Colonization and Christianity/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV.
THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.—SYSTEM OF TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION.
"And Ahab came into his house, heavy and displeased, because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife came to him and said unto him. Why is thy spirit so sad that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I spoke unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, give me thy vineyard for money ; or else if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it ; and he answered I will not give thee my vineyard.
And Jezebel, his wife, said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry; I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
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And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria; behold he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" 1 Kings xxi. 4–19.
The appearance of the Europeans in India, if the inhabitants could have had the Bible put into their hands, and been told that that was the law which these strangers professed to follow, must have been a curious spectacle. They who professed to believe the commands that they should not steal, covet their neighbour's goods, kill, or injure—must have been seen with wonder to be the most covetous, murderous, and tyrannical of men. But if the natives could have read the declaration of Christ—"By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, that ye love one another,"—the wonder must have been tenfold; for never did men exhibit such an intensity of hatred, jealousy, and vengeance towards each other. Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, and Danes, coming together, or one after the other, fell on each other's forts, factories, and ships with the most vindictive fury. They attacked each other at sea or at land; they propagated the most infamous characters of each other wherever they came, in order to supersede each other in the good graces of the people who had valuable trading stations, or were in possession of gold or pearls, nutmegs or cinnamon, coffee, or cotton cloth. They loved one another to that degree that they were ready to join the natives any where in the most murderous attempts to massacre and drive away each other. What must have seemed most extraordinary of all, was the English expelling with rigour those of their own countrymen who ventured there without the sanction of the particular trading company which claimed a monopoly of Indian commerce. The rancour and pertinacity with which Englishmen attacked and expelled Englishmen, was even more violent than that which they shewed to foreigners. The history of European intriguers, especially of the Dutch, Portuguese, English, and French, in the East, in which every species of cruelty and bad faith have been exhibited, is one of the most melancholy and humiliating nature. Those of the English and French did not cease till the very last peace. At every outbreak of war between these nations in Europe, the forts and factories and islands which had been again and again seized upon, and again and again restored by treaties of peace in India, became immediately the scene of fresh aggressions, bickerings, and enormities. The hate which burnt in Europe was felt hotly, even to that distance; and men of another climate, who had no real interest in the question, and to whom Europe was but the name of a distant region which had for generations sent out swarms of powerful oppressors, were called upon to spill their blood and waste their resources in these strange deeds of their tyrants. It is to be hoped that the bulk of this evil is now past. In the peninsula of India, to which I am intending in the following chapters to confine my attention, the French now retain only the factories of Chandernagore, Caricall, Mahee, and Pondicherry; the Portuguese Goa, Damaun, and Diu; the Dutch, Serampore and Tranquebar; while the English power had triumphed over the bulk of the continent—over the vast regions of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, the Deccan and the Carnatic—over a surface of upwards of five hundred thousand square miles, and a population of nearly a hundred millions of people! These states are either directly and avowedly in British possession, or are as entirely so under the name of allies. We may well, therefore, leave the history of the squabbles and contests of the European Christians with each other for this enormous power, disgraceful as that history is to the name of Christianity—to inquire how we, whose ascendency has so wonderfully prevailed there, have gained this dominion and how we have used it.
When Europe sought your subject-realms to gain,
And stretched her giant sceptre o'er the main,
Taught her proud barks the winding way to shape,
And braved the stormy spirit of the Cape;
Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh,
To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye?
Did Peace descend to triumph and to save,
When free-born Britons crossed the Indian wave?
Ah no!—to more than Rome's ambition true,
The muse of Freedom gave it not to you!
She the bold route of Europe's guilt began,
And, in the march of nations, led the van!
We are here to witness a new scene of conquest. The Indian natives were too powerful and populous to permit the Europeans to march at once into the heart of their territories, as they had done into South America, to massacre the people, or to subject them to instant slavery and death. The old inhabitants of the empire, the Hindoos, were indeed, in general, a comparatively feeble and gentle race, but there were numerous and striking exceptions; the mountaineers were, as mountaineers in other countries, of a hardy, active, and martial character. The Mahrattas, the Rohillas, the Seiks, the Rajpoots, and others, were fierce and formidable tribes. But besides this, the ruling princes of the country, whether Moguls or Hindoos, had for centuries maintained their sway by the same power by which they had gained it, that of arms. They could bring into the field immense bodies of troops, which though found eventually unable to compete with European power and discipline, were too formidable to be rashly attacked, and have cost oceans of blood and treasure finally to reduce them to subjection. Moreover, the odium which the Spaniards and Portuguese had everywhere excited by their unceremonious atrocities, may be supposed to have had their effect on the English, who are a reflecting people; and it is to be hoped also that the progress of sound policy and of Christian knowledge, however slow, may be taken into the account in some degree. They went out too under different circumstances—not as mere adventurers, but as sober traders, aiming at establishing a permanent and enriching commerce with these countries; and if Christianity, if the laws of justice and of humanity were to be violated, it must be under a guise of policy, and a form of law.
We shall not enter into a minute notice of the earliest proceedings of the English in India, because for upwards of a century from the formation of their first trading association, those proceedings are comparatively insignificant. During that period Bombay had been ceded as part of a marriage-portion by the Portuguese to Charles II.; factories had been established at Surat, Madras, Masulipatam, Visigapatam, Calcutta, and other places; but it was not till the different chartered companies were consolidated into one grand company in 1708, styled "The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies," that the English affairs in the east assumed an imposing aspect. From that period the East India Company commenced that career of steady grasping at dominion over the Indian territories, which has never been relaxed for a moment, but, while it has for ever worn the grave air of moderation, and has assumed the language of right, has gone on adding field to field and house to house—swallowing up state after state, and prince after prince, till it has finally found itself the sovereign of this vast and splendid empire, as it would fain persuade itself and the world, by the clearest claims, and the most undoubted justice. By the laws and principles of modern policy, it may be so; but by the eternal principles of Christianity, there never was a more thorough repetition of the hankering after Naboth's vineyards, of the "slaying and taking possession" exhibited to the world. It is true that, as the panegyrists of our Indian policy contend, it may be the design of Providence that the swarming millions of Indostan should be placed under our care, that they may enjoy the blessings of English rule, and of English knowledge: but Providence had no need that we should violate all his most righteous injunctions to enable him to bring about his designs. Providence, the Scriptures tell us, intended that Jacob should supersede Esau in the heritage of Israel: but Providence had no need of the deception which Rebecca and Jacob practised,—had no need of the mess of pottage and the kid-skins, to enable Him to effect his object. We are much too ready to run the wilful career of our own lusts and passions, and lay the charge at the door of Providence. It is true that English dominion is, or will become, far better to the Hindoos than that of the cruel and exacting Moguls; but who made us the judge and the ruler over these people? If the real object of our policy and exertions in India has been the achievement of wealth and power, as it undoubtedly has, it is pitiful and hypocritical to endeavour to clothe it with the pretence of working the will of Providence, and seeking the good of the natives. We shall soon see which objects have been most zealously and undeviatingly pursued, and by what means. If our desires have been, not to enrich and aggrandize ourselves, but to benefit the people and rescue them from the tyranny of bad rulers, heaven knows what wide realms are yet open to our benevolent exertions; what despots there are to pull down; what miserable millions to relieve from their oppressions;—and when we behold Englishmen levelling their vengeance against such tyrants, and visiting such unhappy people with their protective power, where neither gold nor precious merchandise are to be won at the same time, we may safely give the amplest credence and the profoundest admiration to their claims of disinterested philanthropy. If they present themselves as the champions of freedom, and the apostles of social amelioration, we shall soon have opportunities of asking how far they have maintained these characters.
