The head-quarters of the three Pindaree chiefs were centrically situated in the south of Malwa, and it was towards this position that the left division of the Bengal force and two divisions of the Deccan army began to advance about the middle of October. This movement was immediately followed by the explosion of the plot which the Peshwa had been organizing amongst the Mahratta powers for the overthrow of the Company’s power. He himself broke out on the 5th November; the raja of Nagpore on the 26th of that month, and Holkar on the 16th December. The
Peshwa had left his capital immediately after signing the Treaty of the 13th June, and proceeded first on a pilgrimage to Punderpore, and then to the palace he had recently erected at Maholy, seventy miles from Poona. There he was visited, at his own request, by Sir John Malcolm who had been appointed to the command of a division of the Madras army, and was making the tour of. the native courts as political agent in the Deccan. The Peshwa, who affected to consider him an ancient friend, complained with great animosity of the humiliation the treaty had inflicted on him; but he manifested, notwithstanding, a feeling of so much cordiality towards the British Government, and so great an anxiety to assist in putting down the Pindarees that the kind and credulous general was thrown off his guard, and encouraged him to increase the strength and efficiency of his army. Mr. Elphinstone, with a better knowledge of the duplicity of the Peshwa, predicted a different destination for this force, but was unwilling to check the generous sympathies of Sir John. General Smith’s division was, therefore, allowed to quit Poona, and proceed to join the expedition against the Pindarees, and the cautionary fortresses were restored. Bajee Rao now redoubled his efforts to augment his army, and advanced a crore of rupees from his private hoard to Gokla, to whom he committed the entire management of his political and military affairs. No pains were spared to conciliate the southern Jageerdars, whom hitherto the Peshwa had always regarded with the strongest aversion, and they were ordered to attend his stirrup at the earliest moment with their full contingent of troops. His forts were repaired, stored and garrisoned, and orders were issued to equip the Mahratta fleet. Special envoys were sent to the Mahratta princes to enlist them in the confederacy. A plan was laid for the assassination of Mr. Elphinstone, whom he feared and bated, but the noble-minded Gokla refused to lend himself to so base a scheme, and it was dropped. Great exertions were made, under the immediate direction of the Peshwa, to
whose feelings such an effort was particularly congenial, to seduce the sepoys from their loyalty, but though a large number of them had been enlisted from his own provinces, and their families were completely within his power, they exhibited a noble example of fidelity to the Company, and brought the sums which had been left with them by the emissaries of Bajee Rao to their own officers. The Peshwa returned to Poona at the beginning of October. At the last interview with Mr. Elphinstone, he deplored the loss which he had sustained of territory, revenue, and dignity, but repeated the assurance that the troops he had assembled were intended to co-operate against the Pindarees. Towards the close of the month, however, his cavalry gave unequivocal tokens of the hostile disposition of their master by caracoling round the British encampment and insulting the officers and men. Mr. Elphinstone, seeing a conflict inevitable, called up a European regiment from Bombay, and thus imparted to his little native force that confidence which the presence of European soldiers always inspires. The camp was at the same time removed from Poona to a more defensible position at Kirkee, about two miles distant, but the whole British force did not exceed 3,000, while the Mahratta army mustered 18,000 horse and 8,000 foot.
The preparations of the Peshwa were now mature, and, in the full assurance that Sindia and Ameer Khan were already in the field, and that their example would soon be followed by the raja of Berar and Holkar, he precipitately plunged into hostilities on the 5th November – the very day on which Sindia signed the treaty which detached him from the confederacy. Towards noon he sent one of his ministers to Mr. Elphinstone to propound the terms on which he would consent to continue on terms of friendship with the British Government. They were sufficiently arrogant, and were rejected, as a matter of course. While his messenger was on his way back, the plain was covered with masses of cavalry, and an endless
stream of soldiers issued from every avenue of the city. Mr. Elphinstone lost no time in joining the camp, but he had no sooner quitted the Residency than the Mahrattas rushed in and burnt it to the ground, together with all his valuable papers. Considering the great disparity of force, he believed it would be most judicious boldly to take the offensive, and he advised Colonel Burr, the commander, to assail the Mahrattas instead of awaiting their attack. The superstitious minds of the Peshwa’s soldiers had been depressed by the accidental fracture of the staff of the national standard as they were leaving the city; but their confidence was destroyed by the fearless advance of the British troops, who they had been assured would take to flight on the first appearance of the Mahratta army. The Peshwa proceeded to the neighbouring hill Parbutee, to observe the conflict which he had not the courage to engage in, while Gokla, in the true spirit of a soldier, rode about from rank to rank animating the troops. He opened the engagement from a battery of nine guns and enveloped the British force with his cavalry. The infantry was left in the rear with the exception of one battalion, raised and commanded by a Portuguese officer, de Pinto, which boldly advanced against a regiment of sepoys. It was repulsed, but pursued with such ardour, that a gap was created between it and the rest of the British line. Gokla seized the opportunity, and launched a select body of 6,000 cavalry against the regiment while in a state of confusion. The veteran Colonel Burr, though labouring under a violent and incurable disease, took his post by the colours of the corps, which he himself had formed and led for many years, and aided by the nature of the ground succeeded in breaking the force of the charge. The Mahrattas were disconcerted, and began to retire, and on being charged by the British troops completely deserted the field, which was won with ease, with the loss of only eighty-six killed and wounded. General Smith, on hearing of these transactions, hastened back to Poona, which he reached on
the 13th of the month. The Peshwa had received a large accession of strength from the southern Jageerdars who brought up their troops with alacrity, but he declined another engagement and, leaving his camp standing, fled southward on the 17th, when the city of Poona surrendered to General Smith; and thus ingloriously fell the power of the Peshwa, one hundred years after it had been established through the concessions obtained from the Emperor of Delhi in 1717 by his great grandfather, Ballajee Vishwunath.
Appa Sahib, the regent of Nagpore, continued to maintain the most friendly relations with the Resident for several months after the conclusion of the subsidiary treaty in June, 1816. But on the 1st February, 1817, the imbecile raja Persajee was found dead in his bed, and subsequent inquiries established the fact that he had been strangled by order of Appa Sahib, who immediately mounted the throne and assumed the title of Mahdajee Bhonslay. From that time there was a marked change in his conduct. Having attained the supreme power in the state, he became anxious to be relieved from that state of dependence in which the affiance had placed him, and he entered cordially into the views of the Peshwa to whom he gave the strongest assurances of support. Early in September, an agent of the Pindaree Cheetoo was presented at his durbar, and received a dress of honour. An active correspondence was also carried on with Poona, and troops were enlisted in large numbers. The Resident demanded an explanation of these strange proceedings, but the raja continued to profess an inviolable attachment to the Company, and on hearing of the attack made on Mr. Elphinstone by Bajee Rao on the 5th November, inveighed against such perfidy in very strong terms; while, at the same time, he was collecting his resources for a treacherous assault on Mr. Jenkins. All his preparations appeared to him to be complete, and on the evening of the 24th November, he sent to inform the Resident that an agent had arrived from the Peshwa to invest him with a dress of honour,
and with the ancient title of senaputtee, or commander in-chief of the Mahratta empire, and that he intended to proceed to his camp the next day to assume these honours. Mr. Jenkins was impudently invited to be present on the occasion, but he remonstrated on the danger of these proceedings, and cautioned the raja against identifying himself with a prince who was then in arms against the Company. Appa Sahib, however, persisted in going to the camp, and assumed these decorations with every demonstration of military pomp.
This ceremony was the signal for an attack on the Residency. It lay to the west of the city from which it was separated by a small ridge running north and south, with two hills at the extremity called the Seetabuldee hills, a name which has become as celebrated in the annals of British India, as ever Thermopylae was in the annals of Greece. The raja’s force amounted to about 18,000 men, of whom 4,000 were Arabs, the bravest soldiers in the Deccan, and at this time the sinews of the Mahratta armies; he had likewise thirty-six guns. The force at the Residency consisted of two battalions of Madras infantry, considerably weakened by disease; two companies of the Resident’s escort, three troops of Bengal cavalry and a detachment of Madras artillery, with four six-pounders. Towards the evening the Nagpore guns were brought to bear upon the British position, and a vigorous assault was made on the lower hill, which, though slackened during the night, was impetuously renewed in the morning, but repelled with great gallantry. At length a tumbrel exploded, and in the confusion of the moment, the Arabs charged directly up the hill and captured it, and immediately turned the gun they found there, together with two of their own, on the larger hill. Emboldened by this success, the enemy began to close in upon the Residency in every direction, and to prepare for a general assault. The Arabs likewise rushed into the huts of the sepoys who became dispirited by the shrieks of their women and children; the ammunition and supplies were
running short; one-fourth the little force, including fourteen officers, was either killed or wounded; the latter were tended throughout the engagement by the ladies. It was a most appalling crisis, and there was every reason to conclude that the impending assault would result in the entire annihilation of the force, when the fortunes of the day were at once changed by the gallantry of Captain Fitzgerald, who commanded the Bengal cavalry. He had repeatedly entreated permission to charge the enemy, but had been refused. Seeing the destruction of the whole force inevitable, he made a last attempt, and with increased importunity, to be allowed to advance. “Tell him,” replied Colonel Scott, “to charge at his peril.” “At my peril be it,” replied Fitzgerald, and rushed upon the main body of the enemy’s horse with irresistible fury, cut up the infantry, and captured two guns. This noble exploit was witnessed from the hill with ecstasy, and a spirit of the highest enthusiasm was kindled in the breasts of the troops. At this juncture one of the enemy’s tumbrels exploded, the Arabs were seen to be disorganized, and officers and men plunged down the hill and chased the enemy before them like a flock of sheep. By noon, the conflict which had lasted eighteen hours terminated in the complete triumph of the British arms. It was, perhaps, the severest trial to which native troops had ever been exposed, and the result reflected the highest honour on their courage and constancy. But there can be little doubt that the great perils of the day might have been avoided if Colonel Scott had followed the example of Colonel Burr, and boldly charged the enemy at the outset. Lord Hastings bestowed the highest encomium on all who were engaged in this brilliant action, but it was not till the commencement of Queen Victoria’s reign, twenty years later, that any mark of distinction was bestowed on the heroes of Seetabuldee. The order of the Bath was conferred on the survivors, Mr. Jenkins and Captain Lloyd. The 24th Madras Infantry occupied the place of the 1st Regiment which was struck off the roll for its share in the Vellore mutiny. The
sepoys now prayed that in lieu of any other recognition of their services they might be permitted to resume the former number and facings of the regiment, a request which was most cordially acceded to.
