^
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
View from the Top of the Tiger Gate in Palitana
The city of Palitana in Gujarat, Western India, is often called the
city of temples, for it abounds in sanctuaries and shrines of the Jain
religion, sonic of i(.-hich are among the most famous in India.
ni '-^fiO isgiT -jfb lo qoT
I STORY
of INDIA
Edited b]>
WILLIAMS JACK
Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages in Columbia University
AY V. WILLIAMS JACKSON, Ph.D., LL.D.
VOLUME VIII
From the Close of the Seventeenth Century to the
Present Time
By
SIR ALFRED COMYN LYALL, P.C, K.C.B.
D. C. L.
Author of "Asiatic Studies" and "Life of Warren Hastings"
LONDON
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS
Etittton Nationals
Limited to One Thousand Copies
for England and America
Copyright, igoj, by
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR
A connected account of the principal events of
Anglo-Indian history from the seventeenth century
to the present time is given in this volume. The
presentation, though concise, affords a broad view of
the rise of British power in the East and makes clear
the causes that led to England's supremacy. The first
chapter reviews in a brief manner the main current of
events in India's development prior to the seventeenth
century and forms a convenient supplement to the two
preceding volumes, and the succeeding chapters trace
the chief historical movements, era by era, down to the
present time.
The chronological sequence has been indicated
throughout the work, but care has been taken not to
overload the text with unnecessary dates. Lack of
space compelled the author to forego treating several
historic incidents, though important, because they have
a less direct bearing upon the main theme the expan-
sion of British dominion in India. Considerations of
space also forbade elaborating upon the details of cer-
tain well-known events, but room was gained in that
vi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
way for the important chapter which brings the history
down from the time of the Mutiny to the Durbar of
King Edward, as well as for the concluding chapter on
Britain's wider dominion in Asia.
The illustrative matter has been drawn from varied
sources, and I am grateful for permission to reproduce
one or two somewhat rare pictures. The ready collabo-
ration of the author and the courtesy of his publisher in
helping to make this volume a complete outline of
India's later history down to the present time, is cor-
dially appreciated.
A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON.
AUTHOK'S PREFACE
The principal object of this book has been to sketch
in outline the Kise of the British Dominion in India,
and to relate the circumstances that led to the gradual
extension of our territorial possessions up to 1858, when
the Crown superseded the East India Company in the
direct government of the country. It has also been
thought expedient to give, toward the end of the
volume, a short dissertation upon the nature and opera-
tion of the system of protectorates, by which the
independent native states within India have been
preserved under the superior control of the imperial
government, and the foreign states or outlying tracts
adjacent to the British frontiers have been brought
under our political influence. But since the main pur-
pose of the work is to present a connected view of the
historical events and transactions, in Europe and in
Asia, that combined to promote the foundation and to
expedite the spread of the Dominion, the later stages
of its expansion have been traversed in this narrative
more rapidly than the earlier stages, which have per-
haps attracted less general attention, and are not so
viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE
commonly understood. Moreover, several remarkable
incidents (as, for example, the famous trial of Nun-
comar) have been omitted or barely mentioned, because
they seemed to have little bearing upon the larger
political issues with which this book is concerned, and
also because a detailed account of them can be found
in any history of British India.
In a supplementary chapter, now added, the course
of Indian affairs, external and internal, from the date
when the whole government was assumed by the Crown
up to the present time, has been briefly surveyed. The
character and important consequences of the foreign
policy adopted by the British Government during this
period has been explained; and some attempt has been
made to review the constitutional changes and legis-
lative measures that have been introduced in the last
fifty years for the improvement of our interior adminis-
tration and for the welfare of our fellow subjects in
India.
A. C. LTALL.
June, 1907.
INTRODUCTION
The narrative of the acquisition of British India
forms no more than an episode in the annals of the
English nation. It is therefore not unnatural that his-
torians, being mainly intent upon European affairs,
should usually be satisfied with treating the foundation
of a great Oriental empire by an English trading com-
pany as a marvellous and almost incomprehensible
stroke of national good fortune. To those, however,
who carefully follow the course and connection of
events that led up to this magnificent result, and who
bear in mind that foreign commerce is the life-blood
of a maritime people, and that, for two centuries at
least, the whole policy of England has been mainly
directed toward the increase of her sea-power and the
enlargement of her foreign commerce insomuch that,
as Sir H. Parnell has said, almost all our wars during
the eighteenth century were virtually waged on behalf
of that commerce the fact that India has been the
great prize of continuous success in naval war and
trading adventure will not appear astonishing, and
certainly not inexplicable. The object of this short
ix
x INTRODUCTION
treatise is not only to give a concise account of the
rise of British dominion in India, but also to explain
it by tracing rapidly the causes and convergent influ-
ences that brought about so remarkable a conclusion.
It is a matter of general remark that Anglo-Indian
history, when related at length, is tedious and confus-
ing. This is partly due to unfamiliarity with outland-
ish names and places, but chiefly to its essential char-
acter. The history, like the annals of almost all Ori-
ental states, is mainly concerned, up to very recent
times, with military operations, which in India seldom
rise above the level of desultory fighting, and with that
class of politics that consists largely of revolts, con-
spiracies, dynastic contests, and the ordinary incidents
of a struggle for existence among rival despots.
In Asia there is no scope for examining the growth
of institutions or the development of civil polity or the
forming of nations; the famous men are all either
able tyrants (in the Greek sense) or successful men of
war; the type of civilization is uniform and stationary;
the spirit of nationality, where it exists, is in its most
elementary stage; the people of the great kingdoms
known to history are an immense mixed multitude,
broken up into tribal or religious groups, and united
under one leadership by force or accident. At the pres-
ent moment every great country in Asia is governed
by an alien race or foreign dynasty that has come in
by conquest; there is no general identity of language
or of religion between the rulers and the mass of their
subjects; they accordingly accept changes of govern-
INTRODUCTION xi
ment with indifference; they have no inveterate an-
tipathy to the domination of foreigners. The Indian
people were, from the beginning, so far from objecting
to the English dominion in India that they co-operated
willingly in promoting it.
Nevertheless, the existing relations between India
and England constitute a political situation unprece-
dented in the world's history. The two countries are
far distant from each other and in different continents;
they present the strongest contrasts of race and relig-
ion. There is no previous example of the acquisition
and successful government of such a dependency, so
immense in extent and population, at such a distance
from the central power. A state that is distinctly
superior to its neighbours in the arts of war and gov-
ernment has often expanded into a great empire. In
Europe the Romans once united under an extensive
dominion and still wider ascendency a number of sub-
ject provinces, client kingdoms, protected allies, races,
and tribes, by a system of conquest and an adminis-
trative organization that anticipated in many salient
features our methods of governing India. But the
Roman dominions were compact and well knit together
by solid communications. The Romans were masters
of the whole Mediterranean littoral, and their capital,
whether at Rome or Constantinople, held a central and
commanding position. Then at the present time we
see Russia holding down Northern Europe with one
foot, and Central Asia with the other. She is the first
power that has succeeded so completely in throwing
xii INTRODUCTION
down the barriers which have hitherto divided the East
from the West, as to found a colossal dominion in the
heart of both continents.
But with the Roman, Eussian, and all other his-
torical empires the mass of their territory has been
accumulated by advancing step after step along the
land from the central starting-point, making one foot-
hold sure before another was taken, firmly placing one
arch of the viaduct before another was thrown out,
allowing no interruption of territorial coherence from
the centre to the circumference. This was not so in
the case of the Indian empire. During the time when
the English were establishing their predominance in
India, and long afterwards, England was separated
from India by thousands of miles of sea; the Atlantic
and Indian oceans lay between. The government of
the English in India may thus be said to present a
unique instance of the dominion over an immense alien
people in a distant country having been acquired en-
tirely by gradual expansion from a base on the sea.
Of the political changes introduced during the last
one hundred and fifty years by the overflow of Europe
into Asia, the acquisition of all India and Burma by
the English has hitherto been incomparably the great-
est; although the steady advance of Russia, pushing
forward her steel wedges into the central regions, is
fraught with no less momentous import to the destinies
of the continent. But while Russia has been laboriously
following the well-known and well-worn routes of con-
quest Jby land through the central steppes of Asia, the
ItfTBODUCTION xiii
English have reached South Asia swiftly and securely
by the open waterways. And thus it has come to pass
that, whereas all previous conquests of India have been
made from the mountains southward to the sea, the
English have acquired their dominion by an expansion
from the sea northward to the mountains. It need
hardly be observed that this very remarkable exploit
could only have been performed by virtue of great
naval strength and superiority.
In the following pages dealing with the rise and
expansion of British dominion in India some attempt
is made to sketch the preliminary events and predis-
posing conditions that attracted the maritime nations
of Europe into the field of competition for predomi-
nance in India, and to explain the combination of direct
effort and favourable circumstances to which England
in the eighteenth century owed her success.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE .... 1
II. INFLUENCE AND CONNECTION OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND
ASIA 35
III. CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY . 56
IV. THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANIES . . 75
V. THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX 103
VI. THE SECOND FRENCH WAR 136
VII. THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL 156
VIII. THE SITUATION IN BENGAL 176
IX. THE MARATHAS AND MYSORE 198
X. ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION . . . . . .216
XL THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF WARREN HASTINGS . . 237
XII. THE INTERVAL BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS . . 265
XIII. THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS .... 281
XIV. THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY . . . 306
XV. THE STATIONARY PERIOD 343
XVI. THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS . . 363
XVII. COMPLETION OF DOMINION ....... 385
XVIII. INDIA UNDER THE CROWN 427
XIX. THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA . . . . . . 469
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
View from the Tiger Gate in Palitana Frontispiece
An Indian Decorative Design 1
Aden from the Arab Cemetery 2
Constantinople at the End of the Seventeenth Century .... 7
Queen Elizabeth knighting Sir Francis Drake on board the " Golden
Hind " at Deptford, April 4, 1581 ... . . . . . 9
The Moghul Mosque at Fathpur-Sikri .16
Boats on the Persian Gulf 20
The Hugli River at Barrackpur 24
The Old East India House (1726-1796) 28
Bombay in 1773 31
Bird's-eye View of Trincomali 37
A Street Scene in Bombay 41
Sivaji on the March 43
The Lake of Utakamand in the Nilgiri Hills, Southern India ... 49
Peasants drawing Water 54
A Cart at Madras 56
Matharan, a Hill-station near Bombay in Western India .... 58
The Great Temple of Boro-Budur in Java 64
The Old East India House (1796-1858) .67
The Nizam's Capital, Haidarabad 73
A Corner of the Divan-i-Khas at Amber .76
Arms of the New East India Company 81
The Great Temple at Rangoon . ........ 85
A Water Scene near Garrett, Java . 87
A Pagoda at Pondicherri , . 92
Mandhata Island in the Narbada River 97
The Colombo Breakwater, Ceylon 105
A Scene in Pondicherri .110
The Main Gateway of the Temple at Tanjore 115
The Rock of Trichinopoli 119
xvii
xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGB
Old Bailey Guard at Lucknow 121
A Monolithic Temple at Mahabalipur on the Southeast Coast . . . 122
A Raja of India Receiving a Representative of France . . . .127
Body-guard of a Native Prince 132
The Temple Tank at Tirupati 138
Brahmans of Bengal 141
Military Practice at Old Fort Jhansi 146
An Indian Native Ruler 149
The Sacred Bull at Mysore 154
Shah Sutlaj Mosque at Multan in Sind 157
A Sikh Warrior . 161
The Government House and Treasury, Calcutta, from the Old Course . 165
The Black Hole of Calcutta 167
An Indian Mohammedan Helmet 169
Shivary Hills near Salem in Southern India 173
A Native Boat of Bengal 177
The Great Mosque at Kalbargah in Haidarabad 181
Lord Clive 185
The Jarni' Masjid at Lucknow 189
A Mohammedan Tomb at Lahore 193
Residency at Lucknow 201
Mountain Tribes of the Afghan Border 205
The Old Palace at Bhartpur 209
A Temple near Tinnevelli in the Madras Presidency 213
A Native Indian Prince and His Court, with Two Europeans . . .217
The Fort of Chengalpat . . . 223
A Mountain Road at Mahableshwar, in the Bombay Presidency . . 227
Simla, the Summer Seat of the British Government 230
Victoria Station, Bombay 233
Katkari Natives on the Western Ghats 235
Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal 239
Raghunath Rao 245
The Great Cave at Elephanta, near Bombay ...... 248
A Castle on the Barwa Sagar, Gwalior ....... 253
Hilt of Tippu's Sword 256
Some of Tippu's Forces 258
Umbrella Tree and Granite Boulder at Bellary in the Madras Presidency . 263
Cenotaph of a Native Ruler at Jaipur 268
Lord Cornwallis 273
A Village God in the Bombay Presidency 277
The Ghat Temple, Cawnpur 279
Tippu's Tomb at Seringapatam ........ 284
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix
PAGB
An Action at Seringapatam 287
Tomb of the Sindhias, at Lashkar 290
A Street-corner in Bhopal ......... 294
The Attack on the Sialkot Mutineers by Gen. Nicholson's Irregular
Cavalry, July 12, 1857 300
The Jami' Masjid, or Great Mosque, at Delhi 308
Parsi Feminine Types at Bombay . 311
The Atal Tower at Amritsar 315
The Residency at Lucknow 322
A Mosque at Aligarh 328
Gen. Havelock's Attack on Nana Sahib at Fathpur 334
The Royal Palace at Baroda 337
The Kali Ghat, Calcutta 344
The Hugli River at Calcutta 347
Ran jit Singh's Samadh at Lahore . 353
Mountain Scenery in the Himalayas ........ 355
Site of Ranjit Singh's Encampment near Rupur, on the Sutlaj . . . 356
A Temple at Gwalior 360
Bakhlawar Singh's Cenotaph at Ulwar in Rajputana .... 365
Ruins of Tyre, the Ancient Phoenician City on the Mediterranean . . 369
A Nepalese Shield 376
Peasants of Mahableshwar, near Satara, in the Bombay Presidency . .381
An Indian Rupee of Queen Victoria's Reign 385
Burmese Warriors . 387
The Government House at Calcutta 389
The Golden Throne of Ranjit Singh 391
Lord William Bentinck 393
On the Northern Indian Border . 396
The Relief of Lucknow by Sir Henry Havelock 400
Sir Charles Napier 405
The Battle of Miani, at which Napier defeated the Amirs .... 407
The Battle of Mudki, at which Hardinge defeated the Sikhs . . .411
The Battle of Aliwal, in which Smith was Victorious over the Sikhs . 415
Finding the Colours of the 24th Regiment after the Battle of Chili-
anwala 418
The Fort and Harbour of Karachi 420
The Massacre Ghat at Cawnpur 423
The Charge of the Highlanders before Cawnpur, under General Havelock 424
Sir John Lawrence ......... % . 427
Mountain Passes near Quetta in Baluchistan 435
Abd-ar-Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan . 442
The Golden Monastery, Mandalay, Burma 446
The Memorial Well, Cawnpur 449
xx LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Massacre at Cawnpur 452
The " Slaughter-House," where the Cawnpur Massacre took place . . 454
Detail from the Hall of a Hundred Columns at Conjevaram . . . 462
The Durbar of 1902 465
Submission of the Maharaja Dhulip Singh to Sir Henry Hardinge, at
Kanha Cushwa 470
View of Muscat from the Housetops 474
Reception of General Outram and Staff at the Durbar of the Raja of
Travancore 478
Major-General Sir Henry Havelock 481
A Pillar at Tirumala Nayaka, Madura 484
The Tilo-Milo Pagoda at Pagan, Burma ....... 488
A Sacred Pool at Tiruparankundram near Madura 491
The Ganesa Temple at Tiruvenamalai in South Arkot . . . .495
AN INDIAN DECORATIVE DESIGN.
CHAPTER I
EAELY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
FROM time immemorial the trade of Europe with
the rich and productive countries of Southeastern
Asia, particularly with India and the islands of the
Malay Archipelago, has been the most lucrative branch
of the world's commerce. It has been the object of
fierce and persistent competition by sea and land among
the more enterprising and civilized European states,
of a contest that increased with the spirit of adventure
and the desire for wealth; and it has made the fortune
of every city or nation that has successively obtained
the largest share of it. For nearly eighteen centuries,
from the days of the Ptolemies almost until the Portu-
guese rounded the Cape of Good Hope, Alexandria was
an emporium and half-way station of the sea-borne
trade.
The Roman emperors, who were deeply interested
2 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
in developing the prosperity of Egypt, spared no pains
to monopolize the commercial navigation of the Bed
Sea. They sent more than one naval expedition against
the southwest coast of Arabia with the object of seiz-
ing Aden (then, as now, a most important station) and
ADEN FROM THE ARAB CEMETERY.
of wresting the Indian trade from the hands of the
Arabs. In fact, they attempted, though unsuccessfully,
to acquire very much the same position in those waters
as that which the English have at last succeeded in
establishing after an interval of sixteen centuries. Al-
though the Roman navy was not strong enough to dis-
lodge the Arabs, yet the direct European maritime traf-
THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND EASTERN TRADE 3
fic with the East in the time of the Flavian emperors
took almost exactly the route into which, after some
wide aberrations, it seems at length again to have set-
tled down that is, the route by Egypt, Suez, and Aden
across the Indian Ocean to the ports on the Western
coast of India.
The jealousy that was excited in Rome by the rich
and enterprising merchants of Palmyra, who were di-
verting the stream of Eastern traffic into an overland
route from the Persian Gulf up the Euphrates to Syria,
is said to have been one reason for the destruction of
that flourishing city. In this manner the Roman em-
pire, while at its zenith, obtained a wider command
over the main channels of Asiatic trade than has ever
since been held by any European power except Eng-
land; and England has also the great advantage that
she not only commands the channels but, by her domin-
ion in India, possesses the largest source of this mighty
commercial stream.
The outpouring of the Arab tribes under Moham-
med 's successors upset the civilized government to
which the routes by the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
owed their security. When the conquests of Islam had
overflowed Egypt and Syria, Constantinople became for
a time the chief storehouse of the Levant, and the main
current of trade with India and China took the line
across Central Asia to the Black Sea, avoiding the
countries recently overrun by the Mohammedans.
" The commerce of Europe," as Professor Finlay re-
marks, " centred at Constantinople in the eighth and
4 EAELY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMEECE
ninth centuries more completely than it has ever done
since in any one city "; the Greek navy was the largest
then in existence.
But misrule, fiscal oppression, and foreign invasions
ruined the Byzantine empire. As Constantinople de-
clined, Venice and Genoa, the cities of the inland sea
which lay beyond the desolating range of Asiatic con-
quest, rose into splendid prominence. It was the spirit
of very short-sighted commercial jealousy that actu-
ated the Venetians when, having contracted to convey
the armies of the Fourth Crusade across the Mediter-
ranean to Egypt, they insisted on an expedition against
Constantinople, which was taken by the Latins in 1204.
The blow fatally weakened the Greek power in the
East, which henceforward opposed less and less resist-
ance to the invading Turkish hordes. In the mean-
time the Italian cities had become the principal agents
for the importation into Europe of the precious com-
modities of Asia; insomuch that in the fifteenth cen-
tury the Venetians appeared literally to " hold the
gorgeous East in fee," for they were not far from pos-
sessing the whole of this enormously profitable business.
At the end of that century two capital events in
the annals of the world's commerce occurred suddenly
and almost simultaneously the discovery of America
and the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope. Their
effect was to give vast extension to the sea-borne trade
with Asia, to turn its main volume into new channels
by opening out direct communication by ships between
South Asia and the countries bordering on the Atlantic,
MARITIME DISCOVERY AND ITS RESULTS 5
and to augment very greatly the supply of gold and
silver for exchange against Asiatic products. The ex-
ploration of the globe, eastward and westward, pro-
duced navigation on a grand scale; and the superior
skill, audacity, and capital of Europeans have ever
since secured them a monopoly of the carrying trade
on all the high seas.
The contest among the nations of Europe for superi-
ority in this new field of enterprise soon began in
earnest. When Pope Alexander Borgia issued his Bull
dividing the whole undiscovered non-Christian world
between Spain and Portugal, he awarded India to the
latter power, so that the Portuguese, who had been
pushing their dominion southward along the West Afri-
can coast throughout the fifteenth century, at once took
a much wider flight. They proceeded with ruthless
energy to establish their fortified settlements on the
Indian coast, to seize points of vantage in the Indian
Ocean, and to beat off all attempts of the Mohammedan
sovereigns at Alexandria and Constantinople to resist
European predominance in those waters.
It is doubtless fortunate that even Solyman the
Magnificent, in the height of his glory, failed in his
efforts to expel the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean;
for his success might have been disastrous to Eastern
Christendom. If the Turkish Sultan, who at the open-
ing of the sixteenth century was supreme in the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf, and whose fleets swept the
Mediterranean, could have kept the Indian trade to
its ancient and direct course through Egypt and Syria,
\
6 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
the wealth that he might thus have secured must have
added prodigiously to the force of his arms by sea and
land. A colossal military empire upon the Bosphorus,
commanding the avenues of Asiatic trade, might even
in our own days overawe half Europe, and would have
been irresistible three hundred years ago.
Yet Venice foresaw so clearly that the diversion
of trade to the ocean route would be her death-blow,
that she vigorously supported the Turkish Sultan,
though in vain. When Benbo, the Venetian envoy at
Lisbon, wrote that he had seen vessels return to that
port from Asia loaded with Indian goods, his govern-
ment became aware that the most important branch
of their commerce was in danger of being cut off. By
the end of the sixteenth century that inestimable priv-
ilege, the chief control of Eastern commerce in Euro-
pean waters, had passed for ever out of the hands of
the Italian cities, whose gradual commercial decay from
that epoch showed plainly where lay the mainspring
of their prosperity and political expansion.
From the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black
Sea, from Alexandria and Constantinople, from Venice
and Genoa, the rich trade of India with Europe was
now transferred to the ocean-going peoples of Western
Europe. It was cut off in the Indian seas and almost
monopolized for a time by Portugal, whose sovereigns
improved their opportunity with remarkable activity,
sending out fleets to range over the whole coast of
South Asia from the Persian Gulf to Ceylon. Never-
theless their period of triumphant prosperity was short,
FALSE THEORIES OF TRADE 7
for in 1580 all the strength and soul of Portuguese enter-
prise were crushed out of her by annexation to Spain.
The Spaniards threw away their opportunity; they
found it easier to mine the precious metals in America
than to make long voyages to India; and instead of
using their treasure they tried to hoard it.
From the days of the Romans up to our own time,
the Indian trade has drained the gold and silver of
CONSTANTINOPLE AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY.
Europe; but the Spaniards were under the delusion,
so long prevalent in Europe, that to export bullion is
to exhaust a country's wealth; so that their commerce
with Asia was fatally hampered by strict prohibitions
against sending the precious metals abroad. This false
mercantile theory must have materially retarded the
expansion of the foreign trade of Europe; for we find
the East India Company in the seventeenth century
constantly accused of impoverishing England by their
despatches of bullion. It wasjndeed long before any
but the maritime trading classes, to whom the needs
and practice of distant commerce brought real experi-
8 EAELY COMPETITION FOE INDIAN COMMERCE
ence, understood that the precious metals, no less than
quicksilver, must find their own natural level, or must
fall in value.
By the end of the sixteenth century, therefore, the
sea-borne trade of Asia with Europe had passed away
from the Mediterranean cities, from Alexandria and
Constantinople, from Venice and Genoa, and was being
rapidly taken up by the maritime populations of the
Atlantic and the North Sea. The direct waterway had
been discovered; commercial competition among the
Western nations was beginning; and the opening of
sea communication established new points of contact
between Europe and Asia, slowly but surely growing
into a close connection that has affected the subsequent
history of both continents, has largely influenced the
politics of the maritime powers, and has determined
the whole destiny of India.
When Queen Elizabeth recognized the independence
of the Dutch republic (declared in 1578) and thus became
committed to war with Spain, the united naval forces
of England and Holland were directed against the
Asiatic settlements of Portugal, which were then, as
has been said, under the Spanish crown. The desperate
struggle of the United Provinces against Philip II ex-
posed Spanish vessels to the vindictive hostility of the
Protestant traders in Eastern waters; and the great
victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 gave confi-
dence to England. In a memorial addressed to the
queen in the following year, the English merchants ask
for license and encouragement to their project of push-
THE RELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SPAIN 9
ing forward adventures in the East Indies. Such a
trade, they say, " would by degrees add to the shipping,
seamen, and naval force of the kingdom, in the same
manner as it has increased the Portuguese fleets."
The Spaniards, however, took such grave umbrage
QUEEN ELIZABETH KNIGHTING SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ON BOARD THE "GOLDEN HIND"
AT DEPTFORD, APRIL 4, 1581.
at the preparations made in England to interfere with
their East Indian monopoly, that in 1599 the granting
of a charter to the English Company was postponed
for eighteen months by Elizabeth's Privy Council, who
were at the moment negotiating^peace with Spain. In
1600, however, upon renewed solicitations from the
Adventurers for the East Indian voyage, a charter was
given by the Crown to the London Company for fifteen
years. This deed of incorporation stands as a historic
monument, commemorating the inception of a great
enterprise; it records the origin and indicates the
direction of that great current of Asiatic trade whose
ever rising flow during three centuries has brought
wealth and power to the English nation.
At this period, moreover, the common right of all
nations to trade freely and peacefully with Asia, though
it was asserted by the Dutch as against the Spanish
monopoly, was in fact no more recognized than a com-
mon international right to cultivate or colonize. Each
country was striving to seize and appropriate the larg-
est possible share of this profitable commerce, to the
forcible exclusion of all interlopers; they were all con-
tending for complete and masterful possession; they
were conquering by water as they might be conquering
by land, and fiercely attacking any intruder upon their
trading ground as if he were an invader of their terri-
tory.
At the end of the sixteenth century the Spaniards
claimed the whole right of trade with the East Indies
as part of their sovereignty; the Indian seas were their
territorial waters; they permitted no European port
except their own to exist upon the Indian seaboard.
" The Indies," they declared, " East and West, are our
house, privately possessed by us for more than a hun-
dred years; and no one has a right to enter without
our permission; " they claimed over these vast regions
the same sovereign jurisdiction that England affirms
SPANISH TRADE CLAIMS 11
over her Indian empire. The Spanish President of the
Council of the Indies told the British ambassador
plainly " that in coercions and punishments to restrain
access to these countries, he had an inclination rather
to cruelty than to clemency," and that the case for free
trade was far different there from elsewhere, because
these dominions were Spanish by the rule of nations.
In 1605 the Spaniards threatened with the severest pen-
alties any Hollander presuming to trade in the East
Indies; but the war between Spain and her revolted
provinces was carried on in Asia as bitterly as in Eu-
rope, and largely accelerated the downfall of the old
Portuguese domination on the Indian seaboard. There
was some desperate fighting in the Malacca Straits, and
in the China Sea, with merciless slaughter after a de-
feat.
The question of the Eastern trade was the most
difficult and obstinately disputed point in the negotia-
tions which ended with Spain's recognition of Holland's
independence. In 1607, the Spanish king offered to
renounce his claim of sovereignty over the United Prov-
inces if the Dutch would abandon their navigation to
the East Indies. But the Dutch treated this as the most
valuable property of their own State; they knew the
Indian commerce to be the chief stay and subsistence
of naval dominion in either country; they saw that
while they would be ruined by resigning it, by retain-
ing it they should keep the power of retaliating upon
Spain in Asia for oppression or injuries in Europe.
They insisted so firmly on their right to trade freely
12 EAKLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
in the East Indies that the Spaniards at last gave way
upon the point, though it was never conceded openly.
But although the Dutch asserted trade liberties
against Spain, their own policy was to establish the
strictest monopoly. Between 1597 and 1600, the Dutch
ships had first rounded the Cape of Good Hope into
Asiatic waters, where they were very fiercely handled
by the Spanish forces in that quarter. In 1602, the
Universal East India Company had been founded in
Holland, with exclusive privilege of trading east of the
Cape and west of the Magellan Straits, with a great
capital subscribed by all the provinces, with full power
to make peace and war in the name of the United Prov-
inces, to levy troops, and to appoint generals. Strong
fleets were sent out with orders to expel the Spanish
and Portuguese from the Spice Islands and the Indian
coasts, to found settlements, and in fact to annex the
trade to Holland precisely as they might annex an
enemy's province.
In the beginning these proceedings were taken in
co-operation with the English, who now make their first
substantial appearance, as represented by a Company,
in the field of Asiatic commerce. But the two nations
soon began to quarrel in Asia, though in Europe they
preserved amity, and in 1611 the London merchants
prayed for protection and redress, representing that
the Hollanders were driving them out of all places of
traffic in the East Indies. When a joint commission
was appointed to settle matters, the Dutch challenged
the sole trade in spices, nor could any arrangement
RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 13
be mediated. It is worth noticing, as showing the value
of the trade even at that early time, that in 1615 the
Dutch were reported to have fifty-one ships in the East
Indies, with a stock of 900,000 sterling, and 400,000
taken up at interest. The English Company paid 14,-
000 customs in 1615 for the cargo of two ships, and
in 1616 one ship alone was valued at more than 140,-
000. A proposal by Holland that the Dutch and Eng-
lish should form one Joint Stock Company, divide their
spheres of traffic, and combine forces in order wholly
to drive Spain out of the East Indies was rejected,
partly because James I still leaned toward a Spanish
alliance. Thus all attempts to arrest or adjust the
earliest disputes of England and Holland over their
respective limits and shares in such an enormously
lucrative trade naturally failed; indeed they served
only to complicate the impending quarrel.
Upon only one point the two Protestant nations
agreed cordially in their inveterate hostility to the
Spanish and Portuguese. They spared no pains to beat
off and expel from the coast of India the Portuguese,
who were, in 1613 - 1615, in very bad odour with the
Moghul government for having seized a great ship in
which the emperor's mother was the principal share-
holder. The correspondence of the English Company
at this period is filled with reports of fierce battles with
the Portuguese, in one of which, at Surat, for example,
between four and five hundred " Portugals " were slain,
burned, and drowned. This ratlier sanguinary business
is mentioned in an ordinary letter, which, without
14 EAELY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
change of tone, goes on to give the prices of commodi-
ties and the colours of cloths that will not keep fast
in an Indian climate.
By 1615 the trade of Portugal had, we are told,
infinitely decayed; and the Spanish government showed
very little concern at the rapid impoverishment of that
kingdom. In Holland, on the contrary, the Republic
looked upon its East India trade as " a high point of
state," and assisted the Company with great sums of
money. But the substitution of Dutchmen for Portu-
guese as our rivals in this part of the world was by
no means an advantage to us. Their estrangement
from England, originally caused by the wavering policy
of the first two Stuarts, who leaned first toward Spain
and afterwards toward France, was undoubtedly fos-
tered by growing commercial jealousies. Thencefor-
ward, throughout the seventeenth century, the annals
of East Indian affairs record a continuous persevering
contest between the English and Dutch for advantage
in the Indian trade, and for possession of the settle-
ments that were necessary to its existence. The Dutch
had gradually annexed most of the principal Portuguese
settlements; they asserted paramount European power
in all those seas and islands; so that they constantly
came into sharp collision with the English, who were
still weak in those regions, and whose merchant adven-
turers were ill supported by the vacillating and unpop-
ular government of James I and his son Charles.
It should be understood that the term " East In-
dies," according to the nomenclature of those days,
ENGLISH EASTERN TRADE RESTRICTED TO INDIA 15
comprised not only India proper, but also the countries
on the east side of the Bay of Bengal, the Straits of
Malacca, Java, Siam, and all the Spice Islands further
eastward in the Java and Chinese seas, such as the
Celebes and the Moluccas. With China and Japan also
a very active commercial intercourse had been estab-
lished by the English Company, something under 100
per cent, being reckoned a reasonable rate of profit on
sales.
In the first half of the seventeenth century the traf-
fic with the Spice Islands was by far the most impor-
tant and profitable; and from this branch of the gen-
eral East India trade the Dutch were determined to
exclude us; for indeed upon this commerce the pros-
perity of their state and people largely depended.
They did, in fact, so thwart and embarrass the opera-
tions of the English Company in the waters of Eastern
Asia, beyond the Malacca Straits, that the English
gradually withdrew from many of their stations in that
region, and shifted their trade more and more, as time
went on, toward the coasts of India and the countries
adjacent. From this tendency of the English to con-
centrate their business upon the ports and factories of
the Indian mainland, and to cultivate relations with the
Moghul Empire, we may deduce some ulterior conse-
quences of much importance in regard to the course
and character of their subsequent expansion.
In this manner began the contest for valuable
markets that gave so strong an impulse, at this period,
to the system of chartered companies; for the early
16 EARLY COMPETITION FOE INDIAN COMMERCE
traders in Asiatic waters had to fight their own way
and hold their own ground; they could expect little or
no help in Asia from their own governments, and noth-
ing but merciless hostility from their European rivals.
Trade was more valuable, to the maritime folk, than
THE MOGHTTL MOSQUE AT FATHPUR - SIKRI.
territory, and commerce than conquest. But traffic with
distant lands could not be carried on without taking
up stations and arming ships, since the understanding
among European nations was that regular diplomatic
relations practically did not extend beyond certain well-
known lines of longitude.
According to a treaty made between France and
CHARTER COMPANIES AND THEIR PRINCIPLE 17
Spain in 1598, in the regions westward of the Canary
Islands tout serait a la force; and although Spain and
Portugal claimed immense jurisdictions, political and
ecclesiastic, in the East, yet these were of a nature too
impalpable and fluctuating to be acknowledged dis-
tinctly by international law. The Chartered Companies
therefore represented a device, invented to suit these
conditions of existence, for extending commerce and
for securing it by territorial appropriations, without
directly pledging a government to answer for the acts
of its subjects. The charter expressed the delegation
of certain sovereign powers for distinct purposes; it
amounted from one point of view to a license for private
war; and the system has since had a long, eventful,
and curious history, which is even yet by no means
ended.
The point to be observed is that this system, under
which the foundations of the British Empire of India
were laid, was something very different from the kind
of scrambling haphazard adventure to which the estab-
lishment of that empire is by common imagination so
often ascribed. On the contrary, it provided, in the
hands of a free and wealthy people, a very powerful
instrument of colonial and commercial expansion. The
prize in dispute was a share or, if possible, the mo-
nopoly of the commerce between Western Europe and
all the ports of Asia from the Red Sea to China and
Japan. The early records of the East India Company
show that along the whole accessible coast line of the
Asiatic continent and among the islands, at every point
18 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
where trading could be done on the Arabian seaboard,
in the Persian Gulf, from the western side of India to
Northeastern China the European nations were now
contending vigorously for commercial profits and privi-
leges.
The value of the prize for which they were com-
peting was even then perfectly well known; and sub-
sequent history has proved that the wealth, liberties,
and political predominance at home of the contending
nations depended considerably on their failure or suc-
cess. It was the foreign imports that brought the
revenue which maintained the great fleets and armies
of Spain; it was maritime trade that fed the stubborn
power of resistance displayed by the Dutch Republic;
and the greatness of England has been manifestly
founded upon her world-ranging commerce. By far
the most important branch of sea-borne traffic was, in
the seventeenth century, the exchange of goods with
Asia, and each national government took part, directly
or indirectly, in the struggle for it. The first maritime
explorers from the despotically governed states of
Spain and Portugal seized lands and claimed naviga-
tion rights in the name of their Crown, which at once
treated all these captures as increments to its complete
sovereignty.
Between the Dutch Republic and its East India
Company the connection was exceedingly close; al-
though a formal distinction was always maintained.
In 1618 this Company, as we learn from an English
report, was composed of the great majority of the Privy
THE ENGLISH AND DUTCH COMPANIES 19
Council, the nobility, judges, and gentry, and was fur-
nished with an assured stock of 1,600,000. When, in
1617, the English East India Company raised its second
Joint Stock, the sum of 1,620,040 was at once sub-
scribed in London; and the records of 1622 state that
goods bought in India for 356,288 had produced 1,914,-
600 in England. Here were two great commercial asso-
ciations with power and resources quite equal to those
of the minor states at that period.
But while the state of Holland was, so to speak,
incorporate in its Company, the English adopted from
the beginning, and preserved up to the end of the eight-
eenth century, a system under which the state held
a position not unlike that of partner en commandite,
taking no risks, acknowledging very slight responsibil-
ity, interfering occasionally to demand a share of profits
or to lay a heavy fine upon charter renewals, and as-
sisting the Company only when such a course accorded
with the general political interests of the nation.
Armed with a valuable monopoly, and left to their own
devices, the English Company relied not so much upon
state aid as upon their own wealth and energy; they
underwent some perilous vicissitudes and performed
some remarkable exploits.
The extent to which unofficial war was practised,
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, by the
roving nations of Europe, is perhaps hardly appreciated
in this age of international law and ubiquitous diplo-
macy. If English merchants in India or the Persian
Gulf had been obliged to refer home for remedy of
20 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
grievances or settlement of disputes with Dutch,
French, or Portuguese, they would have been very soon
exterminated. They did no such thing; they took to
their own weapons, and their military operations were
often upon a considerable scale. In 1622 there was
formal peace between Portugal (which then belonged
BOATS ON THE PERSIAN GULF.
From Edwin Lord Weeks's Through Persia and India.
(Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Brothers.)
to Spain) and England; but the English East India
Company was at bitter war in the Indian Ocean with
the Portuguese, who had disturbed its trade and mo-
lested the Honourable Company's ships. So the Eng-
lish Company fitted out a small fleet at Surat, and
sent it up the Persian Gulf with orders to assist Shah
Abbas, the Persian king, in turning the Portuguese out
of the island of Ormuz, which they had held for a cen-
tury, and which gave them exclusive command of the
ANGLO -POBTUGUESE QUAKRELS IN INDIA 21
Gulf. The business was done, with the aid of the Per-
sians, very thoroughly; there was a regular bombard-
ment of the fortress, and a naval action with the Por-
tuguese royal fleet, until the island was surrendered,
the fortifications razed, and the Portuguese garrison
transported to Goa.
We do not hear that Portugal made any serious
remonstrance against these proceedings, which would
certainly startle modern diplomacy; but it stands on
record that James I and the Lord High Admiral (the
Duke of Buckingham) exacted large sums of money
from the Company as the royal share of the profits.
Another heavy fine was again demanded by Bucking-
ham from the Company before he would permit them
to despatch a fleet for the protection of their commerce
against Portuguese reprisals. Probably the English
might have claimed to set off against the affair at Or-
muz other similar irregularities on the part of the Por-
tuguese; for among the nations then engaged in the
East India trade there was little scruple about ways
and means of dealing with rivals.
But the Dutch, though formally friends and allies
of England, soon became much more dangerous ene-
mies in Asia than the Portuguese, and were now
inflicting heavy damage on the British East Indian
trade which the English Company was by no means
disposed to endure. The two Companies were rapidly
drifting into a rather ferocious war, quite uncontrolled
by international law or military usage, in which little
quarter was given and nothing spared that might extir-
22 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
pate the enemy. Both sides possessed armed ships and
fortified stations; but although the Dutch had many
more forts and a much larger territory than the Eng-
lish, their policy of seizing all the points of vantage
had the drawback that it involved them in quarrels
with the native chiefs and crippled their capital by
heavy military charges. After protracted negotiations,
however, a treaty was at last arranged between Holland
and England in 1619 on the basis of mutual restitutions
and compensations. The news, we learn from the corre-
spondence, reached India just in time to prevent " a
bloody encounter between eleven of our best ships and
seventeen of the Dutch."
This treaty, which was made for twenty years, actu-
ally lasted less than twenty months, and seems to have
been little regarded in the East Indies, where the neces-
sities of commercial competition went on multiplying
disputes and reciprocal violence, until one particularly
atrocious outrage brought matters to a climax. The
massacre by the Dutch of almost all the English at
Amboyna in the Moluccas in 1623 was a piece of cruel
iniquity that bred long and fierce resentment against
Holland among, the English merchants and mariners of
that generation, and heated the animosities that broke
out later between the two nations in Europe.
The preponderance of the Dutch in the Spice
Islands, and their dangerous enmity, had undoubtedly
much weight in diverting English trade toward the
Asiatic continent, and thus in making the factories on
the Indian seacoast the principal object of our atten-
THE ENGLISH IN INDIA 23
tion. On the western side of India the English had
settled first at Surat, in 1612, under a farmdn of the
Moghul government, with special privileges procured
by Sir Thomas Roe's embassy from James I to the
Emperor Jahangir in 1615 - 1618. In 1630 the English
and Portuguese fleets fought a respectable battle in
that roadstead, without prejudice to international rela-
tions at home. And as the Dutch were now making
virulent attacks upon the possessions of Portugal in
India and Ceylon, her power had by this time fallen
into a rapid decline. When, in 1640, she recovered her
independence as a kingdom, she made some feeble
attempts to hold her ground in Asia; but after the
Treaty of Minister in 1648, which limited her Indian
possessions, Portugal fell irremediably into the back-
ground.
In 1638 Surat became the English Company's chief
establishment; and by 1643 it was established on the
east coast at Masulipatam and Madras, with a fac-
tory up the Hugli River for the Bengal traffic. Their
influence at the Moghul 's court was substantially pro-
moted by the deputation of Mr. Boughton, a surgeon in
the East India Company's service, to Agra for the
purpose of professionally treating the emperor, who
afterwards appointed him physician to the household.
By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Company
was trading all along the southern seaboard of Asia
from the Persian Gulf eastward to the borders of China;
and as the commercial operations of the Dutch took
the same geographical range, the two nations were in
24 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
close competition and incessant collision throughout
this extensive line. But the quarrel at home between
king and Parliament checked English enterprise at the
fountainhead, for our government could lend only a
weak and fluctuating support in disputes with foreign
rivals; while Holland and even Portugal were actively
backed by their respective governments, who gave the
THB HUGLI RIVER AT BARRACKPUR.
direct weight of national authority to all expeditions
and annexations in the East.
As the English Company was thus virtually in the
position of a private association contending against two
sovereign powers, it is not surprising that toward the
end of the civil war they were in very low water, while
the Dutch had gained superiority over the English on
the Indian coasts, were cutting off their trade with the
Spice Islands, and treating them with the greatest
arrogance everywhere. The State Papers of this time
record incessant complaints of the " intolerable inju-
DIFFICULTIES OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY 25
ries, cruelty, insolency, and cunning circumventing proj-
ects " of the Dutch in the East Indies, who made no
scruple about sending fleets with large bodies of sol-
diers to seize or expel foreign merchants and to occupy
stations whenever it was their interest to do so.
The English Company was also much troubled by
the encroachments of interlopers, or private independ-
ent traders, some of whom were little better than
pirates, but for whose misconduct in Asiatic waters
the Company was often called to account by the local
authorities. In default of any diplomatic or consular
relations between Europe and Asia, a responsible trad-
ing association, holding regular grants and licenses
from the Moghul or his governors, was naturally re-
garded as representing the nationality to which it be-
longed, and had to suffer reprisals or pay indemnities
for the misdeeds of its compatriots. Still graver con-
sequences might follow offence given by the independ-
ent English merchantmen to the Portuguese or the
Dutch, who thought little of sinking an intruding ves-
sel, deliberately drowning the whole crew, or levelling
an obnoxious factory.
Only a company supported by the state, with an
exclusive trading charter, could command the capital,
exert the strength, and maintain the consistent organi-
zation that was indispensable in those days, when Eng-
lish commerce had to fight its own battle against ene-
mies who would have entirely expelled it from the
great markets of the East. In these essential qualifi-
cations for success the Dutch excelled all other nations
26 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
during the greater part of the seventeenth century.
The whole Republic, as is observed by an English
writer of the time, was virtually an association for the
purposes of navigation and trade ; the Dutch companies
were connected organically with the constitution of the
States-General. And since in Holland the people at
large were merchants and mariners, their commercial
policy was stronger, more stiffly resolute, and better
supported than that of states ruled by a court and
a landed aristocracy, whose aims and interests were
diverse and conflicting.
It has been thought worth while to relate and ex-
plain, in some detail, the history of the East Indian
trade during the first half of the seventeenth century,
because the importance and magnitude of the public
interests involved in it at that early stage have not
been generally apprehended. In these transactions we
may observe the precursory signs of that connection
between European and Asiatic politics that has grown
closer and has multiplied its points of contact during
the last three hundred years. If it had been possible
for one great seafaring nation to draw to itself all the
sea-borne Asiatic commerce as the Phoenicians seem
to have once almost monopolized the Mediterranean
trade that commerce might have been carried on for
a long time peaceably, with as little disturbance as was
given by the overland trade to the countries through
which it passed. But while the land routes traversed
recognizable territorial jurisdictions, the waterways
lay open to all, and when the various traders began to
EASTERN STRIFE AND WESTERN POLITICS 27
jostle each other in the Asiatic ports, the Dutch, Eng-
lish, and Portuguese fell out among themselves in the
Eastern seas as naturally as Greeks, Italians, and Arabs
quarrelled, two centuries earlier, over the same prize
in the Mediterranean.
These quarrels affected, and were affected by, the
changing course of politics during an age of incessant
war in Europe; for while kings and ministers were
already influenced by the interests of a trade that
constantly aided their treasuries, the acts and relations
of European rulers bore directly, then as now, on their
foreign commerce. The persecution of the Reformers
in Holland by Spain led to the foundation of the Dutch
East India Company; the success of the Dutch stim-
ulated English enterprise; and the long quarrel in the
East Indies between these two Protestant nations not
only diminished and for a time dissolved their natural
connection, but also gave to early English enterprise
in Asia its warlike character, its taste for armed inde-
pendence, and latterly its policy of territorial acquisi-
tion imitated from the Dutch. Never before or since
in the world's history has there been so much bloodshed
over commerce as distinguished from colonization, for
a very brief experience of the perils of East Indian
adventure seems to have convinced the English that
they must abandon the hope of peaceful trading in that
part of the world. They are, however, justly entitled
to the credit of having done their best to confine them-
selves to commerce throughout the seventeenth century,
whereas Portugal and Holland began at once to seize
28 EAELY COMPETITION FOE INDIAN COMMERCE
territory. But the inevitable consequence of uncon-
trolled self-reliant competition among the European
nations was to convert all their East Indian Companies
into armed associations. How these armed associations
were subsequently converted into political powers will
be seen hereafter.
In the meantime, as the strength and stability of
THE OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE (1726-1796).
the Dutch Republic increased in Europe from the begin-
ning of this century, their enterprise in Asia became
bolder and more high-handed. During the Thirty
Years' War, Holland was supported on the Continent
by the Protestant States of Germany and by France
against Austria and Spain, the two countries that men-
aced all Europe. Such an alliance, being peculiarly
COMMERCIAL ASCENDENCY OF HOLLAND 29
favourable to the security of Holland on the land, ren-
dered her a very serious rival to England on the sea.
The Dutch were throwing the English into the shade;
they had founded their East Indian empire; they had
made good a footing in Brazil; they had captured in
West Indian waters the Spanish ships that carried a
rich cargo from Mexico to Havana; they had anni-
hilated the fleet of the Infanta Isabella. They were
becoming masters of the narrow seas at home; they
were threatening, with the aid of France, the Spanish
Netherlands; and the English were feeling much alarm
lest Holland and France together should possess them-
selves of the whole coast line over against England
across the Channel.
These were the advantages that gave Holland pre-
eminence in Asiatic commerce during the greater part
of the seventeenth century. She had stripped Portugal
of some of her most important possessions in the East
and had fixed her trading-posts firmly in well-chosen
places. Under Cromwell's vigorous rule, however, the
English began to recover their position in the East
Indies.
The jealousies, political and commercial, between
the two Republics culminated in the war of 1651 - 1654,
when East India merchants, whose grievances had
formed one of the chief grounds of hostility, prayed
for permission to fit out an armed fleet against the
Dutch in Asia, who had been making depredations
on the English shipping in Indian waters. In 1654 a
peace was patched up upon payment of compensation
30 EAELY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
for injuries, especially for the " bloodie business of
Amboyna," and with the effect of defining the situation
of the English on the Indian littoral.
Nevertheless, although the enmity and the encroach-
ments of the Dutch in Asia by no means ceased, the
proposals made to Cromwell for dissolving the Com-
pany 's monopoly and throwing open the whole Asiatic
trade were so tempting to a ruler who was in sore need
of ready money that he was hardly dissuaded from it
by the combined weight of the arguments and liberal
subsidies of the London Company. Yet it was abso-
lutely clear that free-traders in Asia would have fallen
an easy prey to the common enemy, for the power of
the Dutch was again on the increase. They now main-
tained large military and naval forces in the East In-
dies, obstructed our trade, harassed our agencies, and
disregarded all treaties. They drove the English off
the coast of Eastern Asia, seized Ceylon, blockaded
Bantam the Company's headquarters in Java and
once more tried to exterminate the English factories in
the Spice Islands.
Meanwhile, trade was much disturbed, and the Com-
pany's settlements were put in jeopardy by the civil
war that broke out in India among the sons of Shah
Jahan in 1658 during that emperor's life. By 1660,
however, Aurangzib's triumph over his brothers had
restored tranquillity. The beginning of his long reign,
full of importance to Anglo-Indian history, synchro-
nizes with the Restoration of Charles H, an event which
changed the political connections of England and ma-
ANGLO -PORTUGUESE ALLIANCE IN THE EAST 31
terially affected our commercial system. The Company
wanted more extensive powers, and Charles II wanted
to obliterate from their existing charter the name of
Cromwell; so he gave them a new charter, authorizing
them to make peace and war with any non-Christian
people, although in fact their only troublesome enemies
belonged to Christendom.
Portugal now sought the English alliance in the
hope of recovering some of her Eastern possessions that
BOMBAY IN 1773.
From an old print.
she had lost while under the Spanish yoke, or at least
of defending against the Dutch what she had been able
to retain. These negotiations brought us the valuable
acquisition of the island of Bombay, which was ceded
to England in 1661 as the pledge of an arrangement for
a kind of defensive war against the Dutch in Asia. But
since the Portuguese were as jealous of the English
as they were afraid of the Dutch, some years passed
before the English found themselves in quiet posses-
sion of the island; nor was it until 1669 that Bombay
32 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
and St. Helena were granted in full property to the
London Company.
In 1661 Charles II had granted to this Company by
charter the entire English traffic in the East Indies,
with license to coin money, administer justice, and
punish interlopers; and he confirmed their authority
to make war and peace with non-Christian states in
those parts. He also adopted Cromwell's famous Navi-
gation Law, which was devised to give British sailors
and shipping a monopoly of the transport of goods
interchanged with England, and was aimed chiefly at
the Dutch, who were then the principal carriers of the
sea-borne trade of Europe.
In this manner the commercial resources of England
were formed, organized, and directed toward maintain-
ing an equal contest against inveterate foes; nor can
there be any doubt that trade monopolies were in those
days essential to the existence of British commercial
settlements in Asia. England then had no diplomatic
representatives in non-Christian countries; the home
governments paid no attention to the grievances of any
single merchant or ship-master; and the Amboyna mas-
sacre is only one example of the reckless methods in
use among commercial rivals in distant countries.
Without large capital, an armament, and authority to
use it, without some kind of rough jurisdiction over
their countrymen in distant settlements, no mercantile
association could preserve sufficient influence at home
or security for their foreign stations and their ships
at sea.
WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 33
All these measures for strengthening the East India
trade angered the Dutch, who were also alarmed by
the sale of Dunkirk to France, which let the French
into the narrow seas, and by the weakening of the
Spanish barrier of the Netherlands between France and
Holland. The quarrel with England over Eastern
affairs became sharper and more virulent; for the
Dutch were resolved to check and beat back the en-
croachment of the English on their Asiatic trade; and
the English, on their side, were continually exasperated
by the acts of violence committed against their traders
in the East. In 1664 the French ambassador reported
from London that England was ready to come to blows
with the Hollanders, but it was then the policy of
Louis XTV, who had just been induced by Colbert to
launch the French East India Company, to preserve
peace. He feared that if war broke out it would end
by giving irresistible naval superiority to the nation
that won, and as his navy was not ready, he was anx-
ious to maintain a balance of naval power on the French
coast. Nevertheless, the quarrel grew so bitter that
war did begin in 1665, when the French king was re-
luctantly obliged to join the Dutch, being under treaty
obligation to do so.
In short, at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury the desire to destroy the colonies and commerce of
Spain and Portugal united against them the Dutch and
English in the East Indies. Then, as the power of the
Spanish empire waned, the two Northern nations, hav-
ing the Asiatic field to themselves for a time, turned
34 EAELY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE
savagely on each other. But the fierce naval fighting
that ensued between the Dutch and English enfeebled
both nations; and they soon became equally distrustful
of the designs of the French not only in Europe, but
also in Asia; for France was now entering the arena,
although many years were still to pass before she could
establish herself substantially upon the coast of India.
CHAPTER II
1660 - 1700
IN the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the
three maritime peoples of the West the English,
Dutch, and French had manifestly entered the lists
of competition for commercial ascendency in Asiatic
waters, Spain and Portugal having already fallen far
into the rear. The English Company's establishments
in the East Indies consisted at this time of the presi-
dency of Bantam, with Macassar and other places in
the Indian Archipelago; Fort St. George and its de-
pendent factories on the Coromandel Coast and in the
Bay of Bengal; and Surat on the west coast of Bombay,
with other subordinate posts on that side of India; as
well as some places on the Persian Gulf.
It is of primary importance, in order to set in clear
light the earlier subsequent stages of the rise of British
dominion, and to explain why England finally distanced
other competitors in this long and eventful race, that
the vicissitudes of European politics in the latter part
of this century should be briefly touched upon; because
36
36 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
the success of England in the East is largely due to
the mistakes of France and the misfortunes of Holland
in the West. From the beginning of the century the
Eastern trade had been a make-weight and a percep-
tible element in the regulation of English policy abroad,
for the London merchants had never been without
means of influencing the court or the Parliament; but
the adjustment of this important national interest to
the varying exigencies of the general situation in Eu-
rope had about this time become peculiarly difficult.
During the interval between the Restoration of 1660
and the Revolution of 1688, when our commerce in-
creased and throve mightily, we had to make head in
Asia against the jealous antagonism of the Dutch;
while in Europe the Dutch were our natural allies
against the arbitrary aggressiveness of France. In the
East it was of vital importance to our commerce that
the power of Holland should be repressed, in the West
we were vitally interested in upholding it; the balance
of trade in Asia was inconsistent with the balance of
politics in Europe. It was remarked by a contempo-
rary diplomatist that England's problem was to keep
the peace with Holland without losing our East India
trade; for if we supported the Dutch against France,
they went on elbowing us out of Asia; while in joining
France against Holland, we were breaking down one
maritime power only to make room for another that
might become much more formidable.
The organization of the French navy had now been
seriously taken up ; and in 1664 was founded the French
ARRIVAL OF THE FRENCH IN INDIA
37
East India Company, which fitted out a squadron for
the East Indies in the following year. In 1672, when
England and France were allied against Holland, a
French armament under De la Haye sailed for India,
occupied the excellent harbour of Trincomali in Ceylon,
and took possession of St. Thome, close to Madras.
The English could not decently oppose the emissaries
BIRD'S -EYE VIEW OF TRINCOMALI.
of a friendly nation, although this first appearance of
the French on the Coromandel Coast where in the
next century our contest with them was fought out-
could not but excite considerable uneasiness. Nor was
the situation much improved in our favour when both
places were subsequently captured from the French by
the Dutch.
The foreign relations of England at this period were
unsettled and curiously complicated. In 1665 Holland
and England were at war; in 1666 France joined Hol-
land against us; but in 1668 England, Holland, and
38 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUEOPE AND ASIA
Sweden had formed the Triple Alliance against France;
while in 1672 France and England combined to attack
Holland; and in 1678 the English again made a defen-
sive league with Holland against France, when the Eng-
lish Company were required by the government to send
out a large body of men to defend Bombay, and also
employed an armed fleet of some thirty-five vessels.
The motives for these rapid changes of attitude were
largely connected with Asiatic commerce.
The three wars against Holland into which England
drifted between 1652 and 1672 were all prompted, more
or less, by commercial and colonial animosities. For
the quarrel in Cromwell's time had arisen directly out
of grievances against the Dutch in Asia; and we have
seen that their determined attempts to thwart and repel
the expansion of English commerce in the East Indies
produced the rupture of 1665. France joined Holland
in 1666, and some desperate naval engagements ensued,
until the invasion of Spanish Flanders by Louis XIV
so alarmed the Dutch that they consented to pacific
proposals from the English and signed the Treaty of
Breda in 1667 upon the basis of Uti possidetis as to
territory, and the amicable adjustment of all commer-
cial disputes.
England also made peace with France, but as Louis
XIV nevertheless pushed on his invasion of Spanish
Flanders, the Triple Alliance was formed to stop him
by insisting on France and Spain corning to some ar-
rangement. Then followed a fresh shuffle of the cards,
for in 1670 the French and English kings agreed, by
their secret treaty of Dover, to make a joint attack
upon the Dutch. It is a mistake to suppose, as is com-
monly thought, that Charles II was induced to join
France in 1672 merely by French bribes and his sym-
pathy with Roman Catholicism. His alliance with
France was undoubtedly aimed against civil and relig-
ious liberty at home; but abroad one of its objects was
to cut down the naval and commercial growth of Hol-
land, with whom the English had many unsettled quar-
rels both in America and in Asia.
By a secret treaty projected between France, Eng-
land, and Portugal in 1673, the three powers were to
send a joint naval expedition against the Dutch pos-
sessions in Asia, which were to be seized and divided
among the allies. It is thus clear that there were strong
and recurrent motives for hostility between the two
nations, closely connected with Asiatic affairs. Even
Sir William Temple, the negotiator of the Triple Alli-
ance, discusses in one of his essays the question whether
England would derive greater advantage than France
from the ruin of Holland. Whether in that case it
would be possible to bring over to England the Dutch
trade and shipping, seemed doubtful to him; yet he
feared that, unless England joined France against Hol-
land, the two Continental states might combine against
England.
In 1671, accordingly, England did join France in a
war which ended, so far as we were concerned, in 1674,
when the Dutch agreed to salute the English flag in the
narrow seas and to refer all commercial differences to
40 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
arbitration. Louis XIV, on the other hand, went on
capturing town after town on the Flemish border; his
great armies were overrunning Holland; and the Prince
of Orange had declared that he would die in the last
ditch. Finally, when the English had made a defensive
treaty with Holland to save her from ruin, a general
peace was ratified at Nimeguen in 1678, on terms very
favourable to France, who retained many of the barrier
towns in the Netherlands.
The upshot of these long continental wars was mani-
festly to strengthen England and to weaken Holland.
In 1677, when the French invasion had thrown the
Dutch into peril and distress, the commerce of England
was prospering wonderfully. Moreover, the truce of
1678 was soon broken by fresh hostilities; and from
that time up to the end of the century the French king
was entirely engrossed in his ambitious and extravagant
wars, while the Dutch were fighting desperately for
their existence; so that the only two maritime powers
from which England had anything to fear in the East
were entangled in a great struggle on the European
Continent. From these contests Holland emerged, at
the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, with enfeebled strength,
with her commerce severely damaged, and with her
resources for distant expeditions materially reduced.
But the Dutch had done much injury to the earliest
French settlements planted under Colbert's auspices
in the East Indies; and France had been so much occu-
pied on the land, particularly when the fortune of war
began to turn against her, that she was now incapaci-
-1
J
INCREASE OF ENGLAND'S INDIAN TRADE 41
tated from pursuing Colbert's wise and far-reaching
schemes of commercial and colonial expansion. Her
naval development was checked and her maritime enter-
prise took no fresh flight until after the Peace of
Utrecht in 1713. In short, the French and Dutch had
mutually disabled each other, to the great advantage,
for operations beyond sea, of the English, who thence-
forward begin to draw slowly but continuously to the
foremost place in Asiatic conquest and commerce.
From this period of great Continental wars in Eu-
rope we' may date the beginning of substantial pros-
perity for our East Indian trade; for it was then that
the English made good their footing on the Indian
coasts. We learn from Macaulay's History that during
the twenty years succeeding the Restoration, the value
of the annual imports from Bengal alone rose from
8000 to 300,000, and that the gains of the Company
from their monopoly of the import of East Indian prod-
uce were almost incredible. In 1685 the headquarters
of their business on the Western side was transferred
from Surat to Bombay; in 1687 the chief Bengal agency
was removed from Hugli to Calcutta; and Madras had
become their central post on the eastern shores of the
Indian peninsula.
The Company were liberally encouraged by the gov-
ernment of the last two Stuarts, who granted ample
charters, and even despatched armed reinforcements
to their settlements. After the establishment of these
three principal stations which became afterwards, as
Presidency towns, the cardinal points where the British
dominion was first fixed and whence it issued out into
spacious radiation the East India Company resolved,
in 1687, to assume independent jurisdiction within their
own settlements, to fortify them, to coin money, to
collect customs, and to act, in short, as a self-govern-
ing body within their own limits. They now began to
enlist a native militia for the purpose of using their
chartered right of protecting themselves by reprisals
against oppression or direct attack, and of fighting for
their own hand in quarrels with the local governors or
petty chiefs. The new system thus introduced con-
tained the germ out of which these scattered trading
settlements eventually expanded into wide territorial
dominion; and the incipient weakness of the Moghul
Empire furnished both the motives and the opportunity
for the change.
So long as the imperial administration prevailed up
to the limits of its farthest Indian provinces and was
effectively felt on either seaboard, the English mer-
chants were quite satisfied with licenses allowing them
to compound for the export duties, with grants of land
for building their factories, and with other privileges
for which they paid readily while they got their
money's worth. But the outlying possessions of the
empire were now no longer peacefully subordinate.
The Maratha chief Sivaji was ranging about the Dec-
can, invading the Karnatic, and dominating the whole
upper line of the west coast, not excluding the seaports
and settlements held by Europeans. In 1664 he had
pillaged Surat, where the English factory was bravely
RISE OF THE MARATHAS 43
and successfully defended by Sir George Oxenden; and
in 1671 he had levied heavy contributions on Surat and
the Portuguese colony. Nor could the Moghul gov-
ernors give any trustworthy protection, for Aurangzib's
attention was distracted by a revolt in Afghanistan,
which he was totally unable to put down, despite a
8IVAJI ON THE MARCH.
long and arduous campaign. When he returned to the
Deccan, he found his enemies stronger than before in
the field.
After Sivaji's death in 1680, his son Sambaji con-
tinued the revolt; the imperial armies were gradually
worn out by incessant warfare, by futile pursuits of
an enemy that always avoided a decisive blow, and
by the disorganization of the central government caused
by the emperor's long absence from his capital upon
44 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
distant campaigns. Aurangzib had destroyed the Mo-
hammedan kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapur in South-
ern India, which might at any rate have served as
breakwaters against the spread of the Maratha insur-
rection; and the war was now becoming epidemic. The
dislocation of the native administration led to the con-
solidation of the foreign settlements, since the Com-
panies were compelled for their self-preservation to act
upon this opportunity of taking up a more independent
position in the country. The relaxation of the supreme
legitimate authority loosened its hold on the more dis-
tant governorships, and with local irresponsibility came
local oppression. The merchants became exposed to
irregular extortion and capricious ransoming by sub-
ordinate officials wHo could give them no valid guaran-
tees or regular safeguard; while their immunities and
privileges, even when obtained at the capital from the
emperor's ministers, were often disregarded with im-
punity at the seaports.
Under these circumstances, the English Company
convinced themselves, after much anxious discussion,
that the success and comparative security of the Dutch,
as formerly of the Portuguese, had been founded on
their practice of seizing and openly fortifying posts
strong enough to render the holders independent of the
imperial pleasure, and to resist the arbitrary exac-
tions of neighbouring officials or potentates. Their
assumed jurisdiction was still to be confined entirely
to the seacoast, and its object went no further than
the security of their trade. But the English soon dis-
RELATIONS WITH THE MOGHUL EMPIRE 45
covered that the time had not yet come when a foreign
flag could be safely set up on the Indian mainland.
The Portuguese had established themselves at Goa be-
fore the Moghul Empire had extended to the west coast;
the Dutch had fixed their independent settlements for
the most part upon islands.
In the seventeenth century the power of the Mo-
ghul emperor, although undermined, was not yet so far
reduced that he could be defied with impunity on his
own seaboard. When, in 1687, the East India Company
ventured to declare war against the Emperor Aurang-
zib, all the English settlements soon found themselves
placed in great jeopardy by this rashness. It was lucky
for the foreigners that the capture and execution of
Sambaji, the Maratha leader, roused the Hindus of the
southwest country to unite in strenuous revolt against
the Mohammedan sovereign, who thereafter became too
deeply entangled in the meshes of guerilla warfare and
sporadic insurrections to find leisure for dealing thor-
oughly with comparatively insignificant mercantile in-
truders. Moreover, since the Moghul government main-
tained no regular navy, it could not keep up a blockade
of the harbours and river estuaries or bar the entry
of foreign ships; while on the other hand the imperial
customs revenue suffered heavily from their hostility.
The Emperor Aurangzib (better known in India by
his title of Alamgir) was the last able representative of
a dynasty that had conquered and ruled in India from
the middle of the sixteenth century. The Moghul Em-
pire was founded by the brilliant audacity and warlike
46 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
skill of Babar, a Chagatai Tartar, who, with an army
of twelve thousand men, overthrew the dominion of the
Pathan kings at Delhi and subdued all the northern
provinces of India. It had been consolidated and raised
to its full height of splendour and power by Akbar, a
contemporary of Queen Elizabeth. Four successive em-
perors reigned one hundred and fifty-one years, from
Akbar 's accession in 1556 to Aurangzib's death in 1707;
and as in Asia a long reign is always a strong reign,
for a century and a half the Moghul was fairly India's
master.
The dynasty was foreign by descent and habits; the
strength of the government was sustained by constant
importation of fresh blood from abroad; the military
and civil chiefs were mainly vigorous recruits from
Central Asia who took service under the Indian sov-
ereigns of their own race and religion. Akbar and his
two successors were politic rulers who allied themselves
with the princely families of the Hindus, respected up
to a certain point the prejudices of the population, and
kept both civil and religious despotism within reason-
able bounds. The Emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan
were both sons of Hindu mothers; but Aurangzib, the
son of Shah Jahan, and the fourth in descent from
Akbar, was a Mohammedan by full parentage, and an
ardent Islamite by temperament; and after his triumph
in the great civil war that broke out among the sons
of Shah Jahan, he launched out into a career of perse-
cution and ambitious territorial aggrandizement. In
the writings of Francois Bernier, a Frenchman who was
THE EMPEROB AUKANGZIB 47
court physician to the Moghul emperor toward the
beginning of Aurangzib's long reign, may be found an
excellent picture of the condition of the empire at that
period. His book contains a lively sketch of contem-
porary history, and is full of striking observations upon
the system of government, the composition of the army,
and the more prominent features of Indian society and
administration. Perhaps the most valuable part of it
is the letter " Concerning Hindustan," which Bernier
wrote, after his return to France, to Colbert, the cele-
brated minister of Louis XTV, who had just set on foot
the French East India Company that became the for-
midable rival of the English in the eighteenth century.
His description of the military and official classes is
instructive:
" The great Moghul/' he says, " is a foreigner in
Hindustan; consequently he finds himself in a hostile
country, or nearly so, containing hundreds of Gentiles
(Hindus) to one Moghul, or even to one Mohammedan.
. . . The court itself does not now consist, as originally,
of real Moghuls, but is a medley of Uzbeks, Persians,
Arabs, and Turks, or descendants from all these peo-
ple."
" It must not be imagined," he elsewhere observes,
" that the Omrah, or Lords, of the Moghul's court are
members of ancient families, as our nobility in France
. . . they mostly consist of adventurers from different
nations, who entice one another to the court, and are
generally persons of low descent, some having been
originally slaves. The Moghul raises them to dignity
48 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
or degrades them to obscurity according to his own
pleasure and caprice."
Bernier goes on to show that the total insecurity of
all private property, land revenue exactions, instability
of government, the denial of justice, the tyranny and
cupidity of the sovereign and his subordinates, " a
tyranny often so excessive as to deprive the peasant
and artisan of the necessaries of life, that drives the
cultivator of the soil from his wretched home "and
that was ruining agriculture accounted abundantly
for the rapid decadence of all Asiatic states. " The
country is ruined," he says, " by the necessity of de-
fraying the enormous charges required to maintain the
splendour of a numerous court, and to pay a large army
maintained for the purpose of keeping the people in
subjection. No adequate idea can be conveyed of the
sufferings of that people " ; and he continues: "It is
owing to this miserable system that most towns in Hin-
dustan are made up of earth, mud, and other wretched
materials; that there is no city or town which, if it be
not already ruined or deserted, does not bear evident
marks of approaching decay." He thus touches upon
the symptoms, already perceptible to a close observer,
of the empire's political and economical decline.
Soon after the date at which Bernier wrote, Aurang-
zib entered upon the interminable wars in South India
which gradually involved him in the misfortunes and
difficulties that darkened the last years of his reign.
He succeeded in upsetting the minor Mohammedan
kingdoms which had been strong enough to hold down
WEAKNESS OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE 61
the Hindu population; but he had, in fact, weakened
his empire by extending it; for the new southern prov-
inces could not be effectively managed at a distance
from the central authority, and the Hindus were not
only provoked by his aggressive Mohammedan ortho-
doxy, but encouraged by his utter inability to control
them.
The Moghul government, moreover, had never paid
much attention to its sea frontier, being quite unaccus-
tomed to expect foreign enemies or intruders from any
other quarter than the northwest, through the Afghan
passes. The only naval force on the Indian coast be-
longed to the Siddhis, an independent Abyssinian col-
ony, whose chiefs occasionally placed their fleet at the
disposal of Aurangzib for employment on the west side
of the Indian peninsula.
To these causes and favouring circumstances, there-
fore, to the incipient decline of the central sovereignty,
to the relaxation of imperial authority on the outskirts
of the dominion, and especially to the commotion caused
by the spread of the Hindu rebellion under energetic
Maratha leaders, we may attribute the facility with
which the English made good their foothold on the
shores of India toward the close of the seventeenth
century.
It is important, moreover, to remember that at the
time when the mistakes and troubles of the Moghul
empire were opening the gates of India to access from
the sea, there set in an era of war in Europe which for
many years disabled or diverted the resources of Eng-
52 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA
land's two maritime rivals, France and Holland. The
reigns of the two autocratic monarchs who ruled France
and India throughout the second half of the seventeenth
century tally very nearly in point of time, for the dates
of their respective accessions. very nearly coincide; and
they died early in the eighteenth century within a few
years of each other. In the policy to which each of
these celebrated rulers personally attached himself, and
in its unfortunate consequences, there is also much more
than a fanciful resemblance.
The accession of both Aurangzib and Louis XTV
took place at a moment when the splendour and fame
of their dynasties were in full lustre; they both inau-
gurated a career of conquest and unscrupulous attacks
upon weaker neighbours that was at first triumphant;
they both gradually undermined the prosperity of their
kingdoms and the stability of their houses by wasteful
and impolitic wars. Religious persecution of their own
subjects, unwieldy centralization of all governmental
authority by the levelling of local institutions, wide-
spread corruption and a magnificent court under the
influence of bigots, lackeys, and panders, were charac-
teristics of the reign of the Bourbon as well as of the
Moghul. And in each instance half a century's auto-
cratic misrule, complicated by unfortunate foreign
wars, sectarian revolts, and grinding fiscal oppression,
brought great misery on the people, and fatally ener-
vated the monarchy.
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the
clouds began to gather, and from the beginning of the
AURANGZIB COMPARED WITH LOUIS XIV 53
eighteenth century the fortunes of both sovereigns were
perceptibly on the wane. It so happened that the de-
cline, or eclipse, of each power was eminently favour-
able to the rising commercial ascendency of the English
nation.
In 1691, King William formed the grand alliance
of the Germanic States and of the maritime powers,
England, Holland, and Spain, against France; whereby
the preponderance of the French was checked and their
schemes of colonial and commercial expansion were
thrown aside or trampled down in a great European
war. For although the Peace of Eyswick suspended
hostilities for a few years, it may be said that during
practically the whole period from 1690 to 1713, the
French monarchy was engaged in conflicts with all
its European neighbours on a vast scale of ruinous
expenditure.
