The Calcutta Review/Series 1/Number 1/Article 2
Art. II.—Memoir of the Life and Correspondence of John Lord Teignmouth; by his Son, Lord Teignmouth, 2 vols. London, 1843.
This is not a very amusing book—neither has it any claim to be regarded as a literary performance of distinguished merit. But it is the biography of a truly good man, and is thickly interspersed with letters from the pen of a gentleman, a scholar, and a christian. The author, indeed, in the volumes before us, does not play a conspicuous part. The duty which has devolved upon him, he has performed with much modesty and good taste; neither seeking to shine in his own person, nor to exaggerate the virtues of his father. In this very forbearance lie the principal imperfections of the work. The biographer has left his father’s letters to tell the history of his father’s life, and relying too much on the sufficiency of these self-expository documents, he has suffered the narrative, at certain points, to be more indistinct than is convenient to the general reader. The student of Indian History may be satisfied with what he finds; for from his own stores of knowledge he can supply all deficiencies; but we cannot flatter ourselves that the important events which occurred in this country during the last thirty years of the by-gone century, are sufficiently familiar to the ordinary reader, to render nugatory the work of filling up the picture, when the portrait of an Indian worthy has been sketched. It is not safe to rely upon the general knowledge of Indian affairs. Even on the spot, but too many are ignorant of events, which came to pass antecedent to their own times; and in England, whilst it is held inexcusable in an educated man not to be familiar with the histories of Greece, of Rome, of Modern Europe, of British and Spanish America, and of remote Islands with which England has had little concern, there are few, who do not consider themselves privileged to possess their minds in gross and entire ignorance of the history of the British conquests in the East.[1] The proceedings of the French in Saint Domingo are more familiar to the majority, than the proceedings of the English in the Dooab or the Carnatic. Had the present Lord Teignmouth entertained no higher opinion than ourselves of the wealth of his countrymen, in this item of Indian history, his work would have been a more complete history of the political life of his justly revered father. As a personal memoir, it is all that the reader can desire.
John Shore was born in London, on the 8th of October, 1751. His father, who belonged to a family of some consideration in Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/54 Directors of the present day contrive as skilfully as their predecessors, a writership had been set aside for young Shore, shortly after the death of his father. He was now old enough to avail himself of the appointment; but as it was necessary, before entering on his duties, that he should acquire a smattering of book-keeping and accounts, he was placed at a commercial school at Hoxton—“an obscure seminary,” which, however, contained, at that time, among its students, another embryo Governor-General of India—the Marquis of Hastings, then Lord Rawdon. We think that the name of the master of the obscure seminary, which had the luck, if not the merit, of sending forth two such men as Lord Teignmouth and Lord Hastings, might have been recorded in the biography of the former.
After passing nine months at the Hoxton academy, and acquiring, in addition to a practical knowledge of Arithmetic, some acquaintance with the French and Portuguese languages, young Shore embarked for India. The Captain of his ship was a strange, uncouth, superstitious animal (not wanting altogether in a certain rough goodness) who was in the habit of rapping out oaths and prayers by turns, observing “Let us rub off as we go.” His companions, a wild crew of writers and cadets, were more disorderly and quarrelsome than was agreeable to a studious, contemplative youth, who was forced to make one of their number. The young writer of the present day, with his light and airy awning cabin, fitted up in the best style of Maynard or Silver, turns sick at the very thought of the “great cabin,” which the “cadets and writers used promiscuously,” in the old times, swinging their hammocks together as gregariously as a regiment of soldiers. Shore was fain to seek every now and then a little quiet in the cabin of the second mate—a privilege which he greatly enjoyed; and, at other times, to avail himself of a similar license, allowed to him by a Mr. Hancock, a fellow passenger, who, with a penetration as creditable to his judgment, as his kindness to his heart, espied the sterling worth of the young writer, took him by the hand, and proved to him a real and serviceable friend.
The vessel on which Shore embarked, reached Madras in May 1769. From this place he wrote to his mother, that he had been “very healthy and very happy” throughout the passage; and that the weather, though very hot, did not disagree with him; but it would seem that, in this latter respect, he was greatly mistaken, for he arrived at Bengal, in such a critical state, that his immediate dissolution was confidently anticipated. He recovered; but from that time to the period, nearly thirty years afterwards, when he finally quitted India, he appears to have Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/56 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/57 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/58 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/59 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/60 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/61 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/62 had the good sense to avail himself largely of Shore’s extensive acquaintance with Revenue matters, and that much of the new plan was the growth of the civilian’s enlarged experience. His local knowledge was far greater than that possessed by the Governor-General. He was unquestionably the best Revenue Officer in the country; and there were few Europeans, at that time, with a deeper insight into the native character. With a wise modesty, however, he acknowledged the insufficiency of his information; and whilst Cornwallis, with greater boldness and less sagacity, maintained that their acquaintance with the character and institutions of the people was both ample and accurate enough to warrant the substitution of the new Revenue system, as a permanent arrangement, for that which had so long obtained in the country, Shore, whilst he approved of the new settlement, protested against the Governor-General’s proposal to render it, at once, a permanent one. He contended, that it would be advisable, in the first instance, to ascertain how the new scheme would work; that if during the ten years of probation, which he desired, in limine, to assign to it, the experiment realised the expectations that had been formed of it, it might then, without any misgivings, be merged into a permanent settlement. Cornwallis did not deny, that what Shore advanced was reasonable, and worthy of consideration. But he could not be brought to give his consent to a measure, which might, and probably would, lead to the entire subversion of a scheme, which it had cost him so much to mature. He urged, that though he sufficiently relied on the favorable result of the experiment,[2] and was willing, therefore to put it to the test, he had no security against the opposition which party or prejudice might throw in his way, before the expiry of the decennial period of probation; that new men during that period might succeed, with new principles and new prejudices, to the helm of Government, and that the scheme, therefore, stood but little chance of a fair ten years’ trial, on its own merits. There was nothing unreasonable in these expectations: but a question may be raised as to whether Cornwallis were justified in presuming upon these expectations to the extent of imposing upon millions of his fellow-creatures a new and untried fiscal law, based upon information, which many men of judgment and experience pronounced to be insufficient. Instead of avoiding the greater danger, it appears to us, that he avoided the lesser. Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/64 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/65 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/66 But some writers assert, that it was weak—that the non-interference system was carried out to the very verge of imbecility; and that the measures thus characterised had not honesty and justice to recommend them. Let us look into the actual circumstances of the case.—The British Government had, in 1790, entered into a tripartite treaty with the Nizam and the Mahrattas, the object of which was, mutual protection against the hostilities of Tippoo. It was stipulated, that in the event of this powerful and ambitious Prince unjustly attacking any one of the allies, the other two should be bound to assist the party assailed to repel the aggressor. By the provisions of such a treaty it is obvious, that had Tippoo made an attack upon the territories of the Nizam, the Governor-General and the Mahrattas would have been bound to send a force to assist him; but it so happened that, early in 1794, a few months after Sir John Shore had taken the reins of Government into his hand, our two allies, who had long regarded each other with jealousy and mistrust, began to quarrel openly with one another; and the weaker, who was in reality the aggressor, besought the intervention of the British. The Nizam, whose empire was in a state of gradual, but certain, decay, was sufficiently infatuated to provoke the hostilities of his more powerful neighbours; and as it was subsequently alleged, that the Mahrattas had called in the aid of Tippoo, our interference was claimed in accordance with the provisions of the tripartite treaty. Now, the question is, whether, under these circumstances, Sir John Shore was bound to make a conditional promise of British co-operation. With the disputes between the Nizam and the Mahrattas, it was obviously no part of his duty to interfere, save as a friendly mediator; but the cause of the formation of the tripartite treaty having been a sort of general Tippoo-phobia, and the object thereof to arrest the ambition of the Sultan, which threatened destruction to every other power in Hindostan, it is urged, and not without considerable shew of truth, that the Nizam, having reason to apprehend danger from the designs of Tippoo, was justly entitled to our protection. At a first glance, this would appear to be a plain and undeniable truism; but a little consideration will, we think, in every unprejudiced mind, lead to an opposite conviction. The convention, by which it is alleged the British Government were bound, was a triple convention. So long as the three parties co-operated in good faith, it was calculated to answer the ends for which it was designed; but upon the secession of any one party, or, at all events, upon the secession of either of the two more powerful parties, it became, for all practical purposes, a mere nullity. The treaty itself was loose and insufficient; there was no provision against the contingency that had arisen; and in the absence of such a provision, it appears to us to have been the duty of the contracting parties, to consider well the spirit and intent of the covenant, into which they had entered. Now, it is undeniable, that by the secession of one of the contracting parties, the intent of the treaty was altogether vitiated; that a new and unexpected conjuncture had arisen, and entirely altered the position and the relations of the remaining two. The treaty was entered into as a tripartite treaty—formed on the supposition, that a junction of the three powers would have furnished mutual protection, under any combination of circumstances; but now only two parties remained, and the third had not only seceded from his allies, but had leagued himself with the very enemy, to resist whose encroachments the alliance had been formed. The Nizam might urge, that the defection of one could not dissolve the obligations of the remaining two; but the answer to this is sufficiently plain. The British Government reply, that they would never have dreamt of entering into such an alliance with the Nizam alone; that the Nizam was entitled to the fulfilment of the treaty as one of three, not as one of two; because it was only on the understanding, that there were to be three parties to it, that the treaty was entered into at all. If three men undertake to carry between them a certain burthen from one point to another, under the impression, that the united strength of the three is equal to the task undertaken; and one unexpectedly secedes from the engagement, it does not appear to us, that the remaining two are under any obligation to each other to go on with the work; still less do they continue under this obligation, if the third and recusant party, seats himself on the top of the burthen, and doubling its weight, insists upon being carried too. If the British, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas, supposing them to be equal powers, were jointly a match for Tippoo Sultan, it is obvious that Tippoo, when joined by the Mahrattas, was twice as strong as the British and the Nizam. But the three powers were not equal: for the Nizam was incomparably the weakest; and no treaty, based upon principles of reciprocity, could have existed between this decaying state and the British Government in its growing vigor. To have compelled the latter, after the secession of the Mahrattas, to assist the Nizam in the field, would have been to compel it to enter into and act up to a new and never-contemplated agreement; to co-operate not with the ally, nor against the enemy contemplated in the existing treaty, but with an ally doubly weak, against an enemy doubly strong. Would this have been just? We think not. Even Sir John Malcolm, the most strenuous opponent of the non-interference policy, which the Governor-General thought it right, under these circumstances, to favor, could scarcely have had the hardihood to maintain, that if the secession of the Mahrattas had been contemplated, the treaty would have been formed; that if the Mahrattas had previously shown themselves friendly to Tippoo and hostile to the Nizam, the British Government would have leagued themselves with the latter, under the certainty of being immediately called upon to send a force to co-operate with our ally against the combined armies of the Mahrattas and Sultan. In all doubtful cases, where a treaty contains no specific provision against a subsequent contingency, it is reasonable and just to interpret it in the spirit in which it was formed, and with due regard to the obvious intents and purposes of the alliance. This was the course adopted by Sir John Shore; and we are satisfied of its propriety.
Being convinced of the justice of the Governor-General’s policy, we need not much concern ourselves regarding any sub-ordinate considerations. We so firmly believe that what is just will never ultimately prove inexpedient; that having established the justice of any political measure, we feel it in our hearts to be a mere work of supererogation to combat the objections of the expediency-mongers. But as many are unwilling to acknowledge this truth, it may be advisable to meet the objections on common grounds, especially as some of them assume a higher tone than is characteristic of the class.
Our position in India was not then what it is now: the superiority of the British power in the field was not, as in these days, an admitted and unquestionable fact. When we declare war, or, as is more fashionable in these days, when we make war without declaring it, against any native state, the result is no longer doubtful. We have systematised victory—reduced the issue of the contest to a certainty, as far as certainty can attend upon human affairs; and are never deterred by considerations of the strength of our enemies, from undertaking any military operations, which, in themselves, appear to be advisable. The state of affairs was widely different during the administration of Sir John Shore. Tippoo was still powerful—still dreaded. We had curbed, and by curbing we had exasperated him. His hatred was more intense—his desire to expel us from the country more insatiable, than at the commencement of the last war; and his power was but little diminished. Alone, he was still a formidable foe; leagued with the Mahrattas he was greatly to be dreaded by men not prone to magnify danger. Sir John Shore was no alarmist; but he deemed that a war with the combined powers of the Sultan and the Mahrattas was, at such a time, of too dangerous a character to be lightly undertaken. The secret history of the Governor-General’s misgivings may be found in one of his letters to Lord Cornwallis. There was no one to whom he could have safely entrusted the conduct of such a war. Sir Robert Abercrombie was then Commander-in-chief. He was a man of the strictest honor; the most unimpeachable integrity; the most assiduous zeal; his personal character was worthy of all possible regard, and by no one were the high qualities of his nature more appreciated than by the Governor-General. But a very excellent man may be a very indifferent General. Abercrombie, whatever may have been his abilities, was not equal to such a crisis; and the Governor-General, though his forbearance was the growth of higher motives, could not but see the danger of entrusting to any but an officer of approved character in the field, the conduct of a war against two such armies as those of the Sultan and the Mahrattas.
But Sir John Malcolm asserts, with no little confidence, that if the British Government had arrayed itself by the side of the Nizam, it would have protected its ally, without incurring the hazard of a war. This is the merest conjecture. The assumption that our very name is sufficient to strike terror into the hearts of our enemies is, at all times, a vain and a dangerous one. Fifty years of conquest—of ever-extending empire in the East, has not rendered it less vain or less dangerous. As we write, the wounds inflicted by an enemy, whom it was thought our very name would over-awe, are scarcely yet cicatrized. To presume upon the forbearance of our enemies, or on the effect to be produced upon them by our very name, may be excusable in a controversial historian, whose begging of the question can but, at the worst, betray a handful of his more shallow readers into erroneous conclusions; but not in a statesman, with vast power and vast responsibility, bound to proceed upon no vain assumptions—upon no wild speculations and conjectures, The man who would play at such a game of chances, is a gamester, and not a statesman. But this argument is really too preposterous to require a more extended notice.
There is another of a more general character, which, from its particular application to the present case, seems to demand a brief consideration. It has been alleged, that the policy of Sir John Shore was distinguished by short-sightedness; that the non-interference system, pursued for a brief season, was calculated to render necessary future interferences of a more serious and extensive nature; that interposition, sooner or later, was inevitable, and that by adopting vigorous measures, at an earlier stage, he might have prevented the subsequent occurrence of a far more sanguinary conflict, than could have resulted from these measures. This is a common argument, often employed to justify acts of enormous wrong-doing. It is impossible to conceive any political doctrine more susceptible of flagitious abuse. It is in itself a moral enormity; and viewing it with the eyes of the merest worldly wisdom, utterly unsound. We are not to do evil that good may come of it; we are not to make war in order to maintain peace. The expedient we know to be wrong; we believe it to be equally futile. We believe that a little war is much more likely to induce, than to prevent, a great one—that one war more frequently leads to another, than is productive of a general peace. A vast flood of casuistry has been poured out in defence of this expedient; but the page of history contains a complete refutation of this most sophistical doctrine—a doctrine, which is ever ready to the hands of selfishness and ambition; cruelty and oppression; to be paraded in defence of measures, whose wickedness cannot bear the light.
Sir John Shore was not selfish; was not ambitious.—He regarded war, though decorated with red ribbands and silver stars, as a prodigious evil. He thought that an earldom would be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of a hundred lives; and could not even be tempted by the fascinations of an Extraordinary Gazette in perspective, to make war, except upon compulsion. He believed, too, that he was bound, in some small degree, to act up to his own avowed principles; and to regard, not only the spirit of the Charter act,[3] but the instructions of the superior authorities at home. He was of opinion, moreover, that the Government of the country was more beneficially employed in devising means for its internal improvement, than in seeking occasions for foreign wars; and that it was more expedient to replenish the Treasury of India than to exhaust it. The general feeling of the people of England was in favor of pacific measures. The further extension of our Indian Empire, supposed to be already overgrown, was looked upon as a peril to be studiously avoided; the clamor raised against our conquests in the East had been, for some time, loud and unceasing; one of the strongest and most popular points of the new India Bill was that which proposed a remedy for this growing lust of dominion, by rendering the Governor-General personally responsible, for all such acts of hostility towards, and interference with, the Native Princes of India. Sir John Shore had been selected to fill the highest station in the country, solely on account of his pacific character and his knowledge of the details of internal administration. Many abler men might have been found, as war-ministers; more dashing, more “vigorous” characteristics might have been discerned in scores of ministerial protegés, eager to leap into a salary of £25,000 per annum, and, if necessary, to fold up their consciences with their great-coats; scores of men of political all-work, ready to turn their hands to the annexation of Provinces, the over-turning of dynasties, the making and the unmaking of nabobs. But the choice fell upon Shore, a civil servant of the Company, with no powerful interest, no family connexions, and no other reputation to commend him, than great ability and experience as a Revenue officer, and sterling integrity of character as a man. Had the person, thus selected to fill the office of Governor-General, shown himself prone to war, he would have betrayed the confidence reposed in him; he would have violated the implied contract with his employers, which men of honor deem as sacred as any registered on parchment and ratified by an oath; he would have shown himself utterly unworthy of holding the high and responsible office, which his merits as a just and peaceful statesman had attained.
Such being the opinions and such the nature of the Governor-General, it is not strange, in spite of the censures which have been passed upon his forbearance, that he limited his Mysore policy to the observance of the treaty of Seringapatam. His arrangement of the Oude succession has been also censured; but it was not of more questionable character. Justice and policy were both on his side.
When Sir John Shore assumed the reins of Government, the condition of this unhappy country was such as to excite the pity and alarm of every friend of humanity. It was suffering under the effects of a double Government. The Political and Military government was in the hands of the Company; the internal administration of the Oude territories still rested with the Nabob Vizier. Disorder of every kind ran riot over the whole length and breadth of the land. Never were the evils of misrule more horribly apparent; never were the vices of an indolent and rapacious Government productive of a greater sum of misery. The extravagance and profligacy of the court were written in hideous characters on the desolated face of the country. It was left to the Nabob’s Government to dispense justice: justice was not dispensed. It was left to the Nabob’s Government to collect the revenue; the people were ground down to the dust. It was left to the Nabob’s Government to coerce the subjects of the state; coercion was but another name for cruelty and extortion. The court was sumptuous and profligate; the people poor and wretched. The expenses of the household were enormous;—hundreds of richly-caparisoned useless elephants; a multitudinous throng of unserviceable attendants; bands of dancing girls; flocks of parasites; costly feasts and ceremonies; folly and pomp and profligacy of every conceivable description, drained the coffers of the state. A vicious and extravagant Government soon beget a poor and a suffering people; a poor and a suffering people, in turn, beget a bankrupt Government. The process of retaliation is sure. To support the lavish expenditure of the court, the mass of the people were persecuted and outraged. The revenue was collected by force. The rapacity of the Aumils was monstrous; and the better to aid this rapacity, bands of armed mercenaries were let loose upon the miserable ryots. Under such a system of cruelty and extortion, the country soon became a desert. It had been drained for the sustenance of the vicious luxury of the court; there were no more golden eggs to be gathered; for the vital principle, which generated them, had been forcibly annihilated; and the Government learnt by hard experience, that the prosperity of the people is the only true source of wealth. But the decrease of the Revenue was not accompanied by a corresponding diminution of the profligate expenditure of the court. The evil was met by another evil. Recourse was had to a destructive loan-system. An enormous and accumulating debt was incurred; and the country was on the verge of ruin. Lord Cornwallis had, with manly energy and an honesty and humanity characteristic of all his actions, remonstrated in forcible Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/74 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/75 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/76 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/77 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/78 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/79 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/80 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/81 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/82 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/83 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/84 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/85 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/86 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/87 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/88 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/89 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/90 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/91 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/92 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/93 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/94 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/95 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/96 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/97 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/98 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/99 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/100 subjects—but the goodness of God was his favorite theme. He was ready and equipped for his last journey. His much-loved friend Wilberforce had “gone before;” and he was prepared to follow. The new year found him on the bed of death—thankful, hopeful, resigned; and on the 14th of February, the anniversary of his marriage, this good man fell asleep in Jesus.
It is impossible too highly to estimate the character of such a man as Lord Teignmouth. Characters of this stamp are so rare in their growth, that they should be appreciated for their very rarity. But the world is scantily endowed with this faculty of rightful appreciation. The outer show of meretricious, delusive ornament attracts and dazzles the vulgar eye. Tinsel is not difficult to comprehend; it is intelligible to the scrubbiest boy in the shilling gallery. The stunning noise of drums and of cymbals demands no greater effort of the understanding—no greater nicety of perception. The more common qualities of our nature, the vain, the showy, the superficial, are those which are necessarily best appreciated by a vain, a showy, a superficial world. A battle, a proclamation, a noisy speech—these are things, which, in the vulgar mind, make men great and admirable. Conventional greatness, like stage kings, must wear a glittering crown and be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. Simple, inornate beauty the multitude has not an eye to see, nor faculties to comprehend. The Æthiopians of old chose their kings from the men of the grandest stature; he who loomed the largest, Herodotus tells us, was made Basileus without more trouble. The hero-worship of the multitude is regulated by an equally intelligible standard. Let there be only noise enough and parade enough; let something be done to startle and surprise—be it right or be it wrong, no matter—let some great change be effected for better or for worse, with a loud explosion—and the world have a hero to applaud. For the man, who exerts himself quietly and unostentatiously, to preserve peace and to promote a people’s prosperity by acts of noiseless benevolence, whilst in his own person he sets an example of well-doing, more glorious than the planting of the ensign in the deadly breach, there is no hope—not the skeleton of a hope; he must content himself with being thought a man; he will never be promoted to a hero. Lord Teignmouth, in the eyes of the world, was no hero. Even grave historians, making a sort of dim show of philosophy, have set him down in the chronicle as a very poor creature—a mere thing of mediocrity, common-place to very mawkishness. But how stands the case in the plain, simple, garb of truth? The qualities which Sir John Shore exhibited as a Statesman, were the very antipodes of common-place. As Governor-General he possessed vast power, which he never once abused. He never, on one solitary occasion, turned his thoughts towards self-aggrandisement; nor suffered any vain or selfish motive to influence his public acts. He was as little ambitious as he was corrupt; but his moderation is no more to be attributed to any want of ability to pursue more vigorous “measures,” than his integrity to any freedom from the influence of besetting temptations. Few men lack the ability to do mischief. Sir John Shore certainly did not. It would have been easy to have followed the course—an essentially common-place course as it was—the course that had been followed to such an exorbitant extent, that it was necessary to limit it by an Act of Parliament;—nothing easier than to meddle and interfere, to pick quarrels, and to order great battles to be fought. There is a natural propensity in human nature—in statesman-nature more especially—to meddle with other people’s affairs, and to quarrel for the mere love of strife. The veriest dolt can order a battle to be fought;—merit is there none in ordering it. Our Governors have shown, in later days, how very little capacity it requires to bring about a vast effusion of blood. This blood-shedding is, of all attributes, the most common-place. It may be vanity, or it may be intemperance, or it may be ignorance, or it may be indolence; but to one or other of these by no means uncommon qualities, or, perchance, to a hideous combination of all, is to be assigned the paternity of well nigh every war, with its human sacrifices steaming up to Heaven. We should shout with very joy at the discovery—a discovery reserved for some remote Millennian age, when meekness shall be the characteristic of the tiger and abstinence of the wolf,—that moderation in Statesmen is a common-place virtue. Sir John Shore was not a common-place Statesman, because he was a moderate one.
It has been said, that though an excellent man, he was out of his place at the head of the Government of India. If it be necessary for an Indian Statesman, in order to show that he is in his place, to emulate the heartless rapacity of other Governors-General—if it be necessary, in order to show that he is in his place, to juggle and defraud—to outrage and to tyrannise—to trample beneath his feet every consideration of virtue and of honor;—if it be necessary, in order to show that he is in his place, to exhibit, on every occasion, a reckless courage, that dares do more than becomes a man—a disregard of human suffering—a contempt of human laws—a fearlessness of responsibility to God and man;—if it be necessary to do these things, in order to show that he is in his place, then must we admit, that Sir John Shore was not in his place as Governor-General. Still, whilst we acknowledge that he was weak enough to be virtuous, a virtuous Governor-General now and then is not wholly without his uses. The life of Lord Teignmouth may be read with profit, not to be gleaned from histories of Clive and Hastings, by men who speak scorn of him, and say, that he was a poor creature. It will there be seen by these scorners how a man, with nothing to recommend him but his undeviating virtue, attained an eminence in the political world, which was vainly aspired after by many of the most brilliant men of a peculiarly brilliant age. The lesson, perhaps, is rendered all the more instructive by the denial of Shore’s abilities as a Statesman. If he possessed no abilities as a Statesman, the triumph of virtue is the more conspicuous. Shore had no family connexions; no political interest; he paid no court to men in authority; he sought neither place nor power. When the Governor-Generalship was offered to him by a Ministry certainly not wanting in ability, nor wont to do foolish things, it was most reluctantly accepted. The greatness was thrust upon him, and why?—Because, in the opinions of Pitt and Dundas, he was the fittest man in the kingdom to exercise the vast powers of the Governor-Generalship of India.
Of his administration, it ought to be sufficient to assert, that it was approved by the Company, the ministry and the People. A Governor-General is not sent out to India to follow the guidance of his own lusts; to play the autocrat without regard to the principles of those from whom he derives his mission. Sir John Shore was appointed Governor-General under a new Charter, which was framed in accordance with the spirit of the times and the wishes of the people. He came to India, believing that the Act of the Legislature was intended to be observed and not to be disregarded by him; that as representative of the British interests in the East, it was his duty not to violate the Acts of the British Parliament, or to set at nought the desires of the British people. If the system of non-interference with independent states, pursued during Sir John Shore’s administration, had a tendency to weaken our hold of India, by giving strength to our enemies, by enabling them to increase their resources and to concentrate their energies to an extent injurious to our security, the fault must be laid at the door of the Parliament, and, therefore, of the people of Great Britain, from whom that system emanated. A Governor-General is no more chargeable with the errors of the Legislature, than a Judge with the defects of the laws which he administers. By virtue of the Act of the Legislature, he holds his authority; and to the provisions of that Act he is bound to adhere. It is no part of our business to enquire how far the Act was a wise or an unwise one; our opinions on the subject may, perhaps, be derived from the general tenour of this article; but so long as that Act existed, the Governor-General was bound to take it as his rule of conduct—bound not to suffer any motives of personal ambition, or any feeling of arrogance and impatience, to mislead him from the plain path of duty, as marked out by the Legislature of Great Britain. If there were nothing else to be alleged in favour of Sir John Shore’s moderation, it would be sufficient to declare, that this moderation was prescribed by the Parliament of the country; that the Charter-Act, from which he derived his authority, expressly inculcated a close adherence to the system of non-interference, which he made the rule of his political conduct.
Of his character as a man, but one opinion can be entertained. At a time, when to be corrupt was only to be like one’s neighbours, he preserved, in poverty and privation, the most inflexible integrity. Ere religion had touched his heart, he was an upright and a virtuous man; but it was beneath the warm sunlight of Christianity that his character expanded into the fulness of life and beauty. His patience, his humility, his dependence upon God, are beyond such praise as we are capable of bestowing. His talents, which were of a high order, he rendered subservient to his Christian principles; he had no ambition to shine; his sole desire was to be useful; and he turned aside from every temptation to distinguish himself at the cost of one conscientious scruple. There are men who make themselves up to dazzle, as there are women who make themselves up to charm—men who would rather tell a lie, than spoil a sentence; rather violate a principle, than miss a point; rather destroy the happiness of thousands, than lose an opportunity of doing a brilliant thing. Lord Teignmouth was not one of these. At the summons of his country, he conceived that he was bound to do his duty in the state of life into which God had called him, at the sacrifice of his own personal happiness. But though he could bring himself to sacrifice his ease and comfort, to abandon the joys of home and the pleasure of domestic life, he could, on no account, sacrifice once tittle of those high principles, which glowed in his breast, and rendered him a Christian ruler not merely in name. When his work was done, though scarcely advanced in his pilgrimage more than mid-way between the threshold and the bourne, he retired into private life, as a man who deemed it a higher privilege to walk humbly with his God, than to sway the poliPage:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/105
- ↑ There is a remark somewhat similar to this, though of a less general character, in one of Mr. Macaulay’s Essays; and, most probably, in other works. It is neither new nor striking, but it cannot be too often repeated.
- ↑ Cornwallis’s favorite argument in defence of the perennial settlement was, that it would render the Zemindars more anxious to improve the soil. It was on this ground, that he always opposed a regular decennial settlement. Events, however, proved, that the argument was wholly fallacious.
- ↑ The wording of it, too, was sufficiently precise—The 42d clause ran as follows:—“And forasmuch as to pursue Schemes of Conquest and Extension of Dominion in India are Measures repugnant to the Wish, the Honor, and Policy of this Nation. Be it further enacted, That it shall not be lawful for the Governor-General in Council of Fort William aforesaid, without the express Command and Authority of the said Court of Directors, or of the said Secret Committee by the Authority of the said Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, in any Case (except where Hostilities, have actually been commenced, or Preparations actually made for the commencement of Hostilities, against the British Nation in India, or against some of the Princes or States dependant thereon, or whose Territories the said United Company shall be at such Time engaged by any subsisting Treaty to defend or guarantee) either to declare War or commence Hostilities, or enter into any Treaty for making War against any of the Country Princes or States in India, or any Treaty for guaranteeing the Possessions of any Country Princes or States; and that in any such Case it shall not be lawful for the said Governor-General and Council to declare War or to commence Hostilities, or to enter into any Treaty for making War against any other Prince or State, than such as shall be actually committing Hostilities, or making Preparations as aforesaid, or to make such Treaty for guaranteeing the Possessions of any Prince or State, but upon the Consideration of such Prince or State actually engaging to assist the Company against such Hostilities commenced, or Preparations made as aforesaid; and in all Cases where Hostilities shall be commenced, or Treaty made, the said Governor-General and Council shall, by the most expeditious Means they can devise, communicate the same unto the said Court of Directors, or to the said Secret Committee, together with a full State of the Information and Intelligence upon which they shall have commenced such Hostilities, or made such Treaties, and their Motives and Reasons for the same at large.”