Reinforcements poured into Nagpore from all quarters, and on the 15th December, Mr. Jenkins was in a position to dictate terms to the raja. He was required to dismiss his troops, to deliver up his guns, to repair to the Residency and to admit that by this unprovoked attack his kingdom was placed at the disposal of the British Government. He was, however, given to understand that on his acceptance of these terms, his throne would be restored to him with no other reservation of territory than was sufficient for the support of the subsidiary force. These conditions were accepted, but on the morning of the 16th December he sent to inform the Resident that his Arab troops would not allow him to quit the camp. General Doveton, therefore, moved up against it, when the raja, yielding to his fears, mounted his horse and accompanied by two of his ministers and a few attendants rode into the Residency. A portion of his guns, thirty-six in number, was likewise surrendered, but the remainder were not obtained till after a severe engagement which cost the British force a hundred and forty in killed and wounded. After the Nagpore army was dispersed, a body of about 5,000 Arabs and Hindostanees threw themselves into the fortified palace of the raja, and defended it with great resolution for a week. It became necessary to order up a battering train, but the Arabs, believing that they had done enough to save their honour, evacuated the place on the easy terms offered them. Lord Hastings had resolved to punish the wanton attack on the Residency by the deposition of Appa Sahib, but was unwilling to weaken the authority of the Resident by refusing his assent to the more lenient arrangement he had made, and the raja resumed his dignities on the 8th January, 1818. His incurable spirit of intrigue, however, hurried him to destruction. He incited the forest
and mountain chiefs to resist the British troops: he impeded the surrender of his forts, and went so far as to invite the Peshwa, while pursued by the British divisions, to move into his territories, and prepared to join his standard. The timely discovery of this clandestine correspondence defeated his schemes. Lord Hastings ordered him to be sent to honourable confinement at Allahabad, and Persajee, the next heir, to be raised to the throne. Appa Sahib set forward on his journey on the 2nd May, 1818, but on the way succeeded in corrupting the fidelity of the guard, and made his escape from the camp. After wandering about the country for several years he proceeded to Joudhpore, but the raja refused to follow the example of Jeypore in the case of Vizier Ali, and to sully his character by violating the laws of Rajpoot hospitality, and surrendering him to the demand of Government. Appa Sahib subsequently obtained shelter at Lahore, and died a pensioner on the bounty of Runjeet Sing.
Lord Hastings had made the offer of a treaty to Toolsee bye, and she sent a secret communication to the Resident of Delhi proposing to place the young prince and the Holkar state under British protection. The administration was vested in her as regent, but all real power was in the hands of the military chiefs, Ramdeen, a Hindostanee brahmin, Roshun beg, who commanded the cavalry, and more particularly, Guffoor Khan, the head of the Patan faction. As soon as it became known that the Peshwa had risen in arms, the various detached corps of Holkar’s army were recalled to head-quarters, and the resolution was unanimously adopted to march forward and support him. A large sum was distributed by his agent among the troops, and a larger donation was promised when they reached the Nerbudda. The army, consisting of 20,000 men, and comprising a body of cavalry esteemed the finest in India, marched from the cantonments at Rampoora towards the Deccan in a spirit of great enthusiasm. On approaching Mahidpore, the commanders found that the British force under Sir Thomas
Hislop and Sir John Malcolm, had advanced to Augur, fifteen miles distant, in pursuit of the Pindaree Cheetoo, who had joined their encampment. Sir John opened a correspondence with the commanders, and offered them the very liberal terms proposed by Lord Hastings; but they felt that any connection with the Company would extinguish their power and importance, and the troops dreaded the loss of all future prospects of plunder. The chiefs merged all their differences in the presence of a Common danger, and in their anxiety to maintain the independence and the honour of the Holkar state, took an oath of mutual fidelity. The regency was suspected of a leaning towards the British alliance; Tantia Joge was, therefore, placed under restraint; Gunput Rao was seized amidst the execrations of the troops, and on the evening of the 20th December, Toolsee bye was conducted to the banks of the Sipree, and her beautiful head struck off, and her mangled remains cast into the stream.
Sir Thomas Hislop moved up to Mahidpore on the 21st December, to bring on the issue of a battle. Holkar’s army was admirably posted on the opposite bank of the Sipree, its left flank defended by an angle of that stream, its right resting on a deep morass, and its front lined with a formidable battery of seventy guns. The main feature of the engagement was the bold, if not rash, device of crossing a difficult river by a single ferry in the face of an enemy strongly entrenched, and then rushing forward to seize his guns, which had rapidly silenced the light field pieces of the British army. The sepoys were mowed down by the enemy’s artillery, but continued to advance with extraordinary steadiness. Holkar’s artillerymen stood to their guns till they were bayonetted beside them. The batteries were at length stormed; the infantry fled; and the cavalry, which, with all its vaunting before the action, had kept aloof and given no assistance to the foot, galloped off the field when the fortune of the day seemed to be adverse. The victory was decisive, but it was not won without the sacrifice of 778
in killed and wounded. The movements of the day were directed by Sir John Malcolm, who had never commanded in a general action, and was less notable as a general than as a diplomatist. The same result might have been secured with less slaughter by better strategy, if he had eschewed the favourite but insane practice of hurling his men on the enemy’s batteries and endeavouring to carry them by cold steel. The young Holkar, with the hereditary gallantry of his race, was actively engaged throughout the battle, and shed tears as he saw his troops retreating from the field. His sister Beema bye, a young widow of twenty, manifested equal spirit during this campaign, and rode at the head of 2,500 horse, on a fine charger, with a sword by her side and a lance in her hand, but was closely pursued, and seeing no chance of escape, surrendered to the British officer, and was conducted to her brother’s court. Holkar’s entire camp, with sixty-three guns, and a large magazine of military stores, fell to the victors, and the power of the state was irretrievably broken. Tantia Joge was immediately released and sent to the British camp with the most humble submissions. A treaty was soon after concluded at Mundesur, by which cessions of territory were made to the Company, to Zalim Sing, to Ameer Khan, and to Guffoor Khan, both of whom acquired independence at the expense of this kingdom, which was thus reduced to two-thirds of its former dimensions, and entirely lost its independence, after twenty-five years of anarchy.
It remains to narrate the operations against the Pindarees, who were encamped during the rains of in three divisions, to the number of about 23,000 horse, under Cheetoo, Kureem Khan, and Wassil Mohamed. They were not ignorant of the measures which were in progress to extirpate them, and they implored the aid of the Mahratta powers, but, under the dread inspired by Lord Hastings preparations, none of them had the courage to stand up in their defence, or even to grant them a fortress of refuge for their families. As the British divisions
closed upon their haunts in Malwa, from the north and the south, they dispersed hastily in every direction. Letters from Sindia inviting Kureem Khan and Wassil Mohamed to Gwalior, fell into the hands of Lord Hastings, and he immediately marched his division to a position within thirty miles of Sindia’s camp, which effectually precluded all access to it by the Pindarees. They were obliged, therefore, to fly westward, but were intercepted by General Donkin, who captured Kureem Khan’s elephants, kettle-drums, and standards, as well as his wife and family. The two chiefs burnt their tents, and, abandoning their baggage, fled with about 4,000 of their best horse to the south. The rest of their followers were cut up, partly by the British troops and partly by the villagers, whom they had exasperated by their former depredations. They were not without hope of sharing the protection which Jeswunt Rao Bhao had offered to the Pindarees, and particularly to Cheetoo, at Jawud. He was one of Sindia’s commandants in charge of a third of his army, but had virtually thrown off his allegiance, and despoiled the rana of Oodypore of many districts and forts, of which he gave no account to his master. He had the temerity to fire on the troops of General Brown as he passed under the ramparts of Jawud, and refused to surrender the Pindarees whom he harboured. Lord Hastings, without any reference to his connection with Sindia, ordered him to be treated as a public enemy, and the General attacked his camp and carried his fort by assault. The two Pindaree chiefs, deprived of all hope from Jawud, hastened down to the Nerbudda, but were so hotly pursued by the detachments which tracked them, that they were unable any longer to keep their men together. Their minds were now reduced to such a state of depression as to welcome the terms which Colonel Adams offered them through the mediation of the nabob of Bhopal. Kureem Khan was settled on a small estate beyond the Ganges, in the district of Goruckpore. Namdar Khan, his lieutenant, came in with no other stipulation than that he should not be sent to Europe or to Calcutta.
