The policy of Lord Wellesley had been steadfastly repudiated by the Court of Directors, but the wisdom of it was amply vindicated by the desolation which followed its abandonment. It was under the operation of their principle of non-intervention that the power of the Patans and the Pindarees grew up to maturity, and became the scourge of Central India. Ameer Khan, the Patan freebooter, had gradually established a substantive power, but the predatory element was always predominant in it. His army was more efficient than that of any native
prince of the time, and received a fixed rate of pay, which, however, was seldom disbursed with regularity. It was estimated at not less than 10,000 foot and 15,000 horse, with a powerful artillery. It was his game to levy contributions from princes and states, and he moved about with all the appliances for the siege of the towns which resisted his demands. The object of the Pindarees was universal and indiscriminate plunder, and they swept through the country with such rapidity as to make it impossible to calculate their movements, or to overtake their detachments. While a force, for example, was assembled in haste to protect Mirzapore and the towns on the Ganges from their approach, they had already effected their object, and turned off to Guzerat, and were ravaging the western coast. While preparations were made to expel them from Guzerat, they had crossed the peninsula and were laying waste the opposite coast. The selfish argument employed by Sir George Barlow in defence of his neutral policy, that the disorders it might engender would prove a safeguard for the Company’s dominions, had proved utterly fallacious. It was found that when the cauldron, seething with the elements of anarchy, was ready to boil over, it was those who had the greatest stake in India who were exposed to the greatest risk.
One of the latest acts of Lord Minto’s administration, as already stated, was to impress on the Court of Directors the necessity of adopting an extensive and vigorous system of measures for the suppression of the Pindaree hordes. Lord Hastings, on his arrival in India, found 50,000 Pindarees and Patans in the heart of India, subsisting entirely by plunder, and extending their ravages over an area as large as England, and one of his earliest acts was to point out to the Court, in language stronger than that of his predecessor, the increasing danger of this predatory power. He even went so far as to advance the opinion that the affairs of the Company could not prosper until their Government became the head of a league embracing
every power in India, and was placed in a position to direct its entire strength against the disturbers of the public peace. But such a course of policy was systematically opposed by the two members of his Council. The senior, Mr. Edmonstone, was one of the most eminent of the Company’s servants, and combined talent of a very high order with an affluence of official experience, but he lacked the higher endowments of the statesman. He had filled the office of political secretary during the administration of Lord Wellesley with great distinction, and was generally understood to have given a cordial support to his comprehensive views. During the government of Lord Minto he was the oracle of the Council chamber; but, having now taken his seat at the Board, and become responsible for the measures of Government, his habitual caution induced him to incline to the policy of Sir George Barlow, when he perceived the intention of Lord Hastings to subvert it, and he reprobated the extension of our political alliances and relations. His colleague, Mr. Dowdeswell, had all the narrow-minded prejudices of Sir George Barlow, without a tithe of his abilities. The Court of Directors still clung to their cherished policy of non-intervention, and in reply to the despatch of Lord Hastings of the 29th September, prohibited him “from engaging in plans of general confederacy, and of offensive operations against the Pindarees, either with a view to their utter extirpation, or in anticipation of expected danger.” They enjoined him to undertake nothing which might embroil them with Sindia; they forbade any change in the existing system of political relations, and directed him to maintain, with as little deviation as possible, the course of policy prescribed at the close of the Mahratta war. They directed him, moreover, to reduce the strength of the army, and make every measure conducive to the promotion of economy. This communication was more than six months on the way, and did not reach India before, April, 1816.
To prevent the irruption of the Pindarees into the Deccan, Lord Hastings endeavoured to form a
subsidiary alliance with the raja of Nagpore, thereby to establish a British force on the Nerbudda. To such an affiance the Court of Directors had given their sanction several years before, but the raja set his face sedulously against it, well knowing how irretrievably it would compromise his independence. Lord Hastings then contemplated a similar connection with Bhopal, and also with Saugor, in the hope of being able to hold the Pindarees in check by establishing a chain of posts from Bundelkund to the Nerbudda; but he considered it advisable to await the reply of the Court of Directors to his proposal of a general league. Bhopal was a small principality in Malwa, in the valley of the Nerbudda, lying between the British territories and the head-quarters of the Pindarees. It was founded by an Afghan favourite of Aurungzebe, who assumed independence soon after the death of his master. In 1778 the reigning prince was the only chief in Central India who afforded any support to General Goddard in his adventurous march across the peninsula. His kindness on that occasion exposed him to the vengeance of the Mahrattas, but it has never been forgotten by the British Government. The testimonials granted by the General of the important services rendered to him are carefully preserved as heirlooms in the royal archives of Bhopal. The state had been governed for many years by the celebrated Vizier Mohamed, a man of rare talent and resolution. In 1813 Sindia and the raja of Nagpore, impelled by the simple lust of acquisition, entered into an affiance for the partition of the territory, and a body of 60,000 troops laid siege to the capital. The noble defence of it for nine months by the Vizier has always been the subject of special admiration among the Mohamedan princes of India. But the garrison was at length reduced by casualties and desertions to about two hundred men; the stock of provisions was exhausted, and the destruction of the little state appeared inevitable, when it was arrested by the desertion of the Nagpore general. He pretended that he had been warned in a dream to relinquish the enterprise; but he was
himself a Mohamedan, and both he and the Afghans in the Nagpore army had a strong feeling of sympathy for their fellow-countrymen in Bhopal, and were unwilling to reduce them to extremities. Sindia was happy of an excuse to retire from an inglorious siege; but the confederates renewed it in 1814, and Vizier Mohamed applied with increased importunity for the interference of the British Government. Lord Hastings felt that it was important to preserve a principality situated like that of Bhopal from subjugation, and scarcely less so to prevent the growth of Sindia’s influence at the court of Nagpore, and he directed the Resident at Delhi to grant the Nabob the alliance he solicited without waiting for instructions from Leadenhall-street. The two Mahratta princes were therefore informed that Bhopal was now under British protection, and that their forces must be withdrawn forthwith. The raja of Nagpore, after some hesitation, recalled his army, but Sindia assumed a lofty bearing – it was at the time of our disasters in Nepal – and declared that Bhopal was one of his dependencies, with which the British Government was debarred from interfering by the treaty of 1805. Bhopal, it was well known, though sometimes invaded, had continued to maintain its independence amidst the anarchy of the times; but the Mahratta powers considered every province which they had once laid under contribution as a perpetual dependency. Sindia’s claim was successfully met by a reference to documents; but the vigorous preparations which Lord Hastings was making to enforce his demand, combined with the successes of General Ochterlony, proved a stronger argument, and induced him to lower his tone. His two commanders, moreover, who had long been at variance, attacked each other under the walls of Bhopal, and his army was soon after recalled. But the projected alliance fell to the ground. Vizier Mohamed never had any serious intention of encumbering himself with it, and with genuine Afghan duplicity was treating with Sindia at the same time that he was negotiating with the British Resident, in the hope of playing off one party
against the other. Lord Hastings, disgusted with this perfidious conduct, ordered that his envoy should be dismissed without an audience when he next made his appearance at Delhi. The miscarriage of this project, however vexatious at the time, saved the honour of the Company’s Government, as a despatch was soon after received from the India House positively forbidding the Governor-General to contract the affiance, or indeed to adopt any measure which might give umbrage to Sindia.