Mr. Auber, in his "History of the British Power in India," has quoted largely from letters of the Board of Directors of the Company, passages to shew how sincerely the representatives of the East India Company at home have desired to arrest encroachment on the rights of the natives; to avoid oppressive exactions; to resist the spirit of military and political aggression. They have from year to year proclaimed their wishes for the comfort of the people; they have disclaimed all lust of territorial acquisition; have declared that they were a mercantile, rather than a political body; and have rebuked the thirst of conquest in their agents, and endeavoured to restrain the avidity of extortion in them. Seen in Mr. Auber's pages, the Directors present themselves as a body of grave and honorable merchants, full of the most admirable spirit of moderation, integrity, and benevolence; and we may give them the utmost credit for sincerity in their professions and desires. But unfortunately, we all know what human nature is. Unfortunately the power, the wealth, and the patronage brought home to them by the very violation of their own wishes and maxims were of such an overwhelming and seducing nature, that it was in vain to resist them. Nay, in such colours does the modern philosophy of conquest and diplomacy disguise the worst transactions between one state and another, that it is not for plain men very readily to penetrate to the naked enormity beneath. When all the world was applauding the success of Indian affairs,—the extension of territory, the ability of their governors, the valour of their troops; and when they felt the flattering growth of their greatness, it required qualities far higher than mere mercantile probity and good intentions, to enable them to strip away the false glitter of their official transactions, and sternly assure themselves of the unholiness of their nature. We may therefore concede to the Directors of the East India Company, and to their governors and officers in general, the very best intentions, knowing as we do, the force of influences such as we have already alluded to, and the force also of modern diplomatic and military education, by which a policy and practices of the most dismal character become gradually to be regarded not merely unexceptionable, but highly honorable. We may allow all this, and yet pronounce the mode by which the East India Company has possessed itself of Hindostan, as the most revolting and unchristian that can possibly be conceived. The most masterly policy, regarded independent of its morale, and a valour more than Roman have been exhibited by our governors-generals and armies on the plains of Hindostan: but if there ever was one system more Machiavelian—more appropriative of the shew of justice where the basest injustice was attempted—more cold, cruel, haughty and unrelenting than another,—it is the system by which the government of the different states of India has been wrested from the hands of their respective princes and collected into the grasp of the British power. Incalculable gainers as we have been by this system, it is impossible to review it without feelings of the most poignant shame and the highest indignation. Whenever we talk to other nations of British faith and integrity, they may well point to India in derisive scorn. The system which, for more than a century, was steadily at work to strip the native princes of their dominions, and that too under the most sacred pleas of right and expediency, is a system of torture more exquisite than regal or spiritual tyranny ever before discovered; such as the world has nothing similar to shew.
Spite of the repeated instructions sent out by the Court of Directors to their servants in India, to avoid territorial acquisitions, and to cultivate only honest and honorable commerce; there is evidence that from the earliest period the desire of conquest was entertained, and was, spite of better desires, always too welcome to be abandoned. In the instructions forwarded in 1689, the Directors expounded themselves in the following words: "The increase of our revenue is the subject of our care, as much as our trade:—'t s that must maintain our force when twenty accidents may interrupt our trade;—'t is that must make us a nation in India. Without that, we are but as a great number of interlopers, united by his Majesty's royal charter, fit only to trade where nobody of power thinks fit only to prevent us; and upon this account it is that the wise Dutch, in all their general advices which we have seen, write ten paragraphs concerning their government, their civil and military policy, warfare, and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph they write concerning trade."[1]
Spite of all pretences to the contrary—spite of all advices and exhortations from the government at home of a more unambitious character, this was the spirit that never ceased to actuate the Company, and was so clearly felt to be it, that its highest servants, in the face of more peaceful injunctions, and in the face of the Act of Parliament strictly prohibiting territorial extension, went on perpetually to add conquest to conquest, under the shew of necessity or civil treaty; and they who offended most against the letter of the law, gratified most entirely the spirit of the company and the nation. Who have been looked upon as so eminently the benefactors and honourers of the nation by Indian acquisition as Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, and the Marquess Wellesley? It is for the determined and successful opposition to the ostensible principles and annually reiterated advices of the Company, that that very Company has heaped wealth and distinctions upon these and other persons, and for which it has just recently voted an additional pension to the latter nobleman.
What then is this system of torture by which the possessions of the Indian princes have been wrung from them? It is this—the skilful application of the process by which cunning men create debtors, and then force them at once to submit to their most exorbitant demands. From the moment that the English felt that they had the power in India to "divide and conquer," they adopted the plan of doing it rather by plausible manœuvres than by a bold avowal of their designs, and a more honest plea of the right of conquest—the ancient doctrine of the strong, which they began to perceive was not quite so much in esteem as formerly. Had they said at once, these Mahomedan princes are arbitrary, cruel, and perfidious—we will depose them, and assume the government ourselves—we pretend to no other authority for our act than our ability to do it, and no other excuse for our conduct than our determination to redress the evils of the people: that would have been a candid behaviour. It would have been so far in accordance with the ancient doctrine of nations that little would have been thought of it; and though as Christians we could not have applauded the "doing evil that good might come of it," yet had the promised benefit to more than eighty millions of people followed, that glorious penance would have gone far in the most scrupulous mind to have justified the crime of usurpation. But the mischief has been, that while the exactions and extortions on the people have been continued, and in many cases exaggerated, the means of usurpation have been those glozing and hypocritical arts, which are more dangerous from their subtlety than naked violence, and more detestable because wearing the face, and using the language, of friendship and justice. A fatal friendship, indeed, has that of the English been to all those princes that were allured by it. It has pulled them every one from their thrones, or has left them there the contemptible puppets of a power that works its arbitrary will through them. But friendship or enmity, the result has been eventually the same to them. If they resisted alliance with the encroaching English, they were soon charged with evil intentions, fallen upon, and conquered; if they acquiesced in the proffered alliance, they soon became ensnared in those webs of diplomacy from which they never escaped, without the loss of all honour and hereditary dominion—of every thing, indeed, but the lot of prisoners where they had been kings. The first step in the English friendship with the native princes, has generally been to assist them against their neighbours with troops, or to locate troops with them to protect them from aggression. For these services such enormous recompense was stipulated for, that the unwary princes, entrapped by their fears of their native foes rather than of their pretended friends, soon found that they were utterly unable to discharge them. Dreadful exactions were made on their subjects, but in vain. Whole provinces, or the revenues of them, were soon obliged to be made over to their grasping friends; but they did not suffice for their demands. In order to pay them their debts or their interest, the princes were obliged to borrow large sums at an extravagant rate. These sums were eagerly advanced by the English in their private and individual capacities, and securities again taken on lands or revenues. At every step the unhappy princes became more and more embarrassed, and as the embarrassment increased, the claims of the Company became proportionably pressing. In the technical phraseology of money-lenders, "the screw was then turned," till there was no longer any enduring it. The unfortunate princes felt themselves, instead of being relieved by their artful friends, actually introduced by them into
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges.
To escape it, there became no alternative but to throw themselves entirely upon the mercy of their inexorable creditors, or to break out into armed resistance. In the one case they found themselves speedily stripped of every vestige of their power—their revenues and management of their territories given over to these creditors, which still never were enough to liquidate their monstrous and growing demands; so that the next proposition was that they should entirely cede their territories, and become pensioners on their usurpers. In the other case, they were at once declared perfidious and swindling,—no faith was to be kept with them,—they were assaulted by the irresistible arms of their oppressors, and inevitably destroyed or deposed.
If they sought aid from another state, that became a fortunate plea to attack that state too; and the English were not contented to chastise the state thus aiding its ancient neighbour, it was deemed quite sufficient ground to seize and subjugate it also. There was no province that was for a moment safe from this most convenient system of policy, which feared public opinion sufficiently to seek arguments to make a case before it, but resolved still to seize, by hook or by crook, all that it coveted. It did not suffice that a province merely refused an alliance, if the proper time was deemed to be arrived for its seizure—some plea of danger or suspicion was set up against it. It was called good policy not to wait for attack, but to charge it with hostile designs, though not a hostile indication was given—it was assailed with all the forces in the empire. Those princes that were once subjected to the British power or the British friendship, were set up or pulled down just as it suited their pleasure. If necessary, the most odious stigmas were fixed on them to get rid of them—they were declared weak, dissolute, or illegitimate. If a prince or princess was suspected of having wealth, some villanous scheme was hatched to plunder him or her of it. For more than a century this shocking system was in operation, every day growing more daring in its action, and more wide in its extent. Power both gave security and augmented audacity—for every British subject who was not belonging to the Company, and therefore interested in its operations, was rigidly excluded from the country, and none could therefore complain of the evil deeds that were there done under the sun. It is almost incredible that so abominable an influence could be for a century exercised over a great realm, by British subjects, many of whom were in all other respects worthy and most honourable men; and, what is more, that it could be sanctioned by the British parliament, and admired by the British nation. But we have yet the proofs to adduce, and unfortunately they are only too abundant and conclusive. Let us see them.