Wassil Mohamed was placed under supervision at Ghazeepore, but being detected in an attempt to escape, put a period to his existence by poison. Cheetoo, the most renowned of the Pindaree leaders, was pursued by Sir John Malcolm with his heavy guns, and easily managed to keep fifty miles a-head of him. His bivouac was, however, beaten up by Colonel Heath, on the night of the 25th January, after which he wandered through Malwa for more than a twelvemonth with about two hundred followers, but he was hunted out of all his old familiar haunts, and, being driven at length by hunger to separate from his son and his last companion, plunged into a jungle infested with tigers. After a diligent search, his horse was discovered grazing, saddled and bridled, and not far off the mangled remains of this renowned freebooter, who had recently ridden forth at the head of 20,000 men.
The political and military operations thus brought to a happy issue, were undertaken without the Supreme Council, and in excess of the instructions received from England, on the sole responsibility of Lord Hastings. The success of the campaign was remarkable, not less for its rapidity than for its completeness. In the middle of October, 1817, the Mahrattas, the Pindarees, and the Patans, presented an array of more than 150,000 horse and foot, with 500 pieces of cannon, prepared to offer a very strenuous resistance to the designs of the Governor-General. By an admirable combination of movements, and extraordinary promptitude of action, this formidable armament was scattered to the winds in the brief space of four months. The power of Sindia was paralyzed; the power of Holkar irretrievably broken; the Patan armies of Ameer Khan and Guffoor Khan had ceased to exist; the raja of Nagpore was a captive in the English camp; the Peshwa was a fugitive, and the Pindarees, who had inspired terror in the minds of Mr. Canning and the Directors, had disappeared. The campaign finally extinguished the Mahratta empire, on which Lord Wellesley had struck the first blow. It broke up every military organisation within the
Sutlege, with the exception of that of Sindia. It subdued not only the native armies, but the native mind, and taught the princes and people of India to regard the supreme command in India as indisputably transferred to a foreign power. It placed the Company on the Mogul throne with a more absolute authority than Akbar or Aurungzebe had ever enjoyed. The great revolution which was thus consummated, just sixty years after it began at the battle of Plassy, was effected, not only without the concurrence but in opposition to the constant injunctions of the East India Company, and the Board of Control. Every fresh addition of influence or territory was reprobated by them as the offspring of a spirit of encroachment and ambition, and fresh injunctions of moderation were poured on the local Government. But, from the first appearance of the Company as a military and political power in India, it became the constant aim of its princes to expel the intruder, and one confederacy after another was formed to accomplish this object. The general progress of our Indian empire was thus epitomized by Lord Hastings: – “We have been wantonly assailed – we have conquered the unprovoked enemy – we have retained the possessions wrested from him, not only as a legitimate compensation for the peril and expense forced on us, but also on considerations of self-defence.” The last and most extensive confederacy was swept away by Lord Hastings himself. India was prostrate before the power of Britain, and the drama of society under native sovereignty was closed-
To the chiefs who lost their independence, and with it all that feeling of dignity, which was sometimes the parent of royal virtues, the change was doubtless a great calamity, but to the community at large it was an unequivocal blessing. For twelve years the whole of Central India had been left to the uncontrolled dominion of native princes, and the universal wretchedness and wild anarchy which ensued showed how utterly unfit they were, under the existing circumstances of the country, to maintain
peace, order, or security. The extension of British authority was, therefore, a matter of necessity, and although a foreign rule was more galling to the national pride than even the excesses of a native prince, it brought the most substantial advantages to the country. A solid tranquillity was substituted for general violence, under the guarantee of a power both able and willing to restrain the passions of princes and states. A feeling of universal security was diffused through the country, and the people were led to seek wealth and distinction, not through wars and convulsion, but by cultivating the arts of peace. The settlement of India by Lord Hastings in 1818 was, moreover, erected on so sound and stable a basis that, after the lapse of half a century, it is found to have required fewer renovations than so great a political edifice might be expected to need. Having thus extinguished all opposition, and consolidated the rule of the Company, Lord Hastings proclaimed the universal sovereignty of Great Britain throughout the continent of India. The fortunes of the surrounding countries have always been affected more or less by the revolutions of India, and the establishment of a British empire in this central position could not fail to tell upon the Mohamedan principalities on the west, and the various Boodhist kingdoms on the east. It was, in fact, the establishment of European supremacy in Asia, and, considering how effete these Asiatic monarchies have been growing, while the power, the resources, and the confidence of the European family have been constantly on the increase, this supremacy becomes progressively firmer and more permanent, and none of the revolts which may be expected from time to time, can be of any avail to subvert it. Strange to say, this stupendous revolution in the destinies of Asia has been accomplished by the audacity of the servants of a peaceful and unambitious company of merchants in London.
To bring the narrative of this war to a close, it only remains to notice the pursuit and surrender of the Peshwa, and the capture of the Mahratta forts. Bajee Rao began his retreat southward on the 28th November, 1817.
and on his route caused the raja of Satara and his family to be brought from the old capital into his camp. Finding that he was closely pursued by General Smith, he turned northward and marched up the Beema to Joonere, sixty miles north of Poona, and then doubled down to the south, giving out that he intended to attack Poona. Colonel Burr, the commandant, therefore, deemed it advisable to call down to his support the detachment left at Seroor, under Captain Staunton, consisting of one battalion of infantry, three hundred irregular horse, and two six-pounders, manned by twenty-four European artillerymen. He commenced his march at eight in the evening, and at ten the next morning reached the high ground on the Beema, near the village of Korygaum, about sixteen miles from Poona, which was found to have no other defence than a dilapidated mud wall. To his surprise he perceived the whole of the Peshwa’s army, 25,000 strong, encamped on the opposite bank of the river. The Mahratta troops were immediately sent across against this handful of soldiers, jaded with a fatiguing march through the night, and destitute of either provisions or water. The contest which ensued was one of the most arduous and brilliant in the history of British India. The Peshwa sat on a rising ground watching the attack, which was directed by Gokla and Trimbukjee. Every inch of ground in the village was disputed with desperate valour, and the streets were repeatedly taken and retaken. The sepoys were sinking from exhaustion, and frantic with thirst, but Captain Staunton refused to surrender on any terms. At length the officer commanding the artillery fell, and in the momentary confusion which ensued, the Peshwa’s Arabs rushed forward and captured one of the guns, but Lieutenant Pattinson, the adjutant of the battalion, though lying on the ground mortally wounded, raised himself up, and led on the grenadiers, till a second ball prostrated him. Animated by his example, the sepoys repulsed the Arabs, and regained the gun. Throughout the day officers and men exhibited a spirit of inflexible resolution, and kept the whole Mahratta force at
bay. If the contest had been renewed the next morning, it must have proved fatal to this little band of heroes, but happily the Peshwa heard of the approach of his enemy, General Smith, who had never relaxed the pursuit of him, and he retreated in haste southward, which enabled Captain Staunton to fall back on Seroor. The distinguishing character of this action, which rivalled that of Seetabuldee, was the extraordinary fortitude displayed by the sepoys when they were without any European support, save the twenty-four artillerymen, of whom twenty were killed and wounded. Of eight officers engaged, three were wounded, and two killed, and the total loss amounted to a hundred and eighty-seven; but Captain Staunton was only a Company’s officer; his services were performed in India, and they received no recognition whatever from his country. The Peshwa, on leaving Korygaum, fled towards the Carnatic, but his progress was arrested by General, afterwards Sir Thomas, Munro, who had been appointed to the superintendence of the southern districts. His force was small and inadequate to its duties, but every deficiency was supplied by his talent and energy, which made him the complete master of whatever position he occupied. He organized a body of local horse to whom he entrusted the protection of the districts, while he himself advanced northward with his regular troops, arrested the progress of the Peshwa, and captured the strong fortresses of Badamee, Belgaum, and Solapore. The professional resources, vigour, and strategy which he exhibited in this short campaign served to augment in no ordinary degree the renown he had already acquired by his civil administration.
