iirf lift §3D1 "><^y . sn§ m % iv ^ ■VF 3* ' :1 cxT ^ I $ I $ t S-* •— ^ rf Or- ii irr I/TV- BROOKS BOMBAY AND WESTERN INDIA A SEBIES OF STRAY PAPERS BY JAMES DOUGLAS THE CITY WHICH BY GOD S ASSISTANCE IS INTENDED TO BE BUILT." — G. Avmgier, 1676. VOLUME I. LONDON SAMPSON LOAV, MAESTOX & COMPANY, LIMITED $t. Duncan's* H)ous'c Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 1893 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. Tins BOOK OX BOMBAY AND WESTEKX INDIA is. BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION, Dcoicatrtr TO TJIEIR ROYAL HIGHNESSES EJjc Duke ano Qurijcss of Connaucjfjt, THEIR MOST DUTIFUL SERVANT. PREFACE, THE appearance of an illustrated edition of these papers on "Western India is due to the suggestion of Lord Reay, when lie was Governor of Bombay, as well as to that of Sir George Bird wood; and, next, to the substantial support of the Bombay Government, and of many of the Princes and Gentlemen of India, as well as of an influential body of European residents. To the proprietors of the Pioneer, Bombay Gazette, and Time* of India, I am indebted for the privilege of republication of the papers originally contributed to these newspapers. Any apology for errors or defects at this time of day would be out of place. But I may be allowed to state that the papers when written were not intended for a book, and appeared only to the Bombay Public ; that they are not the work of a student or literary man, and that some allowance for their shortcomings may be found in the fact that they were written in the intervals of a busy life, as a relaxation from daily duty, heat, and the monotony of an Indian climate, and far from such libraries as Europe afford 8. The book is a mere record of excursions among the Cities and Forts of Western India, with a side glance at the books which treat of them; a record also of events which I have deemed worthy of being chronicled. It does not deal with the living, but with the illustrious dead, and of some also who were not illustrious, but simply did their duty in helping — and that often unconsciously — to build up those great institutions of Government and Law, in the shadow of which we now live, move, and have our being. What we are is a very different thing from what we were. It has been my aim, therefore, to show how this change lias been accomplished, what were the forces at work, and how order was evolved out of chaos, and the mass of our population elevated to a higher platform ; for though the unity of History seems often broken, its far-reaching issues come down to our own times, and we are " heirs of all the ages." This ought to interest the Native of India quite as much as vi I'EEFACE. the Native of England; for surely it is not necessary to be an Englishman to understand that a people living under its vine and fig tree, and secured in the fruit of its labour against all comers,' is happier than while exposed to daily and nightly raids of armed men. Englishmen can admire the daring and romantic prowess of Sivaji, and are not blind to the astute diplomacy of Nana Fadnavis, and it is not needful to be an Englishman to laud "the placid courage" of Aungier, or "the might " of Wellington. The History of this country, and its lessons, are the property of all, and open to all. Its very reverses, both English and Indian, are but the stepping-stones to something higher — the Divine rough-hewing which has shaped our ends, and India's, in the upward path of progress. Child's audacity, for example, brought us face to face with Aurangzeb. The Pirates burning ships prepared the way for Free Navigation. And Wargaum ! That was a great disgrace ; but without it where would have been Hornby's patriotic outburst, and Fad- navis's deed of chivalry ? Our Commercial convulsion (1865-6) was a blessing in disguise, the prelude of a Bombay covered with docks, mills, and palatial public buildings, the admiration of all. Assaye was thus as truly a victory for the inhabitants of these realms as for any Englishman. "It led to the Sovereignty of England ! And how can we be expected to take an interest in the fate of a nation that has swallowed up our own ? " O, my brother, let not this disturb thee ! From the beginning of its history all the Makers of Bombay were proud of it, and looked forward, no doubt, with high hopes to its future destiny. Aungier and Child were proud of it, but we were not over-kind to them. If we did not stone the prophets, we did not build their sepulchres. Hornby, also, was proud of it. His name is still borne by a row of houses, and is inscribed in a small tablet on the walls of Parel: Stat nominis imbra. What wonder if, during languor, satiety, heat, blasts from Leadenhall Street and counter-blasts from Calcutta, with their motives misconstrued, and their actions impugned — what wonder if words of anguish sometimes escaped their lips during their long and weary exile— the cry of distressed nature ! Mackintosh compared Bombay to a city of the dead. Wellington wished to God he had never had any- PREFACE. vil thing to do with it. Malcolm once looked on his coming to Bombay as a mistake. And Elphinstone writes (1816) : "A Governor of Bombay must always be hated." And yet who loved more, or was more beloved ? Chantrey and Sir Thomas Lawrence feebly embody the admiration of the public When the time however came for a calm and deliberate judgment they were eager enough to record it. Malcolm pro- nounced Bombay a kind of terrestrial Paradise, and compared it to Naples. Mackintosh, on his leaving it, bursts into a wail of profound grief, and the Duke, more prosaic, says, " I was feasted into Bombay and feasted out of it." All these men were not only just but also kind and con- siderate to the people, and these volumes show how the feeling was reciprocated, as no names are held in higher esteem throughout Western India. If therefore this book can do something, however little, to strengthen the bonds of amity between man and man, between high and low, between one race and another race, between governors and governed ; if, by the knowledge of the struggles through which Western India has passed from an abject condition to absolute security of life and property, we are enabled to estimate these great blessings at their proper value ; if the examples of heroism, of romantic prowess, of endurance and self-sacrifice, and of lives consecrated to India's interests rather than to their own, tend to awaken generous impulses and keep alive the spirit of liberty and toleration and unselfish independence, and a contented mind ; if it can be shown that superstition is its own enemy, and that a stern retribution is meted out by the Judge of all to self-indulgence, oppression, and crime ; if the young find here some of the Pleasures of Hope, and the old any of the Pleasures of Memory ; and if the Pictures, embellishing the work, many of which have been given to the world for the first time, stimulate among the rising generation an ardent love for the study of History, and an enlightened regard for the best interests of India ; if one or any of these objects is attained, the end and aim of the writer will be fully accomplished, and the book, with all its faults, will not have been written in vain. To James Burgess, CLE., LL.D., late Director of the viii PREFACE. ArcKfleological Survey, I am greatly indebted for his assistance in carrying the work through the press. Without his help, and that of another eminent scholar, Dr. James M. Campbell, CLE., of the Bombay Civil Service, the papers could neither have been written nor published. I have made heavy drafts on their literary stores. To the many gentlemen who have so liberally responded to my appeals for assistance with copies of pictures and maps in their possession I now return my most cordial thanks. I have great pleasure in dedicating this book to their Eoyal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Connaught. They are familiar with many of the scenes described in it. They were the first members of the Eoyal Family of England to make their home in India. They came, not as wayfarers, but as residents, with their family. The years they were among us constitute a bright page in the History of Western India, and shed a new lustre on the Indian Empire. And theirs is not a memory which the peoples of India will willingly let die, for as long as duty and honour are esteemed, and virtue is of account among the sons of men, their names will be held in remembrance. J. D. Bombay, July 1892. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. CHAPTER I. Westebh India: Past and Present. Changes in Western India — Bombay not founded by Desperadoes — The Merchant of the olden Time — His Wealth altogether fabulous — Child and Oxinden — Matters now more fairly adjusted .. Pages 1-14 CHAPTER II. The Maktyrs of Thana. Nute on the Gold of Ophir 15-21 CHAPTER III. Western India in 1583. The Man about Town — King of Balaghat — The Master-Mariner — Decline and Fall — The Inquisition — Miscellanea — Archasological Xote on Lin- schoten — David Davies at Bombay in 1C2G .. .. .. 22-40 CHAPTER IV. Bombay Marriage Treaty. Article XI. — Instrument of Possession .. .. .. .. H-53 CHAPTER V. Bombay Beginnings. Mortuary Returns — Exchange — Profits of Trade — The Cotton Trade — The Imports — Freights — Jovial Times— Bombay Green — Never Taken — A Sneaker of Bombay Punch — A Home in Bombay in 1694 .. 5 !-71 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Gerald Aungier, Governor of Bombay. Who he was— What he did— Traits— His Silver Chalice— Where he lived— His House-Conclusion Pages 72S4 CHAPTER VII. Aungier's Convention. Facts of Land Question— Nature of Convention— Bombay a seat of Commerce and Industrial Enterprise — Our Feudal Superiority — The Land of Bombay— Population at different Times— Earth hunger . . 85-100 CHAPTER VIII. POONA AND THE PESHWAHS. A Retrospect 101-109 CHAPTER IX. Kanhoji Angria and the Pirates of Western India. Early Navigation — Angria's Kulaba — Fleet of Sivaji — The Commerce assailed by the Pirates — What he cost us — -His Crowning Achie vement — Vengeance — The English Pirate — The Police of the Indian Seas — Their Cruelties — The Last of the Angrias — Their Old Haunts — Con- clusion — Supplementary Note .. .. .. .. .. 110-130 CHAPTER X. Bombay, 1750. Grose's Account — When Grose Landed — Mr. Grose asked to Supper — A few Ladies — Subjects of Conversation — The Government House — A Colossal Sundial— The Bombay of 1750— Hornby's Vellard— The Fort— The Dockyard — Cartography of Bombay — The Towers of Silence — First Parsi in Europe — A Plucky Woman — Elephanta — Grose's Portrait of Kanhoji Angria — Raygarh — Bullion and Exchange — Native Character —Malabar Hill 131-151 CHAPTER XL The Book of Gombroon, 1752-."),",. History not Antiquarianism— Mortality Bills— The Inkstand— Etcetera— The Lord of the Hot Countries — Four Gradations of Service — People were here before us — The English Sirnames of Bombay .. 155-1 (3G CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XII. Bombay Directory — 1792. The Honourable Mayor's Court — The Honourable Court of Appeals — List of Merchants Pages 1G7-171 CHAPTER XIII. Bombay 1826. Mrs. Elwood's Account — The Bee Hive — Merchants and Governors — Bombay- Dinners — Social Life — Chaplain Gray — Scots abroad — Suez Canal — Glamour Gifts 172-182 CHAPTER XIV. Bombay — circa 1839. No man's land — Passage out — Gastronomy in 1839 — Europe Shops — Country Houses — Law, Justice and Police — Subjects of Conversation — Bombay Hunt and Races — Commercial -Enterprise — Men of the Time — Song — Note: Mrs. Fletcher 183-202 CHAPTER XV. Bakb Souci Club Minutes, 1818 203-208 CHAPTER XVI. FORJKTT, AND HOW THE MUTINY WAS AVERTED IN BOMBAY. Mr. Forjett — Ganga Prasad — Lord Elphinstone — Brownie of Blednoch — Mutineers executed .. .. .. .. .. .. 209-213 CHAPTER XVII. The Walls and Gates of Bombay 214-li27 CHAPTER XVIII. Social Bombay, 18G5-H7. The period of Sir Bartle Frere's Administration — David Livingstone in Bombay — T. 0. Austey — Dr. Norman Macleod, Rev. Geo. Bowen, and JohnConnon 228-1' 10 CHAPTER XIX. An Old Bombay Firm. The Northern Loan of 1802— Bruce, Fawcett and Co. — Sir Charles Furbes — Results of Assaye — Bombay Crisis of 1803 and "The Forbes Correspon- dence" 241-268 x ji CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. Ferishta at Bijapur. Ferishta's History— Abmadnagar— Bijapur-r-His Opinions — Zohra Begam Pages 269-278 CHAPTER XXI. Shee Shah at Chanderi. The' Story of the Afghan Usurper— Baber— Humayun— Raisin and Ratnavali -His wives • 279-287 CHAPTER XXII. Akbae's Invasion of Gujarat. March from Dehli— The Tomb of Chishti— The Mirzas of Gujarat— Battle of Sirnal — Siege of Surat — Second Invasion .. .. .. 288-300 CHAPTER XXIII. Jahangie at Ahmadabad. The Ahmad Sliahi Dynasty — Sir Thomas Roe — Nur Jalian — Architecture — Mumtaz Jlahal aud Shah Jahan 301-314 CHAPTER XXIV. Thomas Coeyat. Arrival -at Surat — His Travels — Christmas 1617 — Death — Biographical — Personal Fame — Desire of Travelling — Defects — Did he know Shake- speare—Conclusion .. .. .. .. .. .. 315-330 CHAPTER XXV. SlVAJI. His Country — His Birth — His Person and Character — His Accomplishments — Traits Bad and Good— His Two Great Crimes — His Master Passion — Sivaji's Coronation — His Death .. .. .. .. 331-346 CHAPTER XXVI. AURANGZEB AT BRAHMAPUEI. Brahmapuri— Sivaji and Zeib un Nisa— Aurangzcb's Camp— Afterwards 347-358 CONTENTS. xiii CHATTER XXVII. SlVAJI AT DEHLT. A Wonderful Event — His Arrival — The Audience — The Result — The Escape Pages 35'J-370 CHAPTER XXVIII. Our Great Governor. Aungier sixteen years in India — His Great Work — The future of Bombay — His Death — Actions — Dealing with His Neighbours — English in Surat — Duels — Bill on Sivaji Raji — His Two Great Measures — Personal 371-386 CHAPTER XXIX. Horatio Nelson: or, Bombay 1775 .. .. .. .. 387-394 CHAPTER XXX. James Forbes. His Book — Arrival in Bombay — Ways and Means — His Library — James Forbes and the Ladies of Bombay — Diana and the Cobra — Natural History of Bombay — Notable Things — The Oriental Memoirs — The Apostle — His Attachment to Bombay — Home — Forbes's View from Malabar Hill 395-415 CHAPTER XXXI. Eliza Draper. Sterne — Abbe Raynal — Eliza's Tomb — Daniel Draper — Mrs. James — Eliza's Letters — Donald Campbell of Barbreck — James Forbes's Account — A Ball in Apollo Street, 1772 — The Destroying Angel of Belvidere — Ladies of the Period .. .. .. .. .. .. 416-432 . i. . CHAPTER XXXII. William Hornby and his Times. Our Natural Enemy — A Review in 1771 — A Dinner — Eyre Coote — Disasters of 177b — Wargaum — NanaFadnavis .. .. .. .. 434-446 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIII. POONA AND TIIF. MaLETS. Sir Charles Warre Malet — James Wales — The Pooua Darbai — Lady Susan Malet •• ■■ Fagss 447-456 CHAPTER XXXIV. Napoleon Boxafaete at Suez, 1798. Suez — His Visit and Schemes— Crosses the Bed Sea — State of Feeling in Bombay — The Suez Canal — The Forbes Loans — Conclusion — The E. I. Co.'s First Shroff in Gujarat . . . . . . . . 457-472 I XV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I. TAGB H.Pi.H. the Duke of Connaught and Stbateeabn. (From the Portrait by Frank Brooks.) (Gravure) .. .. .. Frontispiece Asms of H.R.I F. the Duke of Connaught and Stbatheabn .. iv Zeib ux Xisa*s Palace, Aubangabad (p. 350) .. .. .. xviii Modern Bombay .. .. .. .. .. {Gravure) facing 1 Bra George Oxinden (Governor of Surat, 1668-1669). (From Family Picture by permission of Sir Percy D. N. Oxenden, Bart.) 10 Government Map of Bombat, 1890 .. .. .. .. facing 14 Goa Market Place, 1583. (From Linschoten's Voyages) .. .. 25 David Davies's Bird's-eye View of Bombay Harbour, 1626, with blentihcations by Sir H. Morland. (By permission from Sir Geo. 11 Birdwood) ' 39 Bombay Castle Gateway, 1891. (From a Watercolour by Col. Mellis, ILL.) 43 Dr. Fryers Map of Bombay Harbour, about 1675. (Fryer's Travels) 50 Catharine of Bragaxza .. .. .. .. .. .. 53 Bombay Government Paper, 1G78. (From the Original) .. facing 54 Bombay Castle, 1666 — Sea View. (From Ovington's Voyage) .. 72 Aungier's Chalice, and that of the City of York in Bombay Cathedral. (From a Photograph) .. .. .. .. 78 Bombay Castle, 1G66 — Land View. (From Ovington's Voyage) .. 81 The Xana Gate, Sixgarh. (Photograph by Dr. Theo. Cooke, CLE.) 101 Logarh Fortress. (Photograph by F. Monod) .. .. .. 110 Watson and Cliye's Capture of Geria. (Pennant's View of Jlindostan) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 119 Grose's Plan of Bombay, about 1760. (Grose's Voyage) .. .. 132 Bombat Green, Chubch and Theatbe, about 1750. (From Grose) 141 Niebuhb's Map of Bombay Island, 1764. (Niebuhr's Arabic) .. 146 The Last of the Avenue of Twisted Trees at Malabar Point. (From Photograph by Mr. J. Buchan) .. .. .. ..154 The Hon. Chables Cbommklin, Governob of Bombay, 1760-1767. (From Photograph of the Origiual, presented by Mr. Grattan Geary) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 162 A Judgment of the Mayob's Coubt, 1791. (From Photograph presented by Mr. E. Baumbach) .. .. .. ..facing 167 xv j LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TAGE Mauia Craham— Lady Calcott 172 1 to ebnson's Map of Bombay, 1812-16, with Laud Reclamations since 1812, by Mr. G. Ormiston, C.E facing 174 M. Victor Jacquemont. (Photograph by H. C. Monod, Paris, from Original with M. Jacquemont, nephew of M. Victor Jacquemont) 183 David Sassoon. (By permission of the Family, from a Photograph byCollings) 19+ Stu Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Fikst Baronet. (Photograph presented by the Present Baronet) .. .. .. .. •• •• 197 Lord Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay, 1853-60. (From an Oil- Painting in possession of the present Baronet) (Gi-avure) facing 209 Charles Forjett, Commissioner of Police. (Photograph presented by Mr. E. Leggett, Karachi) 210 Lord Elphinstone's Bust by Noble. (By permission of the Present Baronet) .. .. .. • • •• •• •• •• 213 Church Gate, Bombay, 1863. (Photograph by Mr. J. Buchan from Original in possession of the Municipality) .. .. .. .. 214 Plan of the Fortifications of Bombay in 1863. (Presented by Mr. E. Leggett) .. .. 217 Sir Frank H. Souter, C.S.I., OLE., Superintendent of Police. (Photograph by Bourne and Shepherd presented by Mr. K. S. Campbell) 220 Apollo Gate, with Walls, 1861. (Presented by Mr. E. Leggett) 227 The Rt. Hon. Sir H. Bartle E. Frere, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. (After a Painting by H. W. Phillips) .. .. .. (Girtvure) facing 228 Rev. George Bowen. (Photograph supplied by Dr. J. Burgess) .. 235 Mr. John Connon, Chief Magistrate. (Photograph presented by Mr. W. B. Fellows) 237 Rev. Dr. D. Macpherson, Presbyterian Chaplain. (Photograph presented by Rev. T. H. Greig) .. ..239 Messrs. Remington and Co.'s Old House and Business Premises. (From a Photograph) . . .. .. .. .. .. .. 241 Salabat Khan's Tomb at Ahmadnagar. (Photograph presented by Mr. M. II. Scott, OS.) 269 The Walls of Ahmadnagar. (Presented by Mr. M. H. Scott, C.S.) 278 Tomb of Siier Shah at Saksaram. (Oriental Annual, 1834) .. 279 Cos Minar: one of Akbar's Milestones. (From a Photograph by Rev. J. Traill) .. .. #p 288 CniMiTi's Tomb at Ajmer. (From a Photograph) (Gravure) facing 289 Akt.ak on Horseback. (From hide, par MM. D. de Jancigny et X. Raymond) .. .. .. .. .. .. t< _ 291 Pawangarh, the " Bill of the Winds." (From a Watercolour Sketch by Col. Hutchison, presented by Mr. J. M. Campbell, C.S.) .. 294 Akbar's Tomb at Sikandra .. .. .. .. .. ., 300 Tomb \t Shah Alam, Ahmadabad .. .. .. .. .. 301 Tomb at Champanib. (Photograph by Mr. H. Cousens) .. .. 303 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii FAGS The Emperor Jahangir giving ax Audience. (From an Old Painting belonging to the Maharaja of Jaypur.) (A Calotype in Colour and Gold) facing 305 Sir Thomas Roe, English Ambassador to the Great Mughal, 1614-1618. (From an Old Print in the British Museum) .. 308 The Tin Darwaza at Ahmadabad. (Photograph presented by Dr. J. Burgess) 310 Shah Jahan giving an Audience to Daba Suikoh .. 812 Pawangadh from Malav. (From a Sketch by Mr. R. S. Campbell) ::i ! Thomas Coryat. (From his Crudities) .. .. .. .. 315 Odcombe : Coryat's Biuthplace. (From a Sketch by J. N. Johnston) 320 Coryat's 'Crudities' presented to Prince Henry. (In the British Museum) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 32-1 Inscription in Coryat's Handwriting. (In the British Museum Copy of the Crudities) .. .. .. .. .. .. 330 Sivaji. (From Orme's Fragments) .. .. .. .. .. 331 Sinoarh. (From a Photograph by Dr. T. Cooke, CLE.) .. .. 339 Sivaji's Sword, " Bhavani." (Grant Duffs History) .. .. .. 346 Aurangzeb at Galgala. (Gemelli Careri's Voyage) .. .. .. 347 Zeib un Nisa's Tomb at Begampur. (From a Photograph) . . .. 352 Aurangzeb's Camp at Brahmapuri. (From a Photograph) .. 354 Aurangzeb's Tomb at Rauza .. .. .. .. .. .. 357 Dehli Gate, Raygarh. (Presented by Mr. H. R. Winter, C.S.) .. 359 Daulatabad. (Photograph by Mr. H. Cousens) .. .. .. 362 The Dehli Gate, Deiiu .. .. .. .. .. 364 The Highway to Dehli. (After a Photograph by Rev. J. Traill) .. 370 ieb'b Rupee. (From Original in British Museum) .. .. 371 Lord Nelson. (From an Engraving by T. Woolnath) .. 388 .Tames Forbes, F.R.S. (From Orient' d Memoirs) .. .. .. 396 James Pobbes's View op his House at Dabhoi (ih.) .. .. 410 James FoRbeb's House in 1886. (Photograph by H. Cousens) .. 412 Stanmobe House, Hertfordshire. (From a Photograph by Disderi, by permission of Mr. W. L. D'Arcy) .. .. .. .. 414 F.i i za Dbapeb's Handwriting .. .. .. .. .. 416 COMMODORE JAMES. (After Sir Joshua Reynolds) .. .. .. 420 Monument to Commodore James at Shooter's Hill. (By permis- sion of Mr. Probyn Godson, the Present Owner of Castle Wood) . . 423 Belvidere House, Mazagon, 1779. (77/e Mirror, 1879-1880) .. 431 Eliza Draper's Tomb at Bristol. (From a Photograph) .. .. 433 Nana Fadnavts. (From a Woodcut in the British Museum) .. 445 Poona Darbar of 1790. (Photographed from the Original Painting by W. Daniell and James Wales. Presented by Sir E. Malet) (Qravwre) facing 117 Sir Charles W. Malet (*&.) 449 Napoleon Bonaparte. (From an Engraving by Vigneux) .. .. 458 Waghorn's Statue at Suez .. .. .. M. de Lessees. (From a Photograph) 468 VOL. I. & Zeib un Nisa's Palace, Aubangabad (p. 350). > < :.: : Q C BOMBAY AND WESTERN INDIA, CHAPTER I. Western India: Past and Present. "A man had better have £10,000 at the end of ten years passed in England than £20,000 at the end of the ten years passed in India, because you must compute what you give for money, and the man who has lived ten years in India has gives up ten years of social comfort and all those advantages which arise from living in England." * So said Dr. Johnson about a hundred years ago. But the distance to India is now shorn of half its terrors. Nobody now thinks anything of going to India. To most people, indeed, it is a mere pleasure excursion, in which, from the deck of a steamer, you can descry Egypt, and scan the peaks of Sinai and {lie Sierra Nevada, without the trouble of climbing up to them. The social comforts and the advantages of living in England on which Dr. Johnson based his argument now accompany you to India, where a man may live ten years, and be as healthy, as happy, and as well up in information, perhaps even more so, than if he had never quitted his native soil. Neither do people stay so long in it as they used to do. Not long since Colonel Norman, C.B.,paid a visit to England after an absence of thirty- eight years, but this is a rare exception, and even ten years at a time is a very long stretch nowadays for an Englishman in India. Even the miseries which Thackeray deplored in the * Boswell's Johnson, L779. VOL. I. 2 WESTERN INDIA : PAST AND PRESENT. Newcomes* are very much mitigated. The passage is a beautiful one, and an appreciation of the truth it contains can never be weakened as long as there are human hearts to feel, and men and women to bewail separation from those they love. Children may now, however, thanks to our better understanding the sanitary and other possibilities, remain in India for a longer time than they used to do, without prejudice to their moral, intellectual, or physical upbringing, and the distance is so abridged that the evils of divided families are reduced to a minimum. The family relation can, indeed, never be broken without weakening the ties which God and Nature have established for wise purposes ; but the cheaper and more expeditious transit out and home have surely done something to modify all this as compared with the days of the Newcomes. The interchange of affection or interest which now finds expression each week, was formerly represented by a dreary and indefinite expanse which generally extinguished the bonds of friendship, and reduced those of relationship to an empty name. Blood is, however, thicker than water, and it was almost a marvel how a cycle of estrange- ment should sometimes be followed by a burst of affection from the fountains of the great deep. The changes which have taken place and are still in progress in Western India have been so gradual, have come upon us so silently, and the benefits resulting therefrom are so familiar to us that they are apt to be lost sight of and, like the air we breathe, cease to be matter of observation. We have made immense strides. I need not dwell on the rise of hill stations, the growth of Municipal institutions, the introduction of pure water, the drainage and conservancy of our large towns, the creation of docks, and the great industrial development of recent times. The mere mention of them is sufficient to suggest the " The lords of the subject province find wives there, but their children cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their children to the shore and part with them. The family must be broken up. Keep the flowers of your house beyond a certain time and the sickening buds wither and die. In America it is from the breast of a poor slave that a child is taken ; in India it is from the wife, aud from under the palace of a splendid proconsul." — Thackeray's Newcomes. NATIVE GOVERNMENT. 3 large additions which have been made to the comfort and happiness alike of the native and European. They have added some years to the term of human life. Bombay is better for old men's health than young men's. Why ? Because the tem- perature is equable. At this season (December), in Northern and Central India, there is a difference of 30° to 40° in the twenty-four hours, while here — not 10°, and young men can take all sorts of exercise with impunity in the Dekhan, in these extremes of temperature. Small chance for longevity when anarchy prevailed and murder stalked red-handed through the land. The roads which now replace the old jungle paths render famines well-nigh impossible. At all events the abundance of one district is now available for supplying the wants of another. The natives ought to be the last to complain of that which is not for them merely a change of regime, but one. literally of existence, and had it not been for the European element we are safe in saying that these great alterations would never have taken place. But the fiat has gone forth : they shall not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat, for as the days of a tree are the days of my people. The truth of all this is apparent to any one. Go to any railway station in Gujarat, and there on an early morning watch the villager or day labourer on the way to his appointed task ; not downcast or downtrodden is he, but well slept and well fed, with a sleek and a blithe countenance, he trudges merrily along. And if you are out at daybreak in Bombay, you may see the cooly or hammal proceeding to his work with elastic step, lilting some refrain he has picked up in his childhood in the far-off plains of the Dekhan or the old hills of Katnagiri, a condition of things you will search for in vain in the annals of Sivaji or the Peshwas.* The Englishman in India has in this century what he had not in the last, a strong and a stable Government of his own, which can protect his life and property, and free him from sudden and wild alarms by day and by night. He can move about voluntarily whenever and wherever he pleases. He cannot, indeed, defy the laws of nature or eliminate heat from There has never been want of employment in my day. B 2 4 WESTERN INDIA : PAST AND PRESENT. the tropics, but he can by means of ice assuage its baneful effects, and by ohange of residence from one place to another <-an so temper the conditions of climate as to make life here, not merely endurable, but as good in many cases as if he had been in England To the native there is now all the difference in the world, for be he rich or poor the bondman is now the freeman, he to all intents and purposes being formerly the goods and chattels of his master, by whatever name that master might be called. This much has the native, but he has more. He has been put in the path of progress, for the operation of law and good government which have spread themselves over the country, has been not merely to punish the criminal, but to prevent his manufacture. And thus we see in India the deterring effect made manifest by a great reduction in the number of outrages on life and property, compared with former times either under their own administrations or under ours. Indeed, the dangers are all the other way, for it depends on the intelligence of ransomed peoples whether such great institutions as trial by jury, liberty of the press, municipal institutions, freedom of worship, and right of association become a blessing or a curse. They are either good or bad as the people who possess them are intelligent or otherwise. And here we may remark that it is a common mistake to suppose that Bombay, having a crowd of desperadoes within its walls, was founded by them. This is not the case. It was in no sense founded by the dregs of England, nor by the scum of Scotland. The men who colonised Bombay, at least those of them who have left their mark on its history, were gentlemen, some of them by birth and almost all by education. Child was a member of one of the most influential families in England. Oxinden, as we may still read on his mausoleum, was vir sanguinis splendore* * The family had heen settled at Dene in Kent since the time uf Edward III. Sir Henry Oxendene, Knight, held high command at the battle of Poictiers, 1356. Sir George (b. 1619) spelled his name Oxinden, as may still be seen in the India Office records ; on his tomb at Surat and in printed papera it also appears as Oxinden ; Fryer (p. 87) has it Oxendine. He was appointed chief of the factory at Surat, "September 18th, 1662, and died there July 14th, 1669. The Baronetcy dates from 1667, with arms — argent, a chevron gules between three oxen passant sable ; and crest, out of a ducal coronet gules, a lion's head affiontee. Sir Henry Chudleigh Oxenden, eighth Baronet, died August 14, 1889, aged ninety-four.— B. THE NABOBS. .) James Forbes was the grandfather of Count Montalembert. Charles Forbes was the friend of the Duke of Wellington. But from Gerald Aungier, who was a brother of Lord Aungier who died in 1678, to Mountstuart Elphinstone, who could trace bacK his lineage to a time ere the names of Magellan or Da Gama had been heard of in the eastern seas, you will find that many of the prominent men on this side of India were of good family, and that not a few unconsciously took their stand as promoters of that civilisation of winch we now reap the benefits. But what does it matter ? * Eraser and Bourchier were no doubt very quiet men in Surat and unknown to fame, but they sent those manuscripts to Europe, an inspection of which was the first thing to stimulate the zeal of Anquetil Du Perron in his Zoroastrum Researches. Boone may have been second-rate, but he was the first to send drawings of Elephanta to England. Boden, a Bombay Colonel, founded the Sanskrit Professorship at Oxford which bears his name, and it requires no great knowledge of the language to see in the Latin inscriptions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which remain to us in Surat and elsewhere that our early colonists carried with them the scholarship of Europe to the far-off plains of India. And here we may 1 ie permitted a word for the " Nabob " on his return home. He always got less than he expected, and sometimes more, than he deserved, for did not Meg Dods at St. IJonan's well hurl at his head that he had been instrumental in raising the price of poultry for miles around? He was the fossil man of the eighteenth century, and people stared at him as they would have done at one of the seven sleepers of Asia with an antique coin in his pocket trying to purchase his dinner in the streets of Ephesus. But you must remember his condition during the years of his exile, and remembering this you will cease to wonder at it. The state of loneliness from his fellow-countrymen in which he was placed exposed him to vices in a way the average modern Anglo-Indian has little conception of, and when we hear from a Many could say with Cowper : — •• My boast is not that I deduce my birth From scepter'd kings or princes of the earth." 6 WESTERN INDIA : PAST AND PRESENT. Bombay pulpit a moral drawn to liis discredit, as if we were the men and wisdom would die with us, we little think of our own safeguards from vice, in the law and police which now surround us, the foundations of which were not even laid in those dismal times, when the mighty factors of our civilisation, the educa- tionist and the minister of religion, were wanting. Nor need we claim for the early settler in Western India more than we would for his brother at home, for the English gentleman of the eighteenth century, even on his own soil, was by no means a pattern of virtue and sobriety. But though the family and domestic life of England, as we understand them, which prevail in India at the present day had a very feeble existence in the eighteenth century ; though the men of that period, for the most part, lived en gargon ; and though no benign ray of female influence shone in their bungalows, it is well to remember that they did not for these reasons fall into the supreme evil of the Portuguese, and per- petuate that drama which is being acted out in our own times, where the sins of the fathers have been visited on the children to the third and fourth, yea, even to the tenth generation. No more melancholy offshoot exists in the physical history of man. But the English had little to do with it. In fact, fewer mesalliances were made by them in Western India than in any of the Presidencies of this great peninsula. By their fruits ye shall know them. The English are an exclusive race, and this exclusiveness has been and is yet the cause of great evils ; but it is a question whether these evils are not counterbalanced by the fact that it has saved us from a great, a sad, and an ever- lasting reproach — a reproach of which it may be said in the words of the poet : — " Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams their channels deeper wear." Foremost in the great work of colonisation and regeneration was the merchant, for the merchant in India came before the soldier. The merchant first built his factory ; the soldier then came and protected it. Let us consider what the English merchant gave up in coming to India, for India meant a very different thing then than it does now. It was the giving up of THE MERCHANTS. 7 home, family, and friends, and everything comprehended in the words ; it was the giving up of religious privileges, which to many men and some of the best of men are the be-all and the end-all of existence; it was the giving up of political life, for what influence could the units sparsely scattered over the coasts of "Western India have on the governing body in England or the political life of any European State ? In more senses than one did he exchange for the drugs of India the sterling money of Europe.* If a man belonged to any of the learned professions, he had to content himself with the knowledge he had acquired at college, or with such stale driblets of science as came from Europe, twelve months old, by way of addition to his stock in trade. But in many cases there was no such addition, and the knowledge, or such of it as survived, became stereotyped on the plains of India, as on the day he left his father's house or emerged from the portals of his alma mater. Without wife, without children, without society worthy of the name, without libraries, without a daily press to keep him alive as to the on-goings of the world, what wonder if the English merchant in India sometimes drifted into bad morals or ended his days in that Golgotha of the dead — in the early churchyards of India. If he were a merchant of the < lompany, he was bound to go forward. For him there was no rest. Ho had to open up new markets, even though his goods were plundered by dacoits or his agents murdered by Thugs. By land or sea it Mas all the same, for the sea was scoured by pirates and every creek sent forth its cruisers of the bloody red flag ; and thus it was by a hardihood and endurance which sometimes amounted to heroism that the foundations of the East India Company were laid. If he were a merchant outside the Company, an interloper he was called, he was hunted down and his life made a burden to him, for no royal burgh of the middle ages, with its guilds or corporations, was hedged in with so impenetrable a barrieJ the East India Company until the trade was thrown open to the public.f The story of the interloper's career in all its phases of Sir James Mackintosh. t I' 1 1814. 8 WESTERN INDIA : PAST AND PRESENT. fine and imprisonment lies before us in the pages of Alexander Hamilton. It was in vain that overland routes were projected to render England more accessible than by the Cape of Storms. Sir Eyre Ooote when in Bombay in 1771 busied himself with prepara- tions for that journey across the Babylonian Deserts of which he gave Dr. Johnson the account at Eort Augustus, a journey where his camels subsisted for five days without water.* He was more fortunate than M. St. Germain, of whom Volney tells us that in 1779 — (those were the days of the Mamluks) — accompanied by some English officers, he had the temerity to take his silks and diamonds by way of Egypt. The party were one after another all destroyed but himself. In the middle of the desert of Suez he was set upon by the Bedauins, and escaped to Cairo, naked and wounded. That was the end of one abortive attempt to open up the overland route, but it is well to remember that one hundred years ago, and fifty years before the time of Waghorn, English ships waited at Suez for cargoes which never came. Sailing ships ! Think of this, ye masters of modern craft, when you are passing the Daedalus Light or Mocha Shoal with all the appliances of Steam Navigation. How did the merchant succeed ? Eor us circumspicc, for him it was somewhat different. The Spaniards had a saying in the eighteenth century that he who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. They were right in the eighteenth and not altogether wrong in the nineteenth century, for who will say that outside capital is awanting or not wanted in our days in India ? The truth is that the wealth of India in these days was altogether fabulous, and a close investigation by one who was competent to do so f results in showing that her merchants were far from being successful, even judged by the standard of the present day. There was but one alternative — make money or —die. And most of them died. The arrival of a limited number of " Nabobs " in England, whom you could count on your * Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides. t Hon. John Jardine, Judicial Commissioner in Burma, and now Judge of Lombny High Court.— Government Minute on Civil Fund. THE MERCHANTS. 9 fingers, gave a false and exaggerated impression of India, and the money to be made there, which is not justified by the facts. In the twenty years between 1755 and 1777, two Government servants only returned to England from the Bombay Presidency with fortunes acquired in the service. Richard Bourchier, who served twenty-three years and was Governor of Bombay nine years (1750-17G0), died insolvent. So did John Spencer, the rival of Clive, after enjoying the most lucrative posts in Bombay and holding for a time the Government of Bengal. And Charles Crommelin, Governor of Bombay for seven years (1760-1767), was content in his old age to accept a subordinate office at Goa, after forty years' service.* Sooth to say, the merchant of these days had some advantag for which he ought to have been thankful, but I daresay he never looked upon them in the light of mercies. He had the week which followed the despatch of his mail in which to dispose of himself holiday wise. He had a virgin soil to work upon, and little competition, as no native had as yet opened up direct communication with Europe, or dared to cross the Kala- pani. When he was a remitter he could command 2s. Gel., and was not the least surprised when he received 2s. 9d. for Iris rupee. Though the usance Mas long, and the return mi his la equally so, he had generally few ventures, often only one, to engage his attention, instead of the thousand and one interi which rack the modern brain. He was not disturbed by tele- >hy or the Suez Canal, those giant progenitors of competition which have made all the world your next-door neighbours, and which still mock at the projects of modern enterprise. The even tenour of his way was aot invaded — shall we say — by an army of brokers, for down through the eighteenth century, and lon<> afterwards, there was no sub-division of mercantile labour, and li<' was his own banker, broker, and even his own law adviser. When a ship was about to sail for England, Forbes or Rem- ington, who held their position smiores priores and in virtu. • of the success which had crowned their exertions, Bent round to their neighbours to see what was wanted in exchange, fix the See note p. 163. 10 WESTERN INDIA : PAST AND PRESENT. rate and the difference to be established between the buying and the selling rate, which never amounted to less than a penny per rupee, instead of the sixteenth and thirty-seconds which now exhaust the patience and profits of the trader in exchange. The whole matter may be summed up in the Gujarati pro- verb of the times we are now writing of, if you only substitute India for Java : — " Who goes to Java never returns. If by chance he returns, Then for two generations to live upon Money enough he brings back." To hunt the tiger from his lair in Salsette ; to course the hare on Malabar Hill ; to play cards and drink sack or arrack punch in a bungalow on the Thana Creek until all was blue ; to send your sick daughter to Old Woman's Island, and go yourself to the hot spring of Bankot ; to sit and moon over some specula- tion to Bantam or Amboyna, on which the comfort and happi- ness of your family depended, and then, sick of delay, in sheer desperation deliver yourself body and soul into the hands of an astrologer; to weary your life out for an hour under a hair- dresser, so that you may appear the cynosure of neighbouring eyes in curl and bag wig at Parel or the Royal Bastion at the witching hour of sundown, or peradventure on a Sunday at Church with meek and placid countenance, as you sat with your feet on that old cow-dung floor, gazing listlessly on, but not through the oyster panes, to hear from the pulpit the sentence which debars you from the communion ; to read Shakespeare by moonlight on the roof of the Custom House because you could not afford the wherewithal to purchase a candle ; to drive with Bellasis of old * from Breach to ball-room * MAJOR G. J. BELLASIS, .3ETAT. 64. DIED 1808, AND ANNE MARTHA, HIS WIFE, DIED 1797, DAUGHTER OP JOHN HUTCHISONS, M.A., RECTOR OF WAREHAM AND SWIRE, AND HISTORIAN OF DORSETSHIRE. Tomb in Bombay Cathedral. Copied October 18, 1887. GOVERNOR OXIXBEX. 11 in a bullock garry and return — royal — with lighted flambeaux ; and if you survived the ten or twenty years' conflict, to see Hie jacet written over almost every friend you knew or cared about ; such were some of the environments of the Bombay merchant about 1784. It is preposterous to ask if these gentlemen were happier than those of our own days. No two names, for example, bulk SIR GEORGE OXINDEN. {Governor of Surat, 1668-1669. bigger in the annals of Western India than those of Child and Oxinden. They were the demigods of Bombay and Sural bo- wards the end of the seventeenth century. And yet Child was convicted of fraud and died ;m outlaw "f the Government he had insulted and affected to despise, and < Ixinden's agents were impeached in the House of Lords. Of what avail were Child's influential connections in England? They could not saw the splendid reputation which he had built up for himself from 12 WESTEKN INDIA : PAST AND PRESENT. being dashed to pieces, could not even raise a block of rude stone to mark the place where lay the President and General of the Indies. And the Oxindens ? To be worried for ten years in the House of Lords, and have your agents in Surat and China branded with fraud and conspiracy,* does not conduce to happiness. There is nothing wanting in the shape of tombstone to the Oxindens to record their virtues — gigantic mausoleum, boast of heraldry, pomp of power, vaunting epitaph, and all that sort of thing. There appear to have been four brothers of them, baronets or knights of the shire. But if you read between the lines or illuminate them with the light of history, you will soon * " 1673, October 30. Love v. Oxenden. "Petition and appeal of William Love, John Buckworth, and William Rawsterne, Executors of Edward Browne, deceased ; Thomas Breton, Edward Pearce, Thomas Pearle, Symon Delboe, James Citherow, Judith Sayon, widow, and Nathaniel Setton, Executors of Abraham Sayon, deceased; George Robinson and Thomas Noell, Executors of Sir Martin Noell, deceased ; Thomas Noell and Martha, his wife, administratrix of Nathaniel Spemes, deceased; John White and Abigail Bush, executrix of Abraham Bush, deceased. "Appeal from a decree in Chancery of November 3, 1663, founded on a report of referees touching the accounts of a trading voyage undertaken for petitioners as a joint stock to China and Surat. Petitioners allege fraud and conspiracy among their agents abroad, and pray that Sir Henry and Sir James Oxinden, Thomas Atkins and Sir George Blundell may be ordered to answer. — L. J. XIT. 591 annexed. "(a) January ID, 1(173-4. Petition of appellants, praying that service of the order to answer on the wife of Thomas Atkins, in lieu of her husband, may be good service, and that Sir Henry and Sir James Oxinden may be required peremptorily to answer. — L. J. XII. 611. " (b) January 22, 1673-4. — Answer of Sir George Blundell. Knows nothing of the matter, not having been a party to the previous actions. Is only administrator de bonis non of Sir Christopher Oxinden, in consequence of a debt assigned to him. Has not yet discovered any assets. Prays to be dismissed with costs. (Brought in this day MS. Miu. of date. See L. J. XII. 615.) " (c) January 23, 1673-4. — Answer of Sir Henry Oxinden and Sir James Oxinden. Sir Henry denies that he is executor of Sir George Oxinden, but Sir .Tames, as such executor and alone, is interested in the estate. The decree was fair and equitable, and was made on merchants' accounts, and according to the customs of merchants in reference to proceedings between them and their agents. The reference was by consent, nor can the petitioners allege fraud. The referees were heard in Court, to give the reasons for their certificate, which cannot now be done, as some of them are dead, and their reasons not expressed on the certificate. Pray to have the benefit of their decree. L. J. XII., 615. (For proceedings on the hearing, see MS. Min. J oby, 5, 9, 11, and 16.") — Ninth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Mm, "scripts, Part 11., presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Eer Majesty, 1884. PRESENT CONDITION. 13 discover that the Oxindens did not sleep on a lied of ruses or enjoy one tithe of the security which is now possessed by the Indian merchant of 1884. We have spoken of the " Nabobs " and their time. There was no middle class in India in their day to share the loaves and fishes with them, for the Nabobs swallowed up everything. Matters are now more fairly adjusted. The three or four millions per annum which their greed and oppression wrested from suffering populations or from the princes who had made them suite]', now finds its way in the shape of profits, pensions, or wages honestly earned, and goes to the support of an in- dustrious community, whether it be the agents who assist in carrying on the Government, or the great army outside of it, who are engaged in its commercial or industrial development. The benefits resulting from our connection with India are two- fold, for the bargain is not a one-sided one, and may be thus stated. They are first those which concern ourselves, and of which we are the recipients ; and secondly, those which have been either created or multiplied by us (and the natives them- selves who are now working with us) for behoof of the people of India. India gains more than England. She gets more than she gives, for England did not require to go to India for a good Government ; we had it of ourselves ; what we laid we gave, and it lias d