We will for the present pass the operations of Clive in the Carnatic at once to destroy the French influence there, and to set up Mahomet Ali, a creature of the English. We shall anon see the result of that: we will observe in the first place the manner of obtaining Bengal, as it became the head of the English empire in India, and the centre of all future transactions.
In 1756, Suraja Dowla, the Subahdar of Bengal, demanded an officer belonging to him who, according to the custom amongst the colonists there, had taken refuge at Calcutta. The English refused to give him up. The Subahdar attacked and took the place. One hundred and forty-six of the English fell into the conqueror's hands, and were shut up for the night in the celebrated Black-hole, whence only twenty-three were taken out alive in the morning. It may be said in vindication of the Subahdar, that the act of immuring these unfortunate people in this horrible den was not his, but that of the guards to whom they were entrusted for the night, and who put them there as in a place of the greatest security; and it may be added, not to the credit of the English, that this very back-hole was the English prison, where they were in the habit of confining their prisoners. As Mr. Mills very justly asks—"What had they to do with a black-hole? Had no black-hole existed, as none ought to exist anywhere, least of all in the sultry and unwholesome climate of Bengal, those who perished in the black-hole of Calcutta would have experienced a different fate."
On the news of the capture of Calcutta arriving at Madras, a body of troops was dispatched under Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, for its recovery; which was soon effected, and Hoogly, a considerable city about twenty-three miles further up the river, was also attacked and reduced. A treaty was now entered into with Suraja Dowla, the Subahdar, which was not of long continuance; for, lest the Subahdar, who was not at bottom friendly to the English, as he had in reality no cause, should form an alliance with the French at Chandernagore, they resolved to depose him! This bold and unwarrantable scheme of deposing a prince in his own undoubted territories, and that by mere strangers and traders on the coast, is the beginning of that extraordinary and unexampled assumption which has always marked the conduct of the English in India. Scarcely had they entered into the treaty with this Subahdar than they resolved to depose him because he would protect the French, who were also permitted to hold a factory in his territory as well as they. This audacious scheme was Clive's. Admiral Watson, on the contrary, declared it an extraordinary thing to depose a man they had so lately made a solemn treaty with. But Clive, as he afterwards avowed, when examined before the House of Commons, declared that "they must now go further; they could not stop there. Having established themselves by force and not by consent of the Nabob, he would endeavour to drive them out again." This is the robber's doctrine;—having committed one outrage, a second, or a series of outrages must be committed, to prevent punishment, and secure the booty. But having once entertained the idea of pulling the Subahdar from his throne, they did not scruple to add treason and rebellion to the crime of invading the rights of the sovereign. They began by debauching his own officers. They found out one Meer Jaffier Khan, a man of known traitorous mind, who had been paymaster-general under the former Subahdar, and yet retained great power in the army. This wretch, on condition of being placed on the throne, agreed to betray his master, and seduce as many of the influential of his officers as possible. The terms of this diabolical confederacy between this base traitor and the baser Christian English, as they stand in the first parliamentary report on Indian affairs, and as related by Orme in his History of India (ii. 133), and by Mills (ii. 110), are very instructive.
The English had got an idea which wonderfully sharpened their desire to depose Suraja Dowla, that he had an enormous treasure. The committee (of the council of Calcutta) really believed, says Mr. Orme, the wealth of Suraja Dowla much greater than it possibly could be, even if the whole life of the late Nabob Aliverdi had not been spent in defending his dominions against the invasions of ruinous enemies; and even if Suraja Dowla had reigned many, instead of one year. They resolved, accordingly, not to be sparing in their commands; and the situation of Meer Jaffier, and the manners and customs of the country, made him ready to promise whatever they desired. In the name of compensation for losses by the capture of Calcutta, 10,000,000 rupees were promised to the English Company; 5,000,000 rupees to English inhabitants; 2,000,000 to the Indians, and 700,000 to the Armenian merchants. These sums were specified in the formal treaty. Besides this, the Committee resolved to ask 2,500,000 rupees for the squadron, and the same amount for the army. "When this was settled," says Lord Clive, "Mr. Becher (a member) suggested to the committee, that he thought that committee, who managed the great machine of government, was entitled to some consideration, as well as the army and navy." Such a proposition in such an assembly could not fail to appear eminently reasonable. It met with a suitable approbation. Mr. Becher informs us, that the sums received were 280,000 rupees by Mr. Drake the governor; 280,000 by Col. Clive; and 240,000 each by himself, Mr. Watts, and Major Kilpatrick, the inferior members of the committee. The terms obtained by favour of the Company were, that all the French factories and effects should be given up; that the French should be for ever excluded from Bengal; that the territory surrounding Calcutta to the distance of 600 yards beyond the Mahratta ditch, and all the land lying south of Calcutta as far as Culpee, should be granted them on Zemindary tenure, the Company paying the rent in the same manner as the other Zemindars.
Thus did these Englishmen bargain with a traitor to betray his prince and country,—the traitor, for the bribe of being himself made prince, not merely sell his master, but give two millions three hundred and ninety-eight thousand pounds sterling,[2] with valuable privileges and property of the state,—while these dealers in treason and rebellion pocketed each, from two hundred and forty to two hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling! A more infamous transaction is not on record.
To carry this wicked conspiracy into effect, the English took the field against their victim Suraja Dowla; and Meer Jaffier, the traitor, in the midst of of the engagement moved off, and went over to the English with his troops—thus determining the fate of a great kingdom, and of thirty millions of people, with the loss of twenty Europeans killed and wounded, of sixteen Sepoys killed, and only thirty-six wounded. The unfortunate prince was soon afterwards seized and assassinated by the son of this traitor Meer Jaffier. The vices and inefficiency of this bad man soon compelled the English to pull him down from the throne into which they had so criminally raised him. They then set up in his stead his son-in-law, Meer Causim. This man for a time served their purpose, by the activity with which he raised money to pay their claims upon him. He resorted to every species of cruelty and injustice to extort the necessary funds from his unfortunate subjects. But about three years, nearly the same period as their former puppet-nabob had reigned, sufficed to weary them of him. He was rigorous enough to raise money to pay them, but he was not tool enough, when that was done, to humour every scheme of rapacity which they dictated to him. They complained of his not allowing their goods to pass duty-free through his territories; he therefore abolished all duties, and thus laid open the trade to everybody. This enraged them, and they determined to depose him. Meer Causim, however, was not so readily dismissed as Meer Jaffier had been. He resisted vigorously; massacred such of their troops as fell into his hands, and fleeing into Oude, brought them into war with its nabob. What is most remarkable, they again set up old Meer Jaffier, whom they had before deposed for his crimes and his imbecility. But probably, from their experience of Meer Causim, they now preferred an easy tool to one with more self-will. In their treaty with him they made a claim upon him for ten lacs of rupees; which demand speedily grew to twenty, thirty, forty, and finally to fifty-three lacs of rupees. All delicacy was laid aside in soliciting the payment, and one half of it was soon extorted from him. The Subahdar, in fact, was now become the merest puppet in their hands. They were the real lords of Bengal, and in direct receipt of more than half the revenues. Within less than ten years from the disgraceful bargain with the traitor Meer Jaffier, they had made Bengal their own, though they still hesitated to avow themselves as its sovereigns; they had got possession of Benares; they had acquired that power over the Nabob of Oude, in consequence of the successful war brought upon him by his alliance with the deposed nabob Meer Causim, that would at any time make them entirely his masters; the Mogul himself was ready and anxious to obtain their friendship; they were, in short, become the far greatest power in India.
Here then is an opening instance of the means by which we acquired our territories in India; and the language of Lord Clive, when he returned thither as governor of Bengal in 1765, may shew what other scenes were likely to ensue. "We have at last arrived at that critical period which I have long foreseen; I mean that period which renders it necessary for us to determine whether we can or shall take the whole to ourselves. Jaffier Ali Khan is dead. His natural son is a minor; but I know not whether he is yet declared successor. Sujah Dowla is beat from his dominions. We are in possession of it; and it is scarcely hyperbole to say—to-morrow the whole Mogul empire is in our power. The inhabitants of the country, we know by long experience, have no attachment to any obligation. Their forces are neither disciplined, commanded, nor paid like ours. Can it then be doubtful that a large army of Europeans will effectually preserve us sovereigns?"
The scene of aggression and aggrandizement here indicated, soon grew so wide and busy, that it would far exceed the whole space of this volume to trace even rapidly its great outlines. The Great Mogul, the territories of Oude and Arcot, Mysore, Travancore, Benares, Tanjore, the Mahrattas, the whole peninsula in fact, speedily felt the effect of these views, in diplomatic or military subjection. We can point out no fortunate exception, and must therefore content ourselves with briefly touching upon some of the more prominent cases.
The first thing that deserves attention, is the treatment of the Mogul himself. This is the, statement of it by the French historian: "The Mogul having been driven out of Delhi by the Pattans, by whom his son had been set up in his room, was wandering from one province to another in search of a place of refuge in his own territories, and requesting succour from his own vassals, but without success. Abandoned by his subjects, betrayed by his allies, without support and without an army, he was allured by the power of the English, and implored their protection. They promised to conduct him to Delhi, and re-establish him on his throne; but they insisted that he should previously cede to them the absolute sovereignty over Bengal. This cession was made by an authentic act, attended by all the formalities usually practised throughout the Mogul empire. The English, possessed of this title, which was to give a kind of legitimacy to their usurpation, at least in the eyes of the vulgar, soon forgot the promises they had made. They gave the Mogul to understand, that particular circumstances would not suffer them to be concerned in such an enterprise; but some better opportunity was to be hoped for; and to make up for his losses, they assigned him a pension of six millions of rupees, (262,500l.), with the revenue of Allahabad, and Sha Ichanabad, or Delhi, upon which that unfortunate prince was reduced to subsist himself, in one of the principal towns of Benares, where he had taken up his residence."—Raynal.
Hastings, in fact, made it a reason for depriving him again even of this pension, that he had sought the aid of the Mahrattas, to do that which he had vainly hoped from the English—to restore him to his throne. This is Mills's relation of this fact, founded on the fifth Parliamentary Report.—"Upon receiving from him the grant of the duannee, or the receipt and management of the revenues of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, it was agreed that, as the royal share of these revenues, twenty-six lacs of rupees should be annually paid to him by the Company. His having accepted of the assistance of the Mahrattas to place him on the throne of his ancestors, was now made use of as a reason for telling him, that the tribute of these provinces should be paid to him no more. Of the honour, or the discredit, however, of this transaction. the principal share belongs not to the governor, but to the Directors themselves; who, in their letter to Bengal, of the 11th of November 1768, had said, 'If the emperor flings himself into the hands of the Mahrattas, or any other power, we are disengaged from him, and it may open a fair opportunity of withholding the twenty-six lacs we now pay him.'" Upon the whole, indeed, of the measure dealt out to this unhappy sovereign,—depriving him of the territories of Corah and Allahabad; depriving him of the tribute which was due to him from these provinces of his which they possessed—the Directors bestowed unqualified approbation; and though they condemned the use which had been made of their troops in subduing the country of the Rohillas, they frankly declare, "We, upon the maturest deliberation, confirm the treaty of Benares." "Thus," adds Mills, "they had plundered the unhappy emperor of twenty-six lacs per annum, and the two provinces of Corah and Allahabad, which they had sold to the Vizir for fifty lacs of rupees, on the plea that he had forfeited them by his alliance with the Mahrattas;" as though he was not free, if one party would not assist him to regain his rights, to seek that assistance from another.
Passing over the crooked policy of the English, in seizing upon the isles of Salsette and Bassein, near Bombay, and treating for them afterwards, and all the perfidies of the war for the restoration of Ragabah, the Peshwa of the Mahrattas, the fate of the Nabob of Arcot, one of their earliest allies, is deserving of particular notice, as strikingly exemplifying their policy. They began by obtaining a grant of land in 1750, surrounding Madras. They then were only too happy to assist the Nabob against the French. For these military aids, in which Ciive distinguished himself, the English took good care to stipulate for their usually monstrous payments. Mahomed Ali, the nabob, soon found that he was unable to satisfy the demands of his allies. They urged upon him the maintenance of large bodies of troops for the defence of his territories against these French and other enemies. This threw him still more inextricably into debt, and therefore more inextricably into their power. He became an unresisting tool in their hands. In his name the most savage exactions were practised on his subjects. The whole revenues of his kingdom, however, proved totally inadequate to the perpetually accumulating demands upon them. He borrowed money where he could, and at whatever interest, of the English themselves. When this interest could not be paid, he made over to them, under the name of tuncaus, the revenues of some portion of his domains. These assignments directly decreasing his resources, only raised the demands of his other creditors more violently, and the fleecing of his subjects became more and more dreadful. In this situation, he began to cast his eyes on the neighbouring states, and to incite his allies, by the assertion of various claims upon them, to join him in falling upon them, and thus to give him an opportunity of paying them. This exactly suited their views. It gave them a prospect of money, and of conquest too, under the plausible colour of assisting their ally in urging his just claims. They first joined him in falling on the Rajah of Tanjore, whom the Nabob claimed as a tributary, and indebted to him in a large amount of revenue. The Rajah was soon reduced to submission, and agreed to pay thirty lacs and fifty thousand rupees, and to aid the Nabob in all his wars. Scarcely, however, was this treaty signed, than they repented of it; thought they had not got enough; hoped the Rajah would not be exact to a day in his payment, in which case they would fall on him again for breach of treaty. It so happened;—they rushed out of their camp, seized on part of Vellum, and the districts of Coiladdy and Elangad, to the retention of which the poor Rajah was obliged to submit.
This affair being so fortunately adjusted, the Nabob called on his willing allies to attack the Marawars. They too, he said, owed him money; and money was what the English were always in want of. They readily assented, though they declared that they believed the Nabob to have no real claim on the Marawars whatever. But then, they said, the Nabob has made them his enemies, and it is necessary for his security that they should be reduced. They did not pretend it was just—but then, it was politic. The particulars of this war are barbarous and disgraceful to the English. The Nabob thirsted for the destruction of these states: he and his Christian-allies soon reduced Ramnadaporam, the capital of the great Marawar, seized the Polygar, a minor of twelve years old, his mother, and the Duan; they came suddenly upon the Polygar of the lesser Marawar while he was trusting to a treaty just made, and killed him; and pursued the inhabitants of the country with severities that can only be represented by the language of one of the English officers addressed to the Council. Speaking of the animosity of the people against them, and their attacking the baggage, he says, "I can only determine it by reprisals, which will oblige me to plunder and burn the villages; kill every man in them; and take prisoners the women and children. These are actions which the nature of this war will require."[3]
Such were the unholy deeds into which the Nabob and the great scheme of acquisition of territory had led our countrymen in 1773; but this was only the beginning of these affairs. This bloody campaign ended, and large sums of money levied, the Nabob proposed another war on the Rajah of Tanjore! There was not the remotest plea of injury from the Rajah, or breach of treaty. He had paid the enormous sum demanded of him before, by active levies on his subjects, and by mortgaging lands and jewels; but the Nabob had now made him a very dangerous enemy—he might ally himself with Hyder Ali, or the French, or some power or other—therefore it was better that he should be utterly destroyed, and his country put into the power of the Nabob! "Never," exclaims Mr. Mills, "I suppose, was the resolution taken to make war upon a lawful sovereign, with the view of reducing him entirely, that is, stripping him of his dominions, and either putting him and his family to death, or making them prisoners for life, upon a more accommodating reason! We have done the Rajah great injury—we have no intention of doing him right—this is a sufficient reason for going on to his destruction." But it was not only thought, but done; and this was the bargain: The Nabob was to advance money and all due necessaries for the war, and to pay 10,000 instead of 7,000 sepoys. The unhappy Rajah was speedily defeated, and taken prisoner with his family; and his country put into the hands of his mortal enemy. There were men of honour and virtue enough amongst the Directors at home, however, to feel a proper disgust, or at least, regard for public opinion, at these unprincipled proceedings, and the Rajah, through the means of Lord Paget was restored, not however without having a certain quantity of troops quartered upon him; a yearly payment of four lacs of pagodas imposed; and being bound not to make any treaty or assist any power without the consent of the English. He was, in fact, put into the first stage of that process of subjection which would, in due time, remove from him even the shadow of independence.