On the 10th February, General Smith took possession of Satara, the capital of Sevajee, and hoisted the ancient standard upon its ramparts. Experience had proved that no engagement, however solemn, would prevent a Peshwa from claiming the allegiance of the other Mahratta powers, or restrain them from acknowledging it. The treaty of Bassein in 1803 bound the Peshwa “neither
to commence nor to pursue any negotiations with any other power whatever, without giving previous notice, and entering into mutual consultation with the East India Company’s Government;” but this did not impair his influence over the other chiefs, or prevent his combining them in a confederacy against the Company. By the treaty of the 5th June, 1817, he renounced all claim to their fealty, as the executive head of the Mahratta empire, and all their vakeels were dismissed from his court; but within a few weeks he organised another conspiracy, and brought the forces of Holkar and the raja of Nagpore into the field against the Company. Lord Hastings determined, therefore, that there should no longer be a Peshwa, and, in accordance with the example set by Lord Wellesley in the case of Mysore, he made over a portion of the Mahratta dominions to the family of Sevajee. A manifesto was issued on hoisting the old Mahratta standard, in which Mr. Elphinstone, after dwelling on the misconduct of the Peshwa, announced that he and his family were forever excluded from the public affairs of the Deccan. A small portion of his territories, yielding fifteen lacs of rupees a-year, was erected into a principality for the raja of Satara, and the rest incorporated with the Company’s dominions.
General Smith then resumed the wearisome pursuit of the Peshwa, and on the morning of the 19th February had the satisfaction of hearing his kettle-drums beating for the march at the village of Ashtee, on the opposite side of a hill which separated them, and immediately prepared for the attack. Bajee Rao sharply upbraided Gokla for this surprise, and quitting his palankeen, mounted a horse and fled, leaving his general to cover his retreat. Gokla, stung with the unjust reproach of his dastardly master, determined not to survive the day, and placing himself at the head of three hundred horse, rushed on the sabres of the British cavalry. He received three pistol shots and three sabre cuts, and covering himself gracefully with his shawl, expired on the field of honour. He was the last, and one of the noblest, of the great Mahratta
commanders. He had fought bravely by the side of General Wellesley in 1808, and had received many tokens of distinction from the British Government, but he sighed for the independence of his country, and on being appointed minister by the Peshwa, manifested an inveterate hostility to the subsidiary alliance. He was usually called “the sword of the empire,” and his death hastened the destruction of his master, in whose camp there ceased to be either order or confidence. The raja of Satara was rescued at the battle of Ashtee, and conducted to the palace of his ancestors, and installed on the throne of Sevajee, amidst the acclamations of the Mahrattas.
The discomfiture of the Peshwa’s army at Ashtee satisfied many of the Mahratta chiefs of the hopelessness of his cause, and his army was daily dwindling away by desertions. But the raja of Nagpore, notwithstanding his engagements with the Resident, determined to make common cause with him, and Bajee Rao advanced to Chanda, expecting to be joined by him there, but the clandestine correspondence was discovered in time, and the design was frustrated. It would be tedious to detail the movements of the Peshwa after this, to the north, to the south, and to the east; they were regulated by the sole object of evading his pursuers, from whom, however, he seldom obtained more than a brief and accidental respite. Hunted out of the Deccan, he made a final move to the north, crossed the Taptee on the 5th May, and advanced to the Nerbudda, in the hope of reaching Hindostan, and benefiting from the power, or the mediation, of Sindia. But all the fords were guarded; the British armies were closing on him, and, seeing no chance of escape, he sent an agent on the 16th May to Sir John Malcolm at Mhow, with a letter, in which he appealed to the generosity of the British Government, and lavished his flatteries on “his oldest and best friend.” Sir John was so greatly moved by this appeal that he deputed two of his assistants to the Mahratta camp to open a negotiation with the Peshwa. Lord Hastings condemned this imprudent step,
because it fostered the impression that he was in a condition to treat, whereas, according to his own confession, his fortunes were desperate, and his first encounter with any British division must have annihilated his force. Sir John even went so far as to admit the Peshwa to a personal conference, in which the wily Mahratta brought all his eloquence and blandishments into full play. The British General’s sympathy with fallen greatness overcame his political prudence, and he made concessions far beyond the necessity of the case. He promised him a personal allowance of eight lacs of rupees a-year, as well as a provision for the Jageerdars in his camp, and gave a most improvident guarantee of the vast endowments of temples and brahmins, on which this superstitious prince had for fourteen years squandered the resources of the state, and which a native successor would at once have resumed. Lord Hastings, who had destined the Peshwa an allowance of two lacs of rupees a-year, was mortified at the prodigality of these terms, and in his letter to the Court of Directors justly observed “that in the hopeless circumstances in which the Peshwa was placed any terms granted to him were purely gratuitous, and only referable to that humanity which it was felt your honourable Court would be desirous should be granted to an exhausted foe.” The policy of Sir John’s arrangements with the Peshwa has been the subject of much discussion, and some censure, but it is due to his memory to state that it received the approbation of Sir David Ochterlony, Sir Thomas Munro, Mr. Elphinstone, and Mr. Jenkins. They considered that the Peshwa might have indefinitely prolonged the contest if he had thrown himself, with the body of eight thousand men who still adhered to his fortunes, into Asseergur, the commandant of which had received the most positive injunctions from Sindia to succour him, and that his surrender, which at once terminated the war, was cheaply purchased even by this large annuity. He was conducted to Bithoor, a place of religious sanctity, sixteen miles from Cawnpore, and lived long enough to receive an amount of two crores and fifty lacs of rupees,
the major part of which he bequeathed to his adopted son, Nana Sahib, who, finding the British Government unwilling to continue the pension, became the great demon of the mutiny of 1857. The Peshwa’s brother, Umrit Rao, had received a pension of seven lacs of rupees a-year from Lord Wellesley, under circumstances altogether exceptional, and took up his residence at Benares where he enjoyed the allowance for twenty-one years. It is worthy of remark that the sum total received by the two brothers amounted to more than four crores of rupees, and it may fairly be questioned whether any instance of similar fidelity to engagements is to be found in the native history of India.
The country which had been the scene of warfare was studded with forts, which continued to hold out after the submission of the princes. Many of them were of great strength, in positions almost impregnable, and would have baffled all the engineering skill of native generals, but they were reduced in a few months. The circumstances connected with the capture of two of them deserve individual record. The forts were garrisoned in many cases by Arab mercenaries. While the native armies in Hindostan had been supplied for several centuries by a constant stream of Afghans, the armies of the native princes in the Deccan were constantly recruited from Arabia and Abyssinia, through the various ports on the Malabar coast. In both cases the recruits equally exchanged a condition of poverty for prospects of wealth and distinction. The Arabs were held in high estimation by the princes for their resolution, courage, and fidelity, and received double the pay of Hindostanee sepoys. They served also as a counterpoise to the native soldiery, and assisted to check that spirit of mutiny which is indigenous in all Indian armies. The fort of Talneir was garrisoned by Arabs. The commandant was a member of a very distinguished Mahratta family, and not only gave up the fort, but surrendered himself to the General. The Arabs continued to hold the citadel, and a parley was held with them by the English officers, but as they were
mutually ignorant of each other’s language, a misunderstanding arose which led to fatal consequences. The wicket was opened, and two officers of high rank entered, but the Arabs, who did not understand the movement, assailed them, and they lost their lives. The British troops without, exasperated at what they considered an act of treachery, rushed in and put the garrison, three hundred in number, to the sword, and the next morning Sir Thomas Hislop hung the unoffending commandant. The execution doubtless struck terror into the minds of the natives, and facilitated the surrender of other forts, but it was an act of unrighteous severity, and roused a feeling of just indignation in England. It was unworthy the British character, and has always been considered to tarnish the laurels of the General. The capture of Maligaum, on the other hand, exhibited an example of scrupulous good faith which served to elevate the British name. It was the chief fortress of the unfortunate province of Candesh, once filled with thriving towns and a flourishing population, but reduced to unexampled wretchedness by Holkar’s rapacious soldiery, and the exactions of Bajee Rao’s officers and his Arabs. The only terms offered in every case to these mercenary troops were the payment of their arrears and a free passage back to their native land; but they had little disposition to relinquish the enjoyments of India for the barren wastes of Arabia. They concentrated their strength at Maligaum, which they defended with the obstinacy of despair. After three weeks had been lost before it, a sufficiently powerful battering train was brought up; the chief magazine exploded; and the Arabs, seeing their position hopeless, made an offer to capitulate, but with the example of Talneir before them, required a written assurance of safety. The Mahratta moon-ghee, who drew up the document, exceeded his orders, and stipulated to do whatever might be beneficial to their interests, to pay all their arrears, and to conduct them to any destination they might select. The General, on discovering the mistake, was anxious to limit the execution of the promise to his
own instructions, but Mr. Elphinstone determined to give the most generous interpretation to the engagement, and treated them with exemplary kindness. At length, the only fort remaining to be occupied was Asseergur. Sindia had furnished Lord Hastings with an order on the commandant to surrender it, but sent him private instructions to retain it and to afford every assistance to the Mahratta cause. He therefore harboured the raja of Nagpore, took charge of Bajee Rao’s most valuable property, and offered him an asylum. He distinctly refused to surrender the fort, and it became necessary to invest it. The eyes of India were fixed on the siege as the expiring struggle of the Mahratta empire. A battery of thirty-four mortars and howitzers, and twenty-eight heavy guns, played on it incessantly for a fortnight with little hope of success; but the powder in the fort was at length reduced to three mauns, or two hundred weight, and the commandant felt himself obliged to capitulate. When he was told that his master would be not a little displeased by the neglect of his orders, he produced a letter from Sindia, ordering him to hold the fort, and give every assistance to Bajee Rao, with the significant remark – “Should you not do so I shall be perjured.” The only retribution inflicted on Sindia for this act of treachery was the retention of the fort. This was the last shot fired in the war, though it had virtually terminated within four months of its commencement.