The condition of the Moghul Empire was even worse.
"We have seen that during the seventeenth century, so
long as the Moghul Empire retained its vigour, it was
found impossible for any foreign adventurers to obtain
more than a precarious footing, by sufferance, on the
mainland of India. But when the eighteenth century
opened, the disorder of the imperial government was
manifestly culminating ' to a climax. The old age of
Aurangzib; the persistence and contagious spread of
the Hindu revolt against his oppression; the certainty
that his death would be the signal for civil war among
his sons, and that the succession must abide the chance
of battle; financial distress and the visible loosening of
54 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS IN EUKOPE AND ASIA
Ms administration everywhere these were the ordinary
symptoms of debility, decay, and approximate dissolu-
tion in an Oriental dynasty.
In the northwest, the Persians and the rebellious
Afghan tribes had now wrested from Aurangzib his
border strongholds, and thus his grasp on that all-
PEASANTS DRAWING WATER.
important frontier had become insecure, and the high-
roads from Central Asia were again open to invaders.
In the southwest, the Moghul, after putting down the
kingdoms of Bijapur and Golkonda, had been unable
to reconstruct an administration strong enough to re-
press the turbulent elements that his impolitic demoli-
tions had set free. The disbanded soldiery, the plun-
dered peasants, and the disaffected Hindu landholders
all rallied round the standard of the Maratha captains,
REBELLIONS AGAINST AURANGZIB 55
who bribed or daunted the imperial officials, harried the
districts, cut off the revenue, and defeated the Moghul
forces in detail. All these internal troubles were evi-
dent symptoms of the empire's impending disruption,
and the precursors of a great political change.
A CART AT MADRAS.
CHAPTER III
CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY
1690 - 1702
IN" India the last years of the seventeenth century
had been for the English East India Company a
period of not untroubled transition from a purely com-
mercial system into a kind of elementary local self-
government. The increasing weakness of the Moghul
Empire doubled the risks and uncertainty of their trade ;
producing constant alarms from the fighting that went
on near their settlements, liability to plunder and inces-
sant exactions, exposure to interference from inter-
lopers, and danger of encroachment or attack from
European rivals. They had now deliberately adopted
the plan of endeavouring to rid themselves of depend-
ence on the native authorities; and their agents were
enjoined to spare no pains for improving their revenue.
" The increase of our revenue," they wrote in 1690,
" is the subject of our care as much as our trade;
'tis that must maintain our force when twenty acci-
dents may interrupt our trade; 'tis that must make
56
MILITARY POLICY OF THE COMPANY 57
us a nation in India . . . and upon this account it is
that the wise Dutch, in all their general advices that
we have seen, write ten paragraphs concerning their
government, their civil and military policy, warfare,
and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph
they write concerning trade. " Their purpose was now,
to quote a letter to Fort St. G-eorge, dated December 12,
1687, to establish " such a Politic of civil and military
power, and create and secure such a large revenue, as
may be the foundation of a large, well grounded, sure
English dominion in India for all time to come."
These instructions show that, to use an Oriental
metaphor, the scent of dominion was already in the
nostrils of the English Company, that they were by this
time on the track of higher game than the profits of
trade, and that they were gradually concentrating their
operations upon the Indian mainland. At Madras and
Bombay, their fortifications were in fair condition,
although their troops, besides a few Europeans, were
chiefly a rabble of Armenians, Arabs, negroes, and half-
breed Portuguese. In Bengal, the imperial viceroy,
being himself hard pressed, had permitted their agent
to fortify Calcutta, where Fort William was named
after the reigning King of England.
In 1687, having resolved to bring all their settle-
ments under a regulated administration, the Company
had fitted out a large armament at home, had obtained
King James's authority for their governor to make
peace and war in India, and had sent out Sir John
Child with orders to levy against the Moghul govern-
58 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
ment a war of reprisals for damages and insults suf-
fered from the native officials. That government, how-
ever, though it was in a bad plight, had still power and
pride sufficient to turn fiercely upon such assailants.
In Western India, the Company's attempt to defy the
imperial authority brought them to considerable dis-
MATHARAN, A HILL -STATION NEAR BOMBAY IN WESTERN INDIA.
comfiture; for Aurangzib himself was encamped at no
great distance with his main army. At Bombay, where
the force is reported to have consisted of fifteen Euro-
pean soldiers in addition to a raw native militia, the
governor was actually besieged in his own town and
castle, and the place was reduced to awkward straits
by the fleet of the Abyssinian Siddhi.
The expedition against Bengal and the northeastern
coast totally failed; the factories were attacked and
had to be temporarily abandoned. Orders were issued
FAILURE OF A MOVEMENT AGAINST AURANGZIB 59
by the emperor to expel the English from Madras,
where the president, having only a few English soldiers
in garrison with some half-caste Portuguese, lost heart
on hearing that a Moghul force was moving southward.
Sir John Child, who impersonated the war policy of the
Company, died in 1690; and the business ended rather
ignominiously with the issue by Aurangzib of a lofty
order reciting that, on receipt of a humble submissive
petition by the English, his Majesty had mercifully
pardoned their transgressions. At this message the
Company's directors at home professed high indigna-
tion, for no petition of that kind had been sent; but
the moment was not opportune for prosecuting the
quarrel.
During the next ten years, however, the difficulties
and decadence of the Moghul empire were manifestly
on the increase. One of Aurangzib 's sons invaded India
from Persia with a foreign army; and the important
provinces or kingdoms of South India the Deccan,
Mysore, and the Karnatic were barely kept in obedi-
ence by large forces; for the old age of Aurangzib held
all India in fear and expectation of imminent change.
All this instability of affairs compelled the foreign set-
tlements to rely more and more upon their own re-
sources for self-defence against arbitrary officials, rebel
leaders, marauding banditti, and, finally, against each
other. For war had been raging in Europe from 1690
to 1697; the French had been doing enormous damage
to the homeward bound ships of the East India Com-
pany, having on one occasion captured a whole fleet
60 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
of merchantmen; nor did the Dutch, though our faith-
ful allies in Europe, relax their inveterate jealousy of
our progress in Asia.
That the vast importance of our Eastern trade was
already realized to its full extent at the end of the sev-
enteenth century, is abundantly shown by the writings
of Sir Charles Davenant, the chief commercial authority
of his day. He observes that under the Tudor dynasty
England had enjoyed great internal prosperity for a
hundred years, and that the Dutch had soon found
themselves too many for the narrow territory of their
republic; whereby both nations were driven into for-
eign trade by an increasing population. On the other
hand, he says, the French people had diminished during
the long religious wars of the sixteenth century; so that
the two Protestant nations could push on vigorously
to their forward place in the commerce beyond seas.
In his essay on the East Indian Trade, Davenant
enlarges further upon the great profits and political
advantages that accrued to England from her position
in the East Indies, upon the strength of Holland in that
quarter, and upon the extreme impolicy of allowing
the Dutch to acquire such predominance as would en-
able them to put down all rivalry. Of the East India
trade he says that whatever country can be in the full
possession of it will give law to all the commercial
world. He declares that if we should lose our hold in
India, we would let go half our foreign business; and
he insists on the point that by losing this trade we
would be entirely deprived of the dominion of the sea,
VAST IMPORTANCE OF EASTERN TRADE 61
i
:< for only foreign trade can maintain a great fleet."
He describes the " formidable power " of Holland in
the East Indies; the immense capital that they had
spent in raising and consolidating it; the forts and
castles well provided and garrisoned; their large fleet;
their good harbours; and the energy, wealth, and unity
of the Dutch Company, which was an incorporation of
the seven chambers of the seven provinces, almost
coeval in origin with the state itself, counting among
its numbers all the ablest and best heads in the coun-
try. He shows that if the English should abandon the
traffic, the Dutch would undoubtedly enjoy the whole,
while England must be content thereafter to trade
under their protection and flag.
In such an event Davenant calculates that an entire
monopoly of East Indian goods would bring Holland
more treasure yearly than could be got from Peru and
Mexico; that they might earn a revenue of six million
sterling; and that this great increase of wealth would
entirely turn the balance of naval preponderance
against the English, which would certainly prove their
ruin if (as was not impossible at the time) the Dutch
provinces should fall under the ascendency of France.
If, on the other hand, the English bestirred themselves
and prevailed over Holland, ".if our foreign business
were enlarged to the utmost extent of which it is capa-
ble, we should thereby acquire such wealth and power
as that England with its proper forces might be able
to deal with any nation whatsoever; " she might even
become, like Rome, the head of a vast dominion, the
62 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
fountain of law, and the source of power, honours, and
offices throughout an immense territory.
Let us take, again, another and much more cele-
brated contemporary authority, Leibnitz, who in 1672
presented to Louis XIV his ConsiUum Aegyptiacum,
which was a long state paper urgently advising the
king to seize and annex Egypt. His main argument
was that the possession of Egypt would secure to
France the command of the invaluable Eastern trade,
whereby she could easily ruin Holland by cutting off
the sources of her wealth and naval power, and would
be enabled to build up a maritime empire for herself.
As Louis XIV was at that time preparing to attack the
Dutch, Leibnitz pointed out that to break down their
preponderance in the East Indies would.be a far surer
way toward subduing them than an invasion of Hol-
land, and he proceeded to throw out some very remark-
able suggestions in regard to the facility of establish-
ing a great Asiatic dominion. No one can doubt, he
says, that if the Portuguese could have employed larger
forces in their earlier expeditions, they would have
brought all India under their sway, for the whole of
Asia is more easily conquerable than Germany; and
the French king needs only the strength and riches that
can be drawn from Asiatic commerce to become the
supreme arbiter of European affairs.
Such views and arguments as these, emanating from
men of the highest reputation and experience in com-
merce and politics, serve to explain what kind of prize
it was over which the maritime nations of the world
GREAT VALUE OP THE OKIENT 63
had been so long contending, and for which the English
were now entering the list as competitors. This prize,
they insist, is of inestimable value, and, what is more,
can be won by the European power that strikes boldly
and skilfully for Asiatic dominion. The writings of
Leibnitz and Davenant may be read as a useful cor-
rective of the inveterate habit, from which even Eng-
lish historians are not always free, of regarding the
development of our Indian empire out of a few scat-
tered trading ports as a marvellous phenomenon, quite
unforeseen and almost inexplicable. It is worth while
to point out the superficiality of this commonplace view,
and to lay stress on the evidence available to prove
that the success of the English in India could be nat-
urally explained, could indeed have been predicted to
a large degree.
The British dominion in the East grew out of much
stronger and deeper roots than is usually supposed.
To understand its true origin, we must remember that
the English settlements on the Indian mainland were
valuable not only as emporia for the very profitable
trade in the exchange of goods between India and Eu-
rope, but also because they were the fixed points upon
which the whole commerce of England with South Asia,
from the Persian Gulf eastward to Sumatra, Java, and
the Spice Islands as far as the China seas, may be said
to have pivoted; they kept open and were indeed indis-
pensable for the communications along the line of what
was then the richest sea-borne traffic in the world. For
the nation that could engross that traffic held the whole
64
CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
carrying trade between Asia and Western Europe, and
supplied all the adjacent European countries. Upon
the wealth and multiplied force acquired in extending,
step by step, their influence over this wide range of
operations, upon the gradual strengthening in English
hands of the foundations that supported this command-
THE GREAT TEMPLE OF BOKO - BTJDTTR IN JAVA.
ing position, were built up the first stages of English
ascendency in the East.
The constitution of these great commercial associa-
tions resembled in many respects that of the proprie-
tary colonies which laid the foundation of such states
as Maryland and Pennsylvania in North America. The
proprietary bodies appointed the governor and council,
and were in fact invested with a kind of autonomy
under the general authority of the sovereign; they had
NEED OF A CHARTERED COMPANY 66
many of the attributes, without much of the responsi-
bility, of dependent states. It had become abundantly
clear that this organization of a Chartered Company,
with powers of internal control and self-defence, pos-
sessing in some degree the resources and administrative
traditions, the unity of plan and purpose, and the
larger interests and relative responsibilities of a local
government, was necessary to the existence of British
commerce in Asia, where England then had no diplo-
matic representatives and many dangerous rivals. The
long contest throughout the seventeenth century be-
tween England and Holland in the East Indies was
destined to terminate in a kind of partition of that vast
commercial domain.
Not until the nineteenth century was a final political
settlement accomplished; yet the first approaches
toward this end were already perceptible in the ten-
dency of English enterprise to converge, as we have
said, upon India itself, while the Dutch were visibly
drawing off and collecting their strength toward Java
and Sumatra. Beyond the Straits of Malacca they were
still predominant; the headquarters of their admin-
istration were at Batavia; and they had seized, in 1683,
the valuable position of Bantam in Java, which gave
them a virtual monopoly of the trade in pepper, the
most valuable commodity from those regions. The Eng-
lish Company had before them the example of the
Dutch, who had adopted from the Portuguese the policy
of making their settlements self-protective by fortifi-
cations and strong garrisons, of acquiring territory, and
66 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
of treating their acquisitions, not as grants held by
traders on sufferance from the nearest Oriental poten-
tate, but as possessions held under direct or delegated
authority from the sovereign European power. They
saw that they could only maintain their ground by
imitating this example; and henceforward their estab-
lishments were more and more framed and directed
upon this model.
But in London the enormous profits of the Company
were exciting jealousy and stimulating energetic at-
tempts to break in upon such a magnificent treasure-
house. Sir Josiah Child, who then ruled their affairs
autocratically, had enlisted the favour and support of
the court by presents to King James II and to all who
had influence at Whitehall. Unluckily, the India House
had just set its sails upon the Tory tack when a Prot-
estant wind brought over William m, and after the
Revolution of 1688 a new Company was formed to com-
pete for the next charter upon a remodelled system.
In 1693, the old Company's charter was declared void
for non-payment of a five per cent, duty laid by the
Crown on their capital stock; and it was renewed only
upon condition of its being terminable at three years'
notice. Then in 1698 Montague, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, being hard pressed for money, passed an
Act of Parliament granting a Royal Charter to the
new Company, who undertook to lend two millions to
the government at eight per cent. The money was
subscribed with an eagerness that proved the country's
wealth, as well as its confidence in the strength and
FORMATION OF A RIVAL COMPANY
67
expansive power of this great branch of the national
trade.
The appearance in India of a second and rival Com-
pany created serious internal complications. Each as-
sociation did its utmost to ruin the other; each hoisted
THE OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE (1796-1858).
the English flag and sent an embassy to contend for the
Moghul emperor's patronage at his court; while the
local governors played off one against the other, favour-
ing each Company alternately, and taking bribes impar-
tially from both. This discreditable and damaging con-
test was at last closed by the union of the two Com-
panies, which was effected through Godolphin's inter-
68 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
vention in 1702, just before the great war of the Span-
ish succession began, and immediately after the acces-
sion of Queen .Anne. The effect of this measure was
to concentrate all the enterprise, capital, and maritime
experience of one powerful corporation upon the con-
solidation of the English position in South Asia.
The East India Company, by whom our Indian af-
fairs were administered for the next one hundred fifty-
five years, were now backed by the most opulent city
and the largest seafaring population in the world, by
the favour of the English government, to whom they
made liberal advances, and by the increasing influence
of the commercial classes upon the politics of the coun-
try. With these advantages, with a secure base and
headquarters at home, with fortified settlements and
armed shipping abroad, with a charter authorizing them
to raise troops and to make war and peace in India,
the Company were already capable of defending them-
selves, and even of pushing forward their outposts
against any opposition that could be made by the vice-
roys of a distracted Oriental empire.
The history of Venice and Genoa had already shown
what might be achieved by the power of armed com-
merce in the hands of small communities greatly supe-
rior in wealth and civilization to their neighbours.
These towns had grown into independent States by
successful monopoly of the Asiatic trade in the Euro-
pean waters; they were originally no stronger than a
chartered English Company of the seventeenth century.
The decadence of the Byzantine empire enabled the
FATE OF ITALIAN COMMERCE IN THE EAST 69
Italian cities to supplant the Greeks in the Levant, to
acquire and fortify the islands and other points of van-
tage along the coasts, and thus to seize trade and terri-
tory in the Mediterranean very much as the Dutch and
English established themselves in the Indian seas.
Chios belonged entirely to a Genoese Company, whose
rule for two hundred and twenty years over several
islands of the Greek archipelago bears a curious like-
ness, in miniature, to the territorial domination of the
English East India Company. The ruins of strongholds
and other signs of extinct Italian dominion are to be
seen all along the shores of Greece and Asia Minor, like
the relics of the Dutch and Portuguese settlements on
the Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulf.
But neither Greeks nor Italians could resist the tor-
rent of Asiatic conquest that came pouring across Asia
from the East. The Italian republics had not the pop-
ulation, capital, or territorial resources sufficient for
holding their scattered possessions against the fleets
and armies of the Ottoman empire; their territory on
the Italian mainland was constantly threatened by pow-
erful neighbours; and the diversion of the Asiatic trade
was drying up the springs of their prosperity. Never-
theless, when we consider how much was accomplished
by these small trading states so long as the field lay
open to them, and even while they were confronted
by the Turkish power in its full strength on the main-
land, we may moderate our astonishment at the fact
that the foundations of a great empire in India could
be laid by an English trading Company, at a time when
70 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
the Moghul Empire was rapidly waning and England
was waxing to the plenitude of her maritime suprem-
acy. It is true that the Levant and Greece lay adja-
cent to Venice and Genoa, while between India and
England were six months of sea voyage. But this dis-
tance favoured the establishment of British dominion
by keeping Indian affairs in the beginning outside the
sphere of European politics; and latterly it became a
distinct advantage to the nation that could give its
commercial colonies a secure base at home, and could
hold the sea against all rivals.
In this situation it might have been foreseen with-
out much difficulty that as decay subsided into dilapi-
dation all over the Moghul empire, the vigorous Euro-
pean settlements on the coasts of India would enlarge
their borders and affirm their independence. When in
1672 Leibnitz advised Louis XIV not to attack Holland,
but to seize Egypt as the stepping-stone to a great
Asiatic dominion, he wrote, truly, that " the extreme
feebleness of the Orientals is no longer a secret "; and
India was now certainly the weakest, perhaps also still
the wealthiest, part of South Asia. The quarrels and
embarrassments of the local governors already pre-
vented them from paying much attention to trading
factories, except when money was to be extorted or
assistance needed. It was clearly as probable that the
native usurpers and adventurers who were rising into
power would seek aid from the Companies as that they
would afford them protection or subject them to con-
trol; they were more likely, in this manner, to throw
\
MANNER OF EUROPEAN AGGRESSION 73
open India to the foreigner than to bar the doors
against him.
From such circumstances as these two conse-
quences might fairly be inferred: first, that the power
of the foreign Companies would steadily expand so
long as they could rely on their communications with
Europe; secondly, that commercial jealousies in Asia
and national antipathies in Europe would before long
bring the expanding Companies into collision with each
other. Lastly, it might be predicted that whenever
this collision should occur, the Company that succeeded
in overthrowing its European antagonist would have
little to fear from native adversaries, and would have
attained an incontestable ascendency in the adjoining
provinces of India.
At the opening of the eighteenth century, therefore,
the situation may thus be briefly indicated. The Dutch
Company, still rich and prospering commercially, held
Ceylon and some Indian stations, but the centre of their
operations was slowly shifting further eastward, and
as the century advanced their naval power declined
rapidly, falling from one hundred and fifty-one vessels
of war in 1671 to forty-two in 1740. The French Com-
pany had suffered heavily from the recent war in Eu-
rope, during which they had lost Pondicherry and had
recovered it only in 1697; they were deep in debt, and
were altogether in no condition for pushing forward
enterprises in Asia. The English Company was flour-
ishing and had obtained a firm foothold on the Indian
mainland; but the Moghul Empire still held together
74 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY
under Aurangzib, who would have tolerated no serious
territorial encroachment.
Up to this time, therefore, the policy of the French
and English had remained strictly commercial in so far
that all their plans and proceedings for settling upon
the Indian coasts were designed in the interests of
trade. We are now approaching the period when the
growing strength of their position, the weakness of the
Indian governments, the increasing keenness and im-
pulse of competition, and, above all, the violent quarrels
between France and England in Europe, combined to
transform the commercial rivalry into an armed contest
for political ascendency. For some twenty years South
India became a battle-field of two distant European
nations; the war of succession in Austria was made
a pretext for taking sides in a dispute over the heritage
of the Mzam of Haidarabad; and Indian affairs were
entangled in the prolonged struggle between France
and England for colonial and naval superiority. When
England was eventually left mistress of the situation
at the close of that struggle, she found thrown wide
open before her the gates leading to immense territorial
possessions, and to the consolidation of an Asiatic do-
minion which is perhaps the most eminent and valuable
legacy bequeathed to us by our forefathers in the eight-
eenth century.
CHAPTER IV
THE FKENCH AND ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANIES
THE death of the Spanish king in 1702 had been the
signal for a war that ended with a partition of
the Spanish monarchy and a general political resettle-
ment of Europe. So with the death of Aurangzib in
1707 began the disruption of the Moghul Empire, fol-
lowed by a material disturbance of the political system
of Asia. The commotion and territorial derangements
that were now spreading through the central regions
of Asia were evident premonitory tokens of the insta-
bility and approaching downfall of the two great dynas-
ties that had ruled Persia and India from the middle
of the sixteenth century; the long stationary period
was drawing to its end; an era of great conquests was
reappearing; and with the troubles fermenting in Cen-
tral Asia we may undoubtedly connect the events about
to follow on the coast of the Indian Peninsula.
There was nothing unusual in the civil war that
broke out on the Moghul emperor's death: for the title
to a vacant Indian throne was ordinarily determined
by the sword; every ruler of the imperial house had
fought in turn for his heritage; and in fact the dynasty
76
76
THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
had owed its strength to the severe competitive trials
in which each successor had proved his capacity for
kingship. But as Aurangzib died at an advanced age,
the contest had long been foreseen and deliberately pre-
pared for. He left his dominions in confusion, with a
formidable revolt spread-
ing among the Marathas;
his empire was unwieldy
and overgrown; and this
time the struggle among
his heirs brought out no
successor capable of hold-
ing together the ill- joined
provinces and discordant
races. The freebooting
companies of the Maratha
chiefs soon developed into
roving armies that over-
ran the central and west-
ern regions. The great
viceroyalty of the south-
ern provinces was converted into an independent
principality under the Nizam. Bengal, the richest
province of India, fell away under an Afghan adven-
turer; the Sikhs were rising in the Pan jab; a power-
ful official was founding his dynasty in Oudh; and
various usurpers were setting themselves up in the
remoter districts.
The dominion which had been planted in the six-
teenth century by the vigour and audacity of Babar
A CORNER OP THE DIVAN - I - KHAS AT
AMBER.
COLLAPSE OF THE MOGHUL EMPIKE 77
and his free-lances from the Oxus was now subsiding
into emasculate debility. During the flourishing period
of the Moghul Empire its outposts were at Kabul and
Kandahar; but toward the end of Aurangzib's reign
his garrisons had been driven out of Afghanistan. As
the maintenance of a strong northwest frontier has
always been essential to the security of India, the di-
vorce of Afghanistan from the rulership of the Indian
plains was in those days sure to be followed by the
recurrence of chronic invasions from Central Asia.
Thirty years after Aurangzib's decease, Nadir Shah,
a Persian soldier of fortune who had overturned the
ruling dynasty in Persia, came down through the Af-
ghan passes with a great army. The Moghul emperor
made but a show of resistance. Nadir Shah sacked
Delhi in March, 1739, added one more massacre to the
blood-stained annals of that ill-fated city, wrenched
away from the imperial crown all its possessions west
of the Indus, and departed home, leaving the Moghul
government, which had received its death-blow, in a
state of mortal collapse.
The barriers having been thus broken down, Ahmad
Shah, of the Abdalli tribe of Afghans, followed two
years later. When Nadir Shah had been assassinated
by the Persians in his camp in Khorasan, Ahmad Shah,
who commanded a large body of cavalry in Nadir
Shah's army, rode off eastward to conquer Afghanistan;
and from that base he seized the whole Panjab between
1748 and 1751. Meanwhile the Marathas were spread-
ing over Central India from the southwest like a devas-
78 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
tating flood; and wherever the land had been levelled
flat by the heavy roller of absolutism, wherever the
minor mlerships and petty states had been crushed
out by the empire, the whole country was now easily
overrun and broken up into anarchy.
The different provinces and viceroyalties went their
own natural way; they were parcelled out in a scuffle
among revolted governors, rebellious chiefs, leaders of
insurgent tribes or sects, religious revivalists, and cap-
tains of mercenary bands. The Indian people were be-
coming a masterless multitude swaying to and fro in the
political storm, and clinging to any power, natural or
supernatural, that seemed likely to protect them. They
were prepared to acquiesce in the assumption of author-
ity by any one who could show himself able to discharge
the most elementary functions of government in the
preservation of life and property. In short, the people
were scattered without a leader or protector; while the
political system under which they had long lived was
vanishing in complete disorganization.
It was during this period of tumultuary confusion
that the French and English first appeared as rivals
upon the political arena in India. For the purpose of
throwing some additional light on the origin, character,
and eventual results of the great transmarine contest
between these two nations which stands in the forefront
of their history during the eighteenth century, it may
not be inappropriate, at this point, to sketch very
briefly the earlier development of a commercial and
colonial policy in France. This may at any rate lend
EAKLY COMMERCIAL POLICY OF FRANCE 79
readers some slight degree of aid toward substituting
clear and well-founded conclusions for the complacent
commonplaces that are so often repeated about the lack
of national aptitudes for that kind of enterprise. It
may also serve to bring out and accentuate the wide
contrasts of principle and practice exhibited by the
annals of French and English adventure beyond sea.
The history of French colonization is ordinarily
divided, we are told, into three periods: the period of
the great discoveries, which is carried up to the death
of Henry IV in 1609; the era of grand colonial expan-
sion in the seventeenth century; and the period of
decline during the hundred years that intervene be-
tween the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 and the end of the
great French wars in 1815. We have seen that the
rivalry among the maritime mations began in earnest
at the end of the sixteenth century, when the splendid
achievements and conquests of Spain and Portugal had
fired the imagination of the whole Western world. The
spreading curiosity in France about outlandish peoples,
distant voyages, and the fabulous wealth of Asia is
illustrated by the writings of that age, and by constant
allusions to the subject in such authors as Rebelais and
Montaigne.
Nevertheless, although at the opening of the seven-
teenth century commercial and colonizing projects had
already been entertained by that active and far-sighted
ruler Henry IV, who projected a French East India
Company, it was in England and Holland, not in
France, that the first important step was taken by
80 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
founding the two East India Companies that were des-
tined to a long and memorable career. In 1624, how-
ever, began the long ministry of Richelieu, in whose
powerful mind the conception of endowing France with
a great dominion beyond sea reached its maturity, and
had issue in successive decrees for the foundation and
multiplication of colonizing companies in various parts
of the world, from Canada in the West to Madagascar
and the East Indies.
It is worth observation that in the charters of these
companies may be found the earliest promulgations of
principles that were consistently maintained through-
out the entire course of French colonization under the
old monarchy, but which would be looked for in vain
in the commercial records of England or Holland. The
Roman Catholic faith was established, to the rigid ex-
clusion of all other religions; but on the other hand
converted pagans were to be admitted to the full civil
rights of Frenchmen. The propagation of Christianity
was placed upon a level with the plantation of colonies,
as a direct object of these expeditions. Nevertheless,
their real motive was, after all, not so much economic
or propagandist, as political; the companies were or-
ganized by the great cardinal to counteract the accu-
mulation of vast transmarine possessions by Spain,
then France's most dangerous rival, and in order that
Spain might not claim for herself the whole non-Chris-
tian world.
In this policy, indeed, Richelieu was only imitating
the tactics of England and* Holland. Both these nations
ARMS OF THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY.
From the original grant of arms, dated Oct. 13, 1698.
THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH COLONIZATION 83
were already striking at the extremities of the un-
wieldy Spanish empire, cutting off: its gold convoys,
harrying its coasts and islands, sweeping the narrow
seas by privateers, and generally pursuing that irreg-
ular buccaneering warfare of which the memory long
lived among mariners in the romantic traditions of the
Spanish Main. In these wild adventures the French
took little share; but they had borrowed from their
neighbours the system of chartered associations; and
under Mazarin as under Richelieu, the peopling of new
lands beyond the ocean by French Catholics, in the
interests of God and as a balance against Spain, was
the essential principle of colonial action in France dur-
ing the first half of the seventeenth century.
At this moment the religious idea was dominant in
France. The court and all the fashionable society in-
terested themselves warmly in collecting subscriptions
for propagating the true faith among the heathen; mis-
sions were sent out, bishops were appointed, and the
Jesuits began gradually to acquire great power in all
the new colonies of North America. Nor was officialism
less active than ecclesiasticism in the direction and
superintendence of these projects for the extension of
the faith and dominion of France. The system of com-
panies under Church and State patronage was not pop-
ular among the men of business, who demanded of their
government no more than freedom of trade for them-
selves and protection from foreign enemies. But official
predilections were then, as they have always been in
France, adverse to the English practice of chartering
84 THE FBENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
a body of pioneers or merchant adventurers and leav-
ing them to plant settlements or factories by their own
resources. The expeditions were not only authorized,
but energetically promoted by the government, with
the result that the governing classes insisted on sharing
the investment or taking their part in the speculations,
with an eye to the benefits promised in this world and
the next. All the administrative and military com-
mands were distributed among the noblesse ; and among
the hundred associates of the Company of New France
we find thirty seigneurs de la cour, besides a certain
number of ecclesiastic and even princely dignitaries,
who were represented on the board by their secre-
taries.
No chartered association for the single purpose of
trade, like the English or Dutch East India Companies,
was founded by Richelieu, nor could any such company
have been launched upon the system that has just been
described. The French mercantile community demurred
to conditions which placed all these corporations so
completely under the paternal supervision of priests,
nobles, and high officials; they also betrayed a perverse
mistrust of the religious and propagandist element.
They cautiously suggested that in commercial transac-
tions spiritual directorship and ministerial supervision
were not altogether desirable. The Chambers of Rouen
and Marseilles recommended that at no price, and on
no pretext, should the captains of their vessels be nom-
inated by the king; they complained of French consuls
abroad and revenue officers at home as equally dicta-
The Great Temple at Rangoon
Buddhism prevails in Burma, and the great temple of Skive Dagon
is one of the most sacred places of worship in Indo-China. Relics of
Buddha and of three of his predecessors lend a peculiar sanctity to this
pagoda and the group of shrines connected with it.
THE COMPANY OF NEW FRANCE 85
torial. They asked that religious interests should not
rule trading operations, but that their traffic should be
protected at sea by the royal navy and that trading
factories should be allowed to manage their own affairs.
It does not appear, in short, that Richelieu's colonial
policy produced any notable results, beyond some re-
markable voyages of discovery which gave a consid-
erable impulse to all future colonization, and a great
diffusion of missionary literature reporting the success-
ful propagation of the faith in those countries that had
been made over to the new companies.
We may thus register, even at this early stage, ob-
servations of a distinct and remarkable contrast in
origin, character, and practical methods between the
colonial systems of France and England. The first
French colonies derived their initiative from the Crown;
they were formed under strict official regulations; and
the note of high orthodoxy was predominant in their
constitution. The first English colonies owed their
foundation either to men who had left their fatherland
to escape the rule of kings and bishops, or to " gentle-
man adventurers " with a taste for the roving life and
freedom of a new country, which they were quite willing
to hold as national property so long as they were per-
mitted to use their own ways and means of acquiring
it. And at a time when the great commercial companies
of England and Holland were already wresting from
Spain and Portugal the invaluable prize of the sea-
borne trade with Asia, the French merchants were
deterred from entering into competition with them
86 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
mainly by the misguided solicitude of their own gov-
ernment.
For the commerce of France, however, better times
were coming. The period of greatest colonial expan-
sion, as it is styled by French writers, was inaugurated
when Colbert, the famous minister of Louis XIV,
launched his two Companies of the East and West
Indies in 1664. It has already been explained that in
those days the term " Indies ' ; bore an exceedingly
wide geographical significance in both hemispheres.
Under the general denomination of the East Indies were
included all the coasts of Southern Asia, from the Per-
sian Gulf to China, Malacca, Borneo, Java, and all the
rich Spice Islands of the China Sea. By the West
Indies were meant not only the islands now known
under that name, but the whole eastern littoral, and
even the interior of Northern and Central America as
far as it had been explored. No ship could double the
Cape of Good Hope without coming within the trading
sphere of the East India Companies; while to cross the
Atlantic was to trespass on some West Indian monop-
oly. In 1600, the charter of the Dutch Company con-
ferred upon them the exclusive privilege of navigation
in all Eastern waters, with power to seize and confiscate
any vessel that intruded on their domain. The charter
of Colbert's East India Company granted a similar
monopoly of trade for fifty years in all lands and seas
beyond the Cape of Good Hope.
It is not too much to say that the great Companies
of the seventeenth century were the champions and
NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE COMPANIES 87
delegated agents of their respective nations in the com-
petition for commerce and territory throughout the
whole non-Christian world, and from this point of view
A WATER SCENE NEAR GARRETT, JAVA.
the importance of a good colonial policy can hardly
be overestimated. The French West Indian Company
was an association of the type invented by Richelieu,
with authority to conquer and convert the heathen; but
88 THE FKENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
the foundation of the East India Company by Colbert
on different lines marks a distinct step in advance.
This Company, fitted out on the Dutch and English
models as a .chartered body with exclusive privileges
and a large capital, was destined to acquire for France
a substantial share of that rich commerce in Asiatic
commodities that has made the fortune of so many
maritime States.
In those days of corruption and intolerance, official
tutelage was everywhere a sore burden; but the French
Companies had something even heavier to bear. The
king, the royal princes, and the principal courtiers took
an active part in floating the concern, and they were
good enough to subscribe largely to the investment.
High ecclesiastic dignitaries condescended to patronize
the East India Company; the prospectus was adver-
tised in the churches and recommended from the pul-
pits; while royal proclamations exhorted all true
Frenchmen to seize this opportunity of making their
own fortunes and contributing to their country's pros-
perity.
Strange to say, however, not even these appeals to
patriotism and piety roused any widespread enthusiasm
among mercantile men. The capital expected from
public subscription came in very slowly, in spite of
heavy official pressure upon the great towns; for the
traders, who had no guarantee for the good faith or
consistency of a despotic government, vainly implored
the bureaucracy to reduce the crushing tariffs on for-
eign imports and to leave the management of the busi-
DIFFICULTIES OF THE FRENCH COMPANIES 89
ness in private hands. As for the West India Com-
pany, it seems to have broken down by 1674, when its
charter was revoked. Colbert determined to abandon
henceforward, for the purpose of colonization, the
agency of Companies, and to substitute direct admin-
istration by a minister of the Crown.
For the East Indies, however, Colbert maintained
the organization of a chartered Company, although
under the close superintendence of the Crown. Yet
the legitimate commercial undertakings of this Com-
pany had been hampered at the outset by combining
them with an expedition for the colonization of Mada-
gascar, which failed disastrously. The .first attempts
of the French to gain a footing on the Indian coast
were also defeated by the Dutch, so that in six years
after its foundation this Company was entangled in
very serious embarrassment. Nevertheless, if the most
liberal support and encouragement from Louis XTV
and his great minister could have secured success to
the Company and if a sharp turn of general policy,
adverse to Colbert and his commercial views, had not
speedily supervened it is possible that the French
might have made good their position in India before
the close of the seventeenth century. Their initial diffi-
culty was that the ground had been preoccupied by
Holland, against whom Louis XIV declared war in 1674,
partly, it is said, on account of the violent opposition
of the Dutch to French interference with their Indian
trade. But a few years later, when Louvois had
plunged his master into interminable continental wars,
90 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
the light and guidance of Colbert's pacific influence
suffered total eclipse, and projects of colonial or com-
mercial expansion were set aside for plans of campaign.
At the opening of the eighteenth century, therefore,
the Portuguese, who had started first by priority of
discovery, were at a standstill far in the rear. The
Dutch, who followed, had wrested from the Portuguese
most of their trade and territory, but the strength of
Holland had already been broken by the incessant at-
tacks of France, who had been good enough thus to
relieve England of her most capable maritime rival.
From the beginning of the eighteenth century the grasp
of the Dutch upon points along the Indian coast became
gradually relaxed; they relinquished the contest for
predominance in that region; and their principal trad-
ing stations were shifted southeastward to Ceylon,
Java, Borneo, and the Spice Islands. The Danish East
India Company was extinguished in 1728. In 1722 the
Emperor of Austria had granted to the merchants of
the Austrian Netherlands a charter authorizing the
Ostend East India Company to trade, fit out armed
vessels, build forts, and make treaties with Indian
princes; but this interference with their trade alarmed
the maritime powers. England, France, and Holland
united in diplomatic protests and threats of armed
resistance to its establishment in the East Indies, until
the emperor finally agreed by treaty to suppress the
Ostend Company totally. The French, on the other
hand, were gradually gaining ground and strengthen-
ing their position in India; for although they had been
PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH IN INDIA 91
much enfeebled by the disastrous European wars that
ended in 1713, their resources and their enterprising
spirit revived during the tranquil interval of the next
thirty years.
Under the pacific ministries of Fleury and Walpole
trade and navigation now began to gather strength on
both sides of the Channel; although the speculative
mania that supervened in France at the beginning of
this long peace had involved her East India Company
in some dangerous vicissitudes. They had first been
absorbed in 1719 into a gigantic Company of the Indies
with exclusive right of trade on the African coast as
well as on the shores of the Indian and the Pacific
Oceans. The next step was to place this Company,
already laden with privileges and monopolies, in charge
of the famous Land Bank, with Law as Inspector-Gen-
eral over all their business, commercial and financial.
The inevitable result was an enormous inflation of the
shares and operations, followed by a sharp and ruinous
collapse; nor did the Company right themselves until
a royal decree had autocratically cut away all their
liabilities, after which they again confined themselves
to the East India trade.
Their situation in the Indian waters now began rap-
idly to improve. In 1715, they had occupied the im-
portant island of Mauritius (abandoned by the Dutch),
and were steadily taking up their ground side by side
with the English on the southeastern or Coromandel
coast of India, where Pondicherri, the seat of the gov-
ernor-general of all the French settlements, was devel-
92
THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
oping into a fine town of seventy thousand inhabitants.
This settlement had been established in 1674 by Fran-
c,ois Martin, who built the town, acquired the lands
adjoining, and brought Pondicherri to such a high de-
A PAGODA AT PONDICHERRI.
gree of solid prosperity during twenty-five years of
wise and courageous administration from 1681 to 1706
though from 1693 to 1697 the place was in the posses-
sion of the Dutch that he is regarded by some French
writers as the true founder of French India.
From 1735 to 1740, the capital and dividends of the
GKOWTH OF THE FRENCH COMPANY 93
Company showed a substantial increase; they held five
chief stations in India and they were trading with
China, although it does not appear that they ever estab-
lished themselves in the Spice Islands or the Malay
Archipelago. The earlier governors, Lenoir and Dumas,
managed their affairs with prudence and sagacity. Du-
pleix, who followed them, was a man of larger calibre,
full of energy and ambition, who had distinguished him-
self as chief of the French factory at Chandarnagar
on the Hugli River. When he was appointed to succeed
Dumas in the governorship of Pondicherri in 1741, with
supreme civil and military authority in the settlement,
he lost no time in developing his bold and high-reach-
ing projects for the promotion of his Company's inter-
ests.
In this manner it came to pass that, not long after
the great settlement of Europe which was accomplished
at the Peace of Utrecht, France and England alone
faced each other as serious competitors for the prize
of Indian commerce, having distanced or disabled all
other candidates. Not only in the West, but in the
East, the commercial and colonial rivalry between the
foremost maritime states of Europe had reached its
climax toward the middle of the eighteenth century. A
high spring tide of maritime enterprise, setting strongly
and decisively from Europe toward the unguarded
coasts of India, was bearing on its rising wave the ships
of these two jealous and powerful nations. So early
as 1740 when war between England and France was
imminently threatening, though not declared, the
94 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
French government had been entertaining the plans
of Labourdonnais for destroying the English factories
in the East Indies. A few years later, Dupleix was
actively encouraged in his grand project of expelling
the British from the Coromandel coast. At the same
time, the French were making substantial progress in
North America, having already formed the design of
pushing down the Ohio, in order to appropriate what
would now be called the Hinterland in the rear of the
English colonies on the seacoast.
Toward the middle of the century, therefore, the
territorial position and prospects of France in America
and Asia had decidedly improved; and the growing
dissensions caused by discordant political interests in
Europe were exasperated by quarrels over trade and
colonies beyond the sea. The colonial quarrel was
fought out, as we know, in North America; the field
on which the two nations met to contend for what was
at that time the most valuable sea-borne trade in the
world was India. And from this time forward the
really potent element in Asiatic politics, which has
since transformed and may again dominate the whole
situation, is the political rivalry and rapidly increasing
ascendency of the European Powers.
The contest had begun in a spirit of keen but pacific
commercial rivalry. Each nation was represented in
India by a substantial and well-equipped Company,
which kept to its business, established factories and
agencies, and concerned itself very slightly about the
internal affairs of the state or province within whose
THE FRENCH COMPANY AND THE GOVERNMENT 96
jurisdiction it was settled. But at home the circum-
stances and constitution of the two bodies reflected
the differences of national character and political con-
ditions then prevailing between the two mother coun-
tries. It is exceedingly instructive to examine the
financial transactions of the French and English Com-
panies, respectively, with their governments at this
period, and to observe the remarkable contrast of situ-
ation, system, and administrative principles which the
comparison brings out.
In France, the East India Company was closely
connected with the government; it farmed monop-
olies, received treasury grants and subsidies, dealt
largely in loans and lotteries, and being usually deep
in the state's debt, was at the mercy of the Crown.
From the year 1723 its directors had been appointed
by the king, whose officers exercised such constant con-
trol over the management that, as the Company after-
ward declared, the interference of the government was
the cause of all its misfortunes. After 1747 it was
constantly borrowing large sums on the security of
its privileges or revenue farms; it was from such
revenues as these that their dividends were paid and
their stock artificially maintained. Under an able min-
ister paying serious attention to Indian affairs, it is
quite possible that the administration of the French
Company might have been directed on larger political
principles and pursued with more force and consistency
of aim than could be expected from a private mercan-
tile association. But as the government of Louis XV
96 THE FKENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
soon began to sink under the embarrassments, vices,
and misfortunes of incapable rulership, official patron-
age gradually proved fatal to the Company that de-
pended on it.
The English Company, on the other hand, was so
far from being in debt to the government that it
had aided the public treasury with large loans and con-
tributions that amounted to 4,200,000 in 1750. It
was an independent and powerful corporation, trust-
ing not to official favour but to parliamentary influence
in transacting business with the Crown; and as it was
left to manage its own affairs, the greater responsi-
bility thrown upon its chiefs produced in the long run
a body of sound and experienced administrators, guided
by long tradition, well versed' in foreign trade, and
backed by the overflowing capital of a great mercantile
community.
In India, the means and resources of the two Com-
panies were fairly equal at the outset. The settlements
on the Coromandel coast were not only important as
points of attraction for the inland commerce; they were
also valuable as entrepots for the general traffic on both
sides of the Bay of Bengal and as naval stations for
the protection of the thriving trade with the Malacca
Straits and Eastern Asia, Ceylon being then held by
the Dutch. Moreover, since the decay at the heart of
the Moghul empire was soonest felt at its extremities,
the distant provinces had already begun to fall away
into confusion. The settlements in the far south of
India were thus becoming more independent of the
POSITION OF THE EIVAL COMPANIES IN INDIA 99
imperial authorities than the factories in Bengal, which
were up the estuary of a river with forts below them
toward the sea, and in a land where the province was
still under effective government. On the west side of
India, the Marathas, who held most of the districts
along the seashore, were by this time strong enough to
keep foreign traders within bounds.
But on the southeast or Coromandel coast, Madras
and Pondicherri, the headquarters of the French and
English Companies, were fortified and fairly armed
places upon open roadsteads, lying within the governor-
ship of the Karnatic, which was the name for a large
province attached to the viceroyalty of the Deccan, that
is, of South India. This viceroyalty had been conferred
by the emperor upon Asaf Jah, with the title of Nizam-
al-mulk, who soon made himself so powerful as to excite
alarm and jealousy at the Imperial Court. When, how-
ever, an attempt was made to remove him, the Nizam,
who had been summoned to Delhi, marched back into
the Deccan with an army, defeated the officer sent to
replace him, established his authority in the south, and
became the most powerful feudatory of the empire. A
few years later, he took advantage of the disorganiza-
tion caused by Nadir Shah's irruption into North India
to consolidate his great possessions south of the Nar-
bada, including the Karnatic, into a hereditary ruler-
ship, owning a nominal allegiance to Delhi, but in fact
entirely independent.
In the Karnatic, which had been a governorship
under the Deccan viceroyalty, a kind of subordinate
100 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
principality had been established by one Saadat- Allah;
but on his death the succession was disputed, and
though the disorders that ensued were temporarily sup-
pressed by the Nizam, they necessarily weakened local
authority in- the country round the English and French
settlements. It was here that the French and English
came to blows in 1745, as soon as the news of a dec-
laration of war between France and England reached
India. And from this outbreak of hostilities is to be
dated the first crossing of swords on Indian soil in a
national duel which lasted, with short intervals, for
eighteen years, until one of the combatants was dis-
armed and virtually driven off the field.
When, in 1741, Dupleix was appointed Director-Gen-
eral of the affairs of the French East India Company,
he succeeded to an office that had been held by two
predecessors of character and capacity, who had shown
great tact and judgment in their dealings with the
native powers. Mahe and Karikal had been quietly
acquired for France; and during the confusion into
which the whole Karnatic was thrown by the Maratha
invasion in 1740, the Mohammedan princes had found
shelter for their families and treasure behind the walls
of Pondicherri. But the plans and aims of the French
had not travelled beyond the security and extension of
their commerce until the stirring and ambitious spirit
of Dupleix, who made no secret of his opinion that the
French temperament was better suited for conquest
than for commerce, led the Company into a more adven-
turous field of action. He foresaw that in the event
THE WARLIKE POLICY OF DUPLEIX 101
of war with England the rising jealousy between the
two Companies would kindle hostilities in India; and
he accordingly began to negotiate with the neighbour-
ing chiefs, to assume titles granted under the imperial
patent, and to imitate the solemn ostentation of Indian
grandees, with the object of preparing the way toward
a place for his Company in the political system of the
country. He spared no pains to reform his military
establishments and to fortify Pondicherri against the
contingency of an attack from the sea; nor did he
desist when the Directors at Paris ordered him to sus-
pend all expenditure on defensive works, to pay the
Company's debts, and attend to their trade.
The declaration of war in Europe in 1744 gave the
signal for beginning the first act of a dramatic contest
that was to determine the issue whether France or
England should win a great dominion in South Asia.
We have to bear in mind that this issue did not depend,
as some writers have imagined, upon the petty fighting
that ensued along the Coromandel coast, or on the suc-
cess or failure of their rival alliances and intrigues with
Oriental princes. The issue was determined, in reality,
by the result of the struggle between these two nations
for superiority on all the seas. Maritime supremacy
had laid the corner-stone of the whole fabric of Asiatic
commerce upon the Indian mainland, where alone it
could find a solid foundation; and while the security
of this commerce depended on naval power, that power
was also sure to expand with the development of trade.
Although, therefore, the story of the Indian contest is
102 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
but an episode of that great international drama which
was played out in the next fifty years with many
changes of scene and character, it is interesting, in-
structive, and of the highest importance for a proper
understanding of the events and causes which threw
open before the English the way to ascendency in India,
and which lie at the base of their success.
CHAPTER V
THE FKENCH IN INDIA UNDEK DUPLEIX
THE war between England and Spain, which had
begun in 1739 over commercial and maritime quar-
rels, was now gradually drawing France into open hos-
tilities with England. But as the English had a larger
and more powerful navy, the rupture between the two
countries placed France in the dangerous position of
holding great transmarine possessions and interests by
insecure lines of support and communication. In Amer-
ica and the West Indies the colonial dominions of
France were more extensive than those of England;
in India there was no great difference as to strength
or settlements; and the French had the advantage of
a most valuable, though rather distant, base of opera-
tions at the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius, with a
station on the Madagascar coast.
At Mauritius, Labourdonnais, as governor, had been
accumulating naval stores since 1740 and preparing,
with the aid and approval of the French government,
to fall upon the English merchant vessels or to attack
103
104 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
the English settlements in India. In 1743, however,
the Directors of the French East India Company, anx-
ious to preserve neutrality in the East Indies, had pro-
cured the despatch of orders which held back Labour-
donnais; and although, when war had actually been
declared in 1744, he received authority to take the offen-
sive, he was not ready until 1746, when he mustered his
fleet at Madagascar and sailed in June for the Coro-
mandel coast. Meanwhile, a squadron sent out from
England had appeared in 1745 off Pondicherri, which
had a weak garrison and unfinished fortifications. Du-
pleix, in order to gain time, induced the Nawab of Kar-
natic to interpose with an order forbidding hostilities
within his jurisdiction; and in deference to this pro-
hibition the English commodore was persuaded by the
authorities at Madras to suspend his attack. The
stormy season compelled him to leave the coast; but
when the British fleet returned next year, it was met
by the French squadron from the Mauritius.
The English Company now appealed to the Nawab
in their turn, but they found him lukewarm; he had
not been properly bribed; his own position was inse-
cure ; nor was it possible for him in any case to prevent
the two hostile fleets from fighting or bombarding each
other's factories on the seashore. After an indecisive
naval action, the English ships withdrew to Ceylon.
Labourdonnais now landed some two thousand men and
Madras was besieged by land and sea, until, in Septem-
ber, 1746, it was surrendered on terms permitting the
English to regain their town on payment of a ransom.
FRANCE IN POSSESSION OF MADRAS
105
But this compromise was violently opposed by Dupleix,
who saw plainly enough that if he was to build up sol-
idly a French dominion in India, he must begin by clear-
ing away the English, and who therefore insisted that
the fortifications of Madras should be razed to the
ground.
The Nawab of the Karnatic also interposed on
THE COLOMBO BREAKWATER, CEYLON.
his side, professing much indignation at this private
war within his sovereignty, and demanding that the
town should be given up to him, which Dupleix prom-
ised to do. After a sharp quarrel over this question
Labourdonnais, whose fleet was shattered by a tremen-
dous storm, sailed back with the surviving ships to
Mauritius, leaving the French in temporary possession
of Madras, under an agreement, made by Labourdon-
106 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
nais, that if the ransom were paid, it should be restored
to the English within three months.
The next incident was important. Dupleix, who had
now three thousand French soldiers at his disposal, and
who had been positively ordered by a secret despatch
from his government on no account to give up Madras,
had not the least intention of relinquishing it either to
the Nawab or the English Company. When the Nawab
invested the town, Dupleix drove off the native troops
so effectually as to establish, at one blow, an immense
military reputation for the French in the Karnatic,
since the ease and rapidity with which the Nawab 's
army was dispersed at this first collision between the
regular battalions of Europe and the loose Indian levies
proved at once the formidable quality of European arms
and discipline.
Dupleix made unsparing and audacious use of his
advantage; he declared null and void the agreement
with the English, seized all the Company's property,
carried the Madras governor and his officers to Pondi-
cherri, where they figured as captives in a triumphal
procession, and despatched a large force against the
English fortress of St. David, the only fortified post
still held by the English, about twelve miles south of
Pondicherri. But the French were surprised in their
march, and the expedition was so sharply checked that
the troops thereafter lay inactively encamped in the
neighbourhood of the fort, which they never succeeded
in besieging.
In the meantime, as the English squadron was re-
MADRAS RESTORED TO THE ENGLISH 107
turning with reinforcements from Ceylon, Dupleix sent
his four ships out of its way to the west coast, so that
the sea was now open. When, therefore, in 1747, the
French commander, Paradis, was about to move again
on Fort St. David, he was stopped by the appearance
of the English squadron, which threw supplies and
troops into the place and compelled him to retire to the
protection of Pondicherri. From this moment the tide
turned. In attempting to take Cuddalore by a dashing
blow, the French were outwitted by Lawrence and
beaten back with loss; Admiral Boscawen arrived with
a formidable fleet and fifteen hundred soldiers; and in
1748 Pondicherri was invested by land and sea. But
as the French had failed before Fort St. David, so the
English failed before Pondicherri; the place was so
clumsily besieged by the English and so gallantly de-
fended by the French that the assailants had at last
to draw off with serious loss.
In 1749 the news of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
stopped the fighting in India and restored Madras to
the English in exchange for the restitution of Louis-
burg in North America to the French. The chief out-
come of this sharp wrestle between the two Companies
at close quarters on a narrow strip of seacoast was
a notable augmentation of the French prestige in India,
and great encouragement to Dupleix in his project of
employing his troops as irresistible auxiliaries to any
native prince whose cause he might choose to adopt.
He was already in close correspondence with one of the
parties in the civil war that was just beginning to
108 THE FKENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
spread over the Karnatic; lie took care to keep on foot
his disciplined troops, whose decisive value in the field
had now been abundantly manifested; he had overawed
the neighbouring chiefs, depressed the English credit,
and seemed to have struck out with the boldness and
perspicacity of political genius the straight way toward
establishing a French dominion in the Indian peninsula.
So far as it related to facts and circumstances on
the Coromandel coast, his judgment of the situation was
correct; the opportunity had come, and Dupleix had
discerned the right methods of using it. The Moghul
empire had finally disappeared in all the southern prov-
inces; the whole realm was torn by internal dissensions;
the Marathas, whose mission it was to prepare the way
for a foreign domination by riding down and ruining
all the MnTia.-mTnfida.Ti powers, were spoiling the country
and bleeding away its strength; the native armies in
the south were no better than irregular ill-armed hordes
of mercenaries; the coasts lay open and defenceless.
Not only Dupleix, but others (as will be shown later
on), were beginning to see the practicability of turning
this state of things to the advantage of some European
power. But Dupleix had not perceived or taken into
account certain larger considerations which inevitably
controlled the working out of his ambitious schemes and
which soon began to counterbalance his local successes.
Any plan of establishing the territorial supremacy of
a maritime European power in India must be funda-
mentally defective and must necessarily suffer from
dangerous constitutional weakness so long as it does
ESTHEBENT WEAKNESS OF DUPLEIX'S PLANS 109
not rest upon a secure line of communication by sea.
Until this prime condition of stability is fulfilled, the
aggrandizement of dominion in a distant land only
places a heavier and more perilous strain on the weak
supports, and the whole fabric is liable to be toppled
over by a stroke at its base.
No quarter is given by French writers to Labourdon-
nais, who is accused of having thwarted the thorough-
going designs of Dupleix by the half-hearted measure
of holding Madras to ransom, by refusing to co-operate
energetically in the extirpation of the English settle-
ments, and by sailing away to Mauritius, so that the
coast was left clear for the enemy. On his return to
France, he was thrown into the Bastille, where he re-
mained three years, though in the end he was honour-
ably acquitted. His quarrel with Dupleix, who was im-
perious and uncompromising, may have had much to do
with his hasty departure from the Indian seaboard.
But it is more than doubtful whether, if Labourdonnais
had kept his shattered squadron in those waters, he
could have held that command of the sea without which
all the triumphs of Dupleix over the petty forts on the
coast, or over the loose levies of Indian princes, were
radically futile.
However this may be, it soon became evident that
success on the land would follow superiority at sea.
We have seen that when, after the departure of Labour-
donnais, a strong English fleet appeared on the scene,
the French ships were obliged to leave the coast, while
on land the operations of the French were paralyzed
110
THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
at once and they were easily driven back into Pondi-
cherri. Then, also, the restoration of Madras in ex-
change for Louisburg in North America showed that
a mere local advantage counted only as a single move
on the vast chessboard, and might promptly be sacri-
ficed to larger combinations. All these signs and tokens
A SCENE IN PONDICHERRI.
were so many warnings to Dupleix of his insecurity and
of the fallacy underlying the fair surface of his designs
upon India. But either he missed the significance of
sea power, or he committed the mistake of imagining
that he could shelter himself from naval attacks by
carrying his conquests inland, forgetting that the roots
of any European dominion in Asia must always be
firmly planted in the fatherland. The experience of this
first war seems to have brought him nothing but encour-
POOR CONDITION OF THE FKENCH COMPANY 111
agement, for as soon as peace had been proclaimed at
home, he lost no time in prosecuting his schemes on a
larger scale.
We have to remember, in any case, that Dupleix
cannot be supposed to have known the relative strength
of the maritime nations, or the conditions to which the
naval forces of France had been reduced by the war
of the Austrian succession. The English had spent
immense sums of money, but their navy had greatly
increased in power and capacity; it had attained a clear
superiority over the French everywhere, and notwith-
standing some reverses, it was far more than a match
for the enemy in Indian waters. The resources of Hol-
land were exhausted, and she was threatened by immi-
nent invasion when peace was signed at Aix-la-Chapelle.
As for France, her victories in the Low Countries had
brought her no substantial profit and much positive
loss, for the damage done to Holland by the war told
entirely in favour of England's commercial preponder-
ance; while at sea her trade and marine had suffered
so heavily, and her naval material at home was so com-
pletely spent that, according to Voltaire, she had no
warships left.
Such national destitution must have severely af-
fected any great trading enterprise; it was particularly
damaging to the interests of the French East India
Company which were directly associated with the for-
tunes of the State. At the end of the war, the Com-
pany found themselves deep in debt; their directors,
all nominees of the Crown, had been profuse in expendi-
112 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
ture, concealed the real state of affairs 2 and endeav-
oured to bolster up their credit by magnificent but ficti-
tious dividends, until after 1746 their embarrassments
compelled them to make sudden and startling reduc-
tions.
The remedy of the French ministers, whenever any-
thing seemed to go wrong with their Company, was to
appoint special commissioners to supervise the direc-
tion, notwithstanding the Company's protests that all
their misfortunes were due to overinterference. In
England, the East India Company's administration was
managed independently by great merchants, with a long
traditional experience of Asiatic affairs, with a strong
parliamentary connection, with a very extensive busi-
ness all over the East, and with a large reserve of capi-
tal on hand.
In a comparison of the two systems, we have on
the French side of the Channel a Company propped up
by lottery privileges and tobacco monopolies, subsisting
on grants in aid from the treasury. On the English
side, we have a rich corporation making annual loans
to the government in aid of war expenses, borrowing
millions at a very low interest, and using this great
financial leverage to obtain from the ministers exclu-
sive privileges and the extension of their charter. In
England, the superior wealth and naval instincts of the
nation were directed with all the energy and active play
of free institutions; in France, the natural ability and
enterprise of a courageous and quick-witted people
were fatally hampered by a despotic bureaucracy, by
DUPLEIX'S PATRIOTIC AMBITION 113
growing financial confusion, and by all the evils of
negligent misrule.
To Dupleix in India these things could not be dis-
cernible; he saw that his improved position and the
increase of his troops gave ample scope to his patriotic
ambition; and he now launched out hardily upon the
troubled and hitherto unexplored sea of Indian politics.
Although the last war had not altered the relative situ-
ations of either Company, its effect had been to change
their character and to deepen the colour of their rivalry;
they had both acquired a taste for Oriental war and
intrigue; they had each raised a military force which
mutual jealousy prevented them from disbanding,
though it was very costly to maintain. The problem
of keeping up a standing army without paying for it
out of revenue is occasionally solved by an impecunious
state at the cost of its neighbours; but there is also
the alternative, well known in Indian history, of lend-
ing an army for a consideration. The French and Eng-
lish in India could not make direct war on each other
while the peace lasted in Europe; they could only pre-
pare for the next rupture by manoeuvring against each
other politically, by husbanding their forces, extending
their spheres of influence, and aiming back strokes in-
directly at each other under cover of the melee that was
going on in the country round them.
There was, therefore, everything to invite and noth-
ing to prevent their taking a hand in the incessant fight-
ing for independence and territory among the princes
and chiefs who had now discovered the weight of Euro-
114 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
pean metal on the war-field, and were quite ready to
pay handsomely for a temporary loan of it. The Com-
panies, indeed, found little difficulty in striking a bar-
gain with men whose best title to rulership was their
power to take and hold, whose life and the existence
of their principality were continually staked upon the
issue of a single battle; capable usurpers with no right;
rightful heirs with no capacity; military leaders who
had seized a few districts; Maratha captains or Afghan
adventurers at the head of some thousand horsemen;
provincial viceroys who were trying to found dynasties.
None of these rivals could afford to look far ahead or
to concern themselves, in the face of emergent needs,
with the inevitable consequences of calling in the armed
European.
The two Companies, on the other hand, were under
an irresistible temptation drawing them toward pro-
posals that offered pay and employment for troops that
they could not yet use against each other, with the
prospect of large profits upon the campaign, extension
of trade privileges or even territory, and the chance of
doing some material damage to a rival. It must be
admitted that the first who yielded to this temptation
were the English, when they took up the cause of a
raja who had been expelled by his brother from the
Maratha kingdom of Tan j ore. But the expedition sent
to reinstate him managed matters so badly that the
Company were well content to withdraw it on payment
of their war expenditure in addition to a small cession
of land. This was not only a military failure but a
EUROPEAN INTERVENTION IN NATIVE WARS 115
political blunder; since the Tan j ore intervention fur-
nished Dupleix with an excellent precedent for taking
part in the quarrels of the native rulers precisely at
a moment when he was meditating similar designs of a
much more important and far-reaching character. He
THE MAIN GATEWAY OP THE TEMPLE AT TANJORE.
was now ready to develop his policy of assuring the
ascendency of France upon a system of armed inter-
vention among the candidates who were preparing to
settle by the sword the open question of the succession
to rulership in South India.
His opportunity came in April, 1748, with the death
of Asaf Jah, the first Nizam, founder of the dynasty
that still reigns over a large territory at Haidarabad.
Asaf Jah's succession was disputed between his son
116 THE FEENCH IN INDIA UNDEE DUPLEIX
Nasir Jang and his grandson Muzaffar Jang, who both
took up arms; whereupon the Karnatic, which had been
kept quiet only by Asaf Jah's power of enforcing his
authority, at once became the scene of a violent conflict
between rival claimants for the subordinate rulership.
The entanglement of these two wars of succession threw
all South India into confusion, producing that compli-
cated series of intrigues, conspiracies, assassinations,
battles, sieges, and desultory skirmishing that is known
in Anglo-Indian history as the War in the Karnatic.
The whole narrative, in copious and authentic detail, is
to be read in Orme's History under the title of " The
War of Coromandel," which records the admirable ex-
ploits of Olive, Lawrence, and some other stout-hearted
but utterly forgotten Englishmen, who at great odds
and with small means sustained the fortunes of their
country in many a hazardous or desperate situation
by their skill, valour, and inflexible fortitude.
Into this medley Dupleix plunged promptly and
boldly. His immediate aim was to establish in the
Karnatic, the province within whose jurisdiction lay
both Madras and Pondicherri, a ruler who should be
dependent on the French connection. His ulterior ob-
ject was the creation of a preponderant French party
at the court of the Nizam himself, to whom the Kar-
natic was still nominally subordinate; and by these
two steps he hoped to obtain a firm dominion for his
nation in India. In defending himself, afterwards, for
having taken a part in these civil broils, he argued, not
unfairly, that neutrality was impossible, because if the
DUPLEIX AND THE WAR IN THE KAKNATIC 117
French had refused all overtures for European assist-
ance, the contending princes would certainly have got
it from the English, who would thus have attained irre-
sistible predominance. However this may be, the result
of his policy was that the English Company, who at
first expected that the Treaty of 1748 would relieve
them from the hostility of France, soon discovered that
they were in greater danger than before; for the peace
enabled Dupleix to employ his forces in giving such
material assistance to Chanda Sahib, one of the com-
petitors for the Karnatic, that the ruling Nawab Anwar-
ad-din Khan was speedily attacked, defeated, and slain.
The victorious Chanda Sahib joined forces with Muzaf-
far Jang, who was contending for the Nizamship; and
both marched to Pondicherri, where they were mag-
nificently received by the French, to whom they made
a substantial grant of territory, with special allotments
to Monsieur and Madame Dupleix. The French were
now openly supporting Muzafto Jang for the Nizam-
ship of the Deccan, and Chanda Sahib for the Nawab-
ship of the Karnatic.
The English, who regarded these proceedings with
considerable dismay, although their own behaviour at
Tan j ore made protest embarrassing, became involved
in an acrimonious correspondence with the French, obvi-
ously leading to a rupture. Their position, which was
now seriously threatened, left them no alternative but
to take the side opposed to the French candidates in
this double war of succession. When Dupleix sent out
a strong contingent in support of Muzaffar Jang, Nasir
118 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
Jang, his opponent, appealed to the English, who, after
some hesitation, supplied a body of six hundred men
and also assisted Mohammad Ali, whom Nasir Jang had
appointed to contest the Karnatic Nawabship against
Chanda Sahib. Thus Nasir Jang and Mohammad Ali
were supported by the English for the Nizamship and
the Karnatic against Muzaffar Jang and Chanda Sahib,
who were backed by the French.
The English Company also sent home urgent requisi-
tions for succour, representing to their directors that
the French had " struck at the ruin of your settlements,
possessed themselves of several large districts, planted
their colours on the very edge of your bounds, and are
endeavouring to surround your settlements in such man-
ner as to prevent either provisions or merchandise being
brought to us." The murder of Nasir Jang by his own
mercenaries seemed indeed to secure the triumph of the
French cause; for Muzaffar Jang, whom Dupleix was
assisting, was thereby placed for the moment in undis-
puted possession of the Nizamship; while Chanda Sahib
with his French auxiliaries became irresistible in the
Karnatic, where only the strong fortress of Trichinop-
oli held out against him.
It would be very difficult to describe briefly and yet
clearly the intricate scrambling campaigns that fol-
lowed, in which the French and English played the lead-
ing parts on either side, for the result of every impor-
tant action depended on the European contingents
engaged. While their troops exchanged volleys in the
field, the two Companies exchanged bitter recrimina-
TURNING OF THE TIDE OF WAR
119
tions from Madras and Pondicherri, accusing each other
of breaches of international law, denouncing one an-
other 's manoeuvres, and imploring their respective gov-
ernments at home to interpose against each other's
total disregard of the most ordinary political morality.
The French troops had carried the Karnatic for their
candidate, had sent Bussy with Muzaffar Jang to estab-
THE ROCK OF TRICHINOPOLI.
lish him as Nizam at Haidarabad, and seemed in a fair
way toward general success. The English had thrown
a reinforcement into Trichinopoli, where Mohammad
Ali defended himself steadily against Chanda Sahib;
but the fortress was beleaguered by a greatly superior
army with a strong French contingent, and was saved
only when Clive made an effective diversion by his dar-
ing seizure of Arcot, the capital of the Karnatic.
This was the turning-point of the war. A large
division of the besieging army, despatched from Trichi-
120 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
nopoli to retake Arcot, made some fierce assaults that
were repulsed by the desperate valour of dive's scanty
garrison, who made such an obstinate stand behind very
feeble defences that the attempt had to be abandoned.
The English and their allies, led by Clive and Lawrence,
then took the open field against their enemy, cut off
the French communications, dispersed Chanda Sahib's
army, captured the French officers, and completely re-
lieved Trichinopoli. Chanda Sahib was murdered by
the Marathas who had joined Mohammad Ali; and
Muzaffar Jang was killed in a skirmish on his march
toward Haidarabad.
Meanwhile, Bussy had established himself at Hai-
darabad, where he had set up a Nizam, had organized
a complete corps d'armee under his own command, and
had made himself so much too powerful for the native
government that he necessarily provoked much jeal-
ousy, enmity, and plotting against him. Having suc-
ceeded, nevertheless, by great dexterity and firmness in
maintaining his position, he obtained from the Nizam
an assignment of four rich districts lying along the
eastern coast above the Karnatic, still called the North-
ern Sirkars, which yielded ample revenue for the pay-
ment of his troops.
Yet Bussy was well aware that his footing at Hai-
darabad, far inland, was isolated and precarious, de-
pendent entirely on a semi-mutinous army under a
few French officers. He had, therefore, consistently
advised making peace with the English; and now the
campaign in the Karnatic was visibly turning against
o
.s
(0
O
oa
-o
O
FAILUEE AND BECALL OF DUPLEIX 121
Dupleix, who had no military commander to match'
against Clive and Lawrence.
The French leader in India was beginning to find
that practice was making the English no worse players
than his own side at the game which he himself had
introduced. The whole strength of the French had been
exerted and exhausted in vain against Trichinopoli;
the protracted siege had brought them nothing but dis-
aster. Not only his native allies, but also the French
Government at home, were losing their former confi-
dence in Dupleix; for his policy may be said to have
broken down when the French candidates for rulership
were worsted, and when, after some years of heavy
expenditure on these irregular hostilities, the results
fell so far short of the expectations that he had raised.
Toward the end of 1753, he made overtures for peace,
but as soon as the English discovered that he intended
to retain in his own person the Nawabship of the Kar-
natic, they broke off negotiations. As his policy fell
into disrepute, he had naturally been led to disguise the
real condition of the Company's finances; so when the
directors in Paris were suddenly advised from Pondi-
cherri that they were two millions of francs in debt,
they determined at once to recall him.
The English Company at home had long been press-
ing their government to protest diplomatically against
this illegitimate system of private war and against all
the Indian proceedings of Dupleix, whose manifest
object they declared to be the extirpation of their set-
tlements. They urged that " the trade carried on by
122
THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
the East India Company is the trade of the English
nation in the East Indies, and so far a national con-
cern "; that the French power was growing; and that
Dupleix had laid claim to the whole southeastern coast
from Cape Comorin to the river Kistna.
The French ministry, on the other hand, did not care
A MOKOLITHIC TEMPLE AT MAHABALIPUR ON THE SOUTHEAST COAST.
to embroil themselves with England, whose sea power
was dangerous to all their colonies, on account of these
apparently interminable Indian quarrels. Their finances
were low; and they had good reasons for honestly desir-
ing to substitute pacific for warlike relations between
the two Companies, to discontinue the practice of lend-
ing auxiliary troops to native princes, and to agree upon
a mutual return to the old commercial business. So
PEACE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE 123
in 1754, having settled an understanding upon this basis
with the English government, they deputed to Pondi-
cherri M. Godeheu, who superseded Dupleix, and con-
cluded with the English governor, Saunders, first, a
suspension of arms; and secondly, a provisional treaty,
afterwards ratified, whereby the Companies bound
themselves not to renew attempts at territorial aggran-
dizement or to interfere in local wars, and covenanted
to retain only a few places and districts stipulated in
the treaty. Mohammad Ali, whom the English had been
supporting throughout the whole contest, was tacitly
recognized as Nawab of the Karnatic. This concession
virtually dropped the keystone out of the arch upon
which the high-reaching policy of Dupleix had been
built up, and on his return to France he died, after
some vain attempts to obtain justice, in neglect, pov-
erty, and unmerited discredit.
It has been usual to regard this treaty arrangement,
which put an end to the unofficial war between the two
Indian Companies, as the turning-point of the fortunes
of France in the East Indies. The abandonment of the
policy of Dupleix has been freely censured as short-
sighted and pusillanimous, particularly by recent French
writers. The French government is accused of throw-
ing up a game that had been nearly won, and of de-
serting in the hour of his need the man whose genius
had engendered the first conception of founding a great
European empire in India, who showed not only the
possibility of the achievement but the right method of
accomplishing it. We are told, for instance, by Xavier
124 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
Raymond that England, in conquering India, has had
but to follow the path that the genius of France opened
out to her. James Mill, in summarizing the causes why
the English succeeded, says that the two important dis-
coveries for conquering India were, first, the weakness
of the native armies against European discipline; and
secondly, the facility of imparting that discipline to
natives in the service of Europeans. He adds: " Both
these discoveries were made by the French." And
almost all writers on Indian history have repeated this
after him, insisting that the failure of Dupleix is to
be ascribed to the ineffective co-operation on the part
of the French naval officers, to the want of good mili-
tary commanders, to accidents, to bad luck at critical
moments of the campaign, and, above all, to the faint-
heartedness of the French ministry.