Such were the measures by which the Nabob of Arcot endeavoured to relieve himself from his embarrassments with the English; but they would not all avail. Their demands grew faster than he could find means to satisfy them. Their system of action was too well devised to fail them; their victims rarely escaped from their toils: he might help them to ruin his neighbours, but he could not escape them himself. During his life he was surrounded by a host of cormorant creditors; his country, harassed by perpetual exactions, rapidly declined; and the death of his son and successor, Omdut ul Omrah, in 1801, produced one of the strangest scenes in this strange history. The Marquis Wellesley was then Governor-general, and, pursuing that sweeping course which stripped away the hypocritical mask from British power in India, threw down so many puppet princes, and displayed the English dominion in Indostan in its gigantic nakedness. The revenues of the Carnatic had been before taken in the hands of the English, but Lord Wellesley resolved to depose the prince; and the manner in which this deposition was effected, was singularly despotic and unfeeling. They had come to the resolution to depose the Nabob, and only looked about for some plausible pretence. This they professed to have found in a correspondence which, by the death of Tippoo Saib, had fallen into their hands—a correspondence between Tippoo and some officers of the Nabob. They alleged, that this correspondence contained injurious and even treasonable language towards the English. When, therefore, the Nabob lay on his death-bed they surrounded his house with troops, and immediately that the breath had departed from him they demanded to see his will. This rude and unfeeling behaviour, so repugnant to the ideas of every people, however savage and brutal, at a moment so solemn and sacred to domestic sorrow, was respectfully protested against—but in vain. The will they insisted upon seeing, and it accordingly was put into their hands by the son of the Nabob, now about to mount the throne himself. Finding that the son was nominated as his heir and successor by the Nabob, the Commissioners immediately announced to him the charge of treason against his father, and that the throne was thereby forfeited by the family. This charge, of course, was a matter of surprise to the family; especially when the papers said to contain the treason were produced, and they could find in them nothing but terms of fidelity and respect towards the English government. But the English had resolved that the charge should be a sufficient charge, and the young prince manfully resisting it, they then declared him to be of illegitimate birth,—a very favourite and convenient plea with them. On this they set him aside, and made a treaty with another prince, in which for a certain provision the Carnatic was made over to them for ever. The young nabob, Ali Hussein, did not long survive this scene of indignity and arbitrary deposition—his death occurring in the spring of the following year.
Such was the English treatment of their friend the Nabob of Arcot;—the Nabob of Arcot, whose name was for years continually heard in England as the powerful ally of the British, as their coadjutor against the French, against the ambitious Hyder Ali, as their zealous and accommodating friend on all occasions. It was in vain that either the old Nabob, or the young one, whom they so summarily deposed, pleaded the faith of treaties, their own hereditary right, or ancient friendship. Arcot had served its turn; it had been the stalking-horse to all the aggressions on other states that they needed from it,—they had exacted all that could be exacted in the name of the Nabob from his subjects—they had squeezed the sponge dry; and moreover the time was now come that they could with impunity throw off the stealthy crouching attitude of the tiger, the smiling meek mask of alliance, and boldly seize upon undisguised sovereign powers in India. Arcot was but one state amongst many that were now to be so treated. Benares, Oude, Tanjore, Surat, and others found themselves in the like case.
Benares had been a tributary of Oude; but in 1764, when the English commenced war against the Nabob of Oude, the Rajah of Benares joined the English, and rendered them the most essential services. For these he was taken under the English protection. At first with so much delicacy and consideration was he treated, that a resident was not allowed, as in the case of other tributaries, to reside in his capital, lest in the words of the minute of the Governor-general in command in 1775: "such resident might acquire an improper influence over the Rajah and his country, which would in effect render him master of both; lest it should end," as they knew that such things as a matter of course did end, "in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of a mere Zemindar." The council expressed its anxiety that the Rajah's independence should be in no way compromised than by the mere fact of the payment of his tribute, which, says Mills, continued to be paid with an exactness rarely exemplified in the history of the tributary princes of Hindustan. But unfortunately, the Rajah gave some offence to the powerful Warren Hastings, and there was speedily a requisition made upon him for the maintenance of three battalions of Sepoys, estimated at five lacs of rupees. The Rajah pleaded inability to pay it forthwith; but five days only were given him. This was followed by a third and fourth requisition of the same sort. Seeing how the tide was running against him, the unhappy Rajah sent a private gift of two lacs of rupees to Mr. Hastings,—the pretty sum of 20,000l., in the hope of regaining his favour, and stopping this ruinous course of exaction. That unprincipled man took the money, but exacted the payment of the public demand with unabated rigour, and even fined him 10,000l. for delay in payment, and ordered troops, as he had done before, to march into his country to enforce the iniquitous exaction!
The work of diplomatic robbery on the Rajah now went on rapidly. "The screw was now turned" with vigour,—to use a homely but expressive phrase, the nose was held desperately to the grind-stone. No bounds were set to the pitiless fury of spoliation, for the Governor's revenge had none; and besides, there was a dreadful want of money to defray the expenses of the wars with Hyder into which the government had plunged. "1 was resolved," says Hastings, "to draw from his guilt (his having offended Mr. Hastings—the guilt was all on the other side) "the means of relief to the Company's distresses. In a word, I had determined to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to exact a severe vengeance for his past delinquency."[4] What this delinquency could possibly be, unless it were not having sent Mr. Hastings a second present of two lacs, is not to be discovered; but the success of the first placebo was not such as to elicit a second. The Rajah, therefore, tried what effect he could produce upon the council at large; he sent an offer of twenty lacs for the public service. It was scornfully rejected, and a demand of fifty lacs was made! The impossibility of compliance with such extravagant demands was what was anticipated; the Governor hastened to Benares, arrested the Rajah in his own capital; set at defiance the indignation of the people at this insult. The astounded Rajah made his escape, but only to find himself at war with his insatiable despoilers. In vain did he propose every means of accommodation. Nothing would now serve but his destruction. He was attacked, and compelled to fly. Bidgegur, where, says Heistings himself, "he had left his wife, a woman of amiable character, his mother, all the other women of his family, and the survivors of the family of his father, Bulwant Sing," was obliged to capitulate; and Hastings, in his fell and inextinguishable vengeance, even, says Mills, "in his letters to the commanding officer, employed expressions which implied that the plunder of these women was the due reward of the soldiers; and which suggested one of the most dreadful outrages to which, in the conception of the country, a human being could be exposed."
The fort was surrendered on express stipulation for the safety, and freedom from search, of the females; but, adds Mills, "the idea suggested by Mr. Hastings diffused itself but too perfectly amongst the soldiery; and when the princesses, with their relatives and attendants, to the number of three hundred women, besides children, withdrew from the castle, the capitulation was shamefully violated; they were plundered of their effects, and their persons otherwise rudely and disgracefully treated by the licentious people, and followers of the camp." He adds, "one is delighted for the honour of distinguished gallantry, that in no part of the opprobrious business the commanding officer had any share. He leaned to generosity and the protection of the princesses from the beginning. His utmost endeavours were exerted to restrain the outrages of the camp; and he represented them with feeling to Mr. Hastings, who expressed his concurrence, etc."