Mr. Canning moved the usual vote of thanks to Lord Hastings and the army in the House of Commons, in April, 1819, in a speech which doubled the value of this national recognition of their services; but he did not attempt to conceal his objections to the policy of Lord Hastings. He stated that the House and the country were in the habit of appreciating the triumphs of our armies in India with great jealousy; that, almost uniformly successful as our military operations had been in that part of the world, they had almost as uniformly been considered questionable in point of justice; that the
termination of a war in India, however glorious, was seldom contemplated with unmixed satisfaction, and that the increase of our territories was ascribed, by sober reflection and impartial philosophy, to a spirit of systematic encroachment and ambition. These considerations, he said, were not necessarily applicable to the Pindaree and Mahratta war; but the House was to understand that the vote was intended merely as a tribute to the military conduct of the campaign, and not in anywise as a sanction of the policy of the war. The Court of Directors, while “duly appreciating the foresight, promptitude, and vigour with which Lord Hastings had dispersed the gathering elements of a hostile conspiracy,” recorded their deep regret that any circumstance should have led to an extension of territory. Their official communications still more decidedly indicated their hostility to the Governor-General and his policy. The despatch written on receiving information of the brilliant success of the campaign was loaded with petulant and frivolous animadversions, and “not mitigated by the slightest indication of satisfaction at the fortunate issue of the military exertions.” They censured him for having disobeyed their orders regarding the reduction of the army, though they had incontestable evidence that, under existing circumstances, a compliance with these orders would have been fatal to the interests of the empire. In anticipation of the great struggle with the Mahratta power, Lord Hastings had remodelled the Quartermaster-general’s department, in order to increase its efficiency. The Court reprobated this measure because it had not previously received their sanction. At the same time, they pressed on him the appointment of one of their own nominees to the post of Quartermaster-general, whereas Parliament had placed the nomination to offices exclusively in the hands of the local authorities, leaving with the Court of Directors the gift of appointments to the service. A Government like that of India, which is obliged to do almost everything itself, cannot hope for success except by employing the ablest men in the
service. Hence, the most responsible offices in India are given, as a rule, to merit, and only exceptionally by favour. The interference of the India House in these appointments always proceeded on the opposite principle; and, in the present instance, Lord Hastings affirmed that it would “have been difficult to find in the whole army a field officer more signally unfit for the post.”
The tranquillization and settlement of India would have been a sufficient distinction for any administration, but Lord Hastings established still higher claims to public gratitude. He was the first Governor-General to encourage the moral and intellectual improvement of the natives. The India House had hitherto assumed that any attempt to enlighten the people would create political aspirations, which must endanger the power of the Company, and might lead to its subversion. This illiberal sentiment was not confined to Leadenhall-street; it was the feeling of the age. In 1811 Sir John Anstruther, who had for many years enjoyed the dignity of chief justice in Calcutta, and obtained a seat in Parliament on his return, when the question of native education was incidentally introduced in it, inquired, with a feeling of surprise, “whether it was really intended to illuminate the people of India, and whether it was exactly desirable to do so.” The same views were prevalent in India, and no effort had been made, or even contemplated, to impart to the natives that knowledge to which Europe owed its distinction. Lord Hastings utterly repudiated this policy, and embraced the earliest opportunity after the Nepal war of proclaiming that “this Government never will be influenced by the erroneous position that to spread information among men is to render them less tractable and less submissive to authority. ... It would be treason against British sentiment to imagine that it ever could be the principle of this Government to perpetuate ignorance in order to secure paltry and dishonest advantages over the blindness of the multitude.” The instruction of the people, which had hitherto
been avoided as an element of danger, was thus, for the first time, recognised as a sacred duty, and a powerful impulse was given to the cause of education. Lady Hastings established a school in Barrackpore Park, and compiled treatises for the use of the scholars. Numerous vernacular schools were opened in the neighbourhood of Calcutta by Mr. May, the missionary, and by Dr. Carey and his colleagues, which received liberal encouragement from the Government and the public. Early in 1816 some of the most wealthy and influential native gentlemen in Calcutta formed an association for the establishment of a college to impart a liberal education to their children and relatives, by the cultivation of the English language and European science, and Lord Hastings accepted the office of patron. Emboldened by the liberal policy which was now in the ascendant, the Serampore Missionaries, on the 31st May, 1818, issued the first newspaper ever printed in a native language in India. It was styled the “Sumachar Durpun,” or mirror of news, and Dwarkenath Tagore, a name respected equally in England and in India, was the first to patronise it. This attempt to rouse the native mind from the torpidity of centuries by the stimulus of a public journal created great alarm among the leading men in the Government, but Lord Hastings determined to encourage the undertaking by allowing the numbers to be circulated through the country at one-fourth the ordinary rate of postage. He manifested the same spirit of liberality towards the English press, and notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the members of his Council, removed the censorship which Lord Wellesley had imposed upon it seventeen years before, amidst the anxieties of war. In deference, however, to the despotic feeling which pervaded the governing class of Calcutta, he laid severe restrictions on the editors regarding the subjects or personages they were allowed to touch, any infraction of which was to be visited by an indictment in the Supreme Court, or by the penalty of deportation. But the Supreme Court, on the occasion of the first application, refused
to grant a criminal information, and Lord Hastings was unwilling to inflict the odium of banishing an editor on his administration. The restrictions, therefore, fell into abeyance, and the press became practically free. In replying to an address from Madras, Lord Hastings embraced the opportunity of vindicating his policy by stating that he was “in the habit of regarding the freedom of publication as the natural right of his fellow-subjects, to be narrowed only by special and urgent cause assigned.” ... “Further,” he said, “it is salutary for supreme authority, even when its intentions are most pure, to look to the control of public opinion.” The announcement of this heterodox doctrine gave great offence at the India House, and a despatch was immediately drafted reprobating the abolition of the censorship, and directing it to be re-imposed. But Mr. Canning treated the proposal with silent contempt, and it has been said that the draft was never returned to the Directors.
The final adjustment of the land revenue at Madras belongs to this period. The great advocate of the ryotwary system, General Munro, visited England in 1818, when he was invested with the ribbon of the Bath, and it was doubtless under the influence of his counsel that the Court of Directors issued orders to establish it generally throughout the Presidency. An annual settlement was accordingly completed, in 1820, for each field and with each renter. The more grievous evils of the system, as described in a previous chapter, were corrected, and, instead of justice being subordinate to revenue, revenue was made secondary to justice. The outrageous practice of forcing lands on the ryot against his interest, and holding him responsible for the rent, whether he cultivated them or not, and of subjecting him to corporal punishment, and sometimes to torture, when he was unable to make it good, was abrogated. Sir Thomas was anxious also to abolish altogether the absurd rule of consigning the defaulting ryot to gaol, where he lingered for years, without any benefit to the revenue, and
often died; but he could only prevail on the Revenue Board to mitigate it. It was the special order of the Court of Directors that the rent should be fixed on so moderate a scale as to afford encouragement to agricultural industry, but the peculiar circumstances of the Madras Presidency were unfavourable to such lenity. In Bengal, the Company came at once into possession of rich and fertile provinces, yielding a revenue beyond the wants of the state, and could afford to indulge the luxury of moderation in assessing the zemindars. The Madras Presidency grew up gradually amidst struggles and embarrassments, and was never able to meet its expenses without drawing on Bengal. Hence it was obliged to scrutinise the sources of revenue with great rigour, and to put a heavy pressure on those who contributed it. The land was found to have been over-assessed under the native princes, but the exigencies of the British Government precluded much relaxation. The litigation introduced by the Supreme Court, which picked the suitors to the bone, speedily dispersed the old accumulations of wealth, and the whole Presidency presented an aspect of pauperism and wretchedness. The ryotwary system perpetuated this state of things; however plausible and even benevolent in theory, it has practically failed to promote either the welfare of the ryot or the prosperity of the state, and while under the zemindary and permanent settlement of Bengal, the area of cultivation has been rapidly extended, that of Madras has been always stationary. The number of renters paying revenue direct to Government in 1823 was under a million; it stands now considerably above two millions; there can, therefore, be no application of capital to the improvement of the soil, and the Presidency remains in a state of stagnant inferiority.
