“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.
*******
“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!
Pleasures of Hope.
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:—’tis
that must maintain our force when twenty accidents
may interrupt our trade;—’tis 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.”13
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
villainous 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
black-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. 153), 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,14 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;” 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 Clive 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.”15
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. “I 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.”16 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 Hastings 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 oh 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.”17
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.18 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.19 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.
Tippoo 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 an 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:—‘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. For 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.20
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!