FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 23 Hindus and Mohammedans, and permitted them to CHAP. i. worship as they pleased. In early days, the Directors had repeatedly pressed their servants at Madras to convert the Hindu worshippers of idols to the truths of Christianity, and no one in the British Isles seems to have doubted the possibility or expediency of the work. The British traders at Madras, however, deprecated any interference whatever. They de- scribed a terrible riot that broke out at St. Thome because of some interference with a Hindu procession, and they urged that the frays between the Eight and Left Hands were sufficient proof that it was best to leave the Hindus alone. As for Mohammedans, they were the subjects of the Great Mogul, and inter- ference with the dominant religion in India was out of the question. During the latter years of the seventeenth century, the British settlement at Madras had grown into a principality, independent, and self-contained. At the same time it presented rare attractions to traders, Asiatic as well as European. The Com- pany's servants were paid very small salaries, but were allowed the privilege of private trade in the eastern seas, so long as they paid customs and did not interfere with the European trade. Every Company's servant in Madras, from the Governor to the youngest writer, engaged more or less in trading ventures. The number of traders was swelled by private individuals who came from England, under the licence of the Court of Directors ; as well as by Hindu, Mohammedan, and Armenian merchants, who often took shares with the Company's servants. Moreover, this private trade increased the demand for European commodities which were sold by public 24 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. auction in Fort St. George, and swelled the revenue of the East India Company which was derived from the sea customs. Decay of Meanwhile the British situation at the Mogul port of Surat had become intolerable. The religious fanaticism of Aurangzeb had stirred up hatred and discontent amongst Christians and Hindus. The factors at the English House were more oppressed than ever. On the north their trade was cut off by the Kajput princes of Western Hindustan, who were revolting against the Great Mogul and stopping the caravans between Surat and Agra. On the south they were exposed to the Mahrattas of the Western Deccan, who attacked and plundered Surat, and would have plundered the English House had not the factors surreptitiously landed some cannon, and called in the British sailors from the shipping, and manfully beaten off their assailants. Bombay, Fortunately, the British had taken possession of the island of Bombay, which Charles the Second had obtained from the King of Portugal as part of the dowry of the Infanta Catharine, and made over to the East India Company. Bombay was nearly two hundred miles to the south of Surat, and hedged around by the Mahrattas, but being an island it was well protected, and included both a fortress and a town. Moreover, it had a magnificent harbour, and the valuable trade with the Persian Gulf, the Eed Sea, and the Mozambique could be better carried on from this harbour than over the bar of Surat at the mouth of the river Tapty. Accordingly the East India Company secretly resolved on leaving Surat for ever, and removing the British factors and their tradr to the island of Bombay. FACTOKIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 25 In Bengal the East India Company had established CHAP. i. a factory at Hughly, hard by the dismantled Portu- Bengal guese fortress ; but were exposed to so much insolence 1640-85. and extortion from the Mogul authorities that they were prepared to leave Bengal rather than tamely submit to further oppression. The trade was enor- mously profitable, and had helped to defray the cost of the fortifications at Madras and Bombay. Saltpetre had been in large demand ever since the breaking out of the civil war between Charles the First and his parliament. Raw silk and opium were equally marketable, and all three products could be brought from Patna to Hughly by the river Ganges. At Dacca, the old capital of Bengal to the eastward of the Ganges, muslins were manufactured of so fine a texture that a piece sufficient for a dress might be passed through a wedding ring ; and every young lady in the British Isles who aspired to be a bride was equally anxious to be led to the altar in a cloud of Dacca muslin. Aurangzeb, however, stopped the supply of saltpetre, because the Sultan of Turkey complained that it was used by Christians in their wars against true believers ; whilst the Nawab of Bengal, who resided at Dacca, was most over- bearing, and on one occasion ordered that Mr. Job Charnock, the chief of the Hughly factory, should be imprisoned and scourged, and his orders were literally obeyed by the Hughly officials. 8. Sir Josiah Child, the chairman of the Court of Plans of Directors, was endowed with real political genius, chad* but he was imperious and headstrong. He resolved to make war upon the Great Mogul, and compel him to make reparation for the misdeeds of the Nawab of 26 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. Bengal, and to cede sufficient territory for the estab- lishment of a fortress and a town corresponding to the settlements at Madras and Bombay. He pro- posed to coerce the Great Mogul by sending out the Company's cruisers from Bombay to capture the Mogul ships going to Mecca, until Aurangzeb came to terms. He also persuaded James II. to send a Eoyal fleet to Bengal to ensure the success of his scheme. Should his plans fail, should Au- rangzeb prove obstinate and impracticable, it was intended to form an alliance with the Raja of Arakan, on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, and promise to help him in his wars against the Great Mogul, provided he ceded the required terri- tory at Chittagong. In short, Sir Josiah Child proposed to overawe the Mogul and establish British trade with India on a lasting basis for the future by means of three great fortresses one at Madras, a second at Bombay, and a third in Bengal or at Chittagong. Elements Unfortunately Sir Josiah Child was unable to cope chief, with the craft and capacity of Aurangzeb. That keen-witted sovereign had spies in all directions, and was gifted with such a power of divining what was going on that he was often suspected of employing supernatural agency. Meanwhile. Sir Josiah Child was maintaining such profound secrecy that no Eng- lishman on the Bengal side knew what was going on at Surat or Bombay, and no Englishman on the Bombay side knew what was going on in the Bay of Bengal, whilst the British at Madras knew nothing whatever of the plans in operation. The blundering that followed was most disastrous. Whilst the Company's cruisers were capturing Mogul FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 27 ships as lawful prize, Aurangzeb drew the Surat factors CHAP. i. into his clutches, and threatened to put them to death Blunders unless the prizes were restored and vast sums paid disasters. by way of ransom. Meanwhile, the Eoyal fleet arrived in Bengal, and made its way up the river Hughly, under the command of a certain Captain Heath, who would listen to no advice and regarded Asiatics with contempt, whilst he was ready to make war on anybody. He brought away Mr. Job Charnock and the British factors from Hughly, with all their goods and records. He captured all the Mogul ships he encountered in the Hughly river. He bombarded a Mogul town at the mouth of the river. Meanwhile, the Nawab of Bengal was in a panic of fear at Dacca, willing to make any terms provided only that the terrible admiral would leave Bengal and solemnly promise never to return. The Eoyal fleet sailed to Arakan and frightened Ahot- the Eaja into a state of utter bewilderment. The admiral. Eaja could make nothing of the offer of the admiral to help him against the Great Mogul, nor of the de- mand for the cession of Chittagong, and he naturally vacillated, prevaricated, and procrastinated. The ad- miral was blind with rage and mortification, and would have captured Chittagong by force of arms ; but the place was too strong for him. Accordingly, he sailed away to Madras in a towering fury, and landed Mr. Charnock and the British factors at Madras, swearing that he had heard nothing' but deceit and lies since he first entered the Bay of Bengal. The East India Company submitted to the Great Humiiia- Mogul, but the great Josiah Child must have found it a bitter pill. The prizes were restored, a vast fine 28 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. was paid, and pardon was humbly implored before the Surat factors were restored to liberty. Calcutta Meanwhile, the Moguls had learned to respect the i69o. ' British. The fugitives from Hughly were invited to return to Bengal, and permitted to purchase a strip of land on the eastern bank of the Hughly river, about twenty miles nearer the sea than their old factory. It was three miles long and one mile inland, and included the three native villages of Chutanutti, Govindpore, and Kali Ghat, which grew into a na- tive town resembling that of Madras. Later on, the Hindus round about revolted against Mogul oppres- sion, and the British took advantage of the general alarm to convert their factory into a fortress and to give it the name of Fort William, in honour of the Prince of Orange. The native settlement was known by the name of Calcutta, after the village of Kali Ghat, or the " landing place of the goddess Kali." Thus the dream of Josiah Child was realised, and British trade in India was protected by three fortresses and three towns Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, Indian From the end of the seventeenth century to the iToY-io. middle of the eighteenth the Company's settlements were for the most part shut out from the Indian world. The British had learned their lesson and kept quiet, and the Moguls were busy fighting the Mahrattas, and left them very much alone. The Mogul conquests in the Deccan were made over to a Mogul Viceroy known as the Nizam, whilst those in the eastern Peninsula round about Madras were placed in charge of a Nawab who was known as the Nawab of the Carnatic. Meanwhile, the Moguls kept the Mahrattas quiet by the payment of a yearly black-mail known as chout, or " chauth" which was FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 29 reckoned at one-fourth of the land revenue, but was CHAP. i. often commuted for a lump sum. Thus India was to all outward appearance in a state of calm, but it was the calm that precedes a storm. 9. Although the administration of Madras was Typical carried OD by a Governor and Council, yet each Governors. Governor had a strong personal influence and indi- viduality. Two of these Governors, an Englishman and a Scotchman, may be brought under notice as types of all. THOMAS PITT, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, Governor was Governor of Madras from 1698 to 1709. In 1702 leos-wg. the Nawab of the Carnatic was staying at St. Thome, trying to squeeze some 50,000^. out of the British at Madras. He boasted loudly of his friendship for the British whilst his troops were plundering their out- lying villages. He was entertained at dinner with great pomp at Fort St. George, and gratified with presents ; but shortly afterwards he environed the whole settlement with his army. Pitt held out for months, getting his supplies by sea. At last Pitt offered two or three thousand pounds in rupees, and a peace was patched up, and the Nawab went away. Governor Pitt was as lofty and mysterious in his imperious way as his illustrious grandson. He was much irritated by a protracted quarrel between the Eight and Left Hands. He set up stones to mark the boundaries between the streets, but they were carried away at night time. The bulk of the Eight Hands fled to St. Thome, and the Hindu populations in all the country round about were in great commo- tion. Pitt threatened to send a body of European soldiers to St. Thome, and put the deserters to the 30 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. . sword. At this crisis, the Mogul officer at St. Thome turned the malcontents out of the town. They went back to Madras submissive and crestfallen, and begged to be forgiven. From this time, however, the distinction between the Eight and Left Hands was abolished as far as the streets were concerned, and all streets were opened to both Hands. But the old strife is still burning in the hearts of the Hindus of Southern India. They can be prevented from fight- ing with swords and clubs, but they carry the battle into the law-courts, where disputes are frequently brought to a decision as regards the right of either Hand to worship at a particular shrine and in a particular way. 1 Hasty Pitt was severe on native offenders. Some thieves went off with boat-loads of cotton goods, and the gunner at Fort St. George was ordered to fire upon them. The thieves escaped, but two peons who connived at the robbery were whipped and put in the pillory, whilst Governor Pitt thrashed the native overseer with his own hands. Pitt During the siege of Madras Pitt managed to buy a wonderful diamond from a Golconda jeweller at a small price. In after years he sold it to the Regent of France for 135,000., and it was known as the Pitt diamond. The matter created some scandal at the time, but is now only remembered in connection with Pope's lines : " Asleep and naked as an Indian lay, An honest factor stole his gem away." 1 Abbe Dubois, who lived many years in Southern India, could not account for the distinction between the two Hands ; Dr. Fryer was told about 1676 that the antagonism was planned by the Brahmans to keep the lower castes in subjection. FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 31 JAMES MACRAE, a Scotch celebrity, was Governor CHAP. i. of Madras from 1725 to 1731. He carried out a Governor general survey of Madras and its suburbs for the 1725-30. better collection of the quit-rents and scavenger- tax. The population of Madras numbered 200,000. The expenses of Fort St. George amounted to 20,000/. a year, whilst the revenue from the sea customs was under 5,OOOZ. The Mayor's Court was re- organised in Governor Mayor's Macrae's time under the charter of 1726. It was to consist of a mayor and nine aldermen for the trial of all civil causes. Seven of the aldermen were to be Englishmen, and the remaining two of any nation, provided they were Protestant. The new court was inaugurated in a style which seems in- expressibly absurd in the present day. The new mayor and aldermen were sworn in with much cere- mony, and then left Fort St. George in a grand pro- cession of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets, dancing girls with the country music, court attorneys with all the chief gentry on horseback, and passed through Black Town to the Company's garden in the suburbs, where they were received by the Governor and Council and duly feted. Meanwhile, the Mogul empire was breaking up. Breaking Aurangzeb died in 1707. Within thirty years after Mogul his death the power of the Great Moguls had died out ; the name and prestige remained, but very little more. The successors of Aurangzeb were Roisfaineants shut up in palaces with wives and concubines, whilst all real power was exercised by the Ministers of State and the Viceroys of the provinces. In 1738-39 the British at the three Presidencies were startled by the news that Nadir Shah had invaded India with a 32 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. i. large Persian army from the north-west, and had plundered the city and palaces of Delhi and carried away the spoil of Northern India. The payment of the Mahratta "chout " was stopped at the Mogul treasury, and armies of Mahratta horsemen were making up the loss by the plunder of the Carnatic and Bengal. War with 10. In 1745 news reached India that war had been 1745!' declared between Great Britain and France. This was alarming news for the British traders at Madras, as the French had established a flourishing town and settlement at Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel, about a hundred miles to the south of Madras, and a collision might be expected at any moment between the two settlements. Moreover, the Governor of Pondicherry was a certain M. Dupleix, a Frenchman of large capacity and restless ambition, who hated the British with all the ardour of the typical Frenchman of the eighteenth century. The same year a British fleet appeared off the coast of Coromandel and threatened Pondicherry ; but the Nawab of the Carnatic declared that he would have no wars between European nations within his territories, and the British fleet sailed away. Madras In 1746 a French fleet appeared off Madras, but ^1746? ' the Nawab was not inclined to interfere ; he had, in fact, been bought over by M. Dupleix, the French Governor of Pondicherry. The French bombarded Fort St. George ; the native inhabitants fled from Madras ; and the British inhabitants were carried in triumph to Pondicherry as prisoners of war. The Nawab of the Carnatic affected to be very angry at this bombardment of Madras. He demanded FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 33 that the settlement should be transferred to his CHAP. i. authority, and sent an army of 10,000 Moguls to French Li r^u J r m i ? defe at the take possession 01 the town and fortress, lo his utter Mogul amazement the army of 10,000 Moguls was utterly routed by a battalion of 800 Frenchmen. From that day it was felt throughout Southern India that no Mogul army could stand against the rapid firing of disciplined Europeans. In 1748 the war between Great Britain and France was over for a while, and Madras was restored to the British. Later on, the death of the Nizam of the Deccan Brilliant threw the whole country into confusion. Eival S Dupieix. kinsmen began to fight for the throne of the province without any reference to the Great Mogul. Dupleix plunged at once into the fray. He saw that a French force might turn the scale of victory, and he moved a French army, under the command of Bussy, to help a victorious candidate as occasion served, without the slightest regard to the Tightness or wrongness of his claim. In 1751 he had realised his dream of ambi- tion. He had placed a Nizam on the throne at Hyderabad, and he was rewarded with the cession of a territory stretching 600 miles along the coast, for the maintenance of a French standing army. To crown all, he induced the Nizam to appoint him Nawab of the Carnatic ; and, in spite of Dupleix being a Frenchman and a Catholic, the appointment was actually made under the seal of the Great Mogul. Meanwhile, the British had supported the claim of a Mogul prince named Mohammed Ali to the throne of the Carnatic, but had been circumvented at every turn, and were now called upon to acknowledge the superior authority of their bitter enemy Dupleix. D 34 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. i. British rule in Southern India was at its last gasp. Triumph If Dupleix could only have got hold of Mohammed ciive! rt Ali, he might have been master of the Carnatic ; Madras might have been a French settlement, and a French Governor and Council might have taken the place of the British in Fort St. George. As it was, Mohammed Ali was very nearly surrendering. He had fled away to seek the help of the Hindu Rajas of the south, and was being closely besieged by the French in the city of Trichinopoly, 180 miles to the south of Arcot. At this crisis Robert Clive saved the East India Company. He left Madras with a small force, and after a march of seventy miles into the interior, threw himself into the city of Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, where the Nawabs of the Carnatic had held their court for more than half a century. The native garrison fled at his approach, and the inhabitants, numbering 100,000, offered no resistance. The French were aghast at hearing that the capital of the Carnatic was in the hands of the British. They despatched a large force from Trichi- nopoly, but failed to recover Arcot. In the end they raised the siege of Trichinopoly, and Mohammed Ali was delivered out of their hands and placed by the British in possession of the Carnatic, to the exclusion of Dupleix and ruin of his ambitious schemes. Tragedy British and French were now anxious for peace, Calcutta, and agreed to make Dupleix their scapegoat. They 1756 * threw the whole blame of the war upon the unfortu- nate Frenchman, who returned to France and died in poverty. In 1755 a treaty was patched up at Pondi- cherry, but was never executed. In 1756, on the eve of the Seven Years' War, terrible news arrived from FACTOBIES, FOETKESSES, TOWNS. 35 Bengal. The Nawab had captured the settlement at CHAP. i. Calcutta ; and a hundred and twenty-three English prisoners had been thrust into a barrack cell, and perished most miserably of heat and suffocation. 11. The tragedy was appalling, but the causes were Threats of intelligible. About the beginning of the eighteenth century, a Nawab of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, terri- tories considerably larger than the United Kingdom, had removed his capital from Dacca to Murshedabad, about a hundred miles due north of Calcutta. Here he founded a dynasty, which reigned in peace for some forty years. About 1742 a usurper seized the throne of Murshedabad, and reigned as Nawab. He died of extreme old age in April, 1756, and was succeeded by a grandson, a young man timid and suspicious, surrounded by foes eager to take his life and throne. The new Nawab heard that Governor Drake was sheltering one of his enemies at Calcutta, and strengthening the fortifications; and he ordered the British to surrender the refugee and stop farther defences. Governor Drake replied that he knew nothing of any enemies of the Nawab ; that he was ready to obey the Nawab in all things ; and that he was repairing the defences on the river to prevent being surprised by the French, as Madras had been surprised ten years before. The Nawab was in a fury at this message, and set off for Calcutta in the heats of June with an army of fifty thousand men. For half a century the British had paid little or no Defences attention to their defences. Fort William had been Calcutta. deemed a sufficient protection on the side of the river, and on the land side the native inhabitants T> 2 36 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. i. had begun to dig a ditch as a defence against the Mahratta horsemen ; but the Mahrattas were paid chout to go away, and the ditch was never finished. The Europeans dwelt in houses and gardens along the bank of the river Hughly, on either side of Fort William ; and an English Church, the Mayor's Court and some other buildings, covered Fort William on the land side. The native quarter, including a large bazaar, adjoined the Mahratta ditch, and avenues of trees led from the native quarter to Forfc William and the European buildings. Neglected Had Governor Drake or any member of his Coun- ^ions? cil possessed a spark of military genius, they might have held Fort William against the Nawab in spite of his superior numbers. There was a garrison of two hundred European soldiers in the Fort. The European residents should have abandoned their houses on the river, and repaired to the Fort with their wives and children. The neighbouring build- ings should have been demolished to prevent the Nawab's troops from approaching under cover. The enemy should have been harassed with shells all day and sallies all night, until the Nawab raised the siege. Moreover, the beginning of the south-west monsoon was daily expected. With it would come the ships of the season from Europe. Could the besieged have held out for ten days, they might have been rescued by the ships, just as Charnock and the factors were carried away from Hughly some seventy years before. Weak pro- Whilst the Nawab's army was approaching Calcutta, *' the native population were flying en masse to the neighbouring villages. There was also a large population of Portuguese half-castes, which should FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 37 have been left to do the same, as they would have CHAP. i. been in no manner of danger. Unfortunately, two thousand of these black women and children were admitted into the Fort, and the overcrowding and confusion were fatal. Meanwhile, batteries and breastworks were constructed in the avenues leading to the Fort, in the wild hope of protecting the whole European quarter ; but they were too far away to be supported by reinforcements from the European garrison. At noon on Wednesday, the 1 6th of June, the siege of T^/m-f Nawab's army poured into the settlement through the William. unfinished portion of the Mahratta ditch. They set fire to the native bazaar, and, after meeting obstinate resistance, they captured the batteries and breastworks in the avenues. The European gunners spiked their cannon and fell back upon the Fort ; but the Nawab's artillerymen drilled the cannon and turned them round towards the Fort ; whilst bodies of the Nawab's matchlockmen occupied the buildings outside the Fort which ought to have been demolished, and opened fire upon the ramparts and bastions. The fighting lasted all Thursday and Friday. On Escape of Friday night the English ladies and children were aSf placed on board the single ship which lay before the children - Fort. On Saturday the firing was hotter than ever. Hopeless efforts were made to place the Portuguese women and children on board the ship, but they would have been safer in the neighbouring villages, for the overcrowding was such that many boats were sunk and numbers were drowned. Governor Drake, however, got on board, and the ship moved slowly down the river, leaving the British soldiers and others to their fate. 38 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. i. Throughout Saturday night the garrison fired Loss of rockets for recalling the ship. At sunrise they William, waved flags, but without effect. A Mr. Hoi well, a member of Council, was elected Governor in the room of Drake. But resistance was useless. The British soldiers broke into the arrack-room and got hope- lessly intoxicated. Late in the afternoon a mob of the Nawab's troops advanced to the Fort with ladders. In a few moments they were swarming over the walls, whilst the drunken European soldiers ran to the back of the Fort and broke down the gates leading to the river. But the Fort was closely environed by the Nawab's troops, and whilst some of the fugitives may have escaped to the boats or been drowned in the river, the bulk were brought back into the Fort as prisoners of war. Black By this time the Nawab had taken possession of tragedy. Fort William, but was terribly disappointed at finding very little money and only a poor stock of merchandise. The season ships to Europe had car- ried off all the Indian exports to escape the south- west monsoon, and the ships from England were waiting for the monsoon to carry their European cargoes up the river. There were 146 prisoners, and no place of security except the barrack cell, known as the Black Hole, which rarely held more than two or three prisoners, and was only eighteen feet square. In this horrid hole they were driven with clubs and swords, and next morning only twenty three were taken out alive. Such was the close of the first act of the East India Company's rule. "Within a very brief space of time the British traders entered upon a new era of conquest and dominion ; but the tragedy at FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS. 39 Calcutta in June, 1756, has never been forgotten, CHAP. i. and to this day there is not an English man or End of the woman in India who does not occasionally call up period. a painful memory of the Black Hole. 1 1 Since the foregoing chapter was in type, Professor Terrien de Lacouperie has kindly pointed out that a division between right and left hands has existed from a remote period in Central and Eastern Asia. Among the Turkish Hiung-nu on the north- west of China, the officers were arranged into two divisions, a left- and a right-hand side, both before and after the Christian era. The Burut-Kirghiz are still divided into two wings, viz., on of the right and sol of the left. In China the task of keeping a daily chronicle of "words" and " facts " was entrusted to two officers, one on the left-hand of the emperor and the other on his right. The officer on the left recorded all speeches and addresses, whilst that on the right recorded all facts and events. This last division, however, is a mere title in Chinese administration ; the left-hand being more honourable than the right, and taking the precedence. The distinction between the right and left hands in Southern India, is, as already seen, a caste antagonism, and it is impos- sible to say whether it has or has not any connection, however remote, with that in Central Asia or China. The Dravidian populations of Southern India certainly immigrated from the region beyond the Himalayas in some unknown period, but all historical links are wanting save the evidence of language. Pro- fessor Terrien de Lacouperie, in his lectures on " Indo-Chinese Philology," has pointed out that the Dravidian group forms the fourth division of the Kueonlunic branch of Turanian languages. CHAPTEE II. SECOND PERIOD : BENGAL PROVINCES. 17561798. 1. From Calcutta to Plassy, 1757-58. 2. Nawab Rule under British Protection. 3. British Arrogance : Massacre at Patna. 4. Lord Clive's Double Government, 1765-67. 5. Warren Hastings, 1772-85: Life and Career. 6. British Rule : Treatment of Bengal Zemindars. 7. British Collectors and Magistrates : Circuit Courts and Sudder. 8. Innovations of Parliament. 9. Collisions in Calcutta Council : Trial and Execution of Nundcomar. 10. Clashing of Supreme Court and Sudder. 11. Mahratta War : Goddard and Popham. 12. Triple Alliance against the British : the Mahrattas, the Nizam, and Hyder AH. 13. Parliamentary Interference: the Two India Bills. 14. Charges against Warren Hastings. 15. Lord Cornwallis, 1786-93: Perpetual Settlement and Judicial Reforms. 16. Sir John Shore, 1793-98 : Non- intervention. AP^H. IN June, 1756, Calcutta was lost ; the news reached Madras Madras in August. War with France was trembling in the balance. An army of Europeans and sepoys, under Colonel Clive, was waiting to attack the French in the Deccan. A Koyal fleet, under Admiral Watson, was waiting to bombard the French at Pondicherry. But the news from Calcutta outweighed all other considerations ; and Clive and Watson were dispatched to the river Hughly with 900 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. Calcutta 1. The force appears small in modern eyes, but it ' was irresistible against Asiatics. The ships of war, with their tiers of cannon, were sufficient to create a panic. BENGAL PROVINCES. 41 The expedition reached Calcutta on the 1st of January, CHAP. n. 1757. The Mogul commandant at Fort William fled away in terror, and next morning the British flag was hoisted over the factory. The Company's merchandise, which had been reserved for the Nawab, was lying untouched, but every house in the town, Asiatic as well as European, had been plundered by the Mogul soldiers. At this moment, news arrived that war with France Nawab had begun. Clive and Watson were anxious to make terms. 8 peace with the Nawab in order to fight the French. The Nawab, on his part, was frightened at the British fleet, and was ready to promise anything if the ships and cannon would only go away. He agreed to reinstate the British in all their factories and privileges, and to pay full compensation for all the plunder that had been carried away from Calcutta, so that nothing further was wanted but the execution of these terms. The Nawab, however, never seems to have intended Treachery to fulfil his promises. He vacillated, procrastinated, intrigue. and lied egregiously. He signed a treaty, but evaded every application for the money. He worried Clive and Watson with fresh promises and excuses until they were wild with the delay. At last they discovered that he was intriguing with the French for their de- struction. But the Nawab himself was environed with dangers of all kinds. His own grandees were plotting against him, and opened up a secret correspondence with Clive. Englishmen, Mohammedans, and Hindus became entangled in a web of conspiracy and craft, from which it was difficult to escape with an unsullied reputation. Eventually, the Nawab sent an army to Plassy, on the route to Calcutta, as if to overawe the British settlement. The army was commanded by 42 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. ii. Mir Jafir, the head of the conspiracy for dethroning the Nawab. Shortly afterwards, the Nawab himself followed Mir Jafir to Plassy, and the whole force was estimated at 50,000 men and forty pieces of cannon. Battle of Olive advanced from Calcutta to Plassy with 3.000 junJ,' men and nine pieces of cannon. The battle of Plassy 1757 ' was fought on the 23rd of June, 1757, just a year and three days after the Black Hole tragedy. It was more of a British cannonade than an action between, two armies. Clive was expecting to be joined every moment by Mir Jafir. The Asiatic plotter had sworn to be faithful to both parties, and was mortally afraid of both the Nawab and the British. He dared not desert the Nawab, and he dared not fight the British. For hours he did nothing. At last, towards the close of the day, he moved his forces from the field, and made off towards Murshedabad. Clive advanced to charge the Nawab's camp, but the Nawab saw that he was deserted and betrayed, and fled in abject terror. The days of the fugitive were numbered. He hid himself for a while with a favourite wife and his choicest jewels, but was then taken prisoner and brutally murdered by a son of Mir Jafir. Such was the end of the once notorious Suraj-ad-daula, better known to British soldiers and sailors as " Sir Koger Dowler." Over- Colonel Clive marched on to Murshedabad, and riches 8 installed Mir Jafir on the throne as Nawab of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. Clive, and Clive alone, was the lord paramount of the hour, the hero of Plassy, the invincible warrior. The money and jewels in the treasury at Murshedabad were lavished by Mir Jafir on Colonel Clive and his party. The British officers of the army and fleet received large BENGAL PROVINCES. 43 donations One million sterling was given to the CHAP. n. East India Company, another million sterling to the inhabitants of Calcutta European and Asiatic. A hundred boats loaded with silver went down the river from Murshedabad to Calcutta, followed by the curses of the grandees ; whilst the sight of the boats approaching Calcutta was hailed with the joy of men who had escaped shipwreck. " For once," says a contemporary, " and only for once, the people of Calcutta were all friends." 2. The battle of Plassy was a British triumph, Terrible but it entailed enormous responsibilities. Colonel Clive Duties!" had raised up a Nawab to be absolute ruler of territories larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and far more populous. Bengal, including the delta of the Ganges, was one of the most fertile regions in the world, whilst the inhabitants were most submissive and easily governed. For centuries the Bengalis had been op- pressed by foreigners Turk, Afghan, Abyssinian and Mogul. The revenues, however, had been collected by Hindu officials, as being at once more exacting in their demands, and more easily stripped of their ill-gotten gains. Nawab Mir Jafir was most subservient to the Wretched British and most anxious to please them, but was Mir Jafir otherwise as dissolute and worthless as any Turkish pasha. In his younger days, when the Mahrattas were harrying Bengal, Mir Jafir might have been a good soldier, but since then he had degenerated into a worn-out voluptuary, spending all the money he could get on jewels and dancing-girls, whilst his own troops were in mutiny for want of pay, and his British supporters and protectors were demanding 44 INDIA. UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP^II. further supplies for the payment of their own forces. To make matters worse, the Nawab was removing the old Hindu officials and placing his Mohammedan kinsmen in their room. Delhi Suddenly, a new vista opened out to Clive through InghV the territory of Oudh, on the north-west, to the y n h c e e remote capital of the Great Mogul at Delhi. The imperial. Great Mogul was a mere pageant in the hands of the Vizier, who exercised what remained of the im- perial authority. The Prince Imperial, the son and heir of the Great Mogul, was afraid of being mur- dered by the Vizier, and fled away into Oudh, and threw himself on the protection of the Nawab. invasion The Nawab of Oudh had long desired to get of the T ^ Nawab of possession oi the Bengal provinces, and thought to secure them by making the Prince Imperial a cat's paw. He proclaimed that the Prince Imperial had been invested by his father with the government of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. He then sent the Prince forward with a large force to enforce the proclama- tion, whilst he himself remained behind in Oudh and awaited events. 1 To make matters worse, the Hindu officials in the Bengal provinces, who had been dis- possessed, or were expecting to be dispossessed, were preparing to join the invaders. 1 The three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa are known to Europeans by the one name of Bengal. Bengal proper includes the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Behar is the frontier province towards Oudh, having its capital at Patna. Orissa lies to the south of Behar and Bengal proper, but Cuttack and the hilly country to the south and west had been ceded to the Mahrattas. The Orissa of the period comprises little more than Midnapore ; but the high-sounding title was still retained of Nawab of Bengal, Behar and Orissa. After the Mahratta wars of 1803, the British took possession of Cuttack and remaining portions of Orissa, in order to hold the sea-board against invasion. BENGAL PKOVINCES. 45 Mir Jafir was in a panic of fear at the appearance CHAP. n. of the Prince Imperial, and proposed to pay him a ciive's t nr W * r * diffi lty. sum 01 money to go away, dive would not listen to the suggestion. He ignored the Prince Imperial and the Great Mogul, and soon routed the invading army. The Prince Imperial then became a suppliant to the British, and implored Clive for help ; but Clive had been requested by the Vizier at Delhi to arrest the fugitive, and would not commit himself. He, however, sent a bag of 500 mohurs, about 800/. sterling, to relieve the immediate necessities of the Prince Imperial, and the money was gladly received by the impoverished fugitive. Meanwhile, Clive was at his wits' end for money. Wanted, The Bengal provinces could be held against any *^ h enemy in India by a standing army of Europeans and sepoys. Such an army could be maintained for half a million sterling per annum, and the public revenue amounted to three or four millions ; but the Nawab refused to disband his own rabble soldiery, and pretended that he could not pay the Europeans. At this crisis Clive received a secret and startling Solution. proposal from the Vizier at Delhi, that he should accept the post of Dewan to the Great Mogul for Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. In the palmy days of the Mogul em- pire, every province was governed by two officials, the Nawab and the Dewan. The Nawab kept the peace and administered justice ; the Dewan kept the public purse, received the revenues, paid all salaries, and sent the surplus as tribute to the Great Mogul. The later Nawabs had become their own Dewans, and spent the revenue as they pleased, without sending any tribute to the Great Mogul. Had Clive closed with the offer, it would have involved a mortal struggle 46 INDIA UNDEE BRITISH RULE. CHAP. ii. with Mir Jafir, for it would have deprived the Nawab of all power over the public purse. But it would have removed every financial difficulty, as the Vizier would have been satisfied with a yearly tribute of half a million sterling, or even less, whilst Olive would have had the whole remaining surplus at his own disposal, dive's Clive would not accept the post of Dewan, either Pitt, 1759. for himself or for the East India Company. But he wrote privately to the British premier, the first "William Pitt, and proposed that the British Crown should act as Dewan to the Great Mogul. Under such an arrangement, the Crown might have taken over the Bengal revenues, sent half, or a quarter of a million a year to Delhi, spent another half million on a standing army, and devoted another half million to the salaries of the Nawab and his officials ; and then might have secured a surplus of two millions a year towards the payment of the national debt. William Pitt, however, was already alarmed at the growing power of the Crown, and he declined taking over the proposed income lest it should endanger the liberties of the British nation. Turmoils j n 1750 Colonel Clive returned to England, and in the ' north- in 1761 the war with France was over. India might west. , . now have been at peace, but the north-west was in a turmoil. The Great Mogul was murdered by his Vizier. The Afghans had slaughtered 200,000 Mahrattas on the fatal field of Paniput, and estab- lished their ascendency at Delhi. The fugitive Prince Imperial was proclaimed Padishah, or Emperor, by the Nawab of Oudh, who assumed the title of Nawab Vizier ; and the Padishah and his Nawab Vizier invaded Behar and threatened Patna. BENGAL PROVINCES. 47 3. The British at Calcutta were now in sore CHAP, n peril, and there was no Olive to guide them. They change of deposed Mir Jafir on their own authority, and set up his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, as Nawab of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. The new Nawab was unques- tionably a better man than the deposed Mir Jafir ; but the transfer of a throne by a Governor and Council of British merchants was somewhat startling. There was, however, no one to resist the Calcutta traders, and Mir Jafir yielded to his kismet, retired from his post as Nawab, and removed to Calcutta, as a safer residence than Murshedabad. Mir Kasim agreed to all the British demands. He Mastery was bound over to pay half a million sterling for the British, maintenance of the British army ; but he averted money disputes with the Company's servants by ceding three districts in the immediate neighbour- hood of Calcutta, which yielded the same amount of revenue, aod the British could collect the money for themselves. Above all, the new Nawab agreed, as Mir Jafir had done before him, to free the Company's servants from the payment of all inland transit duties within the Bengal provinces. Mir Kasim, accompanied by a British force, took Dealings the field against the young Padishah and the Nawab Vizier. The invaders were soon defeated ; the Nawab Vizier fled back to Oudh, but the young Padishah remained at Patna. Accordingly, the British deter- mined to get his sanction to their proceedings, and thus to justify their appointment of a new Nawab in the eyes of the people of India and the European nations trading with Bengal. He was without territory or revenue. His throne and capital at Delhi were in the hands of the Afghans. Yet he had been proclaimed 48 INDIA UNDER BKITISH EULE. CHAP. Padishah in India, and was legally the Great Mogul. Accordingly, the British determined to recognize his sovereignty, and arrange for the appointment of Mir Kasim as Nawab of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, under his imperial seal and commission. British It was somewhat audacious for a handful of British 8 Great a traders to set up a Great Mogul for themselves as lord Mogul. paramount O f l n (Ji a> It was still more audacious to carry out the ceremony of installation in a building sacred to silk and saltpetre. Nevertheless, the work was done. The Company's 'factory at Patna was con- verted into a Mogul palace ; the centre room into a hall of audience ; the dining- tables into an imperial throne. The Padishah was carried in procession to the factory, and enthroned on the dining-tables as the Great Mogul. Mir Kasim paid homage to the sovereign, and was invested with the post of Nawab of the Bengal provinces. In return, the Nawab was bound over to pay a yearly tribute to the Great Mogul of a quarter of a million sterling. Enthrone- The installation of the Great Mogul, and the formal "patna. appointment of the Nawab of Bengal, were established facts, but no party was satisfied. The Padishah was disgusted, because the British would not conduct him to Delhi and place him on the throne of Aurangzeb. The Nawab was disgusted at paying a heavy tribute when the Padishah might have been forced by a little pressure to sell the appointment for a bag of rupees. He was apparently bent on breaking off all relations with the British, and there was no objection to his doing so. He moved his court from Mursheda- bad, which was only a hundred miles from Calcutta, to Monghyr, which was more than three hundred BENGAL PROVINCES. 49 miles. Here he formed an army of picked men, and CHAF - " employed a European deserter, known as Sombre or Sumru, to drill the troops in British fashion, and began to manufacture muskets and cast guns. o o The quarrel began about the right of the British No one 1 T i satisfied. servants of the Company, under the treaty with Mir Kasim, to carry their commodities through the Bengal provinces free from the payment of all transit duties. The British at Calcutta twisted the privilege of non-payment into a right to carry such native com- modities as salt, tobacco, opium, betel, sugar, and oil, without payment ; whilst all Bengali dealers were compelled to pay a duty at every station. The British were thus able to undersell native dealers, and monopolise the whole trade of the country. The Nawab protested against this interpretation, and in- sisted on collecting the duties, unless the goods were bought for exportation by sea. Then ensued quarrels, misunderstandings, frays and reprisals ; the Nawab complaining of the loss of duties, whilst the British set him at defiance, and resisted all attempts to collect the duties by force of arms. Mir Kasim cut away the British monopoly by Quarrel abolishing all inland transit duties. The Bengali Kasim. dealers were thus placed on the same footing as the Company's servants. The Company's servants were blind with wrath at this measure. They insisted that they enjoyed a certain privilege under the treaty with Mir Kasim, and that this privilege was rendered valueless by the general abolition of duties. Accord- ingly, they proposed sending two of their number to Monghyr to argue the matter with the Nawab. The city of Monghyr is situated on the river Cx 2 e f r l a Ganges, three hundred miles above Calcutta and a tions - E 50 IXDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP^H. hundred miles below Patna. The two British envoys were received and entertained by the Nawab, but told there was nothing to settle ; he had ceased to collect duties from his own subjects and the British had nothing to do with the matter. At this very moment a boat arrived at Monghyr on its way to Patna with a cargo of firelocks from Calcutta for the garrison at the British factory. The Nawab at once suspected that the British were preparing for war. He confiscated the firelocks, and kept one of the envoys as a hostage, but' permitted the other to return to Calcutta. The latter man was doomed. On his way down the river he was fired upon by the troops of the Nawab, and brutally murdered. Mir Jafir When the news of this catastrophe reached Cal- restored. cutta? fae Company's servants seem to have lost their heads. In vain they were told that the British at Patna, and those at another factory, were at the mercy of the Nawab. They swore that they would be avenged although every Briton up country was slaughtered ; and they wrote out a declaration to that effect, and each man signed it. The Governor and Council of Calcutta then went in a body to the house of Mir Jafir, and restored him to his post as Nawab of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, on the condition that he once again levied the duties from Bengali traders. Mir Jafir readily promised, and indeed would have promised anything to recover his lost throne. Perrs at Meanwhile, the British at Patna were in extreme danger. They had a European garrison at the fac- tory, but the factory was untenable. They made a desperate effort to seize the town of Patna, and for a few hours were successful. The Mogul commandant BENGAL PROVINCES. 51 was taken by surprise and fled with most of his CHAP. n. troops ; but the Mogul fortress still held out. The British ought to have stormed the fortress, but delayed on account of the heat. The result was fatal. The European soldiers went to the bazaar for drink, whilst the sepoys plundered the shops and houses, and within a very short time the whole force was utterly demoralised. Suddenly, the Mogul commandant met with re- British inforcements, and returned and recovered the town. The British fled back to the factory, but saw that they were being environed by the Nawab's troops. They hurriedly embarked in boats, in the hope of escaping up the stream into Oudh, but the enemy closed around them. Had they resisted to the last, some might have escaped. As it was they surrendered as prisoners, and were taken to Monghyr, where they found that the British inmates of another factory had been arrested and imprisoned in like manner. An avenging army was soon on its way from British Calcutta. Murshedabad was captured, but not with- massacre out a stout resistance, for the drilled troops of the ^f' Nawab were vastly superior to the rabble hosts that had fought at Calcutta and Plassy. The British force, however, overcame every obstacle, and pushed on to Monghyr, whilst the Nawab fled to Patna, carrying his prisoners with him to the number of a hundred and fifty souls. At Patna the Nawab heard that Monghyr was taken by the British, and resolved on exacting a terrible revenge. His prisoners were shut up in a large square building with a courtyard in the centre. He ordered Sombre to slaughter the whole, and the miscreant environed the building with sepoys. The British assembled in the courtyard, bent E 2 52 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. ii. on fighting for their lives. The sepoys climbed to the roof, but were assailed with a storm of brickbats and bottles from the courtyard. Sombre ordered them to fire on the prisoners, but they hung back, declaring that they were sepoys and not executioners, and would not fire on men without arms in their hands. Then Sombre grew furious and violent ; struck down the nearest sepoys with his own hands, and threat- ened and bullied the rest into obedience. The sepoys yielded to their European master. Successive volleys were fired into the courtyard, until it was strewed with dead bodies. Not a single prisoner escaped that horrible slaughter. Mii-Kasim The massacre at Patna sealed the doom of the Nawab Nawab. He fled away into Oudh with his family Vizier. an( j treasures, but the avenging Furies were at his heels. The Nawab Vizier received him with ostenta- tious hospitality, but only that he might strip him of his treasures. The Nawab Vizier declared war against the British for the restoration of Mir Kasim, but it was only that he might eventually get the Bengal provinces into his own hands. Battle of The war lasted many months, but was brought to 7' a close in 1764 by the battle of Buxar. The victory gained by Sir Hector Monro at Buxar on the Behar frontier was as decisive as that of Plassy. The Nawab Vizier fled away in terror to the Kohilla Afghans beyond his north-west frontier, leaving his dominions at the absolute disposal of the British ; and Sir Hector Monro marched on to the capital at Lucknow and took possession of the whole of Oudh. British The triumph of the British was complete. Mir Kasim lost his treasures and died in obscurity. The Nawab Vizier was a helpless fugitive ; neither BENGAL PROVINCES. 53 Bohillas, nor Mahrattas, nor any other power could CHAP. n. help him against the British. The Great Mogul was once more a suppliant in their hands. The British were de facto masters of the bulk of the old Mogul empire, and might have taken possession of the whole of Northern India in the name of the Great Mogul. As it was they proposed making over Oudh to the Afghans, and restoring the Great Mogul to the throne of his fathers at Delhi. Before, however, the Gover- nor and Council at Calcutta could change the map of India, the Court of Directors upset their plans by sending out Clive for the last time with the authority of a dictator. 4. The Directors of the East India Company Lo y d clivc had been alternately infuriated and terrified at 1765. ' the news from Bengal. They were extremely angry at the quarrel about the private trade, especially as they had not shared in the profits ; but the massacre at Patna filled them with grief and despair. Accordingly Clive, who had been raised to the peerage, was sent to Bengal as Governor, with full power to act as he thought proper. When Lord Clive landed at Calcutta Mir Jafir was settlement dead, and the existing Governor and Council had sold the throne of the three provinces to an illegiti- mate son for 200,000?. and divided the money amongst themselves. Lord Clive was extremely wroth, but could do nothing. The offenders retired from the service of the Company and returned to England. Meanwhile Lord Clive stopped the expe- dition to Delhi, restored Oudh to the Nawab Vizier, and secured a handsome sum out of the transaction for the benefit of the East Indian Company. 54 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. . But the crowning event in Lord dive's life was the Company acceptance of the post of Dewan to the Great Mogul Bengal, in the name of the East India Company. Hence- forth, the Governor and Council at Calcutta took over the revenues of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa from the Nawab's revenue officers, and provided for the mili- tary defence of the three provinces. A quarter of a million sterling was paid to the Great Mogul, and half a million to the Nawab at Murshedabad for the salaries of himself and his officials ; but all inter- ference on the part of the* British with the adminis- tration of the Nawab and his ministers and servants was strictly forbidden, as contrary to the policy of non-intervention. Accordingly, the Nawab and his officials were left to govern the country in their own fashion, without a revenue and without an army. Sorrows The Great Mogul, however, was not content. He Great would not live in the Bengal provinces ; he wanted Mogul. to g to Deih^ anc [ h e was su lky because the British would not take him there. He set up his little court at Allahabad, half-way between Calcutta and Delhi, and lived like a prince ; but he was unhappy. A British brigade was posted hard by, and the officer in command would not allow him to support his im- perial dignity by beating the imperial kettle-drums, because of the noise. Agony of The arrangements as regards the Bengal pro- i7 C 65-72. vinces, known in India as the acquisition of the Dewanny, were carried out in 1765. In 1767 Lord Clive returned to England, and the Bengal pro- vinces were reduced to greater misery than ever. There was no one to control the native officials, and they accumulated riches at the expense of the masses. The wealth which the old Nawabs Lad BENGAL PROVINCES. 55 lavished on their pleasures was at least spent CHAP. n. within the three provinces ; whereas it was now sent to China to buy tea and silk for the East India Company, or was remitted to England as the private fortunes of the Company's servants. Bengal was drained of its silver, and the masses loudly com- plained that the British ought to protect them against their oppressors. But non-intervention was the cry both in Bengal and in the British Isles, and nothing was done. Meanwhile the revenue had rapidlv declined. British super- Before Lord Clive left Bengal he was compelled to visors. do something in spite of his policy of non-interven- tion. He sent a British civil servant to every district in the Bengal provinces, under the name of Super- visor. The supervisors were to watch and report what was going on, but not to interfere with the Bengali officials. 1 They were to collect statistics respecting the land, its produce and capacity ; the authorised amount of land revenue and the illegal exactions ; the administration of justice and the regu- lation of trade. The British supervisors could only report what they saw, and what the native officials chose to tell them. One thing was certain : the people were terribly oppressed ancl the administration was in utter confusion ; and so long as the British played at non-intervention it was impossible to apply a remedy. At last the dreadful famine of 1770-71 desolated Famine, and depopulated the whole country. Terrible reports 1 In the present day there are forty-five districts in the Bengal provinces, namely, thirty-seven regulation and eight non- regulation. The distinction between the two classes of districts will be explained hereafter. 56 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. ciur. ii. reached England that the Company's servants had leagued with the native officials to buy up all the grain and sell it at famine prices. Meanwhile the revenue had rapidly declined, and the blame was thrown on the Bengali officials. Accordingly the Court of Directors resolved to dismiss the Asiatic officials, and to appoint covenanted British servants in their room ; and they selected Warren Hastings to be Governor of Bengal, with peremptory orders to carry out the necessary reforms. Restricted 5. The change from Lord Clive to Warren Hast- a of Lord" ings was most momentous. Lord Clive was a soldier ciive. b orn to command. Warren Hastings was emphati- cally an administrator born to rule. From the first Lord Clive had shirked all political responsibility. He was content to place the East India Company in the position of Dewan, with the additional duty of maintaining a standing army for the defence of the country, but without attempting to invest it with the ruling powers of a Nawab. So long as the Company took over the revenue, the Nawab and his officials were left to govern the people, and administer law and justice, according to their own will and pleasure For himself, Lord Clive was content to rule the Com- pany's settlement and some small cessions of territory of no account, and to leave the outside masses in utter darkness. Vastdomi- Warren Hastings went to Calcutta as absolute nion of . Hastings, ruler over the three provinces. He was a prince amongst princes ; the equal if not the superior of any Hindu or Mohammedan ruler within the Hima- layas and the two seas. As President of the Council his authority was not confined by the Mahratta ditch, BENGAL PROVINCES. 57 but stretched far away over territories as large, if not CHAP. n. larger, than Great Britain and Ireland. He united the powers of British Governor, Nawab, and Great Mogul. He was destined to strip the Nawab of every vestige of authority ; to cut down his yearly income from half a million sterling to 160,000/., and to reduce him to the condition of a private Moham- medan grandee dwelling at Murshedabad. As for the Great Mogul, he had vanished from the scene. In 1771 he had quitted Oudh and returned to Delhi with the Mahrattas, and thereby forfeited his pension and empty suzerainty as far as the British were con- cerned. Later on, the Mahrattas demanded payment of the yearly tribute, but were flatly refused by Warren Hastings. In 1772 Warren Hastings was forty years of age, Career of with very large experiences. He had landed at Calcutta ante 1772. at the age of eighteen, and served as a clerk and ware- houseman in the factory at Calcutta. In 1757, after the battle of Plassy, he was Kesident at the court of Nawab Mir Jafir at Murshedabad. Later on, during the quarrel with Mir Kasim, he was a member of the Council at Calcutta, and one of the very few who took the part of the Nawab. In 1764 he went to England and became poor. In 1769 he returned to India and was appointed member of the Council at Madras. In 1772 he proceeded to Calcutta to become Governor of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, in other words to govern territories covering an area of 150,000 square miles, or one-tenth of the great continent of India. Henceforth his dominion extended from the mouths of the Ganges to the foot of the Himalayas, and from the frontier at Oudh to the frontiers at Assam and Bhutan. 58 INDIA U^DEE BRITISH EULE. provinces. CHAP. ii. Warren Hastings must be regarded in two different TWO aspects. In 1766, whilst residing in England, his portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Eeynolds, and represents a mild, benevolent, and intelligent English gentleman. Twenty years afterwards another por- trait was painted, which represents a stubborn and vindictive official, from whom all traces of the mild gentleman had disappeared. 1 British 6. The first task of Warren Hastings was to intro- Bengal duce British administration into the Bengal provinces. The work had been easy enough when dealing with the population of towns, who were dependent on the East India Company for employment and protection. But dealing with provinces having a population of twenty or thirty millions of Hindus and Moham- medans, who knew very little of the British, and very little of their laws or ways, was a very different matter, and demanded extreme tact and caution. Warren Hastings began the work of government with the reform of the land revenue the back- bone of all administration in India. In those days the task was beyond the strength of any Englishman or body of Englishmen. During the Mahratta inva- sions and sudden changes of Nawabs the collection of the revenue had fallen into utter confusion, and it was impossible for Europeans to understand local rights Land revenue. or wrongs. Zemindars and ryots. The bulk of the land revenue in Bengal was col- lected by middle men, known as zemindars, from tenant farmers known as ryots. The zemindar was half a landlord and half a revenue collector. He 1 The first portrait of Warren Hastings was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1883. The second portrait is still hanging in the Council Chamber at the India Oifice at Westminster. BENGAL PROVINCES. 59 generally possessed some hereditary land which was CHAP. n. the family demesne ; but outside the demesne were the landholders or ryots, from whom he collected the rents. The zemindar was not a landlord in the eyes of the ryots, because under Mogul law he could not raise the rents. Still he was a great man within his zemindary. He was magistrate, judge, and controller of the village police ; and he had armed followers in his pay, who helped the village police in pursuing robbers and collecting rents. He had the right of hunting, fishing, and cutting wood, throughout his zemindary. Moreover, he levied irregular cesses, benevolences or aids, from the ryots, to defray the expenses of a birth or marriage within his own family, or to meet the demands of the Nawab in an emergency like a Mahratta invasion. The changes in the status of Bengal zemindars British may be gathered from what is known of old Calcutta. zem jj dar Before the battle of Plassy the East India Company Calcu tta. itself was nothing more than a Bengal zemindar, and held the settlement at Calcutta on a zemindary tenure. The Company was pledged to pay to the Nawab a fixed yearly royalty for their little territory. A British civil servant was appointed to represent the Company as zemindar, to bear the name and fulfil the duties of the post ; and he collected the ground-rents within the Company's bounds and paid the yearly royalty to the Nawab. He could not raise the rents, for that was forbidden by Mogul law, but otherwise he was all powerful. He administered justice, criminal and civil, like the Justices of the Choultry at Madras. He also raised an additional income by farming out certain trades as monopolies, levying octroi duties on provisions, and taking fees 60 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. ii. for the registration of marriages, and sale of houses, boats, and slaves. Auction After Plassy the British zemindar at Calcutta cared sales of Calcutta nothing for Mogul law. He raised the rents within the Company's bounds by the simple process of putting the leases up to auction ; and the eagerness of the Bengalis to hold lands and sub-let them to under- tenants led to much competition and a large ad- vance of rents. The zemindar who carried out this innovation was no other than Mr. Holwell, the same gentleman who was accepted as Governor of Calcutta on the morning of the day that ended in the Black Hole disaster. During that terrible night Mr. Hol- well seems to have imbibed hatred and contempt for Moguls and Nawabs. Whilst Clive was shilly-shally- ing with Mir Jafir, Holwell was urging the deposition of the Nawab, the annexation of the Bengal provinces, and the radical measure of putting up all the zemin- daries to public auction. 1 This scheme was ignored at the time as the dream of a madman ; but neverthe- less, within fifteen years, or half a generation, it was seriously considered by Warren Hastings. Mogul The revenue records of the Moguls had always been records 6 singularly complete down to the minutest detail. The holding of every ryot and the area of every zemindary had been measured and remeasured ; the average value of the yearly produce of every field had been calculated ; and the yearly rents payable by the ryots and the yearly revenue payable by the zemin- dar had been fixed in each case on the basis of the average harvests. All these details had been entered at length in the Mogul records. But the revenue records which contained all the details respecting the 1 See Holwell's Historical Events in Bengal. BENGAL PROVINCES. 61 land in the Bengal provinces had mysteriously dis- CHAP. n. appeared when they were most wanted. A Moham- Mystcri- medan contemporary says that they were all destroyed pearancc. when Mir Kasim fled into Oudh. Possibly they may have been thrown into the Ganges and carried out to sea. Warren Hastings did perhaps the best he could British under the circumstances. By the stroke of a pen he converted the British supervisors into British col- lectors of revenues ; and thus brought the new collectors into direct contact with the zemindars, who collected yearly rents from the ryots or tenant farmers. The next work would have been to re- measure all the lands and to make fresh estimates of the average yearly value of the produce of each field. This work had been carried out within the Company's zemindary at Calcutta, and many frauds and errors had -been discovered and corrected. But what was possible in an estate, was impossible in a territory considerably larger than the British isles. Warren Hastings had no means at his disposal for re-measuring the lands and revaluing the yearly produce, and it was utterly impossible to get at the actual facts as regards rents and revenues. Not only were the records lost, but the revenue administration was in utter confusion ; the ministers exacted what they could from the zemindars, and the zemindars in their turn oppressed the ryots. Moreover, no re- liable information could be obtained from ryots or zemindars, who were alike suspicious of British inten- tions and mortally terrified by the British invasion, The new British collectors, with the help of native officials, arrived at some approximate estimate of the rents paid by the ryots in each zemindary, and then 62 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. ii. every zemindar in possession was called upon to pay a certain lump sum as yearly revenue for the whole during a term of five years. If he accepted a lease for the five years, well and good. If he refused, the lease was sold to the highest bidder, with no other reserve than that of requiring him to give the neces- sary security for the yearly payment to the British collectors. The experiment proved a failure. The revenue demands had been fixed too high. Such was the passion for local influence, that many zemindars had agreed to pay a larger revenue than could be realised from the rents. Vast amounts were lost as arrears Auction that could not be realised. Many zemindaries were zemlnda- sold by auction, and were bought up by native les ' speculators who were ruined in their turn. When the five years' leases had run out no attempt was made to renew them ; but zemindaries were let on yearly leases until some permanent system could be devised, and this arrangement continued in force until the end of Warren Hastings's administration. Judicial 7. The system of judicial administration intro- M f onTm- cluced by Warren Hastings was equally cautious and criminal ex P er i men tal. Bengal zemindars ceased to act as courts, magistrates or j udges. The British collector be- came magistrate and civil judge. 1 As magistrate he made over all prisoners for trial to a Mohammedan court, which was created in each district, but over which he maintained some degree of control. A cazi 1 The control over the country police was also transferred from the zemindars to the new magistrates and collectors. This measure was good in itself, but attended with disadvantages, which will be brought under review hereafter. BENGAL PROVINCES. 6# sat as judge and tried the prisoners, whilst muftis and CHAP. n. mulvis expounded or interpreted Mohammedan law ; but the British collector was present to see that trials were properly conducted, and perhaps to inter- cede when the punishment awarded was barbarous or cruel. This was little more than a reform of the existing system such a reform as might have been carried out by an Akbar or Aurangzeb. For centuries Mohammedan law had been the common law of Northern India, and Hindu criminal law, with its hideous severities as regards caste, had been ignored by Mogul rulers, although, no doubt, caste laws were often enforced by the Hindus themselves. Civil justice was administered more directly by Mixedcivii the British collectors. In civil disputes, especially as regards inheritance and marriage, the parties con- cerned were necessarily guided by their own laws. Accordingly the collector sat as judge, but w r as as- sisted by Mohammedan lawyers in deciding cases between Mohammedans, and by learned Brahmans, or pundits, in deciding cases between Hindus. Under most circumstances the cazi or pundit must often have been the real judge, whilst the British collector was only the representative of the supreme authority. Courts of circuit and appeal were also appointed to courts of travel through different areas, and sit as British ch ^ judges of assize in both criminal and civil courts. a PP eal - Here was that same mixture of British and Asiatic judges as in the collectors' courts. But many changes were made from time to time in the judicial system, and the whole question will be better considered hereafter when dealing with the reforms of Lord Cornwallis, who eventually succeeded Warren Hast- ings as Governor-General. <54 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. H. Meanwhile the Governor and Council still formed chief the chief court at Calcutta, and confirmed all capital Sudde?!" sentences, or heard appeals in important civil cases, as in the old times when British authority was bounded by the Mahratta ditch. From time to time they passed regulations for the guidance of collectors, and eventually Warren Hastings drew up a clear and concise criminal code with his own hands. This chief court was known as the Sudder. It had a civil and a criminal side, and lasted as an institu- tion down to the latest "days of the East India Company. 1 Patri- Under such circumstances British ideas of justice justice! gradually superseded Mohammedan usages. Indeed it was impossible to maintain the criminal law of the Mohammedans in courts controlled more or less by British judges. Under Mohammedan law theft was punished by mutilation, adultery was punished by death, or not punished at all unless four eye-witnesses could be produced ; whilst the most atrocious murderer might escape from justice by the payment of a blood fine to the kinsmen of his victim. Cazis and muftis might be nominally independent, but practically they yielded to British influences ; and British judges administered justice in a patriarchal fashion, which 1 The old Sadder Courts at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay finally disappeared in 1862, when they were amalgamated with the Supreme Courts, which will be described hereafter, and which, up to that date, were exclusively composed of barrister judges. In the present day they are forgotten by all but lawyers familiar with a past generation, yet the Sudder Courts played their part in the history of the past. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Marquis of Wellesley was Governor- General, three civilians were appointed judges in the Sudder, one being a member of Council and the Chief Judge in the room of the Governor-General. BENGAL PROVINCES. 65 might be condemned by trained lawyers, but was far CHAP. n. better suited to the condition of the masses than British courts of law in the last century. 8. Whilst carrying out these reforms Warren Hast- New ings was taken somewhat aback by the appointment o rcounc of three English gentlemen, not in the service of the barrister Company, to seats in the Calcutta Council. At the J ud s es - same time four barrister judges, equally independent of the Company, were sent out from England to form a Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta for the administration of English law, civil and criminal. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was to extend to all British subjects, and to all Asiatics who were servants of the Company or had dealings with British subjects. The Chief Justice was Sir Elijah Impey, who was known to Hastings, as the two had been schoolfellows together at Westminster. The three other barristers were puisne judges. The three new members of Council and the four new Reguia- Supreme Court judges had been appointed, not by O n[773. the East India Company, but by Parliament and the Crown. The public mind in England had been greatly stirred by reports of maladministration, and in 1773 a "Kegulating Act" had been passed to bring the administration of merchant rulers under some control independent of that of the East India Company. No offence was intended to Warren Hastings ; on the contrary, he was raised by the same " Eegulating Act" to the post of Governor- General, with a controlling power over Madras and Bombay on all questions of war and peace. He filled the chair as President of the Council, but besides him there was only Mr. Barwell, who F 66 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. IT. belonged to the Company's service. The three remaining members were the three strangers and outsiders General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Philip Francis, the reputed author of the Letters of Junius. Warren 9. From the very first there were jealous suspicions andPhSSp i n tne Council between the two gentlemen in the Francis. serv i ce o f ^ e Company and the three gentlemen appointed by the Crown. In one direction Warren Hastings had laid him sell* open to an attack. In an evil hour he had lent the services of a British brigade to the Nawab Vizier of Oudh, and the Nawab Vizier had employed the brigade against the Kohilla Afghans on the north-west in a quarrel with which the British had no concern. The Kohilla Afghans were defeated by the British brigade, and then plundered and brutally ill-treated by the cowardly troops of the Nawab Vizier. Warren Hastings could only defend himself by saying that money was urgently required by the East India Company, and that the Nawab Vizier had paid heavily for the brigade. Charges Whilst Philip Francis and his two independent Hastings, colleagues were denouncing this transaction, the idea spread amongst the Bengalis that the three new members of Council had been sent by the King of Great Britain to redress the wrongs of natives. Petitions against Warren Hastings were poured into the Calcutta Council, and seriously investigated by Philip Francis and his two colleagues, whilst Hast- ings and Barvvell formed a minority and could not override their proceedings. Hastings was charged with having taken a bribe of 100 ; 000/. from the BENGAL PROVINCES. 67 Nawab Vizier of Oudh. Then it was said that the HAP - n. public auctions of zemindaries were shams ; that the native servants of Hastings and others had succeeded in getting large estates at low leases, and that Hastings had shared in the gains. Finally, a Brahman, named Nundcomar, a man of notoriously bad character, charged Hastings with having taken bribes for certain lucrative appointments in the household of the Nawab at Murshedabad. Warren Hastings might have rebutted the charges Nundco- by producing his accounts, and allowing his steward executed. and other servants to be examined before the Council. But he preferred standing on his dignity and re- fusing to answer the charges brought forward by Nundcomar, who was notorious for perjury, for forging other people's seals, and for carrying on secret correspondence with the enemies of the British. Suddenly Nundcomar was arrested on a charge of forgery, and tried in the Supreme Court by a full bench, comprising Chief Justice Impey and the three puisne judges, and, after a fair summing up, was found guilty by a British jury, and hanged accordingly. Nundcomar was a Brahman, and in those early inaction of days no Brahman, under Hindu law, could be put to death ; whilst killing a Brahman, even by accident or unavoidable circumstances, was regarded by Hindus as stances. the most horrible crime that could be committed by man. Forgery was a capital offence under English law, but not under Hindu or Mohammedan law. Hastings might have reprieved Nundcomar, but would not in- terfere. Philip Francis and his two allies, Clavering and Monson, were insolent and aggressive in the ex- treme. They had pushed Hastings into a corner from F 2 68 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. ii. which he could not escape without damaging his posi- tion as Governor in the eyes of the Bengali population. They were equally insolent towards Sir Elijah Impey and the Supreme Court. They demanded, in arro- gant language, that every respect should be paid to the caste feelings of Nundcomar during his imprison- ment ; and whilst the trial was proceeding they addressed the Chief Justice in the language of reprimand, as though they had been his superiors. Sir Elijah Impey went so far as to consult Hindu pundits on the proper treatment of a Brahman under confinement, and to act in accordance with their sug- gestions. Indeed he seems to have regarded the pre- tensions of a Brahman to be above English law, to be as deserving of respect as the old " Benefit of Clergy," which was still in existence in England, although taken away by statute from several offences. The execution was delayed for more than a month after conviction, and Nundcomar would probably have been reprieved altogether, but for the arrogance of Philip Francis and his two allies, and the additional perjuries and forgeries which were committed in the course of the trial. Had Sir Elijah Impey submitted further to the dictation of Francis, the Supreme Court would have lost all authority in the eyes of the people of Bengal. The abstract justice in executing Nundcomar for the crime of forgery may be open to question, but Sir Elijah Impey, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was bound to follow English law, without making any exception in favour of a Brahman. 10. Meanwhile there was a collision between the Supreme Court and the Sudder. The Supreme Court BENGAL PROVINCES. 69 began to exercise jurisdiction over zemindars and CHAP. u. other Asiatics throughout the Bengal provinces, and collision to override the decisions of the Company's Courts. e the 6n Its powers had not been clearly defined, and on one s ^J? occasion it had been called upon to arbitrate in a J 11 ^? 6 r Sudder. quarrel between Warren Hastings and General Clavering, thus assuming a superior authority by deciding differences between the Governor- General and a member of his Council. Again, the judges of the Supreme Court were qualified lawyers appointed by the Crown, and they ignored the decisions of the Company's servants, who were not lawyers. The collision, however, was entirely due to the p i n ts in false position which the East India Company .had dis P ute - taken up. The servants of the Company had as yet received no authority from Parliament or the Crown to act as judges, or to make laws. They affected to treat the Nawab as a sovereign, and to act in his name ; but the Nawab was a fiction set up to hide the territorial power of the East India Company from the British nation. Warren Hastings pleaded that the Bengal zemindars were servants of the Nawab, over whom the Supreme Court had no juris- diction. The judges replied that the Nawab was a puppet, a phantom, as unsubstantial as a king of the fairies. Unfortunately, the maintenance of this phantom Nawab for the benefit of the East India Company has been for more than a century a dead weight on the revenues of Bengal. In 1781 another Act of Parliament was passed p ar ii a - which put everything to rights. It authorised the Governor- General and Council of Bengal to make regulations which should have the force of Jaws, and it restricted the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court 70 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. ii. to the old bounds of the settlement between the Mahratta ditch and the river Hughly. But the state of Englishmen that is, of British born subjects of the Crown was exceptional. They could not be tried by any of the Company's Courts, or under any of the Bengal regulations. A British born subject who com- mitted a criminal offence in any part of the Com- pany's territories in Bengal could only be tried by the judges in the Supreme Court, in accordance with English law, and could only be convicted by a jury of his own countrymen. Alleged Whilst the struggle was going on between the Supreme Court and the Sudder, Warren Hastings appointed Sir Elijah Impey to be chief judge in the Sudder, on a salary of 7,000/. per annum, in addition to his post as chief justice in the Supreme Court. Philip Francis denounced this arrangement as a bribe to Impey ; possibly it may have been so, but in itself the appointment was admirably suited to the exigencies of the time. As an experienced lawyer, Sir Elijah Impey was far better fitted than Warren Hastings to act as chief judge in the Sudder, to hear appeals from the Company's Courts up-country, and to control the judicial administration of the Company's judges, who could not pretend to any legal training. But the malice of Philip Francis was as obvious in the case of Impey as in the case of Hastings. Francis had been cast in heavy damages by the Supreme Court as a co-respondent ; and he was bent on the ruin of Impey. The result was that Impey was recalled to England and impeached. 1 1 The defence of Sir Elijah Impey has been thoroughly investi- gated from a legal point of view, in the Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey, by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. BENGAL PROVINCES. 71 11. Meanwhile the British had been drawn into a CHAP. n. war with the Mahrattas. For a hundred years the Origin Mahrattas had been the terror of India. Between Mahratta 1660 and 1680, Sivaji, the hero of the Mahrattas, power< founded the Mahratta kingdom in the Western Deccan, between Surat and Goa. The head-quarters of the family of Sivaji had been at Poona, about seventy miles to the south-east of Bombay, and Sivaji's early life and exploits were associated with Poona. Sub- sequently, in consequence of Mogul aggressions, the Mahratta capital was removed to Satara, about seventy miles to the south of Poona. In 1748 there was a revolution. The last de- Rige of the scendant of Sivaji was shut up in a fortress at Satara, Peishwas, whilst the Brahman minister, known as the Peishwa, removed to Poona, the ancient seat of Sivaji's family, and cradle of his dynasty. The imprisonment of the sovereign at Satara, and the reign of a Brahman minister at Poona, hardened into an institution ; and whenever a Peishwa died, his successor went to Satara to be invested with the office of minister by his imprisoned sovereign. 1 The Mahratta kingdom covered the greater part of the area of the Mahratta-speaking people. But a feuda- S the Peishwa sent his lieutenants to collect chout, or black-mail, in Northern India ; and one of these lieutenants, Mahadaji Sindia, became a greater man than his master. Sindia always professed to be the loyal servant of the Peishwa, and yet he managed to exercise a commanding influence at Poona, 1 Two centuries have passed away since the death of Sivaji, yet in June, 1885, a public meeting was held at Poona to take steps for repairing his tomb. His admirers styled him the Wallace of the Deccan. 72 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. HAP^II. It was Mahadaji Sindia who carried off the Great Mogul to Delhi in 1771 and established a dominion in Hindustan, extending from the Gwalior territory northward over the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges. The other lieutenants were only beginning to play their parts in history ; they included Holkar of Indore, the Gaekwar of Baroda, and the Bhonsla Raja of Berar in the Deccan, immediately to the northward of the Nizam. British Very soon after the battle of PI assy, the British at re with ns Calcutta came into contact 'with the Bhonsla Eaja of Berar. g erar< j^ wa s the Bhonsla Raja who compelled the later Nawabs of Bengal to pay chout, and to cede Cuttack ; and when Lord Clive had concluded his settlement with the Great Mogul and the Nawab Vizier of Oudh, he advised the Court of Directors to pay chout on condition of getting back Cuttack. But the Directors did not want Cuttack and would not pay black-mail ; and the Bhonsla Raja pressed his demand at convenient intervals, but wisely abstained from invading the Bengal provinces. Bombay Meanwhile, the British at Bombay had come into Peishwas. contact with the Mahrattas at Poona. For years the East India Company had been anxious to hold two important positions close to Bombay harbour, namely, the little island of Salsette and the little peninsula of Bassein. But the Mahrattas had wrested Salsette and Bassein from the Portuguese, and would not part with them on any terms. A civil war, however, had broken out in the Mahratta country. A Peishwa had been murdered. An uncle ascended the throne, but was banished on suspicion of being the murderer. He applied for help to the British at Bombay, and offered to cede the coveted positions BENGAL PROVINCES. 73 if the British at Bombay would restore him to the CHAP. n. Mahratta capital. The Governor and Council at Bombay closed with the offer, and the war began. After some successes, the British at Bombay met Disastrous with disaster. Mahadaji Sindia appeared at Poona with a large army to act against the banished Peishwa. A British force advanced from Bombay towards Poona, but took alarm at the report of Sindia's army, and suddenly halted, and beat a retreat. During the return march, the British force was environed by the Mahrattas, and finally surrendered to Sindia under what is known as the " Convention of Wurgaum." "Warren Hastings condemned the war from the out- Successes set ; as, however, the Company was committed to a Hastings? war, he exerted himself, in the teeth of Francis, to maintain British prestige in India. He sent an expedition, under Colonel Goddard, from Bengal to the Mahratta country, and detached another force under Captain Popham to capture Sindia's fortress at Gwalior. The success of these exploits electrified half India. The war was brought to a triumphant close, but all conquered territories, excepting Salsette and Bassein, were restored to the Mahrattas. Indeed, Warren Hastings was not a conqueror like CJive ; he acquired no territory during his regime, excepting that of Benares, which was ceded to the Company by the Nawab Vizier of Oudh. 12. During the Mahratta war secret negotiations Three were carried on between the Indian powers for a p^r^in confederation against the British. The two great India> powers of the Deccan the Mahrattas on the west representing the Hindus, and the Nizam on the east representing the Mohammedans had hated one 74 INDIA UNDER BEITISH RULE. CHAP^II. another for the greater part of a century. A third power, that of a Mohammedan adventurer named Hyder Ali, was becoming formidable further south on the western tableland of the peninsula. Hyder Ali is said to have once served as a sepoy in the French army. Later on, he entered the service of the Hindu Raja of Mysore, and eventually ousted the Raja, usurped the sovereign authority, and conquered the countries round about. Hyder Ali For many years Hyder Ali was the Ishmael of the Mysore. Deccan and peninsula. His hand was against every man, and every man's hand was against him. He invaded alike the territories of the Mahrattas and the Nizam in the Deccan, and those of the Nawab of the Carnatic up to the suburbs of Madras and Fort St. George. At the same time, he more than once ex- asperated the British by his secret dealings with the French at Pondicherry. invasion About 1779 Warren Hastings was warned that the Carnatic, three powers the Mahrattas, the Nizam, and Hyder breakin ^ were preparing for simultaneous attacks on up of the Bengal, Bombay, and Madras, and that a large tion. Mahratta army was already on the move from Berar territory for the invasion of the Bengal pro- vinces. In 1780 Hyder Ali desolated the Carnatic with an army of a hundred thousand men, but he was the only one of the three allies that kept to his engagement, and was eventually driven back by Sir Eyre Coote, one of the half-forgotten war- riors of the eighteenth century. The Nizam did nothing ; he probably waited to see what the others would do. The Mahrattas of Berar encamped in great force in the hills and jungles of Orissa, but only appear to have wanted a money present ; and after BENGAL PROVINCES. 75 wasting several months they were induced by Warren CHAP. n. Hastings to return to Berar. No movement of any kind was undertaken against Bombay ; and thus the strange confederation of Mohammedans and Mah- rattas melted away. 13. The quarrels, the wars, and the irregularities Pariia- of Warren Hastings induced the British Parliament interferes. to attempt radical changes. The antagonism between Philip Francis and Warren Hastings had led to a due], in which Francis was wounded ; and he returned to England to pour his bitter prejudices against Warren Hastings into the ears of Burke and Fox. The re- sult was that a bitter animosity was excited, not only against Warren Hastings, but against the East India Company ; and Parliament was called upon to decide whether the control of the administration of British India ought not to be transferred from the Court of Directors to the British Crown. The main question was one of patronage. The patronage of Indian appointments would render the Crown too powerful, as the elder Pitt had foreseen in the days of Clive ; and George III. was already straining his royal prerogative over Parliament and Ministers to an extent which was exciting alarm. In 1783, when the coalition ministry of Charles FOX'S James Fox and Lord North was in power, Fox brought n irss. 1 ' forward a bill for abolishing the Court of Directors, and transferring their authority and patronage to seven Commissioners nominated by Ministers. The bill was passed by the Commons, but George III. opposed it, and it was rejected by the Lords. In 1784 William Pitt the younger brought in another bill, which left the Directors in full possession 76 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAR ir. of tlieir power and patronage, but brought them Pitt under the strict supervision of a Board of Control, Boardof consisting of six privy councillors nominated by the C i78 lj Crown. Henceforth the President of the Board of Control, who was always a member of the Cabinet, was the centre of all authority, and was strictly responsible to Parliament for the conduct of Indian affairs. WarLn 14> ^ Tarren Hastings returned to England in 1785 Hastings, to find that the minds of Burke, Fox, and other lead- ing statesmen had been poisoned against him by Philip Francis. Eventually he was impeached by the Commons and tried by the Lords in Westminster Hall. Hastings was certainly responsible for the Eohilla war, and also responsible for the execution of Nundcomar ; but the crowning charge against him was that he had connived at the torture of the servants of the Oudh Begums by the Nawab Vizier of Oudh. The charge was painted in terrible colours by Sheridan, and it may be as well to sum up the actual facts. Ca oud f h lie A Nawab Vizier of Oudh died in 1775, leaving Begums, treasure to the value of some two or three millions sterling in the public treasury at Lucknow. The son and successor of the deceased ruler naturally assumed possession on the ground that the money was state property ; but his mother and grandmother, known as the two Begums, claimed it as private pro- perty, which the late Nawab Vizier had made over to them as a gift. Warren Hastings declined to inter- fere. Philip Francis, however, insisted that the British Government ought to interfere ; and eventu- ally the money was made over to the Begums on BENGAL PROVINCES. 77 the condition that they paid some quarter of a CHAP. n. million towards the State debt due to the East India Company. During the Mahratta war money was urgently Did required. The Nawab Vizier owed large arrears to C oimive S at the Company, but could not pay up unless he recovered possession of the State treasures. Philip Francis had returned to England. Accordingly Warren Hastings abandoned the Begums to the tender mercies of the Nawab Vizier, and connived at the imprisonment of their servants. It subse- quently appeared that the Nawab Vizier tortured the servants until the money was surrendered, but there is no evidence to show that Warren Hastings connived at the torture. Warren Hastings was undoubtedly a man of great services of abilities and marvellous energy. His services to the ] East India Company, and to British interests in India, are beyond all calculation. But he was exposed to great temptation in times when public virtue was less exalted than it has been in the present genera- tion, and he was hedged around with enemies who were spiteful and unscrupulous enough to misrepre- sent any and every transaction. His errors were those of his time, but his genius is stamped for ever on the history of British India. His misdeeds cannot be entirely overlooked, but he paid a bitter penalty. For many months he was threatened by the proceed- ings which culminated in his trial at Westminster Hall. Eventually he was acquitted of all charges, but his trial was protracted over seven long years arid ruined his private fortunes and public career. After the lapse of a hundred years, the flaws in the character of Warren Hastings may be condoned in 78 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. ii. consideration of his merits as an administrator. He found the Bengal provinces in chaos, and introduced light and order. He converted British traders into revenue collectors, magistrates, and judges, but he established Courts of Appeal to supervise their pro- ceedings ; and if his magistrates and judges had no legal training, they were at any rate Britons with a national sense of justice, and their decisions were infinitely better than those of Bengal zemin- dars, without law, or justice, or control. Warren Hastings kept a watchful eye on British interests as well as on the welfare of the people under his charge. He sent a mission to Tibet, which shows his anxiety for the extension of trade. He recorded a touching tribute to the memory of Augustus Cleveland, a young Bengal civilian who had done much to humanise and elevate the rude Sonthals of the Eajmahal hills, which sufficiently proves his sympathy with the well-being of the masses. Altogether, if Warren Hastings is not so free from blame as he is represented by his friends, he certainly was not so black as he has been painted by his enemies. Lord . 15. In 1 786 Lord Cornwallis, an independent peer, was appointed Governor-General. This event marks x x a change in British rule. Lord Cornwallis was the first British peer, and the first Englishman not in the service of the East India Company, who was appointed to the post of Governor-General. He carried out two measures which have left their mark in history, namely, the perpetual settlement with the Bengal zemindars, and the reform of the judicial system. The settlement with the Bengal zemindars was still BENGAL PROVINCES. 79 awaiting a decision. Lord Cornwallis was anxious to CHAP. u. arrange the land revenue of the Bengal provinces on Perpetual English lines. He abandoned the yearly leases, and me nt. concluded leases for ten years, with the view of even- tually declaring the settlement to be perpetual. Mr. John Shore, a Bengal civilian, pressed for a preliminary inquiry into the rights of the ryots, for the purpose of fixing the rents. But Lord Cornwallis was opposed to any further delay. In 1793 he proclaimed that the ten years settlement would be perpetual ; that the tenant-rights of ryots would be left to future inquiry ; and that henceforth the Bengal zemindars would be invested with the proprietary rights enjoyed by English landlords, so long as they paid the fixed yearly revenue to Government and respected all existing rights of ryots and cultivators. The judicial system introduced by Warren Hastings judicial was modified by Lord Cornwallis. The British col- Reforms - lector, as already seen, was also magistrate and civil judge. Lord Cornwallis decided that a collector ought to have no judicial duties under which he might be called on to adjudicate in revenue ques- tions. Accordingly a regulation was passed under which the duties of revenue collector were separated from those of magistrate and judge, and the magis- trate and judge was to be the head of the district, whilst the revenue collector was his subordinate. It is difficult to understand the merits of this measure. Since then the two offices have been sometimes united and sometimes separated. Eventually the two offices of magistrate and collector were united in the same person. Four provincial Courts of Circuit and Appeal were Non- created by Lord Cornwallis, and remained without mt t k,n e . n " alteration for a period of forty years. One Court 80 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP^H. was at Calcutta, a second at Dacca, a third at Murshedabad, and a fourth at Patna. Each Court consisted of three civilian judges and three Asiatic expounders of the law, namely, a Mohammedan cazi and mufti, and a Hindu pundit. The judges sat in their respective cities to hear appeals in civil cases ; and they went twice a year on circuit to try the prisoners who had been committed by the district magistrates within their respective jurisdictions. Munsifs Lord Cornwallis also created a class of Hindu darogahs. c i y ^ judges named munsifs, and a new body of Asiatic police under the name of darogahs. These changes are" best dealt with in connection with modern reforms which will be brought under review in a future chapter. First war Lord Cornwallis was engaged in two campaigns Tippu. against Tippu of Mysore, the son and successor of Hyder Ali. The war is a thing of the past. Tippu had invaded the territory of the Hindu Eaja of Travancore, who was under British protection ; and a triple alliance was formed against him as a common enemy by the British Government, the Peishwa of the Mahrattas, and the Nizam of Hyderabad. In the end Tippu was reduced to submission and compelled to cede half his territories, which were distributed amongst the three allies. The confederation, which only lasted to the end of the war, is memorable for suggesting the idea of maintaining the peace of India by a balance of power, which for a brief interval dazzled the imaginations of Anglo-Indian statesmen. 1 i Lord Cornwallis carried out important reforms in the Bengal army, and thus enabled his successors to build up the larger Indian empire. The British army in India, Asiatic and European, will be brought under review in Chapter V., which deals with the sepoy revolt of 1857-58. BENGAL PROVINCES. 81 In 1793 Lord Cornwallis was succeeded by Sir CHAP. n. John Shore, the Bengal civilian who pressed Lord shore, 1793-98 Cornwallis to settle the rights and rents of the ryots abolition before proclaiming the perpetual settlement with the zemindars. He is better known by his later title of Lord Teignmouth. He was the first British ruler who suppressed a Hindu institution. He put a stop to " sitting in dharna," a Hindu usage which was sub- versive of all justice and all law. It was based on the superstitious belief that the life of a Brahman was as sacred as that of a sovereign, and that killing a Brahman, or being in any way implicated in his death, was the most hideous crime that could be committed by mortal man. Any Brahman might ruin a Hindu, either for private revenge or to avenge another, by sitting at his door and refusing to take food. The victim was as helpless as a bird under the fascination of a serpent. He dared not eat so long as the Brahman fasted. He dared not move lest the Brahman should injure himself or kill himself a catastrophe which would doom the victim to ex- communication in this life and perdition in the next. The terrors of this superstition were removed by a British regulation passed in 1797 ; and although " sitting in dharna" is still a crime under the Penal Code, the memory of the usage is passing away. 1 Sir John Shore strictly adhered to the old policy of 1 The abolition of " sitting in dharna " by Sir John Shore was the first great social reform which was carried out in India under British rule. In 1802 Lord Wellesley abolished the still more horrible practice of sacrificing living children by throwing them to the alligators at the mouth of the Ganges ; whilst the once famous rite of suttee, or the burning of living widows with their dead husbands, was practised under British rule down to 1829, when it was abolished by Lord William Bentinck. G 82 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. ii. non-intervention, which amounted to political isola- tion. Meanwhile the Mahratta powers united to demand enormous arrears of chout from the Nizam ; and the Nizam was utterly defeated, prostrated and paralysed. All hope of a balance of power for the maintenance of the peace of India was thus cast to the winds. Finally, as if to show beyond all question the absurdity of the idea, the Mahratta powers were at war with each other for the mastery at Poona. Such was the state of affairs in 1798 when Lord Mornington, better known by his later title of Marquis of Wellesley, succeeded Sir John Shore as Governor-General, boasting, as he left Europe, that he was going to govern India from a throne with the sceptre of a statesman, and not from behind a counter with the yard measure of a trader. CHAPTER III. THIRD PERIOD : IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 17981836. 1. Lord Mornington (Marquis of Wellesley), 1798 1805: last war against Tippu, 1799. 2. Carnatic confiscated and annexed to Madras Presi- dency. 3. Wellesley's scheme of a paramount power. 4. Second Mahratta war : successes of Arthur Wellesley and Lake. 5. Disastrous war with Holkar. 6. Return to non-intervention. 7. Sepoy mutiny in Madras army. 8. Lord Minto, 1807 13 : wars and alliances against France. 9. Evils of non-intervention in Rajputana : troubles in Nipal. 10. Lord Moira (Marquis of Hastings), 1813 23 : war with Nipal, 1814 15. 11. Revival of the paramount power: Pindhari and Mah- ratta wars, 181718. 12. Lord Amherst, 182328 : wars with Burma and Bhurtpore. 13. Lord William Bentinck, 182835; abolition of Suttee. 14. Suppression of Thugs. 15. Administrative reforms. 16. North- West Provinces : Joint Village Proprietors. 17. Madras and Bombay Presidencies : Ryotwari Settlements. 18. Changes under the Charter of 1833. 18. Sir Charles Metcalfe, 183536. IN 1798 British India was confronted on all sides by CHAP. m. France or Frenchmen. An army of sepoys, drilled French and commanded by French officers, was maintained 1793. ' by the Nizam in the Deccan. Another French officered army was maintained by Sindia in Western Hindustan, between the Jumna and the Ganges. Napoleon Buonaparte was invading Egypt, and threatening to conquer the world. The successes and crimes of the French .Revolution Asiatic had filled Europe with indignation and despair. a pir a f 10 Napoleon Buonaparte had risen, like another Chenghiz Na P leon - Khan or Timour, to take the world by storm. He had driven the British from Toulon, conquered Italy, G 2 84 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. in. wrested the Netherlands from Austria, threatened to invade the British Isles, and then had landed in Egypt, won ths battle of the Pyramids, and pro- claimed himself to be a follower of the Prophet. Not a man in Europe or Asia could penetrate the designs of the young Corsican. Alexander of Macedon had invaded Egypt as a prelude to the conquest of Persia and India. Napoleon might follow in his footsteps after the lapse of twenty-two centuries. He might restore the Caliphat of Bagdad on the banks of the Tigris, or resuscitate the sovereignty of the Great Mogul over Northern India, from the banks of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges. Tippu's 1. The first duty of Lord Mornington was to get with* rid of the French sepoy battalions in the Deccan and France. Hi nc [ us tan, and to provide for the defence of India against France and Napoleon. Within three weeks of his landing at Calcutta the note of alarm was sounded in Southern India. Tippu, Sultan of Mysore, had formed a hostile alliance with France against Great Britain. It appeared that Tippu had been groaning under his humiliation by Lord Cornwallis, and burning to be revenged on the British govern- ment. He hesitated to ally himself with the Mahrattas or the Nizam, and coveted an alliance with a Euro- pean power. Accordingly he secretly sent emissaries to the French governor of Mauritius, to conclude a treaty with France and Napoleon against Great Britain. The idea fired the imagination of the French at Mauritius, and the fact of the treaty was pub- lished in the Mauritius Gazette, and republished in the Calcutta newspapers for the edification of the new Governor-General. IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 85 Lord Mornington naturally concluded that Tippu CHAP. m. was in collusion with Napoleon, and that a French fleet Expiana- might soon be sailing from Egypt down the Red Sea demanded, to help Tippu in the invasion of the Carnatic, or to help Sindia to restore the supremacy of the Great Mogul over Oudh and Bengal. In the first instance he called upon Tippu for an explanation, and proposed to send an envoy to Seringapatam to arrange for a better understanding between the two governments. Meanwhile Tippu was amazed and bewildered. To TI PP U duinb- have his secret designs suddenly published in succes- foundered. sive newspapers, and then to be called upon for an explanation, seems to have stupefied him. He replied that the French were liars, and refused to receive an envoy from Lord Mornington. To have overlooked the offence would have been sheer madness. Accordingly Lord Mornington determined to revive the old alli- ance with the Nizam and the Mahrattas against Tippu; and meanwhile to get rid of the French sepoy battalions. The Nizam welcomed a British alliance as offering French a means of escape from the crushing demands of the disbanded Mahrattas. He was glad enough for the British to disband his French sepoy battalions, which drained his resources, and were threatening to mutiny for arrears of pay. A British force was moved to Hyderabad, the disbandment was proclaimed, and a battle was expected. Suddenly, the French sepoys raised an uproar, and the French officers rushed into the British lines for protection. It was the old Asiatic story of mutiny for want of pay, and when the British advanced the money, the sepoys went away rejoicing, and the French officers were thankful for their deliverance. 86 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. Lord Mornington next began his negotiations with Mahrattas the Mahrattas, but they raised up a host of difficulties. British The Peishwa at Poona was a young Brahman, sharp alliance. ^^ suspicious. He was jealous of the British alliance with the Nizam, which boded no good as regarded future payments of chout, but he was anxious to keep on good terms with the British. Accordingly he promised to send a contingent to join the British in the war against Tippu, but at heart he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. With him an alliance with the Christian or the Mohammedan was a mere question of money. He was anxious to sell his alliance to the highest bidder. Accordingly he entertained Tippu's envoys at Poona in the hope that the Sultan might eventually offer higher terms than the British for the services ol a Mahratta army. Destruc- In 1799 Lord Mornington began the war against Tippu, Mysore. A British army from Madras, under the 1799 ' command of General Harris, invaded it from the east, whilst another force from Bombay invaded it from the west. The two armies soon closed round Tippu. He saw that he was environed by his enemies, and that resistance was hopeless. He sued for terms, but was told to cede the half of his remaining dominions and pay up two millions sterling. He refused to surrender on such crushing conditions, and retired to his fortress at Seringapatam, resolved to die sword in hand rather than become a servant or a pensioner. In May, 1799, Seringapatam was taken by storm, and the dead body of Tippu was found in the gateway. Cruelty of The f a t e of Tippu might have been regretted but for his cruel treatment of British prisoners in former wars. At Bangalore, British captives were chained together, starved, threatened, and tormented until IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 87 some were driven to become Mohammedans. The OHAP. m. consequence was, that during the advance on Serin- gapatam British soldiers were burning for revenge, and Sir David Baird, one of the greatest sufferers, begged for the command of the storming party as a relief to his outraged feelings. When the war was over, the death and downfall of the tyrant was cele- brated in songs which were reverberated from India to the British Isles, and the old strains are still lingering in the memories of some who are yet living. 1 Lord Mornington annexed part of Mysore territory Hindu to the Madras Presidency, and gave another share restored. to the Nizam ; and he proposed, as will be seen here- after, to give a third share to the Mahrattas ; but he converted the remainder into a Hindu kingdom. Accordingly an infant scion of the Hindu Eaja, who had been deposed by Hyder Ali some forty years pre- viously, was placed on the throne of Mysore in charge of a British Eesident and a Brahman Minister until he should attain his majority. The subsequent career of the Eaja will be brought under* review hereafter. 2. Soon after the capture of Seringapatam a clan- Annexa- destine correspondence was discovered in the palace 1 The following fragment preserves something of the feeling of the time : " Fill the wine-cup fast, for the storm is past, The tyrant Tippu is slain at last, And victory smiles To reward the toils Of Britons once again. " Let the trumpet sound, and the sound go round Along the bound of Eastern ground ; Let the cymbals clang With a merry-merry bang, To the joys of the next campaign." 88 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. between the Nawab of the Carnatic and the deceased Tippu. The treachery was undeniable. At the same time the discovery enabled the British to get rid of a dynasty that had oppressed the people and intrigued with the enemies of the East India Company for half a century. Nawab Mohammed Ali, whom the British had placed on the throne of the Carnatic in opposi- tion to the French, had died in 1795. His son and successor had followed in the steps of his father, but no complaints reached him, for he was smitten with mortal disease. Lord Mornington, now Marquis of Wellesley, waited for his death, and then told the family that their rule was over. The title of Nawab was preserved, and pensions were liberally provided, but the Carnatic was incorporated with the Madras Presidency, and brought under British administration like the Bengal provinces. Scandals The annexation of the Carnatic delivered Madras rule, from a host of scandals which had been accumu- lating for some forty years. The old Nawab had removed from Arcot- to Madras, and carried on costly intrigues with the Company's servants in India, and with influential persons in the British Isles, in the hope of getting the revenues into his own hands, and leaving the East India Company to defend his territories out of their own resources. He loaded himself with debt by bribing his sup- porters with pretended loans, which existed only on paper, bore exorbitant interest, and were eventu- ally charged on the public revenue. All this while, he and his officials were obstructing British operations in the field by withholding supplies, or treacherously informing the enemy of the movements of the British army. Since the annexation of the Carnatic in 1801 IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 89 all these evils have passed into oblivion, and the CHAP. m. public peace has remained undisturbed. 3. The war with Tippu taught Lord Wellesley Weiies- that it was impossible to trust the Mahrattas. They political would not join the British government against a system - common enemy unless paid to do so ; and they were always ready to go over to the enemy on the same terms. Accordingly Lord Wellesley proposed to maintain the peace of India, not by a balance of power, but by becoming the sovereign head of a league for the prevention of all future wars. With these views Lord Wellesley proposed that Subsidiary neither the Nizam nor the Mahrattas should take a any French officers into their pay for the future ; that neither should engage in any war or negotiation without the consent of the British government ; and that each should maintain a subsidiary force of sepoys, drilled and commanded by British officers, which should be at the disposal of the British go- vernment for the maintenance of the peace of India. The Nizam accepted the subsidiary alliance. He Nizam provided for the maintenance of a Hyderabad Sub- sidiary Force by ceding to the British government all the territories which he had received on account of the Mysore wars. By this arrangement all money transactions were avoided, and the subsidiary force was paid out of the revenues of the ceded districts. The Mahratta rulers utterly refused to accept sub- Mahrattas sidiary alliances in any shape or form. They did not refuse * want British protection, and they would not permit any interference by mediation or otherwise with their claims for chout against the Nizam. The Peishwa would not maintain a subsidiary force, but he was 90 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP^III. willing to take British battalions of sepoys into his pay, provided he might employ them against Sindia or any other refractory feudatory. He would not pledge himself to abstain from all wars or negotia- tions without the consent of the British government. He was willing to help the British in a war with France, but he would not dismiss the Frenchmen in his service. Sindia Sindia was still more obstinate and contemptuous. British Mahadaji Sindia was dead. His successor, Daulat against ^ ao Sindia, was a young man of nineteen, but Afghans. Already the irresponsible ruler of a large dominion in Western Hindustan. He was all-powerful at Delhi, and was bent upon being equally all-powerful at Poona, He collected chout from the princes of Raj- putana, and, with the help of his French- officered bat- talions of sepoys, he had established a supremacy over the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges from the banks of the Sutlej to the frontier of Oudh at Cawnpore. Lord AVellesley would not venture to offer a subsidiary alliance to a prince so puffed up with pride as young Sindia. The Afghans, however, were threatening to invade India, and Lord Wellesley invited Sindia to join in an alliance against the Afghans. But Sindia would not hamper himself with a British alliance. He was not afraid of the Afghans. At any rate he waited for the Afghans to appear before taking any steps to prevent their coming. British Lord Wellesley was not afraid of Afghans alone, Franctf but of French or Russians, who might make their way Russia through Persia, join the Afghans, resuscitate the Great Mogul, and establish a European empire in his name as the rightful representative of Aurangzeb. Accordingly Lord Wellesley sent the once famous Sir IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 91 John Malcolm on a mission to Persia to persuade the CHAP. m. Shah to bar out the French and prevent the Afghans from invading India. Meanwhile, he anxiously waited some turn in Mahratta affairs which would bring their rulers into a more compliant mood towards the British government. Lord Wellesley, however, determined that the Provinces Nawab Vizier of Oudh should contribute something a o e udh m further towards the defence of India against invasion. The Nawab Vizier maintained a rabble army that was costly and useless, and he depended entirely on British troops for his defence against Afghans and Mahrattas. He was urged to disband his rabble army arid replace it by battalions of sepoys trained and commanded by British officers ; but he was im- practicable, and Lord Wellesley got over the difficulty by taking half his territory for the maintenance of the required battalions. This was an arbitrary proceeding, but it was justified on the score of state necessity and self-preservation. It pushed the British frontier west- ward to Cawnpore on the Ganges, where it was close to Sindia and his French sepoy battalions, and would be face to face with any foreign invasion from the north-west. The new territories were called " ceded provinces," and eventually were incorporated with what are now known as the North- West Provinces. 1 Meanwhile the Mahratta empire was falling into Sindia the hands of Sindia. This ambitious feudatory tried Holkar. to pose as the protector of his suzerain the Peishwa. 1 There was also some show of treaty rights in appropriating the territory, but the question is obscure and obsolete. In 1775 the Nawab Yizier had ceded the revenues of the territory for the maintenance of a British force in Oudh, and Lord Wellesley is said to have only closed the mortgage by taking over the country. 92 INDIA UNDER BHITISH RULE. CHAP. in. The two, however, were perpetually plotting against each other ; the soldier and the Brahman were each trying to be master. About this time Holkar died? and Sindia hastened to Indore and put an imbecile son of Holkar on the throne, as a preliminary step to appropriating the territory and revenues. Rise of At this moment a bandit prince appeared at Indore JaS R V a a ut with an army of predatory horsemen, brigands and Holkar. ou tlaws, the scum of Central India. He was a bastard son of the deceased Holkar, and was known as Jas- want Eao Holkar. He was routed by Sindia's French battalions, but the scattered horsemen soon rallied round his banners, and he went off to the south to threaten Poona and the Peishwa. Flight of The Peishwa was wild with terror. Under his Peishwa. orders a brother of Jaswant Rao Holkar had been dragged to death by an elephant through the streets, and he had reason to believe that Jaswant Rao was bent on revenge. His army was reinforced by Sindia, but the united forces were utterly routed by Jaswant Rao outside the city of Poona. Accordingly he fled away to the coast, and embarked on board a British ship for the port of Bassein, about twenty miles to the north of Bombay. Peishwa The Peishwa was ready to make any sacrifice to subsSy procure British help. Accordingly he accepted the a i802 Ce> subsidiary alliance on the condition that the British restored him to Poona, The terms were soon arranged, and the treaty was signed at Bassein on the last day of December, 1802. The Peishwa ceded territories for the maintenance of a Poona Subsidiary Force, and sacrificed his position as suzerain of the Mahratta confederacy. For the future he was bound to abstain from all wars and negotiations, even with IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 93 his own feudatories, excepting by the knowledge and CHAP. m. consent of the British government. 4. The Mahratta feudatories were bewildered and Surprise stupefied by the treaty of Bassein. In a single day Mahratta the British government had become their suzerain fifes'. in the room of the Peishwa ; the Christian governor of Calcutta was lord over the Brahman Peishwa of Poona. True, the Peishwa was restored to his throne at Poona, but only as the creature of the British government, not as the suzerain of the Mah- rattas. Sindia's hope of ruling the Mahrattas in the name of the Peishwa was shattered by the treaty. The Eaja of Berar was equally down-hearted. The Gaekwar of Baroda accepted the subsidiary alliance, and ceased to play a part in history. Jaswant Kao Holkar w T as out of the running ; he was an outlaw and an interloper. The whole brunt of the struggle against the British Vaciiia- supremacy, if there was to be any struggle at all, sindia thus fell on Daulat Kao Sindia of Gwalior and the Bhonsia Bhonsla Kaja of Berar. Meanwhile the two Mah- ratta princes moved restlessly about with large armies, drawing nearer and nearer to the Nizam's- frontier as if to enforce their claims to chout. They would not accept a subsidiary treaty, and they would not break with the British govern- ment. They tried to tempt Jaswant Eao to join them, but the young brigand only played with them. He got them to recognise his succession to the throne of Indore, and then returned to his capital, declaring that he must leave Sindia and the Bhonsla to fight the British in the Deccan, whilst he went away north to fight them in Hindustan. 94 INDIA UNDER BBITISH RULE. CHAP. in. Lord Wellesley was well prepared for an outbreak. Welles- His younger brother, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, was campaign watching Sindia and the Bhonsla in the Deccan, whilst General Lake, commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, isos. wag W atching the French sepoy battalions of Sindia in Hindustan. Sindia was vacillating and irresolute, but his language was growing more hostile. He said he was waiting for Jaswant Eao Holkar ; he talked of collecting chout in the Nizam's territory ; and he expressed doubts whether there would be peace or war. At last he was told that he was breaking the public peace, and must take the consequences. British The battle of Assaye was fought on the Nizam's Tssaye* frontier on 23rd September, 1803. It was the old story of a British army of five thousand men fight- ing an Asiatic army of fifty thousand. The Mahratta artillery worked terrible execution on the British army, and one-third of its European force was left dead or wounded in the field. But the Bhonsla Eaja fled at the first shot, and Sindia soon followed his example. General Wellesley's victory at Assaye crushed the hopes of the Mahrattas. Sindia especially took his lesson to heart. It was followed by the capture of fortresses and another victory at Argaum ; and by the end of 1803 the campaign in the Deccan was over, and Sindia and the Bhonsla came to terms. General Meanwhile, General Lake had fought a brilliant campaign campaign in Hindustan. Directly he heard that war in stan du " had begun in the Deccan he left Cawnpore, on the British frontier, and pushed his way to Delhi. He defeated the French sepoy cavalry and captured the fortress at Alighur. Next he defeated the French sepoy infantry and entered Delhi in triumph. He was received with open arms by the poor old Padishah, mount ' IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 95 Shah Alam, who once again threw himself upon CHAP. m. British protection. He left Delhi in charge of Colonel Ochterlony, marched down the right bank of the river Jumna, captured the city of Agra, and brought the campaign to a close by a crowning victory at Laswari, which broke up the French sepoy bat- talions for ever, and placed the British government in possession of the relics of the Mogul empire in Hindustan. The campaigns of Wellesley and Lake established British the British government as the paramount power in India. Sindia was driven by Wellesley to the north- ward of the Nerbudda river, and by Lake to the southward of the Jumna. The Bhonsla Eaja was deprived of Berar on one side and Cuttack on the other, and was henceforth known only as the Raja of Nagpore. The British government had acquired the sovereignty of the Great Mogul and that of the Peishwa of the Mahrattas. It took the princes of Rajputana under its protection, and prepared to shut out Sindia and Holkar from Rajput territories. Only one Mahratta prince of any importance remained to tender his submission, and that was Jaswant Rao Holkar of Indore. 5. The British government was not responsible for Relations the usurpation of Jaswant Rao Holkar. It was willing Holkar. to accept him as the de facto ruler of the Indore princi- pality, and to leave him alone, provided only that he kept within his own territories, and respected the territories of the British and their allies. Jaswant Rao Holkar, however, was a born free- Hoikar'a booter, a Mahratta of the old school of Sivaji. He P sTons! was not ambitious for political power like Sindia, and 96 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. he wanted no drilled battalions. He was a Cossack at heart, and loved the old free life of Mahratta brigandage. Like Sivaji, he was at home in the saddle, with spear in hand, and a bag of grain and goblet of water hanging from his horse. He and his hordes scoured the country on horseback, collected plunder or chout, and rode over the hills and far away whenever regular troops advanced against them. Indore was his home and Western India was his quarry ; and never perhaps did he collect a richer harvest of plunder and chout than he did in Rajpu- tana during the latter half of 1803, when Lake was driving Sindia and the French out of Hindustan, and Wellesley was establishing peace in the Deccan. Difficulties Jaswant Rao Holkar looked at the British govern- "clumt." ment from his own individual point of view. He was no respecter of persons ; he despised the Peishwa, and had got all he wanted from Sindia and the Bhonsla. The British government was his bdte noire ; it had grown in strength, and was opposed to the collection of chout. He wanted it to guarantee him in the possession of Holkar's principality, and to sanction his levying chout after the manner of his ancestors ; and he refused to withdraw from Raj- putana until these terms were granted. If his pre- tensions were rejected, he threatened to burn, sack, and slaughter his enemies by hundreds of thousands. Such was the ignorant and refractory Mahratta that defied the East India Company and the British nation. Lake at- The reduction of Jaswant Rao Holkar was thus a Hdkar. political necessity. In April, 1804, General Lake entered Rajputana, and drove Jaswant Rao Holkar southward into Indore territory. In June the rains IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 97 were approaching, and General Lake left Colonel CHAP. m. Monson to keep a watch on Holkar, with five bat- Disastrous talions of sepoys, a train of artillery, and two bodies Monson, of irregular horse, and then withdrew to cantonments. Colonel Monson pushed on still further south into Indore territory, but in July everything went wrong. Supplies ran low. Expected reinforcements failed to arrive. Jaswant Eao turned back with overwhelming forces and a large train of artillery. In an evil hour Monson beat a retreat. The rains were very heavy. The British guns sunk in the mud and were spiked and abandoned. Terrible disasters were incurred in crossing rivers. The Eajputs turned against him. His brigade was exposed to the fire of Holkar's guns and the charges of Holkar's horse. About the end of August only a shattered remnant of Monson's brigade managed to reach British territory. For a brief period British prestige vanished from Reaction Hindustan, and Jaswant Eao Holkar was the hero of BritSTsu- the hour. Sindia forgot his wrongs against Jaswant * Eao, and his defeats at Assay e and Argaum, and declared for Holkar. Fresh bodies of bandits and outlaws joined the standard of Holkar to share in the spoil of his successes. With Mahratta audacity Jaswant Eao pushed on to Delhi, to capture Shah Alam and plunder Hindustan in the name of the Great Mogul. He was beaten off from Delhi by the small garrison under Colonel Ochterlony, but the Jhat Eaja of Bhurtpore received him with open arms in that huge clay fortress, the stronghold of the pre- datory system of the eighteenth century, which to this day is the wonder of Hindustan. Holkar left his guns in the fortress and went out to plunder ; and Lake, instead of following him up, wasted four months H 98 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. in. in a futile attempt to capture the Bhurtpore fortress without a siege train. Reversal of g. The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous lesiey's blow to British prestige, but ruined for a while the ^806? reputation of Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the Governor- General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post, and Lord Cornwallis was" sent out to take his place, to reverse the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those of Wellesley and Lake. Death of Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal the politi- Com- cal outlook had brightened. Jaswant Rao Holkar walks. wag flying into the Punjab from General Lake, and was soon brought to bay. Daulat Rao Sindia was repenting his desertion from the British alliance. The Jhat Raja of Bhurtpore had implored forgiveness and paid a heavy fine. But Lord Cornwallis was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he had displayed in his wars against Tippu ; and he would have ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on the old policy of concilia- tion and non-intervention, had riot death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the country. Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a while to the post of Governor-General, as a pro- IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 99 visional arrangement. He had been a member of CHAP. m. Council under both Wellesley and Cornwallis, and sir George he halted between the two. He refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar, together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput princes on the ground that they had deserted the British government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar. For some years the policy of the British govern- Non-inter- ment was a half-hearted system of non-intervention. ve ^ad n: Public opinion in the British Isles, as expressed by rcsults - Parliament and Ministers, was impressed with the necessity for maintaining friendly relations with the Mahrattas, and for abstaining from any measure which might tend to a renewal of hostilities. The fact was ignored that Mahratta independence meant plunder and devastation, and that British supremacy meant order and law. Accordingly the Mahratta princes were left to plunder and collect chout in Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long as they respected the territories of the British government and its allies. The result was that the Peishwa was brooding over his lost suze- rainty ; Sindia and the Bhonsla were mourning over their lost territories ; and Jaswant Rao Holkar was drowning his intellects in cherry brandy, which he procured from Bombay, until he was seized with delirium tremens, and confined as a madman. All this while an under-current of intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in the end to re- vive wild hopes of getting rid of British supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and rapine. H 2 100 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. 7. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an Sepoy alarm from a very different quarter. In those days Veiiore, India was so remote from the British Isles that the ' 06> existence of the British government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies. Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat, in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had, moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight miles to the westward of Arcot. The fallen families of Hyder and Tippu were lodged in this fortress, and many of Tippu's old soldiers were serving in the garrison ; and these people taunted the sepoys about wearing hats and becoming Christians, whilst some secret intriguing was going on for restoring Mohammedan ascendency in Southern India, under the deposed dynasty of Mysore. slaughter The garrison at Vellore consisted of about four officeis. hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred sepoys. At midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress. Fortunately the news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a troop IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT.: of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates CHAP. m. of Vellore were blown open ; the soldiers rushed in ; Suppres- four hundred mutineers were cut down, and the out- mutiny : break was over. The Home authorities wanted a Bsntinck. scapegoat ; and Lord William Bentinck. the governor of Madras, and Sir John Craddock, the commander- in- chief of the Madras army, were recalled. Fifty years afterwards, when the Bengal army broke out in mutiny on the score of greased cartridges, many an old officer wished that a Gillespie, with the inde- pendent authority of a Gillespie, had been in command at Barrackpore. 8. In 1807 Lord Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor- General. He broke the spell of non- is 07 13 . intervention. South of the river Jumna, between the frontiers of Bengal and those of Sindia and of Holkar, are the hills and jungles of Bundelkund. For centuries the chiefs of Bundelkund had never been more than half conquered. They never paid tribute to Mogul or Mahratta unless compelled by force of arms ; and they kept the country in con- stant anarchy by their lawless acts and endless feuds. When the Peishwa accepted the British alliance, he British ceded Bundelkund for the maintenance of the Poona Subsidiary Force. Of course the cession was a sham. The Peishwa ceded territory which only nominally belonged to him, and the British were too happy in concluding a subsidiary alliance to inquire too nicely into his sovereign rights over Bundelkund. The result was that the chiefs of Bundelkund defied the British as they defied the Peishwa, and Sir George Barlow sacrificed revenue and ignored I?s T DIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. brigandage rather than interfere with his western neighbours. Lord Minto found that there w r ere a hundred and fifty leaders of banditti in Bundel- kund, who held as many fortresses, settled all disputes by the sword, and offered an asylum to all the bandits and burglars that escaped from British territory. Lord Minto organised an expedition which established for a while something like peace and order in Bundelkund, and secured the collection of tribute with a regularity which had been unknown for centuries. Dangers Lord Minto's main work was to keep Napoleon Punjab. an d the French out of India. The north-west frontier was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the Afghans ; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity, the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who had done homage to the British government during the campaigns of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were appealing to the British government for protection. Mission to In 1808-9 a young Bengal civilian, named Charles ^in^h? Metcalfe, was sent on a mission to Lahore. The work 18089. b e f ore n j m was difficult and complicated, and some- what trying to the nerves. The object was to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French and Afghans, whilst protecting the Sikh states on the IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 103 British side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, CHAP. m. and Patiala. Eunjeet Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice, and appealed to Eunjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving .up the three states, Eunjeet Singh would secure an alliance with the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to push his conquests on the north and west. Eunjeet Singh took the hint. He withdrew his pre- tensions from the British side of the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken until his death in 1839 ; but he knew what he was about. He conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from the Afghans ; but he refused to open his dominions to British trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter his territories. About the same time Lord Minto sent John Mai- Missions colm on a second mission to Persia, and Mountstuart &n&Af- Elphinstone on a mission to Cabul to provide against s hamstan - French invasion. Neither mission was followed by any practical result, but they opened up new countries to European ideas, and led to the publication of works on Persia and Afghanistan by the respective envoys, which have retained their interest to this day. Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon Capture of had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depdt for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition, which 104 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. wrested the Mauritius from the French ; and he con- ducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has re- mained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war. Anarchyin 9. During the struggle against France difficulties *" were arising in Western Hindustan. The princes of Eajputana had been engaged in wars and feuds amongst themselves from a remote antiquity, but for nearly a century they had been also exposed to the raids and depredations of Mahratta armies. Lord Wellesley had brought the Eajput princes into subsi- diary alliance with the British government, but the treaties had been annulled by Sir George Barlow, and war and pillage were as rampant as ever. The evil had been aggravated by the rise of Afghan adven- turers, who had conquered territories and founded new kingdoms in central India amidst the prevailing anarchy ; whilst a low class of freebooters, known as Pindharies, plundered the villagers in the skirts of the Mahratta armies, or robbed and pillaged the surrounding territories, with a savage ferocity which rendered them a pest and terror. TheEana, The hereditary suzerain of the Eajputs was a in, prince known as the Eana of Oodeypore. The Eana claimed descent from Eama, the hero of ancient Oudh, and incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun, whose mythical and divine glory is celebrated in the Eam- ayana. Unfortunately the living Eana was a weak and helpless prince, who was the dependent of his own feudatories, whilst his territories were at the mercy of Mahrattas and Afghans. He had a IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 105 daughter who was regarded as a prize and treasure, CHAP. m. not on account of her beauty or accomplishments, for she was only an immature girl, but because her high birth would ennoble her bridegroom and her future sons or daughters. From 1806 to 1810 the Eajas of Jeypore and War for Jodhpore were fighting for the hand of this daughter Daughter. 3 of the Eana. The girl herself had no voice in the matter. In Eajput traditions a princess is supposed to choose her own bridegroom in an assembly of Eajas, by throwing a garland round the neck of the happy lover. But in modern practice the " choice " has fallen into disuse, and a gilded cocoa-nut is sent by the father of the princess to some selected Eaj a as typical of an offer of her hand. The cocoa-nut for the Oodeypore princess had been sent to a Eaj a of Jodhpore, but he died before the marriage, and the cocoa-nut was sent to the Eaja of Jeypore. Then followed a contention. The new Eaja of Jodhpore claimed the princess, on the ground that the offer had been made, not to the individual, but to the throne of Jodhpore. The Eaja of Jeypore, however, had accepted the cocoa-nut, and insisted on his rights. The contention became a war to the knife, and nearly every prince in Eajputana took a part in the contest. Strange to say, the Eana himself, the father of the princess, looked on as a neutral whilst Jeypore and Jodhpore were fighting for his daughter. Meanwhile his territories, known as the garden of Eajputana, were ravaged by Sindia and an Afghan adventurer named Amir Khan, until nothing was to be seen but ruined harvests and desolated villages. Amidst this terrible turmoil, the princes and chiefs of Eajputana implored the British government to 106 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP^HI. interfere. They asserted that there always had been Non-inter- a paramount power in India ; that such a power had been formerly exercised by the Great Mogul ; that the East India Company had acquired that power ; and that the British government was bound to stop the war. The Eana of Oodeypore offered to cede half his territories if the British govern- ment would protect the other half. Jeypore and Jodhpore offered to submit their claims to British arbitration, and pledged themselves to abide by the decision. Lord Minto had only to declare which bridegroom he recognised, and his dictum would have been accepted. But Lord Minto shrunk from the exercise of a sovereignty which would have been a violation of the sacred dogma of non-interference, and have carried British influence outside British territories. Accordingly, the war was stopped by a tragedy. The Rana settled the marriage dispute by poisoning his daughter. The young princess is said to have drunk the fatal draught with the courage of a heroine, knowing that it would save her father ; but the unhappy mother was overpowered by grief, and died broken-hearted. Ghorka Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the oMsfipai. southern slopes of the Himalayas. Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the territory of Nipal had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas. The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman conquest of England. The Ghorkas established a military des- potism with Brahmanical institutions, and parcelled IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 107 out the country amongst feudal nobles known as CHAP. m. Bharadars. Ghorka rule in Nipal was for many years distracted Ghorka by tragedies in the royal family, and civil wars between the Bharadars for the post of minister. The Newars were more down-trodden than the Anglo-Saxons under the Norman kings. The Ghorka army was all-powerful, but plots and assassinations were common enough in the court and capital at Khatmandu, and the deposi- tion of a minister or a sovereign might be the work of a day. During the early years of the nineteenth century Ghorka the Ghorkas began to encroach on British territory ^f" annexing villages and revenues from Darjeeling to Simla without right or reason. They were obviously bent on extending their dominion southward to the Ganges, and for a long time aggressions were over- looked for the sake of peace. At last two districts were appropriated to which the Ghorkas had not a shadow of a claim, and it was absolutely necessary to make a stand against their pretensions. Accordingly, Lord Minto sent an ultimatum to Khatmandu, declaring that unless the districts were restored they would be recovered by force of arms. Before the answer arrived, Lord Minto was succeeded in the post of Governor- General by Lord Moira, better known by his later title of Marquis of Hastings. 10. Lord Moira landed at Calcutta in 1813. Lord Shortly after his arrival an answer was received from Marquis~of the Ghorka government, that the disputed districts ^Ts 23. belonged to Nipal, and would not be surrendered. Lord Moira at once fixed a day on which the districts were to be restored ; and when the day had passed 108 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. nr. without any action being taken by the Ghorkas, a British detachment entered the districts and set up police stations. Ghorka Meanwhile the Ghorkas had been alarmed by the of war. letter of Lord Moira. A great council of Bharadars was summoned to Khatmandu, and the question of peace or war was discussed in a military spirit. It was decided that, as the British had been unable to capture the mud fortress of Bhurtpore, which was the work of men's hands, they could not possibly capture the mountain fortresses on the Himalayas, which were the work of the Almighty. Accordingly, the council of Bharadars resolved on war, but they did not declare it in European fashion. A Ghorka army suddenly entered the disputed districts, surrounded the police stations, and murdered many of the constables, and then returned to Khatmandu to await the action of the British government in the way of reprisals. Ghorkas The war against the Ghorkas was more remote and superior to . . Mahrattas. more serious than the wars against the Mahrattas. The Mahrattas fought in the plains, and trusted in their artillery ; but when their gunners were shot or bayoneted, as in the battle of Assaye, they seemed to have lost all life and energy, and were broken up into loose bodies of runaways. The Ghorkas, on the other hand were resolute and hardy mountaineers, with a Kajput pride, and military instincts like the ancient Spartans. Their nerves had not been en- feebled by opium, and they exulted in the strength of their mountain fortresses, which they deemed impregnable against all the world. Difficult Those who have ascended the Himalayas to Dar- jeeling or Simla may realise something of the difficulties of an invasion of Nipal. The British army IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 109 advanced in four divisions by four different routes. CHAP. m. They had first to make their way through a belt of marsh and jungle at the foot of the mountains. They had then to climb precipices and shelves which would have daunted the army of Hannibal. Moreover, it was impossible to storm the fortresses without artillery ; and dragging up eighteen- pounders in the teeth of snow-storms and mountain blasts, opening up roads by blasting rocks, and battering down obstructions with field guns, were tasks which would have tested the genius of the ablest commanders. The operations of 1814 nearly proved a failure. Successes One general took fright at the jungle, and galloped iony, e] back to the plains, leaving his division behind. General l David Ochterlony, who advanced his division along the valley of the Sutlej, gained the most brilliant successes. He was one of the half-forgotten heroes of the East India Company. He had fought against Hyder Ali in the days of Warren Hastings, and beaten back Holkar from the walls of Delhi in the days of Lord Wellesley. For five months in the worst season of the year he carried one fortress after another, until the enemy made a final stand at Maloun on a shelf of the Himalayas. The Ghorkas made a desperate attack on the British works, but the attempt failed ; and when the British batteries were about to open fire, the Ghorka garrison came to terms, and were permitted to march out with the honours of war. The fall of Maloun shook the faith of the Ghorka Peace with government in their heaven-built fortresses. Com- me.' missioners were sent to conclude a peace. Nipal agreed to cede Kumaon in the west, and the southern belt of forest and jungle known as the Terai. It also agreed to receive a British Eesident at Khatmandu- 110 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. I. Lord Moira had actually signed the treaty, when the Ghorkas raised the question of whether the Terai included the forest or only the swamp. War was renewed. Ochterlony advanced an arm}/- within fifty miles of Khatmandu, and then the Ghorkas concluded the treaty, and the British army withdrew from Nipal. The Terai, however, was a bone of contention for many years afterwards. Nothing was said about a subsidiary army, and to this day Nipal is outside the pale of subsidiary alliances j but Nipal is bound over not to take any European into "her service without the consent of the British government. imperial 11. Lord Moira, now Marquis of Hastings, next P Lord turned his attention to the affairs of Malwa, the homes Hastings. Q f gi n ^ a an( j Holkar, between Bundelkund and Rajputana, Before leaving the British Isles, he had a strong sense of the danger of Lord Wellesley's policy, and a strong faith in the wisdom of non-inter- vention. But a brief experience of the actual condition of India compelled him to recant. The hordes of Pindharies were swelling into armies. They ravaged the territories of British allies, and threatened those under British rule. Lord Hastings declared that British power would never prosper in India until it assumed the headship of a league like that projected by Lord Wellesley. But the Home authorities were still afraid of the Mahrattas, and Lord Hastings was told that no league was to be formed in India, and no steps taken against the Pindharies, that were likely to be in any way offensive to the Mahrattas. Pindhari I* 1 1815-16, the last year of the Ghorka war, the raids. Pindharies extended their raids to British territory. The horrors committed by these miscreants are IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. Ill indescribable. Villages were environed by Pindharies, CHAP. m. and the inhabitants robbed and tortured. Fathers piled firewood round their dwellings, and perished in the flames with their wives and families, rather than fall into the hands of Pindharies ; whilst in some villages, the whole female population threw themselves into wells to escape a worse fate. George Canning described Pindhari atrocities in a speech which aroused parliament to a sense of its duties and responsibilities ; and it was resolved to make war on Sindia, Holkar, or any other power in India, which should attempt to shield the Pindharies from the just resentment of the British nation. Meanwhile the Mahratta princes had become unruly Disaffec- and disorganised. Lord Wellesley had bound them Mahrattas to the British government by subsidiary alliances ; but these ties had been loosened by his successors, excepting in the case of the Peishwa. Accordingly the Mahratta princes were smitten by a common desire to throw off British supremacy, and return to their old life of war and plunder. The Peishwa was labouring to recover his lost suzerainty, with the help of Sindia, Holkar, Nagpore, and the leaders of the Pindharies. Sindia was more amenable to British authority, and would have been guided by the advice of the British Eesident at his court, but, under the policy of non-intervention, the Resident had been told to confine his attention to British interests, and not to interfere with Sindia. The result was that Sindia was secretly negotiating with the Peishwa, the Ghorkas, and even with Eunjeet Singh of the Punjab, for joint attacks on the British government. Holkar had died of cherry brandy ; the army of Indore^was in mutiny for arrears of pay, and its leaders were in 112 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. in. secret communication with the Peishwa ; whilst an infant Holkar and his regent mother had shut them- selves up in a remote fortress as a refuge against the disaffected soldiery. Amir Khan the Afghan, the most powerful prince of the period, had estab- lished a principality at Tonk, in Eajputana, and com- manded a large army of drilled battalions, and a formidable train of artillery. Con- Lord Hastings wanted to crush the Pindharies, but ^fThJ to avoid all collision with the Mahrattas. The Peishwa. p e i s ] lwa? however, seemed* bent on provoking British interference. A Brahman envoy, from the Gaekwar of Baroda, had been sent to Poona, under a British guarantee, to settle some obsolete dispute about chout, and, in spite of the guarantee, the Brahman had been barbarously murdered, under the orders of the Peishwa and his minister. Lord Hastings accepted the explanation of the Peishwa that he was innocent of the murder, but ordered the Mahratta minister to be imprisoned in the fortress of Thanna, near Bombay. Later on the minister escaped from the fortress with the connivance of the Peishwa, and was secretly pro- tected by the Peishwa, and it seemed impossible to condone the offence. Eiphin- At this crisis Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone^ one of iMcolm! the ablest of the old Bengal civilians, was Eesident at Poona ; whilst Sir John Malcolm, of the Madras army, was negotiating with the Mahratta princes for their co-operation in the war against the Pind- haries. Elphinstone found that the Peishwa was secretly intriguing with his exiled minister, and levying troops to an extent that meant mischief. Accordingly he threatened the Peishwa with the dis- pleasure of the British government, and required him IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 113 to deliver up three important fortresses as a pledge CHAP. in. for his future good behaviour. The Peishwa the artfully invited Sir John Malcolm to come and see him, and so talked him over that Malcolm believed in his good faith, and advised that the fortresses should be given back. Elphinstone had no such confidence in the Peishwa ; nevertheless he restored the fortresses, as he would not throw cold water on Malcolm's good o intentions. By this time Lord Hastings had planned his cam- Pindhari paign against the Pindharies. The British force was Mahratta overwhelming, for it was known that the three pre- plot8 ' datory powers Sindia, Holkar, and Amir Khan were bent on sheltering the Pindharies by enlisting them as soldiers or hiding them in the jungles until the danger had passed away. They had no concep- tion of the scale on which Lord Hastings had planned his campaign. They knew that a force was advancing from the south, and that it would probably comprise an army from Madras, the Hyderabad Subsidiary Force, and the Poona Subsidiary Force ; but they fondly imagined that, if the Pindharies were kept out of the way, the British forces would soon return to cantonments, and that the Pindharies would then revenge the attack on their homes by fresh raids on British territories. Lord Hastings, however, was bent on disarming Mortificn- Sindia, Holkar, and Amir Khan before exterminating the Pindhari gangs, and thus guarding against the possible revival of the gangs after the conclusion of the war. Daulat Rao Sindia was suddenly asked to give a friendly reception to the Madras army coming from the south. He hesitated, vacillated, and asked for time to consider the proposition. He was told I 114 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. that consideration was out of the question ; that he was pledged to co-operate with the British forces against the Pindharies ; that a large Bengal army was advancing from the north over the river Jumna, under the direct orders of Lord Hastings in person ; and that the Pindharies would be environed and exterminated by the two a'rmies. Sindia was utterly taken by surprise. He knew that it would be sheer madness to fight against the Governor-General. He hastened to receive the Madras army, and was lavish in his professions of loyalty. He was then charged with having violated treaties by carrying on secret negotiations with Nipal and Kunjeet Singh. He solemnly protested his innocence, but two of his messengers to Nipal had been arrested on the way, and his own letters addressed to the Ghorka govern- ment were placed in his hands in open durbar by the British Kesident, who simply stated what they were. The letters in question were damnatory. Sindia had proposed that Ghorkas and Mahrattas should join in a common attack on the British government. Sindia Sindia bent to his destiny. He saw that he was , . . / checkmated at every turn. He was dumbfoundered, and made no attempt to defend himself. Nothing further was done. Lord Hastings left him in posses- sion of his territories, but took the Eajput princes under British protection, and bound over Sindia to co-operate against the Pindharies, and to prevent the formation of any gangs for the future. Amir Amir Khan was growing old, and was glad to make submits. anv terms which would leave him in possession of his principality. He disbanded his battalions and sold his cannon to the British government, on condition of being recognised as hereditary ruler of Tonk. No IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 115 cause for uneasiness remained, excepting the dis- CHAP. m. affected Peishwa of Poona, the mutinous army of Holkar, and some suspicious movements on the part of the Bhonsla Eaja of Nagpore. When the rains were over the British armies be- pestruc- gan to move. There were 120,000 troops under ^ndifarks. arms, the largest force that had ever taken the field in India under British colours ; twice as many as Lord Wellesley assembled in 1803-4, and four times as many as Lord Cornwallis led against Tippu in 1791- 92. The Pindharies found themselves abandoned by Sindia and Amir Khan, and environed by the armies from Bengal and Madras. Many were shot down, or put to the sword, or perished in the jungle, or were slain by villagers in revenge for former cruel- ties. Others threw themselves on British protection, and were settled on lands, and became peaceful and industrious cultivators. Within a few years no traces of the Pindhari gangs were to be found in India. All this while the Peishwa was at Poona, bent on Hostility mischief. He resumed his levy of troops and his secret intrigues with other princes. The Poona Sub- sidiary Force was called away to the northward to co-operate against the Pindharies, but Mr. Elphin- stone obtained a European regiment from Bombay, and posted it at Khirki, about four miles from the British Eesidency. The Peishwa was baffled by the European regiment. Treachery, He affected to regard it as a menace, and threatened flight' to leave Poona unless it was sent back to Bombay, but he was quieted by its removal to Khirki. He was relying on the support of Sindia and Amir Khan, and was assured that the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpore I 2 116 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. and the army of Holkar were preparing to join him. On the 5th November, 1817, Mr. Elphinstone left the British Residency at Poona, and followed the European regiment to Khirki. That same afternoon the Peishwa attacked the British force at Khirki with an army of 26,000 men, but was beaten back with heavy losses. At night the British Residency was plundered and set on fire, and the magnificent library of Mr. Elphinstone was utterly destroyed. Twelve days afterwards the Subsidiary Force returned to Poona, and the Peishwa was seized with a panic and fled away from his dominions, never to return. Piottings The next explosion was at Nagpore. The Bhonsla Nagpore. Raja, who fled from Assaye, was dead, and a nephew named Appa Sahib had succeeded to the throne. Appa Sahib tried to ingratiate himself with the British, but was playing the same double game as Sindia and the Peishwa. Mr. Jenkins was Resident at Nagpore, and when news arrived of the attack on Khirki, Appa Sahib expatiated to him on the treachery of the Peishwa and his own loyalty. All this while, however, he was in secret correspondence with the Peishwa, and levying troops for the coming war against the British. British The British Residency was separated from the citv of Nagpore by the Sitabuldi hill. On the 25th of November, 1817, eight days after the flight of the Peishwa, all communication with the Residency was stopped by Appa Sahib, and the Raja and his minis- ters were sending their families and valuables out of the city of Nagpore. Mr. Jenkins foresaw an outbreak, and ordered the Nagpore Subsidiary Force to occupy Sitabuldi hill. There was no European regiment as at Khirki, and only 1,400 sepoys fit for duty, IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 117 including three troops of Bengal cavalry, and there CHAP. m. were only four six-pounders. At evening, 26th December, 1817, Appa Sahib victory ou advanced against the hill Sitabuldi with an army of Mil. 18,000 men, including 4,000 Arabs and thirty-six guns. The battle lasted from six o'clock in the evening until noon the next day. The British force was literally overwhelmed by the enemy. The Arabs were closing round the Eesidency, when Captain Fitzgerald charged them with the three troops of Bengal cavalry. The sudden attack surprised and bewildered the Arabs. The British sepoys on the hill saw the confusion, and rushed down the slope and drove the Arabs before them like sheep. The memory of this victory has been preserved down to our own time. The hill Sitabuldi is a monument to the loyalty and valour of the Bengal cavalry. Every visitor to Nagpore makes a pilgrimage to Sitabuldi to behold the scene of one of the most glorious triumphs of the old sepoy army in India. Appa Sahib fled from Nagpore, but Lord Hastings refused to annex the principality ; and an infant grandson of the pre- decessor of Appa Sahib was placed upon the throne, under the guardianship of Mr. Jenkins. On the 21st December, five days before the battle Defeat of of Sitabuldi, the army of Holkar had been de- ^y ar a ' t s feated by Sir John Malcolm at Mehidpore. Holkar's Mehid P re - soldiers had received their arrears of pay from the Peishwa, and declared for the Peishwa. Malcolm ap- proached them with the Madras army, and they mur- dered the regent mother on suspicion of negotiating with the British, and began the battle of Mehidpore by plundering the British baggage. Holkar's army was defeated ; the principality of Indore was placed 118 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP, in at the disposal of Lord Hastings. The infant Baja was left on the throne, and Holkar's state was brought into subsidiary alliance with the British government, and required to cede territory for the maintenance of a subsidiary army. Nothing remained to complete the pacification of India but the capture of the Peishwa. He had fled southward to Satara, to strengthen his cause by re- leasing the captive Kaja and setting up the old standard of Sivaji. But British prestige had been effectually restored by Lord Hastings, and the restless movements of the Peishwa were little' more than feverish efforts to escape from his British pursuers. Glorious One glorious battle was fought on New Year's Day, Korygaimi.1818, a victory of Bombay sepoys which is celebrated in Deccan songs of triumph to this day. A detach- ment of 800 Bombay sepoys was drawn up at the village of Korygaum, on the bank of the river Bhima, near Satara, under the command of Captain Staunton. On the opposite bank was the army of the Peishwa, numbering 25,000 horse and 6,000 Arab infantry. Staunton had but ten British officers and twenty-four British gunners with two six -pounders. Staunton oc- cupied the village, but was environed by the Peishwa's army, and cut off from all supplies and water. The Mahrattas were mad to capture the village. Three times they tried to storm it with rockets, but were beaten back by sheer pluck and desperation. Eaging with hunger and thirst, Bombay sepoys and British officers and gunners fought like heroes, whilst the Peishwa looked on in anger and despair from a neigh- bouring hill. Staunton lost a third of his sepoys and eight out of his ten officers, but the Mahrattas left six hundred killed and wounded on the field. Next IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 119 morning the Mahrattas refused to renew the fight, CHAP. m. and the army of the Peishwa moved away. Such a humiliation must have taken away all hope Extinction from the Peishwa. For six months longer he kept Pefehwa, out of the reach of his pursuers, but was at last environed by British troops under Sir John Malcolm. He threw himself on the mercy of the British govern- ment, and eventually talked over Sir John Malcolm, as he had done a year or two previously in the matter of the three fortresses. From feelings of pity for an Asiatic prince who had ruined himself by his own treachery, Malcolm gave his personal guarantee that the British government would pay a pension to the conquered Peishwa of 80,000?. a year. Lord Hastiugs was extremely angry at such a charge upon the yearly revenue, but would not withhold his sanction to Malcolm's guarantee. 1 Since then there has been no Peishwa of the Mahrattas. The ex-ruler lived in idle luxury near Cawnpore, whilst his domi- nions were incorporated with the Bombay Presidency. A futile attempt was made by Lord Hastings to revive the extinct Raja of Satara, but in the course of years the Raja was intriguing like the Peishwa, and the principality was eventually annexed by Lord Dalhousie. 1 The ex-Peishwa was born in 1775, when Warren Hastings and Philip Francis were beginning to quarrel at Calcutta. He ascended the throne of Poona in 1795. He concluded the treaty of Bassein with Lord Wellesley in 1802. He was dethroned in 1818. He lived at Bithoor, near Cawnpore, until he died, an old man of seventy-seven, in 1853. After his death the notorious Nana Sahib claimed to be an adopted son, and demanded a continuation of the pension of 80,000. The story will be found in Chapter VI., of the present volume, in connection with the massacre at Cawnpore during the sepoy mutinies of 1857. 120 INDIA UNDER BHITISH RULE. CHAP. in. The crowning event in the administration of Lord Padfica- Hastings was the renewal of protective treaties with protection the princes of Rajputana. The raids of the Mahrattas, Rajpatana, which had been the curse and agony of Rajputana for ;18> nearly a century, were stopped for ever. The territory of Ajmere, in the heart of Rajputana, which had been successively the head- quarters of Mogul and Mahratta suzerainty, was taken over by the British government, and is to this day the head-quarters of the Agent to the Viceroy for the states of Rajputana, and a centre of British supremacy and paramount power. Lord 12. Lord Amherst succeeded Lord Hastings as i A 83 h -28: Governor- General in 1823. The wars of 1817-18 had established the peace of India, by breaking up the predatory system which had been a terror to Hindus and Mohammedans for more than a century. But the king of Burma, to the eastward of Bengal, was causing some anxiety by demanding the surrender of political fugitives from his dominions who had taken refuge in British territory. The British government refused compliance. Had the refugees been given up, they would have been crucified, or otherwise tortured to death by the Burmese officials. Common humanity forbade the concession, so the refugees were required to keep the peace within British territory, and to abstain from all plots or hostile movements against the Burmese government. Burmese For years the Burmese officials tried to bully the British government into surrendering these refugees. They knew nothing of the outer world, and treated the British with contempt as a nation of traders, who had paid the Indian sepoys to fight their battles. Conciliation only provoked them to insolence and IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 121 aggression. They seized an island belonging to the CHAP. m. British. They overran the intervening countries of Munipore and Assam, and demanded the cession of Chittagong. Finally, they invaded British territory and cut off a detachment of sepoys, and threatened, with all the bombast of barbarians, to conquer Bengal, and bring away the Governor- General in golden fetters. At last Lord Amherst sent an expedition under Expedi- Sir Archibald Campbell to the port of Eangoon, the Rangoon, capital of the Burmese province of Pegu. The Bur- mese officials were taken by surprise. They sent a mob of raw levies to prevent the British from landing, but the impromptu army fled at the first discharge of British guns. The British landed, and found that all the men, women, and children of Eangoon had fled to the jungle, with all their provisions and grain. The British occupied Ran- goon, but the country round about was forest and swamp. The rains began, and the troops were struck down with fever, dysentery, and bad food. No supplies could be obtained except by sea from Madras or Calcutta. Nearly every European in Rangoon who survived the rains of 1824 had reason to remember the Burmese seaport to the end of his days. When the rains were over a Burmese general of British great renown approached Rangoon with an army of a ^0?* 60,000 braves, and environed the place with stockades. There- was some severe fighting at these stock- p ea ce. ades, but at last they were taken by storm, and the braves fled in a panic. The British expedition advanced up the river Irrawaddy, through the valley of Pegu. The people of Pegu, who had been con- quered by the king of Burma some sixty years before, 122 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. rejoiced at being delivered from their Burmese op- pressors, and eagerly brought in supplies. The British expedition was approaching Ava, the capital of the kingdom, when the king of Burma came to terms, and agreed to pay a million sterling towards the expenses of a war which cost more than ten millions. The British were content "with annexing two strips of sea-board, known as Arakan and Tenasserim, which never paid the cost of administration ; and left the valley of Pegu, and even the port of Eangoon, in possession of the king of Burma. But Assam and Cachar, between Bengal and Burma, were brought under British rule, and eventually made up for the expenditure on the war by the cultivation of tea. War Meanwhile, Lord Amherst had some difficulty with Bhurtpore, the Jhat state of Bhurtpore in Eajputana, which had 26 ' defied Lord Lake in 1805, but had eventually been brought under British protection. In 1825 the Eaja died, and the succession of an infant son was recog- nised by the British government. An uncle, how- ever, seized the throne, and shut himself up in the mud fortress which had resisted the assaults of Lord Lake. At first Lord Amherst was disinclined to interfere, but all the restless spirits, who had been reduced to obedience by the wars of 1817-18, were beginning to rally round the usurper, who had openly defied the British government. A British force was sent to Bhurtpore, under Lord Combermere. The mud walls were undermined, and blown up with gun- powder. The British soldiers rushed in, the usurper was deposed, and the young Kaja was restored to the throne, under the protection of the paramount power. IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 123 13. Lord William Bentinck succeeded Lord Am- CHAP. m. herst in 1828. His administration was emphatically Lord one of progress. He promoted English education Bentinck, 1 QOQ ^ P\ amongst Hindus and Mohammedans, and founded a P eaceand medical college at Calcutta. He laboured hard to establish steam navigation between India and Europe vid the Ked Sea, in the place of the old sailing route round the Cape. He encouraged the cultivation of tea in Assam and Cachar. He sought to open a trade with Central Asia up the river Indus, but was foiled by Kunjeet Singh, who was still as friendly as ever, but resolutely bent on keeping the British out of his territories. In 1829, the year after the arrival of Lord William Abolition Bentinck, he electrified India by the abolition of ee suttee. In these advanced days it is difficult to un- derstand why British rulers did not suppress this hateful rite the moment they had the power. But for many years toleration and non-intervention were a kind of fanaticism with British administrators ; and the Bengalis appeared to exult in the performance of a rite which they knew to be obnoxious to Europeans. As a matter of fact, the number of suttees in Bengal appeared to increase under British rule, and this was most marked in the villages round Calcutta. The abolition of suttee by treating it as a capital Relief of crime was followed by none of the evils which had ] been anticipated. There was no rising of the sepoys ; no discontent on the part of the masses. British rulers were delivered from the odium of sanctioning a bar- barous crime under the plea of religious toleration ; whilst the living widow w T as no longer compelled to immolate herself with her dead husband, nor was her son forced by. a sense of duty to apply the torch to 124 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. the funeral pile. The pride of Brahmans and Rajputs may have been wounded when all concerned in the performance of the ancient rite were punished by imprisonment or death, but humanity has triumphed, and suttees have vanished from British India, and from every state owing allegiance to British sovereignty. Thug 14. The suppression of the Thugs was another work of the time. These detestable miscreants appeared to the outer world as honest traders or agriculturists, who occasionally went on pilgrimage or travelled for business or pleasure. In reality they were organised gangs of murderers, having a dialect and signs of their own. They made friends with other travellers going the same way ; halted beneath the shade of trees, and suddenly threw their nooses round the necks of their victims, strangled them to death, rifled them of their money and goods, and buried them with a speed which defied detection. Sometimes the unwary traveller was beguiled by a female to a lonely spot, and was never heard of more. Hereditary Every boy born of Thugs was brought up in what mav De called the religion of the noose. From his cradle he was taught that he was bound to follow the trade of his forefathers ; that, like them, he was the blind instrument of the deity of life and death. At first he acted as a scout ; then he was allowed to handle and bury the victim ; and finally tried his prentice hand at strangling. Before committing his first murder, one of the elders acted as his Guru or spiritual guide, and initiated him in the use of the noose as a solemn rite associated with the worship of the goddess Durga, Bowani, or Kali, the mythical bride of Siva, the incarnation of the mysteries of life sion. IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 125 and dissolution, who is often represented with a noose CHAP. in her hand. 1 Throughout his after career he adored the goddess as a tutelar deity ; worshipped her in temples where Thugs officiated as priests ; and pro- pitiated her with offerings of flesh meat and strong drinks, which were supposed to be most acceptable to female divinity. The Hindus were too fearful and superstitious Suppres- to suppress the Thugs. The Moguls had no such scruples, and often condemned Thugs to a cruel death ; but wealthy Hindus would offer large ransoms to save their lives, or would follow the miscreants to the place of execution and regale them with sweet- meats and tobacco. When, however, the British discovered the secret organisation, they resolved to break up the gangs and put an end to the hereditary association. A department was organised for the suppression of Thugs, and chiefs and princes were called upon to co-operate in the work of extermination. Between 1830 and 1835 two thousand Thugs were arrested, and fifteen hundred were imprisoned for life, or transported beyond the seas, or publicly executed. Many saved their lives by giving evidence against their fellows, but were shut up for the rest of their days to protect them from vengeance, and to prevent their return to a horrible profession which had become an hereditary instinct in Thug families. To this day the children or grandchildren of the old Thug gangs, who were the terror of India within the 1 Kali, the black goddess, is the tutelar deity of Calcutta. By a strange anomaly, Calcutta is so called after the temple Kali, at the village of Kali ghat, in the suburbs of the British metro- polis. The temple enclosure, where kids and goats are sacrificed, is not a pleasant place to look at. 126 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. APJUI. memory of living men, are manufacturing carpets, or working at some other useful trade, within prison walls. civil and 15. Lord William Bentinck put a finishing touch reforms ^ ^ e c * v ^ an( ^ judicial administration which "Warren Hastings initiated and Lord Cornwallis reformed. The district was still retained as the unit of Indian administration, with its civil judge, and its collector and magistrate, and necessary establishments of native officials. But the civil judge was invested with the criminal powers of a sessions judge for the trial of prisoners, and henceforth known as the district judge. The four provincial courts of circuit and appeal were swept away, and the supervision of districts was entrusted to commissioners of divisions, each having five or six districts under his control. Henceforth the collector and magistrate was under the control of the commissioner, and was sometimes known as the deputy commissioner. 1 Lord William Bentinck also introduced an Asiatic 1 In each district there was a magistrate and collector. The two duties had been separated by Lord Cornwallis, but were generally united in one officer, who was the head of the district and representative of the British government. As magistrate he punished Asiatic offenders with fine and imprisonment, and committed serious cases for trial. He controlled the police, managed the jail, and was generally responsible for the peace and order of the district. As collector he received the revenues of the district, took charge of the treasury, and controlled the district expenditure. If anything went wrong in the district the magistrate and collector was the universal referee and centre of authority. The civil judge in each district was raised to the rank of a sessions judge. He was the judicial head of the district. He heard appeals from all the subordinate courts, tried all important IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 127 element into British administration, which was the CHAP, m. first real movement in that direction. He appointed Asiatic natives of India to be " deputy collectors," and created a higher class of native judges to those appointed by Lord Cornwallis. They are known in the present day as " subordinate judges." The further development of these political experiments belong to the later history. 16. Hitherto the " North-West Provinces" had North- been a mere appendage of Bengal. They were Provinces, known as the Upper Provinces, whilst Bengal, Behar, and Orissa were known as the Lower Provinces. But a territory which extended from Assam to the Punjab was too vast for the supervision of the Governor-General of Bengal in Council. Accord- ingly the North-West Provinces were separated from Bengal and placed under a Lieutenant-Go vernor, civil cases, and held a jail delivery once a month, for the trial of all prisoners committed by the magistrate and collector. Henceforth he was known as the district judge. Lord William Bentinck abolished the four provincial courts of circuit and appeal which had been established by Lord Corn- wallis, declaring that they had become mere resting-places for those civil servants who were unfit for higher duties. In their room he appointed commissioners of divisions, each of whom had five or six districts under his control. Henceforth the commis- sioner supervised the civil and judicial administration throughout the districts within his division. He was the channel of all communications between the British government at Calcutta and the district officers. Sometimes he heard appeals from the civil and sessions judge, but as a rule such appeals went to the Sudder Courts at Calcutta. In revenue matters he was controlled by the Board of Revenue at Calcutta. The district officers had European assistants, as well as establishments of Asiatic officials. 128 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. without a* Council, but with a separate Sudder Court and Board of Revenue. 1 Hindu The Hindu people in the North- West Provinces village commu- are more masculine and independent than those of Bengal. In Bengal the Hindu village communities had nearly faded away under the domination of zemindars. In the North-West Provinces the village communities had survived every revolution, and have been compared to little commonwealths, each having an individual and domestic life of its own, un- changed by the storms and troubles of the outer world. The village community paid a yearly revenue, a share of the crops or a commutation in money, to whatever power might be uppermost, Mogul or Mahratta, Mohammedan or Hindu. The members took a keen interest, individually and collectively, in settling the yearly rate to be paid by the whole village to the government of the day. But other- wise they cared not who was the reigning authority, Siadia or Lord Weilesley ; nor who was the French general of the sepoy battalions of Sindia, nor who was the British commarider-in-chief of the armies of the Governor-General. The village community was originally a brother- hood, consisting of a tribe, family, or clan, who 1 The North-West Provinces, which extend from Bengal to the Punjab, were to have been formed into the "Agra" Presidency. The change of name would have been extremely convenient. Later on, when the Punjab was annexed, the term " North-West Provinces " became a misnomer. The Punjab was de facto the furthest province on the north-west. Since then Oudh has been annexed to the North- West Provinces, and the term "North- West Provinces and Oudh" has become cumbrous. A single name like "Agra" would be more appropriate. IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 129 settled in a particular locality, and distributed the CHAP. m. land, or the produce of the land, amongst them- Constitu- selves. The area was called a village, but was more Hindu like an English parish. The village community Vllla s es - managed its own affairs, and claimed a joint pro- prietorship in all the ]and within the village area. They rented out waste lands to yearly tenants, strangers and outsiders, who were treated as tenants, and shut out from the management. Some of these tenants acquired rights of occupancy by prescription or length of possession, whilst others were only tenants at will. The village commonwealth had its own hereditary Hereditary officials, such as a village accountant, who kept a and record of all transactions between the joint proprie- tors, and all accounts between the joint proprietors and their tenants. There was also a village constable or guide, who watched the crops and looked after strangers. Sometimes, when a brotherhood had decayed, a head man ruled the village in their room ; and the headman, with the help of the ac- countant and constable, managed all the domestic affairs of the village, and conducted its relations with the outer world. To these were added here- ditary artisans, such as a carpenter, potter, black- smith, barber, tailor, washerman, and jeweller. In like manner there was an hereditary schoolmaster, astrologer, and priest, who were generally Brahman s. The higher officials were remunerated with hereditary lands, held rent free ; but the others were paid by fees of grain or money. Traces of these institu- tions are still to be found in Behar and Orissa, but in Bengal proper the village life has died out. Hereditary artisans still remain, but here- K 130 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. ditary officials have become the servants of the zemindar. Land These village communities contributed a yearly LUC * revenue to the government of the day, either as joint proprietors or through a head man. In theory they claimed possession of the land because they had cleared the jungle, and cultivated and occupied a virgin soil. But they paid a revenue to the Raja in return for protection, or to satisfy the superior right of the sovereign, or as black-mail to prevent the Raja from carrying off their crops and cattle. Taiukdars After the Mohammedan conquest the mode of zemindars, collection differed according to circumstances. Some- times officials were appointed by the sovereign. Sometimes a local magnate, or a revenue farmer, was employed, who collected the revenue from a group of villages, and paid a yearly block sum to the sovereign. They were middle-men, getting what they could out of the village communities, and paying as little as they could to the government of the day. These local chiefs, or revenue con- tractors, were known in the North-West Provinces as talukdars. They corresponded to the zemindars of Bengal, and often, like them, assumed the rights of ownership over the villages. Settlement Lord Wellesley ordered that the land revenue in the North- West Provinces should be settled with tne talukdars at fixed rates, like the perpetual settlement with the zemindars in Bengal. Fortu- nately, there was a preliminary inquiry into the conflicting rights of talukdars and village pro- prietors, which terminated in favour of the villagers. Lord William Bentinck travelled through the North- IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 131 West Provinces, and eventually the land revenue was CHAP. m. settled direct with the joint village proprietors. 17. The Madras Presidency seems to have been Madras originally distributed into village communities of joint proprietors. A Hindu legend has been pre- served to this day, which tells the story of old Hindu colonisation. A Eaja of the southern country had a son by a woman of low birth. The people refused to accept the prince as their Eaja. Accord- ingly the young man crossed the river Palar with a band of emigrants, and cleared the forest to the northward, near the site of the modern city of Madras. For six years the emigrants paid no share of the crops to the Kaja. In the seventh year they were brought under the revenue administration. 1 The modern history of this locality is equally Joint interesting. It was ceded by the Nawab of the Y pro? e Carnatic to the East India Company during the wars pn< of the eighteenth century, and was known as the Company's Jaghir. It was found to be in the pos- session of joint village proprietors of the same constitution as those described in the North- West Provinces, and a settlement of the land revenue was made with these joint proprietors. During the latter half of the eighteenth century Disappear- the rights of the joint village proprietors in Southern India faded away under the tyranny of Asiatic rulers, but the hereditary officials, artisans, and professionals still survived. Few, if any, joint village proprietors in their full entirety could be found in any villages 1 See the author's History of India fr.Qm the Earliest Ayes, vol. iii., pages 60, 280, etc. K 2 132 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. in. under the Nawab's officials ; whilst those within the Company's Jaghir had been duly respected and pre- served by the British officials. Under such circum- stances it was proposed to settle the revenue of the Carnatic territory, acquired in 1801, with individual ryots or landholders under what was afterwards known as the ryotwari system. Perpetual Lord Wellesley, however, interfered, and ordered S ordered? t that perpetual settlements should be concluded with zemindars. Somehow this zemindari settlement had a fascination for British statesmen of the period. It was believed that the creation of an aristocracy of landlords would guarantee the permanence of British rule in India. Accordingly, Lord Wellesley was deaf to all arguments in favour of a ryotwari settlement, and threatened to remove any public servant in the Madras Presidency who should hesitate to carry out his orders. NO Madras had no alternative but to submit. There ' were zemindars in the Telugu country to the north- ward, which had been conquered centuries previously by the Mohammedan Sultans of Golconda ; and with these zemindars it was easy to conclude a perpetual settlement. But there were no zemindars in the Tamil country to the southward. Zemindars In this extremity there was no alternative but ' ed ' to manufacture zemindars. Accordingly zemindars were created in the Madras Presidency by the old Bengal process of grouping villages together, selling them by auction, and treating the lucky buyer as a zemindar. But the new zemindars failed to pay the stipulated revenue. The groups of villages were again brought into the market, and as Lord Wel- lesley had left India, the estates were bought in by IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 133 the Madras government, and the revenue resettled CHAP^IH. with individual ryots or cultivators. 1 In Malabar and Canara on the western coast the Military proprietors of land did not live in villages. They holders. were landholders of the old military type, clinging to their lands with hereditary tenacity, employing serfs or slaves to cultivate them, and paying no revenue except feudal service and homage to their suzerain. Eventually Malabar and Canara were conquered by Tippu of Mysore, and the landholders were compelled to pay revenue, or to surrender their lands. Thomas Munro is the real author of the ryotwari Thomas settlement. He was a cadet in the Madras army, ryotwari who landed at Fort St. George about the time that ^t" Hyder Ali was desolating the Carnatic. In 1792 he was employed in settling the revenue in Malabar and Canara, which had been ceded by Tippu to Lord Cornwallis ; and there he formed his ideas of a settle- ment direct with individual landholders. The con- 1 The villages in the Company's Jaghir shared the same fate. They were sold by auction in groups, and were mostly bought up by native servants and dependents of the British officials at Madras. In process of time the ryotwari settlement was intro- duced, and then a very knotty question was raised. Under the ryotwari settlement a certain portion of the waste lands round a village was given to the villagers in common for grazing and other purposes ; but the culturable waste lands were taken over by the British authorities, and valued, and rented out accord- ingly, to such ryots as were willing to bring them under culti- vation. The buyers of the villages in the Company's Jaghir claimed, however, to be proprietors of the whole of the waste lands. For many years the demand was referred by the Board of Revenue to the Supreme Court, and by the Supreme Court back again to the Board of Revenue. By this time the question has perhaps been settled. 134 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. troversy between Madras and Bengal raged for years, but in the end Thomas Munro was victorious. He converted the Board of Control and Court of Directors to his views. He was knighted, and appointed Governor of Madras. He died in 1827, after having triumphantly introduced the ryotwari. The zemindars in the Telegu country still retain their estates with the proprietary rights of landlords. Bombay : Meanwhile the Bombay Presidency had been vastly stuart enlarged by the acquisition of the dominions of the stone! Peishwa. Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, the con- temporary of Sir Thomas Munro, was appointed Governor of Bombay. He introduced the ryotwari settlement into the Mahratta country, and framed a code of laws which remained in force throughout the Bombay Presidency until 1860, when it was superseded by the Penal Code. Madras Lord William Bentinck's system of commissioners torates. of divisions was introduced into the North- West Provinces and Bombay ; but the Madras Presidency was without commissioners or divisions, and was dis- tributed into twenty large districts or collectorates, which on an average are as large as Yorkshire. In Bengal and the North- West Provinces the districts on an average are no larger than Devonshire. In each Madras district there was a collector, who might be described as a proconsul, and a civil and sessions judge, corresponding to those in the other Presidencies. The administration of the Madras Presidency, revenue and judicial, has always been distinguished by a larger element of Asiatic officials than either Bengal, Bombay, or the North-West Provinces. 18. The last and most important changes in the IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 135 rule of the East India Company were carried out CHAP. m. during the administration of Lord William Bentinck, Charter under the charter Act of 1833. Before, however, isss : : dealing with this radical reform, it may be as well thrown to review the successive stages in the relations of the open< East India Company towards parliament and the crown. During the seventeenth century, the first of the 2 ny Company's existence, it mainly depended on the Crown, f c xi T^ i i i i i r 1600-1688. favour oi the crown. It had obtained a charter 01 exclusive trade from Queen Elizabeth. It prevailed on James I. to send Sir Thomas Eoe as ambassador to India, to propitiate the Great Mogul and secure his good offices for the Company's trade. It sold 600,000 Ibs. of pepper to Charles I. on the security of bonds on the customs, and enabled that sovereign to raise 60,000 for the expenses of his war with Parliament. Oliver Cromwell however did not approve of trade monopolies. The Lord Protector was willing to help the English Company to fight the Dutch Company, but he was of opinion that every Englishman had as much right as the Company to trade in the Eastern seas. Charles II. and James II. renewed the Company's original monopoly and privileges, and received presents in return, which however rarely exceeded the modest sum of 1,200 a year. Under William of Orange the monopoly of the East Pariia- Indies was again in danger. Parliament voted that interposes, every Englishman might traffic wherever he pleased. ]l The Directors scattered bribes with a lavish hand ; but parliament insisted upon searching the books of the Company. Then discoveries were made which were scandalous alike to the Company and the nation. 136 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. in. Every man in power, from the highest to the lowest, had taken money from the India House. In 1693 about 90,000 had been spent in corruption. The Duke of Leeds was impeached in the House of Commons for taking a bribe of 5,000, and 10,000 was traced to the illustrious William. In this ex- tremity the King prorogued parliament, and pro- ceedings were brought to a close. The The parliamentary vote however had abolished for company. a while the monopoly of the trade with the East Indies. A second East India Company was formed and the two rivals nearly ruined each other. At last the two Companies were united into one, and a large loan wjis advanced to government by the new corporation. Under this new arrangement the trade monopoly was secured to the united Company throughout the eighteenth century. Old East In those early days every shop in London exhibited House. a s ig n or emblem. The first old East India House was a quaint building with a large entablature in front, bearing three ships in full sail and a dolphin at each end. The business was distributed amongst the Directors, and transacted in committees. All the Directors put their names to the letters sent to India, and signed themselves " Your loving friends." To this day the business of the India Office is conducted by committees, but the " loving friends " vanished with the East India Company. New India In the early half of the eighteenth century a new lse ' India House was built in Leadenhall Street. It was here that the Directors grew into merchant princes, and administered the affairs of provinces, until they built up our Anglo-Indian empire. Here too began the later conflict between the Company and the House of IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 137 Commons. George III. was bent on coercing par- CHAP. m. liament and removing his ministers at will. But during the coalition ministry of Lord North and Charles James Fox, there was a battle royal between parliament and the crown. In 1783 Fox introduced his bill for abolishing the T J> x 's fo India Bill. Court of Directors, and transferring their power and patronage to seven commissioners nominated in the bill. An agitation arose which threw the whole kingdom into a ferment. The King claimed the right of governing all countries conquered by his subjects. Accordingly he claimed the right of nominating the seven commissioners, and thus getting all the power and patronage of the Court of Directors into his own hands. But the House of Commons would not trust the King. Whigs and Tories saw that their liberties would be endangered by such additions to the royal prerogative, and they passed Fox's bill by large majorities. King George was furious. His only hope was that Hostility the obnoxious bill would be thrown out by the Lords. George in. He caused a message to be conveyed to every peer, that his Majesty would withdraw his friendship from any one who voted for the bill. Accordingly the bill was thrown out by the Lords. Fox and Lord North were ignominiously dismissed, and William Pitt the younger became prime minister. Pitt's India Bill of 1784 was a marvel of states- Pitt's manship. The Court of Directors was left in the full exercise of all patronage as regards first appointments in England to the ranks of the Indian civil services, or to cadetships in the armies of the three Presi- dencies, All promotions in India were left to the local governments and to the Governor-General in .138 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. in. Council. Parliament exercised a constitutional con- trol over the whole administration of the Anglo- Indian empire ; and the patronage, whether in England or in India, was wisely kept out of the hands of either ministers or the crown. Abolition Under the charter act of 1813 the trade of the monopoly. Company with India was thrown open to the British nation, but the Company still retained its monopoly of trade with China. The Company, however, suf- fered little by the loss of its monopoly as regards India. It was an old-established firm of two centuries standing. Its settlements and shipping were all in full swing, and it continued for twenty years longer to carry on a splendid business, which suffered but little by the rivalry of private interlopers. Mean- while, as already seen, it had become the paramount power in India by its successful wars against Nepal and Burma, the extinction of the Peishwa, the humi- liation of Sindia and Holkar, and the extermination of the predatory system. ^End of ; Under the charter act of 1833 all trading on the trade. y S part of the East India Company, whether with India or with China, was brought to a close. The East India Docks were emptied of the Company's shipping, and the trade of Europe in the Eastern seas was thrown open to the whole world. Licensing Another radical change was also effected. Ever since the first establishment of the Company's settle- ments in India, no British born subject, not in the service of the Company, had been permitted by law to reside in India without having previously pro- cured a license from the Court of Directors. This license system was brought to a close in 1833, and any British born subject might take up his IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 139 residence in India, and trade or travel wherever CHAP. m. he pleased. The constitution of the British government in Constitu- India was remodelled. The Governor-General of changes. Bengal was created Governor- General of India with increased control over Madras and Bombay. The Council of India, which hitherto consisted of the Governor General as President, two Bengal civilians, and occasionally the commander - in - chief of the Bengal army, was increased by the addition of a law member. Mr., afterwards Lord, Macaulay was appointed to the new post. His labours will be noticed hereafter in dealing with the constitutional changes of 1853. Henceforth all legislative authority and financial Centraiisa- control were centred in the government of India ; and the governments of Madras and Bombay were stripped of all power to enact laws, and prohibited from creating any new office or making any grant of money, without the consent of the Governor-General of India in Council, or the sanction of the Court of Directors. The charter of 1833 was not an unmixed good, stagnation It stopped all progress in Madras and Bombay by a and bringing those Presidencies too closely under the Bomba y- control of Bengal. For twenty years they had no representatives in the Council at Calcutta. They had framed their own systems of land revenue. They were relieved of the cares of trade, which had been a worry to Governors and Governors- General from the days of the Marquis of Wellesley to those of Lord William Bentinck. But after the year 1833 they were more or less paralysed by the loss of all discretion and responsibility in matters 140 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. in. of legislation and expenditure. Great events were about to agitate Northern India, but for twenty years Madras and Bombay were without a history, and the work of administration was as lifeless and monotonous as the working of a machine. o Popular Lord William Bentinck left India in 1835. His trationof administration had been eminently popular with all c ' classes of the community ; and his memory is pre- served to this day as that of a just and able ruler, who paid due regard to the rights and claims of Asiatics as well as of Europeans. sir Charles Sir Charles Metcalfe, the Bengal civilian, who was 1835 6 6 ': sent on a mission to Runjeet Singh in 1808, and collisions smce then had filled some of the most responsible Asiatic P os ^ s -^ n ^ Q Anglo-Indian empire, acted as Governor- powers. General between the departure of Lord William Bentinck in 1835 and the arrival of Lord Auckland in 1836. A new era was beginning to dawn upon India. Great Britain was about to appear, not only as mistress of an Anglo-Indian empire, but as an Asiatic power coming more or less into collision with four other Asiatic powers Persia, Russia, Afghanistan and China, CHAPTER IV. FOURTH PERIOD : RISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 183656. 1. Russian advance checked by Nadir Shah, 1722-38. 2. First Cabul war under Lord Auckland, 1838-42. 3. Lord Ellenborough, 1842-44 : return from Cabul and conquest of Sind. 4. "War in Gwalior : reduc- tion of Sindia's army. 5. Lord Hardinge, 1845-48 : Sikh rule in the Punjab. 6. First Sikh war : Moodki, Ferozshahar, Aliwal, and Sobraou. 7. Lord Dalhousie, 1848-56 : Second Sikh war : Chillianwalla and Goojerat : annexation of the Punjab. 8. British rule : patriarchal government. 9. Second Burmese war, 1852 : annexation of Pegu. 10. Lord Dalhousie as an administrator: no roads in India. 11. Trunk road, trunk railway, telegraphs, Ganges canal. 12. Annexa- tions of Nagpore, Satara, Jhansi, and Oudh. 13. India Bill of 1853 : new competitive Civil Service. 14. New Legislative Council : Lord Macaulay and the Penal Code. 15. Departure of Lord Dalhousie, 1856. 16. Lord Canning, 1856-62: expedition to the Persian Gulf. 17. Mogul family at Delhi. 18. Condition of Oudh. LORD AUCKLAND landed in Bengal at a grave political CHAP. iv. crisis. Great Britain was growing jealous of Eussia as ford regards India, and tact and common sense were re- 1336-42 :' quired, not to promote a war, but to prevent one. J ' e ^ U s S s ^ of Jealousy of Russia was a new sensation. Great Britain had been indignant at the partition of Poland, but the two nations had become reconciled during the wars against France and Napoleon. Later on Eussia began to extend her empire, and to menace Turkey on one side and Persia on the other ; and at last it dawned on the people of the British Isles that unless there was a 142 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. iv. speedy understanding between British and Eussian diplomatists, the Cossack and the sepoy would cross swords on the banks of the Oxus. Central ! Central Asia is a new world which has been Afghanis- slowly opening up to European eyes. It includes the Tm^istaL vas ^ territories of Afghanistan and Turkistan, which intervene between British India, Persia, Eussia, and China. It is a region of desert and mountain, ruined gardens and dried-up springs the relics of empires which flourished in the days of the so-called Nimrod and Sennacherib, and the later days of the fire- worshippers, but were brought to rack and ruin by the Tartars and Turkomans in the armies of Chenghiz Khan and Timur. Cradle of The whole of this region, and, indeed, the whole of imiia. c en t ra j anc [ Northern Asia, has been the cradle of the people of India from the remotest antiquity. Hindus and Mohammedans are all immigrants from beyond the Indus. The Dravidian races, the pre-Aryan people, brought their devil worship and noisy orgies from Northern Asia into Hindustan. Eventually they were driven to Southern India by the Aryan people, who brought the Vedic gods and hymns, the sacred homa and the ministration of Eishis, from Persia and Media into Northern India. The Eajputs, the Greeks, and the Indo-Scythians of Hindustan, were all strangers from the north-west. The Turks and Afghans, who invaded India during the Crusades, and the Moguls, who established their empire in the days of the Tudors, were all sojourners from the same remote region. Thus Eussia is only following the old instinct of Dravidians and Aryans, as she advances southward from the steppes towards Persia KISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 143 and India. She expands on land just as Great CHAP. iv. Britain expands on the sea. The marches of Tartar, Turk, Afghan, and Mogul Russian belong to a distant period. The march of Russia a Persia, began in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Peter the Great had been humiliated by Turkey on the banks of the Pruth, and looked to Persia for compensation. Persia was on the brink of ruin. In 1722 the Afghans had advanced to Ispahan ; and the Czar and the Sultan prepared to divide her remaining territory. Turkey took the western provinces, whilst Eussia occupied the provinces along the south of the Caspian. The Caspian was a base for an advance on India, and had Peter lived he would have found his way to India. The road was easy via Meshed to Herat, and the Mogul empire would have fallen into his hands like an over-ripe plum. The British at Calcutta were a little hive of traders, who would have been helpless to resist a Russian invasion. Most probably they would have preferred Russia to the Mogul, and would have sent a deputation to the Russian camp to pray for the protection of the Czar. But Peter the Great died in 1727, and Nadir Shah, check- the last of the "world stormers," stepped in and m Nadir' V snatched Persia from Russia. Nadir Shah was a Turk ' 17 2 7 * of the noble tribe of Afshar ; a brigand in his youth, but destined to be as great a general as Cyrus or Napoleon. In 1727, the very year that Peter the Great died, Nadir Shah joined the dethroned Shah of Persia, drove the Afghans back to their own territories, and conquered Khorassan as far as Herat. Eventually he imprisoned the Shah, and usurped the throne of Persia. He compelled Turkey to retire from the 144 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP^IV. W estern provinces, and Eussia to retire from the provinces on the Caspian. Persian In 1738 Nadir Shah captured Candahar, invaded oTTndia 1 , tne Punjab, and entered Delhi in triumph. His 1738-39. battalions of Persians and Turkomans, trained and disciplined under picked officers, were irresistible against Afghans and Moguls. He did not want to conquer India, but only to plunder it. He carried off the treasures of Delhi, the spoil of Hindustan, and the peacock of jewels which had blazed for a hundred years over the throne of the Great Mogul. Thus, within twelve years of the death of Peter the Great, the parade of jewels, which might have adorned the Kremlin, became the prize of Nadir Shah. Nadir Nadir Shah was the last of the line of Asiatic ancThis wa ors that began with Sargon and Cyrus, and Persian culminated in Chenghiz Khan and Timur. He was officers. tall, powerful, and loud-voiced, with an eye of light- ning, and an expression that alternately terrified and charmed. He stood out head and shoulders above his Persian officers, arrayed in a plain cloak lined with black lambskin from Bokhara, a crimson turban, a richly-mounted dagger in his belt, and a huge battle- axe of steel in his hand. He was ever at work from morn till night, inspecting troops, administering justice, dictating letters, or transacting business by word of mouth. His fare was of the plainest boiled rice, with a little meat, bread, cheese, radishes, and parched peas whilst his drink was butter-milk or water. His officers were Asiatic dandies, clad in rich pelisses trimmed with furs, smart vests with gold and silver lace, crimson hats with four peaks, or arrayed in coats of mail with steel helmets and sharp pikes. They scorned the frugal fare which satisfied their KISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 145 Turkish master. They delighted in Persian dishes, CHAP. iv. such as pillaws stuffed with plums and raisins, savoury stews, dainty bits of meat known as kabobs, together with grape jelly, and confections ; and they revelled in wine and strong waters, to the horror of all strict Mohammedans. 2. A century passed away. Nadir Shah was Russian forgotten, and Eussia was again menacing Persia and dabbling in the Caspian. In 1837 Persia was besieg- ing Herat under the pretence that it had formed part of the empire of Nadir Shah ; but Eussia was in the background putting forth Persian claims as a cat's-paw for seizing Herat. Great Britain, however, was re- solved that neither Persia nor Eussia should take Herat from the Afghans, to whom it had properly belonged ever since the death of Nadir Shah. In October, 1838, Lord Auckland declared war to compel Persia to retire from Herat. It was also determined to dethrone Dost Mohammed Khan, the ruler of Afghanistan, because he had been carrying on a suspicious intercourse with Eussia, and to set up Shah Shuja in his room, because he had been dethroned many years previously by Dost Mohammed Khan, and was therefore the rightful ruler of Afghanis tan . Moreover Shah Shuja had been living many years in British territory under British protection, and was therefore likely to prove a more faithful ally against Eussia than Dost Mohammed Khan. The declaration of war was a mistake. Persia had Political already taken the alarm, and raised the siege of Herat. Dost Mohammed Khan may have been a usurper, but he had been accepted, by the Afghan people as their 146 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. iv. ruler, and he was a man of undoubted capacity. If he had been properly treated in 1836-37 he might have become as useful an ally to the British govern- ment as he proved himself to be twenty years later. Shah Shuja, on the other hand, whom the British wished to set up in his room, was a weak and worth- less prince, and it was doubtful at the time whether the Afghan people would accept him as their ruler, especially if he were forced upon them by the British government. First Thus began the first Cabul war. The British army %var* n was snu t out from the Punjab by Eunjeet Singh, and 1 compelled to take a circuitous route through Sind. A bridge of boats was constructed to carry the army over the Indus at Sukkur ; but in those days Sind was a foreign territory, and no reliance could be placed on its rulers. Indeed, had the British met with a defeat in Afghanistan, the Amirs, or rulers of Sind, would possibly have destroyed the bridge, and cut off their return to India. British In February, 1839, the British army crossed the toCabu?, river Indus, and advanced along the Bolan Pass to 39< Quetta, and thence to Candahar. Major Rawlinson remained at Candahar as minister and envoy of Shah Shuja, supported by a force under the command of General Nott. The main army, under Sir John Keane, advanced northward, captured the important fortress of Ghazni, and conducted Shah Shuja to Cabul, whilst Dost Mohammed Khan fled away northward to Bokhara. Shah Shuja was placed on the throne of Afghanistan, under the guidance of Sir William Macnaghten, the minister and envoy at Cabul, protected by the British army under RISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 147 Keane, who was subsequently created Baron Keane CHAP, iv. of Ghazni. 1 The year 1840 brought unexpected good fortune. British Eunjeet Singh died in 1839, and his successor opened the Punjab to the march of British troops. Russia sent a counter expedition from Orenburg towards Khiva, but it was stopped by snows and want of water, and compelled to return. Shah Shuja, how- ever, was only maintained on the throne at Cabul by British arms and gold. The Afghans cared nothing for him. So long as they received subsidies from the British authorities they remained loyal, but there was no enthusiasm. The hill tribes, who occupied the passes into the Punjab, were equally loyal so long as they received pay, but otherwise might turn against the British at any time, and cut off their return to India. The shopkeepers and bazaar dealers at Cabul were satisfied, for they reaped a golden harvest from their British customers. Towards the close of 1840 Dost Mohammed Khan returned to Cabul and surrendered to Sir William Macnaghten. This was a stroke of luck which for a brief space threw the destinies of Central Asia into the hands of British rulers. The Dost was sent to Calcutta as a prisoner but treated as a guest, and often played at chess at Government House. Meanwhile British officers and officials fancied they were perfectly safe, and were joined by their wives and families, who gladly exchanged the depressing temperature of India for the cool climate of Cabul. In 1841 the prospect was less charming. The 1 The capture of Ghazni was mainly dne to the cool intrepidity of the late Sir Henry Durand, then a lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers. L 2 148 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. subsidies were cut down and there was general Afghan discontent. The Afghans were sick of Shah Shuia disaffec- ., J tion, and weary of British occupation, and there was a secret longing for a return to the old life of riot and rapine. The wild hill tribes, who were supposed to guard the passes leading to the Punjab, were still more disaffected ; but these matters were kept secret, and Sir William Macnaghten and the other officials kept up a show of confidence, whilst difficul- ties and dangers were hedging around them more and more closely from day to day. British At the same time the position of the British army danger? was unsatisfactory. It should have held the great fortress of Bala Hissar, which commanded the whole city of Cabul, and could have put down any dis- turbance with the utmost ease. But Shah Shuja was jealous of the presence of British soldiers, and they were lodged in a cantonment three miles from the city, with no defence beyond a low mud wall which horsemen could gallop over. Lord Keane returned to India, and was succeeded in the com- mand by General Elphinstone, who was too old for the post. Still there was no show of apprehension. Sir William Macnaghten lived with his family in a house close to the cantonment. He was appointed Governor of Bombay, and was to have been succeeded by Sir Alexander Burnes as minister and envoy. Burnes lived in a house within the precincts of the city, and thought himself as safe in Cabul as in Calcutta. Threaten- As the year 1841 wore away, disappointments and ouSfok. anxieties began to tell on Sir William Macnaghten. Shah Shuja was a useless burden, like the old man of the sea on the shoulders of Sinbad. The hill KISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 149 tribes had closed the passes between Cabul and CHAP. iv. Jellalabad, and in October Sir Kobert Sale was sent with a brigade to re-open communications. Sale fought his way to Jellalabad, and there entrenched his troops and waited for reinforcements. On the 2nd November there was an outbreak in Outbreak the city of Cabul. Burnes barricaded his house, but murder. was soon environed by an angry mob of Afghans. He sent an urgent message to the British canton- ment for a battalion of infantry, and two field -pieces, which at that early hour could have penetrated the city and effected his deliverance. But the danger was underrated, and no force was sent lest it should offend Shah Shuja. That same afternoon the gate- way of the house was burnt down by the mob, and Burnes and twenty-three others were brutally murdered. By this time the outbreak had culminated in Afghan an insurrection. The population of the villages round about had joined the rioters, and thousands of Afghans were hurrying into the city of Cabul in the hope of plunder. Later in the afternoon two battalions of British infantry tried to cut a way through the narrow streets and crowded bazaars, but found the task beyond their power, and were compelled to return to the British cantonment. Akbar Khan, the eldest son of Dost Mohammed, appeared at the head of the insurrection ; whilst Shah Shuja was shut up in the Bala Hissar, help- lessly waiting for the British to suppress the rebellion, and deliver him from the fury of his subjects. Sir William Macnaghten and General Elphinstone Murder of were paralysed by the dangers and anxieties of their "? 150 INDIA UNDER BRITISH BULK. CHAP. iv. position. Provisions were running short in the British cantonment ; supplies were withheld by the people of Cabul ; and soldiers and sepoys were becoming demoralised. At last it was decided to retreat to Jellalabad the half-way house between Cabul and Peshawar ; and negotiations were opened with Akbar Khan for the supply of provisions and carriage. The greed of the Afghans was insatiable, Akbar Khan demanded vast sums as ransom, and the surrender of British officers as hostages for the payment. On the 23rd December, 1841, there was a final meeting between Sir William Macnaghten and the Afghan chiefs, and the British minister and envoy was suddenly attacked and murdered by Akbar Khan. British Notwithstanding the murder, negotiations were iiTthT re-opened. In January, 1842, the British forces K i842 Gr ' began to retreat from Cabul, followed by Akbar Khan and a large army of Afghans. More money was demanded, and more hostages were surrendered, including British ladies and children. Then followed treacheries and massacres. The British army, num- bering four thousand troops and twelve thousand camp-followers, entered the Khyber Pass beneath a heavy fall of snow. The hill tribes crowned the precipitous heights on either side, and poured a murderous fire on the retreating masses, whilst the soldiers of Akbar Khan joined in the horrible work of murder and plunder. The whole of the surviving force perished in the Khyber Pass with the excep- tion of a surgeon named Brydon, who escaped on a pony to Jellalabad, and lived to tell the tale for more than thirty years afterwards. One British officer appears to have kept his head EISE TO ASIATIC POWEK. 151 amidst all these bewildering disasters. This was CHAP. iv. Captain Eldred Pottinger, a man who knew how to Eldred lead Asiatics, and how to control them. He was inside Herat throughout the siege, and by sheer pluck and fertility of resources kept the enemy at bay until the siege was raised. He was one of the hostages made over to Akbar Khan, and was sent with the others to a fortress in the northern moun- tains. There he bribed the Afghan commandant with a written promise of a future ransom. He hoisted the British flag over the fortress, took possession of the surrounding country, collected the revenue, called in supplies, and kept up the spirits of ladies and children amidst the general depression and humiliation. Eventually the prisoners were delivered from their enemies and restored to their families and friends ; but Eldred Pottinger died and was forgotten. 3. Before the tidings of disaster reached England, Lord Lord Ellenborough was appointed Governor-General borough, of India, in succession to Lord Auckland. In Feb- ] ruary, 1842, he touched at Madras, and heard of the destruction of the British army in the Khyber Pass. Meanwhile an avenging army, under the command of General Pollock, was marching to the relief of Sale, who was closely besieged at Jellalabad by an Afghan army under Akbar Khan. The British garrison at Jellalabad had defended the place with the utmost resolution, and before the arrival of General Pollock, Akbar Khan had been compelled to raise the siege. Up to this time nothing was known of General Candahar. Nott at Candahar. The fact was that he and Major 152 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. Eawlinson were holding out against overwhelming odds, as Elphinstone and Macnaghten ought to have done at Cabul. History teaches that such a surren- der as that of Macnaghten to Akbar Khan too often means " massacre." It meant "massacre" at Patna, in the days of Mir Kasim, and during the sepoy mutiny of 1857 it bore the same meaning at Jhansi and Cawnpore. Close of General Pollock advanced westward from Jellalabad, Afghan whilst General Nott advanced northward from Can- 1842. dahar. Both armies met at Cabul. Shah Shuja had been murdered, and Akbar Khan had fled away to the northward. All the British hostages, including the ladies and children, reached Cabul in safety. Dost Mohammed Khan was set free at Calcutta, and returned to Cabul and recovered his throne. Thus the first Cabul war was brought to a close, and for some years the Afghans were ignored. Outside The disasters of 1841-42 led to disturbances in Asiatic states outside British territory. The Amirs of Sind were tempted to violate their treaty obliga- tions. In 1843 they were defeated by Sir Charles Napier in the battles of Meanee and Hyderabad, and their territories were eventually incorporated with the Bombay Presidency. There was also some excitement in Nipal and Burma ; but British prestige was restored by the victories of Pollock, Nott, and Napier, and the disorders soon died away. Meanwhile, the British government was drawn into a war with China ; but relations with China have not as yet been brought to bear upon British rule in India. Gwaiior R 4. In 1843 Lord Ellenborouojh interfered in the fr * 1843.' affairs of Gwaiior. The ruling prince, who was known EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 153 by the hereditary name of Sindia, had died without CHAP. iv. leaving any son, real or adopted. He had been a weak and incapable ruler, and had permitted the army of Gwalior to grow too powerful for the state, and to swallow up two-thirds of the public revenue. The disbandment of the army was necessary, not Overgrown only for the well-being of Gwalior, but for the security 1343' of the British government. It numbered 40,000 men and 200 guns. Meanwhile, the Sikh army in the Punjab had grown more dangerous. It consisted of some 60,000 men, well provided with artillery, who had been drilled and trained by French officers. It was no longer under the control of a strong ruler like Kunject Singh, and at any moment might cross the Sutlej into British territory. Under such circum- stances a junction of the Sikh army with the army of Gwalior would have raised a terrible storm in Hindustan. The death of Sindia rendered some action necessary. Revolt, 1 &A^ He had left a widow who was only twelve years of age. This girl, however, was permitted to adopt a small boy of eight, and a minister was appointed, under the sanction of Lord Ellenborough, to conduct the administration of Gwalior during the minority. Shortly afterwards the girl dismissed the minister from his post, and he was fool enough to accept the dismissal. The girl then appointed a minister of her own, and won over the army by large distributions of money, in open defiance of the paramount power. The consequence was that disturbances broke out in Gwalior, and many persons were killed. Lord Ellenborough proceeded to Agra, and ordered Settie- the British army to advance to Gwalior under Sir ^^ Hugh Gough. Two battles were fought on the same 154 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. iv. Jay, the 29tli of December, 1843, one body of the Gwalior army being defeated at Maharajpore, and another at Punniar. Lord Ellenborough then carried out the necessary reforms. The army of Gwalior was reduced from 40,000 men to 9,000, and the number of guns from 200 to thirty-two. A subsidiary force was created of sepoys, trained' and commanded by British officers, which was afterwards known as the Gwalior Contingent. The government was taken out of the hands of the girl-widow, and entrusted to a council of regency, consisting of six nobles of Gwalior, who acted under the advice of the British Resident until the adopted prince attained his majority. Lord In June, 1844, Lord Ellenborough was recalled by borough the Court of Directors. It was urged that he was too re ~ 1 C g a ] 1 4 ed ' fond of war, but it was whispered that he had given mortal offence by promoting military officers to posts previously occupied by civilians. The question raised some controversy at the time, as the recall was op- posed by Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington ; but it has long ceased to be of importance, and may be dropped into oblivion. sir Henry 5. Sir Henry Hardinge succeeded Lord Ellen- ms- 1 *!!' borough as Governor-General. At this period the Punjab was a political volcano, and the Sikh army was a menace to Hindustan. Rise of The Sikhs were religious fanatics, dating back to ! the fifteenth century. Their founder was a prophet, or Guru, named Nanuk Guru, who was at once priest and king. The object of the Guru was to reconcile the Hindu religion with the Mohammedan by teach- ing that there was but one God, one Supreme Spirit, and that the Vishnu of Hinduism and the Allah of RISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 155 Islam were one and the same deity. The church of CHAP. iv. Nanuk was a platform of comprehension. A brother- hood was formed, known as Sikhs, and all its mem-, bers were declared to be equal in the eyes of God and His Guru, whatever might be their individual caste, wealth, or position. The Sikh religion was in reality a revival of a Sikh i* ' Buddhism recognising deity. Nanuk Guru bears a striking resemblance to Gotama Buddha. He was born in 1460 of the royal race of Kshatriyas, the modern Rajputs, or " sons of Rajas." He taught that goodness in thought and deed was especially pleasing to God. He denounced the distinctions of caste, and preached universal charity and toleration. He was followed by a line of nine Gurus, who taught the same doctrines and formed an apostolic succession, inspired by God, and worshipped as incarnations or avatars of deity. The city of Amritsar, the "pool of immortality," became the sacred city of the Sikhs, and every year formed a centre of Sikh gather- ings like those of the Hebrews at Jerusalem and those of Mohammedans at Mecca. The new faith was eagerly accepted by Hindus, Persecu- especially those of the lower castes, but Moham- A urangzeb. medans stood aloof from the heresy. The stern Aurangzeb, who reigned as Great Mogul from the days of Oliver Cromwell to those of Queen Anne, persecuted the Sikhs with relentless ferocity, and the ninth Guru was beheaded in the imperial palace of Delhi in the presence of Aurangzeb and his courtiers. Under Guru Govind, the tenth and last of the old Gum Sikh pontiffs, the Sikhs were transformed by persecu- the tion from a brotherhood of saints into an army of Khalsa - warriors. Guru Govind stands out as the real founder 156 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. iv. of the Sikh Khalsa or " saved ones." He set apart five faithful disciples, namely, a Brahman, a Rajput, and three Sudras, to form a Khalsa, and to be a model for all other Khalsas. He consecrated them by sprinkling holy water ; he gave to each the name of Singh, or "lion warrior," but he gave to the whole five collectively the name of Khalsa ; and he solemnly promised that wherever a Khalsa was gathered together, he, their Guru, would be in the midst of them. Army Henceforth the Sikhs were known as the "Army Khaki f God and the Khalsa." The constitution was changed. Guru Govind was taken prisoner by the Moguls and executed, and his successors lost their spiritual prestige. The Sikhs were divided into twelve misls or clans, each having its own chief or Sirdar ; but the Sirdars changed with the times. Some took the field at the head of their sons and vassals, zealous only for God and the Khalsa. Others were mere freebooters, who led bodies of irregular horse to devastate and plunder. Others again formed a brotherhood of fanatics known as Akalis, who called themselves soldiers of God, and were distinguished by steel bracelets and dark-blue dresses and turbans. Runjeet Out of these discordant elements Runjeet Singh isoo? 39. created his famous army of the Khalsa. By con- summate tact he stirred up the old enthusiasm of the Sikh soldiery, whilst employing French officers to drill and command them. He added Cashmere and Peshawar to his dominions, and was known as the " Lion of Lahore." His depravity is indescribable ; his court at Lahore was a sink of iniquity, like the cities of the plain ; but, knowing the real source of KISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 157 his power, he gloried in the title of " Commander- CHAP. iv. : in-Chief of the Army of God and the Khalsa." When he died, in 1839, four queens and seven slaves were buried alive with his remains. Between 1839 and 1845 the Punjab was sinking Hopeless into hopeless anarchy. There was a deadly conflict anarch y' between Sikhs and Kajputs. Plots and murders fol- lowed in rapid succession. Princes, ministers, and generals were carried off in turns by assassination or massacre. Meanwhile the treasures of Eunjeet Singh were squandered in wild debauchery, or lavished on the army. There was a British envoy at Lahore, but he could do nothing. On one important occasion he reported that every minister* of state had been drunk for several days. On another occasion he entered the council-hall unexpectedly, and found the prime minister figuring in the guise of a dancing- girl amidst the applause of his colleagues. An infant, named Dhuleep Singh, said to be the son of Runjeet Singh, was the nominal sovereign ; but the queen- mother, a woman of low origin, and her minister and paramour, were the rulers of the country. By this time the army of the Khalsa were masters Army of the state the praetorian guards of the Punjab. It was dangerous to the Sikh government, and was only kept quiet by money and concessions. It de- manded more pay, and got it. The French officers fled for their lives. The Sikh officers were compelled to obey certain little Khalsas, which by this time had come to be elected by the soldiery in every corps, and were supposed to be animated by the invisible but presiding spirit of Guru Govind. The army was bent on sacking the capital and slaughtering all who stood in their way, whilst the Akalis, the 158 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. iv. fanatical soldiers of God, were burning to purge the court at Lahore of its iniquities. Non-inter- The Sikh rulers implored the British government to protect them against the army of the Khalsa ; but non-intervention was still the ruling policy, and the British government refused to interfere. Meanwhile the dangers of Sikh invasion had been minimised by the reduction of the army of Gwalior, and the British government underrated the strength of the Sikh army. Amidst the general lull the crash came. The ministers were afraid of a reign of terror at Lahore, and sent the army of the Khalsa across the river Sutlej to plunder the cities of Hindustan. Sikh 6. The British government was taken utterly November, ^Y surprise. There was no warning whatever, and 1845 - the enemy was estimated to number 100,000 men with 150 large guns. Ferozpore, the frontier station of the British army on the north-west, was held by a British force of 10,000 men. The Sikhs might have overwhelmed Ferozpore, and marched on to Delhi and Agra before the main army could have taken the field. Fortunately for the British the , Sikh generals were cowards and traitors, thinking of nothing but themselves. The British force at Feroz- pore moved out and offered them battle, but they shrank from a collision. They divided the Sikh army into two bodies : one stopped to watch Feroz- pore, whilst the other entrenched a camp a few miles off at Ferozshahar. Moodki, Sir Henry Hardinge and Sir Hugh Gough were r ' soon moving to the frontier with a British army. On the 18th of December a battle was fought at Moodki. The Sikh general fled at the outset, but the EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 159 Sikh soldiers opened fire with a rapidity and preci- CHAP. iv sion which for a while staggered the British. At last the British gained a victory, but it was not decisive. Two days after Moodki, the British attacked the Feim- Sikh force at Ferozshahar. They met with a resist- shahar * ance which they never expected. The Sikhs were again deserted by their general, but fought with the reckless bravery of zealots ; and Sir Hugh Gough charged up to the muzzles of their guns with cold steel before he could carry their batteries. Night came on, and the firing ceased. During the darkness there was an uproar in the enemy's camp, and it turned out that the Sikh soldiers were plundering their own treasury the military chest which their general had left behind in his hasty flight from the field. Next morning the battle was renewed, but the Sikhs had lost their enthusiasm, and were soon in full retreat to the Sutlej. Early in 1846 the Sikh army recrossed the Sutlej AHwai by a bridge of boats. Sir Harry Smith defeated one SoLLm force at Aliwal, but the main army of the Khalsa was strongly entrenched at Sobraon. In February Hardinge and Gough advanced to storm the .entrenchment. Then followed the hardest and bloodiest battle which the British had hitherto fought in India. The Sikhs fought with the desperation of despair, but were slowly beaten back by the fiery resolution of the British. At last they retreated to the Sutlej, and thousands were drowned in the river. Their general had fled on the morning of the battle, and had broken down the bridge to prevent their return to the Punjab. Thus ended the first Sikh war. The British armv 160 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. iv. marched in triumph to Lahore, and Sir Henry Mixed Hardinge, now Lord Hardinge, began to settle the ment, future government of the Punjab. He was unwil- British. l m g t annex the country, for the British nation was already jealous of the territorial possessions of the East India Company. He dared not withdraw the British army lest the army of the Khalsa should spring again into life and sweep away the Sikh regime. He tried a compromise. He recognised the infant, the queen-mother and her minister, as de facto rulers of the Punjab. He reduced the army of the Khalsa to a third of its former strength. He annexed the frontier province on the north, known as the Julinder Doab, and he demanded a subsidy of a million and a-half sterling towards the ex- penses of the war. Sale of The money was not to be had. Out of twelve e> millions sterling that were found in the Lahore treasury after the death of Eunjeet Singh, only half a million remained. The difficulty was overcome by the Viceroy of Cashmere, a Eajput named Golab Singh, who held the province in subordination to the Sikh government. He offered one million ster- ling, provided the British government recognised him as Maharaja of Cashmere, independent of Lahore. The bargain was struck, and Cashmere was sold to Golab Singh. Council of Still it was impossible for the British to withdraw Regency. _ . . . from the Punjab without bringing on a second war. Before the end of 1846 the queen-mother was found to be utterly unfit to rule, whilst her minister was stirring up the people of Cashmere to revolt against the Maharaja. The minister was removed from his post. Eight of the leading Sirdars at Lahore were EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 161 formed into a council of regency, under the direction CHAPPY. of Sir Henry Lawrence, the British Eesident at Lahore ; and it was determined that a small British force should remain in the Punjab until the infant Dhuleep Singh attained his majority. S-7. Two years passed away. In 1848 Lord Lord T J T\ it * J Dalhousie, Hardmge was succeeded by Lord. JJamousle, and 1848-56. returned to England accompanied by Sir Henry Lawrence. Sir Frederic Currie, a Bengal civilian, was Eesident at Lahore, and the Punjab was to all appearance quiet. About this time the Sikh gover- nor of Multan, named Mulraj, quarrelled with the council of regency at Lahore, and resigned his post in disgust. Two Englishmen, Mr. Vans Agnew and a Lieutenant Anderson, were sent to Multan with a Sikh escort to take overcharge. Multan is situated on the river Chenab, about Revolt at Multan, , 200 miles to the south-west of Lahore. The two April, . Englishmen reached the place in April, and took up murder of their quarters at a mosque in the suburbs. Mulraj u&men" paid them a visit, and there was some disagreement about the accounts, but the two Englishmen went over the fortress with Mulraj, and all three left the place together on horseback. At that moment the two Englishmen were felled from their horses. Mulraj galloped away into the country, and the two Englishmen were carried away to the mosque and brutally murdered. Mulraj returned to the fortress, and issued a proclamation calling on the people of all religions to revolt against British supremacy. The Sikh and British authorities at Lahore treated Revolt of the outbreak as an isolated rebellion. Lieutenant singh. Herbert Edwardes, a rising officer, marched an M 162 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. HAP^IV. irregular force against Multan; but though he defeated the rebels, he could not capture the fortress. A Sikh noble, named Shere Singh, marched from Lahore to co-operate with Edwardes, and a British force under General Whish was also sent in a like direction. It turned out, however, that Shere Singh was negotiating with the rebels inside the fortress, whilst swearing fidelity to the British authorities outside. When the British guns had opened fire, and the capture of the fortress was a mere question of hours, Shere Singh suddenly beat the drum of the Khalsa, proclaimed a religious war against the British, and started for the north with the whole of his men as fast as their long Sikh legs could carry them. Whish saw that pursuit was hopeless, and could only entrench his troops and wait for reinforcements whilst keeping watch on Multan. Army The } 10 t weather was coming on, British advance Khalsa. was delayed, and the British authorities at Lahore were discovering that a second Sikh war was inevit- able. The queen-mother was organising a general confederacy against the British government, but her intrigues were found out in time, and she was sent to Benares to repent at leisure. Eebel chiefs were plotting in all directions to get rid of the British government, and bring back the old days of anarchy and plunder. Later in the year many villages were found empty. The able-bodied men had gone off to join rebel chiefs, and fight once more for God and the Khalsa ; and no one remained behind but the halt and the lame, the women and the children. Afghans To crown all, Dost Mohammed, Khan of Cabul, Peshawar. ^^ joined the rebel Sikhs. As a Mohammedan he must have hated the Sikhs and their religion, RISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 163 especially as Runjeet Singh had wrested the im- CHAP. iv. portant valley of Peshawar from Afghan dominion. But he saw his opportunity to recover Peshawar. He overran the valley and captured the fortress of Attock ; and he determined that whatever might happen, he would hold Peshawar for the future against Sikh or Englishman. In November, 1848, the British army, under Lord Cough's Gough, entered the "land of the five rivers." On isfs^ the 13th of January he approached the army of Shere Singh, which was strongly entrenched at Chillian walla on the left bank of the Jhelum the Hydaspes of the Greeks and probably not far from the spot where Alexander routed the Rajput army of Porus. The Sikh army was hidden from view by a dense jungle. Lord Gough ordered a reconnoitre ; he proposed to give his army a night's rest, and to begin the battle next morning. Shere Singh upset this arrangement. He did not Chiiiian- care to fight the British army after a night's rest, and "jtarauy, after his position had been reconnoitred. He stirred up the Irish blood of Lord Gough by opening a fire on the British camp. The impetuous general returned the fire, and ordered an advance. For a brief interval nothing was to be heard but the roar of artillery, whilst the battle was hidden from view by smoke and jungle. Presently the British guns were silenced by the advance of infantry, and soon afterwards the sharp rattle of musketry told that the conflict had begun. But the battle of Chillian walla was disastrous. The Sikh artillery continued to roar after the British artillery was silenced. A brigade of British infantry was beaten back. A cavalry brigade was repulsed with a loss of guns. At last, the ringing cheer of M 2 164 INDIA UNDER BIUTISH KULE. CHAP^IV. British infantry told that the day was gained, but it was dearly purchased with the loss of 2,400 officers and men. The Sikhs were driven from their position, but they entrenched themselves still more strongly on better ground only three miles off. Had there been a forward movement on the following morning, the doubtful success of the 13th of January might have been converted into a decisive victory. Fail of On the 22nd of January Mulraj surrendered the 22nd' fortress of Multan to General Whish. This enabled iary ' Whish to bring his forces to the help of Lord Gough. Later on Shere Singh began a march to Lahore, but was stopped by Gough and Whish at Goojerat on the right bank of the Chenab. Goojerat, The battle of Goojerat was fought on the 21st of February. February, 1849. It was known as "the battle of the guns," for there was no premature advance of infantry or cavalry, as at Chill ian walla. For two hours and a-half the Sikh army was pounded with British shot and shell, and then, and not till then, a charge of bayonets and a rush of cavalry completed the destruction of the army of the Khalsa. The victory at Goojerat saved the reputation of Lord Gough. Sir Charles Napier had been sent out to supersede him as commander-in-chief, on account of the losses at Chillianwalla ; but before Napier could reach India the war was over, and Chillianwalla was condoned, although it could not be forgotten. The Punjab was once more prostrate at the feet of the British, and the Afghans were driven out of Peshawar. Annex* The mixed government of Sikhs and British had kpunjlb! 16 failed in the Punjab, under Sir Henry Lawrence and 1849. gi r ]? rec [eric Currie, as it had failed in Bengal nearly a century before under Clive aod his successors. EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 165 Lord Dalhousie decided, and to all appearance rightly, CHAP. iv. that annexation was the only chance of salvation for the Punjab. So the weak and helpless relics of the family of Kunjeet Singh were pensioned off by the conquerors, and his kingdom was incorporated with the British empire, and formed into a province under British rule. 8. The administration of the Punjab was, in the British first instance, placed under a Board of three members. the But the Board did not work smoothly, and Lord Dalhousie objected to Boards, and preferred fixing responsibilities on individuals. Accordingly Mr. John Lawrence, a younger brother of Sir Henry Lawrence, was appointed sole ruler of the Punjab under the title of chief commissioner. It will be seen hereafter that John Lawrence was destined to leave his mark in history ; to become Governor- General of India, and finally to take his seat in the House of Lords. The Punjab was delivered from the grinding exactions of Sikh officials, and brought under the just and im- partial rule of British officers. Within the space of less than a decade, the kingdom of Eunjeet Singh, which had been distracted by wars and disorders worse than those of England under the Heptarchy, was brought under the civilised and European administration of the nineteenth century. The Punjab was parcelled out into divisions and Non-Regu- districts, like the Bengal and North- West Provinces. It was not, however, brought under the " Kegulations," which had the force of laws in Bengal, Madras, Bom- bay, and the North-West Provinces. For some years it was known as a non-Eegulation province ; in other words, British administration in the Punjab was 166 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. carried on according to the spirit of the Regulations, and on the same lines as the administration of the North- West Provinces, but a large margin of latitude and discretion was allowed to the chief commissioner, and he was empowered to issue his own instructions and orders, which might sometimes be out of harmony with the Regulations. Patriarch- The result was that a so-called patriarchal rule pre- a ment. vailed in the Punjab, which was admirably adapted to the transition state of the "land of five rivers." British officers laboured to govern the country, and to administer justice amongst a mixed population of Sikhs, Mohammedans, and Hindus, according to local circumstances and usages, rather than according to the strict letter of the law which had prevailed for generations in Regulation provinces. District Under the non-Regulation system the duties of magistrate, collector, and civil and sessions judge were discharged by a single officer, who was known as the deputy-commissioner. The deputy-commis- sioner was thus not only the head of the civil administration of his district, but the magistrate and judge. Below him were certain grades of assistant commissioners, whose duties were of a similarly comprehensive character. Half of these grades were taken from the ranks of the Indian civil service, and the other half from British officers in the Indian army. Below them were grades of uncovenanted officers, European and Asiatic, known as extra assistant commissioners, who corresponded more or less with the class of deputy-collectors created by Lord William Bentinck. Conmis- The commissioners of divisions controlled the ad- ministration of the districts under their charge after EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 167 the manner of commissioners in Bengal, Bombay, and CHAP. iv. the North- West Provinces. They also heard appeals from the courts of deputy-commissioners. Another officer, known as the " financial commissioner," con- trolled the expenditure of the entire province, in subordination to the chief commissioner. There was no Supreme Court, and no Sudder Court, Judicial in the Punjab. In those patriarchal days a single sioner: officer, known as the "judicial commissioner," con- ^l! trolled all the law courts in the province, and was the last court of appeal. Meanwhile a code of laws was drawn up, under the directions of the chief com- missioner, by his secretary, Mr. (now Sir Eichard) Temple. Since then Sir Kichard Temple has filled high positions in India, which were only second in importance to those occupied by his illustrious master. The land settlement in the Punjab was carried Land out on the same lines as that in the North-West ment: Provinces. Proprietary rights of village commu- j^J nities, joint or otherwise, were recognised as far as possible. The village system was perhaps as perfect in the Punjab as in any other part of India, but for years the rights of village proprietors had been ignored or stamped out under Sikh rule. The revenue collectors of Eunjeet Singh cared nothing for proprietary right, nor indeed for any law or usage which debarred them from exacting as much revenue as possible from the cultivators of the land. Meanwhile the land settlement of the North-West North- Provinces, which had been modified by Lord William Province*. Bentinck, was brought to a close under the super- vision of Mr. Thomason, the Lieutenant-Go vernor. It was based on the principle of recognising, defining, 168 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. iv. and recording all existing rights of proprietors of every kind and sort, from those of hereditary chiefs and landlords, down to village proprietors, joint or otherwise. The settlement included a full record ol the rights of all proprietors in every village. Every field was measured and mapped ; every house was entered on a list. All shares in the land, and all joint and separate liabilities for revenue, were regis- tered. The customs of the village were recorded, and formed a manual of village law. Finally, details of all lawsuits under the settlement officers were preserved, and formed a history of the village settle- ment. This system was carried out in the Punjab and other new provinces of British India. In Bengal, however, it is stopped by the zemindari system ; whilst in Madras village rights are equal under the ryotwari system. Second 9. In 1852 a second Burmese war was forced srarTsS u P on Lord Dalhousie. A treaty of commerce and friendship had been concluded with the king of Burma at the end of the first war, but of late years it had been grossly violated. Burmese officials had condemned British sea captains to fine and imprison- ment on false charges, and British merchants residing at Eangoon were preparing to abandon their property and leave Burmese territory unless they were pro- tected by their own government. Arrogant Commodore Lambert was sent to Rangoon to in- vestigate complaints. He was treated by the Burmese officials with such insolence and arrogance that nego- tiations were impossible. Eventually he seized a Burmese ship by way of reprisal, but engaged to restore it on receipt of something like 1 ,0001. as EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 169 nominal compensation for British sufferers. In reply CHAP. iv the Burmese fired on the commodore's steamer, and the firing was promptly returned. From that moment war was inevitable. A British expedition under General Godwin reached Annexa- Kangoon. The Shway Dagohn pagoda, the great Pegu, cathedral of Buddhism in Burma, was taken by storm ; and then all fighting was over. The court of Ava was powerless and paralysed. It could not resist British forces, and simply left the British authorities to do as they pleased. Upper Burma was abandoned to the king, and the rich valley of Pegu, and port of Rangoon, were, added to the British empire ; and eventually the three divisions of Pegu, Arakan, and Tenasserim were formed into the province of British Burma. The annexation of the Punjab and Burma are the New crowning events of the nineteenth century. Lord r BritTsii "Wellesley had delivered India from Tippu, and Em P irc - established the paramount power of the East India Company over the Mogul viceroys and the Mahratta princes. Lord Hastings had converted Nipal into a staunch ally, and stamped out the predatory powers of Central India. Lord Dalhousie annexed the empire of Eunjeet Singh, excepting Cashmere, and the empire of the Alompras, excepting Upper Burma, and thus laid down frontiers which remained unchanged for an entire generation. 1 1 As these pages are passing through the press Upper Burma has been annexed to the British empire. In 1870 the author was sent by the British government on a semi-political mission to Mandalay and Bhamo. In those days the reigning king respected British supremacy, and British representatives were maintained at the capital and the frontier. These political ties were subsequently loosened, and annexation became a state 170 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. 10. But Lord Dalhousie left his mark in history Lord as an administrator rather than as a conqueror. Having annexed the Punjab and Pegu, he threw his whole soul into the administration. The Punjab was Progres- soon traversed with roads like a Eoman province, policy, and one magnificent and difficult road was completed from Lahore to Peshawar. Eangoon was cleared of malarious jungle, and planned out in streets and roads like a European city. The working of British administration in the new provinces has been most successful. Lord Dalhouise not only delivered the population from oppression and violence, but introduced order, liberty, and law, such as prevails in no Oriental country outside the British pale from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chinese Seas. Lord Dal- housie may have petted the Punjab and Pegu at the expense of Madras and Bombay, but he was never unmindful of the interests of the Anglo-Indian empire. He is the first Governor-General who laboured for the benefit of India in the interests of the British nation, as well as in those of the East India Company. Public Public works in India before the advent of Lord thelart Dalhousie had chiefly consisted of military and civil Company, buildings, such as barracks, arsenals, jails, and hospitals. The Company, however, was the land- lord of India, and the bulk of the people were its tenants ; it had therefore sought to improve the condition of its tenants after the manner of land- necessity. Like most of the Buddhist kings of Burma, Theebaw was a professed water drinker, but much given to strong liquors, in which state he committed the most revolting cruelties. Similar horrors are related of the old kings of Burma in the author's Short History of India, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Burma, chap, xv. EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 171 lords. It encouraged the cultivation of tea, coffee, CHAP. iv. and cotton. It restored choked-up channels, which had been dug by Mohammedan Sultans of former days for watering their palaces, gardens, and hunt- ing grounds ; and it converted them into canals for irrigating a large acreage in the North- West Provinces. Such was the origin of the Western and Eastern Jumna canals, which were constructed in the days of Lord William Bentinck and Lord Auckland. Each canal received the water from the upper stream on the slope of the Himalayas, and irrigated the high lands which w r ere above the level of the lower stream. Above all, the Company sanctioned the Ganges canal which was purely a British undertaking, constructed for navigation as well as for irrigation. But India was without roads. Eough caravan Northern routes traversed Northern India in the seventeenth T caravan* 1 century, and European travellers landing at Surat routes - could find their way to Ajmere, Agra, and Delhi. From Delhi again there was a caravan route through the Punjab and Afghanistan to Persia and Turkistan. But in the eighteenth century all were closed. Kajput rebels and outlaws stopped all travelling between Surat and Agra ; the Jhat brigands of Bhurtpore stopped it between Bengal and Delhi ; and Sihks and Afghans cut off all trade with Persia and Turkistan. In Northern India the ordinary route from Calcutta Water- to the north-west was by water. The rivers Jumna ways ' and Ganges flow from the Himalayas in a south- easterly direction until they meet at Allahabad in the centre of Hindustan. The Jumna flows past Delhi and Agra ; the Ganges flows past Caw^npore ; and 172 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. iv. after meeting at Allahabad, the two rivers flow in one united stream past Benares, Patna, Monghyr, and Calcutta, until they reach the Bay of Bengal. But travelling up country against the stream was always tedious, and a journey which formerly occupied months by water, now only occupies the same number of days by rail. Deccan : In the Deccan the routes were much worse. There no traffic. wag no tra fg c between Bombay and the Mahratta country until 1831, when Sir John Malcolm opened a cart-road through the western Ghats, and thus broke through the mountain wall which cut off Bombay from the interior. In the Nizam's country there were no roads except a rough route between Hyderabad and the seaport at Masulipatam, which was cursed by every British Resident from the days of Clive and Verelst down to very modern times. Southern In Southern India there were neither caravan paknV routes nor waterways of any moment. Hindu Rajas qums. never opened out the country like the Mohammedans of Northern India. Hindu infantry and light Mah- ratta horsemen required no roads ; and Rajas and other Hindu grandees were carried in palanquins. Europeans travelled in palanquins down to the pre- sent generation, and were in no fear of robbers. Ladies and children were borne along through jungles and over rivers ; leopards and tigers were kept off at night by lighted torches ; and the sure feet of the half-naked coolies carried travellers safely over rocky heights and troubled waters. Macadam- Mr. Thomason, who was Lieutenant-Governor of ised roads. tlie ^^-West Provinces from 1843 to 1853, was the first Bengal administrator who constructed mac- adamised roads. His object was to connect the large EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 173 cities under his jurisdiction, but the work once begun CHAP. IY. soon advanced apace. A trunk road was commenced between Calcutta and Delhi, and in 1850 mail carts ran for the first time between the two capitals of Northern India. The annexation of the Punjab gave a further impetus to road-making, and Calcutta and Delhi were soon brought into communication with Lahore and Peshawar. Meanwhile railways had created a furor. Pro- Proposed moters in the British Isles were anxious to construct railways in India at the expense of the East India Company, but the idea did not recommend itself to the men who had the largest experience of India. There was a natural reluctance to accept schemes by which speculators might profit at the Company's expense, whilst the gain to the people of India would be doubtful. It was currently believed, by men who had spent the best part of their lives in the country, that Hindus would never travel by railway ; that they would trudge on foot, and carry their families and goods in carts and cars, as they had done in the days of Porus and Megasthenes. $11. Lord Dalhousie was the type of British Lord ~n iVi administrators of the modern school. He had served a new type two years' apprenticeship in Great Britain as Presi- dent of the Board of Trade under Sir Eobert Peel, and he was especially familiar with the construction of British roads and railways. In India he opened the great trunk road from Calcutta to Delhi, and post carriages, known as " dak gharies," soon superseded the old river "budgerows." Other metalled roads were begun in Madras and Bombay. Still one thing was wanting. Calcutta was united to all the great 174 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. iv. capitals of Northern India Allahabad, Agra, and Delhi but Bombay and Madras were as far off as ever from both Northern India and each other. Trunk Eailways would remedy the evil, and Lord Dal- r iine s a . y housie was bent on introducing them. He planned a trunk system which in the present day unites the three Presidencies, and connects them with the north- west frontier. He induced railway companies to undertake the construction, by giving a government guarantee of five per cent, interest per annum on the outlay ; and before he left India three experi- mental lines were already in progress, namely, one from Calcutta, a second from Bombay, and a third from Madras. Such was the origin of the three great railways of India, namely, the " East Indian," which runs through Northern India ; the " Great Indian Peninsula," which runs through the Deccan and the " Madras railway," which runs through Southern India. Telegraph Between 1853 and 1855 the telegraph system was i853-?5. constructed, which electrified Europeans and awakened the Asiatics from the torpor of ages. Madras and Bombay could talk with all the great cities of Northern India, and Kangoon was placed in tele- graphic communication with Lahore and Peshawar. Unfortunately there was only one line of wires from Allahabad to Delhi, and when the wires were cut by the sepoy mutineers of 1857, communication was cut off. This incident, however, belongs to the regime of Lord Dalhousie's successor. Ganges In 1854 the Ganges canal, the greatest work of 1*854.' irrigation ever accomplished, was completed by Sir Proby Cautley and opened by Lord Dalhousie. The British nation has never realised this grand under- EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 175 taking of the old East India Company. It receives CHAP. iv. the water on the lower slope of the Himalayas, and ' runs along the Doab, or high lands between the Jumna and Ganges, throwing out distributaries at intervals. About eighty miles to the south-east of Delhi it separates into two branches, one flowing into the Ganges at Cawnpore, and the other flowing into the Jumna near Etawah. The whole length of the canal and branches for navigation is 614 miles ; the length of the distributaries for irrigation is 3,111 miles. 12. Lord Dalhousie was so convinced of the Annexa- superiority of British administration, that he con- policy. sidered every opportunity should be taken for bringing the territories of feudatory princes under British rule. Hitherto it had been the policy of the East India Company to perpetuate the dynasties of its feuda- tories. If a feudatory prince was without a son, he was advised by the British Eesident to adopt one. But Hindu princes shrink from the idea of adopting a son. It is often as difficult to persuade a Eaja to adopt as it used to be to persuade Englishmen to make wills. He puts it off with some vague inten- tion of marrying another wife, which he is permitted to do under Hindu law when the first wife is barren. Accordingly Hindu princes often die without leaving any son whatever, real or adopted. Under such circumstances the widow was permitted to adopt a boy, and the East India Company permitted this boy to succeed to the principality. Adoption, however, is purely a religious ceremonial. Question It is the outcome of the religious belief of the Hindus adoption, that when a man dies his soul goes to a sort of 176 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. purgatory until his sins are washed away ; and that during this interval it is the duty of a son, real or adopted, to offer cakes and water to refresh the soul in question. The East India Company accepted the adoption as giving a claim to the principality, because it settled the succession when a natural heir was wanting. Lord Dalhousie decided that the adoption gave no claim to the principality, but only to the personal property of the deceased feudatory, because he was anxious to bring the territory under British administration. Satara The Court of Directors refused to accept the views Nagpore. of Lord Dalhousie in the case of " protected allies," such as Sindia, Holkar, and the princes of Eajputana. But they accepted his views as regards " dependent principalities," such as Satara and Nagpore, which had been created, or artificially resuscitated, by the Marquis of Hastings, and in which the Hindu rulers had turned out very badly. Accordingly, Nagpore and Satara became British territory, and were brought under British administration. Jhansi in A chiefship in Bundelkund, known as Jhansi, was kund." also annexed to the British empire. The chiefs and princes of Bundelkund were situated far away to the south of the river Jumna. They were cut off by hills and jungles from the civilising influences of British rule, and retained much of the lawlessness and anarchy of the eighteenth century. The chief of Jhansi died without leaving any heir, real or adopted. The widow was allowed to adopt a son for the offering of cakes and water, but not allowed to adopt a successor to the principality, and the territory accordingly lapsed to the British government, and was brought under British administration. The widow was very angry. KISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 177 She had expected to rule Jhansi as queen regent ; but CHAR iv. a Hindu lady brought up in the seclusion of a zenana cannot always be trusted with the irresponsible powers of a despot. She yielded to her fate, but it will be seen hereafter that she bottled up her wrath and waited for revenge. Since Lord Dalhousie's time the controversy as Obsolete regards adoption has become obsolete. The right of adopting a son, who should not only offer cakes and water to the soul of the deceased, but succeed him in the government of the principality, has been distinctly recognised by the British government. Meanwhile the aspect of the question has entirely changed. In the days of Lord Dalhousie few, if any, of the Indian feudatories of the British government showed any signs of progress. In the present day the heirs to principalities are taught in schools and colleges, and are learning something of India and the great world around them by the help of railways and telegraphs. It is therefore to be hoped that a day may yet dawn when British systems of administration may be worked in every feudatory state in India by trained Asiatic officials. Last of all, Lord Dalhousie annexed the Moham- medan kingdom of Oudh to the British empire. This negation was an exceptional measure, having nothing whatever of Oudh * to do with the Hindu usage of adoption. The Nawab of Oudh had assumed the title of " king," but had degenerated under British protection into an Oriental ruler of the worst possible type. His kingdom was parcelled out amongst a landed aristocracy, known as talukdars, who were half landlords and half revenue collectors, like the zemindars of Bengal. Every talukdar of position had a fortress of his own, with N 178 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. iv. a garrison and guns. He collected rents from the ryots, but paid little or no revenue to the king's officers, unless compelled by force of arms. The king lived secluded in his palaces at Lucknow, surrounded by greedy and corrupt officials, immersed in Oriental pleasures, ignorant of what was going on outside his capital, yet maintaining " a rabble army, which was either in mutiny for want of pay, or plundering the villages for bare necessaries. A British Resident was appointed to Lucknow, but he could only interfere by way of advice, remonstrance, or warning. A British force was stationed in Oudh, under the direction of the Resident, but only for the main- tenance of the public peace, and not for interference in the administration. Deposition of the king would have done no manner of good, for there was not a prince of the family capable of governing the country in his room. It was thus impossible to maintain the dynasty without sacrificing the in- terests of ten millions of population whom the British government was bound to protect. At last, in 1856, the territory of Oudh was annexed to the British empire, and brought under British administration. India Bill 13. In 1853 the last charter of the East India n e f w civil Company, which had been granted in 1833 for a Service, term of twenty years, was brought to a close. Parliament refused to renew the charter, but declined as yet to abolish the Company, and meanwhile carried out some constitutional changes. It placed the Indian civil service on a national basis, by abolishing the system of nomination by the Court of Directors, and introducing the system of EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 179 competitive examinations, which was eventually CHAP - TV - thrown open to all British subjects Asiatic as well as European. In like manner Parliament broadened the supreme New Le- government of India by creating a new legislative council! council. The Governor-General in Council continued to exercise supreme control over the executive. At the same time this executive council was formed into a legislative council by the addition of repre- sentative members ; namely, the chief justice and one puisne judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, and one representative member from each of the four presidencies, namely, Madras, Bombay, Bengal, and the North- West Provinces. 5 14. The legislative council was opened in 1854. Constitu- 5 , i It was the first germ of representative government in India. Lord Dalhousie introduced parliamentary forms, and the debates were conducted with a spirit which recommended them to the attention of the Indian public, official and non-official, Asiatic and European. The Governor-General and executive council exercised a veto on the introduction of bills. But four Indian civilians represented the govern- ments of four presidencies, and the judges of the Supreme Court represented, more or less, the interests of the public outside official circles. Moreover, although the Asiatic populations had no voice in the debates, they were enabled to express their objections in the form of petitions, which were duly considered by the committees of the council on the several bills. In a word, the legislative council of India, imperfect as it may have been, was an advance in the development of constitutional N 2 180 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. government of India, and will accordingly be brought under review in the concluding chapter. Macauiay The new legislative council brought to light a p d ena7 Lord Macauiay 's draft of a Penal Code, which had >de< been shelved for nearly twenty years. The delay, however, had not been without its advantages. Mr. (now Sir Barnes) Peacock, took charge of the bill under which the Code became law, and subjected its clauses to a careful revision. Moreover, the re- presentative civilians from the four presidencies, and two judges of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, had opportunities for discussing any or every clause from local and imperial points of view, which could scarcely fail to adapt the Penal Code to all parts of British India. Character- The Penal Code had evidently been drafted in the Cole. Lord Macaulay's best style. It was eminently clear and concise, free from redundancies and repetitions, and singularly happy in the definitions of offences and law terms. It embodies illustrations, as well as explanations, of every conceivable offence known to criminal law. Consequently, no educated individual, Asiatic or European, who refers to the Penal Code, can possibly make any mistake as regards the criminal law in British India. It did not, however, take effect until 1860. Meanwhile events transpired which opened up an entirely new era in the progress of Great Britain as an Asiatic power. Lord 15. In 1856 Lord Dalhousie left India for ever. D ieaves Sie He had alarmed Anglo-Indians of the old school by ki g energetic promotion of moral and material pro- gress without regard to the ignorance or prejudices of the Asiatic populations ; but besides his grander RISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 181 measures, he carried out a thousand and one smaller CHAP. iv. reforms which to this day are felt and appreciated by Asiatics as well as by Europeans. It was Lord Dalhousie who introduced cheap postage ; who caused Calcutta to be lit with gas ; who purified the south- west breezes of fever and malaria by clearing the jungles of the Sunderbunds ; who sat by the cradle of the new legislative council of 1854, and thus nourished the earliest germ of representative govern- ment which British rule had planted in India. In a word, Lord Dalhousie prepared the way for that .great measure which will be told in a future chapter, namely, the transfer of the government of India from the East India Company to the British Crown. 16. Lord Canning succeeded Lord Dalhousie in Lord 1856. To all outward appearance there was no cause for alarm in any part of India. Persia had again laid siege to Herat, as she had done in 1837 ; 1856-7. but the British government had come to an under- standing with old Dost Mohammed of Cabul, and had given him money and arms. A mission was sent to Candahar under Major (now Sir Peter) Lumsden. A British expedition was sent to the Persian Gulf under Sir James Outram, and captured Bushire. Eventually Persia withdrew her preten- sions as regards Herat, and peace was concluded in March, 1857. Meanwhile the status of the so-called king of status of Delhi, the relic of the Great Mogul, was under "king" consideration. For more than half a century the atr)elhl ' family had lived in a palace at Delhi on a yearly pension from the British government. There was much marrying and giving in marriage, and the 182 INDIA TINDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. iv. palace was a hive of princes and princesses without Proposed any apparent occupation save that of petitioning for from increased pensions. Lord Ellenborough contemplated removing the family from Delhi, but the measure was postponed. At last Lord Dalhousie took action. The so-called king was very old, and could not live many years. Lord Dalhousie recognised a grandson as successor to the pageant throne, on the condition that when the old king died, the whole family should clear out of Delhi and take up their abode in a royal residence some miles off, known as the Kutub. Palace This design was frustrated. The old king had married a young wife, and she bad a son, and she determined that her son should be king. The grandson, who had been recognised by Lord Dalhousie, died suddenly ; it was said that she had poisoned him. Lord Canning ignored her son, and recognised a brother of the dead prince as heir to the title, on the same conditions. Henceforth the queen, like the princess of Jhansi, bottled up her wrath' and waited for revenge. Land Lord Canning, however, was somewhat uneasy about Oudn - A British administration had been introduced under a chief commissioner, with com- missioners of divisions and deputy commissioners of districts, but nothing was done to reconcile the talukdars in the provinces to the change of rule. On the contrary, a land settlement was introduced .corresponding to that which had been effected in the North- West Provinces. But half a century had elapsed since the acquisition of the North- West Provinces. Meanwhile the talukdars of Oudh had ceased to be mere middle men, and had grown into landed proprietors ; whilst the rights of village EISE TO ASIATIC POWER. 183 proprietors, individual or joint, had been ignored CHAP. iv. or stamped out by the new landlords. The early British administrators settled the revenue Disaffec- direct with the villagers, and told the talukdars that taiukdars. their claims to proprietorship, if they had any, would be considered hereafter, or might be settled in the law courts. Under such cool treatment the talukdars of Oudh might well be disaffected towards their new British rulers. Rightly or wrongly, by long posses- sion, or by recent usurpation, they had become de facto landlords, and under the new system they saw their estates transferred to their tenants. Early in 1857, however, Sir Henry Lawrence was appointed chief commissioner of Oudh., and he was expected to reconcile all parties. Strange to say, the villagers of Oudh, who had imagined profited so much by the new land settlement, had 1 a secret grievance of their own which no one seems Vllla s ers - to have suspected. They held their lands on better terms than their fathers or grandfathers, but many families had lost position in the eyes of their neighbours. For generations Oudh had been the chief recruiting ground for the Asiatic soldiery of the Bengal army; and under Mohammedan rule every sepoy was the great man of his family, and indeed the patron of his native village. If any villager had a grievance, he applied to the sepoy, and the sepoy applied to his British officer, and his petition was forwarded to the British Resident at Lucknow ; and the Mohammedan court was too anxious to please the Resident to make any difficulty about redressing wrongs so strongly supported, whatever might have been the abstract merits of the case. When, however, the king was replaced by a chief 184 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. iv. commissioner, the sepoy was referred to a British courts for justice, and was no better off than his neighbours. This loss of privilege arid prestige rankled in the heart of sepoys from Oudh, and they began to look upon annexation as a wrong done to themselves, although they had not, and could not have, any sympathies for the deposed king. Coming Such was the state of affairs in India when the strophe, storm of 1857 was about to burst upon Hindustan, which was to shake British power in Northern India to its very foundations, and sweep away the East India Company for ever. The outbreak was hardly felt in the older presidencies of Bengal, Madras, or Bombay, nor in the Punjab or Pegu, nor in Nagpore or Batara, the provinces recently annexed without conquest, nor, with few exceptions, in the feudatory states under British suzerainty. The main fury of the storm was spent on Oudh and the North- West Provinces ; and the significance of this localisation will appear in the after history. CHAPTER V. SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 1857. 1. European soldiers and Asiatic sepoys. 2. Three British armies in India : Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. 3. Sepoy army of Bengal : Brahmans and Eajputs. 4. Enfield cartridges : general horror of pork : Hindu worship of the cow. 5. Agitation of the sepoys at Barrackpore. 6. First mutiny against the cartridges: Berhampore. 7. Second mutiny : Barrackpore. 8. Oudh : mutiny at Lucknow : suppressed. 9. Mutiny and massacre at Meerut. 10. Mohammedan revolt and massacre at Delhi : general excitement. 11. British advance from the Punjab to Delhi. 12. Siege of Delhi by Europeans, Sikhs, and Ghorkas. 1 3. Punjab and John Lawrence : antagonism between Sikhs and Mohammedans. 14. Sepoy plots at Lahore and Mian Mir : quashed. 15. Peshawar and frontier mountain tribes. 16. Execution of sepoy mutineers at Peshawar. 17. Brigadier John Nicholson: worshipped by a Sikh brotherhood. 18. Proposed withdrawal from Peshawar. 19. Mutiny at Sealkote : wholesale executions. 20. Siege and storm of Delhi, September 1857 : peace in the North- West. but the phrase is misleading, and in Military mi T-N i mle in The British India. IT is a common saying that " India is held bv CHAP. v. the sword one direction it is absolutely untrue. army is not maintained to rivet a foreign yoke on the subject populations. Its main duty has been to keep the peace between rival princes, to put down fighting between antagonistic religions, and to protect India against foreign aggression. 1. The small number of European troops in 1857 Paucity of proves that India was free. In the Bengal provinces, troops* 11 which cover a larger area than Great Britain and 186 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. Ireland, and a denser population, there were scarcely any European troops. A single regiment sufficed to garrison Calcutta ; and of this regiment one wing was quartered in Fort William within the city, whilst the other wing was quartered in Dumdum arsenal, seven miles off. With this exception, there were no European troops within 400 miles of Calcutta. One European regiment was quartered at Dinapore, to the westward of Patna, and another at Eangoon, in the newly- acquired province of Pegu. There was also a European regiment at Lucknow in Oudh, and two European regiments at Meerut in the North -W 7 est Provinces, about forty miles from Delhi, and a thousand miles from Calcutta. But the bulk of the European regiments in India were quartered in the Punjab, the frontier province on the north-west. This frontier is the only vulnerable side of India. It faces Afghanistan ; but it also faces a possible com- bination of European and Asiatic powers, which may some day menace the British empire in India. Sepoys or The army of the East India Company was mainly composed of native soldiers, known as sepoys. The term " native," however, is equivocal, arid sepoys are best called Asiatics, to distinguish them from British soldiers, who are known in India as Europeans. They were formed into regiments corresponding to Euro- pean battalions, and were drilled and commanded by European officers corresponding to regimental officers in Her Majesty's army. Each regiment had also an Asiatic staff of sepoy officers, known as naiks, havildars, jemadars, and subahdars corresponding to corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. Such regiments were known as " regulars." In .1857 the regular army of the East India SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 187 Company comprised in round numbers about 200,000 CHAP, v. Asiatics, commanded by 4,000 European officers, and Army J strength. about 45,000 British-born soldiers. But the European regiments were not all taken from Her Majesty's service. The East India Company had enlisted nine European regiments for exclusive service in India, who were known as Fusiliers and Locals. Moreover, in addition to the regular sepoys, there were battalions known as irregulars, because they had fewer regi- mental European officers. They were raised specially for service in particular provinces, and also for service in the contingent and subsidiary forces maintained by feudatory states under existing treaties. The sepoy army had been the pride and glory of Tried the East India Company for more than a hundred fidellt y- years. It won its first laurels in the old wars against the French in Southern India; and from the battle of Plassy in 1757, to the dawn of 1857, it had shared the triumph of the British army in building up the Anglo-Indian empire. For perfection of discipline, and fidelity to their European officers, the sepoys might for many years have been favourably compared with the soldiers of any continental army. Hindus and Mohammedans fought side by side with Europeans, and one and all were bound together by tlmt brother- hood in arms, which grows up between soldiers of all races and climes who have been under fire together in the same campaign. On the parade-ground and on the battle-field all No reii- d inferences of race, caste, and religion were for the factions, moment forgotten. Together, sepoys and soldiers fought, not only against the French, but against Nawabs and Sultans who were Mohammedans, and 188 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. v. against Mahrattas and Rajas who were Hindus. Together, they had crossed the Indus and the Sutlej to fight against Afghans and Sikhs ; climbed the shelves and precipices of the Himalayas to punish the aggressions of the Ghorkas of Nipal ; and as- cended the waters of the Irrawaddy to chastise the arrogance of Burmese kings. When the sepoys were called out by the British magistrate to repress riots between Hindus and Mohammedans, they put their religion into their pockets and fired with the utmost impartiality on both parties, although in their hearts they must have sympathised with one side or the other. But the pride of the sepoy, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, was to be " faithful to his salt "- in other words, to be loyal to the master from whom he drew his pay. Sepoy But sepoys have ways of their own which Euro- peans cannot always understand, unless they have served with them shoulder to shoulder, and listened patiently and considerately to the outpourings of their grievances. A sepoy is proud of his corps, jealous for its reputation, and respectful to his officers. Hindus of the higher castes, such as Brahmans and Rajputs, and Mohammedans of noble and ancient families, are alike amenable to British discipline. But sepoys can be stung to insubordination by insult or injustice, like soldiers of other races. Sepoys have been known to sacrifice caste prejudices to help European officers in time of need, but they resented needless interference or looks of scorn with the sullen pride of Orientals. At Vellore, in 1806, the Madras sepoys were driven to mutiny by the contemptuous orders of the military authorities as regards caste marks and turbans, and above all by the jeers of the SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 189 Mysore princes, who taunted them with becoming CHAP. v. Christians. Yet during the first Cabul war and other distant campaigns, sepoys often forgot their caste in cases of emergency, and cheerfully obeyed orders which they would have resented in their own country, or in the presence of inconvenient witnesses. Injustice again, real or imagined, is as intolerable Mutiny at to sepoys as it is to children. More than once a batta. f regiment has been deprived of batta, or field allow- ances, under circumstances which kindled a burning sense of wrong. This batta is given during service in foreign territory, but is withdrawn after the return of the sepoys to British territory. Thus, sepoys who had borne the brunt of the wars in Sind and the Punjab, were suddenly deprived of batta when those countries became British provinces, and naturally rebelled against what must have appeared to them a crying injustice. The sepoy complained that he had helped to conquer Sind for the East India Company, and was then punished by the loss of batta. The paymaster pointed to the regulations, but the result was disaffection amounting to mutiny. Under such circumstances there was no alternative Disband- but disbandment. There can be no pardon for mutineers, yet capital punishment, or even a long term of imprisonment, would be needlessly severe in dealing with ignorant sepoys. As it was, their doom was terrible in the eyes of their fellows. In a moment they were deprived of all hope of pension, which secured to every sepoy, a life provision in his native village when age or infirmity compelled him to retire from the army. 190 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. 2. The Company's regular forces in India were Three formed into three distinct armies, namely, those of Bengal, 8 or Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, and each army had its India! own commander-in-chief. The armies of Madras and Bombay were mostly recruited in their respective presidencies ; but the people of Bengal are not a fighting race, and the Bengal army was mostly re- cruited from the warlike populations of Oudh and the North-West Provinces. Again the Bengal army was not kept within the limits of the Bengal presi- dency, but was distributed over the whole of Northern India as far as the north-west frontier. It was consequently larger than the two other armies put together. It garrisoned Bengal, the North-West Provinces, and the newly-acquired provinces of Oudh and the Punjab ; whilst it overlooked, more or less, the Asiatic states to the south and west of the Jumna, including the principalities and chiefships of Eajputana, the territories of Sindia and Holkar, and the smaller domains of a host of minor feudatories. Bombay The Bombay army garrisoned the Western Deccan D^ccan an( ^ Sind, and the Madras army garrisoned , Southern Madras I n di a and Pegu : but neither of these armies played in the r J South, any prominent part in the great sepoy revolt of 1857- 58. Some disaffection was shown in the Bombay army which was nearest to the Bengal sepoys, and caught something of the contagion. The Madras army was for the most part still further south ; and only one regiment caught the infection, and was promptly disbanded. Hindus in 3. The sepoy army of Bengal was mainly com- ^rmf 1 . 1 posed of Hindus. Taking the average strength of every regiment at 1,000 sepoys, there would be 800 SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 191 Hindus and 200 Mohammedans ; and the antagonism CHAP. v. between the two religions was supposed to secure an additional safeguard against mutiny or disaffection. High caste was the main characteristic of the High Hindu sepoys in the Bengal army. Of the 800 Brahmans Hindus in every regiment, about 400 were Brahmans, Rajputs. the sacred caste of India, who claim to be gods, and are supposed to be endowed with supernatural powers. Next to the Brahmans were about 200 Rajputs, the royal caste of India, who claim to be " sons of Kajas," and are soldiers by birth as well as calling. The remaining 200 Hindus were men of low caste, who were regarded as inferior beings. The Brahmans were powerful over all, and were wor- shipped by the Rajputs as well as by the low castes. Pride of caste was thus the moving spirit of the Discipline Bengal army. This, however, was not perceptible on the parade ground or field of battle, except in the lofty mien, haughty bearing, and splendid physique of the men. The Bengal sepoys were taller on the average than any European armies, excepting perhaps the Russian guard. 1 On duty the Brahman and Rajput obeyed the word of command when given by a low caste sepoy officer. Off duty, the low caste sepoy officer prostrated himself in token of worship before the Brahman soldier under his command. But pride of caste had its disadvantages, and for Growing years the Bengal sepoys had displayed a laxity of ^nation discipline, and a spirit of insubordination towards Bengal their European officers, which had been unknown se Py s - 1 English and India, by M. E. de Yalbezen, late Consul-General at Calcutta, Minister Plenipotentiary. 192 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. v. in the older days. They had been pampered and humoured to an extent which diminished their efficiency, and many officers of experience lamented the change. But any report to that effect was naturally offensive to the higher military autho- rities ; and those who were most alive to the growing evil found that- it was best for their own interests to keep their opinion to themselves. Calcutta, It has been seen that Calcutta was garrisoned by Dumdum, - p in i Barrack- a single regiment 01 Europeans, one wing being Berha'm- quartered in Fort William and the other in the P ore - arsenal at Dumdum, about seven miles off. Nine miles north of Dumdum, and sixteen miles north of Calcutta, is the pleasant station of Barrackpore, where the Governor-General has a park and country mansion, and where four sepoy regiments were cantoned with their European officers, but without- European troops. About 100 miles still further north is the station of Berhampore, hard by the old capital of Murshedabad ; and here a regiment of sepoy infantry was posted, with half a regiment of sepoy cavalry and a battery of sepoy artillery. Sepoy huts A sepoy regiment in the Bengal army was cantoned les ' in ten rows of huts, a company of 100 sepoys in each row. The arms and ammunition of each company were kept in a circular magazine in the front of each line. The European officers, with or without wives and families, lived round about in one-storied houses with thatched roofs, known as bungalows. The Euro- pean officers rarely visited the sepoy lines during the heat of the day, but two European sergeants were appointed to each regiment to lodge close to the lines and report all that was going on. SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 193 4. In 1856 the Russian war was over, and the CHAP. v. Enfield rifle, which had been used with such success Enfold in the Crimea, was introduced into India. Accord- mua fcetry ingly three musketry schools were established in Dumdum Northern India for teaching the sepoys of the Bengal Meerat, army the use of the new rifle. One school was estab- Seaikote lished at Dumdum for the instruction of the sepoys in the Bengal presidency ; another at Meerut, forty miles from Delhi, for those in the North- Western Provinces ; and the third at Seaikote for those in the Punjab. Under this arrangement, detachments from the different regiments were to be sent from time to time to one or other of these schools until the whole Bengal army was familiar with the use of the Enfield. It will be seen hereafter that the three most danger- ous mutinies in India grew out of these musketry schools. In those days every sepoy and soldier had been Greased accustomed for generations to bite off the end c? of his paper cartridge before loading his musket. Accordingly a supply of cartridges for the new rifle was received from England, and forwarded to each of the three schools, and further supplies of the same pattern were manufactured in the arsenal at Dumdum by low-caste workmen known as Lascars. Suddenly it leaked out that the new cartridges were greased with the fat of cows, or with the fat of pigs. Thus every Hindu sepoy who bit the cartridge would lose his caste and religion as if he had eaten beef ; whilst every Mohammedan sepoy would be polluted by con- tact with pork, and not only lose his religion, but be barred out for ever from the heaven of celestial houris. A Lascar employed in Dumdum arsenal met a 194 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. Brahman sepoy going to Barrackpore, and asked him Discovery for a drink of water out of his brass lotah. This was Dumdum, an unusual request, intended to vex and annoy the Brahman. A thirsty low- caste Hindu might ask a high-caste man to pour water into his mouth, but would not offend the Brahman by the bare sugges- tion of 'drinking out of his lotah. The Brahman o turned away in disgust at the idea of low-caste lips polluting his drinking-cup. The Lascar retorted that the Brahman would soon be as impure as himself, for he would bite the new cartridges which had been smeared with the fat of cows and pigs, and would lose caste altogether. Horror of The Brahman was thunderstruck at this taunt. Had 18 Europeans who have never visited India can scarcely Moham- rea ] lse the horrors that must have seized on his medans. Brahmanised imagination. Suet and lard are such familiar ingredients in European cookery, that no one in the British Isles could have been surprised at their being used for greasing Eufield cartridges. But to Europeans that have lived in India, the bare fact that cartridges should have been greased with suet or lard, to be bitten by Hindu or Mohammedan sepoys, seems a mad freak of fortune which is altogether incomprehensible. In the fierce antagonism between the two religions, Hindus have thrown dead pigs into Mohammedan mosques, and Mohammedans have thrown slaughtered cows into Hindu temples ; but the British government stood on neutral ground. It had always professed to hold an even balance between the two religionists, and any attempt to destroy the caste of Hindus, or the religion of Mohammedans, was altogether foreign to the ideas of Asiatics or Europeans. SEPOY EEVOLT: BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 195 It is easy to understand why both Hindus and Mohammedans regard swine as unclean. The Jews Pigs have had the same horror of pigs and pork from time immemorial. To this day, both Hindus and Moham- medans shudder, or affect to shudder, at the idea of Europeans cleaning their teeth with brushes made of bristles ; and none but those of enlarged experiences, who have been Europeanised out of their religious prejudices, or smitten with a passion for European luxuries, would venture to eat a slice of ham. The cow is not more to Mohammedans than it is Cow to Europeans, but the Hindus worship it as a deity. Gratitude for the milk and butter which she gives to the family has swelled into affection and adoration, which have invested a common-place animal with attributes that are at once mystic and divine. The cow is the living representative to the Hindu of all that is beautiful and spiritual in women, and of all that is mysterious in the sex. The cow is the incarnation of the earth, the mother of all things, the goddess of good fortune, the living manifestation of Lakshmi ; she who was created by the gods, who descended from the heaven of Indra and churned the ocean, until the bright goddess rose out of the waves, like a Hindu Aphrodite, to become the wife of the supreme spirit, Vishnu. To kill a cow is a sacri- legious crime, like killing a Brahman, a woman, or a Raja. To taste the flesh of a cow is as revolting to the Hindu imagination as tasting the flesh of a mother. Eating or tasting beef through the most distant Eating medium is a mortal sin in the eyes of Hindus. Under mortal sin, Hindu rule, when the caste system was enforced by village communities, the vile sinner was driven from 2 196 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. HAP^V. his wife, family, kinsfolk, and village by the ban of Brahmanical excommunication. In the days of Mo- hammedan persecutions, thousands of Hindus were compelled to swallow shreds of beef by tyrants of the stamp of Tippu Sultan of Mysore, in order to force them to become Mohammedans. There was no way of escape. They had no alternative but to accept Islam, marry a Mohammedan wife, and enter a new life and career with a new home and surroundings. 1 Excite- 5. The ba]l set rolling from the arsenal at Barrack- Dumdum soon assumed monstrous dimensions in the cantonment at Barrackpore. The sepoys blindly accepted the conclusion that Her Majesty the Queen and Lord Canning had arranged a secret scheme for converting them all to Christianity. The greased cartridges, they decided, must have been manu- factured expressly to destroy their religion ; to compel them to become Christians, and to eat beef and drink beer until they became as strong as Europeans, and were able to conquer Persia, Russia, and China. Wild fictions, the outcome of 1 During the first Cabul war of 1839-42, Hindu sepoys were taken prisoners by the Afghans, and subjected to a similar process in order to convert them to Islam. But times had changed since the establishment of British supremacy. Money would expiate any spiritual crime, or purchase any pardon or privilege from the Brahmans. When the prisoners returned to India they received back pay from the British government for the whole term of their captivity. Accordingly, after a long series of abstruse calculations, the Brahmans dis- covered that this back pay would exactly meet the cost of ex- piation. But the sepoys refused the bait. They preferred keeping the back pay in their pockets, and remaining within the fold of Islam. What became of their Hindu wives and families is a mystery to this day. SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 197 Oriental imaginations which would not have imposed CHAP. y upon a European child, were greedily accepted and talked over as matters of fact, by the ignorant and credulous sepoys. India, it was said, was being bound in iron fetters by railway lines and telegraph wires ; and now the poor sepoy was to be cut off from his countrymen and co-religionists, and to become the helpless vassal of his European masters, like the genii who are slaves to magicians and sorcerers. These ridiculous stories soon reached the ears of Fruitless the European officers. General Hearsey, who com- ex t ? n^ a " manded the Calcutta division, assembled the sepoys on the parade ground at Barrackpore, and reminded them that the British government had never meddled with their religion or caste, and had heavily punished any European officer who had attempted to do so. But his words were thrown away ; the brains of the sepoys were too heated, and their convictions too deeply rooted, to be explained away. For months they had been discussing the expedition sent from Bombay to the Persian Gulf to defeat the designs of Russia on Herat ; and now there was to be a war with China ! The general might say what he pleased, but the British government had obviously manufactured the greased cartridges to destroy the caste of the poor sepoys, to make them eat beef and drink beer until they were strong enough to conquer the world. The sepoys at Barrackpore were bewildered and Secret terrified. They were too afraid to speak, and began diarism. to set houses on fire. The suspicious telegraph office, the magic house at Barrackpore, was burnt down. Other buildings followed. The agitation was reported 198 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. v. to the military authorities at Calcutta. The com- position of the cartridge was explained to the sepoys. The drill was changed, and the sepoys were no longer required to bite the cartridge. But nothing would stop the panic. The sepoys argued with severe logic that if the cartridges had not been greased with the objectionable fat there wo'uld have been no occasion to change the drill. Eventually the issue of the greased cartridges was stopped altogether, but the sepoys were as suspicious as ever. As yet, however, there was no open mutiny at Barrackpore. Discipline was maintained with the usual strictness, and the word of command was obeyed without demur. Barrackpore was too near Calcutta, too near the stronghold of British supremacy which had controlled Bengal for a hundred years, for the sepoy as yet to dream of open mutiny. Contagion 6. Matters were at this pass when a small guard hampore. of sepoys was sent on duty from Barrackpore to Berhampore, a hundred miles to the northward. Here, it will be remembered, was a regiment of sepoy infantry, half a regiment of sepoy cavalry, and a battery of sepoy artillery. The new arrivals from Barrackpore were duly feasted by their comrades of the sepoy infantry, and the whole story of the greased cartridges was told with all the latest embellishments of fiction. Cartridges The next day, the 25th of February 1857, a parade for exercise with blank ammunition was ordered for the following morning. Blank cartridges were issued to the infantry of the same pattern that had been used for generations, but the sepoys refused to accept them. Colonel Mitchell was in command of the SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 199 station, and threatened the men with court martial. CHAP. v Accordingly the sepoys took the cartridges in gloomy silence and returned to their lines. In the middle of the night the regiment rose as Mutiny one man; it was the 19th Native Infantry of the Bengal army. Every company seized arms and ammunition from its magazine, and then the whole regiment rushed out of the lines and shouted defiance. Colonel Mitchell had no European force to suppress the outbreak ; nothing but half a regiment of sepoy cavalry and the sepoy battery, and it was extremely doubtful whether the men would fire on the mutineers. However he ordered out the cavalry and battery, and advanced with his European officers towards the infantry lines by the light of torches. As he approached there was a halt and a pause. Tanks of water were in the way, and horses and guns might have been lost in the darkness. Neither side wished to take action. The mutineers He . si ^ a shrank, as yet, from firing on their European officers. The sepoys, under Colonel Mitchell, might have refused to fire. The whole cantonment might have joined in the mutiny, and the civil stations in the country round about would have been in sore peril. So there was a parley. The colonel pointed out to the mutineers the absurdity of their fears and the enormity of their offence, and conjured them to give up their arms and return to their lines. The muti- neers, on their part, were not prepared to push matters to extremities. Their excitement had cooled down as they saw their European officers advancing with the Asiatic cavalry and artillery, whilst the lurid scenery was lit up by flaming torches. Accordingly it was arranged that they should return to their lines, 200 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAPPY, and that the force advancing against them should return to their own quarters. Alarm at The news of this unexpected outbreak at Berham- pore naturally alarmed Lord Canning. He had much sympathy for the deluded and infatuated sepoys, but the mutiny could not be ignored. It was absolutely necessary to disband the- regiment, but there was no European force to carry out the measure. Unless European soldiers were present, the sepoys might have resisted disbandment, and other sepoy regiments might have joined the mutineers. No soldiers could be spared from the European regiment which was quartered at Fort William and Dumdum. Accord- ingly steamers were sent to Burma to bring away the European regiment quartered at Rangoon. Sepoy 7. On the 20th March the European regiment terrors. from ]j angoon entere d the Hughly river. The 19th Native Infantry was marched from Berhampore .to Barrackpore, knowing that it was to be disbanded. At Barrackpore the sepoys were in a ferment. They felt that they were to be coerced by the European soldiers. It was not forgotten that some thirty years before, a sepoy regiment at Barrackpore had refused to go to Burma unless paid double batta, and had been scattered by a volley of grape, and its number erased from the army list. Accordingly the sepoys at Barrackpore had good reason to fear that they might be mowed down by the artillery unless they accepted the greased cartridges. Mungai Of the four sepoy regiments at Barrackpore, the 34th Native Infantry had the greatest cause for alarm. It was the 34th that furnished the sepoy guard which played so much mischief at Berham- SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 201 pore ; and the sepoys of the 34th openly expressed CHAP. v. their sympathy with those of the 19th. About the end of March it was reported to Lieutenant Baugh, the Adjutant of the 34th, that the sepoys in his regiment were much excited, and that one of them, named Mungal Pandy, was marching through the lines with a loaded musket, calling on the sepoys to rise against their officers, and swearing to fire at the first European that appeared on the scene. Lieutenant Baugh at once put on his uniform, Assault on mounted his horse, and rode off to the parade ground Baugh. with a pair of loaded pistols in his holsters. There was the quarter-guard of the regiment, consisting of twenty sepoys under the command of an Asiatic lieutenant, known as a jemadar. In front of the quarter-guard was the gun which fired the salutes at sunrise and noon. Mungal Pandy saw Baugh riding up, and got behind the gun, and deliberately fired at him. The horse was wounded and the rider was brought to the ground. Baugh, however, disengaged himself, snatched a pistol, and advanced on Mungal Pandy before the latter could reload his musket. Baugh fired and missed. At that moment Mungal Pandy rushed at him and cut him down with a sword. The European serjeant-major of the regiment had Outbreak followed Baugh at a distance, and shouted to the SU pp res . quarter-guard to help their officer. But the sepoys Slon * sympathised with Mungal Pandy, and the jemadar forbade them to stir. The serjeant-major carne up breathless, and attempted to seize Mungal Pandy, but he too was struck down. On this the jemadar advanced with his twenty sepoys, and began to strike Baugh and the serjeant-major with the butt 202 INDIA UNDER BPJTISH RULE. CHAP. v. ends of their muskets. At this moment a Moham- medan orderly, who had followed Baugh from his house, ran up and arrested Mungal Pandy just as he had reloaded his musket. He was followed by General Hearsey and other officers. The general drew a pistol from his belt arid rode up to the quarter-guard, ordered the men to return to their post, arid threatened to shoot with his own hands the first sepoy who disobeyed orders. By this bold action the regiment was overawed, and the storm cloud passed away just as it was about to burst upon the station. Disband- Two days afterwards there was a solemn parade at m i9th 01 Barrackpore. All the European force available was infanti- assem ^ e( ^ on tli e ground, including the regiment from Rangoon and a wing and two batteries from Dumdum. The 19th Native Infantry was marched into Barrackpore, repent aot and ashamed. They had petitioned for forgiveness, but there was no pardon for mutiny. The orders of Lord Canning were read aloud, setting forth their crime, exposing the absurdity of their fears, and ordering the disbandment. The men laid down their arms and marched away. The 19th Native Infantry had ceased to be. Husita- For some weeks the 34th Native Infantry was not tlon * disbanded. Mungal Pandy and the jemadar were tried, convicted, and hanged, but the plague of mutiny was not stayed. Not a sepoy would point out the men of the quarter-guard who assaulted the European officers. April, however, passed away, and nothing was done. Disaffec- 8. Meanwhile there were unpleasant reports from Oudh. 1 Oudh. Sir Henr Lawrence, the new chief com- SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 203 missioner, was anxious to redress the wrongs of the CHAP. Oudh talukdars, but was vexed by the mutinous spirit of the sepoys. He had a single regiment of Europeans and two batteries of European artillery. He had to deal with four sepoy regiments of the Bengal army three of infantry, and one of cavalry. Worst of all, he had to deal with irregular regiments of sepoys, who had been in the service of the king of Oudh, but had been taken over by the East India Company. They retained their Asiatic officers, but were drilled and commanded by a limited number of European officers, and hence were termed irregulars. These Oudh irregulars sympathised with the regular Bengal sepoys, and were beginning to manifest a hostile spirit by refusing to accept the cartridges. In 1857 the province of Oudh was separated from sir Henry the North- West Provinces by the river Gauges and the town of Cawnpore. The capital was at Lucknow, in the centre or heart of Oudh, about fifty-five miles to the north-east of Cawnpore. Sir Henry Lawrence, the chief commissioner, lived in a large mansion at Lucknow, which was known as the Eesidency. The city of Lucknow extends four miles along the right bank of the river Goomti, and all the principal build- ings, including the royal palaces and gardens, and the Eesidency, are situated between the city and the river. On the opposite bank were the British cantonments ; and two bridges over the river con- nected the city and Eesidency on the one bank with the cantonments on the opposite shore. On the afternoon of the 3rd of May a startlino- Mutiny at event occurred in the cantonments. Four sepoys of an Lucknow. irregular regiment entered the bungalow of the Euro- pean adjutant. They were armed to the teeth, and 204 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP, v.- they told him to prepare for death. They had come to kill him, they said, not because they disliked him, but because he was a European and a Feringhi. The adjutant was unarmed. He promptly replied that it was of no use to kill him, for that the mutiny would be suppressed, they would be hanged, and another adjutant would be appointed in his stead. The would- be murderers were struck by his words, and left the house without doing him any injury. Suppres- The news reached Sir Henry Lawrence in the Lawrence, evening, and he resolved to act at once. He crossed the river and called out the European forces and the four regiments of regular sepoys, and then advanced against the mutineers, whose lines were seven miles off. The rebels were taken by surprise ; they could do nothing. They were ordered to form in front of their lines, and they obeyed. They saw cavalry and infantry, soldiers and sepoys, on either side, and a battery of eight guns in front. They were ordered to lay down their arms, and they did so. The port- fires of the artillery were lighted. The mutineers were seized with a panic, and cried out, " Do not fire ! " They then rushed madly away. The ring- leaders and most of their followers were arrested that night by the Bengal sepoys, and were confined pending trial. It will be seen hereafter that within a single month, the very sepoy regiments that arrested the mutinous irregulars rose against their European officers. Meanwhile, however, the quick action of Sir Henry Lawrence prevented any premature ex- plosion, and gave him the month to prepare against the possible contingency. Next day the outbreak and suppression of the mutiny were telegraphed to Lord Canning at Calcutta. SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 205 He was delighted with the promptitude and prudence CHAP. v. of Sir Henry Lawrence. He saw the necessity for taking some decided action at Barrackpore. The European officers of the 34th Native Infantry re- ported that the sepoys were disaffected, and that they themselves had lost all confidence in the men. Accordingly Lord Canning determined to disband the regiment. On the 6th of May, at early morning, the Europeans were once again drawn up on the parade ground. The 34th Native Infantry was disbanded as the 19th had been five weeks before, but, unlike the sepoys of the 19th, they showed no signs of contrition. Still, it was hoped that the dis- bandment of the 34th would put an end to the mutiny. 9. So far the agitation was the work of the sepoys greased cartridges in Dumdum arsenal. But there E e ans was a second school of musketry at Meerut in the at M eerut. North- West Provinces, a thousand miles from Calcutta and only forty miles from Delhi. The military cantonment at Meerut covered an area of five miles, and was the largest in India. At one end were the lines of three sepoy regiments, two of infantry and one of cavalry, whilst the bungalows of the European officers were scattered about. A.t the other end of the cantonment were the European barracks, in which a European force was quartered strong enough to have routed four times the number of sepoys. There was a regiment of Dragoon Guards, known as the Carabineers ; a battalion of the 60th Rifles ; two troops of horse artillery, and a light field battery. The European barracks were thus at a long distance from the sepoy cantonments, and the interval was occupied by shops, houses, and gardens. 206 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP^V. At Meerut there was to all appearance literally Disaffec- nothing to fear from the sepoys. The Europeans were all-powerful. Yet at Meerut the agitation against the greased cartridges was as uncontroll- able as elsewhere. General Hewitt commanded the station, and he and the colonels of the sepoy regiments expostulated with the men on the absur- dity of imagining that the British government had the slightest desire to interfere with their caste or religion. But their remonstrances were thrown away. Buildings were burnt down ; the sepoys left off saluting their officers ; and it was whispered that they had resolved never more to touch a single cartridge. The test. At last General Hewitt determined to bring the sepoys to the test in the presence of the European force, and, if necessary, to stop the contagion by condign punishment. The regiment of sepoy cavalry was selected. A parade of ninety men of the several squadrons was ordered for the morning of the 6th of May. The old cartridges were issued, the same which had been used for generations, but eighty-five men stood out and refused to handle them. The delin- quents were arrested and tried by a court martial of sepoy officers. They were all convicted of mutiny ; eighty were sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for ten years, and the remaining five to a like imprisonment for six years. All were recommended to the mercy of General Hewitt, but the recommendation was ignored, and it was determined to carry out the sentence at once in accordance with orders received by telegram from Lord Canning. Parade for The mutineers were placed under a strong European P ment!~ guard, consisting of two companies of the 60th Eifles, SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 207 and twenty-five men of the Carabineers. The parade CHAP. v. for punishment was held at daybreak on Saturday the 9th of May. The three regiments of sepoys were drawn up to behold the disgrace of the delinquents ; and the men of the sepoy cavalry also were brought out to look on the degradation of their comrades. The sepoys on parade must have felt their hearts burning within them, but they were powerless to save. The Carabineers and Rifles were on the ground, and were ordered to load and be ready. The bat- teries of artillery were in position, and received the same orders. The slightest movement of disaffection or revolt would have been followed by a terrible slaughter. Not a sepoy stirred from the ranks. The prisoners were brought on the ground, stripped of their uniforms and accoutrements, and put in irons. They were utterly broken in spirit. They put up their hands and cried for mercy, and were then led away, cursing their comrades for not coming to their rescue. Then followed an act of inconceivable folly. The Folly and eighty- five sepoys who had been kept for three days under a strong guard of European soldiers, were made over to the civil authorities, and lodged in the civil jail, only two miles from the sepoy cantonments, under the charge of Asiatic warders. The consequence was that the sepoys brooded over the fate of their comrades, and secretly determined on rescuing them from the jail, and murdering their European officers. Strange to say, not an idea of danger seems to have Sunday crossed the minds of the British authorities at Meerut. The Europeans went to church on Sunday morning, lounged through the heat and languor of the day, and prepared for church in the evening. Meanwhile 208 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. v. there had been agitation and excitement in the sepoy lines, but nothing to excite alarm. The native women of the bazaar taunted the sepoys of the cavalry with not having rescued their comrades, and that was all. Mutiny Suddenly, about five o'clock on that Sunday after- massacre noon > the sepoys seized their arms and ammunition, and rushed out of their lines, with loud shouts and discharges of musketry. A detachment of sepoy cavalry galloped off to the jail, and liberated not only their eighty-five comrades, but all the other prisoners, 1,500 in number. The whole body then returned to the cantonment and joined the sepoys, who were burning down bungalows, and murdering every European they met, regardless of sex and age. Ladies riding in carriages, and officers driving in their buggies, who had left their homes without a suspicion of evil, were assaulted and fired at as they drove along. In a word, within a brief space of time the sepoy cantonments, and the roads round about, were a scene of riot, bloodshed, and outrage, which are beyond description. At last, fearing that the European soldiers would soon fall upon them, the whole mass of sepoys, the cavalry in front and the infantry straggling behind, rushed off to Delhi. The movement was only natural. Delhi was the only walled city in the North-West Provinces in which they could find a refuge. No European troops were quartered within the city or the suburbs ; and a vast magazine of arms and ammunition was seated in the heart of the city, mostly in charge of Asiatics, who would doubtless open the gates at the first demand for surrender. For a long time nothing was known at the European SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 209 barracks of the mutiny and murder that was going on CHAP. v. in the sepoy cantonment. When the news arrived inaction. of the outbreak, there was much delay and confusion. The Rifles were paraded for church, and time was lost in serving out arms and cartridges. The Dragoons were put through a roll-call, and then lost their way amongst the houses and gardens between the European barracks and the sepoy lines. When the lines were reached, the sepoys had gone off to Delhi, and dark- ness was setting in. Had the Dragoons galloped after the sepoys, the mutiny might have been crushed, and there would have been no revolt at Delhi. But the military authorities at Meerut were unequal Heedioss- to the crisis. Nothing was thought of but the safety of the station. The Rifles and Dragoons were kept at Meerut to guard the treasury and barracks, whilst the sepoy mutineers were pushing on to Delhi to set up the old king a Mohammedan prince, in whom the Hindu sepoys had no interest or concern. Messages, however, were sent to Brigadier Graves, who com- manded the Delhi station, to tell him what had taken place at Meerut, but no Europeans whatever were sent to help him in the terrible extremity which awaited him. 10. All night the sepoy mutineers were running Escape to to Delhi ; anxious only to escape from the vengeance of the Europeans. When and where they first began to cherish wild hopes of restoring the Mohammedan regime, and setting up the last representative of the Great Mogul, as the sovereign and Padishah of Hin- dustan, is a mystery to this day. One thing only is certain ; the Hindu sepoys, who composed four- fifths of the mass of mutineers, could have had no p 210 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. sympathy in the revolt of the Mohammedans, beyond providing for their own immediate safety against the wrath of the Europeans. Moham- Delhi, however, had been the capital of the TO?^ Mohammedans of India when the Caliphs were still Delhi. re ig n i n g a t Bagdad ; and Mohammedan Sultans and Padishahs had ruled Hindustan for centuries before the rise of British power. In 1857 the relics of Mohammedan dominion were still lingering at Delhi under the shadow of British supremacy. The last representative of the once famous Great Mogul was still living in the imperial palace at Delhi, a pensioner of the British government, but bearing the empty title of " king." The ruins in the neighbourhood of Delhi are monuments of the triumphs of Islam and the Koran, raised by warriors from Cabul and Bokhara, who were reverenced as Ghazis as destroyers of idols and idolaters. Indeed, the pilgrim who still wanders amongst the palaces, mosques, mausoleums, towers, domes, archways, terraces, and gardens of Delhi, and the country round, may yet recall the days when the Hindus were a conquered people, and the Mohammedans were their oppressors and persecutors. Sepoy Iii May, 1857, British power at Delhi was repre- ga Deihi at sented by three regiments of sepoy infantry, and a sepoy battery of artillery, under the command of Brigadier Graves. There were no European troops at Delhi, except the regimental officers and Serjeants attached to each corps, and nine Europeans who had charge of the British magazine in the heart of the city, with a host of Asiatic subordinates. None of the sepoys had as yet shown any sign of disaffection, but it will appear hereafter that they had all caught SEPOY EEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 211 the contagion of mutiny, but kept their secret until CHAP. v. the moment for action arrived. The sepoy regiments were cantoned on a rising canton- ground, known as the Eidge, which was situated about a mile to the north of Delhi, and overlooked the whole city. The bungalows of the European officers were scattered about the vicinity. At the furthest end of the Eidge was a strong position, known as Flagstaff Tower. Further away to the left, the river Jumna skirted the eastern side of Delhi ; and the mutineers from Meerut were expected to enter the city in this direction by a bridge. Brigadier Graves had but a short warning. The Mutineers mutineers would certainly travel all night, and would expec probably arrive early on the Monday morning. It was useless to cut away the bridge, as the hot weather was at its height, and the stream was easily fordable. Everything depended on the loyalty of the sepoys at Delhi. So long as they remained staunch, the brigadier might hope to defend the city and can- tonment against the mutineers from Meerut. If, however, the sepoys at Delhi joined the rebels, there was nothing to be done but to await the European reinforcements which might be expected from Meerut. Meanwhile, the brigadier sent circulars to all non- military residents to take refuge in Flagstaff Tower. The three regiments of sepoy infantry, and the Prepara- battery of sepoy artillery, were ordered out. The guns were loaded, and every preparation made for the coming battle. The brigadier addressed the men in stirring language. Now was the time, he said, for the sepoys at Delhi to show their loyalty to the Company. The sepoys responded with loud cheers. One regi- ment in particular eagerly demanded to be led against p 2 212 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. the mutineers ; and the brigadier marched them out to fight the rebels, leaving the two other regiments on the Eidge. Treachery. Presently the cavalry from Meerut were seen galloping towards the city. After them at no great distance was a large mass of rebel infantry, with their bayonets gleaming in the sun, and their red coats soiled by the dust of the night march. Neither horse nor foot showed the slightest hesitation. As the cavalry approached the brigadier ordered his men to fire. The rattle of musketry followed, but not a single trooper fell from his horse. The faithful sepoys had fired in the air. Firing in Then followed a pause. The European officers held e a11 ' on in sheer desperation ; they hoped to be reinforced by British soldiers from Meerut. The sepoys hesi- tated for a while, lest they should be cut to pieces by the Europeans, whom they too expected to arrive. Could the Europeans have appeared in time, Delhi might have been saved in spite of the suspicious firino; in the air. o Treachery. Useless firing was a treachery that was new to sepoy regiments commanded by British officers, but it was common enough in Asiatic armies commanded by their own generals or princes. Mogul history abounds in stories of Asiatic officers corrupted by gold, and ordering their troops to fire on an enemy without bullet or ball. Such treachery was scarcely possible under European officers, and consequently the rebel sepoys loaded their muskets with cartridges, and then fired into the air. Rebels in It was soon evident that the king was making e ' common cause with the rebels, for the sepoys from Meerut were pouring through the palace to join their SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 213 comrades in the city. No Europeans arrived from CHAP. v . Meerut, and the Delhi sepoys began to fraternise with the rebels. Brigadier Graves rallied a few of his men who still British remained faithful, and escaped to Flagstaff Tower. Here he found a large number of European ladies and children, and all the gentlemen who had been able to reach the place of refuge. A company of sepoys, and two guns served by sepoy gunners, still guarded the Tower, and had they remained faithful might have kept off the enemy. But the force on the Eidge was rapidly melting away. The hearts of all the sepoys were with the rebels. All were burning . to join the scoundrels in the city in the work of plunder and destruction ; and those who were posted at the Tower only waited for an opportunity to move off in the same direction. Meanwhile the old " king of Delhi " had connived Massacre at the slaughter of Europeans. Mr. Frazer, the Europeans. commissioner of the Delhi division, and Captain Douglas, who commanded the palace guards, were cut down within the royal precincts. Mr. Jennings, the chaplain, and some ladies and children, numbering altogether about fifty souls, had taken refuge within the palace walls, in the hope of being protected by the royal pensioner against the mutinous sepoys. Had the ladies and children been admitted into the inner apartments, they would have been safe. But there was a rush of rebel sepoys into the presence of the old king to make their salams and hail him as their Padishah ; and they loudly demanded the death of every European. The old king could not or would not interfere, and told the sepoys that he made the prisoners over to them, to do with them as they 214 INDIA UNDER BRITISH KULE. CHAP. v. pleased. The unhappy victims were shut up in a dark room with coarse and scanty food. They were offered their lives on the condition that they became Moham- medans, and entered the service of the king as menials or slaves. One and all refused, and one and all were eventually butchered in the palace of Aurangzeb. Flagstaff The Europeans in Flagstaff Tower were in sore peril. Ladies were terrified and anxious for absent husbands, whilst children were clamouring for milk and food. The men were distracted by the sudden- ness of the danger, and the stories of murder and outrage that came from the city. All eyes were strained in the direction of Meerut Every one longed for the arrival of European soldiers to relieve them from the agony of suspense, and quash the fearful rebellion that was surging up in Delhi. Explosion Later on in the afternoon, the great magazine in magazine, the heart of Delhi was seen from the Eidge to explode in a cloud of smoke and flame. It was in charge of Lieutenant Willoughby of the Bengal artillery, but he had only eight Europeans with him ; the guards and workmen were all Asiatics. Arms were served out to every one ; loaded guns were pointed to the gateways ; and a train of gunpowder was laid to the chief magazine. A vast host of rebels pressed round the enclosure, and demanded the surrender of the magazine in the name of the king. Admittance was refused, but the rebels brought ladders to the walls, or climbed to the roofs of neighbouring buildings, and poured a hot fire on the inmates of the magazine. Most of the workmen joined the rebels. Those who still remained staunch threw away their rifles, and seemed bereft of their senses. At last Lieutenant Willoughby ordered Sergeant Scully to fire the train. SEPOY KEVOLT: BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 215 In a moment there was a great upheaval. Hundreds CHAP, v. of rebels were blown into the air ; but unfortunately the greater part of the stores fell into the enemy's hands. Willoughby and three others got away out of the city scorched, bruised, and insensible ; but Willoughby was murdered a few days afterwards in a neighbouring village. Scully was wounded by the explosion, and killed by the rebels ; he and his four companions were seen no more. By this time all hope of rescue had died out from Flight the fugitives in Flagstaff Tower. It was feared that Flagstaff the rebels would return to the Eidge to complete the work of slaughter. All fled the best way they could men, ladies, and children ; some in carriages, others on horseback, and many on foot. Even at this distance of time, it is terrible to think of their sufferings. Many were slaughtered by the rebels, but some found refuge in the houses of Hindu villagers, who treated them with kindness and hospitality at the risk of their own lives. Before the day was over the clerk at the telegraph Last office on the Ridge sent his last telegram. " The mutineers from Meerut are masters of Delhi ; several Europeans have been murdered ; the office must be closed." Shortly afterwards the rebel sepoys swarmed out of the city to complete the work of destruction on the Eidge, and the poor telegraph clerk was cut to pieces and heard of no more. Within a few moments the fatal news reached Sudden alarm. every capital in India : Lahore in the Punjab ; Agra and Allahabad in the North-West Provinces ; Lucknow in Oudh ; Benares, Patna, and Calcutta in Bengal ; Bombay in the Deccan ; Madras in the remote south. From Calcutta and Bombay the 216 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. revolt of Delhi sent a thrill through the whole British empire. Men familiar with India, her history, and her people, could not believe the news. It was the heaviest blow to British prestige in India since the tragedy of the Black Hole in Cal- cutta. A century of European civilisation had been swamped by a mutiny of Asiatic sepoys against greased cartridges. Delhi was lost ; the Mogul regime was restored ; the North -West Provinces were slipping away from the British empire. Reviving The public mind was greatly agitated by the disaster. Many could not realise the fact that Delhi had revolted ; that the old king had been proclained Padishah of Hindustan. Others rushed to the oppo- site conclusion and thought that India was lost. In India European hearts were kindled with a burn- ing desire for the recovery of the revolted city. It was hoped that Delhi would be retaken in a few days, and the contagion of mutiny brought to a close by the destruction of the mutineers. Indeed it was obvious to the British authorities that the European forces at Meerut might have crushed the rebellion at the outset, had a Olive, a Gillespie, or an Ochterlony been in command. Sir Henry Lawrence had sup- pressed a still more dangerous outbreak at Lucknow with a disaffected city in his rear, and the revolt at Delhi ought to be suppressed at once in a like manner. General 11. General Anson, the commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, was at Simla in the Himalayas, nealy 200 miles to the north of Delhi. He was an officer of good repute, but of no Indian experience, and was chiefly known as the Major A., who had SEPOY EEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 217 written a treatise on whist. He received a telegram CHAP. v. from Lord Canning to make short work of Delhi, and other telegrams to the same effect from Mr. John Lawrence, the chief commissioner of the Punjab. General Anson began to assemble a force at Umballa, and he despatched a regiment of Ghorkas to the Sutlej to escort a siege-train from the Punjab over the river. He was anxious to fortify Umballa, about sixty miles from Simla on the road to Delhi. He ordered three European regiments on the Himalayas to march at once to Umballa. John Lawrence, however, was dead against any delay. He wanted to recover Delhi, not to entrench Umballa ; and he promptly telegraphed that " clubs were trumps, not spades." Meanwhile the sudden change from the cool hills to the hot plains brought on cholera amongst the Europeans. The vanguard of the European force left Umballa on the 19th of May, but eight days afterwards General Anson died of cholera. Meanwhile Lord Canning had telegraphed to Bom- Demand bay for the European troops that were returning European from the Persian expedition, and to Madras, Ceylon, soldiers - Burma, and Singapore for every European soldier that could be spared. His object was to form a European column at Calcutta, and to push it up the valley of the Ganges with all speed to Allahabad, to crush any incipient mutiny on the way, and to pene- trate and suppress the growing disaffection in Oudh and the North-West Provinces. It was out of the question that a column from Calcutta could reach Delhi, and he looked to Mr. John Lawrence, the chief commissioner of the Punjab on the other side of Delhi, to send all the Europeans and artillery he could spare to join General Anson. 218 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. CHAP. v. Sir Henry Barnard succeeded Anson as comnian- Generai der-in-chief. He pushed on the force to Alipore, within ten miles of Delhi. On the 7th of June he was joined by the European brigade from Meerut, and prepared to advance against Delhi. Rebel By this time the Delhi rebels were prepared to posltlon - await an attack in the open. They had taken up a strong position to the right of the great trunk road leading to the city, and had utilised its natural ad- vantages with remarkable skill. One body of rebels was posted in a vast caravanserai ; a square enclosed by walls, with towers at the four corners. The walls were loop-holed for musketry, and the towers were occupied by sharp-shooters. In front of the cara- vanserai they had a battery of artillery and a howitzer, raised on an elevation and defended by earthworks, faggots and gabions. The main force, however, was posted in a neighbouring village, where the houses and gardens furnished an excellent cover for infantry. This position was defended by seven regiments of sepoy infantry, two of sepoy cavalry, and a strong battery of sepoy artillery. To those regular forces were added the artillerymen of the palace at Delhi, and volunteers of all kinds, attracted by hatred of the Feringhi, enthusiasm for Islam, and thirst for blood and plunder. Battle of The battle of Serai was fought on the 9th of June. the Serai. ^ t sunr j se g| r Henry Barnard advanced with two regi- ments of European infantry and two guns. He could not silence the fire of the rebel battery, and it was carried with the bayonet by a regiment of European infantry. Meanwhile the other regiment drove the rebels away out of the village. The combined British force stormed the caravanserai and gave no quarter. SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 219 At this juncture Brigadier Hope Grant appeared with CHAP. v. three squadrons of cavalry and two guns, and utterly routed the rebel army and pursued it to the suburbs of Delhi. That same afternoon the British returned as con- Return to querors to the old cantonment on the Eidge. Within a month of the revolt, they had avenged the massacre at Delhi, and restored the prestige of British sove- reignty. The battle of Serai revealed strange inconsistencies. Sepoy The rebel sepoys, who had shot down their officers, and were in open revolt against British rule, were as proud as before of their exploits under British colours. The Company's medals were found on the red coats of the dead rebels, officers as well as men. Stranger still, pouches full of the very greased cartridges that brought on the mutiny were picked up on the ground occupied by the rebel army. The month's delay however had done considerable Mis- mischief. The plague of mutiny had broken out delay. at other stations, and the rebel garrison at Delhi had been reinforced by large bodies of mutinous sepoys. The details were nearly all alike sudden outbreaks, shooting at officers, setting fire to bungalows, and plundering the treasury. The mutineers, however, did not in all cases rush off to Delhi. Some crept sadly to their own homes, and buried the silver rupees they had brought away, or joined the bands of outlaws and brigands that began to ravage the surrounding country. Meanwhile the European officers of nearly every sepoy regiment, whilst ready to believe that other regiments would revolt, were prepared to stake their lives on the fidelity of their own men, and opposed any attempt to disarm them. 220 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. In due course the disaffection of the sepoy army Eebeiiion began to stir up certain classes of the civil population. North- The Bengal provinces were free from this taint, Provinces, excepting perhaps at Patna where the Mohammedans are very strong. Indeed in Bengal proper the Hindu villagers often arrested rebel sepoys of their own free will, and made them over to the British authorities. In the Madras and Bombay presidencies there were no signs of discontent. But in Oudh, as already described, and in the North-West Provinces between Delhi and Allahabad, there was a growing disaffection. Eebeiiion was preached by Mohammedan fanatics yearning for the restoration of Islam as the dominant religion. Dispossessed talukdars, who thought themselves, rightly or wrongly to have been unjustly dealt with in the settlement of the land revenue, took a part in the disturbances. In a word all the turbulent and ill-conditioned elements of the population in the north- west, all " who were discontented or in debt,"- readily joined in the insurrection ; possibly to revenge some fancied injury, but mostly from that love of riot and plunder which had been universal in Hindustan under Mahratta supremacy. At the same time a spirit of hostility to Europeans was manifested, which was without precedent in the history of British rule in India. Towards the end of June, Mr. John Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North- West Provinces, with all the European residents in the neighbourhood were closely besieged by mutineers and rebels in the fortress of Agra. siege of 12. The British force reached the Eidge on the rarik of evening of the battle. It then numbered 4,000 troops, Briti&h. h a }f Europeans and the other half Sikhs and Ghorkas. SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 221 The city might have been taken by surprise at an CHAP, v. earlier date, but the month's delay had elated the sepoys, and given them time to look to their de- fences. The British troops were encamped behind the Ridge, and were thus protected from the fire of the rebels. They were, however, the besieged rather than the besiegers. They were threatened on all sides, except the rear, by mutineers and rebels. The rear, however, was open to the Punjab, and all reinforcements and supplies were brought up from the Punjab. For weeks, and indeed for months, the British force could only hope to hold their position until reinforcements could arrive from Lahore or Calcutta. The city of Delhi was strongly fortified with walls and bastions loaded with cannon, and environed by a broad, deep ditch, filled from the river Jumna, which rendered it as impregnable as Babylon of old. It was impossible to storm such fortifications without a strong army of British soldiers and an adequate siege train, all of which were anxiously expected from the Punjab. Meanwhile the rebels inside the walls of Delhi strength were being constantly reinforced by fresh bodies of rebels. mutineers. They were in possession of the arms, ammunition, and other stores, which had been col- lected in the British magazine for more than a generation. They were in receipt of daily supplies of provisions from the neighbouring villages, and it was impossible to cut off the convoys. A force of 4,000 men could scarcely be expected to environ a city seven miles in circumference, or even to approach within cannon shot of the walls. 13. Bengal was completely separated from Delhi 222 INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE. . by the disaffection which flooded the North- West Punjab Provinces. All hope of crushing the rebels at Delhi Lawrence, rested on the Punjab ; and John Lawrence sent Euro- peans and Sikhs, siege guns and supplies of all kinds, as fast as they were available to the British force behind the Kidge. In June the " Punjab Guides " reached the Eidge, one of the best regiments in the Indian army. It belonged to the Punjab Frontier Force, which was recruited from the mountain tribes between the Punjab and Afghanistan, and trained and commanded by British officers. Sikh In 1857 the Sikhs had learnt to respect their 1 Moham- f European rulers, who maintained order and law. medans. They had no sympathy for the Mohammedans, nor for the king of Delhi. On the contrary, they re- membered the murder of their Gurus and saints by Aurangzeb and his successors, and were burning to be revenged on Delhi and the Mogul. During the reign of Runjeet Singh they had outraged the Mohammedans of the Punjab by polluting their mosques and profaning the tombs of their holy men. Accordingly the Sikh warriors of the Khalsa, the very men who had fought against British supremacy at Chillian walla and Goojerat, were now anxious to join the Europeans in putting down the revolt at Delhi and sacking the capital of Islam in India. Mutinous John Lawrence had thus nothing to fear from of sepoy tne Sikhs. Nor had he anything to fear from the garrisons. Mohammedans, for they were only anxious for pro- tection against the Sikhs. The Hindus of the Punjab cared for no one but themselves ; most of them were traders and money-lenders whose interests were bound up in the maintenance of British rule. The terror of the Punjab lay in the sepoy regiments of SEPOY KEVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. .223 the Bengal army that garrisoned the country. The CHAP, v. sepoys in the Punjab had no real ground for alarm at the greased cartridges ; the issue had been stopped at the school of musketry at Sealkote, on the Cash- mere frontier. But the contagion was as virulent as ever. They were maddened by the conviction that the British government was bent on destroying their religion and caste ; and when they heard of the outbreak at Meerut and revolt at Delhi, they were bent 011 mutiny and massacre. Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, is situated in Lahore and the heart of the province, about half-way between Mian Mir. Delhi and Peshawar. The fortress at Lahore was held by a battalion of Bengal sepoys, which was relieved once every fortnight that is, on the 1st and 15th of every month. There was also a Euro- pean guard within the fortress of about a hundred British soldiers. Six miles from Lahore was the cantonment of Mian Mir, where three regiments of Bengal sepoys were quartered, together with one regiment of Europeans, and two batteries of European artillery. 14. News of the revolt at Delhi reached Lahore s< rPy on the 12th of May. Without a moment's delay, a secret plot was formed between the sepoys in the fortress at Lahore and those in the cantonment at Mian Mir for the slaughter of Europeans. On the 15th May, when the sepoy battalion in the fortress was to be relieved by another sepoy battalion, the two were to join together, murder their own officers and then overwhelm the European guard. A signal was thereupon to be given to the cantonment at Mian Mir, on which the sepoy regiments were to 224 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. break out in mutiny, murder their officers, and environ and overwhelm the regiment of Europeans. Defeated. Fortunately the plot was betrayed by a Brahman to the British authorities, and the scheme was de- feated. On the morning of the 15th of May, the sepoy regiments in the cantonment at Mian Mir were drawn up on parade as usual. Suddenly, they were ordered with a loud voice to lay down their arms. Before them was a thin line of European infantry which presently fell back, and revealed the mouths of twelve guns pointed at the sepoys with lighted fires. The European infantry began to load their rifles behind the artillery, and the sepoys could hear the clicking of locks and ramrods. The would-be rebels saw that the game was up. They threw away their muskets aud sabres in sheer terror. More than 3,000 Asiatic sepoys, who were preparing to murder their officers, had surrendered their arms to less than 600 Europeans. The plot in the fortress at Lahore was crushed in a like fashion. The European guards had been strongly reinforced by a detachment from the regiment at the canton- ment at Mian Mir ; and the two sepoy battalions were disarmed before they could unite for the slaughter of Europeans. Chamber- Later on it was found that all the Bengal sepoys ftytog in the Punjab were more or less tainted. Measures joiuinn. were taken to avert or counteract the evil. Suspected regiments were removed to localities where the Sikhs were most hostile to the Bengal army. A flying column of Europeans, Sikhs and others, was organised to act against threatened points and overawe intend- ing mutineers by rapid movement and vigorous action. In the first instance it was commanded by SEPOY REVOLT : BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB. 225 Brigadier Neville Chamberlain, who rose to be one of CHAP. v. the most distinguished officers of the time. Later on, the column was commanded by Brigadier John Nicholson, the hero of the day, who, as will be seen hereafter, was cut off in the very zenith of his fame. 15. The valley of Peshawar was another cause of Peshawar anxiety. It lies in the north-west corner of the valley - Punjab beyond the river Indus, and faces the Khyber Pass. It is the key to India, the route by which Alexander the Great and the early Mohammedan conquerors invaded the Punjab. Ever since the British conquest, the Peshawar Frontier valley had been harassed by the same mountain tribes that had worried the Macedonians, the Moham- medans, and the Sikhs under Runjeet Singh. Tribes living within the circle of British outposts could be compelled to live in peace ; but tribes living beyond the border, and outside British influence, were turbu- lent, murderous and predatory. Occasionally they assassinated a British officer, or gave an asylum to criminals, or committed raids on British territory or on tribes living under British protection, and not unfrequently stole horses and other property from the British cantonment. All this while they were strictly forbidden to cross the border into British territory ; and any tribesman who dared to disobey this law, was liable to arrest and imprisonment until the elders of his tribe made their submission and paid a fine. The valley of Peshawar was held by 9,000 Bengal Peshawar sepoys and about 3,000 Europeans. Here, as at Lahore, there was a perpetual fear of mutiny and murder. A secret enemy was dwelling in the Q 226 INDIA UNDER BRITISH EULE. CHAP. v. British camp that was capable of any amount of secresy and treachery. Accordingly the cantonment was declared in a state of siege. The Europeans took up strong positions, and some of the Bengal regiments were disarmed. Mutiny 16. Towards the end of May a sepoy regiment murder rose a g a i ns t && officers. The colonel had staked his life on the fidelity of his men, and they had not been disarmed; and owing to this infatuated belief in the fidelity of the sepoys, the rebels had been able to set out for Delhi with their arms and ammunition. The colonel was in the ranks to the last, labouring to keep the men to their colours ; but his efforts were vain, and he retired broken-hearted and shot himself. The rebels, however, were pursued and scattered, by the flying column under Neville Chamberlain, and 120 were taken prisoners and brought back to Peshawar. Execu- The prisoners were tried for mutiny and were tionsat ^ condemned to death. But John Lawrence re- A csii