This question of the tenure of land has been in almost every province and at all periods the stumbling-stone of British rule in India. The same fatality as elsewhere, attended the settlement of the ceded and conquered provinces obtained from Sindia and
the Nabob of Oude at the beginning of the century. A folio volume of a thousand pages of civil, criminal, and fiscal regulations was immediately inflicted on them, with the most benevolent intentions but the most disastrous result. The astute natives of Bengal did not fail to follow the collector into those provinces. They monopolised every post of power and influence, and by their superior acquaintance with the mysteries of the new system of civil and fiscal law, were enabled to turn the inexperience of the Hindostanees to their own benefit. The zemindars who were now, for the first time, obliged to pay their rents with rigid punctuality, fell into arrears, and were ousted from their lands. The Bengalee officials devised manifold expedients, and often resorted to fraud, to embarrass and confound the simple landholder and bring his estate to the hammer, when it was bought, at first, in some fictitious name, and eventually transferred to the real purchaser. Many of the zemindars, moreover, had been arbitrarily entered as mere farmers in the first rent-roll, which was prepared in haste, and when it came to be subsequently revised found themselves deprived of their estates through the chicanery of the Bengalee officers, who contrived to secure the proprietorship of the lands to their creatures and eventually to themselves. This system of plunder was systematically carried on for many years, and inflicted greater misery on the landed proprietors than the occasional whirlwind of Mahratta desolation. The ease with which the natives of Bengal had acquired possession of property, in one case, of ninety villages, and in another, of even a whole pergunna, attracted others to the quarry, and the raja of Benares, and a wealthy banker of that city obtained property yielding eight lacs of rupees a-year. The estates of the country were gradually passing out of the hands of the ancient aristocracy; they had survived many political revolutions, but were completely prostrated by this process of legal jugglery which was reducing them to the condition of paupers. “Yours,” said a high spirited Rajpoot, “is a strange
rule; you flog a man for stealing a brass ewer, while you reward him for stealing a whole pergunna.” Mr. Campbell Robertson had endeavoured to protect the rights of the oppressed zemindars, but he was defeated by the stolid judges of the Court of Appeal, and he boldly determined to bring the subject to the notice of the Supreme Government. Lord Hastings and the Council listened to his representations, and a Regulation was passed the preamble of which- frankly acknowledged the injustice, and a special commission was appointed to enquire into the transfers of property which had been made during the previous eight years. Some few of the more egregious acts of iniquity were redressed, but in the majority of cases there was no relief.
In the province of Cuttack, which was ceded by the raja of Nagpore in 1803, the same cause led to an open insurrection, The natives of Orissa are proverbial for intellectual dullness, and the province has always been considered the Boeotia of India. During the native dynasties, the chief offices of the state were generally occupied by natives from Telingana in the south, or Bengal in the north. On the acquisition of the province by the Company a swarm of Bengalee baboos flocked into it, obtained possession of nearly every post of influence or profit, and took an unfair advantage of the simplicity of the people, and their ignorance of our institutions. The assessment of the lands, made at random, was thirty per cent. above that of the Mahrattas. It was rigidly enforced, and, combined with the improvidence of the zemindars, brought half the estates in the province to the hammer in a dozen years, when they were bought up by the Bengalee officials, often at a. nominal value. The raja of Khoorda, the descendant of an ancient dynasty, who enjoyed the hereditary privilege of sweeping the temple of Jugunnath, had paid the Mahrattas, when they were able to squeeze anything out of him, about 15,000 rupees a-year. He was assessed by the collector at eight times the sum, and dispossessed of his patrimonial
estates for default. To add to the wretchedness of the inhabitants, the Company’s salt monopoly was introduced and the cost of that necessary of life was raised six-fold to the peasant, in a province where the sea furnished it spontaneously. Under this accumulation of misery the people sold all they possessed, and then their wives and children, and eventually took to the jungle. The country being thus ripe for revolt, one Jugbundoo, the hereditary commander of the old Hindoo rajas, who had been dispossessed of his property, raised the standard of rebellion to which 3,000 of the disaffected immediately flocked. He plundered and burnt the civil station of Khoorda and repulsed two detachments of sepoys which were sent against him. This success served to increase his force, and he proceeded to take possession of the town of Jugunnath; the fort, buildings, and bungalows were set on fire, and the collector retreated with the treasure to Cuttack. No injury was inflicted on any but the tyrannical and odious native functionaries. But the triumph of the insurgents was short; reinforcements poured into the province and dispersed them. The people were assured that their grievances would be redressed if they were peaceably represented, and they at once submitted to the authority of Government. A special commissioner was appointed to the charge of the province; some who had been taken in arms were executed; the most notorious of the oppressive officials were punished, and the assessment was reduced forty per cent. The province has since enjoyed the services of a succession of able Bengal civilians, Wilkinson, Sterling, Packenham, and others, and its tranquillity has never been disturbed. Another proof has thus been afforded of the fact that with a mild assessment, congenial institutions, and an equitable administration, there is perhaps no country more easy to govern than India, even under foreigners.
In reviewing the pecuniary results of Lord Hastings’ administration, it is pleasing to observe that, notwithstanding the expensive war which
lasted eighteen months in the mountains of Nepal, and the assembly of eight armies in the field during the Mahratta and Pindaree campaign, the finances of the Company were at no former period in so flourishing a condition as at the close of his administration. The Government bonds which at his arrival were at twelve per cent. discount, were at a premium of fourteen per cent. at his departure. The debt had indeed increased by four crones and a half during his administration; on the other hand, the cash balances in the various treasuries exceeded the sum in hand when he landed by five crores of rupees, but on grounds which every real Indian statesman will admit, he forbore to reduce those balances for the mere ostentation of paying off debt. The increase of annual receipts was equivalent to six crores of rupees, without the imposition of a single new tax; and the increase of expenditure about four crores, leaving a clear surplus revenue of two crores of rupees a-year; the year 1822 may, therefore, be considered as the brightest period of the finances of the Indian empire, when they exhibited such prosperity as they had never reached before, and have never reached since. If the military operations of this period resulted in an increase of territory, it will not be deemed matter of surprise or regret. Lord Hastings commenced the Pindaree war with the confident hope that the pacification of India would be accomplished without any defalcation from any native state, and without adding a rood to the Company’s territories. But “the irrepressible tendency of our Indian power to enlarge its bounds,” which Mr. Canning deplored, was fatal to this resolution. The unprovoked aggression and the complete overthrow of the Mahratta powers placed their territories at the absolute disposal of the Company. The larger portion of the dominions of Holkar and of the raja of Nagpore was restored to them, but Lord Hastings considered that the entire annexation of Bajee Rao’s kingdom, the principality of Satara excepted, was forced on him by “the imperious necessity of guarding against the speedy renewal
of a treachery so rooted in its nature as to admit of no other prevention.” These provinces were, therefore, annexed to Bombay which had previously drained the Bengal treasury to the extent of a crore of rupees a-year, but was now enabled in some measure to support its own establishments.
By the peace of Paris in 1815 the settlements of the French, the Danes, and the Dutch were restored to them, with the exception of Ceylon; but during the war, trade had been diverted into new channels, and these settlements never recovered their former importance. The island of Java, to the mortification of those who understood its great value, was inconsiderately restored to the Dutch, and it is at present the only Asiatic dependency which contributes an annual revenue to its European master. The influence of the Dutch was thus restored throughout the eastern archipelago, and their ancient spirit of monopoly and hostility to foreign intruders was developed to such an extent as to threaten the entire exclusion of British commerce from those seas. Lord Hastings was fully alive to the importance of this commerce, and, under the advice of Sir Stamford Raffles, who had governed Java while it was in our possession with great ability and success, authorized him to establish a new settlement in the centre of the Malay states. By an unperceived and prompt movement, he obtained the cession of the island of Singapore from the raja of Johore, and hoisted the British colours on the 5th September, 1819. It was, from its commanding position, the key of the gulf of Siam, if not also of the China seas. Such an acquisition did not fail to excite the indignation of the Dutch authorities in Java, who immediately laid claim to it as one of their own possessions. The most strenuous remonstrances were addressed to the English Ministry, and so little were British interests in the east understood in Downing Street, that it was, for a time, seriously contemplated to submit to the demands of the Dutch, to abandon the island, and. to recall Sir Stamford for his temerity. After a long period of vacillation, however, the sanction of the
public authorities in England was fortunately obtained to the retention of this possession, which has grown from a fishing village to an entrepôt of trade of many crores a-year. Singapore is a noble monument of Sir Stamford Raffles’ statesmanship, and will perpetuate the grateful remembrance of it in the sphere in which his talents were so beneficially exhibited.
Lord Hastings’ administration may be considered as the palmy period of the Company’s commercial navy, then the largest in the world. Though, under the influence of a sharp competition, the trade to India brought no gain to Leadenhall-street, the captains suffered no abatement of their profits. The command of one of the Company’s vessels was always reckoned worth a lac of rupees a voyage, chiefly from the high charge for passage-money. The customs of the period when the Company were simple traders still continued in vogue. A special court was held when the captains took their official leave of the Directors. On reaching the Presidencies in India they were received with great distinction at Government House, and took rank with the first class of the civil service. An officer of high standing was always sent in a Government vessel down to the new anchorage, a hundred miles below Calcutta, to dispatch the fleet. The uniform of the commanders and of the various grades of officers vied in splendour with that of the royal navy, and both were exhibited, side by side, in the shop windows of the London tailors, and the captains endeavoured, likewise, to maintain on their own quarter-decks the same etiquette which was observed in the king’s ships. The China trade, of which the Company still enjoyed the monopoly, was managed by officers denominated supercargoes, who lived like princes at Canton, and amassed ambitious fortunes in a few years. The patronage of the China service was deemed the most valuable in the gift of the Directors, and was generally reserved for their immediate relatives. Their vessels were manned and armed on the most liberal scale, after the model of the royal navy, and such was the excellence of their
equipment that on one occasion the fleet under the command of Captain Dance succeeded in beating off the French squadron of Admiral Linois, who attacked them with one ship of eighty guns, two heavy frigates, a corvette, and a brig. The Directors received no higher salary than two hundred and fifty rupees a-month, but their individual patronage was calculated, on an average, to be equivalent to two lacs and a half of rupees a-year. The sale of appointments was strictly forbidden by Act of Parliament, and with some exceptions the rule was honourably observed by them; but as they formed the most important and powerful commercial body in the first commercial city in the world, they experienced little difficulty in obtaining seats in Parliament, and one-fourth their number was generally found in the House of Commons.
At no previous period had the character of the civil service for talent and efficiency stood so high as during the administration of Lord Hastings, which might in most cases be traced to the training it had enjoyed in the school of Lord Wellesley. Many of the civilians, moreover, were connected with some of the best families in England, and served to give a high tone of character to the service, while their refinement of feeling and dignity of demeanour, combined with that elevation of mind which the management of great affairs has a tendency to create, fitted them to maintain the honour of their country in negotiations with the princes and nobles of the country. Their intercourse with the people was uniformly marked by such kindness and consideration as few, if any, conquerors have ever exhibited towards the conquered. The highest ambition of the civil and military officers of Government, and of those who had amassed wealth at the bar or in commerce, was to obtain a seat in Parliament. In the year 1819, the number of members connected with India amounted to forty-two, independent of the four commissioners of the Board of Control. They entered the house chiefly through the medium of the nomination boroughs, of which the majority were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832.
But Parliament had already become weary of Indian questions, which, thirty years before, attracted crowded houses. The Secretary of the Board of Control stated in Parliament that “the India budget was always considered a dull and disagreeable subject by the House; the practice of making budget speeches had therefore been discontinued. The time and attention of the House was quite enough occupied without throwing away a day in the discussion of a topic which would be sure to drive gentlemen away from it.” During the five years of Mr. Canning’s tenure of the office of Minister for India, the only occasion on which he touched on the subject of India in the House – except when moving thanks to Lord Hastings – was in reference to a bill for licensing Scotch marriages there. British interests in India did not, however, suffer from the indifference of Parliament, where every subject becomes the sport of party contention. It was during this period of neglect that the great revolution of Lord Hastings’s administration was consummated, and twenty-eight actions were fought in the field, and a hundred and twenty forts captured, many scarcely accessible, and some deemed impregnable, and nineteen treaties made with native princes, and the sovereignty of Great Britain proclaimed throughout the continent.
In the year 1819, Warren Hastings died at the age of eighty-eight, thirty-four years after his return from India. Within four months also, his great opponent, Sir Philip Francis, paid the debt of nature. It was immediately proposed to place Hastings’s statue at the India House, among those statesmen and heroes who had contributed to the creation and stability of the British empire in India, and it was carried with only four dissenting votes.
One of the last acts of Lord Hastings’ administration had reference to the affairs of Hyderabad, and it is necessary therefore to bring up the arrears of its history. Meer Alum, who had managed the
Nizam’s government with consummate ability for thirty years, died in 1808. The Nizam, who was devoted only to his pleasures, and eschewed all serious business, was anxious to appoint a Mohamedan noble, Moneer-ool-moolk, to the vacant office, but the Resident described him as both a coward and a fool, and the Government in Calcutta refused to sanction the nomination. After an irritating discussion of six months, a compromise was at length effected by giving him the ostensible post of minister, with the splendid emoluments attached to it, and entrusting Chundoo Lall, a Hindoo, with the power and the responsibilities of the office. He had been an efficient assistant to the late minister, and was better fitted for its duties than any other man at Hyderabad, by his talent, experience, and activity; but he was utterly unscrupulous in his dealings with the court or with the people. The Nizam, chagrined by the defeat of his wishes, abandoned all interest in public affairs, and retired to the privacy of the harem. The Court of Directors had interdicted all interference in the internal affairs of the state, and directed the Resident to confine his attention to the reform of the Hyderabad Contingent. This was a body – distinct from the subsidiary force – of 6,000 foot and 9,000 horse, which the Nizam was bound by the treaty made with him in 1800 to keep up in time of war. By the strenuous efforts of the Resident, these cowardly levies of the Nizam, who had always avoided an enemy, were converted into a strong and valuable force of 10,000 men, horse, foot, and artillery. It was disciplined and commanded by European officers, drawn chiefly from the Company’s army, with which it was soon enabled to vie in military spirit and efficiency. It was supported by the Nizam’s treasury, at a cost of thirty lacs of rupees a-year. It was at the entire disposal of Chundoo Lall, and ministered to his power and dignity, and likewise afforded him material assistance in the collection of the revenue and the coercion of refractory zemindars; he was, therefore, unwilling to check its profuse expenditure. It was not only over-officered, but the officers
were overpaid. The appointments were eagerly coveted, and became a source of valuable patronage to the Resident, the Contingent being generally designated his plaything. As one extravagant allowance was heaped on another, the officers exclaimed “Poor Nizzy” – the nickname of the Nizam – “pays for all.” The Contingent was doubtless an effective force, but, for a time of peace, and in a country which the British Government was engaged to defend, it was little better than a magnificent job.
The administration of Chundoo Lall was with some intervals of relief, the scourge of the country for thirty-five years. It was supported by British influence, but not controlled by British honesty. Nothing flourished but corruption. Every public office was put up to sale, and the purchaser reimbursed himself by extortion. Justice, or rather judicial decrees, could be obtained only for money. The land revenue was farmed out to those who made the largest advances to the minister in anticipation of their collections. The tenure was therefore insecure, and it was a common remark that the farmers proceeded to their districts looking over their shoulders all the way, to see whether some other contractor, who had made a higher bid, was not following to supplant them. The farmers, moreover, had the power of life and death, and the under farmers, through their local agents, wrung the last farthing from the wretched peasantry. A peaceful and industrious population was converted into bands of rebels and banditti. Life and property were everywhere insecure. Hundreds of villages were deserted, cultivation ceased, and provisions rose to famine prices. The sums thus obtained by insatiable rapacity were expended by Chundoo Lall in making his position secure. He erected a noble palace for the Resident, and stocked it with the most costly chandeliers and furniture from Bond Street. He bribed with a lavish hand all who had any interest at the court; he subsidized the zenana, and conciliated the Nizam by indulging his passion for hoarding. The Resident
at length obtained the permission of the Governor-General to make some effort, by his advice and influence, to arrest the progress of desolation. His exertions had begun to produce some beneficial result, when he was succeeded in November, 1820, by Mr. Metcalfe, who, after a tour through the country, deemed it necessary to adopt more stringent measures of reform. Some of his political assistants and of the European officers of the Contingent were placed in charge of districts to superintend a new settlement, to check oppression, and to control the police. The system which he introduced, and which remained in force for several years, was equally unpalatable to Chundoo Lall, whose exactions it restrained, and to the native authorities, whose dignity it lowered. It was also censured by Lord Hastings, as greatly in excess of his instructions, and as being tantamount to taking the government of the Nizam’s dominions out of his hands; but it was highly beneficial to the community. Security was at once re-established. Three hundred villages were re-peopled in a short time, and cultivation was resumed and extended. No revenue had previously been obtained but at the point of the sword; under this new policy, not a trooper marched nor was a musket shouldered to enforce the public demand. No country is more blessed with the gifts of nature than the territory of Hyderabad. Under Chundoo Lall it was fast relapsing into jungle; under Mr. Metcalfe’s management it was becoming a garden.
Mr. Metcalfe had not been long, however, at Hyderabad without perceiving that every prospect of prosperity was impeded by the dealings of Palmer and Co. with the state. Mr. William Palmer had established a banking-house at Hyderabad in 1814, with the full concurrence of the Resident, and soon after became connected with Chundoo Lall, and began to make advances to the Nizam’s Government. An Act of Parliament had prohibited all such transactions with native princes without the express sanction of the Governor-General, and for this an application was made
in June, 1816. It was acceded to with the full consent of the Supreme Council, and in accordance with the legal opinion of the Advocate-General, who drew up the deed. In April, 1818, when the Peshwa was in arms, and it became necessary to pay up the arrears of the Contingent to prevent the troops from going over to the enemy, Palmer and Company came forward and agreed to furnish the minister with two lacs and a half of rupees a month, at twenty-five per cent. interest, OR the security of assignments on the land revenues, to the extent of thirty lacs a-year. This proceeding received the unanimous approval of the Governor-General in Council. But, about this period, the firm was joined by Sir William Rumbold, a connection of the Governor of Madras, whom the Court of Directors had removed from that appointment in 1782. He came out to India in 1813, and, as stated by Mr. Metcalfe, visited the various native courts where British influence was predominant, in the hope of making a rapid fortune as in the olden time, and at length fixed on Hyderabad, and was admitted into partnership with Palmer and Co. He had married a ward of Lord Hastings, who regarded her with parental kindness, and, in an evil hour, wrote to Sir William, “The partners speculate that your being one of the firm will interest me in the welfare of the house. It is a fair and honest conclusion. The amount of advantage which the countenance of Government may bestow must be uncertain, as I apprehend it would flow principally from the opinion the natives would entertain of the respect likely to be paid by their own Government to an establishment known to stand well with the Supreme Government.” To this letter Sir William gave the widest publicity, and it came to be currently reported and believed that he was the son-in-law of the Governor-General, and that the rents collected by Palmer and Co. were, in fact, payments to the British Government.
The house had now obtained a firm footing at Hyderabad, and there was a constant stream of loans from the bank to the Nizam’s treasury.
Funds were received in abundance from depositors at twelve per cent., and lent to the Nizam at twenty-four per cent., on the security of fresh assignments. Notwithstanding frequent repayments, the debt was continually on the increase by the process of compound interest. In 1820 Chundoo Lall was put up to solicit the sanction of Government to a new loan of sixty lacs for the professed design of paying up the public establishments, with a view to their reduction, of clearing off debts due to native bankers, and of making advances to the ryots. Lord Hastings considered that these were legitimate objects, of sufficient importance to justify the casting vote which he gave in favour of the proposal, but with the distinct understanding that it was not to be regarded as giving even an implied guarantee of the loan on the part of Government. But Mr. Metcalfe discovered, on his arrival, that only a portion of the sixty lacs had been actually paid into the Nizam’s treasury, that eight lacs formed a bonus to the members of the firm, and that the remainder consisted of other sums lent, or said to have been lent, to the Nizam, without the knowledge of the Government of Calcutta, and consolidated in the new loan, to which its sanction was thus surreptitiously obtained. But Mr. Metcalfe likewise felt that the house was gradually becoming a great political power in the state, chiefly through the influence which one of its members was said to possess with Lord Hastings. The authority of the Resident was thus superseded, and Chundoo Lall, believing that he held his place by the protection of the members of the firm, deemed it more for his interest to communicate with the Governor-General through them, than through his representative. The Government of the Nizam was prostrate before Palmer and Co., as that of the nabob of Arcot had been before his creditors, and the revenues of the country were gradually passing into the hands of the firm. Sir Charles Metcalfe – he had recently succeeded to the baronetcy – at length ventured to communicate his observations and views on the subject to Lord Hastings without
reserve, but he found that his mind had been prepossessed, and his feelings worked upon by the correspondence of the Rumbold family. Lord Hastings went so far as to exhibit a feeling of resentment at the opposition which Mr. Metcalfe had manifested to the proceedings of the firm. But the transaction of the sixty lac loan, to which the sanction of Government had been obtained by false representations, was too gross to admit of any palliation. It was also discovered that other advances had been made without sanction, and that, as Chundoo Lall observed, “the exorbitant rates of interest charged by the house, and the overwhelming amount of their interest on interest, had raised their claim to more than a crore of rupees.” Lord Hastings and his Council passed a severe condemnation on these transactions, and resolved to make arrangements for relieving the Nizam from the grasp of his inexorable creditors. Fifty years before, Lord Clive had obtained the Northern Sircars as a gift from the Emperor of Delhi, but had agreed to pay the Nizam, in consideration of their having formed a part of his province, a peshcush, or annual acknowledgment, of seven lacs of rupees. This payment was arranged when the Company was an insignificant power; to the astonishment of the native princes, it was religiously continued after the Company had become supreme in India. It was now capitalised, and a crore of rupees was remitted from Calcutta, soon after Lord Hastings quitted India. The debt due to Palmer and Co., deducting the clandestine bonus, was paid off, and within a twelvemonth they were insolvent.
The antipathy of the Court of Directors to Lord Hastings had been repeatedly manifested in captious criticisms, and in the reluctant praise and eager censure they bestowed on him. This feeling became more intense after Sir William Rumbold had joined the banking-house at Hyderabad, when they issued orders in the most peremptory and offensive terms to revoke the licence which had been granted to it by the Government of India,
though it had been unnoticed in Leadenhall-street for three years. Their despatch implied a mistrust of Lord Hastings’s motives, and showed a disposition to identify him with whatever appeared objectionable in the transactions of Palmer and Co. Indignant at these insinuations, and at the tone of their communication, he sent home his resignation, on the ground that he had lost their confidence. The Court assured him that he was entirely mistaken, and, in May, 1822, voted the thanks they had hitherto steadily withheld from him, as Governor-General, “for the unremitting zeal and eminent ability with which, during a period of nine years, he had administered the Government of British India with such high credit to himself and advantage to the interests of the East India Company.” The Proprietors concurred in this resolution, and requested the Directors to “convey to his Lordship the expression of their admiration, gratitude, and applause.” He embarked for Europe on the 1st January, 1823.
In political genius, Lord Hastings can scarcely be said to rank with Warren Hastings or Lord Wellesley, though in completing the work they had begun and consolidating the British empire in India, he exhibited talent of the highest order. His administration was rendered memorable by the benefits be conferred on the old capital of the Moguls and the new capital of the Company. Ali Merdun, as stated in a preceding chapter, had executed the grand design of conveying a large portion of the water of the Jumna, where it issues pure from the mountains, by means of a canal, to the city of Delhi. It had, however, been devoid of water for sixty years, and its banks were everywhere prostrated. Lord Hastings caused it to be completely restored, and bestowed on the inhabitants the inestimable boon of fresh and wholesome water – without the imposition of a water-rate. The improvement of Calcutta had been totally suspended since the departure of Lord Wellesley. Under the direction of Lord Hastings, the ventilation of the town was promoted by piercing it in the
centre with a street sixty feet wide. Squares were laid out with tanks, or reservoirs of water, in the centre, surrounded by planted walks; and the foreshore of the river which was lined with wretched huts and rendered impassable by mire and filth, was adorned with a noble strand road worthy of the city of palaces, as Calcutta was justly designated. No Governor-General has ever laboured with greater assiduity in the performance of his duties. Between the age of sixty and seventy he was at his desk at four in the morning – and always in full military uniform – examining the boxes of papers from different departments which had been piled up in his room over night. He made an effort to acquire some knowledge of the language of the country, but he was obliged to relinquish it when he found that his moonshee was making a fortune by the opportunity afforded him of private intercourse with the Governor-General, when he attended him in his study. In the fevered climate of India – which, since the facilities for visiting England have been multiplied, is considered insupportable – he laboured for nine years at the rate of seven and eight hours a-day, without a hill sanitarium to resort to, or the convenience of a sea-going steamer. The only speck on his administration was the interest he manifested in the Rumbolds. As the head of the state it became him at once to withdraw his confidence from them when he discovered the mischievous use to which they were turning it, but the kindliness of his nature betrayed him into political weakness, and led him to take too lenient a view of the conduct of those who were bringing odium on his government, for which he suffered severely during the remaining years of his life.
Within two years after his return from India, his friend, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, brought forward a proposal in the Court of Proprietors for a pecuniary grant befitting the greatness of his services and the gratitude of the Company. If there had been any sincerity in the tribute of “admiration, gratitude, and applause”
which had been recently paid him by that body, it would have been cordially welcomed, but it only served to disclose the strong current of rancour which underlay the crust of official compliment. The motion was met by an amendment, calling, in the first instance, for all the papers connected with the Hyderabad transactions, and, eventually, with the whole of Lord Hastings’s administration. A twelvemonth was employed in compiling and printing this mass of documents, of which a folio volume of a thousand pages was devoted to the Hyderabad loans. It was to this single point and not to the general merits of Lord Hastings’s administration that the attention of the Court of Proprietors was especially directed. If the question under discussion had referred to some grand measure of imperial policy, involving the welfare of millions, it would probably have been disposed of in a few hours; but it turned upon Lord Hastings’s alleged delinquency in the matter of Palmer and Co.; it had all the zest of personality, and the debate was prolonged for six days. Towards the dose of it Mr. Kinnaird submitted a resolution that “nothing contained in the papers tended to affect in the slightest degree the personal character or integrity of the late Governor-General.” But the Chairman, Mr. Astell, opposed the motion by an amendment, stating that, “while admitting that there was no ground for imputing corrupt motives to the late Governor-General, the Court records its approbation of all the despatches sent out by the Court of Directors.” These despatches, four in number, charged Lord Hastings among other misdemeanours with “having lent the Company’s credit to the transactions at Hyderabad, not for the benefit of the Nizam, but for the sole benefit of Palmer and Co., with having studiously suppressed important information, with proceedings which were without parallel in the records of the East India Company, and with assuming to elude all check and control.” The approbation of these despatches was the severest condemnation which could be inflicted on Lord Hastings; but Mr. Astell’s motion was adopted by a
majority of two hundred and twelve. Thus did the East India Company, with all the documents connected with his brilliant administration before them, dismiss him from their Court with the verdict that he was simply not guilty of having acted from corrupt motives. It was an ungrateful return to the man who had raised them to the pinnacle of political power and invested their rule with a moral grandeur. The happy remark made in the case of Warren Hastings, that if there was a bald place on his head, it ought to be covered with laurel, was peculiarly applicable to him. But the East India Company, princely beyond all other rulers in their munificence, have not been able to rise above the influence of vulgar and invidious prejudices in dealing with the merits of their most illustrious men – Clive, Warren Hastings, Lord Wellesley, and Lord Hastings. Lord Hastings did not long survive the indignity thus cast on him. He died at Malta on the 24th August, 1827, and, in the succeeding year, the India House endeavoured to make some atonement for their vote of censure by placing the sum of two lacs of rupees in the hands of trustees for the benefit of his son.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage