CAWNPOBE.
2
By the treaty of Fyzabad, in 1775, the East Indian Company engaged to maintain a brigade for the defence of Oude. The revenues of a rich and extensive tract of country were appointed for the maintenance of this force, which was quartered at Cawnpore, the principal town of the district. In 1801, Lord Wellesley, who loved to carry matters with a masterful hand, closed the mortgage, and the territory lapsed to the Company, who accepted this new charge with some diffidence. Indeed, they were not a little uneasy at the splendid rapacity of their high-souled servant. No one understood better than he the full meaning of the finest lines of that poet whose graceful diction none like
himself could imitate:—
- “ Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento :
- “ Use tibi erunt artes : pacisque imponere morem;
- “ Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.”
But that policy which suited the temper of the Senate of old Rome was not exactly of a nature to please the Directors of a Joint Stock Company. It was very well for statesmen and generals to look for their reward in the pages of history. It behoved City men to keep an eye on the fluctuations of the Share list.
Thus it happened that, ever since the beginning of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Cawnpore