The only other consolation in this detestable affair is, that the soldiers, in spite of Hastings, got the plunder of the Rajah, and that the Court of Directors at home censured his conduct. But these are miserable drops of satisfaction in this huge and overflowing cup of bitterness,—of misery to trusting, friendly, and innocent people; and of consequent infamy on the British name.
We must, out of the multitudes of such cases, confine ourselves to one more. The atrocities just recited had put Benares into the entire power of the English, but it had only tended to increase the pecuniary difficulties. The soldiery had got the plunder—the expenses of the war were added to the expenses of other wars;—some other kingdom must be plundered, for booty must be had: so Mr. Hastings continued his journey, and paid a visit to the Nabob of Oude. It is not necessary to trace the complete progress of this Nabob's friendship with the English. It was exactly like that of the other princes just spoken of. A treaty was made with him; and then, from time to time, the usual exactions of money and the maintenance of troops for his own subjection were heaped upon him. As with the Nabob of Arcot, so with him, they were ready to sanction and assist him in his most criminal views on his neighbours, to which his need of money drove him. He proposed to Mr. Hastings, in 1773, to assist him in exterminating the Rohillas, a people bordering on his kingdom; "a people," says Mills, "whose territory was, by far, the best governed part of India: the people protected, their industry encouraged, and the country flourishing beyond all parallel." It was by a careful neutrality, and by these acts, that the Rohillas sought to maintain their independence; and it was of such a people that Hastings, sitting at table with his tool, the Nabob of Oude, coolly heard him offer him a bribe of forty lacs of rupees (400,000l.) and the payment of the troops furnished, to assist him to destroy them utterly! There does not seem to have existed in the mind of Hastings one human feeling: a proposition which would have covered almost any other man with unspeakable horror, was received by him as a matter of ordinary business. "Let us see," said Hastings, "we have a heavy bonded debt, at one time 125 lacs of rupees. By this a saving of near one third of our military expenses would be effected during the period of such service; the forty lacs would be an ample supply to our treasury; and the Vizir (the Nabob of Oude) would be freed from a troublesome neighbour." These are the monster's own words; the bargain was struck, but it was agreed to be kept secret from the council and court of Directors. In one of Hastings' letters still extant, he tells the Nabob, "should the Rohillas be guilty of a breach of their agreement (a demand of forty lacs suddenly made upon them—for in this vile affair everything had a ruffian character—they first demanded their money, and then murdered them), we will thoroughly exterminate them, and settle your excellency in the country."[5] The extermination was conducted to the letter, as agreed, as far as was in their power. The Rohillas defended themselves most gallantly; but were overpowered,—-and their chief, and upwards of a hundred thousand people fled to the mountains. The whole country lay at the mercy of the allies, and the British officers themselves declared that perhaps never were the rights of conquest more savagely abused. Colonel Champion, one of them, says in a letter of June 1774, published in the Report alluded to below, "the inhumanity and dishonour with which the late proprietors of this country and their families have been used, is known . all over these parts. A relation of them would swell this letter to an enormous size. I could not help compassionating such unparalleled misery, and my requests to the Vizir to shew lenity were frequent, but as fruitless as even those advices which I almost hourly gave him regarding the destruction of the villages; with respect to which he always promised fair, but did not observe one of his promises, nor cease to overspread the country with flames, till three days after the fate of Hafez Rhamet was decided." The Nabob had frankly and repeatedly assured Hastings that his intention was to exterminate the Rohillas, and every one who bore the name of Rohilla was either butchered, or found his safety in flight and in exile. Such were the diabolical deeds into which our government drove the native princes by their enormous exactions, or encouraged them in, only in the end to enslave them the more.
Before the connexion between the English and Oude, its revenue had exceeded three millions sterling, and was levied without being accused of deteriorating the country. In the year 1779, it did not exceed one half of that sum, and in the subsequent years it fell far below it, while the rate of taxation was increased, and the country exhibited every mark of oppressive exaction.[6] In this year the Nabob represented to the council the wretched condition to which he was reduced by their exactions: that the children of the deceased Nabob had subsisted in a very distressed manner for two years past; that the attendants, writers, and servants, had received no pay for that period; that his father's private creditors were daily pressing him, and there was not a foot of country which could be appropriated to their payment; that the revenue was deficient fifteen lacs, (a million and a half sterling); that the country and cultivation were abandoned; the old chieftains and useful attendants of the court were forced to leave it; that the Company's troops were not only useless, but caused great loss to the revenue and confusion in the country; and that the support of his household, on the meanest scale, was beyond his power.
This melancholy representation produced—what?—pity, and an endeavour to relieve the Nabob?—no, exasperation. Mr. Hastings declared that, both it and the crisis in which it was made were equally alarming. The only thing thought of was what was to be done if the money did not come in? But Mr. Hastings, on his visit to the Nabob at Lucknow, made a most lucky discovery. He found that the mother and widow of the late Nabob were living there, and possessed of immense wealth. His rapacious mind, bound by no human feeling or moral principle, and fertile in schemes of acquisition, immediately conceived the felicitous design of setting the Nabob to strip those ladies, well known to English readers since the famous trial of Mr. Hastings, as "the Begums." It was agreed between the Nabob and Mr. Hastings, that his Highness should be relieved of the expense which he was unable to bear, of the English troops and gentlemen; and he, on his part, engaged to strip the Begums of both their treasure and their jaghires (revenues of certain lands), delivering to the Governor-general the proceeds. As a plea for this most abominable transaction, in which a prince was compelled by his cruel necessities and the grinding exactions and threats of the English to pillage forcibly his near relatives, a tale of treason was hatched against these poor women. When they refused to give up their money, the chief eunuchs were put to the torture till the ladies in compassion gave way: 550,000l. sterling were thus forced from them: the torture was still continued, in hope of extracting more; the women of the Zenana were deprived of food at various times till they were on the point of perishing for want; and every expedient was tried that the most devilish invention could suggest, till it was found that they had really drawn the last doit from them. But what more than all moves one's indignation against this base English Inquisitor, was, that he received as his share of these spoils the sum of ten lacs, or 100,000l.!—and that notwithstanding the law of the Company against the receipt of presents; its avowed distress for want of money; and the poverty of the kingdom of Oude, which was thus plundered and disgraced from the very inability to pay its debts, if debts such shameful exactions can be called. Hastings did not hesitate to apprise the council of what he had received, and requested their permission to retain it for himself.
Of the numerous transactions of a most wicked character connected with these affairs; of the repugnance of the Nabob to do the dirty work of Hastings on his relatives, the Begums; of the haughty insolence by which his tyrant compelled him to the compact; of the restoration of the jaghires, but not the moneys to the Begums; of the misery and desolation which forced itself even upon the horny eyes of Hastings as he made his second progress through the territories of Oude, the work of his own oppressions and exactions; of the twelve and a half millions which he added by his wars and political manœuvres to the Indian debt—we have not here room to note more than the existence of such facts, which are well known to all the readers of Indian history, or of the trial of Warren Hastings, where every artifice of the lawyers was employed to prevent the evidence of these things being brought forward; and where a House of Peers was found base or weak enough to be guided by such artifices, to refuse the most direct evidence against the most atrocious transactions in history; and thus to give sanction and security to the commission of the most dreadful crimes and cruelties in our distant colonies. Nothing could increase from this time the real power of the English over Oude, though circumstances might occasion a more open avowal of it. Even during the government of Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Shore, now Lord Teignmouth, two of the most worthy and honourable rulers that British India ever had, the miseries and exactions continued, and the well-intentioned financial measures of Lord Cornwallis even tended to increase them. In 1798, the governor. Sir John Shore, proceeded to depose the ruling Nabob as illegitimate (a plea on which the English set aside a number of Indian princes), and elevated another in his place, and that upon evidence, says the historian, "upon which an English court of law would not have decided against him a question of a few pounds."
It was not, however, till 1799, under the government of the Marquis Wellesley, that the hand of British power was stretched to the utmost over this devoted district. That honest and avowed usurper, who disdained the petty acts of his predecessors, but declared that the British dominion over the peninsula of India must be frankly avowed and fearlessly asserted—certainly a much better doctrine than the cowardly and hypocritical one hitherto acted upon;—that every Englishman who did not belong to the Company must and should be expelled from that country; and that the English power and the Corporate monopoly should be so strenuously and unflinchingly exerted, that foreign aggression or domestic complaint should be alike dispersed;—this straightforward Governor-general soon drove the Nabob of Oude to such desperation, by the severity of his measures and exactions, that he declared his wish to abdicate. Nothing could equal the joy of the Governor-general at the prospect of this easy acquisition of this entire territory: but that joy was damped by discovering that the Nabob only wished to resign in favour of—his own son! The chagrin of the Governor-general on this discovery is not to be expressed; and the series of operations then commenced to force the Nabob to abdicate in favour of the Company; when that could not be effected, to compel him to sacrifice one half of his territories to save the rest; when that sacrifice was made, to inform him that he was to have no independent power in his remaining half—is one of the most instructive lessons in the art of diplomatic fleecing, of forcing a man out of his own by the forms of treaty but with the iron-hand of irresistible power, which any despot who wishes to do a desperate deed handsomely, and in the most approved style, can desire. It was in vain that the Nabob declared his payment of exactions; his hereditary right; his readiness shewn on all occasions to aid and oblige; the force of treaties in his favour. It was in vain that he asked to what purpose should he give up one half of his dominions if he were not to have power over the other, when it was to secure this independent power that he gave up that half? What are all the arguments of right, justice, reason, or humanity, when Ahab wants the vineyard of Naboth, and the Jezebel of political and martial power tells him that she will give it him? The fate of Oude was predetermined, along with that of various other states, by the Governor-general, and it was decided as he determined it should be.
Before we close this chapter, we will give one instance of the manner in which the territories of those who held aloof, and did not covet the fatal friendship of the English were obtained, and the most striking of these are the dominions of Hyder Ali—the kingdom of Mysore.
Hyder was a soldier of fortune. He had risen by an active and enterprising disposition from the condition of a common soldier to the head of the state. The English considered him as an ambitious, able, and therefore very dangerous person in India. There can be no doubt that he considered them the same. He was an adventurer; so were they. He had acquired a great territory by means that would not bear the strictest scrutiny; so had they;—but there was this difference between them, Hyder acted according to the customs and maxims in which he had been educated, and which he saw universally practised by all the princes around him. He neither had the advantage of Christian knowledge and principle, nor pretended to them. The English, on the contrary, came there as merchants; they were continually instructed by their masters at home not to commit military aggressions. They were bound by the laws of their country not to do it. They professed to be in possession of a far higher system of religion and morals than Hyder and his people had. They pretended to be the disciples of the Prince of Peace. Their magnanimous creed they declared to be, "To do to others as they would wish to be done by." But neither Hyder nor any other Indian ever saw the least evidence of any such superiority of morals, or of faith, in their conduct. They were as ambitious, and far more greedy of money than the heathen that they pretended to despise for their heathenism. They ought to have set a better example—but they did not. There never was a people that grasped more convulsively at dominion, or were less scrupulous in the means of obtaining it. They declared Hyder cruel and perfidious. He knew them to be both. This was the ground on which they stood. There were reasons why the English should avoid interfering with Hyder. There were none why he should avoid encroaching on them, for he did not profess any such grand principles of action as they did. If they were what they pretended to be, they ought to preach peace and union amongst the Indian princes: but union was of all things in the world the very one which they most dreaded; for they were not what they pretended to be; but sought on the divisions of the natives to establish their own power. Had Hyder attacked them in their own trading districts, there could have been no reason why they should not chastise him for it. But it does not appear that he ever did attack them at all till they fell upon him, and that with the avowed intention to annihilate his power as dangerous. No, say they, but he attacked the territories of our ally the Subahdar of Deccan, which we were bound to defend. And here it is that we touch again upon that subtle policy by which it became impossible, when they had once got a footing in the country that, having the will and the power, they should not eventually have the dominion. While professing to avoid conquest, we have seen that they went on continually making conquests. But it was always on the plea of aiding their allies. They entered knowingly into alliances on condition of defending with arms their allies, and then, when they committed aggressions, it was for these allies. In the end the allies were themselves swallowed up, with all the additional territories thus gained. It was a system of fattening allies as we fatten oxen, till they were more worthy of being devoured. They cast their subtle threads of policy like the radiating filaments of the spider's web, till the remotest extremity of India could not be touched without startling them from their concealed centre into open day, ready to run upon the unlucky offender. It was utterly impossible, on such a system, but that offences should come, and wo to them by whom they did come.
The English were unquestionably the aggressors in the hostilities with Hyder. They entered into a treaty with Nizam Ali, the Subahdar of Deccan, offensive and defensive; and the very first deed which they were to do, was to seize the fort of Bangalore, which belonged to Hyder. They had actually marched in 1767 into his territories, when Hyder found means to draw the Nizam from his alliance, and in conjunction with him fell upon them, and compelled them to fly to Trincomalee. By this unprovoked and voluntary act they found themselves involved at once in a war with a fierce and active enemy, who pursued them to the very walls of Madras; scoured their country with his cavalry; and compelled them to a dishonourable peace in 1769, by which they bound themselves to assist him too in his defensive wars! To enter voluntarily into such conditions with such a man, betrayed no great delicacy of moral feeling as to what wars they engaged in, or no great honesty in their intentions as regarded the treaty itself. They must soon either fight with some of Hyder's numerous enemies, or break faith with him. Accordingly the very next year the Mahrattas invaded his territories; he called earnestly on his English allies for aid, and aid they did not give. Hyder had now the justest reason to term them perfidious, and to hold them in distrust. Yet, though deeply exasperated by this treachery, he would in 1778 most willingly have renewed his alliance with them; and the presidency of Madras acknowledged their belief that, had not the treaty of 1769 been evaded, Hyder would never have sought other allies than themselves.[7] There were the strongest reasons why they should have cultivated an amicable union with him, both to withdraw him from the French, and on account of his own great power and revenues. But they totally neglected him, or insulted him with words of mere cold courtesy; and a new aggression upon the fortress of Mahé, a place tributary to Hyder, which they attacked in order to expel the French, and which Hyder resented on the same principle as they would resent an attack upon any tributary of their own, well warranted the declaration of Hyder, that they "were the most faithless and usurping of mankind." They were these arbitrary and impolitic deeds which brought down Hyder speedily upon them, with an army 100,000 strong; and soon showed them Madras menaced, the Carnatic overrun, Arcot taken, and a war of such a desperate and bloody character raging around them, as they had never yet seen in India, and which might probably have expelled them thence, had not death released them in 1782 from so formidable a foe, who had been so wantonly provoked.
Tippoo Sultaun, with all his activity and cunning, had not the masterly military genius of his father,—but he possessed all the fire of his resentment, and it was not to be expected that, after what had passed, there could be much interval of irritation between him and the English. They had roused Hyder as a lion is roused from his den, and he had made them feel his power. They would naturally look on his son with suspicion, and Tippoo had been taught to regard them as "the most faithless and usurping of mankind." Whatever, therefore, may be said for or against him, on the breaking out of the second war with him, the original growth of hostility between the British and the Mysorean monarchs, must be charged to the former, and in the case of the last war, there appears to have been no real breach of treaty on the part of Tippoo. He had been severely punished for any act of irritation which he might have committed against any of the British allies, by the reduction of his capital, the surrender of his sons as hostages, and the stripping away of one half of his territories to be divided amongst his enemies, each of whom had enriched himself with half a million sterling of annual revenue at his expense. ippoo must have been nothing less than a madman in his shattered condition, and with his past experience, to have lightly ventured on hostilities with the English. But it was charged on him that he was seeking ah alliance with the French. What then? He had the clearest right so to do. So long as he maintained the terms of his treaty, the English had no just right to violate theirs towards him. The French were his ancient and hereditary friends. Tippoo persisted to the last that he had done nothing to warrant an attack upon him; but Lord Mornington had adopted his notions about consolidating the British power in India, and every possible circumstance, or suspicion of a circumstance, was to be seized upon as a plea for carrying his plans into effect. It was enough that a fear might be entertained of Tippoo's designs. It became good policy to get the start; and when once that forestalling system in hostilities, that outstripping in the race of mischief, is adopted, there is no possible violence nor enormity which may not be undertaken, or defended upon it. Tippoo was assailed by the British, and their ally the Nizam; and though he again and again protested his innocence, again and again asked for peace, he was pursued to his capital, and killed bravely defending it. His territories were divided amongst those who had divided the former half of them in like manner, the English, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas, with a little state appropriated to a puppet-rajah. Thus did the English shew what they would do to those who dared to decline their protection. Thus did they pursue, beat down, and destroy with all their mighty resources an independent prince, whose whole revenue, after their first partition of his realm, did not much exceed a million sterling. We have heard a vast deal in Europe of the partition of Poland, but how much better was the forcible dismemberment of Mysore? The injury of this dismemberment of his kingdom is, however, not the least heaped upon Tippoo. On his name have been heaped all the odious crimes that make us hate the worst of tyrants. Cruelty, perfidy, low cunning, and all kinds of baseness, make up the idea of Tippoo which we have derived from those who profited by his destruction. But what say the most candid historians? "That the accounts which we have received from our countrymen, who dreaded and feared him, are marked with exaggeration, is proved by this circumstance, that his servants adhered to him with a fidelity which those of few princes in any age or country have displayed. Of his cruelty we have heard the more, because our own countrymen were amongst the victims of it. But it is to be observed, that unless in certain instances, the proof of which cannot be regarded as better than doubtful, their sufferings, however intense, were only the sufferings of a very rigorous imprisonment, of which, considering the manner in which it is lavished upon them by their own laws, Englishmen ought not to be very forward to complain. At that very time, in the dungeons of Madras or Calcutta, it is probable that unhappy sufferers were enduring calamities for debts of 100l., not less atrocious than those which Tippoo, a prince born and educated in a barbarous country, and ruling over a barbarous people, inflicted upon imprisoned enemies, part of a nation, who, by the evils they had brought upon him, exasperated him almost to frenzy, and whom he regarded as the enemies both of God and man. Besides, there is among the papers relating to the intercourse of Tippoo with the French, a remarkable proof of his humanity, which, when these papers are ransacked for matters to criminate him, ought not to be suppressed. In a draught of conditions on which he desired to form a treaty with them, these are the words of a distinct article:—'I demand that male and female prisoners, as well English as Portuguese, who shall be taken by the republican troops, or by mine, shall be treated with humanity; and, with regard to their persons, that they shall (their property becoming the right of the allies) be transported, at our joint expense, out of India, to places far distant from the territories of the allies.'
"Another feature in the character of Tippoo was his religion, with a sense of which his mind was most deeply impressed. He spent a considerable part of every day in prayer. He gave to his kingdom a particular religious title, Cudadad, or God-given; and he lived under a peculiarly strong and operative conviction of the superintendence of a Divine Providence. To one of his French advisers, who urged him zealously to obtain the support of the Mahrattas, he replied, 'I rely solely on Providence, expecting that I shall be alone and unsupported; but God and my courage will accomplish everything.' …. He had the discernment to perceive, what is so generally hid from the eyes of rulers in a more enlightened state of society, that it is the prosperity of those who labour with their hands which constitutes the principle and cause of the prosperity of states. He therefore made it his business to protect them against the intermediate orders of the community, by whom it is so difficult to prevent them from being oppressed. His country was, accordingly, at least during the first and better part of his reign, the best cultivated, and his population the most flourishing, in India: while under the English and their pageants, the population of Carnatic and Oude, hastening to the state of deserts, was the most wretched upon the face of the earth; and even Bengal itself, under the operations of laws ill adapted to their circumstances, was suffering almost all the evils which the worst of governments could inflict… For an eastern prince he was full of knowledge. His mind was active, acute, and ingenious. But in the value which he set upon objects, whether as means, or as an end, he was almost perpetually deceived. Besides, a conviction appears to have been rooted in his mind that the English had now formed a resolution to deprive him of his kingdom, and that it was useless to negotiate, because no submission to which he could reconcile his mind, would restrain them in the gratification of their ambitious designs."—Mills.
Tippoo was right. The great design of the English, from their first secure footing in India, was to establish their control over the whole Peninsula. The French created them the most serious alarm in the progress of their career towards this object; and any native state which shewed more than ordinary energy, excited a similar feeling. For this purpose all the might of British power and policy was exerted to expel these European rivals, and to crush such more active states. The administration of the Marquis Wellesley was the exhibition of this system full blown. Tor this, all the campaigns against Holkar and Scindia; the wars from north to south, and from east to west of India, were undertaken; and blood was made to flow, and debts to accumulate to a degree most monstrous. Yet the admiration of this system of policy in England has shewn how little human life and human welfare, even to this day, weigh in the scale against dominion and avarice. We hear nothing of the horrors and violence we have perpetrated, from the first invasion of Bengal, to those of Nepaul and Burmah; we have only eulogies on the empire achieved:—"See what a splendid empire we have won!" True,—there is no objection to the empire, if we could only forget the means by which it has been created. But amid all this subtle and crooked policy—this creeping into power under the colour of allies—this extortion and plunder of princes, under the name of protection—this forcible subjection and expatriation of others, we look in vain for the generous policy of the Christian merchant, and the Christian statesman.[8] The moderation of a Teignmouth, a Cornwallis, or a Bentinck, is deemed mere pusillanimity. Those divine maxims of peace and union which Christianity would disseminate amongst the natives of the countries that we visit, are condemned as the very obstacles to the growth of our power. When we exclaim, "what might not Englishmen have done in India had they endeavoured to pacify and enlighten, instead of to exact and destroy?" we are answered by a smile, which informs us that these are but romantic notions,—that the only wisdom is to get rich!
- ↑ Mills's Hist, of British India, i. 74. Bruce, iii. 78.
- ↑ According to Orme, 2,750,000l.
- ↑ Tanjore Papers. Mills' History.
- ↑ Governor-general's own Narrative. Second Report of Select Committee, 1781.
- ↑ Fifth Parliamentary Report.—Appendix, No. 21.
- ↑ Mills, ii. 624.
- ↑ Mills, ii. 480.
- ↑ Sir Thomas Roe was sent in 1614, on an embassy to the Great Mogul. In his letters to the Company, he strongly advised them against the expensive ambition of acquiring territory. He tells them, "It is greater than trade can bear; for to maintain a garrison will cut out your profit: a war and traffic are incompatible. The Portuguese, notwithstanding their many rich residences, are beggared by keeping of soldiers: and yet their garrisons are but mean. They never made advantage of the Indies since they defended them;—observe this well. It has also been the error of the Dutch, who seek plantations here by the sword. They turn a wonderful stock; they prowl in all places; they possess some of the best: yet their dead pays consume all the gain. Let this be received as a rule, that if you will profit, seek it at sea, and in quiet trade: for without controversy, it is an error to affect garrisons, and land-wars in India."
Had Sir Thomas been inspired, could he have been a truer prophet? The East India Company, after fighting and conquering in India for two centuries, have found themselves, at the dissolution of their charter, nearly fifty millions in debt; while their trade with China, a country in which they did not possess a foot of land, had become the richest commerce in the world! The article of tea alone returning between three and four millions annually, and was their sole preventive against bankruptcy. Can, indeed, any colonial acquisition be pointed out that is not a loss to the parent state?