Now, it is quite true that Dupleix was a man of
genius and far political vision, who strove gallantly
against all these obstacles. On the other hand, it is
also true that the English, with their usual good luck,
had in Clive and Lawrence commanders superior to any
of the French military officers with Dupleix, except
Bussy. Bussy was a very able man, whom French his-
torians delight to honour; but he was evidently intent,
under Dupleix as afterwards under Lally, much more
upon building up his own fortunes as a military dic-
tator at Haidarabad than on sharing the unprofitable
hard-hitting struggle between the two Companies in the
Karnatic; and when misfortune overtook Dupleix and
Lally he behaved ungenerously to both of them.
A CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF DUPLEIX 125
We may heartily agree with Elphinstone that Du-
pleix was " the first who made an extensive use of dis-
ciplined sepoys; the first who quitted the ports on the
sea and marched an army into the heart of the conti-
nent; the first, above all, who discovered the illusion
of the Moghul greatness." Nevertheless, although it
seems invidious to detract from the posthumous glory
of a man so able and yet so unfortunate as Dupleix,
he cannot be ranked as an original discoverer in Asiatic
warfare and politics, without taking into account sur-
rounding circumstances and conditions that naturally
pointed to the use of methods which he developed rather
than invented.
The weakness of all Oriental states and armies had
long been known; and India has always been, through
natural causes, less capable than other great Asiatic
countries of resisting foreign invasion. Her indige-
nous population has rarely furnished armies that could
encounter the inrush of the hordes from Central Asia;
and the only soldiers upon whom the princes of South-
ern India could rely were commonly mercenaries from
the north. At the end of the seventeenth century, the
imperial troops were probably still the best in India;
but Bernier writes that a division of Turenne's men
would have made short work of the whole Moghul army;
nor could any European of military experience have
doubted that the loose levies of the Karnatic would be
scattered by a few well-armed and disciplined battal-
ions.
Nor was there, in point of fact, any great novelty
126 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
in the French introduction of the practice of drilling
a few native regiments for their own service. The
Moghul army had always contained some European
officers, while the Maratha chiefs were forming trained
regiments within a very few years after the time of
Dupleix; and so soon as the European Companies began
to engage in Indian wars, the expedient of giving disci-
pline to the mercenaries who swarmed into their camps
was too obviously necessary to rank as a discovery.
The real discovery of the value of organized troops had
to be made, not by Europeans who knew it already, but
by the natives of India, who had never before made
trial of such tactics or had met such bodies in the field.
But there is no need to attempt any detraction from
the high credit fairly due to Dupleix for having first
started on the right road toward European conquest in
India. The more interesting question is why, with so
much energy, ability, and patriotism, he made so little
way. To those who maintain that, but for the blindness
of the French government towards the ideas of Dupleix,
the blunders of colleagues or subordinates, and the final
disavowal of Dupleix, France might have supplanted
England in India the true answer is that these views
betray a disregard of historic proportion and an incom-
plete survey of the whole situation. They proceed on
the narrow theory that extensive political changes may
hang on the event of a small battle, or on the beha-
viour of a provincial general or governor at some crit-
ical moment. The strength and resources of France
and England in their contests for the possession of
REASONS FOE THE FAILURE OF DUPLEIX 129
empires are not to be measured after this fashion, or
to be weighed in such nice balances.
It may even be questioned whether the result of the
confused irregular struggle between the two Companies
in the Indian peninsula told decisively one way or the
other upon the final event. The Karnatic war, being
unofficial, was necessarily inconclusive, for neither
French nor English dared openly to strike home at each
other's settlements; while even if this had been done
indirectly through native auxiliaries, the home govern-
ments must have interfered earlier. The system of pri-
vate or auxiliary war gave Dupleix the temporary
advantage against the English that it was necessarily
confined to the land, where he was the stronger; for
as the two nations were at peace, their fleets could not
take part in it. On the outbreak of national hostilities
three years later, the naval strength of England came
into play with decisive effect.
Dupleix was a man of original and energetic political
instincts, and of an imperious and morally intrepid dis-
position, who embarked upon wide and somewhat auda-
cious schemes of Oriental dominion and lost the stakes
for which he played more through want of strength
and continuous support than want of skill. He saw
that so long as a European Company held its pos-
sessions or carried on trade at the pleasure of capri-
cious and ephemeral Indian governments, the position
was in the highest degree precarious. The right method,
he argued, was to assert independence, to strike in for
mastery, and to beat down any European rival who
130 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
crossed his path; and, if the English had not been too
strong for him, he might have succeeded.
He made the commonplace mistake of affecting
ostentatious display and resorting to astute intrigues
in his dealing with the Indians; whereas a European
should meet Orientals not with their weapons, but with
his own. His claim to be recognized as Nawab of the
Karnatic, under patents of doubtful authenticity, was
a grave political blunder, since it was quite impossible
for the English to acquiesce in a position that would
have placed their settlements in perpetual jeopardy.
Major Lawrence, writing from his camp near Trichi-
nopoli of the negotiations that were attempted in Jan-
uary, 1754, said: "It is my opinion there never can
be peace in the province while Dupleix stays in India.
He neither values men nor money, nor anything but
what can gratify his own ambition. The continual ill-
success of his troops would have made anybody but him
reflect and be glad of the terms offered; but he talks
not like the Governor of Pondicherri but as Prince of
the Province."
Although some allowance must be made for the prej-
udice of an adversary, there is much truth in this view
of the conduct and attitude of Dupleix. We may regard
him, nevertheless, as the most striking figure in the
short Indian episode of that long and arduous contest
for transmarine dominion which was fought out be-
tween France and England in the eighteenth century,
although it was far beyond his power to influence the
ultimate destiny of either nation in India, and although
INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS OF THE STRUGGLE 131
the result of his plans was, as Olive wrote Lord Bute
in 1762, that " we accomplished for ourselves against
the French exactly everything that the French intended
to accomplish for themselves against us." It is certain,
moreover, that the conception of an Indian empire had
already been formed by others besides Dupleix, and that
more than one clear-headed observer had perceived how
easily the whole country might be subdued by a Euro-
pean power.
It is easy to understand that when France and Eng-
land, in 1753, determined to stop the fighting between
their two Companies in India, they were actuated by
the obvious expediency of terminating a protracted war
between the representatives of two nations who were
at peace in Europe, and of compelling their Indian
governors to retire from politics and revert to trade.
On the scene of action neither side had as yet gained
any decisive advantage. In 1754 the French and Eng-
lish had both received reinforcements that brought
their respective European forces up to about two thou-
sand men each; but Orme says that the English troops
were so superior in quality to the French that, if hos-
tilities had continued, the English must have prevailed.
The presence of an English squadron on the coast was
also an argument, he observes, that inclined M. Godeheu
toward pacific views.
On the other hand, the French held a much larger
territory than the English, and apparently a more con-
siderable political connection among the native states.
The English governor at Madras, in transmitting to the
132
THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
London Board the provisional treaty he had made with
Godeheu in 1754, warned his Company that the French
were in an advantageous position for continuing hos-
tilities; they had, he wrote, a stronger military force
BODY-GUARD OP A NATIVE PRINCE.
particularly in native cavalry, which could harry the
English districts and " their influence with the coun-
try powers far exceeds ours."
Yet the views and motives by which the French
ministers were actuated are amply intelligible. The pol-
icy of Dupleix had been frustrated in the sense that,
after four years of irregular warfare, he had brought
the Company no nearer to the triumphant conclusion
FRENCH MOTIVES FOR CEASING HOSTILITIES 133
that was to compensate them for heavy military ex-
penditure; while the English Company, though hard
pressed, was by no means beaten; their troops were
solid and well led, their finances in very fair condition.
Dupleix might have gained ground, at best unstable
and slippery, among the native princes; but in Europe
the English government was remonstrating strenuously,
and would certainly go beyond remonstrance whenever
it should become manifest to the English people that
their Indian trade and possessions were seriously men-
aced. The headquarters of each rival Company, at
Madras and Pondicherri, lay along an open roadstead,
completely exposed to attack by sea. The English fleet
under Admiral Watson had just reached the coast, and
the French government must have been conscious of
the inferiority of their own navy. And since the treaty
of 1754, which was published in Madras in January of
the following year, maintained the French in possession
of much larger territory on the Coromandel coast than
was awarded to the English while Bussy was still at
Haidarabad with his division of five thousand well-
disciplined troops we may regard the loss of Dupleix
himself, and the recognition of Mohammad Ali in
the Karnatic, as the only two points in Godeheu's ar-
rangement that could be said to have placed the French
at a distinct disadvantage in India.
The French ministers were actuated, moreover, by
the imperious and fundamental necessity of restoring
their dilapidated finances; they could not, in justice to
their overtaxed people, persist in the unsound and ex-
134 THE FRENCH IN INDIA UNDER DUPLEIX
travagant system of subsidizing a commercial Company
that had plunged into the quicksand of Indian wars.
In 1754, the French Company were on the verge of
insolvency; their affairs were under official inquiry;
they were demanding large subsidies from the treasury;
and it was clear that the public credit would suffer
seriously if they were allowed to go into liquidation.
Dupleix had laid down the principle, which he was
endeavouring to impress upon his government, that no
Company could subsist in India which had not a fixed
revenue from territory to provide for the cost of estab-
lishments. But at that time it was an axiom in France,
and even in England, that conquest was incompatible
with commerce; the opinion of all French authorities,
mercantile and administrative, was unanimous against
allowing a trading Company to acquire large territory;
and these views had for years been impressed sedu-
lously, though in vain, upon Dupleix.
Whether his principle was right or wrong need not
be discussed, for the real point is that it was just then
impracticable. The exhaustion of the Company's re-
sources, the embarrassments of French finance, and the
weakness of the French navy must have furnished the
government with irresistible arguments against persist-
ing in his policy. The true state and inevitable ten-
dency of the contest between the two nations in India
has been recognized by M. Marion, in his study of the
history of French finance between 1749 and 1754. In
defending Machault d'Arnouville, the controller-general
of that period, from the imputation of having sacrificed
WEAKNESS OF FRENCH TENURE IN INDIA 135
an empire in Asia by recalling Dupleix, lie shows that
if the French government had retained his services and
supported his policy, the ultimate event could not have
been materially changed. The whole fabric of terri-
torial predominance which Dupleix had been building
up so industriously was loosely and hastily cemented;
it depended upon the superiority of a few mercenary
troops, the perilous friendship of Eastern princes, and
the personal qualities of those in command on the spot.
It was thus exposed to all the winds of fortune and had
no sure foundation.
The first thing needful before any solid dominion
could be erected by the French in India was to secure
their communications with Europe by breaking the
power of the English at sea; but this stroke was beyond
the strength of the French in 1754. In the last war
the French navy had, according to Voltaire, been en-
tirely destroyed; and though since the peace of 1748
it had recovered to some extent, yet we are told that
in 1755 France had only sixty-seven ships of the line
and thirty-one frigates to set against one hundred and
thirty-one English men-of-war and eighty-one frigates.
When the Seven Years' War began in 1756, the French
did make a vigorous attempt to regain command of the
waterways; and it must be clear that to their failure
in that direct trial of naval strength, far more than to
their abandonment of the policy of Dupleix, must be
attributed the eventual disappearance of their pros-
pects of establishing a permanent ascendency in India.
CHAPTER VI
THE SECOND FKENCH WAK
IN 1756, when a rupture with France over the North
American colonies was imminent, George H, to save
Hanover, made a treaty of alliance with Frederick of
Prussia, against whom the Austrian empress, Maria
Theresa, "had prepared an overpowering hostile coali-
tion. Fortunately for England, the French government,
then under the sinister influence of Madame de Pom-
padour, was persuaded into a rash and unwise conjunc-
tion with the Austrians; so that during the war France
had to meet the Prussian army on land and the English
navy at sea, a very formidable amphibious combination.
From the beginning of the year 1756 both the English
and the French in India had been expecting war, and
each side had been protesting against the other's
breaches of Godeheu's treaty; so that when, toward
the year's end, news arrived of an open rupture in
Europe, the effect was merely to substitute formal hos-
tilities for the indirect skirmishings and threatening
manoeuvres that the two Companies had been carrying
on in the Karnatic. But as most of the English troops
had been despatched with Clive to Bengal, and as the
136
FBESH EUPTUEE BETWEEN FEANCE AND ENGLAND 137
French were expecting strong reinforcements, no imme-
diate collision occurred on the Coromandel coast.
The French government, having resolved to attack
the English possessions in the East, laid out their plan
of operations, prudently enough, on the principle of a
regular military campaign. They committed the charge
of a strong expeditionary force to Count Lally, instruct-
ing him to abstain from attempting to penetrate inland,
to avoid participation in the quarrels of the native
princes, and to concentrate his efforts upon seizing the
fortified stations of the English on the coast and up-
rooting their commerce. They warned him, in short,
against reverting to the system of Dupleix and Bussy.
The directors of the French Company had no wish to
set out again on schemes of territorial aggrandizement;
they chiefly desired the restoration of their finances and
the secure establishment of their commercial monopoly
by the total expulsion of the English from the Coro-
mandel coast.
These views are treated somewhat impatiently by
M. Tibulle Hamont, the latest French biographer of
Lally, who writes that the French directors were better
fitted to weigh out pepper than to comprehend the
problems of a people's expansion; and who lays very
great stress upon Bussy 's magniloquent reports of his
conquests in the Deccan and of his supreme influence
at Haidarabad. It will be recollected that the reigning
Nizam (Salabat Jang) had been established on his
throne by the French auxiliary troops under Bussy, who
from that time forward exercised paramount influence
138
THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
in the state, being commandant of a small disciplined
army under French officers, and in full possession of
some rich districts assigned for its payment. After the
peace of 1753, Bussy, whose position had not been
shaken by the fall of Dupleix, went on strengthening
himself in the Deccan; but the military dictatorship of
a foreign adventurer inevitably aroused great jealousy
THE TEMPLE TANK AT TIRTJPATI.
and suspicion; so that not only the ministers and the
nobles, but the Nizam himself, were intriguing against
him with the Marathas and even with the English. His
firmness and ability enabled him to hold his ground,
though not without bloodshed, and he had just put
down a dangerous attempt to overthrow him in 1758,
when he received a letter from Lally ordering him to
repair immediately to Pondicherri.
BUSSY RELUCTANTLY SUPPORTS LALLY 139
Bussy was now in this serious dilemma, that if he
should obey and quit Haidarabad, the field would be
left open to his enemies there, whereas if he remained,
not only must he take the consequences of insubordina-
tion, but Lally's failure on the coast would unquestion-
ably entail ruin, sooner or later, upon the French party
at Haidarabad. Very reluctantly, and after much re-
monstrance, he obeyed the order. It is probable, on the
whole, that he was right in believing himself likely to
serve Lally better by remaining to assist the French
army with supplies drawn from the resources of the
Deccan than by joining him on the coast with a small
reinforcement; but this is by no means certain. For
the fact remains that the one essential point was to
drive the English out of the country, that Lally was
quite right in declaring no peace or security to be pos-
sible for France in India until this had been done, and
that when the struggle came Bussy might have not
been able to co-operate decisively from so distant a
base as Haidarabad. Clearly the first step was to beat
the English by adroit and straightforward fighting,
whereby the problems of expansion would have been
mightily simplified and could have been solved after-
wards at leisure.
Unluckily for the French, Lally, a soldier of great
bravery and self-devotion, was yet a man totally unfit
for the work. The French minister, D'Argenson, when
the directors asked the Crown for Lally's services,
warned them in words that almost exactly foretold what
subsequently ensued that he was a hot-headed, stiff-
140 THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
necked martinet, who would burst out into thunderous
fury at the least check or blunder, and would make
himself so generally detested that his own officers would
thwart him, trip him up, and foil all his operations for
the satisfaction of ruining their general.
However, as the directors insisted, Lally was sent
out with a force, which, in experienced and capable
hands, would have been quite sufficient to have reduced,
at least temporarily, all the Coromandel settlements,
particularly if it had reached India twelve months be-
fore it did arrive. If the expedition, which was deter-
mined upon in 1755, had left France in 1756, soon after
the declaration of war, it might have descended upon
the coast at a very critical moment. For in June, 1756,
the English had been driven out of Calcutta by the
Nawab Siraj-ad-daulah, losing all their forts and fac-
tories in Bengal; and in October Clive had taken all
the Company's best troops northward with the fleet
from Madras to rescue his countrymen and recover
Fort William.
When these troops were despatched, the Madras
president and his council fully realized the situation;
they knew that war had been declared in Europe, that
a strong French force was under preparation for India,
that whenever it reached Pondicherri, Bussy at Hai-
darabad would co-operate with Lally on the coast, and
that the southern presidency would be in great danger
if this joint attack were made while the troops were
absent in Bengal. They decided, nevertheless, with
remarkable promptitude and judgment, to run the risk
CLIVE'S SUCCESSFUL EXPEDITION TO BENGAL 141
of sending at once a large relieving force under Olive's
command, in the hope that it might settle matters in
Bengal and return before the French could appear on
the Coromandel coast. Their venture met with the suc-
cess it deserved; for the preparations in France were
BRAHMANS OF BENGAL.
so dilatory and the outward voyage was so slow that
Lally did not land at Pondicherri until April, 1758.
By that time the opportunity had been irremediably
lost. The English had not only driven Siraj-ad-daulah
out of Calcutta and dispersed his army at Plassey, but
had dethroned him and set up another Nawab, had
become masters of Bengal, the richest province of India,
and had expelled the French from all that region. A
few months later Clive could report that " perfect tran-
quillity reigns in Bengal "; so that he was able to co-
142 THE SECOND FBENCH WAR
operate powerfully by supplies of men and money in
the gallant defence of Madras. He also made an effect-
ive diversion by despatching Colonel Forde to drive the
French out of those important districts, the Northern
Sirkars, which was done very smartly and successfully.
Masulipatam, the headquarters of the French adminis-
tration, was taken by assault; and the French army was
thenceforward deprived of the immense resources which
it had been drawing during this war from the advantage
of Bussy's influence and possessions. For as these were
the districts which had been assigned to him by the
Nizam for payment of his troops, their loss was a heavy
blow to Bussy's credit at that court; it disclosed the
real instability of his imposing position, and gave a
strong impulse to the revolution which soon afterwards
destroyed all French preponderance at Haidarabad.
Meanwhile Lally had landed his men, had taken
Fort St. David, which was not very resolutely defended,
and would have marched on Madras if he had not been
prevented by want of money and supplies and by the
refusal of the French admiral, D'Ache, to co-operate.
He was entirely without tact or temper, suspected all
the civil authorities of corruption, knew nothing of
Oriental feelings or customs, and had precisely that
impatient contempt of local experience and provincial
soldiering that has so often led second-rate military
commanders to disaster in colonial and Asiatic warfare.
In order to get money, he made a fruitless raid upon
Tan j ore, which only plunged him deeper into unpop-
ularity and financial embarrassment.
THE HOPELESS CONDITION OF LALLY 143
The English ships of war had now arrived, and sev-
eral sharp though indecisive encounters with the French
squadron had so damaged the French ships and dis-
couraged their admiral, that in September, 1758, D'Ache
withdrew, like Labourdonnais before him, to the Isle
of France. Neither entreaties nor protests, nor the
fury of Lally, could induce him to remain. We have
seen that Lally, who saw and said plainly that the
French could take no firm hold of the country until
the English were beaten out of it, had summoned Bussy
to join him from Haidarabad; but with Bussy 's depar-
ture vanished all the French ascendency at the Nizam's
court, where it was immediately supplanted by English
influence and was never again restored. Bussy had now
arrived, and strove by arguments of every sort, includ-
ing something like bribery, to persuade Lally to permit
him to return, with no better result than a rancorous
quarrel, in which Bussy lost patience, became estranged,
and made no effort whatever to avert the discomfiture
of the unlucky general.
Surrounded by obstacles, almost destitute of means,
abhorred by the civil functionaries, and distrusted by
the army, Lally marched desperately upon Madras,
hoping to reduce it before the English fleet, which had
withdrawn during the stormy season, should return
to the coast. But the place had been strengthened and
well victualled, while Lally was in great straits for men
and money, with no hope of reinforcements: his troops
were discouraged, and at Pondicherri he was much more
hated than helped. A letter from a high Pondicherri
144 THE SECOND FRENCH WAE
official to M. Conflans, dated September 4, 1758, and
intercepted by the English, gives some notion of the
depression then prevailing at headquarters. Lally furi-
ously accused Bussy of disloyalty in evading his de-
mands for money and active co-operation; nor can it
be denied that Bussy, although far superior to Lally
in military skill and in the knack of managing Orien-
tals, much preferred remaining at Haidarabad, where
he was wealthy and independent, to serving against the
English under Lally, who was suspicious, intractable,
and manifestly predestined to ruin.
In the course of the next twelve months, Lally 's
situation grew rapidly worse. A letter written by him
from his camp before Madras to the governor of Pondi-
cherri betrays the unhappy general's impotent rage and
misery. His cash and gunpowder were both running
out, and the country round could furnish no more pro-
visions. He proposed to storm the place by the open
breach, but his officers refused to risk the assault, and
there was a serious mutiny among his European sol-
diery; yet he persevered until in February, 1759, the
arrival of the English fleet struck such dismay into his
army that the siege was hastily raised, to the great
damage of the French reputation among the native
princes, who were all watching the contest. Admiral
D'Ache returned with his ships from Mauritius, threw
some insignificant supplies into Pondicherri, and then
disappeared finally, leaving French India to its fate.
The English forces could now take the field against the
French outposts, and they carried by assault the im-
LALLY'S DEFEAT AT VANDEWASH 145
portant fort of Vandewash. Olive's letter to Pitt in
January, 1759, before the siege of Madras had been
raised, shows that he had confidently foreseen that the
English power at sea, and their possession of the re-
sources of Bengal, must inevitably bring about Lally's
complete discomfiture; and before the year's end this
prediction was fulfilled.
The two armies manoeuvred against each other in the
Karnatic for some months; but Lally, disregarding
Bussy's advice, insisted on attempting to recover Van-
dewash; whereupon he was attacked by Coote, who
saw that since the siege chained the French down to
one spot, he could choose his own time and tactics for
fighting them, whereas, to meet him, Lally would be
compelled to divide his force, having to leave a part
in the entrenchments. The battle that followed was
gallantly contested between the European troops, who
were about two thousand strong on each side, by push
of bayonet, musketry at close quarters, and artillery.
Coote 's and Draper's regiments met the battalions of
Lorraine and Lally; there was resolute charging and
countercharging, until the French fell into some dis-
order, when the plunging fire of the English cannon,
the explosion of a tumbril, the fine handling of their
men by Coote and Draper, and the capture of Bussy
determined the defeat of the French. The sepoys on
both sides were kept back by their commanders and
took little share in the action; the Marathas in the
French pay hovered uselessly on the outskirts. Lally
vainly attempted, with his usual intrepidity, to lead in
146
THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
person a charge of the French cavalry they could not
face the superior artillery of the English; so he rallied
his broken lines behind the intrenchments and made
good his retreat to Pondicherri in January, 1760.
It was nevertheless a fatal reverse. The French
could no longer keep the open field; they lost all their
MILITARY PRACTICE AT OLD FORT JHANSI.
strong places; the districts from which they drew their
supplies were gradually occupied by the enemy. The
French fleet never returned to the coast, for D'Ache
flatly refused to bring back his ships; the English
squadron held the sea in great strength, and fresh
detachments of English troops were arriving. In this
hopeless condition Lally was exposed to the ignoble
reproaches and resentment of the civil officials within
Pondicherri, which was quite unprovided with maga-
PONDICHERRI SURRENDERED TO THE ENGLISH 147
zines or a sufficient garrison, and was now at last block-
aded by land and water. The French could make but
a feeble resistance, and were completely surrounded and
half-starved until they were compelled to surrender at
discretion in January, 1761.
From the fall of Pondicherri we may date the com-
plete and final termination of the contest between
France and England in India. All that remained to
the French in that part of the world, says Voltaire,
was their regret at having spent, during more than
forty years, immense sums to maintain a Company that
had been equally maladroit in commerce and in war,
that had never made any profits, and that had paid
no genuine dividends either to shareholders or to credi-
tors. The association was dissolved in 1770, after it
had been proved from official figures by the Abbe Mo-
rellet, who was employed to examine the accounts,
that between 1725 and 1769 the Company had lost cap-
ital to the amount of 169,000,000 francs. He estimated
the sum total of the advances that had been made to
the Company by successive French ministries, during
those forty-four years, at 376,000,000 francs, but it
should be remembered that the abbe seems to have been
preparing a case for the Company's dissolution.
The French did indeed recover, at the peace of 1763,
the places that had belonged to them before Dupleix
entered upon his schemes of territorial extension. Nev-
ertheless, the sinews of their war power were cut by
the stipulation against their fortifying these places and
against their keeping troops in Bengal, whereby France
148 THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
was permanently shut out of North India and confined
to some indefensible points on the seaboard. The two
primary conditions of success, whether commercial or
military, in India were the establishment of strong
points d'appui on the coast and the maintenance of a
naval force that could keep open communications with
Europe; but the English had gained the preponderance
at sea, while the French had now lost their footing on
land. The real causes of their failure are to be found,
not in the ill-luck or incapacity of particular individ-
uals (for that might have been repaired), but rather
in the wider combination of circumstances that decided
against France her great contest with England at that
period.
M. Tibulle Hamont declares that if Lally had thrown
into the sea the instructions given him in France, and
if he had resumed the policy of Dupleix and followed
Bussy's advice, the imperial diadem of India would not
have been worn by the English queen. It is more than
doubtful whether Lally would have gained anything
by imitating Dupleix or by taking counsel with the
astute Bussy, since both these able and gallant French-
men relied far too much upon spheres of influence and
military protectorates over native rulers as the basis
of ascendency in India. Such methods provide power-
ful leverage for the extension of Asiatic dominion, but
not for its foundation, which must always rest upon
sure and swift support, in times of need, from the
mother country. Without this essential resource, it is
quite clear that to drive the English out of India dur-
FRANCE DOOMED TO FAILURE IN INDIA 149
ing the Seven Years' War was an exploit far beyond
Lally's power or capacity.
India was not lost by the French because Dupleix
was recalled, or because Labourdonnais and D'Ache
AN INDIAN NATIVE RULER.
both left the coast at critical moments, or because Lally
was headstrong and intractable. Still less was the loss
due to any national inaptitude for distant and perilous
enterprises, in which the French have always displayed
high qualities. The record of their exploration and
adventure in America and Asia during the seventeenth
160 THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
and eighteenth centuries fully sustains the reputation
of this courageous and energetic people. It was through
the short-sighted, ill-managed European policy of Louis
XV, misguided by his mistresses and by incompetent
ministers, that France lost her Indian settlements in
the Seven Years' War. When it is remembered that
before the end of that war France had surrendered her
North American colonies, all her African settlements,
and some of her finest West Indian islands, that her
campaigns had been unfortunate in Germany, and that
she had suffered deplorably at sea, there need be little
hesitation in acknowledging that better men than Lally
must have failed on the Coromandel coast.
To sum up: the immediate local causes of the Eng-
lish triumphs in India were, first, the conquest of Ben-
gal, which furnished the British with the sinews of war
and a firm base of operations on the mainland, whereas
the French very soon exhausted their treasure-chest,
and their only safe base was at Mauritius. Secondly,
the English had the good luck to find a commander
of military genius, well versed in Indian affairs, while
the French general was inexperienced and without the
slightest tincture of the capacity for dealing with Orien-
tals which Frenchmen have often displayed.
The essential underlying causes, the primary rea-
sons, why the French could not hold India are to be
discovered in the insolvency of their East India Com-
pany, the maladministration of their affairs at home
and abroad, the continual sacrifice of colonial and mer-
cantile interests to a disastrous war-policy on the Con-
CAUSES OF ENGLISH VICTORY 151
tinent, and above all in the exhaustion of their naval
strength, which left all transmarine possessions of
France defenceless against the overwhelming superior-
ity of England. The English nation was deeply and
ardently interested in the struggle; the lead and direc-
tion was in supremely able hands. The whole unfet-
tered energy of a free and fierce people had been
wielded by Pitt, the ablest war-minister that England
has ever seen, against the careless incapacity of cour-
tiers and the' ill-supported efforts of one or two able
but irresponsible officials, under such an autocrat as
Louis XV. Nor can it be denied that French writers
are mainly right in ascribing the success of England at
this period, in India and elsewhere, to this signal in-
equality between the two governments.
It was natural that, after such mishaps and disap-
pointments, the benefit to be derived from distant col-
onies or Asiatic conquests should be sharply questioned
in France. The imposing authority of Montesquieu had
been pronounced, a few years earlier, against emigration
beyond sea, on the ground that it had a tendency to
drain the population at home; although he saw the
great advantages of commerce and navigation. The
anti-colonial party was now headed by Voltaire, who
declared the loss of Canada to be France 9 s gain, mocked
at the folly of fighting for a few snow-covered acres
more or less, and deplored the shedding of blood to
procure coffee, snuff, or spices for the citizens of Paris
and London.
In the latter part of this same century, when the
152 THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
mind of French statesmen and writers had become still
more impressed by political idealism, Rousseau followed
in a like vein with his discourses on the corrupting
effects of luxury and modern civilization. And although
these writers varied widely in their points of view, they
united in attacking with caustic irony or sombre repro-
bation the sinister influences of priestly ambition and
unscrupulous propagandism. The subordination of civil
to ecclesiastical interests had too often hampered the
authority of French governors in Canada, where the
religious orders were much too strong; nor should we
forget that in India the intrigues of the Jesuit Lavaur
were held to have fatally accelerated the disgrace and
condemnation of the unfortunate Lally.
But while in France the new spirit of humanitarian
philosophy was consoling the nation for the loss of for-
eign trade and distant colonies, in England the tolerant
and progressive ideas of the eighteenth century oper-
ated favourably rather than otherwise toward the
spread of Asiatic dominion. As commerce has invari-
ably bred freethinking in religion and politics all the
world over, so rationalism and liberal principles in their
turn helped commerce, by saving Englishmen from the
mistakes and prejudices that had hampered the com-
mercial enterprise of Spain, Portugal, and, partly, of
France. England's conquests in India began at the
period, about the middle of the eighteenth century,
when, according to Lecky, " a latent skepticism and a
wide-spread indifference might be everywhere traced
among the cultivated classes."
RESULTS OF THE FRENCH -ENGLISH CONFLICTS 153
The habit of treating their own religious differences
with equanimity undoubtedly indisposes men to trouble
themselves about the conversion of others, and leaves
no room for the confusion of temporal with spiritual
interests in dealing with heathen folk. No more suit-
able mental outfit could have been provided for Euro-
peans in the religious climate of India; nor indeed
could the charge of subordination to clerical influence,
or of impolitic proselytism, ever have been brought
home to the East India Company by their bitterest
enemy. On the whole, therefore, the calm and open
temper of the English mind at this period may be num-
bered among the moral conditions that were advan-
tageous to the English East India Company in contend-
ing for superiority in India.
We have thus seen that, of the three collisions be-
tween the French and English upon Indian soil, both
parties found themselves after the first, at the Peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, very much in the same con-
dition as at the beginning of hostilities, with a slight
advantage, if any, to the English. On the second oc-
casion, when Dupleix launched his grand political
schemes, the French closed the unofficial war in 1754
on terms at least equal; they probably had some local
superiority of influence and position. The third war,
which was international, finished in 1761 decisively and
irremediably against them, as was proved twenty years
afterwards. When the French made their last descent
upon an India coast in 1781, the long odds were for
the moment against England on the sea, for she was
164
THE SECOND FRENCH WAR
fighting single-handed against all the maritime nations;
against France, Spain, Holland, and her own American
colonies. She was also entangled within India in a very
intricate desultory war against Hyder Ali of Mysore
and the Marathas; two powers which both held strips
of the Indian seaboard and were both corresponding
with the enemy.
The French fleet was under Suffren, the best admiral
v&
THE SACKED BULL AT MYSORE.
ever possessed by France, and the military force in the
expedition was commanded by Bussy. Suffren was far
superior as a naval tactician to the English commander,
but the French admiral found on the Indian coast, as
Captain Mahan justly observes, " no friendly port or
roadstead, no base of supplies or repair." The French
settlements had all fallen by 1779; and the invaluable
harbour of Trincomali, in Ceylon, had been taken by
the English from the Dutch just a month before. It
CESSATION OF EUROPEAN RIVALRY 155
was retaken by Suffren in 1782, but not until after
England had made peace with the Marathas. In any
event, the English power was by that time too firmly
consolidated in India by the acquisition of Bengal, with
the rich districts northwestward up to Allahabad, to
be shaken by the landing on the southeast coast of a
small force, which could hardly have produced more
than local damage and temporary political confusion
in the peninsula. Suffren's real object must have been
no more than to create a diversion by harassing our
Eastern possessions while our forces were employed
against the colonial revolt in America, and in 1783 his
operations were interrupted by news of the Peace of
Versailles.
We are therefore entitled to fix on the Peace of
Paris in 1763 as the true date after which the maritime
powers of Europe finally withdrew from all serious
rivalry, either in commerce or conquest, with England
in India. The epoch is one of pre-eminent importance
in the history of the rise of British dominion in the
great Asiatic peninsula, for thenceforward the contest
for ascendency was between the English and the native
powers only a contest of which the issue was in real-
ity so far from being doubtful, invisible, or amazing,
that it could be and was already foreseen and deliber-
ately foretold.
CHAPTER VII
THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
IN the foregoing chapter the summary of affairs on
the east coast has been carried up to the date of
Suffren's expedition in order to present an unbroken
view of our relations with the French in India. It is
now necessary to go back some years in order to take
up the narrative of events in Bengal.
The rise and territorial expansion of the English
power may be conveniently divided into two periods,
which slightly overlap each other, but on the whole
mark two distinct and consecutive stages in the con-
struction of our dominion. The first is the period when
the contest lay among the European nations, who began
by competing for commercial advantages and ended by
fighting for political superiority on the Indian littoral.
The commercial competition was going on throughout
the whole of the seventeenth century; but the struggle
with the French, which laid the foundation of English
dominion in India, lasted less than twenty years, for it
began in 1745 and was virtually decided in 1763.
The second period, upon which we are now about
166
SHAH SUTLAJ MOSQUE AT MULTAN IN BIND.
ENGLISH CONFLICTS WITH NATIVE POWERS 159
to enter, is that during which England was contend-
ing with the native Indian powers, not for commercial
preponderance or for strips of territory and spheres of
influence along the seaboard, but for supremacy over all
India. Reckoning the beginning of this contest from
1756, when Clive and Admiral Watson sailed from
Madras to recover Calcutta from the Nawab of Bengal,
it may be taken to have been substantially determined
in fifty years; although for another fifty years the
expansion of British territory went on by great strides,
with long halts intervening, until the natural limits of
India were attained by the conquest of Sind and the
Pan jab.
The first thing that must strike the ordinary ob-
server, on looking back over the hundred years from
1757 to 1857, during which the acquisition of our Indian
dominion was accomplished, is the magnitude of the
exploit; the next is the remarkable ease with which
it was achieved. At the present moment, when, from
their small island in the West, the English survey the
immense Eastern empire that has grown up out of their
petty trading settlements on the Indian seaboard, they
are apt to be struck with wonder and a kind of dismay
at the prospering of their own handiwork.
The thing is, as has been said, so unprecedented in
history, and particularly it is so entirely unfamiliar to
modern political ideas we have become so unaccus-
tomed in the Western world to build up empires in the
high Roman fashion that even those who have studied
the beginnings of our Indian dominion are inclined to
160 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
treat the outcome and climax as something passing
man's understanding. The magnificent possessions of
Great Britain are commonly regarded as a man might
look at a great prize he had drawn by luck in a lottery;
they are supposed to have been won by incalculable
chance. It is surmised that we stumbled forward blind-
fold on our way to dominion without any expectation
that it would lead us to that end; we are assumed to
have discovered an empire accidentally and to have
obeyed the determination of events with no more fore-
knowledge than a rolling stone.
But it may fairly be argued that this view, which
embodies the general impression on this subject, can
be controverted by known facts. The idea that India
might easily be conquered and governed, with a very
small force, by a race superior in warlike capacity or
in civilization, was no novelty at all. In the first place
the thing had actually once been done. The Emperor
Babar, who invaded India from Central Asia in the
sixteenth century, has left us his authentic memoirs;
it is a book of great historical interest, and nothing
more amusing has ever been written by an Asiatic.
He says: "When I invaded the country for the fifth
time, overthrew Sultan Ibrahim, and subdued the em-
pire of Hindustan, my servants, the merchants and
their servants, and the followers of all friends that were
in camp along with me were numbered, and they
amounted to twelve thousand men. I placed my foot,"
he writes, " in the stirrup of resolution and my hands
on the reins of confidence in God, and I marched against
THE MOGHUL CONQUEST
161
the possessions of the throne of Delhi and the dominions
of Hindustan, whose army was said to amount to one
hundred thousand foot, with more than one thousand
elephants. The Most High GooV' he adds, " did not
suffer the hardships that I had undergone to be thrown
away, but defeated my formidable
enemy and made me conqueror of
this noble country."
This was done in 1526; Babar's
victory at Panipat gave him the
mastery of all Northern India and
founded the Moghul Empire. He
had really accomplished the en-
terprise with smaller means and
resources than those possessed by
the English when they had fixed
themselves securely in Bengal
with a base on the sea; and the
great host which he routed at
Panipat at the beginning of his
campaign was a far more formid-
able army than the English ever encountered in India
until they met the Sikhs, at the end of a century's fight-
ing. Now, what had been done before could be done
again, and was indeed likely to be done again, for the
whole country was quite incapable of resisting foreign
invasion. So, when at the opening of the eighteenth
century the Moghul Empire was evidently declining
toward a fall, and people were speculating upon what
might come after it, we find floating in the minds of
A SIKH WARRIOR.
162 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
cool observers the idea that the next conquest of India
might possibly be made by Europeans.
The key-note had indeed been struck earlier by Ber-
nier, a French physician at the court of Aurangzib
toward the close of the seventeenth century, who writes
in his book that M. de Conde or M. de Turenne with
twenty thousand men could conquer all India; and who
in his letter to Colbert lays particular stress first on
the riches, secondly on the weakness, of Bengal. But
in 1746, one Colonel James Mill, who had been in India
twenty years, submitted to the Austrian emperor a
scheme for conquering Bengal as a very feasible and
profitable undertaking. " The whole country of Hin-
dustan/' he says, " or empire of the Great Moghul, is,
and ever has been, in a state so feeble and defenceless
that it is almost a miracle that no prince of Europe,
with a maritime power at command, has not as yet
thought of making such acquisitions there as at one
stroke would put him and his subjects in possession of
infinite wealth. . . . The policy of the Moghul is bad,
his military worse, and as to a maritime power to com-
mand and protect his coasts, he has none at all. . . .
The province of Bengal is at present under the domin-
ion of a rebel subject of the Moghul, whose annual rev-
enue amounts to about two millions. But Bengal,
though not to be reduced by the power of the Moghul,
is equally indefensible with the rest of Hindustan on
the side of the ocean, and consequently may be forced
out of the rebel's hand with all its wealth, which is
incredibly vast."
MILL'S PLAN FOE CONQUERING BENGAL 163
If we bear in mind how little could have been accu-
rately known of India as a whole by an Englishman
in 1746, we must give Colonel Mill credit for much
sagacity and insight into the essential facts of the sit-
uation. He discerns the central points; he places his
finger upon the elementary causes of India's permanent
weakness, her political instability within, and her sea-
coast exposed and undefended externally. Within ten
or twelve years the English had carried out Colonel
Mill's scheme; and it will be shown hereafter that when
Bengal had been taken, the further expansion of Brit-
ish dominion was quite clearly foreseen. By those on
the spot it was treated not as accidental, but as inevi-
table.
In the year 1716, the English, whose trading fac-
tories had long been settled in Bengal, obtained from
the Moghul emperor an important farmdn, or imperial
order, permitting them to import and export goods upon
payment of a fixed tribute, and protecting them from
the heavy and arbitrary taxes laid on them at the ca-
price of the Nawabs. Bengal was a province under a
governor whose ordinary title was the Nawab Nazim,
who held office during the pleasure of the emperor, and
who was frequently changed, so long as the empire was
in its vigour, lest he should become too strong for the
central authority. But as the power of the emperor
declined, the independence of the Nawabs increased in
this distant province, until in the eighteenth century,
when Maratha insurrections and the irruptions from
Central Asia multiplied the distractions of the state,
164 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
the Bengal governors paid little obedience and less rev-
enue to Delhi.
]Jnder Murshid Kuli Khan, a man of considerable
ability, the governorship became hereditary in the usual
fashion; but in 1742 his grandson was overthrown and
slain by Ali Vardi Khan, an Afghan adventurer who
raised himself from a very humble post to be deputy-
governor of Behar, and who won for himself by the
sword the rulership of Bengal. During the fourteen
years of his strong administration, the foreign mer-
chants had no great reason to complain; for although
he levied large subsidies from the English, French, and
Dutch factories, he gave them protection and enforced
good order, suppressing all quarrels and tolerating no
encroachments. On his death, in 1756, he was succeeded
by his adopted son, known in English histories as Siraj-
ad-daulah, although the accurate spelling is said to be
Chiragh-ad-daulah, a young man whose savage and
suspicious temper was controlled by no experience or
natural capacity for rulership, and who had long been
jealous of the English, whom he suspected of having
corresponded with a possible rival against him for the
succession.
The new Nawab had just been proclaimed, when let-
ters reached Calcutta from England informing the
president that, as war with France was expected, he
should put his settlement into a state of defence; where-
upon he began to strengthen the fortifications. But the
right to fortify their places had not been conceded to
the English in Bengal; and the Nawab, to whom some
SIRAJ - AD - DAULAH, TYRANT OF BENGAL
165
offence had previously been given by the abrupt dis-
missal of a messenger, sternly ordered them to desist
at once. The English president, Drake, not understand-
ing his danger, answered by explaining that the forti-
fications were against the French, who had disregarded
the neutrality of the Moghul's dominions in the last
war by taking Madras, and who might attack Calcutta
this time.
This reply Siraj-ad-daulah took to mean that his
THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE AND TREASURY, CALCUTTA, FROM THB OLD COURSE.
protection and sovereign authority were very lightly
regarded by the foreigners. In great indignation
he seized the factory of Kasimbazar, near his cap-
ital, and marched upon Calcutta with a large army.
The English defended themselves for a time; but the
town was open; the governor and many of the English
fled in ships down the river; and the rest surrendered
on promise of honourable treatment. Nevertheless,
those whom the Nawab captured with the fort were
thrown into a kind of prison-room called the Black
Hole, from which, after one night's dreadful suffering,
166 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
on the eve of June 21, 1756, only twenty-three out of
one hundred and forty-six emerged alive.
As soon as the news of this dismal catastrophe
reached Madras, the president lost no time in despatch-
ing the fleet, commanded by Admiral Watson, to Ben-
gal, with troops under Colonel Clive. The force was
calculated to be sufficient not only for retaking Calcutta,
but also for reducing Hugli, expelling the French from
Chandarnagar, and even for attacking the Nawab's cap-
ital at Murshidabad; and Clive set out, as he wrote,
" with the full intention of settling the Company's
estate in those parts in a better and more lasting con-
dition than ever." He had less reason, he added, to
apprehend a check from the Nawab's army than from
the country and the climate. Nor indeed does it appear
that any serious misgivings as to the result of the expe-
dition troubled the government at Madras, where they
were only anxious to get the business done in Bengal
before the French armament under Lally should arrive
on the Coromandel coast.
Clive lost no time in driving the enemy's garrison
out of Calcutta and Hugli. The Nawab marched down
to encounter him with a very large force, which, after
some parleying, was attacked by the English close to
Calcutta. The engagement was indecisive, but the
Nawab was so far daunted as to sign a treaty restoring
to the Company their possessions in Bengal, and prom-
ising compensation for losses. This truce, however, was
broken very soon. There were strong reasons why the
English should return speedily to Madras, but as France
'>^ 1UU)H^>\\\ / -,,VV
!'>>? IT>I\>'' f I ;\Su\-/:-
;\\. .-i.r
MY>7\
,!t "i!\T ."\\n ' ' . '.i ! ,ll-i\'5't Vv.oUtU;
no^n \ ( > ( vi\V-^^> '5
The Black Hole of Calcutta
The Black Hole of Calcutta is flic name gircn to a room in the garri-
son in which 136 captive British soldiers were incarcerated by Nawab Siraj
ad-Daulah when he took the fortress, June 20, 1756. The cell was only
twenty feet square and had but two small windows, so that it became
almost impossible to live in the stifling air. The next morning all but
23 of the men were found dead after a night of agonizing suffering.
CLIVE CONQUERS BENGAL 167
and England were now at open war, it was dangerous
to depart while the French held their fortified station
of Chandarnagar, within a few miles of Calcutta. So
Watson and Olive carried the place by assault; but the
Nawab, who had at first acquiesced, at the last moment
withdrew his consent to the attack, and was secretly
inviting Bussy to march from Haidarabad to his relief.
There could be no reasonable doubt that Siraj-ad-daulah
would renew hostilities on the first opportunity, while,
on the other hand, Lally's expedition must soon reach
the eastern coast, and the Madras government was
urgently pressing for the return of the troops.
The English in Bengal thus found themselves in
a perilous dilemma, since the troops could not return
to Madras until Calcutta had been in some way placed
beyond danger from the Nawab. When, therefore, over-
tures were received from certain disaffected chiefs of
the Nawab 's court, Clive entered into a compact to
dethrone Siraj-ad-daulah, and to set up in his stead
Mir Jafir, one of the principal conspirators. He then
marched up the country against the Nawab, whom he
found entrenched at Plassey with about fifteen thou-
sand cavalry, thirty thousand foot, and forty pieces of
cannon.
The engagement began with some cannonading, in
which a battery managed by Frenchmen gave much
annoyance to the English. Early in the afternoon the
Nawab fled from the field, and as his army began to
fall back, an advance was made against the battery,
which alone remained in position. So soon as the
168 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
French had been dislodged and some rising ground
occupied that commanded the interior of the enemy 's
fortified camp, Clive delivered his assault at one angle;
whereupon the Nawab's whole army dispersed in a
general rout, leaving on the field its camp equipage, its
artillery, and about five hundred men. Olive's despatch
reports the loss on his side to have been twenty-two
killed and fifty wounded. Next morning, Mir Jafir,
who had merely hovered about the flanks of the engage-
ment with a large body of cavalry, paid a visit to Clive,
was saluted as Nawab, and hastened to occupy the
capital, Murshidabad, where soon after he put Siraj-ad-
daulah to death.
The whole province quietly submitted to the new
ruler; the emperor's government at Delhi, which was
occupied just then by Ahmad Shah with an Afghan
army, was totally incapable of interference; so that by
this sudden and violent revolution English ascendency
at once became established in Bengal.
The rout of Plassey for it can hardly be called a
battle is in itself chiefly remarkable as the first im-
portant occasion upon which the East India Company's
troops were openly arrayed, not as auxiliaries, but as
principals, against a considerable native army com-
manded in person by the ruler of a great province.
It stands, in fact, first on the long list of regular actions
that have been fought between the English in India
and the chiefs or military leaders of the country. The
event supplies, therefore, a very striking illustration
of the radical weakness of those native governments
WEAKNESS OF THE HINDUS IN BENGAL
109
and armies to whom the English found themselves op-
posed in the middle of the eighteenth century. This
inherent feebleness of the Hindus, and their inability
to govern or defend their possessions, obviously explains
why the English, who could do
both, so rapidly made room for
themselves in a country which,
though rich and populous, was, in
a practical sense, masterless.
It must also be remembered
that Bengal and the other prov-
inces bordering on the sea in
which the English won these fac-
ile triumphs were far more de-
fenceless than the inland country,
partly through the dilapidation
of the central power, partly be-
cause the people of those tracts
are naturally less warlike than<
elsewhere, and partly by the acci-
dent that they just then were
very ill governed. The army of the later Moghul em-
perors had always been bad; yet until Aurangzib died
it was quite strong enough to repulse any small expe-
ditionary force descending upon the coast. Nor could
such a stroke as dive's at Plassey have been attempted
with impunity if Bengal had happened to possess a vig-
orous and capable viceroy; for a few years later our
first campaigns against Hyder Ali in the south and the
Marathas in the west showed us that under competent
AN INDIAN MOHAMMKDAN
HELMET.
170 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
leadership the superior numbers of an Indian army
might make it a very dangerous antagonist.
We have to understand, then, that our earliest vic-
tories were over troops that were little better than a
rabble of hired soldiers, without coherence or loyalty.
An Indian army of that period was usually an agglom-
eration of mercenaries collected by the captains of com-
panies who supplied men to any one able to pay for
them, having enlisted them at random out of the swarm
of roving freelances and swordsmen, chiefly Asiatic for-
eigners, by whom all India was infested. These bands
had no better stomach for serious fighting than the
condottieri of Italy in the sixteenth century; the close
fire of European musketry was more than they had bar-
gained for; and artillery, properly served, they could
not face at all. Their leaders, moreover, changed sides
without scruple, if it seemed to their advantage, and
were constantly plotting either to betray or supplant
their employers.
It is not surprising, therefore, if troops of this kind
were such exceedingly perilous weapons in timid or
maladroit hands that the prince, governor, or usurper
who had retained their services often went into action
with a very uncomfortable distrust of his best regi-
ments. In the eighteenth century, most of the revolted
provinces of the empire had been appropriated by suc-
cessful captains of these mercenaries, among whom the
best fighting men were the Afghans. Their most cele-
brated leader was Ahmad Shah Abdali, a mighty war-
rior of the Afghan nation, and the only great Asiatic
CHARACTER OF INDIAN MERCENARY TROOPS 171
soldier who appeared in India during the eighteenth
century.
But no sooner had the European appeared upon the
Indian arena, than the men of this new immigration
were discovered to be distinctly superior to all Asiatic
foreigners in the art of war, and far beyond them in
those qualities of united, persistent, and scientific ac-
tion by which a compact and civilized force must always
prevail in the long run over incoherent and unin-
structed opponents. Against the French or the Eng-
lish the dissolute and rickety Nawabs of Bengal and
the Karnatic could take into the field only a crowd of
mutinous soldiery, who often dispersed at the first
shock and followed their leader in tumultuous flight.
The natural and speedy result was that the military
classes of the Indian population very soon began to
transfer their services to the standard of leaders who
always paid and usually won; who were invariably to
be seen in the front line of battle, and who did the hard-
est fighting with a corps d' elite of their own country-
men. 1
The British sepoy army was recruited and gradually
developed out of the immense floating mass of profes-
1 The rank and file of this corps d'elite, whose fighting qualities decided for
us all our earlier battles, were drawn in those days from strange sources. Gen-
eral Smith, in his evidence before a Committee on the East India Recruiting
Bill, told the House of Commons " that in 1769, when he left India, the Euro-
pean army in Bengal was in very good discipline, considering the sort of men
who being chiefly raised about London were the riffraff of the people, chiefly
boys under seventeen or old men above forty to sixty years old, and fitter on
their arrival to fill the hospital than the ranks." He added that the Sepoys
were " almost too good." Parliamentary Debates, 1771, April.
172
sional mercenaries (reckoned by good contemporary
authority at two millions) who roved about India in
those days. It is on record that any number of foot-
soldiers might be enlisted, although they " deserted in
shoals " \vhen a very distant march was in prospect;
and that the best cavalry of Hindustan (Afghans, Tar-
tars, Persians, or Marathas) might be had in abundance
at six weeks' notice, " many of them," as the East
India Records state, " out of the very camp of the
enemy." The English commanders, however, seem to
have relied for their infantry chiefly upon natives of
India, who were probably more faithful to their salt,
and more amenable to discipline, than the wilder folk
of Central Asia. And for a hundred years the Indian
sepoy well repaid the confidence placed in his courage
and loyalty. With artillery served by men who stood
fast to their guns, with a few red-coated English bat-
talions, with a strong contingent of well-drilled native
infantry and some excellent native light cavalry, the
Company's army presented a combination of war ma-
terial that only wanted good handling to dispose of any
opponent in Southern India.
The foregoing observations on the native armies of
this period may help to explain the rapidity with which
the English won their earliest battles against Indian
adversaries and made their first conquests in the sea-
board provinces, especially in Bengal. They had only
to upset a few unstable rulers of foreign descent, whose
title rested on dexterous usurpation; and to disperse
by their trained battalions, European and native, great
EASE OF FIRST VICTORIES
BENGAL
173
"bodies of hired troops
"*' who usually had no
interest in the war be-
yond their pay. Between the
Marathas, who were spreading
over the country from the west,
and the Afghans, who had
broken in from the north, the
inland country was being ruined
by rapine and exactions; trade and cultivation had
fallen low; and the position of the minor native powers
SHIVART HILLS NEAR SALEM
IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
174 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL
was so unsteady through military weakness and finan-
cial embarrassments that any of them might be des-
troyed by the loss of one campaign or even a single
battle.
But this course of easy victories on the outskirts of
India did not last long; for we shall see that as the
English penetrated further into the interior, their prog-
ress became very much slower, and was, indeed, ar-
rested for a time. On the west coast, they were already
confronted by rivals very different from an incapable
Bengali Nawab by the Marathas, whose power had
considerable national character, some political stability,
and formidable military organization. Under their
great Peshwa, 'Balaji Bala Kao, they were now attain-
ing the zenith of their predominance; they had con-
quered great territories; they were pushing forward
into North India; they were supreme in the central
regions; and while one army was dismembering the
Nizam's State, another was extorting heavy subsidies
in the Karnatic and Mysore. Their operations had
hitherto been very serviceable to the English, with
whom they were at this time often in alliance, by weak-
ening all the Mohammedan rulerships, and particularly
by checking Bussy's military domination at Haidara-
bad.
On the whole there is good ground for the opinion
that if, at the time of the dissolution of the Moghul
Empire, India had been left to herself, if the Europeans
had not just then appeared in the field, the whole of
Southern and Central India would have fallen under
THE POWER OF THE MARATHAS 175
the Maratha dominion. The correctness of this view
is attested by a statement in a letter from the President
and Council of Madras, who wrote under date of Oc-
tober, 1756: " We look on the Morattoes [Marathas]
to be more than a match for the whole (Moghul) Em-
pire, were no European force to interfere." It was
very fortunate for the English that they did not come
into collision with such antagonists until their own
strength had matured; since there can be no doubt that
throughout the later stages of the tournament for the
prize of ascendency between England and the native
powers, the most dangerous challengers of the British
were the Marathas.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
victory in 1757 was followed by the mili-
tary occupation of Bengal, which had an immense
and far-reaching effect upon the position of the English
in India. Their resources were so considerably in-
creased that the defeat of the French in the Peninsula
became thenceforward certain; for while Lally was cut
off by sea and vainly attempting to support himself
along a strip of seacoast, the English had their feet
firmly planted in the Gangetic delta and the rich allu-
vial districts of the lower Ganges. The word Bengal
must be understood, here and hereafter, to signify the
great territory which includes the three provinces of
Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, which were all under the
rulership of the Nawab Siraj-ad-daulah. The subordi-
nation of the Bengal Nawabs to the English at once
extended British predominance northwestward as far
as the banks of the Ganges opposite Benares, and the
capital of English political dominion was thenceforward
established at Calcutta.
This transfer of the headquarters of the Company's
government to Calcutta marks a notable step forward,
176
since it was from Bengal, not from Madras or Bombay,
that the English power first struck inland into the
heart of the country and discovered the right road to
supremacy in India. To advance into Bengal was to
penetrate India by its soft and unprotected side. From
Cape Comorin northward along the east coast there is
not a single harbour for large ships; nor are the river
estuaries accessible to them.
But at the head of the Bay of Bengal we come upon
NATIVE BOAT OF BENGAL.
a low-lying deltaic region, pierced by navigable chan-
nels which discharge through several mouths the waters
of great rivers issuing from the interior. Some of these
are merely huge drains of the water-logged soil; others
are fed by the Himalayan snows. On this section, and
upon no other of the Indian seaboard, the rivers are
wide waterways offering fair harbourage and the means
of penetrating many miles inland; while around and
beyond stretches the rich alluvial plain of Bengal, in-
habited by a very industrious and unwarlike people,
who produce much and can live on very little.
All authorities agree that in the eighteenth century
178 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
the richest province of all India, in agriculture and
manufactures, was Bengal. Colonel James Mill, in his
memoir already quoted above, points out that it has
vast wealth and is indefensible toward the sea. " The
immense commerce of Bengal," says Verelst in 1767,
" might be considered as the central point to which all
the riches of India were attracted. Its manufactures
find their way to the remotest parts of Hindustan." It
lay out of the regular track of invasion from Central
Asia, and remote from the arena of civil wars which
surged round the capital cities of the empire, Agra,
Delhi, or Lahore. For ages it had been ruled by for-
eigners from the north; yet it was the province most
exposed to maritime attack, and the most valuable in
every respect to a seafaring and commercial race like
the English. Its rivers lead like main arteries up to
the heart of India. From Bengal northwestward, the
land lies open, and, with few interruptions, is almost
flat, expanding into the great central plain country that
we now call the Northwest Provinces and Oudh, and
further northward into the Pan jab up to the foot of
the Himalayan wall. Whoever holds that immense
interior champaign country, which spreads from the
Himalayas southeastward to the Bay of Bengal, occu-
pies the central position that dominates all the rest of
India; and it may accordingly be observed that all the
great capital cities founded by successive conquering
dynasties have been within this region.
Looking now at a map of India, we perceive that
upper or continental (as distinguished from peninsular)
STRATEGIC GEOGRAPHY OF NORTHERN INDIA 179
India has been divided off from the rest of Asia by
walls of singular strength and height. The whole of
the Indian land frontier is fenced and fortified by
mountain ranges; and where, in the southwest toward
the sea, the mountains subside and have an easier slope,
the Indian desert is interposed between the outer fron-
tier and the fertile midland region. It is as if Nature,
knowing the richness of the land and the comparative
weakness of its people, had taken the greatest possible
pains to protect it; for along the whole of that vast
line of mountain wall which overhangs the northwest
and the northern boundaries of India there are only
a very few practicable passes.
These are the outlets through Afghanistan, by which
Alexander the Great and all subsequent invaders have
descended upon the low country; and any one who,
after traversing the interminable hills and stony valleys
of Afghanistan, has seen, on mounting the last ridge,
the vast plain of India spreading out before him in
dusky haze like a sea, may imagine the feelings with
which such a prospect was surveyed by those adven-
turous leaders when they first looked down on it from
the edge of the Asiatic highlands. Along the whole
northern line of frontier, the Himalayas are practically
impassable; for the chain of towering mountains is
backed by a lofty tableland, rising at its highest ele-
vation to nearly seventeen thousand feet, which pro-
jects northward into Central Asia like the immense
glacis of a fortress.
Such are the natural fortifications of India land-
180 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
ward. But an invader landing on the seaboard takes
all these defences in reverse. He enters, as has been
said, by open ill-guarded water-gates; he can penetrate
into the centre of the fortress, can march up inside to
the foot of the walls, can occupy the posts, and turn
the fortifications against others. This is just what the
English accomplished between 1757 and 1849, during
the century occupied by their wars with the native
powers in India. At the beginning of that period, the
conquest of Bengal transferred the true centre of gov-
ernment from Southern India to that province; and
thus we emerge rapidly into a far wider arena of war
and politics.
For the English, after their victory at Plassey, the
most urgent and important matter was the restoration
of some regular administration. They had invested
Mir Jafir with the Nawabship under a treaty which
bound him to make heavy money payments to them
in compensation for their losses by the seizure of Cal-
cutta and other factories, and for their war expendi-
ture; agreeing in return to supply troops at the Na-
wab's cost whenever he should require them. The
result was to drain the native ruler's treasury and at
the same time to reduce him, for the means of enforc-
ing his authority and maintaining his throne, to a con-
dition of dependence upon the irresponsible foreigners
who commanded an army stationed within his province.
Such a situation was by no means novel in India, where
the leaders of well-disciplined troops are often as dan-
gerous to their own government as to its enemies. At
EQUIVOCAL ENGLISH POSITION IN BENGAL 181
this very time, indeed, Bussy, with his French contin-
gent at Haidarabad, was in much the same position
as Olive with his English levies in Bengal. But when
Lally had recalled Bussy from Haidarabad, the power
of the French disappeared from the Deccan, and was
soon after extinguished in their general discomfiture;
THE GREAT MOSQUE AT KALBARGAH IN HAIDARABAD.
while the English were now consolidating their suprem-
acy over a kingdom that they had practically conquered.
The difficulty of this consolidation was greatly en-
hanced by the perplexity and indecision of the English
as to their actual situation in the country. Although
they were conquerors de facto, they neither could nor
would assume the attitude of rulers de jure; they were
merely the representatives of a commercial company
with no warrant from their nation to annex territory,
and were obliged to pretend deference toward a native
ruler who was really subservient to themselves. Noth-
182 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
ing more surely leads to misrule than the degradation
of a civil government to subserve the will of some arbi-
trary force or faction within the state; and in Bengal
the evils of precarious and divided authority were
greatly heightened by special aggravations.
In the first place, the Company and the Nawab were
equally hard pressed for money. The Company was
making large and emergent remittances to Madras for
sustaining the war against the French, and it was
obliged, at the same time, to maintain an army of more
than six thousand men in Bengal. The Nawab, who
did not choose to place himself entirely at the mercy
of his foreign allies by disbanding his own forces, was
beset by mutinous bands claiming arrears that he could
not pay. Meanwhile, he wanted troops to put down
disorder within his territories and to repulse attacks
from without; for some of the principal landholders
were in revolt against him; the Marathas were threat-
ening Bengal on the west; and the heir apparent of
the Delhi emperor had appeared with a force in the
northwestern districts, on the pretext of reclaiming a
province of his father's empire.
Secondly, the Company was not merely the Nawab 's
too powerful auxiliaries, demanding a large share of
his revenue as the price of their annual support;
nor were they, like the Marathas or the Afghans, an
army of occupation that might be bought out by dis-
bursement of one huge indemnity. They represented
an association which insisted upon regular remittances
to Europe; their primary interests and objects were
POLITICAL CONFUSION IN BENGAL 183
still commercial; and as soon as they found themselves
irresistible, they began to monopolize the whole trade
in some of the most valuable products of the country.
By investing themselves with political attributes with-
out discarding their commercial character, they pro-
duced an almost unprecedented conjunction which en-
gendered intolerable abuses and confusion in Bengal.
This is the only period of Anglo-Indian history
which throws grave and unpardonable discredit on the
English name. During the six years from 1760 to 1765,
Clive's absence from the country left the Company 's
affairs in the hands of incapable and inexperienced
chiefs, just at the moment when vigorous and states-
manlike management was urgently needed. That Clive
himself clearly foresaw that the system would not an-
swer and would not last, is shown by his letter written
to Pitt in 1759, in which he suggested to the Prime
Minister the acquisition of Bengal in full sovereignty
by the English nation, promising him a net revenue of
two millions sterling. In the meantime, he had done
what he could to revive internal order and had forced
the Delhi prince to evacuate the province.
The Dutch in Bengal, who naturally watched Eng-
lish proceedings with the utmost jealousy and alarm,
were secretly corresponding with the Nawab and had
brought over from Batavia a large body of troops.
When their armed ships were prohibited by the English
from ascending the river, they began hostilities, and
were totally defeated by Colonel Forde in an action
described by Olive's report as " short, bloody, and
184 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
decisive." But after Clive's departure for England in
1760, the invasions from the outside were renewed; and
within Bengal the whole administration was paralyzed
by acrimonious disputes between the Company's agents
and the Nawab, who fought against his effacement and
was secretly corresponding with the Dutch. Being in-
tent, as was natural, on asserting his own independent
authority, he manoeuvred to thwart and embarrass the
Company, intrigued with their rivals, and did his best
to disconcert their joint operations against the Mara-
thas who were laying his country waste, since a defeat
might at least help to shake off the English.
It followed that as neither party could govern tol-
erably, both soon became equally unpopular, and that
during these years the country was in fact without an
authoritative ruler. For while the English traders
garrisoned the country with a large body of well-paid
and well-disciplined troops, the whole duty of filling
the military chest and carrying on an executive govern-
ment fell upon the Nawab, who was distracted between
dread of assassination by his own officers and fear of
dethronement by the Company.
As the English traders had come to Bengal avowedly
with the sole purpose of making money, many of them
set sail again for Europe as soon as they had made
enough. In the meantime, finding themselves entirely
without restraint or responsibility, uncontrolled either
by public opinion or legal liabilities (for there was no
law in the land), they naturally behaved as, in such
circumstances and with such temptations, men would
ANAKCHY IN BENGAL 185
behave in any age or country. Some of them lost all
sense of honour, justice, and integrity; they plundered
as Moghuls or Marathas had done before them, though
in a more systematic and businesslike fashion; the
eager pursuit of wealth and its easy acquisition had
LORD CLIVE.
blunted their consciences and produced general insub-
ordination. As Clive wrote later to the Company, de-
scribing the state of affairs that he found on his return
in 1765, " In a country where money is plenty, where
fear is the principle of government, and where your
arms are ever victorious, it was no wonder that the
lust of riches should readily embrace the proffered
means of gratification/' or that corruption and extor-
tion should prevail among men who were the uncon-
186 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
trolled depositaries of irresistible force. This universal
demoralization necessarily affected the revenues and
exasperated the disputes between the Company and
Mir Jafir by increasing the financial embarrassments
of both parties; especially as the Nawab showed very
little zeal in providing money for the troops upon whom
rested the Company's whole power of overruling him,
and arrears were accumulating dangerously.
At last the president and council determined to put
an end to these dissensions by removing the Nawab.
An understanding was arranged with Mir Kasim, the
Diwan, or chief finance minister, whereby he undertook
to provide the necessary funds as a condition of his
elevation to the rulership in the place of Mir Jafir, who
was dispossessed by a bloodless revolution. But as the
new Nawab had gained his elevation by outbidding his
predecessor, this rack-renting revolution only made mat-
ters infinitely worse. Mir Kasim 's performances fell
far short of his promises; the quarrels grew fiercer,
and nothing was done to remedy the disorganization
that was wrecking the administration and emptying
the treasuries. The land revenue continued to decrease;
commercial intercourse with upper India was checked
by the insecurity of traffic; while the English Company
was using their political ascendency not only to insist
upon its privileged monopoly of the export trade to
Europe, but also to enforce an utterly unjust and ex-
travagant claim for special exemption from all duties
upon the internal commerce of Bengal. In the assertion
of this pretension, the Company's servants, native as
THE END OF NAWAB KULE 187
well as English, set at nought the Nawab's authority,
and their factories were in arms against his revenue
officers.
All this violent friction soon culminated in an explo-
sion, brought about by an awkward attempt on the part
of Mr. Ellis, chief of the Patna factory, to seize Patna
city, with the object of forestalling an attack by the
Nawab on his factory. Although Ellis took the place,
he could not hold it, and his whole party was captured
in their retreat; but the Company's troops marched
against and defeated the Nawab, who, in his furious
desperation, caused his English prisoners to be mas-
sacred and then fled across the frontier to the camp of
the Vizir of Oudh. The Company, somewhat sobered
by these tragic consequences of misrule, relinquished
the more scandalous monopolies and restored Mir Jafir
in 1763. When he died in 1765, the ruinous system of
puppet Nawabs came practically to an end; for in that
year Lord Clive, who had returned to India, assumed,
under a grant from the Delhi emperor, direct adminis-
tration of the revenue of the three provinces of Bengal,
Bihar, and Orissa, an office that was entitled the Di-
wani. The Diwan had been originally the controller-
general on behalf of the imperial treasury in each prov-
ince, with supreme authority over all public expendi-
ture; so that the investiture of the Company with this
office added the power of the purse to the power of the
sword, and rendered them directly and regularly re-
sponsible for the most important departments of gov-
ernment.
188 -THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
We must now turn from internal affairs to the for-
eign relations of the East India Company and the gen-
eral aspect of Indian politics. The Vizir of Oudh, when
Mir Kasim took refuge with him, had in his camp the
titular emperor of Delhi; and he thought the oppor-
tunity favourable for an expedition into the Bengal
provinces with the professed object of restoring the
imperial authority, but really with the intention of
annexing such territory as he could seize. At Baxar,
on the Ganges, he was met and signally defeated in
September, 1764, by the Company's troops under Major
Hector Munro, in an engagement of which the eventual
and secondary consequences were very important. The
success of the English brought the emperor into their
camp, intimidated the Vizir, carried the armed forces
of the Company across the Ganges to Benares and
Allahabad, and acquired for them a new, advanced, and
commanding position in relation to the principalities
northwest of Bengal, with whom they now found them-
selves for the first time in contact. By this war the
English were drawn into connection with upper India,
and were brought out upon a scene of fresh operations
that grew rapidly wider.
At this point, therefore, it will be useful to sketch
in loose outline the condition, in the middle of the last
century, of that vast tract of open plain country,
watered by the Jumna, the Ganges, and their affluents,
which stretches from Bengal northwestward to the
Himalayas, and which is now divided into the three
British provinces of Oudh, the Northwest Provinces,
POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN NORTHERN INDIA 189
and the Panjab. Throughout this vast region, the flood
of anarchy that had been rising since Aurangzib's
death was now at its height; and as the struggle over
the ruins of the fallen empire was sharpest at the cap-
ital and the centres of power, the districts round Delhi
THE JAMl' MASJID AT LUCKNOW.
and Agra, Lucknow and Benares, were perhaps more
persistently fought over than any other parts of India.
Two centuries of systematic despotism had long
since levelled and pulverized the independent chiefships
or tribal federations in these flat and fertile plains,
traversed by highways open to every successive invader.
So when the empire toppled over under the storms of
the eighteenth century, there were no local breakwaters
to check the inrush of confusion. The Marathas
190 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
swarmed up, like locusts, from the south, and the
Afghans came pouring down from the north through
the mountain passes. Within fifty years after the death
of Aurangzib, who was at least feared throughout the
length and breadth of India, the Moghul emperor had
become the shadow of a great name, a mere instrument
and figurehead in the hand of treacherous ministers
or ambitious usurpers. All the imperial deputies and
vicegerents were carving out independencies for them-
selves, and striving to enlarge their borders at each
other's expense.
We have seen that the Nizam, originally Viceroy
of the Southern Provinces, had long since made himself
de facto sovereign of a great domain. In the north-
west, the vizir of the empire was strengthening him-
self east of the Ganges, and had already founded the
kingdom of Oudh, which underwent many changes of
frontier, but lasted a century. Rohilkhand had been
appropriated by some daring adventurers known as
Eohillas (or mountain men) from the Afghan hills;
a sagacious and fortunate leader of the Hindu Jats
was creating the State of Bhartpur across the Jumna
River; Agra was held by one high officer of the ruined
empire; Delhi, with the emperor's person, had been
seized by another; the governors sent from the capital
to the Panjab had to fight for possession with the depu-
ties of the Afghan ruler from Kabul, and against the
fanatic insurrection of the Sikhs.
These were, roughly speaking, the prominent and
stronger competitors in the great scramble for power
DECAY OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE 191
and lands; but scarcely one of them (except the Sikhs)
represented any solid organization, political principle,
or title. Most of the mlerships depended on the per-
sonality of some chief or leader, who was raised more
by the magnitude of his stakes than by the style of
his play above the common crowd of plunderers and
captains of soldiery. Any one who had money or credit
might buy at the imperial treasury a farmdn authoriz-
ing him to collect the revenue of some refractory dis-
trict. If he overcame the resistance of the landholders,
the district usually became his domain, and as his
strength increased, he might expand into a territorial
magnate; if the peasants rallied under some able head-
man and drove him off, their own leader often became
a mighty man of his tribe and founded a petty chief-
ship or a ruling family. The traces of this chance med-
ley and fluctuating struggle for the possession of the
soil or of the rents were visible long afterwards in the
complicated varieties of tenure, title, and proprietary
usage that made the recording of landed rights and
interests so perplexing a business for English officials
in this part of India.
The English reader may now form some notion of
the distracted condition of upper India when the Ma-
rathas invaded it in 1758 with a numerous army in-
tended to carry out definite plans of conquest. The
Moghul Empire was like a wreck among the breakers;
the emperor Alamgir, who had long been a state pris-
oner, had been murdered; and the strife over the spoils
had assumed the character of a wide-spreading free
192 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
fight, open to all comers. But as any such contest, if
it lasts, will usually merge into a battle between dis-
tinct factions under recognized leaders, so the rapidly
increasing power of the Marathas, who came swarming
up from the southwest, and the repeated invasions from
the northwest of Ahmad Shah Abdali with his Afghan
bands, drew together to one or the other of these two
camps all the self-made princes and marauding adven-
turers who were parcelling out the country among
themselves. When Ahmad Shah brought an Afghan
army to Delhi in 1757, he caused the office of prime
minister to be conferred by the emperor on Najib-ad-
daulah, one of the few able and politic nobles still
attached to the Moghul government, who took a very
leading part in subsequent events. At Lahore he ap-
pointed a viceroy to govern in his name the very impor-
tant districts of the Panjab and to keep open his com-
munications.
Having made these arrangements for maintaining
his grasp on north India, the Afghan king had returned
through the mountain passes to his own country. The
Marathas took advantage of his absence with charac-
teristic audacity. They were now overflowing all India
with a flood-tide of conquest and pillage; and the
supreme control of their confederacy was in the hands
of Balaji Baji Rao, the ablest of those hereditary Pesh-
was, or prime ministers, who long kept their royal
family in a state prison. While this powerful and
politic ruler was extending Maratha dominion in the
centre of India, his brother Raghunath Rao led north-
THE CLIMAX OF MARATHA DOMINION
193
ward a large army, supported by the federal contin-
gents of Holkar and Sind. Raghunath Kao seized
Delhi, expelled Najib-ad-daulah; then marched swiftly
with his light troops onward to Lahore, drove out the
governor left there by Ahmad Shah, and substituted
a Maratha administration in the Panjab.
A MOHAMMEDAN TOMB AT LAHORE.
This achievement marks, as Grant Duff observes
in his " History of the Marathas," the apogee of Ma-
ratha pre-eminence; " the Deccan horses had quenched
their thirst in the waters of the Indus "; but it also
marks the turning-point and ebb of their fortunes.
By such a bold stroke for the possession of Northern
India, they overreached themselves, for the effort drew
them very far from their base; the Mohammedans were
numerous and hardy in the north, and the Marathas
194 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
had now provoked a much more formidable antagonist
in Ahmad Shah than any of those whom they had
encountered heretofore. Their occupation of Delhi
threatened all the Mohammedan princes of upper India,
who saw that their only chance of preservation lay in
a defensive alliance under some strong and warlike
leader.
No exertions were spared by Najib-ad-daulah to
organize such a league under Ahmad Shah; nor did
the Afghan chief hesitate to answer the summons of
the Indian Mussulmans, or to resent the provocation
he had received. In the winter of 1759 - 1760, he -came
sweeping down through the northwest passes into the
Panjab, followed by all the fighting men of Afghan-
istan; he retook Lahore at a blow; drove all the Ma-
ratha officers out of the northern country; attacked
Holkar and Sind, who were plundering the districts
farther south; defeated one after the other with heavy
loss; occupied Delhi; and continued his march south-
eastward until he encamped on the Ganges. The
Peshwa despatched a very large force from Poona,
under his eldest son Visvas Deo, to repair these losses
and recover lost ground; it was joined by all the other
Maratha commanders, while on the other side the
Mohammedan leaguers united with Ahmad Shah.
When the next campaigning season began, the two
armies, after some negotiations and much manoeuvring,
finally met in January, 1761, at Panipat, not far from
Delhi. This was the greatest pitched battle that had
been fought for several centuries between Hindus and
THE FINAL BATTLE OF PANIPAT 196
Mohammedans. Twenty-eight thousand Afghan horse-
men rode with Ahmad Shah, whose army was brought
up to a total of eighty thousand horse and foot by
large bodies of infantry from his own dominions, and
by the contingents of the Indian Mohammedans. The
regular troops of the Marathas were reckoned at sev-
enty-five thousand horse and fifteen thousand infantry;
fifteen thousand Pindaris, or foraging freebooters, fol-
lowed their standard; a countless swarm of armed
banditti thronged their camp; and they had not less
than two hundred guns. The artillery on both sides
included strong rocket batteries.
The Marathas, who issued out of their entrenched
camp at dawn, at first carried all before their furious
onset; they broke through the lines of Persian mus-
keteers, camel gunners, and light cavalry. The right
wing of the Afghan army was thrown into confusion;
its centre gave way under the crushing artillery fire.
Ahmad Shah's vizir, who commanded the centre, threw
himself from his horse and strove to rally his men on
foot, crying to them that their country was far distant
and that flight was useless; but to his rage and despair
he found himself being overwhelmed by the torrent.
In this peril, the Afghan king, very unlike the half-
hearted Nawabs whom the English were routing farther
south, proved his courage and high military capacity.
With his right wing broken and his centre pierced,
he checked or cut down the fugitives, brought up his
reserves to the last man, and sent a strong reinforce-
ment to his vizir, with orders to make a desperate
196 THE SITUATION IN BENGAL
charge " sword in hand, in close order, at full gallop."
So the vizir remounted, and went storming down upon
the Maratha centre under a shower of rockets. The
Marathas fought bravely for a short time; but their
leader was killed, their line was broken, and they were
utterly routed with enormous slaughter; for the pur-
suit was by swarms of cavalry over a level plain, and
the exasperated peasants massacred the Marathas every-
where.
The Peshwa, alarmed by the news of his army's
situation in the north, was moving up from the Deccan,
and had reached the Narbada River. There his scouts
brought him a runner who was carrying a letter from
some bankers at Panipat to their correspondents in
the south. He opened it and read: " Two pearls [his
son and cousin] have been dissolved; twenty-seven gold
mohurs lost; of the silver and copper the total cannot
be reckoned," an enigmatic message that told him of
an immense political, military, and family catastrophe.
He never recovered from the shock, which destroyed
the baseless fabric of Maratha domination in Northern
India. They might plunder towns, levy contributions,
and even occupy some of the provinces for a time; but
the fate of empires is decided by pitched battles, and
in close lists the south-country freebooters would al-
ways go down before the hardier races of the north-
west.
Such a decisive victory has usually been followed
in Asia by the rise of a new dynasty and the estab-
lishment of an extensive dominion. Yet although the
THE AFGHANS LOSE INDIA FOR EVER 197
Marathas were swept clean out of Northern India for
the time, and although Ahmad Shah represented pre-
cisely the type of those Asiatic conquerors who had
hitherto founded imperial houses at Delhi or Agra, it
is a remarkable fact that the results of Panipat were
quite disproportionate to the magnitude of the exploit.
If Ahmad Shah had consolidated in the Pan jab a pow-
erful kingdom resting on Afghanistan beyond the In-
dus, and stretching southward down to Delhi and the
Ganges, the history of India, and the fortunes of the
English in that country, might have been very different.
But his troops, . laden with booty, insisted on retiring
to their highlands; his western provinces on the Per-
sian frontier were exposed to invasion and revolt; and
so North India gradually slipped out of his grasp.
The Panjab relapsed into confusion for the next
forty years, until it was temporarily consolidated under
the kingdom of Ranjit Singh. Some inroads were made
into India from Afghanistan, subsequently to Ahmad
Shah's retirement; but the Afghan ruler's withdrawal
practically closed the long line of conquering invaders
from Central Asia, at a time very nearly simultaneous
with the establishment in Bengal of the first conquer-
ors that entered India by the sea.
CHAPTER IX
THE MARATHAS AND MYSORE
1765 - 1770
TO return to the affairs of the East India Company.
The Marathas, in spite of their overthrow at Pani-
pat, were still the most active and dangerous of the
native powers in India; but since they embodied the
principles of insatiable aggression and of irreconcil-
able hostility to Mohammedan predominance, the uni-
versal dread of their predatory incursions united all
other chiefs and princes, especially the Mussulmans,
against them. The result was advantageous to the Eng-
lish, for it drew toward them those who drew away
from the Marathas. The Vizir of Oudh, who had now
become the leading Mohammedan prince in Upper India,
and who had been again repulsed in a second attempt
upon Bengal in 1765, now showed himself very willing
to conclude an alliance with the Company.
Lord Clive, a statesman no less than a soldier, whose
despatches show admirable foresight and solidity of
198
INITIAL MEASURES OF LOKD CLIVE 199
judgment, had returned to India in 1765, vested with
plenary authority to reform the internal administration
and to make peace abroad. He found the springs of
government clogged by indiscipline and corruption; he
suppressed resolutely the most glaring abuses; he re-
constructed the administration with remarkable ability;
and by two cardinal acts of public policy he settled the
English dominion on a sure foundation within their
territory and regulated their foreign relations.
The first of these acts was his acceptance for the
Company of the Diwani, which was readily granted
by the emperor on the terms of payment to himself
of twenty-six lakhs of rupees, equivalent to some
260,000, annually from the Bengal revenues, and the
assignment to him of two districts beyond the Ganges.
The Company, having thus acquired possession of the
whole revenue of the provinces, were at once trans-
formed from irresponsible chiefs of an armed trading
association into responsible administrators, with a
direct interest in abolishing the peculations, scandalous
frauds, and embezzlements that were rife in the coun-
try. The measure also put an end to the incessant dis-
putes between the nominal government of the titular
Nawab of Bengal and the actual authority of the Com-
pany. " The tune now approaches," wrote Clive,
" when we may be able to determine whether our
remaining as merchants, subjected to the jurisdiction,
encroachments, and insults of the country government,
or the supporting your privileges and possessions by
the sword, are likely to prove more beneficial to the
200 THE MAEATHAS AND MYSORE
Company/' in other words, whether the Company
should openly take up an attitude of independent au-
thority. And he decided, rightly, that nothing else
would give them a stable or legitimate position. They
could not continue to maintain themselves by pulling
the strings of native government, or by revolutionary
methods whenever -the machinery broke down; and as
they could not abdicate power, they were bound to take
charge of its direction.
The second of Clive's measures was the conclusion
of the alliance with Oudh. The war of 1764 - 1765 had
been disastrous to the vizir, for his strong fortress of
Allahabad had been taken by the English troops, who
had also compelled him to withdraw from his capital
Lucknow, whereupon he had taken refuge with the
Marathas. It now lay with the Company to choose
between annexing, by right of conquest, some of his
important districts situated on their northwestern fron-
tier, or attaching the vizir to their interests by rein-
stating him in this tract of country, which he held by
a very dubious *title, and from which he might easily
have been ousted.
Lord Clive adopted the latter alternative without
hesitation; he restored the districts to Oudh upon the
grounds that every motive of sound policy weighed
against extending the territorial possessions of the
Company. This decision, he found, " disappointed the
expectations of many, who thought of nothing but a
march with the emperor to Delhi. My resolution how-
ever was, and my hopes will be, to confine our assist-
OLIVE'S ALLIANCE WITH OUDH
201
ance, our conquest, and our possessions to Bengal, Bi-
har, and Orissa. To go further is in my 'opinion a
scheme so extravagantly ambitious and absurd, that no
governor and council in their senses can adopt it, unless
THE RESIDENCY AT LUCKNOW.
the whole system of the Company's interest be first
entirely new re-modelled." He therefore decided to
maintain and strengthen Oudh as a friendly state inter-
posed between Bengal and Northern India. And the
barrier-treaty of August, 1765, framed upon this prin-
ciple by Lord Clive, constituted the basis of British
202 THE MAEATHAS AND MYSORE
foreign policy upon that frontier up to the end of the
century.
It should be understood that the prime object of
those who directed the affairs of the English in India
at this critical epoch was to place a limit upon the
expansion of the Company's possessions, to put a sharp
curb upon schemes of conquest, and to avoid any con-
nection with the native princes that might involve the
British in foreign war. But this was not because, as
some have thought, the Company did not see whither
they were drifting; it was because the outcome and
irresistible tendencies of their situation were so clearly
foreseen. To those who surveyed the prospect now
before the English, and who could perceive that all the
scattered fragments of the Moghul Empire would be
drawn by political gravitation toward any strong and
coherent power, it was plain by this time that, if the
Company were ready to drop commerce for conquest
and to lay out another great dominion over the wide
unoccupied spaces left by the subsidence of the Moghul
Empire, the site lay open for the builder, the task of
those who could do it.
In 1762, before the victory at Baxar, the Calcutta
Council had sent home a project of despatching an army
with the emperor to replace him on his throne at Delhi
and to extend the political influence of the English
throughout upper India. And after 1764, when the
British success against the Vizir of Oudh carried the
arms of England beyond Bengal, it was clearly seen
by Clive that the next step forward would commit his
OLIVE'S CLEAK VIEW OF THE SITUATION 203
countrymen to an enterprise from which there would
be no further possibility of drawing back. " We have
at last arrived," he wrote in 1765, " at that critical
period which I have long foreseen, that period which
renders it necessary to determine whether we can or
shall take the whole to ourselves. Jafir Ali Khan (the
Nawab of Bengal) is dead, and his natural son is a
minor; Sujah Daulah (Vizir of Oudh) is beat from his
dominions; we are in possession of it; and it is scarcely
hyperbole to say that to-morrow the whole Moghul
Empire is in our power. The inhabitants of the country
have no attachment to any obligation; their forces are
neither disciplined, commanded, nor paid as ours are.
Can it then be doubted that a large army of Europeans
would effectually preserve us sovereigns, not only hold-
ing in awe the attempts of any country prince, but
rendering us so truly formidable that no French, Dutch,
or other enemy will presume to molest us? "
With this remarkable forecast of the possibilities
which Olive earnestly counselled his employers to avoid,
may be compared an extract from the concluding pages
of Dow's history of Hindustan, written in 1770, to show
how accurately the possibilities of expansion had been
calculated by cool and intelligent observers:
" Thus we have in a few words endeavoured to give
a general idea of the present state of Hindustan. It
is apparent, from what has been said, that these im-
mense regions might all be reduced by a handful of
regular troops. Ten thousand European infantry, to-
gether with the sepoys in the Company's service, are
204 THE MAKATHAS AND MYSORE
not only sufficient to conquer all India, but, with proper
policy, to maintain it for ages as an appendage to the
British Crown. This position may at first sight appear
a paradox to people unacquainted with the genius and
disposition of the inhabitants of Hindustan; but to
those who have considered both with attention, the
thing seems not only practicable but easy."
And so, indeed, the thing turned out to be; for
Dow's political speculations have been literally verified
by the result, although his estimates of the military
strength required, being founded only on experience
of warfare in South India and Bengal, are undoubtedly
low. We see, therefore, that in the deliberate opinion
of the best judges of the political situation, the English
in India were already so strong that no opposition from
the native powers could prevent their acquiring com-
plete ascendency. The enterprise was within their
capacity, provided that no foreign rival again inter-
fered; the only serious impediment lay in the possible
reappearance on the scene of some other European
nation, or in the arrival of some powerful invader
from Central Asia, who might establish himself securely
in Upper India while the English were still near the
coasts.
But all risk of transmarine intrusion had ceased for
the time with the dislodgment of the French; and the.
well-trodden path of invasion through Afghanistan,
which had been used for two thousand years by con-
querors from Alexander the Great to Ahmad Shah
Abdali, was at last rapidly closing. Ahmad Shah had
THE CLOSURE OF AFGHANISTAN
205
now founded the dynasty of the Amirs, who, for nearly
one hundred and fifty years, have been the chiefs of
a group of tribes firmly planted in the mountains and
valleys of Afghanistan. This rugged highland country
MOUNTAIN TRIBES OF THE AFGHAN BORDER.
blocks all the roads from the Oxus and Northeastern
Persia into India; it is a country of free and martial
races, strong enough to make a great civilized state
think twice before attacking them, too weak and poor
206 THE MAEATHAS AND MYSORE
to give more than occasional annoyance to well-guarded
frontiers.
It may be added that the northwestern gates of
India were soon to be double-locked against outside
invasion. For while this independent Afghan kingdom
formed an excellent barrier against all attempts to
break into India from Central Asia by the only land
routes through which an army can enter, the Afghans
themselves were barred off from the Panjab about this
time by the Sikhs. The rapid expansion of the power
of the Sikhs, who are Hindu sectaries, illustrates the
almost invariable process by which every great prose-
lytizing movement in Asia tends to acquire a political
and militant character. The two tendencies, of course,
interact on each other, for while a religious revival is
sure to rally under its flag a good deal of political dis-
content, civil commotions, on the other hand, usually
set up the standard and appeal to the sanction of relig-
ious enthusiasm.
Toward the end of the last century, the votaries of
the Sikh faith, fanatically hostile to Islam and in open
revolt against their Mohammedan rulers, were gather-
ing into a close association, whose stubborn fighting
qualities and rapid political development under mili-
tary chiefs were extending their power across upper
India from the Sutlaj to the Indus. They were thus
erecting a second and inner barricade against inroads
from Central Asia, which cut off the communications
between Islam in India and the rest of the Moham-
medan world.
ADDITIONAL BARRIERS TO INVASION 207
Then below the Sutlaj River, further to the south-
east, there was a belt of Mohammedan principalities
extending from Delhi to beyond Lucknow, holding all
the rich central districts along the Jumna and Ganges,
but threatened on the north and west by the Sikhs and
Marathas. By far the most considerable of these prin-
cipalities was Oudh, whose territory covered the whole
northwestern flank of the Company's possessions in
Bengal. We have seen that a treaty of alliance was
concluded with Oudh by Lord Clive in 1765; and as
at the same time he contented the impoverished Moghul
emperor by an ample allotment of revenue, the English
had nothing to fear from that quarter for the time
being. Thus the jealousies and religious animosities
of all these states, Hindu and Mohammedan, in North-
western India constituted a kind of balance of power,
which, in addition to the politic alliances made by Lord
Clive, explains the almost entire immunity from dis-
turbance on their Bengal frontier enjoyed by the Eng-
lish for the next forty years.
The year 1765, therefore, when the English thus
became firmly settled in Bengal, marks a halting-place
in the onward movement of British territorial expan-
sion. Lord Clive so far succeeded in his intention,
expressed in a letter to the Directors of the Company,
written in this same year, " absolutely to bind our pos-
sessions and conquests to Bengal," that the English
frontiers, as then fixed by him, did not materially
advance until the end of the century, when the irrup-
tions of the Marathas into the plains of Northern India
208 THE MAKATHAS AND MYSOEE
upset the equipoise that had preserved the British from
molestation. But the intervening period was by no
means one of peace and tranquillity for the English in
India. On the contrary, it was a time of constant war
that severely strained our resources and occasionally
placed our dominion in some jeopardy. After 1765,
the scene shifts again; the stress of the English contest
with the native powers falls backward toward Madras
and Bombay; the centres of urgent political pressure
move for a time southward to the peninsula and toward
the western seaboard; the conflicts that check and
retard British expansion are against the Marathas in
the centre of India and the Mohammedan rulers of
Mysore.
The character and constitution of these two powers
rendered them much more substantial antagonists than
those whom the English had hitherto encountered in
the Indian field. The incessant warfare prevailing
throughout India during the past thirty years, and the
great prizes that might be won by the sword, had
brought a stronger class of combatants into the arena
than most of the men who had found themselves by
birth or accident in the front rank at the beginning
of the empire's dissolution. Of this stronger class was
Hyder Ali of Mysore, a man of great natural genius,
who had raised himself entirely by superior daring,
military instincts, and a faculty of managing the mer-
cenary bands that were always attracted to the stand-
ard of a famous and fortunate leader. Of the same
class were the chiefs or leaders of tribes, communities,
THE RISE OF STURDIER OPPONENTS
209
or military associations like the Marathas, the Jats
of Bhartpur, the Sikhs of the Panjab, or the Rohillas
united by the tie, real or assumed, of common race,
religion, or country, and drawn together for defence
or attack into compact organizations upon a kind of
national or territorial basis.
Such groups were liable to be weakened by internal
THE OLD PALACE AT BHARTPUR.
feuds and dissensions. But as they had some genuine
root in the soil and a true bond of popular union, they
have always possessed a higher vitality and much
stronger resisting capacity than the forces of even such
an able military despot as Hyder Ali of Mysore, with
whom we began our new series of wars in the south. A
skilful commander of mercenary troops may often be
hard to beat in a single battle; but it will be found,
210 THE MARATHAS AND MYSOEE
generally speaking, that all the really hard fighting
done by the Anglo-Indian army has been against tri-
bal or quasi-national associations, against Marathas,
Sikhs, Jats, or Afghans.
It was with the greatest reluctance that the English
East India Company, after its acquisition of Bengal,
again set out upon the road of political adventure and
military expeditions. In a letter of 1767 to their Presi-
dent at Calcutta the London Directors say: " The Di-
wani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, are the utmost limits
of our view on that side of India. On the coast the
protection of the Karnatic and the possession of the
Circars . . . and on the Bombay side the dependen-
cies thereon, with Salsette, Bassein, and the Castle of
Surat. If we pass these bounds, we shall be led from
one acquisition to another, till we shall find no security
but in the subjection of the whole, which, by dividing
your force, would lose us the whole, and end in our
extirpation from Hindustan. "
This letter had been written on receipt of intelli-
gence that had alarmed and displeased the Honourable
Court. Although the French had been dislodged, the
situation of the English on the southeast coast was
still far from secure. In Bengal, the English were rec-
ognized masters of a rich inland province, free from
any fear of attack by sea, and with their land frontier
sheltered on its open side behind the allied kingdom
of Oudh. But in Madras their territory ran along the
seacoast, and was only covered landward by an indefi-
nite kind of protectorate over the Karnatic principality,
RESUMPTION OF HOSTILITIES 211
then under the mlership of a not very trustworthy
Nawab. Two warlike and restless neighbours, Hyder
Ali and the Marathas, hovered ominously about our
borders; while our only ally, the Ni^am of Haidarabad,
was embarrassed and wavering politically.
Hyder Ali was the son of a soldier who had risen
out of the crowd of common mercenaries to a petty
command; and he himself had pushed his own fortunes
much further by the ordinary method of employing his
troops first in the service of a native state and after-
wards in the prosecution of his own independent ambi-
tion. He had thus gained notoriety as a military leader,
and having secured a great treasure at the sack of
Bednor, he had made himself master of Mysore, an
ancient Hindu principality lying due west of Madras.
From Mysore he had pushed his conquest still further
westward to the seacoast of Malabar; and he was now
seizing land in South India wherever he could lay hands
on it.
The superior craft and courage that he displayed
began to alarm his neighbours, most of whom were
engaged in similar proceedings. His principal enemies
were the Marathas, with whom he had some sharp con-
flicts, and the Nizam of Haidarabad, from whose state
he was tearing off large strips of territory; while from
Mysore he was threatening the Karnatic, which the
Madras government were seriously concerned to pro-
tect.
It was just about this time that Lord Clive, in set-
tling the affairs of Bengal with the emperor Shah Alam,
212 THE MAKATHAS AND MYSOKE
obtained from him a formal grant of the districts to
the north of Madras called the Five Circars, which had
been assigned by the Mzam to the French, and out of
which the English had driven Bussy's garrisons in 1759.
The grant cost nothing to an emperor whose sover-
eignty had become purely nominal; but these districts,
though under British occupation since they had been
taken from the French, had never been formally ceded
to the English by the Nizam, who, not unreasonably,
had taken offence at the transaction. However, being
in straits for money and in fear of Hyder Ali, the
Mzam was soon pacified by a treaty under which the
Madras government pledged themselves rather vaguely
to support him in case of war. They also entered into
a friendly arrangement with a marauding Maratha
chief, who had hired out ten thousand horsemen to the
Nizam.
Scarcely had the treaty been signed, when Hyder
Ali poured a large force into the Haidarabad territory;
whereupon the Nizam, acting upon the agreement, at
once demanded and obtained from Madras a contingent
of troops. Meanwhile, the Maratha chief plundered
the Mysore districts on his own account until Hyder
Ali bought him off, whereupon he departed home with
his booty to evade the Nizam's claim for a share in it.
The Nizam next marched, attended by the Madras con-
tingent, toward Mysore; but instead of fighting, he
came to a private understanding with Hyder Ali, ac-
cording to which both turned upon the Company.
Some sharp skirmishing followed, in which the Nizam
WAR WITH THE NIZAM AND HYDER ALT 213
was so roughly handled by the English that he was
glad to make terms separately; and the war was
pressed against Hyder Ali alone, who soon proved
himself an antagonist much more adroit and active than
the ordinary Indian princes of whom the Company had
military experience.
The campaign was vary ill managed, from Madras;
A TEMPLE NEAR TINNEVELLI IN THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY.
the commanding officer was hampered by " field depu-
ties " to superintend his movements, and by roguish
contractors; while the Marathas took the opportunity
of making a plundering tour in the Karnatic. Nor
was it until the country had been overrun by the My-
sore cavalry close up to the outskirts of Madras, and
the finances of the Company considerably deranged,
that a protracted and inglorious war was ended in 1769
by a treaty with Hyder Ali, who had taken up his
quarters at St. Thomas' Mount, five miles from the
214 THE MAEATHAS AND MYSOKE
English capital. The revenues of Madras would have
been completely exhausted, if they had not been sup-
plemented liberally, during the campaign, from Bengal;
and the London Directors were exceedingly displeased
at discovering that the money on which they relied
for commercial investments in India, and for accom-
modating his Majesty's ministers with treasury loans
at home, had been dissipated in these barren operations,
with no other profit than a practical lesson in the ways
of Oriental statecraft and the value of Eastern allies.
Moreover, if the beginning of the war was a polit-
ical blunder, another and worse one was made in ending
it. The treaty described all the contracting parties,
of whom the principal were the English, Hyder Ali,
and the Marathas, as reciprocally friends and allies of
each other, provided that they did not become aggres-
sors against one another; so that each party incurred
a loose and vaguely worded obligation of assisting the
others in the event of future hostilities. And as a
similar compact had been made with the Nizam, the
position of the Madras government was that they had
become liable to be called upon to assist any of three
turbulent princes whenever the next quarrel should
break out among them. Accordingly, when the Ma-
rathas and the Mysore ruler came to blows in the fol-
lowing year, each of these two treaty-parties demanded
aid from the English, .and each of them proved indis-
putably that his enemy was the aggressor. The Madras
government, having been sharply censured by the Di-
rectors for the last war, and being in no way anxious
A BLUNDERING TREATY OF PEACE 215
to strengthen either of these two very formidable neigh-
bours at the expense of the other, were compelled to
offend both of them by refusing to interfere in any
manner whatever. The result was that the Marathas
inflicted upon Hyder Ali some humiliating defeats,
which he attributed to the faithless desertion of him
by the English, and that he became thenceforward a
vindictive enemy, watching for an occasion, which he
soon found, of gratifying his resentment.
CHAPTER X
ADMINISTEATIVE OBGANIZATION
1770 - 1773
WE have now reached the threshold of that impor-
tant period in the political history of British
India which is covered by the long government of War-
ren Hastings, from 1772 to 1785. It was in this period
that the contest for supremacy between the English and
the military powers of India began in earnest, that the
attention of Parliament became fixed upon Indian af-
fairs, and that the organization of English government
in India was for the first time seriously attempted.
When Lord Clive left in 1767, the Company had
become the real rulers of Bengal; but although their
position was still dissembled under the cloak of a nom-
inal Nawabsnip, the disguise was worn almost thread-
bare. In Calcutta and Madras, the Presidency Coun-
cils were exercising some direct authority beyond the
town limits, and very large indirect power, as com-
manders of the troops and collectors of the revenue,
throughout Bengal and the Karnatic. Yet in Bengal,
although the whole public income was paid to the Com-
pany, they were under strict orders from London to
216
BENGAL VIRTUALLY KULED BY THE COMPANY 219
abstain from all open interference with the rest of the
administration. They disbursed- to a Deputy Nawab
(for the Nawab himself was now a mere pensioner) the
costs of establishments; and they left the whole execu-
tive and judicial government nominally in his hands.
Verelst, who succeeded Clive at Calcutta, writes that
the President and Council " are repeatedly and per-
emptorily forbidden to avow any public authority in
our names over the native officers, and enjoined to
retain our primitive characters of merchants with the
most scrupulous delicacy."
The consequences were but too evidently exemplified
in the decline of commerce and cultivation, the diminu-
tion of specie, and the general distress; for the native
officers were uncontrolled, while the Company received
an immense revenue without possessing the means of
protecting the people who paid it. Against such a sys-
tem Verelst protested generously; and a futile attempt
to mitigate its evils was made by appointing a few
English servants of the Company to supervise the na-
tive agency.
It was not, however, until 1773 that the executive
and judicial administration of the country was placed
on a regular, though imperfect, footing by parliamen-
tary ordinance. Up to this time, Anglo-Indian annals
have recorded the vicissitudes of a contest, first, be-
tween commercial companies; next, between maritime
nations; latterly between one powerful Company, rep-
resenting the successful nation, and the native Indian
princes. This latest stage of the contest was in reality
220 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
no more than a part of the general disorderly conflict
prevailing all over India, in which the weak fragmen-
tary states that had at first been manufactured out of
the provinces of the dismembered empire were now
being trampled in their turn under the feet of hardier
rulerships. The work of the English had hitherto been
mainly destructive, because the exigencies of self-de-
fence compelled them to strike down their antagonists.
But the era now opening will introduce their first
essays at reconstruction, for in Bengal the English had
by this time cleared for themselves a good political
building site, and the chronicle of interminable strag-
gling wars is henceforward to be varied by attempts
at administrative organization.
In England, although state interference with pri-
vate enterprise had never been a popular duty, a con-
viction was growing up that it had become necessary
to place the doings of the East India Company under
national control. The British people had at this time
reached a very high degree of settled civilization under
institutions that secured to them almost complete civil
and religious liberty. They found themselves involun-
tarily responsible for a country plunged into violent
disorder, where no species of government except illimit-
able personal despotism, usually of foreigners, had been
known for many centuries. Into this country they had
to import, from a great distance, the principles of civil-
ized polity; so that their first experiment at regulating
the affairs of Bengal may be regarded as the beginning
of a vast constitutional innovation that has since been
FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE COMPANY 221
extended, with many mistakes and some mishaps, but
in the end with remarkable success, throughout the
whole of India.
It was the astonishing acquisition of so rich a prov-
ince as Bengal, and the discreditable sight of a few
commercial agents handling the wealth of a kingdom,
that roused the attention of the British Parliament and
enforced the necessity of looking into the condition of
affairs in India. In 1765, Lord Clive had estimated the
whole gross revenue of Bengal, from all sources, at four
millions sterling, and the net income of the Company,
after payment of all expenses, at 1,650,000. Having
become the possessors of so magnificent a property, the
Court of Directors were raising their dividend; their
stock went up to 267; their shareholders divided 12 l /2
per cent, in 1767; and their servants brought home
large fortunes to be employed in buying country-seats
and parliamentary boroughs. Alderman Beckford ex-
pressed in the House of Commons his hope that the
rich acquisitions of the Company in the East would be
made a means of relieving the people of England from
some of their burdens. Nor was the British govern-
ment backward in acting upon the hint, since the
system of granting renewals of the Company's charter
for short periods afforded excellent opportunities of
making fresh terms in proportion to the market price
of the concession.
In 1766, upon an intimation from the Prime Min-
ister that the affairs of the East India Company would
probably occupy the attention of Parliament during the
222 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
approaching session, there ensued a long bargaining
discussion between the government and the Company,
which produced a law binding the Company for a term
of years to pay 400,000 annually to the Crown, " in
respect of the territorial acquisition and revenue lately
obtained by them in the East Indies." From a subse-
quent inquiry in 1773, it appeared that the Company's
annual expenses had increased since the year 1765 from
700,000 to the enormous sum of 1,700,000. It also
appeared that from 1765 the British government had
received by the net customs duties, the indemnity upon
tea, and the yearly payment of 400,000, little less than
two millions annually from the Company; so that the
British nation took heavy blackmail upon the Com-
pany's gains, however they may have been gotten.
This yearly payment represented, in fact, the tribute
or royalty levied by the state upon the great territorial
revenues recently acquired by Clive's victories. But
with the possession of these revenues had come a
change in the Company's commercial system, for in
1767 began the practice of making what were called
investments, that is, of employing a large portion of the
surplus public revenue collected from the province in
buying goods, raw produce and manufactures, for ex-
portation to Europe. It followed, as Burke said, that
whereas in other countries revenue arises out of com-
merce, in Bengal the whole foreign maritime trade, of
which the Company had a monopoly, was fed by the
revenue. The consequence of this steady drain upon
the production of the country soon began to be felt.
EVIL EFFECTS OF OLIVE'S DEPARTURE
223
Moreover, after Olive's departure from India in
1767, the withdrawal of his resolute, clear-headed dicta-
torship was immediately felt throughout all depart-
ments of the administration; official discipline again
became relaxed; the finances suffered a relapse into
extravagance and malversation; and the agents of gov-
ernment still meddled in private trade. The Madras
THE FORT OF CHENGALPAT.
Presidency drifted into that ruinous war with Hyder
Ali which has already been described, and in 1770 a
terrible famine had desolated Bengal.
Under the system of annual elections to the direc-
torship, the Company at home were demoralized by
party contests and violent internal dissensions. Yet
notwithstanding all these concurrent evils and mishaps,
no serious inquiry was taken up in Parliament until
the Company declared themselves to be not only unable
to continue the annual tribute of 400,000, but also so
overloaded with debt as to need a large loan from the
224 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
English treasury. Instead of taking tribute or bor-
rowing at easy rates, the British government was actu-
ally asked to lend money. Here was a scandalous
confession of insolvency which naturally placed the
misdoings of the Company before Lord North's minis-
try in a very different and much stronger light, arrested
their earnest attention, and convinced them of the
immediate necessity of radical reform.
The general circumstances of the time, also, were
bringing about changes and amendments. Lord Clive
said truly that the affairs of the East Indies were, in
fact, partaking of the general confusion then spreading
over the immense transmarine possessions of Great
Britain, which had been acquired so recently and rap-
idly that there had been no time to set them in order.
The English people had yet to discover the nature of
their responsibility for the tutelage of subject or alien
races, and for the proper management of countries dif-
fering so widely in origin, character, and situation as
North American colonies and Indian provinces. They
had as yet no experience in the difficult art of ruling
distant and diverse populations on so broad a scale.
Nor could the whole range of modern history furnish
them with any useful precedent, seeing that all previous
experiments in the government of dependencies may
be pronounced, by a very moderate standard of ethics
and efficiency, to have failed.
The comparatively long interval of peace in Europe,
so far as England was concerned, that followed the
termination of the Seven Years' War in 1763, gave lei-
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE COMPANY 225
sure and opportunity for looking into the state of our
outlying property. The nation began to take stock of
the vast accession to its- estate beyond sea which had
been won by its naval and military successes; and the
novel sense of duty toward India was undoubtedly
stimulated by a general feeling that a trading associa-
tion had no business with the revenues of a great king-
dom.
The urgency of the case and certain symptoms of
rising popular indignation combined to press the gov-
ernment into active interference with the Company,
whose financial embarrassments left them in no position
to resist an inquiry ordered by the House of Commons,
or to dispute the right of the nation to deal as it chose
with their territorial acquisitions. They tried hard,
then and afterwards, to shelter themselves from Parlia-
mentary interposition under the shadow of the nominal
sovereignty of the Delhi emperor, from whom they
pretended to hold their land. In maintaining this doc-
trine they acted upon the advice of Lord Clive, who,
although he accepted the Diwani in 1765 because the
assumption of some kind of legitimate authority over
Bengal was unavoidable, nevertheless still affirmed that
for the Company to declare themselves politically inde-
pendent was very far from expedient. Consequently,
the law courts and the police were still in charge of
native officers, superintended to some little extent by
the Company's agents, but under separate judicial and
executive departments which the Company did not
undertake to administer.
226 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
But the essence of executive government is to be
one and indivisible, so that the machine will not run
unless all the driving power centres ultimately under
one prime mover, whether it be an autocratic prince
or a democratic assembly. In Bengal, the outcome of
this divided responsibility after Olive's departure was
masterless confusion. The magistracy, the police, and
the revenue officers, being diverse bodies working upon
different systems, with conflicting interests, and under
no common head, vied with each other in mismanage-
ment; there were no positive laws and there was very
little justice in the country.
Moreover, the three Presidencies made wars and
alliances independently of each other; the Company's
standing army in Bengal amounted to over eleven thou-
sand men; and the increased civil and military estab-
lishments involved expenditure that encroached greatly
upon the funds for commercial investment. Fortu-
nately, this dilapidation of the Honourable Company's
revenue produced a fall of their stock, which brought
home to them a conviction that they were on the down-
ward path to some distressing predicament. They ap-
plied for financial assistance to the Ministers, who
referred the Company to Parliament, and in January,
1772, the king's speech gave notice of an intention to
look into their affairs. The result was the appointment
of two Select Committees " to inquire into the state,
nature, and condition of the Company, and of British
affairs in the East Indies. "
It is true that Parliament had hitherto been much
GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION OF THE COMPANY 227
more disposed to pass abstract resolutions than to
affirm sovereign rights and to act upon them in India.
When, in 1762, the French negotiators for peace de-
A MOUNTAIN ROAD AT M AHABLESHWAR, IN THE BOMBAY
PRESIDENCY.
manded the restitution of districts that had been taken
from them during the war, the English representatives
met the claim by demurring to " any right of the
Crown of England to interfere in the legal and exclu-
228 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
sive property of a body corporate." And subsequently
Burke, not being hostile to the Company at the time,
described their possessions as " held in virtue of grants
from the Delhi emperor, in the nature of offices and
jurisdictions dependent on his crown; a very anoma-
lous species of power and property quite unknown to
the ancient constitution of England. " The East India
Company, he observed, had usually dealt in a spirit of
equal negotiation with the government for the renewal
of their charter; until the Minister (Lord North) set
up the Crown's claim to their possessions with the
original idea of extracting money to pay off the civil
list debts, and Parliament asserted a judicial right to
inquire into the question of title in order to alarm the
Company.
Burke 's view, then, was that the terrors of Parlia-
mentary inquiry were hung over the Company mainly
with the object of levying contributions for the Ex-
chequer's benefit. There was much truth in this; and
it was partly as a set-off against those contributions
that the Company was licensed to export duty-free to
North America the tea which the intractable colonists
flung into Boston harbour. But Lord North, who now
ruled both Houses with an overwhelming majority, was
adverse to the Company; the Committees brought up
condemnatory reports; and the Commons passed reso-
lutions declaring that all acquisitions made under the
influence of a military force, or by treaty with foreign
princes, belonged of right to the state. A motion was
made arraigning dive's proceedings in Bengal as dis-
PARLIAMENTABY ACTS OF 1773 229
honourable and detrimental to the nation. Olive de-
fended himself vigorously, laying about him on all sides ;
and the motion was rejected, without division, in favour
of a resolution " that Robert Lord Olive did render
great and meritorious services to his country. " His
death in the following year (November, 1774) closed
the career of this high-spirited, courageous, indefati-
gable man, to whom above all others the English are
indebted for the foundation of their empire in India.
Never before or since has an Irish peerage been the
cheap reward of such invaluable service to the nation.
His daring and his sagacity, his singular talent for
politics and his genius for war, produced in Lord Olive
a rare combination of masculine qualities exactly fitted
to the circumstances of his time in India.
Of the two Acts that were eventually passed in 1773,
one enabled the Ministers to lend the Company 1,400,-
000 to discharge their obligations; the other changed
the constitution of the Company and gave a Parlia-
mentary title to their administration in India. To
these matters, to the re-arrangement of the governing
body at home and to the reform of the system abroad,
the scope of Lord North's Regulating Act was carefully
confined. The territorial acquisitions and revenues
were still to be retained by the Company for the term
of their charter; and the uncertain ground of sovereign
prerogative was evaded by founding the enactment
upon " the eminent dominion of Parliament over every
British subject in every concern." The Courts of the
Directors and Proprietors in London were re-consti-
230
ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
tuted upon a more oligarchic model by raising the
money qualifications and reducing the numbers. In
India, the Governor-General and Council were estab-
SIMLA, THE SUMMER SEAT OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.
lished for Bengal (the first appointments to be made
by Parliament) with a general authority over the three
Presidencies, under a rule whereby a majority of votes
in the Council determined all disputed questions. And
REORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT IN BENGAL 231
a supreme Court of Justice, having a very ill-defined
jurisdiction, was set up side by side with the Governor-
Generalship in Calcutta.
It is easy now to perceive that this ill-constructed
governing machinery, which stands toward our latest
systems in the same relation as does the earliest trac-
tion engine to the present locomotive, contravened
some primary principles of administrative mechanics.
When it becomes necessary to organize a new regime
in an Asiatic country acquired from a native ruler by
cession or conquest, the first thing needful is to fix
the chief local authority, arming him with ample though
well-defined powers, to be used in general subordina-
tion to the central government.
What these powers should be depends upon the
circumstances of the case, upon the character of the
people, the state of their society, and often upon the
distance of the new province from headquarters. The
executive and judicial departments may be quite sep-
arate,, or they may be more or less under the same
superior control; in any case, the jurisdictions and the
laws or rules applicable to the community are plainly
marked out and promulgated. In all cases, due provi-
sion is made for empowering one chief governing per-
son to decide at once, and on his own responsibility, in
emergencies.
In 1773, on the other hand, the chief executive
authority at Calcutta was vested in a majority of the
Council, the Governor-General having only a casting
vote, so that in a government where promptitude and
232 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
unity of action were all-important, every order was
arguable, and where opinions differed, no measure
passed without violent controversy. Moreover, the
boundaries between the executive and judicial powers
were also left to be discovered by incessant conflict,
producing a kind of border warfare in which each party
made encroachments and reprisals. In the midst of all
this turmoil, the sovereign power remained ambiguous
and formally in abeyance, and Parliament, the only
umpire acknowledged by both sides, was at the distance
of a six months' voyage.
Thus the main obstacles to the smooth working of
the new constitution were, first, the entire dependence
of the Governor-General on the votes of his Council;
secondly, the conflict of jurisdictions; and lastly, the
want of a supreme legislative authority, nearer than
England, to arbitrate in these quarrels and to mark
off the proper sphere of the executive and judicial
departments. The Governor-General could make no
laws that the judges condescended to notice. On the
other hand, the judges claimed, upon one ground or
another, a general power of entertaining complaints
against the acts of the executive government and its
officers, and of issuing orders tending to reduce the
administration to the status of a subaltern agency,
whose proceedings might be reviewed by the judges
at their discretion.
The capital question of sovereignty stood open to
be explained theoretically according to the interests or
contentions of either side. It might be colourably
GKAVE FAULTS OF THE NEW SYSTEM 233
argued, on the part of the Company, that they held
the country by grants from the Delhi emperor and
treaties with native princes, whereby the jurisdiction
of the judges appointed by the Bang of England was
greatly restricted and, as it were, cut off at the base.
Or it might be maintained that all the possessions of
the Company fell naturally to the Crown, whence it
followed that the writs of the Supreme Court ran wher-
ever the Company exercised public authority, that the
judges at Calcutta could control the native courts, and
that the procedure of Westminster Hall was applicable
to every Bengali landholder. For since jurisdiction was
given by the statute over all servants of the Company,
it was held by the Court that the whole body of land-
owners in Bengal, who collected the land revenue and
paid over the state's share to the Company, might fall
within their purview. At any rate, if any one demurred
to the jurisdiction, he was held bound to appear to
plead his objection before the judges, although the cost
and trouble of answering a summons to Calcutta might
be ruinous to a native at a distance in the interior
districts and totally ignorant of these technicalities.
With a prolix and costly procedure, with strange
unintelligible powers resembling the attributes of some
mysterious divinity, the Supreme Court was soon re-
garded by the natives as an engine of outlandish oppres-
sion rather than as a bulwark against executive tyranny.
" So far," says Burke 's Report, " as your Committee
have been able to discover, the Court has been generally
terrible to the natives, and has distracted the govern-
234 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
ment of the country without substantially reforming
one of its abuses."
In this atmosphere of doubt concerning the coun-
try's ownership and its title-deeds, and concerning
the limits of the two great administrative provinces,
complications, acrimonious controversy, and even colli-
sions necessarily ensued. The Council and the Court
were ranged in two hostile camps set over against each
other on the borderland of debatable jurisdictions.
The Company's officers claimed illimitable authority
over the people of Bengal in revenue matters; the
judges affirmed the duty of protecting the people from
fiscal injustice; and very fair arguments might be
found for either contention. The judges were quite
as much bent on asserting their own power as on pro-
tecting the natives of India, while to the Council any
sort of control or check upon their fiscal operations
was highly inconvenient. The truth is that, outside Cal-
cutta, there were no laws at all at that period, and
that the Company had no regular authority and very
little inclination to make any.
Out of these causes and complications arose the
celebrated disputes between Warren Hastings and his
Council, which kept the Governor-General and his coun-
cillors at bitter feud with each other, except when
they united in a quarrel with the Supreme Court of
Judicature. These matters fall within the scope of this
narrative only so far as they illustrate an early stage
in the experimental process of adjusting English insti-
tutions to the conditions of an Asiatic dependency; for
COMPLICATIONS IN ADMINISTRATION
235
it is otherwise superfluous to tell over again an oft-
repeated story.
The system of administration set up by the Act of
1773 embodied the first attempt at giving some definite
and recognizable form to the vague and arbitrary ruler-
KA.TKARI NATIVES ON THE WESTERN GHATS.
ship that had devolved upon the Company. From that
date forward, this outline of Anglo-Indian government
was gradually filled in. The administrative centre was
now at any rate distinctly located at Calcutta with the
Governor-General as its acknowledged head, invested
with the chief control of the foreign relations of the
three Presidencies, and deriving his authority from
a statute of the English Parliament. Thus far the
236 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
foundation had been laid on broad and permanent lines;
but the work of interior organization was scarcely
begun, and it remained for Warren Hastings to per-
severe in building up the fabric of administration under
the stress of discord in Council, political complications,
foreign wars, and every kind of financial embarrass-
ment.
CHAPTER XI
THE GO VEENOR- GENERALSHIP OF WARREN HASTINGS
WARREN HASTINGS did not take his seat as
first Governor-General in India until 1774; but
from 1772, when he went to Calcutta as Governor of
the Bengal Presidency, until his final departure in the
spring of 1785, the whole course and character of Anglo-
Indian history bear the impress of his personality and
are connected with his name.
At the time of his taking office, the power of the
Marathas, which had been accumulating for a hundred
years, was threatening every prince and state in India
from the Sutlaj River southward to Cape Comorin.
The shattering overthrow that they had suffered at
Panipat in 1761 had expelled them from the Panjab.
Yet in Western India they were supreme; in Rajputana
and Central India they plundered and ransomed at
their leisure; and they were incessantly making pred-
atory excursions northeastward into the fertile plains
237
238 THE GO VEEN OR- GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
watered by the Ganges and the Jumna to harry the
lands of the Oudh Vizir, of Rohilkhand, and of the
Mohammedan chiefships about Delhi, Agra, and Alla-
habad. Although the Maratha armies subsisted by free-
booting, and although their leaders were rough unedu-
cated captains whose business it was to levy contribu-
tions and seize territory, their civil administration,
especially the whole collection of revenue in conquered
lands, was managed by Brahmans, by far the ablest
class of officials then existing in India. The Maratha
tactics were to overrun a country with swarms of light
horsemen, harassing and exhausting their opponents,
exacting heavy contributions if they retired, or rack-
renting the land scientifically if they settled down on it.
By this combination of skilful irregularity in war
and methodical absorption of a country's wealth, the
leaders were able to keep on foot great roving armies,
which were the terror of every other Indian power. The
unwieldy State of Haidarabad, notwithstanding its size,
was no match for them; they were too numerous and
active even for such an eminent professor of their own
predatory science as Hyder Ali of Mysore; and they
descended annually, like a chronic plague, upon the
Rohillas and the Oudh Vizir, who could barely hole
against them the large provinces that they had secured
out of the partition of the Empire. Everything pointed
to the Marathas as destined to be the foremost rivals
of the English in the impending contest for ascendency.
And in fact no native power other than the Marathas
did oppose any solid resistance to the spread of British
THE MARATHAS AND THEIR RULE
Tl
239
dominion in Upper India, until the Sikhs crossed the
Sutlaj long afterwards in 1845.
When Warren Hastings assumed the government of
Bengal in 1772, the different Maratha chiefs were just
beginning to found separate rulerships without aban-
doning their confederacy under the Peshwa. And from
WARREN HASTINGS, GOVERNOR- GENERAL OF BENGAL.
1774, during the whole of his Governor-Generalship,
the state and course of the East India Company's for-
eign affairs were governed principally by the varying
relations of the English with these chiefs. Hastings
found that a Maratha army had made its annual irrup-
tion into the districts northwest of Bengal, where the
emperor Shah Alam, who had been living at Allahabad
on the revenues assigned him by Clive in 1765, solicited
and obtained their assistance toward recovering his
240 THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
capital. Under their patronage, he had been replaced
on his throne in 1771, but the Marathas treated his
kingship as a mere pageant, using his name as a pre-
text for seizing more districts, and leaving him almost
destitute in the midst of a plentiful camp. They were
now swarming about the north country and rapidly
gaining the upper hand of all the Mohammedan princes.
What concerned the English more particularly was that
they were demanding, in the emperor's name, surren-
der of the districts of Kora and Allahabad, which had
been made over to him by Lord Clive in 1765, when the
Diwani of Bengal was granted to the Company. For
since these districts bordered on Bengal as well as on
Oudh, their occupation by the Marathas would have
been equally fatal to the security of both territories.
On the northern frontier of Oudh, in the angle be-
tween the line of the Himalayas and the Upper Ganges,
lay the country possessed by the Rohilla Afghans. This
was a chiefship established about twenty-five years
previously by an adventurer of reputed Afghan parent-
age, who had asserted his' independence of the Moghul
Empire during the confusion caused by AhTYia.fl Shah's
earlier descent upon India. It was now under a con-
federacy of which Hafiz Rihmat Khan was the leader,
and it formed an important section of the general line
of defence against the Marathas, who had broken
through in 1771 and now reappeared in 1772. As Oudh
covered the open side of Bengal, Rohilkhand covered
the exposed frontier of Oudh; so when the Rohillas
implored the vizir to succour them, the vizir, fearing
MARATHA INCURSIONS INTO NORTHWEST INDIA 241
for his own dominions, asked the English to co-operate
against the common enemy. The Calcutta government
sent up an English brigade under Sir Robert Barker,
instructing him to make a demonstration in support of
the vizir and to act generally on his side in any nego-
tiations. A treaty was arranged between the vizir and
the Rohillas and attested by the English commander,
whereby the vizir agreed to drive off the Marathas on
payment of a stipulated subsidy by the Rohillas.
The Marathas soon afterwards retired of their own
accord into quarters for the rainy season; but early
in 1773 they again menaced Rohilkhand, and this time
the combined forces of Oudh, the Rohillas, and the Eng-
lish marched against them. When they had been com-
pelled to withdraw, the vizir demanded payment of his
subsidy, but Hafiz Rihmat Khan, the principal Rohilla
chief, sent evasive answers; whereupon the vizir ad-
dressed himself to the English, whose commander had
attested, though he had in no way guaranteed, the
engagement.
Out of these transactions arose the Rohilla War,
which brought down such violent obloquy and so much
loose parliamentary invective upon Hastings, against
whom it has always been charged as a dark political
crime. The whole situation was overspread by a net-
work of transparent intrigue. The vizir suspected that
the Rohilla chiefs, who were a band of Afghan usurp-
ers in an imperial province, might on emergency join
the Marathas against him; nor was there, indeed, any
particular reason why they should not do so, since the
242 THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
vizir himself had been meditating seriously over a pro-
posal from the Marathas that he should join them in
an attack upon the Eohillas and in making a partition
of their country. But he was wise enough to see that
by joining a band of robbers to plunder his neighbour's
house, he would bring them the sooner to his own door;
and on the whole he thought the safer step would be
an alliance with the English, whose troops would make
him sure of success in the field, and whose avowed
interest lay in strengthening him as a barrier against
the Marathas.
The vizir, therefore, at an interview with the Gov-
ernor-General at Benares in 1773, desired the assistance
of an English force to put him in possession of Eohil-
khand, alleging that the Eohillas had broken their
treaty by withholding the subsidy from him, and prom-
ising liberal payment for the service. To this proposi-
tion Hastings, after some deliberation and hesitation
on both sides, finally consented. " Our ally," he wrote
to his Council, " would obtain by this acquisition a
complete compact state shut in effectually from foreign
invasions by the Ganges, while he would remain equally
accessible to our forces either for hostility or protec-
tion. It would give him wealth, of which we shall
partake, and give him security without any dangerous
increase of power; ... by bringing his frontier nearer
to the Marathas, for whom singly he is no match, it
would render him more dependent on us and connect
the union more firmly between us."
The united forces accordingly invaded Eohilkhand
THE ROHILLA WAR AND ITS RESULTS 243
in the spring of 1774; the Rohillas, who were well led
and fought bravely, would soon have disposed of the
vizir's army, but they could not stand against the Eng-
lish troops, and after some gallant charges they were
defeated. Hafiz Rihmat Khan was killed fighting cour-
ageously at the head of his men, and the short-lived
power of the Afghan confederacy was utterly broken.
Rohilkhand was annexed to the possessions of the vizir,
who thereby acquired the country lying east of the
Upper Ganges up to the Himalayas, with a strong
frontage on the river against attacks from the west.
The result, from the point of view of English politi-
cal interests, was to complete our defensive position
toward the northwest by substituting a safe and sub-
missive ally for untrustworthy neighbours upon an
important section of the barrier, and it is certain that
the plan succeeded. For many years afterwards our
northwest frontier remained undisturbed, until, in the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the English took
up ground beyond it. Nevertheless, this advantage was
gained by an unprovoked aggression upon the Rohillas,
who sought no quarrel with us, and with whom we had
been on not unfriendly terms; nor is Warren Hastings 's
policy in this matter easily justifiable even upon the
elastic principle that enjoins the governor of a distant
dependency to prefer above all other considerations the
security of the territory entrusted to him.
The Rohilla campaign was the only war directly
planned and undertaken by Hastings; although he was
constantly engaged during seven stormy years, begin-
244 THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
ning in 1776, with the support and supervision of mili-
tary operations. From this time forward up to the end
of the century, the battle-fields are all in the west and
south of India. In Bengal, the subsidiary alliance with
Oudh remained the corner-stone of the British defensive
system; nor was that province ever invaded, though
often threatened, by the Maratha armies. But in Bom-
bay, the President and Council being anxious to dis-
tinguish themselves by the acquisition of territory,
especially of Salsette, which is close to Bombay, entered
into a covenant with a Maratha chief named Raghu-
nath Kao, who had been ejected from power at Poona,
to replace him at the head of the Maratha government,
stipulating for the cession of certain districts to the
Company in return. The object of the Bombay Presi-
dent was to obtain political ascendency at Poona and
to make his presidency pay its way by an increase of
land revenue; but the plan was very badly laid, and
the means adopted proved quite inadequate for the
ends in view.
When the Calcutta government received from Bom-
bay a copy of the treaty with Raghunath Rao, they
at once totally condemned the measures that had been
taken, declaring the war " impolitic, dangerous, unau-
thorized, and unjust," and protesting that the Bom-
bay Presidency had imposed upon itself " the charge
of conquering the whole Maratha empire for a man who
appeared incapable of affording effectual assistance in
the undertaking." They foretold, rightly, that the
enterprise would only embark them upon an indefinite
OUTBREAK OF THE FIRST MARATHA WAR 245
sea of troubles; and they peremptorily ordered the
Company's forces to be withdrawn, if it could be done
without danger. But before this letter could reach
Bombay, the expedition had started; Salsette and Bas-
sein, two very important points, had been forcibly
occupied; and the English were committed to the war.
At Arras was fought the first
of that long series of battles
between the English and the
Marathas, almost all of which
have been well and honourably
contested. The Bombay troops
were obliged to fall back in dis-
order, losing many English of-
ficers, who sacrificed themselves
with their usual devotion in the
attempt to rally their sepoys.
It now seemed to Hastings im-
possible to make peace immediately and honourably,
so he insisted that his countrymen must stand their
ground and face their reverses; reinforcements were
sent across India; and attempts were made at nego-
tiation with the Marathas, who were justly incensed
by these proceedings.
In this manner England became entangled in a long,
costly, and unprofitable war, which may be taken to
have been the original source of the interminable hos-
tilities which occupied Hastings for the next seven
years, straining his finances, damaging his reputation,
distracting his administration, and bringing both Bom-
RAGHUNATH RAO.
246 THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
bay and Madras at different moments into serious
jeopardy. Any attempt to give a brief and also intel-
ligible narrative of the straggling inconclusive fighting
that went on must inevitably fail. The essence of the
whole matter is that the Marathas were at this period
far too strong and too well united to be shaken or over-
awed by such forces as the English could despatch
against them. They held a position in the centre of
India which enabled them to threaten all the three
divided English Presidencies, to intrigue successfully
against the British at Haidarabad and Mysore, and to
communicate with the French by their ports on the
western seacoast.
The two minor Presidencies of Bombay and Madras
were governed by rash, incompetent persons who were
exceedingly jealous of the Governor-General's superior
authority, who disregarded his advice or orders, and
thwarted his policy; while Hastings himself was ham-
pered by opposition in his own Council and by enemies
at headquarters in London. If he had been able to with-
draw from the war at once, and to insist on making
peace with the Marathas, he might have escaped the
graver complications that followed upon the original
blunder of attacking them. But the English still held,
and were determined to retain, Salsette and Bassein,
and although Hastings sent an envoy to Poona, the
refusal of the Marathas to cede these two valuable
points protracted negotiations up to the end of 1776,
when a turn of European politics materially affected,
as usual, the situation in India.
SECRET FRENCH AID FOR THE MA.RATHAS 247
By this time the United States had declared their
independence, and England had now become so deeply
involved in the attempt to put down rebellion in North
America that the French determined to use such an
apparently excellent opportunity of revenge for the
injuries suffered during the Seven Years' War. Provi-
dence, said the French minister in a secret state paper,
had marked out this moment for the humiliation of
England; and accordingly the colonists were actively,
though surreptitiously, assisted by France to a degree
that made a rupture with that power unavoidable.
A French agent reached India in 1777 to propose
alliance with the Marathas on conditions including the
cession of a seaport on the west coast. His overtures,
which were naturally encouraged by the Peshwa at
Poona, filled with alarm and indignation the English,
to whom the actual state of affairs in Europe, India,
and America rendered the prospect of such a combina-
tion exceedingly disagreeable. In the same year, Has-
tings received secret information from the British
embassy at Paris that the French were concerting a
scheme for an expedition to India in support of the
enemies of the English there. In 1778, came news that
Burgoyne had surrendered to the Americans at Sara-
toga, and that France, probably also Spain, was declar-
ing war; while a French ship from Bourbon Island had
actually landed officers and military stores on the south
coast for Hyder Ali.
Although at this moment the dissension between
Hastings and Philip Francis in the Calcutta Council
248 THE GO VEENOE - GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
was fierce and bitter, yet the Governor-General carried
with a high hand his energetic measures for meeting
these dangers. All the French settlements in India
were seized; a force was despatched from Bengal to
reinforce Bombay, and under the stress of the emer-
gency the Governor-General determined to throw aside
THE GREAT CAVE AT ELEPHANTA, NEAR BOMBAY.
a treaty just settled with the Marathas and to sanction
another march upon Poona in support of Raghunath
Eao. In modern times, the device of supporting pre-
tenders to a foreign throne has fallen into disuse among
civilized states, even when they are at war; partly
because international law disapproves, if it does not
condemn, the proceeding, but mainly because a long
series of experiments has proved that such enterprises
only exasperate the enemy and as political expedients
DISASTROUS RELATIONS WITH RAGHUNATH RAO 249
are generally foredoomed to failure. Yet in Europe it
was once an ordinary method of vexing or weakening
an antagonist, and in Asia it is still a very popular kind
of adventure; while Anglo-Indian history contains
several examples that are invariably warnings.
Thus the backing of Raghunath Rao for the Ma-
ratha premiership turned out a disastrous speculation,
for the second expedition ended in ignominious failure.
Its leaders, civil and military, blundered signally and
retreated disgracefully; the pretender fled back into
exile; and nothing was gained except the just and
enduring resentment of the Marathas. The Bombay
government, says Grant Duff, had desperately sent a
handful of men against the Maratha empire and had
committed the conduct of such an enterprise to men
totally unfit for such a charge; the truth being that the
Marathas were at that time, and nearly up to the end of
the century, at least a match for the English.
After this second discomfiture in the field, and after
the miscarriage of some very diplomatic attempts to
detach certain of the leading chiefs from the Maratha
confederacy attempts in which he was outwitted by
those adepts in subtle statecraft Hastings found
himself caught in the meshes of protracted war with
a loose, active, shifty, and indefatigable enemy, who
well knew how to stir up trouble for him in various
parts of India. Hyder Ali of Mysore, who for some
years had been husbanding his resources and biding
his time in the peninsula, now began to disclose omi-
nous symptoms of the vindictive spirit that had been
250 THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
fermenting in his implacable mind ever since the Eng-
lish had abandoned him to the Marathas in 1769.
When the Calcutta government determined to seize
the French settlements, orders had been sent to Madras
that Mahe, which belonged to France, should be occu-
pied without delay; because this port, in the extreme
southwest of the Indian peninsula, might become an
important channel of communication between the
French and Mysore. It is conceivable that this may
have been precisely the reason why Hyder Ali preferred
that the place should be left under his protection; at
any rate he desired the Madras authorities not to
meddle with it, adding that since Mahe was within his
jurisdiction and the inhabitants were his subjects, he
might find it necessary to defend them if they were
attacked. Nevertheless, Mahe was taken by an English
detachment in 1779, at a moment when Hyder Ali was
engaged in picking off some outlying districts belong-
ing to the Marathas, having naturally availed himself of
the quarrel between them and the English to round off
his own possessions. Such a disregard of his express
interdict gave the Mysore ruler serious umbrage, which
was not lessened by the imprudent attempt of an Eng-
lish force to march across a part of his territory with-
out his permission.
Throughout all this period that is, during the last
quarter of the eighteenth century the balance of
power in India rested upon a kind of triangular equi-
poise between the English, the Marathas, and Mysore.
If two of these powers quarrelled, the third became
ENGLAND'S PRECARIOUS POSITION IN INDIA 251
predominant for the time; if two of them united, the
third was in jeopardy. This is what had happened in
1778, when the alarm of war with France drove the
Anglo-Indian government into precipitate ^measures
that embroiled us first with the Marathas and secondly
with Mysore, and consequently brought down upon us
the combined hostility of both.
By the summer of 1780, the fortunes of the English
in India had fallen to their lowest watermark. At Cal-
cutta the resources of Bengal were drained by the cost
of distant and protracted war, and cramped, as Hastings
said, by internal imbecility; for the Governor-General
was still contending against perverse and obstructive
colleagues, one of whom, Francis, he at last quieted
by a pistol-shot, wounding him severely, though not
fatally, in a duel at Calcutta, August 17, 1780. At Bom-
bay, the funds were so completely exhausted that the
Council reported, as their best reason for keeping the
troops on active service abroad, their inability to pay
them at home. In the south, Hyder ALL had made com-
mon cause with the Marathas, had drawn the Nizam
of Haidarabad into the triple alliance against the Eng-
lish, had obtained promises of French co-operation on
the seacoast, and in July, 1780, had descended from
the hills upon the plains of the Karnatic with an army
of eighty thousand men.
All premonitory signs of coming danger had been
treated at Madras with inattention and contempt. Sir
Thomas Rumbold, a corrupt and incapable governor,
departing homeward in the spring, had recorded in a
252 THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
farewell minute his satisfaction at leaving the southern
Presidency in perfect tranquillity; yet a few months
later Hyder Ali, whose preparations had long been
notorious, burst upon the low country like a thunder-
storm, and his cavalry ravaged the Karnatic up to the
suburbs of Madras, in an irruption which Burke de-
scribes with splendid rhetoric in his speech on the
Nawab of Arkot's debts. The English troops sent to
oppose him were surrounded and almost annihilated;
the treasury was empty; and there were no supplies
in the town, which might easily have been taken if
Hyder Ali had resolutely assailed it in force.
Hastings lost no time in despatching money and
reinforcements from Calcutta under Sir Eyre Coote,
who defeated Hyder Ali in the battle of Porto Novo,
in July, 1781, and managed to drive him off from the
vicinity of the Presidency town; but the irruption had
dislocated all the Governor-General's plans. He now
had both Mysore and the Marathas simultaneously on
his hands. His finances were exhausted; his military
strength overstrained; his attempts to create disunion
among the Maratha chiefs had been frustrated; he had
to fight one of them, Sind, in the northwest near Gwa-
lior, another, the Peshwa, near Bombay; and his offers
of peace, on terms very favourable to the Marathas,
were ill received.
The utmost military exertions hardly kept the Ma-
rathas in check on the western coast, while at Madras
the army which was confronting Hyder Ali was in the
greatest straits for provisions, and the Presidency
UNSUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN OF SIND
253
treasure-chest was empty. Sind, who was fast becom-
ing the most powerful chief of the Maratha federation,
had by this time extended his conquests from Central
A CASTLE ON THE BARWA SAGAR, GWALIOB.
India northward toward Agra and Delhi; but although
this forward movement threatened the flank of Bengal,
yet it also brought him within striking distance of
the strongest position of the British. After several
254 THE GO VERNOK- GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
sharp skirmishes with the English troops, and the loss
of the fortress of Gwalior taken by escalade (a brilliant
and daring exploit of Captain Popham, one of the for-
gotten Anglo-Indian heroes), Sind discovered that Ms
interest lay in coming to an understanding. It was
arranged that he should be allowed to prosecute his
designs upon the few districts round Delhi still retained
by the Moghul emperor, on condition of his mediating
between the English and the Maratha government.
In this manner, after considerable sacrifices, Has-
tings at last succeeded in terminating, by a treaty made
with the Marathas in May, 1782, a war that was neither
honourable to the English name nor advantageous to
their interests, and out of which arose those exigencies
which drove Tn'm into the transactions that formed the
main grounds of his subsequent impeachment. In 1780,
the vast expense for the subsistence and defence of
both Madras and Bombay had, as he wrote, reduced him
to the most mortifying financial extremities; the two
Presidencies depended almost entirely on Bengal for
money; and in 1781 the treasury had been drained,
although every kind of expedient for raising funds had
been tried.
It was under the pressure of these embarrassments
that he demanded a heavy subsidy from the Raja of
Benares, which aroused a famous insurrection. When
the raja evaded payment of the subsidy, Hastings went
in person to Benares, imposed a still heavier fine upon
him, and placed him under arrest. The result was an
outbreak which for the moment placed the Governor-
FINANCIAL STRAITS OF HASTINGS 255
General in some jeopardy, but it was vigorously sup-
pressed without any permanent damage to the political
situation. Under the same stress of financial hunger
caused by an empty military chest, Hastings subjected
the Oudh Begums and their eunuchs to coercion for the
purpose of compelling the payment of money which
the Begums had no right to withhold, although it is
more than questionable whether the Governor-General
should have used such means to obtain it. The par-
ticulars of these two transactions have been so repeat-
edly and recently given, that an allusion to them seems
here sufficient.
The diffusion and versatility of the Maratha armies
had made them very troublesome enemies; and from
their headquarters at Poona, above the passes leading
down to the western coast, they overhung and could
always menace Bombay. But their coalition was weak-
ened for consistent action by mutual distrust among
the chiefs, who were now supplanting the Peshwa's
authority in the Maratha empire, as the Peshwa had
previously wrested the sovereignty from the heirs of
Sivaji; whereas Hyder Ali's forces obeyed the will of
one ruler strongly entrenched with an effective army
in the angle of the Indian peninsula, commanding ac-
cess to the plains round Madras and to the seacoast
on both sides, whose position, ability, and warlike
energy all rendered him a most formidable antagonist
in any single campaign. Hyder Ali had long perceived
that the weakness of India and the strength of England
lay in the defenceless condition of the Indian seaboard.
256 THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
He had himself made strenuous exertions to organize
a naval armament; and in his present war against the
English he was relying upon the arrival of a French
squadron which was known to be fitting out at Bourbon
Island with the design of breaking the communications
between England and India.
When this squadron ap-
peared on the Coromandel
coast, in 1781, Hyder Ali
was employing himself in
reducing the scattered posts
of the English in the Kar-
natic, which were wholly
at his mercy; and if the
French could have co-oper-
ated, he would have taken
the important town of Cud-
dalore, which, indeed, sur-
rendered to his son Tippu
jj^ ^782 But the French
admiral sailed back to Bourbon; Hyder Ali was pressed
by Sir Eyre Coote, and at last brought to bay at Porto
Novo, where he was crippled by a heavy defeat which
restored the open country to the English. Thus it came
to pass that when Suffren, than whom France has never
had a better admiral, returned to the coast in 1782 with
a much larger fleet, he was met by a strong though
unequal force of English ships under Sir Edward
Hughes, and he found Hyder comparatively disabled.
All the possessions of the French and the Dutch had
OF TIPPUS SWORD.
Now in His Majesty's Collection at Windsor,
VICTORIES OVER HYDER ALI AND THE FRENCH 257
been occupied by the English; so that Suffren had no
base of supplies or repair upon the Indian seaboard.
He succeeded in landing two thousand French
troops, which were soon joined by a large contingent
from Hyder Ali, when a large force, including four
hundred Frenchmen, under Tippu, Hyder Ali's son,
surprised Colonel Braithwaite's detachment and almost
destroyed it after a stubborn and desperate resistance.
Meanwhile, five obstinately contested naval engage-
ments took place in the Bay of Bengal between Suffren
and Hughes. Suffren, an admirable naval tactician,
might have beaten the English squadron if he had not
been ill supported by his captains. On the other side,
Hughes and all his men fought their ships with stub-
born fierceness, until the superior seamanship and un-
conquerable endurance of the English sailors so far
prevailed that the French fleet was prevented from
affording any material assistance to the army on land.
Early in 1783, Bussy arrived from France with a
large reinforcement of French infantry. But the death
of Hyder Ali in December, 1782, had just relieved the
English from their inveterate foe; and although his
son and successor Tippu Sahib, acting with the French
troops, reduced the English army before Cuddalore to
a very awkward predicament, yet no effective blow had
been struck when in July, 1783, the news of peace be-
tween England and France arrived. Thereupon Suffren
sailed for Europe, and Tippu of Mysore, finding himself
alone, verv reluctantlv came to terms somewhat later.
/ V
Thus ended a war of seven years, during which the
258 THE GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
English power in India underwent some perilous vicis-
situdes; but the ring of enemies by which Hastings
had been encompassed was at last broken, and in the
spring of 1785, when he resigned the Governor-General-
ship, the English were at peace with all the native
powers of India.
It will be observed that throughout the eighteenth
century the main alternations of peace and war in India
SOME OF TIPPU'8 FOBCES.
After Gold's Oriental Drawings.
keep time with the successive ruptures and renewals of
amity between France and England. So long as the
French were rivals of the English in the country, the
two Companies necessarily took the word of command,
for peace or war, from their home governments. After
this rivalry had ceased, the French kept their coast
settlements; but their navy could always threaten the
British Indian seaboard, and the safety of all English
communications with India depended entirely upon the
result of the maritime wars between the two nations.
ENGLAND AT WAR WITH FOUR NATIONS 259
The Anglo-Indian governments were, therefore, so
keenly sensitive to any apprehension of war with
France that the mere rumour of a French descent on
the coast aroused them to warlike activity. A native
ruler who might be detected in correspondence with
Mauritius was sure to be treated as a dangerous enemy,
to be attacked and disabled with all possible speed.
The consequence had been that each repeated demon-
stration of France against the English dominion in
India had accelerated instead of retarding its expan-
sion; excepting only the war that ended in 1783 with
the Peace of Versailles. During the greater part of
that stormy period the English were too heavily over-
matched, too closely pressed in all parts of the world,
to do more than hold their ground in India.
In 1781, England, without an ally, and with great
odds against her, was confronted by all the great naval
powers of Europe, France, Spain, and Holland, and
by the North American colonies. In Asia, she was
locked in a fierce struggle with the two most warlike
and skilful Indian powers, both of whom were dealing
with the French, who on their side had brought into
play against England in India the same strategy that
was proving eminently successful against her in Amer-
ica. England lost her American colonies not through
the resistance on land, which might and would have
been worn down, but through the pressure of her naval
enemies upon her communications across the Atlantic.
This was the weapon used against her in the east by
Suffren, who had learnt from her the lesson that in
260 THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
regions distant from Europe superiority of sea power
meant the control of the issues upon the land. The
French made great exertions to stop England's sea-
roads to India, to drive her fleet off the Indian coasts,
and to throw reinforcements into the camps of her
Indian opponents; they captured the only good har-
bour that commands the Indian peninsula, Tricomali
in Ceylon, and in conjunction with Hyder Ali they
might have taken Madras, if Suffren could have shaken
off the English admiral's indomitable grip.
It is no wonder that, during such a struggle, and for
some time afterwards, the territorial landmarks of Eng-
land in India remained stationary, since her resources
in men and money barely sufficed to preserve Madras
and Bombay from destruction. But the centre and
heart of the English power lay in Bengal, which the
war never reached at all, and which was governed by
a man of rare talent and organizing capacity. No
Anglo-Indian government of that time could carry on
a campaign by war loans, as in Europe; for its public
credit, the sphere within which it could borrow, was
confined to the Presidency town. The main cost had
to be provided out of revenue, or by requiring subsidies
from allied native rulers; and it was Bengal that fur-
nished not only the money and the men, but also the
chief political direction and military leadership which
surmounted the difficulties and repaired the calamities
of the English in the western and southern Presidencies.
When at last the Marathas made peace, when Hyder
Ali died, and Suffren, with all his courage and genius,
ENGLAND UNSHAKEN IN INDIA 261
could not master the English fleet in the Bay of Bengal,
there could be no doubt that the war had proved the
strength of the English position in India and had tested
the firmness of its foundation. Although the tidings of
peace reached India in 1783, just in time to release the
English army in South India from considerable difficul-
ties, and though the French ships still outnumbered
the English on the coast, yet Suffren, on receiving the
despatches, exclaimed: " God be praised for the peace!
for it was clear that in India, though we had the means
to impose the law, all would have been lost."
With the termination of this war ended the only
period, in the long contest between England and the
native powers, during which the British position in
India was seriously jeoparded for a time. That the
English dominion emerged from this prolonged struggle
uninjured, though not unshaken, is a result due to the
political intrepidity of Warren Hastings. It seems un-
necessary to continue here the discussions, which have
now lasted more than a century, over the career of this
remarkable Englishman. What chiefly concerns us to
understand is that Hastings carried the government of
India safely through one of the sharpest crises in Eng-
land's national history, when her transmarine posses-
sions were in great peril all over the world, because
all the naval powers of Europe were banded against
her.
When, in the course of the Seven Years' War, the
successes of the British against the French in India
and North America had freed England from her only
262 THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF HASTINGS
powerful rival, it might have been supposed that she
should remain in comparatively peaceful occupation.
But so soon as foreign competition ceased, internal
troubles began in both hemispheres; the colonists struck
for independence in the West; the native powers com-
bined to dispute English predominance in the East; and
France, evicted and disappointed, naturally encouraged
and aided both movements. In America, the insurgents,
after an arduous struggle, tore down the British flag;
in India, the end of a long and exhausting contest found
the English flag not only flying still, but planted more
firmly than ever; nor had either the vindictive hos-
tility of Mysore, or the indefatigable activity of the
Marathas, succeeded in wresting an acre of British ter-
ritory from the grasp of Warren Hastings.
Hastings had no aristocratic connections or parlia-
mentary influence at a time when the great families and
the House of Commons held immense power; he was
surrounded by enemies in his own Council; and his
immediate masters, the East India Company, gave him
very fluctuating support. Fiercely opposed by his own
colleagues, and very ill-obeyed by the subordinate Presi-
dencies, he had to maintain the Company's commercial
investments, and at the same time to find money for
carrying on distant and impolitic wars in which he had
been involved by blunders at Madras or Bombay. These
funds he had been expected to provide out of current
revenues, after buying and despatching the merchandise
on which the Company's home dividends depended;
for the resource of raising public loans, so freely used
A CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF HASTINGS
263
in England, was scarcely available to him; but because
his war expenses exceeded the scale of his peace estab-
lishment, he was accused of lavish dissipation of the
public income.
Hastings was thus inevitably driven to the financial
transactions at Benares and Lucknow that were now
UMBRELLA TREE AND GRANITE BOULDER AT BELLARY IN THE
MADRAS PRESIDENCY.
so bitterly stigmatized as crimes by men who made no
allowance for a perilous situation in a distant land, or
for the weight of enormous national interests committed
to the charge of the one man capable of sustaining them.
When the storm had blown over in India, and he had
piloted his vessel into calm water, he was sacrificed
with little or no hesitation to party exigencies in Eng-
land; the Ministry would have recalled him; they con-
sented to his impeachment; they left him to be baited
by the Opposition and to be ruined by the law's delay,
by the incredible procrastination, and the obsolete for-
264 THE GOVEKNTOB-GENEKALSHIP OF HASTINGS
malities of a seven years' trial before the House of
Lords. Upon such a career, upon the value of the serv-
ices rendered by Hastings to his country and the in-
justice with which he was requited, the English people
must by this time have formed a judgment too broadly
based to be much affected by any fresh scrutiny of the
reckless calumnies flung at him while he stood at bay
against false and vindictive accusers like Nuncomar
and Francis, or fought at great odds against Hyder All
and the Maratha league.
It may be added, as a curious proof of the reputa-
tion acquired by Hastings in Europe, that in 1785, when
he was just leaving Bengal, the French ambassador in
London seriously proposed to his government a plan
of secretly encouraging Hastings to make himself an
independent ruler in India by means of his native army
and of French support. The ambassador, having evi-
dently in his mind the success with which France had
abetted the revolt of the American colonists, argued
confidently that a man who held " almost a royal
position " in India, who had been recalled with indig-
nity and threatened with impeachment, would be found
easily accessible to such overtures; and the peremptory
refusal of the French minister to entertain his ingenious
plot was a bitter disappointment to him.
CHAPTER XII
THE INTERVAL BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS
1785-1786
IT is an observation of Sir James Mackintosh that
in the course of one generation the English lost one
empire in the West and gained another in the East;
and it may be added that England owes not only the
loss but its compensation to the policy of the French
Government. In the long war that had now ended,
their navy broke the hold of England on the North
American colonies, as repeated blows on a man's arms
make him let go his antagonist in a furious struggle.
But they had so enfeebled themselves by their exertions
to fight England on behalf of American independence
that they were left powerless to interfere with her
thenceforward in Asia, or to maintain their rivalry at
sea.
From 1783 begins a kind of pause in Anglo-Indian
affairs, varied in India only by a preliminary trial of
strength with Mysore, and in England by violent party-
warfare over Indian questions. The French Govern-
ment still continued, according to the reports of British
diplomatists, to watch for an opportunity of interfering
265
266 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS
again in India, but their foreign policy was now suffer-
ing incipient paralysis from their growing internal com-
plications. With France, therefore, England had a
truce that lasted for ten years, to our great advantage
in India, until in the final decade of the eighteenth cen-
tury a fresh and furious storm broke over Europe with
such violence that it rebounded upon India, and levelled
most of the remaining obstacles to the expansion of the
English dominion in that country.
If we are to measure the growth of the British
power in India by the expansion of its territorial do-
minion, the interval of twenty years between Olive's
acceptance of the Diwani in 1765 and the departure
of Warren Hastings from India in 1785 may be reck-
oned as a stationary period. It is true that from Oudh
we acquired Benares and Ghazipur on the northwest
of Bengal in 1775 although the transfer merely regis-
tered our possession of two districts which had long
been under our political control and that we also
obtained Bassein and Salsette, small though important
points close to Bombay. But during the Governor-
Generalship of Hastings, we had been so far from
extending our Indian domain that our hold upon our
actual possessions had been severely strained, our ter-
ritory had been invaded, our arms had suffered some
reverses, and the safety of one Presidency capital,
Madras, had been gravely endangered. In point of fact,
the English ascendency in India at this time had by
no means been conclusively established; for although
we were proving ourselves the strongest of the powers
STRENGTH OF ENGLAND'S POSITION IN INDIA 267
that were now definitely rising into prominence out of
the confusion of the previous half -century, yet we were
still confronted by jealous rivals, and our dominions
were not large in proportion to those of other states.
Two things, nevertheless, Lad been demonstrated by
the struggle that had been sustained by the English
nation. It had been proved in the first place that the
united naval forces of Europe could not drive England
from the sea, or wrest from her the command of the
great routes across the ocean between Europe and Asia.
Secondly, it had become clear by this time that, so long
as their transmarine communications with the mother
country could be preserved, and so long as their inval-
uable possession of Bengal remained undisturbed, the
English ran no risk of permanent or vital injury either
from the Marathas or from Mysore. The position of
these two formidable fighting powers in the centre and
south of India undoubtedly still operated as a check
upon the English, and they could have diverted our
forces to an extent which might have placed us in some
jeopardy, if any hostile state of heavy warlike calibre
had become established about this time in Upper India.
This might easily have happened, for the wide and
wealthy plains of the northwest had hitherto been
always the seat, and the source, of the largest and
strongest military rulerships. But it so chanced, by
the good luck which has always attended the English
in India, that toward the end of the eighteenth century,
when the Marathas and the Mysore dynasty were
strong and threatening, England had little or nothing
268
BETWEEN HASTINGS AND COKNWALLIS
to fear beyond her northwestern frontier. The ghost
of the Moghul Empire, sitting crowned among the ruins
of its ancient splendour, still reigned over Delhi. And
although the imperial authority had lost all substance,
the shadow of that great name still so far overspread
CENOTAPH OF A NATIVE RULER AT JAIPUR.
the surrounding districts as to prevent their absorp-
tion under a new dominion.
Yet the political vacuum created by the final disin-
tegration of the Moghul Empire, and the withdrawal
of the Afghans, was already filling up in the Pan jab,
by the rapid rise and compact organization of the Sikhs.
Under this new Hindu federation, much more closely
knit together by ties of race and common faith than
the Marathas, the people became animated by a martial
THE EISE OF THE SIKHS 269
spirit and a fiery enthusiasm such as the Hindus had
not hitherto displayed. The history of the Sikhs illus-
trates a phenomenon well known in Asia, where an
insurrectionary movement is always particularly dan-
gerous if it takes a religious, complexion, and where
fanaticism may endure and accumulate under a spiritual
leader until it explodes in the world of politics with the
force of dynamite.
The martyrdom of their first prophet, and their per-
secution by the later Moghul emperors, had engendered
in the hardy Sikh peasants a fierce hatred of Islam.
They had been repressed and broken by the Afghan
armies of Ahmad Shah, who routed them with great
slaughter in 1761. But in 1762 they defeated and slew
his governor at Sirhind; and in 1764 Ahmad Shah was
recalled to his western provinces by a revolt in Kan-
dahar. He died in 1773, after which date the grasp of
his successors on the Pan jab relaxed, and the Sikh con-
federation became closer and more vigorous. They
were subdivided into misls, or military confederacies,
under different chiefs, who fought among themselves
and against the Mohammedans, until, by 1785, the Sikhs
had mastered the whole country between the Jihlam
and the Sutlaj Eivers in the centre of the Panjab, were
threatening the Mohammedan princes about Delhi, and
had made pillaging excursions eastward across the
Ganges into Rohilkhand.
To the English in Bengal this revival of Hindu
nationality in upper India was exceedingly serviceable
and opportune. For, in the first place, their real danger,
270 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND COENWALLIS
the only substantial obstacle to their rising ascendency,
lay always, then as now, in the possibility of some for-
eign invasion by the army of some rival power led by
a chief at the head of the fighting tribes of Central
Asia. But the Sikhs were making it impossible for
any such Asiatic army to penetrate into the heart of
the Panjab without encountering the obstinate resist-
ance of men united to defend their faith and their
fatherland, in a spirit very unfamiliar to the quiescence
of ordinary Hinduism.
The kingdom founded by Ahmad Shah had extended,
from its citadel in the Afghan mountains, on the west
over Khorasan, and on the east over the Upper Panjab.
It had thus been built up by wresting one frontier
province from Persia and the other from India, and as
the Afghan ruler was cordially detested in both these
countries, whenever he was engaged by invasion or
revolt on one flank, the opportunity was sure to be
taken by his enemies on the other. Even Ahmad Shah
failed to hold such a position without great exertions,
and after his death it became quite untenable. Twenty
years later Zaman Shah, a very able Afghan king, was
obliged to retire from Lahore. This last abortive expe-
dition closed the long series of irruptions by the Mo-
hammedan conquerors, who for seven hundred years
had swept down from the north upon the plains of
India, and had founded dynasties which were only sus-
tained by constant recruitment from their native coun-
tries beyond the mountains. Thenceforward the Sikhs
were not only able to hold the line of the Indus Eiver
IMPORTANCE OF THE SIKH DOMINION 271
against fresh invaders; they also cut off the channels
of supply between Central Asia and the Mohammedan
powers to tne south of the Sutlaj, who were, moreover,
kept in constant alarm by this actively aggressive
Hindu community on their northern frontier.
The effect was to maintain among the fighting pow-
ers in Northern India an equilibrium that was of signal
advantage to the English by preserving their north-
west frontier unmolested during the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, a critical period when they were
fully occupied with Mysore and the western Marathas.
The barrier of Oudh set up by Hastings, although it
had been sufficiently effective against the predatory
Maratha hordes, would have been of little use for with-
standing the much heavier metal of attacks from Cen-
tral Asia. But the fierce enmity of the Sikhs kept out
the foreign Mohammedan, and prevented the resuscita-
tion of any fresh Islamite dynasty upon the ruins of
the old empire at Delhi or Lahore. By the time that
the Sikh power had become consolidated under Kanjit
Singh, in the first years of the nineteenth century, the
English had met and overcome their southern rivals,
and could then turn their forces northward without
fear of any serious diversion on their flanks or rear.
The position of the Sikhs on both sides of the Sutlaj
was also useful at this period in setting bounds to the
encroachments of the Marathas, who were now again
pushing northward under Sindhia. This ambitious and
able chief was endeavouring to carve out for himself
an independent principality in the upper provinces. He
272 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS
had attached himself to one of the parties that were
contending for the possession of imperial authority at
Delhi, and had rewarded himself by marching up with
a large army in 1785 to obtain his own nomination as
vicegerent of the empire. The emperor's eldest son
had applied to the English for assistance; and Hastings
had been much tempted, just before he quitted India,
by the project of sending an expedition to Delhi for the
purpose of setting the Great Moghul again on his feet,
and of making English influence paramount at his
capital.
But the Company, though alarmed at this notable
aggrandizement of the Marathas in a new quarter, could
not yet venture to oppose Sindhia's enterprise, and the
project of reviving the moribund empire under Euro-
pean influence which had passed across the vision of
Dupleix, of Bussy, and of Clive was once more re-
luctantly abandoned by Hastings as impracticable. Yet
it was in fact only premature, for twenty years later
the march to Delhi and the expulsion of the Marathas
were actually accomplished under Lord Wellesley's
orders. In the meantime, Sindhia, who occupied both
Agra and Delhi after Hastings 's departure, became so
confident as to send to the English Government, in his
Majesty's name, a requisition for tribute on account
of their administration of the imperial province of
Bengal.
The year 1786, therefore, when Lord Cornwallis
reached India, found the English still confronting the
Marathas in the west and northwest, and Tippu Sultan,
INDIA AT THE ARRIVAL OF CORNWALLIS 273
the Mysore ruler, in the south, but with no other rivals
of importance in the political or military field against
them.
We have seen how, from the time when the Euro-
pean nations first acquired valuable interests in India,
the course of events in India has gradually been drawn
LORD CORNWALLIS.
more and more within European influences. The weaker
Asiatic states have felt the attraction of the larger and
more active political bodies; wars in the west have
kindled wars in the east; and the clash of arms has
reverberated from one to the other continent. The out-
come of the contest was, as has been said, that England
now held undisputed supremacy, as against other Euro-
pean nations, in India. Then, as the connection be-
tween the British nation and its great dependency grew
274 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS
to be closer, as the points of contact multiplied, and
as the value of her magnificent acquisition became
known to England, her clearer recognition of national
rights and duties brought Indian affairs within the
current of domestic politics.
Not only foreign wars, but the struggle of Parlia-
mentary parties at home had lately affected India. In
1780 Lord North moved in the House of Commons for
an order that the three years' statutory notice of inten-
tion to dissolve their charter should be given to the
Company. The motion was carried against the stren-
uous opposition of Fox, who asked the minister whether
he was not content with having lost America, and of
Burke, who warned the House not to throw away the
East after the West in another chase after revenue.
Nevertheless, by 1783, when the period of notice was
expiring, the point of view taken up by these great
orators, who were then in office, had materially changed.
The conclusion of peace in Europe and America in 1783
had now given the English, after an interval of ten
years, a second opportunity of looking into the con-
dition and management of their distant possessions;
the loss of the western colonies had sharpened their
solicitude for the new dominion that had been gained
in the East.
There could now be no doubt that England had
acquired a great Indian sovereignty; for although the
wars and perpetual contests of the last seven years had
for the time imperilled her position in the country, the
general result was to prove its stability under severe
BUEKE'S ATTACK UPON THE COMPANY 275
pressure, and thus to confirm rather than impair Brit-
ish ascendency. Warren Hastings, in reviewing the
state of Bengal at the end of his Governor-Generalship,
wrote that the late war had proved to all the leading
states of India " that their combined strength and
politics, assisted by our great enemy the French, have
not been able to destroy the solid fabric of the English
power in the East, nor even to deprive it of any portion
of its territories."
It was this conviction that the Company were now
masters in India, that they had grown too powerful
for a trading association so powerful, indeed, as to
have become an anomaly under the British constitu-
tion and even a danger to it that gave weight and
momentum to Burke 's assault upon the whole system.
In his speech delivered in December, 1783, upon Fox's
East India Bill, which was to transfer the Company's
authority to Parliamentary Commissioners, he enlarges
upon the extent of the Company's territory and the
immense range of their arbitrary despotism. " With
very few, .and those inconsiderable, intervals, the Brit-
ish dominion, either in the Company's name or in the
names of princes absolutely dependent on the Company,
extends from the mountains that separate India from
Tartary (the Himalayas) to Cape Comorin, that is, one
and twenty degrees of latitude. ... If I were to take
the whole aggregate of our possessions there, I should
compare it, as the nearest parallel I could find, to the
empire of Germany. Our immediate possessions I shall
compare with the Austrian dominions, and they would
276 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND COENWALLIS
not suffer in the comparison. . . . Through all that vast
extent of country there is not a man who eats a mouth-
ful of rice but by permission of the East India Com-
pany/'
There is great exaggeration in this description, and
the German parallel is substantially erroneous; never-
theless, it is worth observing that more than a century
ago, within twenty-five years after the battle of Plassey,
the predominance of the Company throughout India
was treated as a fact only too completely accomplished.
Nor can it be doubted that Burke 's survey of the situ-
ation was, in the main, correct; the weakness of all
the native states had been ascertained; the ground-
work of empire had already been firmly constructed.
And subsequent events rapidly verified the judgment
of Hastings that " nothing but attention, protection,
and forbearance," an equal, vigorous, and fixed admin-
istration, and free play for its vast natural resources
and advantages was needed to secure the rise of India,
under British ascendency, to a high and permanent
level of national prosperity.
For some years the constitution and conduct of the
East India Company had been undergoing thorough
investigation before committees of the House of Com-
mons, with the result that the need of many reforms,
and the expediency of imposing more control on the
management of Anglo-Indian possessions, had been
agreed upon unanimously. The reports of the commit-
tees were submitted, and resolutions proposed, in 1782,
at a moment when the old political parties were break-
PARLIAMENT'S HOSTILITY TO THE COMPANY 277
ing up and reconstituting themselves into new groups
under fresh leaders, when the famous Coalition Min-
istry was in process of formation, and when the bitter
contentions between hostile factions were at their
height. In these resolutions ths whole recent admin-
istration of the Company was severely condemned, the
A VILLAGE GOD IN THE BOMB AT PRESIDENCY.
directors were required to recall Warren Hastings, and
it was further resolved that the powers given to the
Governor-General and Council must be more distinctly
ascertained.
When the Coalition Ministry took office, Fox intro-
duced a bill altering the whole of the Company's con-
stitution, which was supported by Burke in a speech
loaded with furious invective against Hastings and the
278 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS
Company, both of whom he charged with the most
abominable tyranny and corruption. Against some of
the Company's servants the true record of misdeeds
and errors was sufficiently long; but Hastings was a
man of the highest character and capacity, an incor-
ruptible administrator who had done his country great
and meritorious services. Yet his integrity was viru-
lently aspersed, and all his public acts wantonly dis-
torted, in speeches that invoked against him the moral
indignation of partisans engaged in the ignoble wrangle
over places, pensions, and sinecures, among whom none
had been exposed to similar trials of a man's courage
or constancy, and only a very few would have resisted
similar temptations.
In this manner the report and resolutions were
used as fuel for the engines of party-warfare to drive
the bill through Parliament against some very solid
opposition. Nevertheless, the essential question before
the Commons and the country was not so much whether
the Company and their officers were guilty of crimes
that were for the most part incredible, as whether the
patronage of India should be the prize of politicians,
who, after furiously denouncing each other's measures
and principles, had made a very dishonourable coali-
tion to obtain office. On this point the king, with a
majority of his people, was against the ministry that
had been formed under the Duke of Portland by Lord
North's association with Fox and Burke.
It thus came to pass that the pitched battles of the
memorable Parliamentary campaigns of 1783 - 1784
The Ghat Temple, Cawnpur.
PITT REORGANIZES INDIAN ADMINISTRATION 279
were fought upon Indian ground; Fox and Burke
were defeated and driven out of office; the East Indian
Bill was rejected; the Coalition was upset by George
III and by Pitt, who rose at once to the summit of
ministerial power. In 1784 Pitt carried through Par-
liament his act which vested full superintendence over
all civil, military, and revenue affairs of the Company
in six commissioners appointed by the Crown. The
chief government in India was placed in the hands of
the Governor-General with three councillors, whose
authority over the minor Presidencies was complete
on all matters of diplomacy, of peace and war, and of
the application of the revenues; and by a subsequent
act of 1786 the Governor-General was empowered to
act on his own responsibility in extraordinary cases,
without the concurrence of his Council.
This system of double government, by the Company
under the control of a minister directly responsible to
Parliament, lasted until 1858, when the Crown assumed
the sole and direct administration of India, a project
that had been under the consideration of the elder Pitt
a hundred years earlier. The immediate effect of Pitt's
act was a great and manifest improvement in the me-
chanics of Indian government, removing most of the
ill-contrived checks and hindrances which had brought
Hastings into collision with his Council and the sub-
ordinate governments, abolishing the defects that he
had pointed out, and applying the remedies that he had
proposed. All preceding governors had been servants
of the East India Company; and Hastings, the first
280 BETWEEN HASTINGS AND COENWALLIS
and last of the Company's Governors-General, had been
the scapegoat of an awkward and unmanageable gov-
erning apparatus, hampered by divided authority, and
distracted by party feuds in Calcutta and in London.
The position and powers of the chief executive author-
ity in India were henceforward very differently con-
stituted, and the increased force of the new machinery
very soon became visible in the results.
CHAPTER XIII
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
1786-1839
BCT the essence of the new governing constitution
conferred upon British India did not only lie in
the vigour which it infused into the executive by plac-
ing power and responsibility upon a plain incontestable
basis; it also strengthened the Governor-General im-
mensely by bringing him into close political relations
with the ministry at home. Lord Cornwallis, the first
of the new dynasty of Parliamentary Governors-Gen-
eral, went to India with a high reputation as a soldier
and a diplomatist, sure of the support of the strongest
ministry that had ever governed England, and invested
with well-defined supreme authority, military as well
as civil, under a full statutory title. He was Governor-
General over all three Presidencies, and he was also
appointed Commander-in-Chief.
Such a concentration of power in one man, his rank,
his reputation, his intimacy with Pitt and Dundas, all
combined to sweep away the obstacles that had blocked
the path of Hastings, and for the first time to clothe
the representative of England in India with the attri-
281
282 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
butes of genuine rulership. In the exercise of these
ample powers he was materially aided by the political
situation in Europe and Asia. The unfortunate and
misconducted wars of Lord North's government had
ceased; they had been succeeded, in the East and in
the West, by a period of peace for England; it was the
interval of cloudy stillness before the explosion of the
great revolutionary cyclone in Europe, which was not
felt in India until 1793.
Such a breathing-time and interval of calm was
well suited for carrying out wide internal reforms in
India, for consolidating England's position by a stroke
at her foremost and most intractable Indian antagonist
in Mysore, and for inaugurating a scheme of peaceful
alliances with the other native princes, which lasted
with the fair weather, but collapsed as soon as the
storm-wave of European commotions reached the shores
of India.
In the year 1786, therefore, we find the English
sovereignty openly established in India under a Gov-
ernor-General entrusted with plenary authority by the
representatives of the English nation. The transforma-
tion of the chief governorship of a chartered commer-
cial company into a senatorial proconsulship was now
virtually accomplished; and with the accession of Cornr
wallis there sets in a new era of accelerated advance.
It was Hastings who first set in order the chaos of
Bengal misrule, and who drew the ground-plan of reg-
ular systematic procedure in almost all departments
of executive government. But the administration of
SETTLEMENT OF THE LAND- TAX OF BENGAL 283
Hastings had been constantly interrupted by quarrels
at home and wars abroad.
Henceforward internal organization goes on con-
tinuously; laws are passed, abuses are firmly repressed,
and the settlement of the land revenue of Bengal is
the administrative achievement by which the name of
Lord Cornwallis is now chiefly remembered in India.
In fixing for ever the land-tax of the districts then
included within the regular jurisdiction of the Presi-
dency, he followed the natural bent of a statesman fa-
miliar only with the property tenures of England, where
a Parliament of landlords was just about to make their
own land-tax a perpetual charge at a fixed rate of
valuation. And although the measure has cut off the
Indian treasury from all share in the increase of rents
and the immense spread of cultivation, although it has
prevented the equitable raising of the land revenue in
proportion with the fall in value of the currency in
which it is paid, yet it has undoubtedly maintained
Bengal as the wealthiest province of the empire.
Prom this time forward, also, political insecurity
within British territory gradually gives way to a sense
of stable and enduring dominion, and to that feeling
of confidence in a government which is the mainspring
of industry. While the people begin to adjust them-
selves at home to these novel conditions of Western
sovereignty, abroad the British frontier is rarely threat-
ened and hardly ever crossed by a serious enemy. The
British government has now taken undisguised rank
among the first-class powers of India. There is as yet,
284 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOKD CORNWALLIS
however, no formal assertion of superiority; the native
states still make war and peace with England on equal
terms; they receive special missions, negotiate alli-
ances, and with their internal affairs we pretend to
no concern.
When Lord Cornwallis assumed office, there was
TIPPU'S TOMB AT 8ERINGAPATAM.
peace between the English and the native powers;
although the Marathas had joined the Nizam of Haidar-
abad in an attack on Tippu of Mysore, whose fanaticism
and arrogance had alarmed and alienated all his neigh-
bours. In this attack Cornwallis refused to join, but
he set about bringing his army up to a war-footing; and
Tippu, who was clear-sighted enough to foresee danger
from the English, spared no pains on his side to
strengthen himself against them. The Mysore ruler,
MACHINATIONS OF TIPPU OF MYSOEE 285
who had witnessed the last appearance of the French,
as his allies, on the coast, who still had access to the
seaboard and was in touch with the French settlements,
had by no means abandoned his father's policy of en-
deavouring to check the growth of English predomi-
nance by calling in the assistance of other European
nations.
Tippu's ignorance of the real condition of European
affairs, however, led him to make plans that were
entirely futile, and that only accelerated his own de-
struction. In 1787 he sent to Constantinople an em-
bassy which, though it effected nothing at all, obtained
from the Sultan so ostentatious a reception that it
probably encouraged the unfortunate ruler of Mysore
in miscalculating his own power and the intrinsic value
of such politic courtesies. In the same year his ambas-
sadors were civilly welcomed at Paris by Louis XVI,
at a moment when the relations between France and
England were decidedly strained. These most unsub-
stantial diplomatic amenities seem to have deluded him
into a very false reckoning of his situation; while they
confirmed the English in their attitude of vigilant sus-
picion and in their determination to cut off such dan-
gerous communications at the first opportunity.
In such an environment of reciprocal distrust the
futility of attempting to arrest the natural current of
affairs in India by Acts of Parliament, or to resist the
converging pressure of circumstances, was soon demon-
strated. It had been declared by Pitt's act that as the
pursuit of schemes of conquest was repugnant to the
286 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
wish, to the honour, and to the policy of the British
nation, the Governor-General must not declare hostili-
ties or enter into any treaty for making war against
a native state, or for guaranteeing it against an enemy,
except for the defence of British territory or of allies
from imminent attack. But Cornwallis had scarcely
landed when his protection against Tippu was claimed
by the Nizam.
There being no immediate menace of war, the Gov-
ernor-General held himself precluded by the act from
according the Nizam a defensive alliance which might
have checked Tippu 's machinations. What he did, how-
ever, was to give the Nizam's envoy a written promise
that he would furnish the Nizam, under an old treaty,
with an auxiliary force whenever he should need it,
making the reservation that it must not be employed
against powers in alliance with the Company. These
powers were specifically named; and as Mysore was
not among them, the engagement tended rather to pro-
mote than prevent hostilities, since Tippu not unrea-
sonably treated it as a preliminary to some direct move-
ment against himself.
Ah 1 these jealousies and mutual preparations were
evidently making for war between the British and the
Mysore Sultan, who soon relieved Lord Cornwallis from
all further doubt in regard to the act's interpretation.
In defiance of formal warnings he proceeded to make
an utterly unjustifiable and unsuccessful attack upon the
Raja of Travancore, a state under English protection.
Lord Cornwallis thereupon formed a league against
SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN AGAINST TIPPU 287
him with the Marathas and the Nizam of Haidarabad,
and the allied armies marched into the Mysore coun-
try. Very little was effected by the first season's oper-
ations, and in 1791, when Lord Cornwallis took com-
mand in person, the advance upon Seringapatam failed.
But in the following year's campaign Tippu was over-
AN ACTION AT SERINGAPATAM.
powered, besieged in his capital, and compelled to sign
a treaty in 1792 which crippled his resources and
stripped him of half his territory, including Coorg and
the Malabar district along the western seacoast.
From that time forward he was constantly seeking
ways and means of revenge; and he clung desperately
to the vain hope of foreign alliances that might
strengthen his hands against the English. He negoti-
ated with the Marathas, with Zaman Shah, the Afghan
288 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD COKNWALLIS
king, and with the French, who entertained his over-
tures and made a show of helping him up to a point
just sufficient to annoy and irritate the English. The
only serious consequence of Tippu's dealings with
France was that when, in 1793, the French Revolution
produced a violent rupture between the two nations in
Europe, Mysore was soon left exposed to the full force
of England's hostility.
In the meantime the Maratha chief Mahadaji Sin-
dhia, on whom the Moghul emperor had been induced to
confer the title of vicegerent of the empire, who had
made large conquests in the north, and had defeated
his rival, Holkar, in a desperate fight, was becoming
all-powerful in Upper India. His political aim was
to maintain his own independence of the Maratha con-
federation without dissolving it. And as he was saga-
cious enough to perceive that the English were fast
rising to superiority in India, he had been exceedingly
distrustful of any alliance with them for the purpose
of aiding them to crush a rival, even though that rival
should be the Mohammedan ruler of Mysore.
Now that Tippu (with whom Sindhia was corre-
sponding) had been humbled, it was becoming mani-
fest that the Marathas were the only military power,
from the Sutlaj River to the sea, from which the Eng-
lish had any opposition to apprehend. They were mas-
ters of immense territory, and their leaders were at
the head of numerous well-equipped armies, which
easily overcame the weak incoherent resistance of the
Rajput clans, and would have certainly routed with
MAHADAJI SINDHIA, THE MARATHA CHIEF 289
small difficulty the mercenary troops of the two prin-
cipal Mohammedan states, Oudh and Haidarabad. But
the natural tendency of the commanders of separate
armies to carve independent domains for themselves
out of the provinces they had occupied, and to turn
their camps into separate capitals, inevitably created
great mutual jealousy and constantly embarrassed the
common action of the confederation.
Mahadaji Sindhia, whose independence had been rec-
ognized in 1786, had since increased rapidly his pos-
sessions and his military armaments, and he now occu-
pied the country round Delhi with a large and well-
appointed army. The expediency of placing some check
on Sindhia 's aggrandizement, before it should bring him
into collision with the British, had been pressed upon
the Governor-General by his political agents. But in
this case, as in others, Pitt's act, which strictly bound
down the British government to non-interference un-
less war should be imminent, had the effect of holding
the English in a position of enforced immobility that
often encouraged a rash and ambitious prince to push
forward to the point at which hostilities became inevi-
table. Sindhia 's policy was now manifestly aiming at
combinations against the English as against a foreign
power which threatened the subjugation of all India.
But his predominance alarmed the Maratha chiefs quite
as much as the British government, so that the Peshwa
was in no haste to follow his lead or to fall in with
his projects.
In 1794, however, Mahadaji Sindhia died suddenly;
290 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
a man of great ambition, political capacity, and talent
for war, who had carried out on a larger scale than
any other Indian prince the new system of raising dis-
TOMB OF THE SINDHIAS, AT LASHKAR.
ciplined battalions under European officers, supported
by effective artillery. But it had already been seen and
said by the more far-sighted leaders among the Marathas
themselves that this system, which rendered them irre-
sistible to all other native antagonists, to the loose
NATIVE METHODS OF WARFAKE 291
feudatory militia of Rajputana, and to the raw levies
of the Mohammedan princes, was more likely to harm
than to help them whenever they should be matched
against their only serious opponents. These men saw
that it was an attempt to play the game of war by
European methods and to beat the English by their
own weapons. The regular troops and the cannon ham-
pered those rapid daring marches and manoeuvres of
light-armed cavalry their dashing charges and dex-
terous retreats which for a hundred years had won
for the Marathas their victories over the unwieldy Mo-
ghul armies and had on various occasions perplexed
and discomfited the English commanders.
In the days of Dupleix and Clive the employment
of disciplined troops was equivalent to the introduction
of a new military weapon of great efficacy, known to
no one except the French and English; and unexpected
superiority of this kind always secures a triumph, at
first, to the side that possesses it. But the armament
and tactics of civilized nations imply high proficiency
in the art of war, abundant supplies of costly material,
and a strong reserve of well-trained officers; they can-
not be hurriedly adopted by an Asiatic chief whose
people are totally unaccustomed to such inventions.
All military history, up to the latest time, has shown
that for a rough uncivilized people, destitute of experi-
ence and resources, but strong in numbers, by far the
best chance of successfully resisting a small well-trained
force lies in irregular evasive warfare. The severest
reverses suffered by disciplined English troops in Amer-
292 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOKD COKNWALLIS
ica, Asia, and Africa from Braddock's defeat on the
Ohio to the recent disasters in Afghanistan and the
Transvaal have always been in fighting against active
irregulars, who used their own arms and methods.
Moreover, in proportion as the Marathas adopted
the armament and tactics of European warfare, they
lost the advantage that comes out of unanimity of na-
tional, religious, or tribal sentiment, out of the bond of
a common country or tradition. The new system re-
quired professional soldiers, who must be enlisted wher-
ever they could be found; and especially it needed
foreign officers. In this manner the foreign or alien
element grew rapidly, until the later Maratha armies
became principally a miscellaneous collection of mer-
cenaries, enlisted from all parts of India, with trained
infantry and artillery commanded by adventurers of
different races and countries.
From this time forward, indeed, it is a marked char-
acteristic of the British battles with the Marathas, as
afterwards with the Sikhs, that although they were
always sharply contested and often gained at a heavy
cost, yet the victories were decisive; the blows were
crushing because they were delivered at close quarters
upon compact and organized bodies of troops which,
when they were once dispersed or destroyed, could not
be replaced.
And inasmuch as all the Indian states and dynas-
ties with whom we fought depended for their existence
on success in war, an overthrow placed them entirely
at our mercy. For in almost every case their territorial
FAILURE OF FOREIGN MILITARY METHODS 293
title was derived only from recent occupation, and their
possession was cemented by little or no national sym-
pathies; so that, unless the conqueror thought fit to
set up again the fallen ruler, the people merely under-
went a change of masters.
The whole attempt of the native powers to iTn1t.af.ft
the military methods of Europe proved a delusion and
a snare. It led them to suppose that they could put
themselves on an equality with the English by a system
that really placed them at a disadvantage, and to main-
tain, upon a false estimate of their strength, large mili-
tary establishments under foreign officers, which it
soon became the chief object of the English government
to disband or destroy. Nothing was easier for the Eng-
lish, with their command of money and war material,
than to increase their own disciplined army in India
up to whatever point might be necessary for maintain-
ing superiority. Nothing, on the other hand, was more
difficult than for an Indian prince to repair his losses
of cannon and trained soldiers.
Nor is it hard to understand how, in these condi-
tions of military and political inequality, every succes-
sive campaign in India for the last hundred years has
resulted in an increase of the English territory. In
fact the whole country has thus passed gradually under
the dominion of the government which excelled all the
other leading states in the art of disciplined fighting,
and whose stability did not in any event depend upon
the life or luck of a single ruler or general or upon the
issue of a single battle, because its resources were
294 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOED CORNWALLIS
drawn from an immense reserve of civilized wealth and
energy beyond the sea.
After his campaign against Mysore, the chief object
of Lord Cornwallis had been to provide for the peace
of South India by inducing the Marathas and the Nizam
A STREET - CORNER IN BHOPAL.
of Haidarabad to join him in a treaty guaranteeing
against Tippu the territories that each of them pos-
sessed at the close of the war. To this proposition the
Nizam readily agreed, being much afraid of the Ma-
rathas ; but the Marathas declined it because they medi-
tated plundering the Nizam. The two great Moham-
medan States of Oudh and Haidarabad were remarkably
weak in proportion to their territory and revenue; they
OUDH BECOMES A BRITISH PROTECTORATE 295
carried little weight in the political balance; and the
chief concern of the British government was to prevent
their premature dissolution. By this time Oudh had
fallen entirely under the British protectorate; a system
which, while it upholds the native dynasty, is neces-
sarily incompatible with the independent sovereignty
of the prince; for the military defence of the country
is undertaken by the protecting power, and the ruler
binds himself by a subsidiary treaty to defray the ex-
penses of an army which he does not command.
Moreover, no Asiatic dynasty can endure which does
not produce a succession of able men, tried and selected
by proof of individual capacity to rule. But the system
of protectorates, which maintains hereditary right and
does not permit an incapable heir to be set aside by
energetic usurpers, cannot fail to seat on the throne,
sooner or later, a prince who has no natural right to
be there. The decline of governing ability was already
visible in Oudh, which was falling into internal confu-
sion and financial straits. Security from internal revolt
and foreign attack bred indolence and irresponsibility;
mismanagement of the revenue increased the burden of
the subsidy; and the maladministration that was partly
the consequence of the protective system became a rea-
son for continuing it. Similar symptoms showed them-
selves later in Haidarabad, when that state also passed
under the British protectorate.
The history of these complicated transactions serves
mainly to illustrate the extraordinary and ever-recur-
ring difficulties which have beset the British govern-
ment in India, where the policy of neutrality and non-
interference only ripened the seeds of eventual discord,
compelling the English to step in at last for the cure
of evils that might have been prevented. No other con-
siderable power in the country was interested in the
preservation of order; the stronger preyed, as a matter
of course, upon the weaker; and there was always the
danger, almost the certainty, that any military chief
who should succeed in trampling down his rivals would
before long turn his accumulated force against British
territory.
We may remember that the British Islands had
never been able to abstain from taking part in any
great war, during the eighteenth century, among the
neighbouring nations of the European continent, where
England owned no land except Gibraltar. There is
little cause, then, for surprise that the English in India,
with possessions scattered, isolated, remote from each
other, intermixed with foreign territory, and exposed
to easy attack on every side, except from the sea
in a country where, as Arthur Wellesley later said,
no such thing as a frontier really existed were invari-
ably, though often reluctantly, drawn into participation
with the quarrels and scrambling for dominion which
in those days were continually upsetting the balance
of power and the tranquillity of the country.
Thus the acts and results of Lord Cornwallis's ad-
ministration show how difficult it had become for the
English to stand still, or to look on indifferently at
the conflicts that broke out all round them in India.
INEVITABILITY OF ANGLO-INDIAN WARS 297
It had been a general charge in England against the
Company's governors that they plunged into unjust
or unnecessary wars, and were troubled by an insatiable
appetite for their neighbours' provinces. But it was
understood to be one unquestionable advantage of the
regime inaugurated in 1786 that temperance, political
self-denial, the renunciation of all ambitious enter-
prises, and the preservation of peace would have been
secured by placing the conduct of affairs under direct
ministerial control.
No Governor-General ever set out for India under
more earnest injunctions to be moderate, and above all
things pacific, than Lord Cornwallis; and these general
orders were ratified by a specific Act of Parliament,
framed with the express purpose of restraining warlike
ardour or projects for the extension of dominion. Pitt's
act of 1784 was emphatic in this sense, and in 1793
another act declared that: " Forasmuch as to pursue
schemes of conquest and extension of dominion in India
are measures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and
the policy of this nation, it shall not be lawful for the
Governor-General in Council to declare war, or to enter
into any treaty for making war, or for guaranteeing
the possessions of any country princes or states (except
where hostilities against the British nation in India
have been actually commenced or prepared), without
express command and authority from the home govern-
ment."
Yet Lord Cornwallis, whose moderation and judg-
ment have never been doubted, found himself obliged
298 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
to prepare for hostilities almost immediately after Ms
arrival at Calcutta; and lie soon discovered that the
restraining statutes operated to promote the very evils
they were intended to prevent. Under their restric-
tions the English Governor-General was obliged to look
on with tied hands at violent aggressions and danger-
ous combinations among the native states, and was held
back from interposing until matters had reached a
pitch at which the security of his own territory was
actually and unmistakably threatened. The Mysore
war, and a considerable extension of dominion, followed
in , spite of all injunctions and honest efforts to the
contrary. Yet such was the confidence in the good
intentions of Cornwallis that, when he left India in
1793, there was a general impression in England that
he had merely taken the necessary steps for inaugurat-
ing a pacific and stationary policy; whereas in fact the
British were on the threshold of an era of wide-ranging
hostilities and immense annexations.
Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable, as illustrating
the persistence of the natural forces that propelled the
onward movement of English dominion, than the fact
that the immediate consequence of bringing India under
direct Parliamentary control was to stimulate, not to
slacken, the expansion of British territories. Mr.
Spencer Walpole has declared in his " History of Eng-
land " that every prominent statesman of the time dis-
liked and forbade further additions to the Company's
territories; and we have seen that frequent laws were
passed to check the unfortunate propensity for fighting
THE EXPANSION OF BRITISH DOMINION 299
that was supposed to have marred the administration
of the Company. Nevertheless, it is historically cer-
tain that a period of unprecedented war and conquest
began when the Crown superseded the Company in the
supreme direction of Indian affairs.
The beginning of our Indian wars on a large scale
dates from 1789; and the period between 1786 and 1805,
during which British India was ruled (with a brief
interval) by the first two Parliamentary Governors-
General, Cornwallis and Wellesley by Governors-Gen-
eral, that is, who were appointed by ministers respon-
sible to Parliament, and for party reasons comprises
some of the longest wars and largest acquisitions by
conquest or cession. It stands on record that the great-
est development of British dominion in India (up to
the time of Lord Dalhousie) coincides precisely with
these two Governor-Generalships. The foundations of
the Indian empire were marked out in haphazard piece-
work fashion by merchants, the corner-stone was laid
by Clive in Bengal, and the earlier stages were consoli-
dated by Hastings; but the lofty superstructure was
raised entirely by a distinguished line of Parliamentary
proconsuls and generals. For the last hundred years
every important annexation in India has been made
under the sanction and the deliberate orders of the
national government in England.
The closer connection of India with England, and
the importance of the English stake in the country, had
now brought our Asiatic dependency so much more
within the current of European politics that the rising
300 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
tide of hostilities between France and England dashed
over it, and swept forward the course of events. In
1793 began the long war with revolutionary France,
which soon affected the temper of English politics in
THE ATTACK ON THE 8IALKOT MUTINEERS BY GEN. NICHOLSON'S IRREGULAR
CAVALRY, JULY 12, 1857.
Asia. A few years afterwards Buonaparte was march-
ing toward military despotism in the spirit of an Asiatic
conqueror, upsetting thrones and uprooting landmarks,
overriding national traditions and hereditary rights,
carving out new kingdoms by his sword, and laying out
NAPOLEON'S DREAMS OF EASTERN CONQUEST 301
their boundaries as one might divide an estate into
convenient farms or properties. His delight in this
pastime attracted him instinctively toward Asia, where
he saw that a genius for interminable war and auto-
cratic administration would find illimitable scope in
knocking down the old-fashioned rickety governments
and rebuilding them symmetrically at leisure. His
inclinations tallied, moreover, with his interests, since
he could combine a taste for Asiatic adventure with
an ardent desire to strike a blow at the English some-
where on the land, as he could make nothing of them
at sea.
The project of an expedition against British India
was constantly in his mind; but his first and last at-
tempt at Asiatic conquest was the abortive occupation
of Egypt and the march into Syria in 1798, with the
declared object, among others, of " hunting the English
out of all their Eastern possessions and cutting the
Isthmus of Suez." The menace only served, as usual,
to hasten English annexations in India. For on one
side it accentuated the alarm and resentment with
which the English were watching the intrigues of the
French with the Marathas and the Sultan of Mysore,
and the recruitment of French officers for the armies
of those states. On the other side, the rapidly increas-
ing predominance of the English and the overtures of
the French misled the native princes into venturing for
their self-protection upon the very steps that helped
to precipitate their downfall. Now that England had
completely recognized the immense value of her Asiatic
302 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
possessions, her traditional jealousy of interference by
the only European nation that had repeatedly chal-
lenged her ascendency in India naturally reached its
acutest stage during a desperate war with France.
The last act of Lord Cornwallis before he left India,
in 1793, had been to seize all the French settlements;
Ceylon was taken from the Dutch in 1796; and the
English now treated any symptom of an understanding
with France, or even of a leaning in that direction, as
a dangerous spark to be extinguished at once. Sir John
Shore (Lord Teignmouth), who held the Governor-
Generalship ad interim until Lord Mornington arrived
in 1798, was a very cautious and overprudent politician.
Being averse, on principle, to extending British rela-
tions or responsibilities, he refused, rather ungener-
ously, to assist the Nizam when the Marathas attacked
him, thereby estranging our principal ally and encour-
aging our principal rivals. When the Nizam, who was
very anxious for a British alliance, proposed a defensive
treaty on the basis of mutual territorial guarantee, the
English government drew back, not wishing to defend
Haidarabad at the risk of offending the Marathas, who
might retaliate by a league with Tippu.
The consequences of this half-hearted attitude were
serious; for the Marathas invaded the Haidarabad coun-
try, dispersed the Nizam's army, and at Kurdla, in 1795,
enforced on him an ignominious surrender to very ex-
tortionate terms. This triumph brought the Marathas
a considerable increase of strength and reputation,
while the Nizam was so deeply incensed at our desertion
ALIENATION OF THE NIZAM OF HAIDABABAD 303
of him that he largely increased his trained battalions
and relied more than ever on the French officers who
commanded them, and who fomented his alienation from
the English. Yet as soon as the Nizam began to aug-
ment and reform his regular troops, under Raymond
and other French officers, Sir John Shore at once inter-
posed to prevent him.
What the Governor-General feared was a combina-
tion against him between Mysore and the Marathas;
and what he hoped was that these two jealous and
mutually suspicious powers would sooner or later fall
to blows against each other. But in fighting times the
pacific bystander's attitude rarely suits the interest
or dignity of a neighbouring state. In the present in-
stance it only stimulated the combative instincts of both
rivals, who soon became more aggressive and more
formidable to the British. The impolicy of having
abandoned the Nizam to the Marathas now began to
appear; for the Marathas had gained great augmenta-
tion of wealth and predominance, and their audacity
increased as their respect for the English diminished.
Moreover, Tippu of Mysore, who nourished wild
hopes of revenge and of recovering his losses in the late
war, believed the Nizam's strength to have been so
reduced that he might seize all the Haidarabad coun-
try if the English could be prevented from opposing
him. And for the purpose of counteracting the English
power he pursued his futile endeavours to negotiate
foreign alliances. He pressed the Afghan Amir, Shah
Zaman, to invade India, and he received in reply a
304 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS
sympathetic assurance that the Amir would soon come
to exterminate all infidels and polytheists. In 1797
Shah Zaman did march through the Panjab and occupy
Lahore, to the great alarm of the Anglo-Indian govern-
ment; for the whole of North India was stirred by his
coming, the Mohammedans were preparing to join his
standard, the Oudh ruler was totally incapable of mak-
ing any effective resistance, and if the Afghan had
pushed on to Delhi, there would have been an outbreak
of anarchy and perilous commotion. Such a formidable
diversion would undoubtedly have drawn northward
every available English regiment for the protection of
the Bengal frontier; but in 1798 Shah Zaman was
obliged to return hurriedly to guard his own western
provinces from the Persians.
Meanwhile Tippu had sent a secret mission across
the Indian Ocean to the Isle of France, as Mauritius
was then called, with letters for the Directory in Paris,
proposing an offensive and defensive alliance with the
French Republic for the purposes of destroying the Eng-
lish in India and dividing the country between himself
and France. The governor of the French islands gave
his envoys a public reception, and on January 30, 1798,
issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to serve
under the Mysore flag against the common enemy, Eng-
land. In 1799 Buonaparte addressed to him a letter,
dated Headquarters, Cairo, saying: " You have been
already informed of my arrival on the shores of the
Red Sea, with an innumerable and invincible army, full
of the desire of releasing you from the iron yoke of
RENEWED INTRIGUES OF TIPPU OF MYSORE 305
the English," and asking Tippu to send him 'an agent.
But the French were themselves soon cut off in Egypt;
and as the rumours of foreign intervention by sea or
land died away, the Mysore Sultan, abandoned to the
hostility of the English whom he had seriously alarmed,
soon underwent the certain fate of Oriental rulers who
venture among the quarrels of European nations.
THE KIND OF VESSEL CALLED GHRAB.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
1798 - 1805
LORD MORNINGTON, afterwards Marquis Welles-
ley, landed at Madras on Ms way to Calcutta in
April, 1798, on the same day when the ambassadors
of Tippu disembarked at Mangalore on their return
from the Isle of France, bringing a rather shabby col-
lection of volunteers and an assurance from the French
governor that his Republic would soon entertain with
pleasure Tippu 's offer of alliance and amity. The in-
structions which had followed the Governor-G-eneral
unquestionably warranted him in treating these deal-
ings with the French as an act of war on the part of
Mysore. " As a general principle/' wrote Henry Dun-
das, President of the Board of Commissioners for In-
dian affairs, in a letter addressed to him, " I have no
hesitation in stating that we are entitled under the
circumstances of the present time to consider the admis-
sion of any French force into Tippu 's army, be it
greater or smaller, as direct hostility to us "; and
within a few months after reaching Calcutta, Lord
Mornington declared that the growth of a French party
306
RESULTS OF THE NON - INTERFERENCE POLICY 307
in the councils and armies of the native Indian powers
was an alarming evil that demanded extirpation.
When, therefore, it became known that Tippu 's
embassy to the Isle of France had brought back not
only the promise of an offensive and defensive alliance
with the French, " for the express purpose of expelling
the British nation from India," but also some French
officers and recruits for the Mysore army, the Governor-
General concluded that he had just ground of hostility.
His warlike ardour was easily heated, and he was de-
terred from attacking Tippu at once only by finding
himself unprepared. The finances showed a standing
deficit, the Company's credit in the money-market had
fallen very low, the Madras army was not fit to take
the field; and Lord Mornington was so far from relying
on the co-operation of his allies, the Nizam and the
Marathas, that he recognized the impossibility of calling
them in.
The fruits of the non-interference policy had now
shown themselves in the weakness and disaffection
of the Mzam, in the ominous preparations of Tippu,
and in the spreading power of the Marathas. The six
years of English neutrality from 1792 to 1798 had
been employed by the two last-mentioned states in
augmenting their war-resources and extending their
territory at the expense of weaker neighbours. The
defeat and capitulation of the Nizam at Kurdla had
reduced him from the condition of a great and leading
power in Hindustan to that of a tributary to the Ma-
rathas; the corps of fourteen thousand men under
308 GOVERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
French officers was the only support of his authority.
Mornington wrote that these trained battalions at Hai-
darabad were the main root of the Nizam's disaffection;
he believed that if they were brought into the field
to take part in a battle against Tippu, they would
almost certainly march over at once to Tippu 's side.
THE JAMI 4 MASJID, OB GREAT MOSQUE, AT DELHI.
At Poona, the Maratha capital, the influence of Dau-
lat Rao Sindhia (Mahadaji's successor) was now com-
plete; he also held in sovereignty large tracts in Cen-
tral India; and had extended his territorial annexations
northwestward up to Delhi, outflanking Oudh and the
English possessions in Bengal. He was, in short, the
most considerable prince in Central and Northern India,
where he maintained an ambiguous attitude, overawing
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR WITH MYSORE 309
both the Peshwa 's government and the Nizam, and
denouncing the impolicy of Marathas assisting the Eng-
lish to destroy Mysore. About this time, moreover,
Lord Mornington received a letter from the Afghan
king, Zaman Shah, announcing his intention of invad-
ing Hindustan, and demanding aid for the purpose of
rescuing the Moghul emperor, Shah Alam, from the
hands of the Marathas.
In these circumstances the Governor-General deter-
mined to temporize with Mysore by confining his first
communication to a demand for satisfaction, while he
employed himself in strengthening the Triple Alliance
as he very diplomatically termed the precarious rela-
tions of the British with the courts of Haidarabad and
Poona in restoring his finances and reinforcing the
Madras army. His first step was to conclude a treaty
with the Nizam for the disbandment of the French bat-
talions at Haidarabad, which was then carried out with
great skill and resolution; the Nizam receiving instead
a force commanded by English officers, to be stationed
permanently in his country. At Poona, however, where
similar proposals were made, the Maratha government
was much more distrustful of the British ascendency
and much less in need of British assistance. The
Peshwa naturally found very little attraction in the
suggestion of an arrangement which, under the name
of a subsidiary alliance, manifestly placed the state
that furnished the money under military subordination
to the state that provided the men.
The Nizam and the Peshwa both consented, never-
310 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
theless, to join the league against Mysore; and the
Mysore Sultan was required, in reasonable terms, to
disarm and abandon his alliance with the French. As
he ignored or evaded these demands, a combined army
marched against him early in 1799. After some futile
attempts to keep the field against his enemy, Tippu
was driven into Seringapatam and besieged there until
the fortress was taken by assault in May; when the
Sultan's death (he was killed in a hand-to-hand medley
at one of the gates) brought the short Mohammedan
dynasty of Mysore to a violent end. Lord Mornington
broke up the kingdom by allotting certain shares of
territory to the English and their allies; reconstituting
the remainder into a state under the old Hindu reign-
ing family whom Hyder Ali had expelled, and by whom
Mysore, after a long interval of sequestration, is well
and quietly governed at the present day.
The success of these military and political exploits
was largely due to the presence in this campaign of
Colonel Arthur Wellesley, who now made his first ap-
pearance among scenes where he was destined to attain
a most brilliant reputation as a soldier and a statesman.
Although he held only subordinate military command,
his clear and commanding intellect, and his energy and
skill in action, were displayed in the advice which he
constantly gave to Lord Mornington, in his able reor-
ganization of all the army departments, and in the rap-
idly decisive operations with which he terminated the
war. The Governor-General was rewarded by the
thanks voted to him in the House of Commons in Oc-
/fid; 1'H
Parsi Feminine Types at Bombay
The Parsis, or Zoroasirians, ivcrc originally natives of Persia, as is
shown by their name; but they were driven front Iran by the Moham-
medan conquest and took refuge in India, particularly in the Bombay
Presidency, where they form a prosperous community of nearly a hundred
thousand souls. Their progressive spirit is shown by the educational
facilities and freedom enjoyed by the Parsi women. Some idea of the
Parsi feminine type in Bombay may be gathered from this picture of six
sisters.
THE FALL OF TIPPU OF MYSOEE 311
tober, 1799, " for counteracting with equal promptitude
and ability the dangerous intrigues and projects of the
French, particularly by destroying their power and
influence in the Deccan," whereby, said the resolution,
" he has established on a basis of permanent security
the tranquillity and prosperity of the British Empire
in India.' 7 The imperial note here sounded probably
for the first time in a public document contrasts re-
markably with the hesitating, almost apologetic tone
in which our position and the growth of our responsi-
bilities had been discussed in Parliament twenty years
earlier.
It may truly be said that the stars in their courses
fought against Tippu a fierce, fanatic, and ignorant
Mohammedan, who was, nevertheless, sufficiently en-
dowed with some of the sterner qualities required for
Asiatic rulership to have made himself a name among
the Indian princes of his time. But he had no political
ability of the higher sort; still less had he any touch
of that instinct which has occasionally warned the
ablest and strongest Asiatic chiefs to avoid collision
with Europeans. He was swept away by a flood that
was overwhelming far greater states than Mysore, that
had taken its rise in a distant part of the world, out of
events beyond his comprehension and totally beyond
his control, and that was now running full in the chan-
nel which carried the English, by a natural determina-
tion of converging consequences, to supreme ascendency
in India.
He had thrown in his lot with the French just at
312 GO VERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
the moment when they were at bitter, irreconcilable
enmity with the English, and were actually proclaiming
their intention of striking, if possible, at the British
possessions in the East. He received the plainest warn-
ing that the English would wrest the sword out of any
hand that showed the slightest intention of drawing it
against them in such a quarrel; and he might have
reflected that while his friends were far distant, the
English, backed by the native powers whom he had
alarmed, were close on his frontier. But he knew that
submission to the English demands meant subordina-
tion to their power, disarmament, the loss of his inde-
pendence, and reduction to the rank of a prince, whose
foreign relations and military establishments would be
regulated strictly by English policy; and his fierce in-
tractable temper drove him into a hopeless struggle.
The same situation has frequently recurred since,
though not with the same intensity; the same option
has been offered to other states and rulers. And the
present form and constitution of the British Empire in
India, with its vast provinces and numerous feuda-
tories, represents historically the gradual incorporation
under one dominion of states that have submitted and
states that have been forcibly subdued. As the old
Moghul Empire had been built up by a very similar
process of gradual conquest, so, when that great edifice
fell to pieces, it was certain that the fragments would
soon gravitate again toward the attraction of some cen-
tral rulership, whose protection would be sought by all
the weaker chiefships, and whose superiority the
ENGLAND'S EAPID PROGRESS IN INDIA 313
stronger rivals must inevitably be compelled, by fair
means or forcible, to acknowledge.
When the acquisition of Bengal had given the Eng-
lish power a focus and a firm centralization, this assim-
ilating process began steadily with a slow movement
against stiff obstacles, but by the end of the century
it had acquired great impetus and velocity. For the
English viceroys were now supported by the direct
strength and resolution of the nation in securing their
Indian possessions; and the temper of those stormy
times coloured all their proceedings. What in Hastings
would have been reckoned an act of rank iniquity was
in Lord Mornington (now Marquis Wellesley) no more
than an energetic measure of public necessity. The
views and policy of these two statesmen were essen-
tially identical; but Hastings was striving painfully,
with slender resources, on the defensive, while Welles-
ley, backed by a war ministry at home, boldly assumed
the offensive on a magnificent scale of operations.
The dissolution of Mysore set the British dominion
forward by two important steps. It finally removed
an inveterate enemy, whose position had endangered
the English possessions in South India for thirty years;
it also gave the British complete command over the
seacoast of the lower peninsula, and thus greatly dimin-
ished any risk of molestation by the French. It led,
moreover, directly to the virtual extinction of that
power for the control of which the English and French
had fought so sharply in the days of Dupleix and Olive,
the Nawabship of the Karnatic. From the time when
314 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
that contest had been decided in favour of the English,
the Nawab had gradually descended, through the stages
of a protected ally and a subordinate ruler, to the situ-
ation of a prince with nominal authority, and with a
revenue heavily mortgaged for the payment of the sub-
sidy that was the price of his protection by the Com-
pany. In this unhappy condition he naturally kept up
a secret correspondence with the Mysore Sultan, his
creditor's enemy, and when Mysore was taken, the
Nawab 's letters were discovered. Thereupon Lord
Wellesley found himself amply justified, upon the
double ground of political intrigue and internal mis-
government, in bringing the Karnatic wholly under
British administration. The system of divided author-
ity was, he observed, a serious calamity to the country,
and for the same incontestable reason he annexed Tan-
jore and Surat.
The declared object of the Governor-General was
now to establish the ascendency of the English power
over all other states in India by a system of subsidiary
treaties, so framed, as he himself stated in one of his
despatches, as " to deprive them of the means of pros-
ecuting any measure or of forming any confederacy
hazardous to the security of the British Empire, and
to enable us to preserve the tranquillity of India by
exercising a general control over the restless spirit of
ambition and violence which is characteristic of every
Asiatic government." This general control he desired
to impose " through the medium of alliances contracted
with those states on the basis of the security and pro-
THE AVOWED POLICY OF WELLESLEY 315
tection of their respective rights." In plain words,
Lord Wellesley, to whom restless ambition was a thing
THE ATAL TOWER AT AMRITSAR.
intolerable in Asiatics, had already resolved to extend
the British Protectorate over all the rulerships with
which the English government then had any connection,
by insisting that each ruler should reduce his army, and
316 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
should rely for external defence and internal security
mainly upon the paramount military strength of the
British sovereignty.
The system of subsidiary treaties is worth some
brief explanation, for it has played a very important
part in the expansion of British dominion. It has been
seen that English participation in Indian wars began
when we lent the aid of a military contingent to assist
some native potentate. The next stage came when we
took the field on our own account, usually assisted by
the levies of some prince who made common cause with
us, and whose soldiery were undisciplined, untrust-
worthy, and very clumsily handled. The English com-
mander often found it necessary to look behind as well
as before him on the field of battle; his allies showed
unseasonable impartiality by holding aloof at critical
moments and reappearing to plunder in both camps
indiscriminately, giving preference to the defeated side.
What was needed was a body of men that could be
relied upon for some kind of tactical precision and
steadiness under fire; but for this purpose it was of
little use even to place sepoys under European officers
unless they could be regularly paid and taught to obey
one master.
The system, therefore, soon reached the stage where
the native ally was required to supply not men but
money, and the English undertook to raise, train, and
pay a fixed number of troops on receiving a subsidy
equivalent to their cost. The subsidiary treaties made
in India differed, accordingly, from those made by Eng-
SUBSIDIARY TREATIES AKD THEIR RESULTS 317
land with European states in this respect, that whereas
Austria or Russia raised armies on funds provided by
England, Oudh or Haidarabad provided funds on which
the British government raised armies. Large sums had
hitherto been spent by the native princes in maintain-
ing ill-managed and insubordinate bodies of troops, and
in constant wars against each other; they might econ-
omize their revenues, be rid of a mutinous soldiery,
and sit much more quietly at home by entering into con-
tracts with a skilful and solvent administration that
would undertake all serious military business for a fixed
subsidy.
But as punctuality in money matters has never been
a princely quality, this subsidy was apt to be paid very
irregularly; so the next stage was to revive the long-
standing practice of Asiatic governments, the assign-
ment of lands for the payment of troops. There were
now in India (excluding the Pan jab, with which Eng-
land had had no dealings as yet) only three states
whose size or strength could give the English govern-
ment any concern. One of these, the Maratha federa-
tion, was still strong and solvent, but the two Moham-
medan states of Oudh and Haidarabad were in no con-
dition to resist the proposals of Lord Wellesley, nor is
it likely that either of them could have long maintained
itself without British protection. The Nizam of Hai-
darabad had been very liberally treated in the partition
of Mysore, and Tippu's destruction had relieved him
of an inveterate foe. In 1800 he transferred consider-
able districts in perpetuity to the British government,
318 GO VERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
" for the regular payment of the expenses of the aug-
mented subsidiary force. "
The position of the Vizir of Oudh was much more
important. We have seen that Clive and Hastings
maintained this prince for the safety of the northwest
frontier of the British, which was still covered by his
dominions. But the Afghan king, Zaman Shah, was now
making his last inroad into the Panjab, and the Ma-
ratha chief Sindhia was in possession of Delhi; while
the Oudh vizir was a weak ruler whose country was
in confusion, whose troops were mutinous, and whose
finances were disordered by the heavy strain of the
English subsidy. In these circumstances Lord Welles-
ley required the vizir to disband his disorderly forces,
in order that more British troops might be subsi-
dized for the effective defence of his dominions. The
vizir, under pressure of many perplexities, declared that
he would abdicate, but afterwards retracted, and the
Governor-General, who would willingly have had a
free hand in Oudh, received the retractation with " as-
tonishment, regret, and indignation."
It must be admitted that Lord Wellesley subordi-
nated the feelings and interests of his ally to paramount
considerations of British policy in a manner that
showed very little patience, forbearance, or generosity.
Nevertheless, it was really most necessary to set in
order the affairs of Oudh, and the result of Lord Welles-
ley's somewhat dictatorial negotiations was that the
vizir ceded all his frontier provinces, including Bohil-
khand, to the Company; the revenue of the territory
CESSION OF TERRITORY BY OUDH 319
thus transferred being taken as an equivalent to the
subsidy payable for troops. This arrangement finally
superseded the barrier policy of Hastings, which had
effectually served its purpose for thirty years. Instead
of placing Oudh in charge of the districts exposed to
attack from the Marathas and invaders from the north-
west, Lord Wellesley now obtained by cession the whole
belt of exterior territory; and Oudh was thenceforward
enveloped by the English dominion.
This most important augmentation of territory
transferred to the British government some of the rich-
est and most populous districts in the heart of India,
lying along the Ganges and its tributaries above Be-
nares up to the foot of the Himalayan range. It con-
solidated English power on a broader foundation,
brought us a very large increase of revenue, and con-
fronted us with the Maratha chief Sindhia along the
whole line of his possessions in upper India. These
very trenchant strokes of policy were severely criticized
by the Directors of the East India Company and cor-
dially approved by his Majesty's ministers.
The evacuation of Egypt by the French and the
Peace of Amiens necessarily dislocated the mainspring
of Lord Wellesley 's martial activity. Hitherto he had
been able to describe his policy as purely self-defensive
and pacific, to explain that he was compelled to extend
the dominion of England by the need of counteracting
the design of France, and to declare that he had insisted
on reducing the armies of the native princes in order to
preserve them against a nation who, as he wrote Tippu
320 GOVERN OB- GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
Sultan in 1799, ' ' considered all the thrones of the world
as the sport and prey of their boundless ambition and
insatiable rapine." But Mysore, Haidarabad, and Oudh
had now been placed beyond danger of the French con-
tagion; and Lord Wellesley was able to record that
" the only native powers of importance now remaining
in India independent of British protection are the con-
federate Maratha states."
It could only be through a perverse contrariety of
spirit that, notwithstanding his solemn warnings against
the machinations of France, the European power which
the Marathas persisted in regarding with uneasiness
was England. Their restless character, the advantages
presented by their local position to the future intrigues
of France, and the number of French officers in the
service of Sindhia, convinced the Governor-General that
it was a matter of indispensable precaution to acquire
an ascendency in the councils of the Maratha Empire,
and to frame a system of political connection that
should preserve a powerful barrier against them. This
barrier had now been erected by the subsidiary treaties
with the Mohammedan states; and as the three leading
Maratha chiefs Sindhia, Holkar, and the Raja of Nag-
purwere contending in arms among themselves for
supremacy, the time was opportune for interposing with
an offer of protection to the nominal chief of their con-
federacy at Poona, where the government was threat-
ened by three predatory armies, subsisting at large on
the country. If the chiefs of these armies combined to
upset the Peshwa, they might seize command of the
THE TREATY OF BASSEItf 321
whole Maratha Empire; and, what was still more im-
portant, their next step would probably be a combina-
tion against the English.
The Peshwa, Baji Rao, had hitherto evaded all over-
tures from the English for a subsidiary treaty; but
there was bitter feud between him and Holkar, whose
brother he had cruelly executed, and who was now
marching upon his capital. When Sindhia came to the
Peshwa 's assistance, there was a great battle, in which
Holkar was nearly defeated, until he charged the enemy
at the head of his cavalry with such desperate energy
that the allied army was driven off the field with the
loss of all their guns and baggage. The Peshwa fled
to a fortress, whence he despatched a messenger to
solicit help from the English; and soon afterward he
took refuge in Bassein, close to Bombay, where, in De-
cember, 1802, he signed a treaty of general defensive
alliance with the British government, under which he
ceded districts yielding a revenue equivalent to the
cost of a strong subsidiary force to be stationed per-
manently within his territory, while all his foreign rela-
tions were to be subordinated to the policy of England.
The treaty of Bassein also accomplished another
leading object of Lord Wellesley's policy, for by admit-
ting the British government to mediate in all the exor-
bitant claims that the Marathas were pressing against
the Nizam, it placed the Haidarabad state definitely
under the protection of the English, to whom all such
demands were to be referred in future. No time was
lost in acting upon this important engagement. The
322 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
Peshwa was escorted back to Poona by a British force
under General Arthur Wellesley; and it was signified
to the contending Maratha chiefs that their central
government had been taken under British protection.
This masterful proceeding alarmed even Lord Castle-
THE RESIDENCY AT LUCKNOW.
reagh, who wrote to the Governor-General some remon-
strances against a step which " tended to involve us
in the endless and complicated distractions of the tur-
bulent Maratha Empire." He replied that the influence
of the French in the Maratha camp was still to be
feared, an argument that easily prevailed over an Eng-
lish ministry who were just bracing up the national
strength, after a short breathing time, for a second and
still closer wrestle with Buonaparte.
OPPOSITION TO THE TREATY 323
Lord Wellesley's political system was now reaching
its climax. His subsidiary troops were encamped at
the capitals of the four great Indian powers which had
been his political rivals, at Mysore, Haidarabad, Luck-
now, and Poona; all disputes among these states were
to be submitted to his arbitration; and the interference
of all other European nations was to be rigidly ex-
cluded. Upon these pillars he was firmly building up
the inevitable preponderance of a steady, civilized,
orderly administration over the jarring, incoherent
rulerships by which it was surrounded. But it was
not to be expected that the Treaty of Bassein would
be otherwise than unpalatable to the Maratha chiefs,
who saw that a blow had been struck at the root of
their confederacy, and that the establishment of para-
mount British influence at Poona not only checkmated
their movement against the capital, but was a sure
step toward the subversion of their own independence.
The maintenance of the head of the Maratha Empire
in a condition of dependent relation to the British gov-
ernment would naturally, in the course of time, tend
to reduce the other Maratha powers into a similar con-
dition of subordination, which was precisely what they
feared and were determined to resist. They withheld
acknowledgment of the treaty, questioned the Peshwa's
right to conclude it without their consent, suspended
their internal feuds, and seemed inclined to combine
against the common danger.
The Maratha chief of Nagpur (commonly called the
Raja of Berar), who had great influence over all the
324 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
other leaders, succeeded in organizing a league against
the British; but Holkar, although he agreed to a truce
with Sindhia, refused to join, and the Gaikwar of Ba-
roda kept apart. Sindhia, however, effected his junction
with the Nagpur raja, whereupon both chiefs evaded
the demand of the British envoy for a direct explana-
tion of their intentions and marched up to the frontier
of Haidarabad. It was in the interest of the Marathas
to gain time, for they hoped that Holkar might be per-
suaded to enter the league; for the same reason it was
important to the British that the two chiefs should be
forced to decide speedily between peace or war. The
Governor-General was now in his element again, for
in Europe a renewal of the French war was evidently
at hand; the English ministers had warned him that
a French squadron was preparing at Brest for the East
Indies; they had authorized him to retain possession
of the French settlements that were to be restored
under the Amiens Treaty; and they had desired him
to keep his forces on a war-footing. At the same time,
some observations, which appeared to the Governor-
General particularly inopportune, were conveyed to him
upon the increase of his military expenditure and the
diversion of funds on which the Company relied for
their trade.
Lord Wellesley, who had offered to resign, requested
the ministers to " consider the alarm and anger of the
Court of Directors on this latter subject with the indul-
gence which true wisdom extends to the infirmities of
prejudice, ignorance, and passion "; while he prepared
RENEWED PREPARATIONS FOE WAR 325
with alacrity to attack the Maratha confederates simul-
taneously in various quarters, and to open the impend-
ing war on the largest possible scale. The rupture with
France intensified, as usual, his sense of the emergent
necessity of bringing all the military powers of India
under the supreme control of the British. For although
there was little real danger, as Arthur Wellesley
pointed out, of the French being able to join forces
with the Marathas since their troops, even if they
could land, would be destitute of equipments and would
be cut off from their base of supply yet undoubtedly
a great European war must always add risks to the
English position in India.
Lord Wellesley also saw clearly enough that the
security of the dominion that he was establishing on
land depended essentially upon the British maintaining
a commanding superiority at sea. He urged upon the
ministry at home that so long as the Cape of Good Hope
and Mauritius were in French hands (for the Dutch
were entirely under French influence), the coasts of
India could be molested, or the inland enemies of the
English might be encouraged by expectations of aid
from France. He spared, in short, no pains or prep-
arations that might enable him so to use this oppor-
tunity of renewed hostilities in Asia and Europe as
to accomplish " the complete consolidation of the Brit-
ish Empire in India and the future tranquillity of Hin-
dustan." Whatever may be thought of the methods
occasionally used by Lord Wellesley to compass these
ends, it is impossible to withhold our admiration from
326 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
so large a conception and from so clear and far-ranging
a survey of the political horizon.
With these views and intentions the Governor-Gen-
eral issued his orders to General Wellesley, who was
facing Sindhia in Western India, and to General Lake,
who was moving upon Sindhia 's possessions in the
northwest. The main objective was to be either the
entire reduction of Sindhia 's power, or a peace that
should transfer to the British government so much of
his territory as should be sufficient to isolate him in
Central India, to cut him off from the western seacoast,
to expel him from Delhi (where he was still Vicegerent
of the Empire), and to throw him back into Central
India by interposing a barrier between his provinces
in that region and in the north country. At Delhi
Monsieur Perron, one of Sindhia 's ablest French officers,
commanded a large body of regular troops, with which
he held the fortress, kept the Emperor Shah Alam in
custody, and exercised authority in his name. It was
one of Lord Wellesley 's principal objects to disband
this formidable standing army, which was well officered
by Frenchmen; and his anxiety to cross swords with
Sindhia was intensified by his knowledge of constant
intrigues and correspondence between the Marathas and
the. agents of France.
Under the leadership of the two very able generals
who led the English armies, and who were also invested
with full diplomatic authority, the war which now began
was brilliantly successful, and its objects were com-
pletely fulfilled. In July, 1803, General Wellesley sig-
CAMPAIGNS OF WELLESLEY AND LAKE 327
nified to Sindhia and the Nagpur raja that they must
withdraw their army from its station upon the Nizam's
frontier or abide his attack. They replied by desiring
him first to retire; but as this would have exposed the
territory which their movements were threatening, the
English army advanced, and war was formally declared.
The scene of the campaign that followed was in that
part of Central India where the northern frontiers of
the Haidarabad state adjoined the possessions of the
two Maratha chiefs. At Assaye, where the collision
took place in September, 1803, Sindhia 's troops fought
well and fiercely; the veteran battalions of De Boigne
made a resolute stand; the artillery inflicted heavy loss
on the English infantry, and died, stubbornly fighting,
at their guns; but Wellesley's victory was decisive.
Marching onward into Berar, he inflicted a severe defeat
upon the troops of the Nagpur raja at Argaum in No-
vember of the same year; he then took by storm the
hill fort of Gawilgarh; and before the year's end peace
had been concluded with both the Maratha belligerents
on terms dictated by the British commander.
General Lake's successes in the northwest were of
equal importance. He took Aligarh by assault, dis-
persed Sindhia 's force before Delhi, occupied the town,
and assumed charge of the emperor's person. Agra
was besieged and captured; and finally, in November,
1803, the British force met at Laswari seventeen bat-
talions of trained infantry with excellent artillery, the
last of Sindhia 's regular army. These troops behaved
so gallantly that the event (Lake wrote) would have
328 GO VEEN OR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
been extremely doubtful if they had still been com-
manded by their French officers; but Perron and the
Frenchmen had left the Maratha service. Nevertheless,
their vigorous resistance proved the high military spirit
which the soldier of Northern India has so often dis-
played; they held their ground until all their guns were
lost, and finally suffered a most honourable defeat.
A MOSQUE AT ALIGARH.
The result of these well-contested and hardly won
victories was to shatter the whole military organiza-
tion upon which Sindhia's predominance had been built
up, to break down his connection with the Moghul court
in the north, and to destroy his influence at Poona as
the most formidable member of the Maratha confed-
eracy. At the- beginning of the war Sindhia's regular
brigades had amounted to nearly forty thousand dis-
ciplined men, with a very large train of artillery, acting
entirely under the control of a French commander, and
supported by the revenues of the finest provinces in
SUBMISSION OF SINDHIA 329
India. This army had now ceased to exist; and both
Sindhia and the Nagpur raja, finding themselves in
imminent danger of losing all their possessions, acqui-
esced reluctantly in the terms that were dictated to
them after the destruction of their armies.
The Treaty of Bassein was formally recognized;
they entered into defensive treaties and made large
cessions of territory; Sindhia gave up to the British
all his northern districts lying along both sides of the
Jumna Eiver; he ceded his seaports and his conquests
on the west coast; he made over to them the city of
Delhi and the custody of the Moghul Emperor; he
dismissed all his French officers z and accepted the estab-
lishment, at his cost, of a large British force to be sta-
tioned near his frontier. The Raja of Nagpur restored
Berar to the Nizam, and surrendered to the British
government the province of Cuttack, on the Bay of
Bengal, which lay interposed between the upper
districts of Madras and the southwestern districts of
Bengal.
But Jaswant Rao Holkar, who had held aloof from
the war in the hope of profiting by the discomfiture of
Sindhia, his rival and enemy, had been living at free
quarters with a large Maratha horde in Rajputana and
had put to death the English officers in his service.
As he now showed some intention of taking advantage
of Sindhia 's defenceless condition, he was summoned by
Lord Lake to retire within his own country, and on his
refusal was attacked by the British troops. Holkar,
who had always adhered to the traditional Maratha
330 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
tactics of rapid cavalry movements, systematic pillag-
ing, and sudden harassing incursions, proved a very
active and troublesome enemy. Colonel Monson ad-
vanced against him into Central India, and Holkar drew
him onward by a simulated retreat, until Monson found
himself at a long distance from his base, with only
two days' supplies, and in front of an enemy numeric-
ally very superior. Then, when he attempted to retire,
Holkar turned on him suddenly and destroyed nearly
the whole of the British force as it struggled back
toward Agra through some difficult country, intersected
by rivers. A few months afterward, in November, 1804,
Holkar fought a severe action against the British troops
at Dig; and his ally, the Bhartpur raja, repulsed three
attempts to carry by assault the strong fortress of
Bhartpur, so that Lord Lake was obliged to retire with
considerable loss. But Lake's flying columns pursued
Holkar with indefatigable rapidity until his bands were
surprised and at last dispersed, when he himself took
refuge in the Panjab. He returned only to sign a treaty
on terms similar to those on which peace had been made
with the other belligerents.
The result of these operations was to establish be-
yond the possibility of future opposition the political
and military superiority of the English throughout
India. The campaigns of Wellesley and Lake dissolved
the last of the trained armies which had been set on
foot, in imitation of the European system, during the
past twenty years by the native princes of India; and
the weapon upon which the Marathas had been relying
ENGLISH SUPREMACY ESTABLISHED 331
for resistance in the field was thus broken in their
hands. In the place of the numerous battalions, many
thousands strong, that had been maintained under for-
eign officers by the foremost Mohammedan and Maratha
states, Lord Wellesley's subsidiary treaties now sub-
stituted several divisions of Anglo-Indian troops,
amounting in all to twenty-two thousand men, cantoned
within the jurisdictions or on the borders of these very
native states, and paid from their revenues. The em-
ployment of foreign officers, unless by permission, was
thenceforward prohibited; while the effect of the trea-
ties was to interdict any hostilities between state and
state since all disputes must be referred to British
arbitration to confine their rulers within the terri-
torial limits authorized by the supreme government, to
prevent their future combination for any purpose inju-
rious to British interests, and finally to block up all
avenues of communication between these states and
any foreign power.
Up to this time the acquisitions of the Maratha
chiefs in Central India, which had been wrested bit by
bit from different owners at various times, had been
so intermixed with the lands of the Nizam, of the
Peshwa, and of the Rajput princes as to produce an
entanglement of territorial and revenue rights that fur-
nished, as it was intended to furnish, ample pretexts
for further quarrel and encroachment. Lord Welles-
ley's policy was, in the first place, to rearrange the
political map in this part of India so as to circumscribe
each Maratha chiefship within distinct boundaries. His
332 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
secondary objects were to interrupt the chain of their
confederate possessions by interposing the lands of
some non-Maratha state, and to raise a barrier between
Maratha and British territory in Northern India by
maintaining under British guarantee the independence
of the petty states along their frontier. Lastly, he de-
sired so to rearrange the map of Southern India as to
link the important British possessions in Madras with
the central dominion in Bengal.
This work of consolidation and connection was
pushed still further by Lord Hastings twelve years
later, and was finally consummated by Lord Dalhousie;
but Lord Wellesley's settlement laid out the territorial
distribution of all India (excepting the Pan jab and
Sind) on the general plan which was followed for the
next forty years, and which survives in its main out-
lines to this day. By occupying the imperial cities of
Agra and Delhi, with the contiguous tracts on both
sides of the Jumna, and by annexing the whole country
between the Ganges and the Jumna Rivers, he advanced
British territory from Bengal northwestward to the
mountains, with a frontier resting on the upper course
of the Jumna. By his acquisition of the Cuttack prov-
ince he secured the continuity of British territory south-
eastward along the seacoast, joined the two Presiden-
cies of Bengal and Madras, and established sure com-
munication between them. The English dominions were
thus prolonged in a broad unbroken belt from the Him-
alayas downward to the Bay of Bengal and the south-
ernmost district of Madras; while the cessions obtained
PROTECTION OF THE MOGHUL EMPEROR 333
on the west coast went far toward completing British
command of the whole Indian littoral.
Above all, when Lord Wellesley expelled the Ma-
rathas from Delhi and assumed charge of the person
and family of the Moghul Emperor, he inaugurated a
significant change of policy. For at least forty years
the imperial sign manual had been at the disposal of
any adventurer or usurper who could occupy the cap-
ital, overawe the powerless court, and dictate his own
investiture with some lofty office or with a grant of
the provinces that he had appropriated. At an earlier
period the European trading companies, English and
French, had been careful to obtain title-deeds from the
Great Moghul. It was known that when Pondicherri
was restored to the French at the Peace of Amiens,
Buonaparte used the opportunity to send out to the
French settlements in India a considerable military
staff, whose mission was to communicate with the Em-
peror of Delhi through the French officers in Sindhia's
service. And it was part of a wild project submitted
to Buonaparte in 1803 that an expedition should be
sent overland to India with the ostensible mission of
rescuing the imperial house from its enemies and op-
pressors.
Lord Wellesley was at any rate quite satisfied that
he was threatened by " the aggrandizement of the
French power in India to a degree that compelled him
to lose no time in placing the person, family, and nom-
inal authority of his Majesty Shah Alam under the
protection of the British Government. " He formally
334 GOVEKNOK-GENEKALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
renounced any intention of using the royal prerogative
as a pretext for asserting English claims to ascendency
over feudatories or to the exercise of rulership. With
the avowed object of abolishing a titular sovereignty
that hardly retained the shadow of its former substance,
GEN. HAVELOCK'S ATTACK ON NANA SAHIB AT FATHPUR.
and whose representative had been rescued by British
arms from a state of extreme degradation and distress,
he relegated Shah Alam to the position of a state pen-
sioner, with royal rank and an ample income assured
him. The arrangement lasted fifty years until it was
suddenly extinguished in 1857, when the storm raised
by the Sepoy Mutiny swept away the last relics of the
Moghul throne and dynasty.
The political outcome of Lord Wellesley's Gov-
POLITICAL KESULTS OF WELLESLEY'S RULE 335
ernor-Generalship is well summarized in the final para-
graph of the long despatch of July, 1804, in which he
reported to the Court of Directors, in the lofty language
of a triumphant proconsul, the general result of the
wars and treaties that he had made for the consolida-
tion of our Eastern empire and the pacification of all
India " A general bond of connection is now estab-
lished between the British government and the prin-
cipal states of India, on principles which render it the
interest of every state to maintain its alliance with the
British Government, which preclude the inordinate ag-
grandizement of any one of those states by usurpa-
tion of the rights and possessions of others, and which
secure to every state the unmolested exercise of its
separate authority within the limits of its established
dominion, under the general protection of the British
power. "
It is indeed from this period, and from the great
augmentations of territory obtained by Lord Welles-
ley's high-handed and clear-headed policy, that we may
date the substantial formation of the three Indian Pres-
idencies. Up to 1792 the Madras Presidency adminis-
tered in full jurisdiction no more than a few districts
on the coast. But between 1799 and 1804 the partition
of Mysore, the lapse of Tan j ore, the cessions from Hai-
darabad, and the transfer of the whole Karnatic to the
Company, brought large and fertile tracts within the
administrative circle of Madras and constituted it the
headquarters of a large government in South India,
which has received no very important subsequent accre-
336 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
tions. In Western India the Bombay Presidency, which
had hitherto been almost entirely confined to the sea-
board, and whose principal importance had been derived
from its harbour and trading-mart, now acquired val-
uable districts in Gujarat; and the influence of its
government rose to undisputed predominance through-
out the adjoining native states, especially at the
Maratha capitals of Poona and Baroda.
In North India the Marathas had lost all power; the
important province of Bundelkhand, containing a num-
ber of minor chiefships, had been brought entirely
under British influence and partly under British rule;
the ceded and conquered districts obtained from Oudh
and from Sindhia were settling down under regular
English administration. The Presidency at Calcutta,
which now extended, as has been said, from the Bay
of Bengal northwestward to the Himalayas and the
Panjab frontier, became henceforward the centre and
the chief controlling power of a vast dominion, ruling
directly over the richest and most populous region of
India, indirectly imposing its presence over every other
state or group of chiefships south of the Sutlaj River,
drawing them all within its orbit, and enveloping them
all within the external bounds of its sovereignty. The
only Indian rulerships completely outside the sphere
of this paramount influence were those which occupied
the Panjab (where the Sikh power was now drawing to
a head), the country along the Indus River, and the
mountains of Nepal.
The seven years of Lord Wellesley's Governor-
WELLESLEY'S MILITANT POLICY 339
Generalship, from May, 1798, to July, 1805, constitute
the most important and critical stage in the building
up of our Indian dominion on the foundations that had
been laid by Clive and Hastings. He had reached India
at a moment when the British government was halting
dubiously between two political ways, before a horizon
that was cloudy and unsettled. On the one hand lay
the course that had been prescribed by Parliament, of
holding aloof from the quarrels of the native powers
and of maintaining an attitude of defensive isolation
within our own borders. On the other was the course
of going forward to meet dangers and disarm rivals,
of striking boldly into the medley before disorder or
disaffection could gather strength, and of securing the
tranquillity of the British possessions by enforcing
peace and submission among our neighbours.
Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Shore, his predeces-
sors, had followed, so far as was possible, the former
course. But even before arriving in India, Lord Welles-
ley had discovered (as he wrote long afterward to Lord
Ellenborough) " how vain and idle was poor old Corn-
wallis 's reliance on the good faith of Tippu, and on the
strength to be derived from treaties with the Marathas
or the Nizam.'' With such preconceived notions he
immediately adopted, without hesitation, the latter
course, and it must be admitted that his choice was
rewarded by triumphant success. He crushed the Sul-
tan of Mysore in a single brief campaign; he disarmed
and disbanded the formidable corps d'armee of four-
teen thousand sepoys under French officers that was
340 GOVERN OR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
maintained by the Nizam; he took possession of the
Karnatic, annexed half the dominions of the Oudh
Vizir, forced all the great military states into subjec-
tion or subsidiary alliance, and by completely breaking
down the power of the Maratha confederacy he removed
the last important obstacle to the accomplishment of
England's undisputed supremacy.
We may regard with just admiration the high quali-
ties shown by the Governor-General in the prosecution
of this magnificent career, his rapid apprehension of
a complicated political situation, and the vigour and
address with which he carried out not only military
operations and diplomatic strokes, but also the reforms
of internal administration and the organization of gov-
ernment in the ceded or conquered provinces. No man
was ever a better subject for panegyric; nor is it worth
while to scan too closely, at this distance of time, the
defects of a great public servant by whose strenuous
qualities the nation has profited very largely.
It is essential, however, to lay stress, for historical
purposes, on the peculiar combination of circumstances
which gave scope and encouragement to Lord Welles-
ley's ardent and masterful statesmanship, and which
enabled him to treat those who opposed him or criti-
cized him with the supreme contempt that his home cor-
respondence invariably discloses. He had left England
and reached India in the darkest hour of the fierce
struggle between the French and English nations, when
Buonaparte's star was in the ascendent over Europe,
when he was invading Egypt and meditating Asiatic
ESTIMATE OF WELLESLEY'S ADMINISTBATION 341
conquests, and when a powerful Tory Ministry was
governing at home by measures that in these days
would be denounced as the most arbitrary coercion.
At such a conjunction there was little time or in-
clination to look narrowly into Wellesley 's declarations
that the intrigues of the French in India and the in-
capacity or disaffection of the native rulers reduced him
to the necessity of dethroning or disarming them, and
that for British rule to be secure it must be paramount.
As a matter of fact, he was applauded and supported
in measures ten times more high-handed and dictatorial
than those for which Hastings had been impeached a
dozen years earlier. During that interval the temper
of the English Parliament had so completely changed
that he could afford to ride roughshod over all opposi-
tion in India, and to regard the pacific directors of the
East India Company as a pack of narrow-minded old
women.
The avowed object of Lord Wellesley had been to
enforce peace throughout India, and to provide for the
permanent security of the British possessions by impos-
ing upon every native state the authoritative superior-
ity of the British government, binding them forcibly
or through friendly engagements to subordinate rela-
tions with a paramount power, and effectively forestall-
ing any future attempts to challenge England's exercise
of arbitration or control. In short, whereas up to his
time the British government had usually dealt with
all states in India upon a footing of at least nominal
political equality, Lord Wellesley revived and pro-
342 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD WELLESLEY
claimed the imperial principle of political supremacy.
All his views and measures pointed toward the recon-
struction of another empire in India, which he rightly
believed to be the natural outcome of the British posi-
tion in the country and the only guarantee of its lasting
consolidation. It must be acknowledged that Welles-
ley's trenchant operations only accelerated the sure and
irresistible consequences of establishing a strong civ-
ilized government among the native states that had
risen upon the ruins of the Moghul Empire; for by
swift means or slow, by fair means or forcible, the
British dominion was certain to expand, and the armed
opposition of its rivals could not fail to be beaten down
at each successive collision with a growing European
power.
CHAPTER XV
THE STATIONAEY PEEIOD
1806-1814
BUT Lord Wellesley's career of military triumphs
and magnificent annexations had alarmed the
Court of Directors, who protested against the increase
of debt and demurred to the increase of dominion. The
Governor-General professed utter contempt for their
opinion, and wrote to Lord Castlereagh that no addi-
tional outrage or insult " from the most loathsome den
of the India House " should accelerate his departure
so long as the public safety required his aid. Never-
theless, he discovered, after Monson's disaster, that
even the Ministers found reason to apprehend that he
was going too fast and too far, that Lord Castlereagh
was remonstrating, and that the nation at large was
startled by his grandiose reports of Indian wars, con-
quests, and prodigious accessions of territory. Toward
the close of his term of office his measures became much
more moderate. In 1805 the return of Lord Cornwallis
843
344
THE STATIONARY PERIOD
to India brought about a change of policy which
checked and altered the whole movement; for although
his second Governor-Generalship was very short, he
had time to lay down the pacific principles that were
acted upon by his successors.
When Lord Cornwallis reached Calcutta, he found
THE KALI GHAT, CALCUTTA.
an empty treasury, an increasing debt, the export trade
of the Company arrested by the demand of specie for
the military chest, and the British ascendency openly
proclaimed and in process of enforcement by ways and
means that evidently involved us in a rapidly expand-
ing circle of fresh political liabilities. His own ideas,
and the instructions that he had brought out, pointed in
a contrary direction. He thought that the subsidiary
treaties only entangled us in responsibility for defend-
ing and laboriously propping up impotent or unruly
CORNWALLIS AGAIN GOVERNOR -GENERAL 345
princes, impairing their independence and retarding the
natural development of stronger organizations. Nor did
our interests seem to him to require that we should
undertake the preservation of the smaller chiefships
adjacent to our frontiers from absorption by the larger
predatory states. It seems, on the contrary, to have
been his view that the English protectorate should not
extend beyond the actual limits of British possessions
a rule of political fortification that has never been
practised in India; for England has always found it
necessary to throw forward a kind of glacis in advance
of her administrative border-line, so as to interpose a
belt of protected states or tribes between British terri-
tory proper and the country of some turbulent or
formidable neighbour.
Lord Cornwallis lost no time in declaring his inten-
tion of removing the " unfavourable and dangerous im-
pression r> that the British government contemplated
establishing its control and authority over every state
in India. He died, however, on October 5, 1805, within
three months after his arrival, before he could do more
than indicate this change of policy. But his views
which represented the reaction in England against Lord
Wellesley's costly and masterful operations so far pre-
vailed that for the next ten years following his decease
the experiment of isolation was fairly tried by the
British government in India. Sir (George Barlow,
whom the death of Cornwallis made Governor-General
for a time, laid down the principle that a certain extent
of dominion, local power, and revenue would be cheaply
346 THE STATIONARY PERIOD
sacrificed for tranquillity and security within a con-
tracted circle; and lie withdrew from every kind of
relation with the native states to which the English
were not specifically pledged by treaty. It will be
found that whenever the Governor-Generalship has
been held by an Anglo-Indian official, annexations have
been exceedingly rare and the expanding movement has
slackened; but Sir George Barlow even took a step
backward. The subsidiary alliance with Sindhia, pro-
jected by Lord Wellesley, was abandoned; the minor
principalities adjacent to or intermixed with the
Maratha possessions were left to their fate ; the English
proclaimed an intention of living apart from broils, of
dissociating themselves from the general concerns of
India at large, and of improving their own property
without taking part in the quarrels or grievances of
their neighbours.
If, indeed, Sir George Barlow had adopted to their
full extent the views that were pressed upon him by the
authorities in England at this period, he would have
disconnected the British government from the sub-
sidiary treaties which invested it with paramount in-
fluence in the affairs of the two great Maratha and
Mohammedan states, ruled by the Peshwa at Poona
and by the Nizam at Haidarabad. But the result would
have been to undo the work of Lord Wellesley, to ab-
dicate the ascendency that the British had attained,
and to throw open again the field of Central India to
the Marathas, who would at once have reoccupied all
the ground that the English should have abandoned.
SIR GEORGE BARLOW AND LORD MINTO 349
It was, indeed, so manifest to those actually watching
the situation in India that the consequence would be
a reversion to political confusion and would discredit
England's public faith and encourage her enemies, that
the Governor-General insisted on maintaining the
treaties, and even found himself obliged, against the
logical tenor of his principles, to interpose vigorously
in support of British diplomatic authority at Haidar-
abad. In 1807 Sir George Barlow was succeeded in the
Governor-Generalship by Lord Minto.
In the meanwhile, although the French had at last
been effectively barred out from approaching India by
sea, and although every native state accessible to hostile
intrigues by the seacoast had been bound over under
heavy recognizances to the English alliance, yet signs
and warnings of danger now began to reappear in a
different quarter of the stormy political horizon.
The Persian king, who had suffered heavily from a
war with Russia in 1804 - 1805, appealed for succour
to Napoleon in Europe and also sent a similar applica-
tion to Calcutta. From India, where the policy of re-
trenchment and retractation prevailed at that moment,
no encouragement was forthcoming. The French, how-
ever, who were just then in the midst of a desperate
war with Russia, readily responded to the advances of
Persia by sending an embassy for the conclusion of an
offensive alliance against the common foe. Napoleon,
who had just fought with heavy loss the drawn battle
of Eylau, eagerly welcomed an opportunity of harassing
the Russians in Asia and also of resuscitating his
350 THE STATIONARY PERIOD
favourite schemes of Asiatic conquest. His envoy to
Teheran was instructed that his chief aim should be
to form a triple alliance between France, Turkey, and
Persia for the purpose of opening out a road to India.
He was also directed to ascertain what co-operation
might be expected within the country, particularly
from the Marathas, if India could be reached by a
French army.
Then came, in 1807, the battle of Friedland, when
Napoleon used his victory to convert the Russian
Emperor from an enemy into an ally of France. The
offensive league with Persia was quietly transformed
into an offer of mediation between that kingdom and
Russia; and Napoleon set about organizing with Alex-
ander I a fresh and much more formidable confedera-
tion against the English in India. Russia was already
an Asiatic power, with a distinct inclination and mo-
mentum eastward. It is, therefore, no wonder that this
ominous conjunction of France, at that moment
supreme in Western Europe, with the only European
state that could further her designs upon India should
have aroused and substantiated the alarms of an in-
vasion by land; alarms that have never since ceased
to recur periodically, gaining strength in proportion
as their fulfilment has become by degrees less mani-
festly impracticable.
The inevitable effect of this chronic disquietude has
been, from the beginning, to fix the attention of the
Anglo-Indian governments more and more, in the course
of the present century, upon the northwest angle of
FRANCO -RUSSIAN INTRIGUES IN THE ORIENT 351
India. And the concentration of England's whole
foreign policy upon that point undoubtedly accelerated
the expansion of her dominion in that direction, be-
cause in her anxiety about the only vulnerable side
of her land frontier, she naturally pushed forward
to secure it. No sooner, in fact, had the spectre of
French troop-ships hovering about her seacoast been
finally laid under the waters of Trafalgar, than the
apparition of European armies marching from the Cas-
pian to the Oxus began to trouble the prophetic imag-
ination of English statesmen.
From the day when the Emperors of France and
Russia exchanged pledges of immutable personal
friendship at Tilsit, Napoleon incessantly pressed upon
Alexander his grand scheme of a joint expedition
through Turkey and Persia against the English in
India, with the object of subverting their dominion and
destroying the sources of their commercial prosperity.
In 1807 the pre-eminence of France on the European
Continent had reached its climax. Napoleon had de-
feated every army that had successively met him in the
field; he had dissolved every league that had been
made against him; and he had forced every leading
state to join in a coalition for the rigid exclusion of
English commerce from all their seaports. When, how-
ever, it became clear that these roundabout methods of
attacking England were futile, and that nothing short
of a direct home-thrust would disable his indefatigable
enemy, the French emperor naturally turned his eyes
toward the only important English possession whose
352 THE STATIONARY PEEIOD
frontier was not absolutely inaccessible to invasion from
Europe by land. His imagination was fired by the
recollection that Asia had more than once been trav-
ersed by conquering armies.
That Napoleon should seriously have contemplated
marching across Europe and half Asia to invade the
territory of an island within twenty miles of the French
coast, that he should have thought it on the whole less
impracticable to send a force from the Danube or Con-
stantinople to Delhi than to transport his troops from
Calais to Dover, is certainly a remarkable illustration
of the impregnability of effective naval defence. But
his proposals obtained very half-hearted encourage-
ment from the Russians, who had some useful acquaint-
ance with the difficulties of Asiatic campaigning, and a
wholesome distrust of the associate in whose company
they were invited to set out. They were by no means
eager to embark on distant Eastern adventures, or to
lock up their troops in the heart of Asia, upon the ad-
vice and for the advantage of the restless and powerful
autocrat whose armies still hovered about their western
frontier. They stipulated for a partition of the Turkish
Empire as a preliminary dividend upon the joint-stock
enterprise and as a strategic base for any further ad-
vance eastward. To this condition, however, Napoleon
refused his assent, alleging, reasonably enough, that it
would be playing into the hands of England, since if
the Russians were to take Constantinople, the English
would at once retaliate by seizing Egypt. An imposing
French mission was, nevertheless, sent to Persia, and
NEW ANGLO-INDIAN DIPLOMACY
353
the Anglo-Indian governments were much startled by
the activity of the French agents at Teheran and other
Asiatic courts.
It is from this period that we must date the embar-
cation of Anglo-Indian diplomacy upon a much wider
sphere of action than heretofore. The English min-
RANJIT SINGH'S SAMADH AT LAHORE.
isters soon discovered Napoleon's plan of an Asiatic
campaign, and all his secret negotiations were thor-
oughly known to them. For the purpose of counter-
acting the French demonstrations and of throwing up
barrier after barrier against the threatened expedition
from the Black Sea and the Caspian, the Indian Gov-
ernor-General, Lord Minto, sent missions to all the
rulers of states on and beyond his northwestern border
to Ranjit Singh at Lahore, to the Afghan Amir, to
354 THE STATIONARY PERIOD
Sind, and to the Shah of Persia, who was just then over-
awed by the combined preponderance of France and
Russia.
Now that Napoleon had become Alexander's inti-
mate friend and ally, the Persian king knew what to
expect from French mediation, so he turned for pro-
tection to the English. At Teheran a treaty was set-
tled, after much dispute and various misunderstand-
ings (for the English envoy from Calcutta was super-
seded by another envoy from London), engaging Eng-
land to subsidize Persia in the event of unprovoked
aggression upon her. From Lahore the mission with-
drew when, after some negotiations, it was discovered
that Ranjit Singh claimed recognition of his sovereignty
over territory south of the Sutlaj River. At Peshawar
Mountstuart Elphinstone, the envoy to Afghanistan,
found the whole country distracted by civil war. The
Afghan king, Shah Shuja', was barely holding on to the
skirts of his kingdom; the Durrani monarchy, attacked
on the west by Persia and hard pushed on the east by
the Sikhs, was already breaking up again into separate
chief ships. Elphinstone ? s negotiations were cut short
by the defeat of Shah Shuja', who fled into exile, to be
restored thirty years later by an ill-fated expedition
that eventually cost the English an army and the king
his life.
But all these schemes for establishing close alliances
and barrier treaties with Afghanistan, the Pan jab, and
Sind were dropped or postponed as the tide of events
again began to turn westward. The Spanish insurrec-
1
<a
E
X
A SETTLEMENT WITH RANJIT SINGH 355
tion and the preparations for invading Russia soon pro-
vided Napoleon with such ample occupation in Europe
that he abandoned his schemes of Asiatic adventure.
Russia was now England's ally in a grand coalition
against France; she made peace with Persia, and our
apprehensions of danger from that quarter subsided
when the long war which ended with Napoleon's over-
throw left us in undisturbed possession of India. The
sea-roads were guarded by an irresistible navy; the
total collapse of the French Empire, the exhaustion of
all the great European states, the manifest decay and
immobility that were spreading through Central Asia
all these circumstances united to secure us fourteen
years of comparative freedom from movements or dem-
onstrations affecting our immunity from molestation
by land, and ending only in 1826, when Russia attacked
Persia, thus inaugurating a long stride eastward in
1828, which revived British anxieties.
The sole result of all the missions sent from India
was, indirectly, the ratification of a substantial frontier
settlement, in 1809, with Ran jit Singh, who, under pres-
sure, renounced his pretensions to sovereignty over
certain Sikh chief ships south of the Sutlaj. From that
time forward his friendly relations with the English on
his southeastern frontier, combined with the civil strife
within Afghanistan on the northwest, afforded him the
means and opportunity of extending his territory across
the Indus, of annexing Kashmir, and of building up
the Sikh power with a solidity that kept it standing
in alliance with the English for nearly forty years.
356 THE STATIONARY PERIOD
On the other hand, the eventual consequences of all
this premature diplomatic agitation were by no means
unimportant or transitory. We have seen how French
rivalry accelerated the earlier British conquests; and
how at a later time the correspondence of native princes
with France and the presence of French officers in the
Indian armies aroused English susceptibility. It has
SITE OF RANJIT SINGH'S ENCAMPMENT NEAR RUPUR, ON THE SUTLAJ.
been shown how this furnished Lord Wellesley with the
necessary leverage for advancing his policy of bringing
into subjection or subordinate alliance every Moham-
medan or Maratha state that might cross England's
path toward undisputed predominance in the interior
of India. In the same manner the intelligence of Napo-
leon's projects first diverted Great Britain's attention
from the seaboard to her land frontiers, and first
launched the British government upon that much
larger expanse of Asiatic war and diplomacy in which
LAKGEE, ENGLISH DIPLOMATIC POLICY 357
it has continued to be almost unremittingly engaged
ever since.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century the field of
Anglo-Indian politics had been circumscribed within the
limits of India, being confined to relations with the
Indian states over which England was asserting an easy
mastery by the natural and necessary growth of her
ascendency. Now she entered for the first time upon
that range of diplomatic observation in which all the
countries of Western Asia, from Kabul to Constanti-
nople, are surveyed as interposing barriers between Eu-
rope and the Anglo-Indian possessions. The independ-
ence and integrity of these foreign and comparatively
distant states are henceforward essential for the balance
of Asiatic power and for the security of the frontiers
of British India. Before this epoch the jar and collision
of European contests had been felt only in England's
dealings with the inland powers of India; she struck
down or disarmed every native ruler who attempted to
communicate with her European enemies.
But from the beginning of the nineteenth century
we have had little or nothing to fear from Indian rivals,
and we have gradually taken rank as a first-class Asi-
atic sovereignty. The vast weight of our Indian inter-
ests has ever since weighed decisively in the balance of
our relations, not only with all Asia, but with any Eu-
ropean state whose views or dispositions might in any
degree affect our position in the East. We have thus
become intimately concerned in the political vicissitudes
of every important state on the Asiatic continent. The
358 THE STATIONARY PERIOD
chronic disquietude which began at this period has been
the source of some hazardous military projects and pre-
mature diplomatic schemes, of two expeditions into
Afghanistan, of a war with Persia, and of a policy that
is constantly extending the British protectorate far
beyond the natural limits of India.
From the opening of the nineteenth century, then,
may be dated the establishment of England's undis-
puted ascendency within India. From the same period
also may be reckoned the appearance of that suscepti-
bility regarding the possible approach of European
rivals by land, which led first to negotiations and
treaties, and eventually to wars, between England and
the foreign states adjoining or approaching her Indian
dominion.
So long as the European conflict lasted, the Anglo-
Indian government had continued to survey all Western
Asia watchfully, and to stand on its guard against any
movement by land that might seem to affect or endan-
ger its position. In the meantime, England's naval
superiority enabled her to sweep all enemies out of the
Eastern waters and to occupy any point from which
the coasts or commerce of India might be exposed to
molestation. The Cape of Good Hope, that important
naval station half-way to India, had been finally occu-
pied in 1806; and in 1810 Lord Minto's expedition
ejected the French from Java and Abercrombie cap-
tured Mauritius; so that the sea-routes, the ports of
shelter and supply, and the harbours were all in British
hands.
ENGLAND'S UNDISPUTED SWAY 359
At the beginning of the long peace which followed
the termination of the great war in 1815 England had
secured undisturbed possession of her enormously val-
uable conquests in the southern seas of the Cape, of
Ceylon, and of Mauritius. All the foreign settlements
on the Indian seaboard were disarmed, and not one of
the states within India could now measure its strength
against her power and resources. Six of the chief prin-
cipalities were now bound to the English system by
subsidiary treaties. In Western and Central India, Ba-
roda, Poona, and Haidarabad, in South India, Mysore
and Travancore, and, toward the northwest, Oudh with
a large number of minor chieftainships were all under
British suzerainty and protection. Beyond the English
frontiers were the growing kingdom of Ranjit Singh
in the Pan jab, and the Gurkha state of Nepal along
the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Only in Central
India there remained three principalities, surrounded
by British territory, that had not yet come formally
within the circle of English dominion. They belonged
to the three families who still represented the fighting
and predatory traditions of the Maratha confederacy,
Sindhia at Gwalior, Holkar at Indore, and the Bhonsla
at Nagpur. To these may be added, though the status
was different, the ruling house of the Gaikwar at
Baroda.
From the cessation of the great war that determined
in England's favour the contest with the native states
for ascendency in India we may also reckon the intro-
duction of orderly administration within her territories,
360
THE STATIONARY PERIOD
and of a systematic policy in regard to her neighbours,
the recognition, in fact, of her imperial duties and obli-
gations. The Mohammedan states of Haidarabad and
A TEMPLE AT GWAtlOR.
Oudh were indebted for their survival to British pro-
tection; they would have been destroyed, but for Eng-
land's intervention, by fiercer and more vigorous rivals
in the general scramble for dominion. Nevertheless, it
ORGANIZATION OF CIVIL ADMINISTRATION 361
must be admitted that at times they had paid heavy
salvage to the British for their rescue. In some of Eng-
land's earlier transactions with them she had used the
rough thoroughgoing methods of a stormy and dissolute
period; and on emergencies their lands and revenues
had been laid under severe contributions to her military
expenditure. The time had now come when the British
government, no longer driven to these summary expedi-
ents by the struggle for existence, but drawing from
an ample and secure revenue, its own possessions, could
regulate its dealings in civilized fashion by settled
treaties, and could begin to adjust all its dealings with
native states on the fair and equitable basis of their
subordinate relationship.
So also England now had some leisure for looking
into the condition of her domestic administration and
bringing the great provinces which had been recently
acquired into some kind of order. The investigation of
land-tenures, the institution of an elementary police, the
first serious attempts to check the brigandage prevail-
ing in English districts, and the arrangement and super-
vision of the local courts of justice took substantial
form at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the
roots of that immense system of organized government
which has since spread over all India were planted at
this season of comparative tranquillity. The first five
years of the nineteenth century were occupied with con-
tinuous wars, with great territorial changes, with the
removal of landmarks, and with the rearrangement of
rulerships. But from that time forward the country
362 THE STATIONARY PEEIOD
has experienced immunity under British jurisdiction
from foreign invasion or serious violation of its frontier,
and even (except in 1857) from internal commotions.
It may be questioned whether any state in Asia, or even
in Europe, has enjoyed such complete political tran-
quillity during the same period.
CHAPTER XVI
THE GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
1813 - 1823
SOME attempt has already been made to explain the
views and circumstances under which, after Lord
Wellesley's departure, the British government deter-
mined to retire within its own administrative borders,
to transact its political affairs in future upon the prin-
ciple of limited liability, and to maintain, outside its
actual obligations, the attitude of a placid spectator,
unconcerned with the quarrels or misfortunes of his
neighbours. It is a policy which a strong European
state, placed in the midst of uncivilized rulers or races,
has vainly endeavoured to uphold from time imme-
morial. It appears at first to be simple and prudent,
and to be dictated by enlightened self-interest and by
public morality. Unfortunately, it has hitherto invari-
ably failed to do more than check or postpone for an
interval the really inevitable tendency of an organized
power to override, if not to absorb, loose tribal ruler-
ships and ephemeral despotisms, which spring up and
survive merely because more durable institutions are
wanting and until they are supplied. Not only, indeed,
363
364 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
is the check temporary, the reaction is apt to produce a
rebound; a halt is followed by a great stride forward,
a few steps taken backward look like preparation for
a longer leap; so that masterly inactivity is attributed
to astute calculation, and we are often unjustly accused
in India of allowing the pear to rot that it may drop
the easier into our hands.
It is usual to lay the blame of this invariable expan-
sion upon those who direct imperial affairs on the
frontier or in the outlying provinces, but the true im-
pulse comes quite as often from the metropolis, where
the accumulation of capital, or the pressure of national
interests, drives war and enterprise forward along the
line of least resistance. This onward movement may be
temporarily arrested by such physical obstacles as moun-
tains or deserts, but it comes to a standstill only when
the way is at last blocked by a rival power of equal
calibre, or when the central forces begin to decline. The
truth is that in the art of political engineering solid
construction depends on the material available and on
the proper adaptation of resistance to natural pressure.
It is as impossible to lay down a frontier on an unten-
able line as to throw a dam across a river on bad foun-
dations. The dam is carried away at the next flood;
nor will the strictest prudence long maintain a frontier
or a system that does not run upon the natural lines of
political or territorial permanency.
When, therefore, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century we drew back from what seemed to Lord Corn-
wallis a network of embarrassing ties and compro-
THE INDEPENDENCE OF CENTRAL INDIA
365
mising guarantees, we retained, as has been said, cer-
tain great states within the sphere of our surveillance;
but we left almost all Central India, including Rajpu-
tana, to take care of itself. All round our own terri-
tories we drew a cordon of rigid irresistible order; while
outside this ring-fence, in the great interior region that
BAKHLAWAR SINGH'S CENOTAPH AT ULWAR IN RAJPUTANA.
contained the principalities of the Maratha families and
of the ancient Rajput chiefs, we allowed a free hand
to Sindhia, Holkar, and the predatory leaders. Scat-
tered among the Maratha territories were a crowd of
tribal chiefships and petty feudatories in various stages
of dependence. Beyond the Maratha border, toward the
great western desert, lay the Rajput states, too weak
and disunited to oppose the exactions and dilapidations
of great predatory armies.
366 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
This group of primitive tribal chiefships, the last
surviving relics of mediaeval India, had outlasted the
Afghan and the Moghul empires, and had weathered
the tumultuous anarchy of the eighteenth century. But
they were rent by intestine feuds, and the militia of
the Rajput clans was quite incapable of resisting the
trained bands of the Marathas or the Afghan merce-
naries of Amir Khan. Some of these states were now
remonstrating earnestly with the British government
for refusing to admit them within its protectorate,
which they claimed as a matter of right; so that, as Sir
Charles Metcalfe, the Resident for Rajputana, wrote in
June, 1816, " They said that some power in India had
always existed to which peaceable states submitted, and
in return obtained its protection against the invasions
of upstart chiefs and the armies of lawless banditti;
that the British government now occupied the place of
that protecting power, and was the natural guardian
of weak states which were continually exposed to the
cruelties and oppression of robbers and plunderers,
owing to the refusal of the British government to pro-
tect them."
Lord Minto, who had gone out to India with the
intention of maintaining what was called the defensive
policy, changed his views materially before 1813, when
he made over the Governor-Generalship to Lord Moira,
afterwards Marquis of Hastings. He had found him-
self compelled to interpose with an armed force for
the protection of Holkar's government against a cap-
tain of banditti, and to place an army in the field to
THE PINDARI HORDES 367
overawe the freebooter Amir Khan, who was about to
overrun the Nagpur country. From 1811 to 1813 the
Pindaris increased rapidly in numbers. The origin of
these famous bands is to be found in the scouts and
foragers who had always formed the loose fringe, so
to speak, of every Indian army, receiving no pay, and
subsisting by pillage, but generally submitting to the
orders of the commander of the whole force.
As the regular armies of the native states were
reduced, and as the governments lost strength, these
bands detached themselves from all military or civil
subordination and set up as hordes of free lances under
their own leaders. By this time they had invaded,
plundered, and ransomed the territories of the Nizam
and the Peshwa,*the allies of the British, and now they
were threatening with fire and sword the rich English
province of Behar. The principle of non-interference
seems to have been defended upon the ground that all
these jarring and complicated elements of disorder
would gradually settle down and become fused into
strong and solidly constituted states. But it soon be-
came manifest that an attempt to confine epidemic
disease within fixed areas in the midst of some populous
country would be not much more unreasonable than the
plan of allowing political disorders to breed and multi-
ply in the centre of India.
In the first place the Maratha chiefs were sullen,
discontented, naturally ill-disposed toward the govern-
ment which had recently overthrown their predomi-
nance, and seeking by all means to repair and augment
368 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
their military forces. Secondly, the enforcement of sys-
tematic order all round them, and of restriction within
fixed boundaries, was irreconcilable with the conditions
that had engendered their power and that were still
necessary to its existence; for the Maratha princes
could maintain large armies only by levying exactions
from their neighbours and by constantly taking the
field upon marauding excursions. And, thirdly, it was
evident that the cessation of irregular warfare and the
establishment of a steady protectorate over the greater
portion of India must inevitably aggravate the suffer-
ings and intensify the confusion in those parts where
the supreme pacifying authority disclaimed jurisdiction
and formally abdicated every right of interference.
Large bodies of troops were disbanded by the British
government and by its allies. But as all this multitude
of men who lived by the sword and the free lance found
their occupation gone within the pale of orderly gov-
ernment, they poured out of the pacified districts into
the kingdoms of misrule like water draining from a
cultivated upland into the low-lying marshes.
It was indeed impossible that a kind of political
Alsatia, full of brigands and roving banditti, could long
be tolerated in the midst of a country just settling down
into the peaceful and industrious stage. Such a situa-
tion, nevertheless, necessarily followed upon the intro-
duction of the new principle by a sharp turn of policy.
The British government could not now stay at home
or stand aloof without stopping half-way in the pacifi-
cation of India and leaving one great homogeneous
THE ENGLISH POLICY OF ISOLATION 369
population under two different and entirely incompat-
ible political systems. For although the Indian people
are broken up into diversities of race and language,
they are, as a whole, not less distinctly marked off from
the rest of Asia by certain material and moral char-
acteristics than is their country by the mountains and
the sea. The component parts of that great country
hang together, physically and politically; there is no
RUINS OF TYRE, THE ANCIENT PHOENICIAN CITY
ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.
more room for two irreconcilable systems of govern-
ment than in Persia, China, or Asiatic Turkey.
The attitude of insulation might not have been in-
consistent in the infancy of the English dominion, when
the forces of the native states were better divided and
more equally balanced, and when we might have con-
fined our enterprise to the establishment of a great
maritime and commercial power on the shores of the
Indian and Arabian seas, like the Phoenicians or the
Venetians in the Mediterranean. But it has been seen
that, during the second half of the eighteenth century,
England penetrated inland, striking in among the local
370 GOVERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
wars and seizing territory, in order to protect herself
and forestall the French. Then, before the last appre-
hensions of French rivalry had vanished, she had been
confronted by the Marathas and the Mysore rulers,
whose natural jealousy of her rising power was abetted
by the French, and whose well-appointed armies di-
rectly threatened her position.
To meet this danger Lord Wellesley had organized
subsidiary forces on a large scale, undertaking on the
part of the British government the general defence of
all states that submitted to England's political influ-
ence, and confining within fixed boundaries all those
that held aloof. Lastly, when Mysore and the Maratha
confederacy the two powers that made head against
the British had been the one destroyed and the other
disabled, England's ascendency so overshadowed all
India that it was too late to descend from the height
she had attained or to stand still abruptly on the road
to universal dictatorship. She had now become a con-
quering power; she had assumed a continental sov-
ereignty; and upon her the duty of providing the police
of India had manifestly fallen. When the British
attempted to disclaim this responsibility, no one else
could undertake the business; and the smaller chief-
ships, who saw themselves spoiled and devoured, pro-
tested against a government that had pre-occupied the
imperial place, but nevertheless evaded the imperial
obligation.
In the meantime the condition of the whole central
region was sinking from bad to worse. It has been
INCREASING ANARCHY IN CENTRAL INDIA 371
seen that India was crowded in the eighteenth century
with mercenary soldiers who followed the trade of war;
and an incredibly large proportion of the population
subsisted by freebooting, a flourishing profession that
had now openly been practised in India for several
generations. The annexations and conquests of Lord
Wellesley's era and the enlargement of the British
borders and of the British protectorate had led to an
extensive disbandment of troops. It was reckoned by
a competent authority that, at a moderate computation,
this wide pacification of the country had turned loose
half a million professional soldiers.
Many of these men, with most of the freebooting
class, whose occupation was disappearing with the con-
traction of that field of private enterprise, had collected
in Central India, where, instead of diminishing and set-
tling down as had been expected, they increased to an
alarming degree. Some of the native rulers encouraged
them secretly, they intimidated the rest, and no power
was strong enough to suppress them. The swarming
of these predatory bands, which had been a compara-
tively transient and occasional evil when they could
range over the whole Indian continent, became a mortal
plague when it was hemmed in within set bounds, for
the inland countries were exhausted by endemic brig-
andage. While the lesser principalities were thus being
systematically bled to death, the great military chiefs
were recruiting their forces, replenishing their treas-
uries, and enlarging the range of their operations, not
without some prospect of recovering the formidable
372 GOVERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
military footing which they had lost in the previous
war.
The subsidiary system, moreover, had other conse-
quences besides those of causing the disbanding of the
loose mercenary militia and the condensation of the
freebooting plague. As the military power of the states
which contracted these treaties was conveyed into Brit-
ish hands, the result was to weaken the internal author-
ity of their rulers, by diminishing their feeling of
responsibility for governing well and moderately, be-
cause they were sure of English protection in the event
of attack or revolt. Undoubtedly the sense of depend-
ence upon a higher power relaxed the energies of a
native prince, who knew that in the last resort he could
always call in the British government to save him from
utter destruction.
Against these disadvantages of the subsidiary alli-
ances must, however, be set the consideration that with-
out British protection most of the allied states would
certainly have been dismembered in the incessant war-
fare that prevailed wherever they were left to them-
selves. The effect of English alliances upon the major-
ity of these states was, therefore, to arrest the natural
process of their disruption, but not to strengthen the
internal authority of their rulers. In this manner the
burden of repressing disorder within the territory of
England's allies followed the transfer of the duty of
external defence and gradually became shifted to the
shoulders of the British government. Her policy might
vary, backward or forward, but England still found
AMIR KHAN AND HIS FREEBOOTERS 373
herself mounting step by step up to the high office of
ultimate arbiter in every dispute and supreme custodian
of the peace of all India.
Under the circumstances that have just been de-
scribed, the marauding bands of Central India, like the
Free Companies of mediaeval Europe, had prospered
and multiplied; until in 1814 Amir Khan, a notable
military adventurer, was living upon Rajputana with
a compact army of at least thirty thousand men and
a strong artillery. That a regular army of this calibre
should have been moving at large about Central India,
entirely unconnected with any recognizable government
or fixed territory, and acknowledging no political or
civil responsibility, is decisive evidence of the prevail-
ing disorganization. But Amir Khan's troops were
under some kind of discipline and were employed upon
a system in some degree resembling regular warfare,
their commander's aim being to carve out a dominion
for himself.
The true Pindari hordes had no other object but
general rapine; they were immense bands of mounted
robbers; their most popular leader, Chitu, could num-
ber no less than ten thousand horsemen; they could
subsist only by irruptions into rich and fertile districts;
and they were a perpetual menace to the country pos-
sessed or protected by the British power. It cannot
be doubted that they maintained a secret understand-
ing with the independent Maratha rulers at Poona,
Nagpur, and G-walior, who were not particularly anx-
ious to join in the suppression of armed bodies that
374 GOVERNOR -GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
spared Maratha districts while they harried British
lands and the Nizam's country, and who probably re-
membered that the Pindaris might prove very service-
able auxiliaries in any future attempt to make head
against British domination.
The war that broke out with Nepal in 1814 had
inspired the Marathas with some hope of finding their
opportunity in England's difficulty. About 1768 a chief
of the Gurkhalis or Gurkhas, a race springing from
the intermixture of Hindus with the hill tribes, had
subdued all the highlands and valleys on the southern
slopes of the Himalayas overlooking Bengal. His suc-
cessors had carried their arms northwestwards along
the mountain ranges above Oudh, Bohilkhand, and the
provinces watered by the Ganges and the Jumna, up
to the confines of the Pan jab. This difficult tract of
hill and forest, into which the Moghuls had never cared
to penetrate, had previously been possessed by a num-
ber of petty Hindu rajas, who subsisted to a large
extent by making occasional forays into the plain coun-
try below.
The Gurkha chief, taking his lesson from what was
going on in Bengal, had set up a disciplined force with
which he easily exterminated the local rajas, and his
dynasty ruled, with the usual contests upon each suc-
cession, until his grandson was assassinated by con-
spirators in 1805. After that date the kingdom was
no longer governed by a single ruler; it fell into the
hands of a group of high military officers belonging to
the dominant clan, who kept the hereditary king in sub-
THE RISE OF THE GUKKHAS 375
jection and governed Nepal in his name. As their sol-
diery were drilled and equipped in European fashion
for in military matters the Gurkhas have always been
skilful copyists from the English model they rapidly
pushed their conquests westward over the petty hill
states, and soon began to make encroachments upon
the sub-Himalayan lowlands within the English border.
Between the minor chiefs who Lived on the skirts of
the mountains and the great proprietors in Bengal there
had been chronic fighting from time immemorial, for
all these Nepalese border chiefs had annexed strips of
land in the plains immediately below them; but now
the Gurkhas had subdued all the highlands and the
English had brought the low country under their au-
thority.
It followed that the constant quarrels over this
debatable border soon embroiled the two governments.
The Nepalese officers on the frontier encroached auda-
ciously upon the lands of British subjects, occupied
tracts belonging to Bengal, and refused to retire. At
last, when they seized two small districts in 1814, Lord
Hastings sent to their government a peremptory de-
mand that they should evacuate, and on receiving
merely evasive replies, he re-occupied these districts
by a detachment of troops, before whom the Gurkha
officers quietly retired. But so soon as the troops had
been withdrawn, the Gurkhas made a sudden attack
upon the British police stations and massacred some
twenty men. Their government, after holding a formal
council, had resolved upon war, being persuaded that
376 GOVERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LOED HASTINGS
the English could never penetrate into the mountains
of Nepal.
Then ensued the first of those numerous expeditions
into the interior of the great hill-ranges surrounding
India, in which the Anglo-Indian government has ever
A NEPALESE SHIELD.
since been at intervals engaged. The frontier which
was to be the scene of war stretched for a distance of
about six hundred miles, and the enemy had the com-
mand of all the passes leading up into the highlands.
The attack was made by the English at three separate
points; and although General Gillespie was repulsed
and killed in attempting to storm a fort, yet in spite
of a brave and obstinate resistance, the British troops
gained their footing within the hills and drove the
RESULTS OF THE NEPALESE WAR 377
Gurkhas out of all their positions on the west. The
Nepalese government was compelled to sign a treaty
ceding a long strip of the lower Himalayas, with most
of the adjacent forest lands, extending from the present
western frontier of the Nepal state northwestward as
far as the Sutlaj River. All the hill-country that now
overhangs Rohilkhand and the Northwest Provinces up
to the Jumna River, with the valuable belt of low-lying
forest that skirts the base of the outer ranges toward
India, thus fell into English hands.
By this cession of a Himalayan province the Anglo-
Indian frontier was carried up to and beyond the water-
shed of the highest mountains separating India from
Tibet or from Cathay; and the English dominion
thenceforward became conterminous for the first time
with the Chinese empire, whose government has ever
since observed British proceedings with marked and
intelligible solicitude. The Gurkha chiefs of Nepal,
having thus been confined within a narrow belt of high-
land territory immediately overlooking England's most
valuable province, have nevertheless maintained their
system of military domination through several internal
revolutions, and have sedulously pursued a policy of
training their troops upon the European model by dis-
cipline and the importation of arms.
In the meantime the freebooting bands of Central
India were increasing in numbers and audacity. The
Pindaris, who were openly disowned and secretly en-
couraged by the Maratha chiefs, had made an inroad
into certain districts of the Madras Presidency, carry-
378 GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
ing off great booty, and had also plundered on the
frontier of Bengal. Amir Khan, the Pathan leader,
was besieging Jaipur, whose raja applied to the English
for succour. After much negotiation Lord Hastings
succeeded not only in bringing the Rajput state of
Jaipur within the English protectorate, but also in
concluding a subsidiary treaty with the Bhonsla Raja
of Nagpur, whereby an important member was detached
from the Maratha confederation. But this raja soon
repented an engagement which affected his complete
independence; and under the influence of a party at
his capital hostile to the English, he began to corre-
spond secretly with the Peshwa at Poona, who had
become restless, disaffected, and exceedingly impatient
of British mediation in his dealings with feudatories
or neighbouring states.
The war in Nepal, which seemed likely to be long
and troublesome, encouraged an inclination among the
Marathas to try conclusions again with the English.
The Peshwa began to assemble his troops and collect
military stores; the British Resident replied by calling
in the subsidiary force; and a kind of sporadic insur-
rection, privily fomented by the Poona authorities, was
breaking out in the country. All these threatening
symptoms reached a crisis when the Gaikwar's envoy,
who had been sent to Poona on a special mission under
British guarantee, was assassinated, with the Peshwa 's
connivance, by one of his confidential favourites. The
murderer's surrender was extorted from the Peshwa,
with the greatest difficulty, by the British Resident,
THE ISOLATION POLICY ABANDONED 379
but he escaped from prison, and the Peshwa, who
seemed about to take up arms in his defence, only lost
courage and made terms just as an open rupture was
becoming imminent. In 1817 he signed a treaty mak-
ing cessions of territory in exchange for 'an increased
subsidiary force, and virtually renouncing all his pre-
vious pretensions to supremacy in the Maratha con-
federation.
Lord Hastings now decided that the time had come
when he could begin his combined operations for the
suppression of the freebooting hordes, and for such a
general reformation of the condition of Central India
as might eradicate the predatory system. The policy
of isolation had, he found, completely failed; its effect
was not only to foster the spread of confusion and dis-
order outside the Anglo-Indian frontiers, but also to
endanger the main position of the British government.
His remedy was to step forward as the arbitrator and
authoritative peacemaker, to dissolve the plundering
bands, and to mark out the whole of the vast inland
region into recognized rulerships, so that no part of it
should be left outside the jurisdiction of some responsi-
ble authority. He relied on the supreme influence and
paramount power of the British government in arms
to insist, when this had been done, upon the pacification
of the whole country through the chiefs to whom it
should have been assigned in severalty. He projected,
in short, the consummation of the work that had been
begun by Lord Cornwallis, and carried very far by
Lord Wellesley the extension of British supremacy
380 GO VEENOE- GENERALSHIP OF LOED HASTINGS
and protectorate over every native state in the interior
of India.
In such a cause, however, the hearty co-operation
of the Maratha princes could not reasonably be ex-
pected. Amir Khan, the Pathan leader, was persuaded
or intimidated into disbanding his army and settling
down on the lands guaranteed to him. But Sindhia
reluctantly agreed to associate himself with the cam-
paign against the Pindaris; he delayed the departure
of his troops with the manifest purpose of watching
events, and was overawed into signing a treaty of co-
operation only by* the display of force. The Peshwa,
galled by the yoke which the recent treaty had fixed
upon him, collected his forces and broke out into open
hostility, attacking the British troops at Poona in No-
vember, 1817; while at Nagpur the raja declared for
him as the head of the Maratha nation and sent his own
troops against the British Residency. On both occa-
sions the Marathas were repulsed, though not without
stout fighting at Nagpur; and as Holkar's army, which
attempted to join the Peshwa, had been defeated at
Mehidpur in December of the previous year, the oppo-
sition of the Maratha powers to the Governor-General's
policy of pacification soon came to an end.
The Peshwa, pursued by the British flying columns,
fought one or two sharp actions; but his troops were
at last scattered, his forts were taken, and he himself
was pursued until he finally surrendered in June, 1818,
upon an assurance of suitable provision. Lord Hastings
had determined to exclude him and his family from
DEFEAT OF THE PESHWA
381
any further share of influence or dominion in the Dec-
can; and the greater part of his territories passed under
British sovereignty. The State of Satara was recon-
stituted out of the Peshwa's domains and placed under
the descendant of Sivaji, the original founder of the
PEASANTS OF HAHABLESHWAR, NEAR SATARA, IN THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY.
Maratha empire, whose dynasty had been supplanted
by the Peshwas, a line of hereditary prime ministers.
The Nagpur State had also to cede several important
districts, and its military establishments passed under
British control. The group of ancient Eajput chief-
ships which had been spoiled and ransomed for years
by the Marathas and Amir Khan, with a number of
minor principalities, were placed under the immediate
protection and guarantee of the British government.
382 GOVERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
The tributes claimed from the lesser states by the Mara-
tha rulers were fixed and confirmed, upon conditions that
payment should be made through the British treasury.
By these measures the Maratha rulership of the
Peshwa was now finally extinguished, and the three
leading families that had so often opposed the British,
Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla of Nagpur, were defi-
nitely bound over to keep the peace of India. The
Pindaris, who were merely the remnants of the once
flourishing predatory system, the dregs of the roving
bands that had harried India during a century of
anarchy, were dispersed or exterminated. The Maratha
states were restricted to carefully demarcated limits;
the trades of marauding conquest and of mere brig-
andage on a large scale alike disappeared; the whole
species vanished with the change of those conditions
of government and society by which it had been engen-
dered.
The result was to secure for the British provinces
unbroken immunity from the hostile attacks or plun-
dering inroads to which they were always exposed so
long as rapine and violence thrived in the centre of
India. But it would have been useless to put down
these enormous evils unless precautions had also been
taken against their revival. Henceforward it became
the universal principle of public policy that every state
in India (outside the Pan jab and Sind) should make
over the control of its foreign relations to the British
government, should submit all external disputes to
British arbitration, and should defer to British advice
CENTRAL INDIA PACIFIED 383
regarding internal management so far as might be
necessary to cure disorders or scandalous misrule. A
British Resident was appointed to the courts of all
the greater princes as the agency for the exercise of
these high functions; while the subsidiary forces and
the contingents furnished by the states placed the su-
preme military command everywhere under British
direction.
This great political settlement of Central India the
disarmament and pacification of the military chiefships,
and the adjustment of distinct relations of supremacy
and subordination established universal recognition of
the cardinal principle upon which the fabric of British
dominion in India has been built up. It completed and
consolidated the policy of Lord Wellesley. The last
shadow of interference by any European rival had now
for the time faded away. The contest with the native
states for ascendency was finally decided, and not only
the right but the duty of intervention for the security
and tranquillity of the Indian people was now every-
where acknowledged, from the two seas northward up
to Sind and the Sutlaj River. From the Sind frontier
at the mouths of the Indus River, down the west coast
of the peninsula to Cape Comorin, and thence north-
eastward again along the Bay of Bengal to the frontier
of Burma, the whole sea-line of India was under the
authority of England. On the north she held a long
belt of the Himalayan highlands, and her political juris-
diction extended to the western edge of the deserts
bordering on upper Sind and the Panjab.
384 GOVERNOR - GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS
The largest, most important, and by far the most
yaluable portion of this region was now under the direct
administration of the British; the rest was under their
sovereign influence. Taking the natural boundaries of
India to be the ocean and the mountains, it may be said
that the Anglo-Indian Empire now commanded the whole
circuit of its sea frontier, that it was securely settled
upon a base in the Himalayas, and that its western flank
was covered to a great extent by the cis-Indus desert.
On two sections, and two only, the frontier was still
unstable and liable to disturbance on the northeast,
where the Burmese were advancing into Assam, and on
the northwest, where the Sikh kingdom beyond the
Sutlaj had acquired formidable fighting strength under
Ranjit Singh.
AN INDIAN RUPEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN.
/
CHAPTER XVII
COMPLETION OF DOMINION
1823-1858
UP to this epoch the scene of all the East India
Company's wars had been within India; and for
the last fifty years from the withdrawal of the French
in 1763 to the end of the Pindari war in 1818 the
antagonists of the British had been the native Indian
powers. As the expansion of England's dominion car-
ried her so much nearer to foreign Asiatic countries,
her rapid approach to the geographical limits of India
proper discovered fresh complications for her, and she
was now on the brink of collision with new races. The
first non-Indian power that provoked her to actual hos-
tility had been the Gurkha chief ship; but as Nepal lies
on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, its population
belongs, by blood and religion, for the most part to
Hinduism. The second non-Indian state that chal-
lenged the British from beyond the Indian frontier was
the kingdom of a people differing entirely from Indian
races, the Burmese.
385
386 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
It is a remarkable coincidence that during the first
fifty years occupied by the rise of England's dominion
in India, other rulerships were being founded simultane-
ously, by a not dissimilar process, around her. In the
course of that period (1757 - 1805) the tribes of Afghan-
istan had been collected into subjection to one kingdom
under the dynasty of Ahmad Shah; the petty Hindu
and Mohammedan chiefships of the Panjab had been
welded into a military despotism by the strong hand
of Ran jit Singh; and the rajas on the lower highlands
of the Himalayas had submitted to the domination of
Nepal. Lastly, about the time when Clive was subdu-
ing Bengal, a Burmese military leader had established
by conquest a rulership which had its capital in the
plains traversed by the Irawadi River and its prin-
cipal affluents, from the upper waters of those rivers
down to the sea.
The kingdom of Burma, founded in 1757 by Alom-
pra's subjugation of Pegu, now included not only the
open tracts about the Irawadi and the Salwin, extend-
ing from the hills out of which these rivers issue to the
low-lying seacoast at their mouths, and stretching far
southward down the eastern shores of the Bay of Ben-
gal. It was absorbing all the mountainous region pver-
hanging the eastern land frontier of India; and the
Burmese armies were pressing westward across the
watershed of those mountains through the upland coun-
try about the Brahmaputra toward the great alluvial
plains of eastern Bengal. There had, consequently,
been frequent disputes on that border between the
THE KINGDOM OF BURMA 387
Anglo-Indian and the Burmese authorities, for the
dividing-line was unsettled and variable, and on both
sides the landmarks had been unavoidably set forward
in pioneering fashion, until they were separated only
by strips of semi-dependent tribal lands a'nd spheres
of influence, from which each party desired to exclude
the other. It will be remembered that along all the
BURMESE WARRIORS.
ranges of the mountains that cut off the Indian plains
from the rest of the Asiatic continent, there runs an
unbroken fringe of rugged highlands, inhabited by
tribes of mixed origin who are more or less warlike
and independent.
On the northeast of Bengal lay the kingdom of
Assam, with a territory, now part of the British prov-
ince which bears that name, interposed between the
English districts or protectorates and the Burmese
dominion. There had been some sanguinary contests
388 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
for power among princes of the reigning house, and
among powerful ministers who aspired to rule abso-
lutely in the name of one Assamese prince or another,
with the inevitable result that the defeated party called
in the Burmese from across the mountains eastward.
Fresh troubles soon followed, for the king who had
been reinstated by the Burmese troops soon quarrelled
with them, finding, as usual, that a foreign army of
occupation is an exceedingly dangerous remedy for
civil war; and the Burmese, after putting several pup-
pets up and down, brought matters to the ordinary con-
clusion by placing Assam under a governor of their
own.
That a feeble and distracted semi-Hindu state on
the Anglo-Indian frontier should thus be converted into
a province of a warlike and aggressive Indo-Chinese
kingdom was by no means to the advantage of the Eng-
lish, with whom it is always a first principle of politics
to shut out all strange intruders into India from beyond
the mountains or the sea. The Burmese now held the
upper waters of that great navigable river, the Brah-
maputra, and of other streams flowing from the Assam
hills into the sea through Eastern Bengal; they were
on the crests of the mountain passes leading into the
lowlands, and they were subduing or intimidating all
the petty chiefs along our frontier.
It has always been the practice of the English in
India, as of other civilized empires in contact with
barbarism, to maintain a zone of tribal lands and chief-
ships as a barrier or quickset hedge against trespass-
CO
U
V
B
o
X
V
o
o
AGGRESSIVE POLICY OF THE BURMESE 389
ers upon their actual frontier by taking these chiefships
or little border principalities under their protection.
The Burmese were now violating this protectorate in
a very menacing fashion. They were engaged in sub-
duing all the northeast corner of India; they had taken
Manipur, were making inroads into Cachar, then under
British protection, and they had even claimed the Brit-
ish district of Sylhet. In fact they were breaking
through all the natural barriers that fence off India
by land from Eastern Asia, and were evidently seizing
the issues or sally-ports available for sudden descent,
whenever and however they might choose, upon the
level plains of Bengal. They had seized, not with-
out bloodshed, an island on the British side of the
estuary which separated English territory from Ara-
kan.
To be thus openly defied and attacked was a novelty
for the English in India, but the Burmese, like the
Gurkhas, having never measured themselves hitherto
against civilized forces, saw no reason why they should
not go on extending their dominion until they had pal-
pably tested a neighbour's capacity to resist them.
When regular hostilities began, there was some very
sharp skirmishing on the Assam border, in which the
British troops did not always come off victorious; but
the despatch of a small army across the Bay of Bengal
to attack Rangoon made an effective diversion, for, to
a maritime enemy, this was the vulnerable side of the
Burmese kingdom. The expedition sent by Lord Am-
herst, then Governor-General, to Pegu represents the
390 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
first campaign undertaken by Anglo-Indian troops on
the Asiatic continent beyond India. It ascended the
course of the Irawadi; and the Burmese, after an obsti-
nate defence, were compelled to submit to England's
terms. This was a war that produced important and
far-reaching consequences for Great Britain, because it
carried our arms for the first time beyond the Indian
frontier, extended our dominion into a totally different
country, and subjected new Asiatic races to our sov-
ereignty. The annexation of Arakan and the Tenas-
serim provinces placed in English hands almost all that
part of the coast which fronts India across the Bay of
Bengal, except the maritime province of Pegu, which
includes the mouths of the Irawadi Kiver, and which
was not annexed until after the war of 1852; and it
also threw Burma back over the watershed of the
mountain range that runs parallel to this part of the
sea-line.
We had now brought a large population, different
from the Indians in origin, manners, language, and re-
ligion, within the jurisdiction of the Indian empire, and
the expansive and levelling forces of European power
had been set travelling in a fresh direction upon another
line where we were destined to encounter just so much
resistance as would compel us to advance by the mere
act of overcoming it. A secondary but important con-
sequence of the defeat of the Burmese was their recog-
nition of our protectorate over upper Assam, Cachar,
and Manipur, the tract beyond Bengal and along the
Brahmaputra River which is now incorporated within
THE CONQUEST OF BUEMA
391
the great northeastern Chief-Commissionership of As-
sam.
The acquisitions made by the Burmese war had thus
effectually sealed up and secured the eastern Anglo-
Indian frontier, as the Grurkha war had quieted the only
state that could molest the British along the line of
the northeastern Hima-
layas. When a usurper
seized the Bhartpur chief-
ship in 1826, Lord Com-
bermere took by assault
the strong fortress of
Bhartpur, before which
Lord Lake had failed in
1805. Within India there
were now actually only
two sovereign powers, the
THE GOLDEN THRONE OF RANJIT SINGH.
English and the Sikhs;
for the Amirs of Sind scarcely fell within the cate-
gory of Indian rulers. Ranjit Singh, under whom
the Sikh domination in the Pan jab reached its climax
early in the nineteenth century, had acquiesced, after
some indications of hostility, in the policy of main-
taining friendly relations with the British government.
In 1809 he had consequently signed a treaty that con-
fined his territory to the north and west of the Sutlaj
River, with the exception of a strip of country on the
south bank, in which he was bound not to place troops.
This exception had important consequences later; but
the broad line of demarcation between the two states
392 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
was the river, and this arrangement preserved unbroken
for nearly forty years the peace of the northern Anglo-
Indian frontier.
The Governor-Generalship of Lord William Ben-
tinck has the distinctive characteristic of representing
a period of brief and rare tranquillity in Anglo-Indian
history; it was an era of liberal and civilizing adminis-
tration, of quiet material progress, and of some impor-
tant moral and educational reforms. Lord Amherst,
whom Lord Bentinck succeeded, had just closed a costly
and troublesome Burmese war; and with Lord Auck-
land, who followed him, began the disastrous British
campaigns in Afghanistan. Between Amherst and
Auckland came an interval of calm rulership that was
well employed in the work of domestic improvements
and internal organization, favoured by the current of
public opinion and political discussion in England. The
liberal spirit which had accomplished the enfranchise-
ment of Roman Catholics at home, and which was in-
sisting on Parliamentary Reform, had to some extent
influenced the views of Englishmen toward India. The
expiration of the term of the East India Company's
charter and the debate over its renewal had drawn
attention to Indian affairs; and the act which was
passed in 1833 to prolong the charter removed the last
vestige of the Company's commercial monopoly, and
finally completed the transformation of the old trading
corporation into a special agency for the government
of a vast Asiatic dependency.
It was Lord William Bentinck who issued, a few
ENGLISH THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE 393
months before his term of office expired, the resolution
which finally decreed that English should be the official
language of India. This important state paper is based
on Macaulay's famous minute, in which he utterly
routed the party that still held to the system of pro-
moting learning and literature in India through the
LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK.
medium of Oriental languages. The controversy arose
out of a question as to the distribution of educational
grants from the public purse; and Macaulay argued
victoriously in favour of English as the language which
gives the key to all true knowledge, and as the only
proper means of pursuing the higher studies. Lord
William Bentinck thereupon issued orders, in accord-
ance with Macaulay's view, that were received with
some doubt and demur on their arrival in England.
394 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
It seems to have been James Mill, then an influential
officer at the India House, who drafted a formidable
censure upon Bentinck's proceedings, laving stress
upon the impolicy of forcing upon the natives of India,
by an abrupt reversal of educational policy, a superficial
kind of English culture that would be used as a pass-
port to public employ rather than as a channel for the
acquisition of solid knowledge. Mill and Macaulay
were old antagonists, and Macaulay evidently thought
the Orientalists talked insufferable nonsense; never-
theless, it can hardly be said, on retrospection, that
the weight of argument was altogether on his side. The
letter appears never to have been issued; the higher
education became almost exclusively English; and as
all restrictive press laws were abolished very soon
afterwards, the new policy soon produced important
and far-reaching consequences.
But the chief title of this Governor-General to pos-
thumous fame rests on the act which he had the courage
to pass for putting an end to the burning of Indian
widows. 1 In these days such a measure may appear
obviously just and necessary; but in 1829 it was not
adopted without much hesitation and many misgivings,
for the real nature of public opinion on such subjects
among the natives of India was then very imperfectly
understood. The point at which law will be supported
by natural morality in overruling superstitious sanc-
tions is always difficult to discover; but we know that
law and morality have a very complex interaction upon
1 See the second chapter of the next volume.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF BENTINCK 395
each other, so that what the positive law refuses to
tolerate often becomes immoral, and what morality
condemns the law has to denounce. It may be guessed
that inhuman or scandalous rites are never really pop-
ular, while it is certain that whenever a civil ordinance
takes its stand upon an indisputable ethical basis, relig-
ion has to give way. The crime was prevalent chiefly
among the docile and habitually submissive races of
Lower Bengal, and the Governor-General rightly in-
ferred that its peremptory suppression, far from involv-
ing political danger, would be accepted as a welcome
liberation.
Of Lord William Bentinck's foreign policy there is
not much to be said. He was the first indeed, he has
been the last Governor-General in whose time un-
broken peace has been given to British India, if we
exclude the despatch of troops to put down local in-
surrections in Mysore and in Coorg. In the manage-
ment of some troublesome business with Haidarabad
and the Rajput states he could rely on the skill and
experience of Sir Charles Metcalfe; and he adjusted
with success the much more important question of
English diplomatic relations with Ranjit Singh, the
ruler of the Panjab. But his commercial treaty with
Ranjit Singh and his convention with the Amirs of
Sind for opening the Indus River to British commerce
were, in point of fact, the preliminary steps that led
the British, a few years later, out upon the wide and
perilous field of Afghan politics. The possibility of
the overland invasion of India and the question of the
396
COMPLETION OF DOMINION
measures necessary for the security of the northwest-
ern frontier were now occupying the minds of India's
rulers; and the discussion was beginning that has never
ended since.
Beyond the Panjab, on the farther side of the
Afghan mountains, there were
movements that were reviving
the ever sensitive apprehensions
of insecurity in India. The
march of Russia across Asia,-
suspended by the Napoleonic
wars, had latterly been resumed;
her pressure was felt through-
out all the central regions from
the Caspian Sea to the Oxus; and
by the treaty of Turkmantchai in
1828 she had established a pre-
ponderant influence over Persia.
From that time forward our
whole policy and all our strategic
dispositions upon the northwest
frontier have been directed
toward anticipating or counteracting the movements or
supposed intentions of Russia. To the English diploma-
tists of that day it seemed as if our original line of con-
federate defence had been drawn too widely, because
Persia's discomfiture had proved that we had no means
of upholding her integrity against Russian attack. So
we negotiated in 1828 a release from our treaty obliga-
tions to aid Persia in resisting aggression, and we fell
OW THE NORTHERN INDIAN
BORDER.
INTRIGUES IN AFGHANISTAN 397
back upon Afghanistan as our defensible barrier. It
followed that, as England receded, Russia pressed on,
occupied the diplomatic ground that we had vacated,
and converted the Persian power into an instrument
for the furtherance of her own interests, which were
not ours.
As Persia had just ceded to Russia some districts
in the northwest, she was encouraged, by way of com-
pensation, to revive a long-standing claim upon terri-
tory belonging to Afghanistan across her northeastern
borders. In 1837, therefore, the Shah of Persia, who
claimed Western Afghanistan as belonging of right to
his crown, was preparing for an attack upon Herat,
the chief frontier city of the Afghans on that side, and
the key to all routes leading from Persia into India.
Some of the leading Afghan Sirdars were in correspond-
ence with the Persian king; and Shah ShujV, the hered-
itary prince, who had been driven out by a new Afghan
dynasty, was an exile in the Pan jab, whence he made
unsuccessful attempts to recover his throne, soliciting
aid both from the Sikhs and the English.
Shah Shuja* represented the legitimate line of de-
scent from Ahmad Shah Abdali, who had created the
Afghan kingdom, but a few years before this time his
family had been supplanted by the sons of a powerful
minister. This is a well-known form of dynastic
changes in Asia, produced by the natural tendency of
rulership to fall out of the hands of those who cannot
keep it into the grasp of those who can. It will be
remembered that the royal house of the Maratha empire
398 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
had been evicted in the eighteenth century by a minis-
terial dynasty, the Peshwas; and in the nineteenth
century a precisely similar revolution took place in
Nepal.
The cardinal point of the whole Asiatic question
was now becoming fixed in Afghanistan. From its
situation, its natural strength, and its high strategic
value, this country has been always a position of the
greatest importance to the rulers of India, and the
claims of Persia brought it prominently into the polit-
ical foreground. The British government at home laid
down the principle, big with momentous consequence,
that the independence and integrity of Afghanistan
were essential to the security of India; and missions
from India had already explored the Indus and been
received by the Amir Dost Mohammad at Kabul.
When, therefore, the Shah of Persia in person, attended
by some Russian officers, led an army against Herat
in 1837, and when the Afghan Amir, disappointed in
his hopes of an English alliance, was negotiating with
a Russian agent, it will be easily understood that all
the elements of alarm and mistrust drew speedily to
a head. An English expedition to the Persian Gulf
occupied the island of Kharak and made a demon-
stration against Southern Persia that was quite suffi-
cient to provide the Shah with a good excuse for retir-
ing from Herat, where his assault on the town had
failed and where his supplies were scanty.
But the withdrawal from Herat by no means fulfilled
views, now prevalent both in England and India, with
A TREATY WITH AFGHANISTAN 399
regard to the British system of precautionary defence.
In London the ministers had declared that " the welfare
of our Eastern possessions require that we shall have
on our western frontier an ally interested in resisting
aggression, in the place of chief s ' ranging themselves
in subservience to a hostile power "; and they had
pressed Lord Auckland to take decisive measures in
Afghanistan. The Governor-General proceeded to con-
clude, with the full approbation of the English minis-
try, a tripartite treaty, by which the British govern-
ment and Kanjit Singh covenanted with Shah Shuja*
to reinstate him in Afghanistan by force of arms. Lord
Auckland declared that the unsettled state of that coun-
try had produced " a crisis which imperiously demands
the interference of the British government/' and that
he would continue to prosecute with vigour his meas-
ures for the substitution of a friendly for a hostile
power in the eastern Afghan provinces, and for " the
establishment of a permanent barrier against schemes
of aggression on our northwest frontier." In 1838 a
British army marched through Sind up to the Baluch
passes to Kandahar, with the avowed object of expel-
ling Dost Mohammad, the ruling Amir, and of restoring
Shah Shuja* to his throne at Kabul.
This, then, was the position of the English dominion
in India at the opening of Queen Victoria's memorable
reign. The names of our earlier allies and enemies
the Nizam, Oudh, the Maratha princes, and the Mysore
State were still writ large on the map, but they had
fallen far into the rear of our onward march; while
400
COMPLETION OF DOMINION
in front of us were only Ran jit Singh, ruling the Pan-
jab up to the Afghan hills, and the Sind Amirs in the
Indus valley. The curtain was just rising upon the
first act of the long drama of Central Asian politics,
THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW BY SIR HENRY HAVELOCK.
not yet ended in our own time. What did this new
departure imply? Not that we had any quarrel with
the Afghans, from whom we were separated by the
five rivers whose floods unite in the Indus. It meant
that, after half a century's respite, the English be-
lieved themselves to be again in danger of contact with
THE FIRST AFGHAN CAMPAIGN 401
a rival European influence on Asiatic ground; and that,
whereas in the previous century they had to fear such
rivalry only on the seacoast, they now had certain
notice of its gradual approach overland, from beyond
the Oxus and the Paropamisus.
The story of the first British campaign in Afghan-
istan is well known. Shah Shuja* was easily replaced on
the throne, and the English remained in military occu-
pation of the country round Kabul and Kandahar for
about two years. But the whole plan had been ill-
conceived politically, and from a strategic point of view
the expedition had been rash and dangerous. The base
of British operations for this invasion of Afghanistan
lay in Sind, a foreign state under rulers not well af-
fected toward the English; while on our flank, com-
manding all the communications with India, lay the
Panjab, another foreign state with a numerous army,
watching our proceedings with vigilant jealousy. Such
a position was in every way so untenable, and the
advance movement was so obviously premature, that
no one need wonder at the lamentable failure of our
first attempt to extend the British protectorate beyond
the limits of India.
The occupation of their country by a foreign army
was profoundly resented by the free tribes of Afghan-
istan, whose patriotism equals their fanaticism, and
who have always fought resolutely for their national
independence. On his first reappearance among his
countrymen Shah Shuja' was welcomed to some extent,
but it was quite certain that whatever popularity might
402 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
accrue to him as their ruler by birthright would rapidly
decrease if his throne continued to be surrounded and
supported by English troops; for the aphorism that
one can do anything with bayonets except sit upon
them has much truth even in Asia.
Probably the best course that could have been taken
would have been to withdraw the British army, leaving
Shah Shuja* to rely upon his personal influence, on the
fact that he held possession, and on the disciplined
local regiments that had been raised for his service.
But Lord Auckland had proclaimed, as one main object
of his expedition, the establishment of the integrity
and independence of Afghanistan; and it was obvious
that this was not to be made very sure by leaving
Shah Shuja* in charge of the country. Yet this chance
of success, though precarious, was really the only one,
for the alternative was to prolong the military occu-
pation of a mountainous region with a severe winter
climate, where supplies are scarce and communications
so difficult that combined operations from one centre
are constantly interrupted, among a people who pass
their lives in guerilla warfare.
This alternative, however, was unluckily adopted.
Sir William Macnaghten, the chief political authority,
had heard that the Russians were marching from Oren-
burg or Khiva, and that Dost Mohammad, the Amir
whom the British had expelled, was hovering about the
northern provinces, while the outlying districts were
still unruly. Macnaghten accordingly determined to
consolidate the Shah's government before he retired.
DISASTROUS OUTCOME OF THE EXPEDITION 403
But the attempt to raise a kind of standing army for
the Amir stirred up fatal jealousies among all the
powerful chiefs of the Afghan clans, who, like feudal
nobles and free folk everywhere, defer to a king, but
detest a master. Disaffection grew and spread, until,
in 1841, partial revolts and local risings culminated
in universal insurrection. The supplies of the English
troops ran short; they had been wearied out by inces-
sant skirmishing; they were under an incapable com-
mander; their outposts were besieged or cut off; and
Macnaghten, hoping vainly for a turn of fortune, de-
layed evacuation of Kabul until the winter had set in.
Then, when retreat became inevitable, a series of in-
conceivable blunders led to the destruction of the whole
British force in their passage through the defiles be-
tween Kabul and Jalalabad. Nevertheless, the fort at
the latter place was gallantly held until it was relieved,
in the autumn of 1842, by General Pollock, who marched
up to Kabul and re-occupied the city; while at Kan-
dahar General Nott baffled all the attempts of the
Afghans to dislodge him.
But in 1841 the Whig ministry, who were the au-
thors of the policy of intervention in Afghanistan, had
been displaced, and early in 1842 Lord Ellenborough
succeeded Lord Auckland as Governor-General. He
issued orders at once for the withdrawal of all British
troops from Kandahar and Jalalabad; nor would the
British government have escaped the discredit of a
hasty and somewhat dishonourable retirement if the
military commanders had not taken upon themselves
404 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
the responsibility of bolder measures. By the end of
1842, nevertheless, all the English forces had been
quietly brought away. Dost Mohammad had been
restored to power in Kabul, the country had been
evacuated, and the policy of bringing Afghanistan
within the sphere of British influence, which was now
definitely abandoned, lay dormant until it was success-
fully revived, under very different conditions, nearly
forty years afterward.
In 1839 the territory of the Amirs of Sind, in the
valley of the Indus, had been brought within the polit-
ical control of the British by Lord Auckland, who
needed it as a stepping-stone and as a basis for his
operations toward South Afghanistan. The port of
Karachi, near the Indus mouth, had been seized, and
the river had been thrown open to British commerce.
When Lord Ellenborough determined to retire from
Afghanistan, he was very reluctant to give up the val-
uable position that we had taken up in Sind; he de-
sired, on the contrary, to acquire permanent possession
of the stations that our troops had occupied tempora-
rily, and he took advantage of delay in the payment
of tribute to press for territorial cessions. Sir Charles
Napier, who had been sent to Sind as a congenial rep-
resentative of demands that were likely to produce war,
submitted to the Governor-General a memorandum
arguing that, while we were bound to insist on the
rigid observance of treaties, yet such strict punctilio
would confine us permanently within the limits of the
stations which the treaty f assigned to us, and would
NAPIEK'S CONQUEST OF SIND 405
thus prevent us from interposing for the general good
of the Sind people. "Is it possible," he asked, " that
such a state of things can long continue? " and " if
this reasoning is correct, would it not be better to come
to results at once," by annexing the places which we
now hold temporarily? Proceeding to consider " how
we might go to work in a
matter so critical," he en-
closed a memorandum of
five cases in which the
Amirs " seemed to have
departed from the terms or
spirit of their engage-
ments," and he urged that
it would not be harsh, but
on the contrary humane,
to coerce them into ceding
the places required.
Accordingly, Sir Charles
SIR CHARLES NAPIER.
Napier was empowered by
Lord Ellenborough to press upon the Sind rulers a new
treaty, framed on the basis of exchanging tribute for
territory. The Amirs signed it, but mustered their
troops and attacked the British Residency at their cap-
ital; whereupon Sir Charles Napier marched into their
country and gained a decisive victory over their army
at Miani in February, 1843. The results were the
deposition of the Sind Amirs, and the transfer of the
lower Indus valley to the British dominion, whereby
we obtained possession of Karachi and the Indus estu-
406 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
ary and brought the whole unbroken circuit of the
Indian seacoast within our control. In 1844, however,
Lord Ellenborough's administration was terminated by
his recall, and he was succeeded by Sir Henry Har-
dinge.
In the meantime, from the date of Eanjit Singh's
death in 1839, the Sikh government of the Panjab,
which had lasted barely thirty years, had been rapidly
falling into dilapidation. One chief after another had
assumed the administration and had been overthrown
or assassinated. In Asia a new kingdom is almost
always founded by some able leader with a genius for
military organization, who can raise and command an
effective army, which he employs not only to beat rivals
in the field but also to break down all minor chiefships,
to disarm every kind of possible opposition within his
borders, and generally to level every barrier that might
limit his personal authority. But he who thus sweeps
away all means of resistance leaves himself no supports,
for support implies the capacity to resist; and the very
strength and keenness of the military instrument that
he has forged renders it doubly dangerous to his suc-
cessors. If the next ruler's heart or hand fail him,
there is no longer any counterpoise to the overpowering
weight of the sword in the political balance, and the
state of the dynasty is upset.
The Sikh dominion had been established in the spirit
of religious brotherhood and revolt against Moham-
medan oppression; and while such popular, almost dem-
ocratic forces were immensely strong when condensed
DECAY OF THE SIKH DOMINION 409
into driving power for a well-handled military des-
potism, they were certain to become ungovernable and
to explode if any error or weakness were shown in
guiding the machine. None of Ranjit Singh's sons, real
or reputed, had inherited his talents, nor could they
manage the fierce soldiery with whom he had conquered
the Panjab, driven the Afghans back across the Indus
into their mountains, and annexed Kashmir. His eldest
and authentic son, Kharrak Singh, died within a year;
his reputed son, Sher Singh, the last who endeavoured
to maintain his father's policy of friendship with the
British, was soon murdered with his son and the prime
minister. The chiefs and ministers who endeavoured
to govern after Sher Singh's death were removed by
internecine strife, mutinous outbreaks, and assassina-
tions.
The Sikh state was on the verge of dissolution by
anarchy, for all power had passed into the hands of
committees of regimental officers appointed by an army
that was wild with religious ardour, and furiously sus-
picious of its own government. The queen-mother,
Ran jit Singh's widow, and her infant son Dhulip Singh
were recognized as nominal representatives of the
reigning house; but they were liable at any moment
to be consumed by the next eruption of sanguinary
caprice, and their only hope of preservation lay in
finding some outlet abroad for the forces which had
reduced the Sikh state to violent internal anarchy.
For this purpose it was manifestly their interest to
launch their turbulent army across the Sutlaj against
410 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
the English, and thus provoke a collision that would
certainly weaken and probably destroy it. The military
leaders were not blind to the motives with which they
were encouraged to march upon the English frontier;
but their patriotism had been excited by rumours of
the advance of the British army, for Sir Henry Har-
dinge, the Governor-General, fearing some disorderly
inroad, was bringing up troops to reinforce his out-
posts. There had also been some inopportune frontier
disputes, which had embittered the Lahore government,
not altogether unreasonably, against the English.
When, therefore, the Sikh soldiers were taunted
with questions whether they would tamely submit to
European domination, they answered by crossing the
Sutlaj River, which was the strategical frontier, and
intrenched themselves on the southeastern bank, in
territory, which, though it belonged to Lahore, the La-
hore government was bound by treaty not to enter with
any considerable armed force. This was taken to be
an act of war, and in December, 1845, the Sikhs were
met by the British army. On our side the preparations
were incomplete; for we had undervalued both the
strength and the activity of the enemy; and we had
been so long accustomed to easy victories on the open
plains of India that the resolute defence of their field-
intrenchments made by the Sikhs, and their well-
served artillery, took us by surprise.
In the first battle, at Mudki on December 18, 1845,
we paid dearly for our success; and three days later,
at Firozshah, began the most bloody and obstinate con-
THE FIKST SIKH WAR 413
test ever fought by Anglo-Indian troops, at the end
of which the English army was left in bare possession
of its camping-ground, and in a situation of imminent
peril from the approach of the Sikh reserves under
Tej Singh. But the English maintained a bold front;
Tej Singh retired; and in the two battles that followed
at AJiwal and Sobraon the latter fought on February
10, 1846 the Sikhs, fighting hardily and fiercely, were
driven back across the Sutlaj and compelled to abandon
further resistance in the field. The Governor-General
occupied Lahore in February, 1846, with twenty thou-
sand men; Ran jit Singh's infant son was placed on the
throne under English tutelage; some cessions of terri-
tory were exacted; the Sikh army was reduced; and
for two years the Panjab was administered as a state
under the general superintendence and protection of
the British government.
But the expedient of placing the machinery of native
government under temporary European superintend-
ence can succeed only when the irresistible authority
of the superintending power is universally felt and rec-
ognized. The system is unstable because it does not pre-
tend to permanence; it lacks the direct and weighty
pressure required to keep down the smouldering ele-
ments of military revolt. Although the Sikhs num-
bered not more than one-sixth of the population of the
Panjab, they were united by the recollection of ruler-
ship; and the fighting men, who were justly proud of
having played an even match against the English, were
not yet inclined to settle down again to peaceful agri-
414 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
culture. At the Lahore court intrigue and jealousies
prevailed; and in the outlying districts there was more
than one focus of discontent.
The assassination of two British officers at Multan
in April, 1848, was the signal for an insurrection that
led to a general rising of the military classes, a reas-
semblage of the old KMlsa Sikh army, and a second
trial of strength with the British troops. In January,
1849, the English general, who displayed very little tac-
tical skill, lost twenty-four hundred men and officers
before he won the day at Chilianwala; but in the fol-
lowing month the Sikh army, after a stubborn combat,
was at last overthrown by so shattering a defeat at
Gujarat that the English were left undisputed masters
of the whole country.
These transactions followed the natural course of
events and consequences. Contact had produced colli-
sion, and collision had terminated in the overthrow of
an unstable and distracted government. The English
had thus been compelled to break down with their own
hands the very serviceable barrier against inroads from
Central Asia that had been set up for them by the Sikhs
fifty years earlier in North India. It was impossible
for the British to leave the country vacant and exposed
to an influx of foreign Mohammedans; and it had be-
come a matter of growing importance that England
should have the gates of India in her own custody;
for the line of Russian advance toward the Oxus,
though distant, was declared; and in the last war the
Afghans had joined the Sikhs as auxiliaries.
ANNEXATION OF THE PANJAB 417
That Lord Dalhousie, who was Governor-General
from 1848 to 1856, determined, after mature delibera-
tion, against renewing the precarious experiment of
a protected native rulership in the Panjab, must now
be acknowledged to have been fortunate; for if there
had been a great independent state across the Sutlaj
when the Anglo-Indian sepoys revolted, eight years
later, the Sikhs might have found the opportunity dif-
ficult to resist. Before the commencement of hostilities
with the British in 1845 they had made several attempts
to shake the loyalty of the native army; nor had the
spectacle of the Sikh soldiery overawing their govern-
ment and dictating their own rate of pay been abso-
lutely lost upon all the British sepoy regiments. The
Governor-General's proclamation of 1849, annexing the
Panjab to the British crown, carried England's terri-
torial frontier across the Indus right up to the base of
the Afghan hills, finally extinguished the long rivalship
of the native Indian powers, and absorbed under Brit-
ish sovereignty the last kingdom that remained outside
the pale of the Anglo-Indian empire.
After this manner, therefore, and with the full con-
currence of the English nation as expressed through its
Parliament, successive Governors-General have pushed
on during the nineteenth century by forced marches to
complete dominion in India, fulfilling Lord dive's
prophecy and disproving his forebodings. The long
resistance to universal British supremacy culminated
and ended in the bloody but decisive campaigns against
the Sikh army. Henceforward all English campaigns
418
COMPLETION OF DOMINION
against Asiatic powers were to be outside and around
India; for the consolidation of the British empire as
a state of first-class magnitude, extending from the sea
to the mountains, disturbed all neighbouring rulerships
FINDING THE COLOURS OF THE 24TH REGIMENT AFTER THE BATTLE OF CHILIANWALA
(JAN. 13, 1849).
within the wide orbit of its attraction, and affected
the whole political system of Asia.
Lord Dalhousie had scarcely reduced the Pan jab
and planted the British standard at Peshawar, when
he became involved in disputes with the Burmese king-
dom which led to an important annexation of territory
in the southeast. The government of Burma, which
has always been as obstinate and foolhardy in its deal-
BURMA ANNEXED TO THE EMPIRE 419
ings with foreigners as the Chinese have been far-seeing
and comparatively temperate, refused either apology
or indemnity for the injurious treatment of British sub-
jects by its officers. Yet the Burmese war of 1826 ought
to have convinced less intelligent rulers that they were
at the mercy of a strong maritime power in the Bay
of Bengal, which could occupy their whole seaboard,
blockade their only outlets, and penetrate inland up
the Irawadi River. These steps, in fact, the Governor-
General found himself compelled to take, with the result
that Pegu, a country inhabited by a race that the Bur-
mese had subdued, easily fell into British hands, and
was retained when the Burmese armies had been de-
feated and driven out, its annexation being officially
proclaimed December 20, 1852.
This conquest made the British possessions contin-
uous along the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal,
and once more placed the English in a position of the
kind which seems to have been peculiarly favourable
everywhere to the expansion of dominion. The posses-
sion of a flat and fertile deltaic province at the outflow
of a great river, whether in Asia or in Africa, enables
a maritime power to settle itself securely on the land
with a base on the sea; it gives control of a great artery
of commerce, and provides an easy waterway inland.
With these advantages, especially as the people of such
a province are usually industrious and unwarlike, an
enterprising intruder is easily carried up-stream by the
course of events, and to this general rule British prog-
ress in Burma certainly affords no exception. As the
420 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
English settlement at Calcutta, upon the Ganges estu-
ary, led to the conquest of Bengal; as the occupation
of Karachi near the Indus was followed by the taking
of Sind; and as the British position at Cairo necessi-
tates a frontier in Upper Egypt, so the planting of
a new British capital at Eangoon, near the mouth of
THE PORT AND HARBOUR OF KARACHI.
the Irawadi, was a first step toward a march up the
river to Mandalay.
Having conquered two provinces on two diametri-
cally opposite frontiers of the empire, Lord Dalhousie
turned his attention to the interior. When the power
of the Maratha Peshwas was extinguished in 1818, the
titular Maratha king, Sivaji's descendant, had been
released from his state prison, and the principality of
Satara had been conferred on him by Lord Hastings.
In 1848, on the death of his successor without heirs,
Lord Dalhousie refused to sanction the adoption of an
heir. He laid down the principle that the British gov-
ernment is bound in duty as well as in policy to take
THE DOCTRINE OF LAPSE 421
possession of a subordinate state that has clearly and
indubitably lapsed to the sovereignty by total failure
of heirs natural, unless there should be some strong
reason to the contrary. Satara was accordingly ab-
sorbed; Jhansi followed in 1853; and in 1854 came the
lapse of Nagpur, when Lord Dalhousie emphatically
declared that " unless I believed the prosperity and
the happiness of its inhabitants would be promoted by
their being placed permanently under British rule, no
other advantage which could arise out of the measure
would move me to propose it."
There has never been any doubt about the recog-
nized principle of public policy, based on long usage
and tradition, that no Indian principality can pass to
an adopted heir without the assent and confirmation
of the paramount English government. Lord Dalhousie
did not deny that succession might pass by adoption,
but he claimed and exercised the prerogative of refus-
ing assent, on grounds of political expediency, in the
case of states which, either as the virtual creation of
the British government, or from their former position,
stood to that government in the relation of subordinate
or dependent principalities. And if he withheld assent,
the state underwent incorporation into British terri-
tory by lapse. Nothing, thought the Governor-General,
could be more fortunate for the subjects of a native
dynasty than its extinction by this kind of political
euthanasia.
It may be worth while to add here that this doc-
trine of lapse is now practically obsolete, having been
422 COMPLETION OF DOMINION
superseded by the formal recognition, in Lord Can-
ning's Governor-Generalship, of the right of ruling
chiefs to adopt successors, on the failure of heirs nat-
ural, according to the laws or customs of their religion,
their race, or their family, so long as they are loyal
to the crown and faithful to their engagements. The
extent to which confidence has been restored by this
edict is shown by the curious fact that since its promul-
gation a childless ruler very rarely adopts in his own
lifetime. An heir presumptive, who knows that he is
to succeed and may possibly grow impatient if his
inheritance is delayed, is not desired by politic princes
for various obscure reasons; so that the duty of nom-
inating a successor is often left to the widows, who
know their husband's mind and have every reason for
wishing him long life.
The Panjab and Pegu were conquests of war; the
states of Satara, Jhansi, and Nagpur had fallen in by
lapse. The kingdom of Oudh is the only great Indian
state of which its ruler has been dispossessed upon the
ground of intolerable misgovernment. At the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century the vizir pledged him-
self by a treaty made with Lord Wellesley to establish
such a system of administration as would be conducive
to the prosperity of his subjects; and it was also agreed
that the vizir would always advise with and act in con-
formity with the counsel of the Company's officers.
These pledges had been so entirely and continuously
neglected that the whole of Oudh had fallen into con-
stantly increasing confusion, until it subsided into
The Massacre Ghat at Cawnpur
On June 27. itij/. the banks of the Ganges at Cawnpur w-cre the scene
of a massacre of more than three hundred British by the natives, who,
headed by Nana Sahib, had risen in rebellion against the foreigners.
Relying upon a promise of safe conduct, some four hundred and fifty <>f
the English, men, women, and children, had prepared to leave Cawnpur
and embarked at the Sati Chaura Ghat. No sooner rccre tliey in the boats
than they were suddenly fired upon and butchered by the sepoys. The
survivors, a hundred or more women and children, were slaughtered in
the city some ten days later. Their bodies were thrown into a well, which
has since been known as the Memorial Well, from a monument which
records the atrocities.
THE ANNEXATION OF OUDH 423
violent disorder, tumults, brigandage, and widespread
oppression of the people.
In fact, the kingdom was sustained artificially under
a series of incapable rulers only by the external pres-
sure of the British dominions surrounding it, and by
the presence of a subsidiary British force at the cap-
ital. The formal and even menacing warnings sent
from time to time by the Governors-General to the
Oudh government were as ineffectual as such intima-
tions usually are when addressed to persons without
strength or inclination to profit by them. It was im-
possible that the support of British troops stationed
within the country could continue to be given to such
a regime, while to withdraw those troops and disown
all responsibility would only have let loose anarchy.
And as the alternative of the temporary sequestration
of the king's authority was rejected, on deliberation,
as a dangerous half-measure, the British govern-
ment determined to assume the administration and to
vest the territories of Oudh in the East India Company.
This was done by proclamation in February, 1856; and
before the end of that month Lord Dalhousie made over
the Governor-Generalship to Lord Canning.
The British empire seemed now to have reached its
zenith of peace, power, and prosperity, for the terri-
tory under its direct government had been very greatly
enlarged, its frontier line had crossed the Indus on the
northwest and the Irawadi on the southeast, and
throughout all this vast dominion law and order ap-
peared to prevail. But those peculiar symptoms of
424
COMPLETION OF DOMINION
unrest, which Shakespeare calls the cankers of a calm
world, are still in Asia (as formerly in Europe) the
natural sequel of a protracted war time, when the total
cessation of fighting and the general pacification of the
whole country leave an insubordinate mercenary army
idle and restless.
From 1838 to 1848 hostilities had been intermittent
THE CHARGE OF THE HIGHLANDERS BEFORE CAWNPUR, UNDER GENERAL HAVE LOCK.
9
but incessantly recurring; the sepoys had been in the
field against the Afghans, the Baluchis of Sind, the
Maratha insurgents of Gwalior, and the Sikhs of the
Panjab; and in 1852 they were engaged in the second
expedition against the Burmese. Except in the calam-
itous retreat from Kabul in 1841 - 1842, where a whole
division was lost, the Anglo-Indian troops had been
constantly victorious; but in Asia a triumphant army,
like the Janissaries or the Mamluks, almost always be-
comes ungovernable so soon as it becomes stationary.
THE GOVERNMENT PASSES TO THE CROWN 425
The sepoys of the Bengal army imagined that all India
was at their feet, while in 1856 the annexation of Oudh,
which was the province that furnished that army with
most of its high caste recruits, touched their pride and
affected their interests. When, therefore, the greased
cartridges roused their caste prejudices, they turned
savagely against their English officers and broke out
into murderous mutiny.
In suppressing the wild fanatic outbreak of 1857
the British were compelled to sweep away the last
shadows, that had long lost substance, of names and
figures once illustrious and formidable in India. The
phantom of a Moghul emperor and his court vanished
from Delhi; the last pretender to the honours of the
Maratha Peshwa disappeared from Cawnpur; and the
direct government of all Anglo-Indian territory passed
from the Company to the crown in 1858. The suprem-
acy of that government now stands uncontested, in
opinion and sentiment as well as in fact, throughout
the whole dominion. The extinction of the last vestige
of dynastic opposition or rivalry has been the signal
for the beginning of a modern phase of political life,
for the complete recognition of the British dominion
in India, and for the formation within the state of
parties which, however they may differ in adminis-
trative views, aspirations, and aims, are agreed in the
principle of loyalty to the English crown.
CHAPTER XVIII
INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
1858 - 1907
IN the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made
to sketch in outline the gradual expansion of our
territorial possessions in India, from the time when the
rapid disintegration of the Moghul empire had left the
whole country in political confusion, up to the complete
establishment over it of the British dominion. During
about one hundred years, from the middle of the eight-
eenth century, the English had been occupied in sub-
duing rivals for power, in pacifying and reuniting the
scattered provinces under their sovereignty. Whatever
may be, in the western world, the proper division be-
tween ancient and modern history, it is safe to affirm
that the dividing line between ancient and modern India
is marked everywhere by the date at which each prov-
ince or kingdom fell under British dominion. But if
it were necessary to draw a single line for India as
a whole, the epoch that might be taken would be the
assumption by Queen Victoria of the direct government
of India under the Crown, in 1858. The vibration
caused by the shock of the mutiny of the Bengal sepoys
had not entirely ceased before 1860, but the heat of
426
PACIFICATION AND KEFORM
427
that violent conflagration fused all the elements of fur-
ther disaffection and welded together the different parts
of the empire into compact unity. Its extinction ter-
minated the long series of wars within India, and has
been followed by fifty years of internal tranquillity.
The Queen's Proclamation, announcing that the ad-
ministration of India had passed from the East India
Company to the Crown,
confirmed all the treaties
and engagements made
with the native princes,
strictly prohibited inter-
ference with the religious
beliefs of her Majesty's
Indian subjects, and de-
sired that, so far as might
be, all her subjects should
be freely and impartially
admitted to offices in her
service. Under such aus-
pices the work of pacification and reform went on
rapidly. Oudh, annexed in 1856, quieted down after two
years of agitation; the great landholders were disarmed
and conciliated by a favourable revenue settlement.
In the Panjab, where the Sikhs in large numbers had
taken service in the British army and had fought with
great spirit against the mutineers, Sir John Lawrence's
energetic and sagacious administration had reconciled
all classes to the new rulership. The last titular repre-
sentative of the old dynasty had scarcely disappeared
SIR JOHN LAWRENCE.
428 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
from his palace at Delhi when a new monarchy was
inaugurated, and the political reconstruction of the frag-
ments of the Moghul empire was consolidated by a
series of edicts and statutes. For British India, the
territory under our immediate government, the narra-
tive of this period is comparatively uneventful it
records internal affairs and administrative progress.
But some account of external affairs must be given;
first, in regard to the native chiefships whose lands,
though not British territory, are enclosed within Brit-
ish India, and secondly, in regard to events and trans-
actions, some of them of great importance, in the
adjacent countries outside the external limits of our
territorial jurisdiction.
The policy, inaugurated by Lord Wellesley's sub-
sidiary treaties, and continued by his successors, of
bringing all the native states of India into subordinate
relation with the British sovereignty, has already been
briefly described. Under this system the supreme
government has undertaken their protection and de-
fence, arbitrates in any disputes among them, deter-
mines all claims to succeed to the rulership, maintains
the chief's legitimate authority against revolt, and in-
terferes with their internal affairs in cases of serious
abuse of power or grave disorder. In 1860 Lord Can-
ning conveyed to all these chiefs the assurance of the
Queen's desire that their rulership should be perpetu-
ated, and that, accordingly, adoption of successors made
in accordance with the law and custom of their families
would be recognized and confirmed. The effect of this
THE NATIVE STATES 429
declaration was to regulate and define the succession
upon a fixed principle of public policy, and above all
to convince the ruling chiefs that in future no annexa-
tion, upon default of heirs, of their territories was to
be feared.
The area occupied, in the aggregate, by these states
is at present about 650,000 square miles, with a popula-
tion of some 66 millions. They vary in size from Hai-
darabad, with a population of 11V2 millions, to petty
chief ships containing less than 1000 inhabitants; they
represent for the most part, as has been said, the terri-
torial possessions or estates acquired by force and the
fortune of war after the dilapidation of the Moghul
empire, or the hereditary possessions of chiefs who
survived that period of general confusion, and were
preserved by the establishment of British supremacy.
The internal tranquillity of these chiefships, from
1860 up to the present time, has left few events worthy
of record. The British government has indeed been
obliged to interpose occasionally to punish the serious
or criminal misconduct of individual chiefs and to
determine authoritatively on the conflicting claims to
succession. The presence, at the capitals of the larger
protected states, of subsidiary British troops is not
only a guarantee of a ruler's rights, but also of his
duties toward his subjects. Where succession to the
chiefship has been disputed or doubtful, the British
government has been frequently required to arbitrate
between conflicting claims; occasionally to put down
revolt; and in rare instances to punish acts of exces-
430 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
sive or criminal misconduct committed by a chief or his
ministers. In illustration of the use made of this pre-
rogative of interposition, two cases of unusual gravity
may be noticed. In 1876 the Gaikwar of Baroda, who
had been tried before a Commission for complicity in
an attempt against the life of the British Resident, and
who was convicted of gross maladministration, was
formally deposed and removed to a place of detention.
And in 1891, the Maharaja of Manipur, a small state on
the eastern frontier cf Bengal, took refuge in British
India from a military revolt, headed by his brothers.
When the Chief Commissioner of Assam proceeded to
make an inquiry into the affair, and to take measures
for suppressing the disorder, he was enticed to a con-
ference and treacherously murdered, with some of his
officers, within the town of Manipur. A British force
was despatched, which occupied the state for a time,
until those concerned in the assassination had been
punished. The Maharaja had abdicated; and since
his incapacity was proved beyond doubt, he was
replaced by another representative of the reigning
family.
An important addition has been made to the list of
these self-governing principalities by the revival of the
State of Mysore, in southern India. In the fourteenth
chapter 1 brief reference has been made to its previ-
ous history. The territory had been forcibly seized
by Hyder Ali, and reconquered from Tippu Sultan by
Lord Wellesley, 2 when part of it was restored to the old
1 See pages 309-310. * At that time known as Lord Mornington.
THE STATE OF MYSORE 431
Hindu dynasty. But in 1831 the Indian government
had been obliged to assume the administration, and
retained it for fifty years. In 1881, however, the state
was reconstituted under the rule of the descendant of
the ancient Hindu family from whom it had been taken
nearly a century earlier, under conditions that provided
for the acknowledgment of the British sovereignty, and
for the welfare of the Mysore people. These conditions
have been faithfully observed, and this just and politic
action of the British government was appreciated by all
the native chiefs throughout India as a confirmation of
the declared intention to uphold their territorial inde-
pendence.
But while our relations with the feudatory states
lying inside the external frontiers of India have been
successfully maintained and strengthened, the course
of affairs beyond those frontiers has been complicated
by important events and their consequences. Our an-
nexation of the Pan jab in 1849 had extended the domin-
ion up to the skirts of the Afghan mountains, and had
thereby brought our border into immediate contact with
the highlands inhabited by warlike tribes, who had been
accustomed for ages to make plundering raids upon the
plains below. For the protection of our own districts,
and for the punishment of intolerable brigandage, many
expeditions into these highlands had been made, but
with little or no permanent effect upon intractable bar-
barians. In 1863 it became necessary to dispatch a
strong force into the hills overhanging the Peshawar
valley against a settlement of fanatic Mohammedans
432 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
who had been keeping the whole border-side in alarm
by their plundering incursions, which the adjoining
tribes were encouraged by their example to join. At
the Umbeyla Pass the British commander, finding him-
self confronted by a combination of all the neighbouring
clans, was obliged to take up a defensive position, where
he was fiercely assailed, and the force was for a short
time in considerable jeopardy. The predicament was
serious, for a reverse might have been followed by a
general rising of the tribes to break in over the frontier
into British territory. Some hard fighting ensued, until
reinforcements came up, when, after the enemy had
suffered severe loss, their leaders submitted to terms,
the stronghold of the fanatics was demolished, and their
gathering effectively dispersed.
This expedition, known as the Umbeyla campaign,
was one of the most hazardous and difficult of the forays
and petty wars provoked by the tribes on the north-
western frontier; and the brief notice of it that has
been here given may serve to illustrate the state of
unrest and insecurity that has ensued whenever the
British Government has resolved to set bounds to its
territorial expansion, to stop short, draw a line, and
abstain from all interference with the affairs of the
country beyond it. Just as, in many parts of Asia,
cultivation ceases abruptly at the farthest point reached
by artificial irrigation in a desert tract, so primitive
barbarism may exist just outside the edge of settled
civilization; and the situation on the northwest frontier
of India exhibits this sharp contrast of social and polit-
CAMPAIGNS ON THE FRONTIER 433
ical conditions. It would be a costly and difficult opera-
tion to extend administrative control over this tribal
zone, yet no other effective remedy of chronic disorder
has hitherto been discovered, and the problem still
awaits solution.
The war with Bhotan, in 1864, was forced upon the
British government by similar causes and circumstances.
Bhotan is a small state within the exterior ranges of
the Himalayan mountains, lying east of Nepal, in-
habited by a poor and ignorant people, accustomed to
make predatory incursions into the province of Bengal.
In one of these raids some British subjects had been
carried off into captivity by the Bhotias, and a mission
had been dispatched to the capital of the state with
instructions to demand their release; but the request
was contemptuously rejected, and the envoy was treated
with gross insolence and threats of personal violence.
It became necessary to send an armed force into the
country to exact reparation and to rescue the captives.
The troops, at first unskilfully handled in a region of
hills and jungles, suffered a reverse which compelled
them to retreat in some confusion; but the Bhotias
anticipated a fresh advance in greater strength by sub-
mitting to terms which imposed upon them the penalty
of ceding a strip of lands along the base of the Himala-
yas; and they have since given no further provocation.
As Bhotan is under a ruler with some general authority
recognized over a definite area, it was easier to effect
some durable settlement with him than in the case of
the ungovernable tribes in the Northwest.
434 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
Baluchistan, the country of the Baluch clans, lies
along the western border of the Pan jab and Sind, ex-
tending down to the Arabian Sea; it is under the nomi-
nal authority or hegemony of a chief, whose headquar-
ters are at Kelat; but his power was insufficient to re-
strain the turbulent leaders of the rival clans, who were
in constant rebellion against him, and the British border
was continually troubled by their brigandage. In 1876,
when Lord Lytton was Viceroy, Major Sandeman was
deputed to mediate between the Khan and the chiefs,
and to arrange for the freedom of trade routes and the
general pacification of the border. He succeeded in
negotiating a treaty by which the Khan acknowledged
the influence and paramount overlordship of the British
government in Baluchistan, in exchange for protection
and support. The subordinate chiefs willingly accepted
a settlement that put an end to incessant civil war,
faction fighting, and misrule; and from that time the
country has rapidly quieted down, until at the present
moment the authority of the British representative is
virtually exercised in Baluchistan up to the confines
of Persia on the west, and the administration is con-
ducted under his direction and guidance. The passes
leading up from India were opened and guarded, and
a garrison of native troops was posted at Quetta, not far
from the frontier that divides the Baluch territory from
southern Afghanistan, on the road toward Kandahar.
The importance of this advanced position and of open-
ing the communication in its rear through the Bolan
Pass into India, was almost immediately demonstrated.
RUSSIAN ADVANCE IN CENTRAL ASIA 437
It is impossible, within the limits of this chapter, to
recount in detail the incidents and transactions that
preceded and led up to the Afghan war of 1878 - 1881.
They were intimately connected with the larger spheres
of war and diplomacy in Europe, and with the attitude
of Russia in Central Asia.
When British India had expanded to its geograph-
ical limits, from the sea-shore to the mountains, it might
have been expected that our record of warfare in Asia
was closing. Our command of the sea was unchal-
lenged, and landward no country has stronger natural
fortifications. But in the history of Asia during the
latter half of the nineteenth century, the dominant
element has been the increasing spread of European
ascendency, creating a general sense of political insta-
bility. For all the kingdoms of Asia felt the growng
pressure of formidable neighbours, while the European
powers were striving to hold each other at arm's length,
and watching with jealous apprehension the gradual
approximation of their respective frontiers. On the
Asiatic continent the British dominion seemed at last
to have reached its appointed limits at the base of the
Afghan mountains; but Russia's advance through
Central Asia was acquiring increased momentum in
proportion to the mass of her conquests, and she was
rapidly increasing her dominion. For manifest reasons
of policy and strategy the English, who desire to keep
other European powers at a distance, insist on reserving
a preponderating influence in the countries marching
with their own territory, and allow no foreign inter-
438 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
ference with them. Toward the end of the nineteenth
century, therefore, the British government was watch-
ing, with redoubled attention, the approach of Russia
in the direction of the Oxus River and the northwestern
provinces of the Afghan kingdom.
By the subjugation of Khiva the Russian outposts
had been brought much nearer to the Afghan frontier,
and the attempt of the English Cabinet to check this
movement by negotiations had elicited little more than
vague assurances from St. Petersburg. In 1873, how-
ever, the Russian emperor declared Afghanistan to be
completely outside the sphere within which Russian
influence might be exercised; and the boundary-line of
that kingdom had been partially defined by diplomatic
agreement. The whole policy, therefore, of British
statesmen at this time was directed upon the object of
securing the independence and integrity of Afghanistan.
And the record of Indian foreign affairs during the
period with which we are now concerned exhibits a
series of discussions and ineffectual negotiations, until
out of the gathering cloud of misunderstandings and the
pressure of events, an Afghan war was suddenly pre-
cipitated in 1878. When, in 1868, the Amir of Afghanis-
tan, Sher Ali, had mastered the whole of this country
after a long and fiercely contested war for succession
to the throne, the situation of his state between two
powerful European empires filled him with anxiety, and
he turned to India for alliance and material support. In
1869 he paid a visit to Lord Mayo, then Viceroy, at
Umballa, where he was received with much ceremony,
RELATIONS WITH AFGHANISTAN 439
with large presents of arms and money, and with many
friendly assurances. But the Amir desired a formal
treaty and a fixed subsidy, which Lord Mayo was not
authorized to grant, so that the conference ended with-
out any settlement on the substantial basis of an alli-
ance. In 1873, when negotiations were renewed, Lord
Northbrook proposed to accord to Sher Ali a guarantee
against foreign aggression, but sanction was refused
by the ministry at home, and to this disappointment,
with other grievances, may be ascribed the distrust and
resentment which Sher Ali displayed in his subsequent
dealings with the British government.
In 1876, however, the English ministry had become
convinced that it was necessary to secure closer and
more definite relations with the Amir; and Lord Lytton,
on his appointment to the Viceroyalty, took out with
him to India instructions to carry out this policy. His
first step was to propose sending a mission to Kabul,
but this overture was so unfavourably received by the
Amir that, after some abortive negotiations, it was
abandoned, not without friction and estrangement on
both sides. In 1877 came the war between Russia and
Turkey, and in 1878, when the Russian army was be-
fore Constantinople, the British government prepared
for armed intervention by sending Indian troops to
Malta. The Russians replied by a counter-move; they
pushed forward a detachment from their army in Cen-
tral Asia towards the Afghan frontier; and a Russian
envoy arrived at Kabul, who proceeded to draw up a
treaty of alliance with the Amir. The Viceroy of India
440 INDIA UNDER THE CEOWN
retaliated by a demand for the immediate admission of
a British envoy at Kabul; but Sir Neville Chamber-
lain's mission was forcibly turned back at the Afghan
outposts, whereupon an ultimatum, insisting upon the
reception of a British envoy, and requiring a reply by
a fixed date, was dispatched to the Amir. By that date
no reply came, so war was declared in November, 1878,
and three columns of troops entered Afghanistan from
different points. The column which advanced from the
south by Quetta occupied Kandahar almost without
opposition; the two northern columns threatened Kabul
from Kuram and Jalalabad; and when General Roberts
had dispersed the Afghan troops at the Peiwar Kotal,
the Amir, leaving Kabul, took refuge in his upper prov-
inces near the Oxus, whence he appealed for succour
to the Russian authorities in Transcaspia. But the in-
terest of Russia in his affairs had ceased with the sig-
nature of the Berlin treaty; he was advised to make
peace with the British government, and early in 1879
he died in great distress. His son, Yakub Khan, offered
to negotiate for the cessation of hostilities, conditionally
upon his own recognition, with British support, as suc-
cessor to the Amirship. After considerable discussion,
the treaty of Gandamak was concluded with him,
whereby he ceded certain outlying tracts that would
facilitate our command of the routes leading into Af-
ghanistan, and agreed to receive a British envoy at
Kabul. To this post Sir Louis Cavagnari was deputed
in July, 1879.
But the whole country had been thrown into con-
THE AFGHAN WAR 441
fusion by the war, and the death of the Amir Sher
All had left it without a ruler. Yakub Khan had
neither the experience nor the strength of character
required for the mastery of such a situation; his troops
were unpaid and mutinous; and his influence was
slight over a fierce, indomitable people, whose inveter-
ate hatred of foreigners was intensified by the presence
of a British officer at Kabul. The whole fabric of our
arrangements with Afghanistan, as it had been built up
on the treaty of Gandamak, depended on the envoy's
personal safety. Within three months his assassination
brought it down with a terrible crash; and thus, while
during the first period of the war we had been engaged
in fighting the Amir Sher Ali, in the second we found
ourselves involved in the much more arduous task of
fighting the Afghan people. Immediately upon receipt
of the news that Cavagnari, with all his escort, had
been murdered, the war was renewed. Kabul was
captured by a rapid and daring march of Sir Frederick
Roberts upon the capital; Kandahar, which Sir Donald
Stewart had just evacuated, was reoccupied; but al-
though we managed to retain a firm military hold on
these two important points, the Indian government was
now confronted by a most awkward dilemma. The
attempt to subdue and pacify the whole country was
beyond our power, and had never been contemplated
by our policy, while, if we withdrew our garrisons,
Afghanistan would have been left to masterless anarchy,
and the war would have been waged to no purpose.
The armed tribes, believing that the subjugation of
442
INDIA UNDEK THE CROWN
Afghanistan was intended, broke out into insurrection
around Kabul, and in December, 1879, they combined
for a resolute assault upon the British intrenchments
outside the city. Their de-
feat, after some very sharp
fighting, quieted the sur-
rounding districts for the
time, and communications
with India were reopened;
but the manifest interest
of the British government
was to make over Afghan-
istan to some capable and
not unfriendly ruler; and,
indeed, the war had been
undertaken with this sole
object.
From this dilemma we
were extricated by the ap-
pearance in the northern
province of Abd-ar-Rah-
man, the nephew of the
Amir Sher Ali's predecessor, who had been driven out
of the country when Sher Ali won his throne in the civil
war for succession, and had been living under Russian
protection beyond the Oxus River. The Viceroy of
India (Lord Lytton) made amicable overtures to him,
with assurances that his accession to the vacant ruler-
ship would not be opposed, and he received an invita-
tion to the British headquarters at Kabul, for the
ABD-AR-RAHMAN, AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN,
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH MADE BETWEEN
1870 AND 1880.
From The Life of Abdur Rahman.
ABD-AR-KAHMAtf MADE AMIft 443
purpose of discussing terms upon which he might be
recognized as Amir, and the rulership of the country
might be made over to him. In June, 1880, Lord Lytton
resigned his Governor-Generalship of India to Lord
Ripon, by whom this arrangement was, not without
difficulty, concluded. Abd-ar-Rahman's accession was
proclaimed in the British camp at Kabul; he was
strengthened by grants of arms and money, and by
a formal promise of support against foreign aggres-
sion; and the British troops were just starting on
their return to India, when news came that Ayub Khan,
Sher Ali's younger son, had marched with an army
from Herat upon Kandahar. In July he routed a
British force at Maiwand, not far from Kandahar, and
was beleaguering the garrison within the walls of that
city. A strong expedition was immediately dispatched
from Kabul, under the command of Sir Frederick
Roberts, who reached Kandahar by forced marches at
the end of August, attacked and completely defeated
Ayub Khan, relieved the garrison, and drew off his
troops into India by the Bolan Pass. Simultaneously
the British army at Kabul had withdrawn from Afghan-
istan by the direct northern route; and in 1881 the
evacuation of Kandahar left the Amir free to enforce
his authority over the southern province. Abd-ar-Rah-
man, thus left to his own resources, drove Ayub Khan
(who had returned) out of the country, and rapidly
extended his power everywhere, until in a few years all
Afghanistan was, for the first time in its history, amal-
gamated into a strong independent kingdom under a
444 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
ruler of singular ability and merciless severity. Dur-
ing the following years the frontiers of this kingdom
were laid down. The demarcation of its northwestern
boundary, from the Oxus River to the confines of Persia,
was undertaken by a joint commission of Russian and
English officers; but a dispute over one section of the
line caused a collision between Russian and Afghan
troops at Panjdah, which brought England and Russia
to the verge of a rupture in 1885, at a moment when the
Amir was a guest of the Viceroy (Lord Dufferin) in his
camp in North India. When that peril had been
averted, the whole northwest frontier adjoining Russian
possessions was settled by an international convention;
and the next measure was to define the Afghan frontier
on its eastern side, where a belt of tribal highlands is
interposed between the Amir's territory and British
India.
The general effect of all these measures has been
of the highest importance to our dominion in India.
During the nineteenth century Afghanistan has been
a foreign kingdom which the English, who have no
desire to possess, are nevertheless imperatively com-
pelled to protect, and which must be retained at all risks
and costs within the orbit of British influence, since its
independence is essential to the security of any rule or
dynasty in India. Under the Moghuls this country
was a province of their empire; under the British sys-
tem it is a protectorate; the Afghan mountains are still
the necessary barrier against irruptions into the Indian
plains. Since 1880, when the formal promise to defend
AFGHANISTAN A BRITISH PROTECTORATE 446
Afghanistan from foreign aggression was given to the
Amir, the condition of his kingdom has steadily im-
proved; it is no longer distracted by chronic civil wars
and intestine revolts; it has been comparatively quiet
and prosperous for twenty-seven years; and the pres-
ent reigning Amir succeeded to the throne, on his
father's death, without opposition; whereas all pre-
vious successions had been contested, or had been
followed by rebellions. This transformation of the
internal condition of the country may be ascribed,
primarily, to the aid and support received by its rulers
from the British government; and secondly to the
delimitation of the Afghan frontiers, which has been
ratified by a public convention between the two Euro-
pean powers,
In order to complete the narrative of events on the
northern frontiers of India, it may be here mentioned
that in 1896 - 1897 the petty chief ships on the southern
slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains beyond Kashmir,
were included within the range of the British pro-
tectorate. This extension of our political control was
not accomplished without some resistance by the tribes
of that wild and hitherto inaccessible region. They be-
leaguered and brought into some peril a British gar-
rison in Chitral, until it was relieved by an expedition
that made a difficult and hazardous march to its assist-
ance. Our sphere of influence has thus been extended
up to the borders of the Chinese empire in Kashgar;
and its landmarks have been permanently set up in
those remote highlands. The general result of all these
446
INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
operations, military and diplomatic, has been to lay out
along the northern and northwestern frontiers of India
a broad zone of protected states, which separate China,
Russia, and Persia from the territories under our direct
administration.
In the meantime, however, while we were engaged
in clearing and strengthening the strategic position
THE GOLDEN MONASTERY, MANDALAY, BURMA.
beyond Northern India, on our southeast frontier new
and grave complications had arisen. Since 1853, when
the lower provinces of Burma had been conquered and
annexed, the attitude of the Burmese rulers toward the
British government had been resentful and vindictive.
In 1885 the Burmese king persisted in rejecting reason-
able demands made for reparation of injuries to British
subjects, and what was much more serious, it was dis-
EVENTS ON THE NORTHERN FRONTIER 447
covered that he was secretly negotiating a treaty with
France, so framed as to give French interests a predomi-
nant influence in his country. When remonstrance and
warning had proved entirely ineffectual, an ultimatum,
backed by the assembling of an army on his frontier,
was dispatched to him by the Indian government. The
reply was by a proclamation in a tone of hostility, where-
upon, in November, 1885, the troops advanced up Man-
dalay. The Burmese army made no serious resistance,
the capital was occupied, the king was captured, and
the annexation of Upper Burma was announced by the
Queen's government. After nearly two years of in-
ternal disorder, for the conquered provinces were in-
fested by marauding bands and disbanded soldiery,
the work of pacification was accomplished, and the
civil administration organized. Beyond the north-
eastern districts of Upper Burma the petty chiefships
in the wild tracts up to the Mekong river became our
tributaries, and the tribes in the scarcely explored hills
in the north have partially submitted to our control.
The ruler of Siam, a kingdom that lies east of Burma,
separating it from the French possessions in Cochin
China, had become involved in disputes with the French
authorities, and since the situation of Siam renders its
independence of substantial concern to India, the Brit-
ish government interfered diplomatically in 1896, to pre-
vent the kingdom's dismemberment, and to obtain
recognition of the British protectorate over the Siamese
provinces nearest to our own border.
This, the latest, expansion of British dominion by the
448 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
incorporation of Upper Burma has made a consider-
able addition to the weight of our political responsi-
bilities. Between the populations of India and of the
countries known as Indo-Chinese, there is little or no
affinity. Here we have broken fresh ground in Asia,
we have come into contact on our advanced position
with strange races and languages: we are exploring
a region hitherto almost unknown to Europeans, we
have to demarcate the outlines and fill in the detail
of our ever-widening territorial map. Our policy, on
this side as on the Afghan border, is to maintain
friendly relations with the Chinese officials, who are
very sensitive to our proceedings, and to establish over
the barbarous folk in the tracts intervening between
the two empires a protectorate sufficient to reclaim
them gradually from turbulence, to convert them from
plundering borderers into border police, and to exclude
foreign influence or encroachments.
Except by the annexation of Burma, the area under
the direct and regular administration of the Indian
Government has undergone little change since 1856.
On the other hand, the external frontier of the empire,
if the line is drawn, as it must be, to include the out-
lying regions that have been brought within the sphere
of British influence or superior control, has been very
materially widened in the course of the last fifty years.
This frontier is now conterminous with the Russian
possessions in Central Asia on the northwest, it marches
for several thousand miles with the empire of China;
and on the southeast it touches the Asiatic colonies of
The Memorial Well, Cawnpur.
PRESENT BRITISH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE 449
France. By a recent expedition to Lhasa, the capital of
Tibet, we have emphasized our determination to permit
no encroachment of another European power upon the
vast tracts of mountains and deserts that stretch from
the Himalayas northward to the confines of Mongolia.
Our policy is to keep clear of intrusion all the ap-
proaches to India, and to hold in our hands the keys
of all its gates. Upon this system we have been obliged
to multiply and throw forward our military outposts,
and accept a great augmentation of sundry and mani-
fold political responsibilities. The outer frontier of the
British dominion that our policy now requires us to
defend, has an immense circumference. Its southeastern
extremity rests on the Gulf of Siam, whence it sweeps
round Tibet on the north; it touches the Hindu Kush
range of mountains and the Oxus; on the northwest it
covers Afghanistan and Baluchistan, until it terminates
at its western extremity on the shores of the Arabian
sea. The consequence of this expansion of our spheres
of political influence far beyond the area of our actual
dominion is that the frontiers of the British empire
are changing their character. The boundaries of India
proper are naturally defined on three sides by an almost
unbroken wall of mountains or by desert tracts and on
the fourth side by the sea. But the political circum-
scription of our exterior frontier has now been formed
by tracing artificial lines, settled by international agree-
ments, across the slopes and valleys of the Central
Asian highlands, and across desolate plains or rugged
half-explored hill-tracts. These fixed lines of frontier
450 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
represent the out-works of our strategical position; and
from the northwest to the southeast they adjoin the
dominions of two other great Asiatic empires, Russia
and China. The political situation in Asia is now
closely dependent upon any entanglement of the net-
work of international relations throughout the world,
so that any serious strain or rupture would be felt not
only in India, but in all the adjacent countries under
European influence; nor is it too much to say that the
destiny of the greater part of Asia depends on the bal-
ance of power and the adjustment of forces in Europe.
The history of British dominion in India has been
written, up to this point in the narrative, with little or
no reference to matters of interior administration. It
has described, in broad outline, the origin and expan-
sion of British rule by territorial conquest and cessions,
the gradual rise of its supremacy over all rival Indian
powers, and the external policy adopted for the defence
and security of our possessions. But during the latter
half of the nineteenth century great internal changes
have supervened; the enlargement of territory has in-
creased the number and diversity of the population;
the moral and material condition of the people has made
important advances. It has, therefore, been thought
expedient to complete this volume by adding some brief
account of the progress of civil government, and of the
reforming measures from time to time introduced, in
the course of the period to which this section relates.
The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 was reactionary in its
causes and revolutionary in its effects; it shook for a
RESULTS OF THE SEPOY MUTINY
451
moment the empire's foundations, but it cleared the
area for reconstruction and improvement. In a previous
chapter it has been said that for the twenty years im-
mediately preceding, from 1837 to 1857, there had been
only short intervals of peace between recurrent wars,
and that British territory had been greatly extended
THE MASSACRE AT CAWNPCR, JUNE 26, 1857.
by successive annexations. When, in 1849, the Pan jab
had been subdued and pacified after two hard-fought
campaigns, and when Oudh, the last and largest king-
dom in northern India, had been incorporated by Lord
Dalhousie in 1856, it might have been plausibly antici-
pated that the rough war-time had ended, and that the
whole country could settle down in tranquillity under
our dominion.
462 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
In reality we were only just turning the first leaf
of a new chapter, which opens with the outbreak of a
fierce civil war. The thunderstorm of revolt broke in
upon these visions of repose, and on the prospects of
unclouded calm; the native army, which for a hundred
years had shared all our triumphs and reverses in war,
rose against us, and was overpowered after a desperate
struggle. In Oudh the great landholders set up the
standard of rebellion; and throughout the northern
provinces British authority was for some time either
swept away, or sustained only by the force of arms and
the resolution of those who confronted a tremendous
crisis with courageous energy. Thus in 1860, when
order had been at last restored, the older provinces were
recovering from a dangerous insurrection, which had
seriously disturbed the adjoining native States; while
in the territories that had been recently acquired the
fabric of government had been merely provisional,
suited to the immediate needs and emergencies of their
occupation. With the complete pacification of the coun-
try came leisure for organization, for placing the execu-
tive authority of the various local governments on a
definite footing, and substituting laws properly framed
for unmethodical procedure and discretionary ordi-
nances. The moment was opportune for undertaking
this work, as the constitution of the Indian government,
after passing through various stages of transition, had
now reached a condition that rendered comprehensive
alterations urgently necessary, in order to adapt it to
civilized uses and to the needs of a changing society.
PEEVIOUS SYSTEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 453
The administration of the Moghul empire had been to
some degree systematic; and its scheme of distribu-
tion into districts and provinces, with the methods of
assessing the local revenue, still survived in outline.
But the native rulerships immediately preceding the
British dominion had neither system nor stability, since
the incessant warfare and scramble for territory during
the eighteenth century had left even able chiefs without
time or means for administrative settlement. Yet even
the Moghul emperors, in the plenitude of their power,
had never promulgated general civil or criminal laws
backed by state sanction, in the European sense of
these terms; nor had they at any time pretended to
regulate authoritatively the customs and domestic rela-
tions of the people, being content to levy revenue and
do rough justice according to the arbitrary will of the
sovereign or of his deputies. The multifarious groups
that make up the population of India had lived under
their personal institutions and rules of conduct, mainly
religious; for it may be said that in Asia law and re-
ligion are almost universally regarded as two sides of
the same subject. Under the earlier . regimen of the
East India Company the practice had been to issue
provincial Regulations of an old-fashioned type framed
to suit the requirements and circumstances of sundry
times and divers places, loosely drawn and intermixed
with instructions and explanations, and further com-
plicated by empirical decisions of the local courts.
Latterly some Acts, of importance and value, passed by
the supreme legislature, were put in force throughout
454 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
the older provinces. But the new territories, as they
were annexed to the dominion, were placed by the
Governor-General provisionally under his direct control
by what was called the Non-Regulation system, reserv-
ing his power of extending discretionally the regular
laws and procedure, with directions that their spirit
THE "SLAUGHTER -HOUSE," WHERE THE CAWNPUR MASSACRE TOOK PLACE.
rather than their letter should be followed, to be supple-
mented in doubtful cases by the guidance of equity and
good conscience.
When, therefore, after the final suppression of the
mutiny and of the agitation that it had spread through-
out the northern provinces, the permanent reconstitu-
tion of government became practicable and necessary,
the task of the British authorities was. to deduce order
out of this confusion, and to lay the foundations of a new
REORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT 455
and uniform polity. The country had been the scene
of more rapid and abrupt transitions, political and
economical, than had ever, perhaps, been recorded in
the history of nations. For in India old and new forms
of civilization had become intermixed, not only by the
influx of European ideas upon an Asiatic society, but
because it contained an immense population in differ-
ent stages of material and intellectual progress. The
English had originally taken over an empire in a state
of political dilapidation; and they had now to complete
its administration on a scientific plan, with a solicitous
regard for the inveterate prejudices of many races and
religions.
Previously to the mutiny of 1857, this process of
reformation had been going on slowly; but from that
time forward it acquired great momentum. By an Act
of Parliament passed in 1858, the supreme powers of
control over Indian affairs, which had been hitherto
divided between the Court of Directors and the minis-
ters of the Crown, were vested in a Secretary of State
in Council; and all the naval and military forces of the
East India Company were transferred to the imperial
service. Then, in 1861, the India Councils Act modified
the constitution of the Governor-General's Executive
Council in India, and remodelled the legislature by es-
tablishing a Council, presided over by the Governor-
General, to make laws for the whole of India, with sub-
ordinate legislative Councils at Madras, Bombay, and
Calcutta. Another statute instituted High Courts of
Judicature under royal charter, at these three capitals;
456 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
and in 1860 - 1861 the enactment of the Penal Code and
the Code of Criminal Procedure assimilated throughout
the country the general system of criminal law. By
these measures the executive and judicial administra-
tion was systematically re-arranged; so that, when
Lord Canning, the first Viceroy of India, left Calcutta
in 1862, he made over to his successor a government
very different in organization and character from that
which had been transmitted to him, six years earlier, by
Lord Dalhousie. The royal supremacy, proclaimed in
1858, became the actual and visible sign of substantial
incorporation into the British Empire in all parts of the
world, at a time when India had received large accre-
tions of territory; while the sense of unity created by
the Queen's assumption of direct government restored
confidence, and gave a powerful impulse to the moral
and material advancement of the Indian people.
The administrative history of India during the next
fifty years may be described as a development upon the
lines that were laid down by these fundamental execu-
tive and legislative reforms. It records the methodical
prosecution of the work of adjusting the mechanism
of a modern state to the circumstances and customs of a
most heterogeneous population. On the one hand, per-
sonal laws, precepts of caste and creed, and prescriptive
rights had to be respected. On the other hand, the
effect upon many of these rules and usages made by the
introduction of a strong and systematic administration
was to derange and modify them, because the needs and
circumstances under which they had grown up were
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL CHANGES 457
passing away. In this manner the vague and elastic
ordinances of primitive societies were naturally falling
into disuse, with a tendency toward dissolution. But
the operation of the British courts of justice, which had
been established in the older provinces, was to arrest
this spontaneous decomposition. To these tribunals
every question of right, every dispute over matters of in-
heritance, property, and customary law generally, was
necessarily referred, and the result was commonly to
fix by the judicial decisions, and thus to stereotype an
order of things that was by its nature elastic, that had
taken its shape from the rude exigencies of lawless
times, and was becoming inconsistent with the new
social and economical environment, with peace, with
the growth of wealth, security of property, and the
spread of education. The effect was to give inflexible
precision and rigidity to loose undefined usages, for,
while a self-regulating community can amend or aban-
don an inconvenient precept of caste or creed, in the
hands of an English judge the rule becomes immutable,
and the bonds are tightened. But the conditions of life,
for all classes of the population, had been so profoundly
affected by the advent of British dominion, that noth-
ing but our own positive and inflexible law could have
prevented a corresponding modification of archaic ideas
and institutions.
It had thus come to pass that while the general civil
law of India was to a great extent intricate and uncer-
tain, varying from province to province, with multifari-
ous distinctions and exceptions created by religious
468 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
singularities and local traditions, its complexity ^Yas
further increased by the importation of an exotic legal
procedure. Yet government by a clear and scientific
body of laws, binding upon the authorities and appro-
priate to the circumstances of the people, is the only
real security for the progress and prosperity of a coun-
try; so that it was essential to mould this mass of
heterogeneous sections and rulings into some compact
and intelligible shape. The problem was to simplify
and generalize the civil law and procedure, and to enact
large principles of equity and morality, with the least
possible disturbance of the practices, prejudices, and
organic institutions of Indian society.
Under the direction of Sir Henry Maine, a jurist
whose insight into the forms and ideas of early civiliza-
tions admirably fitted him for the task, the solution of
this problem was initiated. When, in 1862, he assumed
charge of the legislative department of the Indian
government, the two great Acts codifying the Penal
Law and procedure had already been passed; but the
subject of civil or domestic legislation was much more
complicated. It is obvious, for example, that questions
touching marriage and inheritance lie at the base of
every society, being related to fundamental interests
and affecting very delicate susceptibilities; so that any
interposition by foreign legislators must be exercised
with the utmost caution. In India the rules which pre-
side over family life and the distribution of property
are intermixed with and dependent upon religious
ritual, worships, and beliefs; their diversity and multi-
CHANGES IN THE CIVIL LAW 469
plicity preclude any attempt to comprehend them
within a uniform Civil Code. The only practicable
course, therefore, was to frame Acts embodying broad
principles of jurisprudence, providing, so to speak, the
lines upon which social evolution might be assisted.
The precise scope and operation of these emancipating
Acts cannot be here explained; though the Indian Suc-
cession Act may be taken as an illustration of the
process. It codified the law relating to the effect of
death or marriage upon successors to property, and to
testamentary bequest; but it does not apply to Hindus,
Mohammedans, or to others who are subject to their
own personal laws; it provides a definite civil status
for those classes of the population whom the novel rites
and peculiar doctrines, which are continually disinte-
grating orthodox Hinduism, or the softening of manners
and intellectual elevation, may have separated from their
original sects or communities.
Other Acts, such as that for the remarriage of con-
verts to Christianity, embodied the principle that
change of religion involved no loss of ordinary civil
rights. The Acts dealing with Evidence and Contract
reduced to concise and explicit form a mass of law that
the courts had previously been obliged to extract from
text-books, reports, and conflicting rulings, and the pro-
cedure of all courts of civil jurisdiction was determined
by comprehensive enactments. In short, the aim and
outcome of the legislation during this period was to sim-
plify and summarize the administration of justice, and
to promote by successive measures the general principle
460 INDIA UNDEE THE CEOWN
of civil and religious liberty, taking power to extend
them as their expediency and moral superiority should
be gradually recognized by the people; and slowly
moulding their habits to the conception of government
by laws.
The policy of reform and consolidation pursued dur-
ing this period in one great department of administra-
tion is of such importance, and to some extent of such
general interest from the standpoint of comparative
legislation, that some brief explanation of it may not
be here out of place. In India, where the public income
from land has always been the chief mainstay of the
state's finances, and where the population in a very
great majority subsist by agriculture, the just and
skilful management of this source of revenue has always
been of vital importance to the welfare of every govern-
ment and of the people. From the beginning of British
rule the provincial authorities have been continually
engaged in deciding questions of ownership and occu-
pancy, in allocating the payments due to the treasury
from every estate and sometimes from every field, in
revising earlier systems of taxation, and in passing laws
or framing executive rules to settle disputed proprietor-
ship or to remedy agricultural distress. The fact that
from time immemorial the State has invariably shared
in the surplus profits of agriculture has provided every
strong government in India with a direct and very
substantial motive for protecting the actual cultivator;
the liability of the country to periodical drought adds
weight to this primary interest and obligation.
AGRARIAN LEGISLATION 461
But many parts of India, when they first came under
British sovereignty, had suffered from the passage of
armies, from marauding bands, from the dispersion or
impoverishment of the cultivators, and from all the
calamities of war. In the violent contests for posses-
sion of territory and revenue the lands had been forci-
bly seized, and the strife had been incessant between
the old and the new proprietors. In the outlying dis-
tricts, during intervals of confusion, neither rent nor
revenue could be regularly levied, as an intermittent
struggle between those who strove to exact too much
and those who would pay nothing at all was maintained
among tenants, landlords, and official tax-gatherers. In
this manner, by the swaying to and fro of the conflict,
by local accidents, and by the vicissitudes of political
power, was produced that intricate variety of proprie-
tary and cultivating tenures, with an arbitrary and
fluctuating assessment of revenue, which the English
found in the different provinces that fell at different
times under their administration.
The precarious nature of proprietary and occupancy
rights, bearing traces of ruinous exaction or lawless
resistance, left room for every kind of theory as to tKe
basis upon which the relations between landlord and
tenant, and between both classes and the state, should
be permanently or temporarily determined. What
meaning and what measure of legal recognition should
be assigned to local usage and prescriptive claims, how
far the law ought to interfere to modify the stringency
of contracts imposed upon the tenantry, whether the
462
State's demand should be raised or lowered, to what
extent double ownership of land should be subjected
by statutory definition, all such questions had to be in-
vestigated and decided upon considerations of equity
DETAIL FROM THE HALL OF A HUNDRED COLUMNS AT
CONJEVARAM.
and expediency. It was necessary to mediate between
the two interests of ownership and occupancy in agri-
culture, interests which are so sensitive to economical
changes, that the most skilful attempts to distribute
them formally, and to provide by legislation, however
DIFFICULTY OF THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM 463
elastic, for all the incidents of the connection, have
hitherto failed to prevent severe recurrent strains
upon it.
To give, even in outline, an intelligible account of
the methods, legal and executive, by which they were
determined in the various provinces, would be im-
practicable within the limits of this chapter. It must
be sufficient to state that the determination of these
questions in Northern India, especially in the Panjab
and Oudh, engaged for several years the attention of the
government. The subject holds a prominent place in
the administrative history of this period, since the
agrarian reforms and the fiscal regulations then settled,
after long and accurate inquiries, have probably con-
tributed more than any other measures to the confirma-
tion and popularity of the British rule.
Among the most potent instruments of civilization in
India have been the railways. Up to about 1850 the
main roads were still unmetalled, and a few years later
the first railways were just begun. Since that time, they
have branched out over the whole country, dissemi-
nating everywhere the benefits of rapid intercourse and
commercial interchange, and with great advantage to
our strategical position. The external trade of India
has increased with the multiplication of outlets to the
seaports, and the productive powers of the soil have
been augmented over a large area by the extension of
artificial irrigation. By the diversion of the flow of the
great rivers into canals, many hundred miles in their
aggregate length, and by the storage of water in nu-
464 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
merous reservoirs, the largest irrigation system in the
world has been constructed in India. The effect of these
great productive works has been to augment and dis-
tribute the national wealth; they have perceptibly
modified the aspect of the country, and the habits of the
people. The capital invested in these undertakings by
the state has been, for the most part, obtained from
loans, which were raised at low interest on the credit
of the British government. The public debt of India to
England has been sometimes represented as an intoler-
able burden, yet probably no incident of the connection
between the two countries has been of greater advan-
tage to India than this expenditure of many millions on
the development of its natural resources.
In 1877, the assumption of Queen Victoria of the
title of Empress of India, declared before a grand
assemblage of chiefs and notables at Delhi, gave public
form to the fact of sovereignty, and the magnificent
durbar of King Edward in 1902, at which the king was
represented by the Viceroy, and which was perhaps
one of the most gorgeous Oriental pageants of all time,
again attested the recognition of supremacy.
For India, therefore, the last fifty years have been
pre-eminently an era of consolidation by laws and ad-
ministrative reform. The British government may now
be described as a highly organized machine, so powerful,
and so complicated in its functions, that scientific
management and control of them is indispensable, and
accordingly their superior direction has been hitherto
retained in English hands. Foreign dominion must
The Durbar of 1902
Never was there grander display of Oriental pomp and dazzling splen-
dour than at the durbar in honour of King Edward, as Emperor of India,
in 1902. Gorgeous fetes, ceremonies, and' processions lent magnificence
to the celebration, and India rivalled England in doing homage to the
new sovereign.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH RULE 465
necessarily be more or less autocratic for some time
after it has been acquired; and since the rulers are
usually compelled to rely for its maintenance at first
upon the strength and fidelity of their own countrymen,
the chiefs of their civil and military government have
almost invariably been imported from abroad. The
Moghul emperors appointed men of their own race or
creed to their military commands, and to most of their
highest civil offices; the British nation has been forced 7 ,
by similar conditions of political existence, to reserve
the upper grades of their Indian administration for
Englishmen. But the Moghul government was essen-
tially personal and absolute; and, in fact, no other form
of rulership has ever been attempted in a purely Asiatic
state. The people have been used to concern themselves
only with the question whether a despotism was strong
or weak, tolerable or intolerable; for the expedient of
improving a government by altering its form has not
yet been discovered in Asia; the only remedy, if things
went outrageously wrong, has been to change the per-
son. The English rule, therefore, succeeded to an em-
pire of this character, with a centralized authority
presiding over different provinces recently conjoined,
and a population in promiscuous ethnical variety. But
the inhabitants of India have thereby become fellow-
citizens with a European nation that has for centuries
been working out popular institutions in a totally differ-
ent atmosphere; in an island sheltered from invasion,
in circumstances peculiarly favourable to the evolution
of self-government, among a homogeneous people knit
466 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
together by common interests and national sentiment.
Whereas India has for ages been plagued with inva-
sions; its vast territory has been incessantly split up
and parcelled out among foreign conquerors and con-
tending dynasties; the population is internally sub-
divided to a degree unparalleled elsewhere, even in
Asia. Yet it has inevitably come to pass that the dif-
ferences of wealth and learning, frequent intercourse
with Europe, and the saturation of the educated classes
with Western ideas and political axioms, have stimu-
lated the desire for a larger share in the government of
their country among the leaders of native public opin-
ion. An efficient administration no longer satisfies
them; on the contrary, it has created ulterior hopes and
aspirations. We began with great organic reforms,
with improving the police and the prisons, with codes
of law, a hierarchy of courts of justice, a trained civil
service, and all the apparatus of a modern executive.
Latterly we have undertaken the gradual introduction
of representative institutions, legislative councils in all
the important provinces, and municipalities in every
substantial town; we are seriously preparing for the
slow devolution of self-governing principles.
But undoubtedly this is an operation of extraordi-
nary difficulty, for we have no precedents to guide us in
the experiment. It must certainly be conducted within
the limitations necessary to preserve undisturbed and
indisputable the fabric of British sovereignty, but some
solution of this difficulty is demanded, for now that the
English have accomplished the building up, after the
ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS 467
high Roman fashion, of an immense polyglot empire,
the stability of the structure must depend upon a skilful
distribution of weight, because excessive centralization
is radically insecure, and supports are useless without
some capacity to resist pressure. The solution of these
problems requires the sympathetic insight as well as
the scientific methods of statesmanship, supplemented
by the good will and the growing intelligence of the
Indian people.
Education, scientific and literary culture, better
acquaintance with public affairs, and an enlarged un-
derstanding of the conditions of practical politics, may
be expected to produce among the foremost advocates
of constitutional reform views and proposals moderated
by a clearer appreciation of inherent difficulties. Nor
is there, so far as can be discerned, any revolutionary
element in the ideas now current among serious think-
ers in India, where modern thought seems to be taking
a strong utilitarian colour in morals, mundane affairs,
and even in religious movements. The two countries,
England and India, are at any rate associated in a com-
munity of moral and material interests, that has already
lasted, throughout most of the dominion, for several
generations, has exercised a powerful influence over the
history of each people, in Europe and Asia, and must
affect, to no small degree, their future destiny. It may
be confidently affirmed that this alliance cannot now be
impaired or interrupted without incalculable injury to
both nations.
CHAPTER XIX
THE BEITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
AT the present time, therefore, his Majesty the
king-emperor surveys all India united under his
sovereignty, whether directly administered, or through
allied and friendly princes. And since upper Burma
came under British rule in 1886, an Indo-Chinese de-
pendency, side by side with the Indian empire, has been
formed by the incorporation of a wide region that
extends along the Irawadi and Salwin Rivers, and
touches at certain points the western bank of the upper
Mekong, the stream which was taken by the French
in 1896 as the present boundary of their advance up-
ward from the southeast.
But it must always be remembered that in India the
political jurisdiction of the English has at no time been
commensurate with the districts under their adminis-
tration. From the beginning of the nineteenth century,
at any rate, the empire has been composed partly of
provinces and partly of states under British protection
and paramount influence. With this composite forma-
tion its position and character have latterly been under-
going an extensive and significant development. And
468
THE SYSTEM OF PROTECTORATES 469
since this remarkable change of situation must be
ascribed largely to the consistent operation of the policy
of protectorates, some account of the origin and effects
of that policy may serve to explain the expansion of
the British dominion in Asia.
The system of protectorates has been practised from
time immemorial as a method whereby the great con-
quering and commercial peoples have masked, so to
speak, their irresistible advance, and have regulated
the centripetal attraction of greater over lesser masses
of territory. It was much used by the Romans, whose
earlier relations with Asia and Africa were not unlike
the British attitude, in that they acknowledged no fron-
tier power with equal rights. The motives have been
different, sometimes political, sometimes military, some-
times commercial; the consequences have been invari-
ably the same. It is used politically as a convenient
method of extending various degrees of power and of
appropriating certain attributes of sovereignty without
affirming full jurisdiction. It has become the particular
device whereby one powerful state forestalls another
in the occupation of some position, or scientific frontier
line, or intermediate tract that has a strategical and
particularly a defensive value. It is employed to secure
command of routes, coaling stations, or trading posts
whenever one nation desires to be beforehand with an
enterprising competitor. Under this system, applied
in these various manners, the extra-territorial liabilities
of England all over the world are rapidly increasing,
and our frontiers are rapidly expanding.
470
THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
Now, the origin and extension of British protect-
orates on the Asiatic mainland follow a clear and
almost uniform process of development. Just as a
fortress or a line of entrenchments requires an open
SUBMISSION OF THE MAHARAJA DHULIP SINGH TO SIR HENRY HARDINGE, AT KANHA
CUSHWA, FEB. 19, 1846.
space around or in front of it, so it is manifestly advan-
tageous for the security of an outlying frontier prov-
ince to keep the foreign territory adjoining it free from
the intrusion or occupation of powerful neighbours.
There is no great objection to neighbours who are
merely troublesome, such as tribes who may be turbu-
lent and predatory, or even petty states that may be
CONTROL OF FRONTIER PROVINCES 471
occasionally unfriendly, if they are not strong enough
to be seriously dangerous.
It is always a question whether the most unruly
barbarian is not, on the whole, a much better neighbour
than a highly civilized but heavily armed state of equal
calibre. In the case of the free tribe or the petty des-
pot, although the tranquillity of the common border
may suffer, it is possible to bring them gradually into
pacific habits and closer subordination. In the case
of the civilized state, its neighbour undoubtedly obtains
a well-defined and properly controlled frontier on both
sides of it; but it will be also a frontier that needs a
vigilant patrol, and that will probably require fortifica-
tions, garrisons, and constant watching of all move-
ments, diplomatic and military, beyond the exact line
that divides the contiguous territories.
It is probably due to England's insular traditions
that in Asia we are very susceptible to the distrust
and danger inseparable from a frontier that is a mere
geographical line across which a man may step. Hav-
ing no such border-line in Europe, except perhaps at
Gibraltar, England has always been naturally reluctant
to come to such close quarters with any formidable
Asiatic rival. Upon this principle it has long been the
policy of the Anglo-Indian government to bring under
its protective influence, whether they desired it or not,
the native states, or chiefships, or tribes, whose terri-
tory has marched with its own boundaries; the recip-
rocal understanding being that the British undertake
to safeguard them from foreign aggression on condition
472 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
that they shall have no dealings with any foreign power
other than the English. England surrounds herself,
in this manner, with a zone of land, sometimes narrow,
sometimes very broad, which is placed under political
taboo so far as concerns rival powers whose hostility
may be serious; and thus her political influence radiates
beyond the line of her actual possession, spreading its
skirts widely and loosely over the adjacent country.
The particular point, therefore, that is here to be
emphasized is that the true frontier of the British
dominion in Asia, the line which we are more or less
pledged to guard, and from which we have warned off
trespassers, does not tally by any means with the outer
edge of the immense territory over which we exercise
administrative jurisdiction, and in which all the people
are British subjects for whom the Anglo-Indian gov-
ernments make laws. The true frontier includes not
only this territory, but also large regions over which
the English crown has established protectorates of dif-
ferent kinds and grades, varying according to circum-
stances and specific conditions. This protectorate may
involve the maintenance of internal order, or it may
amount only to a vague sovereignty, or it may rest
on a bare promise to ward off unprovoked foreign
aggression. But, whatever may be the particular class
to which the protectorate belongs, and however faint
may be the shadow of authority that the British choose
to throw over the land, its object is to affirm the right
of excluding a rival influence, and the right of exclusion
carries with it the duty of defence. The outer limits
LIMITS OF BRITISH SUPREMACY 473
of the country which we are prepared to defend is what
must be called our frontier.
In order to apply this principle to England's Asiatic
frontiers, and to explain why they have been so mov-
able, we must now run rapidly along the line which de-
marcates them at this moment. Passing over the very
complicated case of Egypt, we may begin the British
Asiatic protectorates with Aden, at the mouth of the
Red Sea. From time immemorial the movement of the
sea-borne trade between India and Egypt has pivoted,
so to speak, upon Aden. It is now the first stepping-
stone across the Asiatic waters toward the Anglo-Indian
Empire and the westernmost point of English occupa-
tion on the Asiatic mainland; and it furnishes a good
example in miniature of the manner in which protect-
orates are formed. We have taken and fortified Aden
for the command of the water-passage into the Red Sea;
but our actual possession is only a projecting rock like
Gibraltar, and so we have established a protective bor-
der all round it, within which the Arab tribes are bound
by engagements to accept English political ascendency
and to admit no other. Not far from Aden lies the
protected island of Sokotra, a name in which one can
barely recognize the old Greek Dioskorides; and from
Aden eastward, round Arabia by Oman to Muscat and
the Persian Gulf, the whole coast-line is under British
protectorate; the policing of these waters is done by
British vessels, and the Arab chiefships along the sea-
board defer to England's arbitration in their disputes
and acquiesce in her external supremacy.
474
THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
But these scattered protectorates in Western Asia
are merely isolated points of vantage or long strips
of seashore; they depend entirely on Britain's naval
superiority in those waters; they are all subordinate
and supplementary to her main position in Asia, by
which, of course, India is meant. It is there that we
_ , ,
VIEW OF MUSCAT FICOM THE HOUSETOPS.
From Edwin Lord Weeks's Through Persia and India.
(Copyright, 1895, by Harper and Brothers.)
can study with the greatest diversity of illustration,
and on the largest scale, the curious political situations
presented by the system of maintaining a double line of
frontiers; the inner line marking the limits of British
territory, the outer line marking the extent of the for-
eign territory that the English undertake to protect,
to the exclusion, at any rate, of foreign aggression.
The long maritime frontiers of India furnish a kind
of analogy between the principle upon which a seashore
PROTECTION OF THE FRONTIERS 475
is defended and the system of protectorates as applied
to the defence of a land frontier. In both cases the
main object is to keep clear an open space beyond and
in front of the actual border-line. England does this
for the land frontier by a belt of protected land which
she throws forward in front of a weak border; and
her assertion of exclusive jurisdiction over the belt
of waters immediately surrounding her seacoasts is
founded upon the same principle. We English are
accustomed to consider ourselves secure under the
guardianship of the sea; although, in fact, the safety
comes not from the broad girdle of blue water, but
from the strength and skill of the English navy that
rides upon it. And for a nation that has not learnt
the noble art of seamanship, no frontier is more exposed
to attack, or harder to defend, than the seashore.
The principle of defence, therefore, for both land
and sea frontiers, is to stave off an enemy's advance
by interposing a protected zone. If a stranger enters
that zone he is at once challenged. If he persists, it
is a hostile demonstration.
It would thus be a mistake to suppose that Eng-
land's Asiatic land frontier is conterminous with her
Asiatic possessions, that is, with the limits of the ter-
ritory which she administers, and which is within the
range of her Acts of Parliament. It is not, like the
Canadian border, or the boundary between France and
Germany, a mere geographical line over which an Eng-
lishman can step at once out of his own country into
the jurisdiction of another sovereign state. The fron-
476 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
tier of the British Asiatic dominion is the outmost
political boundary projected, as one might say, beyond
the administrative border; and it must be particularly
observed that the outmost boundary is here specified,
because British India the territory under the govern-
ment of India has interior as well as exterior bounda-
ries. In such countries as France or Spain, and indeed
in almost all modern kingdoms, the government exer-
cises a level and consolidated rulership over a compact
national estate, with a frontier surrounding it like a
ring fence.
But the Indian Empire sweeps within the circle of
its dominion a number of native states, which are en-
closed and landlocked in the midst of British territory.
We have seen that many of these states were built up
out of the dilapidated provinces of the Moghul Empire
by rebellious governors or military leaders, who began
by pretending to rule as delegates or representatives
of the emperor, and ended by openly assuming inde-
pendence, as soon as the paralysis of central govern-
ment permitted them to throw aside the pretext. With
the fall of the Moghul Empire came the rise of the
British dominion, and in the course of a century some
of the imperial provinces were again absorbed by con-
quest or cession into British India; while others were
left as self-governing states under the English pro-
tectorate. There is also an important group of Rajput
chiefships which have always been independent under
the suzerainty of the paramount power.
In all these states the rulers are debarred from mak-
THE INDIAN NATIVE STATES 477
ing war and peace; but they make their own laws and
levy their own taxes; and the British treat their terri-
tory as foreign, although the dividing border-line can
hardly be called a frontier, since most of these states
are entirely surrounded and shut in by British India.
Nevertheless, their history serves to illustrate at every
turn the bearing of this system of protectorates on the
Anglo-Indian frontier; and what is now going on is
chiefly the continuation of what went on from the be-
ginning.
It will be found that from the time when the Eng-
lish became a power on the mainland of India, that is,
from their acquisition of Bengal in 1765, they have con-
stantly adopted the policy of interposing a border of
protected country between their actual possessions and
the possessions of formidable neighbours whom they
desire to keep at arm's length. In the eighteenth cen-
tury we supported and protected Oudh as a barrier
against the Marathas; and early in the nineteenth cen-
tury we preserved the Rajput states in Central India
for the same reason. The feudatory states on the Sut-
laj were originally maintained and strengthened by us,
before we took the Panjab, as outworks and barricades
against the formidable power of the Sikhs. The device
has been likened to the invention of buffers; for a buf-
fer is a mechanical contrivance for breaking or grad-
uating the force of impact between two heavy bodies;
and in the same way the political buffer checked the
violence of political collisions, though it rarely pre-
vented them altogether.
478 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
It may even be suspected that the system rather
accelerated than retarded the rapid extension of the
English frontier; because, whereas we annexed fresh
territory after each collision with our rivals, so we con-
stantly advanced their protective border beyond the
RECEPTION OP GENERAL OUTRAM AND STAFF AT THE DURBAR OF THE RAJA OP
TRAVANCORE.
actual line of annexation, and thus have always made
a double step forward, keeping the strategic or political
boundary well in advance of the limit of our adminis-
trative occupation. The lines of earlier British fron-
tiers, now left far behind in the interior of India, may
often be traced by the survival of some petty prin-
cipalities, that escaped being swallowed up by a power-
ASSIMILATION OF PROTECTORATES 479
ful neighbour because it was originally the English pol-
icy to protect them.
Upon this system of pushing forward protective out-
works until the British were ready to march beyond
them, the Anglo-Indian dominion advanced across
India. But as soon as we had reached the geograph-
ical Limits of India the range of mountains which sep-
arate it from Central Asia, and which form, perhaps,
the strongest natural barriers in the world one might
have thought that the protectorates, which are artificial
fortifications of an exposed border, would no longer
be needed. On the contrary, they have grown with the
expansion and rounding off of Anglo-Indian dominion;
and the empire in its plenitude seems to find them more
necessary than ever.
We have run our administrative border up to the
slopes of the hills that fringe the great Indian plains;
but on the northwest we are not content with the guar-
dianship of a mountain wall. We look over and beyond
it to the Oxus, and we see Russia advancing across the
Central Asian steppes by a process very like our own.
She conquers and consolidates, she absorbs and annexes,
up to an inner line; and beyond that line, in the direc-
tion of India, she maintains a protected state. The
Oxus divides Bokhara from Afghanistan, the Russian
from the English protectorate. Here is a rival and
possible enemy far more formidable than any of those
whom we have hitherto discerned on our political hori-
zon; and consequently our protective border has taken
a wider cast than ever. Two countries whose broad
480 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
extent and physical conformations adapt them admira-
bly to be strong natural outworks, Baluchistan and
Afghanistan, lie beyond her western border, full of
deserts and mountains, hard to traverse and easy to
defend, inhabited by free and warlike races, to whom
liberty is, as to ourselves, the noblest of possessions.
Both these countries have been brought by England
within the range of our political ascendency, and thus
we have assumed a virtual protectorate over that vast
tract of country which stretches from the confines of
India to Persia and the Oxus River.
Taking as the central point of departure the Vic-
toria Lake, whose shores are the high mountain cradle
of the Oxus, the line separating Russian from English
spheres of influence runs eastward to the Chinese fron-
tier, and westward along the course of the river. Turn-
ing southward from the Oxus to the Indian Ocean, the
whole western boundary-line which separates Afghan-
istan and Baluchistan from Russia and Persia has been
marked out under English supervision, and secured by
treaty or agreement. It must not be supposed that this
line is secured upon any formal international compact
with the states inside it, although their rulers have
agreed to the arrangement which it represents; it has
been fixed by negotiations with the states beyond, with
Russia and Persia, who have promised and are pledged
to respect it.
Here, then, beyond the extreme northwest of India,
we may survey the system of protectorates operating
on a grand scale; and we may find the strongest illus-
KUSSIA AND ENGLAND IN CENTRAL ASIA 481
tration of the principle that the true frontier delineates
not only the land that is administered, but the lands
that are protected. On
that side we are not con-
tent with fencing our-
selves round by a belt of
free tribal lands or a row
of petty chief ships; we
have barricaded the roads
leading from Central Asia
into India by two huge
blocks of independent
territory, Afghanistan and
Baluchistan. Up to the
end of the seventeenth cen-
MAJOK - GENERAL SIR HENRY HAVELOCK.
tury the kingdom of Per-
sia and the Moghul Empire of India were nominally
conterminous; for 'Kabul and Kandahar were held by
the Moghul. But in the great political convulsions of
the eighteenth century the highland country interposed
between Persia and India was rent away and formed
into the separate chief ships which we now uphold as our
barriers ; they are the boulders or isolated masses that re-
main to attest the latest period of territorial disruption.
Now, as both Russia and England have been employ-
ing the same political tactics in their advance toward
each other, throwing forward protectorates, and occupy-
ing points of vantage, it has long been certain that
Afghanistan, which lies right between the two camps,
must fall into one or another of these spheres of influ-
482 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
ence. If England did not protect Afghanistan, that
country would undoubtedly be brought under the ward-
ship of Russia, which has already taken under strict
tutelage Bokhara, just across the Oxus. For the Af-
ghan mountains dominate the Indian plains and com-
mand the roads from the Oxus to the Indus; and a
country of such natural strength, a weak and barbarous
kingdom overhanging the frontiers of two powerful
military states, must always fall, by the law of political
gravitation, on one side or the other.
It may perhaps be asked why this must be why
England does not adopt the European method of deal-
ing with a country that is too weak to stand by itself
why she does not neutralize Afghanistan, as Belgium
and Switzerland are neutralized, by a joint agreement
to respect its integrity and independence. The answer
is that neutralization has never been a practical method
of statecraft in Asia. An ill-governed Oriental king-
dom left as neutral ground between two European
powers, neither of which could interfere with its in-
ternal affairs, would rapidly fall into intolerable dis-
order, and probably into dilapidation. The native ruler
would be distracted by the conflicting demands and
admonitions of two formidable and jealous neighbours;
he would listen alternately to one or the other, and
would be constantly giving cause of offence to both;
he would find himself between the upper and nether
millstone; and his end would probably be as the end
of Poland, which became a focus of intrigue and anar-
chy, and was finally broken up by partition.
THE POSITION OF AFGHANISTAN 483
A very curious historic parallel might be drawn, if
space allowed, by comparing the existing position of
Afghanistan between the Anglo-Indian and the Russian
empires with the position of Armenia between the
Roman and the Parthian empires during the first two
centuries of the Christian era. The Armenian ruler
held the mountainous country and the passes between
Europe and Asia; his kingdom was the barrier between
the territories of two great military states; it was an
essential point in the frontier policy of Rome to main-
tain her influence over the ruler, and her protection
over his country. The Armenian chiefs leant alter-
nately toward Rome and toward Parthia; they tried
to save their independence by maintaining the balance;
but whenever they allied themselves with Parthia, they
were attacked by Rome, precisely as the Afghan Amir
was attacked by England in 1879, when he made a
treaty with Russia. Armenia, like Afghanistan, owed
all its importance, not to its intrinsic strength, for it
was weak and barbarous, but to its geographical situ-
ation; and the history of its relations with Rome of
the setting up and pulling down of client kings, and
of the efforts of the Romans to maintain exclusive con-
trol over its government without occupying its territory
must remind one very forcibly of the English connec-
tion with Afghanistan.
That connection represents the broadest develop-
ment of the protectorate system; and its efficacy may
before long be brought to a decisive test. The demarca-
tion of the western Afghan frontier by a joint com-
THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
mission of Russians and English in 1886 is plain evi-
dence that the spheres of Russian and English influence,
which have long been ap-
proaching, have at last touched
each other. It will be recol-
lected, as an example of the
delicate handling required by
modern political machinery,
that the first contact very
nearly produced a collision
and was felt in a vibration
that reverberated through all
the Cabinets of Europe. A
slight difference in regard
to the laying down of the
boundary across the slopes
of the Hindu Kush brought
on a skirmish between Af-
ghans and Russians at Pan j ah
in 1885 and filled all Europe
with rumours of war between
England and Russia. Lord
Dufferin, a diplomatist of
great skill and invaluable
experience, was then Viceroy
of India, and the affair was compromised; but it
showed the English, as by a sudden flash, where their
true frontier lay, and what kind of possibilities were
involved by its demarcation. The fact that for a
breadth of some hundred miles between the disputed
A PILLAR AT TIRUMALA
NAYAKA, MADURA.
RUSSIA AND AFGHANISTAN 485
boundary-line and the border of India proper the terri-
tory is ruled by the Afghan Amir, went for nothing;
the Anglo-Indian frontier is always commensurate with
its responsibilities for protection.
Taking, therefore, this view of the operation of the
British system of protectorates, it is worth while to
survey the immense sweep of the radius which describes
the outer circumference of England's Asiatic frontier.
For those who may apprehend that it has been pushed
too far and too fast, there is, at any rate, the reassur-
ing condition that it can hardly go farther; after more
than a century's continuous expansion it must now
come to a standstill, because it has at last struck west-
ward and eastward against hard ground; that is, it
has met in both directions the solid resistance of an-
other well-organized state. When this point is reached,
the moving and fluctuating border-lines at once begin
to fix and harden; the protectorates settle down into
orderly dependencies; disputes fall under the cogni-
zance of regular diplomacy; and questions of war or
peace become the concern of civilized governments.
The Indian Empire and its allies or feudatories now
occupy virtually the whole area of southern Asia that
lies between Russia and China, on a line drawn from
the Oxus in the northwest down to the Mekong River
in the southeast. On the northwest, where the prox-
imity of Russia inevitably suggests special precautions,
the line of advance from Central Asia into India is
barricaded by protectorates, Baluchistan, Afghanistan,
Kashmir, and the petty states beyond Kashmir up to
486 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
the skirts of the Hindu Kush. Along the main northern
line of the Himalayas we have few protectorates be-
cause we have no need of them; we have there a triple
chain of almost impassable mountains, backed by the
high table-land of Central Asia; and on the other side
is the Mongolian desert. But it is only upon this sec-
tion of England's outer line between Kashmir and
Nepal that she is satisfied even with the stupendous
mountain barriers of the Himalayas. She can allow
no interference with Nepal from the north, and further
eastward the encroachment of the Tibetans upon the
protected state of Sikkim produced a little war of re-
cent memory.
As on our northwestern frontier the British are very
sensitive to the vicinity of Russia, so on our border-line
in the northeast of Burma we begin to feel distinctly,
beyond the mountains and untravelled highlands, the
presence of that great organized state, the most ancient
upon earth, which has so long dominated the eastern
side of Asia the Chinese Empire. Here, as toward the
northwest, England is filling up the vacant spaces on
the map; she is enlarging her dominion and setting
forward landmarks. And here, also, her method of
political exploration and reconnaissance is the protect-
orate in advance of the administrative boundary. In
1885 she made a great and important stride eastward
when she was compelled to annex Burma, whose ruler
not only showed symptoms of open hostility, but was
bargaining for the protectorate of France.
Here, again, the acquisition of that kingdom carried
BURMA AS A FRONTIER STATE
487
us far beyond its limits, for at once the double line
began to form; and our real eastward frontier has been
thrown forward up to the Mekong River, enclosing a
line of semi-independent chieftainships, which serve as
buffers between Burma proper and China. At this
moment we are engaged in framing our relations with
THE TILO-MILO PAGODA AT PAGAN, BURMA.
these chieftainships, and in extending our influence
over the border tribes; we are, in fact, planning out
and consolidating the intermediate zone, which, as has
been said, is invariably left between the two lines, the
inner limit of actual jurisdiction and the outer political
line of protection and defence.
And thus, on the east as on the west, England is
slowly drawing into contact with rival powers of equal
political magnitude; her extreme boundary-line reaches
up to China and Siam; and at one point the political
488 THE BKITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
outposts of English exploration from Burma and of
French pioneers from Tonkin are almost within hail.
When all these boundaries are finally determined and
ratified by the conventions of civilized diplomacy, the
ground-plan of the future political settlement of Asia
will have been laid out; and it is hardly too much to
say that the whole of the Asiatic continent, outside the
Chinese Empire, may eventually be either in the pos-
session or under the protectorate* of some European
state.
It has been thought possible that this brief account
of the manner in which the Anglo-Indian Empire has
spread and been shaped out might be made interesting,
because no process of the kind is now observable in
Western Europe, although the same principles, with
the same practical result, are plainly discernible in the
gradual growth of the Roman Empire, and especially
in the formation of that power's political and military
frontier. The European continent has long ago been
parcelled out into compact nationalities which afford
no room for the system of intermediate protectorates,
so that here the political and administrative frontiers
always coincide. And where, as in the case of Belgium
or Switzerland, a small country holds an important
position on the political chess-board because it covers
the vulnerable frontier of powerful neighbouring states,
such a country is kept clear of intruders, not by a
protectorate, but by neutralization.
With regard to the future of the British protect-
orates in Asia, one thing seems to be abundantly clear,
PROTECTORATES OF OTHER NATIONS 489
that the system of protectorates the practice of throw-
ing out a line of frontier round a wide tract of unset-
tled country in order to exclude rivals which was
mainly invented in modern times by England for the
building up of her Asiatic empire, is no longer her
monopoly. So long as the English, like their predeces-
sors the Romans, had the continent of Asia before them
and had come into contact with no other substantial
rivals, the expansion of their dominion went on as
steadily and easily as the Asiatic extension of the Ro-
man Empire, which was rapidly pushed eastward until
it met the Parthians, by whom it was fiercely resisted
and finally driven back. Britain's great naval superi-
ority enabled her to beat off rivals in the distant seas,
and on land she had only ill-organized native states to
deal with. But in the latter half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, and particularly during the last twenty years of
unbroken peace in Western Europe, there has sprung
up a keen competition for territory and trade in Asia
and in Africa, which has led to the wholesale imitation
of the English system of protectorates, either direct or
through chartered companies.
Under the pressure and competition of France, Italy,
Germany, and Russia, protectorates are rapidly multi-
plying in all the outlying quarters of the old world-
over Tunis, Egypt, Abyssinia, Zanzibar, and countless
tribes and chief ships in the interior of the African con-
tinent; and in Asia over Cochin China, the Annamite
kingdom, Tonkin, and various half-explored border-
lands.
490 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
What is the chief and manifest consequence of this
renewed approximation of the European powers in
Asia? The effect has been to demonstrate more clearly
than ever the revival of an intimate connection between
European and Asiatic affairs. The points of contact
are multiplying with the different points of view, and
with the recurrence of international apprehensions and
rivalries. Political and commercial interests again
begin to act and react upon each other; the expansion
of Europe presses upon Asia by land and sea, from
the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea, from the Persian
Gulf to the seaboard of China; and the antique king-
doms and societies are sustaining with difficulty the
inroad of European arms and enterprise. The old con-
quering races of Asia, the Turkish dynasties at Stam-
boul and Teheran, the Uzbek of Bokhara, the Afghan
of Kabul, and the rulers of Annam and Siam, are rec-
ognizing in different forms and degrees the predom-
inant influence of the Western nations.
And since England still plays the leading part upon
this vast stage of action and holds India as the
central position, it is manifest that the isolation of
India from the winds and currents of European politics
must soon cease altogether and finally. She is rapidly
drifting within the recognized sphere of European
diplomacy; the enlargement of her borders has become
a matter of European concern; and henceforward her
external policy and her military establishment must
necessarily be regulated upon European rather than
upon Asiatic considerations. In the place of the jeal-
EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY IN ASIA 491
ousies of commercial companies, and instead of desul-
tory wars between rival settlements or against native
princes, we have the greatest military powers of the
world Russia, France, and England feeling their way
toward each other across wide deserts, difficult moun-
tain ranges, and the debatable lands that skirt the Oxus
A SACRED POOL AT TIRUPARANKUNDRAM NEAR MADURA.
in the north or the Mekong River on the far southeast
of the Anglo-Indian Empire.
To those, indeed, who demand permanency for ter-
ritorial borders in Asia, it may have been instructive
to follow, throughout the events and transactions rap-
idly sketched in the foregoing pages, the adventures of
successive Anglo-Indian governments in search of a
stable and scientifically defensible land frontier. The
English have usually begun by projecting a political
492 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
border-line, that is, by interposing some protected state
between real territories and the power beyond them
whose approach seemed to threaten our security. But
the result of this manoeuvre has too often been to accel-
erate our own extension, because we have eventually
found ourselves forced to advance up to any line
that rivals could not be permitted to overstep. Nor
can anything illustrate more signally the radical and
inherent mutability, and the accidental and elastic char-
acter of all territorial and political settlements in Asia,
than the fact that at this moment England's statesmen
are still in quest of that promised borderland whose
margin seems to fade for ever as we follow it.
The object of this short and inadequate survey of
the steps by which the English have mounted to as-
cendency in India has been to explain the combination
of determining causes and events, in Europe as well
as in Asia, that have placed England in possession of
her Asiatic dominion. The explanation is, in the pres-
ent writer's opinion, not difficult; it can be elicited
from an attentive comparative study of the course of
history in Asia and Europe during the last three cen-
turies. The dominant fact as regards England may be
said to be this that as she has been preserved by the
surrounding sea from the invasions, foreign wars, and
revolutions that have interrupted the commercial and
colonial enterprises of the Continental nations, she has
been able to develop a vast mercantile system and to
maintain a preponderance of naval power.
Yet although we can trace backward the sequence
GROWTH OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 493
of events and influences, their result is none the less
singular. One remarkable characteristic of the history
of the British dominion in Asia is that it affords an
entire and connected view of the germination, growth,
and expansion of a first-class territorial sovereignty.
The ancient world has left us an unbroken record of
the life of the Roman state, from its birth to its full
strength and stature; but the phenomenon of an em-
pire's complete evolution is most rare in modern times,
and it may be said that India is the only example now
existing. The Spanish dominion in America grew to
vast dimensions out of the conquest of Hispaniola by
Columbus, but the nineteenth century witnessed its dis-
integration, until at the present day Spain retains only
a fragment of her former possessions.
The situation of the Indian Empire is thus unique
in many respects; the annals of modern sovereignties
show no parallel; and people still ask whether good
or ill will come of it. When Sir James Mackintosh
remarked that England had lost a great dominion in
North America in 1783 and had won another in India
by 1805, he added that it was still uncertain whether
the former was any real loss, or the latter any perma-
nent gain. Mr. Spencer Walpole, a much later author-
ity, inclines toward the view that in the end nothing
will have been gained. " Centuries hence," he writes
in his " History of England," " some philosophic his-
torian . . . will relate the history of the British in
India as a romantic episode which has had no appre-
ciable effect upon the progress of the human family."
494 THE BRITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
Upon this it may be observed that, whatever may be
the eventual advantage to England from her possession
of India (for of the immediate advantage there can be
little doubt), it already seems plain that the effect upon
man's general progress must be very great.
That one of the foremost nations of Western Europe
foremost as a harbinger of light and liberty should
have established a vast empire in Asia is an accom-
plished fact which must necessarily give an enormous
impulse and a totally new direction to the civilization
of that continent. It will be remembered that since
the Roman Empire began to decline, civilization has
not been spreading eastward; on the contrary, it has
distinctly receded in Asia; it was driven out and so
fundamentally uprooted by the Turkish Sultans that
the long dominion of Eome in Egypt, Syria, and Asia
Minor has left very little beyond names and ruins. On
the other hand, the exceedingly slow advance of new
ideas and social changes among the Oriental races
proves the strength of resistance possessed by barbar-
ism entrenched behind the unchanging conditions of
Asiatic existence. The only important ground in Asia
recovered for centuries by civilization has been won in
India by the English.
But although civilization has hitherto gone forward
very slowly in Asia, the spread of European power is
now clearing the ground for rapid movement upon a
very extensive line of advance. Notwithstanding all
risks and obstacles, the process of sweeping wide terri-
tories within new border-lines, under the form of pro-
NECESSITY OF EXPANSION IN ASIA
495
tecting them, for reasons political, strategical, and com-
mercial, is in constant use; the English, in particular,
make almost annual additions to the ethnology of their
empire. Undoubtedly an increasing border of territo-
rial responsibilities must weigh on the minds of reflect-
THE GANESA TEMPLE AT TIRUVENAMALAI IN SOUTH ABKOT.
ive men in all times and countries. St. Augustine,
looking out from his City of God over the still vast
domain of Borne, debates the question whether it is
fitting for good men to rejoice in the expansion of
empires, even when the victors are more civilized than
the vanquished, and the wars just and unprovoked.
His conclusion is that to carry on war and extend ruler-
ship over subdued nations seems to bad men felicity,
but to good men a necessity.
496 THE BEITISH DOMINION IN ASIA
It is doubtful whether Englishmen can adopt a bet-
ter conclusion. Continual expansion seems to have
become part of their national habits and modes of
growth. For good or for ill, England has become what
she is in the world by the result of adventurous pio-
neering, by seeking her fortunes in the outlying regions
of the earth, and by taking a vigorous part in the un-
ending struggle out of which the settlement of the
political world is evolved, as the material world is
shaped out of the jarring forces of nature. It is this
incessant opening of new markets, exploration of fur-
ther countries, organization of fresh enterprises, the
alternate contest with and pacification of rude tribes
and unstable rulers, and the necessity of guarding her
possessions and staving off her rivals that has caused,
and is still causing, the steady enlargement of her
borders.
Against an advance of this strength and magnitude
the Asiatic nations have at present little power of re-
sistance. The forces which in earlier times broke up
the higher political organizations, and which thrust
back the higher religion, no longer exist; neither the
fighting power of Asia, nor her fanatic enthusiasm, is
now in the least formidable to Europe. Not only is
it certain that much of Asia lies at the mercy of the mili-
tary power and resources of Europe, but in all the de-
partments of thought and action she is still inferior.
In these circumstances European progress is never
likely to suffer another great repulse at the hands of
Oriental reaction; and the English dominion, once
FUTURE OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 497
firmly planted in Asia, is not likely to be shaken unless
it is supplanted by a stronger European rival.
Henceforward the struggle will be, not between the
Eastern and Western races, but between the great com-
mercial and conquering nations of the West for pre-
dominance in Asia. From this contest England has
now little to fear; and in the meantime she has under-
taken the intellectual emancipation of the Indian peo-
ple; she is changing the habits of thought, the religious
ideas, and the moral level of the whole country. No
one can as yet venture upon any prognostic of the
course which the subtle and searching mind of India
will mark out for itself amid the cross-currents of East-
ern and Western influences. But we may be sure that
the diffusion of knowledge and the changes of mate-
rial environment are acting steadily on mental habits,
and that future historians will have a second remark-
able illustration of the force with which a powerful
and highly organized civilization can mould the char-
acter and shape the destinies of many millions of peo-
ple. And whatever may be the ultimate destiny of our
Indian Empire, England will have conferred upon the
Indians great and permanent benefits, and will have
left for herself a good name in history.
INDEX
INDEX
Abd-ar-Rahman becomes Amir of
Afghanistan under British pro-
tection, 443-444
Acts, two, passed by Parliament in 1773,
229
Aden, an important trade centre, 2
British protectorate of, 474
Afghan War, first, 441
Second, 442-444
Afghanistan, first English campaign in,
401
Delimitation of, 445
Political importance of, to Great
Britain, 445-446
Russian intrigues against, 439
British protectorate, 481
Why necessarily protected by Eng-
land, 482-483
Ahmad Shah Abdali, Afghan leader,
170
Seizes the Panjab, 77
Invades Northern India, 192, 194
Contest of, with the Sikhs, 269
Death of, 269
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, and the res-
toration of Madrid, 107
Alexander Borgia, Pope, Bull of, divid-
ing the undiscovered non-Christian
world, 5
Alexandria an important trade centre
for nearly eighteen centuries, 1
Aligarh captured by the English, 327
Ali Vardi Khan, Nawab of Bengal, 164
Death of, in 1656, 164
Aliwal, battle of, 413
Amboyna massacre, 22
America, effect of the discovery of, on
commerce, 4-5
Amherst, Lord, Governor-General of
India, 389
Amiens, Peace of, 319, 324
Amir Khan besieges Jaipur, 378
Disbands his army, 380
Anglo-Dutch alliance to drive the
Spanish and Portuguese from the
coast of India, 13
Joint Stock Company, proposal for a,
rejected, 13
Treaty of 1619, 22
War in India in 1651-1654, 29
Alliance against Spain and Portugal
in the beginning of the seventeenth
century, 33
Alliance against France in 1678, 38
Anglo-French alliance against Holland
in 1672, 37, 38
War on the Coromandel coast, 104
Rupture in 1756 regarding the Ameri-
can Colonies, 106
Anglo-Portuguese alliance negotiated, 31
Anglo-Russian coalition against France,
355
Anglo-Spanish war of 1739, effect of, on
France, 103
Arakan, annexation of, 390
Argaum, battle of, 327
Arkot (Arcot) seized by dive, 119-120
Armenia, position of, historically analo-
gous with that of modern Afghan-
istan, 483
Arras, battle at, 245
Asaf Jah, the first Nizam, death of, 115
Asia, competition for the trade of the
southeastern countries of, 1
Political situation in, at the present
time, 450
Powerless to resist European expan-
sion, 496
Assam, kingdom of, 387-388
Assaye, battle of, 327
Auckland, Lord, Governor-General of
India, 392
Augustine, St., on the expansion of em-
pires, 495
Aurangzib, Emperor, accession of, 30
Wars of, in Southern India, 48-49
Compared with Louis XIV, 52-53
Death of, in 1707, 75
Civil war breaks out on the death of,
75-76
501
602
INDEX
Austria and France, alliance of, 136
Ayub Khan unsuccessfully attempts to
become Amir of Afghanistan, 443
B
Babar, Emperor, founds the Moghul
Empire, 46, 161
Memoirs of, 160-161
Victory of, at Panipat, 161
Balaji Bala Rao, prime minister of the
Maratha king, 174
Baluchistan made a British protectorate,
436, 480
Bantam blockaded by the Dutch, 30
In the possession of the English, 35
Key to Dutch control of pepper trade,
65
Barker, Sir Robert, 241
Barlow, Sir George, succeeds Cornwallis
as Governor-General, 345
Reactionary policy of, 346
Barrier-treaty of August, 1765, 201-202
Bassein occupied by the English, 245
Treaty of, 321, 323, 329
Batavia, headquarters of the Dutch
in the East, 65
Baxar, defeat of the Oudh vizir at, 188
Benares, insurrection of, 254-255
Acquired by the English, 266
Bengal, value of the imports from, dur-
ing the twenty years after the Resto-
ration, 41
English masters of, hi 1758, 141, 176
Native government of, in the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century,
163-164
Harbours of, 177
Commerce and position of, 178-180
Disputes between the English Com-
pany and the Nawab of, 182-183,
184
Period of misrule in, 183
Revenue in, 186, 221
Famine in, 223
Naval engagements in the Bay
of, 257
Bentinck, Lord William, Governor-
General of India, 392
Makes English the official language of
India, 392-394
Abolishes suttee, 394-395
Foreign policy of, 395
Bernier, Francois, quotations from, re-
garding the military and official
classes in India, 47-48
Writes of the strength of India, 162
Bhartpur, unsuccessful siege of, 330
Taken by assault, 391
Bhotan, war with, 433
Bijapur destroyed by Aurangzib, 44, 54
Bombay, ceded to England in 1661, 31
The headquarters of the English
Company in 1685, 41
Boughton, a surgeon in the East India
Company, made physician to the
Emperor of Delhi, 23
Breda, treaty of, adjusting commercial
disputes in Asia, 38
Buonaparte, scheme of Asiatic conquest
of, 300-301
Letter of, to Tippu, 304
Burgoyne, surrender of, at Saratoga, 247
Burke defends the East India Company,
228
Attacks the East India Company,
275-276, 277-278
Burma, the kingdom of, 386
First war with, 389
Burma, Upper, annexed by the British,
447-448
Results of the annexation of, 486-487
Bussy at Haidarabad, 120
Character of, 124
Ordered to Pondicherri, 138-139
Returns to India with reinforcements
in 1783, 257
Cachar, Burmese inroads into, 389
Calcutta, the chief agency of the English
in Bengal hi 1687, 41
English driven from, in 1756, 140
Transfer of the headquarters of the
English Company to, 176
Reorganization of government in, and
problems relating thereto, 231-234
Canning, Lord, Governor-General of
India, 423
Cape of Good Hope, rounding of, largely
affects commerce, 4-5
Cavagnari, Sir Louis, British envoy at
Kabul, assassination of, 441
Ceylon seized by the Dutch, 30
Held by the Dutch at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, 71
Taken from the Dutch, 302
Chanda Sahib murdered by the Mara-
thas, 120
Channing, Lord, rule of, for determining
succession hi the native states, 428-
429
Charles II, restoration of, 30
Child, Sir John, sent to India, 57-58
Death of, in 1690, 59
Chilianwala, battle of, 418
China, as a rival of England, 486
INDEX
503
Civilization, Asiatic, England's influence
on, 494
Clive seizes Arcot, the capital of the
Karnatic, 119-120
Expedition of, to recover Fort William,
140, 141
Letter of, to Pitt, predicting Lally's
downfall, 145
Recovers Calcutta, 166
Returns to England, 183, 184
On the political situation in Bengal,
183
Return of, to India, 185, 198-199
Assumes the title of Diwan, 187
Accepts the Diwani of Bengal for the
English Company, 199
Quotations from, regarding the polit-
ical situation, 199, 200-201, 203
Receives a grant of the Five Circars
(Sirkars) from the Moghul emperor,
211-212
Leaves India finally, 216
Evil effects of the departure of, soon
felt in India, 223, 226
Arraignment of, 228-229
Death of, 229
Companies, chartered, systems of, for
commercial expansion, 17
Rivalry of old and new East India,
66-67
nion of old and new English East
India, 67-68
French and English, financial trans-
actions of, 95-96
French and English, condition of, 96,
99
Methods of the French "and English,
compared, 112
French and English, exchange bitter
recriminations from Madras and
Pondicherri, 118-119
French and English, peace between,
123
Company, a new English East India,
formed, 66
Colbert's East India, established in
1664, 86, 88
Colbert's West India, established in
1664, 86
Colbert's West India, charter of, re-
voked in 1674, 89
Company, Danish East India, extin-
guished in 1728, 90
Company, Dutch East India, privileges
and power granted to, 12
Capital of, in 1618, 18-19
Strongly supported by the home
government, 25-26
Terms of the charter of 1600 of the,
Company, English East India, first
charter of the, in 1600, 9-10
In the East, unsupported by the home
government, 24-25
Made responsible for all depredations
of independent traders, 25
Given a new charter by Charles II,
30-31
Power granted to the, by the terms of
the new charter, 32
Assumption of independent jurisdic-
tion by the, in 1687, 42
War of the, against Aurangzib, in
1687, 45, 57-58
Instructions to the, regarding rev-
enue, 56-57
Position of the, in India, in the last
years of the seventeenth century,
57-59
Sends home for help against the
French, 118
The real ruler of Bengal in 1767, 216
Necessity for State interference with
the, 220
Assets of, hi Bengal, in 1765, 221
Insolvency of, 224
Provincial regulations of, 453
Company, French East India, founded
by Louis XIV, 33, 36-37
Terms of charter of, 87
Vicissitudes of, 91
Finances of, from 1735 to 1740, 92-93
Growth of the financial embarrass-
ments of, 111-112
On the verge of insolvency in 1754, 134
Company, Ostend East India, chartered
by the Emperor of Austria in 1722,
and later suppressed, 90
Company, Universal East India, founded
in 1602, in Holland, 12
Constantinople an important trade
centre, 3-4
Taken by the Latins in 1204, 4
Decline of, 4
Cornwallis reaches India in 1786, 272
Governor-General and Commander-
in-Chief in India, 281
Settlement by, of the land revenue of
Bengal, 283
League of, against Tippu, 286-287,
294
Leaves India, 298, 302
Second governor-generalship of, 344
Pacific principles of, 344-345
Death of, 345
Coromandel coast, French and English
at war on the, 104
Cuddalore, French outwitted by Law-
rence at, 107
Surrendered to Tippu in 1782, 256, 257
604
INDEX
D'Ache", French Admiral, character of,
142
Fails to co-operate with Lally, 142
Withdraws to the Isle of France, 143
Dalhousie, Lord, Governor-General of
India, 418
Daulat Rao Sindhia, influence of, 308-
309
Davenant, Sir Charles, on the East India
trade conditions, 60-62
Delhi taken by Lake, 327
Dost Mohammad restored to power in
Kabul, 404
Dover, secret treaty of, between the
English and the French king, 39
Dow, extract from the history of Hindu-
stan by, 203-204
Duff, Grant, author of a " History of
the Marathas," 193
Dumas, an early governor of Pondi-
cherri, 93
Dunkirk sold to France, 33
Dupleix appointed to the Governorship
of Pondicherri in 1741, 93
Schemes of territorial extension of, 101
Violates the terms of the surrender of
Madras, 106
Defeats the Nawabof theKarnatic, 106
Policy of, 107-108
Motives of, in interfering with native
politics, 116-117
Recalled to France, 121
Failure of the policy of, 121
Death of, 123
Characterization of, 129-131
Dutch-Spanish negotiations in regard
to the Eastern trade, 11-12
Dutch and English quarrel in the East
while they preserve the strictest
amity at home, 12
Exclude the English from the Spice
Islands trade, 15
At bitter war in the East, 21-22, 24-25,
29,30
Drive the English from the coast of
Eastern Asia, 30
Eastern position of, at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, 90
Defeated in Bengal by the English, 183
E
East Indies, meaning of the term in the
seventeenth century, 14-15
Edward VII, durbar of, 464
Ellenborough, Lord, Governor-General
of India, 403
Determines to retire from Afghanistan,
403-404
Recalled, 406
Elphinstone criticizes Dupleix, 125
Empress of India, title of, assumed by
Victoria, 464
England and Holland combine against
the Portuguese Asiatic settlements
under Spanish rule, 8
France and Holland allied against, in
1665, 33
Possessions of, in Asia, 35
Political reasons leading to the success
of, in Asia, 36, 38
Complications of the foreign relations
of, 37
Second war of, with Holland, in 1665,
38
Third war of, with Holland, in 1672,
39-40
Successful Eastern trade of, at the
end of the seventeenth century, 60
War of, with France, in South India,
72
Declares war in Europe against France
100, 101
Strength of the navy of, in 1755,
135
Carries out Col. James Mill's scheme
for conquering Bengal ten years
after its inception, 163
At war with France, Spam, Holland,
and the American colonies, 259
Confirmation by treaty of conquests
of, in the East, 359-360
Territory ruled by, in India, 383-384
Why supreme in India, 493
Control and influence of, beneficial to
India, 497
English, defeat the Spanish Armada in
1588, 8
Commerce in. the East advanced by
the hostilities between Holland and
France, 40, 41
Dominion in the East, reasons leading
to, and history of, 63-74
Alliance of the, with Nasir Jang and
Mohammad Ali, 118
Army, strength of, in India, in 1754,
131
Dethrone Siraj-ad-daulah and set up
another Nawab, 141
Expel the French from Bengal, 141
Reasons for the triumph of the, in
India, 150-151
Obtain a farman in 1716 from the
Moghul Emperor, 163
Occupy Bengal, 176
Seize all French settlements in India,
248
INDEX
505
Fortunes of the, in India, waning in
1780, 251
Mysore, war of the, with, 287
League of the, with the Nizam and
Peshwa against Mysore, 309-310
Treaty of peace of the, with Sindhia
and the Nagpur Raja, 329
Expedition of the, to Afghanistan, 399
European competition for trade in the
East, 17-18
F
Fleury, ministry of, 91
Fort St. David, futile expedition of the
French against, 106
Fort St. George in the possession of the
English, 35
Fox, East India Bill of, 274, 275, 277-279
Firozshah, battle of, 410, 413
France, wars of, hi Europe, from 1690
to 1713, 53
Policy of, under Richelieu, 80
Reasons for the failure of, in India,
126, 150-151
Strength of navy of, in 1755, 135
French, under De la Haye sail to Ceylon
and occupy the harbour of Trin-
comali, 37
Take possession of St. Thome', near
Madras, 37
Alliance of, with the Dutch, against
England in 1666, 37, 38
Colonization, history of, 79-80, 83-102
Active in North America, 94
Allied with Muzaff ar Jang and Chanda
Sahib, 118
Army, strength of, in India, in 1754,
131
Expelled from Northern Sirkars, 142
Company hi India dissolved hi 1770,
147
Position at the peace of 1763, 147-148
Final expedition of the, against the
English on the Indian coast hi 1781,
153-155
Embassy to Persia, 352
French-Spanish treaty of 1598, 16-17
Friedland, battle of, 350
G
Gaikwar of Baroda, deposition of the, 430
Gandamak, treaty of, between England
and Afghanistan, 440
Gawilgarh, fort of, captured by General
Arthur Wellesley, 327
Genoa, rise of, as a trade centre, 4
George II makes a treaty of alliance
with Frederick of Prussia, 136
Germanic States, alliance of, in 1691, 53
Ghazipur acquired by the English, 266
Goa, Portuguese garrison removed to, 21
Godeheu succeeds Dupleix at Pondi-
cherri, 123
Golkonda destroyed by Aurangzib, 44, 54
Gujarat, Sikh army overthrown at, 417
Gurkhas (Gurkhalis), war of, with the
English, 374-377
Gwalior, fortress of, taken by Captain
Popham, 254
Haidarabad, Muzaffar Jang established
as Nizam of, by the French, 119
Hyder AH invades, 212
Decline of the State of, 295
Nizam of, transfers large districts to
the English, 317-318
Hamont, M. Tibulle, the French biog-
rapher of Lally, 137
Hardinge, Sir Henry, Governor-General
of India, 410
Hastings, Marquis of, Governor-General
of India, 366
War of, with the Gurkhas, 374-377
Plans of, for the suppression of the
freebooting hordes, 379
Hastings, Warren, first Governor-Gen-
eral in India, 237
Disputes of, with his Council, 234
Transactions of, against the Rohillas,
240-243
Treaty of, with the Marathas, in 1782,
254
Financial embarrassments of, 252,
253, 254, 255, 263
Resignation of, 258
Political intrepidity of, 261
Impeachment and trial of, 263-264
Burke's charges against, 278
High Courts of Judicature, establish-
ment of, 455
Hindu Kush tribes come under British
control, 445
Holkar, Jaswant Rao, attacked by Colo-
nel Monson, 329-330
Signs a treaty with the English, 330
Dispersion of the troops of, 330
Policy of, 330
Army of, defeated at Mehidpur, 380
Holland, commercial ascendency of, La
the East, 14
Increasing strength and pre-eminence
of the Republic of, in the seven-
teenth century, 28, 29, 30
Decline of the naval power of, 71
War declared against, hi 1674, by
Louis XIV, 89
Hughes, naval engagements of, 256-257
606
INDEX
Hugli River, English factory on, 23
Hyder Ali of Mysore, 208, 209
Master of Mysore, 211
Sends a large force into Haidarabad,
212
At war with the English, 213
Treaty of, with the English, 213, 214
Vindictive spirit of, 249
Triple alliance of, 251
Ravages the Karnatic, 251, 252
Death of, 257
I
Imports, Indian, value of, in England,
in 1622, 19
India, awarded to Portugal by Pope
Alexander Borgia, 5
Civil war in, 30
Inherent weakness of, 125
General peace in, in 1784, 257-258
Double government of, 279
Passes to the Crown, 425-426
Effect of the direct government of,
assumed by the Crown, 456
Within the sphere of European diplo-
macy, 490-491
The only modern example of the
evolution of an empire, 493
India Councils Act, passage of the, 455
India troops, European training of, 125
Army components of, 170-171
Indian Succession Act, provisions of
the, 459
Indies, meaning of the term, 86
Indo-Chinese dependency of the Indian
Empire, formation of the, 468
Irrigation, effect of, on India, 463-464
Italy, commercial decline of, 6
Java, reduction of, 358
Jhansi, annexation of, 421
K
Kabul occupied by the English, 401
Disastrous retreat of the English from,
403
Russian envoy at, 439
Afghans defeated at, 442
Kandahar occupied by the English, 401
Karikal acquired for France, 100
Karnatic, the, invaded by the Maratha
chief Sivaji, 42
War of succession in the, 99-100, 115-
117
Maratha invasion of the, in 1740, 100
Incorporation of the, 314
Kasimbazar, factory of, seized by Siraj-
ad-daulah, 165
Kharak, island of, occupied by the Eng-
lish, 398
Khiva subjugated by Russia, 438
Labourdonnais, Governor of Mauritius,
prepares to attack the English, 103
Besieges Madras, 104
Thrown into the Bastile, 107
Lake, General, success of, in the north-
west of India, 327
Lally, Count, instructions to, 137
Character of, 139-140
Expedition of, reaches India in 1758,
141
Takes Fort St. David, 142
Unpopularity of, 142, 143
Besieges Madras, 143
Attempts to recover Vandewash, but
is defeated, 145
Retreats to Pondicherri in 1760, 146
Laswari, battle of, 327-328
Lavaur, a Jesuit, whose intrigues in India
hastened the downfall of Lally, 152
Law, criminal, reorganized in India, 456
Legislation, agrarian, 460-463
Leibnitz, in his " Consilium Aegyptia-
cum " urges Louis XIV to seize
Egypt, and so command the trade
of the East, 62
Lenoir, an early governor of Pondicherri,
93
Lhasa, British expedition to, 449
Lisbon, rise of, as a trade centre, 6
London merchants demand redress from
the Dutch in 1611, 12
Directors, letter from the, 210
Louis XIV, compared with Aurangzib,
52-53
Declares war against Holland in 1674,
89
Louis XV, shortsighted policy of, 95-96
Lytton, Lord, appointed Viceroy of
India, 439
M
Macassar in the possession of the English,
35
Macnaghten attempts to raise a standing
army for Shah Shuja', 402-403
Madagascar, French expedition for colo-
nization of, ends in disaster, 89
Madras, English Company settles at, 23
The central post of the English Com-
pany in Eastern India in 1687, 41
INDEX
507
Headquarters of the English Company,
strongly fortified, 99
Besieged by Labourdonnais, 104
Surrendered to the French, 104
Restored to England by the French
in return for Louisburg, 107
Siege of, raised by Lally, 144
War of, against Hyder Ali, 212
Treaty of, with the Nizam of Haida-
rabad, 212, 214
Mahadaji Sindhia, increasing power and
territories of, 289
Death of, 289
Mahe acquired for France, 100
Taken by the English, 250
Maine, Sir Henry, takes charge of the
Indian legislative department, 458
Manipur, captured by the Burmese, 389
Temporarily occupied by the Eng-
lish, 430
Maratha power, rise of, under the chief
Sivaji, in 1660-1680, 42-43
Invasion of 1740, 100
Marathas, strength of, on the western
side of India, 99
Rising power of the, 173-175, 237-239
Invade Upper India in 1758, 191-193
In the Karnatlc, 213
Overthrown in Panipat, 237
Tactics of the, 238
Menace Rohilkhand, 238, 241
Strength and position of the, 246
French overtures to the, 247
New system of war tactics of the, 290-
292
Invade Haidarabad, 302
Internal contests of, and flight of the
Peshwa, 320-321
Marion, M., on French finance, 134-135
Martin, Francois, founder of Pondicherri,
92
Masulipatam, English Company settles
at, 23
Taken by the English, 142
Mauritius, island of, occupied by the
French, 91, 103
Reduction of, 258
Mazarin, policy of the French under, 83
Mekong River, British influence ad-
vances to, 487
Mill, James, on the success of England,
124
Scheme of, for conquering Bengal
submitted to the Austrian emperor,
162
Minto, Lord, Governor-General of India,
349
Embassies from, 353-354
Mir Jafir proclaimed Nawab in place of
Siraj-ad-daulah, 168
Deposed, 186
Restored in 1763, 187
Death of, 187
Mir Kasim ascends the throne, 186
Moghul Empire, rapid decline of the,
75, 76-78
Administrative system of the, 453
Mohammad Ali tacitly recognized as
Nawab of the Karnatic, 123
Monson, Colonel, defeated by Holkar,
330
Montesquieu declares against emigra-
tion, 151
Morellet, Abbe 1 , report of, concerning
the finances of the French Com-
pany, 147
Iki, '
Mudki, battle of, 410
Munster, treaty of, in 1648, 23
Murshid Kuli Khan, Governor of Bengal,
164
Mutiny, political and legal reorganiza-
tion after the, 452
Muzaffar Jang, accession of, 118, 119
Death of, 120
Mysore, a Hindu principality, 211
Partition of, 310
Reconstitution of native government
in, 431
N
Nadir Shah, invasion of India by, 77
Death of, 77
Nagpur, outbreak at, 380
Annexation of, 421
Napier, Sir Charles, 404-406
Defeats Amirs of Sind at Miani, 405
Napoleon plans a Franco-Russian ex-
pedition to India, 351
Overthrow of, 355
Nasir Jang murdered by his merce-
naries, 118
Native States, area, population, and
administration of, since 1860, 429-
430
Relation of, to the Indian Empire,
476-477
Navigation Law of Cromwell adopted
by Charles II, 32
Nepal, war with, 374-377
A British protectorate, 486
Neutralization, why impossible in Asiatic
statecraft, 482
Nimeguen, peace ratified at, in 1678, 40
Nizam of Haidarabad surrenders at
Kurdla, 302, 307
Non-Regulation system, methods of, 454
North, Lord, 228, 229
Provisions of the Regulating Act of,
229-231
508
INDEX
Northern India, strategic geography of,
188-190
Nott, General, holds Kandahar, 403
O
Ormuz, Persians and English combine
to drive Portuguese from the island
of, 20-21
Oudh, Vizir of, allies himself with the
English, 198
Clive makes an alliance with, 200-201
Decline of the State of, 295
Vizir of, cedes all his frontier provinces
to the English, 318-319
Annexation of, 422-423, 425
A barrier against the Marat has, 477
Palmyra, reasons leading to the destruc-
tion of, 3
Panipat, overthrow of the Marathas at,
194-197
Panjab, annexation of the, 417
Pan j ah, collision of Afghans and Rus-
sians at, 484
Paris, Peace of, in 1763, terminates the
French rivalry in India, 155
Parliament inquires into the affairs of
the East India Company, 221-222,
226, 274, 275
Acts of, 297
Parliamentary campaigns of 1783-1784,
278-279
Patna, massacre of English prisoners at,
187
Pegu, Anglo-Indian campaign against,
390
Annexation of, 419
Persia, negotiations with the Shah of,
396
Shah of, attacks Herat, 397, 398
Persians, overtures of, to Napoleon, 349-
350
Peshwa at Poona attacks the British
Residency, 380
Annexations attendant on the sur-
render of the, 381
Pitt, first Ministry of, 279
India Act of, passed, 279
Plassy, rout of, 167, 168, 169
Pollock, General, recaptures Kabul, 403
Pondicherri recovered by the Dutch in
1697, 73
The seat of the Governor-General of
all the French settlements, 91
Founded by Francois Martin in 1674,
91-92
Strongly fortified, 99
Shelters the Mohammedan princes in
1740, 100
Fortified by Dupleix, 101
Besieged by the English, 107
Surrendered to the English in 1761.
147
Porto Novo, battle of, 252
Defeat of Hyder Ali at, 256
Portugal, activity of, in establishing her
power in India, 5
Commercial activity of, crushed by
her annexation to Spain in 1580,
6-7
Monopolizes Indian trade for a short
time, 6-7
Decline of, 23
Eastern position of, at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, 90
Protectorates, theory of the system of,
469-471
System of, adopted by other European
nations in Asia and Africa, 489
Raghunath Rao, treaty of the English
with, 244
Railways, effect of, in India, 463
Rajput States a barrier against the
Marathas, 477
Ranjit Singh, the Panjab temporarily
consolidated under the kingdom of,
197
Ruler of the Panjab, 391
Death of, 406
Red Sea, commercial navigation of the,
important to the Roman emperors,
1-2
Richelieu, French colonizing companies
under, 80, 83-86
Ripon, Lord, Governor-General of India,
443
Roe, Sir Thomas, embassy of, to the
Great Mogul, 23
Rohilkhand annexed to Oudh, 243
Rohilla War, 241-243
Roman Catholic faith established in
France, 80, 83, 85
Roman Empire, command of, over the
main channels of Asiatic trade, 3
Rousseau on the influence of priestly
ambition, 152
Rumbold, Sir Thomas, Governor of
Madras, 251
Russia, march of, across Asia and in-
fluence on Persia, 396
Central Asian policy of, 437-440
Rival ^f England, 480, 482-483, 484-
485
Ryswick, peace of, 40, 53
INDEX
500
S
Salsette, the English anxious to acquire,
244
Occupied by the English, 245
Sambaji, son of Sivaji, continues his
father's revolt, 43
Execution of, 45
Sandeman, Major, negotiates a treaty
with the Khan of Baluchistan, 436
Satara, reconstitution of the State of,
381
Annexation of, 421
Secretary of State for India in Council,
creation of the office of, 455
Sepoy army, British, recruitment of,
171-172
Shah Alam grants the Five Circara
(Sirkars) to Clive, 211-212
Shah Shuja', 401
Exiled, 397
Shah Zaman invades the Panjab, 304
Sher Ali, Amir of Afghanistan, negotia-
tions of, with Lords Mayo and
Northbrooke, 438-439
Shore, Sir John, Governor-General, 302
Refused to aid the Nizam of Haida-
rabad, 302, 303
Siam, relation of, to the British, 447
Siddhis, an independent Abyssinian
colony, the only naval force on the
Indian coast, 51
Sikh War, the first, 410
Sikhs, rapid expansion of the, 206, 268
History of the, 269
Internal anarchy among the, 406, 409
Collisions of the, with the English,
410
Barrier states against the, 477
Sikkim, war with Tibet over, 486
Sind, extent of conquests of, 253
Amirs, territory of the, brought under
British control,' 404
Fall of the dynasty of, 405
Sindhia occupies Agra and Delhi, 272
League of, with the Nagpur Raja, 323-
324
Siraj-ad-daulah succeeds Ali Vardi Khan
as Nawab of Bengal, 164
Attacks Calcutta, 140
Driven out of Calcutta by the English,
141
Routed at Plassy, 141
Takes Calcutta, 165
Death of, 168
Sivaji, a Maratha chief, death of, in 1680,
43
Sobraon, battle of, 413
Spain prohibits the exportation of her
precious metals, 7
Claims a monopoly of the trade in the
East, 10-11
Decline of, 33, 35
Spanish-Dutch negotiations in regard
to the Eastern trade, 11-12
Spanish Flanders invaded by Louis XIV,
38
St. Helena granted to England, 32
St. Thome" in the possession of the
French, 37
Captured from the French by the
Dutch, 37
Suffren, French Admiral, 154
Naval engagements of, 256-257
Sails for Europe, 257
Surat, battle at, 13
English settle at, in 1612, 23
Chief establishment of the English
East India Company in 1638, 23
In the possession of the English, 35
Pillaged by Sivaji in 1664, 42
Tanjore, the ' English intervene at the
banishment of a prince of, 114-115
Fruitlessly raided by the French, 142
Temple, Sir William, negotiator of the
Triple Alliance, 39
Tenasserim provinces, annexation of,
390
Thirty Years' War, 28
Tippu of Mysore, treaty of peace with,
257
Sends embassies to Constantinople
and Paris, 285
Attacks Travancore, 286
Signs a treaty of peace ceding terri-
tory to the English, 287
Allied with the French, 304, 307
Return of, from the Isle of France, 307
Besieged in Seringapatam, 310
Death of, 310
Character of, 311-312
Trade routes, 3
Security of, menaced, 3
Trade, value of Oriental, in 1615, 13
Treaty of 1673 between France, England,
and Portugal against Holland, 39
Trinchinopoli, English send reinforce-
ments to, 119
French retire from, 120
Trincomali, harbour of, occupied by the
French, 37
Captured from the French by the
Dutch, 37
Captured from the Dutch by the Eng-
lish, 154
Retaken by Suffren, 154-155
510
INDEX
Triple Alliance formed by England,
Holland, and Sweden against
France in 1668, 37-38
Turkmantchai, treaty of, 396-397
Turks dominate the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf in the early part of the
sixteenth century, 5-6
U
Umbeyla campaign, 431-432
Utrecht, peace of, in 1713, 41
Vandewash, Fort of, taken by the Eng-
lish, 144-145
Venice, rise of, as a trade centre, 4
Verelst, on the commerce of Bengal, 178
Succeeds Lord Clive, 219
Versailles, Peace of, 155
Voltaire, leader of the anti-colonial party
in France, 151
W
Walpole, ministry of, 91
Walpole, Spencer, citation from, 493
Watson, Admiral, 166
Wellesley, Arthur, 310-311
Maratha campaigns of, 327
Wellesley, Lord, Governor-General, lands
at Madras, 306
Treaty of, with the Nizam, 309
Conquest of Mysore by, 310
System of subsidiary treaties of, 316
Political system of, 323
Offers to resign, 324
Policy of, 331-334, 428
Result of the rule of, 334-336, 339-340
Critical estimate of the administration
of, 340-342
Whig Ministry displaced in 1841, 403
Yakub Khan becomes Amir of Afghan-
istan, 440
University of California
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388
Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.
'