To turn to the progress of events at Poona. Bajee Rao, the last of the Peshwas, though not deficient in a certain kind of ability, had none of the talents for government which had more or less distinguished his ancestors. For the success of his schemes he always depended on the spirit of intrigue, which was his ruling passion through life, and no dependence could ever be placed on his most solemn assurances. He was the slave of avarice and of superstition. In the course of ten years he had succeeded, by incessant extortion and extreme parsimony, in amassing treasure to the extent of five crores of rupees, but he was lavish to extravagance in the support of brahmins and temples, and his time was spent in constant pilgrimages. In these tours he was always accompanied by a golden image of Vishnoo in a state palankeen, surrounded by a numerous and expensive staff of priests, and escorted by a guard of his choicest troops. The violent death of the Peshwa, Narayun Rao, a brahmin, was universally attributed to his father Raghoba; and to absolve his family from the guilt of this impious deed, he fed a hundred thousand brahmins, and planted a hundred thousand mango- trees around Poona. After having absorbed the estates of many minor chiefs, he turned his attention in 1812 to the great feudatories of the Mahratta empire, denominated the southern Jageerdars – most of them of greater antiquity than his own house – whom he had long regarded with a rapacious eye. When united they were able to bring 20,000 men into the field, and might at any time have created a revolution at
Poona, but for the presence of the subsidiary force. The eminent services which they rendered to General Wellesley in 1803 had given them a strong claim on the British Government, on which they presumed so far as to relax in their allegiance to the Peshwa, and refuse him their stipulated contingents when required to repel the Pindarees. The Resident was obliged to interfere, but the settlement which he dictated was unsatisfactory to both parties, inasmuch as it bound the Jageerdars to do homage to their liege lord, and guaranteed their possessions against his cupidity.
About the year 1813, one Trimbukjee, who eventually became the cause of the Peshwa’s ruin, began to rise to notice at his court. He was originally a spy, but by his intelligence and energy, and not less by pandering to his master’s vices, acquired a complete ascendency over his mind. Trimbukjee, on his part, manifested such servile devotion to the Peshwa, as to assure Mr. Elphinstone, the Resident at Poona, that he was ready even to kill a cow at his bidding. He entertained an inveterate animosity towards the British, and was incessantly urging Bajee Rao to shake off their alliance, and re-assert the ancient power, and revive the policy, of the Mahratta empire. It was under his influence that the general confederacy against the Company’s Government was organised in 1815. His next device was to establish the ascendency of his master at the Guzerat court. The Peshwa had claims on that state, extending back for half a century, which, with the accumulation of interest, amounted to three crores of rupees. The lease of the district of Ahmedabad, which the Peshwa had given to the Guickwar for ten years, was about to expire, and he was anxious to obtain a renewal of it. The Guickwar deputed his chief minister, Gungadhur Shastree, to Poona, to settle these perplexing questions, but such was the universal dread of Trimbukjee’s violence, that the Shastree would not venture on the journey without a safe conduct from the Resident. His reception at Poona was ungracious, and he was baffled by perpetual
evasions and obstructions. The renewal of the lease of Ahmedabad was peremptorily refused, and it was bestowed on Trimbukjee, who was also introduced to Mr. Elphinstone as the Peshwa’s chief minister. The Shastree, seeing no prospect of the success of his mission, determined, with the concurrence of Mr. Elphinstone, to return to Baroda. The Peshwa and his favourite, on hearing of this intention, immediately changed their tactics, and spared no pains to win him over to their interests. Trimbukjee flattered him with the assurance that Bajee Rao had conceived so high an opinion of his talents, that he was about to confer on him an office of great dignity at Poona, and as a proof of his sincerity, to offer his own sister-in-law in marriage to the Shastree’s son. The Shastree was induced by this cozenage to agree to a compromise of all his master’s claims for lands yielding seven lacs of rupees a-year. This bargain might have been advantageous, considering that the Peshwa, in addition to the arrear of three crores, claimed an annual tribute of twenty-five lacs of rupees, but it was made without the consent of Mr. Elphinstone or the Guickwar, both of whom at once repudiated it.
An auspicious day had been selected by the astrologers, and the most splendid preparations had been made for the nuptials, but the Shastree, on hearing that his royal master rejected the settlement, requested that they might be at once suspended. He had already given great offence to the Peshwa by refusing to allow his wife to visit the palace, where she must have been witness to scenes of revolting debauchery, but the interruption of the wedding, which humiliated the Peshwa in the eyes of his subjects, was considered an unpardonable insult, which nothing but the blood of the Shastree could expiate. The Peshwa proceeded on pilgrimage to Punderpore, and the Shastree, though warned of his danger, was so infatuated as to accompany him. To throw him off his guard, the most cordial communications were maintained with him, and he was induced, by the repeated importunity of Trimbukjee, to pay his devotions
after dusk at the shrine. On his return, he was overtaken at a distance of three hundred yards from the temple, by the assassins of the Minister and cut to pieces. The murder of a brahmin of the highest caste, and, moreover, a Shastree, renowned for his sacred learning, in a holy city, at the period of a pilgrimage, and in the immediate precincts of the temple, filled the Mahratta community with horror and dismay. But the victim was also the minister of a British ally, and had proceeded to the court of Poona, under the guarantee of the British Resident, who determined to lose no time in vindicating the honour of his Government. Mr. Elphinstone returned to Poona, in haste from the caves of Ellora, which he was at the time employed in exploring, and instituted a rigid enquiry into all the circumstances connected with the assassination. The guilt of Trimbukjee was established beyond all question, and Mr. Elphinstone called on the Peshwa to place him under arrest, and eventually to give him up. The demand was strenuously resisted by Bajee Rao, who began to levy troops, and to sound the other Mahratta powers to ascertain how far he could depend on their aid, if he broke with the British Government. Sindia’s reply was disguised under the form of a banker’s letter: “This banking house is the Naek’s (the Peshwa’s); while your house is in want of cash (troops), you must submit to the importunity of creditors (the Company). The Naek ought to go about some time on pilgrimage, but let him write a bill in his own hand, and whatever money is required shall be sent.” The Peshwa was half inclined to make common cause with his favourite and minister, whom he could not surrender without incurring obloquy, and to raise the standard of the Mahratta empire. But Mr. Elphinstone had taken the precaution of calling up troops to the capital; the Peshwa’s natural cowardice overcame every other feeling, and Trimbukjee was made over to him on the 25th September, 1815, on condition that his life should be spared. He was conveyed to the fort of Tannah, where he freely admitted the murder of the Shastree to the British officers,
but assured them that he had not acted without his master’s orders.
Lord Hastings returned to Calcutta from the North West towards the close of 1815, and on the 1st December placed on record an elaborate minute, drawn up from the notes of Mr. Metcalfe, in which he pointed out in stronger language than he had before employed, the increasing dangers arising from the growth of the Pindaree power, and the urgent necessity of active measures to suppress it. To effect this object he proposed a general system of alliances, under the guarantee of the British Government, a complete revision of our relations with the native powers, and a new settlement of the Mahratta dominions. The chief objection of the Court of Directors to any vigorous effort to root out the Pindarees, was the dread of irritating the Mahrattas generally, and Sindia in particular. But Lord Hastings did not hesitate to assure them that “if there was no choice left, he should prefer an immediate war with the Mahrattas, for which we should be fully prepared, to an expensive system of defence, against a consuming predatory warfare, carried on clandestinely by the Mahratta powers, wasting our resources, till they might see a practicable opportunity of coming to an open rupture.” dr. Edmonstone and Mr. Dowdeswell questioned the existence of any such hostile feeling among the Mahratta princes, and opposed the formation of any new alliances; the plan was therefore submitted to the home authorities, without their concurrence.
While this minute was on its way to England, the necessity of some immediate effort to curb the Pindarees was rendered the more imperative by their increasing audacity. The dussera festival, when the plan of the campaign was usually organised, was celebrated in 1815 at Nimaur, the head-quarters of the great Pindaree leader Cheetoo, by a larger assemblage than had ever been collected before. The Company’s territories had hitherto been unmolested, owing to the constant, vigorous, and active preparations of Government, but at the suggestion of the Mahratta princes,
the depredations of the Pindarees were now to be especially directed against them, and the dominions of the Nizam. On the 14th October, a body of 8,000 predatory horse crossed the Nerbudda, and swept through the Nizam’s territories as far south as the Kistna, and returned to Nimaur so richly laden with booty, that it was found necessary to invite merchants from all quarters to purchase it. This extraordinary success brought additional crowds to their standard, and a second and larger expedition, consisting of 23,000 Pindarees, crossed the Nerbudda in February. One large division poured down on the Northern Sircars, sacked the civil station of Guntoor on the Coromandel coast, and for ten days plundered the villages around with perfect impunity. Troops and arms were despatched from Calcutta to Masulipatam by sea, in all haste, but the Pindarees had disappeared before their arrival; indeed, they moved with such rapidity, that it would have been as impossible to overtake them as a flight of locusts. Officers were subsequently appointed by Government to ascertain the injury they had inflicted on the country, and it was found that in the Company’s territories alone three hundred and thirty-nine villages had been plundered, and many of them burnt, one hundred and eighty-two persons put to death, five hundred wounded, and three thousand six hundred subjected to torture, while the loss of property exceeded twenty-five lacs of rupees. The inhabitants had not seen the smoke of an enemy’s camp for fifty years. Ever since Clive had annexed the Northern Sircars to the Company’s territories in 1765, the people had felt that they were living under the protection of a power whose name was a sufficient guarantee of safety; but all confidence was now extinguished, and they began to desert their villages. The atrocities committed by these marauders, and the refinement of cruelty they practised on their victims, were thus vividly described by Mr. Canning: – “Rapine, murder in all its shapes, torture, rape, and conflagration, were not rare and accidental occurrences in their progress, but the uniform object of every enterprise. There were instances
where the whole female population of a village precipitated themselves into the wells as the only refuge from these brutal and barbarous spoilers; where, at their approach, fathers of families surrounded their own dwellings with fuel, and perished with their children in the flames kindled by their own hands.” No previous invasion of the Pindarees had been so systematically directed against the Company’s dominions, or perpetrated with so much audacity.
The success of this expedition manifested the great importance of obtaining the co-operation of the raja of Nagpore, through whose territories the Pindarees passed on crossing the Nerbudda. The raja had steadily resisted every proposal of a subsidiary alliance, but his death on the 22nd March; 1816, opened a favourable opportunity of obtaining it. He was succeeded by his son Persajee, nearly forty years of age, blind, palsied, and sunk into a state of complete idiocy. His nephew, known in the history of India as Appa Sahib, was recognised as regent, but was opposed by a powerful faction, both in the court and in the zenana. He found it impossible to maintain his position without foreign assistance, but, instead of invoking the aid of Sindia or Holkar, or one of the Pindaree leaders, any of whom would have been but too happy to hasten to his relief, and thus to obtain a substantial footing at Nagpore, he applied to Mr. Jenkins, the Resident, and offered to conclude the subsidiary alliance his uncle had rejected, on condition of receiving the support of the British authorities. Lord Hastings eagerly embraced a proposal which would place the resources of Nag- pore at his disposal, and enable him to plant a British force on the Nerbudda. A treaty was accordingly concluded on the 27th May, which provided that a force of 6,000 infantry, and a regiment of cavalry, together with a due proportion of artillery, should be subsidised by the Nagpore state, at an expense of seven lacs and a-half of rupees a-year. It was likewise stipulated that the raja should engage in no foreign negotiation without the concurrence of the British Government, to whom
likewise all differences with foreign princes were to be submitted. The Nagpore ministers earnestly pleaded for the insertion of a clause prohibiting the slaughter of trine in the Nagpore territories, but it was distinctly rejected, as a similar request had been refused to Sindia’s envoys twelve years before. “Thus have I been enabled,” wrote Lord Hastings, “to effect what has been fruitlessly laboured at for twelve years. Sindia’s designs on Nagpore, as well as the Peshwa’s, are defeated, and the interception of the Pindarees is rendered certain.” Soon after, orders arrived from England, revoking the permission which had been formerly given to conclude this alliance; but it arrived too late to do any mischief.
In a former chapter it has been stated that in 1805 Sir George Barlow repudiated the engagement of Lord Lake to afford protection to Jeypore, and abandoned it to spoliation. The Court of Directors approved of this decision, but they appear subsequently to have felt some degree of compunction at this sacrifice of British honour and of the welfare of Jeypore, and in December, 1813, gave their sanction to the renewal of the alliance with that state. The Nepal war, which occurred soon after, rendered it advisable to postpone the execution of these instructions. Meanwhile, Ameer Khan and his freebooters, having drained Joudhpore, entered Jeypore, and laid siege to the capital, with the intention of completing the reduction of the state. The raja despatched a vakeel to Mr. Metcalfe, at Delhi, to implore his interposition, and Lord Hastings, availing himself of the warrant of the Court of Directors, determined to conclude the alliance, and receive Jeypore under British protection. Mr. Edmonstone and Mr. Dowdeswell strenuously opposed this measure, but Mr. Seton, the third member of Council, concurred with Lord Hastings, and enabled him to carry out his plans by his own casting vote. Mr. Metcalfe was then instructed to entertain the raja’s application. Two armies, each 9,000 strong, were ordered to assemble in the neighbourhood of Muttra to support this resolution, and to
expel the Patans from Jeypore. To be prepared for any opposition which might be offered by Sindia or Holkar, who, having repeatedly plundered Jeypore, had the usual Mahratta claims upon it, the four subsidiary armies of the Nizam, the Peshwa, the Guickwar, and the Bhonslay, were ordered to take up strategic positions in the south. The force thus assembled fell little short of 40,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, and was sufficient to crush whatever antagonism might arise, but the raja of Jeypore dreaded the alliance with the Company almost, if not altogether, as much as he dreaded the exactions of Ameer Khan, and in the true spirit of Oriental policy carried on negotiations simultaneously with both parties, menacing the Patan with the weight of a British force, which, he said, he had only to sign the treaty to bring down upon him. The threat was effectual, and Ameer Khan, anxious to avoid a collision with British troops, raised the siege. As soon as his retirement had relieved the raja from his terrors, he endeavoured to evade the alliance by advancing new and preposterous terms. The negotiation was, therefore, broken off, and all the military movements countermanded.
Mr. George Canning, one of the most brilliant of English statesmen, accepted the office of President of the Board of Control in June, 1816, and was immediately required to investigate and decide on the largest and the most momentous question which had ever been submitted to the Board. This was the adoption or rejection of the plans proposed by Lord Hastings in the previous month of December for a general system of alliances with the native powers, under the guarantee of the Company, in order to extinguish the Pindaree confederacy, to restore tranquillity to Central India, and give security to the British possessions. It was a bolder scheme of policy even than that of Lord Wellesley which had been for ten years under the ban of the Court of Directors; it was nothing less than the establishment of the universal supremacy of the Company throughout
the continent of India. Mr. Canning was new to the Government, and it is, therefore, no matter of surprise that he should have been unwilling to assume the responsibility of introducing so fundamental a change in the policy of the empire, and have resolved rather to adhere to the existing system, which was pronounced the safest, not only by the sage counsellors in Calcutta, but by those who might be considered his constitutional advisers in Leadenhall-street. He accordingly drew up a very elaborate and interesting minute, which reviewed the political condition of India, and laid down rules for the guidance of the local authorities. It exhibited the clearest tokens of his great talent and of his inexperience. The Secret Committee, who signed it officially, said they were unwilling to incur the risk of a general war for the uncertain purpose of extirpating the Pindarees. They would not sanction any extended political and military combinations for this object. It was probable that we might calculate on the aid of Sindia to protect the Company’s dominions from their aggressions. Any attempt at this time to establish a new system of policy tending to an undue diffusion of our power must necessarily interfere with those economical considerations which it was more than ever incumbent to recommend. They even suggested the expediency of improving any opportunity which might be presented of treating with any of the Pindaree chiefs, or with the men for delivering up their leaders. Such advice kindled the indignation of Lord Hastings. “When the Honourable Committee,” he replied, “suggest the expediency of engaging one portion of the Pindaree association to destroy another, I am roused by the fear that we have been culpably deficient in pointing out to the authorities at home the brutal and atrocious qualities of these wretches ... and I am confident that nothing would have been more repugnant to the feelings of the Honourable Committee than the notion that the Government should be soiled by a procedure which was to bear the colour of a confidential intercourse in a common cause with any of these gangs.”
But immediately after the transmission of this despatch of the 5th September, Mr. Canning received intelligence of the irruption of the Pindarees on the Coromandel coast, and the desolation they had spread for ten days through the Company’s districts, and his views underwent an immediate and auspicious change. Within three weeks another communication was sent out under his directions, which said: “The previous instructions discouraging plans of general confederacy and of offensive operations were not intended to restrain the exercise of your judgment and discretion upon any occasion when actual war on our territories might be commenced by any body of marauders. We think it due to your lordship not to lose an instant in conveying to you an explicit assurance of our approbation of any measures which you may have authorized or undertaken, not only for repelling invasion, but for pursuing and chastising the invaders. We can no longer abstain from a vigorous exertion of military power in vindication of the British name and in defence of subjects who look to us for protection.” The enormities of the Pindarees had overcome even the dread of irritating Sindia, the great bugbear of the India House: “Any connection of Sindia and Holkar with the Pindarees against us or our allies, known, though not avowed, would place them in a state of direct hostility to us.”
The Pindaree expedition of 1815–16 was sufficient to convince Mr. Canning of the necessity of adopting energetic, measures to eradicate this plague, but it required another season of desolation to convince Mr. Edmonstone and Mr. Dowdeswell of the same truth. Lord Hastings was confident that the establishment of the Nagpore subsidiary force at the fords of the Nerbudda would be sufficient to intercept the Pindarees. As the period of their annual swarming approached, Colonel Walker moved up to the ferries with a body of 6,000 horse and foot; but this force was soon found to be utterly unequal to the protection of a line a
hundred and fifty miles in extent. The Pindarees pushed across in detachments between his posts, one of which was ninety miles from its nearest support. A party of 5,000 men suddenly crossed the river on his extreme right, within sight of his infantry, while his cavalry was posted on the opposite flank, and rushed forward with such speed as to baffle all pursuit. They fell on the Company’s district of Kimedy, and burnt a portion of the town of Ganjam, and, but for the presence of a large force which happened to be assembled in order to quell a local insurrection, would have laid Juggunnath and the district of Orissa under contribution. Another body laid waste the territories of Nagpore and Hyderabad. Such was the audacity which success had created in the minds of these freebooters that one of the leaders, with a band of only five hundred horse, swept through the Peshwa’s dominions, and after having plundered two hundred miles of the Malabar coast, returned leisurely up the valley of the Taptee. Though attacked with some success during their progress homewards, the men brought back so rich a booty in their saddles as to give fresh vigour to the predatory spirit. The expedition of the season of 1816–17 was the boldest the Pindarees had ever undertaken, and it gave rise to the gravest considerations. With the Nagpore subsidiary force guarding the passages of the Nerbudda, 23,000 Pindarees had succeeded in crossing it with ease. Independently of the Nizam’s reformed contingent and of the Poona brigade, no fewer than 32,000 men belonging to the Company’s and King’s force had been stationed to guard the country between the Kistna and the Toombuddra, but the Pindarees had nevertheless dashed through the Peninsula and across it, and plundered both coasts. It was true that they suffered severely on two occasions, when Major McDowell and Major Lushington succeeded in overtaking them, but the eminent success of these officers was a happy contingency, and not owing to the efficiency of the defensive measures which had been adopted, which, while they proved totally abortive, occasioned
an amount of expenditure exceeding the largest calculations of the cost of a more energetic policy.
These reflections brought the Council round to the views of Lord Hastings; and on the 16th December while the permissive despatch of the Court of Directors was coming round the Cape, it was unanimously resolved that “the resolution adopted of refraining from any system of offensive operations against the Pindarees till the sanction of the Court could be received should be abandoned, and that vigorous measures for the suppression of the Pindarees had become an indispensable object of public duty.”
The season was too far advanced for any such operations, but preparations were silently commenced on a large scale to take the field in the cold season of 1817. Intimation was immediately conveyed to Sindia of the resolution which had been adopted to extirpate the Pindarees, and he was required to co-operate in carrying it out; but they had agents in his camp, and warm partisans among his ministers, who laboured to persuade him that with their powerful aid he might hope to bid defiance to the Company, and that his own security would be weakened if he allowed these bands, who were almost an integral part of his army, and ready at any time to flock to his standard, to be extinguished. The Pindaree vakeels boasted that they would out-do the exploits of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, and that fifty thousand of their body were ready to carry fire and sword to Calcutta; but Sindia was not to be misled by this gasconade. Assye was yet fresh in his memory. More recently he had seen the Company triumphant in Nepal; they had secured the resources of Nagpore; they had evidently abandoned their neutral policy, and the spirit of Lord Wellesley again animated their counsels. He was, therefore, induced to promise his co-operation, though not without great reluctance, and only on condition that the lands recovered from the Pindarees should be transferred to him. This perfunctory aid was not likely to be of much practical use, but it was important to deprive the
cause of the Pindarees, if but ostensibly, of one of their most staunch supporters.
During these negotiations at Gwalior events of deep importance were in progress at Poona. Trimbukjee had been confined in the fort of Tannah, in the island of Salsette, which, for greater security, was garrisoned only by European troops; but a plan was laid for his deliverance, and it was communicated to him in Mahratta songs, chanted by a fellow-countryman who had taken service as a groom with one of the officers, while he walked his master’s horse to and fro under Trimbukjee’s window. He effected his escape in September, 1816. For several months after this event Bajee Rao manifested a spirit of unusual cordiality towards the Resident, Mr. Elphinstone, but Lord Hastings had incontrovertible proof that he was all the while engaged in active and hostile negotiations with Sindia, Holkar, Ameer Khan, and the Pindarees. He received the intimation of the resolution to eradicate the Pindarees with every demonstration of delight, but Mr. Elphinstone heard at the same time of the assembly of seditious troops within fifty miles of the capital. At his earnest request a detachment was sent to disperse them, but the commandant, after having held several conferences with them, reported that no insurgents were to be found. Early in March, 1817, it was discovered that these movements were directed by Trimbukjee himself, who was actively employed in raising new levies, while the Peshwa was importuning Mr. Elphinstone to condone his offence and allow him to return to Poona, which was necessarily refused. Meanwhile, another and a more serious revolt broke out in Candesh, and a fortress was occupied by the insurgents. The attitude of the Peshwa became gradually more hostile. He hastened the enlisting of troops, collected guns and bullocks, provisioned his forts, and sent away his wardrobe, jewels, and treasures to his strongest fortress. To counteract these movements Mr. Elphinstone ordered a large British force to Poona, and sent several detachments against
the insurrectionary bands, who were in every case signally routed. On the 1st April he presented a note to the Peshwa reproaching him with the hostile movements he was abetting, and declared that the good understanding between the two Governments was now at an end. Several weeks of fruitless discussion ensued, during which Bajee Rao repeatedly made preparations to quit the capital, which would have been the signal of a general insurrection, but was restrained by his fears. On the 6th May, Mr. Elphinstone brought the controversy to an issue by peremptorily demanding the surrender of Trimbukjee within a month, and the delivery of three of the Peshwa’s fortresses to be held as security. To this request he refused to accede with unusual coolness of determination, and declined to make any effort to apprehend his favourite. Troops were ordered up to Poona, and twenty-four hours allowed the Peshwa for his decision. The brave Gokla and the commandant of artillery urged a bold appeal to arms, but he had not the spirit to adopt their advice. The fortresses were made over, and a proclamation issued offering two lacs and a half of rupees for the apprehension of Trimbukjee.
Lord Hastings, however, deemed it necessary, on the eve of his great operations against the Pindarees, to exact greater securities from this faithless prince, and Mr. Elphinstone was instructed to submit to him the draft of a new treaty, binding him to renounce Trimbukjee forever, to relinquish formally and substantially the character of supreme head of the Mahratta empire, to dismiss the agents of the foreign princes from his court, and to abstain from all further communication with them, referring all matters in dispute to the Company’s Government. He was likewise required to resign all his rights feudal, pecuniary, and territorial, in Saugor and Bundelkund, and in lieu of the contingent of 5,000 horse and 3,000 foot, which he was under obligation by the treaty of Bassein to maintain as an auxiliary force, to cede territory yielding twenty-four lacs of rupees a-year. His ministers endeavoured to mitigate the severity of these demands,
which their master’s offences, whatever they might be, did not, in their opinion, merit, and which were peculiarly grating to his feelings; and they stated that we seemed to exact a greater degree of fidelity to engagements than any native prince was able from his habits to observe. But Mr. Elphinstone was inflexible, and the treaty was signed without any modification on the 13th June. The heavy penalty thus inflicted on the Peshwa for his delinquencies was doubtless the most rigorous, perhaps also the most questionable measure of Lord Hastings’s administration, and could be justified only on the ground of inexorable necessity. It is necessary, therefore, to refer to Lord Hastings’ own vindication of his proceedings. “I exacted,” he said, “cessions from him as the penalty of his base and profligate attempt to excite a general conspiracy against us. These terms were in themselves severe. When, however, they are measured by the magnitude of the injury aimed at us, they will not appear harsh, nor will the necessity of them be doubted, when it is considered that our experience has shown the impossibility of relying on his most solemn professions. We had no choice, consistently with our security, but to cripple him, if we left him on the throne.” When the intelligence of these proceedings, as well as of the large additions which had thus been made to the Company’s possessions, reached England, Mr. Canning bowed gracefully to the irresistible spirit of progress which, in spite of every effort to repress it, was inherent in the constitution of the Company’s Government. His despatch to Calcutta stated: “We feel all the objections which lie against measures tending to reduce or humiliate those native states which, from the extent of their dominions, and from their military talents, were formerly ranked as substantive states. The course of these proceedings, however, sufficiently proves the almost irrepressible tendency of our Indian power to enlarge its bounds and to augment its preponderance, in spite of the most peremptory injunctions of forbearance from home, and the most scrupulous obedience of them in India; but, while expressing our approbation of these
measures, political and military, we consider it particularly important to declare that we consider any such case as forming an unwelcome though justifiable exception to the general rule of our policy. The occurrence of such exceptions has been unfortunately much too frequent.” Yet, so vain are human wishes, that even before this dispatch had left the India House, the whole of the Peshwa’s kingdom had been incorporated with the dominions of the Company, with the exception of the small section given to the raja of Satara.
To revert to the progress of events at the Court of Holkar. On the death of Jeswunt Rao in 1811, Toolsee bye, the favourite of his harem, adopted a son of his by another concubine, and determined to conduct the government herself in the character of regent. The virtues of Aylah bye, during her successful administration of thirty years, had created a predilection for a female reign, which was of no little service to the plans of Toolsee bye. She was in the bloom of youth and beauty, and with the most fascinating address combined great intelligence and invincible resolution; but her spirit was vindictive, and her morals were dissolute, and she speedily exhausted every feeling of respect. Ameer Khan, who held large jageers from the state, and exercised a preponderating influence in its councils, quitted Indore soon after the death of Jeswunt Rao to pursue his schemes of avarice and ambition in Rajpootana, leaving a relative, Guffoor Khan, with a large body of troops, to maintain the Patan ascendency; but there was no regularity or solidity in the government. The income of the state, under the most economical management, was insufficient to maintain its overgrown army. When the troops became mutinous for pay, districts were assigned for their support to the commanders, who used their power only to fleece the people. Open villages were sacked, and walled towns cannonaded. The inhabitants took to flight, the lands remained without tillage, and the country presented a scene of desolation and woe. The lawless soldiery did not spare the possessions of
Sindia, and at length threatened the Bye herself with their violence. She sought refuge for a time with Zalim Sing, the regent of Kotah, the only court in Central India which in that period of confusion afforded an asylum for the unfortunate, but she was nevertheless constrained to part with her jewels to appease their rapacity. Soon after, she became enamoured of Gunput Rao, the hereditary dewan of the state. The minister, Buluram sett, ventured to remonstrate with her on the scandal which her amours created, and she caused him to be cut down in her presence. To avenge this foul murder, Guffoor Khan laid siege to the town to which she had retired. She placed herself at the head of her Mahratta horse, and with undaunted courage led the assault till the elephant on which she was seated with the young prince was struck by a cannon ball and became unmanageable, when she mounted a horse, and placing the lad in her lap, fled from the field. Tantia Joge, a brahmin and a merchant, who had risen to distinction by his administrative talents, then accepted the post of minister, and was considered the head of the Mahratta party, while Guffoor Khan, with nine battalions of infantry, headed the Patans. Between these factions the government fell into a state of complete anarchy, and it was at this period, in the autumn of 1817, that the agents of Bajee Rao arrived in the camp to promote the confederacy he was forming against the British Government.
The disorganisation of Central India had now reached its climax. The commanders in Sindia’s and Holkar’s army were beyond the control of the Government, and employed their troops wherever there was any prospect of plunder. The smaller states were subject to constant spoliation. The Rajpoot principalities were prostrated by internal discord, and the periodical pillage to which they were subject. The soldiers in Central India who depended in a great measure on violence for their means of subsistence, and whom there was no native power with the disposition or the strength to control, fell little short of 100,000. The history of
the previous eight centuries presents no period of such intense and general suffering, and there was every appearance of the approaching dissolution of the bonds of society.
On the 8th July, Lord Hastings left Calcutta, and proceeded to the upper provinces to reduce this chaos to order. The plan of operations which he laid down was comprehensive, bold, and decisive. He was convinced that if the Pindarees were simply dispersed, they would speedily assemble again, and that the only mode of dealing effectually with them was to assault them in their haunts, and hunt them through the country, till their organisation was irretrievably annihilated. He felt, moreover, that to prevent the renewal of such confederacies, it was necessary to resettle Central India, which now exhibited only a general scramble for power and plunder, to define the boundaries of each prince, and prevent mutual encroachments by the ascendency of one paramount authority. Mr. Canning had sanctioned the adoption of vigorous measures, not only to resist the inroads of the Pindarees, but also to chastise them, but in the same despatch he alluded, without qualification, to the instructions of the previous year, which interdicted plans of general federation; and the standing orders to form no new treaties without the warrant of the India House, had never been revoked. Lord Hastings was however, convinced, that without a general combination of all the princes north of the Nerbudda, wider the supremacy of the Company, there was no hope of permanent tranquillity; but this policy found little favour with the members of Council. On his progress to the north-west provinces he communicated to them his reasons for deviating from the views of the home authorities, and took on himself the sole responsibility of the general system of alliances he had determined to form. To the Court of Directors he wrote that unexpected events had presented a juncture which required to be dealt with according to its own peculiar features, and that he had construed their instructions as not applicable to circumstances so little analogous to what had been contemplated by them.
The military operations on which Lord Hastings was now about to enter were on a grander scale than any in which the Company had as yet been engaged. They embraced the whole extent of country from the Kistna in the south, to the Ganges in the north; and from Cawnpore in the east, to Guzerat on the western coast, six hundred miles in one direction, and seven hundred in another. The army was, moreover, the largest which had ever taken the field in India under British colours. The battle of Plassy, which laid the foundation of British power, was won with 2,100 men. The army with which Lord Cornwallis struck down the power of Tippoo in 1793 did not exceed 31,000. The troops assembled by Lord Wellesley during the Mahratta war, independent of the irregular horse of the allies, amounted to 55,000. On the present occasion Lord Hastings called out the armies of the three Presidencies, and, including irregulars and the contingents of native princes, was enabled to assemble a force of 116,000 infantry and cavalry, with three hundred guns. The magnitude of this force was out of proportion to the simple object of extinguishing bands of marauders, who never stood an attack. But Lord Hastings knew that the Mahratta powers had an interest in common with the Pindarees, and were opposed to the extinction of an association which might be turned to account in any struggle with the British Government. He had every reason to believe that a general confederacy had been formed of the native powers, against the interests of the Company Sindia was known to have received twenty-five lacs of rupees from the Peshwa, as the price of his assistance, and to have given a direct assurance of support to the Pindarees and to Ameer Khan, in case they were attacked. Lord Hastings had determined that in this crusade against the Pindarees, no native prince should be allowed to remain neuter, and his preparations were intended to provide against every adverse contingency which might arise. Happily, the powers of Governor-General and Commander-in-chief were combined in his hands, and all arrangements, both military and political,
were directed by the same mind, and regulated by the same undivided authority. A complete harmony of operations was thus secured, which eminently contributed to the success of the war. The veteran soldier of sixty-three took the field in person, and gave promptitude and energy to every movement. The plan which he drew out of the campaign, with its manifold combinations from points widely separated from each other, exhibited military talent of no ordinary standard. Four armies advanced from the Deccan under the direction of the Madras Commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Hislop, and four from the north-west provinces, to converge on the haunts of the Finds-tees, and prevent the possibility of their escape. The only event which was likely to disturb these well-devised plans Was the support which they might obtain from the Mahratta powers, but Lord Hastings considered that after the treaties he had concluded with the Nagpore raja and the Peshwa, he was safe from any interference on their part, and the regent of Holkar’s cabinet was negotiating for British protection.
In the north, however, it was necessary to place an effectual curb on the hostile tendencies of Sindia and Ameer Khan. Sindia’s army was at this period in a state of more than ordinary insubordination, and one division had placed its commander under arrest. But rumours had been spread through the camp that Bajee Rao was about to erect the national standard and attack the Company, and Sindia’s troops became eager to join him in this warfare, while Sindia himself as it afterwards appeared, had pledged his faith to that prince. There could be little doubt that the whole of Sindia’s military resources would be engaged against Government in the coming struggle, and it was necessary to meet this emergency with promptitude. A note was accordingly delivered to him by the Resident, on the 10th October, stating that the Governor-General considered the treaty of 1805 abrogated by his having excited the Pindarees against the British Government, and repeatedly granted them an asylum after they had been openly engaged in plundering the territories of the Company.
Government was therefore no longer fettered by that clause of the treaty which placed restrictions on the formation of any connection with the chiefs of Malwa and Rajpootana, with whom Lord Hastings had now determined to contract alliances for the security of the Company’s territories. It stated that the British Government was not seeking any private advantage, and that the sole object of the armaments then assembled was to extinguish all predatory associations and restore tranquillity. Sindia was therefore requested to give his co-operation, and to place his troops at the disposal of the Governor-General, to be stationed according to his judgment, with a British officer attached to each division. As a proof of his sincerity he was moreover required to admit a British garrison, temporarily, into the fortress of Hindia on the Nerbudda, and into Asseergur, reputed the strongest fort in India, and the key of the Deccan. During these negotiations Sindia was detected in a correspondence with the raja of Nepal, whom he prompted to a simultaneous attack on the Company’s dominions. The letters were found on his messenger, inserted between the leaves of a Sanscrit manuscript of the Vedas, and, to his great confusion, were returned to him in open durbar. To hasten his determination and fix his wavering mind, Lord Hastings took the field on the 16th October, crossed the Jumna on a bridge of boats, and marched directly upon Gwalior, while General Donkin, with the left division, moved down at the same time towards the same point. Sindia was confounded by the rapidity of these movements, which not only cut him off at once from all communication with the Peshwa and the Pindarees, but also with the bulk of his own army then encamped in his southern provinces, and left him isolated at Gwalior, with not more than 8,000 troops. On the 5th November, the two British divisions were within two marches of his capital, when he signed the treaty, and thus saved his kingdom from the fate which overtook the other Mahratta powers.
While Lord Hastings lay in the vicinity of Gwalior; his camp was desolated by a visitation of
the cholera. This disease had made its appearance at intervals during the previous forty years in different parts of India, but never with such alarming violence as on the present occasion, and the year 1817 is marked as the period when this mysterious scourge of the nineteenth century became permanently established as an epidemic in India. It broke out in the first instance in the district of Jessore, within fifty miles of Calcutta, and depopulated entire villages. It baffled the skill both of the European faculty and the native doctors, none of whom were able to discover the cause or the cure of the malady. The superstitious natives resorted to the expedient of making one more addition to the three hundred and thirty millions of their deities, and established rites to propitiate the malevolent goddess of the cholera. It gradually crept up the banks of the river, and about the 13th November entered Lord Hastings’ camp, and for a time paralysed the army in mind as well as body. It was calculated that the strength of the force, including its camp followers, was diminished by deaths and desertions to the extent of nearly twenty thousand. Lord Hastings was apprehensive lest an exaggerated report of the prostration of the army might induce Sindia to violate the arrangements he had so recently made, and he called his staff together, and directed them, in case he should fall a victim to the disease, to bury him in his tent under the table, and to conceal his death till Sindia had fulfilled his engagements. Under the advice of the medical officers, the position of the camp was shifted to the banks of the Betwa, and the virulence of the disease subsided.
Ameer Khan, at this conjuncture, was scarcely a less important chief than Sindia. The little band of freebooters with whom he began his course, had grown up into an army of fifty-two battalions of well-trained infantry, and a powerful cavalry, and a hundred and fifty pieces of cannon. It was as essential to the peace of India to break up the Patan, as the Pindaree force. Lord Hastings did not therefore hesitate to offer to guarantee to him the territories
he held in jageer from Holkar, if he engaged to disband his army and surrender his guns, for a valuation. A month was allowed him for the acceptance of the proposed treaty, and though he wavered at first, the defeat of Bajee Rao and of the raja of Nagpore, and the extinction of their power, to which we shall presently allude, convinced him that the star of the Company was still in the ascendant, and he at once accepted the alternative of the treaty, and became an independent feudatory prince, with an income of fifteen lacs of rupees a-year, a dignity to which a career of eleven years of violence and crime gave him little claim.
The intimation given to Sindia of the nullification of that clause of Sir George Barlow’s treaty, which barred all interference with the states of Malwa and Rajpootana, was followed up with vigour. The chiefs were informed that the neutral policy had ceased to exist, and that the British Government was prepared to admit them to alliances which would protect them from the oppressions to which they had been subjected. The intelligence diffused joy through the provinces, and the princes became eager to embrace the offer. There was at least this advantage connected with the reversal of Lord Wellesley’s policy by the Court, that the incalculable misery thereby inflicted on the country prepared the princes to appreciate the restoration of it more highly than they might otherwise have done. The chief management of this series of alliances was entrusted to Mr. Metcalfe, and the Residency at Delhi was speedily crowded with the agents of nineteen princes of Central India. The first to enter into the arrangement was the venerable Zalim Sing, who had for half a century managed the affairs of the Afghan principality of Kotah with extraordinary ability. So great was the reputation of his virtues that in that age of violence he became the general umpire in the disputes of the surrounding princes, and their treasures were deposited in his fort as in the safest of sanctuaries. He promoted the operations against the Pindarees with great zeal,
and was subsequently rewarded with the grant of four districts taken from Holkar’s possessions. The raja was an imbecile cipher, unknown beyond the precincts of the palace, and Lord Hastings offered to conclude the treaty with Zalim Sing himself, but his own feeling of moderation, and a respect for public opinion, which would have condemned this assumption of royalty, induced him to decline the honour and content himself with the office of hereditary minister. Then came the nabob of Bhopal, the virtuous and accomplished Nusser Mohamed, who cheerfully accepted the alliance which his father had rejected. The assistance he afforded in the Pindaree campaign, and the kindness of his ancestors to General Goddard, were acknowledged by the grant of five valuable districts taken from the Peshwa. Under the auspices of the British Government his revenues, which had been reduced by usurpation to little more than a lac of rupees a-year, were improved to the extent of ten lacs. The raja of Boondee had braved the threats of Holkar in 1805, and afforded succour to General Monson. He had been ungenerously abandoned by Sir George Barlow to the vengeance of that chief, and to the spoliation of Sindia, but was now taken under British protection, and his devotion requited by an accession of territory, and an entire exemption from the heavy tribute imposed on his state by Holkar. No events connected with this great settlement of Central India produced a more favourable impression on the native mind than this grateful recognition of ancient services in the hour of triumph. The raja of Joudhpore had been brought to the brink of ruin by the Mahrattas and the Patens, and he eagerly accepted the offer of an alliance which relieved him from all further dread of their exactions. No Rajpoot state had suffered so severely from rapine as Oodypore. To the rana who had lost the greater portion of his territories, and whose revenues had been reduced to two lacs of rupees a-year, the arrangement now proposed by Lord Hastings, which cleared his country at once of the swarm of plunderers which had fastened on it, was a godsend. It was
the proud boast of the house of Oodypore, with its claim of unfathomable antiquity, that it had never given a daughter in marriage to the throne of Delhi, in the height of its grandeur, and had never acknowledged the sovereignty of Mogul or Mahratta, though repeatedly overwhelmed by both; but the sovereign now cheerfully submitted to the supremacy of the foreigner, who, as he said, “had come in ships from a country before unknown.” The last of the principal Rajpoot states to accept the alliance was Jeypore, and it was not till the raja saw every power prostrate before the British arms, and the settlement of Central India on the eve of being completed without including him, that he consented to come into the system. Treaties were also concluded in succession with the secondary and minor principalities, upon the same basis of “subordinate co-operation and acknowledged supremacy,” and of the reference of all international disputes to the arbitration of the Company. All these treaties, with the exception of two, were negotiated and signed within the short period of four months.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage